IMF And JP Morgan Warnings. Stocks Yawn.

Baltic Dry Index. 1997 -25      Brent Crude 62.46

Spot Gold 4245            US 2 Year Yield 3.50 +0.02

US Federal Debt. 37.871 trillion

US GDP 30.333 trillion.

The way to get a maximum rate of 'economic growth' assuming this to be our aim - is to give maximum encouragement to production, employment, saving, and investment. And the way to do this is to maintain a free market and a sound currency.

Henry Hazlitt

The Great Stock Casino Disconnect from global economic reality just keeps on widening.

Gold and silver head higher.

South Korea’s Kospi hits record high on trade deal optimism, IMF growth forecast upgrade

Published Wed, Oct 15 2025 7:39 PM ED

South Korea’s Kospi index hit a record high Thursday, after the International Monetary Fund raised the country’s 2025 growth forecast to 0.9% from 0.8% in its October outlook report.

The IMF also raised its growth projection for the global economy, saying the impact of U.S. tariffs was “at the modest end of the range.”

It cited several reasons for upgrading the forecast, including the agility of the private sector, which front-loaded imports in the first half of the year and quickly reorganized supply chains to redirect trade flows; trade deals between the U.S. and other countries; and the overall restraint from much of the world, which largely kept the global trading system open.

South Korean stocks also received a boost after U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC in an exclusive interview Wednesday stateside that Washington was “about to finish up” trade negotiations with the Asian country.

“The devil’s in the details, but we are ironing out the details,” he added.

The autos, electronics and industrial equipment firms led gains on the Kospi index. Shares of Samsung Electronics rose 2.32% to an all-time high, while Hyundai Motor added around 8%. Kia also gained around 7%.

South Korea’s Kospi index advanced 1.09%, while the small-cap Kosdaq traded 0.2% higher.

Shares of SK Inc., one of South Korea’s biggest technology conglomerates, fell over 5% after the Supreme Court on Thursday partially overturned a previous ruling on Chairman Chey Tae-won’s divorce settlement, local media reported.

Last year, a lower court ordered Chey to pay about $1 billion to his estranged wife in a high-profile divorce lawsuit.

Meanwhile, shares of SK Inc.’s subsidiary and chip maker SK Hynix jumped over 6%.

Australian shares also hit new high

Investors have been on edge in recent days as global trade tensions have escalated. The Cboe Volatility Index (VIX), known to many as Wall Street’s fear gauge, has trended higher over the past week, rising last Friday to more than 21.6, or its most elevated level since late May. The index finished at 20.6 on Wednesday stateside.

Australia’s ASX/S&P 200 rose to a new record after the country’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate jumped to a near four-year high in September at 4.5%. That compares with the 4.3% estimated by Reuters-polled economists and the 4.2% rate in August.

Meanwhile, employment rose by 14,900 in September, missing expectations for a 20,000 rise. The weak jobs reading paves the way for further interest rate cuts.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index jumped 0.95%, while the Topix index added 0.8%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 0.5%, while the Hang Seng Tech Index lost 1.53%. Mainland’s CSI 300 added 0.52%.

India’s benchmark Nifty 50 rose 0.34%, while the Sensex index climbed 0.23%.

U.S. equity futures were little changed in early Asian hours after major banks reported earnings beat, as Washington’s government shutdown entered its third week and escalating trade tensions with China persisted.

Overnight, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day little changed, down just 17.15 points, or 0.04% at 46,253.31. At one point in the day, the 30-stock index rose as much as 422.88 points.

The S&P 500 finished 0.4% higher at 6,671.06, after gaining as much as 1.2% intraday. The Nasdaq Composite ended up 0.7% at 22,670.08. It briefly rallied as much as 1.4%.

Asia-Pacific markets: Nikkei 225, ASX, Hang Seng Index

Treasury Secretary Bessent says a stock market decline won’t deter the U.S. from taking strong action against China

Published Wed, Oct 15 2025 8:41 AM EDT Updated Wed, Oct 15 2025 1:31 PM EDT

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insisted Wednesday that the U.S. won’t change its trade negotiating stance on China due to stock market volatility.

