Baltic Dry Index. 4651 +91 Brent Crude 77.39
Spot Gold 1751
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 24/09/21 World 231,397,264
Deaths 4,742,761
“I’m normally not a praying man, but if you’re up there, please save me Superman.”
Fed Chairman Powell, with apologies to Homer Simpson, economist.
Well, did China Evergrande Group make a coupon payment on its domestic bonds yesterday or not?
I don’t know either, but it doesn’t really matter if we are entering/have entered into a new era of high inflation and higher interest rates.
China Nevergrande will just be the first among many to blow up in the weeks and months ahead.
Of course, Fed Chairman Powell and his central bankster ilk, will all be praying it doesn’t happen before the all important end of the quarter next week, let alone this weekend and ruin their golf activities.
In the Asian stock casinos this Friday, Tokyo bets on a Beijing bailout, the other casinos aren’t so sure.
Did the Magic Money Tree forest discovered in March 2020 just start to run out of Magic Money?
I suspect we will find out over the weekend if not later today.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumps 2% as investors seek clarity on Evergrande situation
SINGAPORE — Stocks in Asia-Pacific were mixed in Friday trade, as investors continue to watch developments surrounding China Evergrande Group.
The Nikkei 225 in Japan jumped 2% in afternoon trade, with shares of Fast Retailing and Softbank Group gaining 1.59% and 2.95% respectively. The Topix index gained 2.15%.
South Korea’s Kospi, on the other hand, shed 0.12%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index sat below the flatline by Friday afternoon in the city.
Shares of China Evergrande Group in Hong Kong fell around 7%. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Chinese authorities have told local officials to prepare for a potential demise of Evergrande. Uncertainty also remains around whether Evergrande will pay the interest that was due Thursday on a dollar-denominated bond.
Mainland Chinese stocks slipped, with the Shanghai composite down about 0.1% while the Shenzhen component shed 0.525%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.4%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded around 0.1% higher.
Overnight on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 506.50 points to 34,764.82 while the S&P 500 gained 1.21% to 4,448.98. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.04% to 15,052.24.
Thursday’s gains left the major averages on Wall Street in positive territory for the week, recovering from earlier losses.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/24/asia-markets-china-evergrande-group-currencies-oil.html
In China Evergrande news, does this sound like a viable turnaround candidate or a train wreck that’s already happened?
Evergrande’s EV Unit Has Stopped Paying Staff, Factory Suppliers
Bloomberg News23 September 2021, 13:05 BST
· Second installment of employee wages weren’t paid this month
· Suppliers recall on-site staff after equipment dues not paid
China Evergrande Group’s electric-car unit has missed salary payments to some of its employees and has fallen behind on paying a number of suppliers for factory equipment, according to people familiar with the matter, evidence the stricken property developer’s debt woes are having an impact beyond its core business.
The cash flow difficulties mean China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group Ltd. will likely miss its target to start mass deliveries next year considering trial production of electric vehicles at its factories in Shanghai and Guangzhou has been dialed back, the people said, asking not to be identified as they’re not authorized to speak publicly.
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/fixed-income
China Makes Preparations for Evergrande’s Demise
Beijing, reluctant to bail out the country’s most heavily indebted property developer, is asking local officials across the country to prepare for a ‘possible storm’
Updated Sept. 23, 2021 7:34 am ET
SINGAPORE—Chinese authorities are asking local governments to prepare for the potential downfall of China Evergrande Group, EGRNF -11.25% according to officials familiar with the discussions, signaling a reluctance to bail out the debt-saddled property developer while bracing for any economic and social fallout from the company’s travails.
The officials characterized the actions being ordered as “getting ready for the possible storm,” saying that local-level government agencies and state-owned enterprises have been instructed to step in to handle the aftermath only at the last minute should Evergrande fail to manage its affairs in an orderly fashion.
They said that local governments have been tasked with preventing unrest and mitigating the ripple effect on home buyers and the broader economy, for example by limiting job losses—scenarios that have grown in likelihood as Evergrande’s situation has worsened.
Evergrande faces a series of bond payments in the coming weeks, including one closely watched deadline Thursday for an interest payment on an offshore bond.
