"Most countries will never have frontier AI. They’re the ones who should be worrying"

From Asterisk Magazine, Issue 15, July 2026:

Fear of AI disruption spreads in concentric circles. Outright frenzy inside the labs becomes intense distress in San Francisco becomes palpable anxiety on the East Coast — and once the sentiment has crossed an ocean, there’s only mild discomfort left when it washes upon the shores of the other side.

An honest appraisal of the situation, however, should suggest the opposite response: It’s the employees of the labs, rich in equity and embedded in the most dynamic labor market there ever was, that should feel the least apprehension. Though the institutions of American government face much more immediate disruptions, it is the periphery of AI development — the other 193 countries in the world without a domestic frontier AI developer to tax and regulate — that confront the biggest risks to their economic welfare and physical security.

These risks aren’t resolved even if the AI built in San Francisco is particularly safe or particularly aligned. In fact, the risk may cut the other way: The better AI goes for its makers and their country, the more it threatens to disrupt the countries that build no frontier AI themselves. If their institutions, from labor markets to governments, are unprepared for the coming transition, their citizens risk being consigned to lasting irrelevance. They face life on the permanent periphery of a new world. 

The other 193 countries 
If you’re reading this magazine, you too have probably been haunted by the specter of the “permanent underclass.” The San Francisco Bay Area is abuzz with concerns that AI will irreversibly calcify a stratified economic order. 

Their concern trades on a fairly specific set of premises: AI progress will continue unabated, and perhaps even accelerate. The American frontier developers that reap most of the ensuing economic gains. And the end point of this progress will be a radical transformation, where AI comes to dominate economic affairs and strategic statecraft and power accumulates for those able to deploy the best AI most effectively.

The rest of this piece accepts these premises — and makes the case that, if they are true, they imperil every nation without its own frontier AI. With vanishingly little economic and political leverage compared to AI powerhouses, these countries may permanently lose the ability to compete in global financial and political marketplaces. Rather than existing economic groups within nations being pushed into a permanent underclass, entire countries could be pushed to the periphery.

From the innermost circle of AI development, it’s easy to be distracted by concerns that seem to imperil even in-the-know researchers and operators. But luckily, even under the above conditions, the real world might be a fair bit more complicated than these predictions assume. As the speculative post-AGI economy emerges from the very real constraints of our current political order, there are a few backstops that seem to make the emergence of a permanent underclass less likely.

The first is that the would-be-underclass still wields considerable political power today. The U.S. government holds great power over the trajectory — and even the possibility — of AI development. It could tax or expropriate leading research labs, suppress automation by fiat, or even follow the guidance of the most radical voices and declare the Butlerian Jihad on artificial intelligence, shutting it all down. In the interest of preventing this outcome, technology firms and moderate policymakers will probably do their very best to assuage concerns through policy intervention.

The second backstop is that the economics of AI labor replacement are far from settled science....

....MUCH MORE 

 Hence the one-line intro to July 18's AI/semiconductors/software: "Forrester Global Sovereignty Forecast: Despite Rising Geopolitical Tensions, Technology Sovereignty Will Advance Slowly Through 2030":

Yesterday I found myself wondering how the Central African Republic was ever going to compete. Here Forrester raises the same question re: Europe.

And outro: 

Maybe after the July 27 full release of Moonshot AI's flagship model, everyone in the C.A.R. will just download Kimi K3. 

Former Director Of The Centers For Disease Control: Covid Was Spreading In Wuhan In September or October 2019

Re-using our introduction to December 2023's "Researcher Who Developed Chinese Covid Vaccine Probably Thrown Off Roof": 

For the last 3 1/2 years  I've been keeping an eye open for hints that the lab leak (notice no one is talking about pangolins or bat soup any more?) was known to the NIAID/gain-of-function/state security organs gang before September 2019. Not searching it out but trying to be aware of the dates being pushed back to the fall and summer of 2019....

From The Hill, March 28, 2021:

Redfield says he thinks COVID-19 began spreading in Wuhan in September or October  

Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield said in an interview that aired Sunday that he thinks COVID-19 began spreading in Wuhan in September or October of 2019. 

“If I was to guess this virus started transmitting somewhere in September, October in Wuhan,” Redfield told Sanjay Gupta for a CNN special report. 

“That’s my own view,” he added. “It’s only an opinion. I’m allowed to have opinions now.”....

....MORE 

Our focus/purpose is not the 'proximal origin', raccoon dog or Biosafety Level 4 Laboratory, but rather the date the virus was circulating.

Possibly related, July 31's: Covid: China's Purchases Of PCR Test Kits Soared Months Before The First Cases Were Announced

""Canicule, fraîcheurs, vendanges (France, XVe–XIXe siècles)" Dog-days, cold periods, grape-harvests (France, 15-19th centuries)"

Ahead of the grape harvest, a repost from January 2022.

Original post:

We will be referring to some research papers later this year, and fearing they might be lost in the link-vault, post them here so they are easily searchable (which was the original purpose of the blog).

As with the English agricultural records*, the French extend far enough back that we can tease out patterns.

First link, the headliner: 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15810545/

Abstract

Dog-days, cold periods, grape-harvests (France, 15-19th centuries). The climate history can be based on several kinds of data. In the present paper, French records of grape-harvest dates in Burgundy from 1370 to 1890 were used for evaluate the climates at these various period of time. These results reveal that temperatures as high as those reached in the 1990s have occurred several times in Burgundy since 1370. Correlations between temperatures and historic data are presented.

And: 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222101676_The_climate_in_Burgundy_and_elsewhere_from_the_fourteenth_to_the_twentieth_century

The climate in Burgundy and elsewhere, from the fourteenth to the twentieth century

This paper reviews the climatic history of northern France from the grape harvest dates of the Burgundian vineyards. The grape harvest date is constrained by the mean surface air temperature during the growing season (April–August). At the start of the grape harvest dates series – during the 1380s and from 1415 to 1435 – the tendency is towards early harvest dates and warmer conditions, starvation due to crop scorching in 1420 included.

During the second half of the ‘ Quattrocento’, there are later harvest dates and cooler springs/summers, exemplified by the 1481 famine, due to rain and cold. The 1500s, 20s, 30s and 50s are characterised by blasts of warmer summers. The ‘midsummer night’s dream’ (1596/7) can turn into a nightmare . . . Then, a cold ‘long seventeenth century’?

