Baltic Dry Index. 1418 +37 Brent Crude 91.21
Spot Gold 1802
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 01/02/22 World 378,840,43
Deaths 5,692,137
"I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."
Albert Einstein.
Dress up Monday over, US stock index futures are trading lower in early trading.
If the Fed goes through with its words last month, their bond and mortgage purchases end by March, with 3 to 5 interest rate hikes coming in 2022, depending on whether the Fedsters want ¼ point rate hikes or if they kick off with a ½ point hike.
Ominously for mid-year onwards, the US Treasury yield curve continues flattening. Not in “hinting of recession ahead” territory yet, but with rate hikes coming from March, it doesn’t take much to get the yield curve flat, or worse, inverted.
Later on Thursday the, “Old Lady of Threadneedle Street” is widely expected to bring in its first back to back interest rate hike since 2004.
To say the least, sentiment in the stock casinos has changed.
Easy Street in the stock casinos is ending, Monday’s rallies were probably exit rallies.
And let’s not get started on a possible new European war, political incompetence in Washington and Ottawa, political downright dishonesty in London.
An omicron global surge in infections. A Brent oil price that seems headed towards 100 dollars a barrel. Rising inflation showing little sign of ending, with sky high fertiliser prices suggesting food price inflation ahead if not food scarcity ahead.
Stocks anyone?
Stocks rally to end a dismal January, but S&P 500 still posts worst month since March 2020
Stocks surged for a second day Monday to wrap up a rough January, as investors snapped up some of the tech shares that have been battered all month.
Despite the two-day relief rally, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite posted their worst months since the onset of the pandemic, as investors braced for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates multiple times this year.
The S&P 500 rose 1.89% to 4,515.55, closing out the month down 5.3%. That’s its worst month since the 12.5% loss in March 2020, and its biggest January decline since 2009. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 406.39 points, or 1.2%, to reach 35,131.86. That helped it cut its monthly loss to 3.3%, as it benefitted from its underweighting in tech shares.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 3.41% to 14,239.88, adding to its 3% comeback Friday. The index still ended down 8.9% for January, its worst month since March 2020.
----Last week, the Fed indicated that it will likely start raising rates in March to combat historically high inflation. That would be the central bank’s first rate hike in more than three years. Markets are now pricing in at least five quarter-percentage-point interest rate hikes in 2022.
Tech shares were some of the hardest hit in January, as investors feared higher rates would expose their lofty valuations and raise their operating costs. Investors were rethinking that notion a bit as the month ended, especially after a dramatic pullback in the stocks.
Netflix and Spotify surged more than 11% and 13%, respectively, on Monday upgrades from Citi. The firm cited this month’s pullback as an attractive time to buy. Netflix still dropped nearly 30% this month, and Spotify lost by 16%.
Tesla, which dropped 11% in January, gained more than 10% on Monday after Credit Suisse upgraded the electric car maker’s stock. The firm said Tesla had been unfairly caught up in the market decline. Other EV makers rose too, with Rivian and Lucid adding about more than 15% and 8%, respectively.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/30/stock-market-futures-open-to-close-news.html
Stock futures fall after S&P 500 wraps up worst month since March 2020
Stock futures declined in overnight trading Monday after Wall Street wrapped up a tumultuous month with steep losses as investors grappled with the Federal Reserve’s policy shift.
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 125 points. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures both traded more than 0.4% lower.
While stocks pulled off a tech-driven rally Monday, major averages still suffered a brutal month marked by wild price swings. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite posted their worst months since March 2020 at the depth of the pandemic, down 5.3% and 8.9%, respectively. It was also the S&P 500′s biggest January decline since 2009. The blue-chip Dow declined 3.3% for the month.
----Volatility exploded during the month as investors deciphered the Fed’s messaging on its policy pivot. At one point last week, the S&P 500 dipped into correction territory on an intraday basis, briefly down 10% from its record high. The recent comeback pushed the large-cap benchmark 6.3% below its peak. Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq is still in a correction, last down 12% from its all-time high.
Still, many Wall Street strategists are reminding investors that corrections are normal in bull markets. Since 1950, there have been 33 S&P 500 corrections of 10% or more since 1950, and the median episode has lasted about five months, according to Goldman Sachs.
----This week a flurry of key companies are expected to report earnings, which could set the tone for the month of February. Exxon Mobil is slated to post numbers before the bell on Tuesday, while Alphabet, General Motors, Starbucks, AMD and PayPal will report after the bell.
