Baltic
Dry Index. 2083 -12 Brent Crude 67.72
Spot Gold 5006 Spot Silver 75.50
US 2 Year Yield 3.40 -0.07
US Federal Debt. 38.692 trillion US GDP 31.158 trillion.
“Failure is part of the natural cycle of business. Companies are born, companies die, capitalism moves forward.”
Thomas Sowell
A holiday influenced stock casino trading week, but will anyone notice?
Much will likely be influenced by whether “Peace
President” Trump starts a new Middle East war against Iran and the noise coming
out from the great Indian AI summit in New Delhi.
Japan’s economy avoids technical recession, but
fourth-quarter rebound misses expectations
Published Sun, Feb 15 2026 7:05 PM EST
Japan’s economy grew 0.1% in the fourth
quarter of 2025 compared with the previous three months, narrowly avoiding a
technical recession.
While it was a reversal of the 0.7%
contraction in the third quarter, the gross domestic product missed
expectations of a 0.4% expansion by economists polled by Reuters.
A technical recession is commonly defined
as two consecutive quarters of contraction.
On an annualized basis, output rose 0.2%,
compared with forecasts of 1.6%, following a 2.3% decline in the previous
quarter.
Compared with a year earlier,
fourth-quarter GDP expanded 0.1%, slowing from 0.6% in the third quarter.
Private consumption drove the modest expansion, offsetting weakness in exports
and public spending, according to data from Japan’s Cabinet Office.
Following the data release, the Nikkei 225 opened up 0.12%,
but the yen weakened
0.25% to 153.06 against the dollar.
The Bank of Japan in January raised
its economic growth forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2026 to
0.9% from 0.7%. It also lifted its fiscal 2026 outlook to 1% from 0.7%.
The central bank said it expects moderate
expansion as other countries return to growth. The BOJ also said it sees a
virtuous cycle of rising prices and wages, supported by the government’s
economic measures and accommodative financial conditions.
The data also comes as Japan works with
the U.S., its second-largest trading partner, on a $550 billion investment
pledge under its trade deal with Washington.
Public
broadcaster NHK reported last Friday that Tokyo and Washington have
yet to agree on the first projects tied to the pledge.
Japan Economy Minister Ryosei Akazawa was
quoted as saying he hoped the initial projects would be finalized before Prime
Minister Sanae Takaichi meets U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump had announced the meeting with
Takaichi just before the Feb. 8 Lower House election, which saw Takaichi lead
the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to a landslide
victory.
After her victory, Takaichi said last Monday that she would support
economic growth by boosting investment through “proactive” fiscal policy,
although she did not elaborate.
She had earlier pledged to suspend food
taxes for two years and boost defence spending to 2% of the country’s GDP.
more
Japan's
economy avoids technical recession, but fourth-quarter rebound misses
expectations
Global week ahead: Markets brace for more AI noise
and ‘scare trading’
Published Sun, Feb 15 2026 3:36 AM EST
AI disruption jitters have ripped through
global stock markets over the last couple of weeks, with sectors across the
spectrum ending up in the crosshairs of investors looking to bet on which
industry could be upended by the inevitable wave of agentic AI.
There will almost certainly be more of
these moments this week, as some of the biggest names in AI take to the stage
at an event in India.
Looking back at last week’s volatility
could gives some clues for the trading week ahead, as the impact of a series of
announcements from US-based AI giants played out from sector to sector, but
also across the Atlantic.
In Europe, software companies suffered,
including Dassault Systemes which saw
its share post the biggest ever one-day drop, and RELX, a British analytics group which
recorded its worst session decline since 1988.
Wealth managers also came under pressure,
with names like St James’s Place, Aberdeen Group and Quilter all nursing deep losses.
In a recent note, UBS analysts said they
believe that the AI-driven sell off reflects a “growing disruption is
accelerating well beyond software,” warning that markets have only partially
priced in the credit implications. The Swiss bank expects this risk to increase
throughout 2026 and into 2027 in the U.S. and to a lesser extent in Europe.
