Baltic Dry Index. 2718 +14 Brent Crude 110.29
Spot Gold 1976
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 14/03/22 World 458,582,909
Deaths 6,066,237
“It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose your own.”
Harry S Truman.
This week it is all likely to be about that Russian invasion of Ukraine. Will there be any positive talks this week leading to a cease fire?
It will also focus on this week’s Federal Reserve meeting and what they decide to do, or not do, about soaring inflation. Recession, depression or hyperinflation?
It will also be focused on energy and how foods disruptive the new European war will be on the global food supply chain.
In slightly less important news, we might get some clarity from the London Metal Exchange regarding their crashed closed nickel market.
However, all of the above will get upstaged if Russia decides to retaliate this week by defaulting on its debt.
An interesting week all in all.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index drops nearly 4% as investors monitor China’s Covid wave
SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific were mixed in Monday trade as investors monitor a Covid wave in China. Meanwhile, oil prices continued to be volatile amid the Russia-Ukraine war.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped 3.81% by the afternoon, with Chinese tech stocks taking a beating: Tencent fell 4.51%, Alibaba slipped 7.82% and Meituan plunged 11.23%. The Hang Seng Tech index tumbled more 7%.
Mainland Chinese stocks were also lower, with the Shanghai composite down 1.3% while the Shenzhen component shed 1.612%.
Elsewhere, Taiwan’s Taiex declined 0.15%. Shares of Hon Hai Precision Industry, also known as Foxconn, slipped 0.97%. The major Apple supplier announced Monday it has suspended operations in China’s Shenzhen city to comply with local Covid restrictions, according to Reuters.
South Korea’s Kospi also dipped 0.85%.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 climbed 0.81% while the Topix index advanced 0.95%. The S&P/ASX 200 in Australia gained 1.09%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 1.62% lower.
Investors continued watching developments on the Russia-Ukraine war, which is disrupting shipping and air freight. Elsewhere, markets also monitored a recent wave of Covid infections in China — including the major city of Shenzhen.
“China is experiencing the largest wave of COVID since the end of national lockdown in March 2020,” ANZ Research’s Raymond Yeung and Zhaopeng Xing wrote in a Monday note.
“If the lockdown is extended, China’s economic growth will be significantly affected. It is too early for us to change our GDP growth forecast (5.0%) for 2022 , but we are wary of the impact of a partial lockdown in the economically rich provinces,” they said.
Oil prices fell in the afternoon of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures down 2.07% to $110.34 per barrel. U.S. crude futures shed 2.45% to $106.65 per barrel.
Oil prices during the Russia-Ukraine conflict have spiked to record levels but fell back last week on supply hopes, before rising again to close out the week. Over in Asia, China, India, Japan and South Korea are all major importers of oil, according to 2020 data from the International Energy Agency.
The U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to announce a rate hike later this week, the first such move since 2018.
In Asia, the Bank of Japan is also set to announce its monetary policy decision later in the week.
Debt deadline and central bank hikes loom in Russia
March 13, 2022 11:00 AM GMT
LONDON, March 11 (Reuters) - The cost of Russia's invasion of Ukraine will become a lot clearer this week, with a previously unthinkable sovereign default looming, more emergency central bank measures likely and a stock market crash guaranteed if it reopens.
Moscow's "special operation" in its former Soviet neighbour has cut Russia off from key parts of the global financial markets by the West, triggering its worst economic crisis since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.
Wednesday could mark another low. The government is due to pay $117 million on two of its dollar-denominated bonds. But it has been signalling it will not, or if its does it will be in roubles, tantamount to a default. read more
Technically it has a 30-day grace period, but that is a minor point. If it happens it would represent its first international default since the Bolshevik revolution over a century ago.
Default is quite imminent," said Roberto Sifon a top analyst at S&P Global which has just hit Russia with the world's biggest ever sovereign credit rating downgrade. read more
That state-run energy giants Gazprom and Rosneft have made international bond payments in recent days and around $200 billion of still-unsanctioned government reserves does leave a sliver of hope that might not happen, though those odds look grim.
More
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/debt-deadline-central-bank-hikes-loom-russia-2022-03-13/
Finally, more on that spectacular nickel blow up last week, that wiped out the London Metal Exchange nickel market.
When will nickel start trading again and at what price?
