Baltic Dry Index. 3179 -45 Brent Crude 74.75
Spot Gold 1800
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 07/07/21 World 185,392,533
Deaths 4,009,264
The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn't still be a farmer.
Will
Rogers.
The big news today will likely be what’s in the minutes of the last Federal Reserve meeting last month. With inflation showing no sign of slowing, did the Fedsters talk about raising interest rates earlier than 2023.
Depending on what happens next in crude oil prices, those minutes might get made moot if crude oil turns bearish fearing a new all against all, production and export war.
That would greatly ease some of the near term inflationary pressure, making it easier for the Fed to stick to its line of no interest rate increases before 2023.
Up first, Asian stock casinos are fretting over China’s crackdown on tech firms and firms with an overseas listing, especially a listing in the USA.
Asia shares stumble, bonds and dollar find safe-haven demand
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian share markets stumbled on Wednesday as a bout of risk aversion boosted bonds and the dollar, while investors braced for minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting which should underline a hawkish turn in U.S. monetary policy.
Dealers were hard pressed to find a single catalyst for the sudden change of mood, but a Chinese crackdown on tech companies had clearly had an impact.
Hong Kong stocks shed another 1% to near six-month lows, while U.S.-listed ride-hailing company Didi Global Inc shed more than 20% in New York. Alibaba Group <BABA.N., Baidu Inc and JD.com all fell.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan edged down 0.4%, while Japan’s Nikkei slipped 0.9%.
Going the other way, Australian stocks managed to firm 0.6% and Chinese blue chips added 0.2%.
Nasdaq futures and S&P 500 futures were both holding steady for the moment.
Wall Street had been unsettled by a survey showing a slight cooling in the red-hot U.S. services sector, though at 60.1 the ISM index was still historically high.
“Normally any ISM reading approaching 60 or above would be seen as strong, but details play to the idea that there is a speed limit to the recovery amid shortage of inputs and labour, alongside still elevated costs,” said Rodrigo Catril, a senior FX strategist at NAB.
The skittish mood helped Treasuries extend their recent rally with yields on U.S. 10-year notes dropping almost 8 basis points overnight to 1.348%. That was the lowest since February and also the largest daily decline since February.
The outperformance of longer-dated debt saw the yield curve bull flatten, which could be a bet the Fed will tighten policy pre-emptively to head off inflation.
Minutes of the Fed’s June policy meeting due later on Wednesday might show how serious members were about tapering their asset buying and how early hikes could begin.
Expectations of a hawkish tone helped the dollar rally against a basket of currencies to 92.543, up from a low of 92.003 on Tuesday.
More
China steps up supervision of overseas-listed firms after Didi IPO drama
China will step up supervision of Chinese firms listed offshore, its cabinet said on Tuesday, days after Beijing launched a cybersecurity investigation into ride-hailing giant Didi Global on the heels of its U.S. stock market listing.
Under the new measures, China will improve regulation of cross-border data flows and security, crack down on illegal activity in the securities market and punish fraudulent securities issuance, market manipulation and insider trading, China’s cabinet said in a statement.
China will also check sources of funding for securities investment and control leverage ratios, it said.
China’s shift against companies listed overseas is a significant move in a sweeping clampdown on its massive and once-freewheeling online “platform economy.”
U.S. capital markets have been a lucrative source of funding for Chinese firms over the past decade but the risk of additional scrutiny may now deter domestic firms from listing there.
Earlier on Tuesday, Didi shares slumped as much as 25% in U.S. pre-market trade ahead of their first session since the Cyberspace Administration of China ordered the company’s app be removed from app stores in the country just days after its $4.4 billion listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
U.S.-listed Chinese companies including Full Truck Alliance and Kanzhun also fell on Tuesday after the CAC on Monday announced cybersecurity investigations into their affiliated businesses.
---- In March, the U.S. securities regulator began a rollout of rules to exclude foreign companies from U.S. exchanges if they did not comply with U.S. auditing standards, a move aimed at removing Chinese firms from U.S. exchanges if they fail to comply with U.S. auditing standards for three straight years.
In May, Reuters reported that Beijing was pressing audio platform Ximalaya to drop U.S. listing plans and opt for Hong Kong instead, with one source at the time citing Beijing’s growing concerns that U.S. regulators will potentially gain greater access to audit documents of New York-listed Chinese companies.
A record $12.5 billion, in 34 deals, has been raised so far in 2021 from Chinese firms listing in the United States, Refinitiv data shows, including Didi, which started trading on June 30.
Several big U.S.-listed Chinese companies, however, including internet giants Alibaba and Baidu, have issued shares in Hong Kong in the past two years.
