Baltic Dry Index. 751 +25 Brent Crude 28.08 Spot Gold 1683
"We're all mad here."
Lewis Carroll, Commodities in Wonderland.
Tired
of covering the irrational exuberance of our gambling casino stock markets and
central banksters, this weekend we focus on the carnage rampaging though our
commodities markets.
In
commodities news, President Trump moves to salvage some of the US foodstuffs
supply chains. But is it too little too late? Crude oil sinks into the teens.
Coal usage collapses along with electricity production. Metals madness.
April 17, 2020 / 7:17 PM
Trump announces $19B relief for farmers, food donations
April 17 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump on Friday unveiled a $19 billion program to assist U.S. farmers and ranchers, and channel their products to food banks as the coronavirus impacts the nation's food supply chain.The majority of the funding -- $16 billion -- will take the form of direct payments to agricultural producers affected by the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
"These are great people, great Americans," Trump said of the nation's agricultural producers. "Never complain -- they just do what they have to do."
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said his department will also work with regional distributors to purchase $3 billion of fresh produce, dairy and meat to send to the country's network of food banks. He said this effort will go toward offsetting financial losses distributors have faced as restaurants, hotels, schools and other businesses have had to close amid the outbreak.
"Having
to dump milk or plow under vegetables ready to market is not only financially
distressing, but it's heartbreaking as well to those who produce them,"
Perdue said during Friday's White House Coronavirus
Task Force briefing.
----In addition to the $19 billion effort, Perdue said the U.S. Department of Agriculture is using another $873.3 million in Section 32 funding and at least $850 million from a stimulus bill passed last month to assist food banks.
"The
American food supply chain had to adapt, and it remains safe, secure and
strong, and we all know that starts with America's farmers and ranchers,"
Perdue said in a statement. "This program will not only provide immediate
relief for our farmers and ranchers, but it will also allow for the purchase
and distribution of our agricultural abundance to help our fellow Americans in
need."
More
Cotton demand plummets during coronavirus pandemic
Retail sales for clothing and clothing accessories in March were down more than 50 percent from the same month last year, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report.
April 16, 2020 / 3:00 AM
EVANSVILLE,
Ind., April 16 (UPI) -- As countries worldwide take measures to slow the spread
of coronavirus by quarantining people and closing nonessential businesses,
sales of cotton -- and the clothing and textiles made from it -- have declined
sharply.
Demand for
cotton is so low that even though prices hit their lowest levels in more than a
decade, retailers and manufacturing facilities around the world are cancelling
orders.
"Every
stage of the supply chain is getting hit," said Jon Devine, senior
economist for Cotton Incorporated, a nonprofit industry organization based in
North Carolina.
"Retailers
are suffering," he said. "In between, you've got all the
manufacturers that are trying to get their orders cancelled. And then you get
all the way back to the field. Farmers are entering their planting time. They
have some difficult decisions to make."
Retail sales for clothing and clothing accessories in March, many made with cotton, were down more than 50 percent compared with the same month last year, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released Wednesday.
With roughly 95 percent of the cotton grown in the United States used for clothing and other textiles, such as towels and sheets, reduced sales have a significant impact on the cotton industry, Devine said.
Most of the manufacturing is performed in overseas facilities. And many of those facilities have closed to slow the spread of the virus, leaving exporters with nowhere to send their goods, Devine said.
Cotton prices, as a result, have fallen sharply. Cotton was trading around 52 cents a pound Wednesday, down from about 70 cents a pound at the start of the year -- roughly a 26 percent drop, according to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
That price is below the cost of production for most farmers, Devine said. That might prompt some farmers to plant a different crop, he said.
Most farmers have purchased their seed and the equipment for this year. And with roughly six months before the 2020 crop is harvested, a lot of time remains for prices to rebound, Devine said.
But that
will only occur if cotton sales pick up. And there is no sign of that anytime
soon.
"Usually,
a drop in price makes people start looking for bargains," said Mark Bagby,
a spokesman for Calcot Ltd., a cotton cooperative in Bakersfield, Calif., that
markets and sells cotton for growers in California, Arizona, New Mexico and
Texas.
"But
that's just not happening. There's so much uncertainty. People are afraid to do
anything."
