Baltic
Dry Index. 2727 -87 Brent Crude 63.75
Spot
Gold 4228 U S 2
Year Yield 3.56 +0.04
US
Federal Debt. 38.373 trillion
US
GDP 30.620 trillion
“You
are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?"
"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made
it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of
my own free will I wore it.”
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.
With a mild PCE
inflation reading and a Friday in December it was time to dress up stocks
again. Never mind trouble in the real economy from the USA through to China.
In commodities, did
Comex silver almost default last week. Bribing the longs to roll over December
deliveries into March?
With the AI data
center build out boom just getting underway and a move underway to electrify
everything, massive demand for copper and silver lies ahead for the foreseeable
future.
S&P
500 closes higher, notching four-day win streak and nearing record after light
inflation reading
Updated
Fri, Dec 5 2025 4:19 PM EST
The S&P 500 edged higher on
Friday, securing its fourth straight winning day, as traders digested inflation
data that could provide further incentive for the Federal Reserve to lower
interest rates next week
The
broad market index closed 0.19% higher at 6,870.40, putting the index about
0.7% off its intraday record. Friday also marked its ninth positive session in
10. The Nasdaq Composite increased
0.31% to settle at 23,578.13, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed
104.05 points, or 0.22%, to end the day at 47,954.99.
The
market sorted through a fresh slate of economic releases Friday. The Commerce
Department said that the core personal consumption expenditures price index for
September – which was delayed due to the record-setting U.S. government
shutdown – showed an annual
rate of 2.8%, lower than the 2.9% Dow Jones estimate. Core PCE’s 0.2% rise
on the month was in line with expectations, as were the monthly and annual
inflation readings for headline PCE.
Also
on Friday, the University of Michigan’s consumer survey, a report that provides
a glimpse at sentiment as well as the view on inflation over the near and
longer term, came in higher than expected for December.
The
PCE report, which serves as the Fed’s primary inflation gauge, gives the
central bank its final inflation view before Wednesday’s interest rate vote.
With inflation being mild, jobs remains more in focus after recent reports
showed signs of weakening in the labor market. Investors are hoping that this
will influence the central bank to lower its benchmark rate by a quarter
percentage point when it announces the decision Wednesday.
Traders
are pricing in an 87% chance of a cut next Wednesday, far higher than just a
couple weeks ago, according to the CME FedWatch tool. The key fed funds futures rate is
currently targeted between 3.75%-4%, trading near the high end of that range
amid ongoing pressures in short-term funding markets.
“I
think it really just solidifies what the market’s already been pricing in,
which is almost certainty of a cut for next week,” David Krakauer, vice
president of portfolio management at Mercer Advisors, told CNBC. “If inflation
does continue to stay somewhat relatively tame and [is] potentially decreasing,
then what’s the outlook for more rate cuts into early next year?”
With
expectations running high for a rate cut, Krakauer doesn’t necessarily believe
that it will serve as a catalyst for stocks to move higher as the new year
approaches. That said, he still thinks the market is in a healthy position for
some upside, at least enough to reach new highs on the S&P 500.
“It
may be a steady move, it may be a choppy move, but I certainly see the path for
equities forward as being very positive,” he said.
Stocks
posted gains for the week. The S&P 500 finished up 0.3% week to date, while
the Nasdaq and 30-stock Dow have added almost 1% and 0.5%, respectively.
During
Friday’s trading session, Netflix shares
seesawed after initially seeing sizable losses earlier in the day following the
company’s announcement that it struck
a deal with Warner
Bros. Discovery to buy its film and streaming assets for $72 billion —
a transaction that’s expected to close in 12 to 18 months. Netflix shares were
nearly 3% lower, while shares of WBD jumped more than 6%.
The
streaming giant’s stock came off its lows of the session after a senior
administration official told CNBC that the Trump administration views
the deal with “heavy skepticism.”
Stock
market news for Dec. 5, 2025
Thanksgiving
Panic: The Day COMEX Nearly Broke
|
On Wednesday, November 26, the COMEX reportedly
faced an unprecedented crisis: 36 million ounces of silver stood for
delivery—7,330 contracts. That’s more than enough to trigger panic behind
closed doors. The largest player, JPMorgan, scrambled to move 13 million ounces
of its registered silver (the category available for immediate
delivery) into eligible status, effectively locking it behind
a “do not touch” sign. It was a desperate act of self-preservation disguised as
a routine clerical shuffle.
