---- On Wall Street, easing inflation
worries helped support equities. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.58% and
the S&P 500 gained 1.04%, both to record highs. The Nasdaq Composite added
2.52%.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of
Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits dropped to a four-month low
last week as an improving public health environment allows more segments of the
economy to reopen, putting the labor market recovery back on track.
Still, a full recovery from the deep
scars inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic will probably take years, with the
weekly unemployment claims report from the Labor Department on Thursday also
showing a whopping 20.1 million Americans collecting unemployment checks in
late February.
“We’re likely on the verge of much
lower unemployment claims, but we’re not there yet,” said Robert Frick,
economist at Navy Federal Credit Union in Vienna, Virginia. “Assuming COVID-19
infections and deaths continue to decline, we expect lower, and perhaps
dramatically lower, claims this spring.”
Initial claims for state
unemployment benefits decreased 42,000 to a seasonally adjusted 712,000 for the
week ended March 6, the lowest level since early November. Data for the prior
week was revised to show 9,000 more applications received than previously
reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 725,000 applications in the
latest week.
Unadjusted claims dropped 47,170 to
709,458 last week, amid declines in Texas, New York and Mississippi, where
claims had been boosted in the prior period by harsh weather. But there was a
big jump in claims in California.
More
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy/u-s-weekly-jobless-claims-at-four-month-low-labor-market-regaining-footing-idUSKBN2B31UI
In other US news,
despite global warming the US turned cold in February.
US had its coldest February in
more than 30 years, NOAA reports March 11, 2021
LOS ANGELES
- Last month’s dangerous winter storms in the United
States caused record subzero temperatures, power outages for millions of
homeowners and led to more than two dozen deaths.
It also brought one of the coldest Februarys in decades.
During February, the average temperature was 30.6 degrees
Farenheight — 3.2 degrees below the 20th-century average. This ranks as the
19th coldest February in the 127-year period on record and the coldest February
since 1989, according to a new
climate report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA).
According to NOAA, the main driver for the weather across
the U.S. during February was a strongly negative Arctic Oscillation (AO) during
the first half of the month.
"This may have been the result of a
sudden stratospheric warming event that occurred in January. The negative AO
pattern favors a cold air outbreak over the central U.S., often referred to as
a ‘polar vortex .’
A blocking
pattern disrupted the jet stream, which prolonged the duration of this cold
event," NOAA wrote.
Below-average temperatures impacted a large portion of the
country — from the Northwest to the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes. In fact,
six states — Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas — ranked
among their 10 coldest Februaries on record, NOAA reported. Texas and Illinois
ranked their 11th coldest.
"From February 7-21, large areas with temperatures more
than 25°F below average
Based on preliminary data by NOAA, 62 all-time daily cold
minimum temperature records were broken between Feb. 11-16 and 69 all-time
daily cold maximum temperature records were broken between Feb. 15-16.
Several cities in Texas were
impacted by February’s inclement weather.
According to NOAA, cities including
Austin and Waco broke records for the longest freezing streak with temperatures
below freezing between six to nine consecutive days from Feb. 10-19.
"Much of Texas endured the
coldest air since December 23, 1989, during this period. Every county across
Texas was under a Winter Storm Warning in mid-February. Wind chill values were
below zero as far south as the Rio Grande River and into northeastern
Mexico," NOAA said.
Alaska also broke records, ranking
among the coldest one-third of the 97-year period of record for the state.
In addition, Alaska had the coldest
February on record in 22 years.
"The monthly high temperature
for Anchorage reached a mere 30°F, making February 2021 the first month since
December 1998 with all daily high temperatures remaining below freezing,"
NOAA wrote.
More
https://www.fox5ny.com/news/us-had-its-coldest-february-in-more-than-30-years-noaa-reports
Next, did central bankster negative interest rates in
Europe help fuel deposits in Greensill Bank Germany? Another unintended consequence
of negative interest rates?
From Black Forest to Cologne,
German towns fear Greensill losses March
11, 2021 6:12 AM By Tom Sims , Patricia
Uhlig
FRANKFURT
(Reuters) - Bad Duerrheim, a town of 13,400 people on the fringes of the Black
Forest, is one of many across Germany united by a shared anxiety, the possibility
of losing millions of euros invested with Greensill Bank.
