Baltic
Dry Index. 1944 +51
Brent Crude 67.85
Spot Gold 3366 US 2 Year Yield 3.68 -0.11
US Federal Debt. 37.274 trillion
US GDP 30.222 trillion.
The city of Pompeii, located in
southern Italy, was a bustling metropolis in the ancient Roman era. However,
its fate would change forever on August 24th, 79 AD, when Mount Vesuvius
erupted and buried the city under layers of ash and debris. This catastrophic
event, known as the Pompeii Eruption, is one of the most notorious natural
disasters in history. In this article, we will take a comprehensive look into
this devastating event and uncover the details surrounding it.
Another new trading week and the last trading week of August too.
The stock gambling casinos like Fed Chairman Powell’s (almost) promise to drop US interest rates at their next meeting next month, but away from the Great AI Bubble, the US, UK and Chinese economies are showing signs that big trouble has already arrived.
As Warren Buffett knew only too well, to sell off very large stock positions, you need a bubbly market full of willing buyers. You can’t offload very large stocks holdings into a declining market. In the stock casinos willing buyers just aren’t there in large numbers.
South Korean stocks rise as Asia markets track
Wall Street gains on Fed rate-cut hopes
Published Sun, Aug 24 2025 7:42 PM EDT
Asia-Pacific rose Monday, tracking Wall
Street gains after Federal
Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled that the central bank could
begin easing
monetary policy next month in his widely anticipated annual speech in
Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
South Korea’s Kospi index increased by
0.67%, while the small-cap Kosdaq advanced 1.91%.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 benchmark rose
0.69%, while the broader Topix index added 0.27%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 benchmark
pared earlier gains to 0.27%, after crossing the 9,000 threshold earlier in the
session.
Mainland China’s CSI 300 climbed 1.39%, while Hong
Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose
1.21%.
Elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific, market
watchers are awaiting Singapore’s consumer price index reading for July.
Economists polled by Reuters expect a 0.6% rise year over year, consistent with
the month before.
U.S.
equity futures were little changed in early Asia hours, as investors
await artificial intelligence darling Nvidia’s earnings.
Last
Friday, the blue-chip Dow soared
846.24 points, or 1.89%, to a record level of 45,631.74.
Meanwhile, the broad market S&P 500 rose 1.52% to
6,466.91, while its session high was just three points shy of its record. The
tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained
1.88%, ending the session at 21,496.53.
South
Korean stocks rise as Asia markets track Wall Street gains on Fed rate-cut
hopes
Wall Street Week Ahead
Aug. 24, 2025 6:00 AM ETNVDA, ARKK, BABA
Wall Street's attention this week will be
squarely on Nvidia (NVDA), as the
chipmaker gears up for its latest quarterly results. A key inflation gauge and
another reading on economic growth will also grab some of the spotlight.
Nvidia (NVDA), the world's
largest publicly listed company by market cap, will announce fiscal second
quarter results on Wednesday. Its reports have become market-moving events, and
its blockbuster quarterly performances have spoiled investors. With the
artificial intelligence trade back in play, Nvidia's (NVDA) commentary on
its AI chips and on China will be closely watched.
On the economic calendar, Thursday will see the first revision for second
quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth. And then on Friday, market
participants will receive the July reading for the core personal consumption
expenditures price index - widely seen as the Federal Reserve's preferred
inflation gauge.
Wall Street Week
Ahead | Seeking Alpha
Wage growth is doing something odd in 2025 — the
last time it happened was around the Great Recession
Published Fri, Aug 22 2025 9:55 AM EDT
Wage growth is doing something odd these
days.
Typically, wages grow at a faster
clip each year for
workers who switch jobs, compared to those who stay in their
current role.
That makes sense: Workers generally leave
a job when they find something better for them, which often includes a higher
salary, according to labor economists.
But in 2025, the roles have reversed as
workers, faced with a souring job market, shift from job-hopping to “job hugging” — that is,
clinging to their current roles.
Annual wage growth for so-called “job
stayers” has eclipsed that of “job switchers” for the past six months, since
February, according to data tracked by
the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
The margins aren’t huge: For example, in
July, job stayers saw wages grow at a 4.1% annual pace, versus 4% for workers
who switched jobs, according to the Atlanta Fed data.
However, that sustained reversal points to
an underlying weakness in the
labor market,
economists said.
