Baltic Dry Index. 1340 -01 Brent Crude 64.78
Spot
Gold 3358 U S 2
Year Yield 4.00 unch.
US
Federal Debt. 36.888 trillion!!!
Gold
would have value if for no other reason than that it enables a citizen to
fashion his financial escape from the state.
William
F. Rickenbacker
What part of the
Great Depression doesn’t Tariff Team Trump understand?
At a stroke,
President Trump yesterday just aligned the EU, Apple and China against the USA.
While EU governments
will be slow to react, nothing happens fast in the EUSSR, Europe’s population
will increase their boycott of US products and vacations.
At a stroke,
President Trump just aligned slightly over two billion consumers against US
goods and services. Nothing good for
anyone lies in this economic madness.
Dow
slides 200 points, S&P 500 tumbles for a fourth day after Trump threatens
tariffs on EU, Apple: Live updates
Updated
Fri, May 23 2025 4:34 PM EDT
Stocks
declined Friday after President Donald Trump raised trade fears again,
warning Apple and
recommending stiffer duties on the European Union.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost
256.02 points, or 0.61%, to end at 41,603.07. The S&P 500 shed 0.67% and
closed at 5,802.82, and the Nasdaq
Composite dropped 1% and settled at 18,737.21.
Apple shares fell 3% after
Trump posted on
Truth Social that iPhones sold in the U.S. must be made in the U.S. and if they
are not “a tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple.” The move against
Apple by Trump is the first against a specific company in his tariff rollout
this year.
The
president also said trade
discussions with the EU “are going nowhere” and recommended “a straight 50%
tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025.”
Stocks
came off their lows of the day after CNBC’s Eamon Javers reported the White
House did not interpret Trump’s remarks as a formal statement of
policy.
Trump’s
actions come at a time when tariff tensions were easing. Trump in April
implemented duties on most nations in the world, which rattled the stock market
and nearly put the S&P 500 in a bear market. The president then paused the
stiffest tariffs for 90 days and hatched some preliminary agreements with the
U.K. and China, causing stocks to recover. The S&P 500 got back to even on
the year last week, but was back in negative territory at the end of Friday’s
trading.
Investors
were buying stocks on speculation that more agreements would be rolling out
with various nations during this three-month pause. Friday’s actions by Trump
could mean that hope was misplaced.
“We’ve
had this de-escalation tailwind at the market’s back for like six weeks now —
and the market has had one of its best six-week stretches in the last 75 years
— and a re-escalation of trade war rhetoric threatens that. I don’t think we’ll
retest the lows or anything like that, unless it really ramps up, but this is
certainly a step in the wrong direction from the market’s perspective,” said
Ross Mayfield, investment strategist at Baird, in an interview with CNBC.
Elsewhere,
shares of United States Steel surged
21% after Trump said on Truth Social that the company would form
a “partnership” with Nippon Steel. Earlier this year, the Japanese
company’s bid to buy its U.S. rival had been blocked.
Friday’s
declines added to the market’s weekly losses. The S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq
all lost more than 2% on the week.
Looking
ahead, Rick Wedell, the president and chief investment officer at RFG Advisory
warned that this “roller coaster ride” of de-escalating and re-escalating
tariff tensions is likely to be a permanent fixture of Trump’s second term.
“It
is very important for investors to understand that this lingering trade issue
is likely to be here for, I think, the duration of this administration. I don’t
think they are going to look the other way on trade at any point. I think they
think of this as a defining characteristic of the administration’s legacy is
fixing the international trade deals,” he said. “I would just encourage
investors to never get lulled into a false sense either way.”
Stock
market news for May 23, 2025
Markets
slump as Trump vows 50 per cent tariffs on the EU
Friday 23 May 2025 2:06 pm | Updated: Friday
23 May 2025 4:57 pm
European Union (EU) imports into the US, sending
markets in Europe and the UK into the red.
In a
post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said that the new rate of trade
levies would kick in on 1 June.
The US President slammed the EU as a trading bloc
“which was formed for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United
States on TRADE” and “has been very difficult to deal with.”
“Their powerful Trade Barriers, Vat Taxes,
ridiculous Corporate Penalties, Non-Monetary Trade Barriers, Monetary
Manipulations, unfair and unjustified lawsuits against Americans Companies, and
more, have led to a Trade Deficit with the U.S. of more than $250,000,000 a
year, a number which is totally unacceptable.”
He added: “Our discussions with them are going
nowhere!”
Trump signed off the post with: “Thank you for your
attention in this matter!”
