Baltic
Dry Index. 2260 +44
Brent Crude 63.76
Spot Gold 4072 US 2 Year Yield 3.58 unch.
US Federal Debt. 38.216 trillion
US GDP 31.587 trillion.
"Considerable uncertainty is attached to all economic estimates"
Alan Greenspan
In the US stock casinos, the AI bubbles back,
thanks to Nvidia. But for how long, given rising doubts over return of capital
employed, let alone generating a return on AI capital.
Stock futures higher as Nvidia’s strong forecast
reignites the AI trade: Live updates
Updated Thu, Nov 20 2025 8:25 PM EST
Stock futures are higher Wednesday night
as investors digested Nvidia’s latest
quarterly beat, which appeared to be helping to restore confidence in major
technology stocks and give a boost to the broader market.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones
Industrial Average added 222 points, or nearly 0.5%. S&P futures rose 1.1%,
while Nasdaq 100 futures jumped
1.6%.
Nvidia shares jumped nearly 5% in extended
trading after the chipmaker released its highly anticipated quarterly results,
which beat Wall Street’s earnings and revenue expectations. The market-moving
company also gave a
stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter sales forecast, with CEO Jensen
Huang saying demand for its current-generation Blackwell chips are “off the
charts.”
Nvidia’s upbeat guidance likely lifted
investor sentiment around the AI trade, which has weakened in recent sessions
amid fears about elevated valuations, debt financing and potential chip
depreciation. The results boosted a slew of stocks across the AI ecosystem in
the after-hours session, including chipmakers Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom and power
infrastructure companies such as Eaton.
“Nvidia’s numbers remain extremely strong
now, but there are inevitably questions whether Huang’s company has already
reached its high-water mark in terms of growth and market share,” said David
Russell, TradeStation’s global head of market strategy.
In the previous session, all three major
U.S. stock indexes rose across the board as investors awaited Nvidia’s report.
Gains in the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average snapped
a four-day slide for both indexes. To be sure, stocks are in the red for the
week given the depth of the recent pullback in several growth stocks.
Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s October
meeting released Wednesday afternoon showed disagreements
between Fed officials over whether a slowing labor market or inflation
were bigger threats to the U.S. economy. The divide between central bank
officials is also reflected in their outlook for their upcoming December
decision, with “many” officials calling for no more interest rate cuts this
year. Traders are pricing in a 33% likelihood that the Fed will cut its
benchmark overnight borrowing rate by a quarter percentage point during its
upcoming December meeting, significantly lower than their bets just a month
ago, per the CME FedWatch Tool.
On Thursday morning, the Bureau of Labor
Statistics will release
September nonfarm payrolls data, which was delayed by the U.S. government
shutdown.
Stock
market today: Live updates
Wall Street Jumps for Joy at Nvidia Forecast
November 19, 2025 at 11:16 PM GMT
Did we doubt you? So sorry. This was Wall
Street late Wednesday afternoon addressing the artificial intelligence frenzy that’s been driving
investors nuts. The apology came in the form of an after-market rally as shares
of the world’s largest tech companies climbed on speculation Nvidia’s blockbuster outlook will reignite a tech-driven surge
that, until recently, had been fueling near-regular records.
Nvidia shares spiked about 5% after the
giant chipmaker, seen as a barometer for AI technology, gave a strong revenue
forecast for the current period. The news may help counter concern that a
global rise in AI spending is poised to pop in calamitous fashion. Worries over
everything from the durability of the AI trade to the Federal Reserve’s policy
path have contributed to a recent equity rout. With investors increasingly skeptical of tech
spending, how Nvidia’s results are interpreted will be key. Tune in tomorrow.
What You Need to Know Today
For all the talk of cockroaches and private credit turf wars, JPMorgan is
dominating the field with giant checks only the biggest US bank can write. Time
and again, the firm has overwhelmed private credit managers and Wall Street
rivals with substantial financing packages to win coveted debt deals. First it
led an $8 billion effort for 3G Capital’s acquisition of Skechers. Then it stepped up with $17.5 billion to help Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.
split itself in two.
