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US Federal Debt. 38.183 trillion
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“This should not be seen, in our view, as a cautious
or negative stance on Nvidia, but rather in the context of SoftBank needing at
least $30.5bn of capital for investments in the Oct-Dec quarter, including
$22.5bn for OpenAI and $6.5bn for Ampere,” Rolf Bulk, equity research analyst
at New Street Research, told CNBC.
That amounts to “more in a single quarter than it has invested in aggregate over the two prior years combined,” Bulk said.
As SoftBank gives a strange vote of confidence in Nvidia, something about rats and ships comes to mind. All good things, (bubbles?) come to an end, goes an old saying, is the AI bubble coming to an end?
After SoftBank who’ll be next to exit the AI bubble?
Asia markets mostly rise after Wall Street trades
mixed; SoftBank falls as much as 10% after selling entire stake in Nvidia
Published Tue, Nov 11 2025 6:47 PM EST
SoftBank Group shares fell as much as 10%
Wednesday after the company said it sold its entire stake in U.S.
chipmaker Nvidia for
$5.83 billion, as the Japanese giant looks to capitalize on its “all
in” bet on ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
In its earnings report, SoftBank said it
sold 32.1 million Nvidia shares in October, and also trimmed its T-Mobile
position, raising $9.17 billion.
Asia-Pacific markets mostly rose
Wednesday, after Wall Street traded mixed on hopes that the record-setting U.S.
government shutdown could be nearing an end and AI trade stumbling.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 0.26%, while
the Topix added 0.35%. South Korea’s Kospi was flat, while the small-cap Kosdaq
added 0.62%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.13%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index added 0.25%,
while mainland’s CSI 300 was flat.
India’s Nifty 50 added 0.69%.
Shares of Billionbrains Garage Ventures,
the parent company of Indian online brokerage Groww, surged 20% in its market
debut on Wednesday. The firm had raised 66.3 billion rupees (about $748
million) in its IPO.
Investors will be keeping a close eye
on SoftBank shares as well
as tech stocks in Asia after the Japanese giant said Tuesday it sold its entire
stake in U.S. chipmaker Nvidia for
$5.83 billion, as it looks to capitalize on its “all
in” bet on ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
Overnight in the U.S., the three major
averages closed mixed. The Dow
Jones Industrial Average rallied to a fresh closing record Tuesday,
while the Nasdaq Composite struggled
as investors moved money away from technology stocks into other parts of the
market that traded at lower valuations.
The 30-stock Dow rose 559.33 points, or
1.18%, to close at 47,927.96, with those on Wall Street buying up shares of
various blue-chip names, including health care giants Merck, Amgen and Johnson & Johnson. The S&P 500 also rose 0.21%
to finish at 6,846.61. However, the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.25% to settle at
23,468.30.
Asia-Pacific
markets: Nifty 50, Nikkei 225, Kospi
SoftBank sells its entire stake in Nvidia for
$5.83 billion
Published Tue, Nov 11 2025 2:25 AM EST
SoftBank said Tuesday it has sold its entire
stake in U.S. chipmaker Nvidia for $5.83
billion as the Japanese giant looks to capitalize on its “all in” bet on
ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
The firm said in its earnings statement
that it sold 32.1 million Nvidia shares in October. It also disclosed that it
sold part of its T-Mobile stake for $9.17 billion.
“We want to provide a lot of investment
opportunities for investors, while we can still maintain financial strength,”
said SoftBank’s Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto during an investor
presentation.
“So through those options and tools we
make sure that we are ready for funding in a very safe manner,” he said in
comments translated by the company, adding that the stake sales were part of
the firm’s strategy for “asset monetization.”
Nvidia shares dipped 0.95% in premarket
trade on Tuesday.
While the Nvidia exit may come as a
surprise to some investors, it’s not the first time SoftBank has cashed out of
the American AI chip darling.
SoftBank’s Vision Fund was an early backer
of Nvidia, reportedly
amassing a
$4 billion stake in 2017 before selling all of its
holdings in January 2019. Despite its latest sale, SoftBank’s business
interests remain heavily intertwined with Nvidia’s.
