Baltic Dry Index. 2831 +113 Brent Crude 104.61
Spot Gold 1864
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 10/05/22 World 517,779,426
Deaths 6,278,165
It often happens that the universal belief of one age of mankind — a belief from which no one was, nor without an extraordinary effort of genius and courage, could at that time be free — becomes to a subsequent age so palpable an absurdity, that the only difficulty then is to imagine how such a thing can ever have appeared credible.
John Stuart Mill.
A trillion here, a trillion there and pretty soon you’re talking serious money, said someone back in the day when mere billions counted as serious money.
Now, thanks to the Magic Money Tree forests discovered all the way back in March 2020 by the central banksters and bent politicians, we are in the realm of the trillions, with the great global inflation they unleashed fast tracking us into the world of tomorrow's quadrillions.
For a glimpse of how all this inflationary, now weaponised, Great Nixonian Error of fiat money ends for most of us, just look at Sri Lanka today, plus the regular basket cases of Argentina, Venezuela, Lebanon and Zimbabwe.
However, to this old dinosaur markets watcher, I suspect that our western stock casinos are due for a dead cat bounce today, if only from the relief coming from a falling crude oil price due to worry over the state of China’s economy from all their futile lockdowns.
Hong Kong leading losses in Asia as tech stocks drag down most markets
SINGAPORE — Most Asia-Pacific markets mostly fell on Tuesday after heavy losses overnight on Wall Street that saw the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropping more than 4%.
Returning to trade after a holiday on Monday, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 2.83% by Tuesday afternoon.
Hong Kong-listed shares of Chinese tech firms dropped, with Tencent declining 3.67% while Alibaba shed 5.87% and NetEase fell 4.39%. The Hang Seng Tech index slipped 4.7%.
Technology shares elsewhere in Asia-Pacific also declined in Tuesday trade, largely mirroring losses after the Nasdaq Composite dropped 4.29% overnight to 11,623.25.
Shares of Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group fell 2.73%. South Korea’s Kakao lost 0.36% while Krafton dropped 2.19%.
“I think the broader picture is going to remain one of higher bond yields and tighter monetary policy which ultimately will work against tech stocks,” Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy and chief economist at AMP Capital, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Tuesday.
“Beyond any short-term bounce from oversold, I’m not overly confident [on the tech sector],” Oliver said.
----In the broader markets, the Nikkei 225 in Japan fell 0.91% while the Topix index slipped 0.98%.
South Korea’s Kospi dropped 0.8% while the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia fell 1.42%.
Mainland Chinese stocks bucked the broader trend, and outperformed the broader region. The Shanghai Composite recovered from earlier losses to rise 0.17% while the Shenzhen Component climbed 0.39%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 1.21% lower.
Other major indexes on Wall Street also saw substantial losses overnight, with the S&P 500 slipping 3.2% to 3,991.24 — falling below the 4,000 level for the first time in more than a year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 653.67 points, or 1.99%, to 32,245.70.
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Tech giants lost more than $1 trillion in value in the last three trading days
The world’s largest technology companies have shed over $1 trillion in value in just three trading sessions.
Stocks at large have sold off since the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday, but technology has endured more pain than other sectors of the economy.
Investors now have less interest in what drove business during a strong bull market in recent years, including during the pandemic, and are now pushing more money toward safer pockets of the market, including staples like Campbell Soup, General Mills and J.M. Smucker.
Apple, the world’s most valuable public company, has shed $220 billion in value since the close of trading on Wednesday, the day Fed Chair Jerome Powell declared that inflation was running too high and that there were no plans for a rate hike more than half of a percentage point.
Markets first moved up on Powell’s comments, but the optimism sputtered out in the following days. Stocks went lower on Thursday, fell again on Friday and then still lower on Monday. The S&P 500 U.S. stock index fell below the 4,000 mark on Monday, having declined by 7% since Wednesday’s close, while the Invesco Nasdaq 100 ETF is off by nearly 10% during the same period.
Here are the other big losses over the last three trading days:
- Microsoft has lost around $189 billion in value.
- Tesla’s markdown registers at $199 billion, months after seeing its valuation fall below $1 trillion.
- Amazon’s market capitalization has declined by $173 billion.
- Alphabet, Google’s umbrella company, is worth $123 billion less than it was last week.
- Graphics card maker Nvidia’s loss stands at $85 billion.
- And Facebook parent Meta Platforms has lost $70 billion in value.
Analysis: Markets must face up to tightening financial conditions
May 9, 2022 7:40 AM GMT+1
May 9 (Reuters) - Already sitting on double-digit losses this year, stock market investors must brace for more, as the realisation sinks in that the U.S. Federal Reserve intends to tighten financial conditions to get on top of red-hot inflation.
