Baltic Dry Index. 1422 -01 Brent Crude 92.77
Spot Gold 1820
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 08/02/22 World 398,241,445
Deaths 5,769,246
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
H. L. Mencken.
According to Bank of America, the US central bank will raise interest rates 7 times in 2022 and a further 4 times in 2023!
I don’t see that happening, but US and global wages and energy costs are surging, so it’s possible if not probable. If it happens, look out below!!!
If it happens, it will trigger a Democrat wipe-out in November’s mid-term elections, making President Biden’s need for triggering a new European war even more of an urgent necessity.
Below, the Asian stock casinos still can’t face up to the new dismal reality.
Asian stocks mixed after Wall St falls amid rate hike unease
BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets were mixed Tuesday after Wall Street fell as investors watched for signs of whether global central banks will try to cool inflation by speeding up the withdrawal of economic stimulus.
Shanghai and Hong Kong declined. Tokyo, Seoul and Sydney advanced.
In New York, the benchmark S&P 500 index sank Monday on losses for tech and communications companies.
Investors are trying to figure out how quickly U.S., European and other central banks will withdraw record-low interest rates and other stimulus that are boosting stock prices to cool inflation that is at multi-decade highs.
On Monday, the European Central Bank president, Christine Lagarde, tried to dampen talk of rate hikes, saying at a European Parliament hearing any change “will be very gradual.” Expectations that the ECB will adopt a more hawkish policy at its March meeting increased after the board said last week inflation risks were increasing.
The prospect of tighter monetary policy “has prompted asset markets to falter,” said Tan Boon Heng of Mizuho Bank in a report.
The Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.9% to 3,399.50 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong sank 1.4% to 24,224.36.
The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo rose 0.4% to 27,365.46 after the government reported labor cash earnings declined 0.2% from a year earlier in December. Core household spending fell 1% from the previous month.
The Kospi in Seoul advanced 0.9% to 2,770.58 and Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 gained 0.9% to 7,171.50. New Zealand and Southeast Asian markets also rose.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 sank 0.4% to 4,483.87. The benchmark index is now 6.5% below its Jan. 3 high.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was nearly unchanged, adding 1.39 points to 35,091.13. The Nasdaq composite fell 0.6% to 14,015.67.
Facebook’s parent, Meta, fell 5.1% and Google’s parent company Alphabet fell 2.9%. Microsoft fell 1.6%.
More
European markets head for lukewarm open as investors look ahead to U.S. inflation data
LONDON — European stocks are expected to open slightly higher on Tuesday with global investors looking ahead to U.S. inflation data released later this week.
The U.K.’s FTSE index is seen opening 21 points higher at 7,601, Germany’s DAX 10 points higher at 15,235, France’s CAC 40 up 7 points at 7,021 and Italy’s FTSE MIB 83 points higher at 26,339, according to data from IG.
Global investors are awaiting key data on Thursday with the U.S. Labor Department set to release January’s consumer price index data.
The reading follows a stronger-than-expected January jobs report, which has led to speculation that the U.S. Federal Reserve could be more aggressive when it comes to hiking rates. The inflation data is expected to show that prices rose 0.4% in January, for a 7.2% gain from one year ago.
Bank of America said Monday that the Fed could implement seven quarter-percentage-point rate hikes this year.
U.S. stock index futures crept higher during overnight trading Monday while shares in Asia-Pacific were mixed in Tuesday trade, as Chinese markets led losses regionally.
Earnings are due from BNP Paribas, SoftBank and BP on Tuesday, as well as Ocado and Tui.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/08/european-markets-investors-look-to-us-inflation-data.html
Seven hikes? Fast-rising wages could cause the Fed to raise interest rates even higher this year
Too much of a good thing, in the form of rapidly rising wages, is expected to push Federal Reserve interest rate hikes at an even faster pace.
Average hourly earnings jumped 0.7% in January and are now running at a 5.7% pace over the past 12 months, according to Labor Department data released Friday. Excepting a two-month period during the early days of the pandemic, that is by a wide margin the fastest-ever move in data going back to March 2007.
