Baltic Dry Index. 2600 +17 Brent Crude 62.51
Spot Gold 4240 US 2 Year Yield 3.51 -0.03
US Federal Debt. 38.360 trillion
US GDP 31.615 trillion.
There is no art which government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.
Adam Smith
In the stock casinos, seesaw markets. But in Asia a new threat to casino stability is emerging in Japan.
In the commodity markets, how will precious metals, copper and crude oil close out the year?
To dinosaur Graeme stagflation at best, seems likely to inflict north America, the UK and Europe and most of Asia in 2026.
At worst, an AI led unemployment bust sets off a major global recession.
But for now in the stock casinos, everyone’s betting on the US central bank cutting their key interest rate next Wednesday setting off the Santa Clause rally. But what if that’s already priced in?
SoftBank soars 8% as Japanese tech stocks track
gains in U.S. peers
Published Tue, Dec 2 2025 6:44 PM EST
SoftBank led gains in Japanese
tech-related stocks Wednesday, tracking Wall Street peers, and boosting the
Nikkei 225.
Tech-focused investment major SoftBank rose more than
8%, snapping a three-session streak of losses. Japan’s Tokyo Electron, which
provides essential chipmaking equipment to foundries that manufacture Nvidia
chips, rose more than 5%; chip equipment maker Lasertec added as much
as 7%, and chipmaker Renesas
Electronics advanced more than 7%. Semiconductor testing equipment
supplier Advantest also
gained as much as 5%.
The Nikkei led gains in Asia, up 1.54%.
The broad-based Topix was down marginally.
Bitcoin climbed over 7% to
cross the $90,000 mark in overnight trading after a sharp sell-off a day
earlier, and was last trading at $92,980.01.
South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.06%, while the
small-cap Kosdaq reversed gains to fall 0.14%.
The country’s revised third-quarter GDP
numbers indicated that country’s economy grew at 1.8% year on year, compared to
1.7% in the initial estimate, data from the central bank showed Wednesday.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung also
addressed the country on the first anniversary of former President Yoon Suk
Yeol’s failed attempt to declare martial law.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.11%
as the country’s third-quarter
GDP data missed estimates.
The country’s GDP expanded 2.1% year on
year, marking its strongest expansion since the third quarter of
2023, but fell short of the 2.2% expected by economists polled by Reuters.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index traded 0.95%
lower, while the mainland CSI 300 hovered above the flatline.
India’s Nifty 50 fell 0.48%, while the BSE
Sensex index declined 0.32%. The Indian rupee weakened for a fifth straight
day, and was trading about 0.30% lower at 90.157.
U.S. stock futures were little changed
during early Asia hours after major U.S. indexes recovered some losses from the
previous session.
Overnight in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained
0.39%, while the S&P 500 climbed
0.25% and the Nasdaq
Composite advanced 0.59%.
SoftBank soars 8% as Japanese tech stocks track gains in U.S. peers
CNBC Daily Open: A year-end rally is still on
every trader’s wishlist
Published Tue, Dec 2 2025 8:51 PM EST
U.S. markets may have had a rocky
start in December, but there seems to be some steam in the trading engine
for a turnaround from a tumultuous November.
Bitcoin recovered part of its recent slide
and tech names rallied Tuesday stateside, giving stocks a recovery from a
pullback in the previous session that snapped a five-day winning
streak. The rebound suggested investor appetite to take on market risk
hasn’t vanished; it just needed a moment to catch its breath.
Other indicators point to lingering
confidence in a year-end rally.
Investors are pricing in an 89.2% chance
of a quarter percentage point rate cut at the U.S. Federal Reserve’s upcoming
meeting on Dec. 10, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. That expectation has
climbed sharply from a month ago, when the odds were closer to a coin toss.
Barring any surprises, attention is
shifting back to fundamentals. Markets appear to be “focusing instead on
better-than-expected earnings projections for the fourth quarter and calendar
year 2026, in addition to looking beyond the economic soft patch we’re
currently experiencing to growth accelerating later next year,” said Doug
Beath, global equity strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
If investors are hunting for a narrative
to close out the year, they may have finally found one: Cautious optimism
trying its best to outweigh the noise.
— CNBC’s Sean Conlon and Pia Singh
contributed to this story.
What you need to know today
Tech lifts U.S markets. All three key
benchmarks closed higher
Tuesday stateside, on the back of tech gains and a crypto recovery. The Europe
Stoxx 600 ended just
above the flatline. Shares of German biotech giant Bayer popped after the Trump
administration curbed U.S. litigation related to its weedkiller product.
