We have repeatedly warned about the “Great Memory Crunch,” driven by AI data center buildouts absorbing a growing share of global memory supply, and industry insiders now telling consumers and enterprises (read here) should accelerate purchases of electronics that use high-bandwidth memory before prices accelerate further, as supply shortages are expected through 2027.

One key signal that the memory shortage is worsening is that Apple, one of the world’s most valuable companies, is having to prioritize the production and shipment of its three most premium new iPhone models due to the memory crunch, according to a new report by Nikkei Asia.

Not even Apple can mitigate the threat of the HBM shortage.

Here’s more from the report based on industry insiders:

The U.S. tech giant will focus on delivering its first-ever foldable iPhone as well as two non-folding models with higher-end cameras and larger displays for its flagship launch in the second half of the year, said four people with knowledge of the matter. The standard iPhone 18 model will be scheduled for shipment in the first half of 2027, they said.

The move is intended to optimize resources and maximize revenue and profits from premium models amid surging prices for memory chips and other materials, multiple sources told Nikkei Asia. It is also critical for Apple to minimize any potential production hiccups while mass producing its first-ever foldable iPhone, which requires more complicated industrial techniques and new materials that could require more time to reach required levels of production quality, according to the people.

Choosing to focus on premium models in the second half of this year and targeting sales for its relatively standard models in the first half of 2027 could help the company better manage supply chain resources and develop a better and clear marketing strategy, one of the people said.

. . .

Apple has at least five new iPhone models in the pipeline: a revamped iPhone Air, its thinnest-ever model; the standard new iPhone; and three premium models. It is not yet clear when shipments of the Air will start, but they are not expected this year.

To visualize the HBM memory crunch, Amazon price-tracking website CamelCamelCamel shows a parabolic surge in the price of Crucial Pro DDR5 64GB RAM, rising from $145 to $790 in just six months.

More than one month ago, we cited Goldman analyst Maho Kamiya, who told clients that concerns about rising memory prices and the absence of top-down tailwinds had sent Nintendo shares spiraling.

TrendForce expects 70% of HBM chips produced this year will be consumed by data centers.

The list of memory-crunch victims has continued to grow.

Last week, we noted that smartphones, PCs, and other consumer electronics dependent on HBM were set to come under pressure. Goldman then followed with another note, warning that it had slashed global PC shipment forecasts due to soaring memory prices. That list continues to expand:

• “Do It Now”: Industry Insiders Urge Consumers To Front-Run PC, TV, Smartphone Purchases As ‘Memory Crunch’ Will Intensify

In addition to the Nikkei Asia report, Apple CEO Tim Cook told investors during an earnings call this past week that “We do continue to see market pricing for memory increasing significantly. As always, we’ll look at a range of options to deal with that.”

If even one of the world’s largest and most powerful companies is struggling to secure enough memory supply, the warning signs are flashing red: the Great Memory Crunch is rapidly accelerating and could impact product availability, while sending prices for popular electronics soaring.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

Superintendents are keeping schools closed to students across multiple states on Feb. 2 as cold weather persists, leaving some roads and sidewalks difficult to navigate.

Officials in Montgomery County, Maryland; Fairfax County, Virginia; and Winston-Salem/Forsyth County, North Carolina were among those announcing canceled classes on Monday for the eighth day in the wake of a storm that dumped snow and ice along the East Coast.

“Snow and ice removal from this winter weather event has been slow, where Monday will be the first day above freezing in 9 days,” Montgomery County Public Schools said on the district’s website.

“We know we will not have perfect conditions any time soon, but many streets and sidewalks are NOT passable for buses or safe for student walkers,” officials added later.

They said they want to resume classes on Tuesday, but doing so would be partially contingent on people clearing sidewalks around them.

Fairfax County Public Schools said on its website that classes were canceled because of “continued concerns about safe travel for students and staff to and from school.” The district did not commit to opening on Tuesday.

At least some employees in both counties are expected to report to work on Feb. 2, officials said.

Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools said on its website that schools were closed Monday “due to unsafe road conditions.”

Those three districts were among those not holding remote classes or instruction over the Internet.

Other districts, such as Randolph County Schools in North Carolina, were having a remote learning day rather than holding classes as normal in person.

Still others, including schools in Baltimore County in Maryland and the District of Columbia, opened for in-person instruction, but two hours later than usual.

A number of states are dealing with snow and ice brought by a January storm. Some areas reported multiple feet of snow. Many recorded at least eight inches.

Since then, freezing temperatures have persisted, keeping the snow and ice in place unless it is removed by hand or machine.

The National Weather Service issued a winter weather advisory for portions of Michigan and North Carolina on Monday due to freezing temperatures and additional accumulations of ice.

Forecasters also warned residents across Florida that temperatures as low as 30 degrees, with cold wind chills, were expected late Monday into early Tuesday.

The cold temperatures atypically affected the Southeast, including Alabama and Florida.