While that has come as welcome news to workers, it’s posed a further quandary for the Fed, which increasingly is being seen as falling behind in terms of policy and having to catch up to inflation that is running at its fastest pace in nearly 40 years.
“If I’m the Fed, I’m getting more nervous that it’s not just a few outliers” that are driving wage increases, Ethan Harris, Bank of America’s head of global economics research, said in a media call Monday. “If I were the Fed chair ... I would have raised rates early in the fall. When we get this broad-based increase and it starts making its way to wages, you’re behind the curve and you need to start moving.”
BofA and Harris have issued the most aggressive Fed call on Wall Street for this year. The bank’s economists see seven quarter-percentage-point rate hikes in 2022, followed by four more next year.
Harris said he’s not backing off the call, even though markets are currently only giving the scenario an 18% chance of happening, according to CME data.
He cites the Fed’s new approach to monetary policy that it approved in September 2020. Under what it deemed flexible average inflation targeting, the Fed said it would be willing to allow inflation to run hotter than its 2% target in the interest of achieving full employment.
But with inflation running around 7% year-over-year and the labor market getting ever tighter, the Fed now is in the position of playing catch-up.
“The problem with the whole approach, and what’s got us calling for seven hikes, is the economy’s not just hitting the Fed’s goals, it’s blowing through the stop signs,” Harris said.
Harris points out that wages are surging across virtually all income classes.
Leisure and hospitality, the hardest-hit sector from the pandemic, has seen a 13% earnings gain over the past year. Wages in finance jobs are up 4.8%, while retail trade pay has risen 7.1%.
More
Finally, Europe’s self-made energy crisis continues to get worse. Better hope for an early, warm Spring.
Biden threatens
German gas supplies. But who in Germany elected Fuhrer Biden? Who’s next on
Biden’s hit list? Canada? To save Trudeau from the truckers?
Faced with a belligerent fast aging incompetent “war” President in Washington, backed mostly by a duplicitous UK Prime Minister in London with one foot in his grave, to this old dinosaur market and politics follower since 1968, it looks to me like France, Germany and Turkey have jumped ship on Washington’s new European War.
France Braces For Blackouts As Gas Stockpiles Dwindle
Sun, February 6, 2022, 4:00 PM
The Brits aren't the only European nation to find itself on the verge of a full-blown energy crisis.
On Thursday, French natural gas pipeline operator GRTgaz warned that French gas stockpiles are much lower at this point in the year than they have been during years past - and as a result, they run the risk of potentially being depleted before the winter is up, a disaster that could make last year's deep freeze in Texas look tame if a sudden cold snap sends demand soaring.
According to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe, France’s stockpiles were about 34% full as of Feb. 1, which is well below the five-year average of 42%. Inventories are now at the lowest seasonal level since 2018, when a brutal winter cold snap nicknamed "the Beast from the East" left French reserves standing at just 3% when the heating season was over.
"We’ll probably be close to zero toward the end of March, and we remain vigilant on that topic," GRTgaz chief Thierry Trouve said in a presentation in Paris Thursday.
It's the most precarious for French gas inventories since they arrived at their lowest seasonal level since 2018. Inventories are now at the lowest seasonal level since 2018, when the country ended the heating season with storage at a record-low of just 3%.
And gas prices are much higher today than they were back then.
Fortunately, mild weather is expected to continue across much of Europe this month. But further down the road, limited Russian shipments to Europe and surging demand as economies reopen following the omicron wave could create problems, especially if a late-season cold snap should arise.
Additionally, France's energy problems have been exacerbated by the lower-than-usual capacity at the country's nuclear power plants, some of which have been closed over safety fears as President Emmanuel Macron seeks to modernize France's nuclear power system.
More
https://www.yahoo.com/news/france-braces-blackouts-gas-stockpiles-160000598.html
Biden threatens: No gas pipeline if Russia invades Ukraine
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a flurry of diplomacy across two continents, President Joe Biden met with Germany’s new leader Monday and vowed the crucial Nord Stream 2 Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline will be blocked if Russia further invades Ukraine. Russia’s Vladimir Putin retorted that the U.S. and its allies are the only ones talking invasion.
Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron met for more than five hours in Moscow at the same time Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke at the White House in efforts to defuse the crisis before armed conflict breaks out. Russia has massed thousands of troops at the Ukraine border, adding military might almost daily.
The White House has expressed increasing alarm about the prospects of war, and Biden has been looking to solidify support among European allies for economy-jarring sanctions against Russia if it attacks.
“If Russia invades, that means tanks and troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2,” Biden said. “We will bring an end to it.”
That would hurt Russia economically but also cause supply problems for Germany. Construction of the pipeline has been completed, but it is not yet operating.
“We are jointly ready, and all of NATO is ready,” Biden said, referring to the powerful Western alliance, though Ukraine is not a member.
While Biden reiterated with certitude that the pipeline would not move forward, Scholz stressed the need to keep some ambiguity about sanctions in order to press Russia to de-escalate the crisis.
“It’s necessary for Russia to understand that a lot more could happen than they’ve perhaps calculated with themselves,.” Scholz said.
More
If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
H.
L. Mencken.
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Amazon boosts max base pay for corporate workers to $350,000 as labor market heats up
Amazon is boosting its maximum base salary for corporate workers, citing the competitive labor market as one of several factors behind the change.
The company said Monday in an internal memo to employees that it will now cap base pay for all white-collar workers at $350,000, a significant jump from its previous max of $160,000.
Base pay is only a portion of employees’ total compensation. This figure does not include restricted stock units, which typically vest in increments over several years, as well as other cash, such as sign-on bonuses. The company’s compensation has historically been weighted heavily to stock.
“This past year has seen a particularly competitive labor market, and in doing a thorough analysis of various options, weighing the economics of our business and the need to remain competitive for attracting and retaining top talent, we decided to make meaningfully bigger increases to our compensation levels than we do in a typical year,” according to the memo, which was first reported by GeekWire.
An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of the memo, but declined to comment further.
In addition to increasing base pay, Amazon said it’s also increasing overall compensation ranges for most jobs globally, and “the increases are much more considerable than we’ve done in the past,” according to the memo.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/07/amazon-boosts-max-base-pay-for-corporate-workers-to-350000-.html
Zillow: Our 2022 housing forecast is way off—home prices now set to spike 16%
Mon, February 7, 2022, 9:33 AM
Homebuyers got crushed last year as home prices soared at their highest clip on record. Housing economists saw that price growth—which peaked at a year-over-year rate of 20% last year—as simply unsustainable. Their economic models agreed: Among the seven forecast models reviewed by Fortune heading into 2022, every single one predicted home price growth would slow significantly this year.
But over the past few weeks, that consensus is no longer so unified. Now, more industry insiders are throwing out their previous forecasts and replacing them with more bullish short-term outlooks. Indeed, some experts say the 2022 spring housing market might go down as one of the most competitive on record.
Look no further than Zillow. Back in December, the home listing site predicted that U.S. home values would climb 11% this year. Economists at Zillow now say that forecast is too conservative. Their latest forecast finds home prices are set to spike 16.4% between December 2021 and December 2022. If it comes to fruition, it would mark another brutal year for home shoppers.
Why is Zillow raising its 2022 home price growth forecast? A lot of it boils down to housing inventory. During the pandemic, inventory has plunged to a four-decade low as more buyers rushed into the market. That trend was predicted to reverse late last year as forbearance protection programs lapsed and mortgage rates rose. But not only has that not happened, the inventory situation has gotten worse. In January, there were just over 923,000 U.S. homes listed for sale on Zillow. That's down 40.5% from the pre-pandemic level in January 2020, and down 19.5% from January 2021.
More
https://www.yahoo.com/news/zillow-2022-housing-forecast-way-093355186.html
Worst to come for food price rises, Tesco boss says
By Russell Hotten BBC News 6 February, 2022
The chairman of Britain's biggest supermarket has warned "the worst is yet to come" on rising food prices.
