Baltic Dry Index. 3187 -241 Brent Crude 84.02
Spot Gold 1781
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 03/11/21 World 248,283,693
Deaths 5,028,607
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.
Ambrose Bierce.
Today, the Fed trumps COP26, no matter how many daft ideas spew out of Glasgow today.
The Fed, at the end of their two day meeting, must tell all the rest of us outsiders what they are going to do about inflation. Don’t worry, the Fed’s insider cronies will have already been tipped off.
Heads, start to taper the 120 million of monthly bond and mortgage purchases and set off a bond, stocks and some commodities rout?
Tails, do nothing and set off a new leg in the stock casinos bubbles, plus trigger a scramble to get into tangible assets led by most commodities.
I just wish I knew how Chairman Powell and the rest of his trading gang were positioned.
So is it to be heads or tails?
My guess, Chairman Powell will try to do both. Announce heads but actually try to implement tails.
As we all know from the hot air jamboree in Glasgow, talk is cheap and usually intended to be deceptive, watch what actually happens.
Asia-Pacific stocks mixed; Kakao Pay shares soar in South Korea debut
SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific were mixed in Wednesday trade as investors look ahead to the end of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s two-day meeting for clues on tapering.
In South Korea, the Kospi declined 1.33%. Shares of Kakao Pay surged in their Wednesday debut as they more than doubled from their issue price of 90,000 Korean won. The stock was last trading more than 110% higher than its issue price.
Kakao Games also surged 3.24%, while Kakao Corp shares dipped 2.34% and Kakao Bank dropped 6.86%.
Elsewhere, mainland Chinese stocks declined, with the Shanghai composite falling 0.38% while the Shenzhen component fell 0.262%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped 0.97%.
The S&P/ASX 200 in Australia climbed 0.85%, while Taiwan’s Taiex advanced 0.29%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan declined 0.3%.
Markets in Japan are closed on Wednesday for a holiday.
The Federal Reserve concludes its two-day meeting on Wednesday stateside, with investors watching out for details surrounding any scaling back of the amount of bonds the central bank buys each month.
----Overnight on Wall Street, the S&P 500 climbed 0.37% to 4,630.65 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 138.79 points to 36,052.63. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.34% to 15,649.60.
Tuesday marked the third session in a row where all three major averages stateside closed at a record.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/03/asia-markets-federal-reserve-currencies-oil.html
The Fed is about to set its post-crisis policy course — with a high level of uncertainty ahead
When the Federal Reserve adjourns its meeting Wednesday, it will be doing more than scaling down its economic aid. The central bank will be charting a course for its post-pandemic future.
Virtually everyone who cares about such things anticipates the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee, upon the conclusion of its two-day meeting, will announce that it is reducing the amount of bonds it buys each month.
The process, know as “tapering,” probably will commence before November ends.
In doing so, the Fed will be stepping away from a historic level of support for the economy and into a new regime in which it will still be using its tools to a lesser degree.
Though the move to cut the $120 billion a month in bond purchases has been well telegraphed, there is still risk for the Fed in how it communicates where it goes from here.
Talk up the tapering too much, and investors will get nervous that interest rate hikes are coming. Soft-pedal the move too much, and the market could think the Fed is ignoring the inflation threat. There’s risk to both too much optimism and too much pessimism that the FOMC and Chairman Jerome Powell will have to avoid.
“There’s just a very wide range of possible outcomes. They need to be nimble and responsive,” said Bill English, a former senior Fed advisor and now a professor at the Yale School of Management. “I worry that the markets will think that they’re on a steady track to run purchases down and then begin raising rates when they may just not be. They may have to act more quickly, they may have to raise them more slowly.”
As things stand, the market is betting the first rate increase will come in June 2022, followed by at least one — and perhaps two — more before the year is out. In their most recent projections, FOMC members indicated a small likelihood of pulling the first hike into next year.
For Powell, his post-meeting news conference should be an opportunity to stress the Fed is not on a preset course in either direction.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/02/federal-reserve-is-about-to-set-its-post-crisis-policy-course.html
Finally, are stablecoins actually unstable? I think they are likely to turn out to be a fraud. Your dollars check in and leave as stablecoins, but can all stablecoins check in and exit as dollars?
Regulators Sound the Alarm on Stablecoins
Financial regulators have urged lawmakers to act fast on legislation to address the rising risk of stablecoins. This type of cryptocurrency — ostensibly backed one-to-one by a stable asset like the dollar, making it more practical as a means for trades and transactions — is booming, with some $130 billion now in circulation. Stablecoin issuers, such as Tether and Circle, are not banks and they are not simply tech companies that sell online services: They operate as both and have few rules to guide them.
