France has always missed its deficit forecasts, always.
It runs 6% fiscal deficit during good times. With the current political paralysis there will be no long overdue structural reforms, especially of pensions. It will miss current forecasts as well. Could the next Euro crisis start in France? Source: Michel A.Arouet Chart @OxfordEconomics
Happy New Year
Invest in your health. It will buy you more time.
Italy plans $1.5 billion SpaceX telecom security services
Italy is in advanced talks with Elon Musk’s SpaceX for a deal to provide secure telecommunications for the nation’s government — the largest such project in Europe, people with knowledge of the matter said Sunday. Discussions are ongoing, and a final agreement on the five-year contract hasn’t been reached, said the people, who asked not to be identified citing confidential discussions. The project has already been approved by Italy’s Intelligence Services as well as Italy’s Defense Ministry, they said. The negotiations, which had stalled until recently, appeared to move forward after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia visited President-elect Donald Trump in Florida on Saturday.
Quote by Sir John Templeton
Source: Brian Feroldi
This is truly historic: China’s 30-year government bond yield has dropped below Japan’s 30-year yield for the first time ever.
Over the last 4 years, China’s bond yield has declined by a whopping 215 basis points. This comes as China’s economy has slowed and experienced 6 straight quarters of deflation, the longest streak since 1999. At the same time, Japan’s bond yield has risen 160 basis points as inflation has picked up in the country. In the past, Japan had seen 3 decades of economic stagnation and had suffered 25 years of deflation starting in the 1990s. Is China entering its own "japanification" economic phase? Source: The Kobeissi Letter, Augur Infinity
The AI value chain
Source: Oguz O. | 𝕏 Capitalist
Nvidia $NVDA carried the S&P 500 $SPX in 2024
The AI leader drove 22% of the index’s total gains. Apple $AAPL, Amazon $AMZN, and Meta $META added another 19% combined. Broadcom $AVGO chipped in nearly 5%. These 5 companies powered almost half of the index's 2024 returns. Source: Carbon Finance
Interesting observation from GMO thru Callum Thomas:
"Since 1957, the 10 largest stocks in the S&P 500 have underperformed an equal-weighted index of the remaining 490 stocks by 2.4% per year. But the last decade has been a very notable departure from that trend, with the largest 10 outperforming by a massive 4.9% per year on average.“ It’s rare and bubbly for the top stocks to outperform like this! Source: Thomas Callum, GMO
