Baltic
Dry Index. 1979 -44
Brent Crude 61.93
Spot Gold 4515 Spot Silver 69.59
US 2 Year Yield 3.44 -0.04
US Federal Debt. 38.443 trillion US GDP 31.658 trillion.
“Bah,” said Scrooge Starmer, “Humbug.”
With apologies to Charles Dickens.
With dollar debasement in full swing and likely to accelerate next year as President Trump gets to pack the US central bank with low interest rate picks, stocks, gold and silver are soaring.
Add to the debasement play, President Trump seems set on regime change by any means in Venezuela and a growing shortage of physical silver in London, NYC, and Shanghai, while industrial demand is soaring as the world switches to electrification and AI data centres, and there’s little reason to think the stocks gold and silver boom will end any time soon.
Stock futures are little changed after S&P 500
notches three-day win streak: Live updates
Updated Tue, Dec 23 2025 7:13 PM EST
Stock futures traded near the flatline
Monday night after a strong start to a shortened trading week.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost
9 points. S&P 500 futures were
little changed, while Nasdaq
100 futures advanced about 0.1%.
The S&P 500 is coming off of
its third winning session, boosted by a 1.5% jump in chipmaking giant Nvidia and advances in Micron and Oracle. Ten out of 11 sectors saw
gains in the session. Materials and financials were the top performing sectors,
with Newmont and Freeport-McMoRan jumping 3% as
gold and silver futures hit records.
The 30-stock Dow advanced about 228
points, or 0.5%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbed
0.5%.
“This market is still rather healthy.
Valuations are not high enough at this level. We don’t see the frothiness that
we saw back then, and the commercial aspect is so much better now that it was
in the late ’90s,” Chris Harvey, head of equity and portfolio strategy at CIBC
Capital Markets said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell,” comparing the hype
around AI stocks to the froth of the dot-com bubble.
Harvey noted that unlike the internet
investment craze of the late 1990s, financials have led the market higher in
recent weeks as investors have rotated into cyclical areas of the market. JPMorgan Chase shares have
also outperformed a sizable portion of tech names over the past three and five
years, Harvey pointed out.
The New York Stock Exchange will close
early on Wednesday at 1 p.m. ET on Christmas Eve and will be closed Thursday
for Christmas Day.
Stock
market today: Live updates
Asia-Pacific markets mostly climb after AI trade
lifts Wall Street overnight
Published Mon, Dec 22 2025 6:41 PM EST
Asia-Pacific markets opened mostly higher
Tuesday, after AI trade lifted major Wall Street indexes overnight.
Nvidia shares
rose more than 1% after Reuters said the company was looking
to start shipments of its H200 chips to China by mid-February. Micron Technology climbed
around 4%, while Oracle advanced
more than 3%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.11%
and is on pace for a fourth straight day of gains.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was flat, while
the broad-based Topix gained 0.56%, led by financials and healthcare stocks.
On Tuesday, Japan’s Finance Minister
Satsuki Katayama reportedly said the country had a “free hand” in
dealing with the yen’s recent sharp depreciation, signaling a currency
intervention was not off the table.
The yen weakened sharply on
Friday, despite the Bank of Japan raising interest rates to a 30-year high,
hitting a low of 157.77 against the dollar before strengthening on Monday and
Tuesday. It was last trading at 156.27.
Katayama said that the Japanese currency’s
fluctuations do not reflect economic fundamentals, describing them as
“speculative.”
South Korea’s Kospi climbed 0.43%, but the
small-cap Kosdaq slipped 0.79%. Shares of shipbuilding firm Hanwha Ocean surged
10% after U.S. President Donald Trump said the company was going to
work with the U.S. Navy to build its new frigates.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.1%,
while mainland China’s CSI 300 was up 0.35%.
Chinese newcomers lit up the Hong Kong
market on their debut Tuesday, with QingSong Health Corporation and Nuobikan
Artificial Intelligence Technology jumping 134% and 323%, respectively, after
their strong albeit small IPOs.
