Baltic Dry Index. 2718 +74 Brent Crude 112.53
Spot Gold 1873
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 09/05/22 World 517,301,451
Deaths 6,276,522
“America has stopped producing products, we produce bubbles,” he says, adding that we now have bubbles in the real estate market, the stock market and the bond market.
Rich Dad, Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki.
Did last week signal the start of a general liquidation? After all, the central banksters are far behind the inflation curve, even if later this week the US CPI release is expected to slow somewhat from March’s official 8.5 percent rate.
The central banksters, so they say, will continue raising interest rates all year.
Well, if Fed Chairman Powell says so it must be true, right? I mean he wouldn’t try kidding us would he?
That means, many stocks and supposed assets like cryptocurrency, are priced to perfection in a Zero Interest Rate Policy world, not a world moving back into a Higher Interest Rate Policy world.
What goes up, must come down. Did we just pass the Twitter Top?
At any rate, getting out early always beats getting carried out last, and in a panic, people sell what’s liquid, stocks, gold, bitcoin, not necessarily what they want to.
To those lucky or clever enough to be already in cash and be patient, eventually some real opportunities come along, but we are from that stage at present.
With the S&P 500 trading about 4100, some chart “experts” are predicting a bottom somewhere about 2400 to 2500. If that happens, there’s a bloodbath to come in the stock casinos this year.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 falls 2% as Asia-Pacific stocks slip; China’s April trade data comes in above expectations
SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific fell on Monday as investors watched for market reaction to Chinese trade data that came in better-than-expected.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 fell 2.35%, leading losses among the region’s major markets as shares of Fast Retailing dropped more than 6%. The Topix index shed 1.69%.
Mainland Chinese stocks were higher as the Shanghai Composite hovered above the flatline while the Shenzhen Component rose 0.48%.
China’s dollar-denominated exports grew 3.9% year-on-year in April, customs data showed Monday. They were above expectations for a 3.2% rise by analysts in a Reuters poll.
China’s dollar-denominated imports were unchanged in April compared to a year ago, better than an expected 3% drop, according to Reuters.
The data came as mainland China continued to battle its worst Covid outbreak since early 2020. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday emphasized that the country should stick to its “dynamic zero-Covid” policy.
“It is unclear how quickly China will pivot towards living with COVID,” Tapas Strickland, an economist at National Australia Bank, wrote in a Monday note. “As for data, it is expected to take a backseat given lockdowns/enhanced restrictions in many parts of the country.”
More
Asian stocks retreat as China's lockdowns stir recession worries
May 9, 2022 4:54 AM GMT+1
· S&P 500 futures fall early, Nikkei loses 2.1%
· Growth fears as Beijing sticks with zero-COVID policy
· U.S. CPI looms, market priced for rapid Fed hikes
· G7 vows to phase out Russian oil, crude gain
SYDNEY, May 9 (Reuters) - Asian markets were in retreat on Monday as U.S. stock futures slid on rate worries, and a tightening lockdown in Shanghai stoked concerns about global economic growth and possible recession.
"A series of rate hikes and hawkish communication came against a backdrop of plummeting Chinese and European activity, new plans for Russian energy bans and continued supply-side pressures," warned analysts at Barclays.
"This creates the gloomy prospect of persistent inflation forcing central banks to hike rates despite sharply slowing growth."
There was no let up in China's zero-COVID policy with Shanghai tightening the city-wide COVID lockdown for 25 million residents. read more
Speculation that Russian President Vladimir Putin might declare war on Ukraine in order to call up reserves during his speech at "Victory Day" celebrations also hurt market sentiment. Putin has so far characterised Russia's actions in Ukraine as a "special military operation", not a war. read more
----S&P 500 stock futures led the way with a drop of 1.0%, while Nasdaq futures shed 0.8%. U.S. 10-year bond yields edged up to a fresh top at 3.15%.
EUROSTOXX 50 futures fell 1.4% and FTSE futures 0.8%.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) fell 0.9%, and Japan's Nikkei (.N225) 2.1%. Chinese blue chips (.CSI300) eased 0.6%, while the yuan touched another 18-month low to trade at 6.7049 per dollar.
----Investors were also tense ahead of the U.S. consumer price report due on Wednesday where only a slight easing in inflation is forecast, and certainly nothing to prevent the Federal Reserve from hiking by at least 50 basis points in June.
Core inflation is actually seen rising by 0.4% in April, up from 0.3% the previous month, even as the annual pace dips a bit due to base effects.
"In Q1, the annualised monthly change in core CPI was 5.6%," noted analysts at ANZ. "That is too high for the Fed and we think the FOMC won't be relaxed about inflation until the core number moderates to around 0.2% m/m on a sustained basis.
