“Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough. You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.”

With most of East Asia closed, the Asian stock casinos stayed on record highs.

Elsewhere Fed Chairman Powell jumped on “Bailout Biden’s” spend, spend, spend, and spend some more, Magic Money Tree, socialist inflation plan. We are going to GameStop our way to universal prosperity for all.

Well, if they say so, it must come true, right? And did they all live happily ever after? Stick around, we’ll soon find out.

Asia stocks hold at highs, sustained by bottomless stimulus

February 10, 2021 11:59 PM By Wayne Cole

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian shares rested at record highs on Thursday as investors digested recent meaty gains, while bulls were sustained by the promise of endless free money after a benign reading on U.S. inflation and a dovish Federal Reserve outlook.

Adding to the torpor was a lack of liquidity as markets in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan were all on holiday.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.1%, having already climbed for four sessions to be up over 10% so far this year.

Japan’s Nikkei was shut after ending at a 30-year peak on Wednesday, while Australia’s main index held near an 11-month top.

With China off, there was little reaction to news the Biden administration will look at adding “new targeted restrictions” on certain sensitive technology exports to the Asian giant and would maintain tariffs for now.

Futures for the S&P 500 and NASDAQ were both steady, having hit historic highs on Wednesday. EUROSTOXX 50 futures and FTSE futures barely budged.

Still, the outlook for more global stimulus got a major boost overnight from a surprisingly soft reading on core U.S. inflation, which eased to 1.4% in January.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said he wanted to see inflation reach 2% or more before even thinking of tapering the bank’s super-easy policies.

Notably, Powell emphasised that once pandemic effects were stripped out, unemployment was nearer 10% than the reported 6.3% and thus a long way from full employment.

As a result, Powell called for a “society-wide commitment” to reducing unemployment, which analysts saw as strong support for President Joe Biden $1.9 trillion stimulus package.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets/asia-stocks-hold-at-highs-sustained-by-bottomless-stimulus-idUSKBN2AA30K?il=0

Next, is even Rosie turning cautiously bullish? And if he is, is this a sign of a looming top?

David Rosenberg: For now, only a Black Swan could stop this rally — but get ready for a July reckoning

We won't know until the third quarter whether the market's bets were right or wrong

Feb 10, 2021

As my mentor Bob Farrell famously said, “Bubbles go further than you think, but they don’t correct by going sideways,” which has been true during the past several months and right into the present.

The lesson learned in this past year is to never short the market on valuation, at least not without a near-term catalyst. There are real implications for professional investors to be grossly underweight in a prolonged rally. Do not stay wed for too long on academic or intellectual arguments in a bull market underpinned by sentiment, momentum and liquidity.

But one thing is clear to me, which is that risk markets are very expensive when assessed against the fundamentals and can only be justified by ultra-low policy rates, which is exactly what U.S. Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell said when asked about bubbles at his Q&A session during the Dec. 16 Federal Open Market Committee meeting.

At the same time, back-to-back disappointments on payroll data and three months of declines in retail sales have been dismissed as old and stale numbers against an expectation of surging growth ahead, principally from the looming massive fiscal stimulus.

----It took a once-in-a-century global pandemic event, which we are not even through, to have the government and the central bank shock the stock market in March to a level that is 15 per cent higher than what would have transpired without the crisis.

With that in mind, if I have taken away anything from what I’ve seen, it is that there are real implications for professional investors to be grossly underweight in a prolonged risk-on rally. It is clear that the economic data have no ability to move markets anymore, which was loud and clear after Friday’s payroll disappointment when the S&P 500 managed to rally 40 basis points and the Russell 2000 by 190 basis points. And, all the while, Treasury yields keep on rising and have surely flown in the face of my forecasts.

Even so, there really is nothing except a Black Swan event that will stop the stock market from rallying further in the next three to four months. The stimulus checks are coming. The Fed is not going to do anything but buy assets and press the funds rate to the floor. Inflation is already being widely advertised and priced into bonds. And the fact that the markets shrugged off bad data means that incoming economic information will be treated positively if the numbers are good and dismissed as old news if they are bad.