U.S. exchanges have long been popular listing venues for Chinese tech firms attracted by deep liquidity, high valuations, easier profitability rules and prestige.
In OPEC news, crude oil speculators thought that no agreement was bullish, but not everyone agrees. Could the G-7 luck out on inflation via a new oil pricing war? Could we really get that lucky? Sugar suggests no.
I think no agreement is more bearish than bullish for oil. But will any OPEC producer actually really start producing more oil than allowed by the current soon to expire agreement?
Breakdown of oil output talks threatens OPEC+ unity, may trigger weaker oil prices, says strategist
Published Tue, Jul 6 2021 1:23 AM EDT
The collapse of talks between OPEC and its allies highlights the risks of the group’s unity breaking down and renews concerns about a possible oversupply of oil, a commodity strategist told CNBC.
The energy alliance, referred to as OPEC+, was set to resume talks Monday, but discussions have been called off indefinitely. That comes after the group twice failed to reach a key deal on their oil output policy last week.
The group had sought to increase supply by 400,000 barrels per day from August to December 2021 and proposed extending the duration of cuts until the end of 2022. Last year, to cope with lower demand as Covid hit, OPEC+ agreed to curb output by almost 10 million barrels per day from May 2020 to the end of April 2022.
The United Arab Emirates had indicated that, while it was supportive of the proposal to increase supply, it objected to the terms of the extension, which it said should be conditional on increasing its so-called baseline, which determines how much oil a country is allowed to pump.
“I certainly think there are some risks that the market may be really sort of discounting at the moment and that is a breakdown of that unity,” Daniel Hynes, senior commodity strategist at ANZ, told CNBC on Tuesday.
“That has been I think by far the biggest advantage of this alliance over the past 18 months … the picture that it presents to the market around a coordinated and very compliant agreement which hasn’t really seen any producers expand outside of that,” he added.
But now the risks are rising from that conflict surrounding the baseline number, which production cuts or increases are measured against. The UAE now wants that baseline to be increased so it can produce more.
It has argued that it was not alone, as Azerbaijan, Kuwait, Kazakhstan and Nigeria also requested and got new baselines approved since the deal started last year, Reuters reported, citing an OPEC+ source.
Hynes said that the UAE now wanting that “side agreement” to increase their output is representing “a risk now to that unity, to that front.”
“I think that brings risks to oversupply in particular over the medium term,” he said.
Hynes doesn’t rule out weaker prices ahead, but said he doesn’t think there will be a price war.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/06/opec-talks-breakdown-unity-oil-prices.html
Finally, more on that David v Goliath fight between the UAE and Saudi Arabia. While we all know that David won about 2,500 years ago, that’s not the way to bet in 2021.
Saudi Arabia amends import rules from Gulf in challenge to UAE
July 5, 2021 11:35 AM By Aziz El Yaakoubi, Marwa Rashad, Davide Barbuscia
DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has amended its rules on imports from other Gulf Cooperation Council countries to exclude goods made in free zones or using Israeli input from preferential tariff concessions, in a bid to challenge the United Arab Emirates’ status as the region’s trade and business hub.
Despite being close allies, Saudi Arabia and the neighbouring UAE are competing to attract investors and businesses. Saudi Arabia - the biggest importer in the region - is trying to diversify its economy and reduce its dependence on oil, while providing more jobs for its own citizens, a point also covered by the rule changes announced at the weekend.
The two countries’ national interests have increasingly diverged, such as in their relations with Israel and Turkey. They have also faced off in the last few days about a proposed OPEC+ deal to raise oil output.
Saudi Arabia will henceforth exclude from the GCC tariff agreement goods made by companies with a workforce made up of less than 25% of local people and industrial products with less than 40% of added value after their transformation process.
The ministerial decree published on the Saudi official gazette Umm al-Qura said all goods made in free zones in the region will not be considered locally made.
Free zones, a major driver of the UAE’s economy, are areas in which foreign companies can operate under light regulation, and where foreign investors are allowed to take 100% ownership in companies.
According to the decree, goods that contain a component made or produced in Israel or manufactured by companies owned fully or partially by Israeli investors or by companies listed in the Arab boycott agreement regarding Israel, will be disqualified.
The UAE and Israel signed a tax treaty last May as both sides work to spur on business development after normalising relations last year. Bahrain, another GCC member, has also normalised ties with Israel under the so-called “Abraham Accords” crafted by the administration of then U.S.-President Donald Trump.
“The idea once was to create a GCC market, but now there’s the realisation that the priorities of Saudi Arabia and the UAE are very different,” said Amir Khan, senior economist at Saudi National Bank.