In an eagerly anticipated report that the Treasury Department released Monday, officials warned that without more oversight, the rise in reliance on stablecoins could result in bank runs, consumer abuse and payment snafus, and potentially threaten the wider financial system.
Stablecoin issuers should be treated like banks, the report recommended, subjecting them to the same reserve requirements as traditional financial institutions to ensure they can meet the demands of customers to cash out quickly. Others involved in the stablecoin transfer process should be subject to more rules, too, regulators said, including companies that provide services for holding stablecoins. Currently, federal law cannot prevent retailers and other commercial companies from issuing their own stablecoins, potentially creating risky overlaps between commerce and banking.
Delay is dangerous, the regulators said. Stablecoins have not always been as securely backed as issuers claim. “A run occurring under strained market conditions may have the potential to amplify a shock to the economy and the financial system,” the report warned. The S.E.C., C.F.T.C. and other agencies have the power to police certain stablecoin issuers, but the report identified regulatory gaps that only legislators could address. If Congress does not act quickly, the Financial Stability Oversight Council, a body created after the 2008 financial crisis, could step in and designate stablecoins as a potential systemic risk, granting regulators new powers.
More
https://dnyuz.com/2021/11/02/regulators-sound-the-alarm-on-stablecoins/
There is no gambling like politics.
Benjamin
Disraeli.
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Soaring Wheat Prices Are Raising Bread Costs
Tue, November 2, 2021, 5:52 PM
Tue, November 2, 2021, 5:52 PM
(Bloomberg) -- Wheat prices have surged from the U.S. to Russia, hitting a record in Europe and raising bread costs all over the world. And there may not be much relief soon.
The crop -- grown on more land than any other -- was hit by droughts, frost and heavy rain this year in key exporters. That’s curbed supplies used in everything from pizza crusts and French baguettes to Asian noodles and African couscous, pushing benchmark prices in Chicago to an almost nine-year high.
That’s not just threatening higher grocery bills -- it’s giving central banks a bigger inflation headache and risks worsening global hunger that’s already at a multiyear high. The worry is that big crops looming in Argentina and Australia won’t fully ease tight supply, and fields elsewhere are only just being planted.
“We could see further upside,” said Carlos Mera, head of agricultural commodities market research at Rabobank in London. “The higher the price goes, the more fear there is in the market and the more panic buying.”
Wheat in Chicago traded lower on Tuesday, after touching the highest since December 2012, while Paris futures reached a record 297 euros a ton before closing at 292.75 euros.
Here’s what’s driven the rally:
Dwindling Stockpiles
While the world has a lot of wheat, much of that’s held in countries like China, which ships little abroad. Inventories in the top seven exporters -- a better gauge of availability -- are expected to sink to an eight-year low. Argentina and Australia just started harvesting, but it’ll take the better part of a year before Northern Hemisphere silos are replenished with the next crop.
Protectionist Measures
Russia -- last season’s top shipper -- started taxing exports this year to safeguard supplies and keep domestic costs in check, and signaled an overseas sales quota is likely. That’s helped to slow shipments and support prices elsewhere, while giving rival suppliers the chance to grab more market share.
Import Needs
Although top wheat buyer Egypt temporarily balked at high prices last month, appetite from importers remains strong, with Saudi Arabia booking more than double the expected amount in its latest tender. Countries typically stockpile several months of supply, but governments can’t risk running out before the next major harvests.
More
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/soaring-wheat-prices-raising-bread-124125570.html
Government Motors Is Back
GM is thrilled by the taxpayer subsidies for its electric vehicles.
Oct. 31, 2021 6:13 pm ET
The $550 billion in green-energy provisions in the multi-trillion-dollar Democratic spending bill add up to the greatest corporate welfare program in history. If you don’t believe this, simply consult the White House list of its business cheerleaders.
“Business Leaders from Across the Country Applaud the Build Back Better Framework,” boasted a Friday statement from the White House. The press release goes on to say that “the framework is designed to level the playing field and make corporations and the wealthiest pay their fair share.”
Well, not all corporations, and not all of the wealthiest. If you’re in the green business that the President favors, you’re in the money—and delighted by the prospect. The press release lists approving quotes from Microsoft President Brad Smith, DHL, Cummins Inc., and a host of utility and green-energy companies that will soon be taxpayer beneficiaries.