According to
the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the worldwide economic slowdown "with
little precedent" will, this month, most likely produce one of the largest
reductions in American cotton exports ever recorded.
More
Dairy farmer: Why excess milk cannot simply be sent to food banks, homeless shelters
April 16, 2020
America's food
supply chain is not set up to get milk from dairy farmers to food banks, agricultural economist
and dairy farmer Damian Mason stated Thursday.
Appearing on "Fox & Friends" with host Steve Doocy, Mason explained that the system is far more complex than most Americans realize.
"My farms in Indiana grow forage crops -- alfalfa and corn -- for a dairy operation. And, that dairy operator is hurting right now -- as are dairy farmers throughout the United States of America."
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, dairy farmers have been forced to dump thousands of gallons of milk due to an extreme drop in demand from now-shuttered schools, restaurants, and other foodservice providers.
The abrupt shift in demand means that dairy farms across the country have an excess of milk because farmers cannot stop milking their cows.
According to the Dairy Farmers of America co-op, between 2.7 million and 3.7 million gallons of US milk could be dumped per day as a result of the health crisis.
"[Dairy farmers are] already slogging through a slow industry with low milk prices and then you've got the capacity issue right now," Mason remarked. "So, Steve, we've got a real issue with that bottleneck."
Mason told Doocy that farmers can't simply send milk to a food bank, as some have suggested in recent weeks amid surging demand from the millions of Americans who have lost their incomes.
"There is no food bank in the United States of America that can receive an 8,000-gallon tanker truck of raw milk. I mean, it's not even legal to sell raw milk in most states, let alone who could process or package that?" he continued.
"So, the dairy farms are suffering
because of the flow in the middle. A plant that's set up to process 25-pound
bags of mozzarella cheese can't switch over like that and start bottling milk
to give it to homeless
shelters or food banks," Mason
concluded. "I mean, it's a really complex food system that a lot of folks
just don't understand."
COVID-19 causes 'extraordinary' 35% drop in coal generation
17 April 2020
Coal generation in the UK has fallen by 35% in the last
month due to COVID-19.This is according to new analysis from technology group Wärtsilä, which found that between 10 March and 10 April 2020, coal power dropped 35% and gas 24% compared with the same period in 2019. Renewables held a 43% share of the UK’s generation, up 10% compared to 2019.
This trend was reflected across Europe, which saw a 29% drop in coal generation, meaning coal made up just 12% of EU generation. Conversely, renewables came in at 46% of generation, jumping 8% in comparison to 2019.
Across the entirety of Q1 2020, coal generation in the UK and Europe dropped 25.5%, with renewables reaching a 43% share of generation.
The UK has already been making strides in reducing its coal generation, achieving a landmark fortnight with no coal generation last May.
Additionally, last month SSE closed its Fiddler's Ferry coal-fired power plant and RWE closed its Aberthaw B, taking the UK's fleet down to four.
Wärtsilä also pointed to reductions in demand, a trend already seen in the UK with demand falling to 31.2GW on 25 March, almost 3GW less than the average for March 2019.
On 12 April, demand fell to a record low of 24.18GW as sunny weather combined with the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown and the Easter bank holiday weekend.
According to Wärtsilä, electricity demand across Europe is now down 10% due to measures taken to tackle COVID-19. This lower demand has led to the “unprecedented” fall in carbon emissions from the power sector, with emission intensity reducing by 19.5% between 10 March and 10 April.
More
Oil has plunged 20% in the week since OPEC's historic production cut as traders remain unconvinced it can offset a coronavirus-led demand crunch
Apr. 17,
2020, 09:42 AM
Oil prices continue to fall, charging toward a new 18-year
low as gloomy demand outlooks persist even after a historic production
cut. West Texas Intermediate crude fell as much as 13% to $17.31 per barrel on Friday. International benchmark Brent crude declined 0.9% to $27.58 at intraday lows before rallying.
Oil prices have declined 20% this week even after OPEC on Sunday agreed to a historic production cut in an effort to stabilize the industry ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, which has cratered global demand. The group said that it will begin slashing production by 9.7 million barrels per day starting May 1.
Still, as the coronavirus pandemic
continues to devastate economies around the world, it appears that those cuts
won't be enough to prop up oil prices. Now, a number of dismal outlooks are
pulling oil prices down further.
