Via Stephen Fleming (Obsolete engineer & recovering venture capitalist):
It’s possible that the First Space War has already started and they’re just not telling us.
— Stephen Fleming (@StephenFleming) October 7, 2026
Thursday, October 8, 2026
"It’s possible that the First Space War has already started and they’re just not telling us."
"Jamie Dimon Says AI Boom Is Competing With Government Borrowing for Capital: ‘Rates Are Going Up’"
From Benzinga, October 6:
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon says the AI spending boom is competing with heavy government borrowing for capital as interest rates rise.
"Rates are going up. A lot of demand for capital, a lot of government financing," Dimon told Bloomberg Television Tuesday.
Bloomberg’s Tom Mackenzie cited JPMorgan estimates that AI capital spending could rise from roughly $700 billion this year to $1 trillion next year.
Asked whether the bigger risk was the physical buildout, monetization or the cost of capital, Dimon said "all of those things," and pointed to changing AI models and semiconductors, shifting schedules and lawsuits over data-center construction.
"There’s a lot of borrowing," Dimon said. "And then the government’s borrowing $2 trillion again."
AI Is Competing for Capital
Five of the biggest AI hyperscalers have issued about $220 billion of debt this year, more than double last year’s total, Reuters reported.
The spending is hitting cash flow unevenly. Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) posted its first-ever quarter of negative free cash flow, burning $5.9 billion in the second quarter, and raised its 2026 capital spending forecast to as much as $205 billion.
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) lifted its 2026 plan to about $220 billion, and its trailing 12-month free cash flow fell to negative $7.6 billion.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), by contrast, generated $19.6 billion of free cash flow in the June quarter despite $41 billion of capital expenditures.
Riskier borrowers are tapping credit markets too. Goldman Sachs counts $88 billion of lower-rated AI-related borrowing this year as companies look for ways to finance data centers and computing infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury yield recently touched 5.34%, its highest level since 2002.
Dimon said higher rates could be positive if they reflect productive demand for capital. He drew a distinction with government borrowing used for consumption, which he said can add to inflation.
Dimon Still Thinks AI Will Pay Off....
....MORE
"US Consumers Still Pay Less for Power Than Europe Despite Price-Hike Headlines"
From Bloomberg New Energy Finance, October 8:
This article was written by Victoria Cuming, Head of Policy at BloombergNEF.
Headlines of surging power prices – and the related backlash from industry and the public – are pressuring policymakers to act. Some markets are still reeling from the impact of the 2021-2023 energy crisis. Others have seen retail power prices rise more recently, not least due to the Iran war.
Retail electricity rates can hit pocketbooks hard, which is why they are such a political trigger. Yet the impact of rising prices can be much broader, as they also risk undermining market competitiveness and delaying electrification, which can improve energy security.
Many consumers pay more for power today than before the Covid-19 pandemic
Average retail power prices for households and industry rose faster than inflation over 2019-2025 in around three-quarters of the 37 markets covered by a recent BloombergNEF report. Industry saw a bigger average increase, of 24% in real terms compared with 12% for households.
Since 2019, markets like the UK, Japan and Argentina have experienced significant retail price volatility. A key driver was the 2021-23 energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which especially affected markets reliant on natural gas imports. Tariff types, currency volatility, a given region’s precise mix of power-generating technologies and inflation also had an impact.
Other markets have experienced less volatility. These have been insulated by domestic energy resources including renewables, as well as regulatory systems and interventions to stabilize prices. In Canada, Brazil and New Zealand, for example, 2025 retail tariffs were relatively similar to 2019 levels after adjusting for inflation.
However, prices were markedly higher in deregulated US markets like California and New Jersey, as well as South Korea and Spain. Rising network and subsidy costs, and the end of price-stabilization measures, have contributed to the increase.
China, India, Mexico and Russia bucked the trend, with decreasing residential tariffs in real terms – and some of the lowest retail rates in the BloombergNEF report. These markets have higher levels of regulatory intervention, including subsidies, together with domestic energy resources.
Residential power prices have risen slightly in the US but surged in Australia
Electricity rates are fast climbing the US political agenda, especially as the November midterm elections approach. That said, many states have seen only a modest increase in inflation-adjusted household prices, and 20 underwent a decrease. As a result, the US saw a 3% rise in average real residential prices over 2019-2025 across the 50 states and Washington DC. On average, US households pay less than other major economies, at $173 per megawatt-hour in 2025 compared with $435/MWh in Germany, $391/MWh in the UK and $333/MWh in Australia.
