Records are coming in spades!

October 18-24, 2025

The main news. The wave of unrestrained optimism continues: the S&P 500 index has exceeded the 6,800 point mark for the first time in its history, showing an increase of more than 40% since the April 2025 bottom. Over the past six months, the American market has added a whopping $17 trillion in capitalization.:

We delicately omit the question of where the money comes from. But the stock market bubble is actively developing.

Macroeconomics. Since the shutdown in the United States continues, there are no American statistics (well, almost, see the end of the section). Therefore, we will replace them with Chinese ones, which do not look very optimistic, but are practically decent nowadays.

GDP +1.1% in the quarter – slightly stronger than expected:

And +4.8% per year, the minimum value for the year, but still the authorities’ goal (+5% for the whole year) is likely to be met:

Investments in fixed assets -0.5% per year, excluding covid, the first decline in the history of the survey; in the real estate sector -13.9% :

The absolute amount of capital investments in January-September is the weakest since 2014:

Industrial production accelerated to +0.6% per month (7-month peak) +6.5% per year. Clearly better than expected:

Capacity utilization also increased slightly (74.6%):

Retail sank (-0.2% per month and +3.0% per year), the annual bottom and much worse than the expected pace:

Prices of new buildings -2.2% per year, the weakest decline in 1.5 years, but still the 27th negative month in a row; moreover, the monthly dynamics is even getting worse (-0.4% per month, 11-month bottom):

It can be assumed that attempts to disguise the economic downturn have led to structural inconsistencies. However, Chinese statistics are a complicated thing.

Orders from British industrial enterprises show negative dynamics for 39 months in a row; domestic and foreign demand at the bottom since covid:

The value of the indicator is near the 16-year low (minus the covid dip):

The PMI (expert index of the state of the industry; its value below 50 means stagnation and recession) of the Japanese industry has been minimal for more than 1.5 years, and has been in the recession zone for 15 of the last 16 months:

Japan’s index of coincident indicators (a comprehensive indicator of production, sales, and employment) has bottomed out in more than 12 years (excluding the covid-19 recession of 2020/22):

CPI (Consumer inflation index) New Zealand +1.0% per quarter, maximum in 3 years:

PPI (Industrial Inflation Index) Canada accelerated to +4.0% per year, the 3-year peak is already near:

And its clean (that is, without taking into account the highly volatile components of fuel and food) CPI at 2-year peak (+2.8% per year):

Britain’s budget deficit is growing: in January-September, it reached a record in 33 years of data collection (excluding 2020); the government’s interest payments are absolutely record:

The assessment of the current state in the survey of consumer sentiment in the United States from the University of Michigan is the weakest in more than 3 years; in general, in history it was even lower only in October 2008 and in June-July 2022.:

At the same time, 5-year inflation expectations have resumed growth and are approaching the 34-year peak this spring.:

The Central Bank of China has left unchanged both the reserve rate for banks and the key interest rate.

The Central Bank of Indonesia did not change anything, although further rate cuts were expected. The Central Bank of South Korea has kept the percentage the same, but promises to reduce it soon.

The Central Bank of Turkey cut the rate by 1.0% to 39.5%, promises to continue easing, but cautiously:

What do you say, a rational move:

Prices for precious metals can be found in the next section, but a number of other goods continue to rise in price. So, coffee returned to a record peak amid a shortage of supply:

And the fattening cattle have already surpassed the historical maximum:

The main conclusions. The structural crisis continues and, as can be seen from the American data, the expectation of inflation has not gone away. Precious metals are being adjusted due to speculative overbought conditions in previous weeks. In particular, gold:

And silver:

The correction coincided with the culmination of the Indian Devali holiday (India is the largest buyer of physical gold). The gold buying season in Indian villages is over. As noted in the Goldman trading department, the 6.3% drop in spot gold is the largest one-day drop since April 2013.

Spot silver’s 8.7% collapse is the biggest drop since 2021 (intraday testing to reach $47).

But Bloomberg notes that it now takes 116 hours of work in the United States to buy 1 ounce of gold, which is the most in the last 100 years:

This ratio has doubled in just 18 months, and the rise in gold prices has significantly outpaced revenue growth. This surpasses the previous peaks of ~80 hours observed in the 1930s, 1980s, and 2011. Note that this parameter is practically independent of the dollar exchange rate.

So there is no doubt that the prices of gold and silver will go up again — the risks are too great. Well, we wish our readers, for whom it’s all pretty clear, a fun and enjoyable weekend and a fruitful working week!