Cartoon of the Day: Infinite Debt
Source: Hedgeye
The trend is your friend until it ends??? Apple ($AAPL)
Source: Tradingview
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
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
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
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
In the US, interest rates on household items are skyrocketing
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 has cut credit ratings of several small to mid-sized US banks on Monday
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
