Baltic Dry Index. 3199 +05 Brent Crude 74.10
Spot Gold 1802
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair….”
A Tale of Two Cities. [Or MMT.]
Dow jumps more than 200 points to close above 35,000 for the first time ever
U.S. equities rose Friday with the the major averages hitting new records as they overcame concerns about economic growth from earlier in the week.
The Dow closed above 35,000 for the first time ever, bringing its gain for 2021 to more than 14%.The blue chip average rose 238.20 points, or 0.68%, to 35,061.55, gaining for a fourth straight day. It made the 1,000-point trek rather quickly, having closed above 34,000 for the first time ever back in mid-April.
The S&P 500 gained 1.01% to 4,411.79 and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.04% to 14,836.99, both new closing highs for the benchmarks.
The 10-year Treasury yield bounced on Friday to 1.281%, easing concerns about the economy that the bond market triggered on Monday. The 10-year yield fell to a 5-month low of 1.13% earlier this week.
“The bond market has surprised everybody,” said Nick Frelinghuysen, a portfolio manager at Chilton Trust. “The strength of the rally is telling the equity market that what’s happening with inflation is probably an overshoot, that a lot of these things are not endemic and they’re not going to be things that we’ll have to live with like we did in the ’70s and ’80s.”
Strong earnings from tech stocks made investors optimistic ahead of reports next week from the biggest names in the sector. Twitter and Snap each jumped Thursday following better-than-expected second-quarter earnings reports. Twitter traded 3% higher, while Snap shot up 24%.
“The Snap and Twitter results are just a reflection that digital advertising spend is coming back with a vengeance,” Frelinghuysen said. “You’re seeing that ripple through into Google and Facebook.”
Facebook gained more than 5% on the results from its social media competitors. Alphabet added 3%. Both report next week along with Apple, Microsoft and Amazon.
All three U.S. stock averages closed the week in the green, rebounding from last week’s losses and Monday’s sharp sell-off. The Dow dropped more than 700 points to start the week as yields fell, unnerving equity investors about the economy.
The S&P 500 rose 2% for the week and the Nasdaq Composite added 2.8%. The Dow ended the week up 1%.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/22/stock-market-futures-open-to-close-news.html
But, Covid-19 is making a comeback in the USA and we have just started the Great Olympic Covid Gamble in Tokyo.
Covid cases are rising again in all 50 states across U.S. as delta variant tightens its grip
Covid cases are on the rise in all 50 states and the District of Columbia as the delta variant rapidly spreads across the U.S. and the virus once again tightens its grip.
The U.S. is reporting an average of about 43,700 new cases per day over the past week — far below pandemic highs but up 65% over the previous seven days and nearly three times as high as the level two weeks ago, data compiled by Johns Hopkins University shows. Cases hit a 15-month low in late June before they began to rise yet again as fewer people got vaccinated and the more infectious delta variant took hold in the country.
Vaccination rates peaked in April at more than 3 million shots per day but have dropped off considerably in recent months to around 530,000 a day, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Florida and Nevada are reporting the highest daily average of new cases per capita over the past week, all of which are at least double the U.S. rate.
----Hospital admissions of Covid patients are up 32% compared with one week ago, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The count of daily Covid deaths, which typically lag an increase in case counts by a few weeks or more, has ticked upward but not at the same pace as cases or hospitalizations.
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Finally, why 2021 too closely resembles 1975.
Without wishing to overstate the case, I have become increasingly apprehensive about the similarities between 1975 and 2021.
For the second time in my life I am witnessing the extraordinary defeat of the US military.
1975 included the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam war, and with it the defeat of roughly 14 years of US policy. A well meaning, but weak President Ford, who replaced the disgraced President Nixon, went on to election defeat by another well meaning, but weak President Jimmy Carter.
Inflation was rising under Ford, but with 9 percent unemployment, it was more stagflation under President Ford, than the great inflation's of Presidents Nixon and Carter.
In December 1975, NYC finally got its bailout.
In 2021, I think I am about to witness the fall of Afghanistan, after the failure of almost 20 years of US policy.
Inflation is again rising, roughly 10 million US jobs are still missing, while just about everything is getting bailed out by the central banks and socialist leaning politicians.
