>>> What to look at today - 9th of June 2025

Asian stocks rose on optimism about US and China trade negotiations Monday, while positive jobs data in the world’s largest economy eased recession fears. A regional stock gauge jumped 0.9% as technology shares advanced on Meta Platforms Inc.’s investment plans. Chinese shares listed in Hong Kong Kong advanced 1.1%, ahead of the talks in London. The index is poised to enter a bull market, trader parlance for a rise of 20% from a recent low. Yields on 10-year Treasuries dipped about 2 basis points to 4.49%, after surging Friday. The yen strengthened 0.4% against the dollar. Easing trade tensions lifted a key gauge for emerging market equities 0.7%, with the index set for its highest close since February 2022. Trade tensions appeared to recede between President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping as an impasse on critical minerals was broken, paving the way for further trade talks. Adding to the optimism in the stock market was the surprise in labor data. While US job growth moderated in May and prior months were revised lower, Friday’s report narrowly exceeded forecasts. Stock markets have rebounded following a tumultuous two-month period, with the S&P 500 gaining for the fifth week in seven. Asian and European equity benchmarks have risen seven times in the past eight weeks. The main focus is on the trade negotiations. The US and Chinese negotiators are set to open their second round of trade talks Monday, the first since Trump and Xi finally broke a logjam. That’s offering a glimmer of hope that the world’s two largest economies can defuse tensions over Chinese dominance in rare-earth minerals.  Lombard Odier’s Homin Lee says investors should “keep the portfolio tilt toward risk” as latest developments suggest that “we’re still in the middle of the deal making phase in the Trumpian trade policy.” Both sides had accused the other of reneging on a deal reached in May in Geneva, where they tried to start dialing back the trade war.  Ahead of the talks, China granted approval to some applications for the export of rare earths. Boeing Co. has also begun shipping commercial jets to China for the first time since early April, indicating a reopening of trade flows. Later this week, attention will turn to the sale of government bonds in the US. The Treasury is set to sell $22 billion of 30-year bonds on Thursday, part of its regularly scheduled borrowings. This comes after global investor pushback against long-term government debt. Investors will also be watching US inflation print this week. Separately, China’s consumer deflation extended into a fourth month, as price wars intensified while a spending boost during two national holidays failed to offset the drag from weak domestic demand. On Friday, nonfarm payrolls increased 139,000 last month after a combined 95,000 in downward revisions to the prior two months. The unemployment rate held at 4.2%, while wage growth accelerated. The payrolls figure helped alleviate concerns of a rapid deterioration in labor demand as companies contend with higher costs related to tariffs and prospects of slower economic activity. In other trade news, a US trade team that’s currently in India for negotiations has extended its stay, according to people familiar with the matter. That’s a sign talks are progressing ahead of a July deadline.

Nikkei +0.89% Hang Seng +0.95% CSI +0.21% Shanghai +0.31% Shenzen +0.75%

Eur$ 1.1415 CNH 7.1868 CNY 7.1872 JPY 144.43 GBP 1.3553 CHF 0.8211 RUB 78.9813 TRY 39.2477 WTI$ 64.55 -0.05% Gold 3,312 +0.05% BTC 105,707 -0.47% ETH 2,492 -1.58%

S&P -0.17% Nasdaq -0.24% EuroStoxx -0.09% FTSE -0.03% Dax -0.14% SMI

Macro :
- China’s Copper Boom Under Threat as Miners Test Bargaining Power
- ECB’s Schnabel Says Now Is Right Time to Boost Role of Euro
- Dutch Far-Right Leader’s Bid for More Power Risks Flopping
- China Says Progress Made With EU on Electric Vehicle Price Talks
- Vance Says He Hopes Musk Returns to Fold After Feud With Trump
- US Seeks Deal in London on China Rare Earth Flows, Hassett Says
- Japan Eyes US Tariff Agreement Aligned With G-7 Summit: NHK