On the other side of the debate, Dan Ives
of Wedbush told Squawk Box Europe that the “software Armageddon is overblown,”
saying that stalwarts like Salesforce and ServiceNow will be core
participants of the AI revolution, rather than cannibalized by it.
This will all come sharply into focus this
week as India prepares to host one of the year’s most significant AI summits.
When the organizers called the event in New Delhi the “AI Impact Summit”, they
may not have known how literally the markets would be taking that at this very
moment in time.
The event has attracted thousands of
attendees and the line-up does not disappoint. Headliners include Anthropic CEO
Dario Amodei, Microsoft’s Brad Smith,
Mistral AI co-Founder Arthur Mensch and Meta’s Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang.
CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal, who will be covering the event, says to “expect a number
of big deals, partnerships and customer announcements from tech companies in
the India market. Think cloud deals, AI infrastructure and collaborations
between government and tech firms. Tech giants are attracted to the large,
tech-forward customer base that India presents as well as the huge pool of
engineering talent. So expect Prime Minister Modi to roll out the red carpet to
Big Tech and all the executives will be more than happy to walk down it.”
Global week ahead:
Markets brace for more AI noise and 'scare trading'
Wall Street Week Ahead
Feb. 15, 2026 6:56 AM ET
The economic calendar is lighter this
week, with markets closed on Monday for Presidents' Day (officially
Washington's Birthday still and observed as such by the NYSE).
The majority of the important economic
data is concentrated in the latter half of the holiday-shortened week, with the
FOMC’s minutes of the last meeting and initial jobless claims out Thursday.
Preliminary Q4 GDP numbers, along with December spending and income numbers,
are due on Friday.
On the earnings front, Walmart (WMT), Alibaba (BABA) and Palo Alto Networks (PANW) are among the big names.
And the Chinese New Year holiday during
the week could impact the consumer sector.
Earnings spotlight: Tuesday,
February 17: Palo Alto Networks, Medtronic (MDT). See the full
earnings calendar.
Earnings spotlight: Wednesday,
February 18: DoorDash (DASH), Occidental (OXY). See the full
earnings calendar.
Earnings spotlight: Thursday,
February 19: Walmart. See the full
earnings calendar.
Earnings spotlight: Friday, February 20: Alibaba. See the full
earnings calendar.
Wall Street Week
Ahead | Seeking Alpha
India Seeks Role in Shaping AI Future With Summit
of Tech Chiefs
February 16, 2026 at 2:07 AM GMT
India kicks off one of the world’s largest
artificial intelligence summits Monday, with Prime Minister Narendra
Modi seeking to clear a path for India in a heated race to develop
frontier models.
World leaders, tech moguls, AI founders
and investors are expected to arrive in New Delhi for the India
AI Impact Summit, potentially the largest gathering of AI luminaries to
date. Sundar Pichai of Alphabet Inc., Sam
Altman of OpenAI Inc., Dario Amodei of Anthropic
PBC and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Alexandr Wang are on the
guest list, alongside researchers including Yann
LeCun and Arthur Mensch.
During the summit’s final two days — Feb.
19 and 20 — French President Emmanuel Macron will deliver the
keynote, followed by Modi’s remarks.
For Modi, the summit offers a chance to
showcase India’s vast tech-savvy population and engineering talent as forces
that could tilt the next phase of the global AI race in its favor. The country
has digital infrastructure powered by data from over a billion citizens,
identifiable through Aadhaar, a biometric ID system. It has a proven track
record of scaling technology quickly despite late starts — missing the personal
computer boom but becoming a software services powerhouse and leaping from
limited landlines to nearly a billion smartphones in under two decades.
“By overlaying AI over existing digital
identity, payment rails as well as health care, education and governance
stacks, India is attempting to compress decades of development into years,”
said Abhishek Singh, additional secretary at the
Ministry of Electronics and IT. “And what gets built for India won’t stay only
in India.”