Thanksgiving night, as families carved turkeys,
insiders say the CME quietly halted futures trading for 10 hours. While
mainstream financial media was silent, sources allege a private, hours-long
negotiation between bullion banks and key longs took place—an emergency
operation to stave off default.
The $65 Million
Secret Deal
According to market whisper, roughly $65 million in
cash changed hands to induce 6,816 longs to roll their
December delivery claims into March. That amounts to about $1.775 per ounce—a
hush-money premium designed to make traders walk away without demanding metal.
The shorts allegedly included JPMorgan clients, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup. The
longs were primarily institutions with enough heft to call their bluff—JPM’s
own customers and Deutsche Bank among them.
No EFP (Exchange for Physical) volume was reported.
That silence—the “dog that didn’t bark”—is the smoking gun. Because this deal,
if it happened, didn’t go through official channels. It was designed to be
invisible, untraceable, and most of all, deniable.
Yes, COMEX avoided an open default—but at the cost
of admitting what many in the silver world already suspect: the game is
paper-deep, liquidity is synthetic, and “delivery-ready” metal is largely a
fiction.
A System on Borrowed Time
This shadow settlement explains everything the
market saw the next morning: backwardation vanished overnight, March futures
suddenly spiked to a $1 premium, and open interest in the March contract
exploded. The so-called “normalization” wasn’t organic; it was manufactured.
JPMorgan’s inventory transfer tells an even clearer
story. By shifting 13.4 million ounces from the “registered” column to
“eligible,” JPM signaled that none of its silver was for sale—not
at these prices. The same institution that has acted for years as custodian,
market-maker, and quiet monopolist of COMEX silver supply effectively declared
“hands off.”
In other words, the market’s largest player just
locked the vault.
The December crisis may have been defused, but at an
enormous price. The $65 million cash bribe (because let’s call it what it was)
bought three more months of illusion. Come March, those same longs will likely
return—angrier, better capitalized, and demanding real metal. The can has been
kicked, but the road is getting shorter.
|
|
In other news, did the US military commit a war crime on September 2nd? Wouldn’t President Trump just pardon them if they did? Does it matter anyway? Isn’t dropping Atom-bombs on cities largely filled with non-combatants a war crime anyway?
Explainer - Did the US military commit a war crime
in boat attack off Venezuela?
4 December 2024
Dec 4 (Reuters) - Members of Congress have
said they will investigate whether the U.S. military broke the law by allegedly
killing two survivors of a strike on a suspected drug trafficking vessel in the
Caribbean. The White House has defended the strike as lawful.
Below is a look at the potential legal
violations in the attack, which human rights groups said would amount to murder
or a war crime.
WHAT HAPPENED?
The White House said U.S. Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized strikes on September 2 that destroyed a
vessel in the Caribbean with 11 people on board. The attack was the first in a
campaign of strikes against suspected drug traffickers off the coast of
Venezuela.
Hegseth, who has vowed to restore a
"warrior culture" to the military, has faced scrutiny over the attack
after the Washington Post reported the commander overseeing the operation
ordered a second strike to kill two survivors clinging to the boat's
wreckage in order to comply with the Pentagon chief's order that everyone
be killed.
The White House has denied the Post
report, and facts surrounding the attack are unclear.
Hegseth said he watched the first strike
remotely in real time but did not see survivors in the water and went to
another meeting. Hours later, he said, he learned that Admiral Frank Bradley
had ordered the second strike.
Hegseth and the White House have not
acknowledged there were survivors from the first attack, but have defended the
follow-on strike. Trump said he would not have wanted a second strike and that
he would look into the event.
Hegseth said he supported Bradley's
handling of the operation, saying "we have his back."
There have been at least 21 strikes on
suspected drug shipments since September 2 that have killed more than 80
people. The strikes come as the Trump administration is intensifying pressure
to drive Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who the administration calls an
illegitimate leader.
WAS THE STRIKE LEGAL?
Killing suspected drug traffickers who
pose no threat of causing imminent serious injury to others would be murder
under U.S. and international law. However, the United States has framed the
attacks as a war with drug cartels, calling them armed groups.
The administration said its attacks comply
with international rules known as the law of war or the law of armed conflict.
