Baltic Dry Index. 2589 -16 Brent Crude 118.55
Spot Gold 1936
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 22/03/22 World 472,655,045
Deaths 6,105,630
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Albert Einstein.
Another day, more war. President Biden says his spooks expect President Putin to use chemical and biological weapons soon!
Real or fake news? Who knows?
Are the Russians about to bomb one of America’s secret Ukraine germ warfare labs that officially don't exist? Have they already done that?
Again who knows what’s real what’s fake, or what’s just part of a psyops campaign.
In the global stock casinos, no one cares, though making money is getting harder with each passing volatile erratic week.
In the commodity casinos, massive inflation. Look away from the price of crude oil and foodstuffs now.
Tomorrow will not be like today which was like yesterday. Thanks to the Covid pandemic, a new European war, massive all against all economic warfare, plus a looming global food calamity, no one has any clear idea of what tomorrow will really be like.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rises more than 1%; China Eastern Airlines stock drops nearly 6%
SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific were mixed in Tuesday trade, as China Eastern Airlines shares fell after the carrier’s Boeing 737 passenger jet crashed in southern China on Monday.
By Tuesday afternoon, shares of China Eastern Airlines in Hong Kong dropped 5.82%.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong-listed shares of Chinese tech juggernaut Alibaba surged almost 5% after the firm announced Tuesday an upsizing of its share repurchase program from $15 billion to $25 billion.
Hong Kong’s broader Hang Seng index climbed 1.13%.
Japanese stocks led gains regionally, with the Nikkei 225 jumping 1.6% while the Topix index climbed 1.39%.
Mainland Chinese stocks were mixed, as the Shanghai composite sat 0.14% higher while the Shenzhen component dipped 0.414%.
South Korea’s Kospi advanced 0.66%. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 gained 1.06%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 0.16% higher.
Fed watch
Investors also watched for market reaction to comments by U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell vowing tough action on inflation.
---- “The US Fed Funds futures now has 42bps of tightening priced for May up from 3.5bps at Friday’s close, and 80bps over the combined May-June meetings, so now flirting with the notion of back-to-back 50 point increases,” Attrill said.
Shares on Wall Street dipped overnight, with the S&P 500 fractionally lower at 4,461.18 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 201.94 points to 34,552.99. The Nasdaq Composite shed 0.4% to 13,838.46.
Brent rises more than 2%
Oil prices were higher in the afternoon of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures up 2.53% to $118.55 per barrel. U.S. crude futures climbed 1.96% to $114.32 per barrel.
More
Washington’s ‘trigger-happy’ sanctions may push countries away from the dollar, says think tank
The U.S. has been “extremely trigger-happy” with stinging economic measures, and central banks may decide to diversify their portfolio of foreign reserves instead of relying heavily on the U.S. dollar, according to the co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security.
“Central banks are beginning to ask questions,” said Gal Luft of the Washington-based think tank, adding that they are wondering if reliance on the dollar and “putting all their eggs in one basket” is a smart idea.
“The United States has extended itself, has been extremely trigger-happy when it comes to the use of sanctions and other economic punishments,” he said.
The White House did not respond to a CNBC request for comment.
Luft said the U.S. took “unacceptable and unheard of steps” in recent weeks, such as effectively freezing Russia’s central bank reserves and disconnecting Russia from the interbank messaging system, SWIFT.
He said one in 10 countries in the world is under some form of U.S. sanctions.
“That has a cumulative effect and as a result, we see the dollar playing less and less of a role and portfolios of central banks,” Luft said.
His comments come after a Wall Street Journal report that Saudi Arabia is in accelerated talks with China to accept yuan instead of dollars for oil that Beijing buys.
Oil is typically priced in U.S. dollars, and that has allowed Washington to run “huge deficits,” he told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Monday.
Sanctions, however, make governments want to move away from the U.S. dollar, Luft said.
He said the American political class has a “lack of awareness” about the consequences of their actions.