Keep an eye on :
- BABA US : Alibaba, Tencent Freeze AI Tools During High-Stakes China Exam
- AAPL US : Apple's WWDC Is Here. Investors Are Still Waiting on That AI Promise.
- Amorino Private : French Gelato Maker Amorino Mulls Sale of Minor Stake: L’Informé
- ANTO LN : China’s Copper Boom Tested as Miners Wield Bargaining Power
- BA US : NASA Delays Next Flight of Boeing’s Alternative to SpaceX Dragon
- SATS US : EchoStar Drops on Report It’s Weighing Potential Bankruptcy - *ECHOSTAR SHARES PARE DECLINE TO 11% FROM 37%
- SATS US : Musk Looms in Ergen Fight Over EchoStar Debt: The Brink
- ENI IM : ENI, YPF Sign Deal for Participation at Argentina LNG Project
- ERICB SS : Ericsson Gets Multi-Year Managed Services Deal With Bharti
- FER SM : Ferrovial Buys a 5.06% Stake in the 407 ETR
- FRE US : Fresenius Kabi USA Recalls Ivenix Infusion Product, FDA Says
- GLEN LN : China’s Copper Boom Tested as Miners Wield Bargaining Power
- GRAB US : Grab, Sea Have Expansion Potential in Vietnam, Citi Says
- KEMIRA FH : Kemira Expands Sodium Borohydride Powder Capacity in Finland
- KOJAMO FH : Kojamo to Sell 44 Residential Properties for EU242M
- META US : Meta in Talks for Scale AI Investment That Could Top $10 Billion
- MSFT US : Microsoft to rank ‘safety’ of AI models sold to cloud customers
- BMPS IM : Banca MPS Expects No Impact from Ruling on Preliminary Probe of NPL Proceedings
- Novo Banco : Lone Star’s Novo Banco Is Said to Get Bids From BPCE, CaixaBank
- NVDA US : Nvidia’s Huang to Meet German Chancellor on AI Bid: Handelsblatt
- PHR PL : Pharol Says Burlington Loan Management Increased Stake to 19.55%
- P911 GY : Porsche Mulls Doing Some Final Assembly in US to Ease Tariff Hit
- P911 GY : Porsche Dismisses Media Report Over Shifting Production to US Amid Tariff Concerns
- RNO FP : Renault In Discussions With France to Make Drones in Ukraine
- TGS NO : TGS & Oseberg Partner on Lease Data Into Analytics Platform
- TEG GY : 31.3% of TAG Immobilien Holders Opt for Scrip Dividend
- SDZ SW : Sandoz Slams Big Pharma Call for Higher Drug Prices in Europe
- STLA US : Stellantis Financial Services Securitizes Auto Loans for €1B
- NOVA US : Sunnova Energy International Files For Ch.11 Bankruptcy in Texas
- TEF SM : Telefonica, Masorange Said to Hold Early Talks on Vodafone Spain
- TEF SM : Telefonica Hires AZ Capital for Vodafone Espana Deal: Expansion
- TSLA US : Trump Wishes Musk Success With Tesla, Says Doge Helped A Lot
- TSLA US : Trump Says US Will ‘Take A Look’ at Musk’s Government Contracts
- TSLA US : Tesla’s EV Deliveries Are Seen Falling as Demand Erodes Sharply
- TSLA US : Tesla’s Leader of Optimus Humanoid Robot Program Leaves Company
- TSLA US : United Switches Off Starlink Internet on Regional Jets After Static Problem, Airline said SpaceX’s satellite-internet service generated interference after being installed on a couple dozen regional jets - WSJ
- TTE FP : TotalEnergies Said to Plan Stake Sales in US, Spain Renewables
- UBXN SW : U-Blox Confirms 2Q Revenue View After Cellular Divestment
- VOW GY : VW Investment Plan Causes Open Conflict Among Executives: WiWo

>>> Stoxx 600 Pre-Market Indications

  • BAE (BSP TH) +1.6%
  • Diageo (GUI TH) +1.5%
  • Rolls-Royce (RRU TH) +1.5%
  • Novo (NOV TH) +1.3%
  • Telenor (TEQ TH) +1%
  • Sanofi (SNW TH) +0.9%
    • Sanofi hails Dupixent data in eczema sufferers; Beyfortus demand rises
  • QinetiQ (QY6 TH) +0.9%
  • Vestas (VWSB TH) +0.9%
  • Hermes (HMI TH) +0.8%
  • Equinor (DNQ TH) +0.7%
  • LEG Immobilien (LEG TH) -0.9%
  • Kion (KGX TH) -0.9%
  • Saab (SDV1 TH) -0.9%
  • Investor AB (IVSD TH) -0.9%
  • Nordea Bank (04Q TH) -1.1%
  • Hexagon (HXG TH) -1.1%
  • EasyJet (EJT1 TH) -1.2%
  • 3i (IGQ5 TH) -1.2%
  • Telecom Italia (TQI TH) -1.2%
    • Italian Telco Rising Consolidation Odds a Boon to Telecom Italia
  • RENK Group (R3NK TH) -2.3%

>>> TradeGate Pre-Market Indications

DAX:
  • Rheinmetall (RHM TH) +0.6%
  • Bayer (BAYN TH) +0.6%
  • Merck KGaA (MRK TH) +0.6%
  • Mercedes (MBG TH) -0.5%
  • SAP (SAP TH) -0.5%
  • Commerzbank (CBK TH) -0.5%
    • Banks Want Staff Back at the Office. There Aren’t Enough Desks
  • Siemens Healthineers (SHL TH) -0.6%
  • Fresenius SE (FRE TH) -0.7%
    • Fresenius Kabi USA Recalls Ivenix Infusion Product, FDA Says
MDAX:
  • Evonik (EVK TH) +0.6%
  • Evotec (EVT TH) +0.5%
  • flatexDEGIRO (FTK TH) -0.6%
  • Kion (KGX TH) -0.7%
  • Fraport (FRA TH) -0.8%
  • Jungheinrich (JUN3 TH) -0.9%
  • RENK Group (R3NK TH) -1.3%
SDAX:
  • Grenke (GLJ TH) +0.8%
  • Borussia Dortmund (BVB TH) +0.7%
  • Medios (ILM1 TH) +0.7%
  • PNE AG (PNE3 TH) +0.5%
  • Deutz (DEZ TH) +0.5%
  • PVA TePla (TPE TH) -0.6%
  • MLP (MLP TH) -0.7%
  • SFC Energy (F3C TH) -0.9%
  • Formycon (FYB TH) -0.9%

