October
22, 2021
11:08 PM By Lewis
Krauskopf
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors are homing in on a
flood of earnings reports from Wall Street’s tech and Internet giants, as the
high-growth stocks that have led markets higher for years face pressures from
regulation, supply-chain snags and rising Treasury yields.
Apple Inc,
Microsoft Corp, Google parent Alphabet Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Facebook Inc are
all set to report earnings next week. Collectively, those five names account
for over 22% of the weighting in the S&P 500, giving their stock moves
enormous sway over the broader index.
Overall,
companies representing 46% of the S&P 500’s market value are due to post
quarterly results next week, according to Goldman Sachs.
Strong
earnings reports have helped lift the S&P 500 to fresh record highs, with
the benchmark index rising 5.5% so far in October. In September, the index
posted its biggest monthly percentage drop since the pandemic began in March 2020.
While
investors expect most of the big technology firms to show robust profits, many
will also be listening for indications of whether they will be able to sustain
that growth. Also in focus will be any forecasts regarding supply bottlenecks,
such as the chip shortage that has affected a broad swath of global industries,
as well as their views on how sustainable the recent surge in consumer prices
will be.
There
have already been some signs that tech companies may have a high bar to clear.
Intel and IBM fell sharply after their reports disappointed this week.
----
The market’s gains this month have been led by sectors seen as particularly
sensitive to swings in the economy, including energy and financials, which have
gained 11% and 8%, respectively. The S&P 500 technology sector is up 6%
month-to-date.
---- The prospect of U.S. government
regulatory intervention, also hangs over these behemoth companies, so investors
will be keen for any insight.
This week,
the U.S. consumer watchdog said it has demanded information from a number of
tech giants on how they gather and use consumer payment data.
A sustained
rise in Treasury yields, which move inversely to bond prices, may also pose a
longer-term threat to technology and other growth shares.
More
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-stocks-weekahead/wall-st-week-ahead-tech-giants-earnings-may-be-another-test-for-markets-at-new-highs-idUSKBN2HC2DP
Finally,
China fires back at President Biden’s Taiwan declaration. As the Indo-Pacific
heats up, President Biden’s spokeswoman tries to put the toothpaste back in
the tube. Why does the summer of 1914
keep coming to mind?
China vows no
concessions on Taiwan after Biden comments October 22, 2021
BEIJING (AP) — China on Friday said there is
“no room” for compromise or concessions over the issue of Taiwan, following a
comment by U.S. President Joe Biden that the U.S. is committed to defending the
island if it is attacked.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin
reasserted China’s longstanding claim that the island is its territory at a
daily briefing after Biden made his comment a day before at a forum hosted by
CNN.
China has recently upped its threat to bring
Taiwan under its control by force if necessary by flying warplanes near the
island and rehearsing beach landings.
“When it comes to issues related to China’s
sovereignty and territorial integrity and other core interests, there is no
room for China to compromise or make concessions, and no one should
underestimate the strong determination, firm will and strong ability of the
Chinese people to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Wang
said.
“Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s
territory. The Taiwan issue is purely an internal affair of China that allows
no foreign intervention,” Wang said.
Biden’s comments on Thursday were viewed as
stretching the “strategic ambiguity” Washington has maintained over how it
would respond to an assault on the self-governing island republic.
The U.S. should “be cautious with its words and
actions on the Taiwan issue, and not send any wrong signals to the separatist
forces of Taiwan independence, so as not to seriously damage China-U.S.
relations and peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Wang said.
More
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-china-beijing-taiwan-f4fdeb6e15097d55f5d4c06b5f8c9c29
NKorea slams
US for supporting Taiwan in nod to ally China By KIM
TONG-HYUNG October 22, 2021
SEOUL, South
Korea (AP) — North Korea on Saturday accused the Biden administration of
raising military tensions with China through its “reckless” backing of Taiwan,
and said that the growing U.S. military presence in the region constitutes a
potential threat to the North.
In comments
carried by state media, North Korea Vice Foreign Minister Pak Myong Ho
criticized the United States for sending warships through the Taiwan Strait and
providing Taiwan with upgraded weapons systems and military training.
The United
States’ “indiscreet meddling” in issues regarding Taiwan, which the North sees
as entirely a Chinese internal affair, threatens to touch off a “delicate
situation on the Korean Peninsula.”
Pak’s statement
came a day after President Joe Biden told a CNN townhall event that the United
States was committed to coming to Taiwan’s defense if it comes under attack
from China. While that seemed to blur Washington’s long-held stance of
maintaining “strategic ambiguity” on whether it would intervene if China were
to attack Taiwan, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Biden had no intent to
convey a change in policy.
