Latest news with #SBR
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Is the Trump-Fueled Crypto Mania Dying Down?
The Trump administration is affecting the crypto sector in quite a few ways. The president's official token has hurt the sector. The newly proposed policies and newly appointed leaders could be positives. 10 stocks we like better than Official Trump › President Donald Trump didn't invent speculative exuberance, but he has a knack for bottling it. In mid-January, the Official Trump (CRYPTO: TRUMP) meme coin debuted with fireworks on Solana, very briefly driving the entire meme coin complex higher and padding early buyers' wallets before collapsing and inflicting dramatic losses. Even sober observers had to concede that the president knows how to move markets. Yet euphoria can often wither quickly in crypto. To some, today the cup feels half empty, and it's natural for investors to be wondering whether the Trump-powered party is winding down or just taking a breather. Let's take a look at the evidence here. With the Official Trump meme coin, enthusiasm met gravity in record time, and there was plenty of fallout as a result. By Feb. 3, the token had surrendered roughly 75% of its peak value amid significant insider selling despite the president's cheerleading on social media. A broader February slide wiped almost $1 trillion off aggregate crypto market caps, erasing most of the post-election bump. Some seasoned crypto investors attributed this dip to the lost capital that the president's coin extracted from the ecosystem, since it also may have discouraged new investors from participating immediately after their entry to buy the president's token. Even now, the Trump coin still has a $1.9 billion market cap, with 80% of its circulating supply controlled by accounts linked to the Trump family and a single allied firm. Concentration that steep limits the token's natural public float and makes every incremental seller more painful for newcomers. Volume tells the same story. Spikes align with promotional events featuring the token, like the president's dinner raffles, but fall off quickly, signaling speculative rather than sticky demand. If you arrived late, you're effectively wagering that fresh money will underwrite insiders' paper gains. That is possible, but not exactly a margin of safety or the basis for a sound investment thesis. Before writing the post-mortem on the crypto market run, recall that presidents wield policy levers, not just Twitter flair. On March 6, Trump signed an executive order mandating the creation of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR) as well as a Digital Asset Repository, instructing the U.S. Treasury to hang on to seized crypto rather than auction it. Though these two stockpiles have not yet been implemented, the order theoretically turns the government into a structural non-seller, tightening supply for Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies. Regulatory tone is changing as well thanks to the administration's appointments of senior leaders. Paul Atkins, a longtime critic of financial regulation enforcement, now chairs the Securities and Exchange Commission and has already reassigned several enforcement lawyers away from crypto probes while floating various exemptions for decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. A friendlier set of rules tends to invite bigger pools of capital to the markets. On that note, Bitcoin notched a fresh all-time high of $123,000 on July 14. That move has more than a few causes, but recent regulatory changes are doubtlessly part of the story. Meanwhile, Trump-controlled enterprises keep inventing fresh crypto on-ramps. For example, World Liberty Financial's dollar-pegged stablecoin and forthcoming governance token have already raised more than $550 million. During the week of July 11, a company from the United Arab Emirates injected another $100 million into the platform, elevating a project entwined with presidential branding, and raising numerous unanswered questions regarding the high likelihood of conflicts of interest. Regardless of one's view on the propriety of foreign businesses investing in ventures that the president has a direct financial interest in, those funds are real bids that lift valuations across adjacent tokens. Add in the White House's June 30 crypto summit and appointment of a dedicated crypto czar, and it's hard to argue the administration is backing away from the sector. So, is the crypto mania dying? Nope. It's actually picking up after a lull. Price charts of Trump-related coins say enthusiasm cooled, but policy and capital flows suggest the broader Trump-crypto axis still has horsepower, and that the president's impact on the market is far wider than his impact on his branded tokens. Long-term investors should separate the noise of meme token gyrations from the signal of structural supply constraints and increasingly dovish regulators. Assuming Washington follows through on developing sound custody rules and with its reserve accumulation plans, crypto's rise will persist well beyond this news cycle -- though it is unlikely that the Official Trump tokens will ever keep pace with the sector's flagship assets. Before you buy stock in Official Trump, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Official Trump wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $680,559!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,005,670!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,053% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 15, 2025 Alex Carchidi has positions in Bitcoin and Solana. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin and Solana. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Is the Trump-Fueled Crypto Mania Dying Down? was originally published by The Motley Fool
Telegraph
13-07-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Reeves needs to take a leaf out of Gordon Brown's book
