Baltic
Dry Index. 1877 -12 Brent
Crude 60.64
Spot
Gold 4562 Spot Silver 79.67
U
S 2 Year Yield 3.46 -0.01
US
Federal Debt. 38.460 trillion US GDP 30.667 trillion
The
advocates of public control cannot do without inflation. They need it in order
to finance their policy of reckless spending and of lavishly subsidizing and
bribing the voters.
Ludwig von Mises
It is the last
weekend of 2025. Next Thursday comes 2026.
Will it be boom or bust
for AI and stocks in 2026?
Where will gold,
silver and copper prices top out? Look away from that silver price now. Dinosaur Graeme can remember when silver traded below $1.30.
Will Germany, the
sick economy of Euroland ,drag the rest of the EU into recession?
Will President Trump
finally get to pack the US central bank with yes men?
We will all too
likely, relatively quickly, find out.
Asia
markets edge higher amid holiday-thinned trade; gold and silver hit fresh highs
Published
Thu, Dec 25 2025 6:50 PM EST Updated Fri, Dec 26 2025 2:49 AM EST
Asia-Pacific
markets traded higher Friday, with several exchanges in the region closed for
the Boxing Day holiday, while precious metals continued their rally for the
year.
Spot gold rose as much as 1% to
hit a record high of $4,530 per ounce Friday. The metal was last trading at
$4,508 per ounce as of 3.45 p.m. Singapore time (2.45 a.m. EST).
Silver prices also continued
rising following Wednesday’s record, adding more than 3% on Friday to reach an
all-time high of $75.1 per ounce.
Gold
has rallied over 71% so far this year, while silver is up 158% in the same
period. Metal prices have soared this year amid shaky investor sentiment on
riskier assets, as fears of an AI bubble and uncertainty over U.S. Fed rate
cuts mount.
Japan’s
benchmark Nikkei 225 index
rose 0.68% to close at 50,750.39, led by gains in tech stocks, while the Topix
was up 0.15% to 3,423.06. Tech giant SoftBank was among the
top movers, climbing 1.8% to snap a three-session losing streak. Semiconductor
testing equipment supplier Advantest advanced 2.27%, and chip equipment maker
Lasertec added 2.18%.
Core
consumer prices in Tokyo rose 2.3% in December from a year earlier, according
to government data Friday. The core CPI, which strips out volatile fresh food
costs, remained above the Bank of Japan’s 2% target, reinforcing the case for
more interest rate hikes.
The
latest reading was below the 2.5% rise expected by economists polled by Reuters
and the 2.8% increase in November. Tokyo’s inflation numbers are widely
considered to be a leading indicator of nationwide trends.
South
Korea’s Kospi index added 0.51% to close at 4,129.68, and the small-cap Kosdaq
advanced 0.49% to 919.67. Index heavyweight Samsung Electronics rose more than
5%, recovering losses from the previous trading session.
China’s
CSI 300 rose 0.32% to 4,657.24.
India’s
Nifty 50 fell 0.41%, and the BSE Sensex declined 0.45%.
Australia
and Hong Kong markets were closed for the holiday.
U.S.
equity futures ticked slightly higher at the end of Asian trading hours, after
the S&P 500 closed at a new record for the second straight day on Wednesday
stateside.
The
broad market index advanced 0.32%, ending the session at 6,932.05. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained
288.75 points, or 0.60%, and also posted a closing record of 48,731.16.
The Nasdaq Composite advanced
0.22% and settled at 23,613.31.
Asia-Pacific
markets: Boxing Day holiday, Nikkei 225, Kospi, CSI 300
Wall St Week Ahead S&P
500 eyes 7,000 mark as investors look for upbeat end to strong 2025
December 26, 2025 11:03 AM GMT
NEW YORK, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Investors are looking
for the U.S. stock market to end 2025 on a high note next week, with equities
at record peaks and nearing further bullish milestones to close out another
strong year.
Major U.S. indexes were on course to end December
higher after stocks shook off turbulence earlier in the month driven by
weakness in technology shares over worries tied to spending on artificial
intelligence.
