Baltic Dry Index. 4215 -18 Brent Crude 75.55
Spot Gold 1760
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 17/09/21 World 227,844,112
Deaths 4,684,242
Alan Schwartz, CEO Bear Stearns, March 12, 2008. Bust March 16, 2008.
In the Asian stock casinos this morning, a mixed bag. Will this weekend come with an Evergrande Lehman moment?
Singapore gives its stock casino a helping hand.
In “the land of the free,” President Biden’s taxman is about to get loosed on the unwary between the shining seas. A socialist wealth [envy] tax, seems to be in mind.
“Despite Brexit,” the UAE invests in EUSSR free GB.
China and France seethe at the newly announced AUKUS partnership.
More troubles for GM’s EV “lightning” Bolt.
Asia-Pacific markets mixed as Hong Kong shares continue to slide; Evergrande shares drop 5%
SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific were mixed in Friday morning trade, with stocks in Hong Kong continuing to see further losses.
The benchmark Hang Seng index in Hong Kong slipped 0.93%, adding to losses seen earlier in the week. As of its Thursday close, the index had dropped nearly 6% for the week amid regulatory concerns surrounding sectors such as technology and casinos.
Shares of China Evergrande Group dropped around 5% as fears over its debt problems continue to weigh on investor sentiment.
Mainland Chinese stocks were relatively muted, with the Shanghai composite little changed while the Shenzhen component declined 0.107%.
Elsewhere, the Nikkei 225 in Japan climbed 0.34% while the Topix index traded 0.13% higher. South Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.38%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 1.03%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 0.54% lower.
Overnight stateside, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 63.07 points to 34,751.32 while the S&P 500 dipped around 0.16% to 4,473.75. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.13% to 15,181.92.
The moves on Wall Street came after the Census Bureau reported Thursday that August’s retail sales increased 0.7% for the month against the Dow Jones estimate of a decline of 0.8%. The initial estimate for July, however, was revised down to a decline of nearly 2% from a month-over-month gain of 0.5%.
Meanwhile, the latest unemployment insurance weekly data showed 332,000 first-time jobless claims last week, higher than the Dow Jones estimate of 320,000.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/17/asia-markets-us-economy-currencies-oil.html
Analysis: Investors brace for a great fall in China
September 17, 2021 12:24 AM BST
LONDON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - International investors that have been piling into China in recent years are now bracing for one of its great falls as the troubles of over-indebted property giant China Evergrande come to a head.
The developer's (3333.HK) woes have been snowballing since May. Dwindling resources set against 2 trillion yuan ($305 billion) of liabilities have wiped nearly 80% off its stock and bond prices and an $80 million bond coupon payment now looms next week.
What happens then is unclear. Bankers have said it will most likely miss the payment and go into a kind of suspended animation where authorities step in and sell some of its assets, but it could easily get messy.
"We will have to see what happens," said Sid Dahiya, head of EM corporate bonds at abrdn, formerly Aberdeen Standard, in London, which holds a small sliver of the bonds.
"They are probably working on a deal in the background, but we don't have any clarity and we don't really have any precedents, so it is uncharted water."
Evergrande warned just over two weeks ago that it risked defaulting on its debt if it failed to raise cash. Since then it has said that no progress has been made with those efforts.
Analysts say the bigger picture is that if Evergrande - which has more than 1,300 real estate projects in over 280 cities - does topple, it will firmly dispel the idea that some Chinese firms are too big to fail.
It would probably still apply to big state-linked firms of course, but it comes too after Beijing's clampdowns on big tech firms like Alibaba and Tencent wiped nearly a trillion dollars off its markets earlier in year.
More
https://www.reuters.com/business/investors-brace-great-fall-china-2021-09-16/
Singapore government announces $1 billion new fund to boost local stock market
SINGAPORE — The Singapore government on Friday announced a series of initiatives to lure “promising high-growth” companies from around the region to list on the local stock market.
Singapore is a favored listing destination for REITs, or real estate investment trusts. But the city-state has struggled to attract blockbuster initial public offerings from the tech sector, which has been one of the top investment themes in global markets.
“We did have technology companies that came through fully, such as Nanofilm. We clearly want to see more of them,” Loh Boon Chye, chief executive of the Singapore Exchange, told CNBC in an exclusive interview.
Nanofilm Technologies International, which provides protective coating materials for smartphones and televisions, made its trading debut on the SGX last year. It was the first major non-REIT IPO in years.
New initiatives
Singapore’s government announced Friday it will co-invest with state investment firm Temasek in a new fund to help companies raise capital through public listings — whether primary, secondary or dual — in the city-state.
