Baltic Dry Index. 1738 +58 Brent Crude 69.49
Spot Gold 3372 US 2 Year Yield 3.94 -0.07
US Federal Debt. 36.967 trillion
US GDP 30.066 trillion.
If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking.
Benjamin Franklin
According to President Trump, the USA won!
Trump said earlier in a Truth Social post that the deal with China was “done, subject to final approval with President Xi and me.”
U.S.
President Donald Trump on
Wednesday said China will supply rare earths up front to the U.S. as part of a
trade agreement.
The relationship between the world’s two largest economies is “done,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, while adding, “WE ARE GETTING A TOTAL OF 55% TARIFFS, CHINA IS GETTING 10%.”
In the Asian stock casinos, the punters aren’t so sure.
Why would President Xi supply “up front” rare earths to America in exchange for a mere promise that the unpredictable President Trump might roll back some semi-conductor restrictions and perhaps allow a few pre-screened Chinese students to attend a few US universities?
President Trump, “after you”. President Xi, “no after you”. Tomorrow, why China won.
Oil surges on news Israel is about to attack Iran. Another oil shock if it does?
Asia-Pacific
markets trade mixed as investors assess Trump claims of 'done' deal with China
Updated
Thu, Jun 12 2025 11:53 PM EDT
Asia-Pacific
markets traded mixed as investors assessed U.S. President Donald Trump’s
declaration that a trade deal with China was “done.”
Chinese
imports would invite 55% tariffs, Trump suggested. Commerce Secretary Howard
Lutnick confirmed that tariffs on China will stay at that level.
Japan’s
benchmark Nikkei 225 was
down 0.58% while the broader Topix fell 0.24%. South Korea’s Kospi climbed
0.83%, and the small-cap Kosdaq rose 0.79%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was flat.
Hong
Kong’s Hang Seng index fell
0.51%, and mainland China’s CSI 300 was flat.
India’s
Nifty 50 added 0.11% at the open.
U.S.
stock futures fell as traders weighed a preliminary U.S.-China trade
agreement and new inflation data. S&P 500 futures traded
down 0.2%, along with Nasdaq
100 futures. Futures tied
to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were also lower by 72 points, or 0.2%.
These
moves come after U.S. consumer prices rose less than expected in May. The consumer
price index climbed 0.1% for the month, compared with the Dow Jones
forecast for a 0.2% rise. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, also
rose less than expected.
Overnight
stateside, all three key benchmarks closed lower. The market’s recent run
higher took a breather as major indexes ended the session near previous closing
levels.
Trump said
earlier in a Truth Social post that the deal with China was “done,
subject to final approval with President Xi and me.”
As part
of the deal framework, he said that magnets and “any necessary rare earths”
will be supplied up front by China and the U.S. will allow Chinese students to
attend U.S. colleges and universities, adding that “WE ARE GETTING A TOTAL OF
55% TARIFFS, CHINA IS GETTING 10%.”
That
didn’t excite stock or bond investors, Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni
Research wrote in a note published Thursday. “Perhaps, they were unsettled that
Trump also said he is less confident that Iran will agree to stop uranium
enrichment in a nuclear deal with Washington,” he said.
Equities
pulled back as the market considered the reality of much higher tariffs being
here to stay, said ANZ economists in a note.
Asia-Pacific
markets today live: Trump-China deal, Thailand CPI
Trump says China
will supply rare earths in ‘done’ deal
Published
Wed, Jun 11 2025 8:22 AM EDT Updated Wed, Jun 11 2025 2:54 PM EDT
U.S.
President Donald Trump on
Wednesday said China will supply rare earths up front to the U.S. as part of a
trade agreement.
The
relationship between the world’s two largest economies is “done,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, while adding, “WE ARE
GETTING A TOTAL OF 55% TARIFFS, CHINA IS GETTING 10%.”
He added
that magnets and “any necessary rare earths” will be supplied up front by China
and that the U.S. will in turn make certain concessions such as allowing
Chinese students to attend U.S. colleges and universities.