"The Fed is not the only central bank facing inflation pressures. Increasingly, the guidance from the ECB is becoming a lot more hawkish."
More
https://www.reuters.com/business/global-markets-wrapup-2-pix-2022-05-09/
Robert Kiyosaki says that hot inflation will 'wipe out 50% of the US population' — what he means and how to protect yourself
Sat, May 7, 2022, 3:00 PM
With price levels continuing to spike, the Fed is no longer using the word ‘transitory’ to describe inflation.
U.S. consumer prices jumped 8.5% in March from a year ago, marking the fastest increase since December 1981. That could give the Fed more reason to continue raising interest rates — something that’s already casting a giant shadow over the stock market.
It’s a vicious cycle criticized by many investing veterans. And Rich Dad, Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki is one of the latest experts to sound the alarm.
“When inflation goes up, we’re going to wipe out 50% of the U.S. population,” he told Stansberry Research earlier this month.
Kiyosaki isn’t exactly pleased with the current state of the U.S. economy.
“America has stopped producing products, we produce bubbles,” he says, adding that we now have bubbles in the real estate market, the stock market and the bond market.
The author also criticizes President Joe Biden’s decision to halt the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which he believes is a major reason energy prices are so high.
It also spells trouble for those who want to enjoy their golden years. When the bubbles burst, Kiyosaki says, the stock market will crash. So those relying on their 401(k) plans “are toast.”
“We don’t have a retirement, our pensions are bust.”
Given his grim outlook, it’s no big surprise that Kiyosaki is a fan of safe haven assets like gold and silver. Precious metals can’t be printed out of thin air like fiat money, and they’ve been helping investors preserve their purchasing power for centuries.
The price of gold is up about 8% year to date. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has given investors a new reason to check out the yellow metal.
Bubble tactics
Bubbles tend to pop — eventually. When they do, many people see their wealth take a significant hit. But large declines also create opportunities for those who are willing to buy the dip.
“The good thing about a bubble is when they burst, everything goes on sale,” Kiyosaki says.
During the financial crisis of 2008, the author started “buying real estate at bargain prices.” Based on how much real estate has gone up since then, it’s fair to say that was a sharp move.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/robert-kiyosaki-says-hot-inflation-140000889.html
Bitcoin drops below $34,000 over the weekend, extending Friday’s losses
Bitcoin continued to slide after a broader stock sell-off in the U.S. last week sent the cryptocurrency market into a frenzy and prompted bitcoin to plummet by roughly 10%.
Bitcoin, the world’s largest digital currency by market value, was lower by about 3% at $33,438.03 late Sunday, according to data from Coin Metrics. This year, Bitcoin has been trading in a narrow range as it attempts to reclaim its highs of late 2021.
The cryptocurrency is now down 50% from its peak price of $67,802.30 in November 2021.
The drop comes after the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than 1,000 points on Thursday and the Nasdaq plunged by 5%. Those losses marked the worst single-day drops since 2020. The Dow and Nasdaq fell again on Friday.
----The global cryptocurrency market cap was at $1.68 trillion on Sunday, according to data from CoinGecko.com, and cryptocurrency trading volume in the last day was at $119 billion.
Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
John Kenneth Galbraith.
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Today, very bad news and slightly better bad news.
Diesel fuel is in short supply as prices surge — Here’s what that means for inflation
Published Sat, May 7 2022 7:49 AM EDT Updated Sat, May 7 2022 1:09 PM EDT
Diesel prices are surging, contributing to inflationary headwinds due to the fuel’s vital role in the American and global economy. Tankers, trains and trucks all run on diesel. The fuel is also used across industries including farming, manufacturing, metals and mining.
“Diesel is the fuel that powers the economy,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. Higher prices are “certainly going to translate into more expensive goods,” he said, since these higher fuel costs will be passed along to consumers. “Especially at the grocery store, the hardware store, anywhere you shop.”
In other words, the impacts will be felt across the economy.
Diesel’s surge
The jump in prices comes on the heels of growing demand as economies around the world get back to business. This, in turn, has pushed inventories to historic lows. Products like diesel, heating oil and jet fuel are known as “middle distillates,” since they are made from the middle of the boiling range when oil is turned into products.
U.S. distillate inventory is now at the lowest level in more than decade. The move is even more extreme on the East Coast, where stockpiles are at the lowest since 1996. Diesel and jet fuel at New York harbor are now trading well above $200 per barrel, according to UBS.
Europe’s move away from dependency on Russian energy is hastening the rapid price appreciation. The bloc currently imports around 700,000 barrels per day of diesel from Russia, according to Stephen Brennock at brokerage PVM.
