Baltic Dry Index. 1983 +41 Brent Crude 63.63
Spot
Gold 4008 U S 2
Year Yield 3.55 -0.02
US
Federal Debt. 38.167 trillion
US
GDP 30.561 trillion
“Anyone
who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”
Oscar
Wilde
Was this the week the
AI boom turned to bust? It’s too early to know for certain, but getting out of bubbles
first beats getting carried out of bubbles last.
Besides, from the US
economy to China’s, the global economy seems to be rolling over.
Nasdaq
closes lower, capping its worst week since April
Updated
Fri, Nov 7 2025 4:20 PM EST
The Nasdaq
Composite closed lower Friday, pressured by more losses in artificial
intelligence stocks, to post a losing week as new economic data added to
investors’ fears of a slowdown.
The tech-heavy index shed 0.21% to finish at
23,004.54. In contrast, the S&P
500 and the Dow Jones
Industrial Average inched into the green. The broad-based index gained
0.13% to close at 6,728.80, while the 30-stock index added 74.80 points, or
0.16%, to settle at 46,987.10. At their lows of the day, the Nasdaq had pulled
back 2.1%, while the S&P 500 and Dow had fallen 1.3% and more than 400
points, or roughly 0.9%, respectively.
Stocks came off their lows after Senate Minority
Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., offered
up a new plan to Republicans that would enable the record-breaking
U.S. government shutdown to end. Under the proposal, short-term funding would
be provided for federal government operations in exchange for a one-year
extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits.
In the midst of the stoppage, concerns among
investors around the strength of the U.S. economy have grown. A survey from the
University of Michigan revealed Friday that consumer sentiment has neared
its lowest level ever. The data comes just a day after firm Challenger,
Gray & Christmas reported that layoff announcements in October reached
their highest level for the month in 22 years.
Investors have been getting
little on the economic data front because of the ongoing shutdown. The
Bureau of Labor Statistics would have released the nonfarm payrolls report
Friday. For the second month in a row, however, it is unable to do so.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting the report to show a
decline of 60,000 jobs and an increase in the unemployment rate to 4.5%.
The Senate is expected to vote Friday on advancing a
House-passed stopgap funding measure. The longest-ever federal funding lapse
has posed a threat to economic activity, including causing flight disruptions
due to shortages of air traffic controllers, who have been working
without pay since October.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday
that he will be cutting
flights by 10% at 40 major airports starting Friday, a move that could
affect 3,500 to 4,000 flights daily. As of Friday morning, more than 700 U.S.
flights had already
been canceled.
“No one likes the dark, and we’ve been in the dark
for a while as far as government data is concerned, but I think we might
further have some behavior being impacted,” Leah Bennett, chief investment
strategist at Concurrent Asset Management, told CNBC. “I think that speaks
volumes to why valuations should, at least in the short term, continue to
erode.”
The three benchmark indexes closed in the red this
week, as fears about elevated tech sector valuations and a highly concentrated
market persisted. The Nasdaq was down around 3% week to date, seeing its worst
performance in a five-day period since the week ended April 4, when the index
dropped 10%. The S&P 500 and the Dow each lost more than 1% on the week.
Among Friday’s laggards was leading artificial
intelligence player Oracle,
which fell almost 2%. That brought its decline this week to just about
9%. Advanced Micro Devices,
down nearly 9% on the week, and Broadcom,
off by more than 5% this week, were lower as well.
Key AI leaders lost steam on Thursday, with Nvidia, AMD, Tesla and Microsoft posting significant
declines that weighed on the broader market. Major U.S. stock averages closed
lower across the board, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite notably
dropping 1.9% and the 30-stock Dow closing lower by almost 400 points.
“You have had a bit of a rotation, which has been
helpful in the value stocks, which kind of leads me to believe that the
sell-off isn’t overly concerning with the [‘Magnificent Seven’],” Bennett said,
adding that “AI spending is still here.”
“This AI rally that we’ve had I think does resume,”
she continued. “It’s hard to call the top, but I don’t think we’re at the end
of it.”
Stock
market news for Nov. 7, 2025
US
Consumer Sentiment Is at Near-Record Lows
November 7, 2025 at 10:50 PM GMT
American consumers are not happy campers. Sentiment
across the country is close to the
lowest it has ever been as rising inflation, rising unemployment, mass
firings, a global trade war and now a record-breaking government shutdown have
combined to make people less than cheery as the holidays approach.