“We won’t negotiate because the stock market is going down” or shy away from taking strong measures against Beijing for that reason, Bessent said in an exclusive interview at CNBC’s Invest in America Forum.

“We will negotiate because we are doing what is best economically for the U.S.,” he said.

Bessent pushed back on a report in The Wall Street Journal overnight that China “expects that the prospect of another market meltdown ultimately will force [President Donald Trump] to negotiate.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping is “betting that the U.S. economy can’t absorb a prolonged trade conflict” with China, the Journal reported, citing people close to Beijing’s decision-making. 

The Cabinet secretary called that report “terrible,” accusing the newspaper of taking “CCP dictation.”

A spokesperson for the Journal, asked for comment on Bessent’s remarks, said the newspaper stands by its reporting.

“We hold ourselves to the highest journalistic standards and any insinuation otherwise is baseless and false,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Bessent’s comments came as markets have whipsawed in recent days, as the status of ongoing trade talks between the world’s largest economies appeared to teeter.

Stocks tanked on Friday after Trump threatened to hike tariffs on Chinese imports in retaliation for new export controls that China imposed on rare earth minerals.

Trump appeared to soften his tone over the weekend, spurring a market rebound on Monday. Major stock indexes bounced around in volatile trading Tuesday; the S&P 500 took a dive before the session close after Trump issued yet another trade threat against China, this one accusing Beijing of economic hostility for not buying U.S. soybeans.

Bessent added Wednesday that while Trump “likes a high stock market,” he “believes that the high stock market is a result of good policies.”

“It’s the policies that we’re talking about here today, in terms of this capex boom,” Bessent said, highlighting increased investment in artificial intelligence.

U.S.-China trade: Bessent says Trump won't be deterred by stock drops

IMF sounds alarm on soaring sovereign debt

Wednesday 15 October 2025 3:43 pm  |  Updated:  Wednesday 15 October 2025 3:44 pm

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged governments to bear down on profligate spending after it found government debt was on course to reach 100 per cent of global GDP within the next five years.

In its latest Fiscal Monitor report, the world’s preeminent financial institution sounded the alarm on developed and developing nations’ over-reliance on borrowing, warning it threatened “financial stability” if governments do not urgently curb their yawning deficits.

“The persistence of spending above tax revenues will push debt to ever higher heights threatening sustainability and financial stability”, the paper said. “Prioritising fiscal policy is essential to support debt sustainability and prepare fiscal buffers to use in case of severe adverse shocks including financial crises. But while we do recognise that the fiscal equation is very hard to square politically, the time to prepare is now.”

Debt higher than aftermath of WW2

Global government debt is on track to rocket past 100 per cent of the sum total of economic activity across the planet by as soon as 2029, the Washington-based fund projected, the highest level since the immediate fallout from World War 2. It put a five per cent likelihood that global debt could top 120 per cent of global income in the same period, given the current trend is towards “debt accumulating even faster”.

The report namechecked the UK as one of several countries whose debt to GDP ratio – the difference between a nation’s annual economic output and total sovereign debt -would break the 100 per cent mark in the next five years. In doing so, the country would join the likes of Japan, France, Canada and the US whose debt levels have already eclipsed the unwanted milestone.

UK still suffering from Covid debt

UK policymakers have struggled to quash runaway borrowing since the coronavirus pandemic caused all Western governments to run record deficits in a bid to keep their economies afloat. In 2024, the public sector spent 4.8 per cent more than it earned via taxes, leaving its fiscal policy beholden to volatile global debt markets that currently levy interest of more than five per cent on 10-year government bonds, known as gilts.

The country’s ballooning debt pile – which now stands at more than £3 trillion – means the government now spends twice as much on interest payments to bondholders as it does on defence, making it effectively the third largest government department.

Excluding debt interest payments, the IMF added the UK economy was on track to operate at a budget surplus in three years’ time, which would peak at 0.7 per cent of GDP by 2030.

Despite that, the IMF’s deputy director for monetary and capital markets, Athanasios Vamvakidis, told reporters that debt markets felt uneasy about the UK’s fiscal path.

