Syz the moment

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

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

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

“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

In just 1 year, the average interest rate on credit card debt has gone from 14% to 21%+. New car loan rates went from 4% to 8% while used car loan rates are at 12%+. Mortgage rates are at a fresh high of 7.2%, up from 2.7% in 2021. Will the US consumer be able to absorb all these debt servicing costs? Source: The Kobeissi Letter, Macrobond, IN

Moody's said it may downgrade some of the nation's biggest lenders, warning that the sector's credit strength will likely be tested by funding risks and weaker profitability. This does not come as a surprise to us as US banks are facing several headwinds at the time being: 1) Inverted yield curve and lower trading / M&A activity weighing on profitability; 2) Deteriorating loan book quality due to Commercial real estate exposure but also US consumers starting to being hit by rising debt costs (credit card, mortgages, etc.); 3) Deposits withdrawals. Source: reuters

China said Tuesday that exports fell by 14.5% in July from a year ago, while imports dropped by 12.4% in U.S. dollar terms. That’s worse than what analysts had expected. A Reuters poll predicted a 12.5% decline in exports in July from a year ago, in U.S. dollar terms. Imports were expected to have dropped by 5% during that time, according to the poll. This drop is consistent with weakness just about everywhere in the region. Source: David Ingles, CNBC, Bloomberg

Source: financelot