More snow is projected to fall in Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey, among other states, in the coming days, although the total would likely be no more than 1 inch in most areas and a maximum of 5 inches, the weather service said.

With roughly 50% of the S&P 500’s market capitalization having reported results so far this earnings season, we are focusing on what companies are saying about artificial intelligence on earnings calls.

To do that, we lean on Goldman analysts led by Ben Snider, who track executive commentary focused on AI adoption.

“AI adoption has remained a popular topic on earnings calls this quarter, but only a handful of companies have quantified their productivity gains from AI use,” Snider said. 

Those companies include: 

Bank of America (BAC):

“We have 18,000 people on the company’s payroll who code – using the AI techniques, we’ve taken 30% out of the coding technique – the coding part of the stream of introducing a new product or service or change, that saves us about 2,000 people… And I use an example, our audit team has built a capability they think a series of prompts around doing audits and stuff to allow them to shape the head count back down that they had to grow during the regulatory onslaught over the last few years.”

C.H. Robinson Worldwide (CHRW):

“Our fleet of AI agents is growing quickly as we continue to pioneer new ways to automate manual tasks and supercharge our industry-leading freight experts to solve for complexity and deliver high-quality service to our customers and carriers… This includes an expectation that we will generate double-digit productivity improvements in both NAST and Global Forwarding in 2026, as we continue to implement agentic AI across our quote-to-cash lifecycle of an order… These digital capabilities also enabled us to continue delivering double-digit productivity increases in NAST in 2025. Since the end of 2022, we have delivered a more than 40% increase in shipments per person per day, and this is measured across the entirety of our NAST organization… Additionally, 95% of our checks on missed LTL pickups are now automated, saving over 350 hours of outsourced manual work a day… Take the example we give often around our request for freight quote operation… Previously, we were only getting to 60% of those requests; today, we get to 100%. Previously, it was taking a cycle time of 17 to 20 minutes; today, it takes less than 32 seconds… These new AI agents are tracking down missed pickups and using advanced reasoning to determine how to keep freight moving… As a result, shippers’ freight moves up to a day faster and return trips to pick up missed freight have been reduced by 42%… the growing automation across our quote-to-cash lifecycle enables us to decouple head count growth from volume growth and to create greater operating leverage and operating margin expansion… Our average head count was down 12.9% year-over-year in Q4 and was down 3.8% sequentially…”

Costco Wholesale (COST):

“An early use case has involved integrating AI into our pharmacy inventory system… autonomously and predictably reorders inventory, improving our end stocks to more than 98%. This change has played an important role in helping us achieve mid-teens growth in pharmacy scripts filled and has improved margins while lowering prices to our members. We are now in the process of deploying AI tools in our gas business, which we expect will improve inventory management and drive incremental sales by ensuring we’re always delivering the best value to our members.”

Meta Platforms (META):

“Since the beginning of 2025, we’ve seen a 30% increase in output per engineer with the majority of that growth coming from the adoption of agentic coding, which saw a big jump in Q4. We’re seeing even stronger gains with power users of AI coding tools, whose output has increased 80% year-over-year. We expect this growth to accelerate through the next half.”

Northern Trust (NTRS):

“You heard me mention our productivity for 2025 was about 4% of our expense base. And this year, we bumped that up. It’s going to be closer to 5%. And a lot of that is because of the impact we’re seeing of AI… we are simplifying processes, upgrading platforms, and applying AI to reduce friction in service delivery.”

Paychex (PAYX):

“We are excited to share that our first agentic AI pilots were a success this quarter. They autonomously handled thousands of payroll calls and emails with nearly 100% accuracy, decreasing payroll processing time and enabling our service teams to focus on higher value strategic advisory support.”

ServiceNow (NOW):

“AI is also driving significant cost efficiencies that have resulted in full-year profitability beats on top of our recently raised guidance… We expect an operating margin of 32%, up 100 basis points year-over-year driven by OpEx savings enabled by AI efficiencies.”

Travelers Companies (TRV):

“We’ve recently rolled out Gen AI agents to efficiently mine both internal and external data sources to better understand and synthesize the risk characteristics and ensure appropriate business classification. This capability both accelerates the underwriting process and results in improved risk classification and segmented pricing… In extensive testing, we achieve significantly improved engineering output and meaningful productivity gains… the efficiency gains in our claim organization come through loss adjustment expense, benefiting the loss ratio. As just one example, our claim call center population is down by a third. And this year, we’ll be consolidating four claim call centers down to two… Our AI investments to automate submission intake for new business reduced our time to ingest submissions from hours to just minutes… our renewal underwriting platform leverages generative AI… with early results showing more than a 30% reduction in average handle time.”

In a separate note, Goldman analyst Sarah Dong reported that the AI adoption tracker through December stood at 17.3%, with an expected target of 21.1% over the next six months.

Related:

• What To Know About Corporate America’s Double-Digit AI Adoption Boom

• Which Companies Will Benefit Most From AI Adoption?

