Baltic
Dry Index. 1851 -31 Brent Crude 61.58
Spot Gold 4466 Spot Silver 78.54
US 2 Year Yield 3.46 -0.01
US Federal Debt. 38.572 trillion US GDP 31.036 trillion.
Stability leads to instability. The more stable things become and the longer things are stable, the more unstable they will be when the crisis hits.
Hyman Minsky
Venezuela, President Trump opened the stable doors but the horses haven’t bolted, yet.
While the stock casinos and commodity markets are calm for now, I suspect not for very much longer.
What if Epstein style, the Maduros should die in US prison?
Someone needs to tell Caesar Trump about King Canute.
Look away from rising gold, silver and oil now.
Stock
futures are little changed after Dow rises to record on U.S.’ capture of
Venezuela leader: Live updates
Updated
Tue, Jan 6 2026 7:30 PM EST
Stock
futures were near flat Monday night. The action came after the three major
averages rallied on the U.S.′ capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and
President Donald Trump’s call for American energy giants to invest in the
oil-rich nation.
Futures
tied to the Dow Jones
Industrial Average lost 9 points or 0.02%. S&P 500 futures slipped
0.01%, while Nasdaq 100
futures dropped 0.03%.
The
30-stock Dow closed
at a record on Monday. Markets rallied after the U.S. captured and ousted
Venezuelan leader Maduro over
the weekend, while Trump encouraged
big investments from U.S. oil companies. The market moves suggest that
investors this time are pushing aside fears of bigger geopolitical conflicts
and remain confident in risk-on assets as the new year begins.
“I
think the Venezuelan situation was really a non-event for equities in general,”
Barry Knapp, Ironsides Macroeconomics director of research, said Monday on
CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime.”
In
regular trading, the Dow gained nearly 595 points, or about 1.2%, notching an
all-time high and a record close. The S&P 500 advanced about
0.6%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq
Composite rose nearly 0.7%, with growth stocks Tesla and Amazon seeing gains.
Shares
of several energy companies and defense giants rallied on bets that they could
benefit from Trump’s push for U.S. oil players to rebuild Venezuela’s energy
sector. A White House official told CNBC on Monday that the Trump
administration has spoken to multiple oil companies about Venezuela,
but did not specify which companies the administration has spoken to or when
the conversations took place.
Chevron closed 5.1% higher on
Monday, given that it is the only major U.S. oil company with current
operations in Venezuela. Exxon
Mobil and oilfield services companies Halliburton and SLB jumped, and General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin also received
a boost.
Alongside
the rally in U.S. equities, gold futures saw their best day since Oct. 20 as
investors also piled into the safe-haven asset. U.S. oil futures settled 1.7%
higher.
“Historically,
headline-capturing geopolitical events can produce short-term volatility and
falling equity prices,” Tom O’Shea, director of research and investment
strategy at Innovator ETFs, said. “However, in this instance, the S&P 500
rose on the first trading day following the operation, with energy stocks
leading the gains on anticipation that U.S. companies may benefit from
potential infrastructure rebuilding in Venezuela. Defense stocks, precious
metals, and Bitcoin also rallied, suggesting a mixed investor response.”
Stock market today: Live updates
U.S.
strike on Venezuela puts China’s Taiwan saber-rattling in focus
Published
Mon, Jan 5 2026 1:11 AM EST Updated Mon, Jan 5 2026 6:21 PM EST
China and other foreign governments
have sharply
criticized the U.S.’s
removal of Venezuelan leader Nicolás
Maduro, but experts are split on whether the Trump administration’s actions
could set the table for President Xi
Jinping to make a move on Taiwan.
U.S.
forces captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on Jan. 3 and brought them
to New York on drug
and terrorism charges in a move with little modern precedent. While
allies of President Donald
Trump cheered the ouster of the Venezuelan leader, critics worried
about the example it set, particularly as China takes an increasingly
aggressive posture.
“If
Donald Trump can walk into a country and take it over … then why is Putin wrong
about Ukraine, and why is China not entitled to take over Taiwan?” David Roche
of Quantum Strategy told CNBC.
Other
experts are unconvinced.
In
an appearance on CNBC on Monday, Carlos Gutierrez, a former U.S. Secretary of
Commerce under President George W. Bush, characterized China’s relationship
with Venezuela as a “tactical convenience,” and one unlikely to catalyze
military action in East Asia.
“I
don’t believe that China will use this as an excuse or justification to attack
Taiwan. It’s just not the way they think,” Gutierrez said.
“China
will make statements, very aggressive statements. That’s expected. They have to
do that, but i don’t see any tangible significant action on China’s behalf,” he
continued.
