Baltic Dry Index. 4092 +116 Brent Crude 65.18
Spot Gold 1781
European stocks post biggest weekly decline since February
LONDON — European stocks closed higher Friday, but sharply lower for the week, as traders monitored issues such as global monetary policy, the delta Covid variant and China’s tech crackdown.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 ended the Friday session up 0.3% with retail stocks leading the gains. The index finished down 1.5% for the week, in what was its worst weekly performance since February, according to Reuters data.
The German DAX closed up 0.17% on Friday after a bigger-than-expected jump in producer prices, which saw a 1.9% increase month-on-month in July.
In the U.S., Major U.S. stock averages rebounded Friday while markets remained on track for a losing week driven by fears of the Federal Reserve pulling back its stimulus. Minutes from the Fed’s July meeting released this week showed the central bank is willing to start reducing its monthly asset purchases this year.
Stocks in Asia fell after China left its benchmark lending rate unchanged. In addition, the tougher scrutiny over technology continues in China with a new data protection law approved on Friday.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/20/europe-stock-markets-friday-from-open-to-close.html
Fed’s Jackson Hole symposium to take place virtually due to Covid risk
The Federal Reserve’s annual Jackson Hole, Wyo., symposium will take place virtually this year due to Covid risks, the Kansas City Fed announced Friday.
“While we are disappointed that health conditions will prevent us from being able to gather in person at the Jackson Lake Lodge this year as we had planned, the safety of our guests and the Teton County community is our priority,” Esther George, president of the Kansas City Fed, said in a press release.
The Fed announced on Thursday that Chair Jerome Powell will deliver remarks virtually. The chairman’s speech, typically the highlight of the event, is set to be livestreamed to the public Friday morning.
Market participants will be awaiting insights about the Fed’s “taper talks” from the symposium as many central bankers aim to move away from easy policy, namely the Fed’s $120 billion monthly bond purchases.
Chinese regulators meet with developer Evergrande as scrutiny on real estate grows
Published Fri, Aug 20 2021 5:06 AM EDT
BEIJING — Chinese authorities called for indebted property giant Evergrande to resolve its debt risks during a rare meeting with executives Thursday.
Shares of Hong Kong-listed China Evergrande Group have tumbled more than 60% this year to near four-year lows as investors worried about the developer’s ability to repay its debt. The stock closed 1.6% lower Friday, giving up initial gains.
The People’s Bank of China said Thursday in an online statement that it, along with the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, told Evergrande executives they need to implement the central government’s strategy for stable and healthy development of the real estate market.
The statement added Evergrande needs to “actively resolve” debt risks, support financial stability and disclose true information in accordance with regulations, according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese text.
The comments come a few days after Chinese President Xi Jinping said at a high-level economic policy meeting that the country needs to prevent major financial risks.
Evergrande confirmed the meeting with regulators in an online statement Friday and said it would comply with those specific requests.
As one of China’s largest privately run real estate conglomerates, Evergrande sits at the intersection of major concerns for Beijing: speculation in the property market, high debt levels and the sustainability of an industry that fuels more than a quarter of GDP.
Evergrande has more than 240 billion yuan ($37 billion) in bills and trade payables — such as materials — to settle with contractors over the next 12 months, S&P Global Ratings said earlier this month. About 100 billion yuan, or just over 40%, is due by the end of December, S&P said.
The ratings agency downgraded Evergrande and its subsidiaries to “CCC” from “B-” on Aug. 5 on expectations the conglomerate’s “nonpayment risk is escalating because of increased asset freezes from various commercial parties, indicating strained liquidity.”
“The negative outlook reflects Evergrande’s increasing strained liquidity and nonpayment risk. It also reflects our view that its asset disposal plan, though potentially substantial, lacks visibility or certainty,” S&P said in a note.
More
Finally, Afghanistan. Just how bad was that Friday to Sunday collapse last weekend?
Bad doesn’t begin to describe what just happened. Amongst many other things, the Taliban now has armoured vehicles, night vision scopes, Black Hawk helicopters. We can only hope that Biden and the Pentagon didn’t leave any nukes behind with those unknown number of distressed, almost hostage, unable to get to Kabul, Americans.
U.S. reliance on the Taliban for safety of its citizens in Afghanistan a ‘risk,’ warns ex-general
Retired Army Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” he was concerned about the U.S. agreement with the Taliban to guarantee safe passage of Americans out of Afghanistan.
“The fact that we’re relying on the Taliban I think is a risk that we need to be aware of, and we need to be having some plans if they decide to turn off that flow,” said Kimmitt, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Middle Eastern policy. “The Taliban, first of all, haven’t lived up to an agreement since they formed their organization -- you saw it at the Doha talks, they violated every commitment they’ve made, and what the Taliban can turn on, the Taliban can turn off in a moment.”