The
agreement is subject to final approval with himself and China President Xi Jinping, the U.S. president
said, adding he intends to work closely with Xi to open up China to American
trade, describing the prospect as “a great WIN for both countries!!!”
Representatives
from both sides had on Tuesday revealed that a deal had been reached on
trade after a second day of high-level talks in London.
“We have
reached a framework to implement the Geneva consensus and the call between the
two presidents,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters.
That
echoed comments to reporters from Li Chenggang, China’s international trade
representative and a vice minister at China’s Commerce Ministry.
Rare
earth elements and magnets widely used by the automotive and defense sectors
emerged as a key sticking point between the world’s two largest economies.
China’s
Ministry of Commerce in early April imposed export restrictions on
strategically important minerals in response to Trump’s tariff increase on
Beijing’s exported products.
Both
sides had accused each other of reneging on a preliminary trade deal struck in
Switzerland last month. Investors, however, had remained hopeful of a
breakthrough following last week’s call between Trump and China’s Xi.
China’s
mineral dominance
China is
the undisputed leader of the critical minerals supply chain, producing roughly 60% of the world’s supply of rare
earths and processing almost 90%, which means it is importing
these materials from other countries and processing them.
U.S.
officials have previously warned that
this dominance poses a strategic challenge amid the pivot to more sustainable
energy sources.
Trump’s
back-and-forth trade policies have roiled financial markets in recent months,
sparking chaos in major ports and pushing global supply chains to the breaking
point.
Oil
prices popped shortly after Trump’s social media post. International
benchmark Brent crude
futures with August delivery rose $1 a barrel to $67.87 on the news. The
contract was last seen up around 1.8% for the session.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures
with July delivery, meanwhile, stood 2.2% higher at $66.42.
Trump
says China will supply rare earths in 'done' deal
Next, cui
bono? Has a cyber attack war broken out. M&S in the UK. Whole foods in the
USA. Where next?
Food shortage
fears at one of America's biggest grocery chains after huge cyberattack
June 11,
2025
Whole
Foods has issued a warning to customers following a cyberattack on its main
supplier.
The
supplier, United Natural Foods (UNFI), was forced to shut down certain systems
after detecting unauthorized activity on its internal networks in recent days.
As a
result, Whole Foods has alerted employees about the potential for food
shortages at its more than 500 locations across the US, according to an
internal memo obtained by TechCrunch.
The
Amazon-owned grocery store added that the cyberattack has
impacted UNFI's 'ability to select and ship products from their
warehouses,' and that this will 'impact our normal delivery schedules and
product availability.'
Whole
Foods spokesperson Nathan Cimbala said: 'We are working to restock our shelves
as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused
for customers.'
UNFI said
Wednesday that it is slowly restoring its systems, adding that it should
increase 'capacity over the coming days.'
United
Natural Foods is the largest publicly traded wholesale distributor of
'healthier food options' in the US and Canada, according to its website.
In May
2024 the company announced an eight-year extension to serve as primary
distributor for Amazon-owned Whole Foods.
The memo
also provided staff a talking point when dealing with questions from customers,
prompting them to only says that UNFI has been experiencing a 'nationwide
technology system outage,' according to TechCrunch.
Whole
Food shoppers have shared images of their trips to the store, showing that many
of the shelves are empty.
Food
shortage fears at one of America's biggest grocery chains after huge
cyberattack
In other
news, amid the tariff wars, growing global fiat currency unease.
Dollar divorce?
Asia’s shift away from the U.S. dollar is picking up pace
Published
Wed, Jun 11 2025 2:37 AM EDT
Asia is
progressively moving away from the U.S. dollar, as a mix of geopolitical
uncertainties, monetary shifts and currency hedging prompt de-dollarization
across the region.