“It’s like a bunch of kids running around with guns shooting all over the place without realizing what they’re actually doing, without looking at the cumulative impact of all of this,” he said.
“On the one hand, you are sanctioning right and left. On the other hand, you want countries to buy your Treasurys and finance your debt. That’s not a sustainable scenario,” he said.
Separately, Luft, who is senior advisor to the U.S. Energy Security Council, discussed the uncertainty in global energy markets.
“The overall picture is not good because what we’re getting today is a heart attack on top of a heart attack,” he said, pointing to the Covid pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, which could become “very nasty.”
More
Up next, more on that global inflation. Fed Chairman Powell who got it so wrong for so long, tries to hide behind “Fed officials and many economists "widely underestimated" how long those pressures would last.”
Well maybe, but those officials and many economists weren’t getting paid to get official inflation right, nor to look away while many at the Fed were frontrunning the Fed’s easy money policies on which they voted. Jerome “call me Arthur Burns 2.0” Powell will not fare well in history.
In Germany, despair.
Powell says 'inflation is much too high' and the Fed will take 'necessary steps' to address
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Monday vowed tough action on inflation, which he said jeopardizes an otherwise strong economic recovery.
"The labor market is very strong, and inflation is much too high," the central bank leader said in prepared remarks for the National Association for Business Economics.
The speech comes less than a week after the Fed raised interest rates for the first time in more than three years in an attempt to battle inflation that is running at its highest level in 40 years.
Reiterating a position the Federal Open Market Committee made Wednesday in its post-meeting statement, Powell said interest rate hikes would continue until inflation is under control. He said the increases could be even higher if necessary than the quarter-percentage point move approved at the meeting.
"We will take the necessary steps to ensure a return to price stability," he said. "In particular, if we conclude that it is appropriate to move more aggressively by raising the federal funds rate by more than 25 basis points at a meeting or meetings, we will do so. And if we determine that we need to tighten beyond common measures of neutral and into a more restrictive stance, we will do that as well."
A basis point is equal to 0.01%. FOMC officials indicated that 25 basis point increases are likely at each of their remaining six meetings this year. However, markets are pricing in about a 50-50 chance the next hike, at the May meeting, could be 50 basis points.
Stocks slipped to their lows of the session after Powell's remarks while Treasury yields rose.
The sudden policy tightening comes with inflation as measured by the consumer price index running at 7.9% on a 12-month basis. A gauge that the Fed prefers still has prices up 5.2%, well above the central bank's 2% target.
As he has before, Powell ascribed much of the pressures coming from Covid pandemic-specific factors, in particular escalated demand for goods over services that supply could not meet. He conceded that Fed officials and many economists "widely underestimated" how long those pressures would last.
While those aggravating factors have persisted, the Fed and Congress provided more than $10 trillion in fiscal and monetary stimulus since the pandemic's start. Powell said he continues to believe that inflation will drift back to the Fed's target, but it's time for the historically easy policies to end.
More
German producer prices jump by record 25.9%
March 21, 2022 7:48 AM GMT
BERLIN, March 21 (Reuters) - German producer prices maintained their record-breaking rise in February, increasing 25.9% year on year mainly because of energy prices, Federal Statistics Office data showed on Monday.
The jump in factory gate costs, considered a leading indicator for consumer prices, was the biggest since 1949, the statistics office said.
The February figures continued a stretch of record increases since the office began compiling numbers, topping December and January's figures of 24.2% and 25% respectively.
The average expectation among analysts polled by Reuters was for an annual increase of 26.2%.
February's producer prices did not take into account the effects of Russia's attack on Ukraine.
Producer prices also registered a jump of 1.4% from the previous month.
Energy prices were up 68% from February 2021, the statistics office said. Stripping out energy prices, producer prices rose 12.4% year on year.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/german-producer-prices-jump-by-record-259-2022-03-21/
Finally, in what else could possibly go wrong European war news? Plenty. But is this real or just cover for getting caught out in dirty tricks?
