Your IMPORTANT Weekly Briefing: (14th November 2025)

The Neil McCoy-Ward Newsletter

November 14, 2025

Opening Note…

Welcome back to this week’s newsletter! It feels like only yesterday that I wrote last week’s newsletter, where has the last week gone?!

This week, I’ve spent most of my time trying to figure out exactly what’s going on in the markets and the global economy as a whole. I came to the conclusion that I ‘think’ I need to build a new model to track all the moving parts. I feel like my current model just wasn’t built for this new world. Although it has been very accurate with stock picks and crypto forecasts, so maybe it’s still good enough… I’ll need to think more on it.

Also, what a strange week; it feels as though the old guard are passing on the baton to the new, young and upcoming. We’ve had several high profile resignations or handing over control and retirements, every one from Nancy Pelosi (finally!) to Warren Buffett (I was sad to hear this), and even Michael Burry just announced the closure of his fund.

But I wasn’t surprised to see some of the biggest crypto assets down by double digits today… I did one about this previously. Hence, why I sold out of my crypto at a high point and warned everyone in my private community when I sold.

Now let's break down the latest...

Table of Contents

1. Weekly Spotlight

Hardline Democrats Fold, And Shutdown Finally Ends

I’m sure you’ve been watching what’s been happening with the shutdown, and I’m glad to say - it’s finally now over. After forty-three days, Washington signed a funding bill on 12th November, which officially ended the longest government shutdown in US history.

This was after a group of moderate Senate Democrats finally broke. They joined Republicans to back a compromise bill that restores funding and sends it to the House. The Senate vote was 60–40. 

Then the House passed it 222–209, with a handful of Democrats voting yes and a couple of Republicans voting no. Trump signed it, and that was that. The government is open again. And I, for one, am glad it’s over…

The Congressional Budget Office had warned that a six-week shutdown would eliminate roughly $11 billion of output (permanently) from the US economy - even if most activity bounces back afterwards. Some estimates now say the hit could reach even higher by the time the dust settles. You cannot easily replace missed mortgage payments, cancelled trips, or shuttered local businesses that were already on thin margins.

I thought the most interesting part of all of this, was who ended up folding. Democrats spent forty-three days loudly promising to defend those extra Obamacare subsidies at all costs. Yet the final bill does not align with that. They backed a deal that lets the subsidies expire. So after all of that, they are left with almost nothing of value, meaning: there was very little gain on their part. Maybe they thought if they just kept holding out, eventually they’d win? Who knows… but it makes little sense and created a lot of damage to their cause.

2. Quick Takes

Here are the top stories shaping the week:

  • Maduro Rallies ‘8 Million’ Militia As US Carrier Parks Off His Coast

    Maduro is rolling out a “massive mobilisation” of troops, weapons, and gear just as the USS Gerald R. Ford and its escorts steam into the Caribbean, bringing total US forces in the region to around 15,000. (I made a video about this 2 months ago, but I was probably too early again.) Caracas is bringing in not just the regular armed forces but the Bolivarian Militia too, a civilian reserve Chavez built as a “revolutionary” shield against foreign enemies, though footage shows lots of rusty rifles, improvised kits, or no weapons at all. On paper, Maduro boasts some 8 million militia volunteers, but his real military is under 150,000, with a mix of Russian missiles and standard hardware trying to cover the country and its coasts. Venezuela says it’s putting all forces on maximum alert, with land, air, naval, riverine and missile units deployed. But regardless, very few Countries can stand up to the power of the US military.

  • UK and Colombia Pull Back From US Venezuela Ops Over ‘Illegal’ Boat Strikes

    Britain and Colombia have both pulled back from US-led operations against drug-trafficking boats off Venezuela, denouncing recent US strikes as illegal and “murderous.” As a US carrier group sails into the Caribbean, the UK has paused intelligence-sharing from its territories for over a month, calling the Pentagon’s September shift to blowing up small vessels akin to extrajudicial killings. This is an unusual break from a ‘Five Eyes’ ally that normally backs US campaigns and has done from Afghanistan to Libya. Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has likewise frozen security cooperation, accusing Washington of murder and saying Colombians are among the dead, prompting the Trump administration to respond with sanctions on Petro, his family, and ministers, and threats to cut some of the roughly $377m in annual US aid. The irony: London suddenly cares about Venezuela while still sitting on $1.8bn of the country’s gold in the Bank of England that they refused to ever send back. This has been ongoing for as long as I can remember!