China and
Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and although it maintains formal
diplomatic relations only with Beijing, the U.S. remains committed by law to
ensure Taiwan can defend itself from outside threats.
North Korea
has increasingly criticized the United States’ broader security role in the
Asia Pacific amid an intensifying competition with China, Pyongyang’s major
ally and economic lifeline. Last month, the North threatened unspecified
countermeasures following the Biden administration’s decision to provide nuclear-powered
submarines to Australia.
“It is a
well-known fact that the U.S. troops and its military bases in (South Korea)
are in use to put pressure on China and that the huge forces of the U.S. and
its satellite states, which are being concentrated near Taiwan, can be
committed to a military operation targeting the DPRK at any time,” Pak said,
using an abbreviation of the North’s formal name, the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea.
He said the
increasing military presence of U.S.-led “hostile forces” in the region was
based on a “lame assertion” that North Korea and China would cause trouble in
Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula.
“This
reality proves that the U.S. is in its bid to stifle our country and China,
both socialist countries, in order to hold on to its supremacy,” Pak said.
More
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-united-states-china-south-korea-taiwan-f35373987bfe3c46000a76d435929e93
The U.S. and China Face Off in the Far East
Chinese warplanes over the Taiwan Strait,
nuclear-powered submarines for Australia, hypersonic rockets in North Korea:
Military posturing has turned the Far East into a dangerous place.
By Georg Fahrion , Katharina Graça Peters , Alexander Sarovic und Bernhard Zand
15.10.2021,
19.24 Uhr
---- Indo-Pacific is a geo-strategic term.
It defines a region that is home to more than half of humanity, that is
extremely dynamic economically and through which a huge share of global trade
is shipped. At the same time, it is a place where the interests of the two
superpowers, China and the U.S., collide, along with the competing territorial
claims of important regional powers and several unresolved conflicts.
No single
country, no military alliance has ever exerted complete control over this
entire region. The closest anyone has ever come was the Japanese Empire in
World War II. But after defeating Japan in 1945, the U.S. was able to establish
itself as the top power in the region, with lasting consequences: As part of
Pax Americana, former war adversaries became allies, dictatorships transformed
into democracies and once poverty-stricken nations have grown prosperous – from
Japan and South Korea to Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. Even Vietnam has
friendly relations with the U.S. these days.
Washington
would like to maintain this postwar state of affairs and its own role as a Pacific
power. Currently, America’s approach to the region is primarily a military one,
with naval patrols and an expanded troop presence. But the U.S. is also looking
to strengthen political alliances, economic partnerships and technical
cooperation.
Beijing, meanwhile, is seeking to change
the status quo and keep America at arm’s length. On the economic front, China
has already found some success, having become the most important trading
partner for almost all its neighbors. But for at least the last 10 years,
Beijing has also been expanding its military influence, by upgrading its navy
and air force and transforming islands in the South China Sea – which are also
claimed by other countries – into heavily armed outposts.
China’s pressure has encountered resistance.
In mid-September, Australia, Britain and the U.S. established a new military
alliance called AUKUS. As part of the deal, Washington and London will supply
Canberra with nuclear-powered submarines, marking a meaningful shift in the
strategic balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region.
But the AUKUS alliance – which resulted in
the cancellation of a conventional submarine deal between France and Australia
and raised disapproving eyebrows in Europe – is just one of many military
projects in the region. Almost all countries that play a strategic role in the
Indo-Pacific are investing in their militaries, including North and South
Korea, India and Taiwan in addition to China and the U.S. And it is hard to
foresee where the development might lead. It could result in the kind of Cold
War balance of mutually assured destruction seen in postwar Europe. But the
arms race in the Indo-Pacific could also drive this economically dynamic and
politically fragile region of the world into a military confrontation.
More
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/indo-pacific-arms-race-the-u-s-and-china-face-off-in-the-far-east-a-6032d1c3-2fb5-4896-a9e4-15c89ea16825?sara_ecid=nl_upd_1jtzCCtmxpVo9GAZr2b4X8GquyeAc9&nlid=bfjpqhxz
“ We're telling lies; we know
we're telling lies; we don't tell the public the truth, that we're losing more
officers than the Germans, and that it's impossible to get through on the
Western Front. Lord Rothermere, 1917, owner of the Daily Mail.
