Baltic Dry Index. 1932 +31 Brent Crude 65.59
Spot Gold 3977 US 2 Year Yield 3.60 +0.02
US Federal Debt. 37.833 trillion
US GDP 30.313 trillion.
Any fool can know. The point is to understand.
Albert Einstein
Another day and another dodgy AI deal that looks a lot like the old dot.con deals of another great stocks con bubble.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 hits record high for second
straight day after Wall Street gains on AMD rally
Published Mon, Oct 6 2025 7:41 PM EDT
Japan’s Nikkei 225 hit a record high
Tuesday for the second straight session, lifted by a tech rally on Wall Street
after a massive deal between
OpenAI and AMD — seen
as one of the most direct challenges yet to chipmaker giant Nvidia.
Chip stocks were among the top movers on
the index. Shares of Advantest rose
over 4%, while Tokyo
Electron added 2%. Lasertec was up 1.35%,
and Renesas Electronics advanced
4.85%.
The Nikkei 225 hit a fresh high Monday
after Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party elected staunch conservative
Sanae Takaichi as its new leader Saturday, positioning her to become the
country’s first female prime minister.
Meanwhile, the Topix index rose 0.31%.
Japanese Government Bond yields rose to all-time highs Tuesday. The yield on
the 10-year JGB rose by 2 basis points to 1.694% to reach the highest level
since July 2008, while the 20-year JGB added nearly 4 basis points to hit
2.734% the highest point since 1999. The yield on the 30-year JGB added more
than 4 basis points to 3.333%, an all-time high.
One basis point is equal to 0.01%, and
yields move inversely to prices.
The Japanese yen weakened 0.11% to 150.49
against the greenback, falling for a fourth straight session. The currency
plunged nearly 2% in the previous session.
Australia’s ASX/S&P 200 fell 0.27%,
extending losses from the previous session.
Chinese, Hong Kong and South Korean
markets are closed for the holidays.
U.S. equity futures were slightly lower in
early Asian hours Tuesday after the major key benchmarks hit fresh records
Monday stateside.
Overnight, the S&P 500 gained 0.36% to
end the day at a fresh record for the 32nd time this year. Meanwhile, the
tech-heavy Nasdaq advanced
0.71% to finish at 22,941.67, after notching its 31st all-time high of 2025.
Shares of AMD skyrocketed almost 24% to
boost both indexes after the company announced a
deal with OpenAI, which could see the latter take a 10% stake in the
chipmaker.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average,
however, fell 63.31 points, or 0.14%, to close at 46,694.97, weighed down by a
decline in shares of Sherwin-Williams and Home Depot.
Japan's
Nikkei 225 hits record high for second straight day
AMD stock skyrockets 23% as OpenAI looks to take
stake in AI chipmaker
Published Mon, Oct 6 2025 6:52 AM EDT Updated
Mon, Oct 6 2025 4:04 PM EDT
OpenAI and Advanced Micro Devices have
reached a deal that could see Sam Altman’s
company take a 10% stake in the chipmaker.
AMD stock skyrocketed 23.71% on Monday
following the news.
OpenAI will deploy 6 gigawatts of AMD’s
Instinct graphics processing units over multiple years and across multiple
generations of hardware, the companies said Monday. It will kick off with an
initial 1-gigawatt rollout of chips in the second half of 2026.
“We have to do this,” OpenAI President
Greg Brockman told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “This is so core to our
mission if we really want to be able to scale to reach all of humanity, this is
what we have to do.”
Brockman added that the company is already
unable to launch many features in ChatGPT and other products that could
generate revenue because of the lack of compute power.
As part of the tie-up, AMD has issued
OpenAI a warrant for up to 160 million shares of AMD common stock, with vesting
milestones tied to both deployment volume and AMD’s share price.
The first tranche vests with the first
full gigawatt deployment, with additional tranches unlocking as OpenAI scales
to 6 gigawatts and meets key technical and commercial milestones required for
large-scale rollout.
If OpenAI exercises the full warrant, it
could acquire approximately 10% ownership in AMD, based on the current number
of shares outstanding.
The ChatGPT maker
said the deal was worth billions, but declined to disclose a specific dollar
amount.
The deal positions AMD as a core strategic
partner to OpenAI, marking one of the largest GPU deployment agreements in
the artificial intelligence industry
to date.
AMD CEO Lisa
Su told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” that AI is on a 10-year growth
path, and “at the end of the day, you need the foundational compute to do
that.”
“You need partnerships like this that
really bring the ecosystem together to ensure that, you know, we can really get
the best technologies, you know, out there,” she said. “So we’re super excited
about the opportunities here.”
