EquityZhang

Finance books and luxury travel—that’s my kind of weekend.

[EndGame Macro @onechancefreedm]

Employment at 50.1 is essentially flat with 16.5% reporting more workers and 16.2% reporting fewer. At the same time, Prices surged to 74, Supplier Deliveries slowed further, Backlogs rose and New Export Orders collapsed to 46.9.

Rising inventories and backlogs are not automatically signs of healthy demand either, especially when respondents are citing tariff delays, manpower constraints and buying ahead of price increases. The headline may still sit above its 12 month average, but the underlying mix looks much more like late cycle strain than a clean acceleration in services activity.

[Stephen Stapczynski @SStapczynski]

Vietnam has plans to build 18 LNG-fired power plants. Only one of them is on schedule, the government warned 🇻🇳⚠️

The planned developments (20GW in total) are struggling to complete land clearances, financial arrangements and power purchase deals

https://t.co/yC0X4RwY39

[Bloomberg Green @climate]

California Public Employees’ Retirement System is planning to build out its private-credit bets targeting the energy transition https://t.co/sUt7oegCG1

[Christophe Barraud 🇫🇷 🇲🇨 @C_Barraud]

🇺🇲 Citadel Securities Says Economic Strength Drives Higher Yields – Bloomberg
https://t.co/sECRo8uSXk

[Philip Pilkington @philippilk]

It looks like this year we get severe food inflation and the all-out food crisis will come next year. Unless something drastic changes, but that seems unlikely right now. 🌽📈

[JustDario @DarioCpx]

In other words: less than 10-14 mln bpd of crude oil a day are coming out from the Middle East 🤫

[Nicola Limodio @NicolaLimodio]

Looking forward to chairing next week’s #WEFIDEV webinar with two job market candidates working on exciting questions in #Finance and #Development.

On Monday, 12 October, we will hear from @CatoRiccardo, UC San Diego, presenting “Seeds of Market-Based Capitalism: Missionaries, Banks, and China’s Modernization”, and #DavidOntanedaNavarrete, University of Michigan, presenting “Selective Outreach and Targeted Interest Rate Caps”.

It is especially encouraging to see so many strong job market papers emerging in this area. #Finance and #Development is gradually becoming a deeper and more connected literature, with young scholars bringing new data, new settings and new questions into the conversation. One of the most rewarding parts of #WEFIDEV is being able to give these researchers a platform, help them receive useful feedback, and contribute in a small way to nurturing the next generation of scholars in the field together with #SeanHiggins, @GiorgiaBarboni, #KimFeCramer and @nish_vats.

Very much looking forward to the discussion, and to seeing many of you online next week.

Full details and registration: https://t.co/G4xLtlxkbp or just DM in case of questions.

#Finance #Development #JobMarket #FinanceAndDevelopment

[Jack Prandelli @jackprandelli]

🏦Gold's share of reserves outside the US is the highest since the 1990s.

It's now about 24% of official reserves outside the US, more than double its mid-2010s low of around 10%.

By value, gold reserves worldwide are now $5.1T, against $3.9T of US Treasuries held by foreign official investors.

Most of the rise comes from price... Gold peaked at $5,595 in January, and the share measures value, not tonnes.

The 5 biggest holders (the US, Germany, Italy, France and the IMF) own 52% of world gold reserves and haven't added meaningfully since the 1970s.

The buying is coming from emerging-market central banks, with 🇨🇳China at the front.

The most telling part is that the Fed felt it had to publish a note explaining why gold hasn't "actually" overtaken Treasuries. Its argument is that private demand drove the price and central banks didn't change their preferences.

Is gold returning as a reserve asset, or is this just a price rally showing up in the statistics?

[International and Monetary Economics Network @int_mon_econ]

Food for thought!

Euro Area Economy Flash: October 2026

In the second quarter of 2026, GDP growth in the euro area was stronger than expected. We expect euro area GDP growth to remain solid in the second half of 2026.

Inflation remains elevated and we expect one additional rate hike in 2026. Borrowing costs for governments have increased, and political uncertainty remains elevated.

https://t.co/TyGsLYbM7f

[Restructuring__ @Restructuring__]

> One day in 2026, they will call Google a Secular Short
> What are you talking about? I thought Google was the best business to ever exist.
> Nah, don't list to Warren Buffett or Chris Hohn. Go read "Sebastian Mallaby’s book The Infinity Machine"
> What??

[Philip Pilkington @philippilk]

OIL GLUT 2.0 exhausted many of the participants. It is so much less exhausting to just recognise reality. 🛢️❌

[NucNet Nuclear News @NucNetNews]

🇺🇸 Brookfield Welcomes Landmark Agreement To ‘Accelerate US #Nuclear Reactor Deployment At Scale’. #NuclearPower #NuclearEnergy

Deal with South Korea supports construction of up to eight large-scale reactors

👉FULL STORY: https://t.co/pcIA1LSSTc

[From Growth To Value @FromValue]

AI a bubble?