The S&P 500 (.SPX), opens
new tab posted
a record close on Wednesday, ahead of the Christmas holiday on Thursday,
and was about 1% from reaching the 7,000 level for the first time. The
benchmark index was on track for its eighth straight month of gains, which
would be its longest monthly winning streak since 2017-2018.
"Momentum is certainly on the side of the
bulls," said Paul Nolte, senior wealth adviser and market strategist at
Murphy & Sylvest Wealth Management. "Barring any exogenous event, the
path of least resistance for stocks, I think, is higher."
Minutes from the Federal Reserve's most recent
meeting highlight the market events in the holiday-shortened week ahead, while
year-end portfolio adjustments could cause some volatility at a time when light
trading volumes can exaggerate asset price moves.
Heading into the new year, investors are highly
focused on when the Fed might further cut interest rates. The U.S. central
bank, which balances goals of contained inflation and full employment, lowered
its benchmark rate by 75 basis points over its last three meetings of 2025 to
the current level of 3.50%-3.75%.
But the Fed's most recent vote at its December 9-10
meeting to lower rates by a quarter percentage point was divided, while
policymakers also gave widely different projections about rates in the coming
year. The minutes for that meeting, due to be released on Tuesday of next week,
may be "illuminating to hear what some of the arguments were around the
table," said Michael Reynolds, vice president of investment strategy at
Glenmede.
"Handicapping how many rate cuts we're going to
get next year is a big thing markets are focused on right now," Reynolds
said. "We'll just get a little bit more information on that next
week."
Investors are also waiting for President Donald Trump to
nominate a Fed chair to replace Jerome Powell, whose term ends in May, and any
inkling of Trump's decision could sway markets in the coming week.
With just a handful of trading sessions left in
2025, the S&P 500 was up nearly 18% for the year, with the technology-heavy
Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), opens new tab up 22%.
However, the tech sector, which has been the main
driver of the more than three-year-old bull market, has struggled in recent
weeks, while other areas of the market have shined. Despite rebounding this
week, the S&P 500 tech sector (.SPLRCT),
opens new tab has declined more than 3% since the start of November.
Over that time, areas such as financials (.SPSY),
opens new tab, transports (.DJT), opens
new tab, healthcare (.SPXHC),
opens new tab and small caps (.RUT), opens
new tab have posted solid gains.
The market moves indicate some rotation into areas
where valuations are more moderate, said Anthony Saglimbene, chief market
strategist at Ameriprise Financial.
"There are more investors that are buying in to
the narrative that the economy is on pretty solid footing right now,"
Saglimbene said. "And it has weathered a lot of potential roadblocks this
year that might not be such roadblocks next year."
Wall St Week Ahead S&P 500 eyes 7,000 mark as investors look for upbeat end to strong 2025 | Reuters
In other news.
As
A.I. Companies Borrow Billions, Debt Investors Grow Wary
Artificial
intelligence companies looking to raise funds are being made to pay lofty
interest rates, as debt investors become cautious.
Dec. 26, 2025
Investors in the A.I.-fueled stock market have
largely shrugged off warnings about a tech bubble, an optimism that has pushed
up share prices to repeated new highs this year.
But the debt market is telling a different story,
some investors say. New artificial intelligence companies looking to raise
funds to supercharge their nascent businesses are being made to pay lofty
interest rates on the money they borrow, indicative of investors’ skepticism
when new, unproven A.I. businesses take on large debts.
In one debt deal for Applied Digital, a data center
builder, the company had to pay as much as 3.75 percentage points above
similarly rated companies, equivalent to roughly 70 percent more in interest.
There are other indicators of debt investors’
wariness: Some of the bonds have tumbled in price after being issued, in a sign
of increased caution among investors. And the cost of credit default swaps,
which protect bond investors from losses, has surged in recent months on some
A.I. companies’ debt.
Construction delays at these sprawling data
facilities could push out the time it takes before they can start generating
revenue from their leases to A.I. companies. Investors also worry that, in the
end, there could be less demand for A.I. computing power, creating a glut of
unneeded data centers and leading to defaults on the debt used to finance the
buildings.