This is quite pronounced from 1570 to 1630, with, however, a slight improvement around 1600–20. Major waves of hot summers were experienced during the 1630s, 60s and 80s. Is the Maunder minimum, between 1645 and 1715, responsible for a slight, synchronous, cooling? In this case, it would be mainly the Late Maunder Minimum (1675–1715), with the chill of 1675, the 1690s and 1709–1715. Then the great warming of the eighteenth century: the years 1704–07, 1718/9, the 1720s and 30s, 1757–65, the 1780s and above all 1778–81 all favour this interpretation, though we must not forget the cold, wet years 1725, 1740 and 1770. The years 1812–17 are not only snowy but also globally cold (due to the Tambora eruption in 1815 and the Dalton minimum?). And then there is the 1846 heatwave, so harmful to cereals. The Little Ice Age ends in 1860, with no return up to the present, the twentieth century warming from 1900, with an intensification of the phenomenon from 1976 and particularly the 1990s

And

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00704-011-0410-3

Extreme grape harvest data of Austria, Switzerland and France from A.D. 1523 to 2007 compared to corresponding instrumental/reconstructed temperature data and various documentary sources

And:

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.568.7478&rep=rep1&type=pdf 

An open-access database of grape harvest dates for climate research: data description and quality assessment 

And

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2d5d/b4d9d757554d16f8f50fbc52b56618edb77e.pdf?_ga=2.176741797.1471188058.1641658658-1166791428.1641658658

The longest homogeneous series of grape harvest dates, Beaune 1354-2018, and its significance for the understanding of past and present climate

Abstract. 

Records of grape harvest dates (GHD) are the oldest and the longest continuous phenological data in Europe.

However, many available series including the well-known (Dijon) Burgundy series are error prone, because scholars so far uncritically drew the data from nineteenth century publications instead of going back to the archives. The GHD from the famous vine region of Beaune (Burgundy) were entirely drawn from the archives, critically cross checked with narrative evidence. In order to reconstruct temperature, the series was calibrated against the long Paris temperature series comprising the 360 years from 1659 to 2018. The 664-year-long Beaune series from 1354 to 2018 is also significantly correlated with tree-ring and documentary proxy evidence as well as with the Central European temperature series (from 1500). The series is clearly subdivided into two parts. From 1354 to 1987 grapes were on average picked from 28 September on, whereby during the last 31 year long period of rapid warming from 1988 to 2018 harvests began 13 days earlier. Early harvest dates are shown to be accompanied by high pressure over western-central Europe and atmospheric blocking over Denmark. The extremely early harvests comprising the 5% percentile bracket of GHD are unevenly distributed over time. 21 of them occurred between 1393 and 1719, whereby this is the case for just five years between 1720 and 2002. Since the hot summer 2003, 8 out of 16 spring-summer periods were outstanding according to the statistic of the last 664 years, no less than 530 among them within the last 8 years. In the Paris temperature measurements since 1659, April-to-July temperature reached the highest value ever in 2018. In sum, the 664-year-long Beaune GHD series demonstrates that outstanding hot and dry years in the past were outliers, whereby they became the norm since the transition to rapid warming in 1988.

And finally:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-010-9810-0 

Grapevine harvest dates in Besançon (France) between 1525 and 1847: Social outcomes or climatic evidence?

*For more on other agricultural history, you may want to dip into the big daddy of price series:

"A History Of Agriculture And Prices In England, From The Year After The Oxford Parliament (1259) To The Commencement Of The Continental War (1793)"

by J. E. Thorold‐Rogers, 7 volumes, 1866-1887.

Here's another bit o'price series scholarship:

The Price History of English Agriculture, 1209-1914

The paper constructs an annual price series for English net agricultural output in the years 1200-1914 using 26 component series: wheat, barley, oats, rye, peas, beans, potatoes, hops, straw, mustard seed, saffron, hay, beef, mutton, pork, bacon, tallow, eggs, milk, cheese, butter, wool, firewood, timber, cider, and honey. I also construct sub-series for arable, pasture and wood products. The main innovation is in using a consistent method to form series from existing published sources. But fresh archival data is also incorporated. The implications of the movements of these series for agrarian history are explored.

"L’Oréal CEO Nicolas Hieronimus Bets on A.I. to Extend a Nearly $100B Family Fortune"

From Observer, July 30:

As L'Oréal posts strong first-half earnings and strikes a sweeping partnership with OpenAI, the reclusive dynasty behind the world's largest beauty company—already worth $95.6 billion—cements its next generation of control. 

More than a century after chemist Eugène Schueller turned a hair-dye formula into the business that became L’Oréal, the beauty giant is still finding new ways to grow, with A.I. as its latest bet.

L’Oréal’s Revenue rose 6.3 percent on a like-for-like basis, a key retail metric, to €11.6 billion ($13.2 billion) in the April-June quarter. For the first half of 2026, revenue increased 5.8 percent to €23.78 billion ($27.1 billion), while net profit climbed 4.7 percent to €3.96 billion ($4.5 billion) and the operating margin reached 21.3 percent. Growth extended across every region and division, from Maybelline’s mass-market makeup to La Roche-Posay’s dermatological skincare and Kérastase’s salon-grade haircare.

CEO Nicolas Hieronimus credited that performance to e-commerce and L’Oréal’s innovation strategy, which now includes a partnership with OpenAI announced in June. “Our innovation engine is firing on all cylinders—and A.I. will help it maintain its pace,” he said in a statement accompanying the results.

Few investors have more riding on that momentum than Schueller’s descendants. His granddaughter, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, and her family own 34.79 percent of L’Oréal, making them the company’s largest shareholder. L’Oréal shares rose 3.6 percent to €397.15 in Thursday trading, adding roughly €2.5 billion ($2.9 billion) to the market value of the family’s stake. Forbes currently estimates the family’s collective fortune at $95.6 billion.

L’Oréal is turning ChatGPT into a beauty counter

L’Oréal’s e-commerce sales jumped 18 percent to €7.4 billion ($8.5 billion) during the first half of the year, almost twice the growth rate of the online beauty market, according to the company. L’Oréal now sees chatbots as a potential next storefront.

On the earnings call, Hieronimus said younger consumers are “shifting massively” toward large language models for product questions and described beauty as one of the most conversational categories. L’Oréal’s brand recognition, scientific data and professional endorsements could help its products surface in A.I.-generated recommendations, he argued, although the channel remains a “moving target.”

The shift could be lucrative well beyond L’Oréal. McKinsey estimated last year that generative A.I. could create $9 billion to $10 billion in annual value across the beauty industry, with marketing and sales among the largest opportunities.

At VivaTech in Paris in June, L’Oréal outlined a two-pronged collaboration with OpenAI: turning ChatGPT into an interactive beauty assistant while putting its models to work behind the scenes....

