Baltic
Dry Index. 3224 -02
Brent
Crude 91.12
Spot
Gold 4570 Spot Silver 75.88
U
S 2 Year Yield 3.98 -0.01
US
Federal Debt. 39.186 trillion
US
GDP 32.166 trillion
“Booms start with some tie-in to reality, some reason
which justifies the increase in asset values, and then — and this is the
critical feature of speculative mood — the market loses touch with reality.”
John Kenneth Galbraith
9:30 AM update. That Blue Origin Rocket
Explosion. Approx. 8 minutes.
A Closer Look At The Damage To New Glenn's Launch Pad
A Closer Look At The Damage
To New Glenn's Launch Pad
Welcome to our “blue moon” Sunday, the second rare full moon of the month. More madness in the stock casinos and Washington next week, I suppose. After that, the lunacy of the SpaceX IPO mid-month. Sell in May, go away. With many stocks at or near all-time iffy highs at yesterday’s month-end, it looks very attractive this year.
Up
first, Canada leads the way, but with Trump’s Persian Gulf folly, the rest of
the G-7 will follow by mid 2027.
Canada
Dips Into a Surprise Recession
May
29, 2026 at 11:20 PM GMT+1
Canada edged into a technical
recession as weak business and government spending drove a
slight contraction in the first quarter, pointing to persistent slack in the
economy amid the US trade war.
Real
gross domestic product fell by 0.1% on an annualized basis during the first
three months of the year. That follows a 1% contraction in the fourth quarter,
a downward revision from a previously reported 0.6% decrease.
The weaker-than-expected GDP data coincides with a weaker job market as
well, painting a sobering picture of the Canadian economy as US President
Donald Trump’s tariffs squeeze Canadian businesses.
Business capital investment in the first quarter posted a fifth consecutive
decline, shrinking 3% on an annualized basis, driven by lower spending on
engineering structures.
The “surprising” first quarter data means Canada
has seen growth only in one of the last four quarters, noted Charles St-Arnaud,
chief economist at Servus Credit Union. The last time Canada recorded two
consecutive quarters of negative growth was in 2020 during the Covid-19
pandemic. Before that, it was in 2015 amid low oil prices.
Canada
Dips Into a Surprise Recession: Evening Briefing Americas - Bloomberg
In
the stock casinos, more bubble and disconnect. As per last weekend, the stock
casinos are all in that the war on Iran is over, but who won?
South
Korea’s Kospi, Japan’s Topix hit record highs as investors shrug off Iran
tensions
Published
Thu, May 28 2026 7:45 PM EDT Updated Fri, May 29 2026 10:07 AM EDT
Asia-Pacific
markets rose on Friday, with South Korea’s Kospi hitting a fresh intraday
record and Japan’s Topix reaching a new all-time high, as investors looked past
renewed military activity involving Iran and focused on gains in technology
shares and record closes on Wall Street.
South
Korea’s Kospi jumped more than 3% to close at 8,476.15, hitting a new intra-day
high before paring gains slightly. The small-cap Kosdaq was down 2.68% to
1,074.8.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 2.53%,
ending the trading day at 66,329.5 while the Topix rose 1.41% to a new record
high of 3,957.17.
Shares
of Samsung Electronics surged over
5% after the company said it had begun shipping samples of its latest
high-bandwidth memory chip to its customers globally.
In
Australia, the S&P/ASX
200 rose 1.62% to close at 8,731.7. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index added 0.55%
in the final hour of trade, while the CSI 300 lost 0.45% to 4,892.12. India’s
Nifty 50 dipped 0.5%.
Iran’s
armed forces reportedly
fired missiles at unspecified targets late Thursday, according to
state media outlet Fars.
The
latest military activity in southern Iran came just hours after the Pentagon
said Tehran had fired a ballistic missile toward Kuwait and deployed attack
drones in and around the Strait of Hormuz.
Earlier
on Thursday, a White House official confirmed an Axios report saying the U.S. and Iran had “mostly
agreed” on the terms of a deal aimed at temporarily halting the three-month
conflict.