Tesco's John Allan told the BBC he was aware people were on very tight budgets and having to choose between food and heating "troubles us".
But he said grocers and suppliers were not immune from rising energy costs.
Mr Allan also defended Tesco against claims from food poverty activist Jack Monroe that the costs of basic staples were rising faster than other goods.
He estimated supermarket prices could rise as much as 5% by the spring as energy and other costs feed through to the High Street, adding that Tesco's food price inflation in the last three months had been contained to about 1%.
"We are impacted by rising energy prices, our suppliers are impacted by rising energy prices. So the likelihood is that that inflation figure will rise," he said.
Mr Allan said he recognised the cost of food took up a bigger proportion of household budgets for people on lower incomes.
People having to choose between heating their homes and feeding their families "troubles us, and I'm sure troubles many people... That's clearly not a situation that any of us should tolerate," he said.
A report earlier this month from the British Retail Consortium said food inflation accelerated to 2.7% in January, up from 2.4% in December.
Annual UK inflation is currently 5.4%, a 30-year high, and is predicted to top 7% this year. Meanwhile, the cost of energy is set to soar under new price-cap rules, prompting the chancellor to unveil a support package for households last week.
Mr Allan said: "I think the combination of increasing energy prices, the impact of National Insurance increases [in April] on people's incomes, and to a much much lesser extent increasing food prices, is going to squeeze the hardest-up still harder."
Pay rises
The pressure facing poorer households was highlighted by Jack Monroe this month in analysis she said showed that everyday essentials, such as the cheapest own-brand pasta or rice, were going up in price by more than the official inflation rate.
Mr Allan said he could not speak for the rest of the industry, but it was untrue at Tesco. "Price rises depend on individual products - coffee is going up, but other things like the cheapest tin of baked beans in Tesco is cheaper than it was five years ago," he said.
More
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60279019
Beer prices will have to rise, says Cobra founder
7 February, 2022
The founder of beer brand Cobra has said prices will have to rise because of a "vicious cycle" of cost pressures.
Lord Bilimoria told the BBC that "virtually every business in every sector" is being squeezed by inflation, interest rate rises and tax increases.
The Cobra chairman, who is also president of the CBI employers' group, said the picture had become really challenging for firms and consumers.
On Sunday, Tesco's chairman warned the worst on price rises is yet to come.
John Allan told the BBC he expected food price inflation to reach 5% by the spring, hitting the "hardest-up harder".
The warnings from two of Britain's most prominent executives come as UK inflation stands at a 30-year high of 5.4%, and it is forecast to top 7% by April.
Meanwhile, the cost of energy is set to soar under new price-cap rules, prompting the chancellor to unveil a support package for households last week.
Lord Bilimoria told BBC 5 Live's Wake up to Money programme: "Our input costs in every way - bottling, energy - are up. Freight costs have soared, sometimes ten-times. Wages are increasing and on top of that there are labour shortages.
"It does mean that businesses have to put up prices. But the consumer is already feeling the squeeze. It is a really challenging situation for everyone," he said.
He declined to say have much bottles of beer would increase, but said price rises "were a necessity. There's no running away from that."
---- His warning about the impact of inflation was echoed by the head of the British Retail Consortium (BRC), Helen Dickinson.
"At every business I am talking to, and across lots of other industries, the picture is very similar," she told the BBC. "In retail, we've got a multiple list of things that are pushing up costs which they are now needing to pass on to customers."
More
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60287007
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Antibodies from COVID-19 infection may last up to 20 months
Feb. 7, 2022 / 12:34 PM
If you've already had COVID-19, your natural antibodies may last as long as 20 months, a new study suggests.
While this is reassuring, experts are quick to caution that the new findings don't necessarily mean you're protected against reinfection, and that vaccines remain an important part of a COVID-19 prevention strategy.
