Baltic
Dry Index. 2266 +26 Brent Crude 69.59
Spot Gold 3747 US 2 Year Yield 3.68 +0.05
US Federal Debt. 37.527 trillion
US GDP 30.290 trillion.
We must not let daylight in upon the magic.
Walter Bagehot
With unfortunate timing, President Trump imposed 100 percent tariffs on patented drugs starting on October 1st.
Unfortunate timing? Next Wednesday is the anniversary of the start of the Wall Street Panic of 1907 and the anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Ukraine in 1653. If it happens, day one of the US government shutdown.
Later today, the Fed’s favourite inflation indicator, the release of August’s personal consumption expenditures price index. No shocks please!!!
Asian pharma stocks fall after Trump
slaps 100% levies on branded drugs
Published Thu, Sep 25 2025 7:55 PM
EDT
Shares of Asian pharmaceutical
companies fell Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump announced fresh
tariffs on furniture, heavy trucks and pharmaceutical products.
Starting from Oct. 1, “any branded
or patented Pharmaceutical Product” faces 100% duties, except for companies that build drug
manufacturing plants in the U.S., Trump said in a Truth Social post early
Friday.
The Topix Pharma Index fell 1.39%
following the announcement. Daiichi Sankyo and Chugai Pharmaceutical were
among the companies that led losses, declining 3.34% and 2.18%,
respectively. Sumitomo
Pharma tumbled 3.03%.
Heavyweight South Korean pharma
stocks like Samsung Biologics and SK Bio Pharmaceuticals were down 1.66% and
2.66%, respectively.
Hong Kong-listed pharma companies
were among the largest losers on the Hang Seng Index, with Wuxi Biologics in the
lead, dropping 2.95%. Alibaba
Health Information Technology and Sino Biopharmacutical were
also among the top losers list, falling 1.84% and 1.25%, respectively.
In a separate Truth Social post,
Trump said that imports of heavy trucks will be imposed a 25% levy. Meanwhile, kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities
and “associated products” will face a 50% tariff, while a 30% tariff will be
charged for upholstered furniture.
Overnight in the U.S., Trump
also signed an executive order approving a proposal that would keep
TikTok alive in the U.S. The transaction values the business at $14 billion,
according to Vice President JD Vance.
Under the terms, which China must
approve, a new joint-venture company will oversee TikTok’s U.S. business, with
ByteDance retaining less than a 20% stake.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was flat, while
the Topix rose 0.59% to reach a fresh record high. Investors also assessed
September inflation data from Japan’s capital city of Tokyo.
Core inflation in the city came in
softer than expected at 2.5%, compared to expectations of 2.8% from economists
polled by Reuters. Headline inflation held steady at 2.5%. Tokyo’s inflation
figures are widely considered to be a leading indicator of nationwide trends.
South Korea’s Kospi declined 2.02%,
leading losses in Asia, while the small-cap Kosdaq retreated 1.57%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was
marginally below the flatline.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 0.86%,
while the mainland Chinese CSI 300 index was flat.
Overnight in the U.S., the pullback
in tech on Wall Street continued for a third straight day, partly due to rising
yields.
The 10-year Treasury yield touched
4.2% after data
on initial claims for unemployment insurance came in lower than
expected. Artificial intelligence play Oracle slid 5%, while Tesla was also among the
day’s laggards, falling 4%.
The S&P 500 closed down 0.50%
at 6,604.72, as did the Nasdaq
Composite, which settled at 22,384.70. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed
0.38%, to finish at 45,947.32.
Asia
markets fall after Trump announces new tariffs; approves TikTok deal
Stock futures are little changed
ahead of key inflation report: Live updates
Updated Fri, Sep 26 2025 7:02 PM EDT
Stock futures were hovering near the
flatline night ahead of crucial inflation data.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones
Industrial Average added 18 points, or 0.04%. S&P futures rose 0.06%, while
the Nasdaq 100 futures ticked up 0.05%.
Investors are awaiting the release
of August’s personal consumption expenditures price index out Friday, as the
release is widely known to be the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation
measure. Economists expect the print to reflect an uptick in inflation and
markets continue to price in two quarter-point rate cuts at the Fed’s upcoming
meetings, in line with what the central bank has projected.
The outcome could sway market
reaction, however, after solid
jobs data released earlier Thursday and a strong upward revision in
second-quarter gross domestic product to 3.8% slightly dampened bullish
sentiment. Investors fear fewer jobless claims could mean that the economy is
in decent shape and therefore give the Fed less reason to cut interest rates.