QingSong Health Corporation’s Hong Kong
IPO was met with overwhelming demand, with the domestic tranche subscribed
1,421 times, according to its exchange filing, raising nearly 602 million Hong
Kong dollars (about $77 million). Nuobikan, saw its Hong Kong public tranche subscribed 188.74 times,
raising HK$303 million.
In Southeast Asia, Singapore will release
its November inflation reading, with economists polled by Reuters expecting the
city-state’s inflation rate to climb to the highest in 2025.
Overnight in the U.S., the S&P 500 gained 0.64%,
posting its third positive day in a row. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced
0.47%, and the Nasdaq
Composite climbed 0.52%.
Asia markets mostly climb after AI trade lifts Wall Street overnight
Gold hits record high on safe-haven demand; silver
climbs to new peak
By Sherin
Elizabeth Varghese December 23, 2025
5:34 AM GMT
Dec 23 (Reuters) - Gold soared to a record
high on Tuesday, coming within a whisker of breaching the $4,500-per-ounce
level, as investors flocked to the safe-haven metal on U.S.-Venezuela tensions,
while silver also rallied to a fresh peak.
Spot gold was up 0.8% at $4,479.18 per
ounce, as of 0527 GMT, after hitting a record $4,497.55 earlier in the day.
U.S. gold futures for February delivery jumped 1% to $4,511.50.
"U.S.-Venezuelan tensions are keeping
gold on the radar for investors as an uncertainty hedge," said Tim
Waterer, chief market analyst at KCM Trade, adding that gold had surged this
week as part of a broader positioning shift with U.S. interest rates projected
to ease further.
Waterer said buyers continued to see
precious metals as an effective way to diversify portfolios and preserve value,
adding that "I don't think we are at the high watermark yet for gold or
silver."
U.S. President Donald Trump last week
announced a "blockade"
of all oil tankers under sanctions entering and leaving Venezuela.
Further support for gold came from reports
that Trump could name a new Federal Reserve Chair by early January, with
markets pricing in two rate cuts for next year amid expectations of a more
dovish policy stance.
Bullion, a classic refuge in times of
geopolitical and economic unease, has surged more than 70% this year, riding a
potent mix of geopolitical risks, rate-cut bets, central bank buying,
de-dollarisation and renewed exchange-traded fund inflows.
"With year-end approaching, thinner
liquidity conditions could amplify price swings," said Frank Walbaum, a
market analyst at Naga, noting that gold might remain especially sensitive to
geopolitical headlines and shifts in rate expectations.
Spot silver was up 0.5% at $69.39 after
touching a record $69.98, with its year-to-date gains topping 141% and outpacing
gold on supply deficits, industrial demand and investment inflows.
Michael Brown, a senior strategist at
Pepperstone, said some consolidation was possible over the festive period as
liquidity thinned.
He, however, said the rally should resume
in earnest once volumes returned, with the $5,000 level a natural target for
gold next year and the $75 mark a longer-term objective for silver.
Spot platinum jumped 1.9% to $2,165.67,
its highest in more than 17 years, while palladium rose 1.9% to a three-year
high of $1,792.51, tracking strength in gold and silver.
Gold
hits record high on safe-haven demand; silver climbs to new peak | Reuters
In other news.
Why the chocolate in your holiday candy could be
‘fake’ this year
Published Sun, Dec 21 2025 6:02 PM EST
If you’re unwrapping chocolate this
holiday season, it might not contain any actual cocoa.
Market turbulence, ethical concerns and
sustainability questions have sparked a movement among some chocolate makers to
scrap cocoa in favor of alternative ingredients — prompting calls that the real
deal could soon become a “luxury” for consumers.
Market upheaval
Poor agricultural conditions in Ghana and
Cote d’Ivoire — the world’s leading cocoa producers — have damaged crop yields
in recent years, sending cocoa prices on a rollercoaster
ride.
