London Irvine Report: Special Update 27/12/2025 Gold, Silver To Infinity And Beyond? 2026, Boom Or Bust?

Baltic Dry Index. 1877 -12 Brent Crude 60.64

Spot Gold 4562 Spot Silver 79.67

U S 2 Year Yield 3.46 -0.01

US Federal Debt. 38.460 trillion US GDP 30.667 trillion

The advocates of public control cannot do without inflation. They need it in order to finance their policy of reckless spending and of lavishly subsidizing and bribing the voters.

Ludwig von Mises

It is the last weekend of 2025. Next Thursday comes 2026.

Will it be boom or bust for AI and stocks in 2026?

Where will gold, silver and copper prices top out? Look away from that silver price now. Dinosaur Graeme can remember when silver traded below $1.30.

Will Germany, the sick economy of Euroland ,drag the rest of the EU into recession?

Will President Trump finally get to pack the US central bank with yes men?

We will all too likely, relatively quickly, find out.

Asia markets edge higher amid holiday-thinned trade; gold and silver hit fresh highs

Published Thu, Dec 25 2025 6:50 PM EST Updated Fri, Dec 26 2025 2:49 AM EST

Asia-Pacific markets traded higher Friday, with several exchanges in the region closed for the Boxing Day holiday, while precious metals continued their rally for the year.

Spot gold rose as much as 1% to hit a record high of $4,530 per ounce Friday. The metal was last trading at $4,508 per ounce as of 3.45 p.m. Singapore time (2.45 a.m. EST).

Silver prices also continued rising following Wednesday’s record, adding more than 3% on Friday to reach an all-time high of $75.1 per ounce.

Gold has rallied over 71% so far this year, while silver is up 158% in the same period. Metal prices have soared this year amid shaky investor sentiment on riskier assets, as fears of an AI bubble and uncertainty over U.S. Fed rate cuts mount.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose 0.68% to close at 50,750.39, led by gains in tech stocks, while the Topix was up 0.15% to 3,423.06. Tech giant SoftBank was among the top movers, climbing 1.8% to snap a three-session losing streak. Semiconductor testing equipment supplier Advantest advanced 2.27%, and chip equipment maker Lasertec added 2.18%.

Core consumer prices in Tokyo rose 2.3% in December from a year earlier, according to government data Friday. The core CPI, which strips out volatile fresh food costs, remained above the Bank of Japan’s 2% target, reinforcing the case for more interest rate hikes.

The latest reading was below the 2.5% rise expected by economists polled by Reuters and the 2.8% increase in November. Tokyo’s inflation numbers are widely considered to be a leading indicator of nationwide trends.

South Korea’s Kospi index added 0.51% to close at 4,129.68, and the small-cap Kosdaq advanced 0.49% to 919.67. Index heavyweight Samsung Electronics rose more than 5%, recovering losses from the previous trading session.

China’s CSI 300 rose 0.32% to 4,657.24.

India’s Nifty 50 fell 0.41%, and the BSE Sensex declined 0.45%.

Australia and Hong Kong markets were closed for the holiday.

U.S. equity futures ticked slightly higher at the end of Asian trading hours, after the S&P 500 closed at a new record for the second straight day on Wednesday stateside.

The broad market index advanced 0.32%, ending the session at 6,932.05. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 288.75 points, or 0.60%, and also posted a closing record of 48,731.16. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.22% and settled at 23,613.31.

Asia-Pacific markets: Boxing Day holiday, Nikkei 225, Kospi, CSI 300

Wall St Week Ahead S&P 500 eyes 7,000 mark as investors look for upbeat end to strong 2025

December 26, 2025 11:03 AM GMT

NEW YORK, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Investors are looking for the U.S. stock market to end 2025 on a high note next week, with equities at record peaks and nearing further bullish milestones to close out another strong year.

Major U.S. indexes were on course to end December higher after stocks shook off turbulence earlier in the month driven by weakness in technology shares over worries tied to spending on artificial intelligence.

The S&P 500 (.SPX), opens new tab posted a record close on Wednesday, ahead of the Christmas holiday on Thursday, and was about 1% from reaching the 7,000 level for the first time. The benchmark index was on track for its eighth straight month of gains, which would be its longest monthly winning streak since 2017-2018.

"Momentum is certainly on the side of the bulls," said Paul Nolte, senior wealth adviser and market strategist at Murphy & Sylvest Wealth Management. "Barring any exogenous event, the path of least resistance for stocks, I think, is higher."

Minutes from the Federal Reserve's most recent meeting highlight the market events in the holiday-shortened week ahead, while year-end portfolio adjustments could cause some volatility at a time when light trading volumes can exaggerate asset price moves.