Mines from Ukraine drift into the Black Sea, Russia and shipping sources say
Mon, March 21, 2022, 12:06 PM
March 21 (Reuters) - Several hundred mines have drifted into the Black Sea after breaking off from cables near Ukrainian ports, Russia's main intelligence agency and shipping market participants said.
The Black Sea is a major shipping artery for grain, oil and oil products.
"Due to storm weather, the cables connecting the mines to anchors were broken," Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said in a press release dated March 19.
"Due to wind and water currents, the mines are drifting freely in the western part of the Black Sea," the FSB said.
The FSB said about 420 mines had broken lose.
Novorossiisk Port Authority, in a note seen by Reuters, said that shipping was at risk in the western Black Sea. Shipping sources said Turkish authorities had cautioned about the risk for those using the Dardanelles and Bosphorus straits.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mines-ukraine-drift-black-sea-120636578.html
Putin's back against the wall in Ukraine – Biden
Summary
1. US President Biden believes Russia's Vladimir Putin's "back is against the wall" in Ukraine, increasing the chance he may use chemical or biological weapons
2. The White House also warns that Russia may also resort to cyber-attacks against the US in response to increasingly damaging sanctions
3. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says his country's forces have slowed down the enemy advance
4. But Ukraine's military says Russia has increased its "aviation presence" in the country's airspace in the last 24 hours
5. Zelensky has again called for a meeting with Putin, saying it will not be possible to negotiate an end to the war unless they meet
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-60830013
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein.
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Wheat prices soar on Ukraine fears, but U.S. growers can't cash in
March 21, 2022 10:16 AM GMT
· U.S. wheat farmer sales seize up during Ukraine war as price spike spooks buyers
· Jump in futures prices leaves some grain handlers unable to hedge against losses
· Rising fertilizer prices may hurt wheat output if farmers use less
CHICAGO, March 21 (Reuters) - After Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent global wheat futures soaring, U.S. farmer Vance Ehmke was eager to sell his grain.
Local prices shot up roughly 30% to nearly $12 a bushel, about the highest Ehmke could recall in 45 years of farming near the western Kansas town of Healy.
Instead of reaping a windfall, Ehmke found a commodities market turned upside down. He and his wife Louise told Reuters they couldn't sell a nickel of their upcoming summer wheat harvest for future delivery. Futures prices for corn and wheat had rocketed so abruptly that many along the complex chain of grain handling - local farm cooperatives, grain elevators, flour millers and exporters - stopped buying for fear they couldn't resell at a profit.
Others couldn't afford an industry-wide risk-management strategy known as hedging that keeps global commodities markets moving. Missiles falling in Ukraine had rocked that system, sending middlemen scrambling to shore up positions in the futures market that were costing them millions of dollars per day.
"More than anything, the market is just in a panic," Andrew Jackson, a Kentucky grain merchandiser, told Reuters.
Many of these players continue to hold back on purchases to see how the Eastern European conflict shakes out: Russia is the world's top wheat exporter and Ukraine is a major global supplier of both wheat and corn.
While some North American millers have said they have enough grain on hand from past harvests to continue producing for several months, prolonged or repeated disruptions to grain trading could eventually contribute to already-inflated food prices. read more
Meanwhile, the inability to sell some of their winter wheat - whose harvest starts in June - is putting the squeeze on U.S. farmers. Growers like the Ehmkes need cash now to pay for seed and fertilizer ahead of spring planting, as well as for land rent and tax bills coming due.
Fertilizer bills alone are expected to jump 12% this year, after rising 17% last year, according to American Farm Bureau Federation and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data. If American farmers decide to cut back, that could curb yields for the fall harvest at a time when the world may soon need more grain.
Developing countries are particularly vulnerable to supply shortages and high grain prices, said Don Roose, president of agricultural broker U.S. Commodities in Iowa.
----The wheat rally clobbered buyers of other crops, too.
