Baltic Dry Index. 1665 -16 Brent Crude 67.95
Spot Gold 3335 US 2 Year Yield 3.74 -0.01
US Federal Debt. 37.025 trillion
US GDP 30.095 trillion.
The older I get the less I listen to what people say and the more I look at what they do.
Andrew Carnegie
Another day and another attempt to rig US stock casinos higher. Cui bono?
In The Hague, Netherlands, the NATO war party promised to increase war spending to five percent by 2035.
In London, the amoral Socialist Government next week, wants to seriously cut disability benefits to the disabled, presumably to buy more N-bombs and F35s.
Down this road lies endless war and the bankruptcy of the Great Nixonian Error of Fiat Money.
Asia-Pacific markets mostly decline as investors
weigh easing Middle East tensions
Updated Thu, Jun 26 2025 11:43 PM EDT
Asia-Pacific markets mostly declined
Thursday, as investors continued to weigh the ongoing ceasefire between Israel
and Iran.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 1.04% and
the Topix added 0.32%.
South Korea’s Kospi was down 1.81%, while
the small-cap Kosdaq retreated 2%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped
0.21%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index declined
0.72%, and the CSI 300 fell 0.31%.
U.S. futures were relatively
unchanged. S&P 500
futures traded around the flatline, as did Nasdaq 100 futures and
futures tied to the Dow Jones
Industrial Average.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell
maintained a cautious stance on inflation and tariffs during his second day of
Capitol Hill testimony, indicating rate cuts could be considered if the effects
prove temporary.
As he did during his
testimony Tuesday before the House Financial Services Committee,
Powell would not put a timetable on when he thinks further interest rate cuts
will be possible, despite the heavy pressure President Donald Trump has exerted
to get the Fed to cut rates.
Overnight stateside, the three major
averages closed slightly higher. The S&P 500 ended the session
near the flatline at 6,092.16 as investors watched to see if the benchmark
index could return to its all-time high. The Nasdaq Composite added 0.31%
to close at 19,973.55. The Dow
Jones Industrial Average slipped 106.59 points, or 0.25%, settling at
42,982.43.
Asia-Pacific
stock markets today: Live updates
Stock futures are little changed as S&P 500
nears new record high: Live updates
Updated Thu, Jun 26 2025 8:12 PM EDT
Stock futures were relatively unchanged on
Wednesday as the S&P 500 remains
within striking distance of its all-time high.
S&P 500 futures traded
around the flatline, as did Nasdaq
100 futures. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked
up 6 points.
The moves come after the S&P 500 finished
Wednesday’s session flat, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.3%
and the Dow Jones Industrial
Average dropped 106.59 points, or about 0.3%. The three indexes are
still on pace for a positive week, and the S&P 500 remains less than 1%
from its February record.
But some on Wall Street are skeptical that
the recent market momentum will carry on.
“The various macro factors that I’m
looking at seem to suggest that there’s no way this situation can continue,”
Komal Sri-Kumar, president of Sri-Kumar Global Strategies, said on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” Wednesday, citing the
Israel-Iran conflict as well as President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the impact
of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” on the fiscal deficit.
Tensions in the Middle East seemed to be
calming after Trump said Tuesday that a ceasefire
between Israel and Iran was in effect. Though the president accused
both countries of violating the agreement, saying he’s “not happy” with either
of them, the deal has since appeared to hold. The U.S. is planning
to meet with Iran next week.
Investors are also gearing up for May’s
personal consumption expenditures price index reading, due out Friday morning.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday that its preferred inflation
measure is likely
to rise to 2.3%, while the core measure that excludes food and energy is
expected to tick up to 2.6%. That’s up from the
headline reading of 2.1% and 2.5% for the core in April. However,
Powell still stressed that the central bank is committed to keeping inflation
under control in the face of “uncertain” effects of Trump’s tariffs on the
economy.
“You’re going to have a pickup in the rate
of inflation … and I think that is going to be reflected during the second half
of this year, with yields going up,” Sri-Kumar continued. “That is going to be
negative for [the] Nasdaq in particular, and I think [the] S&P is not going
to be free from being attacked by that either.”