That Tokyo-based company is involved in a
number of AI ventures that rely on Nvidia’s technology, including the $500
billion Stargate project for data centers in the U.S.
“This should not be seen, in our view, as
a cautious or negative stance on Nvidia, but rather in the context of SoftBank
needing at least $30.5bn of capital for investments in the Oct-Dec quarter,
including $22.5bn for OpenAI and $6.5bn for Ampere,” Rolf Bulk, equity research
analyst at New Street Research, told CNBC.
That amounts to “more in a single quarter
than it has invested in aggregate over the two prior years combined,” Bulk
said.
Morningstar’s Dan Baker added that he
doesn’t see the move as representing a fundamental shift in strategy for the
company.
″[SoftBank] made a point of saying that it
wasn’t any view on NVIDIA... At the end of the day, they are using the money to
invest in other AI related companies,” he said.
Vision fund posts blowout $19 billion gain
The stake sales and a blowout gain of $19
billion from SoftBank’s Vision Fund helped the company double its profit in its
fiscal second quarter.
The Vision Fund has been aggressively
pushing into artificial intelligence, investing and acquiring firms throughout
the AI value chain from chips to large language models and robotics.
“The reason we were able to have this
result is because of September last year, that was the first time we invested
in OpenAI,” said SoftBank’s Goto. He added that OpenAI’s latest valuation
milestone of $500 billion marks one of the largest valuations in the
world, according to fair value.
The Japanese conglomerate’s stock has
slumped in the past week as concerns of an AI
bubble sent
jitters through global markets.
“Our share price recently has been going
up and down dynamically… we want to provide as many invest opportunities as
possible,” said Goto Tuesday, adding that the company’s announced four-for-one
stock split is part of its strategy to provide as many investment opportunities
for shareholders as possible.
SoftBank sells its
entire stake in Nvidia for $5.83 billion
In commodities news, will China buy US
soybeans as President Trump has bet the farm on? US soybeans are still 13
percent costlier than South America’s given China’s retaliatory tariffs.
American farmers push to boost soybean
sales in China as Trump’s trade war rumbles on
Published Mon, Nov 10 2025 5:01 PM EST Updated
Mon, Nov 10 2025 5:35 PM EST
After President Donald Trump’s recent meeting
with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, there is hope
for U.S. farmers that the soybean business may
be on the way back.
At the China International Import Expo last week,
Illinois soybean farmer Scott
Gaffner said
he came to Shanghai to save his China business.
“We want to make sure that our soybeans
are getting exported to China because it’s a very important market to us,”
Gaffner, who is a member of the U.S.
Soybean Export Council, told CNBC.
He said the Gaffner Family Farm typically
sells 40% of its annual soybean exports to China, but as he arrived in
Shanghai, that number this year was zero.
As part of the trade arrangement discussed
between Trump and Xi in the South Korean port city of Busan at the end of
October, China lifted retaliatory tariffs on some agricultural products. But it
has maintained a 13% tariff on U.S. soybeans.
The White House said China will buy 12
million metric tons of soybeans by the end of this year and 25 million for each
of the next three years.
That’s still down from the nearly 27
million metric tons China bought in 2024. The country has yet to confirm the
Trump administration’s numbers.
“We’d like to have just kind of a
continuation of smooth sailing,” said Jim Sutter, CEO of the U.S. Soybean
Export Council, at his group’s booth at the expo. “Do I think that’s realistic?
I don’t know. These are two big, powerful countries, a lot of issues.”
Eric Zheng, president of the American
Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Shanghai,
told CNBC last week that the U.S. and China have stabilized the relationship
for now, but “structural differences remain.”
Uncertainty is typical of the relationship
between the two economic powers, but the negotiation around soybean purchases
this time around is playing out more urgently than Trump’s first term, as China
has been diversifying away from U.S. supply.
Even before the trade war, the Chinese
were buying more from other countries like Brazil and Argentina, and as
tensions built, Beijing specifically stopped purchasing U.S. soybeans to
pressure Trump.
The move caused major financial problems
for American farmers like Gaffner.
“Normally, whenever we are combining the
soybeans, we’re going take them right to the river, down the river to Louisiana
and then ship out to China,” Gaffner said. “But with China not buying any
soybeans, we’re taking them right to our bins, and we’re storing them in our
bins.”