U.S.
futures traded near flat after all three major averages finished at new closing
records on Thursday, boosted by a rally in the technology sector.
S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures were
trading near the flatline. Futures
tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 7 points, or less than
0.1%.
The S&P 500 gained 0.58% to
7,563.63, while the Nasdaq
Composite rose 0.91% to 26,917.47. Both indexes also hit intraday
all-time highs. The Dow Jones
Industrial Average was higher by 0.05% at 50,668.97.
Tech
stocks rallied Thursday, after a strong earnings outlook from Snowflake revived enthusiasm
around the AI trade. Shares soared 36.5%, posting
their best day ever after the cloud-based data platform provider
issued rosy
fiscal second-quarter guidance, as well as a beat on the top and bottom
lines in its latest quarter. The company also inked a plan to spend $6 billion
on Amazon Web Services over five years.
Asia
markets: Nikkei 225, Hang Seng Index, Kospi, Nifty 50, CSI 300
Stocks
close at record highs with tech leading the way again. Nasdaq gains 8% in May
Updated
Fri, May 29 2026 4:49 PM EDT
U.S.
equities closed at record highs on Friday, while crude prices slipped, helping
the major averages score a winning month, boosted by technology.
The Nasdaq Composite settled up
0.2% at 26,972.62, while the S&P
500 climbed 0.22% to 7,580.06. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished
up 363.49 points, or 0.72%, at 51,032.46. All three indexes hit fresh all-time
intraday highs earlier as well.
Dell Technologies was a
winner. Shares surged nearly
33%, seeing its best day on record, after the laptop maker reported a first-quarter
beat on both the top and bottom lines and raised its full-year
guidance.
Shares
of Micron Technology and Qualcomm rose 5% and 3%,
respectively, adding to their recent gains. While the two have suffered
notable drops this month, they both posted sizable gains in the
period. Micron jumped almost 88% in May, while Qualcomm rose close to 40%.
The Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund
(XLK), which hit a new 52-week high Friday, moved up nearly 20% on the
month.
“Dell
is like the poster child for [the] AI broadening earning story,” said David
Nicholas, CEO and founder of XFUNDs by Nicholas Wealth. “We started with chips,
memory, but it’s really now about the broad kind of AI infrastructure stack.”
Friday
marks the final trading session of May, and all three major averages notched
gains. The Nasdaq outperformed, recording an advance of more than 8% for the
month. The S&P 500 finished up 5%, while the Dow posted an almost 3% climb.
All
three major indexes also ended the week higher, with the Nasdaq in the lead
with a gain of more than 2%. The S&P 500 rose more than 1% on the week,
while the blue-chip Dow notched a gain of slightly less than 1%.
Stocks
are coming off a record-setting session after the U.S. and Iran agreed to
Iranian negotiators agreed on a 60-day memorandum of understanding to extend
the ceasefire.
The
president said in a Truth Social post Friday morning that he is meeting in
the Situation Room “to make a final determination” and insisted that Iran “must
agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon.” He also said that the Strait
of Hormuz must be “immediately open.”
After
the announcement, West Texas
Intermediate futures closed down 1.73% to $87.36 per barrel. Brent crude dropped 1.77%
to close at $92.05. The U.S. benchmark saw its biggest monthly decline since
April 2025 as prices dropped nearly 17%.
“There’s
always that black swan risk that something pops off, but my gut tells me that
this thing should be coming to an end very quickly,” Nicholas said. “The market
has priced a lot of that in, but I just think it unlocks the market to continue
moving higher.
Stock
market news for May 29, 2026
Brent
oil price posts biggest monthly loss in six years as market counts on a
U.S.-Iran deal
Published
Fri, May 29 2026 11:21 AM EDT Updated Fri, May 29 2026 4:13 PM EDT
Bent
oil posted its biggest monthly loss in six years as traders hoped that the U.S.
and Iran are nearing a deal that will reopen the Strait of Hormuz. [Or even
Brent oil. Ed.]