But the most audacious of all was
JPMorgan’s $20 billion check for the acquisition of Electronic Arts, the
largest-ever commitment by one bank for a leveraged buyout. After Silver Lake
Management’s Egon Durban called JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon,
seeking assurance his bank had the conviction to commit the necessary funds, it
took just 11 days to iron out the deal. (It was a deal, it turns out, that
also involved President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.)
More
Wall
Street Jumps for Joy at Nvidia Forecast: Evening Briefing Americas - Bloomberg
Nvidia shares rise on stronger-than-expected
revenue, forecast
Published Wed, Nov 19 2025 12:00 PM EST
Nvidia reported fiscal
third-quarter earnings and revenue that topped Wall Street expectations
on Wednesday and provided stronger-than-expected sales guidance for the fourth
quarter.
Shares of the AI chipmaker rose more than
4% in extended trading.
Here’s how the company did, compared with
estimates from analysts polled by LSEG:
- Earnings
per share: $1.30
adjusted vs. $1.25 estimated
- Revenue: $57.01
billion vs. $54.92 billion estimated
Nvidia said it expects about $65 billion
in sales in the current quarter, versus $61.66 billion expected by
analysts.
The company said net income in the quarter
rose 65% to $31.91 billion, or $1.30 per share, from $19.31 billion, or 78
cents per share, in the year-ago period.
Nvidia has become the most valuable
publicly traded company, mostly on insatiable demand for its AI chips, called
GPUs. Nvidia counts Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Oracle, and Meta as customers. Its chips are
used by all the leading tech companies to develop new artificial intelligence
models.
Nvidia’s sales and outlook are closely
watched by the technology industry as a sign for the health of the AI
boom.
“There’s been a lot of talk about an AI
bubble,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told investors on an earnings call. “From our
vantage point, we see something very different.”
Nvidia’s most important business is data
center sales. Nvidia said it had $51.2 billion in data center sales, easily
surpassing analyst expectations for $49.09 billion in sales during the quarter,
a 66% rise on a year-over-year basis.
Of that, $43 billion in revenue was for
“compute,” or the company’s GPUs. The company said that much of the growth was
driven by initial sales of the company’s GB300 chips. Networking, or parts that
allow scores of GPUs to work as one computer, accounted for $8.2 billion in
data center sales.
Nvidia finance chief Colette Kress said in
a statement that the company’s best-selling chip family is now Blackwell Ultra,
the second-generation version of the company’s Blackwell chips.
More
Nvidia (NVDA)
earnings report Q3 2026
Back in the real world, far from the AI
bubble, things don’t look so good.
Jeffrey Gundlach Warns of ‘Garbage Lending’ as
Private Credit Booms
Mon, November 17, 2025 at 9:00 AM GMT
(Bloomberg) -- In markets awash in
“garbage lending” and unhealthy valuations, Jeffrey Gundlach is keeping his
strategy simple: load up on cash and stay away from private credit.
One of Wall Street’s bond kings is
spotting overpriced assets almost everywhere he looks. In an episode of the
podcast recorded to mark the show’s 10-year anniversary, Gundlach called out
nosebleed valuations in the equity market and warned investors against
“incredibly speculative” bets.
The DoubleLine Capital founder recommends
a 20% cash position to hedge against a market implosion — one he sees brewing
in unsafe lending to private companies and overblown hopes for artificial
intelligence.
“The health of the equity market in the
United States, it’s among the least healthy in my entire career,” Gundlach
said. “The market is incredibly speculative and speculative markets always go
to insanely high levels. It happens every time.”
The veteran debt investor is concerned the
$1.7 trillion private credit market is engaging in “garbage lending” that could
tip global markets into their next meltdown. The collapse of auto lender
Tricolor Holdings and car-parts supplier First Brands Group has lent new
urgency to what’s an oft-repeated narrative for Gundlach.
“The next big crisis in the financial
markets is going to be private credit,” he said. “It has the same trappings as
subprime mortgage repackaging had back in 2006.”