The partnership could help ease
industrywide pressure on supply chains and reduce OpenAI’s reliance on a single
vendor.
OpenAI unveiled a landmark $100 billion
equity-and-supply agreement with Nvidia nearly two weeks ago,
cementing the chip giant’s
role in powering the next generation of OpenAI models. That arrangement
combined capital investment with long-term hardware supply — though in Nvidia’s
case, it was the chipmaker taking an ownership stake in OpenAI.
Shares of Nvidia fell 1% on Monday
following news of the OpenAI-AMD deal.
That deal accounts for a dedicated
10-gigawatt portion of OpenAI’s broader 23-gigawatt infrastructure road map. At
an estimated $50 billion in construction costs per gigawatt — together with the
AMD deal — OpenAI has committed roughly $1 trillion in new buildout spending in
just the past two weeks.
OpenAI is also in talks with Broadcom to build custom
chips for its next generation of models.
The arrangement between OpenAI and AMD
adds a new layer to the increasingly circular nature of AI’s corporate economy,
where capital, equity and compute are traded among the same handful of
companies building and powering the technology.
More
OpenAI
looks to take 10% stake in AMD through AI chip deal
In other news, poor France.
French Political Deadlock Deepens After
Another Premier Quits
October 6, 2025 at 5:00 PM GMT+1
French markets sank after Prince
Minister Sebastien Lecornu unexpectedly quit just a day after President
Emmanuel Macron’s cabinet picks
disappointed even members of the proposed new government. Bruno
Retailleau — who was tapped to become interior minister and leads the
center-right Republicans — slammed the choice of ministers as failing to
“break” with the past.
The resignation deepens the political
crisis gripping Europe’s second-biggest economy. The premium on French
debt over safer German peers rose
to a nine-month high. French stocks
tumbled by the most since late August. Some analysts warned European
Union financial markets are at risk of contagion
from France.
Macron now has three main choices: He can
name a new prime minister, who would then need to propose a fresh cabinet; he
could call a parliamentary election; or he could resign himself — something
he’s previously said he won’t do. Calls grew louder over the course of the day
for Macron to make a statement.
Lecornu was supposed to be Macron’s
“last-chance” man to keep his presidency on the rails through 2027, writes
Lionel Laurent for Bloomberg Opinion. He has ended up as
the epitome of a failed strategy. --Jonathan
Tirone
French
Political Deadlock Deepens After Another Premier Quits - Bloomberg
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.
Are
we in a recession? Yes — if you live in one of these 22 states.
October
5, 2025
The
U.S. economy is very close to falling into a damaging contraction — and many
states are already experiencing a recession, according to Mark Zandi, chief
economist at Moody’s Analytics.
Zandi
estimates that 22 states plus the District of Columbia are now experiencing
persistent economic weakness and job losses that are likely to continue.
Another 13 states are treading water, he noted.
The
overall picture is one of a weak U.S. economy that is vulnerable to being
pushed into a ditch by a strong wind. “The economy is still not in recession,
but the risks are very high. We’re on the precipice,” Zandi said in an
interview with MarketWatch.
California
and New York are among the states that are treading water. If either of those
falters, it would tip the economy into recession, Zandi said.
A
separate forecast by UCLA Anderson School of Management released this week
stated that a recession in California is now plausible.
According
to Zandi, the cause of the weakness is economic policy.
President
Donald Trump’s tariffs on imported goods have caused uncertainty, forcing
companies to pull back from expansion plans and confusing supply chains. No
labor-force growth this year has also hurt the economy.
In
addition, federal job cuts tied to the Trump administration’s so-called
Department of Government Efficiency, formerly led by Elon Musk, have pushed
Washington, D.C., and surrounding states into the deepest downturn of any
region.
On
a national level, the National Bureau of Economic Research defines a recession
as a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy
and lasts more than a few months.
The
organization puts particular emphasis on a few indicators — including
nonfarm-payroll employment, personal income adjusted for inflation excluding
transfers, consumer spending adjusted for inflation and industrial production.
Zandi
admitted that identical data aren’t produced for state economies. He said that
he tries to replicate the NBER but that there is a fair amount of judgment
involved in his conclusions. Zandi has given policy advice to congressional
Democrats but says he’s an independent who worked as a top adviser to the late
Sen. John McCain, a Republican, during a presidential run.
The
prevailing narrative among economists is that the U.S. economy’s expansion will
continue, driven by consumer spending.
Richard
Moody, chief economist at Regions Bank, noted that third-quarter U.S. GDP is
estimated to show the economy growing at a 3.8% annual rate. The latest data on
business investment, jobless claims and consumer spending have been decent, he
added. “Nothing suggests the economy is rolling over,” Moody said in an
interview.