....MUCH MORE 

"Amazon's Q2 was great, but the earnings release is packed with baloney" (AMZN)

Amazon is one of the two hyperscalers we think know where they are going with AI. 
(GOOG being the other) 

That being said, if AMZN is playing fast and loose with how they present their reality, they should be called out.

From The Register, July 31:

"Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies" 

Amazon reported its earnings today, and because I am professionally depressed I read the thing in full [PDF].

"How long can I go before the red haze of rage sets in" is a fun game, and today I made it all the way to the bottom of the second page when I encountered a bullet point touting how AWS "made its spec-drive [sic] coding agent, Kiro, available on iOS."

Yes, I was in the room when they announced it at the New York summit, six weeks ago. As of this writing, their website, which I have screenshotted says I can "request early access" because "We'll invite a limited number of people to try the app via Apple's TestFlight, and we'll send everyone a link when it's ready." So Kiro is "available" in the same way as I am available to play in the NBA. You can twist yourself into a pretzel and assert that this claim is technically true, but for all practical readings it's what we'd colloquially term "a lie." You need to be explicitly invited to Apple's developer beta testing tool, where a limited number of users can try out an unpublished version. You cannot download it on your phone, and there is no page in the App Store that showcases the product. 

The delay is almost certainly due to Apple's byzantine App Store policies, which I have some sympathy for — but this is an earnings statement. If they're going to "shade the truth" like this, what else are they not being forthcoming about?

Once you notice it becomes hard to stop

There are a lot of other statements that one suspects might not stand up to scrutiny. Graviton boasts "up to 30 to 40% better price-performance," which I only accept because I have seen the numbers myself on customer workloads. The express statement that their AI business and chips business are each exceeding $25 billion run rates in consecutive bullets, with no word on whether those dollars overlap (we will come back to this point shortly). And their Bedrock statement: "customers spent more in Q2 than all prior quarters combined," which makes it sound like a rocket until you realize that they're saying the past 90 days exceeded the other 10 quarters for which Bedrock has been available. Without actual numbers tied to these, that makes it sound like for the first couple of years Bedrock was showing up wearing a party hat but no pants.

Then there's the AWS operating margin of 39.4%, which came in above every published analyst estimate and which everyone will invariably cite as cherry-picked proof the AI buildout is printing money. On the call, CFO Brian Olsavsky disclosed that it includes roughly $600 million of mark-to-market gains on energy derivative contracts. By his math, AWS margins were up 650 basis points year over year, or 520 "if you exclude the derivative accounting gain." Strip that gain out yourself (behold the power of arithmetic!) and the blowout margin goes right back inside the range analysts had modeled. Amazon now hedges electricity the way an airline hedges jet fuel, and this quarter the hedges paid off directly. Olsavsky noted these adjustments "have not been significant in prior quarters." The first quarter they are significant, they land in AWS margin, and their Q3 guidance already assumes no impact from these remeasurements going forward. Amazon knows it's noise, but clearly saw no reason to turn down claiming the win.

The chips business that sells no chips

Back to those dueling $25 billion run rates I touched on; describing their "AI chips business" that way struck me as an incredibly odd thing to say.

That business has revenue, growth, a triple-digit trajectory, sarcastic numbers of happy customers — but what it doesn't have is a product that you can buy. There is no Trainium price list, they will not ship you a socketed Graviton chip to put in your next desktop build, there isn't even an external part number. What Amazon books as "chips revenue" is EC2 instance rental (possibly filtered through higher level services like Bedrock, SageMaker, the half-baked agents that fail to properly explain your AWS bill to you, etc.), and an EC2 instance is not a chip. It's the chip, plus the nVME, plus the NICs (themselves built on Nitro, which uses Amazon's own silicon), plus some aspects of the data transfer that somehow aren't directly billed, plus the building the whole mess lives in—and then with AWS's margin layered on top. The silicon itself is a minority line item in the internal bill of materials that constitutes its business.

You don't have to take my word for it; Amazon CEO and AI Marketing Manager Jassy spent last quarter's call lamenting that the cost of components, "particularly memory, has skyrocketed," so by his own testimony a growing slice of the "chips business" is memory revenue.

Cynically, the category exists so that headline writers will talk about it in the same breath as Nvidia's data center numbers, which they of course will. But Nvidia's $25 billion is silicon sold in the form of physical packaged chips, shoveled out their loading dock. Amazon's is fully-loaded infrastructure rental. This is a hotel comparing its revenue to a mattress company's....

....MUCH MORE 

Regarding the chips, most people who follow the company know they aren't yet selling Trainium and handing over title to the silicon. That's still on the come and should happen in the next six to nine months. As for the margins, this is the first analysis we've seen that highlighted the hedges. Not doing so is just lazy, something we used to see with Mexico's state-owned oil company and their hedges.

Pemex runs a remarkably profitable hedge book and including those profits without highlighting the fact they are financial rather than operational income statement items gives a distorted view of how Pemex is actually performing. So kudos to the writer and to The Register for the highlight.

Recently:

July 30 - "Amazon beats Q2 earnings expectations, as AI, chip businesses see $25 billion run rate" (AMZN)

The negative we will see tomorrow, pointed out in the Yahoo story, is the company is spending all their cash flow rather than returning it to shareholders.

As our earlier GeekWire link, "Ahead Of Today's Amazon Report GeekWire Looks At The Behemoth (AMZN)", quoted:

“We’re not investing approximately $200 billion in capex in 2026 on a hunch,” CEO Andy Jassy wrote in his April shareholder letter.

The GeekWire article had the Bezos story at Fortune as a sidebar: 

Jeff Bezos says this business is becoming Amazon’s next ‘pillar’

Amazon’s next pillar could be built on a foundation of silicon.

In a new interview with Fortune, Amazon founder and Executive Chair Jeff Bezos says the company’s custom chip business is on track to become one of Amazon’s most durable businesses, placing it alongside Marketplace, Prime, and Amazon Web Services as a core pillar of the company.

“A few of our offerings have become durable pillars, things like Marketplace and Prime and AWS,” Bezos told Fortune. “What I see right now is that our chips business, our silicon business, is lining up to be our next pillar.”....

....MUCH MORE, including links to the Fortune article.

"A fundamental flaw leaves LLMs strikingly vulnerable to attack"

From MIT Technology Review, July 30:

It makes it easy to trick them into doing things they shouldn’t, such as telling you how to sabotage an aircraft’s navigation system. 

It is impossible to make large language models fully secure against hacks because of a fundamental flaw in how they work, a team of researchers argue in a paper presented at the International Conference on Machine Learning, a top AI conference, this month. The claim has huge implications for the safety of this technology, which is being used in more and more applications, from government and military systems to online shopping and health care.