The three major U.S. indexes fell
again on Thursday while the 10-year
Treasury yield rose to 4.2% at one point during the session on the
back the latest economic data.
Major players in artificial
intelligence, namely Oracle, Meta and Tesla, also pulled back. Oracle
lost 5.6%, reflecting growing concerns among a pocket of investors that tech
valuations have run far too high and that the interconnected AI industry could
be risky.
Week to date, the S&P 500 is down nearly
0.9%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq
Composite has lost about 1.1% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has
shed 0.8%.
After this week’s losses, some
market participants remain wary while still seeking longer-term buying
opportunities. Andrew Slimmon, head of Applied Equity Advisors at Morgan
Stanley Investment Management, said he would use any weakness to add to positions
in tech.
“The market was vulnerable to a
pullback and because tech has been a leader, it’s the most vulnerable,” Slimmon
told CNBC. “I would not panic on this action. Any pullback or worse for the
euphoria stocks is healthy for the market. I don’t think it’s a good long-term
sign when speculation gets rampant.”
Stock
market today: Live updates
Wall Street is starting to rethink the need for
multiple rate cuts into 2026
Sep 25, 2025, 6:15:00 PM
Traders pare back rate-cut expectations
into early next year after Thursday's data showed surprising strength in the
U.S. economy
Financial-market participants are scaling
back slightly on their expectations for as many as five to seven interest-rate
cuts by October 2026 following unexpectedly strong U.S. data on Thursday.
The U.S. economy is looking stronger than
many people previously thought, which is giving way to a reconsideration by
traders of how low interest rates might need to go into next year.
The rethink is occurring in a subtle way
after Thursday's data showed fewer-than-expected initial jobless claims and a
surprising upward revision in second-quarter economic growth. The
market-implied likelihood of a quarter-point rate cut by the Federal Reserve in
October slipped to 85.5%, from 91.9% a day ago, according to the CME FedWatch
Tool. But expectations for a similar-size move by December were also slipping,
along with the chances of additional easing into next year.
Read: Now that the Fed has cut rates,
investors can focus on what really matters for markets
For now, the economy is signaling
"more strength, less need for rate cuts," said economists Lindsey
Piegza and Lauren Henderson at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. in Chicago. In a
note, they wrote that "an even stronger growth profile in Q2, led by
additional strength in consumption and investment, reiterates the storyline of
a solid economy despite fiscal-policy uncertainty, relatively elevated price
pressures and a reduced pace of hiring."
The impact of this surprising economic
strength showed up on Thursday in the form of selling in the bond market,
sending yields higher on everything from the 1-month Treasury bill
BX:TMUBMUSD01M through the 30-year bond BX:TMUBMUSD30Y. The benchmark 10-year
Treasury rate BX:TMUBMUSD10Y rose as much as 5.5 basis points to an intraday
high of almost 4.2%, after breaking through the key support level of 4.15%.
Thursday's climb in yields appeared to
reflect reduced concerns about the possibility that a softening labor market
might translate into broader economic weakness and could require the Fed to
keep cutting interest rates. Meanwhile, stock-market investors, who have been
hopeful about getting multiple rate cuts without a recession, were sending all
three major U.S. stock indexes DJIA SPX COMP to their first joint three-day
losing streak in months.
More
Wall
Street is starting to rethink the need for multiple rate cuts into 2026 |
Morningstar
In other news.
The $100bn deal
sparking fears of a dotcom-style crash
Nvidia’s eye-watering investment in OpenAI has experts worrying that the AI bubble is about to burst
24
September 2025 11:25am BST
At the
height of the dotcom bubble in
2000, AOL was one of the world’s hottest
companies. The internet pioneer had brought the web to millions of American
households, and its advertising revenue was doubling year over year.
In a
bullish sign of the web’s future, AOL announced a $360bn (£266bn) merger with
media firm Time Warner – the biggest deal in American history.
It would
take years after the bubble burst to discover the truth of AOL’s meteoric rise.
In 2005, American regulators charged the company with propping up its revenues
by using fraudulent “round-trip” transactions in which it secretly paid its
customers to buy AOL advertising.
“The
company effectively funded its own online advertising revenue,” prosecutors
said.
AOL paid
a $300m penalty to settle the claims.
These
circular deals were a common feature of the dotcom bubble. Telecoms and
software companies paid each other to finance new networks and boost sales,
boosting revenue and maintaining the illusion of growth – until the bubble
finally burst.
A quarter
of a century later, sceptics of the artificial intelligence (AI) movement claim
to be observing similar patterns and suggest a new bubble could be inflating.