″[T]he tightness in global supply will be exacerbated by the EU’s proposal to ban Russian oil imports,” he said. “The ban, if approved, will have an outsized impact on product markets and especially diesel….There is now growing anxiety that Europe might run out of diesel.”
Energy consultancy Rystad echoed this point, saying that the loss of Russian refined products is going to make diesel shortages in Europe “more acute.”
Refiners can’t just ramp up output to meet surging demand, and utilization rates are already above 90%. In the U.S., refining capacity has decreased in recent years. The largest refining complex on the East Coast — Philadelphia Energy Solutions — shut down following a fire in June 2019.
Several refiners are now being reconfigured to make biofuel, which has also reduced capacity
---- ‘Unmoored’ prices
A common saying in commodity markets is “the cure for high prices is high prices.” But that might not be the case this time around. According to UBS, distillate demand tends to be less elastic than gasoline prices.
In other words, while high prices at the pump might deter consumers, if a business needs to get goods from point A to point B, it’s going to pay those higher prices.
Tom Kloza, head of global energy research at OPIS, said that in years past a barrel of diesel typically sold for $10 above the price of crude oil. Today, that differential – known as the crack spread – has surged to a record high above $70.
---- Kloza said diesel at New York harbor is now trading around $5 per gallon, while jet fuel prices at the harbor, which usually mirrors diesel prices, are around $6.72. That equates to roughly $282 per barrel.
“These are numbers that are not just off the charts. They’re off the walls, out of the building, and maybe out of the solar system,” he said.
More
Rain on the Plains helps some winter wheat farmers
By Bill Spiegel 5/6/2022
Rain falling across some portions of the Winter Wheat Belt last week came at the last possible moment to save the 2022 wheat crop for some farmers in Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado and Texas. But in pockets within those states, rain didn’t fall and hopes for 2022 have faded.
In a letter to stakeholders delivered May 6, Justin Gilpin, chief executive officer of Kansas Wheat, said six counties in southwest Kansas that make up 5% of the total wheat planted in Kansas have most of that acreage already zeroed out, or will be zeroed out in the next few weeks.
“Rain won’t do any good for the extreme southwest. A lot of those fields just never got a chance with no moisture since last summer. Some wheat never sprouted,” Gilpin writes.
In Oklahoma, the crop is rated 57% poor to very poor, per the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service weekly crop progress report. Oklahoma’s farmers planted about 4.4 million acres of wheat, and the Oklahoma Grain and Feed Association predicts the crop will weigh in at 57 million bushels – or 23.5 bushels per acre. That’s about half the yield of the 2021 crop. Drought and freeze damage have combined to wreak havoc on the Oklahoma crop.
In Texas, the winter wheat crop is rated 57% very poor. Crop progress is behind; officials with Texas Wheat expect harvest to begin in about one month. In Colorado, the crop is also rated 57% poor to very poor.
Kansas crop receives rain
Much of Kansas received at least some rain, potentially saving the 2022 crop – or at least prolonging its life.
While southwest and a stretch of central Kansas remained dry, other areas of the key wheat producing region of the state (the western two-thirds) received from 0.5 inch to nearly 3 inches of rain.
That has prompted some farmers to mentally switch gears from calling the insurance adjuster, to securing fungicide to protect the wheat crop. The annual Wheat Quality Council tour of the Kansas wheat crop will commence May 17-19. A more accurate portrayal of the crop will occur then.
Wheat experts from Kansas State University Research and Extension say the lack of rain thus far coupled with a dry and hot outlook for the next 10 days means that the outlook for stripe rust and leaf rust is limited. Still, with wheat prices at historical highs, many growers want to protect what’s out there.
More
https://www.agriculture.com/news/crops/rain-on-the-plains-helps-some-winter-wheat-farmers
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.
Biden admin forecasts fall, winter COVID-19 wave with 100M potential infections
May 7, 2022 / 4:17 PM
May 7 (UPI) -- The administration of President Joe Biden forecasts a fall and winter wave of COVID-19 amid waning of vaccine immunity, with a potential for 100 million infections and upticks in deaths and hospitalizations.
The projection, including both the fall and winter, was based on a range of outside models the administration has been closely tracking, a senior administration official told CNN Saturday.
It was also based on an underlying assumption of no additional resources or funding from Congress or extra mitigation measures to address COVID-19 and its new variants.
The senior administration official made the projection Friday during a background briefing as the country nears a COVID-19 death toll of 1 million. The move was part of a push for Congress to restart negotiations to approve more funding to boost the country's readiness, The Washington Post reported
The Biden administration had requested $22.5 billion in immediate emergency funds to curb the COVID-19 pandemic in late March.