  • $100 Million Ukraine Corruption Scandal Blows Up Zelensky’s Inner Circle

    A $100 million kickback scheme in Ukraine’s energy sector has triggered raids, resignations, and some very desperate MSM Western spin. NABU says officials built a bribery machine around state nuclear giant Energoatom, skimming 10–15 per cent off contracts via offshore and crypto. Consisting of a 15-month probe, 1,000 hours of wiretaps, and 70 raids under “Operation Midas.” The main culprit is Oligarch Timur Mindich, long-time friend and former business partner of Zelensky, who appears to have fled abroad just before security forces hit his apartment (I’m sure he wasn’t tipped off!), while Justice Minister (and ex–energy minister) Herman Halushchenko have been suspended. Zelensky is now firing ministers and sanctioning his own ex-ally while Western outlets scramble to blame Moscow for the mess rather than Kyiv’s own system. It’s no wonder 77.6% of Ukrainians believe Zelensky is corrupt, and the EU still wants to pretend Ukraine’s ready for EU membership.

  • BBC Trump Edit Row Blows Up Into Full-Blown Crisis

    The BBC has apologised to Trump after Panorama stitched together chunks of his 6 January speech and made it look like he was pushing for violence. The cut fused lines spoken 39 minutes apart and skipped the bit where he told supporters to stay peaceful, which is a pretty serious thing to cut out. Trump’s lawyers instantly went nuclear with a $1bn claim, but the BBC says the edit was sloppy, not defamatory (yeah, sure it was). The fallout has been tense, with Director-General Tim Davie and News Chief Deborah Turness both quitting as the storm grew. There’s now a wider probe because another old Newsnight edit looks dodgy too. The BBC so far has said they will not pay any damages, this is in response to a $1bn lawsuit Trump said he would ‘possibly’ file against them.

  • Trump Calls Out Meat Cartel Propped Up By A Century Of Regulation

    Trump is going after high meat prices by blaming the meatpackers that dominate the market, even asking the DOJ to investigate them for collusion and price fixing. Free-market types are upset he’s targeting private companies, but the awkward truth is the “market” here has been stitched up since 1906, when the Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act effectively created a government-backed meat cartel. Big packers lobbied for federal inspection because it gave them a seal of safety, locked in export access, and priced smaller processors out of the game. Since then, meat has had to go through USDA-certified plants, blocking most small farmers from slaughtering and selling directly to consumers, while doing little to improve safety. 

  • Canada Quietly Opens Door To Cloned Meat Without Telling Anyone

    Ottawa is getting ready to let food from cloned animals slip into Canada’s supply without labels, safety review, or any clear heads-up to the public. Health Canada plans to take cloned-animal products off the “novel foods” list on the grounds that clones and their offspring are basically the same as conventional animals, so no extra checks or disclosure are needed. The communication has been almost nonexistent: no press release and no public explainer. Consumers won’t see cheaper prices or better quality, but they’ll lose the right to know whether their beef, milk, or pork traces back to a clone. - This is typical for Canada; if you remember what happened with GMOs, they rolled out a controversial technology first and never explained or gave notice. Yet they still wonder why people don’t trust the system.

  • Judge Orders OpenAI To Hand Over 20 Million Chat Logs To NYT

    A US federal judge has ordered OpenAI to hand over 20 million anonymised ChatGPT user conversations to the New York Times and other newspapers suing over copyright. The magistrate rejected OpenAI’s privacy objections, saying the logs can be produced under a protective order with identifying data stripped out. The publishers say they need the raw chats to see how often the model pulls from their articles. They argue OpenAI built billion-dollar products on journalism it never paid for. OpenAI tried to narrow the request, calling it invasive and irrelevant to the specific copyright claims, but the court wasn’t buying it and gave them until 14th November to comply.

  • America Finally Kills The Penny After 232 Years

    The US has minted its last-ever penny in Philadelphia, ending more than two centuries of pumping out a coin that costs over three times its own value to make. Trump ordered production to stop back in February, but the Treasury ran out of the metal templates far sooner than expected, so 2025 became the de facto end date. The existing 250-plus billion pennies will stay in circulation, but no new ones are coming because it simply isn’t worth the money. No pun intended.

  • Reeves Ditches Income Tax Hike After Labour Meltdown

    Rachel Reeves has scrapped her plan to raise income tax. If she had done this, it would have broken a core manifesto promise, and while No 10 had spent weeks softening MPs up for it, the backlash was fierce enough to force a U-turn. Instead, Reeves is now hunting for smaller stealthy tax grabs, frozen thresholds, tweaks to bands, gambling levies, anything to plug a multibillion-pound hole without detonating the party again. The chaos was fuelled by whispers of a leadership challenge and a bizarre briefing spiral that even dragged Wes Streeting into coup rumours he denied. Ha, it made me laugh even thinking about ‘Wes’ doing a coup! Now Labour MPs are openly questioning why No 10 admitted Starmer was vulnerable in the first place, saying it’s basically kicked off the succession race early.