Landus Cooperative, the largest agriculture cooperative in Iowa, briefly suspended its cash bids to buy corn and soybeans on March 9. Chief Executive Matt Carstens said Landus also tripled its credit line with CoBank, a top U.S. agricultural lender, to cover hundreds of millions of dollars in margin calls during the rally and ensure its business remained healthy.
CoBank has delivered more than $4.5 billion in loans and credit to customers to deal with margin calls and grain purchases in January and February alone, Eric Itambo, CoBank's chief banking officer, told Reuters
More
FARM BUREAU
REPORTS PRODUCTION COSTS OUTPACING COMMODITY PRICES
Mar. 21, 2022
American Farm Bureau Federation reports:
Washington - The cost of growing crops could outpace
revenue for many farmers in 2022, making it more difficult to break even
despite rising commodity prices and increased demand both domestically and
globally. The American Farm Bureau Federation is launching a series of Market Intel
articles examining rising farm production expenses.
The first report
concludes that farm production costs are likely to increase 6% in 2022, which
follows a 12% increase in 2021. This continues a trend stretching back several
years. Since 2013, farmers have seen almost all production expenses increase.
For example, livestock and poultry expenses have gone up 46% and marketing,
storage and transportation costs have increased 59%.
Farmers are seeing a number of production cost
increases including:
• Rising fertilizer, seed and chemical prices, which
now make up to 17.5% of on-farm expenditures
• Rising fuel and energy prices, exacerbated by
uncertainty due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict
• Increased costs of labor, both on-farm and for
agribusinesses serving farms
• COVID-19 disruption of labor markets and
production
"The rising prices for fuel, fertilizer and
other supplies create an unwelcome counterforce to higher commodity
prices," said AFBF President Zippy Duvall. "Higher prices for crops
are getting a lot of attention right now and of course help farmers balance the
books, but when expenses are rising just as quickly or even outpacing revenue,
the financial gains evaporate. Right now, there are serious concerns about
whether farmers will be able to access the supplies they need to put a crop in
the ground."
AFBF is working to ensure the administration and
Congress understand the severity and potential implications of increased
production costs and the limited availability of some supplies.
Future Market Intel articles will explore the rising
cost of production expenses like seed, pesticides, energy, machinery, land,
labor, credit and water. A Market Intel analyzing fertilizer prices was
published in December 2021.
Read the entire Market Intel here.
https://www.agrimarketing.com/s/140260
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
COVID-19 in Israel: R-rate measured at 1.23, over 12,000 new daily cases
By SHIRA SILKOFF Published: MARCH 21, 2022 10:05 Updated: MARCH 21, 2022 11:21
Some 12,869 new coronavirus cases were recorded in Israel on Sunday, with a positive return rate of 20.48% for the 62,852 PCR and antigen tests that were taken, Health Ministry data showed on Monday morning.
This number is a significant increase in comparison to the previous day when only 7,783 new cases were reported. However, due to it being the weekend combined with the Jewish holiday of Purim, testing rates were significantly lower with only half the number of people taking a coronavirus test (36,760), possibly resulting in a lower number of reported cases than would have been seen otherwise.
However, the number of infections is undoubtedly on the rise again, with the R-rate currently standing at 1.23, in comparison to 0.86 where it was last week.
When the R exceeds one, the number of cases will keep increasing until the spread is brought back under control again. As of right now, the number has been rising significantly in the last week, after decreasing steadily during the month prior.
More
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-701885
Long COVID study indicates “something concerning is happening”
Rich Haridy March 20, 2022
Two new studies are reporting on an ongoing long COVID research project investigating the persistent effects of COVID-19 on cognition in the months after acute disease. The University of Cambridge-led research found many long COVID patients are experiencing significant and measurable memory or concentration impairments even after mild illness.
