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MarketWatch.com | Dow Jones Industrial Average Last Updated: Last Updated: Aug 22, 2025 at 10:24 a.m. EDT 45,457.76 672.26 1.50% Previous Close 44,785.50

On July 2, Amazon launched “Heads of State,” an action-comedy film starring Idris Elba and John Cena as the respective leaders of the United Kingdom and the United States. But the viewership data indicated that this was no traditional two-hander. Representatives for Priyanka Chopra Jonas, who plays a senior MI6 agent and the film’s third lead, used AI tools including Grok and ChatGPT to measure and analyze viewer sentiment; they found that their client was the main driver of the success of the movie — the fourth-most-watched Amazon MGM Studios film of all time on the platform — on the...

Most people not deeply involved in the artificial intelligence frenzy may not have noticed, but perceptions of AI’s relentless march toward becoming more intelligent than humans, even becoming a threat to humanity, came to a screeching halt Aug. 7.That was the day when the most widely followed AI company, OpenAI, released GPT-5, an advanced product that the firm had long promised would put competitors to shame and launch a new revolution in this purportedly revolutionary technology.As it happened, GPT-5 was a bust. It turned out to be less user-friendly and in many ways less capable than its predecessors in OpenAI’s...

China is leading the world in industrial robots or programmable machines that are pioneering fast and cost-effective manufacturing. China currently holds over 50% of the world market share in industrial robots capable of assembly, production line handling, service tasks, machine feeding, palletizing, packaging, and more. Automation is fueling Chinese manufacturing in every sector from automotives to electronics. The advancement of AI will soon provide China with a cutting-edge ability to usher in a new era of humanoid robots that will become a portion of the future workforce. China installed around 290,000 new industrial robots in 2024, nearly twice as many...

Experts have warned hackers recently used a generative AI tool to replicate several web pages belonging to the Brazilian government in an effort to steal sensitive personal information and money. The fake websites were examined by Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers, who discovered multiple indicators of the use of AI to generate code. The websites look almost identical to the official sites, with the hackers using SEO poisoning to make the websites appear higher in search results, and therefore seem more legitimate. AI generated government websites In the campaign examined by ThreatLabz, two websites were spotted mimicking important government portals. The first...

A new report from MIT’s NADA initiative reveals a sobering reality for corporate generative AI adoption: 95% of pilot programs are failing to deliver meaningful financial impact. Titled The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025, the study is based on 150 interviews with business leaders, a survey of 350 employees, and an analysis of 300 public AI deployments. It highlights a stark divide between successful AI integrations and stalled initiatives that offer little to no return on investment [1]. According to the research, only 5% of AI pilots result in rapid revenue acceleration. The majority of projects remain...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned that the billions of dollars being plowed into the artificial intelligence arms race risks causing a bubble comparable to the dot-com crash of the early 2000s. “When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth,” Altman said during a dinner with a group of journalists, The Verge reported on Friday. “Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes. Is AI the most important thing to happen in a very long time? My opinion is also yes.” Altman likened the AI funding rush...

A top Wall Street economist is sounding the alarm on sky-high valuations in AI stocks — and drawing comparisons to the tech bubble of the late 1990s. "Yes, AI will do incredible things for all of us," Torsten Sløk, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, said on Yahoo Finance's Opening Bid. "But does that mean I should be buying tech companies at any valuation?" According to Sløk, the answer is increasingly no. In a research note to clients this week, he pointed to internal data showing the price-to-earnings ratios (P/E) of the 10 largest companies in the S&P 500 —...

Following in the footsteps of NFL star Tom Brady, Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, and the mayor of Flavortown, David and Victoria Beckham have reportedly purchased a Miami Beach mansion for a posh $60 million.The couple’s rumored new stateside “Beckingham Palace” features 9 bedrooms, as well as the run-of-the-mill pool, spa, gym, and cinema that come almost as standard among the area’s sprawling waterfront estates. Whether it will hold its value, even with all of those amenities, is another question altogether.Indeed, the annual UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index for 2024, which analyzes residential property prices in 25 major cities worldwide,...