Europe’s higher prices are partly due to higher policy costs and taxes, as these countries have historically used consumer bills to fund green, social and other public support. In contrast, policymakers in the US and other regions often finance such schemes via the general government budget, or have not put such support in place. However, European electricity prices also include higher network costs and, in some cases, wholesale and supply costs, compared with other markets....
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Of course facts don't matter if your goal is to poke the reptile brain:
"The despair is there;
now it's up to us to go in and rub raw the sores of discontent,
galvanize them for radical social change.”
The guy could talk. "Rub raw the sores of discontent" is Chicago community organizer hardball politics distilled down to six words.
Samsung Electronics Forecasts $80 Billion QUARTERLY Profit
Here's hoping at least one analyst on the conference call leads with "Great quarter guys."
From the Korea Times, October 8:
Samsung Electronics 1st Korean firm to top $80 bil. in quarterly operating profit
Operating profit jumps 782.5% year-on-year
Samsung Electronics on Thursday estimated 107.4 trillion won ($80.28 billion) in operating profit for the third quarter, becoming the first Korean company to surpass 100 trillion won in quarterly operating profit.
In a regulatory filing, the company said its third-quarter operating profit and revenue are each estimated at 107.4 trillion won and 195 trillion won, respectively. If the figures are finalized when the company announces its full earnings results on Oct. 29, they would represent year-on-year increases of 782.5 percent in operating profit and 126.6 percent in sales.
Beside Samsung, no other company in the world expect for Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil company Aramco has posted a quarterly operating profit exceeding that amount. Aramco reported $86.5 billion in operating profit in the second quarter of 2022....
....MUCH MORE
Meanwhile Korea's KOSPI index, of which Samsung and SK hynix comprise a bit over half the weighting has flatlined or, as some analysts say they are seeing, rolled over:
"India at last acquires a taste for cheese"
From The Economist, September 10:
Thank modern fermentation, changing diets and pizza
FOR MILLENNIA Indians resisted cheese. Cow-worshipping Hindus consider milk to be sacred. Souring cow’s milk to make yogurt was OK, but ageing it into cheese using an enzyme from a slaughtered calf’s stomach in the style of uncivilised Europeans was a bit much, and cheeses made from yak, goat or sheep milk never really caught on. Cheese can also upset Indian palates. Give a grey-haired Indian something punchier than the bland paneer used in curries, and even today they may recoil.
Yet change is under whey. India is the world’s bovine superpower, churning out almost 250m tonnes of milk a year, a quarter of global supply. Its middle class is growing keen on foreign foods. And the diets of less well-off Indians are being reshaped by fast food. In short, the time is ripe for a subcontinental cheese boom. India’s $1.5bn cheese market is growing at almost 20% a year.
On a typical supermarket shelf in Delhi you may now find five or six cheeses, including Indian-made mozzarella, cheddar and feta (these days mass-market cheeses can be made with enzymes derived from vegetables). Many are branded, humbly, as “melting cheese”. Amul, a dairy behemoth, leads the market. Its 500g “cheese block”—available for 300 rupees ($3.14) on Blinkit, a quick-delivery platform—is rubbery but not bad under the grill.
“For most Indians the entry point to cheese was pizza,” explains Tanushree Bhowmik, a food writer. Pizza Hut, an American chain, opened its first branch in India three decades ago. Now it has nearly 1,000. Many Indians make pizza at home, using shop-bought bases or yesterday’s chapatis. “The Italians might not approve,” concedes Ms Bhowmik. Cheese-draped burgers, wraps and sandwiches are also common fare....
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NOW try telling 1.2 billion Hindus (worldwide) that the cows have to go because of their belching (and a bit of flatulence)
Tropical Storm Isaias Has Become Hurricane Isaias, Landfall Expected In Alabama
To quote Schiller:
"Spät kommt ihr, doch ihr kommt!"(Late you come but still you come.)
From the National Hurricane Center, October 8, 4:55 am EDT:
The current forecast has maximum sustained winds approaching 95 knots/109 mph, just under the lower threshold for category 3.
Wednesday, October 7, 2026
"France’s student protests highlight a debt crisis that could spill over to the rest of Europe"
A young scholar present his thesis on education funding and intergenerational equity.