That warning sets the stage for Gundlach’s
broader critique of market excess, which stretches from risky loans to frothy
tech stocks. He sees the clearest signs of speculative behavior in bets on AI
and data centers.
Wall Street has been growing more cautious
about the huge sums that companies are spending on infrastructure and the hefty
prices those at the center of the AI boom command. Shares of chipmaker Nvidia
Corp. are down 8% this month while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index has lost
more than 3%.
“One has to be very careful about momentum
investing during mania periods — I feel like that’s where we are right now,”
Gundlach said.
More
Jeffrey Gundlach
Warns of ‘Garbage Lending’ as Private Credit Booms
Target sinks to new low as customers flee
in droves - forcing bosses into drastic move
Published: 14:04, 19
November 2025 | Updated: 16:32, 19 November 2025
Inflation-weary shoppers are steering
clear of Target's messy, understaffed stores.
On Wednesday morning, the Minneapolis
chain with 1,980 stores said third-quarter profit took yet another hit,
deepening a slide that has now stretched across three straight years.
Target's slump comes from a four-headed
monster: shabby stores, sinking
staff morale,
jittery investors, and a leadership shake-up waiting in the wings.
And the pain isn't ending anytime soon.
Executives warned the sales slump will drag straight through the critical
holiday shopping season.
To stop the bleeding, Target is throwing
another $1billion at store remodels and new locations next year, bringing
its multi-year
store facelift tab to roughly $5billion.
Bosses hope the massive investment will
finally jolt the chain out of its prolonged funk. Independent analysts say the
overhaul is not only welcome — it's years late.
'Stores are not optimized for the
consumer,' Neil Saunders, a retail expert for GlobalData, said.
'There are too many out of stocks, too
much mess, not enough assistance at registers, so forth.'
Investors have punished Target's stock
recently, sending it down 43 percent over the past year. Shares are down nearly
three percent before Wednesday's Wall Street bell.
Now the pressure lands squarely on
incoming CEO Michael Fiddelke, a 20-year company veteran who takes over from
Brian Cornell on February 1.
He faces a mandate to restore Target's
identity as a destination for affordable-but-stylish goods — a lane Walmart has
firmly seized.
'We may see stabilization next year, but
it will take some time beyond that to grow sales,' Saunders added.
'They need a complete overhaul of
operations and culture to get back on track.'
Target, meanwhile, has been hacking away
at costs.
In October, the company said
it would cut about 1,800 corporate jobs, roughly 8 percent of its
white-collar workforce, to speed up decision-making and reignite growth.
To pump up sales during the holidays,
Target is offering
more than 20,000 new items, twice as many as last year, and it has
lowered prices on thousands of food, beverage, and essential items.
More
Dutch Government Moves to Defuse Tension
Over Chipmaker Nexperia
November 19, 2025 at 5:00 PM GMT
The Dutch government suspended its powers
over chipmaker Nexperia, handing back control to its Chinese owner and defusing
a standoff with Beijing that had begun to hamper automotive production around
the world.
The move marks a significant de-escalation
of a dispute that highlighted Beijing’s growing leverage over the global
economy and which threatened to disrupt automakers from Honda Motor to Volkswagen.
The latest decision was “a show of
goodwill,” Dutch Economic Affairs Minister Vincent Karremans said, adding that
discussions with Chinese authorities were continuing. China called it a step in
the right direction.
The Dutch state had invoked supervisory
powers over Nexperia to safeguard crucial technology, citing concerns that actions by Wingtech
Technology Co., the chipmaker’s Chinese owner, risked hobbling the company.
The Chinese government retaliated by
imposing export restrictions over components from the Dutch company’s facility
in Guangdong, which assembles chips from wafers made in Europe.—Zoltan Simon
Dutch
Government Moves to Defuse Tension Over Chipmaker Nexperia - Bloomberg
In other news, more on when AI goes wrong.
ChatGPT’s Hallucination Problem: Study Finds More
Than Half Of AI’s References Are Fabricated Or Contain Errors
Nov 17, 2025
In A Nutshell
- A
Deakin University study of mental health literature reviews found that
ChatGPT (GPT-4o) fabricated roughly one in five academic citations, with
more than half of all citations (56%) being either fake or containing
errors.