Chinese tycoon's 'big short' on nickel trips up Tsingshan's miracle growth
March 14, 2022 4:38 AM GMT
Chinese tycoon Xiang Guangda has to find a way to bail his Tsingshan Holding Group out of a crisis after its bet on nickel prices backfired, fuelling more volatility in a metal essential for the electric vehicles industry.
One of the world's top nickel producers faces massive losses on its short positions after prices soared over $100,000 per tonne last week and forced the London Metal Exchange to halt nickel trading. read more
Tsingshan has to either pay off the outstanding short positions, which could be as high as $8 billion, or prove it has sufficient deliverable nickel to repay in kind.
Beijing could step in to rescue Tsingshan, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. China could swap some of its high grade nickel reserves for low grade nickel pig iron (NPI) that Tsingshan produces to help it meet LME quality standards. China is estimated to hold around 100,000 tonnes of nickel in state stocks, two analysts said.
Tsingshan and China's state reserves administration did not respond to requests for comment.
Tsingshan has figured in market swings before.
Last year, it triggered a price drop with surprise news that it would provide nickel matte to battery materials makers, potentially solving a key bottleneck for electric vehicles by boosting battery-grade supply in a cheaper way.
Betting prices would fall, Tsingshan started building a short position last year. The bet backfired partly as Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent metals prices soaring, putting pressure on holders of big short positions, including Tsingshan.
"Markets were sensing that (Tsingshan) were going to make a move, but they probably made it too early ... a quarter or so too early and nobody was anticipating what happened in Ukraine," said Angela Durrant, Wood Mackenzie's principal nickel analyst.
Tsingshan has suggested foreign elements may be driving up nickel prices.
"Foreigners do have some actions and we are actively coordinating [with related parties]," China Business News quoted Xiang as saying on March 8.
The market gyrations have had no impact on Tsingshan's Indonesia operations, a corporate mining source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
For Indonesia, Tsingshan is a means to fulfill its ambition to become a one-stop shop for EV battery ingredients and the company has executed projects at lightning speed. Western firms often privately complained about the access and resources Tsingshan got in the country.
"Government has ambition in Indonesia, they want to build the hub for battery for electrical car. That's why you see the policy to support the industry," the source said. "We are affected by COVID, but not affected by this (short exposure)."
Tsingshan is also seen as a poster child in Southeast Asia for China’s Belt and Road Initiative, President Xi Jinping's vast infrastructure programme.
In contrast to privately-held Tsingshan, several high profile projects led by Chinese state-backed firms have been mothballed amid overpricing, corruption and debt sustainability concerns.
MARKET DISRUPTOR
Founded in 1988 in Wenzhou, Tsingshan started out in stainless steel production and making automobile windows and doors.
But its fortunes changed when Xiang, 64, started exploring Indonesian markets in 2009. Over the next decade, it shook the global nickel industry with low-cost nickel pig iron.
It set up facilities in Indonesia, the world's largest nickel producer, with output ranging from nickel sulphate to nickel matte, an intermediate product that can be used in both stainless steel and batteries.
Tsingshan is spearheading Indonesia’s two major nickel hubs, including the Morowali industrial park, which employs over 40,000 people and spans 2,000 hectares with an airport, mineral processing plants, a port and executive visitors hotel.
The company has said it aims to produce 850,000 tonnes of nickel equivalents this year and 1.1 million tonnes in 2023.
"There was nothing there on that site in 2015 ... so they did something absolutely miraculous," Durrant said. "Getting away from higher Chinese power (costs), moving everything over to Indonesia was a masterstroke for them."
The industry credits much of this success to Xiang.
He became known as a market disruptor who could "take the world by storm", said Steven Brown, an independent nickel consultant in Canberra who spent two days touring Tsingshan’s production facilities with Xiang in 2014.
Xiang opposes high nickel prices and is fixed on being a low-cost producer of nickel and stainless steel, Brown said.
"I don't think this crisis will result in too much of a change in strategy from Tsingshan," he added.
Market sources said though Tsingshan has cut its exposure it is unlikely to have fully covered all its positions.
More
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Rising food prices shake North Africa as Ukraine war rages
Issued on: 13/03/2022 - 03:56
Tunis (AFP) – Households across North Africa are rushing to stock up on flour, semolina and other staples as food prices rise following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, both key wheat exporters to the region.
The scramble is worse coming just weeks before the start of the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims traditionally break a dawn-to-dusk fast with lavish family meals.
Tunisia, Morocco and Libya, along with several other Arab countries, import much of their wheat from Ukraine and Russia.