The fund will start with a first tranche of 1.5 billion Singapore dollars ($1.1 billion).
Here are other initiatives that were announced:
- The investment arm of Singapore’s Economic Development Board intends to establish a new fund to invest in later-stage companies and work toward an eventual listing in the city-state. The fund will start with up to 500 million Singapore dollars.
- The financial regulator, Monetary Authority of Singapore, will increase its grants to help companies defray the cost of listings.
- The exchange operator, Singapore Exchange, will help high-growth companies to raise funds privately prior to a public listing.
“We know that the initiatives we are launching today are no magic bullet,” Singapore’s Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong said in a speech announcing the measures.
“But we believe they will blow new wind into the sails of our public equity market, and make SGX not just a viable but a compelling option for innovative growth companies seeking a public listing,” he added.
More
His economic agenda on the line, Biden prepares to fight for tax increases on the wealthy
WASHINGTON — After a rough summer, President Joe Biden is getting ready to spend the autumn fighting for tax increases on the wealthy and corporations.
The surge of the Covid-19 delta variant, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, hurricanes, wildfires, evictions and inflation have all battered Biden’s approval ratings and exhausted White House staff.
Now he is shifting his attention back to passing a once-in-a-generation expansion of the social safety net and an infrastructure package.
Biden spoke Thursday at the White House about why Congress needs to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations in order to fund his “Build Back Better” agenda.
“The data is absolutely clear,” he said. “Over the past 40 years, the wealthy have gotten wealthier and too many corporations have lost a sense of responsibility to their workers, their communities and the country.”
Biden pointed to the ratio of CEO pay to average worker pay, which has risen more than fifteenfold in the past five decades.
And in a year when millions of Americans struggled to pay rent and put food on the table amid historic levels of unemployment, Biden said, the combined net worth of the world’s wealthiest people grew by an estimated $1.8 trillion.
“How is it possible that the wealthiest billionaires in the country can entirely escape paying income tax on what they’ve made?” said Biden. “How is it possible for millionaires and billionaires that can pay a lower rate of tax than teachers, firefighters or law enforcement officers?”
More
In more “despite Brexit” news, not much really changed. SARS-CoV-2 changed investing far more than Brexit.
UAE to invest $14 billion in UK industries, sovereign wealth fund says
September 16, 2021 2:01 PM By Reuters Staff
DUBAI (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates plans to invest 10 billion pounds ($13.8 billion) in Britain over the next five years, building on the two country’s long-running business ties, an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund said on Thursday.
The fund, called Mubadala, said the investment in Britain’s energy transition, infrastructure, technology and life sciences industries marked an expansion of its Sovereign Investment Partnership with Britain’s Office for Investment.
The announcement was made as the UAE’s de facto ruler, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, was in London visiting British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
“Today’s expansion of our Sovereign Investment Partnership will help accelerate funding and innovation in key sectors that are foundational to economic growth of both nations,” Mubadala’s Managing Director Khaldoon Mubarak said in a statement.
Mubadala in March agreed to invest 800 million pounds in life sciences with Britain’s investment office, which said it was contributing an additional 200 million pounds.
Since then, over 1.1 billion pounds have been deployed, Mubadala said.
AUKUS annoys France as much as China. Aussie's French subs, sunk. A French “Trafalgar” moment, this time round by the US Biden fleet.
France says Biden acted like Trump to sink Australia defence deal
September 16, 202110:42 AM BST
PARIS, Sept 16 (Reuters) - France accused U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday of stabbing it in the back and acting like his predecessor Donald Trump after Paris was pushed aside from a lucrative defence deal that it had signed with Australia for submarines.
The United States, Britain and Australia said they would establish a security partnership for the Indo-Pacific that will help Australia acquire U.S. nuclear-powered submarines and scrap the $40 billion French-designed submarine deal.
"This brutal, unilateral and unpredictable decision reminds me a lot of what Mr Trump used to do," Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told franceinfo radio. "I am angry and bitter. This isn't done between allies."
In 2016, Australia had selected French shipbuilder Naval Group to build a new submarine fleet worth $40 billion to replace its more than two-decades-old Collins submarines.
Two weeks ago, the Australian defence and foreign ministers had reconfirmed the deal to France, and French President Emmanuel Macron lauded decades of future cooperation when hosting Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison in June.
"It's a stab in the back. We created a relationship of trust with Australia and that trust has been broken," Le Drian said.
