There’s a new White House ad doing the rounds that looks, at first glance, like a prank. It’s a parody of the early-2010s advert for Bump It, a plastic hair insert designed to give limp styles “just a little volume”.
In this new version, though, it’s not your hair that’s flat, but your income.
“FLAT paycheck? FLAT broke?” the White House post on X reads. “BUMP IT UP with President Trump’s ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL!” Cue retro graphics, a voiceover and promises of no tax on tips, overtime or social security. “It’s BIG. It’s BEAUTIFUL. And it puts [money emoji] back in your pocket.”
It would be easy to mistake it for satire – instead, it’s official White House messaging. This is what policy looks like in 2025: absurd and almost impossible to parody, because it already parodies itself.
In a fittingly surreal turn, markets have actually Bumped It Up this week, with the S&P 500 breaking record highs despite everything – tariffs, tight credit spreads, inflation risk, a weakening dollar, wars. The disconnect between headlines and asset prices feels as exaggerated as the ad itself.
But the core problem isn’t that investors are oblivious – it’s that they’re assuming everything will fall into place in just the right order, as Ruffer’s Jasmine Yeo recently told Trustnet. M&G’s Michael Stiasny put it more bluntly: “The market is getting used to crying wolf, and that desensitisation is itself a risk.”
The reintroduction of US tariffs was shrugged off as just more theatrics. Trump’s willingness to push deadlines, reframe threats and declare victory before deals are signed has become part of the routine. Investors have a name for it, TACO, and treat it less like a policy threat than a scheduling issue. But assuming the drama will always deflate before it does any damage isn’t really a strategy.
After months of reducing US exposure – citing deglobalisation, political uncertainty and valuation risk – asset managers big and small are piling back into the very assets they were rotating away from.
BlackRock said now is the time to turn more short term while remaining overweight US equities, pointing to “immutable economic laws” and AI tailwinds. Premier Miton has been adding to big tech based on positive momentum.
Anthony Rayner, from Premier Miton’s macro thematic multi-asset team, continues to believe that “ongoing deglobalisation, increased global conflict and unsustainable fiscal policy will push inflation back to levels that central banks are unhappy with, as well as chipping away at US exceptionalism.”
However, he added: “Above all else we are pragmatists and in the meantime, we have been adding to the US again, especially big tech, as that’s where positive momentum is most apparent.”
It isn’t hard to imagine private investors doing the same. No one expects consistency; they just want to be on the right side of the next move.
Strategy, in the old sense, has lost its hold. Macro data contradicts itself, governments reverse course and economists find it harder than ever to do their jobs as old anchors such as growth, inflation and policy direction are falling flat.
So portfolios shift tactically but seem to have lost all sense of direction. Investors might not be ignoring fundamentals, but they're not relying on them. There’s no point in building a view if the ground keeps moving. Instead, capital moves by chasing momentum and waiting to be proven wrong just slowly enough to get out.
Traditional portfolio theory tells investors to think long-term, which means 10 years or more. In a market obsessed with the next move, that horizon keeps collapsing like a floppy hairdo.