Your IMPORTANT Weekly Briefing: (20th November 2025)

The Neil McCoy-Ward Newsletter

November 21, 2025

Opening Note…

Welcome back again, and what a strange week it‘s been. Some days there wasn't much news to report upon, and other days it was like drinking from a fire hose. The obvious big story, though, is the crash of the markets…

And as worrying and bad as this appears. You have to remember that the markets always go back up over time. I actually like periods like this when the market falls heavily, because I tend to have gotten out before we get to this point. And that's certainly the case with stocks and crypto right now (of which I own zero).

I am looking to load up on some stocks as we move forward, though, and I informed you how you can access those stocks as well as my investment purchases/sales as and when I make them last week (hint: join the Patreon!) LINK

Now let's break down the latest...

Table of Contents

1. Weekly Spotlight

The US and Russia have drawn up an uneasy “peace”

This week’s main geopolitical story, at least for me, is the renewed effort to end the war in Ukraine. In fact, US and Russian officials have put together a 28-point framework that they say could stop the fighting, but it would ask Ukraine to accept some very difficult terms.

From what I’ve seen reported, the draft would have Ukraine cede all of the Donbas, including areas it still controls, and cut the size of its army, long-range missiles, and other heavy weapons. In exchange, a ceasefire and a broader security framework between the US, Russia and Europe. As you can imagine, for Kyiv, it looks very close to surrender, which is why Ukrainian voices are already pushing back hard.

Despite this, Zelensky has now publicly said that Ukraine is ready to work with Washington on what he called the U.S. “vision” for ending the war. I think his wording was deliberate here, neither endorsing the draft nor rejecting it outright.

What has annoyed many leaders in Europe is how this came together. EU ministers say they weren’t in the room and are now insisting that any peace plan has to include both Ukrainians and Europeans, and must not mean capitulation. That’s the phrase we keep hearing. They talk about security and principles, and the need to defend from Russia. But really, we know they are concerned that a sudden peace could disrupt the vast flow of money, contracts and influence that has built up around supporting Ukraine’s war effort.

The White House, meanwhile, has insisted that Ukraine was consulted throughout the drafting, pushing back on claims from Kyiv and several European capitals that they were left out of the room while U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Russia’s Kirill Dmitriev sketched out the proposal.

There’s also another angle that’s come up this week: Ukraine has been hit by a major corruption scandal tied to a $100 million energy scheme, and members of Zelensky’s own party are now calling for the resignation of his powerful chief of staff, Andrey Yermak. Yermak is Zelensky’s main powerbroker, and he doesn’t want an end to the war.

If he really is weakened or removed, a few things could follow:

  • The balance of power around Zelensky could shift very quickly. Yermak is seen as the person who keeps the armed forces, security services, oligarchs and parliament loosely aligned. Without him, that informal coalition could start to fray, leaving Zelensky more exposed to pressure from different factions who might favour a deal to end the war over trying to hold the current front lines.

  • Ukraine’s room for manoeuvre with the US could change. Washington might quietly present his departure as proof that Kyiv is finally “cleaning house”, while at the same time using the moment to push harder for acceptance of the peace framework. A weaker inner circle around Zelensky could make it harder for him to resist if he is being told that future money and weapons depend on him being more flexible.

  • This could also lead to a wider political and media narrative tilting towards compromise. If Yermak is publicly blamed for both corruption and hardline positions on the war, it becomes easier for those at home and abroad to argue that a new course is needed.

This is being talked about quietly as one reason the US believes Ukraine may now be more likely to accept the framework being drafted.

2. Quick Takes

Here are the top stories shaping the week:

  • Trump Finally Backs Epstein File Release After Weeks Of Pure Chaos

    Trump spent the campaign promising to drop the Epstein files. While MTG and Thomas Massie kept pushing for full disclosure, Trump allies like Pam Bondi handed out recycled paperwork, and Democrats tried to weaponise leaked Epstein emails that showed Trump and Epstein were once friendly before falling out. That stunt backfired when fresh estate documents dragged in everyone from Stacey Plaskett texting Epstein during Cohen’s hearing, to Hakeem Jeffries chasing dinners, to Larry Summers disappearing after revelations about Epstein coaching him on an affair. Drama!