Relations between Trump and Macron soured during Trump's presidency, and diplomats say there have been concerns in recent months that Biden is not being forthright with his European allies.
Washington's actions in Australia are likely to further strain Transatlantic ties. The European Union was due to roll out its Indo-Pacific strategy later on Thursday and Paris is preparing to take on the EU presidency.
"This is a clap of thunder and for many in Paris a Trafalgar moment," Bruno Tertrais, Deputy Director of the Paris-based think tank the Foundation of Strategic Research said on Twitter, referring to a French naval defeat in 1805 that was followed by British naval supremacy.
More
Australian PM rejects Chinese criticism of nuclear sub deal
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday rejected Chinese criticism of Australia’s new nuclear submarine alliance with the United States and said he doesn’t mind that President Joe Biden might have forgotten his name.
China reacted angrily when Biden, Morrison and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson used a virtual news conference this week to announce a trilateral defense alliance that will provide Australia with a fleet of at least eight nuclear-powered submarines.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Zhao Lijian said it was “highly irresponsible” for the U.S. and Britain to export the nuclear technology.
Morrison said Australia wanted to boost peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.
“Everything we’ve done with the United States is consistent with the partnerships and relationships and alliances we’ve already had with the United States,” Morrison told Radio 3AW.
News of the alliance received a positive response in Singapore. The island-state’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told Morrison in a phone call he hoped the nuclear deal would “contribute constructively to the peace and stability of the region and complement the regional architecture,” Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
French leaders have been scathing of the deal that scuppers a contract with France to build 12 conventional diesel-electric submarines for Australia.
Observers say Biden appeared to have forgotten Morrison’s name during Thursday’s news conference, which was televised from three countries. The president referred to the Australian as “pal” and “that fellow Down Under.”
Biden didn’t use Morrison’s name, while he referred to Johnson as “Boris.”
It reminded Australians of when then-President Donald Trump’s spokesman Sean Spicer repeatedly referred to Morrison’s predecessor, Malcolm Turnbull, in 2017 as “Mr. Trumble.”
More
Finally, so you really, really, really want to drive an electric vehicle? Fancy taking a ride in a GM lightning Bolt.
GM tells Bolt EV owners park away from vehicles in decks
September 16, 20211:25 AM BST
WASHINGTON, Sept 15 (Reuters) - General Motors Co (GM.N)on Wednesday recommended that Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicle owners parking in decks do so on the top floor or on an open level, at least 50 feet away from other vehicles, citing potential fire risks.
The precaution would "reduce potential damage to structures and nearby vehicles in the rare event of a potential fire," a company spokesman said in an email. GM sent a notice to consumers who had asked about parking issues, he added.
GM had previously asked owners to park Bolt vehicles outdoors, away from structures, and to not charge them overnight.
GM also urged owners to not leave Bolt EVs charging unattended, even if using a charging station in a parking deck. Bloomberg News reported the recommendation earlier.
GM in August widened its Bolt recall to more than 140,000 vehicles to replace battery modules, at a cost now estimated at $1.8 billion after reports of 10 fires. The automaker said it would seek reimbursement from GM battery supplier LG (003550.KS).
Last week, the largest U.S. automaker said it would extend a shutdown of a Michigan assembly plant by two weeks in the aftermath of the Bolt battery issue recall.
GM said the extension of the production halt at its Orion Assembly plant that will go through at least Sept. 24 was "a result of a battery pack shortage" related to the recall.
GM will not resume Bolt production or sales until it is satisfied that the recall remedy will address the fire risk issue, it added.
George Orwell.
Global Inflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Ship Owner Says Commodity Freight Rates Close to Going Parabolic
By Alex Longley16 September 2021, 13:09 BST
An owner of commodity hauling freighters said rates for the ships are close to the point of spiking sharply higher and mirroring an unprecedented surge in costs for transporting manufactured goods.
Spot rates for container ships to move manufactured products have surged for 20 straight weeks and now stand 731% above their seasonal average over the prior five years, according to Drewry Shipping. John Wobensmith, the president and chief executive officer of Genco Shipping & Trading Ltd., said that prices to move commodities -- which have already rallied sharply -- may follow.
More
CF Industries halts operations at UK plants as natural gas prices soar
The firm, which employs around 1,000 UK staff, said it does not know when production will resume
Tom Houghton North West Business Editor 08:40, 16 SEP 2021 Updated09:32, 16 SEP 2021
A US manufacturer of agricultural fertilisers has announced it has stopped operations at both its UK sites.
