“Ding, ding ding,
seconds out.” It is regular day one proper
at the Glasgow COP26 Fantasia Jamboree in rainy and windy Scotland, but will it
live up to All Saints Day? Will the strutting, preening, vanity signalling big
egos, manage for at least one day to act like adults?
With the COP26 lunacy,
fawningly covered in mainstream media the LIR will continue to try to present
the harsh reality behind all extreme left nonsense on display in Glasgow for
the next two weeks.
But first as usual,
our update on the Asian stock casinos and whet we can expect in the casinos
later in the week.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 surges 2%;
investors react to mixed Chinese factory activity data for October
SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific were mixed in Monday
trade as investors reacted to economic data that showed a mixed picture of
Chinese manufacturing activity in October.
China’s official manufacturing
Purchasing Managers’ Index for October came in at 49.2 over the weekend, below
the 50 level separating expansion from contraction. It represented the second
straight month of shrinking manufacturing activity in the country, following
September’s official manufacturing PMI reading of 49.6.
However, a private survey released
Monday showed Chinese manufacturing activity growth in October expanding — with
the Caixin/Markit manufacturing PMI coming in at 50.6.
PMI reading below 50 represent
contraction while those above that level signify expansion. PMI readings are
sequential and represent month-on-month expansion or contraction.
Elsewhere, South Korea’s Kospi advanced 0.37% while the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia
gained 0.6%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan
traded 0.37% lower.
Stock futures rise slightly ahead
of first trading day of November, as investors await key Fed meeting
U.S. stock futures rose slightly in
overnight trading on Sunday as investors readied for the first trading of
November.
Market participants are gearing up
for another week of corporate earnings, a key Federal Reserve meeting on
Wednesday and October’s jobs report.
Dow futures rose 80 points. S&P
500 futures gained 0.25% and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.25%.
Stocks closed out the month of
October on Friday and all three major averages closed at record highs. The
S&P 500 and Nasdaq clinched their best months since November 2020.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
rose 5.8% in October. The S&P 500 rallied 6.9% last month and the
technology-focused Nasdaq Composite added 7.3% in October. The month marked a
rebound from September, where the major indexes declined.
Corporate earnings season dominated
October amid solid earnings even with global supply chain concerns. About half
of the S&P 500 companies have reported quarterly results and more than 80%
of them beat earnings estimates from Wall Street analysts, according to
Refinitiv.
As earnings season continues this
week, investors will also be monitoring the Federal Reserve’s two-day meeting
Tuesday and Wednesday. The central bank is widely expected to announce that it
will begin to unwind its $120 billion in monthly bond purchases and end the
program entirely by the middle of next year.
Investors will also be looking for
the Fed’s comments on rising prices as inflation has been running at a 30-year
high.
“The Fed is part of a global move to
remove accommodation, and the market drives right past that,” Bleakley Advisory
Group CIO Peter Boockvar said. “In a way, the stock market is playing a game of
chicken, with this inflation move and interest rates and the response from
central banks.”
The other big event for the week
will be October’s October employment report Friday, which could show some
improvement in hiring, as new cases of Covid-19 continued to decline.
China Oct official services PMI
falls to 52.4 vs 53.2 in Sep
October 31, 2021 1:48 AM
BEIJING (Reuters) - Activity in
China’s services sector grew at a slower pace in October, official data showed
on Sunday, as China combats small-scale COVID-19 outbreaks hitting mainly the
north.
The official non-manufacturing
Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell to 52.4 in October from September’s 53.2,
data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed. The 50-point mark
separates growth from contraction on a monthly basis.
Analysts say the services sector,
which was slower to recover from the pandemic than manufacturing, is more
vulnerable to sporadic COVID-19 outbreaks, clouding the outlook for the much
anticipated rebound in consumption in the months to come.
The official October composite PMI, which includes both
manufacturing and services activity, fell to 50.8 from September’s 51.7.
In other non COP26 news, the US v EU trade war over Steel
and aluminium ends, well sort of.
With neither side winning, not even close, both sides
agreed to a technical draw and a fudge that allows the politicians on both
sides to tell their voters they won. It’s politics 21st century
COP26 style.
U.S., EU end Trump-era tariff war
over steel and aluminum
October 30,
202110:10 PM BST
WASHINGTON/ROME, Oct 30 (Reuters) - The United States
and European Union have agreed to end a festering dispute over U.S. steel and
aluminum tariffs imposed by former President Donald Trump in 2018, removing an
irritant in transatlantic relations and averting a spike in EU retaliatory
tariffs, U.S. officials said on Saturday.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters that
the deal will maintain U.S. "Section 232" tariffs of 25% on steel and
10% aluminum, while allowing "limited volumes" of EU-produced metals
into the United States duty free.
It eliminates a source of friction between the allies
and lets them focus on negotiating a new global trade agreement to address
worldwide excess steel and aluminum capacity mainly centered in China and
reduce carbon emissions from the industries.
EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis confirmed the deal, writing on Twitter that
"we have agreed with U.S. to pause" the trade dispute and launch
cooperation on a future global arrangement on sustainable steel and aluminum.
Dombrovskis said the deal will be formally announced by Biden and European
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday.