Gaffner is still optimistic.
Towards the end of his trip, he got a call
that his farm had sold one shipment of soybeans.
“We like no trade war, because hopefully
that levels the playing field,” he said. “We just want to do business.”
Trump trade war:
American farmers push to boost China soybean sales
In other news, UK unemployment rises under socialist
Labour, what a surprise. UK stagflation next. The G7+ meets.
Unemployment rate surges to 5 per cent
Tuesday 11 November 2025 7:27
am | Updated: Tuesday 11 November 2025
7:40 am
The UK unemployment rate has surged to a
post-pandemic high in further signs the jobs market has struggled to bounce
back, amid interest rate cuts and adjustments to last year’s tax raid on
employers.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS)
said the unemployment rate had hit 5 per cent as there were 32,000 fewer
payrolled employees in September.
It also estimated a further drop of 32,000
in payrolled employees across October though this figure is expected to be
revised in future publications.
ONS analysts said the number of vacancies
were “broadly unchanged” over the last three months.
Data also pointed to a slowdown in
wage growth. In the three
months to September, average earnings excluding bonuses grew 4.6 per cent,
which remains above levels at which economists feel more comfortable about
inflation coming down to the Bank
of England’s
two per cent target.
Including bonuses, pay growth hit 4.8 per
cent, slightly lower than last month’s five per cent figure.
Public sector pay growth also continued to ouptace that seen in the private
sector.
“Taken together these figures point to a
weakening labour market,” said Liz McKeown, director of economic statistics at
the ONS.
“The number of people on payroll is
falling, with revised tax data now showing falls in most of the last 12 months.
Meanwhile the unemployment rate is up in the latest quarter to a post pandemic
high.”
The new figures are likely to unnerve some
policymakers at the Bank and officials across the Treasury and Department for
Work and Pensions.
Hawkish members on the Bank’s Monetary
Policy Committee (MPC) have looked past rising unemployment to raise concerns
about high inflation expectations across the UK economy.
The stubbornness of inflation in the UK
has partly come due to higher pay packages adding to costs on firms, leading
price growth to remain high, the likes of Clare Lombardelli and Megan Greene
have argued.
The Bank’s central projections predict
that wage growth in the private sector could drop to around three per cent by
mid-2027.
But more dovish members on the MPC have
said that a weakened jobs market, due to fewer vacancies and rising
unemployment, could dampen growth and bring inflation down to two per
cent.
Unemployment forecast errors
Treasury officials and Office for Budget
Responsibility (OBR) economists will also take a closer look at fresh labour
market data released on Tuesday morning as it will be the last set of results
presented to them before the Budget on 26 November.
More
Unemployment rate
surges to 5 per cent
Top diplomats from G7 countries meet in Canada as
trade tensions rise with Trump
Updated 2:08 AM GMT, November 12, 2025
NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ontario (AP) — Top
diplomats from the Group of
Seven industrialized democracies are converging on southern Ontario as
tensions rise between the U.S. and traditional allies like Canada over defense
spending, trade and uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s ceasefire
plan in Gaza and efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
Canadian Foreign Minister Anita
Anand said in an interview with The Associated Press that “the
relationship has to continue across a range of issues” despite trade pressures
as she prepared to host U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and their
counterparts from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan on Tuesday and
Wednesday.
“We’re tackling a range of critical issues
with one main focus: putting the safety and security of Americans FIRST,” Rubio
said in a social media post.
Anand also invited the foreign ministers
of Australia, Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, South Korea, South Africa
and Ukraine.
More
Top
G7 diplomats meet in Canada amid Trump trade tensions | AP News
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.
Jobs
market decline ‘fuels hopes’ for Bank of England interest rate cut
Tuesday
11 November 2025 10:59 am
The
jump in the unemployment rate and softening private sector wage growth is
driving up expectations of an interest rate cut at the Bank of England’s next
meeting in mid-December.
The
Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the unemployment rate had
jumped to 5 per cent, higher than economists had expected, while wage growth
had softened slightly on the month to 4.6 per cent.