CF Industries Holdings announced in a statement on Thursday the move is due to high natural gas prices, and that work is to halt at its fertiliser sites in Ince, Cheshire, and Billingham, Stockton-on-Tees.
The company added that it did not know when production would resume.
Headquartered in Illinois, the firm making hydrogen and nitrogen products employs thousands of employees in the US, Canada and the UK.
Around 400 staff are based at the firm's Cheshire site, where 1m tonnes of fertiliser are produced per year, supplying key market sectors for grass and arable farming.
It employs 600 staff on Teesside, and has a supply chain estimated to be worth £500m a year to the region's economy. Earlier this year, it was revealed the firm was "evaluating its options" in the North East after being slapped with a bill for millions by Ofgem.
It comes after natural gas prices soared to record highs because of low supplies ahead of winter, which has raised concerns over a hit to the economy.
Europe’s energy crisis is making the market nervous. And analysts expect record-high prices to persist
Published Thu, Sep 16 2021 1:48 AM EDT
LONDON — European power prices have spiraled to multi-year highs on a variety of factors in recent weeks, ranging from extremely strong commodity and carbon prices to low wind output.
What’s more, the record run in energy prices is not expected to end any time soon, with energy analysts warning market nervousness is likely to persist throughout winter.
The October gas price at the Dutch TTF hub, a European benchmark, was seen to climb to a record high of 79 euros ($93.31) a megawatt-hour on Wednesday. The contract has risen more than 250% since January, according to Reuters, while benchmark power contracts in France and Germany have both doubled.
In the U.K., where electricity bills are now the most expensive in Europe, power prices have soared amid the country’s high dependence on gas and renewables to generate electricity.
British day-ahead electricity prices rose nearly 19% to reach 475 pounds ($656.5) on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The contract was already trading near record highs shortly after a fire at a U.K.-France power link cut electricity imports to Britain.
“By far the biggest factor is gas prices,” Glenn Rickson, head of European power analysis at S&P Global Platts Analytics, told CNBC via email.
Higher gas prices have also been a “big driver” in lifting carbon and coal prices to record highs too, Rickson said, although he noted there are other supporting factors at play, such as low wind generation and nuclear plant unavailability across the continent.
Carbon prices in Europe have nearly trebled this year as the European Union reduces the supply of emissions credits. The EU’s benchmark carbon price climbed above 60 euros per metric ton for the first time ever in recent weeks, trading slightly below this threshold on Thursday.
---- Rickson said the outlook for European power prices this winter will be “highly dependent” on gas prices, adding that he expects gas prices to rise even further in the coming months. “Aside from the ‘average’ picture, we expect prices to be highly volatile, with swings from low or even negative hourly prices when wind generation is high, to very high prices as already seen when wind is low, and demand is high.”
More
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
COVID Delta Variant May Become Completely Resistant To Vaccines Says Japanese Study
September 15, 2021
According to a Japanese study, the COVID Delta variant may soon acquire complete resistance to vaccines.
A group of Japanese researchers released research (read below) showing that the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant “is poised to acquire complete resistance” to existing COVID-19 jabs.
When four common mutations were introduced to the Delta variant, Pfizer’s mRNA injection enhanced its infectivity, causing it to become resistant.
A Delta variant with three mutations has already emerged, which suggests it’s only a matter of time before a fourth mutation develops, at which point complete resistance to Pfizer’s jab may be imminent.
A number of experts have raised concerns that COVID-19 jabs and the mass vaccination program could worsen the pandemic by triggering the development of new variants, via a concept known as antigenic, or immune, escape.
Another study found that a worst-case scenario can develop when a large percentage of a population is vaccinated but viral transmission remains high, driving the development of resistant strains.
COVID-19 jabs continue to be pushed as the only solution to the pandemic, even as “breakthrough” infections increasingly occur. A group of Japanese researchers has also released research showing that the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant “is poised to acquire complete resistance” to existing COVID-19 jabs like Pfizer and BioNTech’s BNT162b2, now being sold as Comirnaty.
What’s more, when four common mutations were introduced to the Delta variant, Pfizer’s mRNA injection enhanced its infectivity, causing it to become resistant. A Delta variant with three mutations has already emerged, which suggests it’s only a matter of time before a fourth mutation develops, at which point complete resistance to Pfizer’s jab may be imminent.
More
https://greatgameindia.com/delta-variant-resistant-vaccines/
NIH to spend $70M for long-haul COVID-19 study at dozens of institutions
Sept. 16, 2021 / 5:00 PM
The U.S. National Institutes of Health is spending nearly $470 million to study the long-term effects of COVID-19, the agency announced.