So far, of the 172 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings to date, 78.5% topped analysts’ estimates, according to Refinitiv.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/31/stock-market-futures-open-to-close-news.html
Bank of England expected to impose back-to-back rate hikes for the first time since 2004
Published Mon, Jan 31 2022 1:56 AM EST
LONDON — Economists expect the Bank of England to hike interest rates consecutively for the first time since 2004 as the central bank looks to steer the U.K. economy through persistent high inflation.
The Bank fired the starting gun on rate rises in December, hiking its main interest rate to 0.25% from its historic low of 0.1%. Since then, data has shown U.K. inflation soared to a 30-year high in December as higher energy costs, resurgent demand and supply chain issues continued to drive up consumer prices.
The December rate hike came despite the omicron Covid-19 variant spreading rapidly throughout the U.K. and threatening to destabilize the economic recovery once again. However, the Covid outlook has improved in recent weeks, compounding anticipation for a 25 basis point hike on Feb. 3.
“If December’s surprise rate hike decision taught us anything, it was, firstly, that the Bank – and especially Governor Andrew Bailey – is clearly worried about elevated rates of headline inflation and the risk of a virtuous wage-price cycle,” James Smith, developed markets economist at ING, said.
Smith suggested that the high-frequency data points to only a “modest and short-lived” economic impact from omicron, making a 25 basis point hike to 0.5% the most likely course of action.
----BNP Paribas brought forward its call for the next hike from May to February as the Covid situation has improved and inflation continues to run even hotter than expected. The French lender’s economists similarly do not believe the MPC’s messaging will introduce any additional hawkishness, and also expects a 25 basis points hike on Thursday.
“In doing so, we expect the monetary policy committee to kick start the process of balance sheet reduction,” BNP Paribas economists said in a note on Wednesday.
More
Finally, HSBC’s worried about yet more supply chain disruption coming. Buy now for Christmas 2022?
Disruptions in China can lead to ‘ripple-effects’ across global supply chain, says HSBC
Published Mon, Jan 31 2022 12:37 AM EST Updated Mon, Jan 31 2022 1:17 AM EST
China’s zero-Covid restrictions will impact global supply chain recovery as any small disruption in the country will likely lead to “ripple effects” across the world, according to the head of shipping at HSBC.
The pandemic has revealed “how lean the supply chain has become. And there is little margin of error,” said Parash Jain, global head of shipping and ports equity research at HSBC.
“The sheer importance of China when it comes to global trade means that any small disruption in China, will have a ripple effect across the supply chain,” Jain told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Monday.
China, the world’s second largest economy, has doubled down on its zero-Covid strategy due to recent spikes in infections across the country.
Covid cases have been reported in the key port cities of Shenzhen, Tianjin and Ningbo, as well as the industrial hub of Xi’an, resulting in lockdowns and curbs in the largest port hubs.
China reported 58 new Covid-19 cases as of Monday, according to the national health authority. The National Health Commission in its daily update said 40 of the new cases were local infections, with the remaining 18 coming from overseas.
Despite having a relatively low number of cases compared to many other places in Asia, Beijing has clung onto its zero-Covid approach.
China has a 7-day rolling average of 0.04 daily cases per million people as of Jan. 30 compared with 568.8 for Japan, 290.41 for South Korea and 180.35 for India, according to Our World in Data.
China has the infrastructure in place to quickly decongest — whether it’s at the port or in the supply chain side, said Jain.
“However, the chaos created because of this will eventually have an impact on the other side of the ocean,” he added. “That’s why, as long as China maintains this very strict zero-Covid stance, we cannot rule out a disruption time to time as the year progress,” he added.
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"The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away.
Ronald Reagan.
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Tank bottom: topping up a depleted world could push oil toward $100
By Noah Brown February 1, 2022
Feb 1 (Reuters) - Stocks of oil in some of the world's top economies have fallen to their lowest levels in almost a decade and a drive to refill them could nudge oil toward $100 a barrel.
Oil has rallied from a pandemic low of around $16 to nearly $92 on Friday as the global economy recovers from the pandemic and the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has little impact. However, just when buyers will buck high prices to refill depleted storage is disputed by banks and analysts.
Even top energy watchdog the International Energy Agency (IEA) says the ups and downs of the pandemic are clouding the ability to model a trend.
Global jitters over a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine and a slew of supply shocks have addled the market and keep pushing oil up, exacerbating inflation and threatening the world's economic recovery. read more
----"Tank bottoms are in sight across crude and products worldwide already," research consultancy Energy Aspects said.
Storage tanks are extremely low and major producers in the OPEC+ alliance are struggling to pump enough to meet pledged production targets, it added. read more
"There is a growing acceptance that the oil market has few, if any, shock absorbers left."
Storage levels in OECD countries plumbed seven-year lows in November and were on track to fall more in December, according to the IEA.