We just have to wait till July to see how all this plays out. The market is betting that the stimulus will lead to huge spending and not saving, that the economy reopens for good in July, and that the next source of optimism will come from the “infrastructure spend.”

----The bottom line is that the near-term catalysts for any meaningful drawdown at this stage are hard to see, with the Fed nurturing low rates at the front end, the curve steepening being seen as a boon for banks and justification to stay long the reflation trade, gargantuan fiscal stimulus, the vaccine rollout and the declining infection rate. I am sensing that the bearish arguments may not play out until much later this year or into 2022.

https://financialpost.com/investing/investing-pro/david-rosenberg-for-now-only-a-black-swan-could-stop-this-rally-but-get-ready-for-a-july-reckoning

Finally, is this right? And if the Globe and Mail is correct, what does it mean for US inflation 2021-2024?

Biden is taking the U.S. on its sharpest left turn in 90 years

Lawrence Martin February 10, 2021

Getting a splash of credibility these days is the notion that Joe Biden will usher in a new era of far-reaching progressivism, just as Franklin Delano Roosevelt did.

Succeeding arch-conservatives Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge, FDR’s subduing of laissez-faire capitalism touched off a big-government era which, encompassing the likes of Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty, ran for more than four decades.

The era came to a close with the crippling economic stagflation of the late 1970s, which crushed Jimmy Carter and led to the ascendancy of Ronald Reagan, who preached small government, tax cuts and, as liberals saw it, a greed-is-good ethic.

The Gipper built on his big triumph in 1980 by winning 49 of 50 states in 1984. Sensing the nation’s mood shift, Democrats took to more moderate ways. Bill Clinton went Republican-lite. After George W. Bush, Barack Obama stirred hopes of a Rooseveltian turn but his progressivism was tempered. Fearful of a right-side backlash, he was hesitant to take on Wall Street and monopoly capitalism. The backlash came anyway in the form of Tea Party populism, which set the stage for the authoritarian demagoguery of Donald J. Trump.

With his lurid excesses, the conservative tide, which also extended 40 years, has ebbed – or so the theory goes – and a new cycle now dawns.

Two existential crises, the coronavirus pandemic and climate change, not to mention the worst economic contraction since the Second World War, necessitate a return to big, bold FDR-styled activism.

And President Joe Biden, having tacked moderate for no less than a half a century, comes on as the unlikely executor of the most leftist agenda in 90 years.

That agenda includes a mammoth economic stimulus program with government handouts galore; sweeping measures to confront the climate crisis; tax hikes on big money earners, on capital gains, on corporations; steps to institute a US$15-an-hour minimum wage for federal employees and contractors; plans for expanded medical coverage and a sweeping overhaul of immigration laws, including a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. A Canada-inspired child tax credit that would send monthly payments to most American parents is also in the works.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-biden-is-taking-the-us-on-its-sharpest-left-turn-in-90-years/

JPMorgan Says Commodities May Have Just Begun a New Supercycle

By Gerson Freitas Jr

10 February 2021, 23:16 GMT Updated on 11 February 2021, 00:04 GMT

With agricultural prices soaring, metal prices hitting the highest in years and oil well above $50 a barrel, JPMorgan Chase & Co. is calling it: Commodities appear to have begun a new supercycle of years-long gains.

A long-term boom across the commodities complex appears likely with Wall Street betting on a strong economic recovery from the pandemic and hedging against inflation, JPMorgan analysts led by Marko Kolanovic said in a report on Wednesday. Prices may also jump as an “unintended consequence” of the fight against climate change, which threatens to constrain oil supplies while boosting demand for metals needed to build renewable energy infrastructure, batteries and electric vehicles, the bank said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-10/j-p-morgan-sees-commodity-supercycle-already-kicking-off

“All you need is faith, trust, and a little pixie dust.”

President “Bailout” Biden, with apologies to Peter Pan.

Covid-19 Corner

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

AstraZeneca Asthma Drug Cuts Covid Hospitalizations in Study

By Eric Pfanner

10 February 2021, 13:29 GMT

AstraZeneca Plc’s asthma treatment Pulmicort reduced the need for urgent care and hospitalization of Covid-19 patients in a small study, joining a handful of potentially promising treatments for the disease.

