Your IMPORTANT Weekly Briefing: (27th February 2026)

The Neil McCoy-Ward Newsletter

February 27, 2026

Opening Note…

Hi and welcome back again this week. 

Quick update! Your new training program, ‘Digital Income Mastery’ will be released next week! 

This will be a heavily discounted pre-release. You’ll be getting a ridiculous discount for the same reason that you get a discount when you buy a property off plan, simply because the courses haven’t been finished yet. I’ll be writing, recording and editing as I go along, and because of this, you’ll get a super low price.

Existing Students, Patreon & Email members will always get the largest discount available. This discount will be lower than even the price you see on social media. You will also get early access too (before anyone else) and you'll get some special bonuses that no one else will get.

A reminder: The program will be made up of three courses, each being incredibly valuable: 

Part 1:  The Digital Product ‘BLUEPRINT’ (12 Modules)

Part 2:  Digital Product ‘MARKETING’ (14 Modules)

Part 3:  Digital Product ‘SALES’ (TBC)

Individual courses will not be available for purchase until later on. The initial flash sale next weekend will be for the entire bundle of 3 courses, and will offer you the absolute largest discount available. 

The flash sale will last from Friday, 6th, until Sunday, 8th March (72 hours only!) Then the program will be released at a higher price to social media, and without the extra bonuses.

The outcome of the program is to enable you to both SURVIVE and THRIVE in this new digital age we are about to move into, starting from 2027, where millions of jobs will not only be lost, but replaced. 

You don’t need to be negatively affected, because I’ll teach you and your family how to win throughout this period.

In summary, this program is the answer to the coming storm. Here you’ll learn how to create digital products and services with the help of AI, which will enable you to not only earn a full-time income, but to earn large amounts of money digitally, even while you sleep from all around the world. And you don't need to be good with tech either!  

This will protect your income from AI displacement for years to come, and build you a nice little nest egg in the process… all by creating digital ‘things’ that people search for every day, but which currently don’t exist.

So if you're looking to replace your full-time income, start your own digital business that you can operate from anywhere in the world, or simply just earn a little bit of side income for investing or your pension, this program will be a perfect fit.

Launching next week, look out for my email!

Ok, let's break down the latest...

Table of Contents

1. Weekly Spotlight

The Supreme Court Just Blew Up Trump's Tariff Wall

If you've been following along, you'll remember we talked about this the other week, the Supreme Court was debating whether Trump actually had the legal power to impose these tariffs, and we discussed what would happen if they ruled against him. Well… they did.

On Friday, February 20th, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Trump's sweeping tariffs, the ones he imposed using a 1977 emergency powers law called IEEPA, were illegal.

Now, let me give you some numbers... These tariffs had already collected over $160 billion from American importers. The effective tariff rate had climbed to nearly 17%, which is the highest it's been since the 1930s.

So you may be wondering, what did Trump do about it? Well, this is where it gets interesting…

Within hours, he signed a brand new executive order slapping a 10% tariff on virtually all imports, but this time using a completely different law called Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. By the weekend, he said he wanted to push it to 15%.

But here's the thing about Section 122; it has a hard time limit: 150 days. That's all you get, after that Congress has to vote to extend the tariffs, or they just expire…

Now crunch the numbers on that for a second... 150 days from now lands in mid-July. Midterm elections are in November. So Congress is going to have to vote on this publicly, just a few months before they face voters. And regardless of where you stand on tariffs, that vote is going to be politically charged.

As we covered a couple of weeks ago, the tariff revenue is projected to bing in around $3 trillion over the next decade, which is a big part of how they're planning to chip away at the deficit. Losing the legal ability to collect it would create a serious challenge.

The administration knows the clock is ticking, which is why they're already launching investigations under other trade laws (Sections 232 and 301) to put a more solid legal foundation underneath the tariff policy. The goal is clearly to keep things in place, but those processes take time; they need evidence, findings, and proper procedure. It's a race against the calendar more than anything.