More
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-makes-preparations-for-evergrandes-demise-11632391852
China growth forecast cut by ratings agency amid Evergrande uncertainty
Downgrade by Fitch reflects jitters in markets as boss of Asia-focused bank HSBC says problems ‘concerning’
Thu 23 Sep 2021 06.29 BST
Ratings agency Fitch has downgraded its forecast for China’s economic growth because of concerns about a slowdown in the country’s colossal housing market and fears about struggling property giant Evergrande.
China enjoyed a swift economic rebound from the Covid-19 pandemic, but strict new rules on the country’s developers have caused a deleveraging rush and helped push housing giant Evergrande to crisis point.
Evergrande shares, which have lost more than 80% of their value this year, staged a recovery on Thursday thanks to signs that it might be able to repay some of its massive $300bn debts.
But financial markets have been jittery over fears that the Chinese group could collapse, leading to possible contagion in the world’s second-biggest economy and beyond.
Fitch Ratings said it expected growth to come in at 8.1% this year, compared with a previous 8.4% estimate, saying the “main factor weighing on the outlook is the slowdown in the property sector”.
More
Next, another interest rate exception, or the start of the new higher interest rate era? If it is, Evergrande’s gone.
Norway hikes interest rates, with more to come
September 23, 2021 9:04 AM By Reuters Staff
OSLO, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Norway’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate on Thursday as expected, and said more hikes will follow as it joins a short but growing list of nations moving away from emergency-level borrowing costs.
Norges Bank's monetary policy committee raised the sight deposit rate to 0.25% from a record low of zero, as forecast unanimously here in a Reuters poll of analysts and in line with the central bank's own plan here. (Reporting by Terje Solsvik and Victoria Klesty, editing by Gwladys Fouche)
Finally, more on our changing global weather, but whether it’s climate change, let alone man-made climate change, or merely weather change is still an open question, except to the climate change fanatics for whom everything is man-made climate change.
Heaviest rainfall in more than a decade floods major city in India
Sept. 22, 2021 / 8:01 PM
Sept. 22 (UPI) -- Streets and homes were inundated with floodwaters and transportation ground to a halt on Monday when the Indian city of Kolkata received more than 50% of its normal rainfall for the entire month of September in just 24 hours.
AccuWeather forecasters say an area of low pressure that originated in the Bay of Bengal brought a record-breaking period of torrential rainfall over Kolkata to start the week. In a 24-hour period ending Monday morning, Kolkata, the capital of India's West Bengal state, received 5.60 inches of rainfall.
According to the India Meteorological Department, the only larger single-day rainfall total in September ever recorded occurred on Sept. 25, 2007, when 6.85 inches of rain fell, making the rainfall that deluged Kolkata early this week the heaviest rainfall in nearly 14 years.
The heaviest rain occurred over the course of Sunday night and many residents woke up to significant flooding issues on Monday morning.
RELATED Summer snow creates wintry scenes around Yellowstone
Streets were completely flooded as commuters waded through knee-high to waist-high floodwaters. Vehicles that attempted to forge floodwaters were submerged in water that reached the top of the tires and created waves that crested higher than front headlights.
Portions of the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata were underwater for a time on Monday, but the airport was still able to operate without a complete shut down.
However, other transportation services were completely overrun by floodwaters. Operation of the Kolkata Circular Railway, a railway loop that encircles the entire city, was suspended on Monday, according to the Hindustan Times.
---- One of the primary reasons this early week rainfall led to so many issues throughout Kolkata, home to 14.85 million people, was the unusually high rainfall rates.
"Kolkata's drainage system can handle up to 6 mm [0.2 of an inch] in an hour, but several parts of the city received over 100 mm [4 inches] of rain in four or five hours. It is impossible to avert waterlogging in such a situation," a Kolkata Municipal Corporation senior engineer told to The Telegraph India.
---- On average, the city receives a total of just under 11.5 inches of rain over the course of September, largely due to the effects of the Southwest monsoon.
More
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2021/09/22/india-india-flooding/7121632353986/
“I want to share something with you: The three little sentences that will get you through life. Number 1: Cover for me. Number 2: Oh, good idea, Boss! Number 3: It was like that when I got here.”
US Treasury Secretary Yellen, with apologies to Homer Simpson, bankster.
Global Inflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Semiconductor shortage that has hobbled manufacturing worldwide is getting worse
September 23, 2021
The global semiconductor shortage that has paralyzed automakers for nearly a year shows signs of worsening, as new coronavirus infections halt chip assembly lines in Southeast Asia, forcing more car companies and electronics manufacturers to suspend production.
