Baltic
Dry Index. 2978 -56 Brent
Crude 101.29
Spot
Gold 4715 Spot Silver 80.87
U
S 2 Year Yield 3.90 -0.02
US
Federal Debt. 39.219 trillion
US
GDP 32.102 trillion
Every age has its peculiar folly: Some scheme, project, or
fantasy into which it plunges, spurred on by the love of gain, the necessity of
excitement, or the force of imitation.
Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
In
the stock casinos, the greatest bubble bubbles on and on. “War?” “What war?” “Supply
chain disruption? Who cares?”
Uncle
Scam running two trillion a year deficits in peacetime, so what?
More
and more central banks acquiring gold bullion held outside of New York and
London, meaningless. “Buy more AI stocks.”
And
so goes on life in the Great Stock Bubble of 2026. “1929, never heard of it.
Besides that was then, this is now and we have computers and AI now.”
What
could possibly go wrong?
S&P 500 closes at another record, notches longest weekly winning streak since 2024: Live updates
Updated
Fri, May 8 20264:31 PM EDT
The S&P 500 advanced 0.84% to
end at 7,398.93, while the Nasdaq
Composite climbed 1.71% to 26,247.08. Both indexes hit new all-time
intraday highs in the session and closed at records. The Dow Jones Industrial Average inched
up 12.19 points, or 0.02%, to settle at 49,609.16.
All
three major averages posted weekly gains, propelled by strong earnings. Upbeat
tech earnings lifted the Nasdaq to a 4.5% climb, while the S&P 500 gained
2.3%. Both posted six straight winning weeks, marking the longest win streak
since 2024 for the broad market benchmark and the tech-heavy index. The Dow
Industrials lagged with a week-to-date gain of 0.2%.
Sentiment
was bolstered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting that nonfarm payrolls
rose by 115,000 last month, more than the 55,000 that economists polled by Dow
Jones were expecting. The U.S. jobless rate also held steady at 4.3%, in line
with expectations.
However,
oil prices were marginally higher, with West Texas Intermediate crude futures rising
0.64% to $95.42 per barrel, after the U.S. and Iran exchanged
fire in the Strait of Hormuz. Each side claimed the other struck
first. U.S. Central Command said that military forces “intercepted unprovoked
Iranian attacks and responded with self-defense strikes” as a trio of U.S. Navy
destroyers transited the waterway.
In
a Truth Social post Thursday night, President Donald Trump said there was
“no damage done to the three Destroyers, but great damage done to the Iranian
attackers.” He also reportedly said that the ceasefire is still in effect,
saying the strikes against Iranian targets were “just a love tap.”
Investors
have been awaiting a response from Iran on the proposal to end the conflict in
the Middle East after Iranian state media reported Thursday that Tehran
was reviewing messages from the U.S. that were received through
Pakistani mediators but had not yet reached a conclusion. Secretary of State
Marco Rubio told
reporters Friday that the U.S. “should know something today.”
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite had hit
fresh record highs in the previous session before retreating after a senior
Iranian official said that the country would not allow the U.S. to reopen the
Strait of Hormuz passageway with an “unrealistic plan,” Iran’s state-owned
Press TV reported. The official added that Iran would not let the U.S. leave
the conflict without paying reparations for the damage it has inflicted.
But
Keith Buchanan, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments, is skeptical
that the market’s recent run can continue, especially given how much of it is
being propped up by optimism surrounding artificial
intelligence capital expenditures. That has spurred a rally in memory
stocks, with Micron Technology and Sandisk, for example, soaring 15%
and 16% on Friday alone. Micron posted a weekly gain of nearly 38%, while
Sandisk advanced more than 31%.
“The
market is trading valuations that don’t indicate the risk that we see that out
there,” Buchanan said, citing the potential for the Middle East conflict to
continue longer than expected and the increasingly adverse impacts of that on
the consumer.
“It’s
a tale of the AI spend and the ripple effects – and earnings as well – that’s
absolutely powering an economy that is, without that spending and optimism,
probably pretty lackluster,” he continued.
Stocks
close in positive territory
The
three major averages finished higher on Friday.
The
S&P 500 rose 0.84% to 7,398.93, while the Nasdaq Composite surged 1.71% to
26,247.08. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked up 12.19 points, or 0.02%,
to 49,609.16.
Rising
energy prices will lead to demand destruction: JPMorgan
Consumers
will adjust to rising energy prices by reducing demand, economists at JPMorgan
said.
