Roberto Balbino

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IF I WERE YOU, I would not confuse a change of majority with an economic repair. An election can change the majority in Congress. It cannot reimburse an economy for decisions already made. The projected Democratic takeover of both chambers raises a question that goes beyond a defeat for Trump's agenda: do we allow presidents to alter economic conditions faster than institutions can assess, restrain and correct the consequences? A tariff can change costs immediately. Uncertainty can postpone a factory before a tariff is collected. Reorganising a supply chain can commit capital for years.…

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The emergency ended. The invoices did not. On October 28, 2026, the Federal Reserve's weekly balance sheet showed earnings remittances due to the US Treasury at minus $232.5 billion: the net income the Reserve Banks must earn back before profits flow to the Treasury again. For 2021, the same institution had remitted $107.4 billion. The profit came first. The charge came later, to a different budget year. That is the thread of my new book, Normality, Repriced: The Pandemic's Structural Legacy in Finance, Business and Work, out now in English, Italian and Spanish. The thesis: the emergency was…

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Five books, one question: what remains when the money is gone. The Capital That Remains — my autobiography: a working-class Italian family, senior finance roles, losing everything in 2010 and rebuilding with FINTECH SCB. Normality, Repriced — the pandemic's structural legacy in finance, business and work. The Price of Standing Still — money, power and the freedom to choose. The Prince — Machiavelli in the worlds of entrepreneurship and investment. Principles of Political Economy — a 665-page treatise, free in PDF and EPUB. Each book has its own page, with editions in English, Italian and…

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A portfolio can contain a good idea and still be poorly constructed. The forecast may be reasonable. The position may be too large. Financing may expire too soon. Liquidity may disappear precisely when the investor needs it. Understanding these connections is the purpose of our new educational master: “Before the Return: How to Read Markets, Build Portfolios and Evaluate Hedge Fund Processes”. Prepared by Fintech SCB for free-of-charge distribution, this 64-page guide examines the decisions between an investment opinion and the outcome an investor actually experiences. It covers…

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A portfolio can hold twenty funds and still depend on one country, one currency and one employer. Your income, home, pension and investments may all respond to the same shock. More capital can make that concentration considerably more expensive. This is the starting point of my new FINTECH SCB research: “Wealth, Freedom and Control”. How should you invest $10,000, $100,000, $1 million or $10 million? Before choosing percentages, I start with three questions: which currency pays for your life, how much future spending needs protection, and where are your risks concentrated? At $10,000, an…

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IF I WERE YOU, I'D DO THIS. Tuesday has three outcomes for your portfolio. Trump is not on the ballot; his agenda is. Priced on 1 November: Democrats take the House about 97% (Kalshi), Republicans keep both chambers 6.9%. The surprise is the scenario that moves prices. Starting point: deficit $1.992 trillion; 5-year Treasury 4.78%, +1.08 points in a year, 0.98 of it real yield (TIPS 2.31%); Fed 3.75-4.00% with two votes for another hike; CPI 3.7%; Brent $113; Bitcoin about $77,800. ━━━━━━━━━━ A. TRUMP WINS (Republicans keep House and Senate) My hypothesis: deregulation, a bigger deficit,…

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Central Asia’s critical-minerals opportunity is real. The assumption that mineral wealth automatically becomes national wealth is not. The region holds an estimated 39% of global manganese ore reserves, 31% of chromium, 20% of lead, 13% of zinc, 9% of titanium and about 5% each of copper, cobalt and molybdenum. Kazakhstan is the world’s largest uranium producer and can export 21 of the 34 minerals on the EU critical list. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan hold major antimony reserves. Uzbekistan has the world’s eleventh-largest copper reserves. This places the region between four strategic…

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AI Is Priced in Trillions. Its Newest Cash Flow Comes From Burglar Alarms. Two Financial Times stories, one day apart. Thrive Holdings, created by Josh Kushner's Thrive Capital and partly owned by OpenAI, is buying ADT for $10 a share in cash: $15.3bn of enterprise value, financed by Apollo-managed funds. The next day, OpenAI cut its funding target from $30bn to about $20bn and its asking valuation from $1.4tn to $1.25tn. The AI money loop just bought a burglar alarm. The logic is sound. A model needs customers, distribution and real problems to solve. ADT brings 6.1 million subscribers,…

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The euro’s international role is expanding through credit, a more significant development than another headline about de-dollarisation. BIS figures show global cross-border bank credit at $40.7 trillion at the end of June 2026, up 11% in one year. During Q2, credit increased by $877 billion after adjustment for exchange rates and statistical breaks. The currency composition matters: • $424 billion of the increase was denominated in euros. • $383 billion was denominated in dollars. • Euro-denominated international debt securities grew 13% year on year. • Dollar-denominated securities grew…

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Why is real European integration so hard? Treaties, a single market and a common currency can unite countries on paper. Culture is another matter. In the late 1990s, Italian comedian Gioele Dix explained it brilliantly using a tiny object: the sign under old European train windows, warning passengers in four languages not to lean out. 🇩🇪 "Nicht hinauslehnen": a categorical order. 🇫🇷 "Ne pas se pencher au dehors": elegant nonchalance. 🇬🇧 "Please do not lean out of the window": politeness first. 🇮🇹 "È pericoloso sporgersi": a warning that, to an Italian, sounds like a suggestion.…

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For three years the AI debate has been framed as a stock-market question: is it a bubble? I think that is the wrong question, and my new FINTECH SCB Insight explains why. Off the Books: How the AI Boom Became a Credit Cycle, and Who Will Hold the Loss As a former financial director, I learned to ask three questions of any large commitment. Where does the cash come from? What has been promised, to whom, and when? And if the forecast is wrong, whose account absorbs the difference? Applied to AI in 2026, the answers are uncomfortable. The cash. In the first half of 2026, Microsoft,…

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