EU tariffs were originally set at
20 per cent in Trump’s initial ‘Liberation Day’ package of tariffs, before
being dropped to ten per cent as the US
President softened almost all global levies weeks later following market
turmoil.
The ten per cent rate of tariffs was intended to
hold until 8 July, when the 90-day pause on higher rates of tariffs is set to
expire.
More
Markets
slump as Trump vows 50 per cent tariffs on the EU
A Trumpian tariff world
turning upside down.
Trump
calls for 50% tariff on EU, says he’s ‘not looking for a deal’ with bloc
Published
Fri, May 23 2025 7:47 AM EDT Updated Fri, May 23 2025 3:30 PM EDT
President Donald Trump on Friday said
he is “recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European
Union” after complaining that trade negotiations have
stalled.
The
steep new import duties would start June 1, Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The
EU “has been very difficult to deal with,” Trump wrote of the 27-nation bloc.
“Our discussions with them are going nowhere!”
Asked
later Friday if he was looking to cut a deal with the EU in the next nine days,
Trump said he was not.
“I
just said, it’s time that we play the game the way I know how to play the
game,” he said during an executive
order signing event at the White House.
“I’m
not looking for a deal,” added Trump, who frequently praises tariffs as a
clutch negotiating tool and a way to bring in federal revenue.
“I
mean, we’ve set the deal. It’s at 50%.”
Trump’s
initial announcement came less than 30 minutes after he threatened to impose
a tariff of at least 25% on Apple’s iPhones if the company
does not start manufacturing
them in the United States.
U.S.
stock futures sank immediately following the posts, which showed the
Republican president once again wielding the threat of massive import taxes in
response to economic activity he disfavors.
European
stock markets fell 2%.
It’s
a reversal in momentum for Trump, who recently touted preliminary trade “deals”
with China and the United
Kingdom and has backed off other
tariff proposals. Markets were encouraged
by those moves, as investors felt relief from the economic uncertainty and
instability Trump’s tariffs had threatened to create.
But
Trump “believes that the EU proposals have not been of the same quality that
we’ve seen from our other important trading partners,” U.S. Treasury Secretary
Scott Bessent said in a Fox News interview Friday morning.
Asked
if the EU will be able to negotiate in the nine days before the 50% tariffs
kick in, Bessent said, “I would hope that this would light a fire under the
EU.”
Meanwhile,
the White House view Friday morning was that the stock market was overreacting
to Trump’s tariff comments, CNBC’s Eamon Javers reported.
The
White House, said Javers, did not interpret the president’s post as a formal
statement of policy.
The
EU was the second-largest purchaser of U.S. exports in 2022, taking in nearly
$351 billion in American goods, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
The
EU’s main executive body, the European Commission, declined CNBC’s request for
comment on Trump’s new tariff threat.
Trump
has long accused Europe of taking unfair advantage of the U.S. through trade.
He announced a blanket 20%
tariff on the EU on April 2 as part of his “reciprocal” tariff plan,
though he quickly revised that duty down to 10%
for 90 days.
Europe
is also dealing with Trump’s sector-specific tariffs, including a 25% levy on
all steel and aluminum imports.
“To
go to 10% was going to be the highest tariff rate that we had on the world in
90 years. To go to 50% is a completely different order of magnitude,” Chicago
Fed President Austan Goolsbee said Friday morning on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“If
they’re putting in place tariffs that have a stagflationary impact, which is to
say they slowed down output by raising the cost of production while also
raising prices, then that’s the Central Bank’s worst situation,” Goolsbee said.
Trump
seeks 50% tariff on EU, says he's not looking for a deal
BYD
beats Tesla in European EV sales despite EU tariffs in 'watershed moment,'
report says
23 May 2025
BYD sold more pure battery electric vehicles in
Europe than Tesla for the first time ever last month — a "watershed
moment" for the region's car market, according to a report from JATO
Dynamics.
New car registrations data from the automotive
intelligence firm shows that BYD's Europe volumes rose 359% in April from last
year as the company continues its global expansion efforts.
Over the same period, Tesla reported yet another
monthly drop, with total volumes down 49%, JATO said. That follows protests against
CEO Elon Musk and the company in the region.
According to Felipe Munoz, global automotive analyst
at JATO, though the difference between the two brands' monthly sales totals is
relatively small, the implications of BYD beating out Tesla "are
enormous."
"This is a watershed moment for Europe's car
market, particularly when you consider that Tesla has led the European BEV
market for years, while BYD only officially began operations beyond Norway and
the Netherlands in late 2022," Munoz said.
JATO added that BYD is also beating well established
European car brands across the region, outselling Fiat and Seat in France, for
example.
