Baltic Dry Index. 1423 -02 Brent Crude 93.27
Spot Gold 1808
If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion.
Friedrich August von Hayek.
In the US employment figures released yesterday what was not to like. The Fed got a powerful green light to start raising interest rates from Monday, though they will probably wait until their March meeting on March 15-16.
A quarter point rise or a half?
Run, do not walk, to the stock casino exits. We are moving on from 30 plus years of falling interest rates to a decade or more of rising interest rates.
Look away from the oil price now.
World equities wobble as bond yields rise after positive U.S. jobs data, earnings
February 4, 2022 8:39 PM GMT
WASHINGTON, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Stock indexes around the globe traded mixed despite strong Amazon earnings and upbeat economic data on Friday, while gold prices slipped under pressure from a firmer dollar and higher U.S. Treasury yields, potentially bolstering the case for Federal Reserve rate hikes.
Earlier in the session, a sell-off in bonds briefly pushed Germany's 5-year yield positive for the first time in four years after the European Central Bank was more hawkish than expected.
Asian equities held firm overnight after better-than-expected earnings from Amazon , in contrast to the heavy selling on Thursday following Facebook owner Meta Platforms' (FB.O) earnings miss. read more
The pan-European STOXX 600 index (.STOXX) lost 1.38% and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe (.MIWD00000PUS) gained 0.77%.
On Wall Street, U.S. stocks rose after trading mixed earlier. U.S. government bond yields moved up amid the positive jobs data and better earnings.
"So much for the good news from Amazon - today’s jobs data puts 50 basis points back on the table for the Fed’s March meeting," said John Lynch, chief investment officer for North Carolina-based Comerica Wealth Management.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) rose 0.4% and the S&P 500 (.SPX) gained 1.14%. The Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) added 2.25%.
Market sentiment has been dominated by speculation about the trajectory for rate hikes from major central banks this year, as pressure mounts for policy moves to combat inflation. Rate hikes typically hurt riskier assets such as stocks.
In a move labeled by analysts as a "pivot," European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde was more hawkish than expected at the central bank's meeting on Thursday. She acknowledged mounting inflation risks and declined to repeat her previous guidance that an interest rate increase this year was "very unlikely." read more
The dollar index rose 0.111%, with the euro up 0.09% to $1.1448.
"Central banks are actively trying to tighten financial conditions ... they are moving faster than expected," said Colin Asher, senior economist at Mizuho.
European government bond yields also rose. Germany's 5-year yield briefly turned positive as traders priced in ECB rate hikes this year . Germany's 2-year yield was set for its biggest weekly rise since 2008 .
Yields of benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasuries hit their highest levels since December 2019 on Friday after strong payrolls data showed that the U.S. economy added 467,000 jobs last month.
Morgan Stanley said markets were now facing "the largest quantitative tightening in history" from May onwards, with G4 central bank balance sheets set to shrink by $2.2 trillion over the next 12 months.
More
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/global-markets-wrapup-1-2022-02-04/
Payrolls show surprisingly powerful gain of 467,000 in January despite omicron surge
Job growth rose far more than expected in January despite surging omicron cases that seemingly sent millions of workers to the sidelines, the Labor Department reported Friday.
Nonfarm payrolls surged by 467,000 for the month, while the unemployment rate edged higher to 4%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Dow Jones estimate was for payroll growth of 150,000 and a 3.9% unemployment rate.
The stunning gain came a week after the White House warned that the numbers could be low due to the pandemic.
Covid cases, however, have plunged nationally in recent weeks, with the seven-day moving average down more than 50% since peaking in mid-January, according to the CDC. Most economists had expected January’s number to be tepid due to the virus, though they were looking for stronger gains ahead.
Along with the big upside surprise for January, massive revisions sent previous months considerably higher.
December, which initially was reported as a gain of 199,000, went up to 510,000. November surged to 647,000 from the previously reported 249,000. For the two months alone, the initial counts were revised up by 709,000. The revisions came as part of the annual adjustments from the BLS that saw sizeable changes for many of the months in 2021.
