Baltic Dry Index. 2805 +87 Brent Crude 85.04
Spot Gold 1825
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 10/11/21 World 251,563,488
Deaths 5,079,924
In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.
Sun Tzu.
So far this week, it’s been a bad news week. Will today add more pressure to our bad news week?
Well it might, depending on whether China Evergrande makes it bond payment later today or defaults, plus just how bad the US consumer price index figures turn out to be.
It doesn’t help that the price of crude oil is rising again, nor the supply chain disruption looks likely to be with us all next year.
When exactly does “temporary” and “transitory” end in the dictionary used by global central banksters?
Up first, our stalled out stock casinos, waiting desperately for something good to turn up.
Stocks stalled as oil fuels inflation nerves
November 10, 2021 5:32 AM GMT
SYDNEY, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Asian stockmarkets were tugged lower by fresh concern about the solvency of China's property developers on Wednesday, while a surging oil price added to worries that a hot U.S. inflation reading could renew pressure on policymakers to lift rates.
Brent and U.S. crude futures extended gains into a fourth session, hitting two-week highs around $85 a barrel. Another warning came from Chinese factory gate prices, which are gaining at their fastest clip in a quarter century. read more
S&P 500 futures fell 0.4%. FTSE futures and European futures each lost 0.2%. At 1330 GMT, U.S. inflation figures are expected to show consumer prices galloping ahead at 5.8% year-on-year, the fastest pace in a generation.
Even dovish Federal Reserve officials have conceded it is running hotter for longer than they thought. read more
"These inflation numbers are unlikely to make anyone feel comfortable," said ING economist Rob Carnell. "Inflation higher for longer than expected is becoming the market's considered opinion right now, and its likely we get reinforcement of that."
Ahead of the data U.S. equities snapped a long winning streak with modest falls on Tuesday and on Wednesday MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) dropped 0.6%. Japan's Nikkei (.N225) fell 0.5%.
Longer-dated Treasuries have rallied in recent sessions, flattening the yield curve as investors wager on hikes in the next year or so squashing growth in the years beyond.
Treasuries dipped a bit in Asia hours, lifting the benchmark 10-year yield about 2 basis points to 1.4626% after it had touched a six-week low of 1.4150% on Tuesday.
More
https://www.reuters.com/business/global-markets-wrapup-2-2021-11-10/
European markets head for lower open ahead of next U.S. inflation reading
LONDON — European stocks are expected to open lower on Wednesday as market participants wait for the next key reading of U.S. inflation data.
The U.K.’s FTSE index is seen opening 15 points lower at 7,257, Germany’s DAX lower by 40 points at 15,994, France’s CAC 40 lower by 13 points at 7,026 and Italy’s FTSE MIB 38 points lower at 27,238, according to data from IG.
Investors are awaiting the release of the latest U.S. consumer price index, a key inflation reading, on Wednesday. The consumer price index is also expected to show a 0.6% jump compared to the prior month, or a year-over-year gain of nearly 6%, which would be the most in 30 years.
Economists expect core CPI, which excludes food and energy and is the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, to have risen 0.4%, or 4.3% year-over-year.
The U.S. October producer price index came in as expected Tuesday, with PPI rising 0.6% month-on-month, in line with estimates. Wholesale prices jumped 8.6% in October from a year ago, however, the hottest annual pace on record in almost 11 years.
U.S. equity futures were lower on Tuesday night while major Asia-Pacific markets fell Wednesday, as investors reacted to the release of Chinese inflation data for October; the consumer price index for October rose 1.5% from last year, against expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.4% increase. Producer prices, however, rose more than expected.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/10/european-markets-look-to-next-us-inflation-reading.html
In China Evergrande news, it’s yet another make or break day!
Investors await Evergrande's overdue $148 mln payment as debt woes grow
November 10, 2021 2:41 AM GMT
Nov 10 (Reuters) - Concerns mounted about a deepening liquidity crisis in the Chinese property sector on Wednesday ahead of a deadline for cash-strapped China Evergrande Group (3333.HK) to make an offshore bond coupon payment.