• October Layoffs Surge Most Since 2003 Amid Cost-Cutting, AI Adoption, Challenger Data Shows

We expect 2026 to be a year when AI-related layoffs accelerate as AI adoption gains traction across corporate America.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Arizona is ground zero in the fight to reclaim U.S. borders, with ICE shelling out a whopping $70 million for a 418,000-square-foot warehouse in Surprise—the size of seven football fields—to process and detain illegal aliens targeted for deportation. The acquisition under the Trump administration marks a long-overdue shift from the chaos of unchecked migration that flooded communities under previous Democrat-led policies.

The Department of Homeland Security snapped up the sprawling industrial site near Dysart and Cactus roads in a cash deal completed January 23, as property records confirm. ICE plans to convert it into a 1,500-bed processing center, part of a broader push to expand detention capacity amid renewed focus on mass deportations.

Local officials in Surprise distanced themselves, stating they “do not participate in ICE operations” but can’t block federal authority. Yet the move has ignited fury from Arizona Democrats, who see it as a direct threat to their sanctuary-state dreams.

ICE just purchased a massive 418,000 sq ft warehouse in Arizona and the Democrats are LOSING THEIR MINDS

Cry harder, Libs.

ICE is here to stay! pic.twitter.com/hKlZhcYscG

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 30, 2026

State Senator Analise Ortiz slammed the purchase as “abhorrent,” adding “It really should chill all of us because ICE is violating the US Constitution, which means none of us are safe, including United States citizens.”

The warehouse buy comes hot on the heels of Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes’ inflammatory warnings to ICE agents, where she suggested citizens could legally shoot masked feds under the state’s Stand Your Ground law.

In a brazen display of anti-enforcement bias, Mayes told local media: “You have these masked Federal officers with very little identification, sometimes no identification, wearing plain clothes and masks. And we have a stand your ground law that says that if you reasonably believe that your life is in danger, and you’re in your house or your car or on your property, that you can defend yourself with lethal force.”

She doubled down, questioning how people would know if masked intruders are legitimate officers: “But how do you know they’re a peace officer? It becomes, did they reasonably know that they were a peace officer?” Mayes even boasted of her own gun ownership, implying she’d react the same way.

Republicans blasted her comments as dangerously irresponsible, with calls for resignation pouring in. Senate Majority Leader John Kavanagh demanded she retract and step down, while Congressman Abe Hamadeh accused her of justifying murder against federal agents. It’s classic leftist hypocrisy: championing gun rights only when it suits their agenda to sabotage border security.

Mayes also launched a webpage urging citizens to report and film alleged ICE misconduct, vowing to prosecute agents for “assault, murder, unlawful imprisonment” if they step out of line. She warned ICE to “keep your hands off of our tribal members,” positioning herself as a defender against federal overreach while ignoring the real victims—American communities ravaged by illegal immigration.

The new Arizona facility is just one piece of ICE’s aggressive warehouse-buying spree across the U.S., with the agency acquiring sites in at least eight states to ramp up detention networks. Recent purchases include a $102 million warehouse in Maryland and plans for an 8,500-bed mega-jail in El Paso, Texas, as part of a $45 billion effort to enforce immigration laws long ignored by deep-state bureaucrats.

While open-borders advocates howl in protest, this facility promises to bolster enforcement efforts, ensuring criminals and overstays are swiftly removed to protect American families and sovereignty.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

I have long been a critic of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who has been a disaster for my home city.

From moronic proposed taxes to racist comments, Johnson has brought some of the greatest devastation to the city since the Great Fire.

Deeply unpopular, he often uses race-baiting commentary or gimmicks to distract voters. The latest is his chest-pounding press conference where he declared “we are putting ICE on notice in our city.” 

The threat was that he was ordering the Chicago Police Department to move against ICE in the city.

However, even a cursory examination reveals that, as before, there is less than meets the eye in Johnson’s theatrics.

Democratic leaders have jumped the shark on ICE and are now trying to outdo each other with increasingly reckless rhetoric.

Gov. Tim Walz declared last week that this was now a “Fort Sumter” moment, alluding to a new civil war.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner promised to “hunt down” ICE officers like “Nazis.”

Rep. Eric Swalwell has promised, if elected governor, he will take away the driver’s licenses of ICE officers and bar them from employment in the state.

It is hard to see what else he can promise to take away other than cable and WiFi.

Johnson is not to be out-yelled on this or any other subject.

He signed an executive order Saturday laying the groundwork for the city to investigate and seek prosecution of federal law enforcement officers.

The order, titled “ICE On Notice,” directs members of the Chicago Police Department (CPD) to document alleged illegal activity by federal immigration agents and refer evidence of felony violations to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office for possible prosecution.

He declared that “with today’s order, we are putting ICE on notice in our city. Chicago will not sit idly by while Trump floods federal agents into our communities and terrorizes our residents.”

