Baltic Dry Index. 2125 +48 Brent Crude 64.39
Spot
Gold 4084 U S 2
Year Yield 3.62 +0.04
US
Federal Debt. 38.196 trillion
US
GDP 30.576 trillion
The
difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Comrade Starmer fell
into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out
again, that would be a calamity.
With apologies
to Benjamin Disraeli and Gladstone.
An AI buying
opportunity or a dead cat bounce. My money’s on a dead cat bounce. The AI bubble has taken AI into the realm of
competing technologies.
There’s always a
better mousetrap waiting to be discovered and with AI hyped to the moon over
the next five years or more, I think that better mousetrap is going to destroy
billions if not trillions senselessly poured into Wall Street’s latest Dot Con
Bubble 2.0.
"A company for carrying out an undertaking of great
advantage, but nobody to know what it is"
1720 South Sea Bubble.
Nasdaq
closes higher, snapping three-day losing streak as tech stocks recover some
ground
Updated
Fri, Nov 14 2025 4:22 PM EST
The Nasdaq
Composite rebounded on Friday as investors bought up shares of key
technology stocks a day after the group led Wall Street to its worst day in
more than a month.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.13% to finish at
22,900.59, snapping a three-day losing streak. The S&P 500 finished near the
flatline, down just 0.05% at 6,734.11, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost
309.74 points, or 0.65%, to settle at 47,147.48. The three indexes bounced back
significantly from their lows earlier in the day, which had the Nasdaq and
S&P 500 down 1.9% and about 1.4%, respectively. The Dow had fallen almost
600 points, or roughly 1.3%.
The tech trade gained some ground after coming under
pressure in recent days. Leading artificial intelligence players Nvidia and Oracle both reversed course
from their losses seen in the previous session, as did Palantir Technologies and Tesla, both of which saw a drop of
more than 6% in the prior day. The Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund
(XLK) closed up 0.5% on Friday, making up some of its 2% decline from
Thursday.
Major U.S. indexes on Thursday posted their worst
one-day performance since Oct. 10. The 30-stock Dow lost about
800 points, taking back gains seen
in Wednesday’s session when it crossed the 48,000 level. The Nasdaq
plummeted more than 2%, as technology giants came away battered.
“We’re kind of switching back and forth between this
risk-on [and] risk-off type of a trade,” said Brian Mulberry, client portfolio
manager at Zacks Investment Management. “I think people are looking to maybe
reposition going into the end of the year, into 2026, just knowing the
concentration that most people have built up because of the solid performance
from these technology companies.”
“There will be somewhat of a floor, I think, in this
volatility. We just expect that you’ll probably have more of these 1% to 2%
moves up and down till close to the end of the year just as people reposition
and de-risk their portfolios,” he also said.
After the week’s wild swings, Nasdaq ended down 0.5%
for the period. However, both the S&P 500 and the Dow held on to gains, up
0.1% and 0.3%, respectively.
Concerns about the AI trade have emerged more
seriously this week, with the recent
wipeout in once-hot cloud stock Oracle further spooking investors
about elevated tech valuations, a massive surge in debt financing and soaring
AI capex plans. To be sure, Oracle’s growth is uniquely more reliant on its
cloud deal with OpenAI and the company has far less cash compared to
hyperscalers.
“AI is truly testing the limits of Wall Street
spreadsheets right now,” David Krakauer, vice president of portfolio management
at Mercer Advisors, told CNBC, adding that investors pricing in “so much of
this future growth that they really can’t measure yet” just spurs an
“environment of swings.” “The valuations are so stretched, and any little
movement in expectations on either profits or interest rates is going to have a
bigger and bigger effect.”
Mounting
unease about the Federal Reserve’s upcoming interest rate decision
exacerbated the existing pressure on the market this week. Traders are now
pricing in a less than 50% chance that the central bank will cut its benchmark
overnight borrowing rate by a quarter percentage point during their December
meeting, which is lower than the 62.9% likelihood that markets priced in
earlier this week and 95.5% chance a month ago, per the CME FedWatch Tool.
Investors are counting on another rate cut in
December to revive the economy, as well as risk-taking on Wall Street. But some
Fed members are growing concerned that inflation is too sticky to warrant
another rate decrease this year.
The U.S. government shutdown, which was the longest
in history, ended Wednesday evening after stretching on for more than six
weeks. That development had been expected to end a period of time where
investors were operating without important economic data. Instead, it has
raised new questions. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested
that some economic data that was due out during the impasse might
never be released.
Stock
market news for Nov. 14, 2025
Take Five: Clearing the
backlog
By Reuters
November 14, 20259:48 AM GMT
Here's your market week ahead from Dhara Ranasinghe
and Amanda Cooper in London, Kevin Buckland in Tokyo and Lewis Krauskopf and
Rodrigo Campos in New York.
1/CLEARING THE BACKLOG
U.S. government number crunchers begin the task of
shovelling out the backlog of data not released during Washington's
unprecedented 43-day shutdown.
In 2013, which was the last shutdown to affect the
all-important non-farm payrolls report, the figures came out five days after
the government reopened.