FT : Tesla after Trump : Autonomus Diving!

Tesla after Trump

Tesla
Everyone saw it coming. When Donald Trump and Elon Musk made their pact ahead of the 2024 election, it was widely assumed that the partnership would be shortlived. But this was even shorter than we expected. And the break-up was a spectacle.

That spectacle undid much of the boost Tesla stock received from Musk announcing that he would step back from his government work and focus on business. Since Musk’s late April announcement, Tesla had risen nearly 45 per cent. On Thursday, during the mud-throwing contest, the shares went down 14 per cent, and only gained back a little on Friday. Interestingly, that fall leaves Tesla’s shares essentially flat since 2022. Here’s the chart:


Tesla is not a stock that — how to put this? — responds much to fundamentals. While it was already down for 2025, even that fall may have been understating the significant troubles at the automaker. Sales have been plummeting in the US and abroad, as Musk’s personal brand has turned off buyers and as the company has lost ground to other EV makers, particularly cheap Chinese competitors. Analysts had already been steadily downgrading expected sales over the past three years, and are now predicting a steeper decline at the end of this year and in 2026:


Its gross profit margins have eroded as volumes have fallen, and they are expected to go lower still. And the other parts of its business have had major obstacles: its higher-margin battery business has been disrupted by tariffs, while its robotaxi fleet is falling behind competitors like Waymo.

But that brings us to the big question. What does the big drop last Thursday mean? What is the market thinking, as it were? 

We have three (not mutually exclusive) theories. The first is that the market is reacting to the provisions of Trump’s big beautiful bill. A bearish JPMorgan note making the rounds suggests that the bill could cut Tesla’s operating earnings in half. They estimate a $1.2bn drop from the end of the consumer EV tax credit, and a $2.0bn hit from the end of carbon tax credits. Those proposals have been on the books now for a week or two, and have not moved the stock all that much. With Trump and Musk no longer on good terms, it seems unlikely that Musk can convince Republicans to amend the bill.

The next possibility is that the premium built into Tesla’s stock is about more than just the car business. Up until last week, it seemed that Musk’s companies outside of Tesla were getting a boost from his work in the federal government: X debt sold well, and SpaceX and Starlink got various perks. Tesla investors might have been expecting something similar for Tesla. Not now.

A final factor is partisanship. TD Cowen created a breakdown of Tesla’s US sales by each counties’ political leanings. Since the Trump-Musk partnership started, sales in red counties have picked up and are a larger share of the total, while sales have fallen in blue ones:


Itay Michaeli and his colleagues at TD Cowen note that if all red counties were to reach the same level of EV penetration as red counties in Texas, which saw a big bump in the first quarter, there would be a 39 per cent jump in EV sales this year (not just for Tesla). But with Musk now on Trump’s bad side, Republican enthusiasm for EVs — Tesla’s EVs in particular — may wane.

There is a range of views about what could happen from here. While analyst estimates are mostly ticking down, more bullish assessments are out there. Emmanuel Rosner at Wolfe Research argues that the hit from the budget bill could be less severe than predicted by JPMorgan. He breaks it down as follows: 

a) TSLA’s US tariff rate is effectively zero, below competitors . . . in the ~$2000-$6000+ range (creates a pricing umbrella); b) [Management] plans to launch an affordable line-up [likely leading to] healthy margins at scale; and c) medium-term, with federal & state emission standards easing, several automakers will be less inclined to “push” EVs on to the market just for compliance purposes [making a better EV pricing environment]

And who knows where the relationship between the two billionaires will wind up. Their love turned to hate quicker than we imagined. But love and hate are always two sides of the same coin. The bromance could be rekindled.

WSJ : Modern Tech and Old-School Spycraft Are Redefining War

Modern Tech and Old-School Spycraft Are Redefining War
Ukraine’s strike against Russian bomber fleet, Israel’s decapitation of Hezbollah herald the transformation of warfare

Key Points
  • Israeli intel operations against Hezbollah reshaped Mideast power, enabling Syria’s downfall and shrinking Iran’s influence.
  • Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb struck Russian airfields, eroding Moscow’s cruise missile capabilities.
  • Modern spycraft, empowered by tech, redresses power balance, favoring weaker actors with limited costs and significant impact.