  • England Moves To Scrap No-Fault Evictions From May

    England is finally ditching no-fault evictions from the 1st May. Fixed-term contracts are going too, replaced by rolling tenancies, plus bans on bidding wars and clearer rules on pets. Ministers say it’ll stop “rogue landlords,” but landlords warn it’ll just mean harsher screening and a mass exit from the market. Critics argue the courts are too slow to back up evictions for actual bad tenants, and that delays will make landlords think twice about letting at all. - This will mean more landlords pack up and leave the market, which will create a buying frenzy from the banks as they have the capacity to deal with the new changes.

NEIL’S TAKEAWAYS:

In The United States:
With the government shutdown officially over, markets didn’t waste any time celebrating, pushing the Dow above 48,000. However, that gain was quickly taken away as new AI bubble fears emerged in the tech sector. At the same time, Washington floated a plan that would send a $2,000 “tariff payment” to families earning under $100,000. The economic impact could be pretty big because Americans tend to put unexpected cash straight into the economy or into investments.

We saw this exact pattern during the COVID stimulus checks. Large portions of those payments flowed directly into the stock market and crypto. Trading volumes exploded. Robinhood signups soared. Meme stocks went parabolic. Bitcoin climbed from the $10,000 range to more than $60,000 within a year.

If even a fraction of that behaviour repeats now, the next wave of capital could come from families who suddenly find themselves with extra cash and a reason to try to multiply it. That doesn’t guarantee another boom, but it creates a real possibility for a surge in retail activity across stocks and crypto.

Prepare: If you’re investing, pay attention to sectors that benefit from increased retail participation, like brokerages, payment platforms, consumer discretionary, and crypto-adjacent plays.

Across Europe
Brussels just opened a fresh investigation into Google under the Digital Markets Act. When regulators get aggressive like this, platforms respond by adjusting ad policies and pulling back on certain services to stay compliant. That creates a knock-on effect because publishers depend on Google traffic, advertisers depend on Google reach, and European tech firms depend on Google’s ecosystem to grow. More regulation means slower innovation and raises operating costs.

We have also seen that the UK and EU are trying to restart their relationship after years of post-Brexit tension. The early reset talks are already stalling over money. This creates a level of uncertainty, and businesses hate uncertainty because it freezes hiring, delays cross-border projects and raises the cost of doing business.

When companies cannot predict what rules they will operate under, they simply spend less. The longer this continues, the more it weighs on financial services, logistics, manufacturing and any sector that relies on smooth UK–EU movement.

Then you have the industrial slowdown. Euro-zone factories are barely growing. This is important to know because industrial output sits at the core of Europe’s economy. Weak production means weaker exports, softer earnings, and fewer new orders.

It also signals that demand inside Europe is cooler than expected, which tightens margins for manufacturers and reduces the appetite for expansion. This is exactly how slowdowns begin: regulation gets heavier, political negotiations stall, and the real economy starts to lose momentum at the ground level.

Prepare: If you’re investing, stay selective with European tech, industrials and UK-exposed names. Look for companies with strong balance sheets, flexible supply chains and low regulatory dependency.

If you’d like to simply take the headache out of picking your own stocks, why not join my private community where I do this for you? Each month I bring you 1-3 Undervalued stock picks with an extremely detailed analysis as to why I believe each is undervalued. I also explain how I see it increasing in price to give you a strong return later.

Here’s the link to join: https://www.patreon.com/neilmccoyward 

On the Global Stage
India continues to outperform the world as Moody’s predicts it will remain the fastest-growing major economy for years to come. While most emerging markets are struggling with falling exports and weaker global demand, India is pulling in investment, expanding manufacturing and attracting more global capital, which could make it the anchor of emerging-market growth.

But the rest of Asia is showing a very different picture. South Korea and Taiwan just saw more than $10 Billion in foreign equity outflows because the AI and semiconductor rally is cooling. When money leaves that quickly, it signals that major funds are getting nervous about whether valuations in Asia’s tech sector can hold. This matters globally because Asian tech sits at the centre of supply chains, electronics production and market sentiment. If those markets cool too fast, it can drag down confidence everywhere else.

Prepare: If you’re investing, consider selective emerging-market exposure with a focus on India while reducing positions tied to overstretched Asian tech.

3. Opportunity Of The Week…

Black Friday Is Coming!

Every headline right now tells the same story: instability, war, and economic DOOM. Governments are making desperate promises, markets are swinging on fear, and uncertainty seems to be the new normal…

But those who understand and have been educated in financial matters don’t panic.
WE position yourselves and grow when everyone else is waiting for “normal” to return.

That’s why this Black Friday, I’m going to be launching the biggest sale of all time, designed to help you master the mental and emotional framework behind real financial success. Every single course will be heavily discounted and available to you.

