Baltic Dry Index. 3166 -44 Brent Crude 74.86
Spot Gold 1806
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 28/07/21 World 195,991,320
Deaths 4,193,155
Admirer: Herr Mozart, I am thinking of writing symphonies. Can you give me any suggestions as to how to get started.?
Mozart: A symphony is a very complex musical form. Perhaps you should begin with some simple lieder and work your way up to a symphony.
Admirer: But Herr Mozart, you were writing symphonies when you were 8 years old.
Mozart: Yes, but I never asked anybody how.
Fed day two and what secrets on interest rates and inflation will Fed Chairman Powell release to the peons later in the day?
Will he share his thoughts on America’s soaring employment costs?
How about soaring commodity prices from coffee to oil?
How about US and global soaring shipping and transportation costs?
Or will he just repeat his spin it’s all transitory?
While we await the economic Gospel of Guru Powell, we note with rising concern the growing split between Asian stock casinos and America’s.
Of little to no concern or a harbinger of something to come?
“In a front page story citing domestic fund managers, the official China Securities Journal said the sell-off was a “structural adjustment”, a sustained plunge is unlikely and the market does not face systemic risk.”
So that’s alright then?
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index struggles for rebound following two-day rout; Asia stocks fall
SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific were mostly lower in Wednesday morning trade, with stocks in Hong Kong struggling to bounce back from a two-day rout.
By Wednesday afternoon in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index sat 0.24% lower. That followed a more than 8% decline over two days earlier this week triggered by regulatory fears over sectors such as technology and private education.
Analysts at Bespoke Investment Group pointed out that there had only been one other period in 2011 when the Hang Seng declined more than 7.5% for two days. Since then, they wrote: “There hasn’t been a single two-day decline since the Financial Crisis that has exceeded the magnitude of the last two days.”
Chinese tech stocks in Hong Kong, among the hardest hit in the recent sell-off, were mixed.
Shares of internet giant Tencent in Hong Kong dropped 3.73% while Alibaba nudged 0.72% lower and Meituan dipped 0.1%. Meanwhile, JD.com rose 1.32% and Kuaishou Technology jumped 2.11%.The Hang Seng Tech index sat below the flatline.
Electric vehicle maker Xpeng’s Hong Kong-listed shares plummeted 12.63%, mirroring losses of a similar magnitude for its U.S.-listed stock overnight.
Stocks of firms in the private education space, another sector hit by regulatory scrutiny, bounced back after heavy losses earlier in the week: New Oriental Education & Technology Group gained 6.84% while Koolearn Technology jumped 9.42%.
Mainland Chinese stocks continued slipping: The Shanghai composite fell 0.59% while the Shenzhen component declined 0.328%.
South Korea’s Kospi declined 0.24%. The S&P/ASX 200 in Australia dipped 0.7%. Australia’s consumer price index rose 0.8% in the June 2021 quarter, according to data released Wednesday by the country’s Bureau of Statistics.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 dropped 1.42% while the Topix index slipped 0.94%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.68%.
The Covid situation regionally may also have weighed on investor sentiment, with movement restrictions across Australia’s Greater Sydney area extended for four weeks on Wednesday. Elsewhere, South Korea on Wednesday reported its highest-ever daily increase in Covid infections, according to Reuters.
More
Chinese yuan and Hong Kong dollar sell off as regulatory fears spread
Investors are dumping the Chinese yuan and Hong Kong dollar as the selloff in China stocks continues, and those currencies slid on Tuesday to lows not seen since April.
Regulatory fears are spreading to other parts of the Chinese market, after Beijing stepped up restrictions on its education sector late last week, and continued its crackdown on its internet companies.
The offshore yuan — which trades outside mainland China — weakened by nearly 1% compared to last Friday, dropping to as low as 6.528 yuan against the dollar overnight.
By Wednesday morning, it had pared those losses slightly to trade at 6.5142 yuan against the dollar.
Chinese A shares — which trade in mainland China and are included in global indexes like the MSCI — are traded in the yuan.
The Hong Kong dollar also tumbled to lows not seen since April, after a two-day rout in the city’s Hang Seng index this week. It declined to as low as 7.7849 against the greenback overnight.
The Hang Seng index plunged more than 8% in the first two days of the week. Overall, it’s down 13% for the month — its worst performance since September 2011.
Mainland Chinese shares fared a little better. The Shenzhen composite is down 5.5% for the month – on pace for the worst month since Sep 2020, while the Shanghai composite lost nearly 6% so far this month, on pace for the worst month since October 2018.
Vishnu Varathan, head of economics and strategy at Mizuho Bank, warned that further weakening of the yuan may be ahead.
“Our view is that it may be difficult to avoid further CNY (and CNH) sell-off in the wake of the on-going regulatory crack-down that Beijing is the midst of,” he told CNBC via email. He was referring to the onshore and offshore yuan respectively.
But he noted that the yuan is likely to continue trading against the dollar in a volatile manner, rather than “one-way trades.”
More
China state-owned daily urges calm after market rout
The Australian city of Sydney extended a lockdown by four weeks on Wednesday after an already protracted stay-at-home order failed to douse a Covid-19 outbreak, with the authorities warning of tougher policing to stamp out non-compliance.
Far from a planned exit from lockdown in three days, the city of 5 million people and neighboring regional centers spanning 200 km (120 miles) of coastline were told to stay home until Aug. 28 following persistently high case numbers since a flare-up of the virulent delta variant began last month.
The state of New South Wales, of which Sydney is the capital, reported 177 new cases for Tuesday, from 172 on Monday. That is the biggest increase since an unmasked, unvaccinated airport driver was said to have sparked the current outbreak. The state also reported the death of a woman in her 90s, the 11th death of the outbreak.