Deception, infiltration and spycraft have played a major role in warfare at least since the ancient Greeks gifted a wooden horse to the citizens of Troy.

In more recent times, such operations rarely had a strategic effect, but the spectacular operations of Israeli intelligence against Hezbollah in Lebanon last fall and of Ukraine against Russia’s strategic bomber fleet last weekend have brought them back to the forefront of conflict in the 21st century.

Both showed how technological advances—such as drones, communications networks and smaller but more powerful batteries and explosives—can potentially alter the course of a war when they are coupled with superior tradecraft.

“Technology today allows you many new possibilities: There is a larger surface where you can actually detect places where your enemy is vulnerable due to the fact that you can bypass a lot of physical barriers that in the past you couldn’t bypass,” said Eyal Tsir Cohen, a former senior division director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service.

Yet, he added, many of the same technologies can also empower one’s opponents. “It always works both ways—it depends on which side is more sophisticated in exploiting the vulnerabilities of the other side,” Cohen said. “You need good people to work with technology—technology rides on the shoulders of the human factor and not vice versa.”

Ultimately, success in this rapidly changing world depends on the ability to anticipate the new opportunities—something that big powers such as Russia and perhaps the U.S., can be slow to understand as the very nature of warfare evolves.

“The failure of thinking through the insecurities of the supply chain on the part of Hezbollah and the astounding failure by Russia—those were failures of imagination,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. The new way of war redresses the balance of power in favor of weaker actors, he added: “If you can punch above your weight while also having limited costs and blowback to yourself, it can level the playing field.”

Israel’s multistage operation to intercept and booby-trap pagers used by Hezbollah, then the militia commanders’ walkie-talkies, followed up by targeted strikes that killed leader Hassan Nasrallah last September and wiped out most of the organization’s leadership, reshaped—at least temporarily—the balance of power in the entire Middle East.

In that campaign, the result of a yearslong effort to infiltrate Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsors, Israel didn’t just dramatically weaken the U.S.-designated terrorist group, its most formidable immediate foe that has lost its stranglehold over Lebanon’s government. Israel also helped create conditions for the downfall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria two months later and the overall shrinking of Iran’s regional power.

The Ukrainian operation on June 1 to target five Russian airfields that house Moscow’s strategic bomber fleet was also the result of a lengthy intelligence operation deep behind enemy lines. The simultaneous attack, launched by drones hidden in prefabricated homes moving on trucks, showed that even the farthest parts of Russia are within Ukraine’s reach—and that Ukrainian intelligence is able to operate throughout Russia’s surveillance-intensive police state. Four of the five airfields—including one just north of Mongolia—were hit. The fifth drone launcher malfunctioned.


Ukraine struck more than 20 aircraft and destroyed at least 12, according to drone footage released by Ukrainian intelligence from the four bases and independent satellite photos. The attack has seriously eroded Russia’s ability to launch cruise missiles across Ukraine—one of Moscow’s most important advantages in this war.

Russia owned some 112 Tu-22 and Tu-95 strategic bombers before Sunday’s attack. It is no longer able to manufacture the bombers and as little as half of the fleet was operational. Unlike the Israeli pager operation, which caused a number of civilian casualties in Lebanon, Ukraine didn’t strike any Russian civilians in the airfield attack, dubbed Operation Spiderweb.

Before the wide-scale killings of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s overtures to Russia soured many Ukrainians’ opinion of Israel, Ukrainian officials openly spoke of their admiration for the daring and the inventiveness of the Israeli intelligence. During a 2022 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov made sure to display a book about the Mossad atop his desk.

“Back in the 1970s, when Israel faced an existential threat and was surrounded by much more powerful enemies that plotted its elimination, it survived through asymmetric warfare. Ukraine, too, has to think asymmetrically—it’s our only chance to survive,” said Ukraine’s former defense minister, Andriy Zagorodnyuk, who currently advises the Ukrainian government.

Using innovative naval drone tactics, Ukraine had already severely curtailed the ability of the Russian Black Sea Fleet to operate, turning expensive warships into a liability rather than asset for Moscow, he said. If Ukraine similarly disables Russia’s strategic aviation, it would be “an enormous achievement,” he added.

Despite Sunday’s losses, Russia retains the capacity to lob cruise missiles at Ukraine from its strategic bombers and it fired a salvo on Friday morning, hitting Kyiv and several other cities. In another drone attack Friday, Ukraine also blew up the fuel facility at the Engels airfield, one of the main bases of the Russian strategic bomber fleet, and hit the Bryansk airfield.

Israel’s pager operation against Hezbollah caused a strategic pivot only because it was followed up by additional successes in the following days and weeks, said Nadav Pollak, an Israeli intelligence veteran and a lecturer at Reichman University. “If there wasn’t a cumulative aspect and effect, we wouldn’t think of it as strategically successful. One thing needs to happen after another—and if Ukraine continues to hit strategic assets, eventually they will have a cumulative effect as well,” he said.

