Baltic Dry Index. 3117 +65 Brent Crude 109.54
Spot Gold 1827
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 13/05/22 World 519,779,565
Deaths 6,284,657
Our goal, of course, is to get inflation back down to 2% without having the economy go into recession, or, to put it this way, with the labor market remaining fairly strong,” he said. “That’s what we’re trying to achieve. I think the one thing we really cannot do is to fail to restore price stability, though. Nothing in the economy works, the economy doesn’t work for anybody without price stability.”
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.
While crypto stable coins may be down and out, in the stock casinos, a resurrection sort of.
Call me sceptical that today’s relief rally is anything more than an exit opportunity.
Inflation is still surging globally. Oil is still trading at over 100 dollars a barrel. Food price inflation is still soaring everywhere, with grain production problems surfacing in America and Europe.
While most serious of all, central banksters everywhere, led by the US Fed, are rotating from 40+ years of falling interest rates to who knows how many years of rising interest rates.
This is not a time to be invested in most over priced stocks still reflecting falling interest rates and the casinos excess from the trillions of new Magic Money Tree cash created by central banksters since March 2020.
It’s time to let greater fool buyers own stocks.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumps more than 2% as Asia markets rise; SoftBank shares surge
Published Thu, May 12 2022 7:36 PM EDT Updated 3 Hours Ago
SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific edged higher in Friday morning trade, continuing a rollercoaster week as investors assess the inflation and the global economic outlook.
The Nikkei 225 in Japan traded 2.34% higher, with shares of Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group jumping more than 9% despite reporting Thursday a record loss at its Vision Fund investment unit. The Topix index climbed 1.61%.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index jumped 1.49%. Mainland Chinese stocks also rose, with the Shanghai Composite up 0.43% while the Shenzhen Component gained 0.553%.
South Korea’s Kospi advanced 1.59% while the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia gained 1.44%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 1.1% higher.
Concerns over inflation and the economic outlook have weighed on global investor sentiment in recent days, with riskier assets such as tech stocks and cryptocurrencies taking a hit.
JPMorgan Private Bank’s Alex Wolf told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Friday that the firm is “fairly cautious” on Asia stocks at the moment.
“There’s really nowhere to hide,” said Wolf, head of investment strategy for Asia at the firm. He cited concerns such as broad growth risks creating “near-term uncertainties” for Asia, particularly the region’s emerging markets.
U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell said Thursday that getting inflation under control won’t be easy and warned he could not promise a so-called soft landing for the economy.
Overnight on Wall Street, the S&P 500 declined 0.13% to 3,930.08 — more than 18% lower than its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 103.81 points, or 0.33%, to 31,730.30. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced fractionally to 11,370.96.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/13/asia-markets-federal-reserve-jerome-powell-currencies-oil.html
Powell says he can't guarantee a 'soft landing' as the Fed looks to control inflation
Published Thu, May 12 2022 5:09 PM EDT Updated An Hour Ago
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned Thursday that getting inflation under control could cause some economic pain but remains his top priority.
Powell said he couldn’t promise a so-called soft landing for the economy as the Fed raises interest rates to tamp down price increases running near their fastest pace in more than 40 years.
“So a soft landing is, is really just getting back to 2% inflation while keeping the labor market strong. And it’s quite challenging to accomplish that right now, for a couple of reasons,” the central bank chief said in an interview with Marketplace.
He noted that with a tight labor market pushing up wages, avoiding a recession that often follows aggressive policy tightening will be a challenge.
“So it will be challenging, it won’t be easy. No one here thinks that it will be easy,” he said. “Nonetheless, we think there are pathways ... for us to get there.”
The remarks were published the same day the Senate overwhelmingly confirmed Powell for a second term, a move that came nearly seven months after President Joe Biden first submitted the nomination.
On top of the list for his second-term priorities will be to control price inflation that in April ran at an 8.3% annual rate, just off a more than 40-year high posted in March.
The Fed last week approved a half percentage point interest rate increase that followed a quarter-point hike in March. Markets expect the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee to hike another half-point in June and to keep increasing benchmark rates through the end of the year.
More
Finally, in the 21st century version of Tulip Mania, the same old 17th century ending?
Terraform Again Halts Blockchain Behind UST Stablecoin, Luna
· Halt comes as UST stablecoin and related token Luna go to zero
· Terra developers had earlier stopped and restarted blockchain
BySunil Jagtiani 13 May 2022, 03:57 BSTUpdated on13 May 2022, 05:16 BSTThe blockchain behind the collapsed TerraUSD stablecoin and the affiliated Luna token stopped processing new transactions for the second time in less than a day.