Elsewhere on the economic front, investors
are eyeing weekly jobless claims data, which is slated for release at 8:30 a.m.
ET on Thursday.
Wall Street is also looking ahead to other
earnings results. Walgreens is
set to report before the bell Thursday, and Nike is scheduled for release
after the closing bell.
Stock
market today: Live updates
Fed Chair Jerome Powell reveals why interest rates
haven't been cut
June 25, 2025
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell struck
back at President Donald Trump on Tuesday, claiming his sweeping tariff plan is
the main reason he has not lowered interest rates. 'Increases in tariffs this
year are likely to push up prices and weigh on economic activity,' Powell told
members of the House Financial Services Committee.
For the time being, we are well-positioned
to wait to learn more about the likely course of the economy before considering
any adjustments to our policy stance,' the Fed chair testified. Powell has
served atop the Federal Reserve since 2018 and has long caught the ire of the
president, who has recently nicknamed the banker 'Too Late' Powell for not yet
lowering the cost of borrowing.
'We should be at least two to three points
lower. Would save the USA 800 billion dollars per year, plus,' Trump said in a
late-night social media post ripping Powell ahead of his hearing. The president
also called on his GOP lieutenants in Congress to pummel Powell for refusing to
lower interest rates.
'I hope Congress really works this very
dumb, hardheaded person, over. We will be paying for his incompetence for many
years to come.' Several Republican lawmakers took Trump's memo and pressed
Powell on why the central bank has yet to lower interest rates this year.
During a pointed questioning from Rep.
Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., Powell continued to reiterate that Trump's tariffs have
prompted uncertainty over rising inflation. 'The reason we're not is the
forecast by all professional forecasters that I know of on the outside and the
Fed do expect a meaningful increase in inflation over the course of this year,'
he said.
The central bank chairman also conceded
that tariffs may not push inflation up to forecasted levels. In that case, the
Fed would move to quickly reduce rates, Powell testified. A drastic increase in
unemployment could also prompt the bank to lower borrowing costs, he said.
We could see inflation come in not as
strong as we expect,' he said. 'And if that were the case, that would tend to
suggest cutting sooner.' Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., slammed the Fed chair for
being too late in raising interest rates in 2021 when inflation from COVID-19
began to grip the nation.
More
Fed Chair Jerome
Powell reveals why interest rates haven't been cut
Federal Reserve Poised to Hand Wall Street a Big
Gift
June 25, 2025 at 10:51 PM GMT+1
Wall Street is poised to receive a big
gift courtesy of the Federal Reserve. The central bank unveiled plans to roll
back an important capital rule that big banks have complained limits
their ability to hold more Treasuries and act as intermediaries in the $29
trillion market. (The Fed’s announcement confirmed proposed changes to the
rule first reported by Bloomberg
News last week.)
The Fed board voted 5-2 on Wednesday
to propose changes to what’s known as the enhanced supplementary leverage
ratio, which applies to the largest US banks—like Bank of
America, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. The revisions would
reduce holding companies’ capital requirement under the ratio to a range of
3.5% to 4.5% from the current 5%. Their banking subsidiaries would see that
requirement lowered to the same range from 6%.
The proposal followed by a few weeks the
ascent of Michelle Bowman, President Donald Trump’s pick to be the central
bank’s new vice chair for supervision. Bowman’s predecessor,
Governor Michael Barr, objected to the plan, which he said would reduce
bank-level capital by $210 billion for US global systemically important
banks (G-SIB). “Taken together, these changes would significantly increase the
risk that a G-SIB bank would fail, orderly resolution would not be
possible and the Deposit Insurance Fund would incur higher losses,” Barr
said.
Some of the sharpest criticism of the
Fed’s proposal has come from Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts
Democrat who recently wrote a letter to
bank regulators. She called the leverage rule a “critical safeguard” that
promotes financial stability and warned that the economy already faces risks
from Trump’s trade war. —David E. Rovella
Federal Reserve
Poised to Hand Wall Street a Big Gift: Evening Briefing Americas - Bloomberg
More Labour MPs signal rebellion against
Government over welfare reforms
24 June 2025
More Labour MPs have
signalled they are willing to rebel over the Government’s welfare cuts after
Sir Keir
Starmer declared he would “press on” with next week’s vote.