A wave of delta-variant cases in Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines is causing production delays at factories that cut and package semiconductors, creating new bottlenecks on top of those caused by soaring demand for chips.
Underscoring that the problem has defied easy solutions, the White House on Thursday held its second summit in five months with semiconductor manufacturers and buyers, in part to gain more clarity on the scope of the crisis, senior administration officials said.
Attendees included senior executives from Intel, General Motors, Ford, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung and two dozen other companies, as well as Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and National Economic Council Director Brian Deese.
Biden can’t fix the chip shortage anytime soon. Here’s why.
More
BoE warns inflation will top previous forecast but takes no action
Thursday 23 September 2021 12:51 pm
The Bank of England warned today soaring energy and raw materials prices will push inflation above its previous forecasts, but did nothing to rein in price rises.
Officials on Threadneedle Street upped their inflation forecasts for the year to above four per cent, over double its target.
Despite the higher than expected inflation clip, the Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) took no action to rein in price rises.
The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee (MPC) voted unanimously to hold rates at a record low 0.1 per cent.
In its monetary policy report released in August, the Bank said inflation will reach four per cent. It has undershot inflation forecasts throughout the pandemic.
According to the Office for National Statistics, inflation rose at its fastest rate on record last month, jumping to 3.2 per cent annually in August.
There were tremors of dissent toward the Bank’s bond buying programme, with MPC members Michael Saunders and Dave Ramsden voting against finishing the final leg of the Bank’s purchases of government bonds.
The MPC voted 7-2 in favour of maintaining the final leg of government debt purchases, but voted unanimously to complete its corporate bond purchases, taking the Bank’s total stock of debt to £895bn.
The Old Lady acknowledged the UK economy’s rebound from the pandemic had strengthened the case for “some modest tightening of monetary policy.”
Further evidence showing the economy is on a positive trajectory had emerged since the MPC’s last meeting, it said.
“What we can probably gleam from this is that we will start to see the hawks voting for interest rate rises fairly soon, and potentially as soon as November,” said James Smith, developed markets economist at ING.
Its GDP forecasts were revised down one percentage point, driven by supply chain snarl ups and weakening demand.
https://www.cityam.com/boe-keeps-rates-unchanged-at-record-lows-and-holds-fire-on-qe/
Euro zone business activity slowed in Sept, input costs hit over two-decade high
September 23, 2021 9:28 AM By Reuters Staff
(Reuters) - Euro zone business activity grew at its weakest pace in five months in September as curbs to limit the Delta variant of coronavirus hit demand and supply-chain constraints pushed input costs to a more than two-decade high, a survey showed on Thursday.
Despite daily infection rates slowing significantly over the past month, most remaining restrictions are unlikely to be lifted anytime soon in major economies, including Germany and France, on concerns over how the pandemic might develop in the months ahead.
IHS Markit’s Flash Composite Purchasing Managers’ Index, a good gauge of overall economic health, fell to a five-month low of 56.1 in September from 59.0 in August.
Although it stayed above the 50 level separating growth from contraction for the seventh consecutive month, it was well below a Reuters poll estimate of 58.5.
“September’s flash PMI highlights an unwelcome combination of sharply slower economic growth and steeply rising prices,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit, in a statement.
“Growth looks likely to weaken further in coming months if the price and supply headwinds show no signs of abating, especially if accompanied by any rise in virus cases as we head into the autumn.”
A sub-index tracking input costs hit 70.5, its highest in more than two decades. That suggests supply distortions - one of the primary drivers of prices throughout the globe over past months - are far from resolved and the trend of higher inflation is here to stay at least for a few months to come.
More
Tesco warns of panic buying as 'empty shelves will get ten times worse'
Thursday 23 September 2021 7:05 am
A shortfall of 800 drivers has prompted Tesco to warn about panic buying in the run up to Christmas if the nationwide HGV crisis is not addressed.
The UK’s largest supermarket also called on the Government to temporarily make it easier to bring in workers from abroad to ease the issue.
Andrew Woolfenden, Tesco’s UK distribution and fulfilment director, said it has only managed to attract as many drivers as it has lost to rival businesses over the summer despite offering £1,000 recruitment bonuses since July.
Woolfenden said the problem was industry-wide and described attempts by companies to recruit from the same, limited pool of drivers as like “moving deckchairs around”.