  • China–Japan Row Escalates After Takaichi’s Taiwan Remarks

    Japan’s Prime Minister is in the middle of a major diplomatic row with China. Things have since escalated: both countries have issued travel warnings, Chinese airlines are refunding tickets to Japan, and Chinese companies are delaying Japanese film releases as nationalism rises. Beijing keeps telling Tokyo to “stop playing with fire,” bringing up World War Two and warning of a “crushing defeat” if Japan intervenes over Taiwan.

  • UK Warns Russia After Spy Ship Shines Lasers At RAF Pilots

    The UK says a Russian intelligence ship called Yantar entered British waters again and pointed lasers at RAF pilots while the military was following it near Scotland. Defence Secretary John Healey called this “extremely dangerous” and warned Putin that the UK is closely watching the ship and is ready to respond if it keeps moving south. The Royal Navy and RAF sent jets, a warship, and a P-8 patrol plane to track it, and the rules have now been changed so the Yantar can be followed more firmly.

  • Israel-Palestine Divide Is Now Costing People Their Friends

    New polling says the Israel-Palestine war is really dividing people in Britain. Almost half of those who pick a side say they would stop being friends with someone who supports the other side (43% of pro-Palestine supporters and 46% of pro-Israel supporters). According to polls, UK support for Israel is now 14%, while support for Palestine is 26%, but most people still say they are neutral. Many also feel less safe: 44% think the UK is unsafe for Jews and 37% think it’s unsafe for Muslims. Trust in the media is very low, with people on both sides thinking channels like the BBC are biased and instead getting news from sources that already agree with them.

  • Nvidia Delivers Another Monster Quarter And Reboots The AI Rally

    Nvidia massively beat expectations. In Q3, it made $57 billion in revenue, 62% more than a year ago, and $51.2 billion of that came from its data centre business. That part alone grew by $10 billion in just three months and was up 66% on the year, easily making up for weaker results in gaming and car-related chips. However, I dug a little deeper into the earnings report and found some concerning numbers as to their ‘future’ order volumes and how it’s a big merry-go-round. As a result, I personally value Nvidia at close to 60% of it’s current market value. And I wouldn't be surprised if more analysts come to see what I found today in the numbers.

  • UK Borrowing Blows Past Forecasts And Boxes Reeves In Ahead Of Budget

    Britain has racked up £116.8bn in borrowing so far this financial year, the worst start outside the Covid era and about £10bn more than the watchdog expected. October alone came in at £17.4bn, beating every forecast in the wrong direction. Debt interest is still blowing through cash, tax receipts aren’t rising fast enough, and the current budget sits nearly £84bn in the red. The Treasury is already hinting at “fair choices,” which is what we all know is code for tax hikes. Nervous consumers are clamming up: spending fell sharply last month.

  • Distillate Squeeze Tightens As Crude Stays Weak

    Middle-distillate markets (diesel-type fuels) are heating up again, this is because Indian refiners are buying less Russian oil. As a result, profits from making gasoil have jumped above $34 per barrel, the highest in over a year. At the same time, US gasoline and distillate (diesel/heating oil) inventories are very low for this time of year, just as winter approaches. Crude oil prices, oddly, are not rising much: Brent is around $63 and WTI about $59, even after Ukraine attacked major Black Sea export terminals and briefly stopped some shipments. Longer winter shipping routes and upcoming sanctions on Russian companies Lukoil and Rosneft mean more oil is stuck on ships, but exports are still flowing overall. I have a very detailed Patreon post coming out on Monday regarding what I see as a potential opportunity in Oil.

  • Crockett Faceplants Again After Mixing Up Epstein… With Another Epstein

    US Rep. Jasmine Crockett has managed to embarrass herself twice in a week, this time by accusing a string of Republicans of taking money from “somebody named Jeffrey Epstein”, only for records to show the donations came from a completely different guy with the same name, a Republican doctor. She threw out names like Romney, Zeldin, Bush and even McCain-Palin, but the FEC filings she bragged about checking show none of them took cash from the actual Jeffrey Epstein. HA.

  • Australia Bans Under-16s From Social Media — And No One Knows How It Will Work

    Australia is rolling out a world-first rule: from 10th December, platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and X must block anyone under 16 and delete existing teen accounts, or risk fines of up to $49.5m. The government says it’s about protecting kids after a study found 96% of 10–15-year-olds are online and most have been exposed to everything from misogyny and self-harm content to grooming and cyberbullying. Everything from ID scans to facial analysis are on the table, all with big privacy risks in a country that’s had major data breaches.