“Clearly markets are concerned about the UK economy, and we have seen more volatility in the UK compared to other advanced economies,” he said.

IMF sounds alarm on soaring sovereign debt

Wall Street’s Widening War Over ‘Cockroaches’

October 15, 2025 at 11:04 PM GMT+1

Jamie Dimon’s warning about market “cockroaches” and its implication for the $1.7 trillion private debt market isn’t sitting well with the other side of the street. The JPMorgan CEO’s comments came as investors seem increasingly spooked by the implosion of auto lender Tricolor Holdings and car-parts supplier First Brands Group, and the possibility that they are signs of more pain to come.

“When you see one cockroach, there are probably more,” Dimon said. But according to Blue Owl Capital Co-CEO Marc Lipschultz, it’s the banks that might want to look behind the refrigerator. Tying private credit to the fallout from those bankruptcies is an “odd kind of fear-mongering,” he said.

The clash comes at a time when “there’s land mines starting to go off everywhere,” said Akshay Shah, who runs distressed-debt firm Kyma Capital. “Marc is saying it’s in the banking corner, and Jamie might say it’s elsewhere. I would say it’s going off in both corners.”

More

Wall Street’s Widening War Over ‘Cockroaches’: Evening Briefing Americas - Bloomberg

In other news.

Cobalt 

In Depth: Congo’s Cobalt Controls Deepen Uncertainty for Chinese Miner

It has been a rough year for the world’s largest cobalt producer.

Shanghai-listed CMOC Group Ltd.’s sales fell over 17% year-on-year in the second quarter, according to the miner’s earnings results. By the end of June, its inventory of the metal, a key raw material for the lithium-ion batteries that power smartphones and electric vehicles (EVs), had increased 35% to more than 57,000 tons.

On June 30, IXM, a commodities trader owned by CMOC, took the extraordinary step of reneging on its cobalt supply contracts, declaring force majeure and admitting that it could no longer obtain cobalt mined from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

CX Daily: Congo’s Cobalt Controls Deepen Uncertainty for Chinese Miner

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.

Global Signs of Strain With a Silver Lining

October 14, 2025 at 10:55 PM GMT+1

The International Monetary Fund is warning that the global economy is showing signs of strain, and the main reason for it is US policy. Specifically the sweeping tariffs and protectionism emanating from Donald Trump’s global trade war. But there’s a silver lining, apparently.

As bad as things are, they’re not as bad as expected—at least not yet, the IMF said. The global economy is expected to grow by 3.2% this year, up from 3% predicted in July. The upgraded forecast is largely due to a burst in activity as companies and households rushed to get goods in anticipation of high tariffs, as well as a weaker dollar that juiced trade. “It’s not as bad as we feared,” IMF Chief Economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said. “But it’s worse than we anticipated a year ago and worse than we need.”

It’s next year when a turn for the worse may arrive. Growth is seen edging down to 3.1% in 2026 as the IMF notes increasing signs that the impact of high levies is starting to be felt. This includes in the US, where both inflation and unemployment are rising. Inflation is above central bank targets in other countries as well, and the outlook for prices remain uncertain, all of which complicates the job of monetary policymakers.

And finally, there is the ongoing borrowing binge. Governments will need to find ways to cut spending, particularly in Europe, given the additional costs linked to aging populations, increased defense spending and energy security. “The calculus of post-pandemic debt sustainability is complicated by elevated debt ratios, worsening primary balances, higher interest rates and a weakening growth outlook,” the IMF said. But at least there’s that silver lining.

----- Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled the central bank may stop shrinking its balance sheet in the coming months. The Fed chair also indicated US labor-market prospects continue to worsen, a message that supports investors’ expectations for another interest-rate cut this month.

Fed officials have been winding down the central bank’s balance sheet since 2022—a process known as quantitative tightening—reversing trillions of dollars of asset purchases designed to stimulate the economy after the pandemic struck. Earlier this year, the Fed slowed the pace by reducing the amount of bond holdings it lets roll off every month. 

JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon is sounding warnings on the potential for a deterioration in credit quality, a cautionary note that put a damper on the firm’s surge in trading and investment-banking revenue. The US economy remains resilient but there are “signs of a softening, particularly in job growth,” Dimon said Tuesday as the bank reported third-quarter results.

The Wall Street giant added $810 million to its reserves for potentially soured loans, citing loan growth and updates to macroeconomic variables, with most of the addition tied to card services. JPMorgan beat analysts’ estimates for trading and investment-banking fees, driven by a pickup in dealmaking and underwriting, with market revenue climbing 25% and investment-banking fees rising 16%.

Goldman Sachs meanwhile told employees that some of them will soon be fired. The firm said it is planning a “limited reduction in roles across the firm,” according to a memo to staff Tuesday morning seen by Bloomberg News.

The announcement of a new round of terminations comes as the bank posted record third-quarter revenue, boosted by a rapid pace of growth in its investment bank that eclipsed Wall Street rivals. The firm reported $2.66 billion in investment banking fees, a 42% surge on the same period last year. That pace beat rivals and helped the company as a whole report revenue of $15.18 billion, its largest haul for that quarter in its history and its third highest overall for all quarters.

IMF Sees Global Signs of Strain With a Silver Lining: Evening Briefing Americas - Bloomberg

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.

Exclusive: AI writing hasn't overwhelmed the web yet

October 14, 2025

New articles generated by AI briefly outnumbered those written by humans online, but the two are now roughly equal, per a new report from SEO firm Graphite.

Why it matters: Researchers have long feared that if AI-made content online overwhelms human-created material, large language models could choke on their own exhaust and collapse.

The big picture: A 2022 report from Europol estimated that 90% of online content would be generated by AI by 2026.

• According to Graphite's analysis of 65,000 URLs that were posted online between 2020 and 2025, the percentage of AI-generated articles rose sharply after ChatGPT's launch in 2023.
• The percentage of AI-generated articles in this data set briefly surpassed human-written articles in November 2024, but the two have stayed roughly equal since.

What they did: Graphite used an AI detector called Surfer to analyze a random sample of URLs from Common Crawl, an open source database of over 300 billion web pages. The database spans 18 years and adds 3–5 billion new pages monthly.

• The pages had publish dates between January 2020 and May 2025 and were classified as either articles or listicles using Graphite's article page type classifier.
• Articles were deemed AI-generated if 50% or less of the content was found by Surfer to have been written by a human.

Zoom in: Distinguishing between machine and human-written content is tricky.

• To evaluate Surfer's accuracy, Graphite tested it with its own sample of AI-generated articles and with a set published before ChatGPT's launch, which were likely written by humans.
• Surfer had a 4.2% false positive rate (labeling human-written articles as AI-generated) and a 0.6% false negative rate (labeling AI-written articles as human) for articles it generated with GPT-4o.

By the numbers: Content farms may also be learning that AI-generated content isn't prioritized by search engines and chatbot responses, according to a second report from Graphite.

• Graphite found that 86% of articles ranking in Google Search were written by humans, and 14% were generated by AI.
• The pattern held across chatbots, too. 82% of articles cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity were written by humans, and only 18% were AI-generated, according to Graphite's research.
• When AI-generated articles do appear in Google Search, they tend to rank lower than human-written articles.

Yes, but: Researchers told Axios that a definitive count of AI-made content isn't possible with today's tools and definitions.

• It's hard to determine what content is AI-generated and what is human-generated because humans are increasingly working together with AI.

• There are so many different degrees by which someone might utilize AI in their work that it's challenging to definitively say something is AI-generated or not, a Google spokesperson told Axios.
• "At this point, it's a symbiosis more than a dichotomy," Stefano Soatto, professor of computer science at UCLA and VP at Amazon Web Services, told Axios.
• Not all content created with AI is considered spam, the Google spokesperson said.

More

AI-written web pages haven't overwhelmed human-authored content, study finds

Next, the world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.

World Debt Clocks (usdebtclock.org)

When Alexander the Great visited the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: ‘Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.’ It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.

Henry Hazlitt