Baltic Dry Index. 2145 -17 Brent Crude 106.95
Spot Gold 1712 US 2 Year Yield 3.23 +0.08
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 20/07/22 World 569,834,452
Deaths 6,391,948
Besides the positive lead from Wall Street, there were also
reports that Russia and Ukraine are nearing a deal that would end the
blockade on grain exports, and that Nord Stream 1 is likely to restart gas exports on
schedule after maintenance is completed.
In the stock casinos, more whiplash action. Great for commission brokers, if any are left, but usually a sign of trouble ahead.
Still it’s a summer market and thin summer markets are rife with rumour, and all the usual Wall Street hype and crime.
Below, not much left for me to add today, except to say I doubt that Russia and Ukraine are close to a deal on Ukraine grain exports. Russia is still bombarding Odessa, the only port Ukraine has left to export grain. All the others are in Russian hands or require passage through Russian occupied land.
Look
away from that inverting US yield curve now!
Japan’s Nikkei jumps 2% after
rally on Wall Street; China’s benchmark lending rate unchanged
SINGAPORE — Shares in the Asia-Pacific jumped
Wednesday after a sharp bounce in U.S. stocks overnight.
The Nikkei 225 in Japan
rose 2.46% with Fast Retailing and Tokyo Electron up
1.79% and 5.6% respectively. The Topix index gained 2.04%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index briefly
traded 2% higher and was last up 2.29%. The Hang Seng Tech index advanced
2.14%. Tencent popped
2.34% and Meituan added
3.38%.
South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.01%
and the Kosdaq was 1.43% higher.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose
1.87%.
Reserve Bank of Australia Governor
Philip Lowe on Wednesday said inflation for the June quarter to be released
next week will show a further step-up, and there needs to be a path back to 2%
to 3% inflation.
Prices rose 5.1% in the March
quarter. In his speech, Lowe also said the neutral nominal rate is at least
2.5%, whereas current rates are at 1.35%.
Markets in Mainland China ticked
higher. The Shanghai Composite gained 0.67%, and the Shenzhen Component rose
0.61%.
China kept its one-year and
five-year loan prime rates unchanged at 3.7% and 4.45% Wednesday.
MSCI’s broadest index of
Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 1.5%.
U.S. stocks rallied Tuesday
stateside following strong earnings reports.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
popped 754.44 points, or 2.43%, to 31,827.05. The S&P 500 jumped 2.76% to
3,936.69 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 3.11% to 11,713.15.
Besides the positive lead from
Wall Street, there were also reports that Russia and Ukraine are nearing a deal that would end the
blockade on grain exports, and that Nord Stream 1 is likely to restart gas exports on
schedule after maintenance is completed.
“There’s still a lot of
uncertainty around whether they’ll actually materialize, [but] a little bit of
good news goes a long way in this market,” Tai Hui, chief global market
strategist for APAC at JPMorgan Asset Management, told CNBC in a phone call on
Wednesday.
That said, it’s likely to be a
short-term bounce in the market as uncertainties over the Fed and corporate
earnings remain, he said.
In company news, Japanese
automaker Toyota said its production in August would be around 700,000 units, lower
than the previously announced figure of 850,000 units, due to a parts shortage
related to Covid disruptions.
Toyota shares were 0.28% higher
on Wednesday.
More
Asia
markets rally; China keeps benchmark lending rate unchanged (cnbc.com)
Finally,
Gazprom declares Force Majeure on Europe’s gas supply. Economic madness continues. Although this
morning, Russia says that Gazprom will fulfil all its existing contracts,
implying the Nord Stream One pipeline will resume pumping gas on Thursday or
Friday.
Russia’s Gazprom tells European buyers gas supply
halt beyond its control
Russia's Gazprom
has told customers in Europe it cannot guarantee gas supplies because of
"extraordinary" circumstances, according to a letter seen by Reuters,
upping the ante in an economic tit-for-tat with the West over Moscow's invasion
of Ukraine.
The Russian state
gas monopoly said in a letter dated July 14 that it was retroactively declaring
force majeure on supplies from June 14. The news comes as Nord Stream 1, the
key pipeline delivering Russian gas to Germany and beyond, is undergoing 10
days of annual maintenance scheduled to conclude on Thursday.
The letter added to
fears in Europe that Moscow may not restart the pipeline at the end of the
maintenance period in retaliation for sanctions imposed on Russia over the war
in Ukraine, heightening an energy crisis that risks tipping the region into recession.
Known as an
"act of God" clause, force majeure is standard in business contracts
and defines extreme circumstances that release a party from their legal
obligations. The declaration does not necessarily mean that Gazprom will stop
deliveries, rather that it should not be held responsible if it fails to meet
contract terms.
Gazprom did not
respond to a request for comment.
Russian gas
supplies have been declining via major routes for some months, including via
Ukraine and Belarus as well as through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline under the
Baltic Sea.
A trading source,
asking not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the
force majeure concerned supplies through Nord Stream 1.
"This sounds
like a first hint that the gas supplies via NS1 will possibly not resume after
the 10-day maintenance has ended," said Hans van Cleef, senior energy
economist at ABN Amro.
All you need is faith, and trust, and a little
bit of pixie dust.
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given
our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its
own.
Italy’s farmers in race
against time as drought threatens crops
Mon, 18 July 2022
at 2:03 pm
Farmers in Italy’s Lombardy region
are desperately trying to save their crops, regional authorities have warned, as water supplies
continue to wane across the drought-stricken country.