And then there's the international side of things, which has gotten messy…

Japan made a deal last year worth $550 billion in investment commitments in exchange for a guaranteed 15% tariff rate. Well, now everyone is paying 15% under Section 122 anyway, so Japan gave up all that for nothing. The EU has paused ratification of its deal twice now. India has also pulled back from talks.

And let's not forget the companies, FedEx has already filed a lawsuit demanding a full refund on what it paid under the tariffs, and I doubt they’ll be the last company.

If I put my investor head on here for a moment, this isn't about whether tariffs are at 10% or 15% or 17%. You’ve got to see it as PREDICTABILITY. Businesses can work with high tariffs, but what they can't work with is the rules changing every other week.

2. Quick Takes

Here are the other top stories shaping the week:

  • Pakistan Declares "Open War" On Taliban After Striking Kabul And Multiple Provinces

    Pakistan has launched air strikes across Afghanistan, hitting Kabul, Kandahar, Nangarhar, and several eastern provinces. Islamabad says 133 Taliban fighters were killed and ammunition depots destroyed. The Taliban fired back, claiming they captured a Pakistani military outpost. This all follows a suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in Islamabad on Feb 6th that killed 31 people, which Pakistan says was directed from Afghan soil. A Qatar-mediated ceasefire already failed months ago.

  • AI Models Exposed As Trigger-Happy In Simulated Nuclear War Games

    A King's College London study put GPT-5.2, Claude Sonnet 4, and Gemini 3 Flash into Cold War-style nuclear crisis simulations. Across 21 matches, 95% saw tactical nukes used, with the models treating them as a "manageable risk." Gemini deliberately initiated a full strategic strike in one scenario. GPT-5.2 accidentally triggered complete launches twice. Not once did any model choose to de-escalate. Not once. No one's handed AI the launch codes yet, but ‘when’ they do in the future… it’s game over.

  • Anthropic Refuses To Back Down As Pentagon Issues Friday Ultimatum Over AI Safeguards

    Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says his company would rather lose its Pentagon contracts than allow its AI to be used for mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. Defence Secretary Hegseth gave him until Friday to accept "any lawful use" or face the Defence Production Act. Anthropic already agreed to missile and cyber defence uses, but the Pentagon wants zero restrictions. Meanwhile, xAI signed up with no limits on Monday, making Anthropic the only holdout. Anthropic says the DoD's compromise language had loopholes that would gut its safeguards entirely.

  • Tech Giants To Pledge Their Data Centres Won't Raise Your Electricity Bills

    Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Oracle, and OpenAI are heading to the White House next week to sign Trump's "Rate Payer Protection Pledge," promising their data centres won't push up energy bills. The idea is they'll build or buy their own power. But New Jersey customers already paid 19% more for energy in 2025, and Virginia is facing another 21% hike by 2027, largely because of data centre demand. Even if they build their own plants, they'll still compete for the same fuel and grid connections as everyone else. 

  • US To Allow Venezuelan Oil Resale To Cuba As Island's Fuel Crisis Deepens

    The US Treasury is easing sanctions to let Venezuelan oil be resold to Cuba, after Maduro's capture in January sent shipments plummeting and left the island in an energy crisis. The new licensing targets Cuba's private sector and explicitly excludes the military and intelligence services. It's a big shift given that Trump imposed tariffs on anyone selling oil to Cuba just weeks ago. Secretary of State Rubio said Cuba's economic model "doesn't work" and "doesn't exist anywhere in the world."

  • Iran Scrambles To Load Oil Onto Tankers As US Military Buildup Signals Imminent Strike

    Iran is loading nearly three times its normal oil volume onto tankers at Kharg Island, 20 million barrels in five days. That mirrors what it did in June 2025, just before the US joined Israel's strikes. Saudi Arabia is quietly ramping up production as a contingency. Supertanker charter costs have tripled since January. Meanwhile, the US has assembled its largest Middle East military buildup since the 2003 Iraq invasion, two carrier groups, dozens of fighter jets, and F-22 Raptors, which experts say is virtually unheard of in peacetime. 