Since the late 1990s, a prolonged reversal
in wage growth trends for job “switchers” versus “stayers” has only happened in
periods around the Great Recession and the dot-com bust in the early 2000s, the
Atlanta Fed data shows.
The last time a drawn-out reversal
occurred was in and immediately following the Great Recession, during an
18-month period from February 2009 to July 2010, according to the data.
“We only tend to see it around other times
when the labor market has been weak,” said Erica Groshen, a senior economics
advisor at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations and
former commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2013 to 2017.
More
Wage growth now
favors job stayers over job switchers
Businesses bringing back recession specials could
be the latest sign of deteriorating consumer sentiment
Published Sat, Aug 23 2025 7:50 AM EDT
As fears of a slowing economy lurk in the
background, some businesses are taking notice and bringing back so-called
recession specials.
Look up the term “recession specials”
through Google’s search engine, and the list of results will include entries
from the Great Recession nearly 20 years ago.
Consider this Grub Street
article from 2008 slugged
“Recession Specials: Your Definitive Guide.” Or this 2009
story from The New York Times, which details the mealtime recession
specials restaurants across New York offered as an act of survival.
Fast-forward to 2025 and a crop of
establishments are once more hinting at a looming economic downturn.
When ‘recession’ returns as a selling
point
Recession fears were heating
up this spring as President Donald Trump rolled out a slate of tariffs in early
April. The term “recession
indicator”
entered the vernacular of social media users as a tongue-in-cheek way of
gauging a potential economic slowdown.
Businesses are now getting in on the joke
as well. For instance, Brooklyn, New York coffee shop Clever Blend advertises a
$6 gelato and espresso “recession special.”
Wicked Willy’s, a bar in Manhattan, got on
board by offering a “Recession Pop Party” earlier this month, with one caption
on an Instagram
post declaring:
“The recession is BACK! Get ready to dance and party all night long!”
Market Hotel, a Brooklyn concert venue,
advertised a similar event. “From The Fame to Animal, Circus to Rated R, we’re
serving economic anxiety with a side of electro-pop, bloghaus, and auto-tuned
glam,” an Instagram
caption for
the event read. “Dress like rent’s due and you’re dancing through it.”
But the trend doesn’t just stop in New
York. Super Duper, a burger chain with 18 locations across the San Francisco
Bay Area, tapped in earlier this year with its own “Recession Burger,” a
seasonal special introduced in the summer.
----Shedding light on waning consumer
sentiment
These small businesses getting in on the
trend could be a broader reaction to waning consumer confidence. Consider that
the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index came in at
58.6 in August, down from a reading of 61.7 in July and reflecting a 13.7%
change on a year-over-year basis.
This souring in sentiment has been driven
primarily by concerns over trade policy, said Joanne Hsu, director of the
surveys of consumers at the University of Michigan.
“What’s very clear from the consumer
sentiment data is that consumers are broadly bracing for a slowdown in the
economy and a deterioration — not just with inflation, expecting inflation to
get worse — but they’re also expecting businesses conditions to deteriorate,”
she said. “They’re expecting labor markets to weaken and unemployment rates to
go up. And what you’re seeing with these businesses could be a reaction to
that.”
A lack of consumer confidence — and trust
in income reliability — will ultimately lead to a pullback in spending, Hsu
added.
“Young people are feeling just as bad
about the economy as older folks, and in some months they feel even worse than
older folks,” she said. “Across the age distribution, people agree that the
trajectory of the economy has soured.”
Recession specials
could be the latest sign of deteriorating consumer sentiment
US food groups plead for relief from Donald
Trump’s tariffs
Piecemeal approach leaves seafood and
produce sectors fighting to win individual carve-outs
24 August 2025
US food industry groups are pushing for
exemptions from Donald Trump’s tariffs, arguing that products from fish to
cucumbers cannot be affordably grown at home.
The advocacy comes as the US president hit
dozens of trading partners with sweeping duties this month, driving the US’s
effective tariff rate to its highest level in decades in a move that threatens
to reorder global trade.
Industry groups warn that the food sector
is uniquely vulnerable to tariffs because some affected countries grow
ingredients that will never be produced in quantity in the US. But lobby groups
are taking a piecemeal approach by pleading for exemptions rather than
attacking tariffs overall.
“There
are so many voices, so many products that say, ‘Well, we just need an
exemption, because we’re unlike others’,” said Gavin Gibbons, chief strategy
officer at the National Fisheries Institute, a US seafood trade
association.
Most food consumed in the US is produced
domestically by its vast farm sector. But about a fifth is imported, according
to the US agriculture department.