Based on that timeline, traders could get the
September numbers in the coming days, not least because the original release
was planned for October 3, just a couple of days after the shutdown began.
Private data that has been published has suggested
the labour market continues to weaken. That supports the case for a
December Federal Reserve rate cut. Officials are warning, though, that some
data may have been lost forever, meaning the economic fog might take time to clear.
2/AI CATCHING
Nvidia's (NVDA.O), opens new tab quarterly
report on Wednesday will be a critical test for the high-flying AI trade that
has started to make some spluttering noises in recent weeks.
The semiconductor giant became the world's
first $5 trillion company last month. It has lost a bit since,
but with a staggering 8% weighting in the S&P 500 and major clout in many
global indexes, it can easily sway markets on its own.
The AI bellwether's forecasts and the broader
industry perspective will have ramifications for the wider tech ecosystem. It
is going to either ease or feed those nagging investor concerns that this is
already the next big bubble.
3/LEVERS OF POWER
After initially suggesting it would leave monetary
policy largely to its central bank, Japan's new government is now signalling a
more hands-on approach.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is looking to loosen
the fiscal reins and urging the Bank of Japan to go slow on
raising rates, while new Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama has argued inflation
is yet to sustainably hit the BoJ's 2% target.
The bank still looks primed for a hike in December, although
Governor Kazuo Ueda has been cautious about pulling the trigger. Consumer price
data due on November 21 should offer clues, but it could well be the crumpled
yen that holds the key.
If its weakness affects politically sensitive food
and energy prices, Takaichi may have no choice but to accept some speedy rate
hikes.
4/HAPPY PLACE
It must be nice to be the European Central Bank right now. President
Christine Lagarde says it is "in a good place" with interest rates
and money markets having switched to autopilot, pricing in no move at all next year.
The coming week brings a raft of October inflation
numbers, for both individual countries and the euro zone as a whole. Core
consumer inflation was 2.4% in September, up from 2.3% in August but down from
2.7% last September.
The headline number has stayed around the ECB's 2%
target for most of the year, however, and if the trade-weighted euro's 5.5%
2025 rise starts to drag it lower at any point Frankfurt would have room to cut
again.
But the jury is out for now.
More
Take Five: Clearing the backlog | Reuters
China
economic gloom mounts as housing slump intensifies and investment slides
Published Thu, Nov 13 2025 9:21 PM EST Updated Thu,
Nov 13 2025 11:01 PM EST
China’s slowdown worsened in October, dragged by
soft consumer demand and a deepening property downturn, with the long holiday
period further denting factory activity.
Fixed-asset investment, which includes real estate,
contracted 1.7% for the first ten months of the year, steepening from a 0.5%
decline in the January-to-September period, data from the National Bureau of
Statistics showed Friday. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a 0.8% drop.
The last time China recorded a contraction in
fixed-asset investment was in 2020 during the pandemic, according to data going
back to 1992 from Wind Information, a private database focused on the country.
On a single-month basis, fixed-asset investment fell
11.4% from a year earlier, the weakest reading since early 2020 when the first
Covid lockdowns hit, according to Goldman Sachs’ estimates. The bank attributed
the drop to Beijing’s efforts in reining in industrial overcapacity and the
housing downturn.
Within that segment, property investment continued
to decline, shrinking 14.7% in the year through October, compared with a 13.9% contraction in the first nine months.
Manufacturing investment rose 2.7% and utilities
spending, which includes electricity, fuel and water supplies, climbed 12.5%.
Industrial output expanded 4.9% in October, slowing
from a 6.5% the prior month and missing expectations for a 5.5% jump.
China’s manufacturing activity contracted more than expected in October, falling to the
lowest level in six months, as a weeklong holiday that ran from Oct. 1 to Oct.
8 shuttered most factories across the country.
Retail sales climbed 2.9% in October from a year
earlier. While beating the 2.8% growth forecast in a Reuters poll, the
consumption gauge fell for a fifth straight month to its lowest level this
year, according to LSEG data.
The survey-based urban unemployment rate ticked down
to 5.1% last month from 5.2% in September.
More
China economic gloom mounts as housing slump intensifies and investment
slides
In other news.
Wall
Street cools on Oracle’s buildout plans as debt concerns mount: ‘AI sentiment
is waning’
Published
Thu, Nov 13 2025 2:27 PM EST
Two
months ago, Oracle’s stock had
its best day since 1992, soaring 36% to a record
after the company blew away investors with its forecast for cloud
infrastructure revenue.
Since
then, the company has lost one-third of its value, more than wiping out those
gains. Midway through November, the stock is on pace for its worst month since
2011.
The
hype was sparked by Oracle’s strengthening ties to OpenAI. But the mood of late
has turned, with investors questioning whether the AI market ran too far, too
fast and whether OpenAI can live up to its $300 billion commitment to Oracle
over five years.
“AI
sentiment is waning,” said Jackson Ader, an analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets,
in an interview.
Ader
said that of the big cloud companies in the GPU business, Oracle is expected to
generate the least amount of free cash flow. To fund the capex required for
Oracle’s business, Ader expects Oracle to turn to more creative financing
tools.
