Friday 4 February 2022

Easy Come – Easy Go. The Next Rome?

 Baltic Dry Index. 1425 +06   Brent Crude 91.52

Spot Gold 1807

Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000

Deaths 53,100

Coronavirus Cases 04/02/22 World 398,528,066

Deaths 5,731,638

“The five marks of the Roman decaying culture:
Concern with displaying affluence instead of building wealth;
Obsession with sex and perversions of sex;
Art becomes freakish and sensationalistic instead of creative and original;
Widening disparity between very rich and very poor;
Increased demand to live off the state.”

Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

In the stock casinos, it’s now easy come – easy go among the tech billionaires. What difference does a few tens of billions here, a loss of tens of billions there make among the central bankster funded billionaire classes? 

We long ago left capitalism, for a central bankster funded, financialised gambling “ism” to support American hegemony.  But US hegemony now seems increasingly unstable, with iffy leadership at the centre of power.  Add in a complete failure of leadership in the UK and Europe, a rising challenging super-power in China, and a fading but newly aggressive super-power in Russia, and the stage is likely set for an explosive roaring 20s ahead.

The trigger, if not a new European war in the Ukraine, will likely be the switch from rigged lower interest rates after 30 plus years, plus trillions of Magic Money Tree fiat money since March 2020, to a new decade of rising interest rates and a pruning back of the Magic Money Tree forests discovered in March 2020. 

The fall of the Roman Empire comes to mind. Debased currency, military debacles, food shortages, Vandals and Visigoths, Vikings and a breakdown in law and order, learning and “civilisation.”

Below, if it’s Friday it’s time to dress up stocks yet again.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index soars 3% in Friday return to trade as Asia-Pacific stocks rise

SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific were higher in Friday trade as investors in the region shrugged heavy losses overnight on Wall Street that saw the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite plunging nearly 4%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index led gains among the region’s major markets, rising 3% in afternoon trade.

Financial stocks in Hong Kong surged in Friday trade, with shares of HSBC soaring 4.62% while Standard Chartered jumped 4.47% after the Bank of England on Thursday announced its second straight rate hike.

We think what the dominant theme, at least for the first half of this year, is going to be around interest rates,” Kieran Calder, head of equity research for Asia at UBP, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Friday. Financials are set to be the “main beneficiary” of this trend due to factors such as higher net interest income and yields, he explained.

Markets in Hong Kong returned to trade on Friday after being closed for most of this week due to the Lunar New Year holidays. Over in mainland China, markets remain closed on Friday for the holidays.

South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.18%.

Elsewhere, the Nikkei 225 in Japan recovered from earlier losses as it gained 0.6% while the Topix index climbed 0.51%. The S&P/ASX 200 in Australia advanced 0.26%.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 1%.

Wall Street drop

The major averages fell overnight stateside, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite plummeting 3.74% to 13,878.82 — its worst day since September 2020.

The S&P 500 also saw significant losses, declining 2.44% to 4,477.44 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 518.17 points, or 1.45%, to 35,111.16.

U.S. stock futures later pointed to a reversal of some of those losses, following strong quarterly results from tech companies like Amazon and Snap. Dow futures climbed 169 points. S&P 500 futures gained 1.04% while Nasdaq 100 futures jumped 1.85%.

More

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/04/asia-markets-overnight-wall-street-tumble-technology-stocks-currencies-oil.html

All in a day: Zuckerberg loses $29 bln, Bezos set to pocket $20 bln

Feb 3 (Reuters) - Mark Zuckerberg lost $29 billion in net worth on Thursday as Meta Platforms Inc's (FB.O) stock marked a record one-day plunge, while fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos was set to add $20 billion to his personal valuation after Amazon's blockbuster earnings.

Meta's stock fell 26%, erasing more than $200 billion in the biggest ever single-day market value wipeout for a U.S. company. That pulled down founder and Chief Executive Officer Zuckerberg's net worth to $85 billion, according to Forbes.

Zuckerberg owns about 12.8% of the tech behemoth formerly known as Facebook.