The preliminary November sentiment
index dropped 3.3 points to 50.3, just above a June 2022 reading of 50
that was the weakest in University of Michigan data back to 1978. The gauge was
lower than all but one estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. A measure
of current economic conditions slumped 6.3 points to a record low of
52.3 as anxiety mounted about the impact from the standoff in Washington.
Still, there was a bit of good news on Friday. Not
this though—Americans’ perceptions of the job market also worsened last
month. The brighter part, according to a monthly survey from the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York, is that their
expectations for inflation edged lower.
Unemployment expectations rose for a third straight
month as consumers assigned an average 43% probability—the highest
since April—to the likelihood the unemployment rate will be higher a year
from now. But expectations for consumer price increases in the year ahead
ticked down to 3.2% in October from 3.4% in September. — David
E. Rovella
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US
Consumer Sentiment Near-Record Low: Evening Briefing Americas - Bloomberg
AI
bubble fears deepen as Altman denies state support demands
Friday 07 November 2025 12:21 pm
Fears that global markets were in the grip of a
giant AI bubble accelerated dramatically on Thursday, after Sam Altman was
forced to deny that OpenAI wanted the US government to guarantee its debt.
AI-related stocks fell sharply across the board,
with Nvidia, US software giant Palantir and Meta all dragging the tech-heavy
Nasdaq down to end the day’s trading over two per cent lower.
The sell-off extended a conspicuous run of losses
among tech firms, which has seen shares in Jensen
Huang’s chipmaker drop more than 10 per cent in the past five days and
Palantir fall 12 per cent. Shares in Meta are down nearly a fifth since it
published fresh guidance alongside its results last week that vowed to double down on its lavish AI spending plans.
The dramatic stock moves have accelerated fears that
the years-long boom in tech stocks, fuelled by rampant speculation over the
promise of artificial intelligence, has evolved into an AI bubble that will
fail to deliver the financial returns investors had anticipated.
Unease
over sky-high valuations
Several star stock pickers have voiced their unease
about the increasingly eye-catching valuations that AI firms have been netting,
that has seen the likes of Palantir tradloane at over 200 times forward
earnings. Earlier this week, Michael Burry, whose role shorting the US housing
market in 2007 partly inspired the ‘Big Short’ Hollywood film, disclosed a billion-dollar bet against Palantir and Nvidia.
In a series of posts on X, the founder of Scion
Asset Management compared the unprecedented amount AI firms were piling into
data storage and processing power with the slowing demand for cloud computing
from customers.
News of the bet on an AI bubble, which emerged on
Monday, immediately triggered a sell-off in AI stocks, which accelerated later
in the week when OpenAI’s chief financial officer expressed a desire for the US
government to guarantee its debt.
Speaking at an event in California, Sarah Friar said the
private AI juggernaut was exploring “an ecosystem of banks, private equity,
maybe even governmental”, to a question on how it will fund a dramatic ramp up
in spending.
“The backstop or guarantee… can really drop the cost
of the financing but also increase the loan-to-value, so the amount of debt you
can take on top of an equity portion,” she said.
Asked by the interviewer to clarify whether she
meant a “federal backstop” to guarantee any loans issued to OpenAI by private
backers, Friar said: “Exactly.”
Debt
acceleration ramps up AI bubble fears
Boss Sam Altman backtracked on the remarks on
Thursday, saying in a post on X that the firm’s leadership “believe governments
should not pick winners or losers, and that taxpayers should not bail out
companies that make bad business decisions”.
“What we do think might make sense is governments
building (and owning) their own AI infrastructure, but then the upside of that
should flow to the government as well,” he added.
The comments sparked a wave of investor concerns
that private sector appetite for continually funding the unprecedented capital
expenditure involved in the development of AI infrastructure might be drying
up.
Analysts also cited parallels with the sequence of
events that preceded the 2008 financial crisis, when governments across the
developed world stepped in to bail out their banks in a liquidity crisis.
Several investors, including Scion’s Burry, have
also sounded the alarm on the complex and growing interconnectedness between
the US’s largest tech players. Recent months have seen a flurry of deals
announced between the likes of Nvidia, OpenAI, Larry Ellison’s Oracle and
Microsoft, and a sharp ramp-up in increasingly opaque debt structures.
More
AI
bubble fears deepen as Altman denies state support demands
In other news,
worrying news. Recession next?
Job
cuts in October hit highest level for the month in 22 years, Challenger says
Published
Thu, Nov 6 2025 7:23 AM EST Updated Thu, Nov 6 2025 9:17 AM EST
Layoff
announcements soared in October as companies recalibrated staffing levels
during the artificial intelligence boom, a sign of potential trouble ahead for
the labor market, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray &
Christmas.