Recently,
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, committed
to boosting the use of local currencies in
trade and investment as part of its newly released Economic Community Strategic
Plan for 2026 to 2030. The plan outlined efforts to reduce shocks associated
with exchange rate fluctuations by promoting local currency settlements and
strengthening regional payment connectivity.
“Trump’s
erratic trade policy decisions and the dollar’s sharp depreciation are probably
encouraging a more rapid shift towards other currencies,” said Francesco
Pesole, FX strategist at ING.
Although
the shift is more pronounced in Asia, the world has also been cutting its
reliance on the greenback, with the share of the dollar in global foreign
exchange reserves declining from over 70% in 2000 to 57.8% in 2024. More recently, the greenback also saw a steep selloff
this year, particularly in April, following uncertainty around U.S.
policymaking. Since the start of the year, the dollar index has weakened by
over 8%.
While
de-dollarization is not exactly a new phenomenon, the narrative has changed.
Investors and officials are beginning to recognize that the dollar can and has
been used as a leverage — if not overtly weaponized — in trade negotiations.
This has led to a reevaluation of predominantly overweight U.S. dollar
portfolios, said Mitul Kotecha, Barclays’ head of FX and EM macro strategy in
Asia.
“Countries
are looking at the fact that the dollar has been, and can be used as a sort of
weapon on trade, direct sanctions, etc… That’s been the real change, I think,
in the last several months,” he told CNBC.
----Picking
up pace
The move
away from the dollar is gaining momentum in ASEAN, driven mainly by two forces:
people and companies gradually converting their U.S. dollar savings back into
local currencies, and large investors hedging foreign investments more
actively, according to a recent note by Bank of America.
“De-dollarization
in ASEAN is likely to pick up pace, primarily via conversion of FX deposits
accumulated since 2022,” the bank’s Asia fixed income and FX strategist Abhay
Gupta said.
Beyond
ASEAN, the BRICS nations, which include India and China, have also
actively developed
and peddled their own payment system to
bypass traditional systems like SWIFT and reduce dependency on the dollar.
China has also been promoting bilateral trade settlements in
the yuan.
More
De-dollarization
in Asia is picking up speed
Britons ‘hoarding cash amid economic uncertainty
and fear of outages’
10 June 2025
Britons are hoarding physical cash amid
extreme economic uncertainty and to provide a safety net for possible banking
system outages such
as the recent one in Spain, according to the Bank of England’s chief cashier.
Victoria Cleland said on Tuesday that UK
households were building a cash contingency pot, much as they did during the
Covid and cost of living crises.
She said the Bank had tracked a
significant increase in the number of banknotes in circulation in recent
months, continuing a rising trend since 2022, at a time when the volume of cash
transactions has “gone down significantly”.
In comments at the Cash in the UK
conference, Cleland said cash hoarding suggested households were responding to
a more volatile global backdrop after the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the
trade uncertainty sparked by Donald Trump’s tariffs, Bloomberg reported.
Data collected by the Bank suggests the
value of banknotes in circulation has jumped 23% since before the pandemic,
even at a time when the use of cash has dropped.
UK
Finance data shows
cash was used in just over half of all transactions in 2013 but this had
collapsed to 12% by 2023 after a 7% year-on-year fall in the use of cash.
However, in the past couple of years
high-street banks and building societies have reported a strong rise in demand
from customers for cash.
Earlier this year Nationwide
said it had seen a 10% increase in ATM withdrawals in 2024 from
2023. Britain’s biggest building society said many of its customers were using
cash to help them with weekly budgeting during the period of high inflation.
Consumers in Spain and Portugal also
turned to cash to buy goods during the power outage in late April that knocked
out bank and payment systems, while cyber-attacks on UK businesses and
organisations in recent months have undermined faith in electronic transactions.
“At a time of uncertainty, at a time of
crisis, people do move to cash. They want to make sure they have literally got
something under the mattress,” Cleland said. “Even in the UK, there will be
times where networks are down and you can only be paying in cash.”
Cash began to decline as the favourite
form of money in 2014 and by 2017 Bank
of England data shows
debit cards had overtaken cash as the most frequently used payment method.
