Baltic
Dry Index. 2240 +40 Brent Crude 69.03
Spot Gold 3758 US 2 Year Yield 3.63 +0.02
US Federal Debt. 37.523 trillion
US GDP 30.288 trillion.
The second vice is lying, the first is running in debt.
Benjamin Franklin
In the US stocks casinos, another pause or something more?
On to today’s latest US jobs data and tomorrow’s PCE inflation data that’s the Fed’s favourite inflation indicator.
Asia-Pacific markets rise after Wall Street
declines as investors sell tech names
Published Wed, Sep 24 2025 7:42 PM EDT
Asia-Pacific markets mostly climbed in
choppy trade Thursday, breaking ranks with Wall Street after investors
continued selling tech names like Nvidia and Oracle for a second straight day.
Nvidia slid almost 1%, continuing its
declines from Tuesday as heightened fears about the potentially circular nature
of the AI industry drew investor skepticism.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was 0.24% up,
as investors are watched Chinese automaker Chery Automobile’s debut on the
index after its $1.2 billion IPO. Shares of
Chery rose 11% to 34.16 Hong Kong dollars ($4.39) at the open, compared with
its offer price of HK$30.75.
Separately, Xiaomi shares gained 1.85%
after debuting a slew of new devices and appliances, including smartphones
to take on South Korea’s Samsung.
On the mainland, China’s CSI 300 advanced
0.76%.
South Korea’s Kospi was just above the
flatline, but the small-cap Kosdaq was down 0.49%. However, South Korean
defense stocks continued to rise, with major players like Korea Aerospace up
0.66%, and Poongsan 4% higher.
Internet firm Naver was one of the leaders
on the Kospi, gaining over 7% after it announced an investment into health startup
GravityLabs early Thursday.
Taiwan’s Taiex was down 0.33%, with
heavyweight Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing Company down 1.12%. This comes after Bloomberg reported that chip giant Intel is seeking an
investment from Apple.
Apple had previously used Intel chips in
many of its personal computing devices, but switched to TSMC when it launched
its M1 chip in 2020. The report however, said that Apple is unlikely to shift
back to Intel chips.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.2%, while
the broad based Topix gained 0.43%. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 reversed
course and added 0.21%.
U.S. stock futures were little changed as
investors awaited Thursday’s release of weekly jobless claims data, which could
influence the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy moves amid increasing concerns
about a weakening labor market and rising layoffs.
Overnight in the U.S., the S&P 500 dropped 0.28% to
end at 6,637.97, while the Nasdaq
Composite pulled back 0.34% to settle at 22,497.86.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined
0.37%, to finish at 46,121.28.
Asia markets reverse
earlier losses as investors sell tech names on Wall Street
Stock futures are little changed ahead of key jobs
data: Live updates
Updated Wed, Sep 24 2025 6:24 PM EDT
Stock futures were little changed
Wednesday night as investors awaited upcoming jobs data.
S&P futures ticked
higher by about 0.1%, while Nasdaq
100 futures hovered above the flatline. Futures tied to the Dow Jones
Industrial Average added 39 points, or nearly 0.1%.
Intel shares
gained 1.5% in after-hours trading after Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that the
chipmaker has approached Apple to
seek an investment from the iPhone maker.
The three major U.S. indexes fell for the
second session in a row on Wednesday as key leaders of the artificial
intelligence trade such as Nvidia, Oracle and Micron Technology lost steam.
The market action appears to be reflecting concerns about record-high
valuations and potentially risky circular relationships in the AI industry
after some recent deals.
The S&P 500 had snapped a three-day
winning streak on Tuesday.
Thursday’s release of weekly jobless
claims data will provide a key economic data point that could influence the
Federal Reserve’s monetary policy moves amid increasing concerns about a
weakening labor market and rising layoffs. Initial unemployment
claims last week eased after a brief spike the week prior.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Tuesday
that a slowing
labor market is outweighing concerns about stubborn inflation, which
contributed to the Federal Open Market Committee’s recent decision to
lower interest rates for the first time this year. Powell noted “a marked
slowdown” in supply and demand and said that “in this less dynamic and somewhat
softer labor market, the downside risks to employment have risen.”
Salvatore Ruscitti, U.S. equity strategist
at MRB Partners, said he does not expect the recent hiring slump to become a
“self-reinforcing negative cycle” that causes a spike in layoffs.
“On the jobless claims data, clearly it is
a focus of the equity markets, especially with the Fed leaning more towards
emphasizing the maximum employment part of its mandate,” Ruscitti said. “I
think you would have to see a meaningful spike higher in weekly jobless claims
to elicit a meaningful negative reaction in the equity market.”