“This regulation is putting flesh on the bone of these political divergences,” he said.
In February, the Saudi government said it will stop giving state contracts to businesses that base their Middle East hubs in any other country in the region. That was a blow to Dubai, one of the UAE’s emirates, which has built its economy on its open-for-business credentials and the promise of a glitzy lifestyle for well-heeled expatriates.
More
Is this the end of OPEC? How Saudi Arabia and UAE infighting threatens the future of the oil alliance
Published Tue, Jul 6 2021 4:32 AM EDT
LONDON — Oil producer group OPEC has been plunged into crisis, with bitter infighting between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates raising questions about the future of the energy alliance.
OPEC and non-OPEC partners, a group of some of the world’s most powerful oil producers, abruptly abandoned plans to reconvene on Monday after last week’s meetings unexpectedly failed to broker a deal on oil production policy. The group did not set a new date to resume talks.
It means no agreement has been reached on a possible increase in crude production beyond the end of July, leaving oil markets in a state of limbo just as global fuel demand recovers from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“OPEC+ has been thrown its most serious crisis since last year’s ill-fated price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia,” Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, said in a research note.
“Back-channel talks reportedly are continuing, but questions about UAE’s commitment to remaining in OPEC will likely grow in the coming days.”
The UAE-Saudi dispute appeared to be about more than oil policy, Croft said, with Abu Dhabi “seemingly intent on stepping outside Saudi Arabia’s shadow and charting its own course in global affairs.”
More
Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?
Will Rogers.
Global Inflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
UK construction activity grows at fastest rate since 1997 - PMI
July 6, 2021 9:38 AM By David Milliken
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s construction industry recorded its fastest growth in 24 years last month, bolstered by a jump in demand for new homes and commercial property, but the sector was beset by a record rise in the cost of raw materials.
The monthly purchasing managers’ index data underscored the speed of Britain’s broader economic rebound as coronavirus restrictions ease, and also how bottlenecks in supply chains are creating inflation pressures.
The IHS Markit/CIPS construction PMI jumped to 66.3 in June from 64.2 in May, its highest since June 1997 and above all forecasts in a Reuters poll of economists.
Britain’s housing market has been boosted by a tax break for home-buyers which finance minister Rishi Sunak is due to phase out by the end of September.
The PMI’s input cost component was the highest since the series started in April 1997, and delivery times were the longest on record too.
“Supply chains once again struggled to keep up with demand for construction products and materials,” IHS Markit’s economics director Tim Moore said.
More
Sugar Nears Four-Year High as Oil Rally Stokes Supply Worries
By Irina Anghel 6 July 2021, 12:38 BSTRaw sugar climbed near the highest in more than four years amid a rally in oil prices and concerns about the impact of frost in Brazil.
Oil futures hit a six-year high after a bitter fight between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates over production, improving demand prospects for cane-based biofuel in Brazil and potentially tightening sugar supplies. A recent cold spell cut cane output expectations in Brazil, which has followed prolonged dry weather.
“The macro is generally positive this morning with crude at new high after the OPEC meeting was called off yesterday,” ADM Investor Services International said in a note. “Sugar looks likely to be well supported for the time being, with further gains looking likely.”
Raw sugar for October delivery rose 1.2% to 18.37 cents a pound in New York, near the highest since March 2017 for a most-active contract, as trading resumed following the Independence Day holiday. Futures have surged more than 50% in the past year after drought curbed Brazilian crop prospects. White sugar added 0.2% to $476.80 a ton in London on Tuesday.
In other soft commodities, arabica coffee dropped for a fifth day, falling 1% to to $1.516 a pound. The Brazilian coffee harvest is advancing, boosting near-term supply. Robusta coffee gained in London. Cocoa rose in New York, while the London contract edged lower.
Container Ship Prices Skyrocket as Rush to Move Goods Picks Up
Persistent supply-chain bottlenecks are driving up rates and the shipping sector sees no relief on the horizon before 2022
July 5, 2021 7:00 am ET
Prices to ship containers from Asia to the U.S. and Europe are rising at a historic pace as cargo owners bid up rates in a search for ocean transportation capacity that shipping industry executives expect to remain tight for the rest of the year.
The average price world-wide to ship a 40-foot container has more than quadrupled from a year ago, to $8,399 as of July 1, according to a global pricing index by London-based Drewry Shipping Consultants Ltd. The measure has surged 53.5% since the first week of May.
Listed prices to ship from China to major ports in Europe and the U.S. West Coast are closer to $12,000 a container, by Drewry’s measure, and some companies say they are being charged $20,000 for last-minute agreements to get goods onto outbound vessels.