  • Britain May Scrap 78% North Sea Oil Tax After Investment Exodus

    The UK Treasury is in talks about killing off the Energy Profits Levy before its 2030 expiry, a discreet way of saying that taxing the sector at 78% has backfired. The "temporary" windfall tax has been extended and hiked repeatedly even as oil prices cooled. Harbour Energy saw nearly all its 2022 profits wiped out, BP and Shell pulled back investment, and TotalEnergies cut spending. Grid operators are warning that shrinking domestic production is leaving Britain more exposed to supply shocks. - This is what happens when you have an incompetent Government focused on virtue signalling over energy security.

  • UK Signs Critical Minerals Deal With Kazakhstan To Loosen China's Grip On Supply Chains

    Britain has signed a minerals deal with Kazakhstan to cut dependence on China for raw materials for defence tech and semiconductors. Kazakhstan produces 22 of the 36 minerals the UK flagged as vital and supplies over 40% of the world's uranium. Kazakhstan is also a top producer of titanium, copper, and zinc. The UK's goal is that by 2035, no more than 60% of any critical mineral comes from one country, which tells you how exposed the West is right now. Chinese firms have been investing heavily in Kazakh resources through the Belt and Road for years. 

  • Nearly A Million Young Brits Not Working Or Not Studying As Jobs Crisis Deepens

    957,000 young people aged 16-24 in the UK are now out of work, education, or training, that's 12.8% of the entire age group. A weak job market, cuts to graduate schemes, and rising mental health issues are cited as the cause. The government says it'll offer guaranteed work placements after 18 months, with benefit cuts for anyone who refuses. The Resolution Foundation is warning that the UK is "perilously close" to a million young people on the sidelines. - The Government can’t have this many young people not working or not in education… I think we know what they plan to do with these poor souls.

  • EU Wants Full Ban On Shipping Services For Russian Oil But Needs G7 Sign-Off

    The EU wants a complete ban on maritime services for Russian crude, but needs G7 approval first. It would go further than the current price cap, recently tightened to $44 per barrel. The problem is that the existing cap has had mixed results; Moscow just shifted huge volumes onto shadow fleets to dodge it. A full ban would block Western firms from touching Russian oil at any price. - We've seen this before…

NEIL’S TAKEAWAYS:

In the United States
The IMF just finished its annual review of the U.S. economy this week, and the headline sounds good: they expect growth to pick up to 2.4% in 2026. But under current policies, government debt could hit 140% of GDP within five years. To put that into perspective, that's more than $50 trillion. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget called the whole setup an "economic sugar high," and I think they're right. The numbers look decent today, but it's being fuelled by debt that can't be maintained.

And then you look at how people are actually feeling. Consumer confidence ticked up slightly this week, with the Conference Board index rising to 91.2. More people say jobs are "plentiful."

Plans to buy things like used cars and furniture went up. But it's still well below November 2024, and people are still uneasy about prices. The mood has lifted, but only just. I think we're sitting in a fragile window right now where things could go either way depending on what happens with jobs and inflation over the coming months.

Prepare: If you're investing, focus on companies with clean balance sheets and real earnings. Anything that depends heavily on the consumer staying confident is going to follow sentiment.

Across Europe:
The fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court tariff ruling hit Europe hard this week. The European Parliament froze ratification of the Turnberry trade deal, which is the agreement the EU struck with Washington last summer. The head of the EU trade committee called the situation "pure tariff chaos" and said nobody can make sense of what's happening anymore. And he's right. Businesses on both sides of the Atlantic are now stuck waiting for clarity that may not come anytime soon. 

At the same time, the euro has been trading around 1.18 to the dollar, its strongest level in years. That sounds like good news on the surface because a strong currency helps keep imported inflation down. But for exporters, especially in Germany, it's a real problem. It makes their goods more expensive abroad at exactly the wrong time. Some ECB policymakers have already warned that if the euro keeps rising, rate ‘adjustments’ could come back. The ECB held rates steady at 2% earlier this month, and inflation has actually dropped to 1.7%, but the strong euro is adding a la'yer that could change the direction of policy faster than people expect.