Overall, 134 MPs are now backing an
amendment that would effectively threaten the Government’s proposed changes, an
Order Paper published by Parliament late on Wednesday indicated.
----Further MPs are thought to be
supportive of the motion, but have not signed.
The Government is
faced with the prospect of a major revolt when the welfare Bill comes
before the Commons in a vote set for July 1.
----Speaking on Tuesday from The Hague,
where he is attending the Nato summit, Sir Keir said that a vote on the reforms
are “not a confidence vote” but are about “reforming” the system.
Asked if he would offer concessions to
placate MPs unhappy with the reforms, he told Sky News: “We’re pressing on with
a vote on this because we need to bring about reform.”
----Tory leader Mrs Badenoch said
her party would offer support for the Bill but on the condition that the
Government agree to take steps that “align with our core Conservative
principles”.
She claimed the welfare budget
would need to be slashed further, unemployment would need to come down and “no
new tax rises in the autumn”.
More
Labour MPs signal rebellion against Government over welfare reforms
UK to buy nuclear-carrying fighter jets
25 June 2035
The UK will buy at least 12 F-35 stealth
jets that can carry nuclear warheads in the most significant strengthening of
its nuclear capability in a generation, the government has said.
Sir Keir
Starmer told
a summit of NATO allies in The Hague that the new squadron will join an
alliance mission that can be armed with US nuclear weapons.
The dramatic move will doubtless draw
condemnation and concern from Russia and China.
But it comes at a time of growing global
insecurity - and as the prime minister and his European and Canadian
counterparts scramble to convince Donald Trump they are serious about
bolstering their ability to defend Europe, instead of overly relying on the US.
The US president, a long-standing NATO
sceptic, raised questions about whether he would uphold the
alliance's founding Article 5 principle - that an attack on one is an attack on
all - before he even arrived in the Dutch city last night.
An urgent need to keep Mr Trump on side
has prompted NATO allies to agree to increase spending on defence and national
resilience to a new target of 5% of GDP by 2035.
More
UK
to buy nuclear-carrying fighter jets
In other news.
Cargo ship carrying new vehicles to Mexico sinks
in the North Pacific weeks after catching fire
June 24 2025
Anchorage, Alaska (AP) — A cargo ship that
had been delivering new vehicles to Mexico sank in the North Pacific Ocean,
weeks after crew members abandoned ship when they couldn’t extinguish an
onboard fire that left the carrier dead in the water.
The Morning Midas sank Monday in
international waters off Alaska’s Aleutian Islands chain, the ship’s management
company, London-based Zodiac Maritime, said in a statement.
Anchorage, Alaska (AP) — A cargo ship that
had been delivering new vehicles to Mexico sank in the North Pacific Ocean,
weeks after crew members abandoned ship when they couldn’t extinguish an
onboard fire that left the carrier dead in the water.
The Morning Midas sank Monday in
international waters off Alaska’s Aleutian Islands chain, the ship’s management
company, London-based Zodiac Maritime, said in a statement.
Zodiac Maritime said it is also sending
another specialized pollution response vessel to the location as an added
precaution.
The Coast Guard said it received a
distress alert June 3 about a fire aboard the Morning Midas, which then was
roughly 300 miles (490 kilometers) southwest of Adak Island.
There were 22 crew members onboard the
Morning Midas. All evacuated to a lifeboat and were rescued by a nearby
merchant marine vessel. There were no injuries.
Among the cars were about 70 fully
electric and about 680 hybrid vehicles. A large plume of smoke was initially
seen at the ship’s stern coming from the deck loaded with electric vehicles,
the Coast Guard and Zodiac Maritime said at the time.
Adak is about 1,200 miles (1,930
kilometers) west of Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city.
The 600-foot (183-meter) Morning Midas was
built in 2006 and sails under a Liberian flag. The car and truck carrier left
Yantai, China, on May 26 en route to Mexico, according to the industry site
marinetraffic.com.
