The Senate passed a temporary funding measure to end the U.S. government shutdown for most departments through 1/30/26 and for some agencies (USDA, FDA, VA and Legislative Branch) through 9/30/26. The bill is expected to receive House approval by Wednesday and head to President Trump for his signature soon thereafter.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Monday the biggest use of his Department’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) will be for nuclear power plants. “By far the biggest use of those dollars will be for nuclear plants to get those first plants built.” The LPO has hundreds of billions of dollars of potential financing aid, including loan guarantees for projects which might otherwise struggle to get bank loans. Secretary Wright suggested equity financing capital will be matched “3-to-1, maybe even up to 4-to-1” with low cost LPO debt guarantees.
AI watch: 1.) CEO Satya Nadella said Microsoft does not have enough electricity to power all its AI GPU’s, 2.) Shares of Nvidia-backed Core Weave plunged 9% early Tuesday on scaled back revenue forecasts, and 3.) Founder Masayoshi Son announced liquidation of SoftBank’s entire $5.83B Nvidia stake.
St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem cited inflation closer to 3% than 2%, elevated stock prices and loose financial conditions in stating there is “limited room to ease policy further without policy becoming overly accommodative.”
In the latest sign of the toxic EU mix of high energy costs, increasing bureaucratic burdens, stagnating economic growth, and U.S. tariffs, IFO business expectations index in Germany’s chemical industry (3rd largest industry employing 500k people) fell to -13.3 in Oct. from -3.7 in Sept. and the IFO business climate index fell to -19.4 from -12.0. The index of order backlogs fell to -68.9 (lowest in more than three decades).
Reuters reports Switzerland could seal a deal to lower U.S. tariffs on Swiss imports from 39% to 15% as soon as Friday.
U.S. bond markets closed today for Veterans’ Day. Euro Stoxx 50 +0.4%, S&P futures -0.2% and Nasdaq futures -0.4%. DXY dollar index -0.03%, spot gold +0.55% and spot silver +1.3% (gold/silver ratio at 80.8).
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