Prepare: If you're investing in anything exposed to EU-U.S. trade, stay cautious until there's more clarity on the tariff situation. The strong euro is worth watching closely because if it keeps climbing, it will weigh on European exporters and could force the ECB's hand. For now, sectors with domestic demand, like defence and infrastructure, look more protected than anything reliant on exports.

On the Global Stage:
Gold blew past $5,150 this week. Bank of America came out and said it could hit $6,000 within the next twelve months. The logic behind this is simple: tariff chaos, U.S.–Iran tensions, a weakening dollar, and the possibility of a new Fed chair later this year are all pushing investors toward safe havens. COMEX gold inventories have dropped to their lowest levels since mid-2024, which tells you physical demand is real and growing. 

Related to this, money is leaving U.S. stocks. Around $75 billion has been pulled out of American equity products over the past six months, and a lot of it is flowing into international markets and EMs (Emerging Markets).

The Nasdaq is on track for its worst month since March 2025, and the so-called Magnificent Seven tech stocks are collectively down for the year. Microsoft alone is off nearly 18% since January. This kind of rotation happens because investors start questioning whether the U.S. market, and particularly the AI trade, still offers the best risk-adjusted returns. And right now, with valuations stretched and earnings expectations sky-high, a lot of big money is deciding the answer is no.

These two trends are connected. When capital moves out of risk assets and into gold at the same time, it tells you something about the overall mood. Confidence is shifting. People are repositioning, and that distinction is important because it tends to happen before the bigger moves, not after.

Prepare: If you have no gold or commodity exposure, now is the time to at least consider it. You don't need to chase the price, but having some allocation makes sense when this many signals are pointing the same direction. And if your portfolio is heavily weighted toward U.S. tech, take a hard look at whether that concentration still makes sense.

3. Chart Of The Week

Global Food Prices Set To Diverge Sharply In 2026

Food prices are set to rise unevenly across the world in 2026, according to forecasts from the Food and Agriculture Organisation. While the global average increase is projected at 3.2%, some countries are facing far steeper jumps.

Iran tops the list with prices expected to surge 55.9%, followed by Argentina at 33.2% and Türkiye at 25.1%. Several Sub-Saharan African nations, including Nigeria and Angola, are also forecast to see double-digit rises, often driven by weak currencies and heavy reliance on imports.

The Middle East and North Africa region stands out with an average food inflation of 8.9%, nearly triple the global rate, while parts of Asia-Pacific are expected to see only modest increases.

4. Market Overview

S&P 500 (U.S.)
The S&P 500 had a rough week, dragged lower by fresh trade worries after Trump announced new import tariffs. Stocks recovered briefly, helped by a big AI chip deal between Meta and AMD, but the momentum faded after Nvidia's earnings, solid results, but not enough to impress investors who are increasingly questioning the AI spending boom.

FTSE 100 (UK)
The FTSE 100 had a strong week, hitting record highs and building on an already impressive monthly run. Mining stocks led the way as metals prices firmed up, while solid earnings and buyback news from Rightmove and International Airlines Group added to the gains. Weak consumer confidence data barely made a dent.

S&P/TSX Composite (Canada)
The S&P/TSX had a choppy week but managed to close higher. Early losses tied to the tech selloff and ongoing U.S. tariff uncertainty gave way to a recovery mid-week, supported by strong quarterly earnings from the banks; TD and CIBC both impressed. Energy stocks were a drag as oil prices fell, though gold stocks held up reasonably well.

ASX 200 (Australia)
The ASX 200 had a good week, with the index notching fresh record highs on several days. Mining stocks were the standout, with BHP and Rio Tinto both gaining on stronger copper and gold prices alongside solid earnings. A busy reporting season kept sentiment positive across much of the market, though tech stocks stumbled early on AI concerns and banks and consumer staples pulled back heading into Friday.