No matter how daring, operations behind enemy lines don’t necessarily lead to a war-altering outcome. Italian divers, after all, sank or damaged four British ships by riding torpedoes and attaching explosives to the vessels in Alexandria harbor in 1941—but still failed to prevent an Allied victory in North Africa.

Creating paranoia and chaos within enemy ranks is often as useful as the actual physical damage. The Israeli strikes against Hezbollah and the assassination of the leader of Hamas in a government guesthouse in Iran made its enemies spend considerable resources on revising plans and procedures and on hunting for possible moles while trying to figure out to what extent they have been compromised, intelligence officials say.

The same goes for President Vladimir Putin’s Russia, where Ukrainian intelligence was able to mount a complicated operation likely involving a considerable number of agents—who operated under the nose of the FSB security service.

In the past, Putin has spoken proudly that his own father was assigned to a “demolition battalion” of the NKVD, the predecessor to the KGB, at one point dropping into a forest behind enemy lines to blow up a Nazi munition depot. Before joining the KGB, Putin grew up on the spy thrillers produced by the Soviet spy service that dramatized Moscow’s sabotage operations against the Third Reich. “What amazed me most of all is how one man’s effort could achieve what whole armies could not,” Putin later said in his autobiography.

Now, the tables have turned. “Ukraine is behind enemy lines, using asymmetric warfare to strike back at a nuclear-armed enemy,” said Dan Hoffman, a former CIA station chief in Moscow. “The symbolism is potent because Putin is an intel officer himself and yet he’s suffering numerous intel failures.”

Social-media video shows drones launching from a truck during a Ukrainian attack on a Russian air base.
Operation Spiderweb is already reverberating through NATO allies who are studying the innovations Ukraine deployed—including the use of artificial intelligence to help guide the drones to their targets. The operation has shown how Ukraine, with less manpower to draw from, can use a technological edge to increase the potency of its intelligence operations. It turned a Russian advantage—its vastness—into a weakness, by simultaneously striking targets thousands of miles apart.

“In the past, you would have special forces in a small submarine maybe, getting close to a bridge, and planting some explosives,” said Tomáš Kopečný, a Czech governmental envoy for Ukraine. “Now you have drones doing all that. It’s the technologization of these operations.”

“Every military is learning from this,” he said, referring to Operation Spiderweb. “If you had asked me point-blank, I would have not come up with this.”

WSJ : Japan’s Economy Remains at Risk of Technical Recession, Data Shows

Japan’s Economy Remains at Risk of Technical Recession, Data Shows
Some companies have projected significant profit declines for the current fiscal year

Key Points
  • Japan’s Q1 GDP shrank 0.2% annualized, revised from the initial 0.7% decline.
  • Private consumption edged up 0.1%, while capital expenditure rose 1.1% in Q1.
  • Economists see a possible technical recession in Q2 amid trade uncertainty and weak demand.

TOKYO—The Japanese economy shrank less than initially estimated in the first quarter but remains at risk of technical recession, which could delay the Bank of Japan’s timeline for raising interest rates.

Real gross domestic product contracted 0.2% on an annualized basis in the January-March period, government data showed Monday. That compares with the 0.7% decline in the preliminary estimate. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, Japan’s GDP was nearly flat.

Economists say Japan’s overall economic picture remains unchanged, with weak exports offsetting a recovery in domestic demand.

Private consumption rose 0.1% from the previous quarter, edging up from the initial flat reading, according to the revised figures. Capital expenditure increased 1.1% on the quarter, down from the preliminary 1.4% gain.

While domestic demand added 0.8 percentage point to growth, external demand, or exports minus imports, subtracted 0.8 percentage point from GDP.

“The revised reading doesn’t change the fact that Japan’s economy is struggling,” said Moody’s Analytics economist Stefan Angrick.

“Tariffs and tariff threats are damaging exports and industrial production. Household spending is weak as inflation outpaces wage growth, and pay gains may slow further if tariff pain derails the economy,” he said.

Some Japanese companies have already projected significant profit declines for the current fiscal year ending March 2026, raising concerns about future investments and wage increases.

Economy minister, Ryosei Akazawa, who is leading Japan’s side in trade negotiations with the U.S., has said there is still much to be resolved out at the ministerial level.

The two countries have agreed to “continue to vigorously coordinate to ensure a mutually beneficial agreement,” floating a possible meeting between Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and U.S. President Trump in time for the G-7 Summit in June.

Given persistent trade uncertainty and a sluggish recovery in domestic demand, economists say Japan may enter a technical recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction, in the April-June period.

Credit Agricole economist Takuji Aida expects the economy to contract at an annualized rate of 0.4% this quarter, as the boost from production and exports–seen before Trump imposed higher tariffs–fades.

“The BOJ won’t be able to raise interest rates this year, with the earliest possible additional hike likely in January next year,” he said.

