Baltic Dry Index. 2144 +208 rent Crude 63.60
Spot Gold 4175 US 2 Year Yield 3.52 Fri.
US Federal Debt. 37.862 trillion
US GDP 30.328 trillion.
The day will come when the man at the telephone will be able to see the distant person to whom he is speaking.
Alexander Graham Bell
Another day, another TACO? Well, that’s how the stock casinos interpreted Trump’s Sunday update on Truth Social. Buy everything back that was panic sold on Friday afternoon.
But does anyone really make money in whipsaw stock casinos? As importantly, is this tariff war lunacy any way to be running global supply chains?
How long before tariff U-turns and chaos disrupt shipping, logistics and retailing?
Stock futures are little changed after big rebound
on Wall Street, S&P 500 posts best day since May: Live updates
Updated Tue, Oct 14 2025 7:07 PM EDT
Stock futures were little changed on
Monday night, following a winning session in which the major averages recovered
a chunk of their losses suffered at the end of last week.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures ticked
higher by just 36 points. S&P
500 and Nasdaq-100
futures hovered just above the flatline.
The S&P 500 and Dow each jumped more
than 1% on the day, marking the former’s biggest one-day gain since May 27. The
broad market index also clawed back more than half of Friday’s steep decline.
The Dow had its best day since Sept. 11, broke a five-day losing streak and
recovered two-thirds of Friday’s losses.
The moves came after a Truth Social post
from President Donald Trump eased investor worries about growing trade tensions
between China and the U.S. “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine,”
Trump’s Sunday post said.
That sent tech stocks such as Oracle, AMD
and Nvidia up broadly, leading the market higher. The tech-heavy Nasdaq notched
a more than 2% gain.
“Trade policy remains a key driver for US
financial markets this year, and last week saw a sharp re-escalation in
tensions between the US and China,” Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi, global head of
equities at UBS Global Wealth Management, said in a note. “With hardened
positions on both sides, we expect increased equity market volatility into the
end of the month. However, the history of Trump-Xi negotiations suggests that
escalation is often followed by tactical truces, and rare earth minerals versus
shipping fees could ultimately seal a deal.”
Investors on Tuesday will look to keep
this momentum going, as major banks such as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs
are set to report third-quarter earnings.
Stock
market today: Live updates
China-US Standoff Reignites But Wall Street Shrugs
October 13, 2025 at 11:24 PM GMT+1
Chinese President Xi Jinping, US
President Donald Trump and their latest
tit-for-tat trade showdown have both countries claiming the ball is
now in the other’s court, with the clock ticking toward another escalation in
import tariffs. Following Xi’s new terms and the White House returning fire via
social media, Trump appeared to signal openness to a deal with Beijing
given its new terms. But on Sunday the administration’s tone changed again,
with his adjutants saying the outcome would depend on the Chinese response.
Hours later, China’s Foreign Ministry made
clear Beijing would take its cues from Washington’s next steps. “If the US
continues on its wrong course, China will firmly take necessary measures to
safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” spokesman Lin Jian said at
a regular briefing in Beijing. Chinese authorities haven’t announced a response
to Trump’s market-denting threat to impose 100% tariffs over Beijing’s
latest rare-earth curbs. But it’s early yet.
For its part, Wall Street didn’t
seem to take Trump’s threat seriously on Monday. “While markets had to
react to the US tariff news on Friday I suspect many will attempt to treat this
as TACO in the making,” said Jordan Rochester, head of macro strategy for
EMEA at Mizuho Bank, citing a trade known as “Trump
Always Chickens Out.” —Natasha
Solo-Lyons and David
E. Rovella
China-US
Standoff Reignites But Wall Street Shrugs: Evening Briefing - Bloomberg
Andrew Bailey: Stock markets could crash if debt
levels spiral
Monday 13 October 2025 1:44
pm | Updated: Monday 13 October 2025
4:56 pm
Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey has
warned that stock markets could suffer a “disorderly adjustment” due to
spiralling debt levels and other vulnerabilities.
Ahead of a seminal week in Washington DC
where global financial leaders are set to discuss the future of
multilateralism, Bailey said bullish markets and spiralling sovereign debt
levels had left the wider system in peril.
Bailey, who chairs the Financial Stability
Board (FSB), called on G20 nations to work together to ensure financial systems
remained stable.
“While most jurisdictions have seen a
rebound in financial markets in recent months, valuations could now be at odds
with the uncertain outlook, leaving markets susceptible to a disorderly
adjustment.”
“The need for global standards and
cooperation therefore remains abundantly clear. Not just to prevent crises, but
because ultimately a resilient system allows the efficient allocation of
capital, enabling the G20 and its member economies to focus on supporting
sustained growth.”
