Baltic
Dry Index. 1994 +73 Brent Crude 67.46
Spot Gold 3379 US 2 Year Yield 3.69 -0.03
US Federal Debt. 37.200 trillion
US GDP 30.184 trillion.
The Bank of England
was founded in 1694 to act as banker to the Government. Today, our
responsibilities are much broader.
To find out more, you can watch the 60-second video below. You can also read our short guides to the economy or visit our free museum.
Another trading day and yet more disconnect between the stock casinos and the harsh economic reality playing out in the tariff affected real economy.
Equally ignored, though last Friday’s US employment numbers were bad, spinning it mildly, we haven’t seen anything yet. AI is coming for about a third of US jobs and probably closer to fifty percent of global jobs by 2030-2035.
In anticipated better news, “the old bag lady of Threadneedle Street”, aka the Bank of England, is widely expected to drop its key interest rate today by a quarter of one percent. Better late than never I suppose, but with a lagging effect, I think they are at least another quarter point rate cut behind.
Asia-Pacific markets mostly rise as investors
weigh Trump's vow on fresh chip tariffs
Updated Thu, Aug 7 2025 11:56 PM EDT
Asia-Pacific markets mostly rose following
U.S. President Donald Trump’s vow to impose a 100%
tariff on imports of semiconductors and chips, but companies that are
“building in the United States” will be exempted.
Details such as how much a company needs
to be manufacturing in the U.S. to qualify for the tariff exemption were not
immediately clear.
Here are today’s highlights:
- Asian
chip-related stocks traded
mixed following news of impending tariffs by the U.S. overnight
- Japan’s
Topix index briefly hit an all-time
high
- Taiwanese shares
rallied over 2%, with gains led by the tech sector
Indian stocks fall in early trade
Indian stocks fell
in early trade Thursday following U.S. President Donald Trump’s additional 25%
tariff. This brings the total
levies against the South Asian giant to 50%.
The 50-stock
benchmark Nifty 50 fell
0.31%, while the BSE Sensex index lost 0.35% as of 9.25 a.m. Indian Standard
time (11.55 p.m. ET Wednesday).
China’s July exports top expectations, rising
over 7%; imports record biggest jump in a year
China’s exports growth in July sharply beat market
expectations as the clock on a tariff truce with the U.S. keeps ticking, while
imports rose their highest jump in a year.
Exports climbed 7.2% in July in U.S. dollar terms
from a year earlier, customs data showed Thursday, exceeding Reuters-polled
economists’ estimates of a 5.4% rise.
Imports rose 4.1% last month from a
year earlier, accelerating the 1.1% rebound in June in its first growth this
year. Economists had forecast imports to fall 1.0%, according to a Reuters
poll.
Read the full story, here.
— Anniek Bao
Asia
markets live: India-U.S., chip tariffs, Toyota earnings
Stock futures rise as traders weigh Trump’s call
for 100% tariff on chips: Live updates
Updated Thu, Aug 7 2025 12:04 AM EDT
Stock futures rose early Thursday as
traders mulled over President Donald Trump’s announcement of a new steep tariff
on imports of semiconductors and chips.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones
Industrial Average added 40 points, or less than 0.1%. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures advanced
0.26% and 0.28% respectively.
Trump announced late Wednesday that there
would be a 100%
tariff on imported chips, but not for companies that are “building in the
United States.”
News of the levy comes after Apple said it plans to spend
an additional
$100 billion on U.S. companies and suppliers over the next four years.
That’s on top of a $500 billion announcement Apple made in February. The iPhone
maker was up nearly 3% in extended trading, adding to its 5% advance from the
regular session.
“We’re going to be putting a very large
tariff on chips and semiconductors,” Trump said in the Oval Office on
Wednesday. “But the good news for companies like Apple is if you’re building in
the United States or have committed to build, without question, committed to
build in the United States, there will be no charge.”
Stocks are coming off of a positive
session. The S&P 500 ended
Wednesday about 0.7% higher, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced
1.2%. The 30-stock Dow gained
about 81 points, or 0.2%.
Traders continued to monitor tariff
developments and quarterly financial results, which have mostly beaten
analysts’ expectations, according to FactSet.
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump imposed
an additional 25% tariff on India, bringing total U.S. levies on the
major trading partner to 50%. The president said the hike is because India
continues to buy Russian oil, a sign that he is following through on his threats
to punish Russia’s trade partners unless a Ukraine peace deal is
reached by September.