  • Robot Dogs For Policing
    Five years after Boston Dynamics rolled out Spot, the robot dog is now a regular in US and Canadian police units, with more than 60 bomb squads and SWAT teams deploying the $100k+ robo-canine for hostage rescues, standoffs, and hazmat calls. Cops love it because it can climb stairs, open doors and freak out suspects without risking a human, or a real dog, and in some cases show it genuinely helps, like cornering an armed kidnapper in Florida or assessing a school chemical spill. But as you can imagine, there is a growing concern: ICE has already bought a robot that can fire smoke bombs, defence-tech funding is exploding, and civil liberties groups warn that “friendly” robot dogs normalise military-grade policing. Massachusetts alone has spent roughly $500k on two units, while critics worry about surveillance creep and the slow dehumanisation of what policing even looks like.

NEIL’S TAKEAWAYS:

In The United States:
Corporate credit spreads are widening, which is a fancy way of saying investors are demanding more compensation to lend to companies. That usually does not happen in a world where everyone feels safe. It happens when markets start to price in more risk, more defaults, and more uncertainty about future growth.

At the same time, Washington is doubling down on AI as the primary form of growth. We just saw a trillion-dollar foreign investment aimed at U.S. AI and data infrastructure, with massive capital flowing into data centres, chips, and cloud capacity. This is creating a split-screen economy. On one side, you have AI and a handful of mega firms attracting extraordinary amounts of capital. On the other side, you have thousands of ordinary businesses facing rising borrowing costs and tighter credit conditions.

That gap does not stay wide forever. When the cost of capital rises, weaker balance sheets get exposed. Companies that relied on cheap debt discover very quickly that refinancing is not automatic, and it is not painless. At the same time, when too much money chases the same AI narrative, valuations can detach from reality and then reprice quickly when expectations are not met.

Prepare: Keep a safety buffer. That can be more cash and some exposure outside the AI and highly volatile tech crowd. When credit tightens, liquidity dries up faster than most people expect. And yes, I have a cash ‘pot’ right now which is just waiting to be deployed (at the right time). Patience is key.

Across Europe
The ECB warns that banks face “unprecedentedly high” risks from weak growth, cyber threats and global spillovers. At the same time, policymakers are signalling that it will take a material shift in the outlook to justify rate cuts. That combination is awkward. Banks are the key to recovery, so if they are stressed and credit conditions stay tight while rates remain higher than the real economy can comfortably bear, you end up with a slow grind.

And overall, banks are lending less, businesses are being careful, and policymakers are more focused on protecting their credibility than boosting growth.

Prepare: Keep an eye on the ECB and tilt toward stronger balance sheets and shorter duration assets. Make sure to be very selective with financials or highly borrowed plays that depend on easy credit or rapid rate cuts that may not arrive.

On the Global Stage
The IMF warns that medium-term growth across the G20 is set to be the weakest since the post-2009 recovery, and at the same time, major economies continue drifting into distinct geopolitical and economic blocs rather than operating as one globalised system.

Instead, we are entering a world where growth is capped, capital is more expensive, and countries are increasingly shaping economic policy around alliances rather than efficiency.

That shift became unmistakable this week when Trump’s visit to Seoul effectively remade the U.S.–Korea relationship. After years of South Korea’s regulators hammering U.S. tech giants with billion-dollar fines and aggressive investigations, Washington forced a reset.

Seoul agreed to rein in its regulatory discrimination, soften “network usage fees,” and tighten due-process protections, and in return, it unlocked a massive wave of Korean investment in U.S. defence, aviation, and industrial projects. The White House made it clear that if Korea slipped back, Section 301 probes and tariffs were ready to launch, and Trump even signalled openness to Korea’s long-blocked push for nuclear-powered submarines.

Prepare: Keep an eye on what companies are being invested into in Korea; bear in mind that Korea’s stock market is heavily dominated by Samsung, which has 18% of the market share. So investing in an ETF might not be diverse enough.

3. Opportunity Of The Week…

Black Friday Is (Almost) Here!

If you listen to most people this week, the conversation is predictable:
“Everything’s getting more unstable” / “Now’s not the time to make moves” / “Let’s just wait and see what happens…” That’s the normal person conversation.

But the abnormal people who take finance and entrepreneurship seriously are having a completely different conversation right now:
“Where is the opportunity in all this?” / “How do I position myself while everyone else hesitates?” / “What skills and frameworks do I need to upgrade right now?”

The second conversation is the one my courses are built for.