Investors are also cautious ahead of the
personal consumption expenditures price index due Friday and are monitoring
developments regarding a potential government shutdown.
Stock
market today: Live updates
South Korean investment in the US is now in peril
Opinion in Seoul is hardening after the
Georgia raid
24 September 2025
“The United States seems to have changed,” South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said last week in the national assembly. His remarks came against the backdrop of harrowing accounts from South Korean nationals detained in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency raid on the Hyundai-LG plant in Georgia and recently released to return home. While President Lee Jae-myung sought to downplay the raid’s impact, citing a “cultural difference”, the issue now appears to have gone beyond visas to further strain the stalled trade talks between the two allies.
Although both sides agreed in principle to a deal in July, under which the US lowered the tariff on South Korean imports from 25 to 15 per cent in exchange for Seoul’s commitment to invest $350bn in the US, disagreements over the details have bogged down negotiations. Having watched how quickly handshakes at a summit in Washington can turn into handcuffs in an immigration raid in Georgia, public sentiment in Seoul towards the deal is showing signs of hardening. ICE’s operation was a stark reminder that South Korea — despite being America’s Free Trade Agreement (FTA) partner for over a decade — still lacks a dedicated visa category, unlike some of America’s other FTA partners.
It has revived long-held perceptions in Seoul that South Korea is receiving unfair treatment, even as its companies pour investment into US manufacturing on a scale unmatched by FTA partners with dedicated visa categories, such as Singapore, Chile and Australia. The Partner with Korea Act — which would create an E-4 visa category for highly skilled Korean nationals while requiring employers to ensure they are not hired for positions US workers could fill — has languished on Capitol Hill for years, despite being reintroduced in every Congress since 2013. US President Donald Trump’s recent proclamation imposing a steep new fee on H-1B visas only underscored the glaring absence of a dedicated category for South Korean skilled workers.
On September 8, before his trip to the US to meet Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Cho was grilled by lawmakers about the raid. Representative Kim Joon-hyung of the Rebuilding Korea Party pressed the foreign minister, challenging him on why Seoul doesn’t counter by withholding investment. Without offering a clear explanation for why the US is holding South Korea to a “Japan-style” deal, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s comment on the day the detained workers were released that “the Japanese signed the contract. The Koreans either accept that deal or pay the tariffs” did not go over well in Seoul. Lee’s recent remark that US investment demands could trigger another financial crisis in South Korea has deepened domestic concern over the trade talks. In this climate, a debate has emerged over whether Seoul should resist “buying down” the tariff and instead consider swallowing the 25 per cent hit.
A
similar sentiment was voiced by Korean Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan after
his unfruitful meeting with Lutnick in New York after the raid. While he
dismissed questions about the need for continued trade talks with the US, Kim
said, “Some say even if tariffs were raised from 15 to 25 per cent, it would
not be much compared to $350bn, and I also sometimes think of this as an
option”. Kim’s comment reflects a notable view in Seoul that the $350bn could
instead be used to cushion Korean companies harmed by the tariffs. This idea was also
advanced by Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy
Research, who contends that both Seoul and Tokyo would be far better off
spending a fraction of the money Washington demands to support local workers
and businesses hit by tariffs, rather than handing over hundreds of billions
for little in return.
More
South
Korean investment in the US is now in peril
In commodity news.
Copper Prices Jump as Freeport Details Production
Hit from Grasberg Mine Suspension
24 September 2025
Copper prices surged roughly 2% in intraday
trading Wednesday after Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) outlined the significant
production shortfall caused by the suspension of its Grasberg Block Cave mine
in Indonesia following a fatal mud rush.
The mining giant confirmed that operations remain
halted after two workers were killed, while search efforts continue for five
missing employees. Freeport warned that the shutdown will reduce third-quarter
2025 consolidated sales by about 4% for copper and 6% for gold compared to
earlier July projections.
The fourth-quarter impact is expected to be even
more pronounced. Copper and gold output at PT Freeport Indonesia is now
projected to be “insignificant” relative to previous forecasts of 445 million
pounds of copper and 345,000 ounces of gold.
Looking further ahead, the company expects 2026
production at PT Freeport Indonesia to come in roughly 35% below prior
estimates of 1.7 billion pounds of copper and 1.6 million ounces of gold.
Freeport does not anticipate a return to pre-incident production levels until
potentially 2027 under its phased restart plan.
The company said that operations at its Big Gossan
and Deep MLZ mines are expected to resume by mid-fourth quarter, while
Grasberg’s phased restart and ramp-up is scheduled for the first half of 2026.
The disruption comes amid already tight global
copper supplies, helping to push prices higher as the market reacts to the
unexpected production shortfall at one of the world’s largest copper mines.