Heading into the new year, investors are highly focused on when the Fed might further cut interest rates. The U.S. central bank, which balances goals of contained inflation and full employment, lowered its benchmark rate by 75 basis points over its last three meetings of 2025 to the current level of 3.50%-3.75%.

But the Fed's most recent vote at its December 9-10 meeting to lower rates by a quarter percentage point was divided, while policymakers also gave widely different projections about rates in the coming year. The minutes for that meeting, due to be released on Tuesday of next week, may be "illuminating to hear what some of the arguments were around the table," said Michael Reynolds, vice president of investment strategy at Glenmede.

"Handicapping how many rate cuts we're going to get next year is a big thing markets are focused on right now," Reynolds said. "We'll just get a little bit more information on that next week."

Investors are also waiting for President Donald Trump to nominate a Fed chair to replace Jerome Powell, whose term ends in May, and any inkling of Trump's decision could sway markets in the coming week.

With just a handful of trading sessions left in 2025, the S&P 500 was up nearly 18% for the year, with the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), opens new tab up 22%.

However, the tech sector, which has been the main driver of the more than three-year-old bull market, has struggled in recent weeks, while other areas of the market have shined. Despite rebounding this week, the S&P 500 tech sector (.SPLRCT), opens new tab has declined more than 3% since the start of November. Over that time, areas such as financials (.SPSY), opens new tab, transports (.DJT), opens new tab, healthcare (.SPXHC), opens new tab and small caps (.RUT), opens new tab have posted solid gains.

The market moves indicate some rotation into areas where valuations are more moderate, said Anthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial.

"There are more investors that are buying in to the narrative that the economy is on pretty solid footing right now," Saglimbene said. "And it has weathered a lot of potential roadblocks this year that might not be such roadblocks next year."

Wall St Week Ahead S&P 500 eyes 7,000 mark as investors look for upbeat end to strong 2025 | Reuters

In other news.

As A.I. Companies Borrow Billions, Debt Investors Grow Wary

Artificial intelligence companies looking to raise funds are being made to pay lofty interest rates, as debt investors become cautious.

Dec. 26, 2025

Investors in the A.I.-fueled stock market have largely shrugged off warnings about a tech bubble, an optimism that has pushed up share prices to repeated new highs this year.

But the debt market is telling a different story, some investors say. New artificial intelligence companies looking to raise funds to supercharge their nascent businesses are being made to pay lofty interest rates on the money they borrow, indicative of investors’ skepticism when new, unproven A.I. businesses take on large debts.

In one debt deal for Applied Digital, a data center builder, the company had to pay as much as 3.75 percentage points above similarly rated companies, equivalent to roughly 70 percent more in interest.

There are other indicators of debt investors’ wariness: Some of the bonds have tumbled in price after being issued, in a sign of increased caution among investors. And the cost of credit default swaps, which protect bond investors from losses, has surged in recent months on some A.I. companies’ debt.

Construction delays at these sprawling data facilities could push out the time it takes before they can start generating revenue from their leases to A.I. companies. Investors also worry that, in the end, there could be less demand for A.I. computing power, creating a glut of unneeded data centers and leading to defaults on the debt used to finance the buildings.

“We just have to be much more pessimistic and not buy into the hype,” said Will Smith, a portfolio manager at AllianceBernstein.

Debt investors are stereotypically seen as pessimists, while stock investors are viewed as optimists. That is largely because of the difference between the two types of investments. Equity investors have unlimited upside for a company and its stock price to grow and keep rewarding their investment. Debt investors are just looking to get their money back with interest.

“The equity market stands to benefit from a lot of upside if this works well, so they are willing to take a lot of risk because of the upside,” Mr. Smith said. “For us, it’s different. If everything goes really well, we don’t benefit from that upside, so we are much more focused on the downside.”

Companies looking to finance the next leg of A.I. infrastructure have borrowed more than $100 billion this year, according to data from Refinitiv. Much of that has come from highly rated, well-known technology companies that are also sitting on a lot of cash. For example, Amazon raised $15 billion at market rates in November as it ramped up its capital investment in Amazon Web Services.

As A.I. Companies Borrow Billions, Debt Investors Grow Wary - The New York Times

Monetizers vs manufactures: How the AI market could splinter in 2026

Published Thu, Dec 25 2025 12:06 AM EST

The AI market is tipped to splinter in 2026.

The last three months of 2025 were a rollercoaster of tech sell-offs and rallies, as circular deals, debt issuances, and high valuations fueled concerns over an AI bubble.

Such volatility may be an early sign of how AI investment is set to evolve as investors pay closer attention to who is spending money and who is making it, according to Stephen Yiu, chief investment officer at Blue Whale Growth Fund.