From CNN, October 6:
France’s unprecedented wave of student protests has laid bare the country’s growing financial pressures, which will only become more difficult to tackle as Europe’s second-largest economy tries to rein in a ballooning budget deficit.
The country’s finances are in a precarious state. Public debt was more than $4 trillion in June, exceeding the size of the economy, according to the country’s statistics agency. The cost of servicing that debt has climbed by billions of dollars on last year, as bond yields spike.
At the same time, demands on the public purse are rising: Pension costs have climbed because of an aging population while the government looks to spend more on defense.
High school students, meanwhile, have called for a fix to staff shortages, overcrowded classrooms and crumbling school infrastructure.
Solutions to France’s financial troubles have led to social unrest in the past. Efforts to raise the retirement age sparked widespread protests in 2023.
Last week, the French government proposed deep spending cuts and tax hikes aimed at narrowing the budget deficit, but bond buyers are concerned that fiscal measures may be watered down by lawmakers ahead of presidential elections next year, said Andrew Kenningham, chief European economist at consultancy Capital Economics.
The election could see President Emmanuel Macron ousted by either a far-right or far-left successor, raising questions over the country’s commitment to fiscal discipline....
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"After Decades of Drought, Water Is Rising in the African Sahel"
Can the dream of the Sahara Forest be far behind?
From Yale Environment 360, July 23:
Warming has brought extreme rain to the parched Sahel, which is seeing aquifers refill as monsoons grow stronger. But heavier downpours alone cannot explain the groundwater revival, say hydrologists, who believe efforts to harvest rainfall may also be paying dividends.
Near-extinct oryx are returning. Farms are prospering as irrigation water reaches fields for the first time in decades. Farmers are even nurturing new trees on their land. Once a byword for drought and famine, the African Sahel region on the southern flank of the Sahara Desert now has more water than it has for decades. Wells are filling as water tables have risen by 13 feet or more in places. Lake Chad, which was one of Africa’s largest expanses of water before shriveling during the droughts, is recovering.
Over years of drought in the late 20th century, the sun hard baked the soils of the Sahel. Now, erratic but extreme rains are returning to this semi-arid region, causing lethal floods but also replenishing rivers, filling desert depressions, restoring water to dried riverbeds known as wadis, and sluicing rainwater off impermeable soils directly into aquifers. The process began in the 1990s but has accelerated in the past five years.
“Across the Sahel, from Ethiopia to Senegal, we have evidence of increased terrestrial water storage,” says Richard Taylor, a hydrogeologist at University College London who has led ground teams investigating the relationships between climate, land use, and groundwater recharge in the region.
With a strengthening monsoon, there is talk among scientists of the Sahel being on the verge of a new humid era.But increased rainfall since the drought years of the 1970s and 1980s explains only some of the rewetting of the Sahel. It cannot fully account for the transformation, say researchers. Also driving the rewetting, they posit, are changes to the land surface, ranging from the internationally funded Great Green Wall project to the revival of traditional water harvesting methods and the chaos caused by jihadist militants, which has led to the abandonment of irrigation projects that once emptied rivers of their flows....
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Capital Markets: "Renewed Pressure in Europe Helps Lift the Greenback"
From Marc Chandler at Bannockburn Global Forex:
Renewed pressure in European bonds has sent the euro back below $1.12, nearly a cent off yesterday’s high. Its loss of about 0.6% today leads the G10 currency complex lower. The greenback is also firmer against most emerging market currencies. French, Italian, and Greek bonds yields are up 11-13 bp. British, Spanish, and Portuguese 10-year benchmark yields are up more than 7 bp, while Germany, who reported much stronger than expected industrial output figures is seeing less than a three basis point increase. The 10-year US Treasury yield is up four basis points to 5.32%, a new high.
The risk-off impulse from the rising yields is weighing on equities and precious metals. November WTI is hovering around $90. The Reserve Bank of India hiked its repo rate, as widely expected, and its forward guidance indicated more tightening was likely, but like we have seen several times last month, with the exception of the Federal Reserve, the currency, in this case, the rupee, sold off. With the French government threatening to use its constitutional powers to push through a budget without parliament’s support, sets a danger precedent with Le Pen running ahead in the polls for next year’s presidential election. It is difficult at this juncture to see a near-term path toward resolution....
