🌎 Central bank rate decisions this week include Uruguay, Sweden, New Zealand, Indonesia, Iceland, Jamaica, Israel, Botswana, and Paraguay.

Tuesday: 🇺🇾
Wednesday: 🇸🇪🇳🇿🇮🇩🇮🇸🇯🇲🇮🇱
Thursday: 🇧🇼
Friday: 🇵🇾

📆 CHART WATCH 📆

🌎 Returns Leaderboard for the week ending on 8/15 (in USD)…

🥇 🇯🇵 Japanese Equities
🥇 🇺🇸 U.S. Small Caps
🥇 🇨🇳 Chinese Equities

⬇️ Gold, WTI Crude, 30Y U.S. Treasuries

📊 CHART WATCH 📊

🇺🇸 The S&P 500 ($SPX) and the CNN Fear & Greed Index back to July 2021…

🌐 CHART WATCH 🌐

🇨🇳 China’s growth momentum has weakened. Expansion in output, consumption, and investment all slowed sharply…

📉 CHART WATCH 📉

🪙 $1.82 billion in stablecoins flowed into Binance.

🔶 CHART WATCH 🔶

🌐 This is the past year in total social mentions of cryptocurrencies.

Call that what you will, but it’s no irrational exuberance…

🪙 CHART WATCH 🔷

🇺🇸 The Nail Salon Boom

💅 CHART WATCH 💅

🇺🇸 The S&P 500 ($SPX) has had -21% fall and a 34% rally to a series of all-time highs so far this year…

🌐 CHART WATCH 🌐

🌐 Change in consensus forecast for GDP growth in 2026 (from Jan 2025).

🔺️ CHART WATCH 🔺️

🇬🇾🇦🇲🇨🇩🇰🇬 The fastest growing trading nations…

📊 CHART WATCH 📊

🇺🇸 New houses are now cheaper than existing houses…

📈 CHART WATCH 📉

🇺🇸 The big move in solar energy ($TAN) against overall energy ($XLE) is the largest two-day gain (13.8%) in the ratio since 2013.

Will solar repeat its Trump I performance? It’s up 30% since Inauguration Day, but it hit +1,272% back then…

☀️ CHART WATCH ☀️

🇺🇸 Beyond Meat ($BYND), the purveyors of the freaky plant-based pseudo-meat, opened $46 on May 2nd, 2019 & rose 411% in just shy of 3 months, closing at $234.90 on July 26th.

Since then it has fallen 98.9% to $2.53/share…

📉 CHART WATCH 📉

🇳🇿🇺🇸🇮🇳 Global Equity Forward P/E

New Zealand wins with an extreme forward valuation. The United States & India are neck-and-neck for 2nd & 3rd, followed by Australia & Sweden. China, Greece, Japan, and Taiwan have historically had extreme valuations.

Turkey has the lowest forward P/E, followed by Hungary & Brazil, and then Poland & South Korea (two of the best performing stock markets this year).

📊 CHART WATCH 📊

🇨🇳 Chinese internet stocks are making yet another foray in this critical resistance region.

Financial stimulus, low bond yields, & mandated buybacks are undergirding many of these equities, and the base on $KWEB looks technically strong.

📊 CHART WATCH 📊

🇺🇸 Tesla is up 8.9% this month. Technically, it’s been all over this dynamic resistance of late.

Which way will $TSLA’s triangle break?

❤️ CHART WATCH ❤️

🇺🇦 In a recent poll, Gallup asked Ukrainians: which of the following statements about the war with Russia comes closest to your personal views?

🔽 24% chose “Ukraine should continue fighting until it wins the war” (down from a 2/3rds supermajority in the early part of the war, the hawks lost their majority in mid-2023 and now only a quarter—mostly located deep in Western Ukraine—wish to continue the fight)

🔼 69% believe “Ukraine should seek to negotiate an ending to the war as soon as possible” (interestingly, this position represented about a quarter of the population early in the war, but now 7 in 10 Ukrainians want a negotiated peace)

⏹ 7% refused or said they “didn’t know” (5-10% range, indecision/refusal peaked in 2023-4 and dropping since)

📉 CHART WATCH 📈

🇺🇸🇩🇪🇯🇵🇮🇹🇪🇸🇬🇧

30-year government bond yields in the US, Germany, Japan, UK, Italy and Spain, in percent interest.

🔤 CHART WATCH 🔤

🇺🇸 Action in the stock indices turned negative today (except in the $DJI, which eked out the slightest of positive returns while the $NDX took a beating).

📊 CHART WATCH 📊

🇦🇷🇩🇴🇬🇹🇵🇦 What’s the growth outlook in Latin America this year?

⬆️Best Outlooks: Argentina leads with 5.5% expected growth, followed by the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Panama, and Paraguay

⬇️Worst Outlooks: Venezuela lags with -4% growth anticipated, followed by Mexico, who is treadunf water, and Bolivia around 1%.

📊 CHART WATCH 📊

🇺🇸 The Dallas Cowboys are still the most valuable football team in America…

🏈 CHART WATCH 🏈