Bezos, the founder and chairman of e-commerce retailer Amazon, owns about 9.9% of the company, according to Refinitiv data. He is also the world's third richest man, according to Forbes.

Amazon's holiday-quarter profit surged, thanks to its investments in electric vehicle company Rivian; and the company said it would hike annual prices of Prime subscriptions in the United States, sending its shares up 15% in extended trading and readying it for its biggest percentage gain since October 2009 on Friday.

Bezos' net worth rose 57% to $177 billion in 2021 from a year earlier, according to Forbes, largely from Amazon's boom during the pandemic when people were highly dependent on online shopping.

Zuckerberg's one-day wealth decline is among the biggest ever and comes after Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) top boss Elon Musk's $35 billion single-day paper loss in November. Musk, the world's richest person, had then polled Twitter users if he should sell 10% of his stake in the electric carmaker. Tesla shares have yet to recover from the resulting selloff.

More

https://www.reuters.com/technology/zuckerberg-loses-29-billion-day-meta-shares-crash-2022-02-03/

Amazon helps stocks steady but prospects for rate hikes loom over markets

SINGAPORE, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Asian equity markets fought for a footing on Friday, supported by an Amazon-led bounce in U.S futures, but oil's rise to a seven-year high kept traders on edge over prospects that interest rates will rise to curb global inflationary pressures.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) ticked up 0.4%, led by a 1.5% rise for the Hang Seng index (.HSI) in its first day of trading after this week's Lunar New Year holidays. Japan's Nikkei (.N225) fell 0.4%.

Overnight the euro posted its sharpest jump in more than a year after European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde left the door open to rate hikes this year and said inflation was running hotter for longer than expected. read more

The Bank of England raised rates to 0.5% and nearly half its policymakers wanted a bigger increase. The S&P 500 (.SPX) had its worst day in nearly a year. read more

"We're seeing the environment is really changing in terms of central bank stances, which were previously so camped in growth-supportive territory, but now are shifting rapidly to fighting inflation," said Rob Carnell, chief economist at ING in Singapore.

It follows a hawkish shift in rhetoric at the Federal Reserve over recent months and has applied the blowtorch to bonds and to growth stocks - leaving the likes of Facebook owner Meta Platforms (FB.O) little room to disappoint.

----YIELDS JUMP

Still, the backdrop is one of pressure from rising rates which analysts say is unlikely to abate even if U.S. labour data comes in fairly weak later on Friday, as economists expect.

Yields in Europe leapt overnight after the ECB's hawkish turn, with the yield on benchmark 10-year German bunds up 12 basis points (bps) to an almost three-year high of 0.155%. read more

Two-year yields rose 14 bps to -0.322%, well above the the ECB's policy rate of -0.50%. In Britain, bets on more BoE hikes are firming and two-year gilts rose more than 10 bps to an 11-year high of 1.169%.

Even anchored Japanese government bonds scaled six-year highs on Friday, taking the five-year yield to zero, as investors girded for the Bank of Japan to follow peers and tighten policy. read more

More

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/global-markets-wrapup-1-2022-02-04/

In commodities news, China’s Lunar New Year holiday might give some pause to commodity inflation, but not in “Dr. Copper.”

Copper set for weekly gain on weaker dollar, low inventory

Feb 4 (Reuters) - Copper prices climbed on Friday and were on course for a weekly gain, as a weaker U.S. dollar and low inventories provided strong support despite muted trading due to a week-long holiday in top metals consumer China.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was up 0.4% at $9,870 a tonne, as of 0308 GMT, putting it on track for a gain of nearly 4% this week.

FUNDAMENTALS

* The dollar index was set on Friday for its worst week in nearly two years as the euro held firm at a three-week high and sterling gained after hawkish shifts from the European Central Bank and the Bank of England. read more

* A softer U.S. currency makes greenback-denominated metals cheaper for holders of other currencies.

* Copper inventories in LME-approved warehouses at 82,400 tonnes have fallen more than 60% from the 2021 peak scaled in August, with further declines likely.

More

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/copper-set-weekly-gain-weaker-dollar-low-inventory-2022-02-04/

 

Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.

Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians,  inflation now needs an entire section of its own.

South Korea’s inflation jumped 3.6% in January as fuel and food prices surged

South Korea’s consumer inflation for January hovered near a decade-high on surging fuel and food prices, boosting the case for more interest rate hikes in 2022.

January consumer prices jumped 3.6% from a year earlier, beating a 3.3% gain tipped in a Reuters poll and remaining above the central bank’s 2% target for a 10th straight month.

Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and fuel costs, jumped 2.6% from a year earlier, the fastest since December 2015, in a sign that surging prices of fuel and other raw materials have fed through to higher service costs for goods and services.

A sub-index on fresh food prices jumped 6.0% year-on-year and one for agricultural and fisheries soared 6.3%, government data showed on Friday.

Transportation costs gained 7.2% year-on-year, boosted by rising prices of automotive fuel imports.

The strong reading, coming after a 3.8% rise in November, is fanning views the Bank of Korea could raise interest rates again this year after its back-to-back hikes brought the benchmark interest rate to pre-pandemic levels of 1.25% in January.

The minutes from the board’s Jan. 14 meeting showed a majority of its seven members were worried about price pressures building, which could hurt sentiment as Asia’s fourth largest economy recovers from the Covid-19 epidemic.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/04/south-koreas-inflation-jumped-3point6percent-in-january-as-fuel-food-prices-surged.html

Bank of England hikes rates in clamour to contain spiralling inflation

LONDON, Feb 3 (Reuters) - The Bank of England raised interest rates to 0.5% on Thursday and nearly half of its policymakers wanted a bigger increase to contain rampant price pressures, as the central bank warned inflation will soon top 7%.

In a surprise split decision, four of the nine members of the Monetary Policy Committee wanted to raise interest rates by half a percentage point to 0.75%. This would have been the biggest increase in borrowing costs since the BoE became operationally independent 25 years ago.

The majority, including Governor Andrew Bailey, voted for a 0.25 percentage point increase.

The move follows hot on the heels of a rate hike in December, marking the first back-to-back increases in Bank Rate since 2004 and reflecting urgency among MPC members to show they are on top of a growing cost-of-living crisis.

The BoE said consumer price inflation - which stood at 5.4% in December - now looks set to peak at around 7.25% in April, which would be the highest rate since the recession-ravaged early 1990s and miles off its 2% target.

----In contrast with the approach taken by the European Central Bank, the BoE warned further "modest tightening" is in the pipeline, even though growth will be hurt by global energy and goods price inflation.

"Given the current tightness of the labour market and continuing signs of greater persistence in domestic cost and price pressures, all members of the Committee judged that an increase in Bank Rate was warranted at this meeting," the minutes from the BoE's Feb. 2 meeting said.

High inflation meant that post-tax income for working households would fall by 2% this year and 0.5% next year, while weakening demand would push unemployment up to 5% in three years' time.

The BoE said it will start to unwind its 895 billion pounds ($1.2 trillion) quantitative easing programme by allowing its vast holding of British government bonds to roll off its balance sheet as they mature, while selling entirely its much smaller stock of corporate bonds.

More

https://www.reuters.com/business/bank-england-hikes-rates-clamour-contain-spiralling-inflation-2022-02-03/

Household energy bills to rise 54 per cent to £1,971 per year

Thursday 03 February 2022 11:04 am

Household energy bills will rise to an eye-watering £,1971 per year from April, after market regulator Ofgem announced its latest gloomy update to the consumer price cap.

The massive hike means that millions of energy users will be subjected to a 54 per cent increase in their annual energy bills.

Ofgem has also increased the pre-payment meters cap, which has now been set at £2,017 per year.

---- Ofgem’s chief executive Jonathan Brearley previously warned the price cap would need to increase to reflect soaring wholesale costs.

Gas prices increased five-fold over the course of last year, and while they have dipped since then they remain historically high.

The rising prices combined with the price cap, has resulted in dozens of suppliers exiting the domestic market, directly affecting over four million customers.

 

Covid-19 Corner

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

Approx.  18 minutes.