Gibbons said seafood was “fundamentally
different” from other food types as 85 per cent of US consumption is fed by
imports. American waters are already being fished to their maximum sustainable
yield, while regulations make domestic aquaculture difficult to expand. The
nation’s seafood trade deficit stood at $24bn in 2022, US commerce department
data showed.
Imports account for about 90 per cent of
US shrimp supply, Gibbons said, and India raises more than a third of it. Trump
plans to lift US tariffs on India to 50 per cent on Wednesday as punishment for
its oil purchases from Russia.
US fresh fruit and vegetable imports total
$36bn, with Mexico the largest supplier overall, followed by Peru for fruits
and Canada for vegetables, according to the International Fresh Produce
Association (IFPA).
“We are asking for fruits and vegetables
to just be out of the tariff conversation,” said Rebeckah Adcock,
vice-president of government relations at the IFPA.
Nicole Bivens Collinson, managing
principal at law firm Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, said an exclusion
process for food could be complicated, given there was no set process in place
to apply for tariff relief.
More
US
food groups plead for relief from Donald Trump’s tariffs
In other news, higher UK food prices lie
ahead.
UK harvest on course for near record low after
drought hits crops
22 August 2025
One of the worst harvests on record is
expected after staple crops were hit by drought and hot weather this year.
Analysis from the Energy and Climate
Intelligence Unit (ECIU)shows it could be the fifth worst British harvest since
1984, when detailed records began.
The extremely dry spring affected the
growth of crops such as wheat and oats, which farmers are now harvesting.
And the remnants of US 'monster' hurricane
Erin, currently barrelling across the Atlantic, may only make matters worse.
The low crop yield follows the third worst
harvest on record last year, which was due to extreme rainfall worsened
by climate
change.
Tom Lancaster, ECIU farming analyst, said:
'This is what farming in a changing climate looks like, with huge implications
for our farmers, food production and UK food security.
'Farmers need more and better support to
adapt to these extremes. There is now a real urgency to ensure that support to
invest in healthier soils and other green farming measures that can boost
resilience is once again made available.'
Due to the droughts this year, farmers
have also been struggling to grow field vegetables, such as broccoli and
cauliflower, and feed cattle and sheep.
Now the Met Office has said the tail end
of ex-hurricane Erin should bring an 'increased likelihood of low pressure,
thundery showers, spells of rain and increased wind as well'.
It said: 'Whether or not it hits us as an
ex-hurricane, it's likely to bring us a big change to more unsettled weather
for next week.'
It also warned that Erin will also bring
'very large waves' to the UK, with those visiting the western coasts of
Scotland and Ireland told to exercise caution.
UK harvest on
course for near record low after drought hits crops -...
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.
UK
gilt yields suffer from dwindling investor appetite
Friday
22 August 2025 12:34 pm
UK
gilt yields have gradually moved higher over August, as investor concerns over
government borrowing costs and wider economic conditions continue.
While
daily movements have been small, the monthly performance shows a notable sharp
spike in yields, with long-dated gilts in particular recording a steep
increase.
UK
yields are now 1.5 per cent higher than in Greece, Spain, Ireland and Portugal.
The
10-year gilt yield is trading at 4.75 per cent today, after the Bank of England’s decision to
cut interest rates to four per cent at the start of the month triggered a large
sell-off in government bonds. It opened August at 4.57 per cent.
Similarly,
the 20-year gilt yield is trading at 5.5 per cent, up from 5.01 per cent at the
start of the month.
However,
the 30-year yield has seen the most significant acceleration, pulling away from
the shorter maturities and reaching its highest point since 1998.
It
opened the month at 5.1 per cent but is currently trading at 5.59 per cent,
reflecting weak
confidence among
investors for holding long-term UK government debt.
Dan
Coatsworth, investment analyst at AJ Bell said: “The fact that gilt yields have
gradually moved higher in recent weeks suggests that bond investors want
greater compensation for the risk of holding UK government debt.”
Surge
in borrowing and inflation woes
While
the steady climb in yields highlights a significant shift in investor
confidence in the UK’s long-term economic outlook, in particular inflation and
government borrowing.
The
government’s commitment to public spending has pushed up government
borrowing and
the country’s budget deficit.
Coatsworth
said, “Bond investors are fretting about sticky inflation, interest rates
potentially staying higher for longer and high levels of government borrowing.”