The
international oil benchmark fell more than 19% in May, its worst month since
March 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic closed economies. U.S. West Texas
Intermediate crude prices shed nearly 17% in May, its worst performance since
April 2025.
Prices
fell Friday after President Trump said he would meet in the White House
Situation Room to make a final
determination about an agreement with Iran. West Texas Intermediate lost
1.73% to close at $87.36 per barrel while Brent fell 1.77% to settle
at $92.05 per barrel.
But
Trump laid out a series of demands that Iran has rejected in the past.
Tehran
must agree it will never have a nuclear weapon, the U.S. president said, and
must immediately open the Strait of Hormuz to unrestricted traffic in both
directions without tolls. The Islamic Republic must also agree to remove any
remaining mines in the strait, he said.
And
Iran must agree to allow the U.S. to unearth and destroy its enriched uranium
buried under rubble from U.S. and Israeli attacks last year, Trump said.
U.S.
officials told CNBC Thursday that negotiators hammered out a 60-day memorandum
of understanding, or MOU, to extend the ceasefire and start talks on Iran’s
nuclear program. Trump still has to sign off on the MOU, the officials said.
Axios first reported the news of an MOU.
Brent
oil price in May posts biggest monthly loss since 2020
Next,
more on that dodgy SpaceX IPO.
We
asked four market pros whether they'd buy SpaceX stock at its IPO
May
29, 2026, 11:00 AM BST
When SpaceX
goes public in
mid-June, retail investors are expected to pile into the stock they've waited
years to buy. Elon Musk is expected to allocate 30% of the IPO to retail
traders, well above usual levels, according to a Reuters report.
But
just because you'll soon be able to get into the stock, should you? Bulls say
SpaceX has a massive total addressable market and a visionary founder with a
track record of success. Bears argue the company is far too overvalued and
still unprofitable.
So,
would you buy shares of SpaceX on day one? We asked four market pros whether
they would.
Altug
Dincturk, chief investment officer at Madison Partners
Would
you buy: No
Dincturk
said his firm will wait for the dust to settle after the IPO to decide whether
to buy.
While
he likes the company, he said IPOs are historically a risky time to get into a
stock. Though University of Florida data from 1980-2024 shows an average gain
of 19% on the first day of trading after an IPO, Nasdaq data from 2010-2020
shows that 64% of stocks underperform the market by at least 10% over the three
years following their IPO. Around half post negative absolute returns in their
first 12 months.
More
Rob
Arnott, founder of Research Affiliates
Would
you buy: Yes
Arnott
said he'd buy at the IPO if he were a retail trader.
While
he thinks the company's valuation is outlandish, steady
buying from index funds tracking the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 should
propel the stock upward as it's gradually folded into them, he said.
"I
don't buy stocks at 100-times sales," Arnott said. "This would
qualify as a non-fundamental purchase decision."
More
Anna
Rathbun, founder of Grenadilla Advisory
Would
you buy: No
Rathburn
said she'd pass on the IPO, citing concerns around its $2
trillion expected valuation and its profitability levels.
She
said the company doesn't yet have enough stable business lines within it to
justify buying.
"The
only stable 'business' is Starlink, with consecutive annual growth of
subscribers and a real/proven use across the globe," she said. "I
would have to see the viability of the other businesses (and therefore, cash
flow growth, not dramatic losses) before feeling confident."
Jon
Zetlmaier, founder of Zetlmaier Wealth Management
Would
you buy: No
Zetlmaier
is encouraged by SpaceX's fast-growing revenues and Musk's history of success
at the helm of major firms, but these factors aren't enough to persuade him to
buy yet.
More
4 Market Pros Told
Us Whether They'd Buy the SpaceX IPO - Business Insider
In
other news, nothing good, but you already knew that.
UK
haulage company's crash into administration confirmed - in business since 1972
29
May 2026
A
UK haulage company has plunged into administration in the latest blow to the
UK's freight industry. Sunhill Transport Limited, a freight company based in
Shropshire, appointed administrators on 21 May.