Those changes brought the 2021 total to 6.665 million, easily the biggest single-year gain in U.S. history.
“The benchmark revisions helped the numbers a bit just because it moved out some of the seasonal factors that have been at work. But overall the job market is strong, particularly in the face of omicron,” said Kathy Jones, chief fixed income strategist at Charles Schwab. “It’s hard to find a weak spot in this report.”
Earnings also rose sharply, accelerating 0.7%, good for a 12-month gain of 5.7% and providing confirmation that inflation continues to gather strength. That yearly move was the biggest gain since May 2020 when wage numbers were distorted by the pandemic. The rate of wage gains, however, still lags inflation, which was running around 7% in December as gauged by the consumer price index.
There was more good jobs news: The labor force participation rate rose to 62.2%, a 0.3 percentage point gain. That took the rate, which is closely watched by Fed officials, to its highest level since March 2020 and within 1.2 percentage points of where it was pre-pandemic. The labor force participation rate for women rose to 57%.
A more encompassing level of unemployment that counts discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons dropped to 7.1%, a 0.2 percentage point decline and to just above its pre-pandemic level. Those working part-time for economic reasons fell by 212,000 in January, with the total level down 37% from a year ago.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/04/jobs-report-january-2020-.html
Finally, have ships grown too big? Maybe not, but when things go awry on big ships, supply chain disruption usually follows.
Maersk container ship runs aground off German island
Thu, February 3, 2022, 7:09 AM
BERLIN (Reuters) - One of the world's biggest container ships, the Mumbai Maersk, has run aground off the German island of Wangerooge in the North Sea, Germany's Central Command for Maritime Emergencies and Maersk said on Thursday.
No injuries were reported among the 30 people on board, no fuel leak sighted and the entrance to the port is not obstructed, they said in a statement.
Maritime transport accounts for 80%-90% of all global trade and Mumbai Maersk belongs to a class of very large ships that can carry over 18,000 twenty-foot (33 cbm) equivalent containers holding furniture, vehicles, textiles and other export goods.
A first attempt to tow the 400-metre ship into deeper water on Thursday morning by two multi-purpose vessels and five tugs failed. The rescue company will deploy a number of additional tugs and make a second attempt around midnight, a spokesperson for the maritime emergency command said.
More
https://www.yahoo.com/news/container-ship-runs-aground-off-070912444.html
Giant Maersk Ship Freed After Running Aground by German Port
Fri, February 4, 2022, 7:56 AM
Bloomberg) -- A giant container vessel owned by A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S has been freed after running aground outside a German port, removing worries about a possible new snarl for global shipping.
The Mumbai Maersk, one of the world’s largest container ships, was refloated on Friday after it ran aground on a shallow patch near Bremerhaven late Wednesday, a Copenhagen-based spokesperson from the shipping line said by phone. The vessel is now moving away with restricted maneuverability from the site, Bloomberg shipping data shows.
Shipping lanes approaching Bremerhaven are open as normal, according to a spokesman for Germany’s Central Command for Maritime Emergencies. The Mumbai Maersk is undergoing checks to determine whether it can sail away itself or whether it will require assistance from tug boats, the spokesman said.
The world’s shipping sector has been beset with congestion and delays, slowing the flow of goods between the U.S., Europe and Asia’s manufacturing hubs, as the spread of the omicron variant of coronavirus causes worker shortages.
Mumbai Maersk was sailing from Asia to Germany with cargo bound for Scandinavian countries when it ran into trouble, Maersk said. Extra tugs were deployed and a new attempt to free the vessel was made on Thursday after an earlier attempt failed.
No damage to the hull or crew injuries have been reported, and the vessel hadn’t blocked the port’s entrance, according to the shipping line. The vessel is roughly equivalent in length to the Ever Given, which held up world trade for about a week when it become lodged in the Suez Canal last year.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/giant-maersk-ship-freed-running-034610477.html
We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish.
Friedrich August von Hayek.
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments.
Friedrich August von Hayek.
