Saudi Arabia’s trade surplus fell to SAR 14.2 billion (USD 3.78 billion) in April 2025, marking a sharp 62% year-on-year decline from SAR 37.0 billion in April 2024.

The yield on India’s 10-year government bond (G-Sec) declined to 6.35% on Wednesday, reversing part of its brief climb to 6.4% on June 23rd.

The S&P/ASX 200 Index finished virtually unchanged at 8,559 on Wednesday, stabilizing after a strong 1% gain in the prior session, as investors absorbed a surprisingly soft inflation report and renewed hopes for monetary easing by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA).

The US dollar index (DXY) extended its recent downward trend on Wednesday, trading below 98 for the third consecutive session. The retreat reflects a confluence of softening haven demand due to tentative geopolitical calm.

Crude oil prices staged a modest recovery on Wednesday, with WTI crude futures rising above $65 per barrel, snapping a two-day rout that had erased nearly 13% in value.

Wall Street closed a jittery week with its third straight equity loss as investors struggled to reconcile an increasingly dovish signal from parts of the Federal Reserve with fresh geopolitical flash-points in the Middle East.

Kosmyna et al.’s “cognitive-debt” alarm collapses under even cursory scrutiny.  An 18-person subsample, thousands of uncorrected EEG tests and tool-silo rules that forbid the AI group from normal web use virtually guarantee a result that looks anti-ChatGPT.  Yet mainstream neuroscience shows the opposite pattern: lower fronto-parietal activation is a hallmark of neural efficiency as skills consolidate, not a sign of decay.  fNIRS and fMRI practice studies chart falling pre-frontal load alongside sharper performance, while longitudinal MRI trials reveal digital training can enlarge grey matter and reorganise functional networks. By conflating strategic memory shifts with impairment, cherry-picking p-values and burying alternative explanations, the paper fashions a dystopia that real biomedical evidence simply does not support.

European equity markets retreated sharply on Tuesday as geopolitical uncertainty surrounding the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran rattled investor confidence.

Gold prices climbed sharply toward $3,390 per ounce on Tuesday, reversing Monday’s losses and reflecting renewed investor demand for safe-haven assets amid escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.

The U.S. dollar weakened sharply on Thursday, with the Dollar Index (DXY) falling below 98.5—a level not seen since early 2022—amid escalating trade tensions and mounting expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut.

Asian equity markets retreated sharply on Thursday following renewed tariff threats from former U.S.

The Australian benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.4% to close at 8,620 on Wednesday.

Australia’s consumer confidence posted a marginal gain in June 2025, signaling a sharp slowdown in momentum amid global trade uncertainty and residual household financial strain.

Australia’s benchmark 10-year government bond yield hovered near 4.31% on Tuesday, maintaining its recent range as investors digested the latest monetary policy minutes from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA).

May 2025, the United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) publicly admitted that it had overstated the official consumer price index (CPI) inflation rate for April. The discrepancy—just 0.1 percentage point, pushing the figure from an actual 3.4% to a reported 3.5%—was caused by incorrect vehicle excise duty (VED) data provided by the Department for Transport.

The Eurozone’s inflation rate fell below the European Central Bank’s target for the first time in eight months, bolstering expectations of a monetary policy rate cut later this week. According to a flash estimate by Eurostat, consumer price inflation in the euro area slowed to 1.9% year-on-year in May 2025, down from 2.2% in April and below consensus forecasts of 2.0%.

Crude oil prices climbed for a second consecutive session on Tuesday, with WTI futures rising to $63.10 per barrel, as a confluence of geopolitical disruptions and persistent supply-side constraints reignited concerns over a tightening global energy market.

The U.S. manufacturing sector continued to shrink for a third consecutive month in May 2025, according to the latest data released by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM). The Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell to 48.5, down from 48.7 in April and falling short of economists’ expectations of 49.5.

The global economy is entering a slower growth phase, with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) forecasting a full-year expansion of just 2.9% in both 2025 and 2026, down from 3.3% in 2024.

The United States Dollar Index (DXY) rose to approximately 99.7 as of Wednesday, driven by a convergence of political easing and improving macroeconomic sentiment.