Price rigging is a form of market manipulation. As a term, "price rigging" is most commonly used in British English, while "price fixing" is more common in North America.

With the GameStop fun and games largely over, someone or some group turned their attention to the commodity silver. The mainstream media were quick to point the finger at the Reddit flash mobs, though Wallstreetbets issued a denial of sorts.

Both the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said that they are “closely monitoring” recent activity in silver markets. So that’s alright then, I suppose.

Still, the useless CFTC has been monitoring central bankster market rigging in gold and silver since at least the 1987 stock market crash. How long before President Biden blames it on Trump?

Asian markets extend gains as sentiment improves on outlook

February 2, 2021 12:27 AM By Imani Moise, Kane Wu

(Reuters) - Asian stock markets extended gains on Tuesday on increased optimism about stimulus packages and global economic recovery, while retail investors retreated from GameStop and their new-found interest in silver.

MSCI’s gauge of Asia Pacific stocks outside Japan was up 1.25% mid-morning, building on Monday’s rise. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index and China’s benchmark CSI300 Index opened 1.7% and 0.33% higher, respectively. Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.67%.

Markets were buoyant ahead of negotiations Tuesday between U.S. President Joe Biden and Republican senators on a new COVID support bill. The GOP’s $618bn stimulus plan released early Monday was about a third the size of the President’s proposal. Top Democrats later on Monday filed a joint $1.9 trillion budget measure in a step toward bypassing Republicans.

“The debate (around the stimulus package) will be really interesting. Markets will follow it,” said Kyle Rodda, market analyst at IG. “(but) markets have been pricing in that a stimulus package will be put in place in the future.”

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 benchmark added a further 1.23%, as the country’s central bank is expected to maintain its current policy setting when it releases the results of its Tuesday board meeting at 3:30am GMT.

South Korea’s KOSPI also gained, adding 2.3%, as the country’s ruling party readies another round of COVID-19 cash handouts and an extra budget.

Institutional investors are still digesting the retail trading frenzy that has boosted GameStop Corp and other so-called meme stocks in recent sessions against their financial fundamentals.

----Spot silver prices eased on Tuesday, falling more than 1% to $28.30 in early trade, as some of the feverish retail-trader driven interest in the precious metal cooled.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets/asian-markets-extend-gains-as-sentiment-improves-on-outlook-idUSKBN2A201L

U.S. commodities regulator monitoring silver markets activity: acting chairman

February 1, 2021 9:48 PM By Reuters Staff

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is “closely monitoring” recent activity in silver markets, the agency’s acting chairman said on Monday as last week’s volatility in securities markets spilled into trading of the precious metal.

Silver prices surged to their highest in eight years as retail investors piled into the market and posts multiplied on the same Reddit message board behind last week’s frenzied buying of GameStop Corp shares.

The CFTC “is communicating with fellow regulators, the exchanges, and stakeholders to address any potential threats to the integrity of the derivatives markets for silver, and remains vigilant in surveilling these markets for fraud and manipulation,” acting chairman Rostin Behnam said in a statement.

Surging prices of GameStop, which saw a near 400% gain last week, and other hot stocks have prompted the White House, the top federal securities regulator and state attorneys general to say they are monitoring the situation.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-silver/u-s-commodities-regulator-monitoring-silver-markets-activity-acting-chairman-idUSKBN2A13PO

Reddit's flashmob won't be able to work its GameStop magic on silver

Nils Pratley Mon 1 Feb 2021 20.00 GMT

Attempting to corner the silver market has a long and dishonourable history, so one can understand why members of the have-a-go Reddit crew might be attracted to a version of the idea.

The day traders also appear to have chosen one tactic correctly. They targeted silver exchange traded funds, or ETFs, which are obliged to back their units with physical holdings of the metal. Yes, that’s the way to get maximum bang for your buck. No messing about with funds that merely hold derivative silver contracts. The price of the metal jumped by 10%.