“We just have to be much more pessimistic and not
buy into the hype,” said Will Smith, a portfolio manager at AllianceBernstein.
Debt investors are stereotypically seen as
pessimists, while stock investors are viewed as optimists. That is largely
because of the difference between the two types of investments. Equity
investors have unlimited upside for a company and its stock price to grow and
keep rewarding their investment. Debt investors are just looking to get their
money back with interest.
“The equity market stands to benefit from a lot of
upside if this works well, so they are willing to take a lot of risk because of
the upside,” Mr. Smith said. “For us, it’s different. If everything goes really
well, we don’t benefit from that upside, so we are much more focused on the
downside.”
Companies looking to finance the next leg of A.I.
infrastructure have borrowed more than $100 billion this year, according to
data from Refinitiv. Much of that has come from highly rated, well-known
technology companies that are also sitting on a lot of cash. For example,
Amazon raised $15 billion at market rates in November as it ramped up its
capital investment in Amazon Web Services.
More
As
A.I. Companies Borrow Billions, Debt Investors Grow Wary - The New York Times
Monetizers vs manufactures: How the AI market
could splinter in 2026
Published Thu, Dec 25 2025 12:06 AM EST
The AI market is tipped to splinter in
2026.
The last three months of 2025 were a
rollercoaster of tech sell-offs and rallies, as circular deals, debt issuances,
and high valuations fueled concerns over an AI bubble.
Such volatility may be an early sign
of how AI investment is set to evolve as investors pay closer attention to who
is spending money and who is making it, according to Stephen
Yiu, chief investment officer at Blue Whale Growth Fund.
Investors, especially retail investors who
are exposed to AI through ETFs, typically have not differentiated between
companies with a product but no business model, those burning cash to fund
AI infrastructure, or those on the receiving end of AI spending, Yiu told
CNBC.
So far, “every company seems to be
winning,” but AI is in its early innings, he said. “It’s
very important to differentiate” between different types of companies,
which is “what the market might start to do,” Yiu added.
He sees three camps: private
companies or startups, listed AI spenders and AI
infrastructure firms.
The first group, which includes OpenAI and
Anthropic, lured $176.5 billion in venture capital in the first three
quarters of 2025, per PitchBook data. Meanwhile, Big
Tech names such as Amazon, Microsoft and Meta are the ones cutting
checks to AI infrastructure providers such as Nvidia and Broadcom.
Blue Whale Growth Fund measures
a company’s free cash flow yield, which is the amount of money a
company generates after capital expenditure, against its stock price, to figure
out whether valuations are justified.
Most companies within the Magnificent 7
are “trading a significant premium” since they started heavily investing in AI,
Yiu said.
“When I’m looking at valuations in
AI, I would not want to position — even though I believe in how
AI is going to change the world — into the AI spenders,” he added,
adding that his firm would rather be “on the receiving end” as AI spending is
set to further impact company finances.
The AI “froth” is “concentrated in
specific segments rather than across the broader market,” Julien Lafargue,
chief market strategist at Barclays Private Bank and Wealth
Management, told CNBC.
The bigger risk lies with
companies that are securing investment from the AI bull run but are yet to
generate earnings — “for example,
some quantum computing-related companies,” Lafargue said.
“In these cases, investor positioning
seems driven more by optimism than by tangible results,” he added, saying
that “differentiation is key.”
More
How the AI market
could splinter in 2026
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.
US
weekly jobless claims fall, but more people collecting unemployment checks
December
24, 2025 2:54 PM GMT
WASHINGTON,
Dec 24 (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new applications for jobless
benefits unexpectedly fell last week, consistent with a low level of layoffs,
but the unemployment rate likely remained high in December amid sluggish
hiring.
Initial
claims for state unemployment benefits dropped for a second straight week,
declining by 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 214,000 for the week ended
December 20, the Labor Department said on Wednesday.