U.S. officials did not specify the volume of duty-free
steel to be allowed into the United States under a tariff-rate quota system
agreed upon with the EU. Sources familiar with the deal, speaking on condition
of anonymity, have said annual volumes above 3.3 million tons would be subject
to tariffs.
The deal grants an additional two years of duty-free
access above the quota for EU steel products that won Commerce Department
exclusions in the past year, U.S. officials said.
The agreement requires EU steel and aluminum to be
entirely produced in the bloc - a standard known as "melted and
poured" - to qualify for duty-free status. The provision is aimed at
preventing metals from China and non-EU countries from being minimally
processed in Europe before export to the United States.
In
COP26 harsh reality news, wishful thinking doesn’t make things so. Using coal
to make ammonia is a form of slightly cleaner energy I suppose, but I don’t
think that will placate St. Greta and all the other socialist anarchists baying
for capitalist blood in windy Glasgow.
G20 offers little new on climate,
leaving uphill task for COP26
October 31, 20218:19 PM
GMT
ROME, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Leaders of the Group of 20
major economies agreed on a final statement on Sunday that urged
"meaningful and effective" action to limit global warming, but
angering climate activists by offering few concrete commitments.
The result of days of tough
negotiation among diplomats leaves huge work to be done at the broader United
Nations COP26 climate summit in Scotland, which starts this week.
U.S. President Joe Biden said
he was disappointed that more could not have been done and blamed China and
Russia for not bringing proposals to the table.
"The disappointment
relates to the fact that Russia and … China basically didn’t show up in terms
of any commitments to deal with climate change," Biden told reporters.
Although the G20 pledged to
stop financing coal power overseas, they set no timetable for phasing it out at
home, and watered down the wording on a promise to reduce emissions of methane
- another potent greenhouse gas.
---- The G20, which includes Brazil, China, India,
Germany and the United States, accounts for 60% of the world's population and
an estimated 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Hooked on
coal for power, Japan aims for ammonia fix
Yuka ObayashiPublished
October 29, 2021
Japan is stepping up efforts to
extend the lifespan of its coal-fired power plants in an ambitious project to
add low-carbon ammonia to its fuel mix, targeting both stable energy supply and
lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in one stroke.
The world’s fifth-biggest CO2
emitter’s push to use ammonia as a fuel reflects its 2050 goal to become carbon
neutral and comes to alleviate pressure from Britain and other countries to
phase out dirty coal at the COP26 global climate conference, starting in
Glasgow on Sunday.
Tokyo has pledged to achieve net
zero emissions status by 2050, but reliance on coal and gas as fuels for power
has grown since Japan suffered the 2011 Fukushima disaster, which effectively
left its nuclear power industry in crisis.
Use of ammonia – principally used as
a raw material for fertilizer and chemicals – faces significant technical and
costs challenges, and likely won’t placate campaigners calling for a COP26
commitment to consign use of coal to history.
But Japan has high hopes that it can
pioneer a new way of reducing CO2 emissions at coal-fired power plants that
could be adopted in other countries.
Earlier in October, the country’s
biggest power generator, JERA, began using a small amount of ammonia in a
demonstration at its 4.1 gigawatt (GW) Hekinan power station in Aichi, central
Japan, home to Toyota Motor Corp. Now 30 years old, Hekinan is the country’s
biggest coal-fired power plant.
----The project at
Hekinan is aimed at achieving use of 20% ammonia at a 1 GW unit for about two
months, using 30,000-40,000 tonnes of ammonia, by March 2025. If successful, it
will be the world’s first trial in a large commercial plant, and Japan hopes to
use ammonia to gradually replace coal and develop a fully ammonia-fired power
plant by 2050.
The
all-or-nothing approach to climate change will lead to unintended investing
trouble
Martin Pelletier: Energy crisis about to spread globally,
leading to repercussions that include geopolitical instability
Oct 29, 2021
The
current all-or-nothing approach of attacking our own oil and gas supply and
distribution channels while hoping to replace them with renewable energy
sources that provide only intermittent power is causing massive unintended
consequences.
The good news as world leaders commence the 2021 United
Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) is that it’s going to bring a lot of
attention to a worthwhile cause.
Even the economic slowdown caused by
COVID-19 didn’t slow the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which
posted an annual rate of increase above the 2011-2020 average, according to a recent report by the World Meteorological
Organization.
However, this doesn’t appear to be
getting the buy-in from the world’s greatest emitter, or, as Niall Ferguson,
Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, eloquently put it , “China is responsible for
64 per cent of the 32 per cent increase in emissions since 2003, the year of
Greta Thunberg’s birth, and 93 per cent of the 39 per cent increase in coal
consumption. Xi Jinping, like St. Augustine, intends to become virtuous — just
not yet.”
By no means does this imply that developed jurisdictions
such as the United States, Canada and Europe don’t need to reduce their own
emissions, since someone has to take the lead on addressing climate change. But
the current all-or-nothing approach of attacking our own oil and gas supply and
distribution channels while hoping to replace them with renewable energy sources
that provide only intermittent power is causing massive unintended
consequences.
Following the markets on both sides of the Atlantic since 1968. A dinosaur, who evolved with the financial system as it was perverted from capitalism to banksterism after the great Nixonian error of abandoning the dollar's link to gold instead of simply revaluing gold. Our money is too important to be left to probity challenged central banksters and crooked politicians.
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