Spending
spree
On
Monday, Nvidia, the
semiconductor giant which has become the world’s most
valuable company on the back of the AI boom, said it would invest $100bn in
OpenAI, the AI company behind ChatGPT.
Much of
the cash could ultimately flow back to Nvidia: the deal also includes plans
for OpenAI to spend
billions on data centres likely to be
filled with Nvidia’s chips.
The
investment will come in stages, with Nvidia investing more cash as OpenAI
spends more.
An Nvidia
spokesman says the company was not giving OpenAI money to buy its products and
that the deal was an investment opportunity. There is no suggestion that the
deal is untoward. However, analysts concede that it will raise eyebrows.
Stacy
Rasgon, of equity research firm Bernstein, says the agreement “will clearly
fuel ‘circular’ concerns … and – perhaps justifiably – raise concerns over the
rationale behind the action”.
Vivek
Arya, at Bank of America, says: “The optics of such a large investment in a
customer will raise questions until Nvidia clarifies the appropriate accounting
treatment.”
Nvidia’s
$100bn deal is the biggest of the AI boom, but it is hardly the only
relationship that has drawn questions.
Earlier
this month, Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison
briefly became the world’s richest man on
news of a $300bn deal with OpenAI that will involve copious purchases of Nvidia
chips.
The deal
effectively sees OpenAI pay Oracle to spend money with Nvidia. Memes shared
online on Tuesday suggested the three companies had invented an “infinite money
glitch” – a situation in which a bug is exploited to create limitless funds.
The AI
boom that has turbocharged stock market valuations is replete with mutual
deals. Amazon has invested billions in OpenAI rival Anthropic, which largely
uses Amazon’s data centres to train its systems.
---- ‘Hope and pray’
But any
financial return on the investment seems a distant prospect.
OpenAI’s
revenues are $12bn on an annual basis. S&P predicts that worldwide revenues
from generative AI, across all companies, will be $30bn this year. This is set
to hit $85bn by 2029, but still well below the cost of investment.
“Way too
much is being spent on AI infrastructure, given that the market for AI products
and services is still at a hope and pray stage,” says Aswath Damodaran, a
finance professor at New York University.
According
to the management consultancy Bain, even under a rosy scenario for AI adoption
in which the technology replaces huge portions of companies’ sales, marketing
and R&D budgets by 2030, revenues would be $800bn below where they need to
be to fund projected infrastructure spending.
And that
rosy scenario may not materialise. Last month, researchers at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology said that 95pc of
organisations that had deployed AI were seeing “zero return”. The study set off a brief market panic that knocked
$1tn off US tech stocks.
More
Nvidia’s $100bn
OpenAI sparks fears the AI bubble is about to burst
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.
Awaiting the August PCE.
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue only occasionally when something of interest occurs.
Of topic but important.
CDC
warns of surge in dangerous, highly antibiotic-resistant bacteria
September
24, 2025
Infections
from dangerous bacteria that are resistant to “some of the strongest
antibiotics available” have surged in the United States, the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.
Citing
a CDC study published
Tuesday, the agency said in a news release that infections from NDM-CRE
bacteria rose by more than 460 percent in the U.S. between 2019 and 2023.
“These
infections — including pneumonia, bloodstream infections, urinary tract
infections, and wound infections — are extremely hard to treat and can be
deadly,” the CDC said.
NDM-CRE
are part of a group of bacteria known as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales,
or CRE, which caused around 1,000 deaths in the U.S. every year from 2017 to
2019, according to a 2022
CDC report.
“NDM” refers to an enzyme that makes the bacteria “resistant to nearly all
available antibiotics, leaving few treatment options,” the agency said Tuesday.
The
increase in cases poses a “serious risk for patients” because NDM-CRE can
spread quickly and are associated with high rates of mortality, the CDC said.
“A
single case generates alarm among infectious diseases specialists, and we have
cause to be deeply concerned about this trajectory,” said Susan S. Huang, a
professor of infectious diseases at the University of California at Irvine
School of Medicine who has researched highly antibiotic-resistant organisms,
said of the CDC report. “Lives will be lost,” she said in an interview over
email.
The
CDC said it had not determined the exact reasons for the surge in NDM-CRE
infections. But gaps in infection control or limited testing — because many
clinics do not have the tools to rapidly detect NDM-CRE infections — may have
contributed to the bacteria’s spread, it said.
“Delayed
identification leads to slower treatment, increased transmission, and missed
opportunities for infection control,” the CDC said.
NDM-CRE
infections have been historically uncommon in the United States, the CDC said.