Digital Assets Treasury under
scrutiny. DAT
companies — publicly-listed entities that hold cryptocurrencies and provide
investors with exposure to the underlying digital currency — are coming
into focus as crypto markets plunged in recent weeks. As crypto prices
fall, companies are trading at a discount to their crypto holdings, which can
create a number of issues.
Tariffs’ delayed bite. President Donald
Trump’s tariffs could prompt U.S. companies to reduce domestic headcount,
according to statements from
corporate executives and economic forecasters. The Institute for Supply
Management’s November survey showed its employment gauge slipping 2 points to
44%, its lowest reading since August.
French AI startup releases new models. The release by
Mistral, one of Europe’s leading AI startups, included a large model which it
claims is the “world’s best open-weight multimodal and multilingual.”
Mistral raised
1.7 billion euros in September, which saw participation from Nvidia
and Dutch chip equipment maker ASML.
[PRO] Brace for crypto winter? Bitcoin’s
recent price drawdown reached 20%, suggesting the crypto bull run has turned
bearish. But whether a true bear market is here depends on several factors,
analysts say.
More
CNBC
Daily Open: A year-end rally is still on every trader's wishlist
1 big thing: How Japanese rates affect U.S.
markets
December 02, 2025
A potential increase in interest
rates from the Bank of Japan is weighing on one of the most popular trades on
Wall Street: the yen
carry trade.
Why it matters: A rise in
Japanese rates while the Federal Reserve cuts rates would thwart a borrowing
strategy long used to buy risky assets like bitcoin and tech stocks.
What they're saying: The Japanese
carry trade will become a "thing of the past" within the next few
years, Nic Puckrin, an investment analyst and cofounder of Coin Bureau, a
crypto information platform, tells Axios.
How it works: For decades,
investors have borrowed cheap Japanese yen and used it to buy higher-yielding
assets abroad, pocketing the difference.
- It
works as long as the yen stays weak and Japanese rates stay low.
- That
is changing, with the Bank of Japan considering higher rates just as the
Fed is expected to make another cut, bringing the interest rates of the
two nations closer together.
Driving the news: Bank of Japan
governor Kazuo Ueda teased a potential rate hike yesterday, saying the central
bank would weigh the "pros and cons" at its next policy meeting later
this month, Reuters
reported.
- His
comments led two-year Japanese yields to spike to their highest level
since 2008 as traders priced in a 76% chance of an interest rate increase.
- In
response, traders sold off assets to pay back the yen they borrowed.
- Bitcoin
tumbled overnight, triggering about $1 billion in liquidations.
Zoom out: This is not the
first time a Bank of Japan shift has rattled markets.
- In
August 2024, an unexpected hawkish turn by the central bank triggered a
much more violent unwind of yen-funded positions.
- Bitcoin
plunged about 18% in a matter of days, and currency markets, emerging
markets and U.S. stocks were all swept up in the shock.
- Today's
turbulence is smaller since much of the trade was flushed out last year,
and a possible Japanese rate hike has been more widely anticipated.
What to watch: Where the yen
carry trade goes from here.
- As
Japan normalizes rates, markets are adjusting to a world where one of the
biggest behind-the-scenes drivers of global risk appetite is no longer
guaranteed.
- Short
term, that shift is weighing on crypto and other more speculative
investments. Longer term, it could be the end of an era when ultra-loose
Japanese monetary policy reliably underwrote risk-taking worldwide.
In other news.
ECB refuses to provide backstop for $163 billion
Ukraine loan, FT reports
Dec 2 (Reuters) - The European Central
Bank has refused to backstop a 140 billion euros ($162.53 billion) payment to
Ukraine, undermining an EU plan to raise a “reparations loan” backed by frozen
Russian assets, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
The ECB concluded the European Commission
proposal violated its mandate, the newspaper said, citing multiple officials,
adding to Brussels’ difficulties in raising the loan against Russian central
bank assets immobilised at Euroclear, the Belgian securities depository.
Reuters could not immediately verify the
report.
ECB refuses to
provide backstop for $163 billion Ukraine loan, FT reports
Bank of England eases bank capital requirements by
1 percentage point
2 December 2025
LONDON, Dec 2 - Britain's central bank on
Tuesday eased the capital requirements for lenders by 1 percentage point to
13%, reducing the amount they need to hold in reserve against adversity in a
boon to banks already riding high from record recent profits.
The Bank of England said its capital
framework review showed that the benchmark for Tier 1 capital requirements for
lenders, set at 14% since 2015, could be reduced.
The BoE said its change reflected an
updated assessment of the benefits of capital, helping banks withstand crises,
against the drawback of higher capital costs weighing on growth.