Economists
polled by Reuters had forecast 224,000 claims for the latest week. The Labor
Department published the report a day early because of the Christmas Day
holiday. Part of the surprise decline in applications could reflect challenges
adjusting the data for seasonal fluctuations around the year-end holiday
season.
"Unless
companies actually fire workers, the economy will continue to move forward at a
moderate pace," said Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS.
The
labor market remains locked in what economists and policymakers describe as a
"no hire, no fire" mode.
Though
the economy remains resilient, with gross domestic
product increasing
at its fastest pace in two years in the third quarter, the labor market has
almost stalled. Economists say President Donald Trump's import tariffs and
immigration crackdown have impacted labor demand and supply.
The
data had little effect on U.S. financial markets during a holiday-shortened
session.
The
number of people receiving unemployment benefits after an initial week of aid,
a proxy for hiring, increased 38,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.923 million
during the week ended December 13, the claims report showed.
The
so-called continued claims covered the period during which the government
surveyed households to calculate December's unemployment rate. Continued claims
fell marginally between the November and December survey weeks.
The
elevated continued claims aligned with a survey from the Conference Board on
Tuesday showing consumers'
perceptions of
the labor market deteriorated this month to levels last seen in early 2021. The
unemployment rate increased to a four-year high of 4.6% in November, though
part of the rise was because of technical factors related to the 43-day
government shutdown.
The
record-long shutdown prevented data collection for October's unemployment rate.
The Federal Reserve this month cut its benchmark
overnight interest
rate by another 25 basis points to the 3.50% to 3.75% range, but signaled
borrowing costs were unlikely to fall in the near term as policymakers await
clarity on the direction of the labor market and inflation.
"Continued
claims remain at a level consistent with a slow pace of hiring but aren't
sending a signal that hiring conditions have gotten worse," said Nancy
Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.
US weekly jobless
claims fall, but more people collecting unemployment checks | Reuters
Germany’s
multiyear recession will only fade slowly in 2026, Bundesbank warns
Central
bank dashes hopes of strong recovery from debt-funded spending spree
Published
Dec 19 2025
Germany’s
economy will only slowly emerge from a multiyear recession, the Bundesbank has
warned in a forecast that dashes hopes of a quick recovery driven by Berlin’s
debt-funded spending spree.
The
central bank on Friday lowered its 2026 growth forecast by 0.1 percentage
points to 0.6 per cent. While it raised its 2027 prediction by the same amount
to 1.3 per cent, it warned that the risks to its updated GDP forecast “are
tilted more to the downside”.
The
new outlook suggests that Germany’s GDP will only rise back to its
pre-recession levels by late 2026.
Private-sector economists, investors and the
German government had hoped that the €1tn in additional investment and defence
spending would reinvigorate Europe’s largest economy that has been stuck in a
rut since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The
Bundesbank prediction excludes positive effects of a higher number of working
days next year that is set to lift reported GDP by another 0.3 percentage
points to 0.9 per cent. This number is lower than the government’s forecast of
1.3 per cent, which includes the effects from additional working days.
The
government deficit is set to almost double from 2.5 per cent this year to 4.8
per cent in 2028, with Germany’s debt burden set to rise from 62 per cent
to 68 per cent. The annual deficit in 2028 would be the highest level
since Germany’s reunification in the 1990s, exceeding even the global financial
crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Non-wage
labour costs will shoot up almost a tenth over the coming three years to an
all-time high of 44.5 per cent of payrolls, driven by rising healthcare and
welfare costs that threaten to further undermine the competitiveness of German
manufacturers.
While
the Bundesbank acknowledged “initial signs of increasing government orders” it
flagged that indicators did not yet point to an “early and noticeable boost to
economic activity from higher public spending”.
Simultaneously,
inflation will fall more slowly than previously expected. At 2.3 per cent this
year and 2.2 per cent in 2026, it is expected to hover above the ECB’s
medium-term target of 2 per cent for the wider euro area, mainly because of
wage pressures.
Germany
has been “clearly in a recession since the end of 2022” and even fell back into
contraction over the second and third quarters of this year, the central bank
said.
