Baltic
Dry Index. 2063 +60 Brent Crude 63.72
Spot Gold 4002 US 2 Year Yield 3.57 -0.06
US Federal Debt. 38.162 trillion
US GDP 31.558 trillion.
"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom
brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis
should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit
expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system
involved."
Ludwig
von Mises.
The big news today is in the technology sector. Did the AI bubble just burst?
Asia-Pacific markets fall, tracking Wall Street
losses, as AI stocks resume sell-off
Published Thu, Nov 6 2025 6:57 PM EST
Asia-Pacific markets fell Friday, tracking
Wall Street declines on persistent concerns over lofty valuations in artificial
intelligence stocks.
Shares of major AI companies fell Thursday
stateside, weighing down on the broader U.S. market. The biggest declines were
from Nvidia, Microsoft, Palantir Technologies, Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index tumbled
2.03%. Shares of AI-related stocks were the key drag: SoftBank was down over
8%, semiconductor testing equipment maker Advantest lost more than 7%,
chipmaker Renesas
Electronics fell 4%, and Tokyo
Electron, a chip production equipment maker, declined 2.17%.
The Topix index retreated 1.18%.
South Korea’s Kospi plunged 3.1% in
volatile trading, while the small-cap Kosdaq lost 3.45%. The country’s memory
chip giants, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, lost 2.62% and 3.71%,
respectively.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.72%
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 1.14%,
while the mainland’s CSI 300 lost 0.3%.
China’s October exports plunged
1.1% in U.S. dollar terms from a year earlier, official data showed
Friday, missing expectations of a 3% growth in a Reuters survey and a steep
drop from the 8.3%
surge in September.
Imports also missed expectations, growing
1% year on year in October. Economists had expected a 3.2% growth, down from
7.4% in September. That comes as weak domestic demand continues to weigh on the
back of a prolonged housing slump, rising job insecurity, and the tapering of
consumption-focused stimulus measures.
India’s Nifty 50 lost 0.63%, while the
Sensex index was 0.49% lower.
Shares of Bharti Airtel slumped about 4%
after a unit of Singapore-based telecom firm Singtel announced Friday it had sold stake in the Indian telco
for 1.5 billion Singapore dollars ($1.15 billion). Singtel shares were trading
2.67% higher.
U.S. futures edged higher in early Asian
hours after Thursday’s tech sell-off.
Overnight, the Dow Jones Industrial
Average slid 398.70 points, or 0.84%, to close at 46,912.30. The S&P 500
traded down by 1.12%, to settle at 6,720.32, while the Nasdaq Composite tumbled
1.9% to end at 23,053.99.
Asia-Pacific
markets: AI stocks valuation, China October trade data
SoftBank stares at over $50 billion in weekly
losses after stock drops 8% as investors sour on AI plays
Published Thu, Nov 6 2025 7:33 PM EST
Shares of Japan’s SoftBank Group resumed
their slide on Friday, following a broader slump in AI-related stocks as
investors once again grew wary of the sector’s lofty valuations.
The group, which holds a wide range of AI
investments across infrastructure, semiconductor, and application companies,
saw shares drop more than 8%.
This comes after SoftBank gained nearly 3%
in the previous session, having plunged 10% on Wednesday to clock its worst day
since April. It stares at about $53 billion market cap wipeout this week and
its worst weekly loss since March 2020, if Friday’s losses hold.
“SoftBank Group’s shares are falling as
many bought it as the only listed proxy for OpenAI,” said David Gibson, senior
research analyst at financial services firm MST Financial.
The pullback reflects growing caution
around the AI sector and a realization that many of OpenAI’s partnerships are
still potential rather than confirmed, with funding prospects uncertain, he
told CNBC.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly said the
company has spoken with the U.S. government about potential federal loan guarantees to encourage chip
factory construction. His comments came after OpenAI’s CFO suggested the firm
hoped for federal help in securing chip financing.
SoftBank holds a controlling stake in
U.K.-based semiconductor designer Arm Holdings, whose chips help power mobile
and AI processors globally. Shares of Nasdaq-listed Arm slid 1.21% overnight.
Separately, Bloomberg recently reported citing people familiar
with the matter that the group considered acquiring U.S. chipmaker Marvell
Technology Inc. earlier this year.
Broader decline
Other Japanese tech stocks also declined.
Semiconductor testing equipment maker Advantest dropped over
6%, chipmaker Renesas Electronics fell nearly 4%, Tokyo Electron, a chip
production equipment maker, declined 1.46%.
Shares of the world’s largest
chipmaker, TSMC, fell
0.6%.
Nvidia-supplier SK Hynix was down over 1%
and South Korean peer and memory chipmaker Samsung fell 0.5%.