Terraform Labs said in a tweet from their verified account that validators, the entities responsible for verifying transactions on the blockchain, took the step to “come up with a plan to reconstitute” the Terra network.
“A quorum among validators is attempting to halt the network in order to avoid a DECIMAL crisis due to exponential depreciation of LUNA,” read one post on the Terra Validators Discord server seen by Bloomberg prior to the transaction shutdown.
TerraUSD, also known as UST, was trading at just 11 US cents as of 12:11 p.m. in Singapore, according to Bloomberg data. The Luna token has also sunk to virtually zero, compared with its all-time high of $119.51.
Total Luna tokens in circulation are up from 1.46 billion yesterday to more than 6.5 trillion, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
The relationship between UST and Luna was central to attempts to maintain the former’s $1 peg. Traders could swap a unit of the stablecoin, whether it was trading at, below, or above $1, for one unit of Luna, and vice versa. The effect of unloading UST at prevailing prices was to dramatically increase the supply of Luna, further depressing the price of that token.
Read more: Cryptocurrency Trader’s $10,000 Turns Into $200 in Terra SpiralUST was one of the largest and most closely-watched algorithmic stablecoins before its intended 1-1 peg to the dollar disintegrated this week. The unraveling sent shockwaves through crypto, triggering deep losses before sentiment stabilized.
More https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-13/terraform-again-halts-blockchain-behind-ust-stablecoin-luna?srnd=premium-europeCryptocurrency luna now almost worthless after controversial stablecoin it is linked to loses peg
Published Thu, May 12 2022 9:48 AM EDT Updated 2 Hours Ago
Luna, the sister cryptocurrency of controversial stablecoin TerraUSD, has collapsed to nearly $0.
TerraUSD, or UST, has been dragged into the spotlight in the last few days after the so-called stablecoin, which is supposed to be pegged one-to-one with the U.S. dollar, fell sharply below the $1 mark.
UST is an algorithmic stablecoin which uses code to maintain its price at around $1 based on a complex system of minting and burning. A UST token is created by destroying some of the related cryptocurrency luna to maintain the dollar peg.
Unlike rival stablecoins Tether and USD Coin, UST is not backed by any real-world assets such as bonds. Instead, the Luna Foundation Guard, a nonprofit created by Terra’s founder Do Kwon, is holding about $3.5 billion of bitcoin in reserve.
But in times of market volatility, such as this week, UST is being tested.
Its peg has been lost and now investors are rushing to dump the associated luna token. Luna’s price has plunged from around $85 a week ago to trade at around 4 cents on Thursday, according to data from Coin Metrics, making the cryptocurrency almost worthless. On Thursday, Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, said that the Terra network, the blockchain associated with the luna token, is “experiencing slowness and congestion.” Binance said that as a result, there is a “high volume of pending Terra network withdrawal transactions” on its exchange, in a sign that investors are rushing to sell luna.
Binance had to suspend withdrawals of luna for a few hours on Thursday because of the congestion, before resuming them.
The TerraUSD controversy has sparked contagion in the broader cryptocurrency market. That’s because the Luna Foundation Guard is holding bitcoin as a sort of reserve. The fear is now that the organization my have to sell off its bitcoin holdings to try to support the peg.
Bitcoin has plunged more than 29% in the last seven days and on Thursday dropped below $26,000 at one point to trade at its lowest level since late Dec. 2020.
More
Crypto Billionaires’ Vast Fortunes Are Destroyed in Weeks
· Brian Armstrong’s net worth has dropped 84% to $2.2 billion
· Trading volumes at Coinbase have steadily declined this year
11 May 2022, 19:30 BST Updated on11 May 2022, 22:03 BST
It’s been a long few weeks since the crypto crowd was partying in Miami.
Coinbase Global Inc. founder Brian Armstrong had a personal fortune of $13.7 billion as recently as November and about $8 billion at the end of March. That’s now just $2.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, after a selloff in digital currencies from Bitcoin to Ether triggered a precipitous decline in the market value of Coinbase, the largest US cryptocurrency exchange.
The firm’s shares have tumbled 84% since their first day of trading in April 2021, closing Wednesday at $53.72 after the company warned that trading volume and monthly transacting users were expected to be lower in the second quarter than in the first.