In a Wednesday report, the International Energy Agency estimated that in April, global demand will fall by 29 million barrels per day. One day later, OPEC itself said that global oil demand will fall to a 30-year low in the second quarter as coronavirus continues to weigh on the commodity.
On Friday, the industry was dealt another blow. WTI extended losses after China's economy suffered its first contraction in 28 years. In the first quarter of 2020, gross domestic product in China fell 6.8% as the coronavirus pandemic sent a number of economic indicators lower. China is the biggest importer of oil, meaning that any slowdown in demand from the country will have a negative impact on prices.
Oil has lost more than 70% year-to-date.
April 17, 2020 / 11:22 PM
Brazil's Vale slashes 2020 output forecasts, citing virus
BRASILIA/RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian miner Vale SA (VALE3.SA) on Friday cut its forecast for production of iron ore fines and pellets, copper and nickel in 2020, saying in a securities filing that the new coronavirus outbreak was delaying some facilities from reopening.Vale reduced its forecast for annual production of iron ore fines to 310 million to 330 million tonnes from 340 million to 355 million tonnes previously. The company decreased its forecast for pellet production to 35 million to 40 million tonnes from 44 million tonnes.
Vale, the world’s largest producer of iron ore, attributed the revised forecast in part to delays restarting operations at facilities including the Timbopeba and Fabrica mines because the coronavirus outbreak was tripping up inspections and authorizations.
-----The miner said it had also slashed its 2020 production forecasts for copper to 360,000-380,000 tonnes from 400,000 tonnes previously and for nickel to 180,000-195,000 tonnes from 200,000-210,000 previously. The forecast excludes production at its New Caledonia facility.
In the first
quarter, Vale reported its iron ore output fell 18.2% from a year-ago to 59.6
million tonnes, missing its prediction of 63-58 million tonnes. First-quarter
iron ore sales totaled 51.7 million tonnes, a 6.8% drop from the same period a
year ago.
Finally,
the reality of that Covid-19 “immunity.” AI to the rescue?
Sorry, Immunity to Covid-19 Won't Be Like a Superpower
It's
nice to think that recovery will give you absolute protection, but that's not
really how this works.
04.16.2020 09:47 AM
There
are signs that the pandemic peak has passed
in New York City, and maybe in other hot spots
of infection
too. While there will be much more suffering to
come, both in these places and elsewhere,
talk has turned
in recent days to how we’re going to get people back out into society. Central
to these discussions has been the notion of immunity.
Which of us is safe from Covid-19, and how might that be measured? Are existing
antibody
tests good enough to clear people for
going back to work?
Should we put in place a nationwide system of immunity passports
or certificates? What about raising an army
of the recovered to lead the nation’s
fight against the virus?
The answers to these questions come with considerable caveats. As many have pointed out, we can’t assume that any prior exposure to the virus will make it so a person can’t get sick again. Even if our bodies learn to fight off the illness, we don’t know how long this protection might endure. “Immunity after any infection can range from lifelong and complete to nearly nonexistent,” the epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch said in The New York Times on Sunday. “So far, however, only the first glimmers of data are available about immunity to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.”
But public debates about immunity to Covid-19 could still be subject to a treacherous misapprehension, even once the caveats above have been acknowledged. The problem starts with just the word, immunity. It tends to conjure something binary: Either you have it or you don’t; either you’re a member of the superpowered legion of recovered, or you’re a vulnerable normie like the rest of us. The wisest commentators point to all the factors that remain unknown; they warn us that it’s possible that protection from Covid-19 will be short-lived or that it will go only to some of those who get infected. Yet a crude assumption can still be hiding in this miasma of uncertainty: that at any given point in time, people are perfectly immune to Covid-19—or else they’re not.
The truth is far less black and white. There may be many unanswered questions about how our bodies fight off SARS-CoV-2 infection, but one broader point is very clear: Adaptive immunity is not an on/off switch. Instead of treating it as such, we should learn to think in terms of an immunity continuum. At one end is what’s called sterilizing immunity, in which exposure to a pathogen tends to induce a lifelong, fail-safe protection from it. (That’s the case with measles.) At the other end is no immunity at all, where a history of prior illness doesn’t seem to matter—or, indeed, where it could even make things worse. Having an immune response to one strain of the virus causing dengue fever, for example, can worsen your reaction to the other types.
