Inflation is the parent of unemployment and
the unseen robber of those who have saved.
Margaret Thatcher.
Asian markets this
morning are largely biding time, waiting for something to turn up to give the
casinos something to bet on.
Weighing on the punters,
the continuing rise of the Delta variant in the coronavirus pandemic.
Even bullish pro-stocks
propaganda about US inflation figures being better than expected, if you strip
out food and energy which no one needs or uses, and ignore the coming hit to US
inflation from housing and rents, wasn’t sufficiently bullish for Asia today.
Below, a pause, a
wobble, or the fear of Friday the thirteenth?
Asian markets higher as
currencies rise on weaker dollar; EV maker Li Auto shares slip on debut
Chinese stocks were subdued in early trade. The Shanghai composite was flat, while
the Shenzhen component was below the flatline.
Hong Kong’s Hang
Seng index was down 0.44%. In its Hong Kong debut, Chinese electric vehicle
maker Li Auto’s
shares dipped as much as 1.8% below their offer price, according to Refinitiv
Eikon data. It later pared some of those losses to trade just below the
flatline.
The Nikkei 225
in Japan rose 0.25%, while the Topix was up 0.29%. In South Korea, the Kospi marginally rose.
Australia’s S&P/ASX
200 was just above the flatline.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan
lost 0.28%.
In earnings, Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry, better
known as Foxconn, is due to report its second-quarter financial results
Thursday.
Markets will continue to monitor the Covid situation in the
region after the World
Health Organization warned global cases could pass 300 million by early
next year if the pandemic continues in its current direction. The projection
came just a week after the WHO reported 200 million Covid cases worldwide and
six months after the globe topped 100 million cases.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and
the S&P 500 rose Wednesday after inflation jumped less than investors
feared when stripping out volatile food and energy prices.
The 30-stock Dow gained 220.30
points, or 0.6%, to 35,484.97 to close at a new record. The S&P 500 traded
up 0.2% to 4,447.70, also notching an all-time high. The technology-heavy
Nasdaq Composite slipped more than 0.1% to 14,765.14.
Next, Magic Money
Tree free money for almost all says Washington. What could possibly go wrong?
Senate OKs Dems’ $3.5T budget in
latest win for Biden
By
ALAN FRAM August 11, 2021
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats pushed a $3.5
trillion framework for bolstering family services, health, and environment
programs through the Senate early Wednesday, advancing President Joe Biden’s
expansive vision for reshaping federal priorities just hours after handing him
a companion triumph on a hefty infrastructure
package.
Lawmakers approved Democrats’ budget resolution
on a party-line 50-49 vote, a crucial step for a president and party set on
training the government’s fiscal might on assisting families, creating jobs and
fighting climate change. Higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations would pay
for much of it. Passage came despite an avalanche of Republican amendments
intended to make their rivals pay a price in next year’s elections for control
of Congress.
House leaders announced their chamber will
return from summer recess in two weeks to vote on the fiscal blueprint, which
contemplates disbursing the $3.5 trillion over the next decade. Final
congressional approval, which seems certain, would protect a subsequent bill
actually enacting the outline’s detailed spending and tax changes from a
Republican filibuster in the 50-50 Senate, delays that would otherwise kill it.
Even so, passing that follow-up legislation
will be dicey with party moderates wary of the massive $3.5 trillion price tag
vying with progressives demanding aggressive action. The party controls the House
with just three votes to spare, while the evenly divided Senate is theirs only
due to Vice President Kamala Harris tie-breaking vote.
Finally, so you really, really, really want a safer
investment than the fiat currencies? Perhaps digital currency isn’t the way to
go.
Below, Poly put the kettle on, we’re going to need an
awful lot of strong tea.
Crypto platform Poly Network
hacked in estimated $600 mln cyberheist
August 11,
202112:31 PM BST
HONG KONG/SINGAPORE/LONDON, Aug 11 (Reuters) - A
cryptocurrency platform has lost an estimated $600 million in digital tokens
after one of the sector's biggest ever hacking attacks, according to details of
the heist which emerged on Wednesday.
Poly Network, a decentralised finance platform (DeFi), announced the hack on Twitter and posted details of digital
wallets to which it said the money was transferred, urging people to blacklist
tokens from those addresses.
The value of the tokens in the wallets cited by the
platform was just over $600 million at the time of the announcement, according
to crypto trade publication The Block.
Poly Network did not immediately respond to a request
for more detail about the incident. It was not immediately clear where the
platform is based, or whether any law enforcement agency was investigating the
heist.
The platform tweeted it planned to take legal action
and urged the hackers to return the stolen funds to several of its digital
addresses.
The plea looked to be gaining some traction, with
around $2 million in stolen tokens returned by Wednesday morning, according to
public blockchain records and crypto tracking firm Elliptic.
The theft appeared to be one of the biggest ever in
cryptocurrency markets and compares with the $530 million in digital coins
stolen from Tokyo-based exchange Coincheck in 2018.
The Mt. Gox exchange, also based in Tokyo, collapsed in
2014 after losing half a billion dollars in bitcoin.
The latest attack comes as losses from theft, hacks and
fraud related to decentralised finance hit an all-time high, raising the risk
of both investing in the sector and of regulators looking to shake it down.
DeFi refers to peer-to-peer cryptocurrency platforms that
allow transactions without traditional gatekeepers such as banks or exchanges.
Poly Network allows users to swap tokens across different blockchains.