By taking advantage of this flaw, which concerns how LLMs identify who or what is giving them instructions, the researchers were able to make popular LLMs spit out information they had been trained not to provide, such as how to synthesize cocaine and how to sabotage a commercial aircraft’s navigation system.  

“There’s a real probability that this is going to be a problem that’s fundamentally unsolvable,” says Charles Ye, an independent researcher and coauthor of the ICML paper....

....MUCH MORE 

"France’s Extreme Heat, Wildfires and Smoke Could Threaten Bordeaux Wines"

In addition to accidents, dropped cigarettes etc., The fires are being deliberately set.*

From Barron's, July 29:

The raging wildfires in France’s southwest region of Gironde have not only scorched some 162 square miles, displaced more than 250,000 people, and destroyed homes. They could also deal a blow to the prized Bordeaux wine region.

The Bordeaux wine industry is a significant economic engine for the region, employing about 50,000 people, both directly and indirectly, according to the Bordeaux Wine Council, a trade organization.

The wildfires were stabilized as of Wednesday morning, and about 57,000 people were permitted to return home from towns near the city of Bordeaux, according to an announcement from the Préfecture de la Gironde et de Nouvelle-Aquitane—the local office for the government in the city of Bordeaux. But Prefect Sophie Brocas cautioned in the update that an expected heat wave—with temperatures reaching 106 degrees—combined with dry winds means the situation remains risky.

“It is a very difficult moment for everybody in Gironde,” Marie-Catherine DuFour, technical director for the Bordeaux Wine Council, said in an email on Tuesday. “We all know people who have had to leave their homes, hoping to find them intact in a few days. It is very sad and we are all very anxious.”

DuFour praised the firefighters as well as farmers and winegrowers who were pitching in to help “with their tanks and their tractors.” In the organization’s view, the wildfires should only negatively impact the vineyards if they are 550 yards away, or almost a third of a mile. Currently they are about nine to 12 miles from the vines, according to the council. “We are not worried for the quality of the next vintage,” DuFour said.

There are reports that dense smoke and ash have blown into Bordeaux to various extents, particularly over Graves and Pessac-Léognan—home to the famous Bordeaux first-growth Château Haut-Brion, among other premier estates, according to a newsletter from Jane Anson, author of Inside Bordeaux, who lives in the city. The City of Léognan on Friday issued a warning to residents about “significant smoke and a strong smell of burning.”

The extent to which this smoke will affect the vineyards likely won’t be known until after the grapes are harvested and fermented. Variables that could affect the wines include the extent of smoke exposure, and whether it occurred after grapes began to ripen—a process that occurs at different stages for each type of grape.

The grapes of Cabernet, arguably the most valuable in Bordeaux, haven’t ripened yet, making them less susceptible to smoke, according to David Parker, CEO of the Benchmark Wine Group in Napa, Calif., and president of the National Association of Wine Retailers.

During the period between ripening and harvest, grapes can become coated with free volatile phenols—chemical molecules—that can penetrate grape skins. The grape attacks these molecules by attaching them with sugars. This bonding process removes the smoky aroma on the grape, but the bonds break during fermentation, releasing the volatile phenols when the wine is consumed, according to the Australian Wine Research Institute....

....MUCH MORE 

*From the French Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, July 27: 

Notre pays traverse une saison de feux inédite : 116 085 hectares ont déjà brûlé et 13 566 départs de feu ont été recensés depuis janvier.
Nous avons déjà dépassé l’année record de 2022 (72 000 hectares brûlés).

La lutte contre les incendies commence par la prévention.
9 feux…

— Sébastien Lecornu (@SebLecornu) July 27, 2026

Continues: 

Notre pays traverse une saison de feux inédite : 116 085 hectares ont déjà brûlé et 13 566 départs de feu ont été recensés depuis janvier. 
Nous avons déjà dépassé l’année record de 2022 (72 000 hectares brûlés).

La lutte contre les incendies commence par la prévention. 
9 feux sur 10 sont d’origine humaine et la plupart naissent d’une imprudence : un mégot, un barbecue, des travaux réalisés sans précaution. 
Reporter un chantier, débroussailler son terrain, ne pas fumer près de la végétation : ces gestes simples sauvent des forêts, des maisons et des vies.

Mais tous ces feux ne sont pas des accidents. Certains sont allumés délibérément : c’est un crime, puni de 15 ans de réclusion criminelle. Depuis le 6 juillet, 162 interpellations ont déjà eu lieu.

Les forces de sécurité sont pleinement mobilisées pour identifier les incendiaires. Ils seront retrouvés, interpellés et répondront de leurs actes devant la justice. 

9 out of 10 are human caused.

...not all these fires are accidents. Some are deliberately set: it is a crime, punishable by 15 years of criminal imprisonment... 

...security forces have made 162 arrests related to wildfire offenses since July 6...

That's why you saw "As a side note, betting on wildfires and then setting one should be a capital crime - death penalty, no gray area, no recidivism." a week ago introducing"The risk of weather data sabotage is rising"

Related, the outro from February 2024's "European Wildfire Trends": 

If interested in some historical comparisons see "When Europe Was Burning: The Multi-season Mega-drought of 1540 and Arsonist Paranoia" in Historical Disaster Experiences,

Pfister, C. (2017). When Europe Was Burning: The Multi-season Mega-drought of 1540 and Arsonist Paranoia. In: Schenk, G. (eds) Historical Disaster Experiences. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49163-9_8 

They were rougher on arsonists than present-day Europeans are.

Covid: China's Purchases Of PCR Test Kits Soared Months Before The First Cases Were Announced

From Nikkei Asia, October 5, 2021:

China PCR test orders soared before first confirmed COVID case
Report on government contracts show surges in Wuhan-area purchases from May 2019 

Purchases of PCR tests in China's Hubei Province surged months before the first official reports of a novel coronavirus case there, according to a report by Australia-based cybersecurity company Internet 2.0.

About 67.4 million yuan ($10.5 million at current rates) was spent on PCR tests in Hubei during 2019, nearly double the 2018 total, with the upswing starting in May, according to the report.

Internet 2.0 collected and analyzed data from a website that aggregates information on public procurement bids in China. The analysis team consists of former officials from intelligence agencies in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and other countries.

The report casts further doubt on China's official line about the origins of the virus, a topic that has fueled tensions between Beijing and Washington. China's foreign ministry has disputed the report's findings.

PCR, or polymerase chain reaction, tests are used to detect the presence of a particular genetic sequence in a sample, and they have applications beyond COVID-19 testing. But the report alleges the unusual uptick likely signals awareness of a new disease spreading in and around Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province.