January food prices rise to record levels, burdening world's poor
Feb. 3, 2022 / 8:00 PM
Feb. 3 (UPI) -- Food prices have risen globally amid supply chain disruptions, harmful weather, increasing energy prices and the COVID-19 pandemic, placing a burden on the world's poor, the United Nations said Thursday.
A global index released by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization showed food prices have risen to their highest levels since 2011 in January.
Cereal prices rose 0.1% from December and 12.5% from January 2021, while dairy increased 2.4% for its fifth consecutive monthly increase to rise 18.7% from the same time last year. The price of meat also increased 17.3% from last January.
The price of oils rose 4.3% month-to-month reached their highest levels since the index began tracking food prices in 1990.
The price of sugar, however, fell 3% from December, declining for a second consecutive month to its lowest level in the past six months.
The FAO cited rising crude oil prices, drought conditions in Argentina and Brazil, avian flu outbreaks as well as processing and transportation delays and labor shortages brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic for the price increases.
Last week, the International Monetary Fund issued a report showing that food prices rose about 23% last year and are expected to climb 4.5% in 2022 before declining next year.
IMF data also showed that the energy sector was largely driving inflation in the United States while food was the second largest factor contributing to inflation in Europe.
Impacts of food inflation most burden residents of emerging and low-income countries including parts of Latin America and Africa where people may spend 50%-60% of their income on food, compared to the United States where food accounts for less than one-seventh of household shopping bills.
Between 720 million and 811 million people in the world went hungry in 2020, according to rapid phone surveys in 72 countries conducted by the World Bank, an estimated increase of about 118 million over 2019.
---- Maurice Obstfeld, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a former chief economist at the IMF, told The New York Times that it wasn't "much of an exaggeration" to say the world is on the brink of a global food crisis.
More
UPDATE 1-China lifts restrictions on imports of Russian wheat, barley
Fri, February 4, 2022, 2:16 PM
MOSCOW, Feb 4 (Reuters) - China will allow imports of wheat and barley from all regions of Russia, the Russian state agricultural watchdog said on Friday, a new grain export success for Russia that could lead to greater competition for other suppliers like France.
The move, announced as part of agreements signed during President Vladimir Putin's visit to Beijing https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-tells-xi-new-deal-that-could-sell-more-russian-gas-china-2022-02-04, means China will no longer restrict trade in the cereals to certain parts of Russia, raising the prospect of Russia being able to send large vessels through the key Black Sea export route.
Moscow has been attempting for years to expand cereal trade with China, and Swiss-based trader Solaris, a major exporter of Russian wheat, said in December https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-russia-grains-solaris-idUSKBN2J60L6 it expected China soon to become a big buyer of Russian wheat.
Russia is the world's biggest wheat-exporting country while China has emerged as a major wheat importer, bringing in record volumes.
"This is certainly good news for Russian wheat which could now get a bigger hold on the Chinese market, which is growing so much, a European trader said.
"It looks like bad news for the EU, Australia and Canada who are now the big wheat sellers to China."
China has become a key outlet for French wheat in the past two years and its importance has grown this year as the European Union's top wheat supplier has lost market share in Algeria.
More
https://www.yahoo.com/news/1-china-lifts-restrictions-imports-141604734.html
Below, why a “green energy” economy may not be possible, and if it is, it won’t be quick and it will be very inflationary, setting off a new long-term commodity Supercycle. Probably the largest seen so far.
The “New Energy Economy”: An Exercise in Magical Thinking
https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/R-0319-MM.pdf
Mines, Minerals, and "Green" Energy: A Reality Check
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/mines-minerals-and-green-energy-reality-check
"An Environmental Disaster": An EV Battery Metals Crunch Is On The Horizon As The Industry Races To Recycle
by Tyler Durden Monday, Aug 02, 2021 - 08:40 PM
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Two years late, UK science finally wakes up. So what is stopping US science?
UK scientists look to repurpose existing antiviral drugs for COVID
February 4, 2022 10:02 AM GMT
Feb 4 (Reuters) - British researchers want to repurpose existing antiviral therapies to treat COVID-19, the University of Oxford said on Friday, in an attempt to sidestep lengthy development processes through readily available drugs.