Our favorite is the statement from General Motors, the auto maker that famously became known as Government Motors when it received a financial bailout in 2008. GM had a market capitalization of about $79 billion on Friday, but the company has nonetheless been one of the most aggressive public supporters of taxing other Americans to lift its electric-vehicle business.
We’ll quote the GM statement in full to give you a flavor of how completely it has been politically co-opted:
“General Motors applauds President Biden and those who have worked tirelessly to advance the Build Back Better Plan, and is pleased to see progress on legislation that will bring critical improvements to the country. Build Back Better lays the foundation for sustainability policies that will help address climate change and improve environmental quality and resiliency. GM supports those goals and, critically, we support those provisions that accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles and establish the U.S. as a global leader in electrification today, and into the future.”
And CEOs wonder why Americans who pay the country’s bills don’t trust big business.
Gambling has brought our family closer together. We had to move to a smaller house.
Tommy
Cooper.
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Half of Beijing’s flights are canceled as China’s capital city tightens Covid restrictions
BEIJING — About half the flights to and from Beijing’s two airports were canceled Tuesday as the capital tightened travel restrictions after a trickle of new cases in the city and other parts of the country in the last few days.
That’s according to aviation industry data site VariFlight, which tracks about 800 to 1,000 flights each for Beijing Capital International Airport and Beijing Daxing International Airport.
China has a strict “zero tolerance” policy for controlling the coronavirus.
Local authorities, especially in the capital city, are on high alert after a handful of locally transmitted coronavirus cases over the weekend indicated the latest spike in cases might be spreading beyond just a few regions. To be clear, the numbers pale in comparison to most major cities in the world.
Beijing’s health commission announced Monday that residents who left the city for business trips or leisure trips to areas with confirmed cases should “postpone” returning and stay where they are, according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese text. Residents should avoid leaving the city unless necessary, the commission said.
More
Merck’s Antiviral Could Be Just What Covid Was Waiting For
The pharmaceutical giant is making its oral antiviral drug widely available for all the world. But could Covid outsmart it?
11.01.2021 07:00 AM
At the beginning of October, Merck announced that its drug candidate molnupiravir, an oral antiviral, was shown to halve the risk of hospitalization or death from Covid-19 when given to high-risk people within the first five days of infection. Merck is seeking emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, with the possibility of the drug being rolled out late this year. The United States has already ordered 1.7 million courses of the drug, and the United Kingdom almost half a million courses.
In a stark departure from the moves of the major vaccine manufacturers, Merck is making the drug widely available to the whole world. The company has signed deals with several Indian manufacturers, and the drug will be manufactured and sold in over 100 countries, mainly in Africa and Asia. The company itself expects to produce 10 million courses by the end of this year, although it’s still waiting on local regulators’ green light. This is great news for economically developing countries, where a cheap and effective treatment could help bridge the gap as they await vaccines—and it’s especially notable as the first Covid-19 drug in a pill you can pop. Remdesivir, the only currently approved antiviral treatment in the US and UK, has useful but lackluster effects: It doesn’t save lives, but it does speed up recovery. It also requires delivery through an IV, and is costly and finicky to manufacture.
But with antiviral drugs often comes antiviral resistance; you seldom get one without the other. Some scientists worry that the virus will soon learn to thwart the drug’s mode of attack, and that the likelihood of resistance will be exacerbated by such a massive global deployment. “The history of antivirals is littered with the emergence of resistance,” says Saye Khoo, a professor of pharmacology at the University of Liverpool and an antiviral researcher. It’s long been a problem that has plagued influenza treatment: There’s a whole class of FDA-approved antiviral drugs that are no longer recommended for use now that influenza viruses have learned to outwit them.
Any antiviral drug likely to have such widespread use will require keen vigilance for any signs that the virus is fighting back. “With any antiviral drug, we need to be alert to the possibility of resistance,” says Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s infectious diseases division and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “We have certainly seen resistance emerge for most of the drugs we use.”
----One source of comfort is that the treatment course’s brevity—four pills twice a day for five days—means there is less opportunity for resistance to develop, compared to the lifelong courses of treatment for HIV. And SARS-CoV-2 is not quite as agile as viruses such as HIV or hepatitis C; it tends to make copies of itself at a more leisurely pace, giving it less time for a hardier variant to evolve. Plus, researchers have yet to see any resistance develop against remdesivir, the existing Covid-19 antiviral.