Orders doubled from universities, jumped fivefold from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and surged tenfold from animal testing bureaus. Purchases from hospitals declined by more than 10%.

Monthly procurement data shows a spike in orders in May, especially from CDC buyers and the People's Liberation Army.

"We believe the increased spending in May suggests this as the earliest start date for possible infection," the report said.

Purchases rose sharply from July through October as well, in particular from the Wuhan University of Science and Technology. The institution spent 8.92 million yuan on PCR tests in 2019, about eight times its total for the previous year....

....MUCH MORE 

Also at Bloomberg, October 4, 2021:

China PCR Purchases Spiked in Months Before First Known Covid Cases, Firm Says 

Possibly also of interest: 

May 20, 2026 - "U.S. probing whether Chinese companies cut production of shipping containers before COVID pandemic"  

June 2, 2026 - Flashback: China Began Hoarding Personal Protective Equipment Months Before The Covid-19 Pandemic Was Declared 

As noted introducing May 28's "For the Public, Covid Is No Longer a Mystery":
Over the next six months there will be a lot of information coming out regarding coronavirus, Covid-19 and the responses thereto. A lot.... 

BIS Global Liquidity Index, July 31, 2026

The fuel that investments (and economies) run on.

From the Bank for International Settlements, July 31:

Key takeaways

• Cross-border bank credit rose by 11% year on year at end-March 2026. The expansion was broad-based across instruments and counterparty sectors.
• Bank credit to emerging market and developing economies expanded by $148 billion in Q1 2026, primarily concentrated in Africa and the Middle East and emerging Europe.
• The BIS global liquidity indicators exhibited robust growth in foreign currency credit denominated in US dollars and euros, with the latter expanding at a relatively faster pace.

Cross-border bank credit maintained strong momentum

The BIS locational banking statistics (LBS) reveal that global cross-border bank claims¹ rose by $2.1 trillion² in the first quarter of 2026, on an exchange rate- and break-adjusted basis (Graph 1.A). This brought their total outstanding stock to $47.6 trillion.

Cross-border bank credit rose by $1.7 trillion in Q1 2026, marking an 11% year-on-year increase and sustaining the momentum from 2025 (Graph 1.B, black line). Its outstanding stock reached $39.5 trillion at end-Q1 2026. The expansion was driven by cross-border bank loans and deposits as well as banks cross-border holding of debt securities, which increased by $1.2 trillion and $0.6 trillion, respectively. Both measures recorded strong annual growth rates, at 11% and 12%, respectively (red and blue lines). The annual growth of cross-border bank credit has remained consistently positive for the past five years.

 

The expansion in cross-border bank credit was broad-based across counterparty sectors.³ Credit to banks rose by $632 billion in Q1 2026 (Graph 2.A, blue bars). This took its annual growth rate to 11% as of end-March 2026, the highest since the onset of Covid-19 (Graph 2.B, blue line). Meanwhile, credit to the non-bank sector rose by $1.1 trillion in Q1 2026 (Graph 2.A). Its year-on-year growth rate positive since Q1 2023 reached 12% as of end-March 2026 (Graph 2.B, red line). Within the non-bank sector, credit to non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) and to the non-financial sector (NFS), expanded by $651 billion and $453 billion, respectively (Graph 2.A, purple bars)....

....MUCH MORE, including links to the data and the complete release (19 page PDF)

Partaaay! 

Capital Markets: "Greenback Consolidates after Being Rocked by the US Fed and Japan's Ministry of Finance"

From Marc to Market:

The Federal Reserve’s reluctance to take action despite pledges to respect the inflation target, which has not been met in over five years, put the dollar under pressure. Then yesterday, it appears that Japanese officials may have intervened in the foreign exchange market, and as was the case earlier this year, the Federal Reserve reported checked on prices and indicated they were doing so at the request of the US Treasury.  If true, it illustrates a notable difference between Japan, which tries to overwhelm the market with size (intervention and the BOJ’s balance sheet expansion), while the US tries finesse. Still, the MOF’s decision to intervene, and a preliminary review of the BOJ’s balance sheet suggests intervention involved selling almost $53 bln was not matched by the BOJ itself, which not only did not raise interest rates but shaved this year’s core inflation projection. 

After the large moves in the foreign exchange market between the FOMC and MOF/BOJ, the currency market is mostly confined to narrow ranges (except the yen where officials have injected volatility), with most pairs not seeing any follow-through action. Oil prices are firm, but September WTI is poised to snap a three-week 30% surge. Chip and AI stocks are back in favor, with surges in the Japan, South Korea, and Taiwanese markets today. The Nasdaq looks poised to gap higher....

....MUCH MORE  

Big Move For An Index: South Korea's KOSPI Up 17.9% On The Day

From the Associated Press, July 31: 

South Korea’s Kospi index jumps nearly 18% on a surge in chipmaking stocks 

World share benchmarks advanced, with South Korea’s Kospi index jumping near 18% on Friday, tracking gains on Wall Street as artificial intelligence-related stocks bounced back after losses earlier this week.

U.S. futures rose 0.5% and oil prices resumed climbing.

The Kospi surged at the open and then wavered, eventually rocketing up 17.9% to 6,695.45, its largest single day gain ever. Shares of South Korean technology giant Samsung Electronics surged 28%, while memory chipmaker SK Hynix soared 30%.

Despite its big jump Friday, the Kospi remains well below the peak of over 9,000 that it hit in June. It had shed more than 17% in the previous three days as investors dumped technology stocks in part over worries about an AI bubble and rising competition from chipmaking and AI rivals in China. The benchmark’s previous largest single day gain, of nearly 12%, was in October 2008 during the global financial crisis....

....MUCH MORE 

"China’s DUV lithography still lags ASML by four generations"

From Asia Times, July 31: 

Investors dumped shares in the Dutch lithography giant earlier this week, but analysts say the sell-off has gone too far 

Media reports published earlier this week about China’s plan to start making its own immersion deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines have caused a sharp sell-off of European chip equipment stocks. But Chinese pundits say the situation remains very far from a point where China’s DUV machines coukd compete with ASML’s.

The Information reported Monday that a state-backed manufacturer, whose identity has not been disclosed due to the sensitivity of the matter, has begun mass producing the homegrown machines. Production will be limited initially, with about five units expected this year and roughly 20 more in 2027, for delivery to leading chipmakers including Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), Hua Hong Semiconductor and ChangXin Memory Technologies.