The
U.S. has asserted what it calls a “Trump Corollary” in its recently
released National Security Strategy, reviving the Monroe Doctrine of
the 1820s, where the U.S. had a sphere
of influence over the Western Hemisphere.
A
sphere of influence refers to a region where a powerful country seeks to
dominate political, military or economic decisions without formally annexing
territory.
The
concept echoes the Roosevelt Corollary, which historically justified U.S.
intervention in Latin America.
A statement from United Nations Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres said that he was “deeply concerned that the rules of
international law have not been respected,” calling the developments in
Venezuela a “dangerous precedent.”
Roche
warned the action could create unintended consequences: “On one hand, you’ve
created a series of threats, and on the other, you’ve created a series of
permissions to every dictatorial, autocratic regime, who wants to act to take
over territory which is not currently within its ambit.”
The
Taiwan question
Even
before Trump’s attack on Venezuela, questions swirled around whether China was
feeling emboldened to increase pressure on Taiwan, which Beijing has long
considered part of its territory.
China
staged live-fire drills around Taiwan in December, framing them as a warning
against foreign interference.
In his New Year’s address, Chinese President Xi Jinping
declared unification with Taiwan “unstoppable,” echoing U.S. intelligence
assessments that Beijing could attempt to seize the island by force within this
decade.
More
U.S.
strike on Venezuela puts China's Taiwan saber-ratting in focus
In other news.
Someone made a huge profit predicting Maduro's
capture. Here's what happened
Jan 3, 2026
Traders and speculative bettors earned
huge profits on prediction markets because of the capture of Venezuela
President Nicolás Maduro.
Why it matters: Though the capture
of Maduro seemed to come out of the blue for many Americans, some were ahead of
the curve, netting them thousands of dollars.
- These
bets — many of which were on Maduro's capture, and are now on what happens
next to the ousted leader — will renew longstanding questions about inside
information and access to prediction markets.
Driving the news: Traders on
Polymarket appeared to anticipate Maduro's capture late Friday night, before
President Trump announced it early Saturday morning.
- The
market for whether or not Maduro would be out of power climbed shortly
before 10pm ET on Friday, after hovering in the low single digits for
weeks, per the Wall Street Journal.
- What
appears to be a newly created account appeared to invest $30,000 Friday in Maduro's
exit. After Maduro went into custody Saturday morning, that same investor
netted $436,759.61.
- Polymarket
did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment Saturday
morning.
State of play: Polymarket
was packed with questions related to the Venezuela news Saturday morning.
- The question of "Maduro in U.S. custody by
January 31?" spiked around 4:20am ET — around the time of Trump's
announcement — after hovering at a low level for weeks.
- There
was a slight bump close to 3am ET, though.
Yes, but: The timing was
still a surprise for some. The prediction site Kalshi showed the market for Maduro leaving office before
February at around 13 cents.
More
Maduro's
capture gives Polymarket, prediction market traders huge profits
Danish PM Warns of NATO’s End Should Trump
Invade Greenland
January 5, 2026 at 5:20 PM GMT
Danish Prime Minister Mette
Frederiksen has said that an
attack by the US on Greenland would mean the end of the NATO
alliance.
“One should take the American president
seriously when he says that he wants Greenland,” Frederiksen said in an
interview with Danish broadcaster TV2 this afternoon.
“If the US chooses to attack another NATO
country militarily, then everything stops, including NATO and thus the security
that has been established since the end of the Second World War,” she
added.
Officials in Europe promised today to
support Greenland as Trump restated his desire
to take the island, suggesting the semi-autonomous Danish
territory could become another target following
his move to depose Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and take
control over the South American country.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was among
those who voiced support for Frederiksen. “I stand with her, and she’s
right about the future of Greenland,” he told Sky News.
France and Germany also said they stand by
Greenland. The EU’s executive arm, the European Commission downplayed
comparisons between Trump’s designs on Venezuela and Greenland.
Meanwhile, Maduro arrived
by helicopter today to a court in New York to face charges that could
keep him behind bars for the rest of his life. At his new temporary cell
in at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, Maduro has likely been
held under the jail’s most restrictive conditions. — Jennifer
Duggan
Danish
PM Warns of NATO’s End Should Trump Invade Greenland - Bloomberg
AI-driven inflation is 2026's most overlooked
risk, investors say
January 5, 2026 6:07 AM GMT
LONDON/NEW YORK, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Global
stock markets, riding high on AI
euphoria at the start of 2026 may be disregarding one of the biggest threats
that could spoil the party: a surge in inflation driven partly by the tech
investment boom.
U.S. stock indexes, where seven tech
groups contributed half of all market earnings this year, made double-digit
gains in 2025 to hit record highs as exuberance about AI and monetary easing
also propelled European (.STOXX), opens
new tab and
Asian equities to record peaks.