Scientists will initially screen 138 drugs with known antiviral activity against the COVID-causing SARS-CoV-2 virus to study and identify potent combinations, the university said in a statement on Friday.
The rapid spread of Omicron across the world has also forced researchers to find options that work against the variant. Britain currently has the seventh-highest tally of COVID cases globally, according to Reuters.
The most effective combinations discovered through the project will be presented to British authorities, including the Antiviral Task Force and UK-CTAP, so they can be added to clinical trials, Oxford said.
"There are multiple benefits with discovering new treatments in this way," said Ultan Power, one of the principal investigators of the project.
"They have been through all the necessary checks so we know they are safe and readily available, they can be self-administered and used at home, helping to reduce the burden on the healthcare system."
The 1.6 million pound ($2.2 million) project is being led by Queen's University Belfast, with experts from Queen's, the University of Liverpool and Oxford. It is being funded by Britain's Medical Research Council
It’s time to ‘move on’ from the pandemic, says Harvard medical professor
Published Fri, Feb 4 2022 1:05 AM EST
It’s time to let the young, healthy and “anyone who wants to move on” from the pandemic do so, said Dr. Stefanos Kales, a professor at Harvard Medical School.
In a paper posted on LinkedIn last month, Kales said that for the majority of children and adults, “Covid-19 is not a serious threat, only a nuisance that impedes schooling, work and travel.”
“Once Omicron peaks, subsequent variants are likely to be even more mild,” he said. “We badly need to allow the general public, particularly the young, to get back to normal life.”
He said he favors focusing Covid-19 efforts on “the vulnerable” rather than the population as a whole.
“Many reasoned, outspoken and honest scientists have been making the point that Covid-19 is moving rapidly from a ‘pandemic’ … to an ‘endemic’ respiratory infection comparable to the common cold and flu,” he said.
In light of this, it’s “past due” to rethink some Covid protocols, he said.
With the exception of older people, those with health problems and the unvaccinated, Kales said, for most people, Covid-19 is “much more of a logistical nightmare than a health threat.”
It’s therefore time to stop — or dramatically reduce — testing healthy people who show no Covid symptoms, he said, calling this strategy “doomed to failure.”
“As expressed by another physician I recently heard on the radio, it is like trying to stop a snowstorm by catching each and every snowflake, rather than keeping the roads open by plowing,” he said.
Widespread testing — for travel and work — makes it harder for sick and vulnerable people to get tested, said Kales.
“We would never screen well people for the cold or flu virus. Let’s stop testing healthy kids in schools and universities,” he said. “At this point, the teachers, faculty and staff have had the opportunity to be vaccinated and thus, their risk is minimal as well.”
Those with Covid-19 symptoms are a different matter, he said. Regardless of vaccination status, they need to be tested, diagnosed and given effective medications, he said, adding that sick people — “whether it’s Covid or a cold” — should stay home for five days.
Kales said many current protocols are from medical professionals who focus exclusively on infectious diseases, rather than public health.
“Public health is a balance,” he said.
More
Prototype COVID breathalyzer promises new way to test for coronavirus
Rich Haridy February 03, 2022
Researchers in Singapore have developed a prototype breathalyzer that is claimed to be as effective as PCR testing in identifying people with COVID-19. The system is over 95 percent accurate at detecting both symptomatic and asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections, delivering results in less than five minutes.
PCR (polymerase chain reaction) technology is the most accurate way to test for SARS-CoV-2 but it involves expensive and complicated lab equipment, which often mean it can take hours, or even days, to get a test result back. Rapid antigen testing, on the other hand, is a much faster way to test for the presence of the virus but it has accuracy limitations, often delivering inconsistent results.
Attempting to address the need for a fast, easy and accurate COVID-19 test, researchers in Singapore have reported on the success of a breathalyzer prototype designed to deliver results in less than five minutes. It comes after a number of researchers have presented compelling blueprints for breath-based COVID-19 diagnostics over the last two years.