Copper
Prices Jump as Freeport Details Production Hit from Grasberg Mine Suspension
In other news, AI mania bubbles on.
Sam Altman on OpenAI’s $850 billion in planned
buildouts: ‘People are worried. I totally get that’
Published Wed, Sep 24 2025 12:58 AM EDT
ABILENE, Texas — Sam Altman stood on a
patch of hot Texas dirt, the kind that turns to dust storms on dry days and mud
slicks after a sudden rain. Behind him stretched the outlines of what will soon
be a massive data center complex in the west-central part of the state, where
heavy wind often meets extreme heat.
It was a fitting backdrop for the OpenAI
CEO to unveil what he calls the largest infrastructure push of the modern
internet era: a 17-gigawatt buildout in partnership with Oracle, Nvidia, and SoftBank.
In less than 48 hours, OpenAI has
announced commitments equal to 17 nuclear plants or about nine Hoover Dams. The
plan will require the amount of electricity needed to power more than 13
million U.S. homes.
The scale is staggering, even for a
company that’s raised a record amount of private market cash and seen its
valuation swell to $500 billion. At roughly $50 billion per site, OpenAI’s
projects add up to about $850 billion in spending, nearly half of the $2
trillion global AI infrastructure surge HSBC now forecasts.
Altman understands the concern. But he
rejects the idea that the spending spree is overkill.
“People are worried. I totally get that. I
think that’s a very natural thing,” Altman told CNBC on Tuesday from the site
of the first of its mega data centers in Abilene. “We are growing faster than
any business I’ve ever heard of before.”
Altman insisted that the building boom is in
response to soaring demand, highlighting the tenfold jump in ChatGPT usage over
the past 18 months. He said a network of supercomputing facilities is what’s
required to maximize the capabilities of AI.
“This is what it takes to deliver AI,”
Altman said. “Unlike previous technological revolutions or previous versions of
the internet, there’s so much infrastructure that’s required, and this is a
small sample of it.”
The biggest bottleneck for AI isn’t money
or chips — it’s electricity. Altman has put money into nuclear companies
because he sees their steady, concentrated output as one of the only energy
sources strong enough to meet AI’s enormous demand.
Altman led a $500 million
funding round into
fusion firm Helion Energy to build a demonstration reactor, and backed
Oklo, a fission company
he took public last year through his own SPAC.
Critics warn of a bubble, pointing to how
companies like Nvidia, Oracle, Broadcom and Microsoft have each added
hundreds of billions of dollars in market value on the back of tie-ups with
OpenAI, which is burning cash. Nvidia and Microsoft are now worth a
combined $8.1 trillion, or equal to about 13.5% of the S&P 500.
Skeptics also say the system looks like a
circular financing model. OpenAI is committing hundreds of billions of dollars
to projects that rely on partners like Nvidia, Oracle, and SoftBank. Those
companies are simultaneously investing in the same projects and then getting
paid back through chip sales and data center leases.
More
Sam Altman
OpenAI's $850 billion in planned buildouts, bubble concern
Global
Inflation/Stagflation/Recession Watch.
Given
our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians,
inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Is
Britain on the verge of stagflation? What the OECD warning means
24
September 2025
Rachel
Reeves suffered a fresh headache after OECD forecasts underlined Britain’s
deepening cost of living crisis – with the highest inflation in the G7 –
and sluggish economic growth.
The
report is likely to raise fears of stagflation - where the economy stagnates at
the same time as inflation drives spiralling prices.
It
comes as the Chancellor comes under mounting pressure ahead of November’s Autumn
Budget as
she seeks to fill a black hole of up to £50 billion in the public finances.
Separately,
a closely-watched business survey – the purchasing managers’ index – pointed to
a sharp slowdown in growth this month.
What
is the forecast for the UK economy?
The
Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
predicts that the UK economy will grow by 1.4 per cent this year – a slight
upgrade.
For
2026, the OECD continues to forecast meagre 1 per cent growth.
It
will be a worry for Ms Reeves if the independent Office for Budget
Responsibility (OBR) is equally pessimistic in November’s Budget. In the
spring, it predicted growth of 1.9 per cent for 2026.
The
outlook for UK inflation has been sharply upgraded for this year, from 3.1 per
cent to 3.5 per cent, and for next, from 2.3 per cent to 2.7 per cent.
The
Chancellor said: ‘These figures confirm that the British economy is stronger
than forecast – it has been the fastest growing of any G7 economy in the first
half of the year.
‘But
I know there is more to do to build an economy that works for working people –
and rewards working people.’
What's
going on with inflation?