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What We Are Watching (BKX)
Next week's big-bank earnings combined with U.S. Inflation numbers could provide a dandy excuse for a sell-off that would finally affect the wider market.
From TradingView, the price action in the KBW Bank Index over the last year:
At some point you can't get bullish action without the banks—used to be "without the brokers" but that's passé—participating, if not leading.
Tuesday, October 6, 2026
"Citadel Securities says economic strength drives higher yields"
From Bloomberg via Canada's Financial Post, October 5:
'Investors are essentially demanding a higher return after inflation, not simply more protection against it'
The Treasury selloff that sent yields to multi-decade highs reflects stronger United States growth and competition for capital rather than rising inflation concerns, according to Citadel Securities.
Almost all of September’s increase in 10-year yields came from real yields, while inflation expectations remained relatively stable, Nohshad Shah, Citadel’s head of EMEA fixed-income sales, wrote in a Monday client note. Higher real — or inflation-adjusted — yields reflect an economy supported by fiscal easing, loose financial conditions and heavy investment in artificial intelligence.
The market is “repricing the strength and persistence of growth… and the real rates required to accommodate it,” he wrote. “Investors are essentially demanding a higher return after inflation, not simply more protection against it.”
Stronger prospective returns encourage AI investment, but financing that spending — alongside persistent government deficits — increases competition for capital, requiring more savings or higher real returns to attract them, he noted.
That dynamic makes Shah reluctant to call a top in yields simply because inflation eases. At the same time, he cautioned, a further increase in yields would require “fresh repricing of growth, policy, or term premia.”....
....MORE
Riots Spread From France To Belgium
From The Brussels Times, October 5:
Sixteen arrested as student protests in Liège turn violent
Monday, 5 October 2026
By
The Brussels Times with Belga
Police arrested 16 people in Liège on Monday after student protests against education reforms and budget cuts turned violent, according to local police.
The unrest followed demonstrations outside several schools in Liège earlier on Monday, where students blocked entrances and gathered to protest changes to the education system.
The protests in French-speaking Belgium have been ongoing for months, following a series of reforms and budget cuts introduced by the French Community Government as it seeks to address serious financial difficulties...
....MUCH MORE
And at Switzerland's Bluewin:
Riots During School Protests in Belgium
On the other hand Belga is also reporting:
Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Belgian Francis Halzen (2)
MIT Technology Review Releases "10 Climate Tech Companies to Watch"
From Technology Review, October 6:
Each year, the MIT Technology Review team puts together a list of some of the most promising climate tech companies in the world. Whether early-stage startup or multinational corporation, the businesses we’ve chosen are working on technologies to help us address climate change or adapt to our warming world.
There’s an urgent need for these innovators: We must begin to drastically reduce emissions to avoid the deadliest impacts of climate change, while also contending with its harmful effects.
We hope that this list highlights the progress the world is making to tackle the climate crisis, as well as the breadth of solutions required. From energy storage powered by carbon dioxide to cleaner ways to make cement and refine critical minerals, these companies are building technologies to address the acute challenges we face.
This is the fourth annual edition of this list. Learn more about how we chose the 2026 slate.
Energy Dome and its carbon dioxide batteries
Energy Dome is using the gas to deliver cheap long-duration energy storage for the grid....
- Industry: Energy storage
- Founded: 2020
- Headquarters: Milan, Italy
- Notable fact: Energy Dome has plans for 30 gigawatt-hours’ worth of projects across five continents.
....MUCH MORE
WaveSave and its portable rubber dam
The Dutch company has deployed its mobile barrier during floods on three continents to protect farms, hospitals, and water treatment plants.
- Industry: Flood barriers
- Year the company was founded: 2017
- City and country of headquarters: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
- Notable fact: WaveSave is demoing its SlamDam product on New York City’s Governors Island as one of seven winners in a competition for urban climate adaptations. The barrier is installed at a site where high tides and waves from passing ferries often wash ashore.
....MUCH MORE
And the rest of the list:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/10/06/1143800/2026-climate-tech-companies-to-watch/
"Nvidia Heads for $6 Trillion Value With Chipmaker Back at Record" (NVDA)
Last week when Nvidia finally got around to exceeding the May 14, 2026 all-time-high I was reluctant to post on the new ATH. Mainly because of First Solar.