The NDM
gene —
which was first identified in 2008 from a Swedish patient who had been
hospitalized in New Delhi — creates an enzyme that destroys most antibiotics,
including carbapenems, which are usually used in last-ditch efforts to save
patients with infections that fail to respond to standard antibiotics, The
Washington Post has reported.
More
CDC warns of surge
in dangerous, highly antibiotic-resistant bacteria
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.
Piecing
together the puzzle of future solar cell materials
News Release 24-Sep-2025
Chalmers University of Technology
Global electricity use is increasing rapidly and must be addressed
sustainably. Developing new materials could give us much more efficient solar
cell materials than at present; materials so thin and flexible that they could
encase anything from mobile phones or entire buildings. Using computer
simulation and machine learning, researchers at Chalmers University of
Technology in Sweden have now taken an important step towards understanding and
handling halide perovskites, among the most promising but notoriously enigmatic
materials.
Electricity use is constantly increasing globally and, according
to the International Energy Agency, its proportion of the world’s total energy
consumption is expected to exceed 50 per cent in 25 years, compared to the
current 20 per cent.
“To meet the demand, there is a significant and growing need for
new, environmentally friendly and efficient energy conversion methods, such as
more efficient solar cells. Our findings are essential to engineer and control
one of the most promising solar cell materials for optimal utilisation. It’s
very exciting that we now have simulation methods that can answer questions
that were unresolved just a few years ago,” says Julia Wiktor, the study’s
principal investigator and an associate professor at Chalmers.
Promising materials for efficient solar cells
Materials lying within a group called halide perovskites are
considered the most promising for producing cost-effective, flexible and
lightweight solar cells and optoelectronic devices such as LED bulbs, as they
absorb and emit light extremely efficiently. However, perovskite materials can
degrade quickly and knowing how best to utilise them requires a deeper
understanding of why this happens and how the materials work.
Scientists have long struggled to understand one particular
material within the group, a crystalline compound called formamidinium lead
iodide. It has outstanding optoelectronic properties. Greater use of the
material has been hampered by its instability but this can be solved by mixing
two types of halide perovskites. However, more knowledge is needed about the
two types so that researchers can best control the mixture.
The key to material design and control
A research group at Chalmers can now provide a detailed account of
an important phase of the material that has previously been difficult to
explain by experiments alone. Understanding this phase is key to being able to
design and control both this material and mixtures based on it. The study was
recently published in Journal of the American Chemical Society.
“The low-temperature phase of this material has long been a
missing piece of the research puzzle and we’ve now settled a fundamental
question about the structure of this phase," says Chalmers researcher
Sangita Dutta.
Machine learning contributed to the breakthrough
The researchers’ expertise lies in building accurate models of
different materials in computer simulations. This allows them to test the
materials by exposing them to different scenarios and these are confirmed
experimentally.
Nevertheless, modelling materials in the halide perovskite family
is tricky, as capturing and decoding their properties requires powerful
supercomputers and long simulation times.
“By combining our standard methods with machine learning, we’re
now able to run simulations that are thousands of times longer than before. And
our models can now contain millions of atoms instead of hundreds, which brings
them closer to the real world,” says Dutta.
Lab observations match the simulations
The researchers identified the structure of formamidinium lead
iodide at low temperatures. They could also see that the formamidinium
molecules get stuck in a semi-stable state while the material cools. To ensure
that their study models reflect reality, they collaborated with experimental
researchers at the University of Birmingham. They cooled the material to -
200°C to ensure their experiments matched the simulations.
"We hope the insights we’ve gained from the simulations can
contribute to how to model and analyse complex halide perovskite materials in
the future," says Erik Fransson, at the Department of Physics at Chalmers.
Piecing together
the puzzle of future solar cell materials | EurekAlert!
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
Another
weekend and my question for all this weekend, is AI going to fail like Overend,
Gurney & Co., did un 1866, by vast over expansion into risky ventures,
chasing fictitious profits. At the time,
“the banker’s bank” failed, long before the Bank of England and other central
banks became the lenders of last resort.
I’m
sceptical AI will return the crazy sums now being ploughed into it, let alone return
a commensurate level of profits. (My mother’s maiden name was Gurney, but I
don’t think there was any connection.) Have a great weekend everyone.
Overend,
Gurney and Company
Overend,
Gurney and Company was a London wholesale discount bank, known as "the
bankers' bank", which collapsed in 1866 owing about £11 million,
equivalent to £1,287 million in 2023.[1] The collapse of
the institution triggered a banking panic.[2]
Overend, Gurney
and Company - Wikipedia
Walter Bagehot. Lombard Street. 1873
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