🇺🇸 United States – S&P 500

  • High: 6,950.45

    Low: 6,822.46

🇬🇧 UK - FTSE 100

  • High: 10,910.77

  • Low: 10,647.05

🇨🇦 Canada – TSX Composite

  • High: 34,507.32

  • Low: 32023,572.21

🇦🇺 Australia – ASX 200

  • High: 9,202.90

  • Low: 8,997.60

Cryptocurrency:

  • Bitcoin (BTC): -1.6%

  • Ethereum (ETH): 0.2%

  • Tether (USDT): 0.0%

  • BNB (BNB): 0.5%

  • XRP (XRP): -2.9%

  • USDC (USDC): 0.0%

  • Solana (SOL): -0.3%

  • TRON (TRX): -0.7%

  • Figure Heloc (FIGR_HELOC): 1.1%

  • Dogecoin (DOGE): -4.1%

Metals Market:

Gold–Silver Ratio: ~58:1. Both metals had a strong week, with silver outpacing gold and pulling the ratio down from the low 60s to around 58. Gold climbed from roughly $5,040 at the start of the week to around $5,220 by Friday. Silver had an even bigger run, moving from the high $80s earlier in the week to around $90–$91 by Wednesday before pulling back to the mid-to-high $80s on Thursday, then recovering again by Friday. Both metals remain well off January's record highs of around $5,600 and $121, respectively, but the trend this week was clearly higher.

Gold & Silver:

  • Gold: Rose 4.16% with a Week High: $5,312.07 & Week Low: $5,008.87

  • Silver: Soared 15.55% with a Week High: $93.99 & Week Low: $80.41

5. Faith & Success

❝

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

— Isaiah 43:19

Every major shift in history has felt unsettling at first… 

Do you remember the initial lessons from my Rapid Cashflow Program? Technology and change is inevitable, and it’s only going to speed up. Remember how the timeline between each age got faster and faster?! 

Over time, industries change, and with it, things that felt familiar begin to disappear. And it’s completely natural to feel anxious about such things…

Someone asked me last week if I felt anxious about what's coming with AI and robotics… and my answer was, “of course I do”. I feel extremely anxious about what's coming… mainly because it's so hard to forecast it.

Just look at the upheaval AI is already causing. People are fearful for their jobs, their pensions and their savings. People are fearful for their children's education / future prospects… and then you have others who are fearful about what AI may do if it's given too much control…

So this verse today is a reminder that new seasons arrive wrapped in uncertainty. BUT, what looks like an ending can sometimes be the early stage of something new emerging… yet, all we can do is to prepare for this new emergence.

So the question isn’t just ‘what’s changing?’ It’s really more focused towards: ‘what’s opening?’ And of course, ‘how can I make sure that I’m not negatively impacted by the new emergence.’

We really are living in a moment of transformation, a new dawn, a new era. 

I'm of the generation that grew up without any electronic devices or game consoles, and I was never bored. If I ever got bored around the house, my mum would kick me out and tell me to go and play with my friends down the street! 

I remember once leaving the house at 8am on a Saturday morning to cycle my BMX to my friends house who lived 10 miles away. Then we cycled to the next city town which took us two hours. When I finally cycled home it was getting dark and I hadn’t eaten all day… those were the days!

Many of us alive today have lived through one of the most unbelievable transitions in history… we were alive before the internet or mobile phones even existed; if we wanted information, we had to go to the library.

We’ve lived through the advent of computers, phones, digital devices, and now AI and robotics.

We survived the last set of challenges, and now it’s about planning to survive and thrive through the next set of challenges too.

New opportunities are born with change, so rather than only bracing for collapse, why not begin looking for opportunities?

Because when one door closes, another one opens.

New things are springing up, and those of us who remain calm enough to see them, will be the ones ready to step into them.

I’m prepared, are you?

Until 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.