However,
a statement was issued in the London Gazette in the early hours of 29 May, a
week after the business was first linked with difficulty. It is not known how
many job
cuts are
expected at this stage. Last Wednesday, it was expected that the company was
poised to enter administration, with the firm lodging a notice of
intention to appoint an administrator. The family brand was established back in
1972 with the company enjoying 54 years on the roads.
The
company is believed to have a fleet of around 20 trucks and 70 trailers and
specialises in delivering steel, building materials and horticulture products.
One
wrote: "Hauled coils to Sherburn for years, Good set of lads, what a
shame."
Another
individual said: "Terrible news, another haulage company gone to the
wall."
A
shocked social media user reacted: "Very sad news, well run family
company, it's not getting [any] easier."
One
post read: "Sad to see another long established haulier pushed past their
limit of being able to trade. A few of their drivers been there 25years, says a
lot about the gaffers. Always a tidy fleet."
Facebook
group 'Loris Y Gogs' / Trucks Around North Wales ' were also stunned by the
news, rallying around to try and secure staff new position.
The
post read: "It's not a good thing to hear it shows how hard the Haulage
industry is with the rising costs. This is a post to help [their] drivers. The
great drivers that are on top of [their] game. I am reaching out to other
companies if there is any work available to keep the drivers in work for
[their] families."
UK haulage
company's crash into administration confirmed - in business since 1972
The CEOs are losing confidence
28 May 2026
The CEOs of the
world's biggest companies lost confidence in the economy this month as the Iran
war dragged on, a new survey finds.
Why it matters: Business leaders
who lack confidence tend to pull back on hiring and investment, weighing
further on the economy.
Zoom in: CEO confidence
fell 12 points in the second quarter of the year to 47, per the survey from The
Conference Board, a nonpartisan think tank, and The Business Council, an
association of CEOs.
- Any
number below 50 signals negative sentiment.
- 141
Fortune Global 500 chief executives participated in the survey, conducted
from May 4 to May 18, the war's third month.
Zoom out: When President
Trump first took office last year, CEO confidence shot up to its highest levels
in years on hopes that he would take a light touch with regulation and pass a
big, juicy tax cut.
- But
those expectations soon took a hit in the wake of "Liberation
Day." After the administration backed off its harshest tariff
policies, optimism began to recover, but the war appears to have dissolved
that upward momentum.
By the numbers: 47% of CEOs said
economic conditions were worse, up from 8% at the start of the year.
- Only
15% of CEOs said economic conditions were better now than six months ago,
down from 39% in the first three months of the year.
The big picture: CEOs — they're
just like us!
- Americans'
optimism about the economy is also broadly
in the dumps, as
numerous surveys have found recently.
Yes, but: That hasn't
troubled stock investors. And CEOs haven't yet changed their plans around
capital investment — an increasing share said they planned to increase
that spending in the year ahead.
CEOs are losing
confidence, new survey finds
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.
What
do they know that we don’t, (yet?)
The wealthiest investors are pulling money out of
the U.S. in the ‘de-dollarization’ trade
Published Thu, May 28 2026 3:01 PM EDT
Family offices are planning the biggest changes to
their portfolios in years, with many moving money out of the U.S., according to
a new survey.
Fully 60% of family offices plan to make strategic
changes to their investment allocation in the next year – about twice the level
of the past five years, according to the UBS Global Family Office Report. Among
those making changes, many are trimming their U.S. holdings and adding to
emerging markets.
Globally, North America is the only region where
family offices plan to reduce their allocation in the next 12 months. They plan
to add in Latin America and Africa, they said.
“Last year, all of the family offices were super
concerned about global trade tariffs tensions,” said John Mathews, UBS head of
private wealth management for the Americas. “Today it’s really shifted to
geopolitical tensions around the world, global debt, and now interest rates.
And not just the short-term implications, but the longer-term implications of
these as well.”
The pullback reflects a broader shift away from the
U.S. by family offices, the private investment arms of the wealthiest families.
America’s highly concentrated stock market and fears of an AI bubble, tariffs,
a falling dollar, volatile economic policies and rising debt and bond yields
have caused many family offices to dial back their U.S. exposure and spread
more of their money around the world.