Those international laws require the United States to distinguish between
civilians and combatants, avoid attacks that cause disproportionate civilian
harm, limit force to legitimate military objectives and avoid unnecessary
suffering.
The laws allow for the use of deadly force
in self-defense and the Trump administration has said the drug cartels pose an
immediate threat to the United States. The administration has described illegal
narcotics as a weapon and said the gangs have caused thousands of American
deaths.
Human rights groups, including
Amnesty International, have condemned the attacks as murder and several
legal experts said the drug cartels do not fit the accepted international
definition of an armed group, which is understood as an organization like al
Qaeda with the means to carry out sustained violent attacks in support of
political or ideological goals.
The critics say that designating the
groups as terrorists does not legitimize the attacks. U.S. attacks on groups
such as al Qaeda were considered legal not because they were designated
terrorists, but because Congress authorized strikes on groups tied to the
September 11, 2001, attacks.
Congress, which has the power to declare
war, has not authorized attacks on the drug cartels.
Even if the campaign against the
drug-trafficking boats had been authorized by Congress, some former military
lawyers said the second strike against survivors of the first September 2
strike would be a violation of the law of war and a war crime if the military
knowingly killed survivors.
The Defense Department's Law of War Manual
forbids attacks on combatants who are incapacitated, unconscious or
shipwrecked, provided they abstain from hostilities or are not attempting to
escape. The manual cites firing upon shipwreck survivors as an example of a
"clearly illegal" order that should be refused.
More
Explainer - Did
the US military commit a war crime in boat attack off Venezuela?
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.
In
Japan, Prime Minister Takaichi tries to avoid a 'Truss shock'
December
5, 2025 2:58 AM GMT
TOKYO,
Dec 5 (Reuters) - As Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi was finalising her $137
billion spending plan last month, which in recent weeks has put Japan into a
standoff with investors over the outlook for government finances, a bond chart
was brought to her attention.
Finance
Minister Satsuki Katayama pulled up the chart on her tablet at a November 17
meeting in Takaichi's official residence. It showed selling, which drives up
long-term borrowing rates.
The
prime minister's expression turned serious, according to a person familiar with
the encounter.
"The
finance minister was becoming more vigilant," the person said. "The
prime minister also seemed quite concerned about the weak yen and bond-price
declines."
The
person asked not to be identified because they were not authorised to speak
with the media. But the concern they described was well-placed, because
Takaichi is facing a challenge from the markets that she needs to fund her
agenda.
At
stake was not only her massive stimulus package, which will be paid for largely
through borrowing, but the direction of the ailing yen - in real terms near
record lows - and longer-term investor faith in Japanese assets.
Takaichi's
meeting with Katayama and other top officials marked the beginning of a shift
in rhetoric aimed at soothing investor concerns, though it is too early to say
whether it can steady the market in a durable way and keep bond vigilantes out
of Japan.
Japan's
benchmark 10-year yield rose to its highest point since 2007 on Friday and has
climbed 25.5 basis points in four weeks, the sharpest rise in nearly three
years and one that has begun to send ripples through global markets.
The
situation is all the more delicate because of Japan's heavy debt - its
debt-to-GDP ratio is by far the highest of any developed country - and how its
bond market is in transition as buying from both the central bank and insurers
dries up.
Addressing
the risks, Takaichi told Parliament last week that there was no possibility of
a "Truss shock,"
downplaying parallels with the 2022 selloff in gilts and the pound that sank
British Prime Minister Liz Truss' plan for unfunded tax cuts.
She
has also softened her previous resistance to monetary policy tightening and
promised to limit extra borrowing. In addition, she has unveiled other
initiatives including what some analysts have called the Japanese version
of DOGE to
cut wasteful government spending.
On
Friday, Katayama said the government was monitoring markets and would ensure
the sustainability of Japan's public finances and maintain investor confidence.
Takaichi's
office did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on her November 17
meeting.
"Takaichi's
plan is to expand the growth potential of Japan ... but if that growth doesn't
materialise, then the only thing remaining is the huge amount of government
debt," said Toshinobu Chiba, a Tokyo-based fund manager at Simplex Asset
Management.
"And
that's the problem."
WHO'S
GOING TO BUY THESE BONDS?