A Dutch safety board in a recent report
called for improving emergency response on North Sea shipping routes after a
deadly 2023 fire aboard a freighter that was carrying 3,000 automobiles,
including nearly 500 electric vehicles, from Germany to Singapore.
One person was killed and others injured
in the fire, which burned out of control for a week. That ship was eventually
towed to a Netherlands port for salvage.
Cargo ship carrying new vehicles to Mexico sinks in the North Pacific weeks after catching fire
Morning Midas sinks in Pacific: Were EVs to Blame?
Morning Midas sinks in Pacific: Were EVs to Blame? - YouTube
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.
Graduate
jobs at ‘weakest level since 2018’ as Reeves’ taxes rattle firms
Wednesday
25 June 2025 6:00 am
Graduate
jobs are now at their “weakest level since at least 2018”, fresh data has
suggested, as Chancellor Reeves’ tax hikes on employers have made bosses avoid
hiring junior
workers.
The
UK government has made job creation a crucial part of its efforts to grow the
economy and improve living standards for Brits after years of stagnation.
But
new data analysis by jobs platform Indeed has suggested that job postings have
continued to decline after Reeves’ £20bn hike to employers’ national insurance
contributions (NICs) kicked into effect in April.
Graduate
jobs are now down 12 per cent compared to last June, more than double the
percentage decline in overall job postings.
Indeed
analysts also said the UK was now the only developed country to have job
postings remain below pre-pandemic levels, with levels around 21 per cent below
that seen at the beginning of February 2020.
Job
postings were especially low in HR, marketing and media, according to internal
analysis, while lower vacancy levels were also recorded in the hospitality and
retail sectors.
AI
gains threaten jobs market
Indeed’s
data provides somewhat grimmer reading for Treasury officials than that
published by the Office
for National Statistics (ONS), which said earlier this month that
vacancies in the first quarter of this year were 7.4 per cent below the first
three months of 2020.
The
ONS also revealed that total vacancies were down 16.9 per cent year-on-year,
though Bank
of England officials have
said they were relying on their own estimates to make judgements on monetary
policy given the unreliability of the official stats body’s jobs surveys.
Indeed
also found that businesses were pre-empting radical changes proposed in
the Employment
Rights Bill,
with the share of job postings mentioning zero-hour contracts beginning to
fall.
Fewer
firms were offering work-from-home opportunities, though figures remained high
including in banking and finance despite widespread reports of bosses’ calls
for employees to return to the office.
Jack
Kennedy, senior economist at Indeed, said the job platform’s latest analysis
showed the labour market was seeing “continued gradual softening rather than a
nosedive”.
“Despite
the UK labour market holding out overall, new entrants like graduates face a
challenging time in securing a first rung on the ladder,” Kennedy said.
“This
signals a wider landscape of employers holding onto existing staff, while some
observers contend that entry-level roles in professional occupations are
particularly exposed to AI displacement.”
More
Graduate jobs at ‘weakest level since 2018’ as taxes rattle firms
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue only occasionally when something of interest occurs.
COVID-19 protein
triggers immune attacks on healthy cells — but a common drug can stop it
Date: June 24, 2025
Source: The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem
Summary: Scientists have
uncovered a stealthy tactic used by the SARS-CoV-2 virus: one of its proteins
can leap from infected cells to healthy ones, effectively tricking the immune
system into attacking the body’s own tissues.
A new study reveals that
the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein can spread from infected to uninfected
cells, triggering an immune response that mistakenly targets healthy cells. The
research identifies how this viral protein binds to cell surfaces and shows
that enoxaparin, a common anticoagulant, can block this harmful interaction,
pointing to a potential avenue for treatment. These findings shed light on the
mechanisms behind severe COVID-19 complications and immune-driven tissue
damage.