Evergrande, the world's most indebted developer, has been stumbling from deadline to deadline in recent weeks as it grapples with more than $300 billion in liabilities, $19 billion of which are international market bonds.
The company has not defaulted on any of its offshore debt obligations, but another overdue $148 million bond payment must be made on Wednesday and it has coupon payments totalling more than $255 million on its June 2023 and 2025 bonds on Dec. 28.
Beijing has been prodding government-owned firms and state-backed property developers to purchase some of Evergrande's assets to try to control the fall.
Despite the stifling debt woes of Evergrande, its electric vehicles (EV) unit is pushing ahead with its business plan. The unit is seeking Chinese regulatory approval to sell its inaugural Hengchi 5 sport-utility vehicles.
China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group Ltd (0708.HK) plans to sell HK$500 million ($64 million) worth of shares to fund production of new energy cars.
The unit plans to sell 174.83 million new shares, or 1.76% of the enlarged share capital, at HK$2.86 per share in a top-up placement, it said in a filing to the Hong Kong bourse.
Shares in Evergrande were little changed from previous close on Wednesday morning, while the EV unit was up 1.4%.
Worries over the potential fallout from Evergrande roiled China’s property sector on Tuesday, slamming the bonds of real estate companies amid worries that the crisis could spread to other markets.
The slide in bond prices came just hours after the U.S. Federal Reserve warned China's troubled property sector could pose global risks.
More
Finally, it doesn’t look like supply chain shipping chaos is about to end any time soon. If anything, it looks more likely to get even worse. Buy now for 2022 and 2023?
Shipping company warns it's having trouble finding crew to run freighters, threatening further delays
Mon, November 8, 2021, 4:13 PM
· Wah Kwong Maritime Transport said its application rates are flagging for the first time in decades.
· At the onset of the pandemic, over 200,000 seafarers were stranded at sea.
· Backlogged ports and COVID-19 restrictions threaten morale for crews that transport 90% of all goods.
COVID-19 has taken a toll on shipping crews across the world - and a Hong Kong-based maritime company warns it could cause a lack of seafarers.
Wah Kwong Maritime Transport, a privately owned shipping company, told Bloomberg crew retention and wage inflation have made it difficult to staff ships. William Fairclough, managing director at Wah Kwong, told the publication that applications to work on their freighters are dwindling for the first time in their nearly 70-year history.
"For certain types of ships, it may become very difficult to actually find the crew and you may get delays because of that," Fairclough said.
Maritime has long been an attractive industry, especially for workers from poorer countries, where seafaring represents an opportunity to make up to 10 times the average income in countries like the Philippines. But, the pandemic might have changed the industry for the worse.
Fairclough said wages have risen alongside risks of seafaring since the pandemic started, as sailors wait outside backlogged ports and travel to countries with higher coronavirus infection rates.
US merchant marine Bryan Boyle told Insider that his job became increasingly more difficult at the onset of the pandemic as crew were not allowed to get off the ship when it was docked and spent months isolated at sea.
----Over the past two years, COVID-19 has created a "humanitarian crisis" for crews working to deliver 90% of the world's goods. Early on, the pandemic left captains unable to rotate weary crews and stranded over 200,000 seafarers at sea.
Boyle told Insider that many crew members turned to online shopping during the pandemic - the internet and the packages that they would receive at their next stop their only connection to the outside world. Last month, Bloomberg reported that container-ship captains were becoming increasingly concerned about maintaining crew morale as mariners wait weeks on end outside ports.
More
https://www.yahoo.com/news/shipping-company-warns-having-trouble-161339045.html
Chaos, when left alone, tends to multiply.
Stephen Hawking.
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
China's factory inflation hits 26-year high as power crunch bites
November 10, 2021 3:42 AM GMT
BEIJING, Nov 10 (Reuters) - China's factory gate inflation hit a 26-year high in October as coal prices soared amid a power crunch in the country's industrial heartland, further squeezing profit margins for producers and heightening stagflation concerns.
The producer price index (PPI) climbed 13.5% from a year earlier, faster than the 10.7% rise in September, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement.