Oil
prices fell this week as the market hoped for a U.S.-Iran deal, though Brent
has since stabilized around $100 per barrel amid a series of violent
confrontations in the Persian Gulf.
The
supply buffers that have insultated the oil market from the war are eroding,
economists at JPMorgan told clients in a Thursday note.
“We
expect to see increasing signs of demand destruction as energy product
consumers adjust to rising prices,” the economists said.
Stock
market news for May 8, 2026
Positive
Jobs Data Met by Record Consumer Fear
May
8, 2026 at 11:50 PM GMT+1
New
data from the federal government Friday indicated US employers had added
more jobs than expected for a second month in a row, despite ongoing
threats from inflation and the collateral damage of the Iran war.
With
unemployment holding at 4.3%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the
figures offer Federal Reserve policymakers space to keep interest rates
unchanged for the foreseeable future. Last week, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said
the job market has shown “more signs of stability.”
But
as is often the case of late, positive vibes of US government data didn’t match
the latest sullen read of consumer sentiment by the University of Michigan. The
gauge fell
in recent weeks to a record low on growing concerns about the impact
of inflation on personal finances and buying conditions.
Confidence
continues to languish as Americans’ anxiety about the overall cost of living is
compounded by sharply higher prices at the gas pump. The strain on household
budgets poses a risk to consumer spending, a primary engine for the economy.
Gasoline
prices breached $4.50 a gallon on average this week for the first time since
July 2022, American Automobile Association data show.
They’re up more than 50% since the start of the Iran war. —David
E. Rovella
US
Consumer Sentiment Hits Record Low: Evening Briefing America - Bloomberg
U.S.
payrolls increased 115,000 in April, more than expected; unemployment at 4.3%
Published
Fri, May 8 2026 8:31 AM EDT
Job
creation was better than expected in April, as the plodding U.S. labor market
continued to defy expectations for a more aggressive slowdown this year, the
Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.
Nonfarm
payrolls rose
by a seasonally adjusted 115,000 for the month, down from the 185,000 created
in an unusually strong March, but better than the 55,000 forecast in the Dow
Jones consensus estimate.
The
unemployment rate held at 4.3%, further proof that the labor market has reached
a point where only modest job creation is needed to keep the jobless level
steady, given little growth in the labor force.
Average
hourly earnings, another closely watched metric of labor market health, came in
lower than expected, increasing 0.2% for the month and 3.6% on an annual basis,
compared with respective estimates for 0.3% and 3.8%.
Stock
market futures held onto gains following the release while Treasury yields were
lower.
The
report is "evidence of the underlying resilience of this economy and of
this labor market, despite all of the slings and arrows of outrageous concerns
about the Middle East and unemployment and inflation and the Fed," said
Scott Clemons, chief investment strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman.
"One
month does not a new trend establish," he added. "There's been a lot
of month to month volatility in the jobs market over the past year. I'm not
sure that's completely gone away. We get another two or three months of solid
job gains, then I feel a little bit more comfortable."
Following
recent trends, healthcare led with 37,000 new positions, though multiple other
sectors also saw gains.
Transportation
and warehousing added 30,000, retail grew by 22,000, and social assistance saw
a gain of 17,000.
On
the downside, information services lost 13,000, part of a continuing trend that
has seen the category down 342,000 jobs since November 2022 as artificial
intelligence has hit the sector, according to the BLS. That has equated to a
loss of 11% of jobs during the period.
A
broader measure that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time
jobs for economic reasons rose to 8.2%, up 0.2 percentage point. The household
survey, which the bureau uses to calculate the unemployment rate, showed a
decline of 226,000 workers as the participation rate declined to 61.8%, the
lowest since October 2021.
The
so-called real unemployment rate jumped in large part to a surge in those
employed part time for economic reasons, often referred to as unemployed. The
level rose by 445,000 to 4.9 million.
Revisions
from prior reports were mixed: The March count rose by 7,000 while the February
number moved even lower, down by 23,000 to a loss of 156,000. The initial
report put the February job loss at 92,000.
"I'm
looking through the report trying to find problems, and it's fairly bulletproof
this month," said Dan North, senior economist for North America at
Allianz. "You'd have to say that the numbers overall aren't impressive. I
think that they're still pointing towards a softening job market, but certainly
not a collapse."
More
In
other news, “Curiouser and curiouser!”
