Baltic
Dry Index. 1877 24/12 Brent Crude 61.14
Spot Gold 4387 Spot Silver 73.35
US 2 Year Yield 3.47 +0.02
US Federal Debt. 38.555 trillion US GDP 31.027 trillion.
“I want to share something with you, the three little sentences that will get you through life. Number one, ‘Cover for me.’ Number two, ‘Oh, good idea, boss!’ Number three, ‘It was like that when I got here.'”
PM Starmer Homer
Simpson
2026 starts. More tariff wars, real wars, or something less dramatic?
Will China really cut off the rest of the world from silver exports?
What will happen to silver industrial usage if they do
South Korea’s Kospi hits record high as region
trades mixed at the start of 2026
Published Thu, Jan 1 2026 6:41 PM EST
South Korea’s Kospi hit a new record
Friday as Asia-Pacific markets kicked off the new year trading mixed.
The Kospi was up 1.96%, and hit a record
high. Heavyweight Samsung Electronics was about 6% higher after the
company reportedly claimed that customers praised its high
memory bandwidth, or HBM chips.
The small-cap Kosdaq was 1.84% higher.
Some Asian markets were still closed for
the holidays, including Japan and mainland China.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index climbed
2.43%, with educational services stocks leading gains. Artificial intelligence
chip designer Shanghai Biren surged over 100% after it made its debut on the
HSI, off a 5.58 billion ($717 million) Hong Kong dollar IPO.
The public offer was over 2,300 times
subscribed even after the upsize option was exercised, while the international
offer was 25.95 times subscribed.
Elsewhere, Singapore’s economy
expanded 5.7% year on year for the fourth quarter, driven mainly by
strong manufacturing growth in the three months through December. The latest
reading is faster than the revised 4.3% growth in the previous quarter.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Lawrence
Wong announced in his New Year message that the country had clocked a
stronger-than-expected 4.8% expansion for the full year of 2025.
Singapore’s Straits Times Index also hit
a record high Friday, and was last up 0.43%.
India’s Nifty 50 index was 0.41%
higher, and the Sensex rose 0.39%. Shares of casual dining restaurant operator
Sapphire Foods plunged as much as 5.93% after counterpart Devyani was announced
to be merging with the company in a $934 million deal, before paring losses.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was up
0.15%.
U.S. stock futures were looking up in
early Asian hours, with S&P futures up by 0.15% and Nasdaq-100 futures
climbing 0.12%. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were 0.16% higher.
On Wednesday stateside, the S&P 500 dipped 0.74%,
while the Nasdaq Composite fell
0.76% and the Dow Jones
Industrial Average lost 0.63%.
However, the S&P 500 still locked in a
16.39% gain year to date.
The Nasdaq Composite rode AI enthusiasm to
a 20.36% advance, and the Dow rose 12.97% in 2025, hindered a bit by its lack
of tech representation.
Asia-Pacific
markets: ASX 200, Hang Seng Index
Asia's factories end 2025 on firmer footing as
orders pick up
2 January 2026
SINGAPORE, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Asia's
factory powerhouses closed 2025 on a firmer footing, with activity swinging
back to growth in several key economies as export orders picked up, helped by
new product launches.
Purchasing managers' indexes (PMIs)
released by S&P Global on Friday showed factory activity in the major tech
exporting economies of South Korea and Taiwan snapping months of declines in
December, while most Southeast Asian nations maintained brisk growth.
They followed PMIs
released for China on Tuesday, which also showed an unexpected
turnaround in factory activity in the world's second-largest economy, helped by
a pre-holiday surge in orders.
While it is too early to say whether
Asia's largest exporters are adjusting to U.S. tariffs, a pickup in global
demand had given some manufacturers cause for optimism heading into the new
year.
"Taiwan's manufacturing sector ended
2025 on a high, with firms signalling fresh increases in production and overall
new business amid reports of firmer demand conditions," said Annabel
Fiddes, Economics Associate Director at S&P Global Market Intelligence.
"There were signs that companies
anticipate the recovery to continue into 2026, with manufacturers building
their inventories and expressing stronger optimism around future output."