Experts say that SARS-CoV-2 likely falls somewhere in the middle, such that people who get exposed are neither sterilized against further illness nor left utterly defenseless. Instead, they enter into a state you might think of as “immunishness,” an intermediate level of protection that dwindles over time. The robustness of this immunish state—whether it prevents all reinfection or merely makes a second round of sickness less intense—and the period of time for which it lasts will depend on multiple factors, such as a patient’s genetics and sex (women tend to have stronger immune reactions than men), the strength of their initial immune response, and the characteristics of the virus itself as it continues to evolve.
Where, exactly, might responses to the new coronavirus fall on this continuum of induced immunishness? That’s still unknown. We don’t even know which types of antibodies are most crucial for preventing SARS-CoV-2 from infecting cells. Without that information, it will be very hard to design blood tests that deliver reasonable estimates of the strength of someone’s immunity, in the sense of how likely they are to become infected or how severe their symptoms might be.
If we want to know the duration of this immunity, whatever its strength, we’ll need to learn more about how the most relevant antibody levels change in the months or years post-infection. Previous studies of older, less dangerous coronaviruses seem to suggest that protection is short-lived: Antibody levels fall off significantly within a few months and continue to decline. A small study from 1990 re-exposed nine patients who had developed a mild cold to the same coronavirus a year later. Two-thirds of them developed a new bout of the infection, though they were contagious for a shorter period the second time around. The pattern may well be very different for SARS-CoV-2. Other research finds that decay rates for immunity can vary quite a bit from person to person, even in response to the same pathogen (or vaccine) exposure.
More
04.17.2020 07:00 AM
AI Uncovers a Potential Treatment for Covid-19 Patients
Software suggested an arthritis drug might
quell an out-of-control immune response that damages the lungs. Now it's being
tested in a clinical trial.
Late one
January afternoon, British pharmacologist Peter Richardson ran out of his home
office and told his wife, “Got it!” She asked what he was talking about and
offered a cup of tea. Richardson explained that he had identified a drug that
might help people infected with a new virus spreading in China.
Richardson’s
dash was prompted by a finding from artificial intelligence software developed
by his employer, BenevolentAI, a London startup where he is vice president of
pharmacology. The company has created a kind of search engine on steroids that
combines drug industry data with nuggets gleaned from scientific research
papers. Using the software, Richardson had identified a rheumatoid arthritis
drug that might dampen some of the most severe effects of the new virus, an
illness now known as Covid-19.
The virus, and that idea, have advanced rapidly in the weeks since. In February, Richardson and others at BenevolentAI published two research papers laying out their hypothesis and supporting evidence. They caught the attention of Eli Lilly, which markets the arthritis drug, known as baricitinib, under the brand name Olumiant.
This week, Lilly announced it is working with the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on a large clinical trial of the drug in hospitalized Covid-19 patients. Patrik Jonsson, president of Lilly’s biomedicines division, says his group hadn’t previously thought of baricitinib as an infectious disease treatment. “I think Covid-19 in many ways will change the way we're getting work done,” he says.
The clinical trial should begin in the US this month and could expand to include patients in Europe and Asia. Results are expected as soon as late June. Jonsson says it usually takes years to design, organize, and launch a trial.
More
This weekend’s musical diversion. The rarely heard Locatelli, a maestro on the
violin, but so complicated few could match him in his day.
Below a masterclass from the Australian
Chamber Orchestra, and the Finnish virtuoso Ms Satu Vänskä. Whatever they’re
paying her it’s not enough.
LOCATELLI Violin Concerto in D major The Harmonic Labyrinth | ACO Soloists
Satu Vänskä
Pietro Locatelli
"It's no use going
back to yesterday, because I was a different person then."
President Trump, with
apologies to Lewis Carroll and Alice.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished March
DJIA: 21,917 +45 Down. NASDAQ: 7,700 +149
Down. SP500: 2,585 +38 Down.
The NASDAQ and S&P have joined the DJIA in down. All three monthly
slow indexes have collapsed.
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