It matched a pace not seen since July 1995 and was faster than the 12.4% forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll.
Consumer price rises also quickened, although at a slower pace than factory gate prices. The consumer price index (CPI) rose 1.5% in October year-on-year, compared with September's 0.7% rise.
The mounting price pressures complicate deliberations for the People's Bank of China, which may now be wary of injecting monetary stimulus too quickly amid concerns about fanning inflation, even as growth in the world's second-largest economy slows.
More
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-factory-gate-inflation-hits-26-year-high-2021-11-10/
China’s zero-Covid strategy will cause its economy to slow down further, economist warns
Published Mon, Nov 8 2021 10:34 PM EST
China’s economic slowdown will worsen as the Asian giant forges on with its zero-Covid strategy, an economist warned on Monday.
“If China continues to stick to its zero-Covid strategy, I think domestic demand will be under pressure,” said Hao Zhou, senior emerging markets economist at Commerzbank.
“But in the meantime, we know that there’s no sign that China will loosen or relax this kind of policy any time soon. So, in the next couple of quarters, I think basically the economic activity will continue to slow down in China,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Monday.
Many countries in Asia initially took an aggressive approach and tried to eliminate Covid within their borders. But they have gradually abandoned that strategy as the highly infectious delta variant spreads and lockdowns become less effective in controlling the virus.
The zero-Covid strategy typically involves strict lockdowns — even after the detection of just one or a handful of cases — extensive testing, heavily controlled or closed borders, as well as robust contact tracing systems and quarantine mandates.
Unlike some of its neighbors, China has persisted with this approach. On the night of Halloween, Shanghai Disneyland visitors had to take Covid tests in order to exit. That requirement came after authorities learned close contacts of a coronavirus case had visited the park the week before.
China’s slowdown amid real estate, energy crisis
China’s economic growth has slowed as a major energy crisis hits production, dragging down industrial activity.
At the same time, real estate giant Evergrande and its debt burden remain in the spotlight as the government tries to deleverage the sector. Fears have since spread to other Chinese developers, some of which have delayed payments or defaulted. Real estate and related industries account for about a quarter of China’s GDP, according to Moody’s estimates.
The economy only grew 4.9% in the third quarter, missing expectations for a 5.2% expansion, according to a Reuters poll of analysts. That’s a sharp drop from a 7.9% expansion in the second quarter.
Ten major banks tracked by CNBC have trimmed their full-year forecasts for China’s GDP.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/09/analysts-on-chinas-zero-covid-strategy-and-economic-slowdown.html
China’s property market debt could weigh on the country for years, economist George Magnus warns
Published Tue, Nov 9 2021 2:12 AM EST
The debt problems facing China’s property sector are likely to cause a period of stagnation which affects both the domestic and global economy, according to George Magnus, economist and research associate at the China Centre at Oxford University.
Hong Kong-listed shares of Chinese real estate developer Kaisa Group Holdings were halted on Friday after news that it had missed a payment on a wealth management product. This came on the back of the protracted saga involving debt-ridden developer China Evergrande Group.
Of the challenges facing the world’s second-largest economy in the coming years, Magnus argued that debt — relating to the property sector in particular — could be the most problematic.
“I think it is the debt that really is the most imminent, and I think we can see this in the property sector, which is sort of a metaphor for what’s going on in the rest of the economy amongst local governments, state enterprises and so on,” Magnus told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe.”
“I think the property market really has reached a tipping point now.”
Magnus suggested that after at least two decades of expansion in the Chinese real estate market, due to the government’s willingness to step in to boost the market when it began to look perilous, Beijing may no longer be willing or able to do the same this time around.
The Chinese embassy in London was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
“Now, it is going pear-shaped again and I think the government really doesn’t want to rely on pressing on the credit accelerator again, because of the risk of egregious financial instability that might result,” he said.