It
warned that Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s borrowing spree would boost German
potential growth only by 0.35 to 0.5 percentage points because some €250bn of
the new debt was poised to be used to fund the welfare budget, tax cuts and
other day-to-day expenditures rather than infrastructure investment.
“The
long-term growth effects — the effects on the production potential of the
German economy — are therefore very limited up to 2028 and remain limited
beyond that,” the Bundesbank said.
Germany’s
multiyear recession will only fade slowly in 2026, Bundesbank warns
Technology
Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
One small change in battery design could reduce fires, researchers
say
December 23, 2025
Lithium-ion batteries are found in
everything from smartphones to cars, and while they are generally very safe if
stored and charged correctly, there are thousands of documented cases of them
catching fire — sometimes with deadly consequences.
Lithium-ion batteries contain flammable
electrolytes — liquid solutions of lithium salts dissolved in organic solvents
that allow the electric charge to flow. The batteries can become unstable under
certain conditions, such as physical damage like piercing, overcharging,
extreme temperatures or manufacturing defects. When things go wrong, a battery
can heat up and catch fire very rapidly, undergoing a dangerous chain reaction
called a “thermal runaway.”
Commercial aviation is especially
exposed to the problem, because of how ubiquitous battery-powered gadgets are on planes and how
dangerous a fire in the cabin or cargo hold can be. In the US, the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA) has long prohibited carrying spare lithium-ion batteries in
checked baggage and mandates that all batteries brought into the cabin must
remain accessible. The agency recorded 89
battery incidents involving smoke, fire or extreme
heat on passenger and cargo aircraft in 2024, and 38 in the first half of 2025.
These incidents can lead to the total loss of an aircraft,
like the Airbus A321 that was gutted by flames in January in Busan, South Korea.
The fire was likely started by a power bank stored in an overhead compartment,
according to investigators, which has led some airlines to ban the devices.
But the risks of thermal runaways extend to homes, particularly vulnerable to e-bike or e-scooter
battery fires, and businesses of all kinds: a survey conducted by insurance provider Aviva in 2024,
among over 500 UK businesses found that just over half had experienced an
incident linked to lithium-ion batteries, such as sparking, fires and
explosions.
Researchers all over the world are
working to solve the problem by developing safer
batteries, for example by replacing the
liquid electrolyte with a more fire-resistant solid or gel. However, such
solutions require significant changes to current production lines, an obstacle
to widespread adoption.
Now, a team of researchers from The
Chinese University of Hong Kong has proposed a change in lithium-ion battery
design that could rapidly integrate into current manufacturing methods, because
it simply involves swapping chemicals in the existing electrolyte solution.
The method was detailed earlier this
year in a study led by Yue Sun, now a postdoctoral fellow at
Virginia Tech: “I think the most difficult thing for people to realize about
batteries is that when you try to optimize performance, sometimes you
compromise safety,” she said, explaining that increasing performance requires a
focus on chemical reactions that happen at room temperature, while increasing
safety focuses on reactions that happen at high temperatures.
“So we came up with an idea to break
this trade off by designing a temperature-sensitive material, which can provide
a good performance at room temperature, but can also offer good stability at
high temperatures.”
More
One small change in battery design could reduce fires, researchers say |
CNN
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
Exponent
Calculator
Enter
values into any two of the input fields to solve for the third.
This
weekend’s music diversion, Handel composes for an organ again. Approx. 10
minutes.
Georg
Friedrich Händel Organ Concerto Opus IV No 4
Georg Friedrich
Händel Organ Concerto Opus IV No 4
Next,
more forgotten British maths history. Approx. 17 minutes
Computer
Science's Wonder Woman: Ada Lovelace - Computerphile
Computer Science's
Wonder Woman: Ada Lovelace - Computerphile
Finally,
how Admiral Nelson won at Trafalgar. Approx. 34 minutes.
Nelson's
Battles in 3D: Trafalgar
Nelson's Battles
in 3D: Trafalgar
Liberty is meaningless if it is only the liberty to agree with
those in power.
Ludwig von Mises