A weak President Trump lost to an even weaker President Biden and so far, at least as it looks to me, President Biden is good for soothing words but little else.
With an almost gridlocked US politics, the current game “plan” seems to be to toss endless trillions to special interests in the hope of preventing riots, while waiting for something to turn up.
1975 was followed by roughly 7 years of difficult times, before Mr. Volker’s 21 percent interest rate finally ended inflation and a strong President Reagan took over the fight against the hard left from Margaret Thatcher, who virtually stood alone from June 1979 until the arrival of President Reagan in January 1980.
In the UK, Prime Minister Johnson is no Margaret Thatcher. With a majority in the 80s in the Commons, but more often closer to 100, he is unwilling to press for electoral reform, legal reform, nor to present a real conservative agenda.
This weakness on both sides of the Atlantic, it seems to me, has emboldened both Presidents Putin and Xi.
Russia threatens to sink the Royal Navy if it sails again into Russian claimed waters off Crimea.
President Xi is trashing Hong Kong’s special status and laws with impunity, because he knows that he can get away with it. Both are likely to take full advantage of our trans-Atlantic weakness.
I suspect that both will try to use the climate change western agenda to further undermine the G-7 economies.
But if anything were to happen to the health of 78 year old President Biden, I suspect the political weakness in the USA will only get worse.
Sadly, I’m not smart enough to have come up with an investment plan for the rest of the decade.
I suspect part of that involves some insurance from owning liquid tangible assets, and for the wealthier, real estate, and meaningful artworks of recognised international value. I don’t see any role for the many cryptocurrency scams.
A lot depends on just how many new trillions get spent on real US infrastructure projects rather than socialist wealth redistribution projects.
I also suspect, a lot will depend on how much Covid-19 surfaces after the Olympic games and in the coming northern hemisphere winter, plus whether this winter flu joins it.
Of course, 2021 differs from 1975 in many diverse ways, not the least of them much higher levels of all types of debt, plus much higher levels of public expectations of government help. Sadly, this isn’t an improvement.
Global Inflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Embedded as a risk, new COVID cycle could challenge Fed, recovery
Howard SchneiderJuly 22, 2021 9:42 AM EDT
WASHINGTON, July 22 (Reuters) - Five weeks after dropping its reference to the coronavirus as a weight on the economy, the U.S. Federal Reserve is confronting a challenging new rise in cases that has fueled doubts about the global recovery and is already forcing other central banks to consider retooling their policies.
The daily pace of new infections has more than doubled since the Fed's June 16 policy meeting, when Chair Jerome Powell said that while it was "premature to declare victory" given the appearance of the more infectious coronavirus Delta variant, a decline in infections, hospitalizations and deaths "should continue."
It hasn't, and while the worst current outbreaks have been localized, news of rising case loads once again straining hospital capacity spilled into financial markets with a sharp Monday sell-off.
U.S. Treasury yields have tumbled in a sign investors may be losing confidence in both the U.S. growth outlook and the Fed's ability to navigate between the shoals of a resurgent pandemic that may require more help from the central bank and high inflation that may demand a more restrictive approach.
Analysts still expect economic growth in 2021 to be the strongest since 1984, but are now again mining real-time data for signs the Delta variant is changing behavior.
"Do vaccinated people stay off airplanes? That is the downside risk," said Wells Fargo Corporate and Investment Bank Chief Economist Jay Bryson, who is so far maintaining a forecast of 7% economic growth this year. "I don't think any of us are expecting lockdowns like we saw a year ago. The population is not going to stand for that. But you don't have to have lockdowns. You just have to have people saying, 'I am staying home.'"
No obvious evidence has emerged yet of that happening. Air travel has remained steady at around 80% of its pre-pandemic level, according to Transportation Security Administration statistics, and there's been no dip in diners returning to restaurants, according to data from restaurant site OpenTable.
Attendance at Major League Baseball games over the seven days through Monday had climbed back to the 2019 average for the first time this year, with stadiums now open to capacity crowds.
More
Mercedes plans to go all-electric by the end of the decade
Published Thu, Jul 22 2021 10:50 AM EDT Updated Thu, Jul 22 2021 2:56 PM EDT
Germany’s Daimler said Thursday that its Mercedes-Benz brand would “be ready to go all electric at the end of the decade, where market conditions allow.”