The last time I called out an all-time-high was introducing June 4's "China's solar majors charge into batteries as panel sales falter":
This reminded me that I should note First Solar surpassed its $317.00 May 2008 all-time-high* yesterday, June 3, by trading up to $320.95 and closing at $318.25. The stock also had a $320 handle this morning ($320.64) before reversing to close down $3.30 at $314.95. Fingers, toes and other body parts crossed that we didn't just see a double top.
Astute reader is ahead me.
It was a double top:
$177.78 last, up $1.62 (+0.92%) in late pre-market trade.
But, Nvidia set the ATH on Friday and another on Monday the 5th and looks to open higher today so the double top concern is not in play and the action looks like a legitimate breakout so Here's Bloomberg, October 6:
Nvidia Corp. is on the verge of becoming the first company with a $6 trillion market capitalization as investors rotate back into the artificial-intelligence chipmaker.
The stock is once more at a record high after the company gave a robust revenue outlook and announced the biggest buyback in history, which takes advantage of a valuation that's near multi-year lows. Those twin pillars — strong growth and a cheap multiple — stand out, especially as investors grapple with high interest rates and tepid economic data.
"Nvidia is attractive on both a growth basis and a value basis, and it looks like a haven from any damage higher rates could do to the economy," said Jim Awad, senior managing director at Clearstead Advisors, which owns Nvidia shares. "All of which makes it such an attractive proposition here and a place people should continue to gravitate to if they have concerns."
The shares are up 28% this year in a rally that has added $1.2 trillion to Nvidia's market capitalization, bringing it to just shy of $5.8 trillion. The company also is by far the biggest contributor to the S&P 500 Index's 14% gain in 2026.
The move is particularly striking considering the stock was down 11% for the year on March 30 as investors questioned the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on AI infrastructure. Since then, sentiment around the AI landscape has flipped, with more existential questions about the potential threats it poses to humanity now leading the conversation. Meanwhile, inflation risks and the likelihood of interest-rate hikes by the Federal Reserve have made megacap technology companies like Nvidia look relatively safe to investors.
"As rate hike fears have materialized money starts to move into these megacap tech stocks because they're a little bit more resistant to rate hikes," said Larry Tentarelli of Blue Chip Daily, adding that the semiconductor sector has also seen a rebound spurred by Meta Platforms Inc.'s Muse AI agent. There's "big rotation back into semis, a big rotation back into the megacaps and both of those play out well for Nvidia."
The lure for investors was underlined by Nvidia's authorization of an additional $150 billion under its existing share-repurchase program, which Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said "reflects our confidence in the long-term opportunity ahead." Prior to that, he called Nvidia "the world's first and only growth value stock."....
....MUCH MORE
If you want to own the future own this company.
(last bleated in August 2024's "Nvidia And The Keynesian Beauty Contest (NVDA)")
Capital Markets: "Collective Sigh of Relief as Oil Prices Drop, Yields Fall, and Stocks Rise"
From Marc to Market:
The US dollar is mixed today, the general tone in the capital markets is constructive. Success by the Saudi-back Yemen forces have recapture strategic territory from the Houthis, which has held drive oil prices lower. Bond yields in Europe have tumbled and the wide peripheral premiums over Germany have narrowed. Equities are higher.
Five Fed officials speak today but barring a surprise, expectations for this month’s FOMC meeting are unlikely to change significantly until next week’s CPI report, where early projections point to a small increase in price pressures. The futures market has about 83 bp of tightening between now and the end of next year, which is down from around 95 bp peak seen in the past two weeks....
....MUCH MORE
"A.I. Needs Power, Land and Data Centers. Bruce Flatt’s $1 Trillion Brookfield Already Owns Much of It." (BAM)
As noted introducing August 22's "Who Really Runs Canada? Inside Mark Carney’s Influence Network":
It used to be and Power Corporation of Canada and Maurice Strong and that whole crowd.Now I think it's Brookfield that's in charge....
The Prime Minister was Chairman of the (very) large asset manager prior to his current gig.
From Observer, September 29:
From Westinghouse nuclear reactors to a $100 billion A.I. infrastructure program, Flatt and 38-year-old CEO Connor Teskey are pushing Brookfield into every layer of the buildout as Blackstone, KKR and BlackRock race to compete.