Three years into Joe Biden’s presidency, reporters who cover the administration know what to expect when first lady Jill Biden appears: nothing. The president, 81, has held the fewest press conferences or formal interviews of any modern commander-in-chief — leaving Biden’s jaunts across the White House South Lawn to and from his Marine One helicopter as the best chance for the press corps to get some face time. When Biden is alone, he is far easier to bait with shouted questions, sometimes shuffling over around midnight for a give-and-take — despite the unflattering overhead TV lights forcing him to hold...

Embarking on a narrative journey that transcends time, we unravel the captivating parallels between Nvidia’s meteoric rise and the cautionary tale of Cisco in 2000. If projections hold, Nvidia could transform into a $7.5 trillion behemoth within a year, evoking haunting memories of the Dot Com bubble. March 2000 witnessed a similar saga with Cisco, and as history beckons, we ponder the unheeded warnings of the past. The charts, valuations, and a sense of unstoppable growth—all echo a familiar tune. Is this a prelude to another tech bubble burst?

Signs of a potential market peak are emerging as the technology sector, which peaked in July, shows renewed vulnerability. This week, marked by the largest shooting star for Tech since July, is seen as a significant indicator. JPMorgan Chase & Co. quant strategists are raising concerns about the concentration of the market, drawing parallels with the dot-com bubble and emphasizing the risk of a substantial selloff. The dominance of the 10 largest stocks in U.S. equity markets is a focal point of concern. The strategists note that highly concentrated markets pose a clear and present risk to equity markets in...

Including NVIDIA playing the role of Cisco Systems. Electric vehicles playing the dotcom game. Irrational exuberance in the face of a clearly faltering economy. In the mid to late 1990s it was the second expansion of the ghettos into the second ring suburbs that caused thousands of business to die. Now we have another expansion of the ghettos fueled by millions of illegals making it ten times worse.

Where is the website? "DOWNSIDE LEGACY at two degrees of Bill Clinton" does it still exist?

In my sub-40 years of existence, I’ve witnessed multiple market bubbles and collapses that in hindsight were predictable, but the warning signs of inevitable failure were obviously ignored. People disregard the few naysayers because their desire to be a part of an in-vogue fad outweighs any common sense.

The Biden administration, the media, Democrats, and Republicans are all either willfully ignorant or blithely unaware of the looming economic crisis that's about to hit. Inflation is part of the problem, but we're going beyond job creation reports and the fallout from Silicon Valley Bank. It's a crisis that could cause all the dominoes to fall, and it doesn't help that we have a president who gets outright exhausted after a few days of work. A looming real estate crisis threatens to nuke the whole system. The bleeding has already begun, and it could take decades for some "superstar cities"...

MADISON, Wis. -- As the average home cost in Madison soars to $424,000 in 2023's latest city assessments, experts say new homeowners are unlikely to face decreases in value in the near future despite the rapid increase. President Melissa Bjerke Markgraf and CEO Ruth Hackney from the Realtors Association of South Central Wisconsin joined Naomi Kowles on For the Record to explain the impacts of Madison's red hot housing market after city assessments rose 13.5% from the previous year. "The last three years, even during the pandemic, were record-setting volume years," Bjerke Markgraf said. "It's shocking double digits going up....

Black Knights December Mortgage Report is out and the house price graphs show the west is a mess. While much of the US is down from 2022 peaks in home price. but it is The West where home prices are down the most (just like 2008 where the Inland Empire of California, Phoenix and Las Vegas crashed in term of home prices). At least Columbus Ohio is down only -2.1% from the 2022 peak. While Austin TX is down almost -10% from 2022 peak. US inflation numbers are out tomorrow. Let’s check on home price and rent growth tomorrow.

Alarm! Yesterday’s PUT/CALL ratio was the highest in history at 1.46. That is higher than 2001 and 2008. REAL M2 Money YoY has crashed to its lowest level since 1980 and Jimmy Carter. And the train keeps on rollin’. Instead of Little Games, The Federal Reserve is making this BIG GAMES.

The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) is the world’s largest silver exchange. For the last nine consecutive months, the quantity of silver held in LBMA vaults have declined. The August 2022 report states that the vaults now hold only 916.5 million ounces of silver, the lowest total since July 2016. In November 2021, the LBMA vaults held 1.170.6 billion ounces of silver. Since then, inventories have fallen 21.7 percent. As dramatic a drop as that is, it becomes even more extreme when you consider only the LBMA inventories not owned by 13 silver exchange traded funds (ETFs) and the private...