The obscure Bremen-based private
bank’s owner Greensill Capital entered insolvency this week after losing
insurance coverage for its debt repackaging business.
Greensill Bank, meanwhile, was
locked down by Germany’s financial watchdog last week with a warning of an
imminent risk that its debt would become unmanageable and a statement calling
some of its financial accounts into question. Greensill Capital said that the
bank always sought external legal and audit advice before booking any new
asset.
“We have to find out what happened,”
Alexander Stengelin, a Bad Duerrheim official told Reuters.
German towns have turned to
alternative investments such as those offered by Greensill Bank as European
Central Bank efforts to prop up the wider economy have resulted in so-called
negative interest rates, with fees charged for savings.
Cologne, famed for its cathedral and
perfume, and Wiesbaden, which is close to Germany’s financial capital Frankfurt,
both say they consulted brokers on where to park their cash.
The two, along with at least a dozen
others, say they opted for Greensill to avoid fees charged by other banks and
encouraged by its once healthy credit rating.
The municipalities now fear their
cash, largely invested at Greensill Bank in time deposits with short maturities
of several months, may be lost for good as they are classed as institutional
investors and therefore are not covered by a deposit protection scheme for
individuals.
Greensill Bank states this on its website
but some cities are nevertheless calling on the federal government to step in
to cover any losses they may incur. A Greensill spokesman declined to comment.
Town officials are now consulting with
others in the same position and hope to convene a video call on how to proceed.
OTHERS AT FAULT? With much of Germany still in lockdown and a
COVID-19 vaccine rollout proceeding slowly, the timing of the Greensill Bank
crisis is difficult for cash-strapped municipalities.
As more cities and the state of Thuringia,
famous for its sausages, have disclosed that they are Greensill Bank customers,
the extent of the potential damage has become clear.
Monheim am Rhein disclosed it parked 38
million euros in funds with Greensill Bank, nearly 1,000 euros per resident.
Its mayor Daniel Zimmermann said he was in
touch with 19 municipalities who together hold 200 million euros ($238 million)
in investments with the bank.
More
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-greensill-germany/from-black-forest-to-cologne-german-towns-fear-greensill-losses-idUSKBN2B30GY
Sanjeev Gupta and Greensill
Became Their Own Worst Enemies GFG Alliance’s excessive reliance on invoice-based
lending is now being exposed.
By Chris
Bryant 11 March 2021, 07:00 GMT
Greensill Capital filed for insolvency this week and
its biggest client, steel magnate Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance, is
scrambling to avoid a similar fate. A relationship that benefited both firms
has been torn asunder. Greensill has stopped funding GFG, and the metals
conglomerate has in turn defaulted on monies owed to the London-based finance
firm.
Their shared financial woes illustrate the danger of
relying too heavily on one key client or funding relationship. They also
underscore the riskiness and opacity of the type of financing both embraced:
short-term invoice-based lending.
With Greensill’s help, GFG was able to piece together a
globe-spanning network of steel, aluminum and energy assets with $20 billion in
annual revenue and 35,000 employees. Gupta reinvigorated unloved
industrial sites and promised to lower their carbon footprint, which is
admirable. But he’s taken substantial risks, in particular by not obtaining
sufficiently diverse and long-term sources of finance.
Losing the Greensill cash spigot threatens to do to GFG
what the loss
of credit insurance did to Greensill. A February letter from GFG cited
in Greensill’s U.K. insolvency filing warned that if Greensill ceased to
provide working-capital finance to GFG, the latter would also “collapse into
insolvency.”
GFG now says it has adequate funding for its current needs,
while acknowledging that Greensill’s demise has created a “challenging
situation.” It is busy, however, trying to secure alternative long-term
finance. That won’t be straightforward because of the esoteric nature of its
existing loans. GFG declined to comment for this column.
Greensill’s core business of invoice-based lending — where
it arranges for early payment of a client’s suppliers at a discount and
receives the full amount from the client later — makes very low profit margins.
There’s fierce competition from big banks for blue-chip businesses, which
forced Greensill to embrace riskier customers to seek better returns.
