War, pirates, COVID — nothing stops this CEO

About 90% of the world’s goods are transported by sea, many in ships that are owned and operated by Greek companies. Angeliki Frangou, a fourth-generation shipowner and the CEO of Piraeus, Greece-based Navios Maritime Partners, has navigated through COVID shutdowns, tariff wars, actual wars, geopolitical tension, climate change and piracy on the high seas—among other things. Her business—an NYSE-listed giant with 180 bulkers, tankers and container ships—is constantly in the news. “We never make policy, but we have to anticipate it,” she says. 

What’s different about 2025, she says, is the degree of variability. “This is the first time in my experience that we didn’t look at world GDP, industrial production, the usual supply and demand characteristics,” says Frangou. “Now, we look at how geopolitical events will be resolved. Will there be more sanctions, less sanctions? Tariffs? We look at the world and we say, what is the spectrum of probabilities, and the worst-case scenario that can take me down?”

Take the Middle East conflict, which has impacted the security of merchant ships along the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil-shipping route. Says Frangou: “The effective closure of the Red Sea alone meant that every vessel had to go around Africa, adding about 10 days.”

Now add in volatility around tariffs and trade, including White House plans to boost U.S. Shipbuilding and levy hefty fees on Chinese-made vessels, which account for 41.5% of the world’s in-service fleet. “This will affect a huge percentage of shipping,” Frangou says. “We have Japanese vessels in China, Chinese vessels in Japan … If there is this huge taxation for incoming vessels to the United States, most vessels will use a port in the Caribbean somewhere, unload the cargo in transit, and then use a Japanese or a South Korean vessel to bring it into the United States. That means two or three days to unload and then two to three days to reload, which adds costs and prolongs the trip.”

But Frangou doesn’t sound fearful. “We are the ultimate capitalists because you need to compete with everyone on a global level,” she says. “The only way to achieve that is with technology. AI will bring huge changes in the way we move from being reactive to more proactive.”

More news below.

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Top news

Trump creates national crypto reserve. The president signed an order to create a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” to hold crypto seized from criminals. “The U.S. Will not sell any Bitcoin deposited into the Reserve. It will be kept as a store of value,” said David Sacks, White House AI and crypto czar. The U.S. Holds about $17 billion in crypto. Bitcoin declined 1% on the news and now sits at $89K, down 5% YTD. 

Open question: Assets seized from crime are usually used to fund law enforcement or recompense victims — but that may not happen if “the U.S. Will not sell.”

The winners: President Trump has gained $350 million from selling memecoins, according to the FT. And the inclusion of XRP in the reserve benefits Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse. Ripple holds more than $100 billion worth of XRP, according to the WSJ.

DOGE tone shift. The president said on Truth Social that “DOGE has been an incredible success” but now its staff must become “very precise as to who will remain, and who will go. We say the ‘scalpel’ rather than the ‘hatchet.’” He added, “it’s also important to keep the best and most productive people.” The move comes in reaction to concern among Republicans that Elon Musk’s mass firings are too indiscriminate.

SpaceX rocket explodes. Elon Musk’s latest starship launch burst into flaming wreckage over the Caribbean 10 minutes after lift-off yesterday. It was the second failed launch in a row for the company. Video here.

From Coins2Day

The Coins2Day Most Powerful Women International Summit
Coins2Day is hosting the first-ever Coins2Day Most Powerful Women International Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia this May, at a time when the economic contributions of women in the country are growing rapidly. In a new essay, Coins2Day Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell describes how fostering community in the Middle Eastern city is essential to Coins2Day's mission and the growth of our Most Powerful Women franchise. For more information, including ways to get involved, read more here.

Inside JPMorgan’s RTO
As JPMorgan Chase calls staff back to work five days a week, some employees report that there are not enough desks, too much noise, and too many sneezing, sick coworkers.

Starbucks CEO explains layoffs
Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol told employees at the franchise’s Seattle headquarters this week that recent layoffs occurred because company leaders were “not effective.” He also asked that the leaders who stayed at the company be more “accountable” for their decisions regarding the company.

The markets

• Tariffs paused, stocks sink. Trump put a pause on his proposed trade tariffs for Canada and Mexico. Investors reacted to the ongoing uncertainty by selling stocks, and the S&P 500 lost 1.8% on the day. The index is down 2.43% YTD and now sits at 5,738.52. The president blamed “globalists” for the losses. But then he said, “I’m not even looking at the market, because long term the United States will be very strong with what is happening here.”
• The jobs number (nonfarm payrolls) will be today’s big data release. A Dow Jones poll shows economists expect the U.S. Added 170,000 new jobs in February and unemployment will stay at 4%. Complicating the picture: Job cuts totaled 172,017 in February, a 103% increase from last year, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
• Markets in China, Japan, Europe and the UK all sank this morning, following the declines in U.S. Trading the day before. The worst hit was Japan’s Nikkei 225, which dropped more than 2%.
• S&P 500 futures were up 0.29% this morning, pre-open.

From the analysts

• UBS on Trump’s auto tariff pause: “One month does not allow for much response—some stockpiling, presumably a lot of lobbying,” per Paul Donovan.
• Barclays on uncertainty: “...the mere uncertainty itself is not without consequence. … recent data suggest policy is already having negative spillovers to activity … expectations for an additional drag from uncertainty led the team to revise down their GDP forecasts for Q1 (-1.0pp) and Q2 (-0.5pp) to 1.5% q/q, implying 1.5% Q4/Q4 growth rates in 2025 and 2026,” per Andrew Ferremi and Terence Malone.
• Bank of America on the massive German bond sale: “The ‘game changer’ plan was proposed to fund capex and defense spending in Germany and potentially at the wider EU level as well… This is reminiscent of the ECB president Draghi’s ‘whatever it takes’ speech in 2012 that pivoted the sovereign crisis,” per Yuri Seliger and Jean-Tiago Hamm.
• Saxo, also on the massive German bond sale: “For context, this combined spending is more than 3x what Germany allocated for its entire post-pandemic stimulus package,” per Charu Chanana.
• EY on stagflation: “Steep tariff increases against top US trading partners could create a ‘stagflationary’ shock — a negative economic hit combined with higher inflation — while triggering financial market volatility,” per Gregory Daco.

Around the watercooler