The top central banker warned that
“sovereign debt levels have continued to increase and are forecast to rise
further,” adding “vulnerabilities in the financial system remain high.”
Bailey said that regulators and central
banks “cannot lose sight of emerging risks”, as he vowed to beef up
“surveillance capabilities” in financial markets.
“Whether it is the rise of private
finance, the implications of geopolitical tensions, or the increasing role of
stablecoins for payment and settlement purposes, our ability to detect and
address emerging risks is critical,” he said.
Bailey warns of AI risks
In a letter to global finance ministers,
Bailey said the FSB was working to refine cross-border payment systems to
“support economic growth” and improving transparency levels.
He also said the board would review the
use of stablecoins and other crypto assets, warning that
“gaps remain in addressing financial stability risks”. He also said the global
financial watchdog had to better monitor different financial markets and
models.
In particular, Bailey pointed to the risk
AI adoption could have on cyber risks and third-party dependence, though
innovation should also be encouraged in the technology sector.
Last week, both the IMF and Bank of England’s Financial
Policy Committee warned of a “sharp contraction” in markets due to a boom in AI
stocks.
The Bank said that a “crystallisation of
such global risks could have a material impact on the UK as an open
economy”.
Analysts at Barclays warned that traders
had “FOMO” – fear of missing out – though “circular funding” could undo a sharp
boom.
The UK government is largely relying on
the AI sector to boost growth and productivity in the next
few years.
More
Andrew
Bailey: Stock markets could crash if debt levels spiral
Central banks stoked the dotcom bubble. They’re
doing it again for AI
13 October 2025
Blow-out quarterly earnings estimates from
American software and cloud services specialist Oracle, a $100bn (£75bn)
investment in ChatGPT developer OpenAI by silicon chip designer Nvidia and, in
reverse, the purchase of a 10pc stake by OpenAI in another semiconductor maker,
AMD, are all keeping
the artificial intelligence (AI) pot boiling, so far as stock markets are
concerned.
The magnificent seven of Alphabet, Amazon,
Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla now have an aggregate stock market
capitalisation of $21tn – or 36pc of the S&P 500 index’s total value. Their
spending on AI and their share prices are firing US economic growth, which
continues to shrug off tariff turmoil, corporate earnings – and thus, the US
stock market.
In theory, where the US goes, the rest are
sure to follow. America is the world’s largest economy and home to its biggest
stock market, biggest bond market and its reserve currency the dollar, all of
which count for rather a lot. Many headline stock indices are cruising to new
highs, including our very own FTSE 100.
Yet
someone is worried.
The minutes of the latest meeting of the Bank of England’s Financial Policy
Committee (FPC), released last Wednesday, offer warnings of increased risks of
a sharp pullback in global share prices. The question now, as one email sent to
this column immediately reflected, is whether this is a timely alert or a
repeat of Alan Greenspan’s “irrational exuberance” speech of 1996. The
then-Federal Reserve chair cautioned about the dangers of a galloping stock
market, only for share prices to continue rising, not peaking until 39 months
later.
Uncanny echoes
The FPC’s frets about the sky-high
valuations of anything AI carry uncomfortable echoes of the technology, media
and telecoms (TMT) – or dotcom – bubble that inflated over the 1990s, popped in
2000 and bottomed in 2002. It then took America’s technology-laden Nasdaq
Composite index, the poster child for the bubble, until April 2015 to return to
its March 2000 high, teaching investors a painful lesson of the perils of
choosing narrative over valuation.
Greenspan had, in the eyes of some, tried
to calm animal spirits before the bubble even got going – and with good reason.
Just eight months after the Fed chair spoke, trouble blew in from an unexpected
quarter when Thailand devalued the baht. Indonesia, South Korea and Malaysia
quickly followed with the rupiah, won and ringgit, and the Asian debt crisis
began to roil markets.
Russia’s own debt crisis and rouble
devaluation followed in August 1998, which in turn prompted the collapse of
Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM). It had borrowed heavily to fund its long
and short positions and strategies that had been drawn up by its mathematical
models.
But no sooner had the Fed chair been
proven correct, he helped to orchestrate the $3.6bn bail-out of the stricken
LTCM hedge fund and, for good measure, threw in two emergency interest cuts
from the Fed – one of a half-percentage point and one of a quarter – to take
the Fed funds rate to 4.75pc from 5.5pc.
Markets got the message, lapped up the
liquidity and implicit central bank support, and latched on to the prospect of
how the internet and 3G mobile telephony could change the world. Cue the TMT
bubble, which some argue Greenspan helped to stoke, despite his initial
warning. Perhaps that is what
the gold price is telling us now.
