World Economic Fuck'em

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 And 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 By Michael Every of Rabobank Depressingly, today marks the start of the fifth year of the Ukraine War: a battered Ukraine is still standing against a bruised Russia; the US is still aiming for a peace deal so it can pivot to Asia; and Europe --even as it knows it has to look after both Ukraine and its own conventional defenses after decades of having this provided for it-- is still trying to get its act together. Despite its rhetoric, with...

Wall Street Keeps Testing AI Traders, But Most Are Still Underperforming Recent trading competitions suggest large language models are still unreliable portfolio managers, according to Bloomberg. Tests involving models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and xAI have often delivered underwhelming results: many lost money, traded excessively, and made erratic decisions despite receiving identical prompts. In several cases, models appeared unable to stick to coherent strategies for more than a few trading sessions. Bloomberg writes that one of the clearest examples came from Alpha Arena, a competition created by startup Nof1. Eight models were...

Private Sector Struggles In Major Chinese Industrial Base As Export Orders Shrink: Local Businessmen Authored by Alex Wu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Amid China’s persistently sluggish economy, Zhejiang Province, a major production and industrial base in eastern China, is seeing a decline in trade orders as private enterprises struggle to stay afloat, according to industry professionals who spoke with The Epoch Times. Workers load goods for export into a container at a logistics hub in Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, China, on April 29, 2025. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images As the “hollowing out” of...