So far, so familiar – or, at least, familiar since last week’s fun and games in GameStop, AMC and others. Yet this latest iteration of “flashmob” investing is different. The central tactic may be correct, but the overall plan looks wildly overambitious. For starters, there are no obviously overextended hedge funds to beat up. Second, the price of silver is hard to push around artificially for any length of time.

Both thoughts seemed to have occurred to members of the Reddit army, which looks less than united about the wisdom of this expedition. Some on the WallStreetBets forum pointed out that banks and hedge funds, the supposed enemies, aren’t enthusiastic short-sellers of the metal. Good point: the data shows institutions are actually net long.

Indeed, even the short positions won’t always be what they seem. Some will have been created for reasons of genuine hedging. If, for example, you’re a big investor in Fresnillo, the FTSE 100 silver miner, you might maintain a short position in silver as a way to hedge out market risk. Such a hedge would have done its job on Monday: the pain of a 10% rise in the price of silver was matched by the relief of a big gain in Fresnillo’s share price. So who is hurting?

Then one has to consider the size of the silver market. GameStop was a struggling video games retailer worth $1.5bn at the start of the year. By contrast, the value of the silver market is more like $1.5tn, so it’s hard to sustain the same market-moving momentum. Real-world manufacturers need silver for use in cars and computers, but they also keep stocks of the stuff. So they do not become forced buyers overnight, unlike the hedge funds at Gamestop, who stupidly made the same overcrowded bet.

Monday’s dramatic surge in the silver is not to be sniffed at. It was a significant move. But was it just small-time investors buying? Or were hedge funds, or others, enjoying some sport by anticipating the Redditors’s intentions (which were advertised since last week) and adding a bit of speculative money in an attempt to catch a pop in the price? If so, one suspects the professionals will have banked their profits already.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2021/feb/01/reddits-flash-mob-wont-be-able-to-work-the-gamestop-magic-on-silver

CME raises silver margins after surge, CFTC on alert

Published 6 hours ago

Silver is no longer a sleepy commodity, for now, posting its biggest one day percentage gain since March 2009.

However, the 9.29% rally to $29.39 per troy ounce on Monday, prompted the CME, the world’s largest derivatives exchange which offers trading in silver futures and options, to raise margins starting tomorrow after the close of business, per a notice reviewed by FOX Business.

The move in silver also caught the attention of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC}, the top regulator for commodities futures trading.

“The CFTC is closely monitoring recent activity in the silver markets,” said Acting Chairman Rostin Behnam in a released statement. “The Commission is communicating with fellow regulators, the exchanges, and stakeholders to address any potential threats to the integrity of the derivatives markets for silver, and remains vigilant in surveilling these markets for fraud and manipulation.”

Silver shot up, along with ETFs and mining stocks, on rumors the Reddit crowd, perhaps moving away from GameStop and AMC, had moved onto and into silver.

However, that remains unconfirmed. Twitter feeds connected to WallStreetBets, the Reddit group first identified as the center of the army of retail investors targeting those heavily shorted stocks, such as GameStop, AMC and others, claimed it wasn’t them. Inquiries into wallstreetbets mod by FOX Business were not immediately returned.

The CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission, both operating without permanent chairs, scrambled to address the trading frenzy that dominated the headlines and pushed total composite trading volume on the NYSE, Nasdaq, NYSE American and NYSE Arca composite volumes, to the highest trading levels of the year, 23,089,156,843 shares, last Wednesday and the highest since May 2019.

The SEC issued the following statement on Friday noting “The Commission is closely monitoring and evaluating the extreme price volatility of certain stocks’ trading prices over the past several days...”

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/cme-raises-silver-margins-after-surge-cftc-on-alert

Back in the real economy, far from the gambling stock casinos, still more sign of rising economic stress from the continuing coronavirus crisis.

Boeing says 118 orders for 777X no longer firm under accounting rules

February 2, 2021 3:14 AM By Reuters Staff

(Reuters) - Boeing Co said on Monday that 118 orders for its 777X widebody plane under development are no longer seen as firm under accounting rules that require it to regularly assess their viability, leaving it with 191 solid orders for the model.