- The
AI’s accuracy varied dramatically by topic: depression citations were 94%
real, while binge eating disorder and body dysmorphic disorder saw
fabrication rates near 30%, suggesting less-studied subjects face higher
risks.
- Among
fabricated citations that included DOIs, 64% linked to real but completely
unrelated papers, making the errors harder to spot without careful
verification.
- Mental
health researchers using AI tools need to verify every citation manually,
and journals should strengthen safeguards to prevent fabricated references
from entering published work.
Depression research is extensive, with
more than 100 clinical trials evaluating digital interventions alone. Body
dysmorphic disorder has far fewer published studies on digital treatments.
Lesser-Known Topics Trigger More AI
Hallucinations
GPT-4o’s citation accuracy varied
dramatically depending
on which disorder it wrote about. For major depressive disorder, only 6% of
citations were fabricated. But for binge eating disorder and body dysmorphic
disorder, fabrication rates jumped to 28% and 29%, respectively.
Among real citations, major depressive
disorder achieved 64% accuracy, binge eating disorder 60%, and body dysmorphic
disorder only 29%. The pattern suggests ChatGPT may perform better on
well-established topics with abundant training data, though the study notes
this relationship wasn’t directly tested.
The study also examined whether asking for
general overviews versus specialized reviews affected accuracy. When
researchers requested a broad summary of each disorder including symptoms and
treatments, fabrication rates differed from when they asked for highly specific
reviews focused on digital interventions for each condition.
For binge eating disorder specifically,
specialized reviews saw fabrication rates jump to 46% compared to 17% for
general overviews. However, this pattern didn’t hold consistently across all
three disorders.
Rising AI Adoption in Research Raises the
Stakes
These results emerge as AI adoption
accelerates in research settings. A recent survey found that nearly 70% of
mental health scientists report using ChatGPT for research
tasks including writing, data analysis, and literature reviews. Most users say
the tools improve efficiency, but many express concern about inaccuracies and
misleading content.
Researchers face growing pressure to
publish frequently while juggling teaching, supervision, and administrative
duties. Tools that promise to streamline literature reviews and speed up
writing offer appealing solutions to productivity demands. But accepting AI output without
verification creates serious risks.
Fabricated references mislead readers,
distort scientific understanding, and erode the foundation of scholarly
communication. Citations guide readers to source evidence and build cumulative
knowledge. When those citations point nowhere or to the wrong papers, the
entire system breaks down.
More
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.
Inflation
stays high in pre-Budget warning to Reeves
Wednesday
19 November 2025 7:26 am |Updated: Wednesday 19
November 2025 7:27 am
Inflation
hit 3.6 per cent in the year to October, it has been revealed, in the last set
of prices data Chancellor Rachel Reeves will see before a crucial
Budget focused
on curbing the cost of living.
The
Office for National Statistics (ONS) said inflation cooled slightly from last
month’s figure of 3.8 per cent, but came in slightly higher than some
economists had predicted.
Statisticians
at the body also recorded services inflation to have lowered slightly to 4.5
per cent, a measure closely monitored by policymakers at the Bank of England.
Core
inflation, which strips volatile items such as energy and food, rose by 3.4 per
cent.
“Inflation
eased in October, driven mainly by gas and electricity prices, which increased
less than this time last year following changes in the Ofgem energy price cap,”
Grant Fitzner, chief economist at the ONS, said.
“The
annual cost of raw materials for businesses continued to increase, while
factory gate prices also rose.”
Fitzner
added that hotel prices were a downward driver on price growth.
The
latest set of data is unlikely to ease tensions in the Treasury ahead of the
Budget.
Reeves
has said lowering the cost of living would be a central objective when she
announces a sweep of new tax and spending policies next week.
The
mission underpinning her Budget could lead to a reduction in borrowing costs
for the government, which are currently forecast to exceed £110bn this year.
A
drive to lower inflation through a sweep of measures that either boost
productivity in the UK economy or controversially dampen
demand levels
through extra taxes on households could prompt Bank of England policymakers to
vote for further interest rate cuts in the next year.