Job
cuts for the month totaled 153,074, a 183% surge from September and 175% higher
than the same month a year ago. It was the highest level for any October since
2003. This has been the worst year for announced layoffs since 2009.
“Like
in 2003, a disruptive technology is changing the landscape,” said Andy
Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer at the firm. “At a time
when job creation is at its lowest point in years, the optics of announcing
layoffs in the fourth quarter are particularly unfavorable.”
The
report provides a glimpse into the labor market at a time when the
government has suspended data
gathering and releases during the shutdown in Washington, D.C.
To
be sure, the Challenger monthly numbers can be highly volatile, and an
accelerated pace of layoffs has yet to show up in state-level weekly jobless
claim filings that continue to come in despite the shutdown. Payrolls
processing firm ADP reported that
October saw net job growth of 42,000, reversing two consecutive months of
losses in the private sector.
However,
the report comes at a time when Federal Reserve officials have expressed
concern about a softening labor market. The central bank has lowered its
benchmark interest rate twice since September and is expected to
approve another quarter percentage point reduction in December as policymakers
look to get ahead of any more serious problems.
Challenger
reports the highest level of layoffs coming from the technology sector amid a
time of restructuring due to AI integration. Companies in the sector announced
33,281 cuts, nearly six times the level in September.
Consumer
products also saw a sharp gain to 3,409, while nonprofits, an area hit hard by
the shutdown, listed 27,651 cuts year to date, up 419% from the same point in
2024.
In
total, companies have announced 1.1 million cuts this year, a 65% increase from
a year ago and the highest level since the Covid pandemic year of 2020. October
saw the highest total for any month in the fourth quarter since 2008.
“Some
industries are correcting after the hiring boom of the pandemic, but this comes
as AI adoption, softening consumer and corporate spending, and rising costs
drive belt-tightening and hiring freezes. Those laid off now are finding it
harder to quickly secure new roles, which could further loosen the labor
market,” Challenger said.
Job cuts in
October hit highest level for the month in 22 years, Challenger says
Retail
footfall sinks for sixth straight month as Brits fear Budget taxes
Friday 07 November 2025 6:00 am | Updated: Friday
07 November 2025 7:17 am
Footfall at the UK’s shops has declined for the
sixth consecutive month, marking another worrying sign for the retail sector.
Total activity fell by 0.7 per cent in October, led
by drops in shopping centre and retail park footfall, according to the British
Retail Consortium (BRC).
BRC chief Helen Dickinson said that nervousness
around the upcoming Budget, in which Rachel Reeves must plug a
multi-billion-pound hole in the government’s finances, was to blame.
“With consumer confidence remaining weak ahead of
the possibility of a tax-raising Budget, many households have stayed away from
shopping centres and retail parks,” Dickinson said.
She added that retail locations have “struggled to
attract as many customers” in recent years, “buffeted by the high cost of
living and poor consumer sentiment”.
The UK’s retail sector has been haemorrhaging jobs,
with a 10 per cent reduction in its workforce since 2015 and another 10 per
cent set to go in the next three years.
The combination of low spending, high taxes and
rising costs has pushed many firms to the breaking point.
“Some retailers have brought forward discounting to
tempt early spend [ahead of the festive season]… retailers will be watching
closely, hoping to see momentum build in November,” Andy Sumpter, retail
consultant EMEA for Sensormatic, said.
Shops are looking to the Budget in hopes of relief
from business rates, one of the sector’s most-hated taxes.
Reeves has promised to reform the business rates
system by creating an upper and lower tax band for shops either side of a
£500,000 valuation, but the exact levy has yet to be announced.
“Now is the moment for the government to deliver on
their manifesto’s business rates commitment, exclude retail from the new
business rates surtax and ensure a meaningful rates reduction for the
industry,” Dickinson said.
However, for Brits, the prospect of income tax rises
in the Autumn Statement is having a more negative effect: “Shoppers appear to
be ‘spooked’ by ongoing economic uncertainty, delaying discretionary purchases
and focusing on essentials,” Sumpter said.
Retail footfall sinks for sixth straight month as Brits fear Budget taxes
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 commodity prices to hit six-year low in 2026
as oil glut expands – World Bank
According to World Bank, governments should use this to get their fiscal
houses in order
07 November 2025 - 09:50
In Summary
- Falling energy prices are helping ease
global inflation, with countries such as Kenya equally enjoying a low cost
of living where inflation remained at 4.6 per cent last month.
