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CHART 1 • Young adults choose AI for support

There are two interesting things about this chart when you look at it. Firstly, more people across the board are turning to AI for emotional support. This is according to a survey carried out by Mental Health America of 10,503 people. As you can see, there’s been quite a considerable leap from 2025 to 2026.

What’s even more alarming is that this is heavily skewed towards the younger population, with the biggest cohort coming from the under-18s, followed by the 18- to 24-year-olds. According to the survey, people who had used AI for emotional support cited its availability at any hour of the day and the chance to seek help without telling their loved ones and family.

There’s also a warning here. Although teenagers are by far the largest grouping, it’s dangerous to just focus on teenagers alone and miss the young adults who are also reporting their increasing use of AI to support themselves emotionally.

Source: Statista

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CHART 1 • Russian attacks on Ukrainian grain triple

Russia’s war in Ukraine is straining food and fuel supplies. And this doesn’t just affect Ukraine; it also affects Russia, as Russian farmers are now struggling to export their own crops. This includes grain exports through the Black Sea, which usually account for 80% of the country’s exports.

For Ukrainian farmers, their normal sea routes have become too dangerous to use due to deliberate and targeted attacks by Russia. In fairness, both countries are assaulting each other’s exports of grain and have done so over the past year, as you can see in this chart. But it’s asymmetric. Russia has always proactively targeted Ukraine’s grain exports, and the attacks you see here from Ukraine are far more moderate counterattacks.

What’s frightening is the global impact, because both Russia and Ukraine export a huge amount of grain to the global market, especially to emerging markets. This will have an impact not just on food inflation, but also on countries where grain supply is running low.

Source: Bloomberg

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CHART 1 • Brazil’s unemployment rate has fallen, but so has sentiment

Beneath the surface of Brazil’s economy, the country is still trying to adapt to the last technological wave before AI – the gig economy. Take a look at this chart. Over the last four years, the unemployment rate has halved. But it’s what’s behind those numbers that’s interesting.

When you look at the raw economic headline figures, the economy looks strong under Lula, with solid growth throughout his third term and unemployment now at its lowest rate since records began in 2012, at just 5.3%. However, a September poll by Quasset showed that 49% of Brazilians believe the economy has got worse over the past year.

One of the trends that I’ve noticed on my visits to Brazil is dramatic growth in Uber and delivery apps, which are acting as a form of economic safety net for many people struggling to find full-time work. Uberisation, as it’s known, has helped the unemployment rate to fall. It’s acted like a guaranteed employment programme, except in this case, it’s sustained by private demand rather than government assistance.

However, this increasing reliance on the gig economy for work has also created a broader sense of resentment because it comes bundled with uncertainty. And with more than 80% of households in Brazil making payments on personal debts with high interest rates, naturally many Brazilians feel under pressure. The economic data just doesn’t match sentiment right now.

Source: Financial Times

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CHART 1 • The $67 billion equities boom for Wall Street

According to CNBC, Wall Street banks have had a bumper year when it comes to trading revenue, fuelled by the global boom in artificial intelligence stocks, relaxed capital requirements and a huge amount of lending to hedge funds.

To add some context, according to company filings, this year, up until 30 September, the banks reported $7 billion more than the same group reported during the whole of 2025, meaning that this is a record haul.

Together, the five earned $66.95 billion. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan supplied most of it, while Bank of America and Citi made smaller contributions despite strong growth of their own. Equities revenue includes more than fees from buying and selling shares. Banks also handle derivatives and finance institutional clients’ positions.

Busier client trading and borrowing helped lift the leading banks’ results; Goldman specifically recorded higher financing and derivatives revenue in the third quarter. The figures do not separate those activities at every bank.

Source: CNBC

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CHART 1 • Anthropic’s $40 trillion market opportunity

There has never been anything like this before. Anthropic’s $40 trillion market opportunity dwarfs any prior tech IPO in recent history, which you can see quite clearly in this chart from the Wall Street Journal. At $40 trillion, this is even higher than SpaceX and far beyond any of the other selected technology IPO filings we have seen. It towers over Rivian, Uber, Airbnb and Reddit’s IPOs. Palantir and Snowflake are barely visible on the same scale.

And this is to be expected. This is one of the most disruptive technological changes we have experienced in the modern era. It threatens to completely upheave the labour market and change the way companies operate and even how the economy functions. One economist even joked that this is the most important innovation since the invention of fire. That’s a slight exaggeration, obviously. But that is just how significant the rise of AI is and why Anthropic perhaps can justify that $40 trillion number.

But there are some distinctions we need to make. There are some questions that need to be answered. Are investors extrapolating the future of AI and the outcome of this disruption too far into the future at this stage? There are still so many unknowns that are yet to be answered.