“Appetite
has dwindled for longer-dated government debt in general, partially because of
market dynamics but also because there are fewer defined benefit funds in the
UK which have historically been active buyers of long-dated gilts.”
UK gilt yields
suffer from dwindling investor appetite
Chinese
property giant Evergrande delisted after spectacular fall
25
August 2025, 00:20 BST Updated 3 hours
ago
Chinese
property giant Evergrande's shares were taken off the Hong Kong stock market on
Monday after more than a decade and a half of trading.
It
marks a grim milestone for what was once China's biggest real estate firm, with
a stock market valuation of more than $50bn (£37.1bn). That was before its
spectacular collapse under the weight of the huge debts that had powered its
meteoric rise.
Experts
say the delisting was both inevitable and final.
"Once
delisted, there is no coming back," says Dan Wang, China director at
political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.
Evergrande
is now best-known for its part in a crisis that has for years dragged on the
world's second-largest economy.
What
happened to Evergrande?
Just
a few years ago Evergrande Group was a shining example of China's economic
miracle.
Its
founder and chairman Hui Ka Yan rose from humble beginnings in rural China to
top the Forbes list of Asia's wealthiest people in 2017.
His
fortune has since plummeted from an estimated $45bn in 2017 to less than a
billion, his fall from grace as extraordinary as his company's.
In
March 2024, Mr Hui was fined $6.5m and banned from China's capital market for
life for his company overstating
its revenue by $78bn.
Liquidators
are also exploring whether they can recover cash for creditors from Mr Hui's
personal property.
At
the time of its collapse, Evergrande had some 1,300 projects under development
in 280 cities across China.
The
sprawling empire also included an electric carmaker and China's most successful
football team, Guangzhou FC, which was kicked out
of the football league earlier this year after failing to pay off
enough of its debts.
Evergrande
was built on $300bn (£222bn) of borrowed money, earning it the unenviable title
of the world's most indebted property developer.
The
rot set in after Beijing brought in new rules in 2020 to control the amount big
developers could borrow.
More
Evergrande: Chinese
property giant delisted after spectacular fall - BBC News
Bay
Area tech titan announces mass layoffs just after soaring revenue report
Aug
20, 2025
Cisco,
the San Jose-based
technology giant, has
announced another round of layoffs affecting Bay Area workers, marking a
familiar pattern of reporting skyrocketing revenue followed by drastic job
cuts.
According
to Aug. 13 WARN filings with California’s Employment Development Department,
the company will eliminate 221 positions across its Milpitas and San Francisco
offices. WARN documents are generally required by the state in the event of
mass layoffs.
Employees
were notified of the layoffs on Aug. 14 and their terminations will be
effective Oct. 13. The most cuts, affecting 157 jobs, largely in software
engineering roles, were at Cisco’s Milpitas office at 560 McCarthy Blvd.
Cisco’s San Francisco office at 500 Terry A. Francois Blvd. will cut 64
positions, according to the filing.
The
filings came the same day Cisco released its
fourth-quarter earnings, which reported $14.7 billion in revenue, an 8%
increase from the same quarter last year. Revenue for the 2025 fiscal year was
$56.7 billion, up 5% from the previous year.
This
also isn’t the first instance of Cisco cutting jobs after a quarter of growth.
Last September, shortly after announcing a $10.3 billion annual profit, the
company laid off 840
employees across the Bay Area.
Cisco’s financial report also pointed
to the company’s AI infrastructure, which generated $2 billion in revenue for
the fiscal year, more than double its $1 billion goal. Cisco said it plans to
expand its AI investments in the next year but did not reference any workforce reductions
or financial difficulties.
In
a Thursday interview
with CNBC on
the same day of the report, CEO Chuck Robbins addressed AI technology in the
company’s workforce.
“I
don’t want to get rid of a bunch of people right now. I don’t want to get rid
of engineers,” Robbins said. “I just want our engineers we have today to
innovate faster and be more productive and that gives us a competitive
advantage.”
Robbins
said if AI keeps advancing at Cisco, the company could possibly hire fewer
employees. Cisco did not respond to SFGATE’s request for comment on the latest
round of layoffs.
The
AI boom isn’t just specific to Cisco either. Some AI startups have openly
admitted to replacing human workers with AI technology. Legacy tech companies such as
Microsoft have
joined the trend, with mass layoffs or slowed hiring as part of
an effort to invest more in AI.
Bay Area tech
titan announces layoffs just after strong revenue report
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue only occasionally when something of interest occurs.