Essentially, financial conditions measure how easily households and businesses can access credit, so are critical in showing how monetary policy transmits to the economy. Fed boss Jerome Powell repeated on Wednesday he will be keeping a close eye on them.
And they have a bearing on future growth - Goldman Sachs estimates a 100 basis-point tightening in its proprietary financial conditions index (FCI) - which factors in rates, credit and equity levels as well as the dollar - crimps growth by one percentage point over the following year.
Goldman's and other indexes from the Chicago Fed and IMF all show financial conditions have tightened significantly this year but remain loose historically, a testament to the scale of stimulus unleashed to help economies weather the pandemic.
Sven Jari Stehn, chief European economist at Goldman Sachs, estimates the bank's U.S. financial conditions index will need to tighten somewhat further for the Fed to achieve a "soft landing", i.e. to slow growth but not excessively.
Goldman's U.S. FCI is at 99 points - 200 bps tighter than at the start of the year and the tightest since July 2020. Conditions tightened 0.3 points on Thursday, as shares tanked, the dollar hit two-decade highs and 10-year bond yields closed above 3%.
But they still remain historically loose.
"Our estimate is that the Fed basically needs to halve (the jobs-workers gap) to try to get wage growth back to a more normal growth rate," Stehn said.
"To do that they essentially need to reduce growth to a rate of around 1% for a year or two, so you have to go below trend for a year or two."
He expects 50 bps hikes in June and July, then 25 bps moves until policy rates rise just above 3%. But if conditions do not tighten enough and wage growth and inflation do not moderate sufficiently, the Fed may continue with 50 bps hikes, he said.
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Exclusive: Tesla halts most production at Shanghai plant on Tuesday - memo
May 10, 2022 5:45 AM GMT+1
· Plant to produce less than 200 cars on Tuesday - memo
· Plant halted work due to supplies issues - sources
· China’s COVID policies pose challenges for manufacturers
SHANGHAI, May 10 (Reuters) - Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) has halted most of its production at its Shanghai plant due to problems securing parts for its electric vehicles, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters, the latest in a series of difficulties for the factory.
The plant plans to manufacture less than 200 vehicles on Tuesday, according to the memo, far less than the roughly 1,200 units it has been building each day since shortly after it reopened on April 19 following a 22-day closure.
Two sources familiar with the matter had earlier said supply issues had forced the factory to halt production on Monday.
Shanghai is in its sixth week of an intensifying COVID-19 lockdown that has tested the ability of manufacturers to operate amid hard restrictions on the movement of people and materials.
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Sri Lanka: Protesters torch leaders' homes in night of unrest
10 May, 2022
Angry mobs in Sri Lanka have burned down several homes belonging to the ruling Rajapaksas and MPs, after they were attacked by government supporters.
The violence capped a day of unrest that saw PM Mahinda Rajapaksa quit amid mass protests at his government's handling of the economic crisis.
But it failed to assuage demonstrators, who attempted to storm his official residence while he was holed up inside.
Five people have died and more than 190 have been injured since Monday.
An island-wide curfew has been extended to Wednesday morning as authorities seek to quell the violence.
Many are still calling for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, brother of Mahinda, to leave office, following weeks of escalating demonstrations over soaring prices and power cuts since last month.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-61389189
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Southeast Asia faces a ‘big risk’ of social unrest if food inflation surges, says economist
Published Mon, May 9 2022 4:39 AM EDT
Southeast Asia will face a “big risk” of social unrest if there are “big surges” in food prices, an ASEAN economist at Bank of America Securities told CNBC.
That’s because, relative to other countries, food consumption accounts for a large proportion of what people spend on in countries like the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam, said Mohamed Faiz Nagutha on Friday.
In 2021, Filipino households spent nearly 40% of their total expenditure on food and non-alcoholic beverages, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.
In comparison, U.S. households spent 8.6% of their disposable income on food, the Economic Research Service reported.
“Having said this, ASEAN food inflation in particular has been a little bit less volatile (and) more contained than in the past because we depend a lot on intra-regional trade and there is a lot of government support in place to keep food inflation contained,” Nagutha told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia.”
Nonetheless, he warned that prices will eventually have to increase, though the governments are hoping the increment will be gradual.
“It’s usually the big shock jump that causes a lot of unhappiness on the street,” he said.
Inflation in Southeast Asia has been rising but remains low from a historical perspective, Nagutha said, though he noted the situation will change over the coming months and quarters.
Regional inflation rose from 3% in February to 3.5% in March, according to FocusEconomics, an information services firm.