After surging to all-time highs of more than $12,000 toward the end of last
year, cocoa futures have tumbled
more than 50% over the course of 2025 amid tentative signs of crop recovery.
Price volatility has left businesses in
the industry on edge, and it’s ultimately found its way into consumer goods,
with data from Circana and the U.S. Bureau for Labor Statistics showing
chocolate prices surged 30% in the
year to October.
In its third-quarter earnings
report, Mondelez
International —
the maker of Cadbury, Milka and Toblerone — flagged “volatility of cocoa” and
its “ability to effectively hedge against” related cost pressures as potential
problems that could derail the company from meeting its financial targets.
As manufacturers grapple with that
unpredictability, some are opting to reduce their exposure to the cocoa market
by shaking up their ingredient mix.
Earlier this year, a change to the
composition of McVitie’s Club and Penguin candy bars made waves in the U.K.,
when it was reported that the products could no longer be referred to as
chocolate. Both products must now
be labeled “chocolate flavored,” after parent company Pladis cut the
cocoa content in a bid to reduce costs.
‘Real’ chocolate becoming a luxury
Pladis declined to comment on whether the
changes had impacted sales when contacted by CNBC.
However, according to
Massimo Sabatini, co-founder and CEO of Italian startup Foreverland, a
move away from cocoa is gaining traction among international confectioners, so
much so that it could become the norm to see “fake” chocolate used in more budget-friendly
products. Foreverland uses carob, pumpkin seeds, and chickpeas to produce a
chocolate-like product that’s sold to companies producing confectionery, baked
goods, and ice creams.
“In the chocolate space there are many
products, from [bars] to products in which cocoa is not really the protagonist
but a participant,” he told CNBC, referring to goods like cookies, chocolate
flavored cereal and chocolate-coated snacks. “I believe the alternative
chocolate will substitute this big market, while [pure chocolate bars] will be
more and more a luxury product.”
Sabatini pointed to the recent Dubai
chocolate trend to
illustrate his point, noting that some of these chocolate bars were selling for
as much as 80 euros ($93.09) per kilogram.
″[The chocolate market] is already going
in this direction,” he argued.
More
Why the chocolate
in your holiday candy could be ‘fake’ this year
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.
Stagflation
will derail one of the biggest drivers of the stock market rally next year,
Apollo's top economist says
20
December 2025
A
top economist is back with a stagflation warning.
Torsten
Sløk,
the chief economist at Apollo Global Management, said he believes stagflation is still one
of the biggest risks facing the Federal Reserve next year, even as investors
breathe a sigh of relief after a light November inflation print.
That
risk is jeopardizing a key source of fuel for the stock market rally: the
prospect of more rate cuts.
"I
still think that stagflation is a risk
because there's still some headwinds coming, especially if AI does not
deliver," Sløk said, pointing to the downside risks to growth and upside
risks to consumer prices heading into the new year.
"Given
that inflation is very sticky and now has the risk of going up over the next
six months, then the key issue for the FOMC becomes: can we even cut in that
environment?" he later added.
Stagflation, which is often
referred to by market pundits as one of the worst-case scenarios for the
economy, describes a situation where growth remains sluggish while inflation
remains elevated. That's a difficult combo for policymakers to respond to, as
hot inflation prevents the Fed from cutting
interest rates to
boost economic growth.
On
paper, things seem to be moving in the opposite direction. GDP is expected to
have expanded a robust 3.5% over the third quarter, according to Atlanta Fed
economists, while inflation cooled to a 2.7% year-over-year pace, per the November
CPI report.
But
the US's vulnerability to stagflation is real,
Sløk suggested. He pointed to the risk that AI firms will start to slow their
spending on the technology, or that the billions they've already poured into AI
won't produce the returns investors are expecting.