The
OECD report confirms Britain’s
deepening cost of living problem. It cites the UK as one of a number of
countries particularly badly hit by food inflation – adding to the pain faced
by households doing the weekly shop.
The
forecast means UK continues to face the highest inflation in the G7 this year -
though will fall behind the US in 2026.
Shadow
Chancellor Sir Mel Stride said: ‘The OECD confirms what hard-working families
already feel - under Labour, Britain is in a high tax, high inflation, low
growth doom loop.
‘Rachel
Reeves seems to think the solution is yet more tax rises. The UK is now
teetering on the edge of stagflation, all driven by Labour’s economic
mismanagement.
‘This
should be a wake-up call to the Chancellor: you can't tax your way to growth.”
What
is stagflation and are we at risk?
Stagflation
is the term given to the toxic combination of high inflation and stagnant
growth.
The
Chancellor and the Bank of England are facing an environment of weaker economic
output and above-target inflation.
This
was underscored by a closely-watched survey from S&P Global on Tuesday that
showed private sector output has slowed to its weakest level since May as
higher business costs have sparked ‘subdued’ demand and further job cuts.
The
most recent data from the Office for National Statistics shows the UK economy
grew by 0.2 per cent in the three months to July, slowing from growth rates of
0.3 and 0.6 per cent in the three months to June and May respectively.
Meanwhile,
consumer prices index inflation was 3.8 per cent in August, almost double the
BoE’s target of 2 per cent. Inflation is expected to peak this month or next.
Inflation
in the UK is considerably higher than the 2.9 per cent level in the US, where
growth is at 2.1 per cent. Across the eurozone inflation is 2.1 per cent and
GDP growth is 1.5 per cent.
Market
concerns over inflation in the UK, the size of our borrowing and the lack of
growth to pay for it, have led to longer-term gilt yields rising, with 30-year
gilts topping 5.5 per cent in recent weeks.
More
Is Britain on the verge of stagflation? What the OECD warning means
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue only occasionally when something of interest occurs.
Technology
Update.
With events happening fast in the
development of solar power and graphene, among other things, I’ve added this
section. Updates as they get reported.
Maritime firefighters train on tackling electric vehicle and
battery fires
Mon 22 September 2025 at 11:53 am BST
Firefighters from across the Maritimes
gathered on P.E.I. over the weekend to learn more about combating electric vehicle
fires and blazes caused by lithium-ion batteries.
About 75 firefighters from departments
in Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia began the two-day
training Saturday with a lecture at UPEI. On Sunday, they took part in hands-on
training.
Peter Vandenbroek, with Red Island
Training Days — organized by the P.E.I. Firefighters Association — said EV and
lithium-ion battery fires present unique challenges.
"One of the things we're hearing
with EVs is the large amount of water it takes to extinguish the fires, because
the batteries, when they go into thermal runaway, can… create their own oxygen,
which keeps feeding the fire," Vandenbroek told CBC News.
"And the batteries are underneath
the vehicle, so they're tougher to access, requiring more water to be applied
to the battery pack to cool it down and actually extinguish the fire."
Vandenbroek said there are other
challenges when responding to fires caused by smaller lithium-ion batteries.
"Smaller battery packs, like a
drill battery, are powered by a lot of smaller batteries inside, and when they
catch fire and they explode, the smaller batteries that are inside the packs
can actually spread throughout the house," he said.
"And [they] land on sofas, or beds,
or on their furniture, causing fires in other locations in the house that you
weren't expecting when you first arrived on scene."
A growing threat
Paul Shoemaker, instructor and owner of
Next Level Training Network, has spent 14 years educating in the fire service
and the last eight focusing on lithium-ion batteries. He led the weekend
course.
He said the training addressed both
vehicles on the road and batteries involved in house fires.
"I try to show them videos of not
only scientific things that are coming out to show what lithium-ion batteries
do in a house, but then I also show real-life videos," Shoemaker said.
"Because we're having a lot of
people encounter these fires, not only in cars out on the street, but you know,
scooters, e-bikes inside of a home."
Shoemaker warned that batteries can turn
a regular house fire into a "nightmare" for firefighters as the
flames burn with more intensity, and they also have the side effect of emitting
toxic gases.
"Our bunker gear is not rated for
the intensity of the flames that come off of these things, and the gases that
come off of these things are very, very toxic — super, super nasty for our
lungs, our skin," he said.
"And these gases carry heavy metals
[that] are traced back to cancerous cells that could kill us — maybe not
immediately, [but] maybe end our life earlier."
More
Maritime firefighters train on tackling electric vehicle and battery
fires
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
To contract new debts is not the way to pay old ones.
George Washington