“It took us 25 years to be in the right spot,” Bruce Flatt, chairman of Brookfield Asset Management, told investors at the firm’s New York investor day on Sept. 17. He was talking about artificial intelligence. Long before ChatGPT triggered a mad dash for raw compute, Brookfield spent decades building up what has become the physical backbone of today’s A.I. race, from power plants and renewable-energy projects to utilities, industrial businesses and even the nuclear reactor maker Westinghouse.
The A.I. boom isn’t running on algorithms alone, but needs land, data centers and staggering amounts of electricity. That puts Brookfield, the Wall Street investment giant managing more than $1 trillion, in an unusually advantageous position. Now the firm is pushing into nearly every layer of the A.I. buildout, financing computing equipment, developing sprawling data center campuses and striking multibillion-dollar power deals from France to South Korea.
Connor Teskey, who succeeded Flatt as CEO of the asset management arm in February, was even more direct: “A.I. infrastructure and A.I. is undoubtedly the biggest theme at Brookfield today,” he said. At 38, Teskey is one of the youngest executives to run a firm of Brookfield’s size. Flatt stayed on as chair of the asset manager, a seat previously held by Mark Carney before he entered politics and became Canada’s prime minister.
By Teskey’s estimate, between 25 percent and 40 percent of Brookfield’s global activity now touches digital infrastructure growth in some fashion. The opportunity is also reshaping assets the firm already controls. Land once earmarked for solar or battery projects is, in some cases, being reevaluated as a data center site, where surging demand for computing capacity can produce more attractive economics.
Brookfield’s pitch rests on a simple premise: Much of what A.I. needs looks remarkably similar to the long-lived infrastructure and cash-generating businesses it has been buying up for decades.
Flatt, a Winnipeg-born accountant who joined Brookfield’s predecessor, Brascan, in 1990, built his career around infrastructure, real estate and businesses capable of generating steady cash flows over long periods. That approach helped transform Brookfield into one of the world’s largest alternative asset managers. Flatt also serves as CEO of Toronto-based Brookfield Corporation, the broader investment company from which Brookfield Asset Management was spun out in 2022. The New York-headquartered asset manager trades on both the New York and Toronto stock exchanges.
The philosophy helps explain the firm’s enthusiasm for what private equity chief Anuj Ranjan described at investor day as “boring businesses”: companies that are easily overlooked while investors chase flashier technology bets.
“People are chasing the toy, the A.I. toy, and they are forgetting about industrial businesses,” Flatt said at investor day. Brookfield is not the only investment giant angling for a piece of A.I.’s physical backbone. Rivals are assembling war chests of their own.
In May, Blackstone committed an initial $5 billion to a venture with Google that will offer customers computing capacity built around Google’s custom A.I. chips. The following month, KKR and partners unveiled Helix Digital Infrastructure with more than $10 billion in committed capital to finance and build data centers, power infrastructure and networks. KKR tapped former AWS chief Adam Selipsky to lead the effort.
BlackRock, meanwhile, teamed up with Microsoft and Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX in 2024 to pursue $30 billion in equity for A.I. data centers and supporting energy infrastructure. With debt financing added to the mix, the group says the initiative could eventually mobilize up to $100 billion in total investment....
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Brookfield is 51% owner of Westinghouse while a member of our hyper-concentrated electricity mini-portfolio, uranium miner Cameco (CCJ) owns the 49%.
"Five reasons India's stock market is sinking even when its economy is growing"
From the BBC, October 5:
India's economy is growing at an enviable rate of over 7% despite global energy shocks, rising interest rates, tariff uncertainties and weather-related disruptions.
But the world's fastest growing major economy also has one of the worst performing major equity markets in 2026. The correction in Indian stocks has, in fact, only intensified in recent weeks.
The benchmark Sensex and Nifty indices, which represent the country's largest companies, have inched up slightly since Monday after posting losses for eight straight weeks - the longest losing streak in 25 years, according to Reuters.
Indian mom-and-pop investors who put their money into the Nifty have seen their wealth erode by about 15% this year. In comparison, they would have made 62% returns on Korea's Kospi index since January or 170% in the last two years.
On aggregate, the money foreign investors have put into Indian markets in the past decade - after subtracting what they sold or withdrew - is nearing zero. In the past two years alone, foreign institutional investors have withdrawn a staggering $40bn, according to data from Bernstein Research.
It is the large pool of domestic institutional and retail money, flowing into instruments like mutual funds, that have helped the markets avoid a sharper fall.