While it is true that officers do not have absolute immunity, it is highly unlikely that they could be liable for the increased enforcement of immigration laws. Just a day ago, a federal judge and Biden appointee in Minnesota rejected Attorney General Keith Ellison’s demand that federal operations be enjoined in his state. He could not come up with a single claim that the expanded operations were unlawful to sustain the burden for an injunction.

A close examination of the Johnson order shows that it is little more than a directive to the CPD to document any alleged violations. While suggesting that CPD would arrest federal officers, it merely states that they should take statements and preserve any videotapes of alleged violations.

Johnson said the order makes Chicago the first city in the nation to pursue legal accountability for alleged misconduct by federal immigration agents.

That included the alleged game-changing order that police should file “incident reports.” Actual incident reports! ICE officers are presumably fleeing en masse at the very threat of such CPD reports.

The term “windy city” is not, as commonly believed, a reference to the wind off the lake. In the Nineteenth Century, it was a reference to how Chicago politicians were full of wind in their bragging and exaggerations. In that sense, Johnson is the very personification of the Windy City, but this order will not even rustle the leaves in Lincoln Park.

Crypto prices are rebounding this morning, after further weakness over the weekend to its lowest since Trump’s election victory. 

“From a technical perspective, the recent drawdown is bringing price closer to attractive levels,” said Joel Kruger, a markets strategist at LMAX Group.

Bitcoin is likely to find “strong support” should it drop to around $70,000, he said.

Other cryptocurrencies like Ether and Solana also staged modest rebounds after slipping earlier Monday.

“For crypto specifically, ETF flow stabilization is the key signal to monitor,” said Timothy Misir, head of research at digital asset analytics firm BRN.

“Without it, rallies are likely to fade.”

Interestingly, Goldman points out that in contrast to the declining price performance, on-chain activity painted a different picture, especially for the Ethereum and Solana networks.

Activity across the Bitcoin network was down over the month, suggested by decreased average daily transaction count (-14.9% MoM), average daily new addresses (-3.6% MoM) and average active addresses (-2.7% MoM) (Figure 2).

However, for Ethereum, average daily active addresses, new addresses, and transaction counts were up by +27.5%, +26.8% and +36.0% MoM respectively.

For Solana, average daily active addresses and transaction counts were up by +24.3% and +8.2% MoM respectively (Figure 10).

Looking at Ethereum specifically, we are seeing an ATH in daily new addresses.

On average, Jan saw 427k new addresses – if we compare this to the 2020 ‘DeFi summer’, the average daily new addresses back then were 162k.

In terms of activity, we have registered 1.2m daily active Ethereum addresses – another ATH from a 7-d moving avg basis 

Separately for Ethereum, Goldman notes that the market cap is now below its realized market cap (which values each coin at the last time they moved on the network – representing the aggregate cost basis), signifying that most ETH holders are now sitting on a loss…

Meanwhile, as James Van Starten reports below for CoinDesk.com, very large investors, or whales, holding 10,000 bitcoin or more are currently the only ones that are buying the largest cryptocurrency as prices plummet.

All other holder groups are hitting the sell button, according to onchain data.

This divergence is highlighted by Glassnode’s Accumulation Trend Score by wallet cohort, which measures the relative behavior of different entity sizes based on both balance and the amount of bitcoin acquired over the past 15 days. Scores closer to 1 indicate buying, while values near 0 signal selling.

Bitcoin accumulation trend (Glassnode)

According to Glassnode data, the largest whales are in a “light accumulation” phase and have maintained a neutral-to-slightly-positive balance trend since bitcoin fell to $80,000 in late November. During this period, price has largely consolidated, trading within a $80,000 to $97,000 range through the end of January.

Bitcoin is now trading near $78,000, according to CoinDesk data.

In contrast, all smaller cohorts are net sellers, particularly retail holders with less than 10 BTC.

This group has been in persistent selling for over a month, reflecting continued downside and risk aversion among smaller participants.

At the same time, the number of unique entities holding at least 1,000 BTC has increased from 1,207 in October to 1,303.

Number of Entities with balance 1k BTC (Glassnode)

Since bitcoin’s October all-time high, growth in this cohort suggests that larger holders have been buying into the correction.

Whales holding at least 1,000 BTC are now back at December 2024 highs, reinforcing the view that large players are absorbing supply while smaller holders continue to exit.

Authored by Irina Slav, via OilPrice.com,

• Europe is growing uneasy over its heavy reliance on U.S. LNG, with EU officials warning that energy security risks are shifting rather than disappearing.

• Diversification options are limited: sanctions on Russian gas and strict EU methane regulations effectively rule out major suppliers like Russia, Qatar, and much of U.S. LNG.

• Gas costs and policy contradictions are rising, as Europe pushes for diversification while remaining locked into record U.S. LNG imports

The European Union needs to diversify its natural gas sources, Brussels’ energy commissioner said this week, expressing a growing unease in European capitals that the EU has become too dependent on liquefied natural gas from the United States. Yet succeeding in that diversification drive will be tricky because of the bloc’s emissions-focused energy policies – and the sanctions on Russia.