Taiwan's PMI rose to 50.9 in December from
48.8 in November, breaking above the 50-point mark that separates growth from
contraction for the first time in 10 months.
Similarly, South Korea's PMI rose to 50.1
from 49.4, the first expansionary reading since September.
Both economies are among the world's
largest manufacturers of semiconductors, which have benefited enormously from a
booming market for artificial intelligence.
South Korea's PMI survey showed the
steepest rise in new orders since November 2024.
"According to manufacturers, new
product launches and improved external demand drove the improvement in sales,
while confidence in the outlook also improved markedly in December to reach its
highest level since May 2022," said Usamah Bhatti, economist at S&P
Global Market Intelligence. "In turn, firms were encouraged to raise both
employment levels and purchasing activity."
Elsewhere in Asia, factories mostly
sustained activity growth although Indonesia and Vietnam reported slight
moderations in expansion.
Separately, Singapore on Friday reported a
pickup in economic growth for 2025 to 4.8% from 4.4% in 2024.
S&P Global will release the Japanese
PMI on Monday.
Asia's
factories end 2025 on firmer footing as orders pick up | Reuters
Singapore economy jumps 5.7% in fourth quarter,
highest since 2021, on manufacturing growth
Published Thu, Jan 1 2026 7:17 PM EST
Singapore’s economy expanded 5.7% year on year for the fourth quarter, the highest since
2021, driven mainly by a sharp increase in manufacturing output during the
three months through December.
The Ministry of Trade and Industry said
that Singapore’s manufacturing sector posted a 15% expansion, a massive jump
compared to the 4.9% growth in the third quarter.
Growth during the quarter was largely
driven by the biomedical manufacturing and electronics clusters, the ministry
said.
Manufacturing makes up about 20% of the
city-state’s GDP.
Most other sectors contracted during the
quarter, including construction and services.
The advance estimate was higher than
the revised
4.3% growth in the previous quarter, lifting full-year GDP growth to 4.8%,
as announced by Prime Minister Lawrence Wong in his New Year’s message.
The 4.8% growth had surpassed the
country’s Ministry of Trade and Industry’s upgraded forecast of “around 4%” in
November.
“This is a better outcome than we
expected, given the circumstances,” Wong said, while warning that sustaining
the current pace of growth would be challenging.
Singapore’s MTI had forecast a GDP growth figure of about 1%-3% for 2026.
Selena Ling, Chief Economist & Head of
Group Research & Strategy at OCBC, said that Singapore’s GDP performance
“showcased economic resilience through broad-based and diversified strengths in
manufacturing, services, and construction.”
Ling projected GDP growth of about 2% in
2026, assuming manufacturing growth eases to around 2.2% year on year due to a
high base in 2025.
Singapore had earlier cautioned that 2025
would be challenging, citing trade risks after U.S. President Donald Trump’s
administration slapped trade tariffs on dozens of countries in his “Liberation
Day” on April.
Despite having a free trade agreement with
the U.S. since 2004, Singapore was hit with the 10% baseline tariff. Wong
said at
the time that “these are not actions one does to a friend.”
Singapore is highly dependent on trade,
with its trade-to-GDP ratio exceeding 320% in 2024, according to data from the World Bank.
The country also warned
in April last year that zero growth was a possibility and eased
monetary policy twice in 2025 to prepare for a slowdown.
Singapore
posts fastest growth since 2021 as manufacturing drives 5.7% fourth-quarter
expansion
In other news.
Saks Prepares for Bankruptcy After Missing Debt
Payment
Owner of Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman
Marcus is in talks with creditors about financing for a coming chapter 11
filing
Updated Dec. 31, 2025 4:14 pm ET
Saks Global is preparing to file for
bankruptcy within days after missing an interest payment on the debt it took on
to buy Neiman Marcus, people familiar with the matter said.
Saks has struggled financially since
taking on the debt burden in 2024, and the luxury retail chain’s delays in
paying vendors have contributed to weaker merchandise offerings—and sales. Saks
is now in talks with its creditors about financing for the bankruptcy process,
the people said.