“Long COVID has received very little attention politically or medically,” said Lucy Cheke, senior author on the new studies. “It urgently needs to be taken more seriously, and cognitive issues are an important part of this. When politicians talk about ‘Living with COVID’ – that is, unmitigated infection, this is something they ignore.”
The new findings come from an ongoing project called The COVID and Cognition Study (COVCOG). The study recruited nearly 200 COVID-19 patients across late 2020/early 2021 and around the same amount of demographically matched uninfected controls. The goal was to “map the terrain” of cognition in post-acute COVID-19.
Around two-thirds of the COVID-19 cohort experienced symptoms of long COVID, defined as a symptom lasting longer than 12 weeks beyond initial date of diagnosis. Among those experiencing long COVID the new research found 78 percent had difficulty concentrating, 69 percent suffered brain fog, 68 percent reported forgetfulness and around 40 percent displayed a condition known as semantic disfluency (saying or typing the wrong word).
The study also found those subjects with long COVID experienced significant disruptions to their daily lives. More than half the long COVID cohort were unable to work for extended periods of time and one-third lost their job due to their illness.
Perhaps most strikingly, the research found half the long COVID cohort reported problems getting doctors to take their persistent symptoms seriously. Muzaffer Kaser, a researcher working on the COVCOG project, says these findings affirm something real and measurable is happening to these patients.
----As with prior long COVID studies, the new findings indicate the severity of a patient’s initial infection can help predict the likelihood of long COVID symptoms. Few subjects in the study were so acutely ill they needed to be hospitalized, however, those reporting more severe acute disease were more likely to report persistent cognitive problems.
Plus, those with the broadest symptoms during their acute disease were most likely to experience lingering cognitive problems. In other words, those experiencing combinations of neurological, gastrointestinal and cardiopulmonary symptoms early on were at greater risk of cognitive problems several months down the line.
The new research concludes there are “objective cognitive differences” between those who have and haven’t been infected with COVID-19. But it is still unclear exactly what is specifically causing these persistent cognitive symptoms. The researchers hypothesize lingering systemic inflammation as a plausible causal mechanism but suggest more targeted research will need to investigate this proposal.
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.
GE produces world's largest recyclable wind turbine blade
Nick Lavars March 20, 2022
Through its massive wind turbines and innovative offshore designs, GE continues sharpening its toolkit in a bid to built the future of sustainable energy, and a newly unveiled turbine blade shows how that can extend to the materials used. A consortium led by the company has manufactured the world's largest thermoplastic blade, designed to serve as full-scale example of a fully recyclable wind turbine blade.
Wind energy has become an important pillar in our fossil fuel-free future, but that doesn't mean it comes without environmental concerns of its own. The thermoset composites making up today's turbine blades cannot be recycled, and one University of Cambridge study suggests that there will be 43 million tonnes of blade waste around the world by 2050. The Zero Waste Blade Research (ZEBRA) Project is working on more sustainable materials in the form of thermoplastic composites.
The 62-meter (203-ft) prototype blade is made with Elium resin from materials company Arkema, which is a glass-fiber reinforced thermoplastic. Not only is the material 100 percent recyclable, it is said to deliver a similar level of performance to thermoset resins that are favored for their lightweight and durability.
Through a chemical recycling method, the material can be depolymerized and turned into a new virgin resin for re-use, acting as a proof-of-concept for a circular economy loop for the wind energy sector. Before that happens, in the coming weeks LM Wind Power will start full-scale structural testing to verify the blade's performance. It will then verify these advanced recycling methods later in the year, while also working on ways of recycling production waste.
“With this project we are addressing two crucial industry challenges," said John Korsgaard, Senior Director, Engineering Excellence, LM Wind Power. "On one hand, we are progressing on our Zero Waste Blades vision by preventing and recycling manufacturing waste. On the other, we are taking blade recyclability to a new level: the end-of-life thermoplastic composite blade material has high value in itself and can be readily utilized in other industries as material compounds but can also be depolymerized and the resin reused in the production of new blades."
Source: GE
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein.
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