“We are speaking to countries around the world that are able to deliver LNG to us,” Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen told media in Brussels this week, as quoted by Bloomberg.

“I definitely hear this when speaking to energy ministers and heads of state from all over Europe that there is a growing concern.”

The situation represents an interesting reversal of sentiment from just four years ago. Back in 2022, the European Union declared it would switch from Russian pipeline gas as punishment for the invasion of eastern Ukraine and start buying U.S. liquefied gas instead. EU officials hailed the decision as a big step towards energy independence and praised U.S. LNG producers—and the U.S. federal government—as a reliable business partner and energy supplier.

Now, the European Union is the biggest regional buyer of U.S. liquefied gas, which seems to have been the plan all along—but that gas is coming at a steep cost, and with the federal government very different from the one of four years ago, the image of the reliable business partner and energy supplier has changed quite radically.

It was the Greenland affair that played the role of the alarm clock that woke Brussels and national capitals up. Until that point, the European leaders had apparently assumed that Trump would keep doing business with their countries—and the EU—as Biden had before him, namely by continuing the security guarantees and preferential trade arrangements that had been the hallmark of trans-Atlantic relations for decades. Only Trump did not feel like that. Trump demonstrated early on that he was coming to collect—higher NATO spending, import tariffs, and, finally, Greenland.

The myth of the friendly American LNG that could replace all Russian gas and ensure energy security for a continent was, however, dispelled even before Greenland, by Trump’s top energy man. Secretary Chris Wright stated plainly that U.S. producers of liquefied gas have no intention of complying with the EU’s new methane regulation. The regulation requires constant monitoring, tracking, and reporting of methane leaks along the LNG supply chain—and U.S. LNG producers are not investing in that. Incidentally, neither is QatarEnergy.

During his talk with reporters, Commissioner Jorgensen said that European gas buyers were eyeing Qatar, Canada, and Algeria as potential avenues for gas supply diversification. But Qatar, for one, has made it as clear as the U.S. that it will not be doing methane tracking and reporting. And it has done so repeatedly. And with the world’s two biggest LNG exporters out of the methane-reporting experiment, the EU is really short on options—especially now that the top brass in Brussels approved the total ban on any and all Russian gas imports, beginning next year. Of course, it’s still January 2026, and a lot of things could change over the next 12 months, with some observers of the EU arguing that it will soon change its tune on Russian gas. Until this argument finds factual backing, however, the EU is off Russian gas—and unless it drops the methane regulation, it is also out of Qatari and most U.S. gas, too. Alternatively, U.S. gas will simply become even more expensive, raising the question of just how long the EU would be able to afford it.

The bigger question is what the realistic alternatives to U.S. LNG are. The answer, alas, is unpleasant. There is no large enough LNG supplier to step in and take the place of the United States, not economically, at least. This means gas buyers in Europe would be scouring the world for LNG from now on in a bid to advance the new diversification vision of the Brussels political establishment.

Meanwhile, however, there is that trade deal that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signed with President Trump last year that calls for $250 billion worth of U.S. energy imports into the EU every year until 2027. One could argue whether Trump knew the EU could not physically buy so much U.S. energy, but wanted to make them buy more oil and LNG—which is what he got, by the way. European Union imports of American LNG hit an all-time high last year, though their price was nowhere near $250 billion.

Trump probably knew the Europeans couldn’t buy $250 billion worth of oil and LNG. But if the Europeans get really serious about that diversification, the Greenland deal may be canceled in favor of another, more direct option. If anything, President Trump has proven repeatedly that he follows his own rules.

Welcome to February with another big sell-off in Gold (-5%) and Silver (-10%) overnight, and a partial US government shutdown that isn’t as severe as the record one before Xmas, and is expected to get resolved soon. Nevertheless, as Jim Reid writes, it’s typical of the 2026 constant stream of complicated news flow. This follows a January that managed to both shock and awe in various ways, yet still delivered broad based gains across all global assets in our monthly performance review when measured in USD terms—a genuinely rare occurrence.

It was perhaps fitting then, that the month ended with extraordinary volatility: silver saw its largest daily fall on record (36% at the intraday lows,  26.3% at the close), while Gold recorded its biggest one day decline since 2013 ( 8.95%). With the overnight moves, Silver is now around $5 below its real adjusted level from 1790. Even incorporating the dramatic 1980 boom and bust and the recent surge, Silver has failed to outperform inflation over more than 230 years of data. So while Reid has long been a bit of a gold bug given his strong views on the inflationary consequences of fiat money, the recent run up in precious metals feels to have an enormous speculative element. Friday’s moves, almost certainly driven by positioning and margin dynamics, only reinforced that impression.

Anyway, turning our attention to the coming week, we will get a dense run of US macro releases, with the January jobs report set to dominate attention on Friday. We also have the ISM surveys, consumer sentiment and the latest Treasury’s quarterly refunding details.

