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9 Aug 2023

The evolution of fixed income ETFs in one picture...

This chart really shows off how far things have come in 20 years and how far the ETF industry goes with an asset class. Source: Todd Sohn thru Eric Balchunas

8 Aug 2023

Total credit card indebtedness increased by $45 billion in the April-through-June period, an increase of more than 4%

That took the total amount owed to $1.03 trillion, the highest gross value in Fed data going back to 2003. The increase in the category was the most notable area as total household debt edged higher by about $16 billion to $17.06 trillion, also a fresh record. As card use grew, so did the delinquency rate. The Fed’s measure of credit card debt 30 or more days late rose to 7.2% in the second quarter, up from 6.5% in Q1 and the highest rate since the first quarter of 2012 though close to the long-run normal, central bank officials said. Total debt delinquency edged higher to 3.18% from 3%. Source: CNBC

8 Aug 2023

Cartoon of the Day: Infinite Debt

Source: Hedgeye

8 Aug 2023

The trend is your friend until it ends??? Apple ($AAPL)

Source: Tradingview

8 Aug 2023

Italian banks slump after government introduces windfall tax

Deputy PM Salvini announced a 40% levy on extra profits of lenders for 2023 as part of a wide-ranging decree approved at a cabinet meeting. Analysts estimate it will wipe 19% from bank earnings. Levy targets higher interest incomes following rate hikes by ECB. Source: Bloomberg, HolgerZ

8 Aug 2023

OpenAI to Unleash New Web Crawler to Devour More of the Open Web

OpenAI has released a new web crawling bot, GPTBot, to expand its dataset for training its next generation of AI systems—and the next iteration apparently has an official name. The company trademarked the term "GPT-5," hinting at an upcoming release, while giving web publishers a heads up on how to keep their content out of its massive corpus. The web crawler will collect publicly available data from websites, while avoiding paywalled, sensitive, and prohibited content, according to OpenAI. Similar to other search engines like Google, Bing, and Yandex, however, the system is opt out—by default, GPTBot will assume accessible information is fair game. In order to prevent the OpenAI web crawler from ingesting a website, its owner must add a "disallow" rule to a standard file on the server.

Source: Decrypt

8 Aug 2023

Record green bond sales lift outlook for ESG debt

Green bonds issuance globally hit a record $380 billion in the first half of 2023, rebounding from $261 billion during the prior six months.
Governments and financials are the main contributors. Germany, Italy and Hong Kong governments in combination sold $52 billion green bonds, 150% more than each half of 2022.
Source: Bloomberg

8 Aug 2023

Brazil central bank says faster key rate cuts are Unlikely

“The Committee judges that there is low probability of an additional intensification in the pace of adjustment,” central bankers wrote in the minutes of their Aug. 1-2 meeting published on Tuesday.

Source: Brazil Central Bank, Bloomberg

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