It’s raised questions about Coinbase’s ability to withstand the sharp decline in crypto prices, forcing Armstrong to take to Twitter to defend the company. There is “no risk of bankruptcy” even amid a “black swan” event and users’ funds are safe, said Armstrong, the firm’s chief executive officer.
Then there’s Michael Novogratz. The CEO of crypto merchant bank Galaxy Digital has seen his fortune plummet to $2.5 billion, from $8.5 billion in early November. He’s been a champion of TerraUSD, the algorithmic stablecoin that’s now at risk of a complete collapse amid a breakdown in the price of a crypto token in the same ecosystem, Luna.
---- Billionaire crypto fortunes that swelled over the last two years are disappearing after a selloff that began with tech stocks spilled over into digital money. Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, and Ether have both fallen more than 50% since their record highs late last year.
While almost all crypto holders have suffered wealth declines, some of the biggest and most visible losses are concentrated among founders of exchanges, where traders buy and sell digital currencies.
At least on paper, Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of closely held Binance, has lost an even larger fortune than Armstrong or Novogratz. He debuted on the Bloomberg wealth index in January with a net worth of $96 billion, one of the world’s largest. By Wednesday that had shrunk to $11.6 billion, using the average enterprise value to sales multiples of Coinbase and Canadian crypto firm Voyager Digital as a basis for the calculations.
Crypto exchanges in the US appear to be suffering more of a downturn than their global competitors.
More
"I wasn't worth two cents two years ago, and now I owe $2 million dollars."
Quoted by Mark Twain.
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Will both America and Europe suffer drought this year? If they do, where will the wheat and other grains prices top out?
UK economy shrinks in March as prices rise
12 May, 2022
The UK economy shrank in March as households began to feel the impact of rising prices and cut down on spending.
The economy contracted by 0.1% in March after no growth in February, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
"You can see the cost of living really beginning to bite," Darren Morgan, director of economic statistics at the ONS, told the BBC.
Mr Morgan said people were spending less in shops and cutting down on car journeys due to higher fuel prices.
Although the economy contracted in March, it grew by 0.8% overall in the first three months of the year, which was driven by hospitality and travel industries recovering from coronavirus pandemic restrictions.
However, the Bank of England has warned the UK faces a "sharp economic slowdown", with prices rising at their fastest rate for 30 years, driven by soaring fuel, food and energy costs.
The Bank has forecast that inflation - the rate at which prices rise - could reach more than 10% by the end of the year.
More
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61419388
Sweden sees highest inflation rate since 1991
May 12, 2022
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Inflation in Sweden increased last month to its highest level since 1991, officials said Thursday, as countries worldwide grapple with surging prices exacerbated by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The consumer price index rose 6.4% in April from a year ago and was up from 6.1% in March, according to official figures from Statistics Sweden.
There was a “continued widespread price increase in April, including food, household equipment, restaurant visits and hotels,” statistician Mikael Nordin said.
High energy prices also were fueling inflation, a key factor in the rest of Europe and other parts of the world amid fears that the war may lead to an interruption of oil or natural gas supplies from Russia.
Statistics Sweden said food prices increased, with meat and vegetables being “the primarily contributors” for the hike. Clothing and books saw seasonal price increases, while furnishing and household equipment prices “have now risen for six consecutive months.”
Prices also increased for home repairs and maintenance, transportation and other goods and services, the agency said.
Sweden, a member of the European Union, is not among the 19 countries that use the euro currency. Annual inflation in the eurozone hit a record-high 7.5% last month.
The U.S. saw consumer prices jump 8.3% last month from a year ago, remaining close to four-decade high.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-prices-inflation-a46e8b1f1dacb0e3b08cfd1b59cbee0d
India Inflation Surges to 8-Year High in Fresh RBI Challenge
12 May 2022, 13:04 BSTUpdated on12 May 2022, 13:18 BST
India’s headline inflation accelerated for a seventh month to the fastest since May 2014, further challenging the central bank’s efforts to contain surging prices and sustain an economic recovery.
Consumer prices increased 7.79% in April, the Central Statistics Office said in a statement Thursday. That compares with a 7.42% gain predicted in a Bloomberg survey of economists and 6.95% the previous month.
Inflation has been running ahead of the the Reserve Bank of India’s 2%-6% target range for four straight months, helping trigger a surprise rate hike last week. Governor Shaktikanta Das has since last month stressed the need to prioritize taming price gains over supporting growth.
The stage is set for a likely further rate hike at the RBI’s next meeting in June, when it’s expected to revise up its 5.7% inflation forecast for the current April-March fiscal year.