Non-investment grade companies contribute 90% of
Greensill’s revenues, and of these GFG was the largest, court documents
show. For a time Gupta was even a Greensill shareholder . The
finance firm has about $5 billion in exposure to GFG, Bloomberg News
has reported.
Quicktake Explaining Supply Chain Finance and Greensill’s Woes:
QuickTake
Diligent news reporting about these deep ties prompted
GFG to pledge greater transparency and a more balanced capital structure.
There was talk
of public listings for its Liberty Steel, Alvance (aluminum) and
SIMEC (energy) assets. “Whether it’s the steel, aluminum or energy
companies ... all the companies will be made ready in terms of governance,
reporting and transparency, so they’ll be ready in every way to go for a listing
as and when they want to,” Gupta told
Reuters in October.
However, Liberty Steel still hasn’t published the group
accounts it promised and
GFG hasn't made much visible progress in tapping
the capital markets , other than a poorly
received junk bond .
Funding Gambit The financing provided by Greensill to Gupta was often
pretty unusual. One analyst slide
deck 1
describes how the firm helped him buy a Scottish aluminum smelter
from Rio Tinto Plc by securitizing 25-years of future payment flows owed by the
smelter to a hydropower plant.
Gupta was able to acquire both the power plant and the
smelter while injecting little of his own cash upfront. The deal’s structure
was underpinned by a Scottish government guarantee, allowing the payment
promises to be packaged into bond-like securities and sold to investors,
including Switzerland’s GAM Holding AG. (These illiquid assets were among those
that contributed to the ouster of GAM fund manager Tim Haywood.)
Greensill also provided day-to-day invoice financing for
GFG’s metals assets. Remarkably, this included funding for steel GFG hadn’t
made or sold yet .
GFG has become increasingly reliant on Greensill’s
“future accounts receivable” finance program where the latter provided
funding against expected future invoices, Greensill’s insolvency
filing states. As long as GFG could show a customer purchase
agreement, Greensill had no qualms about extending credit. This effectively
pulled forward those future cash flows so GFG could make use of them today.
“Nothing wrong in funding from receivables. They are a safe mode,” Gupta told
an Indian newspaper last year.
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-03-11/lex-greensill-and-sanjeev-gupta-became-their-own-worst-enemies?srnd=premium-europe
The true costs of very low
interest rates
Artificial
distortions can cause ‘clusters of errors’ by businesses
Caitlin Long August 11, 2010
-----Interest rates are the most
important prices in the economy, according to Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek,
because they reflect the collective time preference of individuals to consume
either now or later. Accordingly, interest rates co-ordinate allocation of
capital across the economy by signalling to businesses whether they should
invest. Distortions in interest rates can cause “clusters of errors” in which
large swathes of businesses unwittingly miscalculate at the same time.
Hayek observed that interest rate
stimulus interfered with economic calculations, causing managers to invest in
projects that would not otherwise have appeared profitable. Losses can
subsequently materialise as customer demand fails to meet forecasts that were,
in retrospect, optimistic. Long-term projects are highly sensitive to interest
rates and are therefore more susceptible to such distortions. Pension
obligations and long-term, capital-intensive projects are at high risk of
miscalculation based on artificially low rates.
More.
https://www.ft.com/content/2838c142-a560-11df-a5b7-00144feabdc0
Covid-19 Corner This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Novavax vaccine 96% effective
against original coronavirus, 86% vs British variant in UK trial
March
11, 2021 9:09 PM By Dania
Nadeem , Carl O’Donnell
(Reuters) - Novavax Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine was 96%
effective in preventing cases caused by the original version of the coronavirus
in a late-stage trial conducted in the United Kingdom, the company said on
Thursday, moving it a step closer to regulatory approval.
There were no cases of severe
illness or deaths among those who got the vaccine, the company said, in a sign
that it could stop the worse effects of new variants that have cropped up.
The vaccine was 86% effective in
protecting against the more contagious virus variant first discovered and now
prevalent in the United Kingdom, for a combined 90% effectiveness rate overall
based on data from infections of both versions of the coronavirus.
Novavax shares jumped 22% in
after-hours trading to $229. They were trading below $10 on Jan. 21, 2020, when
the company announced it was developing a coronavirus vaccine.