Source: Wall Street Journal

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CHART 1 • SpaceX outlaunches all governments

This data visualisation from Leverage Shares is incredibly elegant. It covers seven decades of launch history.

For most of the space age, launch activity rose depending on geopolitics and national priorities, beginning, of course, with the US-Soviet space race that eventually put man on the moon.

The Soviets dominated launch activity. However, this was largely due to their satellites wearing out quickly, which needed replacing constantly. It’s a case of quantity over quality.

Fast forward to today, and there are two very powerful trends playing out now. The US outsourced most of its launch activity to SpaceX, a commercial launch provider.

SpaceX flew 170 launches in 2025 and so far 120 in 2026, largely to put Starlink satellites into low earth orbit.

China’s launch activity is the next big trend. It has increased its launch activity significantly and has now reached levels similar to what the US did at the peak of the space race in the 1960s. This is a trend few are paying attention to.

Source: Leverage Shares

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CHART 1 • China’s economy grew 4.5%

China’s economy grew 4.5% in the three months to September compared with a year earlier. What’s really interesting when you look at this chart is just how steady that economic growth has been. Despite a complex and constantly changing economic environment, China has continued to maintain a healthy level of economic growth.

However, this growth is uneven. China is grappling with a two-speed economy. China is experiencing a huge AI boom, and investment in high-tech industries and manufacturing has driven strong export levels, while a prolonged property sector slump has undermined domestic demand.

What we can say is that the key macroeconomic message right now is that China’s economy is still supply- and production-side driven. This is what supports near-term growth.

What the government needs to focus on is strengthening household consumption, service demand and consumer confidence, which would, if done properly, deliver economic growth that is more balanced and sustainable over the long run.

Source: Financial Times

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CHART 1 • France’s debt-to-GDP ratio rises

I did a data visualisation on 10-year French government bond yields versus the periphery countries during the Eurozone crisis in 2010: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. And the conclusion I drew from that was that although it’s certainly true that France’s fiscal credibility has eroded, it is far from distressed territory.

France is still very much a part of the Eurozone core and is a formidable economic power. Despite the recent riots, it’s a country that is still globally economically significant. It has an incredible reputation when it comes to industrial innovation and education. Some of the best business schools in the world are based in France, and it has produced many highly respectable economists.

Having said that, it doesn’t mean that France is not facing problems. However, read this chart carefully because the y-axis is distorted. It should really start from zero because what you’re looking at here is a debt-to-GDP ratio (that can start at zero). Now, although 118% might seem steep, bear in mind that Japan’s ratio soared high above 200%, yet Japan still managed to fix its fiscal issues over the course of a few decades. So yes, the debt pile is growing, but France is not yet experiencing a meltdown.

Source: Semafor

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CHART 1 • AI capex surges among the tech giants

This is a well-trodden story, so I’m not going to spend too much time on it. In short, investors are funding a huge AI build-out being carried out by some of the largest technology companies in the world. Those tech companies need hundreds of billions of dollars to build the infrastructure needed to support AI, and this is before any revenue can be generated from that infrastructure.

There is a huge risk here because if customers buy less computing capacity than expected, then it’s the shareholders and lenders of these huge tech companies that will foot the bill.

The scale is almost unimaginable. Data centres require servers, networking infrastructure, energy and vast amounts of cooling. Microsoft says that demand still exceeds supply, while rising component prices have exacerbated the situation, especially when it comes to memory shortages.

And as you can see from these bars, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta account for most of the stack, while Oracle, SpaceX, CoreWeave and Nebius are also visible.

What I find really interesting is that prior to 2024, these companies had healthy balance sheets and produced huge amounts of revenue. Now in addition to those huge amounts of revenue, they have a rising pile of debt to finance these huge AI build-outs.

Source: Generative Value

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CHART 1 • HIV treatment saves nearly two million

This is probably one of the most significant medical advances in recent times. The development of antiretroviral therapy has changed the lives of HIV patients to such an extent that many of them can now live normal lives and live into old age.

In the past, having HIV was almost considered a death sentence when the pandemic first spread. It was almost a certainty that HIV carriers would eventually die from HIV or AIDS. Nowadays, antiretroviral therapy can suppress the HIV virus so much that carriers can live with almost zero traces of the virus, as the virus is forced to hide away.

Having said that, people are still dying from HIV and AIDS because they lack access to antiretroviral therapy. This is especially the case in poorer countries and certain nations in Africa where access to such healthcare is limited. In theory, nobody should die from HIV or AIDS in this day and age.

Source: Our World in Data

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CHART 1 • Child mortality rates have fallen globally

This is one of the most positive developments over time that I’ve seen when it comes to international development.

