Last month, the U.S. economy created an estimated 256,000 nonfarm jobs, the most since March 2024 and far more than the 120,000 to 200,000 that analysts had predicted. Unemployment ticked down from 4.2 percent to 4.1 percent.
ECONOMIC UPDATE — MARKET OVERVIEW
Inflation is all the economic “news.” It’s deflation in China, they say inflation in Europe is OK and in the U.S., today’s headline article on CNBC is, Stocks give up earlier gains as traders await more inflation data.
WORLD LIQUIDITY CRISIS? (WE ARE IN ONE)
In finance, liquidity generally refers to the ease of which any asset can be converted into cash.
CORPORATE BANKRUPTCIES SHOOT TO 14-YEAR HIGH
In 2024, at least 686 U.S. corporations filed bankruptcy, 8 percent more than in 2023 and the most since 2010 during the Great Recession when 828 corporations went bust, S&P Global Intelligence reported.
THE FUTURE WORLD: MORE ALIEN, OR HUMAN?
Every so often, it’s a good thing for anyone to assess how they’re doing—in life, work, and even play.
TRUMP LIVES BY HIS WORD: WILL ISRAEL ACCEPT CEASEFIRE PROPOSAL
President-elect Donald Trump’s Mideast envoy has reportedly applied new pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire agreement with Hamas and bring the 15-month-old genocide in Gaza to an end in exchange for the remaining hostages.
U.S. BLASTS MILITIA IN SUDAN OF COMMITTING GENOCIDE WHILE ARMING ISRAEL’S ETHNIC CLEANSING IN GAZA
The U.S. announced sanctions against members of Sudan’s paramilitary force and accused the notorious group of committing genocide inside the country—all while supporting Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.
Global Economy
SPOTLIGHT: BIGS GETTING BIGGER
About 54 percent of small and mid-size public companies and smaller private equity firms see 2025 as a good year for mergers and takeovers, according to a Citizens Financial survey.
ARGENTINA’S MILEI ABOLISHES KEY TARIFFS
Javier Milei, Argentina’s maverick president, has abolished the country’s blanket tariff of 7.5 percent on imported goods and trimmed import duties on a broad range of items “from acne cream to funeral urns,” the Financial Times reported.
CHINESE BOND YIELD SINKS TO RECORD LOW AS ECONOMY DEFLATES
The yield on the bellwether 10-year Chinese government bond slumped to 1.6 percent as the new year began and has remained close to that level, signaling that investors have glum expectations for the country’s economic growth and a reversal in the deflation that has plagued the world’s second-largest economy, the Financial Times reported.
The Israel War
ISRAEL INTENSIFIES STRIKES ACROSS LEBANON, EVEN AS HAMAS CEASEFIRE APPEARS CLOSE
The IDF carried out strikes across Lebanon on Monday on what it identified as Hezbollah targets even as the tenuous ceasefire with the Lebanese group held, and a new truce with Gaza’s Hamas seemed close.
GAZA DEATH TOLL
The death toll in Gaza reached 46,645 on Tuesday as mediators say a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel is closer than ever.
TRUMP LIVES BY HIS WORD: WILL ISRAEL ACCEPT CEASEFIRE PROPOSAL
President-elect Donald Trump’s Mideast envoy has reportedly applied new pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire agreement with Hamas and bring the 15-month-old genocide in Gaza to an end in exchange for the remaining hostages.
AI
AI IN BRIEF
Headline start-up firms including Anthropic and Elon Musk’s xAI coaxed a record $97 billion from venture capital funds in 2024, PitchBook reported, about a third more than the year before.
FINDING EUROPE’S PLACE IN THE AI REVOLUTION
The dominant AI models might be made by U.S. companies such as Google and OpenAI, but Europe can create an AI industry around tailoring apps based on those platforms for specific industries and companies, Skype cofounder Niklas Zennström said in a Financial Times interview.
NVIDIA AS VENTURE CAPITALIST
Nvidia passed a $3-trillion market cap in June on its ownership of an estimated 80 percent or more of the market in graphics processing units, the chips that make AI work.
Hi-Tech Science
SURGICAL ROBOT LEARNS ITS TRADE BY WATCHING VIDEOS
Robots have been doing surgery for 40 years, with their grippers and snippers guided by human surgeons using joysticks.
QUANTUM SOFTWARE FOR YOUR QUANTUM COMPUTER
Quantum computers, which capitalize on quirks of quantum physics to operate orders of magnitude faster than silicon-based machines, are barely emerging from the experimental stage but software designers are already making programs for them.
HYBRID EVS ARE SO YESTERDAY. NOW SUPER-HYBRIDS ARE HERE.
Hybrid vehicles are evolving. The most common type has a battery pack that can move a car for short distances before the gasoline engine takes over.