The report said the breakthrough could eventually challenge ASML’s position in China, but cautioned that the system still lags in performance and reliability and requires further testing before mass production. 

Reuters reported Tuesday that the Chinese state-owned firm mass-producing the machines is Shanghai Aishengna Electronic Technology Group.

Public information shows that Aishengna was founded in August 2023 with registered capital of 7 billion yuan (about US$1 billion), backed by two state-owned shareholders, Shanghai Electric Holding and a Shanghai International Trust subsidiary. The secretive firm has no website and has disclosed little about its operations, but Reuters reported it has absorbed teams from Shanghai Yuliangsheng, which began testing a DUV prototype last year, and from Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment (SMEE).

ASML shares fell 13% over the first three trading days this week. BE Semiconductor Industries declined 16.3% and Infineon Technologies slipped 15.5% over the same period. The three stocks rebounded on Thursday after JP Morgan analysts called the selloff disproportionate to what the report had indicated, though their shares have yet to return to last Friday’s level.

Without confirming whether China is producing its own immersion DUV machines, the Global Times, a unit of the People’s Daily, said in an editorial on Tuesday that the significant fall in chip equipment suppliers’ shares showed that “Western investors’ blind faith in the effectiveness of blockades has been shaken, and the US-led decoupling strategy has lost much of its momentum.” ....

....MUCH MORE 

Our intro to December 2025's "Chips: China's Huawei May Have Found A Way Around ASML's Technology": 

As the kids say: Big if true.

In late October we linked to this story, "China reportedly caught reverse-engineering ASML’s DUV lithography". The efforts, which have been going on for years are a very tough slog.*

The Chinese are trying to recreate the most complex machine ever manufactured by human beings. In the example above, the Chinese engineers broke the ASML machine. Hilarity ensued.

They called ASML to request a service call. 

Now it appears they may not have to conquer the next-level Extreme Ultra Violet technology to get to next year's state-of-the-art in chip manufacturing. 

The DUV will do.

From the always-alert observers at Huawei Central....

And if interested see also July 28, 2025's "China’s reported chip breakthrough comes with some big caveats". 

"Amazon beats Q2 earnings expectations, as AI, chip businesses see $25 billion run rate" (AMZN)

In after-hours trading the stock is up $18.37 (+7.80%) at $253.87.

From Yahoo Finance, July 30:

Amazon (AMZN) reported its second quarter results after the bell on Thursday, beating expectations on the top and bottom lines, as its AWS AI and chip units both surpassed annual run rates of $25 billion.

Amazon stock jumped more than 9% following the news. 

"AWS is booming, growing 36.7% year-over-year in Q2—our fastest growth in 18 quarters—and our AI and Chips businesses each eclipsed run rates of more than $25 billion," Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement....

....MUCH MORE 

The negative we will see tomorrow, pointed out in the Yahoo story, is the company is spending all their cash flow rather than returning it to shareholders.

As our earlier GeekWire link, "Ahead Of Today's Amazon Report GeekWire Looks At The Behemoth (AMZN)", quoted:

“We’re not investing approximately $200 billion in capex in 2026 on a hunch,” CEO Andy Jassy wrote in his April shareholder letter.

The GeekWire article had the Bezos story at Fortune as a sidebar: 

Jeff Bezos says this business is becoming Amazon’s next ‘pillar’

Amazon’s next pillar could be built on a foundation of silicon.

In a new interview with Fortune, Amazon founder and Executive Chair Jeff Bezos says the company’s custom chip business is on track to become one of Amazon’s most durable businesses, placing it alongside Marketplace, Prime, and Amazon Web Services as a core pillar of the company.

“A few of our offerings have become durable pillars, things like Marketplace and Prime and AWS,” Bezos told Fortune. “What I see right now is that our chips business, our silicon business, is lining up to be our next pillar.”....

....MUCH MORE, including links to the Fortune article.

"Earnings call transcript: Quanta Services posts big Q2 2026 beat, lifts outlook" (PWR)

The stock is changing hands at $642.27 up $81.13 (+14.46%) after getting as high as $678.98 on a burst of enthusiasm or, more likely terror from someone caught short.

From Investing.com, July 30:

Quanta Services reported stronger-than-expected second-quarter 2026 results, with adjusted earnings of $4.24 a share on revenue of $9.56 billion, topping Wall Street forecasts and sending the stock sharply higher in premarket trading. The company also raised its full-year outlook for revenue, earnings and free cash flow, citing broad-based organic growth, a record backlog and improving margins. Shares rose 15.86% to $650.13 from the previous close of $561.14, moving closer to the top of their 52-week range.

Key Takeaways

• Adjusted EPS of $4.24 beat the $3.29 forecast by 28.9%.
• Revenue of $9.56 billion beat the $8.61 billion estimate by 11.0%.
• Management raised full-year 2026 guidance for revenue, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EPS and free cash flow.
• Quanta said organic growth drove the quarter, while recent acquisitions contributed only modestly because of timing.
• The company ended the quarter with a record $53 billion backlog and improved leverage metrics.

Company Performance
Quanta Services said the second quarter was one of its strongest periods on record, with broad-based growth across utility, generation, technology and infrastructure markets. The company posted adjusted EBITDA of $1.1 billion and said revenues, EBITDA and adjusted EPS all grew at double-digit rates.

Management stressed that the quarter was driven mainly by organic growth rather than acquisitions. Four deals closed during the period — Phalcon, Enerfab, Percheron and PSD — but they contributed only about $11 million of adjusted EBITDA because of timing. The company said the acquisitions are expected to add scale and capabilities later in the year.

The results extend a long run of strong execution. Quanta said it has delivered record adjusted EPS for nine consecutive years, supported by an 80% to 85% self-perform rate and a workforce of more than 85,000 employees.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $9.56 billion, up sharply year over year and above the $8.61 billion forecast.
• Adjusted diluted EPS: $4.24, above the $3.29 forecast.
• Net income attributable to common stock: $451 million, or $2.96 per diluted share.
• Adjusted EBITDA: $1.1 billion.
• Acquisition contribution: about $11 million of adjusted EBITDA in the quarter.
• Full-year 2026 revenue guidance: $39.3 billion to $39.7 billion.
• Full-year 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance: $4.1 billion to $4.2 billion.
• Full-year 2026 adjusted EPS guidance: $16.45 to $16.95.
• Full-year 2026 free cash flow guidance: $2.0 billion to $2.5 billion.
• Debt-to-EBITDA ratio: 1.7x at the end of the quarter, down from 1.95x at the end of 2025.
• Market capitalization: $97.3 billion.
• P/E ratio: 88.81, reflecting premium valuation expectations.
• Revenue growth over the last twelve months as of Q1 2026: 21.1%.