In recent weeks, the Taliban seized major cities and provincial capitals across Afghanistan before entering capital Kabul on Sunday and taking control of the presidential palace.
Speaking at the White House Friday, President Joe Biden said he did not plan to expand the American security perimeter beyond the airport, because it would draw “unintended consequences.”
More
How Biden Broke NATO
Aug. 19, 2021 6:56 pm ET
Remember when candidate Joe Biden said America “needs a leader the world respects”? Apparently President Biden forgot. Of the many consequences of his misbegotten Afghanistan withdrawal, one of the more serious is the way it has damaged America’s relationships with its allies, especially in Europe.
Afghanistan was an operation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and America’s NATO allies have invested significant blood and treasure in the conflict. That includes tens of thousands of troops over 20 years, more than 1,100 of whom were killed, and billions of dollars spent on the military operation and reconstruction effort.
This was a fulfillment of their obligations after the Sept. 11 terror attack led to the first invocation of the mutual self-defense clause in NATO’s founding treaty. European allies also have a stake in preventing a nation of nearly 40 million people from collapsing into a failed state that could trigger more mass migration to Europe, or become a new breeding ground for terrorism.
Yet everything about Mr. Biden’s Afghan withdrawal has been a slap to those allies. They didn’t want the U.S. to leave, but he did. The botched execution has left them scrambling to airlift out thousands of their citizens and thousands more Afghan translators and others who assisted each nation’s war effort.
And the snubs keep coming from Washington. In his Monday speech, Mr. Biden made only a glancing reference to NATO and none to America’s European allies in his account of the conflict. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson reportedly had to wait a day and a half after requesting a call with the President to get Mr. Biden on the phone.
----Press reports say German Chancellor Angela Merkel told her conservative party she believed Mr. Biden withdrew “for domestic political reasons.” Her potential successor, head of the Christian Democratic Union Armin Laschet, called the Afghan withdrawal “the biggest debacle that NATO has suffered since its founding, and we’re standing before an epochal change.”
French President Emmanuel Macron took considerable flak in 2019 for saying NATO is experiencing “brain death.” He warned that with or without President Trump in office, the U.S. was becoming a less reliable ally and argued that Europe would need to “reassess the reality of what NATO is in light of the commitment of the United States.” Mr. Biden has made him seem prescient, and the wonder is that Mr. Macron has been too polite this week to point it out. French leaders are now planning for the refugee crisis Paris fears Mr. Biden has unleashed on Europe.
More
What’s 50 Times More Dangerous Than Afghanistan?
Sadanand Dhume Aug. 19, 2021 6:30 pm ET
Since Kabul fell to the Taliban Sunday, critics have flayed President Biden for diminishing America’s global standing, empowering the Taliban and their al Qaeda partners, cold-shouldering U.S. allies, and abandoning Afghans who risked their lives to work with Americans. Add one more likely consequence of the cack-handed U.S. withdrawal: an emboldened Pakistan, whose Taliban-friendly generals and plethora of jihadist groups feel the wind in their sails.
In official statements, Pakistan says it backs a peaceful resolution in Afghanistan. But if there is one global capital where the Taliban victory was greeted with barely disguised glee, it was in Islamabad. On Monday, Prime Minister Imran Khan praised Afghans for “breaking the shackles of slavery.” On social media, retired generals and other Taliban boosters hailed the triumph of Islam, never mind that the defeated Afghan government too called itself an Islamic republic.
Exultant Pakistanis shared a video clip from 2014 featuring Hamid Gul, a former head of the army’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence. “When history is written, it will be stated that the ISI defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan with the help of America,” Gul says to a fawning TV studio audience. “Then there will be another sentence. The ISI, with the help of America, defeated America.”
You can understand why Taliban fans want to gloat. Between 2002 and 2018, the U.S. government gave Pakistan more than $33 billion in assistance, including about $14.6 billion in so-called Coalition Support Funds paid by the Pentagon to the Pakistani military.
----During the same period, Pakistan ensured the failure of America’s Afghanistan project by surreptitiously sheltering, arming and training the Taliban.
“We found ourselves in an incredibly bizarre situation, where you are paying the country that created your enemy so that it will let you keep fighting that enemy,” says Sarah Chayes, a former adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a phone interview. “If you wanted to win the war, you had to crack down on Pakistan. If you wanted to conduct operations [in Afghanistan] you had to mollify Pakistan.”
For Pakistan’s generals, winning the “double game”—ostensibly aiding America while simultaneously abetting its enemies—required finesse.
More
Other allies are noticing. Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen warned this week that in light of the U.S. retreat, “Taiwan’s only option is to grow stronger and become more united, strengthening our determination to protect ourselves.”