From stalemate to strikes: A dizzying week of
US-Iran negotiations over the strait of Hormuz
Mark Saunokonoko Fri, 8 May 2026 at 4:39 am BST
It has been a week of dizzying, whiplash
news in the Iran war.
Seven days ago, the US-Iran ceasefire was
holding but negotiations seemed stalled, or inching forward at best. With the
strait of Hormuz effectively choked off by Iran, and the US Navy blockading
Iranian ports, there was talk of a one-page memorandum being passed between
Washington and Tehran to break the stalemate.
Where are we now?
Friday, 1 May
Iran ceasefire holds as war powers
deadline expires
The month begins with the US-Iran
ceasefire still in place. With a war powers deadline looming, which would put
pressure on Donald Trump to end the war or make the case to Congress for
extending it, a Trump administration official declares that US hostilities
against Iran have been “terminated”, citing the ceasefire.
Meanwhile, Iranian state media reports
Tehran has handed a new peace offer to Pakistan, to pass on to Washington.
Trump says he is not “satisfied” with the terms of the deal, which aren’t
specified. “Right now, we have talks going on, they’re not getting there,” he
says.
Adding some spice to the day, the Pentagon
announces plans to pull 5,000 troops
from Germany.
Fuel prices across the US hit a four year
high.
Saturday, 2 May
All quiet on the strait of Hormuz
Trump tells a Florida rally that the
US navy acted “like pirates”, while describing a recent US operation
to seize an Iranian ship. “We … land on top of it and we took over the ship. We
took over the cargo, took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business,” Trump
says, in remarks reported the following day. A barrel of Brent crude trades for
about $110, down from more than $126 a few days earlier.
Sunday, 3 May
Project Freedom launched by Trump and the
US.
With the ceasefire, agreed on 7 April,
seemingly at a stalemate, Trump says the US will launch a new effort to help
guide stranded ships out of the strait. Trump calls the
plan Project Freedom.
Trump gives few other logistical details.
Later, US Central Command provides some clarification, indicating the US role
is to coordinate and guide trapped vessels, not to escort ships using US naval
assets.
Trump claims his representatives are
engaged in “very positive” discussions with Iran, as the US blockade of Iran’s
ports continues. Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the national security commission of
the Iranian parliament, responds to Project Freedom with a warning: “Any
American intervention in the process of the new Strait of Hormuz maritime
system will be considered a violation of the ceasefire.”
Monday, 4 May
Ominous start to Project Freedom
As the US operation begins, Hormuz crackles into life. The US military
says its forces have destroyed six Iranian small boats and intercepted Iranian
cruise missiles and drones, which Iran denies. After weeks of respite, the
United Arab Emirates says it has again come under attack from Iranian missiles
and drones, which again Iran denies.
An angry Trump threatens that Iranian
forces will be “blown off the
face of the earth” if
it attacks US vessels trying to reopen the strait. Brent crude rises to $114 a
barrel.
Tuesday, 5 May
Mixed messaging, and Project Freedom
paused
US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is
joined by Gen Dan Caine, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, at a Pentagon
briefing. Hegseth says the US has successfully secured a path through the
strait and that hundreds of ships were lining up to pass through. “We know the
Iranians are embarrassed by this fact. They said they control the strait. They
do not,” he says.
Caine acknowledges Iran has fired at
commercial vessels and seized two container ships since the ceasefire was
announced. But he says all the Iranian attacks have fallen below the threshold
of restarting major combat operations.
Later, the US secretary of state, Marco
Rubio, tells a White House briefing the initial major US military operation
against Iran has concluded. “The operation is over,” he says. “Epic Fury …
We’re done with that stage of it.” Rubio says the US is now focused on Project
Freedom.
Hours later, an abrupt change of plan.
Trump announces Project Freedom has been paused, just one day after it began.
Trump writes the plan is on ice for “a short period” to give space for peace
negotiations with Iran. The volte-face, he says, comes as “Great Progress has
been made toward a Complete and Final Agreement with Representatives of Iran”.
After Trump’s pullback, oil dips to about $109.
Wednesday, 6 May
A one-page memorandum and peace hopes
Axios reports Washington and Tehran
are close to agreeing on a
one-page memorandum of understanding to end the war. It says the US expected
Iran to respond to several key points in the next 48 hours. Officials in
Pakistan tell the Guardian talks remain “difficult”.