Covid cases surge
despite summer heatwave
Healthcare
and social workers not eligible for upcoming booster programme doses despite
rising cases
22 August 2025 3:09pm BST
Covid cases have jumped
to their highest level this year, new data has revealed.
Almost 1,500 people
tested positive for the virus last week despite Britain being engulfed in a
summer heatwave.
It was up by 20 per cent
on the week before rising to the highest seven-day total since last year.
While most people no
longer test for Covid-19, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) runs surveillance testing to keep track of viruses
spreading throughout the country.
There were 1,478 positive
test results in the week ending Sunday Aug 17, which was about 12 per cent
higher than the second highest week of the year at the start of June.
A separate metric showed
almost 9 per cent of people were testing positive for Covid-19 – also a high
for the year – despite the number of people taking a PCR test falling
throughout the summer.
The greater proportion of
people testing positive gives an indicator of how prevalent the virus is across
the country.
Positivity rates were
particularly high among those aged 15 to 24 as well as the 85 and over.
A new strain of Covid,
which has been dubbed “Stratus”, now makes up the majority of cases in the UK.
Also known by its
technical name of XFG, experts have suggested the subvariant has a unique
symptom that was not previously associated with Covid: a hoarse or raspy voice.
More
Covid cases surge despite summer heatwave
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.
Today, more on a problem that is only
going to grow with each passing year and millions of batteries age.
Harlow bin lorry fire believed to be caused by batteries
23 August 2025
Batteries thrown away in household waste rather than safely
recycled may have caused a major fire in a bin lorry.
The blaze broke out in Edinburgh
Way, Harlow, at around 11am on Friday, August 15, near the River Way
roundabout, and led to widespread disruption.
Roads were closed for several hours as
emergency services responded, and work continued into the early hours to make
the area safe.
Harlow Council believes batteries placed
in household waste may have been the cause of the fire.
Councillor Nicky Purse, who is
responsible for environment, said: "This incident could have been far
worse, and it highlights the very real risks of putting batteries in your
general waste.
"Batteries can ignite or explode
when damaged or crushed, especially in bin lorries.
"We urge all residents to use the
free battery collection service provided by the council.
----The council’s free battery collection service is
available to houses but not flats or communal properties.
Batteries should be placed in a clearly
labelled cardboard box or plastic bag and left next to the black wheelie bin or
purple bags on non-recycling collection days.
Harlow bin lorry fire believed to be caused by batteries | Epping Forest
Guardian
E-bike battery explodes and destroys bedroom
22 August 2025
A powerful explosion from an E-bike
lithium-ion battery tore through a bedroom in Newport earlier this week leaving the room
charred and scattered with debris. Fire crews were called to Caerleon House
Hotel in the early hours of Sunday, August 18.
South Wales Fire and Rescue Service
(SWFRS) confirmed the fire started when the battery exploded and caught fire in
the bedroom.
"Earlier this week crews were
called to an E-bike fire in Newport after a lithium-ion battery exploded and
caught fire in a bedroom," the service said in a statement.
Fire crews responded quickly and were
able to prevent the blaze from spreading beyond the room. "Thanks to the
quick response of our crews the blaze was contained to the room using breathing
apparatus sets, a hose reel jet, and positive pressure ventilation," the
statement continued.
Images from the scene show the shocking
aftermath with a partially-detached window frame, blackened walls, and piles of
rubble covering the floor where the fire raged while the source of the fire was
left in tatters with the tyres partially melted.
The service went on to issue a warning
about the dangers of lithium-ion batteries which can become hazardous if they
are damaged, overcharged, or stored incorrectly.
According to SWFRS most modern UK
households contain numerous devices powered by lithium-ion batteries from
mobile phones, tablets, earpods to vacuum cleaners, vaping devices, E-bikes,
and scooters. While these rechargeable batteries are widely used they can pose
a serious fire risk if not handled or maintained properly.
"Lithium-ion batteries can be
dangerous if damaged, overcharged, or stored incorrectly," they said.
Residents are urged to familiarise
themselves with the risks and take precautions when charging or storing devices
powered by these batteries.
More
E-bike battery explodes and destroys bedroom
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt
Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
I do
like low interest rates. I'm not making that a big secret. I think low interest
rates are good. I like a dollar that's not too strong. I mean, I've seen strong
dollars. And frankly, other than the fact that it sounds good, lots of bad
things happen with a strong dollar.
Donald Trump
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