Boeing last week announced a $6.5 billion charge on the 777X in part due to weaker-than-expected demand for the model. It also pushed back its entry into service by a year to late 2023 in anticipation of a longer, costlier certification process.

“Delays on the 737 MAX and 777X programs have resulted in, and may continue to result in, customers having the right to terminate orders and or substitute orders for other Boeing aircraft,” the manufacturer said in a regulatory filing.

Customers for the 777X include Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, Singapore Airlines Ltd, ANA Holdings Inc and Lufthansa.

Boeing lists 350 orders on its website, although some customers have indicated they would like to reduce their orders or push back delivery dates as they grapple with a plunge in international travel demand due to the coronavirus pandemic.

At the end of 2019, Boeing had listed 309 of the 777X orders as firm, meaning it was confident customers still planned to buy that many planes and could finance their purchase.

Boeing Chief Financial Officer Greg Smith said last week on an earnings call that the company’s order backlog had fallen during the fourth quarter of 2020 due to its accounting standard assessment, including the revised schedule for the 777X.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-orders/boeing-says-118-orders-for-777x-no-longer-firm-under-accounting-rules-idUSKBN2A20A1

Finally, the revolving door among the Fed, the US Treasury and the Wall Street they’re supposed to be regulating and policing. There’s a level playing field right? No, honest there is! But maybe it’s just not in Washington, District of Crooks or on Wall Street.

Analysis: GameStop saga may provide early test of Biden administration ethics pledges

February 1, 2021 11:04 AM By Trevor Hunnicutt, David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Arguably the last thing new U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wants to take up during her first days in office is a financial market imbroglio involving one of her last private sector business relationships.

But as hedge fund Citadel LLC emerges as one of the key actors in the trading frenzy last week involving GameStop Corp - and questions arise over whether the activity exposes deeper risks for the financial system - Yellen could find herself pulled into the fray.

Citadel, together with another fund, extended a $2.75 billion financial lifeline to hedge fund Melvin Capital Management, which had suffered heavy losses by betting against GameStop. Citadel also pays for the right to process Robinhood users’ trades, a practice that has drawn some concern from investor advocates.

The White House has said Yellen is among a handful of officials monitoring the fracas. As head of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), Yellen is broadly responsible for the health of the entire trading and investing system.

A sticking point for her to clear, though, may be $700,000 in speaking fees she accepted from Citadel, as recently as last fall. Yellen has pledged not to involve herself in an official capacity in matters involving the firm without first seeking a written waiver from Treasury ethics officials.

Ethics experts say that pledge is not a hard wall for her to scale should the need arise. After ethics violations dogged the Trump administration, some groups are urging Yellen to pre-emptively seek a waiver, and set a precedent.

“This example is a good test of Biden’s ethics executive order and the transparency that follows, but it also highlights the revolving door and why restrictions are necessary to protect the integrity of government missions, policies, and programs,” said Scott Amey, general counsel at Project On Government Oversight, a nonpartisan government watchdog group.

---- Like many former government officials, including here her Federal Reserve chair predecessor Ben Bernanke, Yellen took speaking fees from private companies after she left government.

Yellen filed an ethics agreement here with the Office of Government Ethics in December saying she would "seek written authorization to participate personally and substantially in any particular matter" related to any companies that paid her speaking fees prior to joining President Joe Biden's administration - for a year after her last speech to each firm.

Yellen spoke several times at Citadel, most recently on an Oct. 27 webinar, according to the filing. She was paid at least $700,000 in speaking fees by the Citadel while she was in private practice at the Brookings Institution think tank, another disclosure here shows.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-retail-trading-treasury-yellen-analys/analysis-gamestop-saga-may-provide-early-test-of-biden-administration-ethics-pledges-idUSKBN2A125E

Covid-19 Corner

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

Britain detects South African variant in people with no travel links

February 1, 2021 12:26 PM By Reuters Staff

LONDON (Reuters) - Two people in southern England have tested positive for the South African variant of the coronavirus without having any links to people who have travelled recently, prompting “surge testing” to contain the outbreak.

Residents in parts of Surrey, to the south west of London, will now be tested whether they are showing any symptoms or not, the local authority said.