The country is already exporting its
digital identity and payments blueprint. MOSIP, an open-source platform inspired by
Aadhaar’s architecture, is now helping countries including the Philippines,
Morocco and Uganda build national ID systems. Some countries are creating
digital payment platforms atop the same scaffolding.
In AI competitiveness, India ranks third
globally, trailing the US and China, according to Stanford University’s
Institute for Human-Centered AI.
Global tech firms are taking notice.
OpenAI and Anthropic are setting up operations in India, courting enterprise
customers, developers and government agencies. Google and Meta are expanding
data centers to serve one of the fastest-growing markets for models such as
ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. Nvidia Corp.,
squeezed by US export curbs on high-end chips in China, sees India as a
counterweight, though its chief pulled out of the summit at the last hour
citing “unforeseen circumstances.”
More
India
Seeks Role in Shaping AI Future With Summit of Tech Chiefs - Bloomberg
Don’t look now but is the ECB preparing for the end of the fiat currency dollar reserve standard?
With a Trump politicised Fed coming up and official US federal debt at 38.7 trillion dollars and rising at about 2 trillion dollars a year, why wouldn’t the ECB and others be making contingency plans for the end of the dollar reserve standard. Get gold.
ECB makes euro backstop global to bolster
currency’s role
Published Sat, Feb 14 2026 11:45 AM EST
The European Central Bank unveiled plans
on Saturday to widen access to its euro liquidity backstop, making it globally
available and permanent in a bid to bolster the international role of the
single currency.
Access to such repo lines, a crucial
source of funding during times of market stress, has been limited to just a
handful of mostly Eastern European countries but ECB President Christine
Lagarde has long seen the facility as a tool to boost the euro’s global
reach.
“The ECB needs to be prepared for a more
volatile environment,” Lagarde said at the Munich Security Conference, the
first time an ECB chief spoke at the event.
“We must avoid a situation where that
stress triggers fire sales of euro-denominated securities in global funding
markets, which could hamper the transmission of our monetary policy,” she said
in announcing the new facility.
The facility, to be available from the
third quarter of 2026, will be open to all central banks around the world,
provided they are not excluded for reputational reasons, such as money
laundering, terrorist financing or international sanctions, the ECB said.
“This facility also reinforces the role of
the euro,” Lagarde said. “The availability of a lender of last resort for
central banks worldwide boosts confidence to invest, borrow and trade in
euros, knowing that access will be there during market disruptions.”
Used when banks are unable to obtain
funding on the market, the repo line allows lenders to borrow euros from the
ECB against high-quality collateral, to be repaid at maturity along with
interest.
Unlike previous lines, which had to be
extended from time to time, the new facility will provide standing access for
up to 50 billion euros.
With investors reassessing the dollar’s
status due to the unpredictable nature of U.S. President Donald Trump’s
economic policy, Lagarde has argued this was the time for the euro to gain
market share, but this required a revamped financial and economic architecture.
The U.S. Federal Reserve maintains a
similar tool, called the FIMA Repo Facility, which essentially protects the Treasury
market since stress might otherwise force lenders to sell government bonds
below market value.
“These changes aim to make the facility
more flexible, broader in terms of its geographical reach and more relevant for
global holders of euro securities,” the ECB said in a statement.
Such guaranteed access to euros could
naturally increase demand for euro-denominated assets and encourage banks
outside the 21-nation euro zone to buy assets from the bloc.
ECB makes euro
backstop global to bolster currency's role
In other news, more Trump slump?
Buyers Are Ghosting the Market: The Metros Where
They’re Backing Out of Deals
Joy Dumandan Fri, February 13, 2026 at 11:00 AM GMT
The winter blues are hitting the housing
landscape and buyers
are ghosting the market by snapping up a home from the wealth
of active inventory,
then backing out after it's gone under contract.