The trend began to reverse in 2022 as
inflation began to rise after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The refusal of many shops to accept notes
and coins have prompted
campaigners and politicians to call for a law forcing force retailers to
accept them.
Cleland said that consumers want cash “to
be there but they’re not necessarily using it”. She added that households in
financial difficulties also used it for budgeting, with reports of increased
use among those hit hard by high inflation.
Britons ‘hoarding
cash amid economic uncertainty and fear of outages’
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.
Citing
trade wars, the World Bank sharply downgrades forecast for global economic
growth to 2.3%
10
June 2025
President
Donald Trump’s trade wars are expected to slash economic growth this year in
the United
States and
around the world, the World Bank forecast
Tuesday.
Citing
“a substantial rise in trade barriers’’ but without mentioning Trump by name,
the 189-country lender predicted that the U.S. economy – the world’s largest –
would grow half as fast (1.4%) this year as it did in 2024 (2.8%). That marked
a downgrade from the 2.3% U.S. growth it had forecast back for 2025 back in
January.
The
bank also lopped 0.4 percentage points off its forecast for global growth this
year. It now expects the world economy to expand just 2.3% in 2025, down from
2.8% in 2024.
In
a forward to the latest version of the twice-yearly Global Economic Prospects
report, World Bank chief economist Indermit Gill wrote that the global economy
has missed its chance for the “soft landing’’ — slowing enough to tame
inflation without generating serious pain — it appeared headed for just six
months ago. “The world economy today is once more running into turbulence,”
Gill wrote. “Without a swift course correction, the harm to living standards
could be deep.’’
America’s
economic prospects have been clouded by Trump’s erratic and aggressive trade
policies, including 10% taxes — tariffs — on imports from almost every country
in the world. These levies drive up costs in the U.S. and invite retaliation
from other countries.
The Chinese economy is
forecast to see growth slow from 5% in 2024 to 4.5% this year and 4% next. The
world’s second-largest economy has been hobbled by the tariffs that Trump has
imposed on its exports, by the collapse of its real estate market and by an
aging workforce.
The
World Bank expects the 20 European countries that share the euro currency to
collectively grow just 0.7% this year, down from an already lackluster 0.9% in
2024. Trump’s tariffs are expected to hurt European exports. And the
unpredictable way he rolls them out — announcing them, suspending them, coming
up with new ones — has created uncertainty that discourages business
investment.
India is once
again expected to the be world’s fastest-growing major economy, expanding at a
6.3% clip this year. But that’s down from 6.5% in 2024 and from the 6.7% the
bank had forecast for 2025 in January. In Japan, economic growth is expected to
accelerate this year – but only from 0.2% in 2024 to a sluggish 0.7% this year,
well short of the 1.2% the World Bank had forecast in January.
The
World Bank seeks to reduce poverty and boost living standards by providing
grants and low-rate loans to poor economies.
Another
multinational organization that seeks to promote global prosperity — the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — last week downgraded
its forecast for the U.S. and global economies.
Citing trade wars, the World Bank sharply downgrades forecast for global economic growth to 2.3%
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue only occasionally when something of interest occurs.
Covid-19 claims 6 lives in last 24 hours, active tally breaches 7,000
mark
11 June 2025
Covid-19 cases in
India continued to witness a gradual uptick, with 306 fresh infections being reported from
across the country in the past 24 hours and active tally surging to 7,121,
according to official data shared by the Union Health Ministry on Wednesday. 6
deaths, one in Maharashtra, 3 in Kerala and 2 in Karnataka, were also reported
during the same period.
Kerala reported the
highest single-day jump with 170 new Covid cases, pushing its active tally to 2,223, followed by Gujarat with 114 fresh infections and 1,223 active cases.
Meanwhile, Karnataka logged 100 new cases and a total of 459 active infections,
the data stated.
Delhi logged 66
infections in the last 24 hours and the city's total caseload reached 757, the
Health Ministry said.