NIH has awarded a "parent" grant to New York University Langone Health, announced Wednesday, which will in turn make awards to more than 100 researchers at more than 30 institutions.
The goal is to uncover why some people have prolonged symptoms -- long-haul COVID-19 -- or develop new or returning symptoms after recovering from COVID-19.
The most common symptoms include pain, headaches, fatigue, "brain fog," shortness of breath, anxiety, depression, fever, chronic cough and problems.
"We know some people have had their lives completely upended by the major long-term effects of COVID-19," NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins said.
"These studies will aim to determine the cause and find much needed answers to prevent this often-debilitating condition and help those who suffer move toward recovery," he said in an agency news release.
The program is called Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery, or RECOVER. Data from RECOVER will include clinical information, laboratory tests and analyses of various stages of recovery following infection.
More
https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2021/09/16/covid19-nih-long-term-effects-study/6941631825380/
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
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.
A Tesla co-founder aims to build an entire U.S. battery industry
September 14, 2021 10:37 AM
Redwood Materials Inc., the battery recycling company created by Tesla Inc. co-founder J.B. Straubel, has been keeping a big secret: It isn’t really a recycling company.
Sure, Redwood has risen quickly to become the biggest lithium-ion battery recycler in the U.S. But Straubel didn’t leave Tesla in 2019 just to clean out America’s junk drawers. His broader goal, described to Bloomberg for the first time, is to move a huge chunk of the battery-component industry from Asia to the U.S.
“It’s both inspiring and terrifying to see so many nations and car companies announcing their shift to electric vehicles,” Straubel said. “But there’s a massive gap in what needs to happen.”
To fill that gap, Straubel has set out to build one of the largest battery materials factories in the world. Redwood, which currently operates three facilities in Nevada, is searching for a location farther east to build a new million-square-foot factory. At a cost of well over $1 billion, according to Straubel, the addition will enable Redwood to become a major U.S. producer of cathodes. (Every battery has two electrodes — an anode and a cathode — between which trillions of charged lithium atoms travel. It’s the cathode that largely determines a battery’s cost, performance and environmental footprint.)
Straubel says the U.S. factory will produce material for 100 gigawatt-hours of batteries a year by the end of 2025. That’s enough for about 1.3 million long-range vehicles a year, on par with the biggest producers in Asia. By 2030, the same facility will ramp up to 500 gigawatt-hours a year, he says. At today’s prices, that’s $25 billion of cathodes a year. Redwood plans to build a similar operation in Europe by 2023.
“These numbers sound insane, but when you look at what the market needs, I’m like holy cow — is this even aggressive enough?” Straubel says. “Somebody’s got to do this. In fact, we need at least four companies doing similarly aggressive, crazy things all in the same timeline.”
Electric vehicles make up just 4 percent of passenger vehicle sales today, but the big flip is coming. At least 15 countries and 31 cities have announced timelines to entirely phase out sales of internal combustion vehicles, beginning with Norway in 2025. Last month, U.S. president Joe Biden signed an executive order targeting half of U.S. auto sales to be electric by 2030. General Motors, the biggest U.S. automaker, has pledged to electrify all of its vehicles by 2035.
More
Why an Electric Car Battery Is So Expensive, For Now
At Tesla Inc.’s ballyhooed Battery Day event last year, CEO Elon Musk set himself an ambitious target: to produce a $25,000 electric vehicle by 2023. Hitting that sticker price -- about $15,000 cheaper than the company’s least expensive model today -- is seen as critical to deliver a true, mass-market product. Getting there means finding new savings on technology -- most critically the batteries that can make up a third of an EV’s cost -- without compromising safety. Alongside Musk, traditional automaking giants including Toyota Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG are pouring tens of billions of dollars into the race.
Largely because of what goes in them. An EV uses the same rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that are in your laptop or mobile phone, they’re just much bigger -- cells grouped in packs resembling big suitcases -- to enable them to deliver far more energy. The priciest component in each battery cell is the cathode, one of the two electrodes that store and release electricity. The materials needed in cathodes to pack in more energy are often expensive: metals like cobalt, nickel, lithium and manganese. They need to be mined, processed and converted into high-purity chemical compounds.
Another weekend and a month since the US and NATO got run out of Afghanistan. How long before we are forced to go back? Hopefully under UN humanitarian mandate next time, with local forces who understand the languages, tribal customs, and code of Pashtunwali. Have a great weekend everyone.
The
rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
Biden’s to make them high and lowly,
And disorder their estate.
With apologies.
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