Early treatment with the inhaled drug, also known as budesonide, reduced the relative risk of such interventions by 90% over the 28-day study period, according to research from the University of Oxford, Astra’s partner in developing a Covid-19 vaccine. Participants also had a quicker resolution of fever and other symptoms.

The findings offer another example of an existing, low-cost medication showing benefits in Covid-19 patients even as more elaborate treatments stumble. One of the biggest successes so far has been dexamethasone, a steroid that has been shown to reduce the risk of death by one-third for patients on ventilators.

“I am heartened that a relatively safe, widely available and well studied medicine such as an inhaled steroid could have an impact on the pressures we are experiencing during the pandemic,” said the study’s leader, Mona Bafadhel of the university’s Nuffield Department of Medicine, in a statement.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-10/astrazeneca-asthma-drug-cuts-covid-hospitalizations-in-study?srnd=premium-europe

Vaccine vs variant: Promising data in Israel's race to defeat pandemic

February 10, 2021 7:06 AM By Maayan Lubell, Ari Rabinovitch

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel’s swift vaccination rollout has made it the largest real-world study of Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine. Results are trickling in, and they are promising.

More than half of eligible Israelis - about 3.5 million people - have now been fully or partially vaccinated. Older and at-risk groups, the first to be inoculated, are seeing a dramatic drop in illnesses.

Among the first fully-vaccinated group there was a 53% reduction in new cases, a 39% decline in hospitalizations and a 31% drop in severe illnesses from mid-January until Feb. 6, said Eran Segal, data scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.

In the same period, among people under age 60 who became eligible for shots later, new cases dropped 20% but hospitalizations and severe illness rose 15% and 29%, respectively.

Reuters interviewed leading scientists in Israel and abroad, Israeli health officials, hospital heads and two of the country’s largest healthcare providers about what new data shows from the world’s most efficient vaccine rollout.

The vaccine drive has provided a database offering insights into how effective the vaccines are outside of controlled clinical trials, and at what point countries might attain sought-after but elusive herd immunity.

More will be known in two weeks, as teams analyse vaccine effectiveness in younger groups of Israelis, as well as targeted populations such as people with diabetes, cancer and pregnant women, among a patient base at least 10 times larger than those in clinical studies.

“We need to have enough variety of people in that subgroup and enough follow-up time so you can make the right conclusions, and we are getting to that point,” said Ran Balicer, chief innovation officer of HMO Clalit, which covers more than half the Israeli population.

Pfizer is monitoring the Israeli rollout on a weekly basis for insights that can be used around the world.

As a small country with universal healthcare, advanced data capabilities and the promise of a swift rollout, Israel provided Pfizer with a unique opportunity to study the real-world impact of the vaccine developed with Germany’s BioNTech

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-israel-results-ins/vaccine-vs-variant-promising-data-in-israels-race-to-defeat-pandemic-idUSKBN2AA0MS

Older, heavier adults possible 'superspreaders' of COVID-19, study finds

Feb. 9, 2021 / 5:29 PM

Feb. 9 (UPI) -- Older and overweight adults exhale more respiratory droplets into the air compared to their younger, lighter-weight counterparts, potentially making them COVID-19 "superspreaders," a study published Tuesday by PNAS found.

Adults age 26 and younger and those with a body mass index, or BMI, below 22 were "low spreaders of [the] exhaled" respiratory droplets from the nose and mouth that transmit the coronavirus, the data showed.

Conversely, adults with a higher BMI, which measures body weight according to a person's height, exhaled more of these droplets, particularly as they aged.

The findings may help explain how some people become "superspreaders" of COVID-19 and pass the virus on to large numbers of people, the researchers said.

Thirty-five, or 18%, of the 194 participants in the study generated 80% of the exhaled respiratory droplets produced by the group as a whole, with older, heavier participants driving that spread.

"Most of the droplets we exhale from our airways during natural breathing are smaller in size than conventionally filtered by masks, [and] they vary greatly in number depending on whether we have a lung infection, and our age and [weight]," study co-author David A. Edwards told UPI.