And while the share of home
sales falling
out of contract this year looks much like last year, ending December at 7.1%,
unchanged from a year earlier, according to Realtor.com® data scientist Sabrina
Speianu, there are five markets that are being hit the hardest.
The largest percentage of buyers backing
out of homes under contract are in Atlanta (10.3%), Las
Vegas (10.1%), San
Antonio, TX (9.6%), Riverside,
CA (9.3%),
and Phoenix (9.2%),
according to Realtor.com data.
This comes as sales of existing homes
nosedived 8.4% in January—the slowest sales pace in more than two years, even
as mortgage
rates touched
a three-year low of 6.09%.
The last time there was a dramatic surge
with deals falling through was in March 2020, when the housing market was hit
by the effects of the pandemic.
"In past periods when mortgage rates
were rising—including 2018, 2022, and 2023—a higher share of homes returned to
the market than we’re seeing today," says Speianu.
"Overall, contract cancellations
appear to be more closely tied to sudden increases in borrowing costs than to
periods when rates remain elevated but stable," explains Speianu.
There could be a number of reasons why
buyers are breaking contracts, including finding another home that's cheaper or
locking in a lower mortgage rate.
Canceled contracts
The Atlanta metro has a median list price
of $400,000 and more than 23,000 active listings as of January, and this area
leads the country with the number of contracts falling through at 10.3%.
Bruce Ailion, a real estate
professional and attorney with Re/Max Town & Country, tells Realtor.com he
believes the significant inventory growth in the Atlanta region has contributed
to buyers backing out.
Ailion explains the standard Realtor
promulgated purchase and sale agreement has a due diligence/inspection period.
"That allows for termination for any
reason or no reason. When a buyer sees a better opportunity in the due
diligence period they can move on," says Ailion.
"With buyers having more options and
many sellers reducing their price, a higher number of buyers are terminating an
agreement when they find a more attractive purchase during their due
diligence."
Realtor.com senior economist Jake
Krimmel agrees, noting "as inventory grows and the pace of sales
slows that means the buyers in those markets have more homes to choose from and
fewer other buyers to compete with.
"Given those more favorable market
conditions, it's no surprise that some buyers are pulling out of deals in those
metros in particular."
Overall, inventory increased modestly in
all four major U.S. regions in January compared with the prior year, according
to the Realtor.com
January Monthly Housing Market Trends report.
More
Buyers Are
Ghosting the Market: The Metros Where They’re Backing Out of Deals
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.
Safe-haven currencies might not be so safe after a volatile year. Here’s
how the market is rethinking the Swiss franc, dollar and yen
Published Thu, Feb 12 2026 6:08 PM EST Updated Fri, Feb 13 2026 10:28 AM
EST
Ask an investor to name safe-haven currencies, and
most will say the U.S. dollar, the Swiss franc, and the Japanese yen.
Investors historically expected them to hold their
value during geopolitical or economic turbulence.
But more recently, these currencies have
experienced volatility themselves. The dollar and yen saw sharp declines over
2025 and into 2026. The franc has strengthened, but this is challenging for a
country with unusually low inflation and a reliance on exports.
Declining dollar
U.S. President Donald Trump reordered global trade
with tariffs in 2025, sparking a “sell
America” trade: a sell-off of U.S. assets, including the
dollar, the world’s reserve currency.
The suddenness with which other tariffs have been
imposed and withdrawn kept the pressure up.
In a December note, Swiss private bank Julius Baer
stated that “erratic trade policies” were just one cause of the dollar’s woes,
adding that Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” put the U.S. on “an
unsustainable debt trajectory.”
Trump’s pressure on U.S. Federal Reserve chair
Jerome Powell also undermined investors’ confidence in the dollar, the note
said.
The dollar index,
which tracks the greenback against a basket of peers, tumbled 1.3% on Jan. 29
after Trump said the dollar is “doing great,” its sharpest drop in a day since
Trump first announced tariffs in April. It took the greenback to its lowest
level in almost four years.