Trump logs on to Truth Social. “Assuming
Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to, which is perhaps a big assumption,
the already legendary Epic Fury will be at an end,” he writes. “If they don’t
agree, the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and
intensity than it was before.”
Soon after, the US military fires on an
Iranian-flagged oil tanker. Iran’s most senior negotiator, Mohammad Bagher
Ghalibaf, responds defiantly on Telegram. For the first time in weeks, Brent
crude briefly drops below $100, before settling about $101.
Thursday, 7 May
Unhappy Saudis, and US and Iran trade fire
in strait
A possible explanation for Trump’s sudden
pause of Project Freedom emerges. NBC reports Saudi Arabia was so unhappy about
the US operation that
it told Washington the US would no longer be welcome to use a key airbase or
fly planes through its airspace. Trump failed to win over the crown prince,
Mohammed bin Salman, on a phone call, reports say.
Brent crude drops to $96 amid reports out
of Pakistan that the US and Iran are close to a temporary agreement to halt the
war. “Both sides are now more amenable to suggestions, the distance between
their proposals is reducing,” says a diplomat in Islamabad with knowledge of
the negotiations.
But hours later, US and Iranian
forces trade fire in the
strait.
The US military says it intercepted Iranian attacks on three destroyers sailing
in the strait. Iran’s state media, meanwhile, says Iranian forces exchanged
fire with the US on Qeshm Island. Iranian media reports loud noises in western
Tehran and southern Iran.
In an interview with ABC News, Trump says
the ceasefire remains “in effect”. He describes the skirmishes as “just a love
tap”. In the hours after the strikes, Brent crude hovers above $101.
‘Not a Chance Hormuz Opens’: How Wall Street’s new
NACHO trade bets on a prolonged oil shock
Published Fri, May 8 2026 1:38 AM EDT
Move over TACO trade. Traders now have a
new acronym for a market increasingly skeptical that the Strait of Hormuz
crisis will end anytime soon: NACHO.
The shorthand “Not A Chance Hormuz Opens”
has emerged on trading desks and among market commentators to describe growing
skepticism that repeated remarks by U.S. President Donald Trump about reopening
the key shipping route will lead to a swift resolution.
“It’s essentially the market losing hope
in the chance of a quick fix,” eToro market analyst Zavier Wong told CNBC.
“For most of this crisis, every ceasefire
headline triggered a sharp selloff in oil, and traders kept pricing in a
resolution that never came. NACHO is an acknowledgment that higher oil isn’t a
temporary shock to trade around, it’s the current market environment.”
As recently as Thursday, the U.S.
and Iran exchanged
fire in the Strait of Hormuz, with both sides accusing the other of starting
the confrontation.
The renewed hostilities further imperil
the two countries’ ceasefire agreement, which had already been strained by
repeated accusations of violations.
Trump, in a call with an ABC News reporter
later Thursday, insisted that the ceasefire remains in effect, saying the
strikes are “just a love tap.”
On Wednesday, Trump said Iran would be bombed “at a much
higher level” if it did not agree to a peace deal, escalating
tensions even as reports suggested Washington and Tehran were nearing an
agreement to end the war.
The NACHO trade reflects a shift in
positioning across oil, shipping, inflation hedges and rates markets as
investors increasingly treat disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz as a lasting
feature of the macro backdrop, rather than a temporary geopolitical shock,
industry veterans said.
More
NACHO trade: Wall
Street’s new acronym bets on prolonged oil shock
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.
The natural tendency of government, once in charge of money, is to inflate and to destroy the value of the currency.
Murray Rothbard
Financial
Stability Risks Mount as Artificial Intelligence Fuels Cyberattacks
Resilience, supervision, and international coordination are essential to
safeguarding global financial markets as new AI tools enable attackers
May 7, 2026
Artificial intelligence
is transforming how the financial system copes with vulnerabilities and reacts
to incidents. Yet it is also amplifying cyber threats that can undermine
financial stability when the offensive capabilities of intruders outpace defenses.
IMF
analysis suggests that
extreme cyber‑incident losses could trigger funding strains, raise solvency
concerns, and disrupt broader markets.
The financial system
relies on shared digital infrastructure that’s highly interconnected, including
software, cloud services, and networks for payments and other data. Advanced AI
models can dramatically reduce the time and cost needed to identify and exploit
vulnerabilities, raising the likelihood of simultaneously discovering and
targeting weaknesses in widely used systems. As a result, cyber risk is
increasingly about correlated failures that could disrupt financial
intermediation, payments, and confidence at the systemic level.