But right now, you don’t need to do anything… just know it’s coming. And if you want to prepare yourself to grab some of the deals, go to my main courses page HERE to see which program you want to grab during this HUGE event. Prices will be as low as 90% OFF!!! (With Special Bundle Deals & Bonuses)

4. Chart Of the Week:

World Drowns In $111 Trillion Debt, Led By A Handful Of Repeat Offenders

Global public debt is stuck at a massive $111 trillion in 2025, with just a few countries carrying most of the load. The US alone accounts for 34.5% of the total debt, with $38.3 trillion (125% of GDP). Interest payments that have nearly tripled in five years and are set to hit $1.8 trillion a year by 2035.

China is next with $18.7 trillion, after adding $2.2 trillion this year thanks to stimulus and a property mess, while Japan sits on $9.8 trillion, an eye-watering 230% of GDP, and still wants another $92.2 billion in stimulus. The UK and France hover around $4 trillion each. Overall, world government debt averages nearly 95% of global GDP, and nobody’s really hitting the brakes. meaning, it’s only a matter of time…

5. Market Overview

In the U.S., the S&P 500 fell, as a sharp sell-off in AI-linked technology stocks and hawkish comments from Federal Reserve officials reduced expectations of a December rate cut and triggered a broader pullback in risk assets.

In the U.K., the FTSE 100 declined, with banks and domestically focused names hit by a spike in gilt yields and renewed fiscal worries after reports of a tax U-turn, even as energy and some commodity stocks helped to cushion the downside.

In Canada, the S&P/TSX Composite edged higher on the week, as earlier gains in resource and energy names on firmer commodity prices and solid earnings more than offset a late-week tech-led drop sparked by fading Fed rate-cut hopes.

In Australia, the ASX 200 fell, posting a third straight weekly loss as rate-cut expectations were pushed out and Wall Street’s tech slump spilt over into local technology and banking shares, while energy and select miners limited, but couldn’t fully offset, broader market weakness.

🇺🇸 United States – S&P 500

  • High: 6,867.60

  • Low: 6,650.83

🇬🇧 UK - FTSE 100

  • High: 9,929.82

  • Low: 9,612.14

🇨🇦 Canada – TSX Composite

  • High: 30,860.01

  • Low: 29,868.23

🇦🇺 Australia – ASX 200

  • High: 8,875.60

  • Low: 8,512.40

Cryptocurrency: (A Real Bloodbath Recently)

  • Bitcoin (BTC): -4%

  • Ethereum (ETH): -2.6%

  • Tether (USDT): 0.0%

  • XRP (XRP): 4.5%

  • BNB (BNB): 1.7%

  • Solana (SOL): -8.2%

  • USDC (USDC): 0.0%

  • TRON (TRX): 3.4%

  • Lido Staked Ether (STETH): -2.4%

  • Dogecoin (DOGE): -0.8%

Metals Market:

Gold Silver Ratio: ~79. The ratio has fallen this week as the silver price rose, meaning silver is becoming more expensive relative to gold.

Gold & Silver:

  • Gold: has moved higher this week, climbing from just above $4,000 to trade in the $4,150–$4,200/oz range on a softer dollar and revived Fed rate-cut hopes.

  • Silver: has also pushed up, rising from the high-$40s into the low-$50s/oz after briefly trading above $52, helped by the same macro backdrop and firm investor demand

6. Faith & Success

❝

““Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles.”

— Isaiah 40:31

As I was coming to the end of the newsletter here, I realised just how exhausted I am today. It really has been a very long and hectic week. I think that can be evidenced by the fact that I couldn't even get a video out today! It's very rare that I don't post a video on a Friday, but I'm honestly exhausted. And I just couldn’t find the energy to make a video AND write this newsletter. Well, I say ‘AND’, but I also wrote and recorded an entire chapter of my new course today, too. So… I should probably go easy on myself. As my wife often jokes: “You’re able to achieve more in 1 day than what some politicians achieve in a year”, haha.

So that’s why this scripture popped into my head today. Because it reminded me in that moment that everything will be ok, and my strength will be renewed through my faith. And the same is true for you, too. But the keyword here is ‘faith’ - it doesn’t say ‘it will just come to everyone’, no, that’s not what it says - the verse is very specific. It gives clear instructions. But you have to follow those instructions…

And that’s all I have to say on this week’s newsletter!

See you next time,

God Bless,

Neil,

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DISCLAIMER
This newsletter is 100% FREE & is designed to help your thinking, not direct it. These newsletters shall NOT be construed as tax, legal, or financial advice and may be outdated or inaccurate; all decisions made as a result of this information are yours alone.

Trading/Liability: Neil McCoy-Ward operates/trades under a private Ltd company within the Isle of Man.