The planned chapter 11 filing is expected
to mark the highest-profile department-store bankruptcy since the Covid-19
pandemic. Saks declined to comment.
Saks failed to make an interest payment of
more than $100 million that was due Tuesday to holders of its bonds, people
familiar with the matter said. As the company’s financial problems mounted over
the past year, Saks sought to raise cash through asset sales, such as selling a
Beverly Hills property. It has also explored selling a
49% stake in
Bergdorf Goodman, the high-end department store acquired as part of its $2.7
billion merger with Neiman Marcus.
Saks, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman
are among the most fabled department stores in the U.S. Founded more than a
century ago, all three of the brands helped pioneer the luxury retail market.
Their stores became landmarks in cities across the U.S.
The combination of the department-store
chains, which also includes Saks OFF 5th, was a bid to create a
luxury-retailing juggernaut better able to streamline costs and hang on to
their wealthy shoppers. But the gambit has faltered as the combined entity’s
debt load has proved unsustainable.
The merged business has continued to
wrestle with a slump in luxury-good sales, and it
raised $600 million in
fresh capital in June from bondholders to help cover a debt payment due
then. Saks
has also struggled to pay vendors, some of which have held back shipments
and left the retailer with less merchandise to sell. That uncertainty helped
push the value of Saks’s bonds to new lows in December.
The company’s issues with vendors have
weakened its position vis-à-vis rivals such as Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s.
Sales for the quarter ended Aug. 2 fell more than 13% from a year earlier to
$1.6 billion, short of the company’s own expectations, it reported in October.
Its net loss widened to $288 million.
Early this year, Saks sought to reassure
the vendors and brands that stock its department stores, saying it would pay
past-due bills—albeit in extended installments. But it angered suppliers by
announcing it would stretch terms for new orders to 90 days of receipt instead
of the traditional 60-day window.
Exclusive | Saks
Prepares for Bankruptcy After Missing Debt Payment - WSJ
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.
Approx.
1 minute.
Why Europe’s Economy Is Collapsing Faster Than
Anyone Expected
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.
Astonishing £11bn tidal power station planned for UK seaside town
A tidal lagoon planned off a UK coast could generate power for two
million homes while helping Britain meet soaring energy demand.
16:36, Sat, Dec 27, 2025 Updated: 16:36, Sat, Dec 27,
2025
A £11 billion tidal power station has been proposed off the Somerset coast
in a project its backers say could help Britain cope with surging electricity
demand driven by artificial intelligence and the expansion of datacentres.
The scheme, known as the West Somerset
Lagoon, has been developed by a consortium including Julia Barfield, the
architect behind the London Eye and Brighton’s i360
tower. The plan involves constructing a 14-mile semi-circular
barrage in the Bristol Channel, stretching from Minehead to Watchet, equipped
with 125 underwater turbines.
Using the Bristol Channel’s powerful tides – the second-highest
tidal range in the world – the lagoon would have a maximum generating capacity
of 2.5 gigawatts.
Developers say this is close to the peak output expected from the
nearby Hinkley Point C nuclear power station and would be sufficient to power
around two million homes.
The proposal comes as ministers and energy experts warn that
electricity demand in the UK could more than double by 2050.
The rapid adoption of AI is expected to play a major role, with
Britain’s national energy system operator predicting data centre power use will
triple by 2035. Barfield said tidal energy offered a predictable, low-carbon
solution at a time of climate emergency.
Unlike previous ideas for a full barrage across the Severn
estuary, the lagoon would curve out from and back to the Somerset coastline,
avoiding key shipping lanes to the ports of Bristol and Cardiff.
Its designers also argue the site lies outside protected nature
reserves and special conservation areas.
The vision extends beyond energy generation. Plans include a
public pathway along the top of the structure for walkers and cyclists, a
marina, water-sports facilities, a lido and an observation tower.
Designers have also suggested datacentres could be built into the
lagoon itself, taking advantage of seawater cooling to reduce energy use.
Astonishing £11bn
tidal power station planned for UK seaside town | UK | News | Express.co.uk
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
“English? Who needs that? I’m never going to England.”
Homer Simpson
No comments:
Post a Comment