“Global trade right now is the hottest restaurant in town,” said Brian Bourke, chief growth officer at Seko Logistics, an Itasca, Ill.-based freight forwarder that handles large volumes of trans-Pacific shipments. “If you want to get a reservation, you need to plan it out two months in advance. Everyone’s trying to grab any spot they can and they’re all spoken for.”
Shipping experts say the rising ocean rates are the result of disruptions across supply chains that triggered delays at ports and inland distribution networks as Western retailers and manufacturers rush to restock inventories that were depleted during the Covid-19 pandemic.
---- Denmark-based shipping research group Sea-Intelligence ApS said a “staggering” 695 ships were more than a week late in arrivals at U.S. West Coast ports in the first five months of 2021. That compares with 1,535 such late arrivals during the entire period from 2012 to 2020, the group said.
More
Below, why a “green energy” economy may not be possible, and if it is, it won’t be quick and it will be very inflationary, setting of a new long term commodity Supercycle. Probably the largest seen so far.
The “New Energy Economy”: An Exercise in Magical Thinking
https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/R-0319-MM.pdf
Mines, Minerals, and "Green" Energy: A Reality Check
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/mines-minerals-and-green-energy-reality-check
Last year we said, 'Things can't go on like this', and they didn't, they got worse.
Will
Rogers.
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
J Clin Endocrinol Metab
. 2021 Jun 17;dgab439. doi: 10.1210/clinem/dgab439. Online ahead of print.
Vitamin D deficiency is associated with higher hospitalisation risk from COVID-19: a retrospective case-control study
Abstract
Context: One of the risk factors for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is postulated to be vitamin D deficiency. To understand better the role of vitamin D deficiency in the disease course of COVID-19, we undertook a retrospective case-control study in the North West of England (NWE).
Objective: To examine whether hospitalisation with COVID-19 is more prevalent in individuals with lower vitamin D levels.
---- Conclusions: Vitamin D deficiency is associated with higher risk of COVID-19 hospitalisation. Widespread measurement of serum 25(OH)D and treating any unmasked insufficiency or deficiency through testing may reduce this risk.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34139758/
Virus behavior may impact results in COVID-19 drug trials, study finds
July 6, 2021 / 2:08 PM
July 6 (UPI) -- Differences in how COVID-19 behaves from person to person may contribute to the inconsistent findings reported in clinical trials for antiviral drugs, an analysis published Tuesday by PLOS Medicine found.
This inconsistence can be made worse because many coronavirus drug studies focus on enrolling seriously ill patients to provide them with a potentially effective treatment, the researchers said.
As a result, many of these trials may compare drug efficacy in people with severe illness against non-treatment, or placebo, in those with milder symptoms, they said.
To address this issue, recruiting study participants shortly after symptom onset or after testing positive for the virus could make patient groups more similar, according to the researchers.
RELATED Study identifies 13 drugs as potential COVID-19 treatment options
"At the early phase of the pandemic, physicians decided who needed to be treated and non-treated [based on] compassionate use programs, which is non-random," study co-author Keisuke Ejima told UPI in an email.
"If so, we may not see the difference between treated and untreated individuals because those treated get better due to treatment and those untreated were not seriously sick from the beginning," said Ejima, an assistant research scientist in biostatistics at Indiana University in Bloomington.
Drugs are typically evaluated in randomized controlled clinical trials in which at least two groups of similar participants are treated differently to determine which approach works best, researchers said.
However, treating all seriously ill patients with one treatment, and those with less severe symptoms with another, may produce varying results, according to the researchers.
More
https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2021/07/06/coronavirus-drug-trials-study/8691625586755/
As Tokyo Olympics approach, virus worries rise in Japan
TOKYO (AP) — The pressure of hosting an Olympics during a still-active pandemic is beginning to show in Japan.
The games begin July 23, with organizers determined they will go on, even with a reduced number of spectators or possibly none at all. While Japan has made remarkable progress to vaccinate its population against COVID-19, the drive is losing steam because of supply shortages.
With tens of thousands of visitors coming to a country that is only 13.8% fully vaccinated, gaps in border controls have emerged, highlighted by the discovery of infections among the newly arrived team from Uganda, with positive tests for the highly contagious delta variant.
As cases grow in Tokyo, so have fears that the games will spread the virus.
“We must stay on high alert,” Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga told reporters on July 1. Noting the rising caseloads, he said “having no spectators is a possibility.”
Seiko Hashimoto, president of the Tokyo organizing committee, agreed.
“It’s not that we are determined to have spectators regardless of the situation,” Hashimoto said Friday.
Organizers, the International Olympic Committee and others are expected to meet this week to announce new restrictions because of the fast-changing coronavirus situation.