With economies reopening and people consuming more services, demand will contribute to a rise in inflation, he said. However, this will add on to cost pressures that businesses are sitting on, and they will be looking to pass on some of these costs to consumers, he added.
That, combined with energy and food inflation globally, will push overall inflation in Southeast Asia even higher, he said.
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US gas prices back near record highs, hammering motorists
By Thomas Barrabi May 9, 2022 4:38pm
US motorists gearing up for their warm weather road trips are set to encounter fresh record high gas prices this week as inflation continues to hammer household budgets.
The national average price of a gallon of gas was $4.328 as of Monday afternoon, according to AAA data. That price was up about 20 cents compared to one month ago and well over a dollar higher than the same day one year ago.
The cost of gas is within a fraction of the all-time high established in March, when the national average hit an unprecedented $4.331 as the Russian invasion of Ukraine caused disruption to global energy shipments.
In New York, gas prices have already hit a new record. The statewide price of regular gas was $4.518 – nearly 30 cents higher than one month ago – while diesel hit an absurd $6.383.
“Increasing gas demand and rising oil prices have pushed pump prices higher. Pump prices will likely face upward pressure as oil prices remain above $105 per barrel,” AAA said in a blog post detailing the price surge.
Oil prices hovered near $110 per barrel last week as the European Union weighed a possible ban on Russian energy shipments in response to the Ukraine war. A possible embargo further upended an energy market that was already contending with supply concerns and disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
US crude oil prices moderated slightly on Monday, sinking nearly 7% to $102 per barrel during a sharp selloff on Wall Street and concerned about renewed COVID-19 lockdowns in China.
The Labor Department’s most recent Consumer Price Index from March showed the extent to which gas prices are contributing to inflation.
The March CPI surged 8.5%, its highest annual rate since 1981. That same month, gas prices rose 18.3% — an increase that accounted for more than half of the monthly inflation surge.
The Biden administration sought to alleviate pressure on US motorists by releasing tens of millions of barrels of oil from the strategic reserve – but that measure has had little sustained impact on prices.
More
https://nypost.com/2022/05/09/us-gas-prices-back-near-record-highs-hammering-motorists/
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.
Surviving the pandemic is only half the battle: ‘Long COVID’ could affect a billion in just a few years
Sun, May 8, 2022, 11:00 AM
The COVID death rate is a shadow of its former self, and more than two years into the pandemic, Americans seem to be breathing a sigh of relief—thanks to vaccines, their risk of death or hospitalization from the virus is greatly diminished.
But there’s more to take into account before ditching your mask, experts say—Long COVID, a new chronic condition defined by an array of symptoms that endure long after the initial COVID infection has cleared.
Long COVID may already affect between 7 and 23 million Americans who previously had the virus, or up to 7% of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
Different estimates of how many people are affected with Long COVID vary widely— between 10 to 80% of COVID survivors. More than half of COVID survivors report symptoms that persist after six months, Penn State College of Medicine researchers reported last year.
It’s a poorly understood condition that could disable over a billion worldwide in just a few years, says Arijit Chakravarty, a COVID researcher and CEO of Fractal Therapeutics, a drug development firm. Experts say that it’s quickly growing into a major public health concern already overwhelming primary care physicians.
“Everyone puts all the attention on death and not as much attention on morbidity and loss of quality of life,” says Dr. Panagis Galiasatos, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins’ Division of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine who treats long-COVID patients. “I think we need to put more attention into not catching any kind of virus or issue.
A difficult condition to define
So, just what is Long COVID?
Good question—researchers are still trying to figure it out. So, it depends on whom you talk to.
The World Health Organization defines Long COVID as a condition that occurs in someone who had COVID, with symptoms that cannot be explained by another diagnosis, that last for two months or more. The symptoms can persist following the initial onset, or come and go over time, the organization says, adding that a diagnosis of Long COVID usually wouldn't be made until three months after acute illness.
The Mayo Clinic defines Long COVID as a set of symptoms stemming from COVID that persist for more than four weeks after diagnosis.
In reality, Long COVID is likely an umbrella term for a combination of issues and conditions: People who have long-term COVID infections who are able to continue to spread the disease, people whose COVID after-effects clear up after a few weeks, and people with Long COVID itself, in which people aren’t infectious, but experience all kinds of symptoms for much longer.
What’s more, COVID patients whose disease was severe enough to require ICU admission may suffer post-ICU complications like muscle weakness, shortness of breath, cognitive issues, anxiety, and depression—symptoms that look a lot like Long COVID, but are not, further muddying the waters, Galiasatos says. Those issues might occur due to extended periods of immobility and ventilator use, and other traumatic medical events.