Some fear the Russian invasion could lead to hunger and unrest, with memories of how rising food prices played a role in several Arab uprisings last decade.
In one supermarket in the Tunisian capital, the shelves were bare of flour or semolina, and only three packs of sugar sat on a shelf near a sign that read: "One kilo per customer, please".
----Fear of war
Hedi Baccour, of Tunisia's union of supermarket owners, said daily sales of semolina -- a staple across North Africa used in dishes of couscous -- have jumped by "700 percent" in recent days.
Sugar sales are up threefold as Tunisians stockpile basic foodstuffs, said Baccour, who insisted there were no food shortages.
Each day pensioner Hedi Bouallegue, 66, makes the round of grocery shops in his Tunis neighbourhood to stock up on products like cooking oil and semolina.
"I am even ready to pay double the price," he told AFP.
Baker Slim Talbi said he had been paying three times as much for flour than in the past, "although the real effects of the (Russia-Ukraine) war have not hit us yet".
"I am worried" about the future, Talbi added, citing Tunisia's dependence on Ukrainian wheat.
Tunisia imports almost half of the soft wheat used to make bread from Ukraine. Authorities say the North African country has enough supplies to last three months.
More
Step up or step out, Eustice
11 March 2022
Professor Chris Elliott takes no pleasure in saying “I told you so”, after warning about the UK’s vulnerability when it comes to food security. But, out of the Ukraine crisis could come a reinvigorated food system…
I have written many articles over the past few years, particularly for New Food, about the UK’s food security situation. I have argued for a complete rethink on how this is calculated and for Government policies to change radically.
I have not been alone in making these calls, but they have all fallen on deaf ears – we simply have not seen effective policy introduced to improve the UK’s food security. On the contrary, the UK is now, in my opinion, the most food insecure it has been since World War II.
Few really know or can start to comprehend the impact the invasion of Ukraine will have on the global food supply system. It has the largest area of arable land in Europe and produces enough food to feed more than half a billion people.
Due to the catastrophic situation unfolding, there are likely to be massive shortages of many staples such as wheat, barley and potatoes. The hardest hit regions of the world are expected to be in Africa, with the spectre of famine looming large in some regions.
The impact on food insecurity as a result of this war will probably last for several years, even if a resolution to the Russian invasion comes relatively quickly. At home (Ireland) we will see soaring costs of many food products and lack of availability of others. Sanctions on Russia must also be factored in too, in terms of the country’s huge exports of cereal crops, fish and oils. The country is also a major exporter of potash, phosphate and nitrogen-containing fertilisers. Please believe me when I say that these will become part of Russia’s ‘tools of war’ . The country not only carries a nuclear deterrent, but also the ability to drive many parts of the world into hunger. My anger at what Putin has done and what he could be responsible for is hard to describe.
It is time to reset our thinking. We need to make the UK much less vulnerable to such events in the future and actually have a national food strategy built on resilience and incorporating some of the well-made points found in the Dimbleby National Food Strategy.
I use this article to openly call upon George Eustice, Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to step up or step out. There are so many positive things that could come out of the present adversity in terms of feeding the nation with wholesome, sustainable food. Like many things, the trigger for change is often brought about by crisis. This is one crisis that we should not waste.
https://www.newfoodmagazine.com/article/162660/step-up-or-step-out-eustice/
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
China locks down millions of people as COVID cases spike
Sun, March 13, 2022, 4:29 PM
China reported 3,400 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, up from just under 2,000 on Saturday, marking the worst outbreak since the virus first became widespread in early 2020, according to The Guardian and The Associated Press.
The majority of the new cases were reported in China's northeastern Jilin province. AP and The Guardian report that authorities responded by closing schools in Shanghai and suspending bus service to the city, locking down hundreds of neighborhoods in Jilin City (which has a population of 1.5 million and reported 500 new COVID cases on Sunday), and imposing full lockdowns on several other northeastern cities.
Millions of people have been confined to their homes as China continues its strict zero-COVID policy.
In December and January, the 13 million inhabitants of Xi'an were forbidden to leave their homes except in emergency situations after public health authorities recorded 52 new cases in the city in one day. The lockdown lasted for a full month.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-locks-down-millions-people-162953591.html
COVID-19: South Korea, Germany, Vietnam account for 41% of weekly cases
March 13, 2022 / 2:48 PM / Updated at 1:14 AM
March 13 (UPI) -- South Korea, Germany and Vietnam accounted for 41.1% of new COVID-19 cases as infections rose by 6% worldwide in the past week.