These COVID breathalyzers don’t specifically detect the virus, but instead are designed to identify patterns of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that correspond with a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Particular patterns of molecules such as aldehydes and ketones have been linked with COVID-19 and this makes it feasible for exhaled breath to serve as an effective way to quickly screen lots of people.
The challenge in developing an effective COVID-19 breathalyzer has been making the technology portable enough so the test is viable in real-world contexts. Many hypothetical COVID breath tests require bulky lab equipment such as gas chromatographs, meaning the test could never be widely deployed.
The new device uses a technology called Raman spectroscopy, which allows for the identification of certain patterns of molecules with great accuracy. And most importantly, there are relatively affordable portable Raman spectrometers that could allow for large-scale breathalyzer screening in real-world environments.
The specific breathalyzer device contains a trio of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensors attached to silver nanocubes. Only 10 seconds of breath is needed for the sensors to collect a sample. The breathalyzer is then loaded into a small portable spectrometer that delivers results in under five minutes.
The prototype device was recently tested on 501 people who were all also tested by PCR. The impressive results showed a 0.1 percent false positive rate and a 3.8 percent false negative rate. This is equal to the accuracy seen in lab PCR testing.
More work is needed to validate these results and commercialize the technology, however, the novel breathalyzer is one of many new technological innovations emerging to make COVID-19 testing easy and portable, from a smartphone testing kit to a clip-on exposure monitor.
The new study was published in the journal ACS Nano.
Source: American Chemical Society
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 more useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource centre
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Rt Covid-19
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.
"Impossible" 2D material is light as plastic and stronger than steel
Michael Irving February 02, 2022
Engineers at MIT have developed a new ultrathin material that’s as light as plastic but stronger than steel. The durable material could be used in vehicles or electronics, and makes use of a manufacturing technique that was previously thought impossible.
Polymers are versatile materials, of which plastics are perhaps the most well known examples. Under a microscope, polymers usually look like squiggly threads, one-dimensional chains of units called monomers, but they can be coaxed into three dimensional shapes through manufacturing methods like injection molding.
However, getting polymers to bind together to form two-dimensional sheets has been surprisingly difficult. While some teams have had some success, the resulting materials have faults that reduce their strength or other desirable properties.
But for the new study, the MIT scientists say they’ve developed a new production method that allows polymers to form 2D sheets while keeping their strength intact. The team started with melamine as the monomer, which has a structure of carbon and nitrogen rings. In a solution exposed to just the right conditions, these molecules grow sideways into disk shapes, which then stack on top of each other, with hydrogen bonds holding the layers together.
“Instead of making a spaghetti-like molecule, we can make a sheet-like molecular plane, where we get molecules to hook themselves together in two dimensions,” said Michael Strano, senior author of the study. “This mechanism happens spontaneously in solution, and after we synthesize the material, we can easily spin-coat thin films that are extraordinarily strong.”
The team calls the material 2DPA-1, and it has a few impressive properties. Although it’s extremely thin and lightweight, the polymer has a yield strength that’s twice that of steel, and it takes up to six times more force to deform it than bulletproof glass. It’s also completely impermeable to gases and liquids.
With these kinds of abilities, 2DPA-1 could make for a lightweight, durable, watertight coating for vehicles, electronic devices like smartphones and the like, or even used as a construction material.
“We don’t usually think of plastics as being something that you could use to support a building, but with this material, you can enable new things,” said Strano. “It has very unusual properties and we’re very excited about that.”
The team says that the production method is easily scalable, and could be tweaked to make other types of materials.
The research was published in the journal Nature.
Source: MIT
This weekend’s musical diversion. More from Dresden’s almost unknown but good, Johann David Heinichen. Approx. 9 minutes.
Heinichen Dresden Concerto in F Seibel 233
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkIvJCEX5Nc
This weekend’s chess update. Approx. 10 minutes.
London System is Unstoppable-ish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_8Fjc55ywk
No maths update this weekend. This weekend why 5G creates problems for commercial planes in the USA. Approx. 12 minutes.
WHY could 5G be Dangerous to Airplanes?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaP6SMK5Qmo
'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.
Friedrich August von Hayek.
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