Week to date, the S&P 500 has gained
1.7% and the Nasdaq has added 2.5%. The 30-stock Dow has advanced 1.4%. Prior
to Wednesday’s modest gains, the S&P 500 had notched five losing sessions
over the past six trading days, and the Dow had had six negative days in the
past seven.
Kristian Kerr, head of macro strategy at
LPL Financial, noted that market volatility has dramatically declined since
early April during the height of tariff tensions.
“Volatility across major asset classes is
currently sitting at unusually low levels,” Kerr said in a note. “Equities have
also followed suit, with one-month realized volatility in some of the indexes
falling to levels not seen since June of last year.”
On Thursday, traders will watch for weekly
jobless claims data, as well as releases on unit labor costs and productivity
for the second quarter. On the earnings front, they will look for reports
from Eli Lilly and Warner Bros. Discovery before
the bell, while Block and Pinterest are slated to
report in the afternoon.
Stock
market today: Live updates
Bank of England set to cut rate as UK
economy weakens
7 August 2025
The Bank of England is widely expected to
cut its key interest rate Thursday, with policymakers mindful of US tariffs and
their potential risks to an already-struggling UK economy.
With the BoE likely to trim borrowing
costs by a quarter point to 4.0 percent, focus will be on potential changes to
the central bank's economic growth and inflation outlooks.
"There are clear signs of (UK)
economic deterioration, particularly stemming from the labour market,"
Victoria Scholar, head of investment at Interactive Investor, noted ahead of
the latest rate call.
"Yet policymakers must weigh this up
against the risk of inflationary pressures particularly with rising food prices
and international uncertainty around (US President Donald) Trump's tariffs and
volatility in energy markets."
Against this backdrop, analysts expect
splits within the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee.
Some argue that while the majority of the
nine policymakers, including governor Andrew Bailey, will vote for a
quarter-point cut, some are likely to demand an even larger reduction and
others no change.
A quarter-point cut Thursday would be the
BoE's fifth such reduction since starting a trimming cycle in August 2024,
emphasising its "gradual" approach to reducing rates.
The BoE's main task is to keep Britain's
annual inflation rate at 2.0 percent but the latest official data showed it had
jumped unexpectedly to an 18-month high in June.
The Consumer Prices Index increased to 3.6
percent as motor fuel and food prices stayed high.
- Weak economy -
Latest official figures also show that
Britain's economy unexpectedly contracted for a second month running in May and
UK unemployment is at a near four-year high of 4.7 percent.
This is largely down to Prime Minister
Keir Starmer's Labour government increasing a UK business tax from April, the
same month that the country became subject to Trump's 10-percent baseline
tariff on most goods.
More
Bank
of England set to cut rate as UK economy weakens
In other news.
Trump’s Copper Tariffs Apply to $15
Billion of Goods So Far
August 6, 2025
(Bloomberg) -- US President Donald Trump’s
first wave of copper tariffs will hit imports valued at more than $15 billion
last year, highlighting the potential inflationary impact on American buyers.
Details of the 50% import duties sparked
turmoil in the global copper market last week — including a record
slump for
US futures — because Trump handed a surprise exemption to key forms of the
wiring metal. But that still leaves significant trade volumes subject to
tariffs.
On Monday, the US Federal
Register published
a list of exactly what will fall under the 50% levy. It includes semi-processed
products — like wires, tubes and rods — worth $7.7 billion last year, plus
cabling typically used for phone or internet connections with almost the same
value, according to Bloomberg News calculations.
And it doesn’t stop there. The White House
ordered officials to come up with a plan in 90 days to slap tariffs on an array
of other copper-intensive manufactured goods. Trump dramatically expanded the
scope of US aluminum and steel tariffs earlier this year by adding derivative
products.
The US copper market is scrambling to
understand the implications of Trump’s tariffs, which the president said will
help boost domestic output of semi-processed and copper-containing products. He
stopped short of tariffs on refined metal — an omission that shocked investors
but reflects deep US reliance on imports and a pushback by key American buyers,
who feared the duties would drive up costs significantly.
Still, the US took in at least 600,000
tons of semi-finished copper last year, according to the US International Trade
Commission. About 35% came from Canada, followed by Germany, South Korea and
Mexico each at less than 10%. Refined copper, spared from the levies, amounted
to about 900,000 tons and was worth about $8.4 billion.
Tariffs will be levied according to the
value of the copper content. That means the “semis” that are almost pure copper
will attract a much higher effective duty rate than, say, internet cables where
the copper wiring is only a part of the product.
Trump’s Copper
Tariffs Apply to $15 Billion of Goods So Far
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.