That growth comes even before production begins at
its new plant in Hungary, which is expected to become the center of European production
operations.
Tariff
shrug
BYD's success in the EU comes despite the
economic bloc's imposition of
punitive tariffs on battery EVs made in China last October. It attributed the
move to unfair trade practices.
The punitive tariffs appeared to be favorable to
Tesla, assigning its made-in-China vehicles a 7.8% duty compared with BYD's
17%. Other Chinese EV makers were given tariffs as high as about 35%. The EU
also has a standard 10% car import duty.
JATO's report said that while tariffs had an initial
impact on the sales of Chinese automakers, the companies have mitigated it by
expanding and diversifying their European line-ups with the introduction of
plug-in hybrids.
"China is not only the world leader in BEVs;
its automakers are global leaders in plug-in hybrid vehicles too," Munoz
said.
Battery EVs run entirely on electricity, while
hybrid vehicles combine an electric battery with an internal combustion engine.
Hybrid vehicles have not yet been targeted by EU tariffs.
More
BYD beats Tesla in European EV sales despite EU tariffs in 'watershed
moment,' report says
Global
Inflation/Stagflation/Recession Watch.
Given our Magic Money
Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation/recession now needs an entire
section of its own.
America's
most powerful banker Jamie Dimon stuns with warning US faces something worse
than recession
23
May 2025
America's
most powerful banker has warned that the US economy faces a greater threat than
a recession.
JPMorgan
Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has warned that the threat of stagflation could still
strike the US economy.
Stagflation
is the combination of economic stag-nation and in-flation. Prices
continue to soar at the same time as unemployment rises and economic growth
slows - a triple whammy of problems.
Economists
consider stagflation, last seen in the US in the 1970s, to
be worse than a recession.
It
would send stocks down, hitting 401(K)s and other retirement savings.
In
contrast during a recession, unemployment increases and the economy shrinks -
but the silver lining is that there is little or no inflation.
'There's
a chance that (we'll) have stagflation (in the US),' Dimon told Bloomberg on
Thursday.
Dimon
said while he was not making a certain prediction, 'we have to be prepared for
something like that.'
'Global
fiscal deficits are inflationary. I think the remilitarization of the world is
inflationary. The restructuring of trade is inflationary,' he said during the
TV interview.
At
JPMorgan's annual investor's day on Monday, Dimon said that the chances of
stagflation returning are probably twice that of what others have projected.
The
billionaire also said that markets were showing an 'extraordinary
amount of complacency' in the face of the economic threats of Trump's
tariffs.
Dimon
said the full effect of Trump's aggressive trade policies have yet to be
felt.
Dimon
is not alone, with a host of major
economists also warning that stagflation could return.
'Directionally,
it is stagflation,' Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, warned
back in March.
'It's
higher inflation and weaker economic growth that is the result of policy -
tariff policy and immigration policy.'
This
is not the first time Dimon has warned that the
US economy is in peril in recent months.
Last
month the banker predicted that the economy was likely headed towards a
recession.
'Whether
or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will
slow down growth,' Dimon told investors.
Dimon has
run JPMorgan Chase, the largest US bank, for 19 years and is one of the most
prominent voices in corporate America.
The
bank, which has prominent retail as well as investment arms, has become the
world's biggest and most powerful bank with $4 trillion in assets
under Dimon.
The
banker has a net worth of $2.5 billion, according to Forbes.
Technology
Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
A newly discovered type of superconductor is also a magnet
May 22, 2025
Magnets and superconductors go together like oil and water—or so
scientists have thought. But a new finding by MIT physicists is challenging
this century-old assumption.
In a paper appearing in
the journal Nature, the physicists report that they have discovered
a "chiral superconductor"—a material that conducts electricity
without resistance, and also, paradoxically, is intrinsically magnetic. What's
more, they observed this exotic superconductivity in a surprisingly ordinary
material: graphite, the primary material in pencil lead.
Graphite is made from many layers of graphene—atomically thin,
lattice-like sheets of carbon atoms—that are stacked together and can easily
flake off when pressure is applied, as when pressing down to write on a piece
of paper. A single flake of graphite can contain several million sheets of
graphene, which are normally stacked such that every other layer aligns. But
every so often, graphite contains tiny pockets where graphene is stacked in a
different pattern, resembling a staircase of offset layers.
The MIT team has found that when four or five sheets of graphene
are stacked in this "rhombohedral" configuration, the resulting
structure can exhibit exceptional electronic properties that are not seen in
graphite as a whole.