On the call, he added: “Our concern is that the pictures of empty shelves will get ten times worse by Christmas and then we’ll get panic-buying.”
The warning, which was first reported by ITV News, came in a meeting organised by the Cabinet Office last Thursday.
Shortage of 100,000 drivers
The Road Haulage Association further warned that there is a shortage of around 100,000 drivers across the UK, which has particularly impacted the food and drink supply chain.
Meanwhile, Katherine Mercer, Amazon’s public policy manager for the UK and Ireland, told the meeting that recruitment efforts were “back at square one” and that Christmas will be “a real challenge”.
A Tesco spokesperson said: “We have good availability, with deliveries arriving at our stores and distribution centres across the UK every day.”
“While the industry-wide shortage of HGV drivers has led to some distribution challenges, we’re working hard to address these and to plan for the months ahead, so that customers can get everything they need.”
More
https://www.cityam.com/tesco-warns-of-panic-buying-as-empty-shelves-will-get-ten-times-worse/
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Breakthrough COVID-19 cases expected to become more common in coming months
Experts blame delta variant’s rise and declining efficacy of vaccines but say most infections among the vaccinated will be mild
Posted September 22, 2021 at 6:00am
Mild cases of COVID-19 among vaccinated individuals are becoming increasingly common as the highly contagious delta variant barrels through communities, but physicians and public health experts say that shouldn’t be a cause for significant concern.
A breakthrough case of COVID-19 occurs when a person contracts COVID-19 at least two full weeks after the final dose of the vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracks only breakthrough cases that result in hospitalization or death, as these incidences are both serious and very rare.
COVID-19 cases are up to five times more common in unvaccinated individuals compared with the vaccinated, according to the CDC. But state-level data shows that milder breakthrough cases that do not result in hospitalization are on the rise among the fully vaccinated as virus transmission increases and vaccine efficacy decreases. And they’re expected to keep increasing.
“It’s likely that everybody will probably get infected with COVID-19 [at some point] because it’s an endemic respiratory virus. The goal is to make sure that at that time, that infection occurs after you’ve been vaccinated so it’s mild,” said Amesh Adalja, a doctor and infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
A mild breakthrough infection counts as any case of COVID-19 in a fully vaccinated person that does not require hospitalization. Fortunately, these are the vast majority of breakthrough cases, and for some, they are asymptomatic.
But for many otherwise healthy individuals, these so-called mild cases do not feel mild at all.
Fevers, muscle aches, congestion and extreme fatigue are common symptoms of a breakthrough infection, similar to a bad case of the flu. It’s not unusual for a person with a breakthrough infection to feel lingering symptoms for several weeks, but physicians say the worst ailments, such as a hacking cough or searing headaches, usually let up in two weeks or less.
Mild breakthrough cases also require sick individuals to quarantine and stay home from work or school, regardless of their symptoms. Their family members and other close contacts may also have to isolate and monitor symptoms.
The early symptoms of a COVID-19 breakthrough case can often be mistaken for a cold or allergies, leading an infected but unaware individual to potentially spread the coronavirus to others.
Levels of community spread play a key role in how common and how severe breakthrough infections are.
More
AstraZeneca invests in Imperial’s self-amplifying RNA technology with eye on future drugs
Published Thu, Sep 23 2021 3:17 AM EDT
AstraZeneca on Thursday struck a deal with the firm behind Imperial College London’s experimental Covid-19 vaccine to develop and sell drugs based on its self-amplifying RNA technology platform in other disease areas.
Under the deal, VaxEquity, a startup founded by Imperial vaccinologist Robin Shattock, could receive up to $195 million if certain milestones are met, in addition to royalties on approved drugs and equity investment from AstraZeneca and life sciences investor Morningside Ventures.
AstraZeneca already produces an adenoviral vector Covid-19 vaccine, and emphasized the potential of the self-amplifying RNA (saRNA) technology in novel therapeutic programs beyond the coronavirus pandemic.
“This collaboration with VaxEquity adds a promising new platform to our drug discovery toolbox,” said AstraZeneca research chief Mene Pangalos.
The technology works in a similar way to the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
However, a self-amplifying RNA vaccine not only encodes the instructions for the host cell to make a coronavirus protein, but makes lots of copies of the RNA containing those instructions, meaning doses can be smaller and cheaper.