The three nations helped drive an increase in COVID-19 infections despite accounting for only 3.9% of the population with global cases increasing 10,965,687 in the past seven days for a total of 458,153,536 by late Sunday, according to tracking by Worldometers.info.
The climb comes after infections dropped by 19% last week.
Deaths, which often lag behind infections, increased by 42,384 to a total of 6,065,788, a 16% decline in new fatalities from the previous week.
RELATED China closes schools, dismisses mayors as COVID-19 numbers rise
South Korea, with a population of 51.3 million people, gained a world-high 1,993,625 infections, a 44% spike in the past week, for a total of 6,556,453 in 14th. The country set a daily record with 383,651 Saturday with a weekly high of only a few hundred in 2020 and under 7,000 in 2021 to 630,836 at the end of last year. Sunday's increase was 350,176 and its deaths mark was 269 Saturday then 251 Sunday.
Germany, with 83.2 million residents, added 1,303,308 cases at a 20% rise for total 17,240,479 in seventh. The nation set a daily record with 300,270 cases Thursday then 213,264 Sunday. The nation first experienced a spike from Omicron in mid January and the fatality record was 1,249 on Dec. 29, 2020, but an average of 200 each day last week.
Vietnam, which has 98.8 million people, reported 1,108,498 new cases at a 35% increase for 5,903,147 in 15th. Vietnam set the daily mark with 177,976 Friday then 168,719 Saturday. On Sunday, the nation gained 166,968 cases and 95 deaths
More
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.
New research sheds light on nature of friction in multi-layered graphene
Date: March 9, 2022
Source: Pusan National University
Summary: Multi-layered graphene is a promising carbon-based nanomaterial for a variety of next-generation technologies, but the relationships between its surface structures and properties are not entirely clear. Now, in a recent study, scientists analyze how surface structures like wrinkles and folded networks affect nanoscale friction in multi-layered graphene. Their findings could pave the way for graphene-based solid lubricants and micro/nano-scale mechanical devices.
Multi-layered graphene is a promising carbon-based nanomaterial for a variety of next-generation technologies, but the relationships between its surface structures and properties are not entirely clear. Now, in a recent study, Pusan National University scientists analyze how surface structures like wrinkles and folded networks affect nanoscale friction in multi-layered graphene. Their findings could pave the way for graphene-based solid lubricants and micro/nano-scale mechanical devices.
Graphene, which consists of a single layer of carbon atoms, is the poster child of carbon-based 2D nanomaterials. It has many attractive properties that could be exploited in next-generation electronics, optics, catalysis, biomedicine, and many other fields. Recently, many scientists have focused on chemical vapor deposition (CVD) as a cost-efficient technique for producing larger graphene surfaces in lieu of the well-established method of mechanical exfoliation, which can only produce small graphene islands.
However, CVD graphene contains a fair number of surface structures and defects, including wrinkles, crystal grain boundaries, and surface contamination. Because graphene is so thin, even minor surface irregularities can greatly affect its properties, making its surface-property relationships an important area of research. While studies on this topic have been conducted extensively for single-layer CVD graphene, few have focused on how surface structures affect the nanoscale friction characteristics of multi-layered CVD graphene.
Recently, a team of researchers from Pusan National University, Korea, led by Assistant Professor Songkil Kim tackled this knowledge gap. "Correlating surface characteristics with a material's properties is really important," explains Dr. Kim, "Imagine you are stacking papers, and there is a huge compressive strain over these papers. This could cause massive structural deformations within the stacked layers and the surface. Similarly, the structural changes that occur in multi-layered graphene can affect its surface properties, such as its friction, which is what we focused on." Their paper was made available online on January 24, 2022, and published in Volume 584 of Applied Surface Scienceon May 15, 2022.
----Overall, this study's findings could pave the way for interesting mechanical applications for CVD graphene. "Graphene and similar materials can be used as solid lubricants," comments Dr. Kim, "Whereas liquid lubricants like motor oils are not suitable for harsh environment such as outer space or the polar regions, the excellent robustness and frictional properties of graphene make it an attractive non-toxic alternative."
Interestingly, developing high-performance lubricants has environmental benefits since reducing friction is essential to prevent energy losses in mechanical systems. Another potential application for multi-layered CVD graphene is in micro/nano-devices, where a precise control of friction is necessary.
“When even one American [your nation here] - who has done nothing wrong - is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth - then all Americans [your nation here] are in peril.”
Harry S Truman.
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