Denmark ends pandemic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2qSrcq-Jz0

Why do some people get Covid when others don’t? Here’s what we know so far

Published Thu, Feb 3 2022 4:55 AM EST

One of the great mysteries that has emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic — and one that’s still being investigated by infectious disease specialists — is why some people catch Covid and others don’t, even when they’re equally exposed to the virus.

Many of us know entire households who caught Covid and had to isolate over the pandemic, but there are also multiple anecdotes of couples, families and colleagues where some people caught the virus — but not everyone.

Indeed, Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, told CNBC that studies indicate the likelihood of becoming infected within a household once one case is positive is “not as high as you’d imagine.”

An increasing amount of research is being devoted to the reasons why some people never seem to get Covid — a so-called “never Covid” cohort.

Last month, new research was published by Imperial College London suggesting that people with higher levels of T cells (a type of cell in the immune system) from common cold coronaviruses were less likely to become infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

Dr Rhia Kundu, first author of the study from Imperial’s National Heart & Lung Institute, said that “being exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus doesn’t always result in infection, and we’ve been keen to understand why.”

“We found that high levels of pre-existing T cells, created by the body when infected with other human coronaviruses like the common cold, can protect against Covid-19 infection,” she said.

However she also cautioned that, “while this is an important discovery, it is only one form of protection, and I would stress that no one should rely on this alone. Instead, the best way to protect yourself against Covid-19 is to be fully vaccinated, including getting your booster dose.

Lawrence Young, a professor of molecular oncology at Warwick University, told CNBC Wednesday that, “there’s much interest in these cases of so-called ‘never Covid’ – individuals who have clearly been exposed to close contacts in their household who are infected, but who themselves are resistant to infection.”

He said that early data suggests these individuals have naturally acquired immunity from previous infections with common cold coronaviruses. Around 20% of common cold infections are due to common cold coronaviruses, he said, “but why some individuals maintain levels of cross-reactive immunity remains unknown.”

More

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/03/why-do-some-people-get-covid-while-others-dont.html

Four Omicron Sub-Variants Now Being Tracked Worldwide By WHO; BA.2 Dubbed “Variant Of Concern”

Thu, February 3, 2022, 2:46 AM

“It’s premature for any country either to surrender, or to declare victory,” said World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus about the fight against Covid yesterday.

“This virus is dangerous, and it continues to evolve before our very eyes,” said Ghebreyesus in opening remarks at the organization’s weekly Covid update. “WHO is currently tracking four sub-lineages of the Omicron variant of concern, including BA.2.” Preliminary findings seem to indicate that BA.2 is more transmissible, but not more virulent, than the original Omicron.

The Director-General and other WHO officials sought during the briefing to warn countries not to let their guards down, particularly with respect to Omicron. While not designated as such on the WHO web site yet, the WHO Covid-19 technical lead said on Monday that, since BA.2 is Omicron, it is a variant of concern.

The average number of daily Covid cases has declined in many countries of late — including the U.S., which is down 44% over the past 14 days. But WHO officials warned that the virus is evolving.

The organization was one of the earliest reputable bodies to sound the alarm on Omicron, designating it a variant of concern on November 26, 2021. Since then, several other Omicron lineages have been identified.

The original Omicron, now called BA.1, has been joined by BA.1.1, BA.2 and BA.3. All of them are being monitored by WHO under the umbrella of “Omicron,” according to WHO’s most recent epidemiological update, which was released yesterday. BA.2 is so far the most concerning.

More

https://www.yahoo.com/news/four-omicron-sub-variants-now-024621931.html

World-first study infecting volunteers with COVID delivers initial results

Rich Haridy  February 02, 2022

The first findings from a landmark study following healthy adults deliberately infected with SARS-CoV-2 have revealed new and unexpected insights into the earliest stages of COVID-19. The data indicates the virus’s incubation period is shorter than expected and rapid antigen tests are incredibly effective at identifying people when they are most infectious.