The
most recent data released by the government before the federal shutdown
surprised to the upside and showed the broader economy was in pretty good
shape.
But
Zandi said the latest data didn’t change his views. “GDP and consumer spending
are stronger, but the job market is weaker,” he said.
A
common denominator of the states in recession is that they have weak farm
economies or faltering light manufacturing. Any part of the country whose
economies depend on goods-producing activities, agriculture, mining and light
manufacturing are currently weak, Zandi said, adding that a weak transportation
sector is exacerbating the downturn.
The
contraction in the New England region is not unusual because of its
slow-population-growth trends, according to Zandi. “That region doesn’t grow
very strongly even in the best of times,” he said.
But
Zandi said he was surprised that Georgia is in recession. The state has seen a
significant pullback in domestic immigration, in part because of high home
values, he noted.
Pennsylvania,
meanwhile, is a surprise on the upside, he added, with the state benefiting
from strengths in education and healthcare.
Are we in a
recession? Yes — if you live in one of these 22 states.
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue only occasionally when something of interest occurs.
NHS 'call 999' warning on Covid-19 vaccine side
effects
The Covid-19 vaccine is offered to help protect the
body against viruses and is especially recommended during the winter period.
11:12, Fri, Oct 3,
2025 Updated: 11:14, Fri, Oct 3, 2025
Those who get the Covid-19 jab this winter may encounter some side effects, including severe ones that might
necessitate a trip to A&E. Vaccinations are crucial in bolstering the
body's defences against viruses and are particularly recommended during the
colder months.
This is due to the fact
that viruses like Covid-19 mutate over time,
causing the immune system's protection to diminish. While not everyone is
obliged to get vaccinated, it is generally advised for those at an increased
risk of severe illness from
a coronavirus infection.
The NHS typically
recommends the Covid-19 vaccine for individuals aged 75 or above,
residents of care homes for the elderly, or those with compromised immune
systems due to health conditions or treatments. Despite potential side effects
and risks, the vaccine is widely considered safe.
Side effects of Covid-19 vaccine
Not everyone who receives
a COVID-19 vaccine will suffer any side effects. However, NHS guidance has
highlighted that there are some common side effects, including:
·
Feeling achy
·
A headache
·
Feeling tired
·
A sore arm from the
injection
·
Mild flu-like symptoms
Generally, these side
effects are mild and should subside within a week. The NHS suggests taking
paracetamol to alleviate these symptoms while recovering.
However, a small number
of individuals may experience serious side effects. For instance, some people
might have a severe allergic reaction to the vaccine.
In such instances, the
person administering the injection should be equipped to handle allergic
reactions and provide immediate treatment. The NHS has also highlighted 'rare'
instances of heart inflammation (myocarditis) resulting from the vaccine.
More
NHS 'call 999' warning on Covid-19 vaccine side effects | Express.co.uk
Technology
Update.
One-step
method uses clever precursor molecule to make graphene with regular
irregularities
Khushleen Kaur 3 October 2025
A method for growing graphene-like films
with precisely engineered defects offers a new route to tailor the material’s
properties for specific applications.
Defects are often undesirable in
materials like graphene. But in certain cases, they can actually enhance its
chemical, electronic, mechanical and magnetic properties.
Now a team led by Reinhard Maurer from the University of Warwick, UK, and David Duncan from
the University of Nottingham, UK, has developed a one-step chemical vapour
deposition (CVD) process to introduce defects directly during growth. It
employs azupyrene, a precursor molecule designed to mimic the topology of a
Stone–Wales defect by including two pentagons and two heptagons where there
would normally be four adjacent hexagonal rings. These other rings influence
the material’s interactions with substrates and modifies its electronic and
magnetic behaviour.
By growing carbonaceous films on copper
substrates at varying temperatures, the researchers were able to control the
concentration of these five- and seven-membered rings. The team used advanced
microscopes at Diamond Light Source in the UK and MAX IV in Sweden to study the
atomic structure of the defective graphene. Higher temperatures produced
structures closer to pristine graphene. Importantly, the resulting monolayers
were continuous and not contaminated with heteroatoms, an improvement over
post-processing methods of graphene oxide or pristine graphene that can result
in defect inhomogeneity and unwanted impurities.
The work opens new possibilities for
graphene with engineered defects in areas such as nanoelectronics, gas sensing
and catalysis, where controlled reactivity and electronic behaviour are
essential.
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to
find it.
Samuel Johnson
No comments:
Post a Comment