More
Chinese developer Kaisa pleads for help as Fed warns of risks
November 9, 2021 10:27 AM GMT
SHANGHAI/BEIJING, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Kaisa Group Holdings (1638.HK) needs help to pay investors, workers and suppliers, the developer told a meeting of a Chinese government think-tank, banks and property firms, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
China's real estate sector has been hit by a liquidity squeeze, exacerbated by the troubles of China Evergrande Group (3333.HK). That has resulted in offshore defaults, credit rating downgrades and sell-offs in some developers' shares and bonds.
The U.S. Federal Reserve said on Monday stresses in China's real estate sector, caused in part by a regulatory focus on debt-laden firms, as well as a sharp tightening of global financial conditions could pose some risks to the U.S. financial system.
"Given the size of China's economy and financial system... financial stresses in China could strain global financial markets through a deterioration of risk sentiment, pose risks to global economic growth, and affect the United States," it said in its latest report on financial stability.
Underscoring the liquidity crunch, Fitch downgraded Kaisa deeper into default category on Tuesday, citing a deteriorating liquidity situation, undisclosed debt from wealth-management products, and limited progress on asset disposals.
The developer said it was trying to solve its liquidity problems, was consulting investors in wealth management products about better payment solutions, and pleaded for more breathing space.
More
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Morgues, hospitals struggle with COVID-19 deaths in Romania
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — The morgue in Romania’s main hospital has no space for the dead any more. In a stark illustration of the human cost of the coronavirus surge sweeping the nation, bodies of COVID-19 victims, wrapped in black plastic bags, line a hallway of the hospital in the capital, Bucharest.
Hundreds of people have been dying each day for the past two months in Romania which has been among the hardest-hit in the current virus onslaught raging through Central and Eastern European nations, where far fewer people have been vaccinated than in Western Europe.
A country of 19 million people, Romania currently has among the highest death rates in Europe. Last month the World Health Organization sent a team to help with the nation’s pandemic response.
Frustrated and overworked, Romania’s doctors have been struggling to cope.
“A village vanishes daily in Romania!” gasped Dr. Catalin Cirstoiu, the head of the Bucharest University Emergency Hospital. “What about in a week or a month? A larger village? Or a city? Where do we stop?”
Experts have blamed the soaring deaths on the low vaccination rate in Romania where about 40% of the population has been fully vaccinated — far lower than the European Union’s average of 75%.
The low rates here and elsewhere in the region are believed to be the result of a general mistrust in the authorities and institutions, education gaps and deeply-rooted anti-vaccination movements, that even include some top doctors.
“We are exhausted financially ... physically and psychologically,” lamented Cirstoiu “All of these are caused by one thing at the end of the day: the population’s inability to comprehend that they need to get vaccinated.”
He insisted that “had 70% of the population been vaccinated, we wouldn’t have had a fourth wave.”
French health authority advises against Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for under 30s
Tue, November 9, 2021, 9:27 AM
PARIS (Reuters) -France's public health authority has recommended people under 30 be given Pfizer's Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine when available instead of Moderna Inc's Spikevax jab, which carried comparatively higher risks of heart-related problems.
The Haute Autorite de Sante (HAS), which does not have legal power to ban or licence drugs but acts as an advisor to the French health sector, cited "very rare" risks linked to Myocarditis, a heart disease, that had shown up in recent data on the Moderna vaccine and in a French study published on Monday.
"Within the population aged under 30, this risk appears to be around five times lesser with Pfizer's Comirnaty jab compared to Moderna's Spikevax jab," HAS said in its opinion published on Monday.
The decision in Paris came after regulators in several other countries, including Canada, Finland and Sweden, had also taken a more defensive stance on Spikevax over heart-related safety concerns affecting younger people.
The European Union's drug regulator EMA last month approved Moderna's booster vaccine for all age groups over 18, at least six months after the second dose.
The EMA earlier this year said that it had found a possible link between the very rare inflammatory heart condition and COVID-19 vaccines from both Pfizer's and Moderna's vaccines.
More
https://www.yahoo.com/news/french-health-authority-advises-against-092736168.html
TGA requests information from Pfizer after medical journal alleges contractor ‘falsified’ safety data
An investigation by a respected medical journal has alleged serious issues with Pfizer’s vaccine safety trials, including claims of “falsified data”.