Advisors caution that it’s not a wholesale “sell
America” trade. Rather, international family offices want to be more
diversified geographically as global crises grow.
The wars in Ukraine and Iran, changing tariffs,
immigration and debt battles have all made the world a more complicated
investing landscape. With no real safe haven, the best strategy is to balance
risks across the world.
The new catchphrase in family office investing is
“jurisdictional diversification,” spreading money in multiple countries to
hedge risk. Two thirds of family offices now have their bankable assets in at
least three jurisdictions, according to the UBS survey. Nearly a third have
them in at least four jurisdictions, including Latin America, the U.S., China,
Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
A chief goal among family offices is to reduce
their U.S. dollar exposure, or what some are calling “de-dollarization.” More
than a quarter of family offices plan to lower their holdings of U.S.
dollar-denominated assets, according to the UBS survey. Two thirds of family
offices said they expect confidence in the U.S. dollar’s reserve role to fall,
and nearly half said they are overexposed to the dollar.
The Swiss franc and the euro are the preferred
currencies for diversification, according to the survey.
More
Wealthiest investors pull money out of U.S. in 'de-dollarization' trade
More Americans are going hungry now than at the
height of the Covid-19 pandemic: study
Owen Scott Fri, 29 May 2026 at 12:22 pm BST
More Americans are going hungry now than at the
height of the Covid-19 pandemic six years ago, according to a study.
The study recorded a “remarkable increase in food
security” and found that 10 percent of families were missing meals for lack of
food. In 2020, just 4 percent of households were missing meals.
The development comes amid high gas prices, caused
in part by the war with Iran, and rising cost of living.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York unveiled its
report in Liberty Street Economics, drawing on the February edition of its Survey of Consumer
Expectations. The survey, along with two reports from 2020 and one from October
2025, was used to study and compare “household financial stress and food
insufficiency”.
An analysis of the February survey by NPR revealed
that food insecurity levels were higher this year than during the summer of
2020.
In addition to revealing that around 10 percent of
families reported missing meals in the February study, it found that nearly 16
percent of respondents relied on food donations. Among families earning less
than $50,000, nearly 20 percent were forced to skip meals or go without.
Conversely, in 2020, just 4 percent of households
reported missing meals, including less than 7 percent of families earning less
than $50,000.
Amy Breitmann, who runs the Golden Harvest Food
Bank in Augusta, Georgia, says that she has seen a growing number of families
and children in need of food firsthand.
“We have some distributions where people are
sitting in a 2-to-3-mile line the night before a distribution starts,"
Breitmann told NPR. “They're sleeping in their cars.”
Meanwhile, Nicole Williams, the CEO of the
Community Food Bank of Central Alabama, says that her service is moving to a
larger building to accommodate increased needs. The food bank serves 12 counties across the state.
More
More workers are raiding their 401(k)s as average
balances fall, Fidelity says
Published Thu, May 28 2026 7:05 AM EDT
Financial pressures pushed more savers to tap their retirement accounts in the first part of 2026, new
data shows — potentially locking in losses during the early weeks of the Iran war.
Amid severe market
volatility earlier this year, the average 401(k) balance fell by 4% to $141,000, according to first-quarter data
released Thursday from Fidelity Investments, the nation’s largest
provider of 401(k) savings plans.
The average individual retirement
account balance was also down 4% to $131,380 in the
first quarter, Fidelity found.
The drop was due to the outbreak of the Iran war,
which sparked a stock selloff, according to Kirsten Hunter Peterson, vice
president of workplace thought leadership at Fidelity Investments.
“Luckily, a couple of months later, we are trending in a much better
direction,” she said, referring to recent market highs.
After the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, the S&P 500 lost 5.1% in
March for its worst monthly performance since 2022. The Dow dropped 5.4%,
snapping a 10-month winning streak. The Nasdaq declined 4.8%.
Markets have since rebounded from earlier losses.