FT : Sam Altman’s eyeball-scanning digital ID project to launch in UK

Sam Altman’s eyeball-scanning digital ID project to launch in UK
Verification service claims it will help distinguish between humans and artificial intelligence

Sam Altman’s World project has developed an orb ‘that confirms humanness’ by scanning people’s eyes © World

Sam Altman’s eyeball-scanning digital ID project is being rolled out in the UK, giving Britons access to verification services that the entrepreneur claims are essential for distinguishing between human and artificial intelligence.

Altman’s World project has developed an orb “that confirms humanness” by scanning people’s eyes, generating a digital credential that can be used to access goods and services online, as well as the group’s own cryptocurrency, Worldcoin. This week, World is opening a number of locations in London where people can scan their irises to receive a World ID.

The group is seeking to expand the scope of the project, which made its US debut in April.

“The UK is certainly one of the more influential markets in the world . . . it punches well above its weight globally,” said Adrian Ludwig, chief architect at Tools for Humanity, the primary developer behind World.

The UK population, he added, “is significantly online, is already well aware of the impact AI is going to have and is having. In the UK over 75 per cent of citizens speak to having been effected by AI on nearly a daily basis.”

The project’s leaders argue that AI is nearly at a stage in which it can faithfully imitate real people, in part thanks to advances made by companies such as Altman’s OpenAI.

The group anticipates that about 90 per cent of online content will be machine generated within two years and that, in many areas, distinguishing computers from people is already impossible.

Tools for Humanity was founded by Altman and Alex Blania in 2019 and has raised more than $300mn from venture capitalists and others, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud last year.

Last month, the group raised $135mn to build more orbs and fund its international expansion by selling Worldcoin to investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Bain Capital Crypto. The group does not yet have any revenue, but is exploring options including introducing fees for partners, such as Tinder parent Match Group, which use World services.

World’s executives argue that a verification tool such as theirs is essential to help banks tackle fraud, ensure dating apps only host humans or that gig tickets are not sold to virtual touts.

But World has faced pushback in European countries, including Spain and Portugal, over security and privacy concerns and been investigated by the Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision (BayLDA), the German data protection authority, over its handling of biometric data.

At the group’s US launch event in April, Altman said World’s technology was “a way to make sure humans remained central and special in a world where the internet had a lot of AI-driven content”.

Critics have highlighted that the challenge World seeks to resolve exists largely because Altman has raised billions of dollars to pursue powerful AI. The project must also overcome doubts about its utility and trustworthiness from users concerned about sharing their biometric data with a private company.

World has updated its technology since German authorities raised its concerns and, according to Ludwig, retains no data from those who use the orb. “Data is being held by a user on their local device. It’s not being uploaded somewhere. It’s certainly not going to a server that’s controlled by Tools for Humanity or by the World Foundation.”

He compares the process of using an iris scan to access online services to showing a driver’s licence at a bar: “They look at it, they confirm that you’re the age that you’re claiming to be, and they allow you in. They don’t write anything down.”

FT : US companies push for lower Vietnamese tariffs as China hedge

US companies push for lower Vietnamese tariffs as China hedge
Businesses argue south-east Asian country has become vital part of ‘China plus one’ strategy

American companies are urging Washington to lower tariffs on Vietnam, arguing that the south-east Asian country has become a vital part of their “China plus one” diversification strategy.

Vietnam was one of the biggest winners from US President Donald Trump’s trade war in his first term as manufacturers shifted from China. Apple, Intel and Nike are among American companies that rely heavily on Vietnam. 

As a result of that production shift, the south-east Asian country’s trade surplus with the US ballooned, crossing $125bn last year and ranking third after China and Mexico. The Trump administration imposed a 46 per cent tariff on Vietnam in April — one of the highest after China — before pausing the levy pending trade negotiations. 

The American Chamber of Commerce in Hanoi, whose members include the Vietnamese subsidiaries of big investors such as Apple, suggested that the move could be counter to US strategic interests in south-east Asia, where it has been trying to diversify away from China.


“Vietnam has emerged as a valued partner of the United States in the context of diversifying supply chains,” the chamber said in a letter sent to officials in the US and Vietnam, according to a copy obtained by the FT.  

While the letter did not mention China, it added: “We urge the US government to consider this deficit trend as evidence of President Trump’s success during his first term in diversifying supply chains in the Indo-Pacific region. We urge the US to avoid retaliatory and sectoral tariff measures against the logical outcome of its own policy goals.”

The tariffs are a “critical issue” for US businesses in Vietnam as higher rates would “negatively affect our members’ businesses and customers, and the broader commercial relationship between our two countries”, the chamber said. 

Vietnam is crucial to the supply chains of several American companies. It accounts for half of footwear production of Nike, which now plans to raise prices because of the tariffs. Analysts expect Apple to source two-thirds of AirPods from Vietnam by the end of the year. 