Expectations for further rate cuts have
buoyed bonds too, handing U.S. Treasury investors the best annual
performance for
five years as inflation retreated, although it remains above the Federal
Reserve's average 2% target.
For 2026, waves of government stimulus in
the U.S., Europe and Japan as well as the AI boom are expected to refuel global
growth.
This has money managers bracing for
inflation to re-accelerate, prompting central banks to end their rate-cutting
cycles, slamming the brakes on the easy money flow into AI-obsessed markets.
"You need a pin that pricks the
bubble and it will probably come through tighter money," said Trevor
Greetham, head of multi-asset at Royal London Asset Management. He said that
while he was holding on to big tech stocks for now he would not be surprised to
see inflation booming worldwide by the end of 2026.
Tighter money would reduce investors'
appetite for speculative tech, raise funding costs for AI projects and reduce
tech groups' profits and share prices, Greetham said.
The multi-trillion-dollar race by
so-called hyperscalers like Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens
new tab,
Meta (META.O),
opens new tab and
Alphabet (GOOGL.O),
opens new tab to
build new data centres was also an inflationary force, analysts said, because
of the rate at which these projects are gobbling up energy and advanced chips.
"The costs are going up not down in
our forecast, because there's inflation in chip costs and inflation in power
costs," Morgan Stanley strategist Andrew Sheets said.
He said U.S. consumer price inflation
would stay above the Federal Reserve's 2% target until the end of 2027 in part
because of heavy corporate investment in AI.
J.P. Morgan head of cross-asset strategy
Fabio Bassi said that an improving U.S. labour market, stimulus spending and
rate cuts that have already happened would keep inflation above that target
"regardless of the price of chips."
Aviva Investors said in its 2026 outlook
that a key market risk would come from central banks ending their rate-cutting
cycles or even starting to hike, as price pressures build up from AI investment
and waves of government stimulus spending in Europe and Japan.
More.
AI-driven
inflation is 2026's most overlooked risk, investors say | Reuters
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.
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.
Exclusive:
Samsung to double AI mobile devices to 800 million units this year
January 5, 2026 8:03 AM GMT
SEOUL, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Samsung
Electronics plans to double this year the number of its mobile devices with
"Galaxy AI" features largely powered by Google's Gemini, its co-CEO
said, which would give the U.S. firm an edge over rivals as the global race in
artificial intelligence heats up.
The South Korean company, which had
rolled out Gemini-backed AI features to about 400 million mobile products,
including smartphones and tablets, by last year, plans to boost that figure to
800 million in 2026.
"We will apply AI to all products,
all functions, and all services as quickly as possible," T M Roh told
Reuters in his first interview since becoming Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), opens new tab co-CEO
in November.
The plan by the world's largest backer
of Google's Android mobile platform is set to give a major boost to its
developer Google, which is locked in a race with OpenAI and others to attract
more consumer users to their AI model.
Samsung seeks to reclaim its lost crown
from Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab in
the smartphone market and fend off competition from Chinese rivals not only in
mobile telephones, but televisions and home appliances, all overseen by Roh.
It will offer integrated AI services
across consumer products to widen its lead over Apple in such features, though
the latter was set to be the top smartphone maker last year, according to
market researcher Counterpoint, opens new tab.
AI RACE
Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google launched the latest version of Gemini in
November, highlighting Gemini 3's lead on several popular industry measures of
AI model performance.
In response to Gemini 3, OpenAI CEO Sam
Altman reportedly issued an internal "code red," pausing non-core
projects and redirecting teams to accelerate development. The ChatGPT
maker launched its GPT-5.2 AI model a few weeks
later.
Roh expects the adoption of AI to
accelerate, as Samsung's surveys on awareness of its Galaxy AI brand jumped to
a level of 80% from about 30% in just one year.
"Even though the AI technology
might seem a bit doubtful right now, within six months to a year, these
technologies will become more widespread," he said.
While search is the most used AI feature
on phones, consumers also frequently use a range of generative AI editing and
productivity tools for images and others, as well as translation and summary
features, he said.
Galaxy AI is Samsung's term for its
suite of AI features, including those powered by both Google's Gemini model and
Samsung's own Bixby for different tasks.
Samsung shares ended up 7.5% on Monday,
as the company is set to flag a profit jump for the fourth quarter later this
week, fueled by a global chip shortage.
More
Exclusive: Samsung to double AI mobile devices to 800 million units this
year | Reuters
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
If two parties, instead of being a bank and an individual, were
an individual and an individual, they could not inflate the circulating medium
by a loan transaction, for the simple reason that the lender could not lend
what he didn't have, as banks can do. Only commercial banks and trust companies
can lend money that they manufacture by lending it.
Irving Fisher
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