As of Wednesday’s close, the Dow Jones
Industrial Average was up roughly 5.3% year to date, while the
S&P 500 rose nearly 10% and the Nasdaq
Composite gained 14.8%.
More workers are pulling money from their 401(k)s
However, more savers also tapped their accounts to free
up cash during this time, which experts say is a sign of underlying financial
strain.
The share of workers with an outstanding loan at
the end of the first quarter of 2026 was 19.2%, up slightly from 18.8% a year
earlier, according to Fidelity. About 2.4% of workers took out a new loan from
their 401(k) in the first quarter, up from 2.3% in 2025.
The share of workers taking a hardship withdrawal,
which is broken out separately, also rose year over year to 2.5% from 2.3%,
Fidelity found. A hardship withdrawal can be taken from a retirement plan without paying an early
withdrawal penalty for an “immediate and heavy financial need,” according to
the IRS.
Many households have struggled in the face of rising prices for necessities
like groceries and gas due to the Iran war. As a result, consumers have had
less room in their budgets to cover an unexpected expense or emergency, experts
say.
More
Fidelity: Average 401(k) balances fall due to market volatility
Technology
Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Well if they say so,
but will the public buy a robot built car, especially a car putting real people
out of work? Consumers can be fickle, besides who wants to be first guinea pig in a
robot built car?
Humanoid robots 'the
future' of car making, says BMW
29 May 2026
For
the first time, BMW will use humanoid robots for car manufacturing in Europe.
Two robots, made by Hexagon Robotics, are planned to
work in production from the summer. They're currently in a test deployment at
the Leipzig factory.
"This will be the future of automotive
production," says Michael Nikolaides, head of process management and
digitalisation at BMW.
Robot arms and other automation have been used by
the car industry for decades.
So why the move to human-shaped robots?
"If you have a humanoid form, you can pretty
much set it to any workplace where a human is working today because it has the
same size and the same capabilities," says Nikolaides.
The cost of robots has fallen while it remains
expensive to redesign the assembly line. As a result, it's more cost-effective
to use robots that fit in with existing human processes.
"When a robot costs 17 million, you'd
re-organise your factory around the robot, but it doesn't anymore," says
Bill Ray, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner.
"So now you want to fit it into your existing
way of working."
Named Aeon, the Hexagon robot is shaped like a
person and stands 1.65m (5ft 5in) tall, weighing 60kg (9 stone 6lbs).
They have a top speed of 2.4m/second and can carry
15kg for short periods, or 8kg continuously.
Aeon is equipped with 21 sensors including cameras,
radar, a microphone, and force and torque sensors for manipulation.
At BMW the robots were trained using a combination
of teleoperation (sensors on humans) and simulation in a digital twin of the
factory using software from Nvidia.
The robot in the simulation was given a task and
repeatedly simulated it to identify the most promising solutions, an approach
called reinforcement learning.
Teleoperation was used for tasks such as picking up
a part, so the physical robot could learn the range of different ways a human
carries that out.
The training of robots is undergoing rapid
development - the quicker you can train a robot the better.
More
BMW says humanoid robots are the future of car production - BBC News
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. A wonderful diversion I first heard, entertaining a London very important client in approximately 1980, in the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria, overlooking Park Avenue, performed unaccompanied by a high talented, very beautiful young American, highly skilled lady harpist!!!
Whatever the Waldorf was paying her it wasn’t nearly enough. Approx. 8 minutes.
Handel
Harp Concerto
Next,
the Aral Sea story. Approx. 15 minutes.
The Aral
Sea Finally Came Back To Life After Kazakhstan Used The Kokaral Dam To Block A
Strait
Finally, how
A-bombs spread. Approx.40 minutes.
How India Got the Bomb
From the Great Depression, to the stagflation of the seventies, to the current economic crisis caused by the housing bubble, every economic downturn suffered by this country over the past century can be traced to Federal Reserve policy. The Fed has followed a consistent policy of flooding the economy with easy money, leading to a misallocation of resources and an artificial 'boom' followed by a recession or depression when the Fed-created bubble bursts.
Ron Paul
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