Global Inflation
Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central
banksters and our spendthrift politicians,
inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Biden Could
Use National Guard to Help With Supply Chain Bottlenecks
President says he will consider such a deployment if
logistics problems persist
Updated Oct. 21, 2021 9:30 pm ET
WASHINGTON—President Biden said he would consider deploying
the National Guard to assist with supply-chain bottlenecks that have led to
shortages and higher consumer costs, if his administration is unable to ease
the problem.
“The answer is yes, if we can’t move—increase the number of
truckers, which we’re in the process of doing,” Mr. Biden said during a CNN
town hall on Thursday when asked about deploying the National Guard.
The White House had played down the possibility of using
the National Guard, saying deployment at the state level is up to governors and
that the administration wasn’t actively pursuing such use on the federal level.
Republicans have increasingly criticized Mr. Biden over the
supply chain bottlenecks, raising concerns that Christmas gifts will be delayed
and asserting that the president isn’t doing enough.
The U.S. supply chain has struggled to adapt to a crush of
imports, as consumers shifted from services to home goods, including
electronics, and as businesses rush to restock pandemic-depleted inventories.
Hundreds of thousands of containers got stuck at the Los Angeles and Long Beach
ports, the West Coast gateways that move more than a quarter of all U.S.
imports. Waiting times stretched to three weeks. Shortages of truck drivers and
warehouse workers have also posed problems across supply chains.
More
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-could-use-national-guard-to-assist-with-supply-chain-bottlenecks-11634865002
Whirlpool CEO
says he’s ‘starting to get worried’ the U.S. labor shortage may become
structural Published Thu, Oct 21 2021 7:07 PM EDT
The CEO of American appliance maker Whirlpool told
CNBC’s Jim Cramer on
Thursday he’s “starting to get worried” the U.S. labor market could face
structural challenges in the years ahead, even after various pandemic-related
hurdles have been cleared.
In an interview on “Mad
Money,” Cramer asked Whirlpool CEO Marc Bitzer whether he was concerned
about the country’s declining birthrate, which fell
for a sixth straight year in 2020, and its long-term implications for the
world’s largest economy.
“Demographics drive consumption, but frankly also
employment. ... We’re producing 80% of what we sell in the U.S. in the U.S., so
have more than 20,000 employees in the U.S.,” Bitzer said. “I’m starting to get
worried that the labor shortage start becoming structural, so yes, demographics
are a little bit of a worry down the road.”
There are currently millions of jobs open
in the U.S., but many
employers have said filling them has proved
to be harder than expected even as a broader range of economic activity picks
up from Covid-linked slowdowns.
---- Bitzer’s comments hit on a more fundamental,
overarching challenge the American economy may face in the years ahead, and he’s
not the first executive to discuss it with Cramer.
Last week on “Mad Money,” Domino’s Pizza CEO
Ritch Allison raised concerns about “minimal
population growth organically” in the U.S. combined with a slowdown in
immigration. Cramer later described his conversation with Allison as “shocking”
and “sobering,” suggesting the issues were not getting enough attention.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/21/whirlpool-ceo-says-hes-starting-to-get-worried-the-us-labor-shortage-may-become-structural.html
Below, why a “green energy” economy may
not be possible anyway, and if it is, it won’t be quick and it will be very
inflationary, setting off a new long-term commodity Supercycle. Probably the largest
seen so far.
The “New Energy Economy”: An Exercise
in Magical Thinking
https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/R-0319-MM.pdf
Mines, Minerals, and
"Green" Energy: A Reality Check
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/mines-minerals-and-green-energy-reality-check
"An Environmental
Disaster": An EV Battery Metals Crunch Is On The Horizon As The Industry
Races To Recycle
by Tyler Durden Monday, Aug 02, 2021 -
08:40 PM
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/environmental-disaster-ev-battery-metals-crunch-horizon-industry-races-recycle
Covid-19 Corner
This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Finally
the truth comes out.
Rand Paul
blasts Anthony Fauci after NIH admits gain-of-function funding The NIH in Bethesda, Md. is now admitting to funding
gain-of-function research October 21, 2021
Despite repeated denials by NIAID Director Anthony
Fauci that his agency used American taxpayer money to fund Chinese gain of
function research on bats infected with coronaviruses, the National Institutes
of Health – which oversees NIAID – admitted in a letter to House Oversight
Committee ranking member James Comer, R-Ky., that a "limited experiment" was indeed conducted .
More
https://www.foxnews.com/media/rand-paul-anthony-fauci-nih-gain-function-funding
What is the
‘delta plus’ variant of the coronavirus? By
MARIA CHENG October 21, 2021
What is the “delta plus” variant?
It’s a relative of the delta variant,
identified by British scientists last month.
Because it isn’t a variant of interest or concern,
it has not yet been officially named after a letter of the Greek alphabet, like
the other worrisome variants.