Oracle
is looking to raise $38 billion in debt sales to help fund its AI buildout,
according to sources with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be named
because the information is confidential. Bloomberg reported on the planned debt
raise last month.
The
company needs a massive pool of capital as it works with partners to develop
and lease data centers across Texas, New Mexico and Wisconsin, while also
buying hundreds of thousands of graphics processing units (GPUs) from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices to run AI
models.
At
Oracle’s big annual conference in October, called AI World, tech enthusiasts
cheered the company’s cloud infrastructure design as being easily scalable.
Investors remained largely enthusiastic at the time, thanks to Oracle’s over
$450 billion in signed contracts that hadn’t yet been recognized as revenue.
Skepticism
started to hit shortly after the conference. Oracle shares fell 7% on Oct.
17, as investors questioned the company’s ability to reach its lofty outlook
announced at its investor day. Oracle said it expected to reach $166 billion in
cloud infrastructure revenue in the 2030 fiscal year, up from $18 billion in
fiscal 2026.
Oracle’s
next quarterly earnings report is expected in mid-December.
Andrew
Keches, an analyst at Barclays, said off-balance sheet debt facilities and
vendor financing are two options for Oracle. Keches recently downgraded
Oracle’s debt, citing the company’s “significant funding needs.”
“We
struggle to see an avenue for ORCL’s credit trajectory to improve,” Keches
wrote in a note to clients this week.
More
'AI sentiment is
waning.' Wall Street cools on Oracle buildout plans
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.
Foreclosure soared 20% over the last year in
worrying economic sign
November 13, 2025
Foreclosure-related
filings were up nearly 20 percent in October year-over-year, the latest
worrying sign as the U.S. adjusts to the Trump administration’s economic policy.
Last month, there were
36,766 U.S. properties in some stage of the foreclosure process, real estate data from Attom found, a three
percent spike over September and a 19 percent bump from the same period last
year.
Americans are
increasingly worried about the fate of the economy, and affordability is
considered a key reason why Democrats did so well
during off-year elections earlier
this month.
President Trump has
insisted affordability questions are a Democratic “con job” and prices on “everything” are “way down,”
even though this is not true.
Average prices were 1.7
percent higher in September than they were when Trump took office in January,
and are up three percent year-over-year, according to the latest federal data
from the Consumer Price Index.
Making matters worse, the
White House said this week key government jobs data from October will “likely
never” be released because of the disruptions of the government shutdown.
Michael Burry, the
investor made famous in The Big Short for predicting the 2008
financial crisis, has deregistered his hedge fund and launched a series
of bets against major tech companies, arguing the U.S. in the midst of a bubble.
Foreclosure soared 20% over the last year in
worrying economic sign
Technology
Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Tesla recalls 10,500 Powerwall 2 battery systems due to
overheating, fire risk
Published Thu, Nov 13 2025 2:57 PM EST
Tesla is
recalling around 10,500 units of its Powerwall 2, a backup battery for
residential use, according to a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
disclosure out Thursday.
“The lithium-ion battery cells in certain Powerwall 2 systems can
cause the unit to stop functioning during normal use, which can result in
overheating and, in some cases, smoke or flame and can cause death or serious
injury due to fire and burn hazards,” the CPSC
recall notice said.
While Elon Musk’s
electric vehicle and clean energy company blamed the issue on a “third-party
battery cell defect,” it did not name the supplier.
The recall notice said Tesla previously received 22 customer
reports of the Powerwall 2 overheating, including five fires resulting in
“minor property damage,” but no known injuries.
Tesla’s Powerwall products are sold via its Energy division, along
with giant, backup batteries that are built for utility-scale projects and use
at large business facilities.
The Powerwalls work with Tesla’s solar photovoltaics, or solar
rooftops, and can store electricity in a home for use at a later time,
including during blackouts or during days or hours when electricity prices are
higher.
In a separate notice on Tesla’s
website, the company emphasized that the issue does not affect owners of
newer model Powerwall systems, specifically Powerwall 3. The company website
also said, “all affected units are being replaced at no cost to customers.”
Tesla’s biggest growth engine in the third quarter of 2025 came
from its energy division, which sells Powerwalls. Tesla Energy saw revenue jump
44% to $3.42 billion in the third quarter, and as of the end of September, its
energy segment represented about one-quarter of Tesla’s overall revenue.
Tesla shares fell by more than 7% on Thursday. Representatives for
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
Tesla recalls
10,500 Powerwall 2 systems due to overheating, fire risk
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. Boccherini updated by Berio. Approx. 7 minutes.
Luigi
Boccherini / Luciano Berio: Ritirata notturna di Madrid (1975)
Luigi Boccherini /
Luciano Berio: Ritirata notturna di Madrid (1975) - YouTube
Finally,
why that AI bubble makes no sense. Approx. 23 minutes.
The
AI Bubble: Why $10 Trillion in AI Investments Will Disappear
The AI Bubble: Why
$10 Trillion in AI Investments Will Disappear
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
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