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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.
Today, something a little different. How to destroy the food supply for planet Earth. We must be mad.
Fertilizer turning Europe's farms into massive reservoirs of microplastics
Nick Lavars May 08, 2022
The sludge that is created through sewage treatment processes is rich in nutrients like phosphorous and nitrogen, making it an excellent source of fertilizer for agriculture. But not all that it contains is good for the environment, with a new study demonstrating how the material acts as a vehicle for huge amounts of tiny plastic fragments to enter soils, so much so the authors suggest Europe's farms could be acting as the world's largest reservoir for microplastics pollution.
Sewage sludge serves as an appealing and sustainable source of fertilizer, for both large-scale agriculture operations and home gardeners. But studies are starting to illustrate that its contents may not be entirely benign, neither for the environment or living organisms.
A study published last year that analyzed home fertilizer products found unsafe levels of toxic PFAS "forever chemicals" in every sample. That research found that typical sewage treatment methods don't break down these persistent chemicals, and as sludge is widely applied to lands across the US, it introduces huge amounts of them to food crops and waterways.
This new study was carried out by scientists at Cardiff University and the University of Manchester and focused on the farmlands of Europe, and the risks posed to them by fertilizers made from sewage sludge. The work involved analyzing samples from a wastewater plant in Newport, South Wales, which treats sewage from a population of around 300,000.
This showed that the plant was collecting larger plastic particles between 1 and 5 mm in size with a 100-percent strike rate, preventing them from slipping through into the waterways. Each gram of the sewage sludge created through this process, however, was then found to contain up to 24 microplastic particles, amounting to around one percent of its total weight.
The scientists then extrapolated on this by using data on the use of sewage sludge as a fertilizer across the continent from the European Commission and Eurostat. This indicated that somewhere between 31,000 and 42,000 tonnes of microplastics, or many trillions of particles, are being applied to the soils of Europe each year. According to the authors, this rivals the concentration of microplastics in the surface waters of the ocean.
“Our research questions whether microplastics are in fact being removed at wastewater treatment plants at all, or are effectively being shifted around the environment,” said lead author of the study James Lofty, from Cardiff University’s School of Engineering. “A clear lack of strategy from water companies to manage microplastics in sewage sludge means these contaminants are transported back into the soil and will eventually return to the aquatic environment.”
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‘Forever chemicals’ may have polluted 20m acres of US cropland, study says
PFAS-tainted sewage sludge is used as fertilizer in fields and report finds that about 20m acres of cropland could be contaminated
Sun 8 May 2022 10.00 BSTLast modified on Sun 8 May 2022 10.02 BST
About 20m acres of cropland in the United States may be contaminated from PFAS-tainted sewage sludge that has been used as fertilizer, a new report estimates.
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 9,000 compounds used to make products heat-, water- or stain-resistant. Known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t naturally break down, they have been linked to cancer, thyroid disruption, liver problems, birth defects, immunosuppression and more.
Dozens of industries use PFAS in thousands of consumer products, and often discharge the chemicals into the nation’s sewer system.
The analysis, conducted by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), is an attempt to understand the scope of cropland contamination stemming from sewage sludge, or biosolids. Regulators don’t require sludge to be tested for PFAS or closely track where its spread, and public health advocates warn the practice is poisoning the nation’s food supply.
“We don’t know the full scope of the contamination problem created by PFAS in sludge, and we may never know, because EPA has not made it a priority for states and local governments to track, test and report on,” said Scott Faber, EWG’s legislative policy director.
All sewage sludge is thought to contain the dangerous chemicals, and the compounds have recently been found to be contaminating crops, cattle, water and humans on farms where biosolids were spread.
Sludge is a byproduct of the wastewater treatment process that’s a mix of human excrement and industrial waste, like PFAS, that’s discharged from industry’s pipes. Sludge disposal can be expensive so the waste management industry is increasingly repackaging it as fertilizer because excrement is rich in plant nutrients.
EWG found Ohio keeps the most precise records of any state, and sludge has been applied to 5% of its farmland since 2011. Extrapolating that across the rest of the country would mean about 20m acres are contaminated with at least some level of PFAS. Faber called the estimate “conservative”.
EPA records show over 19bn pounds of sludge has been used as fertilizer since 2016 in the 41 states where the agency tracks the amount of sludge that’s spread, but not the location. It’s estimated that 60% of the nation’s sludge is spread on cropland or other fields annually.
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“Panics do not destroy capital; they merely reveal the extent to which it has been previously destroyed by its betrayal into hopelessly unproductive works.”
John Stuart Mill. (Attributed.)
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