Policymakers may worry but they will bail
out and provide liquidity in the event of another accident, come what may.
Timing issue
In the end, the forecasts that underpinned
the TMT boom more than two decades ago proved conservative. The problem was
that the S-curve of demand did not develop as rapidly as valuations required to
maintain the momentum at that time.
The big test for AI is therefore the same
one: when will enough customers show up and pay up to provide a return on the
substantial upfront investments being made? Broker research puts the total
capital investment budget of the so-called AI hyperscalers (Meta, Microsoft,
Amazon, Alphabet and Oracle) at $389bn, up 63pc from last year, which was in
turn 60pc higher than 2023’s spend. Another 10pc hike – to $428bn – is forecast
for 2026.
At some stage, a return is needed on this
investment for investors to keep the faith.
Central banks
stoked the dotcom bubble. They’re doing it again for AI
In other news.
IMF meetings to begin under fresh cloud of
US-China trade tensions
13 October 2025
The IMF and World Bank's semi-annual
gathering of finance ministers and central bank governors gets underway in
Washington on Monday, against the backdrop of new trade threats from the
world's two largest economies.
Last week, China unveiled new export
restrictions on critical minerals, prompting a fierce response from US
President Donald Trump, who said he would impose new 100 percent tariffs on
Beijing in response.
The news, delivered just after US stock
markets closed on Friday, sent shares plunging after hours, as investors
digested the prospect of a reinvigorated trade war.
Last week, International Monetary Fund
managing director Kristalina Georgieva told an event in Washington that the
world economy is doing "better than feared, but worse than we need."
She added that the Fund now expects global
growth to slow "only slightly this year and next," propped up by
better-than-expected conditions in the United States, and among some other
advanced economies, emerging markets and developing countries.
The annual meetings in Washington will
take place at the IMF and World Bank's headquarters, situated just a stone's
throw from the White House.
- Economy, jobs in spotlight -
For the World Bank, the focus is likely to
remain on job creation, with president Ajay Banga set to take part in several
events aimed at boosting labor market participation in countries facing a surge
in population growth.
The IMF will hold press conferences to
discuss its regular trio of reports focused on the health of the global
economy, fiscal policy, and global financial stability.
At the annual meetings there will be
another roundtable on Ukraine, a country still facing near-daily drone and
missile attacks more than three years after the start of Russia's full-scale
invasion.
The event will be an opportunity to
discuss "the needs for ongoing support to Ukraine and efforts needed for
its reconstruction," according to the IMF.
There will also be meetings of finance
ministers from the G7 group of advanced Western economies, and a gathering of
the G20 group of nations, a forum that includes both the United States and
China.
- Ongoing trade tensions -
Even before the most recent trade spat
broke out, Trump's tariff plans had raised US import taxes on goods to the
highest level in decades, cooling growth and pushing up prices.
So far, however, "all signs point to
a world economy that has generally withstood acute strains from multiple
shocks," Georgieva said last week.
"The world has avoided a tit-for-tat
slide into trade war -- so far," she added.
The White House continues to insist that
the long-term effect of tariffs will be positive for the United States,
pointing to their relatively muted economic impact thus far.
IMF meetings to
begin under fresh cloud of US-China trade tensions
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.
US
soybean farmers battered by trade row with China
October
13, 2025
The
US soybean harvest is underway and in rural Maryland, farmer Travis Hutchison
cracks open a pod to show how a field is nearly dry enough for reaping.
But
a decent yield is not enough to secure his income this year -- with China, once
the biggest buyer of US soybean exports, halting orders in a trade row
triggered by President Donald Trump's aggressive tariffs.
Soybean
prices "are really depressed because of the trade war," Hutchison
told AFP. His family tills 3,400 acres of soybeans, corn and other crops.
"I
wasn't against the president trying it, because I think we needed better trade
deals," added the 54-year-old of Trump's policies.
But
he expressed disappointment at how things played out: "I was hoping it
would get resolved sooner."
Hutchison
is among American farmers -- a key support base for Trump -- reeling from the
trade impasse.
The
world's second biggest economy in 2024 bought more than half the $24.5 billion
in US soybean exports.
But
exports to China have fallen by over 50 percent in value this year, and Chinese
buyers have held off on new soybean orders from the US autumn harvest.
With
lower demand, soybean prices are down about 40 percent from three years ago.
This
comes as American soybeans have become pricier for Chinese buyers.
As
Trump slapped tariffs on Chinese products in his second presidency, Beijing's
counter-duties on US soybeans rose to 20 percent.