The declines in Asian tech stocks also
come after AI-related companies in the U.S. fell overnight
Qualcomm dropped
almost 4%, despite strong quarterly results, after warning it could lose future
Apple business. AMD, a strong performer Wednesday, slipped 7%, while Palantir
and Oracle were down about 7% and 3%, respectively. Nvidia and Meta Platforms
also finished lower.
The excitement surrounding AI has
raised worries that
markets might be experiencing a tech bubble. Some experts argue that the
valuations of AI companies are starting to resemble the dot-com bubble of the
late 1990s, with stock prices rising well beyond realistic profit forecasts.
The economic impact of artificial
intelligence is undeniable and market bumps are inevitable, said Laura Cooper,
global investment strategist at Nuveen.
“Still, it’s too soon to call a bubble.
Today’s AI capex is being funded largely by cash-rich firms with solid balance
sheets, not cheap credit or speculation,” she said. “The greater risk isn’t a
bubble bursting, but valuation fatigue — investors tiring of paying ever-richer
premiums for AI returns that don’t materialize quickly enough.”
SoftBank
shares slide over 8% amid renewed pressure on AI-linked stocks
In other news, today’s Germany.
Longest-ever US shutdown affects troops stationed
in Germany
November 5, 2025
Signs of the ongoing US
government shutdown causing
difficulties or uncertainties for US soldiers appeared, and then were swiftly
removed after drawing attention, on the US Army Garrison Bavaria website this
week.
The US Army Garrison Bavaria is the army's
largest group outside the US with a total of roughly 40,000 troops across four
facilities in Germany.
"The shutdown will impact services
provided by the Garrison at installations across Rose Barracks, Tower Barracks,
Hohenfels and Garmisch," it said on a web page to provide guidance to
members of how to deal with the government shutdown.
"During this time our US Army
Garrison Bavaria team will continue to deliver life, health, and safety
services for those working and living in our community."
The web page also contained a
"running list of German support organizations for your kit bags" that
included charities like Foodsharing
e.V and
Essen für Alle (Food for All), as well as the app Too
Good To Go.
At the top of the list was Tafel
Deutschland,
which it described as "the umbrella organization distributes food to
people in poverty through its more than 970 local food banks."
On Wednesday, the garrison removed
references to these German food banks and other free or discounted food
provision services from its web page.
US shutdown becomes longest on record
These shutdowns have become very common in
the US in recent years, regardless of who's in charge, but typically they're
also resolved fairly quickly. As of Tuesday, the current shutdown entered its
36th day and became the longest on record.
Soldiers are among the federal government
employees whose pay should be frozen as a result.
The Trump administration found funds to
cover October 15 and November 1 paychecks for servicemen and women, but
officials including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have warned that the
November 15 payments are unlikely to go through unless the impasse is resolved.
It's not uncommon for soldiers to be
fairly young, on comparatively low incomes, and living from paycheck to
paycheck. There are also ancillary staff and other federal employees at
facilities like US Army Garrison Bavaria who do still face non-payment or
furlough status in the shutdown.
The German government said in
October that
it would take over the payment of some 11,000 local employees at US
military facilities as a show of good faith, anticipating repayment when the
shutdown was resolved.
Longest-ever US
shutdown affects troops stationed in Germany
German steel industry girds for uncertain future
Berlin (AFP) – Hammered by
surging energy costs and a flood of cut-price Chinese imports, Germany's steel
industry has been mired in deep crisis for several years.
Issued on: 06/11/2025 - 07:23
Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Thursday
convenes talks with key industry players in Berlin in an effort to help the
sector. Here are some questions and answers on the subject:
Why is steel important for Germany?
German's strength as a leading industrial
nation is strongly linked to steel production, which rose in tandem with the
construction of the railways, military build-ups during two world wars, and the
economic revival of the 1950s.
The country remains Europe's top steel
producer, and the seventh largest in the world, according to the World Steel
Association.
Steel is widely used in many sectors in
Europe's biggest economy, from construction to automotive and mechanical
engineering, and is an essential component of exports.
The sector directly employs only around
80,000 people, according to German industry federation WV Stahl, with many
working in the traditional industrial heartland of the Ruhr.
But steel-intensive sectors employ around
four million people, accounting for two out of three industrial jobs, according
to the federation.
Why is the sector in crisis?
China, the world's top producer, has for
years been flooding world markets with large quantities of steel at knock-down
prices, undercutting German and European producers.
Problems worsened for the power-hungry
sector when Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine sent energy costs surging. While
they have since come down, they remain well above levels seen before the war.
In recent times, steel production in
Germany has languished at 10 to 15 percent below 2022 levels.
A growing number of steel plants in the
country are being mothballed: a quarter were temporarily shuttered in 2024,
according to the Agora Industrie think tank.
The sector's traditional giants meanwhile
are sliding into crisis. Thyssenkrupp plans to cut around a third of its steel
division's workforce and slash production by around 30 percent by 2030.