Global Inflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
For now, we are getting relief from falling oil and natural gas prices. But with winter approaching, for how long?
Covid-19 Closure at China’s Ningbo Port Is Latest Snarl in Global Supply Chains
Aug. 20, 2021 5:30 am ET
A major container terminal at China’s Ningbo-Zhoushan Port remained shut a week after operations were suspended from a single Covid-19 case, with dozens of ships lining up to load cargo for western markets ahead of the year-end shopping season.
The congestion at Meishan terminal, which isn’t expected to resume full operations before the end of the month, is spreading to other ports like Shanghai and Hong Kong as big operators divert ships away from Ningbo.
The cascading effect will lead to crowding at ports along the Asia-to-Europe and trans-Pacific routes that could further slow the flow of goods. It will also hit cargo owners from giant retailers like Walmart Inc. and Amazon . com Inc. to mom-and-pop shops, which will have to deal with late deliveries and higher transport costs as they work to restock ahead of the holidays.
“We are currently looking at delays of up to two weeks in cargo deliveries,” said Nils Haoupt, a spokesman for German boxship giant Hapag-Lloyd AG . “We’ve diverted four ships, but there is a race to berth in other ports and they are also congested.”
Ningbo is the world’s third-largest container port and a big gateway for Chinese exports like furniture, home goods, toys and auto parts headed to markets in the U.S. and Europe. The Meishan terminal is one of the biggest among seven box terminals at Ningbo, moving more than 7 million boxes a year. Other big container players like Denmark’s A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S and France’s CMA CGM are also diverting ships away from the port.
More
Why Inflation Is Scaring Latin America If Not the Fed
By Patrick Gillespie20 August 2021, 10:00 BST
The U.S. Federal Reserve, like many other central banks, sees inflation from the reopening of economies disrupted by the pandemic to be “transitory,” and it’s not expected to raise interest rates until at least next year. Latin America’s policy makers, by contrast, are rushing to reverse ultra-low borrowing costs. In the last five weeks, central banks in Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Chile and even Uruguay have increased rates, while many expect Colombia to follow soon. Latin America was perhaps hit harder than any other region by Covid-19 and is experiencing a quick economic rebound that puts pressure on prices. Other reasons for the difference, though, may have to do with the continent’s high levels of inequality, informality and political instability -- together with a history of inflationary bouts deeply etched into the collective economic memory.
Around the world, prices have been rising faster than usual as the end of many pandemic-related restrictions released pent-up consumer demand that disrupted supply chains have struggled to meet. Some factors have affected Latin America in particular. For instance, the global rally of food and energy prices has had a disproportionately large impact on the world’s most unequal region: food prices make up a greater share of inflation indexes in Latin America than in advanced economies like the U.S. That means that soaring food prices -- beef is up 43% in Brazil -- have played a larger role in overall inflation.
More
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
by Tyler Durden Monday, Aug 02, 2021 - 08:40 PM
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
AstraZeneca’s antibody therapy prevents Covid, study shows
AstraZeneca’s new antibody therapy reduced the risk of people developing Covid-19 symptoms by 77% in a late-stage trial, putting the drugmaker on track to offer protection to those who respond poorly to vaccines.
The company said on Friday that 75% of the participants in the trial for the therapy - two types of antibodies discovered by Vanderbilt University Medical Center - had chronic conditions including some with a lower immune response to vaccinations.
Similar therapies made with a drug class called monoclonal antibodies which mimic naturally occurring immune system proteins are being developed by Regeneron, Eli Lilly and GlaxoSmithKline with partner Vir.
But AstraZeneca is the first to publish positive Covid prevention data from an antibody trial.
The good news on the therapy was tempered, however, by a separate AstraZeneca statement on Friday.
It said a trial of a treatment for the rare neurological disorder amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), developed by AstraZeneca’s newly acquired Alexion, had been stopped early due to a lack of efficacy.
AstraZeneca executive Mene Pangalos said the therapy trial results were taken three months after the antibodies were injected and investigators would follow up as far out as 15 months in the hope the company can tout the shot as a year-long shield.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/20/astrazenecas-antibody-therapy-prevents-covid-study-shows.html
New Zealand extends lockdown as Covid-19 outbreak spreads to more cities
Issued on: 20/08/2021 - 06:21
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern extended a nationwide lockdown on Friday as the number of COVID-19 cases in the country jumped and the outbreak widened beyond its largest city, Auckland, to the capital, Wellington.
New Zealanders had been living virus-free and without curbs until Ardern on Tuesday ordered a snap 3-day nationwide lockdown and seven-day shutdown in Auckland after discovering the country’s first case since February.