Earnings vs. Forecast
Quanta’s adjusted EPS beat expectations by $0.95 a share, or 28.9%, while revenue came in $950 million above estimates, an 11.0% surprise. That is a large beat for a company already viewed as a steady performer in infrastructure services.

The size of the EPS surprise is especially notable. Management said the quarter reflected broad organic strength across all segments, which suggests the outperformance was not driven by a single project or a one-time item. The company also lifted its full-year outlook, reinforcing the message that the second-quarter results were part of a broader trend rather than an isolated spike....

....MUCH MORE, including: 

Outlook & Guidance 

Executive Commentary

Risks and Challenges

Q&A

Full transcript 

U.S. Drought Monitor: Some Increse In Intensity In The Nation's Breadbasket

From the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, July 30: 

This Week's Drought Summary

This U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) week saw very hot and dry conditions across areas of the Western U.S. and the Plains states where average temperatures soared well above normal levels—significantly elevating evaporate demand, especially across the Upper Midwest, Northern Plains, Colorado, and the Texas Panhandle where conditions deteriorated rapidly. Elsewhere, heavy rains across areas of the Mid-Atlantic states, Southeast, and the South, led to widespread improvements on the map in drought-affected areas. In North Carolina, rainfall totals for the week ranged from 3 to 8+ inches across the state leading to a significant improvement in drought-related conditions statewide. In the Northeast, recent isolated shower activity helped to improve drought conditions; however, the impacts of the longer-term drought continue to affect groundwater conditions in areas of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. In the Upper Midwest, drought expanded and intensified on the map, especially across Minnesota and Wisconsin where composite flash drought indicators were showing severe to extreme flash drought conditions during the past week. Out West, the Four Corners states continued to receive beneficial monsoonal rainfall with isolated areas receiving 2 to 4 inches. In portions of Arizona and western New Mexico, precipitation during the past 30-day period has been above normal, boosting streamflow and soil moisture levels while improving vegetation health. In the Pacific Northwest, short-term dryness has led to a dip in soil moisture and streamflow levels in areas of western Oregon and Washington. In the Great Basin, recent monsoonal rains have provided some minor relief to drought-affected areas of eastern Nevada.

In terms of reservoir storage in the West, California’s reservoirs continue to be at or above historical averages for the date (July 28), with the state’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Shasta and Lake Oroville seeing slight decreases over the past week, at 99% and 108% of average, respectively. In the Southwest, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is reporting (July 26) Lake Powell at 23% full (33% of average for the date; lowest on record for the date in the last 30 years), Lake Mead at 27% full (45% of average for the date; lowest on record for the date in the last 30 years), and the total Colorado River system (July 26) at 33% of capacity (compared to 39% of capacity the same time last year). According to the Salt River Project, the Salt River reservoir system in Arizona is currently 48% full, Verde River system 59% full, and the total reservoir system at 50% full (compared with 59% full a year ago)....

....MUCH MORE

Published July 30

 

Published July 23

 

Because of the decrease in intensity and coverage in the eastern U.S. the experimental Drought Severity and Coverage Index (DSCI) only ticked up three points to 155 on the 0 - 500 scale.

However! Our interest is in the effects upon foodstuff commodities so the east coast doesn't matter as much. Using wheat as an example, bread wheat (winter) could be setting up for reduced yields in the next harvest;

 

Whereas pasta wheat (Durum) looks to be keeping your rigatoni abundant:

 

Kansas has been attempting to return to its wheat roots by planting the higher value durum but apparently not enough to show up on the map, yet. From the Lawrence (KS) Times, July 26: 

A new Kansas-grown wheat could soon be in your box of noodles 

A new type of wheat dotting Kansas fields has a special use: making pasta. Wheat acres have continuously declined in Kansas. The noodle-focused wheat variety could change that. 

Kansas farmers could soon play a role in spaghetti night or be the source of macaroni salad for the community cook out....

Ahead Of Today's Amazon Report GeekWire Looks At The Behemoth (AMZN)

From Seattle's own, GeekWire, July 29:

Amazon earnings preview: Wall Street looks for more cloud growth as AI spending hits a record 

Amazon reports quarterly earnings Thursday afternoon, facing the same test as every other big tech company right now: whether it’s generating enough business to justify its massive AI spending.

Wall Street expects revenue of about $196.4 billion, up 17% from a year ago, and earnings of $1.82 per share. That’s essentially the midpoint of Amazon’s own forecast for the second quarter.

Part of that growth is due to the calendar. Prime Day ran June 23-26 this year, during the second quarter in the U.S. and most large markets. Last year it ran July 8-11, in the third quarter. That gives Amazon’s retail numbers a boost this time that the year-ago quarter didn’t have.

Another factor is the cloud. AWS grew revenue 28% last quarter, its fastest rate in nearly four years, and analysts expect the acceleration to continue with revenue of roughly $40.5 billion for the second quarter, up 31%, according to Zacks Consensus Estimates.

The company plans a record $200 billion in capital expenditures this year, nearly all of it for data centers, servers and chips to support increased capacity for training and running AI models.

Amazon is making those investments based in part on demand from big AI companies including OpenAI and Anthropic, which have signed commitments to AWS worth $138 billion and more than $100 billion, respectively, for the coming years.

“We’re not investing approximately $200 billion in capex in 2026 on a hunch,” CEO Andy Jassy wrote in his April shareholder letter.

In the meantime, the spending is absorbing nearly all of the cash from Amazon’s operations. Free cash flow fell to $1.2 billion over the past 12 months, from $25.9 billion a year earlier....

....MORE

And more to come after the close.  

"QUANTA SERVICES REPORTS SECOND QUARTER 2026 RESULTS" (PWR)

From the company via PR Newswire, July 30: 

....HOUSTON, July 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Quanta Services, Inc. (NYSE: PWR) today announced results for the three months ended June 30, 2026. Revenues in the second quarter of 2026 were $9.56 billion compared to revenues of $6.77 billion in the second quarter of 2025, and net income attributable to common stock was $451.4 million, or $2.96 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2026 compared to net income attributable to common stock of $229.3 million, or $1.52 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2025. Adjusted diluted earnings per share attributable to common stock was $4.24 for the second quarter of 2026 compared to $2.48 for the second quarter of 2025.