Domestic assets under management of mutual funds have grown from about $125bn in 2016 to some $900bn this year, with the number of Indians parking money in stocks and mutual funds more than tripling to 150 million individuals.
This makes the recent fall in the markets more worrying - since households, already struggling from a weak job market, high inflation and faltering consumption, are now seeing their equity savings take a beating too.
So, what's gone wrong?
Here are five reasons India's booming economy isn't lifting its stock market....
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Here is the BSE (formerly Bombay Stock Exchange) SENSEX Index over the last five years via TradingView:
Total gain in the last half-decade: 21.62%. To quote Warren Buffett on a different index “Now I’m known as a long-term investor and a patient guy, but that is not my idea of a big move.”
Over the last year the SENSEX is down 10.31%.
On the other hand the sub-head at the Times of India, October 6 is:
Indian equities enter the session after a sharp turnaround from a prolonged period of weakness, with the previous day's gains offering some relief following the market's longest weekly losing streak in 25 years. The recovery came as concerns around oil supplies ease
Monday, October 5, 2026
"Quebec on the cusp of electing separatist government promising referendum"
Devolution and self-determination.
From the Globe and Mail, October 5:
Quebec appears poised to elect a separatist government for the first time in more than a decade, even though most of the province has little interest in a promised vote on independence.
The Parti Québécois, polls show, will likely take the reins of power from the governing Coalition Avenir Québec on Monday after a lacklustre campaign in which voters expressed a desire for change but little enthusiasm for any of their options.
A victory for the PQ would give new life to a decades-old debate over sovereignty that took a back seat during the CAQ’s eight years in power. Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has promised to hold a referendum on independence within a first mandate, though not before U.S. President Donald Trump leaves the White House in 2029.
The separatist party could claim a majority of the 127 seats in the province’s National Assembly despite the fact that support for the PQ – and for sovereignty – has not climbed above 30 per cent during the campaign. The CAQ, meanwhile, is lagging in polling, with forecasters suggesting the party could find itself with few, if any seats.
After a six-week campaign in which none of the five viable parties managed to capture the imagination of voters, the Parti Québécois stands to win because the alternatives appeared to be even less inspiring....
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That last paragraph...ooof.
"A Saudi-led coalition says its fighter jets are bombing Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels"
From the Associated Press, October 5:
ADEN, Yemen (AP) — Forces of Yemen’s internationally recognized government began a major offensive Monday against the Iranian-backed Houthis rebels on the country’s Red Sea coast, under an intensified air campaign by the Saudi-led coalition.
The offensive came just after the rebels said they had captured more territory in the southwestern part of Yemen, taking a key town in a blow to the Saudi-backed forces as they advanced toward a strategic provincial capital in the region.
The Saudi-led coalition spokesman, Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki, said 100 fighter jets were providing support to the forces of Yemen’s internationally recognized government fighting against the Houthis. He said the coalition has secured “air protection” of the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait and destroyed hundreds of Houthi targets as part of the ongoing campaign.
The campaign and its details could not be immediately independently verified.
The air campaign follows the fall of a key town in Yemen
The Houthi rebels seized the town of Turbah on Sunday, shortly before the internationally recognized government announced a major military operation against them...
....MUCH MORE
Most recently:
September 15 - Note to self: Do Not Bet On The Houthis
Capital Markets: "European Politics Drag the Euro Lower"
From Marc Chandler at Bannockburn Global Forex:
The US dollar is mostly narrowly mixed today. The political woes in Europe weighed on the euro, which was driven to nearly $1.1160, a 17-month low. The market does not like the developments in France and the 10-year premium over Germany is nearly 150 bp today. The two leading parties in next year’s presidential contest scare investors. The far-right wants to lower the age to qualify for pensions and the far-left has advocated for the central bank to forgive the government’s debt it holds. Meanwhile, Spain’s minority socialist government, lost a key vote on housing reform last week, and called for an election next month. Tomorrow, the local parliament of Germany’s Saxony Anhalt convenes tomorrow and Afd won a plurality of votes and could sit in a state government for the first time.
The combination of forward guidance by the Fed’s leadership, though not Chair Warsh, and softer data have prompted the market to re-consider the likelihood of a rate hike later this month. A week ago, the futures market had about a 70% chance of a hike. Now, it is slightly less than 20%. Data this week may not change that much. Still, the early call on the September CPI (due October 14) is for a rise in the year-over-year headline and core rate....
....MUCH MORE
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