Of course, child mortality rates today are still far too high on the African continent. They remain at 6.1%, which is the share of newborns who die before reaching their fifth birthday. Obviously, this is a significant decline from 33% in 1950, but it is nonetheless still too high.

If you look across all continents, there has been a significant decline in child mortality over the last 75 years. This is a positive development and one to be celebrated, but we still have a long way to go.

Source: Our World in Data

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CHART 1 • JPMorgan’s profit is getting costlier

Have a look at this Sankey chart by App Economy Insights on JPMorgan Chase. Its commercial and investment banking business is absolutely booming right now and contributes more revenue than its consumer banking business (albeit marginally).

This is an interesting development, driven by a mixture of solid prime brokerage revenue and commercial banking opportunities that the bank has benefited from strongly over the past year.

Obviously, like most banks, JPMorgan Chase has sizeable overheads. Its net income is very healthy for a bank of this size. The bank appears to still be growing, and that growth is delivering profit. However, the concern now is that converting growth into profit is becoming less forgiving.

In its defence, the bank’s breadth, higher loan balances and rising interest rates have helped boost interest income. Meanwhile, equities trading and asset management fees help cushion revenue from swings.

Ultimately, we still have to address the operating expenses. Although the bank has generated growth over the years, this is more evidence of resilience than effortless scaling up. It has successfully diversified its earnings growth, and that has been managed well, but the environment remains tough for the bank.

Source: App Economy Insights

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CHART 1 • South America could flip from left to right

A couple of weeks ago, I had to drive my wife to Zurich to vote at the town hall. Not for any Swiss election, but for the Brazilian elections. She’s from Brazil, and in Brazil it’s mandatory to vote regardless of where you are in the world.

I never really asked her who she was going to vote for, but she said that she was unsure. Not because she liked both candidates. Quite the opposite, actually. She thought both were rather useless.

She had a choice between Lula (left), whom she deemed too corrupt, which is not an unusual view in Brazil, and the son of former President Bolsonaro, whom she considered far too radical (right).

So naturally, when I saw this map, it caught my attention. There has been a dramatic shift in politics in South America. The question is: what does that actually mean? It certainly presents a political landscape that is far more accommodative to the US Government. And it suggests quite a dramatic shift from South America’s traditional socialist past. But will anything actually change for the better? I’m doubtful.

Many parts of South America still suffer from the age-old issues of corruption and lack of progress. The problems have never been ideological, but rather structural when it comes to democracy.

Source: The World in Maps

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CHART 1 • Chinese cars found a hybrid route into Europe

One of the things that struck me when I recently visited London was how many Chinese vehicles are now on the road. I only occasionally go to the UK, once or twice a year. But this was a trend that completely caught me by surprise. It felt like it had happened overnight. I saw brands I’d never seen before on the road.

BYD is obviously a much more common Chinese car, and you even see them here in Switzerland. The Jaecoo was a bit of a shock for me. This was a car that I had never seen before, and it seemed to resemble the Range Rover. My neighbours told me that they had nicknamed the car the ‘Temu Range Rover’ because of its styling and similarities to the British luxury vehicle with a far cheaper price tag. Apparently, it’s not a bad car.

What makes it interesting is that it’s a hybrid with an incredible range. It has a range in excess of 1,000 km, using a hybrid mix of electric battery and petrol engine. That could get my family from Switzerland to London without ever having to refill.

So, when you look at a chart like this, you can understand why Chinese automakers are making ground in some parts of Europe. It’s not surprising, really. They’re tapping into a market that is currently underserved by Europe’s own car manufacturers. The long-range hybrid market.

Source: Bloomberg

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CHART 1 • US workers left behind in share of output

Take a look at this chart from the Financial Times. US companies have seen productivity rise considerably since 1975. Real hourly compensation for employees has also increased, but not at the same pace.

What I really like here is that they have highlighted the IT boom in the mid-90s. As you can see, growth in productivity accelerated during this period and beyond.

What is more concerning is the chart in the lower half, which shows that the share of output that workers receive from that increase in productivity has fallen, especially since the turn of the millennium.

There are lots of reasons why this might have happened. Offshoring may have shifted some of the labour-intensive tasks abroad. Meanwhile, automation and software have replaced some of the tasks that workers used to do. This may have left workers with weaker bargaining power and less leverage to capture the gains in increased productivity that companies have experienced. Of course, specific causes will vary between industries and also between higher- and lower-paid workers.

Perhaps the next productivity boom may come from AI, which may already be reducing the bargaining power of workers further. In the most exposed sectors, we will have to wait and see what happens.

