The Competition Is China

The world kept score

The morning after the midterms, the world's headlines read like a scoreboard. France's Libération called it "une vague bleue." Russia's state-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta told Brussels to brace itself. Iran's Tehran Times ran "The Iran war comes home to hit Trump at the ballot box," and Iran's parliament speaker posted: "Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message."

One government said almost nothing. China's foreign ministry called the vote "an internal affair of the United States." The country we actually compete with didn't need to cheer.

My own reaction fit in one sentence: "I hope all newly elected officials do well. The competition is China."

Why the world keeps score

For most of my 40 years in markets, America has out-compounded everyone else. Our companies, our capital markets and our currency have set the pace.

When you have been behind that long, any American stumble feels like a win. An election result, a weak quarter, a falling dollar: each one gets celebrated abroad as the gap finally closing.

Investors do the same thing. People who have been underweight the leader for years cheer every pullback. The pullbacks rarely change who is leading.

Ten weeks the world wins

The same morning, one of the independent research firms we pay for, Henrik Zeberg, published his market map for the next ten weeks. Read it with those headlines in mind.

His call: money rotates out of America's AI giants and into the rest of the world. Emerging markets, small companies and crypto lead. The fuel is a falling dollar, which he sees dropping from about 101 to 93–94 on the Dollar Index. He has the rally running into a top in January 2027.

To someone keeping score from overseas, that will look like the world finally beating America. Foreign markets up, the dollar down, America's biggest companies lagging.

Now look at what his own chart says comes next. After January, the dollar heads back toward 120. That is not a changing of the guard. It is a rotation with an expiration date printed on it.

The real scoreboard

Elections and rotations are weather. The climate is the race between the United States and China.

That race is being run in three places: who builds the AI, who finances it, and whose money it runs on. In my letter on rising interest rates, I called the US–China AI race very, very real. Nothing about this week changes that.

So my reaction was not politics. It was where I keep my eyes. Whoever was elected, I want them to do well, because the opponent that matters is not on our ballot.

The rails the dollar is moving onto

Here is the part the scorekeepers miss. A falling Dollar Index is not a falling dollar system.

The Dollar Index measures the dollar's price against other currencies. It says nothing about how far the dollar reaches. Stablecoins are dollars, and the GENIUS Act made them part of American law. Those dollars are being issued, moved and settled on Ethereum.

Every stablecoin sent from Lagos to Manila is a dollar going somewhere it could not easily go before. Even in the ten weeks the world celebrates, the rails being built carry the dollar further, not less.

That is the American answer in market form. Keep building, and let the scorekeepers keep score. We own the infrastructure the dollar is moving onto.

The competition is China

The headline writers abroad will probably enjoy the next ten weeks. If Zeberg is right, the scoreboard they watch will look good for a while.

I will be watching a different one: who builds, who finances, and whose dollar the machine economy runs on. On that scoreboard, America is not losing.

— Mark Berube, ChFC, CLU, President, Quantum Capital

Sources: OPB/NPR, "World reacts to Democrats' midterm elections victory" · Al Jazeera, "'Seismic shift': World reacts to US midterm election results" · Henrik Zeberg, 4 November 2026

Important disclosures

Holdings: Mark Berube owns shares of BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR). The authors and clients of Patriot Advisory Group may buy or sell these or other securities discussed at any time without notice.

This letter is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not investment, tax or legal advice, and it is not an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any security or digital asset. Opinions are the authors' as of the date of publication and may change without notice.

Third-party research, including that of Henrik Zeberg, to which Patriot Advisory Group subscribes, is cited for context. Its forecasts are the author's own, are not guarantees, and may not occur. News headlines are quoted from the sources listed and are not endorsements of any political view.

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