Private
sector wage growth in the three months to September, which tends to be more
closely monitored by Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) members, slowed further to
4.2 per cent over the period.
Markets
are now pricing in a three-in-four chance of a rate cut in December, which is
higher than previously expected.
“Today’s
data strengthens the Bank
of England’s
case to resume cutting interest rates next month, as moderating wage pressures
and a softening labour market are expected to bring wage growth closer to
levels consistent with the inflation target by the end of the year,” Yael
Selfin, chief economist at KPMG UK, said.
“Private
sector pay growth, the Bank’s preferred measure, is also anticipated to fall
further with more people in the labour market seeking work, weakening workers’
bargaining power.”
Hargreaves
Lansdown analyst Matt Britzman said lower wage growth “fuels hopes” that
another cut would come.
Interest
rate cut hopes excite gilt traders
Gilts,
the name for UK government bonds, rallied after fresh data showed a further
decline in the jobs market.
Gilt
yields, which move inversely to prices, dropped over the early hours of trading
on Tuesday. All of five-year, ten-year and thirty-year gilt yields fell
by around five basis points.
The
Bank left interest rates on hold at four per cent at its decision last week.
The prospects of another cut may boost demand for existing gilts offering
higher interest payments, thereby raising gilt prices and lowering yields.
Higher
gilt yields reflect in higher debt interest payments for the government, which
are projected to reach over £110bn over the course of this year and could wreak
havoc on public finances.
More
Jobs decline
'fuels hopes’ for Bank of England interest rate cut.
Bank
of Canada Survey Puts 1-In-3 Odds of Recession By March 2026
November
10, 2025
Canada’s
odds of recession remain above 1 in 3, according to the Bank of Canada’s (BoC) Market
Participants Survey (MPS) for Q3 2025. The survey of banks, asset
managers, and investment firms shows markets still expect a downturn within 6
months—and optimism is eroding even among the most upbeat respondents.
Markets
Give 1 In 3 Odds That Canada Enters Recession Within 6 Months
The
odds of Canada entering a recession remain elevated, according to the latest
MPS. The market sees a 1 in 3 (35%) chance of recession within the next 6
months, unchanged from the Q2 2025 survey. Expectations have eased slightly
since Q1 (38%) but remain nearly double the level a year ago. Don’t let the
lack of movement fool you—beneath the surface, optimism eroded
sharply.
The
more troubling data point is the erosion in distribution. The 25th
percentile—the most optimistic respondents—doubled their odds of recession
within six months to 20% in Q3 2025. The 75th percentile—the most
pessimistic—now pegs the odds at 50%, essentially a coin flip.
Canadian
Recession Risk Expected To Hit In The Near-Term
Expectations
of a recession within the next 6 months stand higher than for any other time
frame. The median probability of a recession hitting the economy within 6 to 12
months came in at 30% in Q3 2025, unchanged from Q2 but down sharply from the
start of the year. This flattening of expectations suggests that markets view
the downturn risk as immediate rather than gradual—if a recession comes, it’s
lurking around the corner.
Medium-Term
Recession Risk Barely Budges
The
probability fades over the medium term, with expectations of a recession within
12 to 18 months at 25% in Q3 2025, unchanged from the previous quarter.
Expectations for an 18 to 24-month horizon increased slightly to 23%, up from
20% a year earlier.
The
BoC has recently been acting on its own forecasts, which are proving overly
pessimistic. These surveys tend to reinforce central bank sentiment,
potentially skewing the outlook further toward easing. Much of the data shaping
these views is backward-looking, such as GDP—which reports months after the
fact. If that 6-month recession forecast proves accurate, it would mean the
downturn is already underway.
Bank of Canada
Survey Puts 1-In-3 Odds of Recession By March 2026 - Better Dwelling
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue only occasionally when something of interest occurs.