The index plunged 9.37% in 2025, and it has fallen
further in 2026.
In a Wednesday note, George Saravelos, head of FX
research at Deutsche Bank, said the dollar’s safe-haven status was “myth.”
He challenged the notion that the dollar “rallies
during risk-aversion,” adding: “A simple chart of the dollar-equity
relationship shows this not to be true. The average USD-equity correlation has
historically been closer to zero, and over the last year the dollar has once
again de-correlated from the S&P.”
Cole Smead, CEO and portfolio manager at Smead
Capital Management, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” at the end of January that
he sees further weakness ahead for the dollar.
“We’re in a dollar bear market longer term,” he
said. “If you go back and look at these ‘American manias’ [in markets], if you
go back and look at the telecom bubble and tech bubble the late 1990s, the
dollar peaked in 2002 and within six years, you saw the dollar go to a low it
hadn’t seen for [a] very, very long time.”
The U.S. dollar index nosedived by around 41%
between 2002 and its 2008 low.
More
Are safe
haven Swiss Franc, yen and dollar looking not so safe?
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.
New
calcium-ion battery design delivers high performance without lithium
A bold
new calcium battery design could challenge lithium and energize the future of
clean power.
Date:
February 13, 2026
Source:
Hong Kong University of Science and
Technology
Summary:
Scientists at HKUST have unveiled a
major leap forward in calcium-ion battery technology, potentially opening the
door to safer, more sustainable energy storage for everything from renewable
power grids to electric vehicles. By designing a novel quasi-solid-state
electrolyte made from redox-active covalent organic frameworks, the team solved
long-standing issues that have held calcium batteries back—namely poor ion
transport and limited stability.
Scientists at The Hong Kong University
of Science and Technology (HKUST) have reported a major advance in calcium-ion
battery (CIB) research that could reshape how energy is stored and used in
daily life. By incorporating quasi-solid-state electrolytes (QSSEs), the team
developed a new type of CIB designed to improve both performance and
sustainability. The technology could support applications ranging from
renewable energy storage systems to electric vehicles. The work appears
in Advanced Science under the title "High-Performance
Quasi-Solid-State Calcium-Ion Batteries from Redox-Active Covalent Organic
Framework Electrolytes."
As countries expand renewable energy
production, the need for dependable and efficient battery storage continues to
grow. Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) currently dominate the market, but concerns
remain about limited lithium resources and the practical limits of their energy
density. These constraints have intensified the search for alternative battery
chemistries that can meet long-term global energy demands.
Calcium-ion batteries are attracting
attention because calcium is abundant and offers an electrochemical window
comparable to that of LIBs. However, technical barriers have slowed progress.
In particular, calcium ions can be difficult to move efficiently within a
battery, and maintaining stable performance over repeated charge and discharge
cycles has proven challenging. These issues have kept CIBs from competing
directly with established lithium-based systems.
Quasi-Solid-State Electrolytes Improve Ion Transport
To address these problems, a team led by
Prof. Yoonseob KIM, Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and
Biological Engineering at HKUST, engineered redox covalent organic frameworks
to function as QSSEs. These carbonyl-rich materials achieved strong ionic
conductivity (0.46 mS cm-1) and Ca2+ transport
capability (>0.53) at room temperature.
Through both laboratory experiments and
computer simulations, the researchers discovered that Ca2+ ions
move quickly along aligned carbonyl groups inside the structured pores of the
covalent organic frameworks. This organized internal pathway helps explain the
improved ion mobility and overall battery performance.
More
New calcium-ion battery design delivers high performance without lithium
| ScienceDaily
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
“Demand and supply are the opposite extremes of the beam, whence
depend the scales of dearness and cheapness; the price is the point of
equilibrium, where the momentum of the one ceases, and that of the other
begins.”
Jean-Baptiste Say
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