Ardern extended the lockdown until midnight on Aug. 24, saying that the outbreak had widened to other cities.
“We just don’t quite know the full scale of this Delta outbreak,” Ardern said at the news conference.
Health authorities said 11 new cases were recorded on Friday, of which three cases were in Wellington.
The three in Wellington had recently travelled to Auckland and had visited locations that were identified as exposed to the outbreak, the health ministry said in a statement.
“We want the whole country on high alert right now,” Ardern said.
Subscribe New Zealand’s health chief, Ashley Bloomfield, warned the lockdown in Auckland, the epicentre of the outbreak, may be extended further.
More
Six Important Questions About Booster Shots Answered
Experts weigh in who needs the shot first, when it should happen and how it will help
By Emma Yasinski smithsonianmag.com August 19, 2021 12:36PM
Last winter, the three Covid-19 vaccines authorized in the U.S. promised to be successful beyond even the most optimistic of expectations. Last year, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that a vaccine that was 50 to 60 percent effective would be enough. The FDA was willing to approve anything with more than 50 percent efficacy. Yet clinical trials showed the vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer were 95 percent protective against a symptomatic infection and nearly 100 percent effective against hospitalization and death. Johnson and Johnson’s single dose vaccine was slightly less protective at 67 percent but was also 100 percent effective against hospitalization and death.
Still, many scientists worried that that powerful immunity might wane over time. Since the vaccines were authorized after patients in the trials were followed for about two months, it wasn’t clear how long that protection would last. Some scientists pointed to the fact that some vaccines, like the influenza vaccine are required every year while others provide lifelong protection, and wondered which category Covid shots would fall into. While no one could say definitively when or if we’d need to add extra shots to the dosing regimen, when Pfizer planned to ask regulators to approve a third shot in July, the CDC and FDA said “not yet.” But, just a couple weeks later, the agencies have decided it’s time to act.
On August 12, the FDA announced that third doses of Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines would be made available for patients with compromised immune systems. A few days later, the CDC followed up with detailed recommendations about who would qualify. Then, just another few days after that, the Biden administration announced that everyone will eventually need booster shots, and they may be available to the general public as early as September.
Kartik Cherabuddi who treats patients with complex infectious diseases like HIV at the University of Florida, says that since July, he’s seen more and more immunocompromised patients admitted to the hospital with Covid-19. “That’s why it’s more important to look at this third dose in immunocompromised patients. We’re starting to see them be admitted to the hospital.”
After all that, World Health Organization (WHO) chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan suggested that prioritizing booster shots in wealthier countries like the U.S. could lead to more variants, and other scientists have come out saying it’s still too soon. The onslaught of new information has caused some confusion. These are some of the most pressing questions.
More
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.
‘Blue’ Hydrogen May Not Be a Very ‘Green’ Energy Source After All
By David Kindy smithsonianmag.com August 17, 2021 2:05PM
Hydrogen is often viewed as the fuel of the future. Scientists initally predicted it will be clean, renewable and efficient. Making it work, though, might be a problem. Some of the current technologies, including a process known as “blue” hydrogen, can pollute more than traditional fossil fuels.
Blue hydrogen is derived from methane in natural gas. It has previously been touted as a better alternative because the production emissions are captured and stored deep underground. However, new research indicates that this energy alternative could actually be worse than burning coal.
A peer-reviewed study published in Energy Science & Engineering, an open-source journal, concludes "the greenhouse gas footprint of blue hydrogen is more than 20 percent greater than burning natural gas or coal for heat and some 60 percent greater than burning diesel oil for heat," according to the paper.
In addition, carbon dioxide is a byproduct of blue hydrogen production. While the plan is to capture and store the gas, the question remains as to what to do with that supply in the future. There is also concern about the long-term viability of holding it underground, reports Loz Blain of New Atlas.
Climate scientists Robert Howarth and Mark Jacobson, authors of the new study, point out this storage process is likely not as “clean” as previously thought. The Cornell and Stanford researchers, respectively, report that considerable amounts of methane escape into the atmosphere as natural gas is extracted from the Earth. Based on industry standards, they estimate the leakage rate at 3.5 percent of consumption for these “fugitive emissions,” or unintentionally leaked gases.
In just 20 years, one ton of methane emissions can warm the air 86 times more than carbon dioxide, reports Tim De Chant of Ars Technica.
More
This weekend’s musical diversion. Opera again, but by Handel. About as perfect delivery as it gets. Approx. 5 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq_X1AcXwZY
This weekend’s maths problem. Approx. 13 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXfKWIZQIo4
This weekend’s women’s chess update. Approx. 17 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhf9C9kvg5s
The sole purpose of President Biden is to make the Carter Presidency look competent.
No comments:
Post a Comment