How many bubbles have you seen where multiples COMPRESS while earnings explode?

From @a16z's outstanding report.

More on this in the upcoming Overweek Of The Week.

[Augur Infinity @AugurInfinity]

The equal-weighted S&P 500 continues to lag the cap-weighted benchmark. The relative ratio’s deviation from trend is nearing levels last seen during the dot-com bubble.

[World Data Analysis @World_Data_A]

.
Odisha is India’s mining superpower. Lanjigarh is the world’s second-largest alumina refinery outside China. The ALUMINA surplus runs through them

India’s alumina surplus has one engine, and it sits in Odisha: Vedanta’s Lanjigarh refinery.

-- Odisha produces roughly 70–75% of India’s bauxite, more than half of its iron ore, and nearly all of its chromite. In FY2025 it was the country’s largest mining economy.
-- Lanjigarh, in Kalahandi, went from 2 million tonnes of alumina a year to 5. Vedanta calls it the world’s second-largest alumina refinery outside China, and about 38% of India’s alumina output.
-- Quarterly output at the plant rose from 431 kt in early 2025 to 895 kt in the quarter ended September 2026.
- India exported 2.5 Mt of alumina in the first half of 2026, up 51%. Net exports nearly quadrupled to 1.72 Mt.

The catch is still the ore. National bauxite imports rose 20% to 4.9 Mt in 2025, and less than 5% of India’s bauxite reserves are under mining lease. The southwest belt that holds about 42% of those resources, Kalahandi, Koraput, Rayagada, Malkangiri, is still poorer than the state around it.
Sources. @bsindia, PSU Connect, @Vedanta_Group

[International and Monetary Economics Network @int_mon_econ]

How strong is the U.S. economy?

Nowcasts for U.S. GDP growth in the third quarter of 2026 currently indicate annualized growth rates between 2.5 and 3.7 percent. Although the economy is facing several headwinds, GDP growth is expected to remain solid.

https://t.co/XZZ53TTCGJ

[EndGame Macro @onechancefreedm]

This is also the 13th broad episode since 1948 in which the U.S. has recorded at least 4 negative nonfarm payroll months inside a rolling 12 month window, excluding pure post recession lag periods.

• 1948 to 1949 Recession
• 1951 to 1952 Rare non recession exception during the Korean War era adjustment
• 1953 to 1954 Recession
• 1957 to 1958 Recession
• 1960 to 1961 Recession
• 1969 to 1970 Recession
• 1974 to 1975 Recession
• 1980 Recession
• 1981 to 1982 Recession
• 1990 to 1991 Recession
• 2001 Recession
• 2007 to 2009 Great Recession
• 2025 to 2026 Current episode

[Geoengineering Info @geoengineering1]

Regional renewable-energy conditions strongly influence the cost and carbon performance of power-to-liquid sustainable aviation fuel (PtL SAF) systems.

Using an identical 70-MW facility combining solid-sorbent direct air capture (#DAC), PEM electrolysis, reverse water-gas shift, Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and downstream fuel processing, the study compares Frankfurt, Jeddah, Jeju, Las Vegas and Perth while isolating location as the key variable.

Jeddah recorded the lowest levelized cost at $2,977 per tonne, compared with $5,861 per tonne in Frankfurt, where greater reliance on grid electricity increased costs. Production-stage global warming potential ranged from 2.84 kgCO2-eq/kg fuel in Jeddah to 4.97 kgCO2-eq/kg in Frankfurt.

The analysis identifies the PEM electrolyzer as the dominant electricity consumer and finds that high-solar locations provide more stable production costs under electricity-price fluctuations. Within the study's multicriteria framework, Jeddah ranked as the most suitable location across the tested weighting scenarios.

https://t.co/hioGk8MyFg

[Philip Pilkington @philippilk]

This implies insurance is pricing in a roughly 1 in 3 probability of a VLCC getting smoked. Iran control this variable obviously. This is a complete waste of human life. It makes no difference to the energy situation and the people promoting it look like bloodsport enthusiasts.

[Richard Baldwin @BaldwinRE]

If geopolitics shuts off a quarter of potential sales, valuations should drop by 25%. If China slow-walks the equipment, delaying the rollout by 3 years, valuations should drop by a third (assuming a 15% discount rate). https://t.co/z4ikzOCOJN
👉 China supplies over 40% of US battery imports and around 30% of some transformer and switchgear categories. Lead times for large transformers from Western suppliers, once around two years, have stretched to three to five years, and Wood Mackenzie estimates a 15% shortage of power transformers in 2026.