In a press conference in Milan,
the head of the Lombardy region Attilio Fontana, told journalists that
agricultural water reserves are expected to be fully depleted by the end of
July at the latest.
“The last reserves for
agriculture are running out and cannot last beyond 25-30 July,” said Fontana.
“We’re working carefully, alongside different associations – unfortunately the
only thing we can hope for is that it starts to rain again.”
Fontana’s bleak warning follows
months of dwindling water levels across the country as Italy endures its worst
drought in seventy years.
From north to south water
resources have been visibly depleted, including the Po, Italy’s longest river
where many stretches have run so dry that the sea water has been making its way
inland, destroying crops.
Lake Como in the north and the
Tiber River in Rome have also suffered the effects of the drought, with water
levels at an all-time low.
“We have decided in this first
moment to give priority to the first harvest, so the little water we have
available we use it to help agriculture,” said regional councillor Massimo
Sertori during the press conference.
A deal with hydroelectric plants
should ensure the arrival of approximately six million cubic metres of water to
Lake Como until 25 July, which should in turn save the first harvest. But this
doesn’t guarantee that the following harvests will survive.
“When the stocks are
exhausted, what worries us above all is that we have zero snow, which has
always been the summer cache,” said Sertori.
More
Italy’s farmers in
race against time as drought threatens crops (yahoo.com)
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.
With Covid-19 starting to become only endemic,
this section is close to coming to its end.
With a sniff or a swallow, new vaccines aim to put the brakes
on Covid-19 spread
(CNN)Injected vaccines against the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 have
been hugely successful, saving nearly 20 million lives globally in their first
year of use and slashing the pandemic's death toll by an estimated 63%,
according to a recent study. Yet good as these shots are, they have not stopped
the virus from spreading from person to person.
As the SARS-CoV-2 virus
spreads, it changes. That's helped it get past our firewalls, the immunity
created by vaccines or left behind after we recover from an infection. Which is
why, well into the third year of the pandemic, we're in the midst of another
wave of Covid-19 caused by the most immune-evasive variant yet, BA.5. And more
variants are coming.
Even
as vaccine manufacturers race to update the first-generation shots in the hopes
of patching up our protection for the fall, other scientists are taking a
different approach, making vaccines delivered via nasal sprays or tablets that
would deploy more immune defenders to the body's front lines: the lining of the
mouth, nose and throat.
"The
hope is to shore up the defenses right there in the nose so that the virus
can't even replicate in the nose," said Dr. Ellen Foxman, an
immunobiologist at the Yale School of Medicine. "And then someone who has
a really effective mucosal vaccination can't even really support viral
replication or make viruses that can infect other people.
"That
would be like the holy grail," said Foxman, who helped plan the
International Congress of Mucosal Immunology meeting this week in
Seattle, which is sponsored by pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, Janssen and
Merck.
If
it works, there's hope that mucosal immunity could slow the development of new
coronavirus variants and finally bring the Covid-19
pandemic under
control.
----The
idea behind vaccinating the mucosa -- the lining of "the tube" (as
mucosal immunologists refer to it) that runs from our nose and mouths to our
lungs and guts -- isn't new. There are nine existing
vaccines that
work this way, including oral drops that protect against polio, cholera,
salmonella and rotavirus, and a nasal spray, FluMist, that inoculates against
the flu.
More
New Covid-19 vaccines aim to put the brakes on virus spread - CNN
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.
£8m in scaling-up world’s first market-ready
graphene
Posted on 18 Jul 2022 by The Manufacturer
Integrated Graphene, a
Scotland-based technology development and integration company, has announced
plans to invest up to £8m in scaling up its revolutionary 3D Graphene foam,
Gii®, manufacturing process to meet surging global demand from the human
diagnostics and energy markets.
Founded in 2016, Integrated Graphene
has developed the world’s only commercially viable graphene manufacturing
process that is currently scaled to high volumes. This novel process eliminates
the scale-up challenges associated with CVD graphene and graphene powder. As
well as direct manufacturing, Integrated Graphene is designing manufacturing
processes for blue-chip companies to effectively bolt-on to existing lines, and
it also has a team dedicated to supporting organisations to adapt graphene
technologies for their products.
The company’s investment plan will
focus on scaling-up the manufacturing of its market-ready graphene enhanced
electrodes and super capacitors which are currently being piloted by global
blue-chips in human diagnostics point of care testing and smart label asset
tracking applications.
These printable electronic products
include the Gii-Sens®, which offers a better and more-effective sensor material
for the human diagnostics market and Gii-Cap® which targets 10% of $500bn
battery market, with the potential to remove 60 million batteries from being
thrown away every year.
Since coming out of “stealth mode”
in 2020, Integrated Graphene has quickly established its reputation in the
market, winning several commercial contracts and dramatically increasing its
intellectual property portfolio.
As part of its growth plans,
the company intends to double its existing footprint in Stirling and treble its
headcount to 100 over the next three years, hiring a significant number of
market leading development and commercial experts in the UK, Europe and
North America. The company will also increase capital expenditure in its
next generation pilot line to allow rapid market expansion of Gii-Sens and
Gii-Cap. For Gii-Sens, that includes wearables, animal diagnostics, companion
diagnostics, environmental diagnostics. With Gii-Cap, expansion markets include
Drones, e-mobility, space, satellites, and wearables.
The investment comes on the back of
a significantly oversubscribed Series A + funding round for an undisclosed sum
led by existing investors, Par Equity and Archangels.
All of this has happened before, and it will
all happen again.
J. M. Barrie,
Peter Pan.
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