Meanwhile,
the ISM Services Prices Index, one forward-looking inflation indicator, clocked
in at 65.4% in November, well within expansionary territory.
Central
bankers also seem to be worried about stagflation, Sløk said. The number of
FOMC members who said they believed the risks to inflation and unemployment
were skewed to the upside far outnumbered those who said they believed risks
were skewed to the downside, he wrote in a note to clients this week.
"In
other words, the Fed continues to forecast stagflation and is concerned that we
in 2026 may experience rising
inflation and
rising unemployment at the same time," Sløk wrote.
"The
bottom line is, in the next six months, and especially when we get to April,
we'll begin to see some fairly meaningful risks that inflation is still
going to be elevated," he later told CNBC.
The
outlook for rate cuts looks dim heading into the new year. The probability that
the Fed will trim rates another 25 basis points in January ticked up following
the November CPI report, but investors are largely expecting the central bank
to keep rates steady at its next policy
meeting,
with the odds of a cut at the March meeting at just 45%, per the CME FedWatch
tool.
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.
This solvent-free process makes graphene both conductive and easy
to disperse
December 21, 2025
Graphene has dazzled scientists for
years with its extreme strength, thinness, and ability to carry electrical
current with almost no resistance. However, outside the laboratory, this
miracle material has remained stubbornly difficult to use.
The main reason is not cost or
performance, but chemistry. Graphene clumps
together instead of spreading evenly through liquids or plastics, making it
hard to turn into coatings, inks, or composites.
Attempts to fix this problem usually
ruin what makes graphene special in the first place, i.e., its conductivity. A
new study shows that this long-standing trade-off is not inevitable.
By using mechanical force and a common
amino acid, researchers have demonstrated a way to make graphene both electrically active and easy to process, and that too without
toxic chemicals, extreme heat, or high environmental costs.
Our “method could achieve a high yield (∼80%) under ambient temperature and pressure, with
significantly lower energy demand than conventional approaches,” the
researchers note.
Grinding graphite into something smarter
The central challenge researchers faced
was balancing two opposing needs. Graphene must interact with surrounding
materials to disperse well, but modifying its surface too aggressively breaks
the network of electrons that allows electricity to flow.
Nitrogen atoms offer a clever solution
because they can introduce polarity without destroying conductivity. However,
most nitrogen-doping techniques are far from practical. Some rely on
furnaces hotter than 760°C, others on
pressures comparable to deep-sea environments, and many involve hazardous
compounds such as hydrazine or melamine.
Even newer mechanical approaches still
depend on unsafe nitrogen sources or energy-intensive post-treatment steps. The
Monash University team took a different route. Instead of heat or solvents,
they relied on mechanochemistry, where chemical reactions are driven by
physical impacts.
In a rotating planetary ball mill,
graphite flakes were mixed with potassium hydroxide and glycine, a simple amino acid found
in living organisms. The milling ran at 400 revolutions per minute for 20
hours, all at room temperature and normal atmospheric pressure.
As the hard balls inside the mill
collided with the graphite, the material was repeatedly fractured and peeled
apart into thin graphene sheets. At the same time, potassium hydroxide
activated glycine by stripping a hydrogen atom from its amino group.
“This one-pot process enables
simultaneous exfoliation and nitrogen incorporation, producing pyrrolic,
graphitic, and pyridinic functionalities, delivering a unique balance of
conductivity (30% of Graphite powder) and long-term dispersibility in a range of
solvents (up to one month) rarely achieved through conventional
functionalization methods,” the study authors note.
The method produced an 80 percent yield,
which is unusually high for solid-state graphene processing, with a nitrogen
content of about 2.3 percent. The presence of graphitic nitrogen is
particularly important because it supplies extra electrons, helping preserve
electrical conductivity.
More
This solvent-free process makes graphene both conductive and easy to
disperse
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
“Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He
looked out.
The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless
haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's
Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none
were free”.
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.
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