Hackers return nearly half of the
$600 million they stole in one of the biggest crypto heists
Hackers have returned nearly half of
the $600 million they stole in what’s likely to be one of the biggest
cryptocurrency thefts ever.
The cybercriminals exploited a
vulnerability in Poly Network, a platform that looks to connect different
blockchains so that they can work together.
Poly Network disclosed the attack
Tuesday and asked to establish communication with the hackers, urging them to
“return the hacked assets.”
---- In a strange turn of events Wednesday, the hackers
began returning some of the funds they stole.
They sent a message to Poly Network
embedded in a cryptocurrency transaction saying they were “ready to return” the
funds. The DeFi platform responded requesting the money be sent to three crypto
addresses.
As of 7 a.m. London time, more than
$4.8 million had been returned to the Poly Network addresses. By 11 a.m. ET,
about $258 million had been sent back.
“I think this demonstrates that
even if you can steal cryptoassets, laundering them and cashing out is
extremely difficult, due to the transparency of the blockchain and the use
of blockchain analytics,” Tom Robinson, chief scientist of blockchain analytics
firm Elliptic, said via email.
“In this case the hacker concluded
that the safest option was just to return the stolen assets.”
Once the hackers stole the money,
they began to send it to various other cryptocurrency addresses. Researchers at
security company SlowMist said a total of more than $610 million worth of
cryptocurrency was transferred to three addresses.
SlowMist said in a tweet that its
researchers had “grasped the attacker’s mailbox, IP, and device fingerprints”
and are “tracking possible identity clues related to the Poly Network
attacker.”
The researchers concluded that the
theft was “likely to be a long-planned, organized and prepared attack.”
Poly Network urged cryptocurrency
exchanges to “blacklist tokens” coming from the addresses that were linked to
the hackers.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our
spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
July consumer prices jump 5.4%,
but core inflation rises less than expected
Published Wed, Aug 11 2021 8:32 AM EDT
Prices that Americans pay for
everyday goods and services accelerated in July as pent-up demand for travel
and restaurants kept inflation hot, but about where economists had expected.
The Labor Department reported
Wednesday that its consumer price index rose 5.4% in July from a year earlier,
in line with June’s figure and matching the largest jump since August 2008.
The government said CPI increased
0.5% on a month-over-month basis, matching a consensus forecast from economists
surveyed by Dow Jones.
So-called core inflation, which
excludes energy and food, rose by 0.3% last month, shy of a forecasted 0.4%
increase and well below June’s rise of 0.9%. The core figure is up 4.3% over
the last year, a slight deceleration from June’s 4.5%.
Economists often consider core CPI
to be a more reliable indicator since it’s insulated from the frequent swings
in petroleum and food prices.
Sharp decelerations in inflation in
select areas of the economy that had seen rapid price increases in the spring
helped keep the headline numbers in check.
Used car and truck prices, which
rose rapidly between April and June as Americans looked to vacation, gained
just 0.2% in July after a climb of more than 10% in the prior month.
Apparel prices were flat after a
0.7% increase in June, and transportation services prices actually declined
after a pop of more than 1% at the end of the second quarter.
The Federal Reserve has been keeping
a close eye on inflation reports since it’s the central bank’s job to maximize
employment and keep prices stable.
Inflation was hot in July, but
rent isn’t showing up yet and could drive prices higher
Sharp post-pandemic price increases in some parts of the
economy appear to be fading, but rent is one area in which inflation is
expected to stick around.
The consumer price
index rose 0.5% in July, well below the 0.9% pace in June. Core consumer
prices, excluding food and energy, rose 0.3% last month, shy of economists’
expectations for a 0.4% gain. Year-over-year, the CPI rose 5.4% year-over-year
in July, the same as June.
Economists say there are signs the spike in inflation is
temporary, as Federal Reserve officials have contended. But one big part of
consumers’ out-of-pocket expenditures is rent, and that is expected to rise
well into the future.
Private sector reports show double-digit
increases in rents across the U.S. this year, but the consumer price index
actually showed a slight moderation in rental price gains in July. Economists
say that should change as the Bureau of Labor Statistics data catches up, and
the increases should be enough to keep the debate going about whether rising
inflation is temporary.
“The composition was mixed, but
generally softer than expected, as housing inflation slowed (owners’ equivalent
rent +0.29%, rent +0.16%) in stark contrast to the surging rents in the
industry data,” wrote Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius.
“Additionally, the volatile hotel
category contributed 0.08pp to the core,” he added. “Both hotel and airfare
price levels have returned to roughly their pre-pandemic trends, meaning that
most of the inflation boost from rebounding travel services prices is now
behind us.”
Rent and owners’ equivalent rent
cover housing costs and are about a third of CPI. Inflation in rent is stickier
and more persistent than other price pressures. In the CPI, rent rose slightly
slower in July than in June.
“The rent component is dramatically
understated relative to reality, which means in the next couple of months, rent
is going to catch up,” Bleakley Global Advisors chief investment officer Peter Boockvar
said. “Rental increases, which is the biggest chunk is only going to accelerate
here. I don’t see rent increases as transitory.”
Following the markets on both sides of the Atlantic since 1968. A dinosaur, who evolved with the financial system as it was perverted from capitalism to banksterism after the great Nixonian error of abandoning the dollar's link to gold instead of simply revaluing gold. Our money is too important to be left to probity challenged central banksters and crooked politicians.
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