Trump
on the hook for billions if Fed Chair fired
August
5, 2025
President Donald Trump could
trigger a financial shockwave costing the U.S. government up to $60 billion if
he follows through on threats to fire Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. According to
analysts, removing the head of the U.S. central bank would likely spark a surge
in Treasury yields, as investors react to fears of rising inflation. That jump
could increase the government’s borrowing costs, adding to the national debt.
What
analysts say
Gennadiy
Goldberg, the head of U.S. rates strategy at TD Securities, estimates that
ousting Powell could add $58 billion to the government’s annual interest
payments. “If interest rates jump, the debt burden could very quickly become
unsustainable,” Goldberg warned.
What
Trump says
Trump
recently hinted he might remove Powell, citing frustration over the costs of
the central bank’s $2.5 billion headquarters renovation. While stopping short
of a commitment, he told reporters, “I don’t rule out anything but I think it’s
highly unlikely unless he has to leave for fraud.” The president has repeatedly
criticized Powell in recent months, calling him a “numbskull” for not cutting
interest rates more aggressively.
What
could happen if Powell is fired
If
Trump were to fire the Fed chairman, analysts warned investors would likely
lose trust in the central bank’s independence. As a result, they would demand
higher interest rates to make up for the risk that the Fed could be influenced
by politics. That increase would significantly raise the government’s borrowing
costs. Goldberg estimates it would add about $58 billion to the interest
payments on the $276 billion in 30-year bonds and $168 billion in 20-year bonds
the U.S. typically passes each year.
Other
consequences
Analysts
caution that the consequences of the move would go far beyond higher borrowing
costs. It could also trigger a loss of faith in U.S. financial stability. If
investors sense that the Fed is no longer free from political influence, the
dollar could weaken and markets could begin pricing in the possibility of more
aggressive spending and borrowing. “It would be a very key progression point in
Trump’s agenda, you’d assume the next logical step is that he can push harder
on other things,” Alex Everett, a fund manager at Aberdeen, said. He also
warned that it could be accompanied by a sharp drop in the dollar.
Trump on the hook
for billions if Fed Chair fired
The
jobs report that enraged Trump was flashing a recession warning sign
August
5, 2025
The
bad news in last Friday’s
jobs report may
have been overshadowed when President Donald Trump fired
the commissioner in charge of producing it. But economists haven’t
forgotten about America’s job market – and they’re growing concerned.
Some
of the jobs report data has economists using a word they haven’t uttered in
several months: recession.
Hiring
over the past three months slowed dramatically, creating
problems for
the economists and statisticians at the Bureau
of Labor Statistics whose
job is to make sense of the payroll data they get from thousands of businesses
across the country. As new data came in about May and June’s employment, the
BLS was forced to sharply lower those months’ job totals from their preliminary
estimates.
The
BLS revised May and June’s jobs totals lower by a combined 258,000 jobs. That
massive revision gave economists some serious agita. Larger revisions have
happened before, but every time changes that large have taken place over the
course of at least two months, the US economy has been in a recession – at
least since records began in 1968.
“The
job market is terrible,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the
Congressional Budget Office during the George W. Bush administration. “Outside
of education and health, the economy has lost private sector jobs in the past
three months. That’s terrible.”
Warnings
– but no recession yet
The
US economy has added an average of just 85,000 jobs per month this year, which
is well below the 177,000 jobs that the economy added on average each month
before the pandemic.
Poor
jobs data doesn’t mean the US economy is in or going into a recession. Several
recent economic indicators are pointing in the wrong direction – weakness in
second-quarter gross domestic product and slower-than-expected growth in both
the manufacturing and services sectors, for example. But, importantly, the
National Bureau of Economic Research, which is responsible for declaring
recessions, tracks four big indicators of economic activity – consumer
spending, personal income, factory production and employment. None have been
pointing to a recession or even that the US economy is on the precipice of a
recession.
That
is, until Friday’s jobs report. Yet even the recession alarms it sounded come
with some caveats. Recent moribund job growth was likely distorted by business
uncertainty surrounding Trump’s tariffs, and it’s too early to tell whether it
will rebound or continue to remain at this low level, noted Keith Lerner,
co-chief investment officer at Truist.
“The
US economy is in a muddle-through environment,” said Lerner, who said the
Federal Reserve probably needs to take action to lower interest rates soon
because the jobs report suggests it might be behind the curve.
The
Fed has known about the slowing hiring for quite some time. But the sharp
pullback over the past few months – data the Fed didn’t have when it made its
decision last week to hold interest rates steady – probably means the economy
is considerably weaker than economists had expected.
