r/EconomyCharts

Pakistan: solar just overtook coal as the largest single source of electricity.

21% of power from solar in 2025. Up from 2% in 2019.

Coal peaked at 20% in 2020.

Solar, wind, and storage are absolutely dwarfing fossil fuels and nuclear...

To put this in perspective: China alone installed 415 GW of solar in 2025. That single country's solar installations in one year exceeded the entire cumulative capacity of every operational nuclear reactor on Earth combined (~376 GW).

HighLowTicker V1.0.1 is live.

try it here: HighLowTicker

Please do share your thoughts, questions and comments, love hearing from this sub especially since we are all like minded in looking for that intra-day edge!

This graphic shows how solar beat the IEA’s 2015 forecast for 2025 by 1,800%.

Back then, the IEA expected the world to add about 34 GW of solar each year through to 2040. In 2025, the world added almost 650 GW.

As for solar generation, that reached almost 2,800 TWh in 2025, about as much electricity as the EU consumes in a year. That helped clean power meet all new electricity demand growth globally and nudged fossil generation into decline.

The story implicit in this graphic is that #solar behaves more like semiconductors than fossil fuels. As manufacturing scales, costs fall. Every doubling of global cumulative solar capacity has historically reduced costs by about 20%.

It also explores the 'killer app' of the transition: solar + batteries. As Ember puts it, 'the accelerating build-out of solar power is increasingly taking place alongside battery storage deployment, enabling the next paradigm shift – from daytime solar to anytime solar..'

Full infographic and write-up: https://www.climatetrunk.com/infographics/the-sun-has-won

To put this in perspective: China alone installed 415 GW of solar in 2025. That single country's solar installations in one year exceeded the entire cumulative capacity of every operational nuclear reactor on Earth combined (~376 GW).

The massive stock market crash following the 1973 oil crisis did not occur during the embargo itself, but rather in the six months after the embargo was lifted. Historical market analysis from Bloomberg indicates that equity markets often exhibit a delayed reaction, taking considerable time to fully internalize and price in the complex macroeconomic damages of a major geopolitical energy shock

Why the Delay Happened

Investors initially reacted to the immediate political headlines, such as ceasefires and diplomatic negotiations. It took months for the secondary economic realities—such as broken supply chains, structural shifts in energy costs, and skyrocketing consumer inflation—to flow through corporate earnings and trigger a systemic selloff. 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danrunkevicius/2026/05/11/after-1973-oil-shock-stock-market-didnt-recover-for-20-years-can-that-happen-again/

Petrol cars will, very soon, be for museums only. No wonder petrostates are desperately starting oil wars.

Wild how off the mark the IEA has been: In 2019, they thought we'd barely hit a 5% share by now Source: https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2026

And this amazing innovation has not hit the market yet, this battery will last 100 years:

261 Wh/kg & 20,000 Cycles — VW's Secret Weapon Is a Sodium-Ion Battery

"Volkswagen is reportedly developing a next-generation sodium-ion battery with an energy density of 261 Wh/kg and an incredible lifespan of up to 20,000 charge cycles, potentially making it one of the most durable EV batteries ever created. The technology could dramatically reduce battery costs, improve cold-weather reliability, and lessen dependence on expensive materials like lithium and cobalt, signaling a major shift in the future EV market."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i12FYaF7a_Y

Great new paper on Germany's economic complacency.

U.S. Semiconductor Production Surges While Manufacturing Remains Flat

From 2012 to 2026, the U.S. semiconductor production index soared by nearly 200%, driven by rapid growth in AI, data centers, and advanced computing demand. In contrast, overall U.S. manufacturing output remained largely stagnant over the same period, underscoring the semiconductor industry’s outsized role as one of the fastest-growing segments of American manufacturing.

Then, Trump killed clean energy, which was very manufacturing- and jobs-intensive, and chose to focus on AI which is great for consolidating wealth up to billionaires.

Koreans are buying a lot of stocks to the point that a bubble is clearly forming and could lead to a problem whenever the music stops and investors realize the returns are no longer piling up and rush for the exits

**Source:** WSJ, 12 May 2026

**Article Summary:**

Over the past year, nearly all net job growth has come from healthcare and social assistance, a sector with a dearth of men. Sectors with heavily male workforces have been losing jobs. The postpandemic period has seen an influx of women in their prime working years into employment. The share of men working has flatlined.

The divergent path might widen in the years ahead. As the needs of an aging population stack up, occupations that men have historically been loath to enter, such as jobs as home health aides and medical assistants, will likely play a bigger role in the labor market.

A growing educational divide is also part of the equation: Women now earn bachelor's degrees at a substantially higher rate than men, and employment rates among people who are college-educated are substantially higher than those who aren't.

Friday, the Labor Department reported the overall unemployment rate stayed steady at 4.3%. Unemployment rates for men and for women weren't all that different from each other—4.4% vs 4.2%, respectively—just as they weren't before the pandemic. But the unemployment rate includes only people actively looking for work. A broader picture of employment trends comes from looking at the share of the population that is working.

Among men age 16 and over, the employment-to-population ratio was 64.1% in April. That compared with an average of 66.6% in 2019, and 70.9% in the 1990s. A lot of that decline can be explained by an aging population: There are a lot more male retirees than there used to be.

The share of women working has always been lower than men's, but it has held up much better despite an aging population. Women's employment-to-population ratio came to 54.5% in April, a bit below its 2019 and 1990s averages.

nobody owns enough popcorn