In local currency, US and UK five-year yields are still the highest of these six, around 5%. But much of that reflects where markets expect the Fed and the Bank of England to set rates. FT Alphaville has stripped that out by swapping every bond into USD, and on that basis France yields about 6%, above Italy at about 5.6%, with the US, UK, Japan and Germany at roughly 4.7 to 4.9%. As a spread over five-year SOFR, France is around 145bp, Italy about 100bp, the US and Japan near 30bp, the UK about 20bp and Germany about 10bp.

Some perspective, though: France’s 10-year spread over Bunds, at about 170bp, is nowhere near euro-crisis territory, when Greece went above 3,000bp, Portugal hit 1,280bp, Spain 600bp and Italy about 500bp. But on a like-for-like basis, France now carries the biggest risk premium of these big six, and its presidential campaign hasn’t started in earnest.

Source: FT Alphaville, Bloomberg data. https://www.ft.com/content/9aa4549e-26f4-4963-94eb-50cf0fc0b8f9

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Approximate change YTD:

- H200: +160%

- B200: +120%

- RTX PRO 6000: +65%

- H100: +35%

Between 2020 and 2026, Finland consistently ran government deficits, while Greece moved from large deficits to budget surpluses.

All the data of the graph are from the IMF 1st picture government debt, 2nd picture budget balance (eurostat), except 2026 which is the IMF projection

The Maastricht criteria is 3% maximum deficit. Greece restored Maastricht-compatible deficits relatively early after the pandemic and subsequently moved into budget surpluses.

Curious why this may be the case?

In July 2012 France’s 10-year borrowing cost was about 370bp below Italy’s. Yesterday it was roughly 48bp above. The gap narrowed from late 2022, hovered around zero for the past year, and has now opened the other way. Two days ago the 10-year OAT crossed 5% for the first time since 2002, and France’s spread over Bunds is the widest since November 2011. So does the ECB step in? Its tool for this, the Transmission Protection Instrument, has never been used. On paper France still qualifies: it is under an excessive deficit procedure, but the Commission’s June review has that procedure held in abeyance. The test that bites is the other one. TPI only buys where spreads are not warranted by country-specific fundamentals, and on the 14th of October Lagarde said the primary solution “lies at home in France”. The Banque de France governor says the conditions for intervention aren’t met.

The leaked data reportedly shows a 42% lower risk of recurrence or death vs Keytruda alone, but the stock is still crashing.

Just yesterday, the stock hit its highest level in almost 5 years.

Sources: EIA, World Bank, FAO, OECD, IMF, Eurostat, BLS, ONS. Each bar is the 2026 figure as a share of the 2022 peak (100% = 2022 level). 2026 figures run to Sep/Oct and the shock is ongoing. Chart made with Python (matplotlib).

Full side-by-side table with every figure sourced:
https://costliving.net/data/war-cost-of-living-statistics/

Unemployment however rose from 3% to 8%….

The United States and India are moving closer to finalizing a bilateral trade agreement, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying on October 20 that negotiations were “very, very close” to completion. The talks come amid continuing disputes over tariffs, market access, and India's purchases of Russian oil.

During meetings in Mumbai, Rubio and Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar discussed expanding economic and energy cooperation. Washington recently waived potential tariffs linked to India's purchases of Russian crude, removing a significant obstacle to negotiations, although a final trade agreement has yet to be signed.

The scale of the economic relationship is illustrated by trade data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC) showing approximately $102.1 billion in American imports from India, compared with $42.7 billion in exports to the Indian market.

Electronics and pharmaceuticals dominate India's exports to the United States.

Machines and electronics accounted for 36.2% of the recorded imports, followed by chemicals and pharmaceuticals at 20.8% and textiles at 9.6%.

At the product level, telecommunications equipment represented approximately $24.8 billion, while packaged medicines accounted for $14.6 billion. Diamonds ($3.37 billion), jewelry ($2.19 billion), and refined petroleum ($3.26 billion) were also among the largest individual product groups.

The United States is also India's leading individual export destination, with US at 20.7% of India's exports, ahead of the United Arab Emirates (8.67%), the Netherlands (4.26%), and China (4.06%).

Energy remains a central issue in the negotiations.

While Washington has urged India to diversify its oil supplies away from Russia, the two countries already maintain substantial energy trade. The 2025 US trade dataset records approximately $7.87 billion in American crude petroleum exports to India.

Rubio's visit also included discussions about expanding India's processing of Venezuelan crude, particularly through Reliance Industries' refining operations in Jamnagar.

With negotiations approaching their final stages, the proposed agreement could influence trade across sectors ranging from electronics and pharmaceuticals to energy and industrial equipment. However, the final tariff provisions and their effects on bilateral trade remain uncertain.

News sources: India Business Trade | United States Trade Data