---- “The
president’s unorthodox economic agenda and policies may be starting to make a
dent in the labor market,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at FwdBonds.
“Businesses are not waiting as they are cutting back on the numbers of new
workers they bring on board, which means we can no longer count on the
employment markets to be a positive factor supporting economic growth in the
weeks and months ahead.”
Trump’s
immigration policy appears to be taking a toll, too. Since April, 1.4 million
people dropped out of the US labor force – 802,000 of whom were foreign born.
More
The jobs report
that enraged Trump was flashing a recession warning sign
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue only occasionally when something of interest occurs.
COVID-19 Pandemic Might Have Aged Brain Faster, Even In People Not
Infected, Study Finds
The
ageing effect "was most pronounced in males and those from more
socioeconomically deprived backgrounds".
Aug 06, 2025 12:01 pm IST
New research has found
that brain ageing might have accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, even in
people who were not infected. It also found that men were apparently more
affected. The study, published in Nature Communications, analysed the pandemic
period, when people struggled with a tumultuous time marked by social
isolation, lifestyle disruptions and stress.
Many studies have found
that SARS-CoV-2 infections have worsened neurodegeneration and cognitive
decline in older people. But this new research investigates how
people are still affected by the pandemic.
The researchers said that
the accelerated ageing was most noticeable in older people, male participants
and those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
However, as per the
cognitive tests, mental agility declined only in participants who contracted a
case of COVID-19. The findings also suggest that faster brain ageing doesn't
necessarily translate into impaired thinking and memory.
The study "really
underlines how significant the pandemic environment was for mental and
neurological health," Mahdi Moqri, a computational biologist who studies
ageing at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, said, as quoted by
Nature.
According to Moqri, the
study analysed scans taken at only two time points, and researchers are not
sure whether the pandemic-associated brain ageing is reversible.
More
COVID-19 Pandemic Might Have Aged Brain Faster, Even In People Not
Infected, Study Finds
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.
Waratah Super Battery connected to NSW power grid and switched on
5 August 2025
A battery capable of powering more than
one million NSW homes has been officially connected to the power grid and
switched on.
The Waratah Super Battery, on the site
of the former Munmorah coal-fired power station on the Central Coast, has been
operating at 50 per cent capacity, or 370 megawatts.
Akaysha Energy chief executive Nick
Carter, whose company operates the battery storage system, said it would act as
a shock absorber for the power network.
"The main function of the battery
is to really protect the network in case of an outage or a transmission line
falling down or a power station tripping off," Mr Carter said.
Benefits to consumers were expected to
go beyond reliability.
"The battery will allow more
low-cost energy from across NSW to come into the grid," said EnergyCo
executive director of technical advisory services, Andrew Kingsmill.
"That will put downward pressure on
electricity prices, which I think we can agree is something that's welcome for
us all."
Put to the test
Mr Carter said the battery had already
successfully supported the grid during summer.
"We were in the middle of testing
when we had a hot day and NSW was running out of energy supply," he said.
"Having the battery there to inject
power at that time was very helpful in keeping the system stable."
The battery is the size of eight
Australian Rules Football fields, takes about 30 minutes to walk around the
full perimeter at a brisk pace, and is made up of more than 3,500 containers
with batteries inside.
Once fully operational, at 850
megawatts, it could charge 46 million smartphones in one hour.
Supporting energy transition
Mr Kingsmill said the battery would play
an important role in helping NSW transition away from coal-fired power.
"As we see coal-fired power
stations come out of the system, the battery is able to play a number of roles
— it can provide storage and also help to stabilise the grid," he said.
Clean Energy Council acting chief policy
and impact officer Anna Freeman said it was an important milestone.
"Big batteries such as the Waratah
Super Battery are essential infrastructure needed to deliver energy security to
the NSW grid and the rest of the National Electricity Market as coal-fired
power stations retire," Ms Freeman said.
"Renewables firmed by storage
technologies such as big batteries are the lowest-cost and most practical
option to transition Australia's energy system, decarbonise our electricity
grid and keep the lights on."
The remainder of the battery's capacity
is due to be switched on by the end of the year.
Waratah Super Battery connected to NSW power grid and switched on
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt
Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
“The
modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps
the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banking
was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. Bankers own the Earth. Take it away
from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the
pen they will create enough money to buy it back again.
Take this great power away from them and all great fortunes like mine will
disappear, and they ought to disappear, for then this would be a better and
happier world to live in. But if you want to continue to be slaves of the banks
and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money
and control credit.”
Sir
Josiah Stamp
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