The government said in January it had detected cases of both the South African and Brazilian variants, however they were all linked to travel.

The Surrey Local Resilience Forum said it would carry out a localised “surge testing” programme in the Woking area of the county which would help it to closely monitor any community spread of the new variant, and restrict further transmission.

“This is a precautionary measure – the more cases of the variant we find, the better chance we have at stopping it from spreading further,” Ruth Hutchinson, Director of Public Health for Surrey, said.

The emergence of more infectious variants in recent months has raised questions over whether vaccines will prove as effective in containing them.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-variant/britain-detects-south-african-variant-in-people-with-no-travel-links-idUSKBN2A12DO?il=0

Japan set to extend state of emergency, likely for another month

February 2, 2021 3:16 AM By Elaine Lies

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is expected to extend a state of emergency in Tokyo and other regions for another month on Tuesday, seeking to keep the upper hand over a COVID-19 outbreak even as daily case numbers begin to edge down.

Prime Minister Yoshida Suga is due to make a final decision on the extension after a meeting of an expert coronavirus response panel later in the day.

“We’ll respond with a sense of urgency based on the medical situation and virus spread,” Katsunobu Kato, chief cabinet secretary, told reporters.

“The number of new coronavirus cases is falling, but caution is still needed,” Kato said, adding that hospitals remained full and the death rate had not fallen.

Japan has reported a total of 391,618 COVID-19 cases, including 5,832 deaths.

Suga and his government remain determined to host the delayed 2020 Summer Olympics, currently scheduled for July-August, despite the resurgence of the virus in Japan.

The government last month imposed a one-month state of emergency for 11 areas, including Tokyo and neighbouring prefectures as well as the western city of Osaka, to combat the country’s third and most lethal coronavirus wave.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-japan/japan-set-to-extend-state-of-emergency-likely-for-another-month-idUSKBN2A20A7

WHO team in China's Wuhan visits provincial CDC

February 1, 2021 1:04 AM By Reuters Staff

WUHAN, China (Reuters) - A World Health Organization-led team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic on Monday visited the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in China’s central region of Hubei, where the outbreak emerged in late 2019.

The group of independent experts spent about 4-1/2 hours on its longest site visit since completing two weeks of quarantine on Thursday, and did not speak to waiting journalists.

The WHO, which has sought to manage expectations for the mission, has said its members would be limited to visits organised by their Chinese hosts and have no contact with community members, because of health curbs.

The group has so far also visited hospitals where early cases were detected, markets, and an exhibition on the battle with the outbreak in the provincial capital of Wuhan.

No full itinerary for the group’s field work has been announced, and journalists covering the tightly controlled visit have been kept at a distance from team members.

Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow with the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington, said two weeks in the field was not much time for the experts.

“I don’t think they have the time to get any conclusive results. It is more like communication and information exchange,” Huang told Reuters by phone from Washington.

“It depends how diligent they are in digging new information but also about how cooperative and accommodating the Chinese side will be.”

Beijing has sought to cast doubt on the notion that the coronavirus originated in China, pointing to imported frozen food as a conduit.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-who-china/who-team-in-chinas-wuhan-visits-provincial-cdc-idUSKBN2A10ZQ

Use of parasite medication to treat coronavirus patients approved in Slovakia

27January 2021

The Health Ministry approved the therapeutic use of Ivermectin for six months.

Ivermectin, a medication used to treat many types of parasite infestations, can now be used to treat coronavirus patients in hospitals and obtained from pharmacies with a prescription.

The Health Ministry approved the therapeutic use of this medication for six months. It will be used with other treatments, its spokesperson Zuzana Eliášová said, as reported by the TASR newswire.

The medication can be legally imported to Slovakia and given to patients. With such a step, the ministry fulfilled the request of the association of Slovak anaesthetists, the Denník N daily reported.

Until now, Ivermectin was officially approved to be used only for animals, which is why people generally buy it abroad.

https://spectator.sme.sk/c/22583299/use-of-parasite-medication-to-treat-coronavirus-patients-approved-in-slovakia.htmlSorry

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Next, some vaccine links kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada. The links come from a most informative update from Stanford Hospital in California.