Central banks be in focus with decisions due from the ECB, the BoE (both Thursday) and the RBA (tomorrow). Elsewhere we have the latest global PMIs and inflation in Europe. Corporate earnings include Alphabet (Wednesday), Amazon (Thursday) and AMD (Tuesday). Remember that Meta (+6.56%) and Microsoft (-8.50%) saw big moves in either direction last week with both having a 10% plus intra-day rise and decline respectively. 

Looking at more detail into the week ahead, Friday’s employment report is the highlight, with forecasts pointing to another modest payroll gain (consensus at +50k and +37k for headline and private respectively) and no change in either the unemployment rate (4.4%) or the pace of hourly earnings growth. Ahead of that, the JOLTS data tomorrow and the ADP report on Wednesday will give early clues on labor market momentum. The week also brings the manufacturing ISM on Monday and the services ISM mid week, followed by the University of Michigan’s February sentiment survey on Friday. Fixed income investors will also be watching Wednesday’s quarterly refunding announcement and today’s Treasury borrowing estimate closely.

Central banks will remain a major theme as well. The ECB and Bank of England both meet on Thursday, and neither is expected to adjust policy, with the ECB likely extending its on hold stance for a fifth straight meeting and the BoE seen keeping Bank Rate unchanged once again. The Reserve Bank of Australia is also expected to stand pat tomorrow. Additional colour on financial conditions will come from the Fed’s senior loan officer survey today and the ECB’s latest bank lending survey tomorrow.

Across Europe, the flow of flash January inflation reports continues, with France tomorrow and Italy and the broader euro area following on Wednesday. Sweden publishes its CPI on Friday. Several Eurozone economies will also release December retail sales and trade figures, while Germany rounds out the week with its factory orders and industrial production numbers. It’ll be interesting to see if they show continued evidence of the fiscal stimulus.

The corporate earnings calendar remains active, with attention in the US turning to two members of the Mag-7, Alphabet on Wednesday and Amazon on Thursday — alongside a range of other tech firms such as Palantir, AMD and Qualcomm. Major healthcare names are also reporting, including Eli Lilly and AbbVie in the US and Novartis and Novo Nordisk in Europe. Broader US earnings include updates from PepsiCo, Walt Disney and Uber. In Europe, several banks are scheduled to report, while in Japan, Toyota, Sony and Tokyo Electron will be among the key companies releasing results.

Here is a day-by-day calendar of events, courtesy of DB:

Monday February 2

• Data: US January ISM index, China January RatingDog manufacturing PMI, Germany December retail sales, Italy January manufacturing PMI, new car registrations, budget balance, Canada January manufacturing PMI
• Central banks: Fed’s SLOOS, BoJ Summary of Opinions from the January meeting, Fed’s Bostic speaks, BoE’s Breeden speaks
• Earnings: Palantir, Walt Disney, Intesa Sanpaolo, NXP Semiconductors, Teradyne
• Auctions: US Treasury quarterly borrowing estimate

Tuesday February 3

• Data: US December JOLTS report, January total vehicle sales, Japan January monetary base, France January CPI, December budget balance, New Zealand labour force survey
• Central banks: RBA decision, ECB’s bank lending survey, Fed’s Bowman and Barkin speak
• Earnings: AMD, Merck, PepsiCo, Amgen, Pfizer, Eaton, Nintendo, Emerson Electric, TransDigm, Mondelez, Chipotle, Electronic Arts, PayPal, Corteva, Take-Two, Super Micro Computer

Wednesday February 4

• Data: US January ADP report, ISM services, China January RatingDog services PMI, UK January official reserves changes, Italy January CPI, services PMI, Eurozone January CPI, December PPI, Canada January services PMI
• Earnings: Alphabet, Eli Lilly, AbbVie, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Mitsubishi UFJ, Banco Santander, Uber, QUALCOMM, UBS, Boston Scientific, ARM, CME Group, GSK, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Equinor, Credit Agricole
• Auctions: US Treasury quarterly refunding announcement

Thursday February 5

• Data: US initial jobless claims, UK January new car registrations, construction PMI, Germany December factory orders, January construction PMI, France December industrial production, Italy December retail sales, Eurozone December retail sales
• Central banks: ECB’s decision, BoE’s decision, Fed’s Bostic speaks, BoC’s Macklem speaks, BoE’s DMP survey
• Earnings: Amazon, Shell, Linde, BBVA, Sony, ConocoPhillips, BNP Paribas, Bristol-Myers Squibb, KKR, Intercontinental Exchange, Barrick Mining, Vinci, Cigna, Fortinet, Siemens Healthineers, ROBLOX, Ares, Rockwell Automation, Assa Abloy, Saab, ArcelorMittal, Estee Lauder, AP Moller – Maersk, Reddit, Atlassian, Vestas, BT, Blue Owl, Illumina, Affirm, Neste