More
Early safety concerns accompanied Merck’s molnupiravir, the first potential oral COVID-19 therapy
One potential hurdle for the drug is whether unvaccinated individuals will accept the treatment, given their higher likelihood of contracting severe COVID-19. According to McKinsey, unvaccinated individuals tend to be most concerned about the potential of COVID-19 vaccines to cause long-term side effects.
The lack of long-term safety data concerning molnupiravir could be an obstacle for skeptical patients. That’s especially the case given early conclusions that there are “persistent side-effect concerns with mutagenic molnupiravir,” as a Clinical Trials Arena article observed. That article goes on to cite Ron Swanstrom, a professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who in January questioned “whether molnupiravir could be metabolized into a precursor of DNA,” and then “enter the host cell nucleus, leading to oncogenesis.”
In theory, mutagenic drugs can cause either birth defects or cancer. The inclusion criteria for the Phase 3 study of molnupiravir required males to refrain from donating sperm and either agree to abstain from sex or use contraception. Females were required to not be pregnant or breastfeeding. Women who were of child-bearing age had to agree to use a highly effective contraceptive method or be abstinent for 28 days from the start of the study intervention. In addition, women of childbearing age must have had a negative highly sensitive pregnancy test within 24 hours before receiving the first dose of medicine.
Merck did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, in a conference call last week, Merck virologist Daria Hazuda stressed that Merck had seen “no evidence of the potential for mutagenicity” for this agent. She concluded that the company is “very comfortable that the drug will be safe if used as intended.”
Molnupiravir is a prodrug of nucleoside analogue β-D-N4-hydroxycytidine (NHC), which could potentially be incorporated in mammalian DNA.
One study determined there was evidence that the drug could potentially drive mutagenesis in both viral RNA and mammalian DNA. “It seems unlikely that a short course of therapy would spare the host from this exposure because both RNA precursors that affect the virus and DNA precursors that would affect the host pass through the common ribonucleoside diphosphate intermediate,” concludes an article in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
SVB Leerink analyst Dr. Geoffrey Porges predicts that FDA would restrict who has access to the drug over safety concerns, according to Barron’s.
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.
Spintronics: Exotic ferromagnetic order in two-dimensions
Date: November 1, 2021
Source: Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie
Summary: An international team has detected an unusual ferromagnetic property in a two-dimensional system, known as 'easy-plane anisotropy.' This could foster new energy efficient information technologies based on spintronics for data storage, among other things.
The thinnest materials in the world are only a single atom thick. These kinds of two-dimensional or 2D materials -- such as graphene, well-known as consisting of a single layer of carbon atoms -- are causing a great deal of excitement among research teams worldwide. This is because these materials promise unusual properties that cannot be obtained using three-dimensional materials. As a result, 2D materials are opening the door to new applications in fields such as information and display technology, as well as for critical components in extremely sensitive sensors.
Structures known as van-der-Waals monolayers are arousing particular interest. These are combinations of two or more layers of different materials that are each only a single atom thick, with the layers held to one another by weak electrostatic van-der-Waals forces. By selecting the type and sequence of material layers bound in this way, specific electrical, magnetic, and optical characteristics can be chosen and modified. However, scaled-up homogeneous deposition of individual van-der-Waals layers having ferromagnetic properties has not yet been achieved. Yet it is precisely this kind of magnetism on a larger scale that is particularly important for several potential applications -- such as for a novel form of non-volatile memoryfor example.
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics in Halle, Germany, the ALBA synchrotron light source in Barcelona, Spain, and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin have now succeeded for the first time in creating a uniform two-dimensional material -- and demonstrating an exotic ferromagnetic behaviour within it known as "easy-plane" magnetism.
----During the measurements, the researchers observed how ferromagnetic order formed in the two-dimensional material below a certain temperature, what is known as the Curie temperature. "In the monoatomic chromium chloride layer, a phase transition characteristic of easy-plane magnets took place that had never been observed before in such a 2D material," reports Bedoya-Pinto.
Tailwind for the development of spintronics
The discovery not only offers new insights into the magnetic behaviour of two-dimensional materials. "We now also have an excellent platform for exploring a variety of physical phenomena that only exist in two-dimensional magnets," Bedoya-Pinto is pleased to say, such as superfluid (lossless) transport of spin, which is a kind of intrinsic angular momentum of electrons and other particles. These are the basis for a new form of data processing that -- unlike conventional electronics -- uses magnetic moments rather than electrical charges. Known as spintronics, this is currently revolutionizing data storage and information processing. The new insights gained at HZB could boost this development.
Italians come to ruin most generally in three ways, women, gambling, and farming. My family chose the slowest one.
Pope
St. John XXIII
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