In what are known as "human challenge studies," scientists have intentionally infected healthy adults with pathogens for well over a century. Although ethically controversial, human challenge studies have informed medical innovations for a number of viral infections, including cholera, typhoid and influenza.

Early in 2020, soon after the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 emerged, some researchers began calling for human challenge studies to help accelerate insights into this new virus. Progress on SARS-CoV-2 challenge studies was slow as many were cautious to approve this kind of research. It wasn’t until the beginning of 2021 that the first human challenge trial commenced, and now one year later we are finally seeing preliminary data from those initial studies.

This first study covers 35 healthy volunteers aged between 18 and 29 with no history of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection. The trial utilized a sample of one of the first strains of SARS-CoV-2 taken from a patient early in the pandemic before more concerning variants emerged.

Because this was the first SARS-CoV-2 human challenge trial, an extremely low dose of the virus was tested. A single drop of viral material was administered nasally to all volunteers. The amount of virus used in the study was 10 times lower than the amount recommended by an independent advisory panel.

Despite the extraordinarily low dose administered, the researchers still saw 53 percent of the cohort developing a PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. Of the 18 positive infections in the study, only two presented with no symptoms.

However, those two asymptomatic subjects consistently displayed significant viral levels in their upper airways similar to those symptomatic subjects. This suggests asymptomatic infections can be as infectious as symptomatic infections.

Interestingly, the study found that the time from initial viral exposure to first symptoms was on average only 42 hours. This is significantly shorter than the three-to-five-day incubation period initially calculated for this original strain of SARS-CoV-2.

The virus was first detected in the throats of volunteers before moving up to the nose at around the three-day point after exposure. Viral levels were seen to peak at higher volumes in the nose compared to the throat, leading the researchers to indicate shedding from the nose to be a greater threat to others than shedding from the throat.

More. Much more.

https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/world-first-human-challenge-infecting-volunteers-covid-results/?utm_source=New+Atlas+Subscribers&utm_campaign=5c8fdf1417-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_02_03_06_45&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-5c8fdf1417-90625829

Next, some vaccine links kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada.

NY Times Coronavirus Vaccine Trackerhttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html

Regulatory Focus COVID-19 vaccine trackerhttps://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

https://rt.live/

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.

Novel chemical glucose sensing method based on boronic acids and graphene foam

Date:  February 2, 2022

Source:  University of Bath

Summary:  Researchers have developed a new glucose sensor that is cheaper and more robust than current systems.

Researchers at the University of Bath working in collaboration with industrial partner, Integrated Graphene, have developed a new sensing technique based on graphene foam for the detection of glucose levels in the blood. Since it is a chemical sensor instead of being enzyme-based, the new technology is robust, has a long shelf-life and can be tuned to detect lower glucose concentrations than current systems.

Diabetes affects around 4.9 million people in the UK and is a chronic condition where the patient cannot naturally regulate their blood sugar levels. Therefore, patient must measure their blood sugar levels several times a day as part of managing their condition.

Many current biosensors use enzymes that bind glucose and produce an electric current proportional to the concentration of glucose in the blood sample.

The new technique developed by scientists at Bath and Integrated Graphene uses a chemical sensor, which is more robust and is not affected by high temperatures or changes in pH. Furthermore, it has the potential to accurately detect a wider range of glucose concentrations above and below current biosensor ranges, which may be useful in neonatal glucose sensing.

The new sensor is based on the chemical boronic acid, which is attached to a graphene foam surface. An electroactive polymer layer is added on top and binds to the boronic acid. When glucose is present, it competitively binds to the boronic acid, displacing the polymer.

The sensor produces an electric current proportional to how much polymer is displaced, meaning that the concentration of glucose in the sample can be accurately measured.

More

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220202134700.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

Another weekend and the Winter Olympics gets underway in China, to divert everyone’s attention away from soaring inflation, political incompetence in the District of Crooks and Ottawa, political deceit in London, insane easy come-easy go volatility in the global stock casinos. Have a great weekend everyone.

“Under a democratical government, the citizens exercise the powers of sovereignty; and those powers will be first abused, and afterwards lost, if they are committed to an unwieldy multitude.”

Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

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