Friday February 6

• Data: US January jobs report, February University of Michigan survey, December consumer credit, Japan December household spending, leading index, coincident index, Germany December industrial production, trade balance, France December trade balance, current account balance, Q4 wages, Canada January labour force survey, Sweden January CPI
• Central banks: ECB’s survey of professional forecasters, ECB’s Cipollone and Kocher speak, BoE’s Pill speaks
• Earnings: Toyota, Philip Morris International, Tokyo Electron, Societe Generale, Orsted, Telenor, Centene

Finally, looking at just the US, Goldman writes that the key economic data release this week is the employment report on Friday. There are several speaking engagements by Fed officials scheduled this week, including events with Governors Bowman and Cook and Vice Chair Jefferson

 Monday, February 2 

• 10:00 AM ISM manufacturing index, January (GS 48.5, consensus 48.5, last 47.9): We estimate that the ISM manufacturing index increased by 0.6pt to 48.5 in January, reflecting an increase in our manufacturing survey tracker (+2.0pt to 51.7).
• 12:30 PM Atlanta Fed President Bostic (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic will speak at the Atlanta Rotary Club. Moderated Q&A is expected. On January 30, Bostic said, “We should be waiting, and be more patient. We are still too high in inflation, so I think [policy needs] to be somewhat restrictive.”

Tuesday, February 3 

• 08:00 AM Richmond Fed President Barkin (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin will speak on the economic outlook. Speech text and Q&A are expected. On January 6, Barkin said, “Going forward, policy will require finely tuned judgments balancing progress on each side of our mandate.”
• 09:40 AM Fed Governor Bowman speaks: Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman will speak at the Wall Street Journal Invest Live event. Moderated Q&A is expected. On January 16, Bowman said, “Absent a clear and sustained improvement in labor market conditions, we should remain ready to adjust policy to bring it closer to neutral. We should also avoid signaling that we will pause without identifying that conditions have changed.”
• 10:00 AM JOLTS job openings, December (GS 7,300k, consensus 7,250k, last 7,146k)
• 05:00 PM Lightweight motor vehicle sales, January (GS 15.1mn, consensus 15.3mn, last 16.0mn)

Wednesday, February 4 

• 08:15 AM ADP employment change, January (GS +40k, consensus +45k, last +41k)
• 10:00 AM ISM services index, January (GS 53.0, consensus 53.5, last 53.8): We estimate that the ISM services index declined 0.8pt to 53.0 in January, reflecting an improvement in our non-manufacturing survey tracker (+1.1pt to 53.3) but a headwind from potential residual seasonality.
• 06:30 PM Fed Governor Cook speaks: Fed Governor Lisa Cook will speak on monetary policy and the economic outlook at the Economic Club of Miami. Speech text and moderated Q&A are expected. 

Thursday, February 5 

• 08:30 AM Initial jobless claims, week ended January 31 (GS 210k, consensus 212k, last 209k); Continuing jobless claims, week ended January 24 (consensus 1,850k, last 1,827k): We forecast roughly unchanged initial jobless claims (210k) reflecting upward pressure from seasonal distortions that is offset by downward pressure from severe winter weather.
• 10:30 AM Atlanta Fed President Bostic speaks: Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic will speak. Moderated Q&A is expected. 

Friday, February 6 

• 08:30 AM Nonfarm payroll employment, January (GS +45k, consensus +68k, last +50k); Private payroll employment, January (GS +45k, consensus +75k, last +37k); Average hourly earnings (MoM), January (GS +0.35%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.3%); Unemployment rate, January (GS 4.4%, consensus 4.4%, last 4.4%): We estimate nonfarm payrolls increased 45k in January. On the negative side, we estimate that the birth-death model—which will be updated with this report, more details below—could contribute 30-50k fewer jobs to payroll growth (on a seasonally adjusted basis) than in recent months and big data indicators indicated a modest pace of private sector job growth. Additionally, we expect unchanged government payrolls—reflecting a 10k decline in federal government payrolls that is offset by a 10k increase in state and local government payrolls. On the positive side, the pace of layoffs—a particularly important determinant of net job growth in January—remained subdued. However, the seasonal factors have evolved to expect smaller declines in employment in recent Januarys, limiting the potential boost from this channel. At the industry level, we expect rebounds in retail trade employment—which saw less holiday hiring than usual that should correspond to fewer January layoffs—and construction employment—for which unusually poor weather likely contributed to a decline in December. We do not expect a drag from Winter Storm Fern, which formed about a week after the reference week. We estimate that the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.4% in January, though see risks as skewed to a decline: the bar for rounding down to 4.3% is not high from an unrounded 4.38% in December and the January unemployment rate appears to suffer from modestly negative residual seasonality (the unrounded unemployment rate has declined in each of the last three Januarys). We estimate average hourly earnings rose 0.35% month-over-month in January, reflecting positive calendar effects.
  • This month’s report will be accompanied by the annual benchmark revision to the establishment survey and a methodological update to the birth-death model. The BLS’s preliminary estimate of the benchmark payrolls revision indicated that cumulative payroll growth between April 2024 and March 2025 would be revised 911k lower. We estimate that the final downward revision will likely be somewhat smaller—in the range of 750-900k—as job growth in the QCEW, which informs the revision, has been revised up since the BLS issued the preliminary estimate. The BLS will also update the net birth-death forecasts in the post-benchmark period (April 2025-December 2025) to incorporate information from the QCEW and the monthly payrolls survey. A downward revision to the post-benchmark period appears likely, reflecting the continued slowdown in the QCEW and weak private payroll growth during the post-benchmark period. Starting with this month’s report, the birth-death model will incorporate current sample information each month. This methodological change is intended to reduce the magnitude of annual revisions, as changes in employment at continuing establishments will provide a more timely signal about net job creation from firm births and deaths than the current methodology based on lagged QCEW data does. However, the methodological change could contribute to greater month-to-month volatility in payrolls readings, as the birth-death assumption will be impacted by the responses to the monthly survey.
• 10:00 AM University of Michigan consumer sentiment, February preliminary (GS 54.0, consensus 55.0, last 56.4) : University of Michigan 5-10-year inflation expectations, February preliminary (GS 3.2%, last 3.3%)
• 12:00 PM Fed Vice Chair Jefferson speaks: Fed Vice Chair Phillip Jefferson will speak on the economic outlook and supply-side inflation dynamics at the Brookings Institution. Speech text and moderated Q&A are expected. On January 16, Jefferson said, “In my view, the current policy stance leaves us well positioned to determine the extent and timing of additional adjustments to our policy rate based on the incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks.”