“It’s a bit like having a manufacturing facility, and instead of having one copy of the recipe, you have multiple copies that you can hand round to multiple production lines within the cell to produce more protein,” Imperial’s Shattock told Reuters. “So that’s why it has that opportunity to use lower doses.”
Imperial’s Covid-19 vaccine is being retooled to produce a more consistent immune response with an eye on future coronavirus variants.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/23/astrazeneca-invests-in-imperials-self-amplifying-rna-technology.html
American Journal of Therapeutics
Am J Ther. 2021 Jul-Aug; 28(4): e434–e460.
Published online 2021 Jun 21. doi: 10.1097/MJT.0000000000001402
PMCID: PMC8248252
PMID: 34145166
Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of COVID-19 Infection: A Systematic Review, Meta-analysis, and Trial Sequential Analysis to Inform Clinical Guidelines
Andrew Bryant, MSc,1,* Theresa A. Lawrie, MBBCh, PhD,2 Therese Dowswell, PhD,2 Edmund J. Fordham, PhD,2 Scott Mitchell, MBChB, MRCS,3 Sarah R. Hill, PhD,1 and Tony C. Tham, MD, FRCP4
----- Conclusions:
Moderate-certainty evidence finds that large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin. Using ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease. The apparent safety and low cost suggest that ivermectin is likely to have a significant impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic globally.
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
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.
Electrons on the edge: The story of an intrinsic magnetic topological insulator
Intrinsic magnetic topological insulator with large band gap promising for ultra-low-energy electronics
Date: September 21, 2021
Source: ARC Centre of Excellence in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies
Summary: An intrinsic magnetic topological insulator MnBi2Te4 has been discovered with a large band gap, making it a promising material platform for fabricating ultra-low-energy electronics and observing exotic quantum phenomena.
Hosting both magnetism and topology, ultra-thin (only several nanometers in thickness) MnBi2Te4 was found to have a large band-gap in a Quantum Anomalous Hall (QAH) insulating state, where the material is metallic (ie, electrically conducting) along its one-dimensional edges, while electrically insulating in its interior. The almost zero resistance along the 1D edges of a QAH insulator, make it promising for lossless transport applications and ultra-low energy devices.
HISTORY OF QAH: HOW TO ACHIEVE THE DESIRED EFFECT
Previously, the path towards realising the QAH effect was to introduce dilute amounts of magnetic dopants into ultra-thin films of 3D topological insulators.
However, dilute magnetic doping results in a random-distribution of magnetic impurities, causing non-uniform doping and magnetisation. This greatly suppresses the temperature at which the QAH effect can be observed and limits possible future applications.
A simpler option is to use materials that host this electronic state of matter as an intrinsic property.
Recently, classes of atomically -thin crystals have emerged, similar to the famous graphene, that are intrinsic magnetic topological insulators (ie, possess both magnetism and topological protection).
These materials have the advantage of having less disorder and larger magnetic band-gaps, allowing robust magnetic topological phases operating at higher temperature (ie, closer to the ultimate aim of room-temperature operation).
---- MnBi2Te4 has potential in a number of classical computing applications, such as in lossless transport and ultra-low energy devices. Furthermore, it could be coupled with a superconductor to give rise to chiral Majorana edge states, which are important for topological quantum computing device schemes.
Another weekend and will this be the weekend that China Evergrande Group finally blows up? Stock promoters, money managers, the Fed will all be hoping and praying for a miracle and that China Nevergrande stumbles along past the all important (for bonuses) end of the month and quarter. Have a great weekend everyone.
Black Friday (1869)
The Black Friday gold panic of September 24, 1869 was caused by a conspiracy between two investors, Jay Gould and his partner James Fisk, and Abel Corbin, a small time speculator who had married Virginia (Jennie) Grant, the younger sister of President Grant. They formed the Gold Ring to corner the gold market and force up the price of that metal on the New York Gold Exchange.
---- During the first week of September, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury George S. Boutwell received a letter from Grant telling him gold sales would be harmful to Western farmers, a notion planted by Gould and Fisk. Boutwell suspended Treasury gold sales. At the same time, Gould and Fisk began buying gold through New York City's Gold Room, raising the price of gold. After learning about the nature of their scheme, Grant first told Corbin to unload his gold holdings before ordering the release of $4 million in government gold on September 24. Grant's move immediately drove down the price of gold, crushing the Gold Ring's corner on the market. A panic on Wall Street ensued and the country went through months of economic turmoil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(1869)
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