Investors, especially retail investors who are exposed to AI through ETFs, typically have not differentiated between companies with a product but no business model, those burning cash to fund AI infrastructure, or those on the receiving end of AI spending, Yiu told CNBC.

So far, “every company seems to be winning,” but AI is in its early innings, he said. “It’s very important to differentiate” between different types of companies, which is “what the market might start to do,” Yiu added.

He sees three camps: private companies or startups, listed AI spenders and AI infrastructure firms.

The first group, which includes OpenAI and Anthropic, lured $176.5 billion in venture capital in the first three quarters of 2025, per PitchBook data. Meanwhile, Big Tech names such as Amazon, Microsoft and Meta are the ones cutting checks to AI infrastructure providers such as Nvidia and Broadcom.

Blue Whale Growth Fund measures a company’s free cash flow yield, which is the amount of money a company generates after capital expenditure, against its stock price, to figure out whether valuations are justified.

Most companies within the Magnificent 7 are “trading a significant premium” since they started heavily investing in AI, Yiu said.

“When I’m looking at valuations in AI, I would not want to position — even though I believe in how AI is going to change the world — into the AI spenders,” he added, adding that his firm would rather be “on the receiving end” as AI spending is set to further impact company finances.

The AI “froth” is “concentrated in specific segments rather than across the broader market,” Julien Lafargue, chief market strategist at Barclays Private Bank and Wealth Management, told CNBC.

The bigger risk lies with companies that are securing investment from the AI bull run but are yet to generate earnings — “for example, some quantum computing-related companies,” Lafargue said.

“In these cases, investor positioning seems driven more by optimism than by tangible results,” he added, saying that “differentiation is key.”

How the AI market could splinter in 2026

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.

US weekly jobless claims fall, but more people collecting unemployment checks

December 24, 2025 2:54 PM GMT

WASHINGTON, Dec 24 (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new applications for jobless benefits unexpectedly fell last week, consistent with a low level of layoffs, but the unemployment rate likely remained high in December amid sluggish hiring.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped for a second straight week, declining by 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 214,000 for the week ended December 20, the Labor Department said on Wednesday.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 224,000 claims for the latest week. The Labor Department published the report a day early because of the Christmas Day holiday. Part of the surprise decline in applications could reflect challenges adjusting the data for seasonal fluctuations around the year-end holiday season.

"Unless companies actually fire workers, the economy will continue to move forward at a moderate pace," said Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS.

The labor market remains locked in what economists and policymakers describe as a "no hire, no fire" mode.

Though the economy remains resilient, with gross domestic product increasing at its fastest pace in two years in the third quarter, the labor market has almost stalled. Economists say President Donald Trump's import tariffs and immigration crackdown have impacted labor demand and supply.

The data had little effect on U.S. financial markets during a holiday-shortened session.

The number of people receiving unemployment benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, increased 38,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.923 million during the week ended December 13, the claims report showed.

The so-called continued claims covered the period during which the government surveyed households to calculate December's unemployment rate. Continued claims fell marginally between the November and December survey weeks.

The elevated continued claims aligned with a survey from the Conference Board on Tuesday showing consumers' perceptions of the labor market deteriorated this month to levels last seen in early 2021. The unemployment rate increased to a four-year high of 4.6% in November, though part of the rise was because of technical factors related to the 43-day government shutdown.

The record-long shutdown prevented data collection for October's unemployment rate. The Federal Reserve this month cut its benchmark overnight interest rate by another 25 basis points to the 3.50% to 3.75% range, but signaled borrowing costs were unlikely to fall in the near term as policymakers await clarity on the direction of the labor market and inflation.

"Continued claims remain at a level consistent with a slow pace of hiring but aren't sending a signal that hiring conditions have gotten worse," said Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.

US weekly jobless claims fall, but more people collecting unemployment checks | Reuters

Germany’s multiyear recession will only fade slowly in 2026, Bundesbank warns

Central bank dashes hopes of strong recovery from debt-funded spending spree

Published Dec 19 2025

Germany’s economy will only slowly emerge from a multiyear recession, the Bundesbank has warned in a forecast that dashes hopes of a quick recovery driven by Berlin’s debt-funded spending spree.

The central bank on Friday lowered its 2026 growth forecast by 0.1 percentage points to 0.6 per cent. While it raised its 2027 prediction by the same amount to 1.3 per cent, it warned that the risks to its updated GDP forecast “are tilted more to the downside”.

The new outlook suggests that Germany’s GDP will only rise back to its pre-recession levels by late 2026.

Private-sector economists, investors and the German government had hoped that the €1tn in additional investment and defence spending would reinvigorate Europe’s largest economy that has been stuck in a rut since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Bundesbank prediction excludes positive effects of a higher number of working days next year that is set to lift reported GDP by another 0.3 percentage points to 0.9 per cent. This number is lower than the government’s forecast of 1.3 per cent, which includes the effects from additional working days.