In their new study, the physicists isolated microscopic flakes of
rhombohedral graphene from graphite, and subjected the flakes to a battery of
electrical tests. They found that when the flakes are cooled to 300
millikelvins (about -273 degrees Celsius), the material turns into a
superconductor, meaning that any electrical current passing through the
material can flow through without resistance.
They also found that when they swept an external magnetic field up
and down, the flakes could be switched between two different superconducting
states, just like a magnet. This suggests that the superconductor has some
internal, intrinsic magnetism. Such switching behavior is absent in other
superconductors.
"The general lore is that superconductors do not like
magnetic fields," says Long Ju, assistant professor of physics at MIT.
"But we believe this is the first observation of a superconductor that
behaves as a magnet with such direct and simple evidence. And that's quite a
bizarre thing because it is against people's general impression of
superconductivity and magnetism."
Ju is senior author of the study, which includes MIT co-authors
Tonghang Han, Zhengguang Lu, Zach Hadjri, Lihan Shi, Zhenghan Wu, Wei Xu,
Yuxuan Yao, Jixiang Yang, Junseok Seo, Shenyong Ye, Muyang Zhou, and Liang Fu,
along with collaborators from Florida State University, the University of Basel
in Switzerland, and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan.
Graphene twist
In everyday conductive materials, electrons flow through in a
chaotic scramble, whizzing by each other, and pinging off the material's atomic
latticework. Each time an electron scatters off an atom, it has—in essence—met
some resistance, and loses some energy as a result, normally in the form of
heat. In contrast, when certain materials are cooled to ultracold temperatures,
they can become superconducting, meaning that the material can allow electrons
to pair up, in what physicists term "Cooper pairs."
Rather than scattering away, these electron pairs glide through a
material without resistance. With a superconductor, then, no energy is lost in
translation.
Since superconductivity was first observed in 1911, physicists
have shown many times that zero electrical resistance is a hallmark of a
superconductor. Another defining property was first observed in 1933, when the
physicist Walther Meissner discovered that a superconductor will expel an
external magnetic field. This "Meissner effect" is due in part to a
superconductor's electron pairs, which collectively act to push away any
magnetic field.
Physicists have assumed that all superconducting materials should
exhibit both zero electrical resistance, and a natural magnetic repulsion.
Indeed, these two properties are what could enable magnetic levitation (Maglev)
trains, whereby a superconducting rail repels and therefore levitates a
magnetized car.
Ju and his colleagues had no reason to question this assumption as
they carried out their experiments at MIT. In the last few years, the team has
been exploring the electrical properties of pentalayer rhombohedral graphene.
The researchers have observed surprising properties in the five-layer,
staircase-like graphene structure; most recently, that it enables
electrons to split into fractions of themselves. This
phenomenon occurs when the pentalayer structure is placed atop a sheet of
hexagonal boron nitride (a material similar to graphene), and slightly offset
by a specific angle, or twist.
Curious as to how electron fractions might change with changing
conditions, the researchers followed up their initial discovery with similar
tests, this time by misaligning the graphene and hexagonal boron nitride
structures. To their surprise, they found that when they misaligned the two
materials and sent an electrical current through, at temperatures less than 300
millikelvins, they measured zero resistance. It seemed that the phenomenon of
electron fractions disappeared, and what emerged instead was superconductivity.
The researchers went a step further to see how this new
superconducting state would respond to an external magnetic field. They applied
a magnet to the material, along with a voltage, and measured the electrical
current coming out of the material. As they dialed the magnetic field from
negative to positive (similar to a north and south polarity) and back again,
they observed that the material maintained its superconducting, zero-resistance
state, except in two instances, once at either magnetic polarity.
In these instances, the resistance briefly spiked, before
switching back to zero, and returning to a superconducting state.
More
A newly discovered
type of superconductor is also a magnet
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
This
weekend’s music diversion. Approx. 5 minutes.
Johann
Baptist Vanhal, Orgelkonzert F Dur I. Allegro moderato
Johann Baptist
Vanhal, Orgelkonzert F Dur I. Allegro moderato
This
weekend’s tariff and shipping diversion. Approx. 12 minutes.
U.S.
BIGGEST PORT COLLAPSE: Port of Los Angeles SHUTDOWN — 2.7 Million Jobs at Risk
U.S. BIGGEST PORT COLLAPSE:
Port of Los Angeles SHUTDOWN — 2.7 Million Jobs at Risk - YouTube
Finally,
English city names explained. Approx. 26 minutes.
The
origin of every English city's name
The origin of
every English city's name
With the exception only of the period of the gold standard,
practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue
money to defraud and plunder the people.
Friedrich August von Hayek
No comments:
Post a Comment