An 87-year-old female,
along with two males (69, 78), all battling comorbidities, died of Covid-19 in
Kerala. A 51-year-old woman with hypertension, Type 2 diabetes and a
79-year-old man with hypertension succumbed to the infections.
In Maharashtra, a
43-year-old male with breathlessness, abdominal pain, distress, tachycardia and
cyanosis died due to Covid, officials said.
Jharkhand reported its
first Covid death on Tuesday (June 10) as a 44-year-old man, who had tested
positive for the infection, died in the state capital Ranchi, officials said.
He was undergoing treatment at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS)
in the capital city.
---- Amid a spike in Covid cases, the
Centre has launched nationwide mock drills to assess hospital preparedness and
directed states to ensure adequate oxygen supply, isolation beds, ventilators,
and essential drugs. Officials have claimed that most cases are mild and
managed under home care.
Technical review meetings
were held on June 2 and 3, led by Dr Sunita Sharma, Director General of Health
Services, to assess the Covid-19 situation and review the country's
preparedness measures.
Covid-19 claims 6 lives in last 24 hours, active tally breaches 7,000
mark
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.
Radical
electric motor runs without metal coils
June
10, 2025
Scientists
at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) have developed a new
class of lightweight, highly conductive carbon nanotube (CNT) wiring that does
away with copper and aluminum entirely. Using a process called Lyotropic Liquid
Crystal-Assisted Surface Texturing (LAST), they've created core-sheath
composite electric cables (CSCEC) that don't just conduct electricity, but are
flexible and, most importantly, are super lightweight.
Each
CSCEC wire was only about 0.3 mm thick, including the insulation. A ~256-μm
conductor core with a 10-μm sheath to be specific. That's about a thick as a
business card, but still capable of powering a spinning motor.
So far, these CSCECs have been good enough to replace
all the copper in a small electric CNT-based motor powering a model car.
"By developing a new concept of CNT high-quality
technology that has never existed before, we were able to maximize the
electrical performance of CNT coils to drive electric motors without
metal," said Dr. Dae-Yoon Kim of KIST.
The trick was the LAST process. Using lyotropic liquid
crystals – a phase of matter that flows like a liquid but still has some
directional order like a crystal – helps align and separate otherwise clumped
together individual carbon nanotubes. Combined with a chemical rinse, the
process also removes metal catalyst impurities created during manufacturing
while maintaining the critical one-dimensional nanostructure that makes CNTs so
special.
The LAST procedure boosts conductivity by over 130%,
drops a ton of weight, and keeps the performance of the CSCECs stable over
time.
When it comes to efficiency, battery life, range, and
every other metric to go further, faster, higher, etc, weight matters.
Traditional electric motors, while generally
significantly lighter than their ICE counterparts, are still relatively heavy.
A fair amount of that weight can be attributed to the copper windings in the
stators – not to mention all the associated copper wiring in a vehicle's
harnesses.
KIST's recent developments speak to electric motors
specifically, but one would hope this technology might be applied to general
electrical wiring as well.
Take BEV (battery electric vehicle) cars for example: A
dual-motor Tesla Model S front motor weighs about 70 lb
(31.8 kg), while the rear is about 80 lb (36.3 kg). About 25% of that motor
weight is copper windings. If replaced with CSCEC wiring, it could bring the
overall weight of the front and rear motor down from 150 lb (68 kg) to ~115 lb
(52.2 kg).
It might not seem like a huge amount on a car that
already weighs 4,561 lb (2,069 kg), but you also have to take into account the
lower inertia. Less rotating mass means potentially a faster spin-up, better
throttle response, more efficient torque delivery and lower mechanical losses.
Thermal load would also be lower, so now the cooling system can be made smaller
and lighter. It's a cascading effect that only leads to better battery life and
longer range.
More
Metal-free motor:
CNT cables take on copper's weight and cost
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt
Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
Any
fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do.
Benjamin
Franklin
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