High inflation may force the RBI to raise rates by 75 to 100 basis points over the course of the fiscal year, said Gaurav Kapur, chief economist at IndusInd Bank Ltd. in Mumbai. Inflation will likely stay above 6% until September, he added.
According to Thursday’s release, consumer food prices rose almost 8.4% while fuel gained about 11%.
New report reveals troubling trend in Europe heading into the summer
The study analyzed the ongoing drought situation across the continent and revealed concerning signs in some of the region's vital river basins.
By AccuWeather meteorologist
Published May 10, 2022 5:24 PM BST | Updated May 10, 2022 6:01 PM BST
Unusual dryness has affected large portions of Europe so far this year, and a new report that analyzed the ongoing drought situation across the continent has revealed concerning signs in some of the region's vital river basins as the summer months quickly approach.
The report, released Monday, May 9, by the Global Drought Observatory (GDO) of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS), highlighted the Po and Danube rivers and their tributaries as the two main basins facing severe effects from precipitation deficits. The CEMS is a European agency that provides satellite-based mapping products, as well as early warning services for flood, wildfires and drought.
The Po River is Italy's longest river, coursing a path through the northern part of the country. The Danube River, which shares its banks with 19 countries, is Europe's second-longest river. Both rivers are vital for transportation, irrigation, water supply as well as the generation of hydropower.
The report utilized a drought monitoring tool, called the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), to track the spread of parched conditions across Europe. The SPI, which gives experts clues on the intensity and duration of precipitation deficits, showed extremely dry conditions across much of central and eastern Europe for the one-month accumulation period in March.
The drought has manifested itself in low streamflow levels which point toward a severe hydrological drought along the Danube River. A similar scene is playing out along the eastern part of the Po basin, where "most of the tributaries have very low flows close to their minimal ecological flow for summer," according to the report.
The Iberian Peninsula was one of the few areas in Europe where near- to above-normal precipitation was recorded on the March SPI, which "contributed to a partial recovery from the dry conditions experienced at the beginning of the year," the report stated.
A few of the March precipitation events in Spain were accompanied by dust from Africa, which created muddy scenes in typically picturesque seaside towns.
In terms of benefits to agricultural interests, experts say the precipitation in that part of Europe may have been too little too late.
"Winter crops in Spain and Italy are in sub-optimal conditions, and water stress has already reduced the yield potential," the GDO report said.
More
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.
North Korea reports first COVID-19 death as fever 'explosively spreads'
May 13, 2022 4:29 AM GMT+1
Kyodo. Mandatory credit Kyodo/via REUTERS
SEOUL, May 13 (Reuters) - At least one person confirmed to have COVID-19 has died in North Korea and hundreds of thousands have shown fever symptoms, state media said on Friday, offering hints at the potentially dire scale of country's first confirmed outbreak of the pandemic.
The data represents an unprecedented admission of an "explosive" outbreak in a country that had previously reported no confirmed cases since the pandemic began, and could mark a grave public health, economic, and political crisis for the isolated regime.
Experts said that given North Korea's limited testing capabilities, the numbers released so far probably represent a small fraction of the infections, and could lead to thousands of deaths in one of only two countries in the world without a COVID-19 vaccination campaign.
About 187,800 people are being treated in isolation after a fever of unidentified origin has "explosively spread nationwide" since late April, the official KCNA news agency reported.
Roughly 350,000 people have shown signs of that fever, including 18,000 who newly reported such symptoms on Thursday, KCNA said. About 162,200 have been treated, but it did not specify how many had tested positive for COVID-19.
At least six people who showed fever symptoms have died, with one of those case confirmed to have contracted the Omicron variant of the virus, KCNA said.
Harvard Medical School's Kee Park, who has worked on health care projects in North Korea, said the country has been testing about 1,400 people each week, which is not nearly enough to survey 350,000 people with symptoms.
More
Shanghai hunts down COVID cases, Beijing curbs taxi services
May 12, 2022 9:50 AM GMT+1
SHANGHAI/BEIJING, May 12 (Reuters) - Shanghai authorities combed the city on Thursday for its last COVID-19 cases in the hope of clearing the way for escape from a painful six-week lockdown, while Beijing curbed taxi services to keep a lid on its smaller outbreak.
The Chinese commercial hub of 25 million people has in recent days been tightening its lockdown for a final push to eradicate the virus by the end of the month after making some significant progress, according to data this week.
Shanghai's mass testing detected just two new cases outside areas facing the strictest curbs on May 11, officials said on Thursday, but that was two more than none the previous day.