"These findings suggest that the control of respiratory droplet generation might be an effective strategy for containing the pandemic independent of variant, or even pathogen form," said Edwards, a professor of biomedical engineering at Harvard University.

The study measured exhaled respiratory droplets produced by 194 healthy adults at two locations: essential workers at No Evil Foods in Asheville, N.C. and of students, staff and faculty at Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan.

The researchers also assessed similar breathing patterns in eight monkeys infected with COVID-19.

https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2021/02/09/Older-heavier-adults-possible-superspreaders-of-COVID-19-study-finds/5651612898262/

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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.

A magnetic twist to graphene

Date: February 8, 2021

Source: Aalto University

Summary: By combining ferromagnets and two rotated layers of graphene, researchers open up a new platform for strongly interacting states using graphene's unique quantum degree of freedom.

Electrons in materials have a property known as 'spin', which is responsible for a variety of properties, the most well-known of which is magnetism. Permanent magnets, like the ones used for refrigerator doors, have all the spins in their electrons aligned in the same direction. Scientists refer to this behaviour as ferromagnetism, and the research field of trying to manipulate spin as spintronics.

Down in the quantum world, spins can arrange in more exotic ways, giving rise to frustrated states and entangled magnets. Interestingly, a property similar to spin, known as "the valley," appears in graphene materials. This unique feature has given rise to the field of valleytronics, which aims to exploit the valley property for emergent physics and information processing, very much like spintronics relies on pure spin physics.

'Valleytronics would potentially allow encoding information in the quantum valley degree of freedom, similar to how electronics do it with charge and spintronics with the spin.' Explains Professor Jose Lado, from Aalto's Department of applied physics, and one of the authors of the work. 'What's more, valleytronic devices would offer a dramatic increase in the processing speeds in comparison with electronics, and with much higher stability towards magnetic field noise in comparison with spintronic devices.'

Structures made of rotated, ultra-thin materials provide a rich solid-state platform for designing novel devices. In particular, slightly twisted graphene layers have recently been shown to have exciting unconventional properties, that can ultimately lead to a new family of materials for quantum technologies. These unconventional states which are already being explored depend on electrical charge or spin. The open question is if the valley can also lead to its own family of exciting states.

Making materials for valleytronics

For this goal, it turns out that conventional ferromagnets play a vital role, pushing graphene to the realms of valley physics. In a recent work, Ph.D. student Tobias Wolf, together with Profs. Oded Zilberberg and Gianni Blatter at ETH Zurich, and Prof. Jose Lado at Aalto University, showed a new direction for correlated physics in magnetic van der Waals materials.

The team showed that sandwiching two slightly rotated layers of graphene between a ferromagnetic insulator provides a unique setting for new electronic states. The combination of ferromagnets, graphene's twist engineering, and relativistic effects force the "valley" property to dominate the electrons behaviour in the material. In particular, the researchers showed how these valley-only states can be tuned electrically, providing a materials platform in which valley-only states can be generated. Building on top of the recent breakthrough in spintronics and van der Waals materials, valley physics in magnetic twisted van der Waals multilayers opens the door to the new realm of correlated twisted valleytronics.

'Demonstrating these states represents the starting point towards new exotic entangled valley states.' Said Professor Lado, 'Ultimately, engineering these valley states can allow realizing quantum entangled valley liquids and fractional quantum valley Hall states. These two exotic states of matter have not been found in nature yet, and would open exciting possibilities towards a potentially new graphene-based platform for topological quantum computing.'

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210208114216.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmatter_energy%2Fgraphene+%28Graphene+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

“Think of all the joy you’ll find when you leave the [real] world behind and bid your [money] cares goodbye.”

Graeme, with apologies to Peter Pan.

London Irvine Report

Pages

Thursday 11 February 2021

MMT To Infinity & Beyond!

Asia stocks hold at highs, sustained by bottomless stimulus

David Rosenberg: For now, only a Black Swan could stop this rally — but get ready for a July reckoning

We won't know until the third quarter whether the market's bets were right or wrong

Biden is taking the U.S. on its sharpest left turn in 90 years

JPMorgan Says Commodities May Have Just Begun a New Supercycle

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