The White House had warned in a statement at the time that dwindling funds had led to setbacks in purchasing future vaccines and treatments for COVID-19, reimbursements for treatment of the uninsured, and access to antibody tests.
Last month, bipartisan congressional negotiators reached a deal to supply $10 billion of the $22.5 billion the administration had requested with Democratic lawmakers making a concession to eliminate funding for global pandemic aid.
RELATED Experimental COVID-19 vaccine pill shows promising results in early trials
But passage of the deal has been stalled for weeks amid disputes over the administration's decision to relax pandemic restrictions at the U.S. border.
More
FDA Investigating Reports of COVID Relapses Following Use of Pfizer’s Pill
By May 4, 2022 Updated: May 6, 2022
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is investigating reports of relapses among people who took Pfizer’s COVID-19 pill.
The FDA “is evaluating the reports of viral load rebound after completing paxlovid treatment and will share recommendations if appropriate,” an agency spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.
In a recent preprint case report, Veterans Affairs researchers reported that a 71-year-old male who took the pill, also known as nirmatrelvir, experienced a “rapid and progressive reduction” in the viral load of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
But four days after completing the treatment course, there was a “surprising rebound of viral load and symptoms,” they reported.
The report “highlights the potential for recurrent, symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 replication after successful early treatment” with the pill, the researchers said.
A number of others have said they saw renewed symptoms after taking paxlovid.
In the FDA’s evaluation (pdf) of data on paxlovid, which the agency cleared on an emergency basis in 2021, the agency reported that in an ongoing phase 2/3 trial run by Pfizer, several participants “appeared to have a rebound” in viral load five to nine days after completing their treatment courses.
In light of the new reports, additional analyses of the paxlovid trial data were performed and showed that 1 to 2 percent of the patients had one or more positive COVID-19 tests after testing negative, or an increase in the amount of viral load, after completing the treatment, Dr. John Farley of the FDA said in an interview the agency published on May 4.
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
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, among other things, I’ve added this section. Updates as they get reported.
Dynamic metasurfaces and metadevices empowered by graphene
May 5, 2022
A new publication in Opto-Electronic Advances overviews dynamic metasurfaces and metadevices empowered by graphene.
Metasurfaces, artificial subwavelength structured interfaces, exhibit unprecedented capabilities to manipulate electromagnetic (EM) waves ranging from visible to terahertz and microwave frequencies.
In the past decade, static metasurfaces and metadevices have been researched extensively. Due to the passive nature of building blocks in general made of metals and/or dielectrics, however, their functionalities cannot be actively tuned in situ after fabrication, which seriously impedes their application scenarios such as varifocal lens, dynamic holography, and beam steering in LiDAR. Motivated by those significant requirements, scientists have struggled for years to improve the dynamical tunability of metasurfaces, and introducing active materials or components into the passive metasurfaces has been proposed as the first thought strategy.
To date, various active materials and components such as transparent conducting oxides, phase-change materials, 2D materials (particularly graphene), varactor diodes, elastic materials, and micro-electro-mechanical systems, have been demonstrated theoretically and experimentally to empower the active tunability to metasurfaces and metadevices by applying external thermal, electrical, optical, and mechanical stimulus, giving rise to a new direction, i.e., dynamic (e.g. tunable, reconfigurable, programmable, intelligent, and digital coding) metasurfaces and metadevices.
It should be noted that although previous research provides a major source of inspiration for dynamic metasurfaces and metadevices, each type of active material and component holds a set of unique characteristics, provides encouraging opportunities, and also suffers from different limitations as well as challenges. Several review articles published in recent years have focused on this area to discuss the aforementioned issues. However, a comprehensive review on graphene-based dynamic metasurfaces and metadevices is still absent, which are of equal and even more significance due to the extraordinary properties of graphene.
In this article the authors divide graphene-empowered dynamic metasurfaces and metadevices are divided into two categories, i.e., metasurfaces with building blocks of structured graphene and hybrid metasurfaces integrated with graphene, as shown in Fig. 1. The state-of-the-art developments in dynamic spectrum manipulation, wavefront shaping, polarization control, and frequency conversion are highly elaborated in near/far fields and global/local ways, respectively. Remaining challenges and potential future developments are also outlined and analyzed.
The authors believe that due to the intrinsic advantages of compact footprint, remarkable electrical tunability, broadband and high-speed operation, graphene and graphene-like 2D materials are propelling the EM wave manipulations using metasurfaces to a new height: from static to dynamic, which will certainly revolutionize EM wave manipulations and allow for future commercial applications.
https://phys.org/news/2022-05-dynamic-metasurfaces-metadevices-empowered-graphene.html
In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.
John Kenneth Galbraith.
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