Source: DB, Goldman

Following the Wall Street Journal’s reporting last week, Bloomberg has provided additional color on OnlyFans’ plan to sell a 60% stake in a deal valued at about $3.5 billion. The report is based on people familiar with the matter and has not been confirmed by the company.

OnlyFans owner Fenix International Ltd. is in “early talks” with San Francisco-based Architect Capital to sell a 60% stake worth about $3.5 billion. The proposed structure includes roughly $2 billion of debt and may take months to formalize.

Architect Capital describes itself as an asset manager focused on improving businesses where it sees opportunities to build stronger financial infrastructure. Given OnlyFans’ heavy reliance on sexually explicit content, it remains unclear whether a shift away from sex creators is part of the video platform’s longer-term vision under potential new ownership.

OnlyFans has explored sale options since last spring, including a prior effort that valued the business at nearly $8 billion, as owner Leonid Radvinsky looks to monetize after pandemic-era growth.

According to publicly available data, Ukrainian-American Leonid Radvinsky owns Fenix.

British filings showed that Radvinsky had paid himself at least $1 billion in dividends since buying OnlyFans in 2018.

Meanwhile, Americans spend billions annually on OF subscriptions. 

Peak OF? 

• OnlyFans Model Gets Baptized, Reconnects With Jesus After Sex Spree

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that, in a presentation to investors, Architect Capital said it sees value in offering “services” to OnlyFans content creators. It’s anyone’s guess at what these services could be, whether financial infrastructure or creator tools…

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations (emphasis ours),

Topline: In 2012, a study published by Agnes Scott College and Emory University concluded that chimpanzees that know how to throw their own feces have stronger communication skills than those that do not.

The National Institutes of Health must have used similarly primitive communication skills when deciding to award the study three federal grants worth $592,000 in 2011. The money would be worth $849,000 today.

That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses. 

Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname “Dr. No” by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn’t stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.   

Coburn’s Wastebook 2011 included 100 examples of outrageous spending worth nearly $7 billion, including the cash wasted on the NIH’s monkey business.

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Key facts: Using MRIs of 78 chimpanzees, the study examined the neurological behavior that leads a monkey to “patiently wait” and throw “feces or wet chow” at zoo visitors.

Researchers found that poop-throwing differs from other chimpanzee behaviors because it is not “nutritive in form … It is difficult to imagine that human caretakers would overtly reward a chimpanzee with food immediately after they had just been soiled with feces by the very same ape.”

As lead researcher Bill Hopkins told Wired Magazine, “I’ve never in my life seen a chimp be given a banana for throwing s**t at someone.” 

Instead, chimpanzees throw their feces because they enjoy seeing humans’ reaction. Zoo visitors observed by the scientists would “negotiate with the chimpanzees to put down the projectile, or they will try to trick the ape by stopping, then dashing rapidly past the ape enclosure.”

Feces throwing was thus labeled as a form of “successful intraspecies communication” because it caused a reaction from humans. In fact, monkeys that engaged in the behavior were found to have more highly developed left brain hemispheres.

Thanks to taxpayers, the study resurfaced in 2017 to help journalists analyze a viral video of monkeys throwing their poop at a grandmother visiting a zoo in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Summary: It’s much easier to excuse a monkey’s crude behavior than the money spent on NIH studies with questionable value to taxpayers.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com