Europe and especially the Asia-Pacific countries, led by Japan and South Korea, were the most depleted of the prosperous bloc of countries.
More
Households braced for mortgage shock ahead of rates hike as cost of living crisis deepens
Monday 31 January 2022 9:41 am
Fresh warnings over the cost of living have been issued as millions of households could face a huge mortgage shock.
Trade body UK Finance has said one in four mortgage borrowers on variable rate deals will be affected by an anticipated rates rise, The Telegraph first reported.
The Bank of England is anticipated to hike interest rates on Thursday from 0.25 per cent to 0.5 per cent in an attempt to stall inflation.
Threadneedle Street hiked rates for the first time in over three years at the end of last year.
Inflation is set to peak at seven per cent, the highest level it has been in 30 years. It hit its highest rate in nearly three decades, reaching 5.4 per cent in December last year.
Inflation has also surpassed the Bank’s own target of two per cent.
Households could see a jump of almost £600 over the next couple of years, UK Finance told the Telegraph newspaper.
---- The predictions come as the country is facing a cost of living crisis, with skyrocketing gas and electricity bills.
The decision will precede an announcement from energy regulator Ofgem on 7 February, when the energy price cap will be hiked.
It is thought that the price cap could be hiked as much as 50 per cent, the equivalent of £2,000 per year for average use.
Brits are also anticipating a tax bill increase this spring after the Prime Minister and Chancellor have stood staunchly by plans to hike National Insurance payments.
A 1.25 percentage point increase, engineered to tackle a Covid-induced NHS backlog and reform social care, is set to further pile the pressure on households.
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Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
So how many untreated millions died needlessly without available treatment, just to boost the billions of profits of pharmaceutical vaccine companies? It’s long past time to reform “Big Pharma,” a special windfall excess profits tax too.
Japan's Kowa says ivermectin showed 'antiviral effect' against Omicron in research
Mon, January 31, 2022, 8:25 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese trading and pharmaceutical company Kowa Co Ltd said on Monday anti-parasite drug ivermectin showed an "antiviral effect" against Omicron and other variants of coronavirus in joint non-clinical research.
The company did not provide further details.
The firm has been working with Kitasato University, a medical university in Tokyo, on testing the drug which is used to treat parasites in animals and humans, as a potential treatment for COVID-19.
Clinical trials are ongoing but promotion of the drug as a COVID-19 treatment has generated controversy.
The drug is not approved for treatment of COVID-19 in Japan and the U.S. Federal Drug Administration, the World Health Organization and the EU drug regulator have warned against its use.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/japans-kowa-says-ivermectin-effective-082516933.html
Omicron subvariant BA.2 more infectious than 'original', Danish study finds
January 31, 2022 2:11 PM GMT
COPENHAGEN, Jan 31 (Reuters) - The BA.2 subvariant of the Omicron coronavirus variant, which has quickly taken over in Denmark, is more transmissible than the more common BA.1 and more able to infect vaccinated people, a Danish study has found.
The study, which analysed coronavirus infections in more than 8,500 Danish households between December and January, found that people infected with the BA.2 subvariant were roughly 33% more likely to infect others, compared to those infected with BA.1.
Worldwide, the "original" BA.1 subvariant accounts for more than 98% of Omicron cases, but its close cousin BA.2 has quickly become the dominant strain in Denmark, dethroning BA.1 in the second week of January.
"We conclude that Omicron BA.2 is inherently substantially more transmissible than BA.1, and that it also possesses immune-evasive properties that further reduce the protective effect of vaccination against infection," the study's researchers said.
The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, was conducted by researchers at Statens Serum Institut (SSI), Copenhagen University, Statistics Denmark and Technical University of Denmark.
"If you have been exposed to Omicron BA.2 in your household, you have 39% probability of being infected within seven days. If you instead had been exposed to BA.1, the probability is 29%," lead study author Frederik Plesner told Reuters.
That suggests BA.2 is around 33% more infectious than BA.1, he added.
More
Omicron amps up concerns about long COVID and its causes
More than a year after a bout with COVID-19, Rebekah Hogan still suffers from severe brain fog, pain and fatigue that leave her unable to do her nursing job or handle household activities.
Long COVID has her questioning her worth as a wife and mother.
“Is this permanent? Is this the new norm?” said the 41-year-old Latham, New York, woman, whose three children and husband also have signs of the condition. “I want my life back.’’
More than a third of COVID-19 survivors by some estimates will develop such lingering problems. Now, with omicron sweeping across the globe, scientists are racing to pinpoint the cause of the bedeviling condition and find treatments before a potential explosion in long COVID cases.