It’s the latest sign of how major automotive firms are gearing up for a future based around electric vehicles.
According to Daimler, from 2025 all of Mercedes-Benz’ “newly launched vehicle architectures will be electric-only.”
Breaking things down, Daimler explained how it planned to launch three pure-electric architectures that year: MB.EA, which will relate to medium and large passenger cars; AMG.EA, which will focus on performance vehicles; and VAN.EA, for light commercial vehicles and vans. Models based on these platforms will be electric only.
From 2025 onward, consumers will also have the option of purchasing an “all-electric alternative for every model the company makes.”
“The EV shift is picking up speed — especially in the luxury segment, where Mercedes-Benz belongs,” Ola Källenius, who heads up both Daimler and Mercedes-Benz, said in a statement.
“The tipping point is getting closer and we will be ready as markets switch to electric-only by the end of this decade,” he added. “This step marks a profound reallocation of capital.”
In light of its plans, Daimler stated that Mercedes-Benz would ramp-up its research and development. “In total, investments into battery electric vehicles between 2022 and 2030 will amount to over 40 billion euros.”
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/22/mercedes-plans-to-go-all-electric-by-the-end-of-the-decade.html
Below, why a “green energy” economy may not be possible anyway, and if it is, it won’t be quick and it will be very inflationary, setting off 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
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Israel says Pfizer Covid vaccine is just 39% effective as delta spreads, but still prevents severe illness
Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine is just 39% effective in Israel where the delta variant is the dominant strain, but still provides strong protection against severe illness and hospitalization, according to a new report from the country’s Health Ministry.
The efficacy figure, which is based on an unspecified number of people between June 20 and July 17, is down from an earlier estimate of 64% two weeks ago and conflicts with data out of the U.K. that found the shot was 88% effective against symptomatic disease caused by the variant.
However, the two-dose vaccine still works very well in preventing people from getting seriously sick, demonstrating 88% effectiveness against hospitalization and 91% effectiveness against severe illness, according to the Israeli data published Thursday.
“We have to be mindful that, with time, the effectiveness of these vaccines may wane,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease professor at the University of Toronto.
He stressed that the shots are still highly effective in preventing severe infection, helping hospital systems not get too overwhelmed heading into the colder months. That being said, “we’re still in the Covid era and anything can happen,” he said.
“We have to be prepared and we have to be nimble that people may need a booster at some point,” he added. “This close surveillance that’s happening in countries like Israel, the U.K. and other parts of the world is going to be very helpful in driving policy if and when we do need boosters.”
More
Oral Covid Vaccine Set To Begin Trials In Israel
Jul 22, 2021,11:00am EDT
Amid rising cases of Covid-19 driven by the infectious Delta variant, Israel is gearing up to host the first clinical trials of an oral Covid-19 vaccine, which could help boost access to vaccines around the world and serve as a more convenient booster in the future.
Key Facts
Oravax Medical, a company focused on developing ways to deliver drugs by mouth, is preparing to begin clinical trials of its oral Covid-19 vaccine in Israel after getting the green light from the review board at Ichilov Hospital, Tel Aviv’s main hospital.
The trials—pending recruitment and final approval from the country’s health ministry in coming weeks—will initially serve as a “proof of concept” for the capsule vaccine, said Nadav Kidron, CEO of Oravax’s parent company Oramed Pharmaceuticals, in an interview with The Jerusalem Post.
The first trial will involve 24 unvaccinated volunteers, each taking one or two pills, and will investigate the vaccine’s safety and indicators of immunity, moving on to larger Phase 3 trials to demonstrate efficacy if successful.
The vaccine should be “much more resistant to Covid-19 variants,” Kidron said, as it trains the immune system against three viral proteins instead of the single protein targeted by Pfizer and Moderna shots.
Oravax is also developing the capsule as a booster for people who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 before, though its plans to test this are unclear .
More
Delta variant is one of the most infectious respiratory diseases known, CDC director says
Published Thu, Jul 22 2021 5:19 PM EDT
The delta Covid variant is one of the most infectious respiratory diseases ever seen by scientists, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.
The variant is highly contagious, largely because people infected with the delta strain can carry up to 1,000 times more virus in their nasal passages than those infected with the original strain, according to new data.