The new level of 13% comprises an
underlying optimal level of 11%, plus 2 percentage points to account for
outstanding gaps and shortcomings in measurement of risk-weighted assets, the
BoE said.
British bank executives in recent weeks
had sounded optimistic about the potential for such a change, especially after
BoE deputy governor Sarah Breeden earlier this year said the central bank was
considering how to free up banks' use of their capital.
The BoE's Financial Policy Committee (FPC)
has been reviewing potential changes to the capital structure since July, amid
a broader push by Britain's Labour government for regulators to prioritise
economic growth as well as financial stability.
"Given the reduction in the FPC’s
benchmark, banks should have greater certainty and confidence in using their
capital resources to lend to UK households and businesses," the BoE said
in its report.
In the United States, the Trump
administration is expected to ease capital rules for the biggest banks, while
the European Union is working on plans to simplify its prudential framework.
Industry body UK Finance has warned that without similar moves, British banks
could lose market share to global rivals.
Bank of England
eases bank capital requirements by 1 percentage point
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.
Euro
zone inflation up a notch to 2.2% in November, flash data shows
Published
Tue, Dec 2 2025 5:02 AM EST
Euro
zone inflation stood at 2.2% in November, marking a slight rise from the
previous month, flash data from data agency Eurostat showed Tuesday.
The
latest consumer price index reading is just a shade above the European Central
Bank’s 2% target. Economists polled by Reuters expected a reading of 2.1% for
the twelve months to November.
Looking
at the main components of euro area inflation, services is
expected to have the highest annual rate in November, at 3.5% compared with
3.4% in October, Eurostat
said.
Core
inflation, which excludes more volatile energy, food, alcohol and tobacco
prices, was at 2.4% in November, unchanged from the previous month.
The
ECB held its key deposit facility rate at 2% for the third consecutive
time in late October, having last cut rates in June.
The
trim, which coincided with euro zone
inflation hitting the ECB’s target rate of 2%, was part of a rate-cutting cycle
that has brought rates down from last year’s record high of
4%.
Top
ECB board members have told CNBC in recent months that the easing cycle
is close to, or at its end although the central bank has repeatedly said it
will take a meeting-by-meeting and data dependent approach to rate setting.
After
the October trim, ECB President Christine Lagarde told CNBC that from a
monetary policy point of view, the economy
is in a good place.
“Is
it a fixed, good place? No. But we will do whatever is needed to make sure we
stay in a good place,” she said.
Euro zone
inflation in November 2025
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue only occasionally when something of interest occurs.
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.
Below, a daft question. Does winter
bring no daylight for most of the two hemispheres on planet Earth?
Do solar panels work in winter?
1 December 2025
When the clocks go back and the days
close in, it’s natural to wonder whether solar panels can still pull their
weight. The UK’s short daylight hours and famously grey skies fuel a common
misconception that solar panels ‘switch off’ in winter. In reality,
photovoltaic (PV) systems continue producing electricity throughout the colder
months, and in some cases, they even work more efficiently. The catch is simply
that there’s less light to work with, so output inevitably dips.
Winter performance varies by region,
weather and system design, but the core principle remains the same: solar
panels don’t need heat to generate electricity. They need daylight. And in the
UK, there’s enough of it year-round for a well-installed system to make a
meaningful contribution to your home’s energy use.
Do solar panels still generate electricity in winter?
Yes. Solar panels convert sunlight into
electricity using PV cells, which respond to light rather than temperature.
Cold conditions can actually improve panel efficiency. The challenge is reduced
daylight time. A typical December day in the UK has around eight hours of
daylight – far less than the 16 or so hours seen in midsummer – so overall
production drops.
Even so, solar panels remain active
whenever light hits them. They’ll generate less than in summer, but they
certainly don’t stop.
How much electricity do solar panels produce in winter?
Production can fall to around 15–30 per
cent of summer output, depending on your location and the specifics of your
roof and system. National Grid and Energy Saving Trust data consistently show
January as one of the lowest‑generation months of the year.
Factors that influence winter output
include:
- Orientation
and pitch: south-facing roofs at a 30–40° angle capture
the most winter light.
- Shading: trees or neighbouring buildings can have a bigger impact when the
sun is low.
- Panel type: Monocrystalline panels generally perform better in low-light
conditions.
- Geography: Southern England receives more winter sun than northern Scotland,
but all regions see seasonal variation.
While generation is lower, it’s still
significant enough to reduce grid reliance, especially for households with
efficient appliances or those who are home during daylight hours.
More
Do solar panels work in winter?
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
All money is a matter of belief.
Adam Smith
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