This
makes them "prohibitively more expensive" than exports from South
America, where US farmers face growing competition, said the American Soybean
Association (ASA).
Last
month, Argentina suspended its export tax on key crops like soybeans, making
them more attractive to Chinese buyers too.
Trump
vowed to tap tariff revenues to help US farmers but has not provided details,
while prospects of a longer-term deal appear more distant than ever.
On
Friday, Trump promised additional 100-percent tariffs targeting China and
threatened to scrap talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping over Beijing's rare
earth industry export curbs.
ASA
president Caleb Ragland said the group had hoped top-level talks would restore
soybean exports to China.
"These
latest developments are deeply disappointing at a moment when soybean farmers
are facing an ever-growing financial crisis," he said.
-
'Band-aid' -
Hutchison,
whose family has been farming in Cordova for generations, acknowledges that
farmers are easy targets in trade spats.
But
a government bailout is a "band-aid" rather than a long-term
solution, he said.
"I'm
glad that he's thinking of us," Hutchison added, referring to Trump.
But
securing a reliable trading partner is more important: "We're in the
farming game for the long term."
Time
is limited, as China's soybean purchasing window from the United States usually
runs from October through January, said farmer David Burrier, based in Union
Bridge, Maryland.
"This
year's going to be a very, very tough year," he told AFP. "40 percent
of our acres are probably going to be breakeven or under breakeven."
Burrier
said it would be a "four-alarm fire" if China stopped soybean
purchases for good.
ASA
chief economist Scott Gerlt warned the situation is especially harsh in
Midwestern states like North and South Dakota.
There,
the soybean industry is built up around exporting to the Pacific Northwest and
subsequently to China.
More
US soybean farmers
battered by trade row with China
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue only occasionally when something of interest occurs.
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.
Forged in disorder: High-entropy MXenes emerge as a new material
By Chelsea Haney October 11, 2025
By breaking the rules of atomic order, scientists have created
MXenes unlike any seen before. Nine metals now share a single atom-thin sheet,
their once-neat layers dissolved into a patchwork of possibility. The result
could redefine how we design materials for the harshest places on Earth and
beyond.
History has shown that materials science has long prized symmetry
and stability, celebrating crystals whose atoms lock into place like repeating
tiles on an infinite floor. It is this type of order that gives rise to
strength, conductivity, and control in a laboratory and real-world setting. But
in one peculiar family of carbides, the script of symmetry and stability
shifted. Here, what should have been chaos turned out to be strength, as if
disorder and order were two faces of the same design.
That paradox emerged from work led by researchers at Purdue and
Drexel Universities, who set out to see what would happen if they pushed a
well-known family of layered carbides beyond its limits. The idea was both
straightforward and bold: take a structure prized for its order and force it to
host different layers of metals simultaneously to see how far it would go
before collapsing into useless disorder.
Much to the scientists' surprise, that collapse never came.
Instead, the material reached a tipping point. Once a specific threshold was
crossed, order ceased, as predicted by the researchers. But instead of failure,
entropy itself stepped in as the stabilizer, holding the structure together as
a two-dimensional sheet. What looked like chaos instead uncovered a hidden
strength. Out of that deliberate disorder came a new approach to designing
materials.
MAX Phases: The Scaffolding Beneath
To understand what made this experiment possible, you must step
back half a century into the 1970s, when scientists discovered a curious set of
layered ceramics they called MAX phases. Their formula – written as Mₙ₊₁AXₙ –
hid a simple idea: sheets of transition metals bound to carbon or nitrogen,
stacked with intervening layers of “A” elements like aluminum or silicon.
What made these materials unusual was their ability to combine
qualities rarely found together. They had the toughness of ceramics, able to
resist heat and wear, but also conducted electricity much like metals. That
combination earned them attention, and their architecture proved especially
interesting. The metal layers fell into distinct positions, some bonded outward
to the A-layers and others inward to the carbon. It was a framework that seemed
to invite both order and potentially, disruption.
---- Why It Matters: Tough
Jobs, Real Applications
The implications go far beyond the laboratory. By showing that
disorder can be engineered, these MXenes open a new frontier in materials
design. Metallic, conductive, and dispersible in water, these MXenes endure
where most materials fail. That resilience makes them candidates for the
toughest jobs imaginable; from the vacuum of space to the crushing pressures of
the deep ocean and the corrosive grind of electrochemical systems.
“We want to continue pushing the boundaries of what materials can
do, especially in extreme environments where current materials fall short,”
said Anasori.
More
Scientists create
new MXenes with nine metals
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long
and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has
opened for us.
Alexander Graham Bell
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