The lobbying by American companies comes as countries around the world rush to finalise a deal with the US before the 90-day pause on tariffs ends on July 9. US and Vietnamese officials are set to meet for a third round of talks by mid-June, according to Hanoi. 

A 46 per cent tariff would be devastating for Vietnam’s economy as the US accounts for nearly a third of its total exports. It would also affect new foreign investments coming into Vietnam. 


Vietnam has promised to buy more American products, including Boeing planes and liquefied natural gas, and remove non-tariff barriers for US companies. It recently approved a Trump Organization golf project and hosted Eric Trump for talks on a new Trump Tower in Ho Chi Minh City — in moves that observers believe would help Vietnam in trade negotiations. 

But one of the biggest pressure points from the US is on alleged trans-shipment of Chinese goods through Vietnam, which has in recent weeks vowed to increase scrutiny of such practices. 

In a Senate hearing last week, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said that even if Hanoi removed all tariffs and non-tariff barriers on American products, Washington would not lift its own levies on Vietnam as the country was a conduit for Chinese goods looking to avoid punitive US tariffs. 

“They buy $90bn from China, then they mark it up and send it to us,” Lutnick said. “They are just a pathway of China to us.”

Vietnamese officials said last week they were responding with “determination and goodwill” to issues raised by the US in trade negotiations. 

New trade data could add further pressure on Vietnam. Hanoi’s surplus with Washington surged to the second highest in April, overtaking Mexico, according to US figures. Vietnamese data showed that its May exports to the US continued to rise.

In the letter sent to the two governments, Amcham urged co-operation between customs authorities in Vietnam and the US to address illegal trans-shipment — an idea that people familiar with the matter say is under consideration by both governments. 

It also urged Vietnam to fast-track purchases of American products and introduce reforms in some sectors. The chamber recommended the “full liberalisation” of Vietnam’s power sector to attract investments. 

“This would spur Vietnamese imports of American turbines, LNG facilities and fuel, wind infrastructure equipment, batteries, and services in financing, construction and engineering,” which the chamber said would address the trade imbalance.

FT : Brazil plans panda bond as Lula looks to bolster ties with China

Brazil plans panda bond as Lula looks to bolster ties with China
Planned issuance also includes debt in Europe and will test investor appetite amid concerns over government policies

Brazil is hoping to sell its first sovereign debt in the Chinese market as soon as this year, as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva looks to strengthen trade and investment ties with the Asian superpower.

The leftwing administration in Brasília is planning the so-called panda bond — debt issued in Chinese renminbi by a foreign borrower — and is also keen to re-enter the euro-denominated bond market, according to deputy finance minister Dario Durigan.

“The idea is that this year we’ll do both a new dollar issuance of a sustainable bond, like we did last year, as well as in Europe, and panda bonds in China,” he told the Financial Times in an interview.

“The European Union wants to negotiate with Brazil to expand our bilateral trade, whether in terms of transactions or also by offering Brazil the option of issuing its bonds in Europe,” Durigan added. “The same thing can happen with China.”

The Lula government has been trying to deepen commercial ties with Brussels and consolidate links with Beijing, amid the global trade war sparked by US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.

The Mercosur bloc of South American nations, of which Brazil is a member, hopes that a long-awaited trade deal with the EU will be approved by the end of this year. On Thursday Lula met French President Emmanuel Macron during a state visit to Paris and appealed to him to support the agreement. Macron has so far resisted ratification of the trade treaty, which is strongly opposed by French farmers.

Plans for a panda bond come amid efforts to secure greater investment from China, Brazil’s largest trading partner, during a state visit by Lula last month. Beijing has also mounted a charm offensive towards Latin America as it looks to broaden its economic influence.

“In many cases I would think of [panda bonds] as a diplomatic move rather than a financial one,” said Graham Stock, emerging markets sovereign strategist at RBC BlueBay Asset Management, adding that such instruments are typically about just $200mn to $300mn in size.

The planned issuance will test international investor appetite for Brazilian debt at a time of growing market scepticism towards the policies of Lula, who has sought to increase the state’s role in the economy in an effort to boost growth and reduce inequality. 

His government’s tax-and-spend approach has irked Brazilian business leaders, with critics arguing that excessive expenditure is fuelling inflation, forcing up interest rates and risking unsustainable government debt. 

“Day in, day out they are thinking about new ways to spend money,” said Alberto Ramos, chief Latin America economist at Goldman Sachs. “They still need to adjust the budget deficit by three percentage points of GDP to make finances sustainable.” 

Brazil primarily funds itself via domestic investors, with less than 5 per cent of its public debt denominated in other currencies — mostly dollars. Its last euro issuance was in 2014.

This week Brazil sold $1.5bn of a five-year dollar bond at a yield of 5.68 per cent and $1.25bn of 10-year debt yielding 6.73 per cent. It was the country’s second international issuance of 2025. 

