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• Asian stock markets declined following a selloff in US technology stocks, mirroring a downward trend from Wall Street. • In contrast, gold prices have risen for five consecutive days, reaching significant highs as investors seek safe-haven assets. • Market volatility is currently driven by investor caution and anticipation surrounding the upcoming earnings announcement from Nvidia.

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.68% on Friday, recovering from a sharp sell-off on Thursday triggered by rising Treasury yields and disappointing Walmart results. • Investors remain cautious as fluctuating oil prices and the Federal Reserve's interest rate outlook continue to impact market volatility. • Market participants are now focusing on upcoming PCE inflation data and Kevin Warsh’s Jackson Hole speech for clues regarding future monetary policy.

• Bitcoin has reached its highest price level since mid-May, driven by a weakening US dollar and a selloff in the US bond market. • EU residents were advised in 2025 to stockpile 72 hours of food, water, and essentials to prepare for cyber-attacks and climate disasters like the wildfires in France and Spain. • Cash usage has increased significantly, with over 31 million banknotes currently in circulation compared to 24 million in 2019, with the €50 and €100 notes being the most popular.

• The CAC 40 closed at 8,501.91 points on Wednesday, marking a slight decline of 7.45 points (0.088%) from the previous day. • The dip was driven by a broader semiconductor selloff, specifically impacting STMicroelectronics, which weighed down both the French and Italian (FTSE MIB) markets. • In contrast, London's FTSE 100 rose 0.14% to 10,743.35, as its heavy weighting in energy, financials, and healthcare insulated it from the tech rout.

A ‘capacity for despair’ forged by political oppression has long been consider a Magyar national trait. But after Orbán, writers in the country remind us that melancholy must not always be bleakA lone visitor looks for a garden outside an empty monastery. A morose housekeeper won’t let anyone behind the door of her own home. A retired general living alone on a crumbling estate waits 40 years to confront the only friend he ever had. Melancholy, an affinity with oblivion without a concrete cause, suffuses the Hungarian fiction translated for foreign audiences over the past 30 years, from the tortured tales of Sándor Márai to the taut novels of Magda Szabó.In his book In Praise of Melancholy, essayist László F Földényi tells the story of an Englishman who monomanically decides to teach himself Hungarian. For Földényi, the commitment to studying a language with 26 cases and with no connection to any other language, from a culture besieged by centuries of invasion, is to embrace melancholy, a seductive “capacity for despair”. To read Hungarian literature as an outsider, the poet János Pilinszky claimed in 1972, is to acquire unique spiritual insights that come from centuries of rootlessness, alienation and strife. Continue reading...

• A recent surge in US long-term Treasury yields has triggered a bond market selloff, causing concern among equity investors regarding the stability of the stock market. • Technical analyst Mark and other experts identify five resilience signals, including a VIX-to-VVIX ratio of 0.17 and the continued strength of financial stocks during yield curve steepening. • Deutsche Bank strategist Maximilian Uleer warns that Brent crude exceeding $100 per barrel, combined with high long-term rates and falling inflation, would be a more critical danger signal.

• A global bond market selloff on August 19 caused long-term government bond yields to surge to multi-year highs, triggering a broad decline in equity markets. • Asia-Pacific technology sectors were hit hardest, with South Korea's KOSPI plunging 5.8% and China's STAR 50 index dropping 6.89%. • In contrast, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index showed relative resilience by bucking the downward trend and recording a marginal gain.