Lower interest
rates would
result in a fall on regular payments to the government’s lenders in the bond
markets, lessening the strain on public finances.
Schroders’
senior economist George Brown said further rate cuts would hinge on Budget
decisions to lower bills.
More
Inflation stays high in pre-Budget warning to Reeves
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.
Battery tracks: the green innovations that could power the
railway's next golden era
Battery
trains are gearing up to replace much of Britain’s ageing diesel fleet. Andrew
Wade reports on the technology set to power the transition.
17 Nov 2025
Alongside the headline celebrations of
200 years of rail in Britain, 2025 also marks the 70th anniversary of the 1955
Modernisation Plan to update the rail network. Drawn up under Churchill’s
second term after Labour had nationalised the railways in 1948, the plan called
for a combination of mainline electrification as well as the introduction of
diesel power to replace ageing steam locomotives.
Though its success is contested - the
Beeching cuts that followed in the 1960s are often linked to its shortcomings -
the legacy of the Modernisation Plan is undeniable. The mix of electrification
and diesel laid out in 1955 is fundamentally what still powers Britain’s trains
today. And while the sun may slowly be setting on diesel, only around 40 per
cent of the UK network has been electrified over the intervening 70 years,
presenting both a challenge and a unique opportunity for the rail sector.
“A pitifully small amount of the UK
railway network is electrified,” Graeme Clark, Siemens Mobility’s head of
Business Development for Rolling Stock, told The
Engineer. “Electrification is the right way to go, but to electrify
everything would cost a fortune. A lot of the route densities of traffic are
not high enough in many cases to justify full electrification.”
The answer, according to Clark and many
others, is battery trains, or battery electric multiple units (BEMUs). BEMUs
are bi-mode trains that can be powered by overhead lines or third rails where
available, operating in battery mode on parts of the network yet to be
electrified.
For regional lines with no
electrification – and little prospect of it in sight – batteries paired with
fast-chargers could replace the diesel multiple units (DMUs) that have been the
workhorses of UK rail for several decades. It’s a huge opportunity for
operators and OEMs to modernise train fleets, improve passenger experience, and
make a serious dent in the rail sector’s carbon emissions.
Siemens Mobility’s battery offering for
the UK is the Desiro Verve, a BEMU evolution of its longstanding Desiro train
family. Anyone who has travelled on Thameslink services will be familiar with
the train, as more than 100 Desiro City variants are currently in operation on
Thameslink’s main line routes in and around London. According to Clark, the
average Verve passenger would be none the wiser they were travelling on a
BEMU.
“The batteries are all outside the
vehicle,” he said. “So if you see them from the outside, the only thing you
would notice is it has got a few more boxes underneath it. There’s nothing
inside the train at all, apart from seats and luggage racks and the things that
the passengers want to see.”
The history of battery trains dates all
the way back to the 1890s, with several successful iterations through the first
half of the 20th century before diesel started to dominate. Early chemistries
ranged from nickel-iron and nickel-zinc to the lead-acid batteries used by the
British Rail BEMU that ran on Scotland’s Deeside Railway from 1958-1966.
Today, lithium-ion is the battery
chemistry of choice for most mobility applications, though a variety of
flavours are available. Trains are very different vehicles to cars, and what
works for the automotive sector is not necessarily the right fit for rail.
Finding the right balance between density, charging time and longevity is
paramount, according to Clark
“We’re looking at lithium titanate oxide
batteries,” he said. Though considerably lower in energy density than
other types of lithium-ion chemistries, lithium titanate oxide (LTO) batteries
are ideal for the rail sector. Trains are such hefty vehicles to begin with
that additional weight is simply not as crucial as it is in sectors like
automotive and electronics. And what LTO lacks in power density, it makes up
for in charging speed and durability. According to Clark, Desiro Verve’s LTO
batteries will require just a single overhaul throughout the life of the
trains.
More
How battery trains could replace Britain's diesel fleet
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
"You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than
you can with a kind word alone."
Al Capone
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