The government deficit is set to almost double from 2.5 per cent this year to 4.8 per cent in 2028, with Germany’s debt burden set to rise from 62 per cent to 68 per cent. The annual deficit in 2028 would be the highest level since Germany’s reunification in the 1990s, exceeding even the global financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Non-wage labour costs will shoot up almost a tenth over the coming three years to an all-time high of 44.5 per cent of payrolls, driven by rising healthcare and welfare costs that threaten to further undermine the competitiveness of German manufacturers.

While the Bundesbank acknowledged “initial signs of increasing government orders” it flagged that indicators did not yet point to an “early and noticeable boost to economic activity from higher public spending”.

Simultaneously, inflation will fall more slowly than previously expected. At 2.3 per cent this year and 2.2 per cent in 2026, it is expected to hover above the ECB’s medium-term target of 2 per cent for the wider euro area, mainly because of wage pressures.

Germany has been “clearly in a recession since the end of 2022” and even fell back into contraction over the second and third quarters of this year, the central bank said.

It warned that Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s borrowing spree would boost German potential growth only by 0.35 to 0.5 percentage points because some €250bn of the new debt was poised to be used to fund the welfare budget, tax cuts and other day-to-day expenditures rather than infrastructure investment.

“The long-term growth effects — the effects on the production potential of the German economy — are therefore very limited up to 2028 and remain limited beyond that,” the Bundesbank said.

Germany’s multiyear recession will only fade slowly in 2026, Bundesbank warns

Technology Update.

With events happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.

One small change in battery design could reduce fires, researchers say

December 23, 2025

Lithium-ion batteries are found in everything from smartphones to cars, and while they are generally very safe if stored and charged correctly, there are thousands of documented cases of them catching fire — sometimes with deadly consequences.

Lithium-ion batteries contain flammable electrolytes — liquid solutions of lithium salts dissolved in organic solvents that allow the electric charge to flow. The batteries can become unstable under certain conditions, such as physical damage like piercing, overcharging, extreme temperatures or manufacturing defects. When things go wrong, a battery can heat up and catch fire very rapidly, undergoing a dangerous chain reaction called a “thermal runaway.”

Commercial aviation is especially exposed to the problem, because of how ubiquitous battery-powered gadgets are on planes and how dangerous a fire in the cabin or cargo hold can be. In the US, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has long prohibited carrying spare lithium-ion batteries in checked baggage and mandates that all batteries brought into the cabin must remain accessible. The agency recorded 89 battery incidents involving smoke, fire or extreme heat on passenger and cargo aircraft in 2024, and 38 in the first half of 2025.

These incidents can lead to the total loss of an aircraft, like the Airbus A321 that was gutted by flames in January in Busan, South Korea. The fire was likely started by a power bank stored in an overhead compartment, according to investigators, which has led some airlines to ban the devices.

But the risks of thermal runaways extend to homes, particularly vulnerable to e-bike or e-scooter battery fires, and businesses of all kinds: a survey conducted by insurance provider Aviva in 2024, among over 500 UK businesses found that just over half had experienced an incident linked to lithium-ion batteries, such as sparking, fires and explosions.

Researchers all over the world are working to solve the problem by developing safer batteries, for example by replacing the liquid electrolyte with a more fire-resistant solid or gel. However, such solutions require significant changes to current production lines, an obstacle to widespread adoption.

Now, a team of researchers from The Chinese University of Hong Kong has proposed a change in lithium-ion battery design that could rapidly integrate into current manufacturing methods, because it simply involves swapping chemicals in the existing electrolyte solution.

The method was detailed earlier this year in a study led by Yue Sun, now a postdoctoral fellow at Virginia Tech: “I think the most difficult thing for people to realize about batteries is that when you try to optimize performance, sometimes you compromise safety,” she said, explaining that increasing performance requires a focus on chemical reactions that happen at room temperature, while increasing safety focuses on reactions that happen at high temperatures.

“So we came up with an idea to break this trade off by designing a temperature-sensitive material, which can provide a good performance at room temperature, but can also offer good stability at high temperatures.”

One small change in battery design could reduce fires, researchers say | CNN

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.

Exponent Calculator

This weekend’s music diversion, Handel composes for an organ again. Approx. 10 minutes.

Georg Friedrich Händel Organ Concerto Opus IV No 4

Georg Friedrich Händel Organ Concerto Opus IV No 4

Next, more forgotten British maths history. Approx. 17 minutes

Computer Science's Wonder Woman: Ada Lovelace - Computerphile

Computer Science's Wonder Woman: Ada Lovelace - Computerphile