Scientists are monitoring the delta-related
variant — known as AY.4.2. — to see if it might spread more easily or be more
deadly than previous versions of the coronavirus. In a recent report, U.K.
officials said this variant makes up 6% of all analyzed COVID-19 cases in the
country and is “on an increasing trajectory.”
The variant has two mutations in the spike
protein, which helps the coronavirus invade the body’s cells. These changes
have also been seen in other versions of the virus since the pandemic started,
but haven’t gone very far, Francois Balloux, director of the Genetics Institute
at University College London.
The delta variant remains “by far the most
dominant variant in terms of global circulation” said Maria Van Kerkhove, the
World Health Organization’s technical lead on COVID-19, at a public session
this week.
“Delta is dominant, but delta is evolving,” she
said, adding that the more the virus circulates, the greater chances it has to
mutate.
The U.N. health agency is currently tracking 20
variations of the delta variant. The AY.4.2 is “one to watch because we have to
continuously keep an eye on how this virus is changing,” said Van Kerkhove.
In the U.S., the delta variant accounts for
nearly all COVID-19 cases. The newer “delta plus” variant has been spotted “on
occasion,” but it’s not yet a concern, health officials said.
https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-lifestyle-europe-health-9649a55a56b6dc90499c28c3813d762a
Merck COVID
Pill (Molnupiravir): A New Treatment Option? (Coronavirus Update 130) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI0xGfITaas
Approx. 14 minutes.
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
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
https://rt.live/
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.
Perfect
pressure boosts high-density lithium metal battery performance By Nick
Lavars
October 18, 2021
Lithium
metal batteries are one of the more promising alternatives to the lithium-ion
architecture commonly used today, with the potential to hold many times the
energy. Material scientists have taken a step toward this future, demonstrating
how applying a very specific amount of pressure to a lithium-metal battery
during cycling can prevent the formation of tentacle-like growths that would
otherwise bring them undone.
The
reason lithium-metal batteries hold so much promise is because they seek to use
pure lithium metal as the anode material, which can hold as much as 10 times
the energy of the graphite used today. The problem holding the technology back,
however, is that as the battery is cycled and the lithium ions interact with
the anode, they form growths called dendrites on the surface. These protrusions
then lead to electric shorts and fires, and swiftly cause the battery to fail.
As such, much research in this area centers on preventing
dendrite growth. Some promising advances include self-forming
layers that protect the anode, building ultra-thin
lithium metal anodes with smoother surfaces, or introducing more stable, solid
electrolytes rather than liquid ones to carry the charge between the anode
and other electrode, the cathode.
Previous research has also shown that subjecting a lithium-metal
battery to pressure during cycling could also hamper dendrite growth, making
for neater deposits of lithium particles and improving the stability and
lifespan of the device. Scientists at the University of California, San Diego
set out to explore this phenomenon, and try to determine what level of pressure
could bring about the best outcome.
Their
study involved observing the morphology of lithium-metal batteries as they were
subjected to different pressures during operation. At lower pressures, the
deposited lithium took on a porous and disorderly nature, leaving plenty of
room for the dendrites to grow. At a higher pressure of 350 kilo Pascal (around
3.5 atmospheres), however, the lithium was deposited into neat columns without
any pores in between, leaving little space for dendrite formation.
More
https://newatlas.com/energy/lithium-battery-performance-pressure-ucsd/?utm_source=New+Atlas+Subscribers&utm_campaign=664193004f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_10_19_08_07&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-664193004f-90625829
Winter Watch.
This weekend we
start our new winter watch section. Northern hemisphere snow and the Arctic ice
cover.
U.S. and
Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover https://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/nh_snowcover/
This weekend’s
musical diversion. Approx. 9 minutes.
Mozart - Horn Concerto No. 1 in D, K. 412 [complete] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g4SlqjORM4&list=PL153C13B54BB2098C
This weekend’s science
update. Approx. 12 minutes.
The janitor who changed the world of science https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhgQxCVlaYQ
This weekend’s maths update. Approx. 15 minutes.
Do you understand this viral very good math movie clip?
(Nathan solves math problem X+Y) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04x4ZdLpN-0
When a business or an individual spends
more than it makes, it goes bankrupt. When a government does it, it sends you
the bill. And when government does it for 40 years, the bill comes in two ways:
higher taxes and inflation. Make no mistake about it, inflation is a tax and
not by accident.
Ronald
Reagan.
Not if you’re a
bankster. The Central Bank now bails you out and lets you keep any bonuses due
from the bailed out bank.
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