In a smaller trial conducted in
South Africa - where volunteers were primarily exposed to another newer, more
contagious variant widely circulating there and spreading around the world -
the Novavax vaccine was 55% effective, based on people without HIV, but still
fully prevented severe illness.
Novavax Chief Medical Officer Filip
Dubovsky said the performance in South Africa suggests there may still be a
case for using it in areas where the South African variant is dominant.
Novavax is also developing new
formulations of its vaccine to protect against emerging variants and plans to
initiate clinical testing of these shots in the second quarter of this year.
Results from the final analysis of
the UK trial were largely in line with interim data released in January.
More
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-vaccines-novavax/novavax-vaccine-96-effective-against-original-coronavirus-86-vs-british-variant-in-uk-trial-idUSKBN2B32ZO
Canada says AstraZeneca vaccine
is safe after Norway and Denmark suspend use March 12, 2021 1:39 AM
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada on
Thursday said the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is safe after Denmark and Norway
temporarily suspended its use amid reports that blood clots had formed in some
who had received the shot.
“Health Canada is aware of reports
of adverse events in Europe following immunization with the AstraZeneca
COVID-19 vaccine, and would like to reassure Canadians that the benefits of the
vaccine continue to outweigh its risks,” the health department said in a
statement.
“At this time, there is no indication
that the vaccine caused these events,” it said.
Canada received 500,000 AstraZeneca
doses made at the Serum Institute of India last week, and expects to get 1.5
million more in by May.
“To date, no adverse events related
to the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine... have been reported to Health Canada or
the Public Health Agency of Canada,” the statement said.
The federal government has ordered a
total of 20 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and is due to receive 1.9
million through COVAX - the international initiative set up to provide
equitable access to vaccines.
Although Canada has ordered more
COVID-19 vaccine doses per capita any other country, its initial roll-out has
been slow in part because of temporary disruptions of deliveries from Pfizer
Inc. and Moderna Inc.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-canada-astrazeneca/canada-says-astrazeneca-vaccine-is-safe-after-norway-and-denmark-suspend-use-idUSKBN2B405S
Denmark, Norway and Iceland
suspend AstraZeneca COVID shots after blood clot reports
March
11, 2021 10:32 AM By Reuters Staff
COPENHAGEN
(Reuters) - Health authorities in Denmark, Norway and Iceland on Thursday
suspended the use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine following reports of the
formation of blood clots in some people who had been vaccinated.
Austria earlier stopped using a
batch of AstraZeneca shots while investigating a death from coagulation
disorders and an illness from a pulmonary embolism.
Still, the European medicine
regulator EMA said the vaccine’s benefits outweighed its risks and could
continue to be administered.
Europe is struggling to speed up a
vaccine rollout after delivery delays from Pfizer and AstraZeneca, even as a
spike in cases amid a more contagious virus variant has triggered fresh
lockdowns in countries like Italy and France.
Denmark suspended the shots for two
weeks after a 60-year-old woman, who was given an AstraZeneca shot from the
same batch used in Austria, formed a blood clot and died, Danish health
authorities said.
Their response was also prompted by
reports “of possible serious side effects” from other European countries.
“It is currently not possible to
conclude whether there is a link. We are acting early, it needs to be
thoroughly investigated,” Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said on Twitter.
The vaccine would be suspended for
14 days in Denmark.
“This is a cautionary decision,”
Geir Bukholm, director of infection prevention and control at the Norwegian
Institute of Public Health (FHI), told a news conference.
FHI did not say how long the
suspension would last.
“We ... await information to see if
there is a link between the vaccination and this case with a blood clot,”
Bukholm said.
More
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-denmark/denmark-norway-and-iceland-suspend-astrazeneca-covid-shots-after-blood-clot-reports-idUSKBN2B319K
A year on, WHO still struggling
to manage pandemic response By
MARIA CHENG and JAMEY KEATEN March 11,
2021
GENEVA (AP) — When the World Health
Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic one year ago Thursday, it did
so only after weeks of resisting the term and maintaining that the highly
infectious virus could still be stopped.
A year later, the U.N. agency is
still struggling to keep on top of the evolving science of COVID-19, to
persuade countries to abandon their nationalistic tendencies and help get
vaccines where they’re needed most.