That’s exactly why, this Black Friday week, I’ve opened up the biggest sale I’ve ever run, built to help you master the framework behind real financial success.

  • Every single course is heavily discounted

  • Prices as low as 90% off

  • Special bundle deals & bonuses for those who want to take their education seriously.

  • So watch this space! We open it up on Monday.

4. Chart Of the Week:

Ireland Tops Productivity Charts, But China’s The Real Engine

A new look at productivity (see infographic below) shows Ireland miles ahead of everyone else, doubling output per hour since 2005. Yet, as I mentioned earlier about Nvidia… you have to look deeper into the numbers.

Most of that “productivity” is simply clever tax engineering by big tech and pharma, not Irish workers suddenly turning superhuman.

China’s story is more grounded. We see productivity has jumped more than 340% in two decades as factories modernised and supply chains bulked up, even if gains have slowed now that wages are rising and the easy industrial upgrades are done.

Oil economies are diverging hard, like Norway, which keeps humming along at $123 an hour thanks to competent management and sovereign wealth discipline, while Saudi productivity has sunk from $85.6 to $56.6 as oil caps and price swings drag the whole economy.

5. Market Overview

In the U.S., the S&P 500 slipped as investors cooled on AI and tech names again, worried about stretched valuations and signs the Fed may hold off on cutting rates, which took some air out of recent optimism.

In the U.K., the FTSE 100 moved lower, with banks and more domestically focused stocks under pressure from still-high gilt yields and ongoing worries about the growth and policy outlook, while energy names helped soften the blow a bit.

In Canada, the S&P/TSX Composite was roughly flat, as early gains in energy and resources on firmer commodity prices were largely offset by weakness in tech and industrials as investors pulled back from riskier areas.

In Australia, the ASX 200 fell in line with global markets, with local tech and financials hit by the broader tech sell-off and sticky rate expectations, while strength in some miners and energy stocks only partially cushioned the downside.

🇺🇸 United States – S&P 500

  • High: 6,768.04

  • Low: 6,526.80

🇬🇧 UK - FTSE 100

  • High: 9,706.67

  • Low: 9,450.15

🇨🇦 Canada – TSX Composite

  • High: 30,629.24

  • Low: 29,838.24

🇦🇺 Australia – ASX 200

  • High: 8,635.00

  • Low: 8,416.50

Cryptocurrency: (A Real Bloodbath Again This Week)

I really hope you were able to take my advice and exit the crypto markets when I gave my forecast that we were close to the end of the current bull market. But tbh, even my friend didn’t listen to me, and he called me today crying about how much money he’s lost.

  • Bitcoin (BTC): -12.0%

  • Ethereum (ETH): -12.8%

  • Tether (USDT): -0.1%

  • XRP (XRP): -14.3%

  • BNB (BNB): 10.5%

  • USDC (USDC): 0.0%

  • Solana (SOL): -9.0%

  • TRON (TRX): -6.2%

  • Lido Staked Ether (STETH): -13.6%

  • Dogecoin (DOGE): -12.9%

Metals Market:

Gold Silver Ratio: 81, the ratio has been steady this week as Gold and silver prices remain steady

Gold & Silver:

  • Gold: Steady between $4,131.94 - $3,998.77

  • Silver: Steady floating around: $52.5 - $48.66  

6. Faith & Success

❝

“They are like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers.“

— Psalm 1:3

Being the perfectionist I am with my work, I was giving myself a hard time this week over two of the videos I released which didn’t get many views. As a result, I spent a ridiculous amount of time going over my analytics and trying to figure out why they weren’t being watched and were not fruitful. I thought it was just me.

Then the negative self talk crept in: ‘Do people not want to watch my videos anymore?’ Then I had to quickly remind myself to never listen to that voice, because it’s the voice of the liar. And it only wants to destroy, not build up.

So after taking a nice walk around the park, I called up a couple of YouTube friends to get their advice on this. And it turned out that this was just a really weird week with lower views across the board on most channels, even the BIG hitters had lower views this week. Phew!

And when I realised this, I was able to finally relax. And I remember as I just let go and relaxed - this verse popped into my head: “They are like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers.“

And I want you to remember that verse if you’re ever feeling down. Remember that as long as you maintain your integrity and do the right thing and live a good, honest life - you will be like the tree and prosper. We all go through times of negative thoughts, but negative thoughts are fleeting; try not to give them too much time or energy.

Until next time,

God Bless,

Neil,

Enjoying this Newsletter? Share with a Friend…

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.