Significantly, the cases were found in two of the city's 16 districts, Xuhui and Fengxian, that authorities said this week were among eight that had achieved "zero COVID" status, having had no community cases for three consecutive days.
The latest cases show the difficulty in finishing off the highly transmissible Omicron variant despite ruthless enforcement of some of China's harshest restrictions since the virus emerged in the city of Wuhan in late 2019.
The new infections also raise concern about how long a return to normal life might last under China's uncompromising "zero COVID" policy after the lockdown is finally lifted.
More
Wuhan's First Covid-19 Patients Still Suffering After Two Years
ByMarthe Fourcade11 May 2022, 23:30 BST
Two years after being hospitalized with Covid-19, more than half of patients still experience symptoms like fatigue and sleep disruption, according to a study in the original epicenter of Wuhan that underscores the pandemic’s lasting burden.
Full recovery has remained elusive for people who suffered through the virus’s first wave, meaning patients had poorer health than the general population and required more attention from health-care services, according to a study published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.
The findings bring home the challenge of dealing with Covid’s aftermath as millions of people -- some of them children and teens -- grapple with lingering symptoms that affect everything from mental health to their ability to work and contribute to the economy.
The study, led by doctors at the China–Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing, comes as China doubles down on its stringent Covid Zero strategy while much of the world lifts restrictions and attempts to live with the virus.
Original Strain
Though no one knows yet what causes the constellation of symptoms that afflict a proportion of people after a SARS-CoV-2 infection, the research is probably the lengthiest follow-up to date. And while it could provide insight to add to doctors’ understanding, the patients involved had the original strain of the virus rather than variants now in circulation.
The scientists followed 1,192 people hospitalized with Covid at Wuhan’s Jin Yin-tan hospital in early 2020, checking in with them six months, 12 months and two years after their symptoms began.
The participants’ median age was 57, and more than half were men. In the study, their ability to walk six minutes was assessed, they underwent lab tests and they answered questionnaires about symptoms, mental health and quality of life. Some also had their pulmonary function checked and received chest imaging at each visit.
The results suggest time helped to some degree. After six months, 68% of study participants reported at least one symptom of long Covid. By two years, the reports had fallen to 55%. The scientists wrote that they intend to keep following up on the patients once a year.
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.
Fastest-ever logic gates could make computers a million times faster
Michael Irving May 11, 2022
Logic gates are the fundamental building blocks of computers, and researchers at the University of Rochester have now developed the fastest ones ever created. By zapping graphene and gold with laser pulses, the new logic gates are a million times faster than those in existing computers, demonstrating the viability of “lightwave electronics.”
Logic gates take two inputs, compare them, and then output a signal based on the result. They can, for example, output a 1 if both incoming signals are a 1 or a 0, or if either or neither of them is a 1, among other “rules.” Billions of individual logic gates are crammed into chips to create processors, memory and other electronic components.
Logic gates don’t work instantaneously though – there’s a delay on the order of nanoseconds as they process the inputs. That’s plenty fast enough for modern computers, but there’s always room for improvement. And now the Rochester team’s new logic gates blow them out of the water, processing information in mere femtoseconds, which are a million times shorter than nanoseconds.
To reach these extreme speeds, the team made junctions consisting of a graphene wire connecting two gold electrodes. When the graphene was zapped with synchronized pairs of laser pulses, electrons in the material were excited, sending them zipping off towards one of the electrodes, generating an electrical current.
By adjusting the phase of the laser pulses, the team was able to generate a burst of one of two types of charge carriers, which would either add up or cancel each other out – the former can be considered a 1 output and the latter a 0. The end result is an ultrafast logic gate, marking the first proof of concept of an as-yet theoretical field known as lightwave electronics.
“It will probably be a very long time before this technique can be used in a computer chip, but at least we now know that lightwave electronics is practically possible,” said Tobias Boolakee, lead researcher on the study.
If these kinds of lightwave electronic devices ever do make it to market, they could be millions of times faster than today’s computers. Currently we measure processing speeds in Gigahertz (GHz), but these new logic gates function on the scale of Petahertz (PHz). Previous studies have set that as the absolute quantum limit of how fast light-based computer systems could possibly get.
The research was published in the journal Nature.
Source: University of Rochester
Another weekend and sadly, yet another war weekend from the failure of diplomacy. For what was Ukraine and vital supply chains destroyed? For the lack of a NATO security guarantee to Russia?
The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia.
Count Otto von Bismarck.
No comments:
Post a Comment