World Health Organization - Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines

NY Times Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html

Stanford Website. https://racetoacure.stanford.edu/clinical-trials/132

Regulatory Focus COVID-19 vaccine tracker. https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker

Some other useful Covid links.

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource centre

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Rt Covid-19

https://rt.live/

Covid19info.live

https://wuflu.live/

Centers for Disease Control Coronavirus

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

The Spectator Covid-19 data tracker (UK)

https://data.spectator.co.uk/city/national

Technology Update.

With events happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section. Updates as they get reported.

VW opens a recycling plant for batteries at the end of their lives

By Nick Lavars January 31, 2021

We've seen a number of automakers take steps to give their electric vehicle batteries a second life in highway charging stations or storage systems for the home, but at some point these deteriorating devices do reach the end of the road. Volkswagen has just opened a recycling plant for this very scenario, where it hopes to recover the raw materials from its fully depleted batteries, which can then be used to build brand new ones.

Volvo, Nissan and Renault are a few of companies that are repurposing their batteries in different ways. These devices typically last eight to 10 years during their initial use before declining to the point where they can no longer power electric vehicles, but can still offer enough performance for other energy storage applications, be it for the home or elsewhere.

But Volkswagen is taking aim at batteries that can no longer serve these purposes either. Its first car battery recycling plant, opened in Salzgitter, Germany, over the weekend, is dedicated to recycling batteries that are not powerful enough to be given a second life.

Its machinery and workers will instead deep discharge the batteries and dismantle them completely, with the individual components to be ground down into granules and dried. Volkswagen expects this process to yield the raw materials needed for new battery production, such as copper, aluminum, lithium, manganese, cobalt and graphite.

“From research, we know that recycled battery raw materials are just as efficient as new ones,” says Mark Möller, Head of the Business Unit Technical Development & E-Mobility. “In the future, we intend to support our battery cell production with the material we recover. Given that the demand for batteries and the corresponding raw materials will increase drastically, we can put every gram of recycled material to good use.”

Volkswagen anticipates that it won’t see a large number of batteries returned from its electric vehicles until later in the decade, so the Salzgitter plant will start out as a pilot project with means to recycle 3,600 battery systems each year, and will be scaled up from there.

https://newatlas.com/automotive/vw-recycling-plant-batteries-electric/

Failure of the price mechanism

When a financial market fails, it means that the price mechanism does not work effectively. A significant function of the price mechanism is to allocate goods and services a price, but in financial markets, the prices of assets may not reflect the full range of costs and benefits associated with owning, or trading in, those assets. For example, failing to establish the ‘risk’ associated with holding a financial asset may cause a divergence between the market (or traded) value of the asset, and the true value. This can distort decision making and lead to a misallocation of resources.

One feature of the financial crisis was the emergence of ‘toxic’ assets, where risks were hidden, and market values failed to reflect the underlying valuation of the asset if based on accurate risk calculation.

There are several features of financial markets that suggest that within those markets the price mechanism may fail maximise economic welfare.

https://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Market_failures/Financial-market-failures.html

London Irvine Report

Pages

Pages

Tuesday, 2 February 2021

A Silver Pump And Dump? By Whom?

Asian markets extend gains as sentiment improves on outlook

U.S. commodities regulator monitoring silver markets activity: acting chairman

Reddit's flashmob won't be able to work its GameStop magic on silver

CME raises silver margins after surge, CFTC on alert

Boeing says 118 orders for 777X no longer firm under accounting rules

Analysis: GameStop saga may provide early test of Biden administration ethics pledges

Covid-19 Corner

Britain detects South African variant in people with no travel links

Japan set to extend state of emergency, likely for another month

WHO team in China's Wuhan visits provincial CDC

Use of parasite medication to treat coronavirus patients approved in Slovakia

The Spectator Covid-19 data tracker (UK)

VW opens a recycling plant for batteries at the end of their lives

Failure of the price mechanism

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