Amid the criticism, Suga went to Tokyo’s Haneda international airport June 28 to inspect virus testing for arrivals. He vowed to ensure appropriate border controls as a growing number of Olympic and Paralympic athletes, officials and media begin entering Japan for the games.
On Monday, Tokyo confirmed 342 new cases, the 16th straight day of an increase. On Saturday, the capital reported 716 cases, highest in five weeks.
At a meeting of government advisers, experts warned of the possibility of infections exploding during the games, projecting daily caseloads exceeding 1,000. They said that would severely strain health care systems. In a worst-case scenario, there could be thousands of infections a day, causing hospitals to overflow, they said.
More
Covid resurgence in parts of Asia drags down consumer spending
Published Mon, Jul 5 2021 11:45 PM EDT
As consumer spending in China continues to lag in its economic recovery from the pandemic, a similar weakness in retail sales is being witnessed elsewhere in Asia.
“For most parts of Asia, we’re still seeing private consumption recovering but it is slow and it remains below the pre-pandemic levels,” said Lloyd Chan, senior economist at Oxford Economics.
Chan said the “bumpy and rather uneven” recovery in consumer spending in the region can be largely attributed to the ongoing pandemic, as sporadic outbreaks continue in multiple Asian countries.
China, often referred to as the “first in, first out” of the Covid crisis, has been largely successful in keeping resurgent waves of the coronavirus at bay. Still, the country’s economic recovery has been held back by sluggish retail spending despite government efforts to boost spending.
Meanwhile, waves of resurgence elsewhere in Asia likely had a negative impact on consumer sentiment as well as mobility, said Taimur Baig, chief economist at Singapore’s DBS Bank.
“As we’ve seen in the last year, mobility is a very strong prerequisite toward consumption because sitting at home, you order a lot of things through the e-commerce route — but you still don’t spend the kind of money that you would if you were able to go out on a regular basis,” Baig said.
In North Asia, the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa is still under a state of emergency while other areas — including Tokyo — are under priority preventative measures, information from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare showed.
Meanwhile in Southeast Asia, Indonesia’s health minister said in June that parts of the country are running out of hospital beds as cases associated with the delta variant of Covid surge.
India, which has the second highest number of Covid cases in the world, saw its total caseload top 30 million in late June. Until recently, the South Asian nation country has been grappling with a devastating second wave as cases spiked, overwhelming the health-care system.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/06/asia-covid-resurgence-drags-down-consumer-spending.html
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
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.
Mixed up membrane desalinates water with 99.99 percent efficiency
Michael Irving July 05, 2021
---- Desalination could be a vital technology to meet the world’s drinking water needs, and now Korean engineers have developed a new nanofiber membrane that can operate efficiently for long periods.
There are a few different ways to desalinate water, but this study focuses on membrane distillation. In this process, the salty brine on one side of the membrane is heated, while the fresh water on the other side remains cold. The membrane is hydrophobic to repel the liquid water, but water vapor from the hot side can still pass through the pores. Due to a vapor pressure difference it drifts over to the cold side, where it recondenses as fresh water.
The problem is, the buildup of salts and other pollutants on the membrane can affect its hydrophobicity. Eventually the brine leaks through and makes the freshwater less fresh, requiring the membrane to be replaced.
So for the new study, researchers at the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) created more advanced membranes. Often they’re made through a process called electrospinning, where an electric force is used to draw charged nanofibers out of nozzles. The KICT team used a version called co-axial electrospinning, where two different materials are mixed together during the printing process.
In this case, those two materials were a polymer called PVDF-HFP and silica aerogel. The rough surface helps to repel the water, while the silica aerogel acts like a thermal insulator, keeping the hot side from warming up the cold side. That in turn keeps the difference in vapor pressure high and makes the membrane more efficient.
In tests, the team ran the new membrane for 30 days, and found that it still filtered out 99.99 percent of the salt after that time. That’s a far longer runtime than other electrospun nanofiber membranes, which the team says struggle to last more than 50 hours of continuous use before they begin to leak.
"The co-axial electrospun nanofiber membrane have strong potential for the treatment of seawater solutions without suffering from wetting issues and may be the appropriate membrane for pilot-scale and real-scale membrane distillation applications,” says Dr. Yunchul Woo, lead researcher on the study.
The research was published in the Journal of Membrane Science.
Finally, some things are too good not to share, Film of that Iceland volcano eruption on July 2nd. Too close to the capital for comfort. Approx. 2 minutes.
HUGE VOLCANIC ERUPTION OVERFLOWS THE ENTIRE CRATER! HD drone captures it all!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpFWS6cOwGs
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