Source: Financial Times

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CHART 1 • Measles has now returned to the US

There’s an accelerating measles outbreak in Pennsylvania, which is now the United States’ biggest since 1991. The cause is declining vaccination rates, which have made some parts of the country vulnerable to a disease that was effectively eliminated in 2000.

Take a look at this chart from The Wall Street Journal and you can see how significant this is. Before 2025, cases of measles around the United States were fairly insignificant. Since then, the number of cases has increased dramatically.

The point to note here is not the absolute numbers, which remain on the low side. It’s the risk that this growth is exponential. This can lead to a sudden large rise in cases from recent low levels, and this can happen very dramatically and quickly, as it did during the pandemic.

The way to stop this is through a standard MMR vaccination, which has been done in the United States since the 1970s. Those vaccination efforts eliminated measles in the United States in 2000. Sadly, the country is now on the verge of losing that status after these recent outbreaks.

Source: Wall Street Journal

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CHART 1 • America’s stealth trade deficit with China

There’s quite an interesting story going on here with this chart. As you can see, China had a huge trade surplus in goods with the US until the Trump administration slapped on punitive tariffs to restore the balance. This chart shows that this strategy might have backfired, because the rest of Southeast Asia has seen a huge increase in its goods trade surplus with the US.

The US may no longer be importing as much directly from China, but China has a huge trade network already spread across Southeast Asia. It can still produce vast quantities of goods and redirect that trade through its South Asia trade network to reach the US.

This may seem hugely inefficient, but when you consider how high the tariffs are on Chinese goods, it seems to make a lot of sense to redirect trade that way. In fact, it saves money for US companies trying to import cheap manufactured goods and reduce the cost that tariffs place on them and their customers.

Source: Visual Capitalist

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CHART 1 • London’s luxury property market slump

As I am originally from London, a small part of me cheered when I saw this chart. Now let me be clear, I’m also a homeowner and I own a property in a prime location in London. But I also worry deeply about the city and the cost of living.

What I found frustrating was the way property in London is treated more like an asset class than a home where a family might live. I think this can be deeply destructive for the economic health of a city, and can make future economic growth unsustainable.

Firstly, luxury property in the UK became a place for wealthy foreigners to park their assets as a store of wealth. This in turn pushed up property prices across the capital. Several factors also contributed to that trend, which is not often talked about. Huge amounts of money have also been laundered through London. Luxury properties have also remained vacant while ordinary Londoners struggle to buy or rent.

But there’s also another worrying trend that counteracts what we see here. It might also perhaps be a sign of the wealthy quitting London following Brexit and the changes made in stamp duty and non-dom tax breaks.

I nonetheless believe that the city needs a bit more rebalancing in order for it to sustainably thrive and continue growing. Let’s hope that is what we are seeing here.

Source: Bloomberg

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CHART 1 • America’s price shock is at the pump

This is a really interesting chart because it directly relates to what we might see in the midterm elections in November this year. Since Donald Trump started his second term as president in January 2025, there has been a huge increase in the cost of petrol in the US. Costs have risen 41.2% over this period, which is a tremendous increase. This is what really stands out from this FT chart.

America’s economy relies heavily on road transportation: from long-distance haulage to average American workers commuting to work. Such a large increase in the cost of gasoline or diesel has a significant impact not just on road users, but on the wider US economy. It pushes up costs everywhere because fuel is an input to production.

Electricity’s 12.5% increase might be tolerable. And home prices rising just 0.5% could be a mixed blessing for those trying to get into the housing market. Monthly rent also looks a little high, above the rate of inflation.

But what really stands out is the cost of petrol, which could cause significant issues for the Republican Party in the run-up to the midterms.

Source: Financial Times

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CHART 1 • China’s models have joined AI’s frontier

I’m a little bit sceptical about this chart because I’ve used pretty much every frontier AI model out there, and I still think China’s frontier models, like Kimmi K3, and the latest frontier models, like Opus 5, are vastly different in terms of capability. Anthropic and OpenAI have accelerated phenomenally over the summer, and although Chinese models are still very impressive, they are just not yet on the same level as the frontier models from major US AI companies. So although this chart seems to suggest that the gap is closing, it really doesn’t feel like it if you use these models day to day for many different tasks, including software engineering.

However, one area that China really shines at is cost, which is really where it takes the lead. You can use Chinese models relatively cheaply versus extremely expensive frontier US AI models. I think this is where the key difference lies. China can deliver AI models that offer value for money and decent quality at the same time.

With aggressive pricing, China could offer a far more irresistible AI offering for developers and businesses in the future, and this is already happening. US companies like Airbnb, food delivery giant DoorDash and crypto exchange Coinbase Global have all adopted Chinese models hosted on local servers.

Source: Bloomberg

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