- World Bank also notes that lower rice and
wheat prices have helped make food more affordable in some developing
countries.
Global commodity prices,
inclusive of some food crops, are projected to hit the lowest level in six
years in 2026, the fourth consecutive year of decline, the World Bank
projects.
The
latest World Bank Group’s Commodity Markets Outlook indicates prices are forecast to drop by at
least seven per cent in
both 2025 and 2026, driven by weak global economic growth, a growing oil
surplus and persistent policy uncertainty.
Falling energy prices are
helping ease global inflation, with countries such as Kenya equally enjoying a
low cost of living where inflation remained at 4.6 per cent last month.
World Bank also notes
that lower rice and wheat prices have helped make food more affordable in some
developing countries.
Despite the recent
declines, however, commodity prices remain above pre-pandemic levels, with
prices in 2025 and 2026 projected to be 23 per cent and 14 per cent higher,
respectively, than in 2019.
“Commodity markets are
helping to stabilise
the global economy,” said Indermit Gill, the World Bank Group’s
Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics.
“Falling energy prices
have contributed to the decline in global consumer-price inflation. But this
respite will not last. Governments should use it to get their fiscal house in
order, make economies business-ready and accelerate trade and investment.”
The global oil glut has
expanded significantly this year and is expected to rise next year to 65 per
cent above the most recent high, in 2020.
This is on the back of a
slower growth in oil demand as that of electric and hybrid vehicles grows, with
oil consumption stagnating in China.
Brent
crude prices are forecast to fall from an average of $68 per barrel in 2025 to
$60 next year—a five-year
low. Overall, energy prices
are forecast to fall by 12 per cent in 2025 and a further 10 per cent in 2026.
Kenyan consumers are
however unlikely to enjoy gains from the lower crude prices as the country
remains tied to the Government-to-Government contracts with Gulf majors until
2028.
This
is in addition to high taxes at the pump, including the recently increased Road Maintenance
Levy which
went up from Sh18 to Sh25 per
litre of petrol and diesel in July 2024,
a Sh7 increase.
---- According
to the World Bank, Soybean
prices are falling in 2025 because of record production and trade tensions but
are expected to stabilise
over the next two years.
Meanwhile, coffee and
cocoa prices are forecast to fall in 2026 as supply conditions
improve. However, fertiliser prices are projected to surge 21
per cent in 2025, reflecting higher input costs and trade restrictions, before
easing five per cent in 2026.
“These increases are
likely to further erode farmers’ profit margins and raise concerns about future
crop yields,” World Bank notes.
Precious metals have on
the other hand reached record highs in 2025, fuelled by demand for safe-haven
assets and continued central bank purchases.
The price of gold, widely
viewed as a safe haven during times of economic uncertainty, is expected to
increase by 42 per cent in 2025.
At the Nairobi Securities
Exchange, local investors have joined the scramble for the gold exchange-traded
funds (ETFs) amid the global rush which has driven prices to record levels.
The Absa NewGold ETF,
which mirrors the price of gold in the global market, surged past the Sh5,000
mark in recent weeks, before easing to Sh4,935 as of Tuesday.
Gold
prices are projected to increase by
a further five per cent next year, leaving them at nearly double their 2015-2019 average.
Silver prices are also expected to hit a record annual average in 2025, rising
by 34 per
cent and further eight
per cent in 2026.
Greater-than-expected oil
output from OPEC+ could deepen the oil glut and exert additional downward
pressure on energy prices.
Electric vehicle sales,
which are expected to increase sharply by 2030, could further depress oil
demand.
More
Global commodity prices to hit six-year low in
2026 as oil glut expands – World Bank
Technology
Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Another
warning from Warren. Approx. 30 minutes. Did China just invent a better way to
AI?
I suspect this is an AI generated version of WB, but cannot fault the logic of the video nor the likelihood of analog replacing Nvidia and other chips.
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)
Exponent
Calculator
Enter
values into any two of the input fields to solve for the third.
This
weekend’s music diversion. Time for some Mozart. Approx. 6 minutes.
Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 21 – Andante
Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 21 - Andante - YouTube
More
on those Trump tariffs. Approx. 3 minutes.
3
key quotes from Supreme Court hearing on Trump tariffs
3 key quotes from
Supreme Court hearing on Trump tariffs
Finally,
fun with numbers. Approx. 1 minute.
CRAZY
Multiplication TRICK!
CRAZY
Multiplication TRICK! - YouTube
When you assume, you make an “ass” out of “u” and “me.”
Anon.
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