🌎 Global drought risk by country in 2025 according to the INFORM Risk Index (0 = lowest risk, 10= highest risk)…

🌎 CHART WATCH 🌎

🇺🇸 U.S. Exports of Dollar Banknotes (Cumulative & Annual, in Billions US$)

By Q1 2025, U.S. currency held abroad reached $1.05 trillion, representing 45% of all U.S. currency in circulation. From 1970 to 2025, foreign-held U.S. banknotes grew at a 10.1% annual rate, rising from just $5.4 billion to more than a trillion, compared with 7.2% annual growth for total U.S. currency in circulation.

The sharpest surge occurred between 2008 and 2021, when overseas holdings jumped by $700 billion. The historical peak came during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, with an unprecedented $121 billion (15%) increase in a single year. Since 2022, however, foreign demand for U.S. banknotes has plateaued, showing little change through 2025—a shift partly reflecting the rise of digital payment systems and cryptocurrencies.

💰 CHART WATCH 💰

🇺🇸 The Oil Barrel-to-Big Mac Ratio.

An oil barrel just doesn’t buy as much as it used to…

🍟 CHART WATCH 🍟

🇺🇸 Probably due to the big move on Friday, hedging is back in fashion.

Investors prefer puts on $SPX to calls on $VIX these days.

🌐 CHART WATCH 🌐

🇺🇸 Al Adoption Rate*, by Firm Size.

* six survey moving average, biweekly surveys

🎨 CHART WATCH 🎨

🇺🇸 The Russell 2K ($IWM) vs. the S&P 500 ($SPY)

Small caps are back.

📈 CHART WATCH 📈

🌎 Bitcoin: Price Performance Since Cycle Low

🔹: 2015-2018 Cycle
🔹: 2018-2022 Cycle
🔹: 2022-now Cycle

We are 2-3 months from the part in the timeline where the last two cycles hit all-time highs, but we still haven’t seen the big pop from this level like the other 2. However, the price action suggests something is likely coming soon…

💰 CHART WATCH 💰

🌎 Cocoa futures ($CC1!) are looking appetizing…

☕️ CHART WATCH ☕️

🌎 Ethereum’s market cap hit a record $583 billion in August.

It’s given some of that back since, but $ETH is still sitting #22 on the asset market cap ranking just about $50B under the SPDR S&P 500 ETF ($SPY), which is the highest ETF.

Bitcoin ($BTC) is #7 with $2.2T, silver is #8 with $2.1T, and gold remains #1 at $22.9T. The Mag 7 fill in spots #2-6, #9, and #13.

🤑 CHART WATCH 🤑

🇷🇺 🇺🇦 Average Daily Advance of the Russian Armed Forces

The latest update covers 8/18–8/21. The Russian Armed Forces covered 62.1 km² over this period. This is an average of +15.3 km²/day (166% of the Russian offensive’s average).

The past year of Russian advances has been substantially faster than the prior period, with many months exceeding the average rate now.

The last 3 months of last year & May of this year were particularly devastating for Ukrainian defenders in terms of territorial losses.

🪖 CHART WATCH 🪖

🇮🇳 🇨🇳 India's Growing Trade Deficit With China (annual, in billions USD)

"This is a wake-up call for India, as the rising imports reflect deeper structural dependencies of the Indian economy," said Ajay Srivastava, founder of Global Trade Initiative, a Delhi-based trade policy think tank.

Many of the electronics, engineering products, and drugs produced in & exported from India have Chinese components, making the problem a bit trickier.

🔺️ CHART WATCH 🔺️

🌎 Conflict events (battles, explosions, riots, violence against civilians) per one million people.

🔘 CHART WATCH ⚠️

🇺🇸 The U.S. Treasury 2Y/30Y yield curve has steepened further…

📈 CHART WATCH 📈

🇺🇸 Cattle futures ($LE1!) just keep climbing, and there could be a couple more years of declining head count in this cycle.

You would think we had already run far enough by 2023 to encourage herd expansion. We’re up 90% so far this decade…

🕯 CHART WATCH 🕯

🇺🇸 Sources of U.S. Magnet Imports

Beyond broad, economy-specific US tariffs, attention is now turning potential US sectoral tariffs on semiconductors. President Trump has threatened that these could reach as high as 300%. If fully enacted with no concessions, such tariffs would undoubtedly ripple through the global semiconductor industry and across Asia, which accounts for most of the world’s semiconductor manufacturing and supplies the bulk of US imports, as shown in chart 5.

For American consumers, a broad 300% semiconductor tariff would likely lead to higher prices for a wide range of electronics. It would also affect other products, such as cars, which increasingly rely on electronic components, reflecting the pervasive role of semiconductors in modern life.

📊 CHART WATCH 📊

🇨🇳 China’s provincial fertility rates.

The situation in the Northeast provinces is well past critical. Those are the lowest fertility rates on the face of the Earth.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 CHART WATCH 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

🇺🇸 A lot of U.S. naval assets turning up in and around the Caribbean.

Are they for the cartels? Or the Venezuelans?

🚢🚢 CHART WATCH 🚢🚢

🇬🇧 U.K. Gilt Yields, 10- and 30-year. The Telegraph:

Willem Buiter, another former member of the Monetary Policy Committee, said that, unless Ms Reeves changed course, she would face scrutiny from the markets “that will be at least as effective as the pressure from the IMF was in the 1970s”.
He said the Chancellor “will be forced” to break Labour’s manifesto and raise taxes on working people in the autumn to calm the bond markets.
“I think there’s no realistic alternative to basically breaking the commitment not to raise key taxes, personal income tax, VAT, during this Government’s term in office. So she will be forced to do that,” he added.

Oh yeah, great idea…

💯 CHART WATCH 💯

🇬🇧🇬🇷 The Greek 10-Year Government Bond (GGB) yield subtracted from the British 10-year Gilt yield. Andrew Sentance, ex-Monetary Policy Committee:

“We’ve still got bond yields that are even higher than the US. In fact, we’re even higher than Greece when it comes to borrowing costs, which is an indictment of where the UK is at the moment, or where it’s perceived to be by the financial markets.”

Yeah, fair enough. In early 2016, still in the throes of their debt crisis, Greece was paying over 10pp more for 10-year debt. Now Greece is paying around 1.3pp less than the U.K.

💯 CHART WATCH 💯

🇺🇸 Severe correction in the Austin, Texas rental market…

Asking rents have fallen about 18% since mid-2022.

🏠 CHART WATCH 🏠

🇺🇸 The number of ETFs have surpassed the number of actual stocks…

🫥 CHART WATCH 🫥