France’s long-term borrowing costs are converging with Italy’s for the first time since the global financial crisis.
Yields on 10-year French government bonds have jumped above 3 per cent over the past year, as months of political instability and concerns about the public finances take their toll. This has brought France’s benchmark borrowing costs to just 0.14 percentage points less than those of Italy, whose bond yields have been driven lower as a display of fiscal prudence from Giorgia Meloni’s administration has won over investors. The convergence has upended long-held views on France’s position as one of the region’s safest borrowers and Italy as one of its most risky, with a huge stock of public debt equal to about 140 per cent of GDP. Italy’s “spread” over France — the difference between their bond yields — ballooned to more than 4 percentage points during the Eurozone debt crisis of the 2010s. Source: FT
Buy-now-pay-later firm Klarna reported AI-driven sales growth for the second quarter, enabling the company to generate revenues of $1 million per employee.
👉 The Swedish company said it had 20% like-for-like sales growth in the second quarter, with total revenues coming in at $823 million for the period. 👉The firm also saw adjusted operating profits of $29 million, up significantly from the first quarter’s $3 million. “AI adoption continues to deliver significant, tangible results. As a result of this strategy, average revenue per employee reached $1.0m, up 46% [year on year in the second quarter],” the company said in its quarterly report. 👉Klarna has aggressively leveraged AI to boost productivity performance. It has shed two in five jobs over the past two years as a result. “This shift reflects the growing impact of AI and automation in eliminating manual, time-consuming work across Klarna,” the company had said in its first-quarter results.
One of the healthiest habits to learn
Source: @readswithravi
September rate-cut odds of 99.9% yesterday have now fallen down to 88.5%.
From "guaranteed" to "not so fast." Source: Bespoke
The S&P 100 now has 27.2% of its total value in stocks that have a P/E of at least 50.
There is only one company that has a P/E below 10. Source: Jeff Weniger
🔴 Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway takes a $1.6 Billion position in UnitedHealth $UNH
Source: CNBC
😨 China’s economy slowed across the board in July with factory activity and retail sales disappointing, suggesting the world’s No. 2 economy is losing traction
‼️ China Retail Sales rose 3.7% Y/Y in July, well below consensus of 4.6%. This is the weakest reading since November 2024. On a month-over-month basis, retail sales declined for a second consecutive month, by -0.1%. ‼️China Industrial Production rose 5.7% Y/Y in July, missing consensus of 5.9% and slowing from June's 6.8%. This marks the weakest pace of growth since January. The sequential M/M growth rate also slowed to 0.4%. 🔴 China Economic data👇 ▶️ July retail sales 3.7% y/y [Est.4.6%] ▶️July industrial growth 5.7% y/y [Est.5.9%] ▶️Jan-Jul fixed asset investment 1.6% y/y [Est.2.7%] ▶️ July Unemployment 5.2% [Prev. 5.1%] Note that while China's industrial production continues to run well above the pre-COVID trend, real retail sales have diverged further away from the pre-COVID trend. Source: Augur Infinity
An important remainder by Otavio Costa
Inflation data came in hotter than expected, but it is not just about tariffs. Inflation is fundamentally a monetary phenomenon. You don’t solve it with a 7% fiscal deficit and a money supply hitting record highs. Source: Tavi Costa, Bloomberg