Could it be an autoimmune disorder? That could help explain why long COVID-19 disproportionately affects women, who are more likely than men to develop autoimmune diseases. Could microclots be the cause of symptoms ranging from memory lapses to discolored toes? That could make sense, since abnormal blood clotting can occur in COVID-19.
As these theories and others are tested, there is fresh evidence that vaccination may reduce the chances of developing long COVID.
It’s too soon to know whether people infected with the highly contagious omicron variant will develop the mysterious constellation of symptoms, usually diagnosed many weeks after the initial illness. But some experts think a wave of long COVID is likely and say doctors need to be prepared for it.
With $1 billion from Congress, the National Institutes of Health is funding a vast array of research on the condition. And clinics devoted to studying and treating it are popping up around the world, affiliated with places such as Stanford University in California and University College London.
More
Beijing seals off more residential areas, reports 12 cases
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Beijing officials said Sunday they had sealed off several residential communities north of the city center after two cases of COVID-19 were found.
The Chinese capital is on high-alert as it prepares to host the Winter Olympics opening Friday.
Another 34 cases were confirmed among athletes and others who have come for the Games, the organizing committee said. In all 211 people have tested positive among more than 8,000 who had arrived by the end of Saturday. They include a Swedish cross-country skier and a snowboarder from Slovenia.
Everyone coming for the Olympics is being isolated from the general public for the duration of their stay in China to try to prevent cross-infection.
Residents in the Anzhenli neighborhood in Beijing’s Chaoyang district were locked down on Saturday, and will not be allowed to leave their compound.
The city is also setting up 19 points in the area to test residents every day until Friday, officials said at a briefing on the pandemic, according to state-backed Beijing News.
While the number of cases is low compared to other countries in the region, China has doubled down on its “zero-tolerance” policy, which tries to break the chain of transmission as soon as it is found.
The Chinese capital reported a total of 12 cases of COVID-19 between 4 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday, said Pang Xinghuo, the vice head of the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control. All those cases came from people who were already under some kind of pandemic control measures.
----The participants in the Games stay in hotels that have been surrounded by temporary walls. They can come and go only in special vehicles that take them directly to the venues or other Olympics facilities. The public is not allowed to enter the hotel properties or the venues, though a limited number of spectators will be let in for the events.
Anyone who tests positive inside the Olympics bubble is isolated in a hospital or quarantine hotel to try to prevent the virus from spreading to other participants.
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.
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.
Used masks upcycled into batteries with energy density of lithium-ion
Michael Irving January 30, 2022
As important as face masks are in our current pandemic-riddled world, they have a major impact on the environment. Now scientists have demonstrated a novel method for disposing of old masks – by using them to make low-cost, flexible and efficient batteries.
Personal protection equipment (PPE) is one of our most crucial defenses in the war against SARS-CoV-2, but unfortunately it needs to be disposable to provide maximum protection. That of course adds up to a huge burden of waste, with a 2020 study estimating that up to 129 billion face masks were used each month during the early stages of the pandemic. These end up in landfill, oceans and other environments, or are burned, giving off toxic gases.
To relieve this pressure, scientists are finding ways to recycle masks into useful things, such as road materials. And in that vein, a new study has now found that with the right treatment, they actually make fairly decent batteries.
First, the researchers disinfected the masks using ultrasound, then dipped them into an ink made of graphene. Next, the masks are compressed and heated to 140 °C (284 °F), forming conductive “pellets” that work as the electrodes of a battery. These are separated by an insulating layer that’s also made of old masks, then the whole thing is soaked in an electrolyte and finally covered in a protective shell that’s made of a different type of medical waste – drug blister packs.
Of course, cleaning up face masks is only part of the equation, and it wouldn’t be much help if the batteries weren’t any good. But they’re surprisingly effective, with the team claiming that they achieved an energy density of 99.7 watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/kg). That’s approaching the energy density of the ubiquitous lithium-ion battery, which ranges between 100 and 265 Wh/kg.
The researchers improved the battery even further by adding nanoparticles of a calcium-cobalt oxide perovskite to the electrodes. This more than doubled the energy density, bringing it up to a respectable 208 Wh/kg. The best-performing version of the battery retained 82 percent of its capacity after 1,500 cycles, and could deliver energy for more than 10 hours at a voltage up to 0.54 V.
The team says that these batteries have a number of other benefits too. Using waste products means they’re low-cost, and they can be made thin and flexible, and even disposable if need be (although that might undercut the original intention somewhat).
The research was published in the Journal of Energy Storage.
Source: National University of Science and Technology
"I was alarmed at my doctor's report: He said I was a sound as a dollar."
Ronald Reagan.
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