A new study involving
collaborative efforts of the laboratories of Dr. Alexander Rouvinski, Prof. Ora
Schueler-Furman and Prof. Reuven Wiener, led by PhD students Jamal Fahoum and
Maria Billan from the Faculty of Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
uncovers a surprising mechanism by which the SARS-CoV-2 virus, responsible for
COVID-19, might cause immune-mediated tissue damage by targeting cells it has
never infected. A fruitful collaboration with clinicians: Dr. Dan Padawer, Prof
Dana Wolf and Dr. Orly Zelig and their team members from several departments at
Hebrew University -- Hadassah Medical Center provided the complementary
clinical data necessary for this work. SARS-CoV-2 infection experiments
essential for this research were performed in the recently established high
biocontainment national laboratory, Barry Skolnick Biosafety Level 3 (BSL3)
National Unit at the Core Research Facility at the Faculty of Medicine of the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Published in Cell
Reports, the study demonstrates that the virus's nucleocapsid protein (NP),
best known for its role in packaging viral RNA inside infected cells, is
transferred to neighboring uninfected epithelial cells and attach to their
surfaces. Once present on these otherwise healthy cells, NP is recognized by
the immune system and is targeted by anti-NP antibodies, which mistakenly label
the cells for destruction. This process activates the classical complement
pathway, leading to inflammation and cellular damage that might contribute to
severe COVID-19 outcomes and complications such as long COVID.
More
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.
Modified
perovskite solar cells harvest energy from indoor fluorescent lighting
24 June 2025
When you think of solar panels, you usually picture
giant cells mounted to face the sun. But what if "solar" cells could
be charged using fluorescent lights?
Perovskite solar cells (PeSCs) have emerged as a
lower-cost, higher-efficiency alternative to traditional silicon solar cells
due to their material structure and physical flexibility. Their large power
conversion efficiency rate (PCE), which is the amount of energy created from
the amount of energy hitting the cell, makes PeSCs well suited to converting
lower light sources into energy.
In APL Energy,
researchers from National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taiwan created
perovskite solar cells that effectively convert indoor lighting into electrical
power.
"The most common solar
cells in the market are silicon-based solar panels," said author
Fang-Chung Chen. "However, PeSCs can be made thin, lightweight, flexible,
and even semi-transparent, whereas silicon panels are rigid and heavy, which limits
their use to flat, durable surfaces."
Previous research has shown
that PeSCs can reach power conversion efficiencies comparable to silicon solar
cells, but with the bonus of being able to work indoors. These PeSCs can be
used to charge devices like remote controls, wearable devices, or trackers that
can be connected to the internet.
To make a solar cell able to
convert indoor light to energy, the researchers needed to tune the bandgap of
the composition of the perovskite.
Bandgaps describe the minimum
energy necessary for electrons to jump to higher energy levels, and different
bandgaps can absorb different light wavelengths.
By adjusting the ratios of
the molecules in the solutions used to make the perovskite layers of the solar
cells, the researchers were able to achieve an optimal bandgap for absorbing
indoor light. This bandgap adjustment is not something that can be done in
silicon solar cells.
"The indoor efficiency
of PeSCs is higher, meaning that the photovoltaic products can be more suitable
for versatile user scenarios, including cloudy outdoor, indoor, and other
dim-light environments," said Chen.
"Tuning the bandgap,
unfortunately, accompanies a negative effect: It brings defects in the
perovskite layers," said Chen. "To compensate for the loss in
efficiency, we propose one method for fixing the defects."
Under the one standard sun
illumination (close to 12,000 lux), the team's perovskite cells achieved a PCE
of 12.7%, which, compared to some of the highest PCEs of silicon solar cells of
26%, isn't much. However, the PeSCs displayed an impressive PCE of 38.7% under
2,000 lux, which is a fraction of the light that comes from the sun on a sunny
day and is a similar brightness level to those found in offices.
To Chen's surprise, their
strategy for passivating the perovskite layer, which makes it less susceptible
to corrosion, also improved the overall PeSC's stability.
"In the beginning, we
only expected our approach would improve the device efficiency," said
Chen. "Because the poor reliability of PeSCs is a large challenge for
their adoption, we hope our proposed method can pave the way toward the commercialization
of perovskite solar panels."
Modified perovskite solar cells harvest energy from indoor fluorescent
lighting
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt
Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
I'm not
in Wall Street for my health.
J. P.
Morgan