The agency made some costly missteps
along the way: It advised people against wearing masks for months and asserted
that COVID-19 wasn’t widely spread in the air. It also declined to publicly
call out countries — particularly China — for mistakes that senior WHO
officials grumbled about privately.
That created some tricky politics that
challenged WHO’s credibility and wedged it between two world powers, setting
off vociferous Trump administration criticism that the agency is only now
emerging from.
·
–
Will the coronavirus ever go away?
·
–
As pandemic enters 2nd year, voices of resilience emerge
·
–
Brazil hospitals buckle in absence of national virus plan
President Joe Biden’s support for WHO may
provide some much-needed breathing space, but the organization still faces a
monumental task ahead as it tries to project some moral authority amid a
universal scramble for vaccines that is leaving billions of people unprotected.
----WHO waved its first big warning flag on Jan.
30, 2020, by calling the outbreak an international health emergency. But many
countries ignored or overlooked the warning.
Only when WHO Director-General
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared a “pandemic” six weeks later, on March 11,
2020, did most governments take action, experts said. By then, it was too late,
and the virus had reached every continent except Antarctica.
More
https://apnews.com/article/science-pandemics-geneva-coronavirus-pandemic-china-2c173926c95ed3769107c7eaa043fa86?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=March11_Morning_Wire&utm_term=Morning%20Wire%20Subscribers
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issue of our newspaper, The Slovak Spectator, emailed directly to you Access to all premium content
on Sme.sk and Korzar.sk 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/
Centers for Disease Control
Coronavirus
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
The Spectator
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.
Carbon nanotube patterns called
moirés created for materials research Date: March 10, 2021
Source: University of Tokyo
Summary: Material behaviors depend on many things
including not just the composition of the material but also the arrangement of
its molecular parts. For the first time, researchers have found a way to coax
carbon nanotubes into creating moiré patterns. Such structures could be useful
in materials research, in particular in the field of superconducting materials.
Professor Hiroyuki Isobe from the
Department of Chemistry at the University of Tokyo, and his team create
nanoscopic material structures, primarily from carbon. Their aim is to explore
new ways to create carbon nanostructures and to find useful applications for
them. The most recent breakthrough from their lab is a new form of carbon
nanotube with a very specific arrangement of atoms that has attracted much
attention in the field of nanomaterials.
"We successfully created
different kinds of atom-thick carbon nanotubes which self-assemble into complex
structures," said Isobe. "These nanotubes are made from rolled up
sheets of carbon atoms arranged hexagonally. We made wide ones and narrow ones
which fit inside them. This means the resulting complex tube structure has a
double-layered wall. The hexagonal patterns of these layers are offset such
that the two layers together create what is known as a moiré pattern. And this
is significant for materials researchers."
You may see moiré patterns in your
everyday life. When repeating patterns overlay one another a new resultant
pattern emerges. If you then move one of the layers, or if you move relative to
the layers, this resultant pattern will change slightly. For example, if you
look at a screen door through a mesh curtain, or if you hold two sieves
together. In the case of the team's moiré patterns, they are made when one
hexagonal grid of carbon atoms is rotated slightly relative to another similar
hexagonal grid.
These patterns aren't just for show,
they can imbue materials with functional properties. Two areas that might
especially benefit from the properties created here are synthetic chemistry, as
the moiré carbon bilayer tubes could be challenging yet attractive targets of
molecular self-assembly, and superconducting materials, which could lead to a
generational leap in electrical devices which require far less power to run and
would be far more capable than current devices.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210310084719.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmatter_energy%2Fgraphene+%28Graphene+News+--+ScienceDaily%29
Another weekend
and Spring is almost here in the northern hemisphere. Worryingly, the Arctic
sea ice already seems to be retreating from a low winter maximum. Surprisingly
the Antarctic sea ice seems to have got off to an early explosive increase. It’s
probably all Donald Trump’s fault since he was still in office back in annuary.
Have a great weekend everyone.
GB and the world can probably never get to carbon neutral no
matter how many trillions are spent. Google "The New Energy Economy: An
Exercise in Magical Thinking," for the science of why not.
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