"This study tells us that people have antibodies that hang around after COVID-19, but it doesn't tell us anything about immunity as we don't know what level of natural antibodies is needed for protection," said Dr. Otto Yang. He is an immunologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, David Geffen School of Medicine who reviewed the findings. "People can and do get reinfected when they have natural COVID-19 antibodies."
For the study, researchers measured levels of antibodies in the blood of 816 unvaccinated U.S. adults. The investigators found antibodies in 99% of those who said they had a positive COVID-19 test result, 55% of folks who believed they had COVID-19 but were never tested, and 11% who didn't think they ever had COVID-19.
"Almost everyone with a documented COVID-19 infection had antibodies, and these antibodies seem to persist for quite a long time," said study author Dr. Dorry Segev, a transplant surgeon at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore. "We really need to start incorporating antibodies from natural immunity into the context of immunity evaluation, moving from vaccine verification to immunity verification."
Still, he cautioned, no level of antibody is a guarantee that you won't get reinfected.
"There is certainly evidence that antibody levels correlate with ... clinical protection, and the same caveats for natural immunity are there for vaccine immunity," he said.
Segev's findings were published online recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
More
https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2022/02/07/COVID-19-infection-antibodies/8471644251849/
Daily new U.S. COVID-19 cases declining in most states after Omicron peaks
Feb. 6, 2022 / 3:59 PM
Feb. 6 (UPI) -- U.S. COVID-19 cases are on the decline in most states as of Sunday, while deaths continued to rise.
A total of 37 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, have reported that new cases have decreased by more than 50% within the past two weeks, with New York and Wisconsin seeing the greatest decline at 75% and 79% respectively, according to tracking by The New York Times.
Large cities that saw early peaks of infection amid the emergence of the Omicron variant have seen some of the most drastic changes with Cleveland reporting fewer than 300 cases per day, down from 3,000 per day around Christmas, while daily new cases in Washington, D.C, have fallen from more than 2,000 at the start of January to about 260.
On Sunday, New York state reported 5,680 cases compared with a record 90,132 on Jan. 8.
On Saturday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the seven-day moving average of daily new cases had fallen to 378,015, down 42.3% from the previous seven-day average.
The seven-day average of deaths, however, increased, by 4.4% to 2,404.
The United States on Friday surpassed 900,000 total deaths related to COVID-19, according to data gathered by Johns Hopkins University.
The United States has reported world-leading totals of 76,469,522 infections and 902,400 COVID-19-related deaths overall since the start of the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins.
---- Hospitalizations were also on the decline as the seven-day daily average for new hospital admissions for the week of Jan. 26-Feb. 1 fell 18% from the previous week to 16,068, according to the CDC.
More
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
H. L. Mencken.
Next, some vaccine links kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada.
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.
No technology update today, normal service tomorrow. Today Sri Lanka’s “Lion Rock” fortress/palace of Sigiriya.
Sigiriya
Sigiriya or Sinhagiri (Lion Rock Sinhala: සීගිරිය, Tamil: சிகிரியா/சிங்ககிரி, pronounced see-gi-ri-yə) is an ancient rock fortress located in the northern Matale District near the town of Dambulla in the Central Province, Sri Lanka. It is a site of historical and archaeological significance that is dominated by a massive column of rock around 180 metres (590 ft) high.[2]
According to the ancient Sri Lankan chronicle the Culavamsa, this area was a large forest, then after storms and landslides it became a hill and was selected by King Kashyapa (477 – 495 AD) for his new capital. He built his palace on top of this rock and decorated its sides with colourful frescoes. On a small plateau about halfway up the side of this rock he built a gateway in the form of an enormous lion. The name of this place is derived from this structure — Sīnhāgiri, the Lion Rock (an etymology similar to Sinhapura, the Sanskrit name of Singapore, the Lion City).
The capital and the royal palace were abandoned after the king's death. It was used as a Buddhist monastery until the 14th century.[3] Sigiriya today is a UNESCO listed World Heritage Site. It is one of the best preserved examples of ancient urban planning.[4]
More, plus pictures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigiriya
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
H.
L. Mencken.
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