Of particular concern, at least 46 of the new cases were people active in the community before being diagnosed, raising the likelihood of transmission, said the authorities, who have cautioned that active community transmission must be near zero before relaxing the rules.
----The extension turns what was initially intended to be a “snap” lockdown of Australia’s most populous city into one of the country’s longest since the start of the pandemic, and may spark the second recession of the A$2 trillion ($1.47 trillion) national economy in two years, according to economists.
More
South Korea reports its highest Covid-19 daily count as fourth wave continues
South Korea on Wednesday reported 1,896 new Covid-19 cases for Tuesday, its highest-ever daily increase, as the country struggles to subdue a fourth wave of outbreaks fanned by the more contagious delta variant of the coronavirus.
The daily tally broke a previous record set on July 22 as infections are spreading beyond the capital Seoul and its neighboring regions where the toughest social distancing rules are in place.
There were 1,823 domestically transmitted cases on Tuesday and 33.5%, or 611, of the were from areas outside the capital regions, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
This is the first time the number of cases outside the Seoul metropolitan region has exceeded the 600 mark since the first Covid-19 wave emerged from a church in the southeastern city of Daegu.
Tighter social distancing curbs took effect across most of the country on Tuesday and will last for two weeks. Those areas will be under Level 3 curbs on a four-level scale, which will mean a 10 p.m. (1300 GMT) dining curfew and ban on gatherings of more than four people.
The tighter curbs were enacted to prevent the further spread of the coronavirus during South Korea’s peak summer holiday season.
The great Seoul area region remains under Level 4 curbs that include a ban on gatherings of more than two people after 6 p.m.
Covid Treatment Options Remain Elusive, Despite Months of Effort and Rising Delta Cases
Researchers have been held back by a lack of relevant research, a scattered array of clinical trials and a fragmented U.S. healthcare system
July 26, 2021 11:31 am ET
Nearly a year and a half into the pandemic, researchers are still struggling to find effective, easy-to-use drugs to treat Covid-19.
Ten drugs have been cleared or recommended in the U.S. for use. Two of those later had their authorizations rescinded after they failed to work. The government recently paused shipments of a third because it wasn’t effective against new variants. The best medicines for early treatment are cumbersome to administer, and drugs for those in the hospital can only do so much for patients who are already severely ill.
“We’re really limited, to be honest,” says Daniel Griffin, chief of infectious disease at healthcare provider network ProHealth New York. “We do not have any dramatic treatments.”
A long list of factors played into the checkered development of drugs to treat Covid-19 cases—exposing flaws in the infrastructure of medical research and healthcare, particularly in fighting a fast-moving pandemic.
Federal officials concentrated their resources on quickly developing vaccines, with success. However, a relative dearth of drug research focused on coronaviruses, despite previous outbreaks, held back a fast response on treatments. Scattered U.S. clinical trials competed against each other for patients. When effective yet hard-to-administer drugs were developed, a fragmented American healthcare system struggled to deliver them to patients.
More
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.
Not sure that this shouldn’t be in the Global Inflation section.
Big Oil Companies Push Hydrogen as Green Alternative, but Obstacles Remain
BP, Shell want to make the gas using renewable energy, but doing so remains expensive
July 26, 2021 7:00 am ET
Big oil companies have long touted hydrogen energy as a way to reduce carbon emissions. Now they are grappling with how to make that a reality.
BP BP 3.30% PLC, Royal Dutch Shell RDS.A 3.09% PLC and TotalEnergies SE are all pursuing multimillion-dollar hydrogen projects, often with government support, as they seek to redefine their future role in a world less reliant on fossil fuels. Hydrogen made using renewable energy can be produced and used without emitting carbon dioxide.
Still, experts say there are various hurdles to the light, colorless gas fulfilling its potential. Firstly, most hydrogen today is made from fossil fuels, primarily natural gas. The challenge is to make it using renewable power instead and produce it on an industrial scale, in the hope of bringing down costs. Additionally, hydrogen is explosive, as well as difficult to store and transport.
Oil companies are pursuing green hydrogen, which they see as a longer-term goal, while also looking at applying carbon-capture technology to fossil-fuel-based hydrogen production as a way to clean up the gas in the interim.
As of the end of June, there were 244 large-scale green hydrogen projects planned, according to the Hydrogen Council, an industry group, up more than 50% since the end of January. It estimates tens of billions of dollars have already been earmarked for hydrogen projects.
Historically used to help make fertilizer and chemicals, hydrogen is increasingly being pushed for a much broader range of uses, including for trucks, planes, ships, household heating and as a way to store renewable power.
----BP is exploring the use of hydrogen to replace natural gas in industries such as steel, cement and chemicals, and also as a substitute for diesel in trucks. Overall, BP forecasts hydrogen could account for about 16% of the world’s energy consumption by 2050—if net zero carbon-emissions goals are to be achieved—up from less than 1% today.
Like other major oil companies, BP thinks its existing expertise—it already produces hydrogen at refineries—and infrastructure could help it win a sizable market share. Last year the company said it planned to use wind power to produce hydrogen for a refinery in Germany, hoping to demonstrate the technology at a large scale.
However, BP doesn’t expect green hydrogen to be a material part of its business until the 2030s, and it has yet to make a final investment decision on any new hydrogen projects.
----Shell also is grappling with high costs. This month, the company started up what it said is Europe’s largest green hydrogen plant, to supply its Rhineland refinery in Germany. But that hydrogen is between five and seven times more expensive than the fossil-fuel-based product it predominantly uses.
More
The Truth about Hydrogen Approx. 15 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7MzFfuNOtY
Reporter: What do you think of western civilisation?
Ghandi: I think it would be a good idea.
No comments:
Post a Comment