How The Government
Shutdown Is Impacting Surveillance Of COVID-19, Flu And RSV
Nov 09, 2025, 09:03am EST
Flight cancellations
aren’t the only casualties for the current government shutdown. The ongoing
government shutdown, since October 1st, is affecting public health
and disease surveillance in real and tangible ways. There have been significant
delays in respiratory disease surveillance tracking by the CDC, the federal
agency that normally tracks cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
The CDC has not updated
data on its National Wastewater Surveillance System for COVID-19 since late September. In addition, data on the flu and
RSV has also not been posted since September 26, 2025 on the CDC website. These surveillance programs form the backbone of America’s
ability to detect outbreaks early, allocate resources and guide public health
decisions. The suspension of federal respiratory disease surveillance systems
could have devastating effects on public health going forward. Here’s how.
Lack Of Data For
Preparation
Without weekly reports on
test positivity rates, hospitalizations and deaths, most states cannot
accurately gauge whether respiratory infectious diseases like COVID-19 are
rising or falling. While some states like Georgia have their own disease surveillance systems, many still rely on the
CDC for data that helps inform their ability to prepare for future surges.
States and hospitals are currently left guessing when to adjust healthcare
staffing levels or promote educational campaigns because data on respiratory
viruses are scarce.
Less Public Health
Guidance
The shutdown and the lack
of public health guidance from the CDC comes at an inopportune time, when
respiratory viruses like COVID-19, RSV and the flu usually surge. As
temperatures drop in November and December, people spend more time indoors,
creating an ideal environment for respiratory infections to spread. In previous
years, the CDC would provide timely guidance with respect to outbreaks in
various areas and preventive education in order to protect Americans.
This year during the
shutdown, no such guidance has been given. Local hospitals could theoretically
face an influx of flu cases without knowing an outbreak is impacting
neighboring counties. This would ultimately prevent hospitals from being
prepared and staffing appropriate personnel to contain a potential outbreak. A
manageable outbreak could escalate quickly into a crisis simply because public
health guidance is not being provided by the CDC.
More
How The Government Shutdown Is Impacting Surveillance Of COVID-19, Flu
And RSV
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.
MIT finds superconductivity in graphene
By David Manners Posted
on 11th November 2025 | Modified on 11th November 2025
MIT physicists have observed unconventional superconductivity in
“magic-angle” twisted tri-layer graphene (MATTG) — a material that is made by
stacking three atomically-thin sheets of graphene at a specific angle, or
twist, that then allows exotic properties to emerge.
MATTG has shown indirect hints of unconventional superconductivity
and other strange electronic behavior in the past. The new discovery offers the
most direct confirmation yet that the material exhibits unconventional
superconductivity.
In particular, the team was able to measure MATTG’s
superconducting gap — a property that describes how resilient a material’s
superconducting state is at given temperatures.
They found that MATTG’s superconducting gap looks very different
from that of the typical superconductor, meaning that the mechanism by which
the material becomes superconductive must also be different, and
unconventional.
“There are many different mechanisms that can lead to
superconductivity in materials,” says study co-lead author Shuwen Sun, a
graduate student in MIT’s Department of Physics. “The superconducting gap gives
us a clue to what kind of mechanism can lead to things like room-temperature
superconductors that will eventually benefit human society.”
The researchers made their discovery using a new experimental
platform that allows them to essentially “watch” the superconducting gap, as
the superconductivity emerges in two-dimensional materials, in real-time.
They plan to apply the platform to further probe MATTG, and to map
the superconducting gap in other 2D materials — an effort that could reveal
promising candidates for future technologies.
“Understanding one unconventional superconductor very well may
trigger our understanding of the rest,” says Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, the Cecil
and Ida Green Professor of Physics at MIT and a member of the Research
Laboratory of Electronics. “This understanding may guide the design of
superconductors that work at room temperature.”
In 2018, Jarillo-Herrero and his colleagues became the first
to produce magic-angle graphene in experiments, and
to observe some of its extraordinary properties. That discovery sprouted an
entire new field known as “twistronics,” and the study of atomically thin,
precisely twisted materials.
Jarillo-Herrero’s group has since studied other configurations of
magic-angle graphene with two, three,
and more
layers, as well as stacked and twisted structures of other
two-dimensional materials.
Their work, along with other groups, have revealed some signatures
of unconventional superconductivity in some structures
MIT finds
superconductivity in graphene | Electronics Weekly
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
“Once a boom is well started, it cannot be arrested. It can only
be collapsed.”
John Kenneth Galbraith
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