In 2002, Gordon Brown introduced the small breweries' relief (SBR), slashing taxation for UK 'micro-breweries'. The then-chancellor's instincts were broadly statist. Britain's tax burden grew from 31pc to 34pc of GDP from 1997 to 2010 – the decade he spent running the Treasury followed by three more as prime minister. But Brown also had commercial acumen, understanding the need not just to talk about economic growth but create an enabling environment to make it happen. His SBR tax-break, which saw breweries producing up to 5,000 hectolitres (around 880,000 pints) annually paying half the standard duty rate, was a case in point. SBR was transformative, sparking the formation of thousands of independent breweries – creating not only thousands of jobs, but hundreds of millions of pounds in tax revenue from production, distribution and sales activities that wouldn't otherwise have existed. Britain's declining beer industry was revolutionised, as small, often family-run breweries emerged to compete with large national and global producers. There was a brewing resurgence not just in cities, but in towns and rural areas too, as 'craft breweries' became rooted in countless UK communities. The financial relief offered by SBR encouraged investment, innovation and a dramatic rise in beer styles – more and better products at lower prices. But, above all, Brown's anti-statist, tax-cutting move generated more jobs, higher exports and far more tax revenues too. Rachel Reeves had a picture of Gordon Brown on her wall as a student. Yet today's Chancellor should remember that her political hero and mentor, for all the big-state proclivities she shares, was pragmatic and courageous enough to sometimes shrug off the comfort blanket of Left-wing ideology and do what worked. Brown cut the basic rate of income tax from 23pc in 2000 to 20pc in 2007, stimulating economic activity. He reduced the main rate of corporation tax from 33pc to 28pc and the small business rate from 24pc to 19pc. Most famously, in his first Budget in 1997, he slashed the long-term rate of capital gains tax (CGT) from 40pc to 10pc for those building businesses, super-charging innovation and entrepreneurship. Yes, Brown made some disastrous calls – not least selling-off much of the UK's gold stock for a song and the abolition of pensions funds' dividend tax credits, costing hundreds of billions of pounds in compounded returns foregone, seriously weakening UK retirement funds. But despite his political tribalism and robotic delivery at the Commons dispatch box, he was capable of intellectual agility, demonstrating policymaking nous which, from time to time, really hit the spot. Since becoming Chancellor last July, Reeves has shown no such agility. She has hiked tax rates relentlessly, with her October Budget comprising a huge £40bn annual tax increase plus £30bn of extra yearly state borrowing. Having imbibed the soft-Left nostrums of mediocre academic economics, she is convinced that state spending, financed by taxation and borrowing, is the only route to growth. In the real world, her crude, naive Keynesianism, implemented at a time of already serious fiscal peril, has caused the decidedly lacklustre economy she inherited from the Tories to stagnate even more, while driving us to the edge of a fiscal crisis. Hammered by Reeves, consumers have pulled in their horns and business investment has stalled. No surprise, then, that on Friday the Office for National Statistics confirmed that GDP fell by 0.1pc in May, having already contracted 0.3pc the month before.
The Star
11-07-2025
- Business
- The Star
AmBank to lower standardised base, lending rates effective July 14
KUALA LUMPUR: AMMB Holdings Bhd (AmBank) will lower its Standardised Base Rate (SBR), Base Lending Rate/Base Financing Rate (BLR/BFR) and Base Rate (BR) effective July 14, 2025. In a notice on its website, AmBank said the SBR will be reduced from 3.0 per cent per annum to 2.75 per cent, while the BLR/BFR will be revised from 6.70 per cent to 6.45 per cent. It said the BR will be revised from 3.85 per cent to 3.60 per cent. "For illustration purposes and subject to change from time to time, the effective interest or profit rate for a 30-year loan or financing of RM350,000 with no lock-in period is 4.0 per cent per annum (SBR+1.25 per cent),' AmBank said. - Bernama
New Straits Times
11-07-2025
- Business
- New Straits Times
AmBank to lower standardised base, lending rates, effective July 14
KUALA LUMPUR: AMMB Holdings Bhd (AmBank) will lower its Standardised Base Rate (SBR), Base Lending Rate/Base Financing Rate (BLR/BFR) and Base Rate (BR) effective July 14, 2025. In a notice on its website, AmBank said the SBR will be reduced from three per cent per annum to 2.75 per cent, while the BLR/BFR will be revised from 6.70 per cent to 6.45 per cent. It said the BR will be revised from 3.85 per cent to 3.60 per cent. "For illustration purposes and subject to change from time to time, the effective interest or profit rate for a 30-year loan or financing of RM350,000 with no lock-in period is four per cent per annum (SBR+1.25 per cent)," AmBank said.
New Straits Times
11-07-2025
- Business
- New Straits Times
Explainer: How the OPR cut affects your loan costs [BTTV]
KUALA LUMPUR: Borrowing just got a little cheaper after Bank Negara Malaysia lowered the Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) by 25 basis points to 2.75 per cent. This is the first cut in more than two years. While it may sound technical, this decision affects millions of Malaysians, especially those with existing loans or planning to take one soon. Banks start lowering loan rates Soon after the announcement, banks began reducing their Standardised Base Rate (SBR) and other lending rates. These base rates are used to set the interest charged on many types of loans. When the SBR goes down, the interest on floating-rate loans, which can rise or fall over time, also drops. This means borrowers pay less each month. Impact on housing and car loans For homeowners with floating-rate mortgages, this cut could mean lower monthly instalments and savings in the long run. Car buyers can also benefit. For example, under RHB Islamic Bank's variable-rate car financing, a borrower with a RM100,000 loan over nine years would have paid RM1,152 per month when the SBR was 3.00 per cent. With the bank's fixed profit margin of 2.00 per cent added on, the total rate charged to the borrower, known as the effective rate, was 5.00 per cent. Now that the SBR has dropped to 2.75 per cent, the effective rate falls to 4.75 per cent, and the monthly instalment becomes RM1,128. That's a saving of RM24 a month or over RM2,500 across nine years, enough to pay for several months of fuel or insurance. What about personal loans? The same applies to personal financing. Some banks now offer rates as low as 5.25 per cent (SBR + 2.50 per cent) for floating-rate personal loans to government employees. Before the OPR cut, the same loan might have carried a 5.50 per cent rate. On a RM50,000 loan over five years, that difference means paying RM945 per month instead of RM955, a total saving of RM600 over the loan period. Why did the central bank do this? Bank Negara made the cut to lower borrowing costs, support household spending and keep the economy growing despite global uncertainties. For borrowers, whether it's for a home, a car, or extra cash, this move brings some relief and a good chance to review existing loans or explore better financing deals. Keywords: Bank Opr Loan Overnight Policy Rate