"Quanta delivered an exceptional first half of the year, highlighted by second-quarter results that meaningfully exceeded expectations and reflect the compounding strength and momentum of our operating model. Revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted diluted earnings per share all achieved strong double-digit growth, cash flow was robust and total backlog reached a record level at quarter end. These results demonstrate the power of our differentiated, solutions-based operating model, as well as the execution certainty our self-perform capabilities and craft-skilled workforce deliver for customers every day. Given this outperformance, our improved visibility into the back half of the year, and the expected contribution from recently completed acquisitions that strengthen our platform, we are significantly increasing our full-year 2026 financial expectations across all metrics. We believe these results, and our long-term track record, are a clear differentiator of Quanta's ability to compound profitable growth as our customers accelerate investment in the electric grid, power generation and mission-critical infrastructure that underpin the economy," said Duke Austin, President and Chief Executive Officer of Quanta Services....

....MUCH MORE 

The earnings call is set to begin at 9:00 AM EDT:

Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call 

The stock is trading at $632.00 up $71.93 (+12.84%) in late pre-market trade. 

Most recently:

Chartology: Ahead of Quanta Services July 30 Earnings Release (PWR)

Inflation: Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, July 30, 2026

The PCE Price Index decreased 0.1% for the month of June, 2026 and increased 3.7% over the twelve months.

From the Bureau of Economic Analysis, July 30: 

EMBARGOED UNTIL RELEASE AT 8:30 a.m. EDT, Thursday, July 30, 2026

BEA 26—36

Personal Income and Outlays, June 2026

Personal income increased $54.9 billion (0.2 percent at a monthly rate) in June, according to estimates released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Disposable personal income (DPI)—personal income less personal current taxes—increased $48.3 billion (0.2 percent), and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $65.2 billion (0.3 percent).

Personal outlays—the sum of PCE, personal interest payments, and personal current transfer payments—increased $70.0 billion in June. Personal saving was $646.1 billion in June, and the personal saving rate—personal saving as a percentage of DPI—was 2.7 percent.

The increase in current-dollar personal income in June primarily reflected increases in compensation, personal income receipts on assets, and government social benefits that were partly offset by a decrease in farm proprietors’ income.

The $65.2 billion increase in current-dollar PCE in June reflected increases of $58.2 billion in spending on services and $7.0 billion in spending on goods.

 

Real PCE increased $68.0 billion (0.4 percent at a monthly rate) in June.

From the preceding month, the PCE price index for June decreased 0.1 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.1 percent.

From the same month one year ago, the PCE price index for June increased 3.7 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 3.3 percent from one year ago.

Personal Income and Related Measures [Percent change from preceding month]
	May	June
Current-dollar personal income	0.7	0.2
Current-dollar DPI	0.7	0.2
Real DPI	0.2	0.3
Current-dollar PCE	0.9	0.3
Real PCE	0.4	0.4
PCE price index	0.5	-0.1
PCE price index excluding food and energy	0.3	0.1

Table 2.8.7. Percent Change From Preceding Period in Prices for Personal Consumption Expenditures by Major Type of Product, Monthly 

"Federal Reserve's Thunder and no Rain Weighs on Dollar "

From Marc Chandler at Bannockburn Global Forex:

The decision to standpat on a 9-3 vote at the FOMC yesterday looked like a hawkish hold but it seemed like the more Chair Warsh affirmed the central bank’s commitment to achieving the inflation target, the more short-term interest rates and the dollar fell. The expected year-end effective Fed funds rate fell 15 bp from the session high yesterday. The 2-10-year yield curve steepened by 12 bp, completely unwinding the flattening of the last six consecutive sessions, and is now near 44 bp is the steepest since the end of May. The Bank of England, as widely expected, stood pat today, and the swaps market is discounting about 50% chance of a hike at the next meeting in September. There were three dissents. The Bank of Japan meets tomorrow, but it is also widely understood to be on hold. 

The US two-year yield remains soft today and the dollar is consolidating with a softer profile against most currencies. The US Nasdaq has been unable to sustain upticks and has fallen for the past six sessions coming into today. Better tech earnings (Microsoft and Samsung) appear to be encouraging investors to try again today. Meanwhile, despite the new hostilities in the Middle East, oil prices are narrowly mixed, with WTI slightly lower and Brent slightly higher. 

Prices...  

....MUCH MORE 

Chartology: Ahead of Quanta Services July 30 Earnings Release (PWR)

During July 29's trading action the stock completely filled a gap on the chart from April 7 - 8.

On April 7 the stock closed at $555.57 and opened at $573.27 on the eighth.

 

TradingView 

Today's price ranged from $591.59 to $554.12 before closing at $561.14, completely filling the gap. We included one more gap on the chart from February but I'm not sure it matters, the two larger and more recent gaps having filled.

Earnings tomorrow before the open.

High-Speed Rail: Florida's Brightline Misses Another Debt Deadline

From The Bond Buyer, July 27:

Brightline Florida bondholders have agreed to yet another short-term debt extension while the train line continues to negotiate a debt restructuring. 

The struggling company has until the end of the week to make the payments, negotiate another extension, or reach a comprehensive restructuring deal. The latest delay follows a week-long extension that bondholders granted in mid-July.

The brief payment postponement was granted by holders of the $1.2 billion of unrated, or AAFOH, tax-exempt bonds and $985 million of "commuter" bonds, which are linked to a separate project that would establish commuter rail rights for three Florida counties.

Each grace period since January has gotten shorter as Brightline Florida apparently continues to negotiate with its creditors in what most in the muni market expect will end in a comprehensive capital restructuring. If the situation lands in bankruptcy court, it would mark one of the largest in the municipal market's history.

The Fortress Investment Group-backed company operates a 235-mile train in Florida that's the nation's only privately owned intercity rail line. Saddled with $5.5 billion of debt and revenue performing under projections, Brightline has spent the last year trying to raise new financing.

A securities notice posted Friday outlines the latest delay. It pushes the July 15 AAFOH debt payment to July 31, and gives the company until July 30 to make a mandatory redemption on the commuter bonds. The commuter holders also gave the company until July 31 to make an interest payment that was originally due Feb. 15.

It's the fifth supplement for the AAFOH bonds and the 14th supplement to the commuter indenture.

First Eagle, Nuveen, Invesco, BlackRock and Macquarie are among the largest Florida muni holders....

....MUCH MORE 

Previously:

June 2023 - The U.S. Has High-Speed Rail

It's not as fast as the trains in France, and about the same speed as Japan's Tokyo - Osaka run, but it is quicker than California's.*

From ConstructionDive, June 22:

Brightline’s $5B Orlando high-speed rail extension complete 

May 3, 2026 - Florida High Speed Rail: "The Great Train Bankruptcy"

May 13, 2026 - High Speed Rail: "Florida’s Ailing $6 Billion Rail Line Has Debt Vultures Circling"