“The delta variant is more aggressive and much more transmissible than previously circulating strains,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters at a briefing Thursday. “It is one of the most infectious respiratory viruses we know of, and that I have seen in my 20-year career.”
The delta variant has spread quickly through the U.S., accounting for more than 83% of sequenced cases in the U.S. right now, up from 50% the week of July 3.
The seven-day average of new cases is up about 53% from last week, currently at 37,674 new cases per day. Hospitalizations are up 32% from last week at about 3,500 per day and deaths have also increased 19% in the same time frame to about 240 per day.
“This virus has no incentive to let up, and it remains in search of the next vulnerable person to infect,” Walensky said.
The virus is ripping through U.S. counties with low vaccination rates, while counties with high vaccination rates are seeing lower rates of new cases.
Three states, Florida, Texas and Missouri, with low vaccination rates accounted for 40% of all new cases nationwide, White House Covid czar Jeff Zients said. Florida alone accounted for 1 in 5 of all new cases in the U.S. for the second week in a row.
In hospitals around the country, 97% of people admitted with Covid symptoms are unvaccinated, and 99.5% of all Covid deaths are also among the unvaccinated.
In the past week, the five states with the highest case counts had higher rates of people getting newly vaccinated compared with the national average.
“We are at yet another pivotal moment in this pandemic, with cases rising again and some hospitals reaching their capacity in some areas, we need to come together as one nation,” Walensky said.
‘I think people are underestimating how bad this is going to get’: Dr. Ashish Jha on the delta variant
Published Thu, Jul 22 202 18:03 PM EDT Updated Jul 23 2021
The dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health warned about the tough months ahead across the U.S. due to Covid, as new data shows people infected with the delta strain can carry up to 1,000 times more virus in their nasal passages than those infected with the original strain.
“I think people are underestimating how bad this is going to get,” said Dr. Ashish Jha. “We are in for a very tough August, probably a very tough September before this really turns around.”
---- Jha told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith,” that the infection rate could be worse if it were winter, and predicted the delta spike could peak within two months.
“It might peak in September, but we are far away from the peak, right now we are doing 40,000 cases a day, it’s going to go substantially higher before it peaks,” Jha said.
The delta variant has spread rapidly through the U.S., accounting for more than 83% of sequenced cases in the U.S. right now, up from 50% the week of July 3, according to the CDC.
Next, some very useful 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
FDA information. https://www.fda.gov/media/139638/download
Regulatory Focus COVID-19 vaccine tracker. https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker
Some more useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource centre
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Rt Covid-19
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. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC or DC energy mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards.
'Magic-angle' trilayer graphene may be a rare, magnet-proof superconductor
New findings might help inform the design of more powerful MRI machines or robust quantum computers
Date: July 21, 2021
Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Summary: Physicists have observed signs of a rare type of superconductivity in a material called 'magic-angle' twisted trilayer graphene. They report that the material exhibits superconductivity at surprisingly high magnetic fields of up to 10 Tesla, which is three times higher than what the material is predicted to endure if it were a conventional superconductor.
----The results strongly imply that magic-angle trilayer graphene, which was initially discovered by the same group, is a very rare type of superconductor, known as a "spin-triplet," that is impervious to high magnetic fields. Such exotic superconductors could vastly improve technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging, which uses superconducting wires under a magnetic field to resonate with and image biological tissue. MRI machines are currently limited to magnet fields of 1 to 3 Tesla. If they could be built with spin-triplet superconductors, MRI could operate under higher magnetic fields to produce sharper, deeper images of the human body.
The new evidence of spin-triplet superconductivity in trilayer graphene could also help scientists design stronger superconductors for practical quantum computing.
More
This weekend’s musical diversion. J. S. Bach again. Approx. 5 minutes.
Toccata "dorica" BWV 538 J.S. Bach
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk40cJLgRTY
This weekend’s chess update. No castling chess. Approx. 15 minutes.
Move That Shook The Planet || Anand vs Kramnik || NO CASTLING MATCH!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgYeBGkM4Ng
This weekend’s maths update. Approx. 25 minutes and worth it.
The Moessner Miracle. Why wasn't this discovered for over 2000 years?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGlpyFHfMgI
----we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
A Tale of Two Cities. [Or MMT.]
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