Anthropic’s recent
controlled release of its Claude Mythos Preview, an advanced AI model with
exceptional cyber capabilities, underscored how quickly risks are increasing.
Mythos could find and exploit vulnerabilities
in every major operating system and web browser—even when used by non-experts.
This foreshadows how fast‑moving, AI‑driven cyber risks could destabilize the
financial system if not managed carefully, and why authorities must focus on
building resilience through supervision and coordination—rather than treating
these developments as purely technical or operational issues.
On the other hand,
OpenAI’s specialized, restricted cyber version of GPT‑5.5 assumes vulnerabilities and attacks will
grow, and emphasizes equipping defenders more quickly and at scale, under
appropriate governance and trusted access models.
Advances change risk equation
Models such as Mythos
illustrate the nature of the challenge because they amplify existing
cyberattack techniques by operating at machine speed. Attackers have the
advantage over defenders because discovering and exploiting vulnerabilities can
occur faster than patching and remediation. In a financial system built on
common software and shared service providers, this can create simultaneous
vulnerabilities across many institutions.
For now, some mitigating
factors remain. Advanced AI cyber capabilities are not yet widely available,
and closed, industry‑specific financial software is harder to target than open‑source
infrastructure. But these buffers are likely to erode quickly as model training
expands, capabilities diffuse, and leaks occur. Temporary containment is
unlikely to substitute for durable defenses.
Financial stability implications
The new AI‑enabled cyber
tools focus the discussion on financial stability:
- Risks are systemic. Attacks become more
dangerous when discovery and exploitation scale rapidly, with implications
for financial stability.
- Risks cut across sectors. The financial
sector shares digital foundations with energy, telecommunications, and
public services. That means AI‑assisted attacks can propagate across
sectors that rely on the same infrastructure.
- AI may further concentrate risk and
failures with one vulnerability rippling across many institutions.
Reliance on a small number of software platforms, cloud providers, or AI
models increases the impact of any single exploited weakness.
These features elevate
cyber risk to a potential macro‑financial shock. Confidence effects, payment
disruptions, liquidity strains, and fire‑sale dynamics could follow if multiple
institutions are affected simultaneously. For financial authorities, the
question is whether the system is prepared to absorb cyber incidents without
destabilizing core financial functions.
More
Financial Stability Risks Mount as Artificial
Intelligence Fuels Cyberattacks
Technology
Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
This
weekend, something different.
The dubious story of a student who won $100,000 betting on the
weather
Fri, 8 May 2026 at 5:00 am UTC
Online platforms such as Polymarket
allow gamblers to bet against one another on practically anything, including
weather wagers such as the “highest temperature in London tomorrow”. According
to an online urban legend, a Chinese student successfully gamed this system to
make a pile of money.
The student supposedly used Metar,
meteorological aerodrome reports. These are used in the aviation industry and
are updated hourly, unlike most other publicly available weather forecasts
which only update every few hours. The student is said to have used an AI-based
system running on two PCs in his dorm room to download Metar data, scan
weather-betting sites and identify mismatches between the two where he could
get good odds. He made a series of successful bets and soon amassed more than
$100,000 (£73,500).
But the story is dubious because betting
on weather is such a niche area, and it is unlikely the student would find
enough takers. The lack of identifying details is also the hallmark of urban
legend. The story seems more likely to be an interesting idea of what someone
could do in theory, rather than something someone has actually done.
The technology is certainly available
though. Even students now have access to enough processing power and online
data to carry out real-time global weather surveys, whether for their
legitimate studies or for personal financial motives.
The dubious story of a student who won $100,000 betting on the weather -
Yahoo News UK
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
Exponent
Calculator
Enter
values into any two of the input fields to solve for the third.
This
weekend’ s music diversion. Another Italian great. Approx. 13 minutes.
Giuseppe
Tartini (1692-1770) - Concertino con Flauto solo
Giuseppe Tartini
(1692-1770) - Concertino con Flauto solo
Next,
when things really go wrong in Manhattan. Approx. 12 minutes.
Billionaires'
Skyscraper CRACKS OPEN - 432 Park Avenue NIGHTMARE Came True
Billionaires'
Skyscraper CRACKS OPEN - 432 Park Avenue NIGHTMARE Came True
Finally, Stealth explained. Approx. 11 minutes.
How Planes Learned to Hide
In reading The History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.
Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
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