What are the solutions?
The talks convened by Merz will bring
together the country's top producers as well as leaders from states where the
industry is a major employer, in a bid to "increase competitiveness and
the future prospects" of the sector, a government spokesman said.
The meeting is a key step in "paving
the way" to come up with measures to help the industry, he said.
One key aim is to clarify Berlin's
position on the European Commission's radical plans to protect the continent's
steel industry from cheap foreign imports.
In early October, it proposed hiking
levies on steel imports to 50 percent and slashing the volume allowed in before
tariffs apply by 47 percent.
It mirrors a strategy embraced by US
President Donald Trump, who has imposed 50-percent tariffs to keep out cheap
metals from China.
Germany's leading industrial union IG
Metall considers the EU's proposals "fair", a spokesperson told AFP,
urging the government to "clearly defend" them.
Berlin is also planning to begin a scheme
in January to subsidise power costs for industry, which Economy Minister
Katherina Reiche said will be "key to the competitiveness of steel".
More
German steel industry girds for uncertain future
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.
A
missed opportunity?
Bank
of England holds interest rates at four per cent amid Budget fears
Thursday
06 November 2025 12:03 pm | Updated: Thursday
06 November 2025 12:07 pm
The
Bank of England has held interest rates at four per cent amid caution around
high inflation levels ahead of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ crucial Budget in
three weeks.
The
Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted 5-4 to hold interest rates as
Governor Andrew Bailey, who made the deciding call at the latest meeting, said
he would “prefer to wait” before backing further cuts.
Policymakers
at the Bank said the crunch decision weighed up contractions in the jobs
market, which could lower inflation levels, and high inflation expectations of
around 4 per cent among households in recent months, which would have the
adverse effect.
Inflation
is only set to hit the Bank’s two per cent inflation target in the second
quarter of 2027, gradually falling from its current level of 3.8 per cent. The
Bank’s forecast made the same assumption in its last August report.
The
UK economy is expected to grow by 1.4 per cent both this year and in 2026. It
revised its estimate up slightly for the current year but lowered it for next
year.
GDP
growth is then expected to surge to 1.7 per cent in 2027 and 1.8 per cent in
2028.
Bank
policymakers clash on interest rates
The
Bank ditched “careful” from its policy guidance and said rates were on a
“gradual path downwards”, with the minutes to the meeting highlighting that CPI
inflation rate had “peaked” at a rate of 3.8 per cent.
In
an explanation for his policy decision, Bailey left the door open to voting for
policy to be loosened in the coming months.
“Upside
risks to inflation have become less pressing since August, and I see further
policy easing if disinflation becomes more clearly established in the period
ahead,” Bailey said.
“Rather
than cutting Bank Rate now, I would prefer to wait and see if the durability in
disinflation is confirmed in upcoming economic developments this year.”
Some
Bank officials were worried about elevated wage growth, with pay excluding
bonuses rising 4.9 per cent in the three months to August.
Others,
however, were more fearful about further drops in vacancies and further damage
to the UK jobs market.
The
Bank’s central projection slightly revised up its peak unemployment rate to 5.1
per cent in the second quarter of next year.
Rising
levels of savings among the Britons, keeping consumption growth “relatively
weak”, could also lessen demand for goods as fears are brewing that lower
interest rates are not incentivising people to spend more.
More
Bank of England holds interest rates at four per cent
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.
Another
warning from Warren. Approx. 30 minutes. Did China just invent a better way to
AI?
AI Bubble is Bigger than DOTCOM ! - Warren Buffet WARNS !
AI Bubble is Bigger than DOTCOM ! - Warren Buffet WARNS ! - YouTube
China solves 'century-old problem' with new analog chip that is
1,000 times faster than high-end Nvidia GPUs
31 October 2025
Scientists in China have developed a new
chip, with a twist: it's analog, meaning it performs calculations on its own
physical circuits rather than via the binary 1s and 0s of standard digital
processors.
What’s more, its creators say the new
chip is capable of outperforming top-end graphics processing units (GPUs) from
Nvidia and AMD by as much as 1,000 times.
In a new study published Oct. 13 in the
journal Nature Electronics, researchers from Peking University said their device tackled two key
bottlenecks: the energy and data constraints digital chips face in emerging
fields like artificial intelligence (AI) and 6G, and the "century-old
problem" of poor precision and impracticality that has limited analog computing.
More
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
Another
weekend and an iffy weekend for AI longs. Have a great weekend everyone.
“But it [the boom] could not last forever
even if inflation and credit expansion were to go on endlessly. It would then
encounter the barriers which prevent the boundless expansion of circulation
credit. It would lead to the crack-up boom and the breakdown of the whole
monetary system.”
Ludwig von Mises.
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