More
In Japan, Prime
Minister Takaichi tries to avoid a 'Truss shock' | Reuters
Gold
steady as rising yields offset dollar weakness; PCE data in focus
By Anmol Choubey December 4, 2025 7:11 PM GMT
Dec 4 (Reuters) - Gold
prices were largely unchanged on Thursday, as rising U.S. Treasury yields
offset support from a weaker dollar, while markets awaited Friday's U.S.
inflation data for clues on the Federal Reserve's policy outlook ahead of its
December meeting.
Spot gold was up 0.1% at
$4,210.49 per ounce by 1833 GMT. U.S. gold futures for February settled 0.2%
higher at $4,243.00 per ounce.
"Higher yields are
keeping a bit of a cap on the upside (for gold), and providing some support is
the general dollar index," said Marex analyst Edward Meir.
Benchmark 10-year U.S.
Treasury yields rose, while the U.S. dollar index (.DXY), opens new tab hit a one-month low, making gold more
affordable for overseas buyers.
Data on Thursday showed
new U.S. unemployment benefit claims dropped to 191,000 last week, the lowest
level in over three years and well below economists' expectations of 220,000.
Meanwhile, Wednesday's
ADP report indicated U.S. private payrolls declined by 32,000 in November,
marking the steepest drop in more than two and a half years.
A majority of over
100 economists polled by Reuters forecast the Federal Reserve
will reduce its key interest rate by 25 basis points at its December 9-10
policy meeting, as the central bank seeks to support a cooling labor market.
Lower interest rates
typically benefit non-yielding assets like gold.
Investors are now eyeing
the September Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) report, the Federal
Reserve's preferred inflation gauge, due on Friday.
"Markets aren't
going to do very much between now and next week and as far as gold is
concerned, probably we will be stuck in a relatively uneventful trading range
for a while," said Meir, adding gold will not retest the old highs of
nearly $4,400 this year.
Meanwhile, silver
<XAG=> fell 2.6% to $56.96 after touching a record high of $58.98 on
Wednesday. The metal is up about 97.3% this year, supported by a structural
supply deficit, concerns around market liquidity and its inclusion in the U.S.
critical minerals list.
Platinum lost 1.7% to
$1,642.67, while palladium slid 1.4% to $1,440.57.
Gold steady as rising yields offset dollar
weakness; PCE data in focus | Reuters
Technology
Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Ship fire likely caused by battery, report finds
2 December 2025
A major fire in a cargo ship was "likely caused by an
undischarged battery or other ignition source", a report has found.
The Altay was loading scrap metal in Hull's Albert Dock on the
morning of 27 June when the blaze broke out.
Nearby roads and businesses were shut as a "noxious
cloud" drifted over the local area as firefighters tackled flames
throughout the day and night.
The blaze was finally put out the
following morning.
An investigation by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch
(MAIB) found that "the scrap cargo contained hazardous impurities,
including batteries, oil drums, and oily residues, which posed a fire
risk".
The report added that cargo had been collected from a variety of
sources and the company that handled the scrap, The Griffiths Group Limited,
"expected its suppliers to screen their product to remove hazardous
material such as combustibles and batteries".
No one was injured in the incident, although the ship was damaged
and required repairs.
The MAIB said the fire highlighted "the importance of cargo
loading monitoring and cargo pre-loading inspection".
Ship fire in Hull
dock likely caused by battery, report finds - BBC News
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, Vivaldi turns to violins. Approx. 4 minutes.
Vivaldi
| Concerti per una vita | Violin concerto in F major RV 569 Allegro
Vivaldi | Concerti
per una vita | Violin concerto in F major RV 569 Allegro
Next,
more forgotten British history. Approx. 37 minutes. Way beyond poor Dinosaur
Graeme’s mathematical expertise. Leave me to guessing on commodity futures price
movements, on 10:1 leverage, called “gearing” in GB. A much simpler, if
guessing right, expertise, (provided God
agrees.)
Turing,
Tutte & Tunny - Computerphile
Turing, Tutte
& Tunny - Computerphile
Finally,
how HMS Victory worked. Approx. 26 minutes. Part two next week.
HMS
Victory in 3D: Total Guide (1/2)
HMS Victory in 3D:
Total Guide (1/2)
It’s A Wonderful Life Quotes.
It's a Wonderful Life
(1946) - Quotes - IMDb
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