November 10, 2021 - 9:06AM
Australia’s medicines regulator has sought additional information from Pfizer after an investigation by the British Medical Journal alleged serious issues with a small number of its vaccine safety trials, including claims of “falsified data” and slowness following up on adverse reactions.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has stressed that Pfizer’s vaccine is “highly safe and effective”, and that Australians “should not be concerned about the issues raised in the article”.
The BMJ’s report, published last week, centred on a former employee of Ventavia Research Group, a Texas-based contractor involved in the phase-three trials for Pfizer’s Covid vaccine last year.
According to Brook Jackson, a former regional director at Ventavia, the company “falsified data, unblinded patients, employed inadequately trained vaccinators, and was slow to follow up on adverse events”, the BMJ reported.
The whistleblower, who provided the BMJ with “dozens of internal company documents, photos, audio recordings and emails”, recounted that she repeatedly notified the company of the problems before finally emailing a complaint to the US Food and Drug Administration on September 25, 2020.
She was sacked the same day, with the company saying in her separation letter she was “not a good fit”.
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.
Helion raises billions promising net electricity from fusion by 2024
Loz Blain November 08, 2021
Washington startup Helion Energy says its seventh-gen Polaris prototype will be the world's first fusion generator to demonstrate net electricity production, as early as 2024, and it's roped in a record-breaking funding round to get it built and running.
The Series E funding round was led by long-term investor Sam Altman, former president of Y Combinator and current CEO of OpenAI, who has now taken on an executive chairman role at Helion. Others involved include PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, through his Mithril Capital company, former eBay president Jeff Skoll, through his Capricorn Investment Group, and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz.
The raise brings in a record US$500 million now, with an "opportunity for an additional US$1.7 billion dollars tied to Helion reaching key performance milestones." The money will be used to complete the Polaris facility currently under construction in Everett, Washington.
Polaris will expand on the impressive achievements of Helion's sixth-gen "Trenta" prototype, built in 2020, which has completed more than 10,000 high-power pulses, and has run "nearly every day" for more than 16 months. Earlier this year, Trenta managed to demonstrate a temperature over 100 million degrees Celsius, which is significant, since it's around the point at which there's enough thermal energy to create large amounts of fusion.
That was one of Helion's milestone achievements; it's also managed to sustain plasmas for longer than 1 millisecond, and achieved magnetic fields greater than 10 Tesla with which to compress plasmas during the fusion process.
Where many fusion projects aim to develop heat to create steam and drive turbines, Helion has demonstrated an electromagnetic approach it says is much more efficient. As deuterium and helium-3 ions in a high-beta plasma smash together and fuse, energy is released and the plasma expands. This expansion, says Helion, causes changes in the plasma's magnetic flux, which "push back on the magnetic field" generated by the magnets around the chamber, and this field interaction directly induces an electrical current which can be captured at high efficiency.
What's more, the company says it can recover "energy leftover from the input as well as new fusion reactions." Helion says it's "demonstrated energy recovery with 95 percent efficiency" and "demonstrated that its magnets run at 95 percent energy efficiency," all of which should help the overall equation.
Where Trenta is capable of running fusion pulses once every 10 minutes, the Polaris prototype will vastly increase this rate to around a pulse per second. The company expects it to generate "a small amount of net electricity as a byproduct of its fusion reactions" by 2024, which would make it the first fusion reactor in history to do so.
Strangely enough though, net electricity generation isn't actually the main goal of the Polaris prototype. The electricity will merely be a welcome byproduct of the system's main goal: producing helium-3 fuel by smashing deuterium atoms together. Helium-3 is viewed as an excellent fuel source – 15-20 tonnes of it per year might power every household in the United States – but it's difficult enough to produce that several entities have proposed the idea of capturing it from the Moon, where it's abundant, and bringing it back to Earth.
The eventual vision here, of course, is virtually limitless clean energy – humanity's dream weapon against climate change and virtually a license to print money if it comes to fruition.
More
Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.
Richard M. Nixon.
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