Issuing in renminbi would be cheaper than in reais, possibly as low as 2 per cent for 10-year debt, but that leaves currency risk, said RBC BlueBay’s Stock. Hedging this into dollars could push the rate closer to the cost of borrowing in the US currency, he added, while hedging into reais would raise it to almost 14 per cent.

Borrowing costs in Brazil have climbed as the country’s central bank has lifted its benchmark rate to 14.75 per cent in an attempt to tame inflation. Opponents accuse the government of not doing enough to tackle a chronic fiscal deficit and rising debt levels.

Durigan said the administration was on track to meet its 2025 target of a balanced primary budget, meaning before interest payments. For next year the government is targeting a primary surplus of 0.25 per cent of GDP. However, the country’s nominal public deficit, which includes interest payments, has widened under Lula to 7.8 per cent of GDP.

Nevertheless, Durigan hopes the country is edging towards investment grade status.

“We are carrying out a progressive fiscal adjustment. In other words, we are balancing the accounts with social justice,” he said.

“Our public debt problem today comes from interest,” he added. “If we start to address the fiscal situation, allowing us to provide the central bank with conditions to gradually reduce interest rates, we will be able to obtain an investment grade [rating next year].”

Goldman’s Ramos, however, was sceptical. “They won’t get investment grade next year,” he said. “They’re not even close.”

Moody’s upgraded Brazil’s long-term rating last October to one notch below the coveted status, which opens the door to cheaper capital. However, the rating agency last month revised the country’s credit outlook from positive to stable, citing slower than expected progress on fiscal policy.

With a general election next year, sceptics fear the government will resort to higher welfare payments and other giveaways ahead of the vote. 

An announcement last month, designed to bolster the public finances by freezing R$31bn (US$5.5bn) in spending, triggered a market sell-off because of a poorly communicated tax increase on certain financial transactions. That reignited doubts about the government’s commitment to austerity and was perceived by some as a way to discourage money from leaving the country, although finance minister Fernando Haddad denied any intention to impose capital controls.

Barclays economist Roberto Secemski described the country’s fiscal situation as “very delicate”, given it had one of the largest debt loads among emerging markets, with gross government borrowings at 76 per cent of GDP.

“Brazil needs a primary surplus of at least 2 per cent to stabilise debt,” he said. “We’re far from that. A lot of adjustments are necessary that have been postponed and realistically will only be dealt with in the next administration.”

FT : Norway’s oil fund calls for urgent reform of European capital markets

Norway’s oil fund calls for urgent reform of European capital markets
World’s largest sovereign wealth fund says ambitious action needed to improve competitiveness

The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund is calling for urgent reform of Europe’s capital markets including harmonised tax, insolvency and supervisory rules to ensure the continent does not fall further behind the US and Asia in competitiveness.

Norway’s $1.9tn oil fund is the biggest single owner of European assets, owning on average 2.5 per cent of every listed company on the continent.

But the share of European equities in its total assets has fallen from 26 per cent to 15 per cent in the past decade, mainly because of what it says is falling competitiveness compared with US stock markets and some Asian bourses.

“A well-functioning market in Europe is very important to us . . . It feels like there’s a sense of urgency right now [among policymakers]. We feel it too, and we’re happy about that,” Malin Norberg, chief of market strategies at the fund, told the Financial Times.

The fund will this week send a response to the European Commission’s consultation on capital markets integration, arguing it should be more ambitious and address deeper structural problems hurting the continent and its multiple national markets.

“We share the concern that European markets over time have fallen behind in terms of business dynamism and the provision of new investment opportunities to institutional investors,” the letter says.

“Key barriers include national securities laws, corporate laws, and insolvency regimes that vary significantly across member states.”

The fund, whose biggest holdings in Europe include SAP, ASML, Novo Nordisk, Nestlé and UBS, listed areas where it wanted to see action.

These included fewer national differences in securities and corporate law and insolvency regimes across Europe; harmonisation of tax regimes, especially for withholding tax; and streamlining of debt issuance.

It said liquidity for European equities should be improved through competition and innovation, not regulation, and that supervision should be unified at a European level.

Norwegian politicians cut the fund’s relative exposure to Europe and boosted its US allocation in 2012, but it still remains “overweight” on the continent.


However, the fund’s executives said a bigger factor behind the drop in European investments had been structural issues such as fewer listed companies in the region.

Performance relative to US equities has been another issue. US shares now account for 40 per cent of its assets, compared with 21 per cent a decade ago.

“We have seen over the last years that the number of European companies that we’ve been able to invest in has dropped, and also the relative AUM [assets under management] size that we have in Europe has also gone down quite significantly,” said Emil Framnes, the fund’s global head of equity trading.

European technology companies such as Spotify and Klarna have listed or are planning to list in the US, while groups such as Linde, CRH and Arm Holdings moved their listings there in recent years.

The number of European companies owned by the fund has fallen by a quarter in the past decade to 1,546.