Baltic Dry Index. 2061 -53 Brent Crude 104.49
Spot Gold 1715 US 2 Year Yield 3.02 +0.02
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 27/07/22 World 577,359,582
Deaths 6,407,699
I never hesitate to tell a man that I am bullish or bearish. But I do not tell people to buy or sell any particular stock. In a bear market all stocks go down and in a bull market they go up.
Jesse Livermore
It is Fed Chairman Powell’s big day. Does he increase America’s key interest rate by 50 basis points or 75?
How about shocking nearly everyone in the stock casinos by hiking by 100 basis points.
Doing nothing in the face of runaway US inflation officially at 9.1 percent, but running in double digits if calculated by the methodology of the 70s and early 80s, isn’t an option.
Chairman Powell and the Fed blew it last year insisting inflation was transitory. Now he must pay for his great error. Actually, it’s the hapless US public that’s already paying for his Great Error.
So now we all wait on the Fed announcement later today.
Well perhaps not everyone. German’s are waiting to find out later today if Russia will really drop Nord Stream One’s gas throughput down to just 20 percent of capacity. I have no reason to think that they won’t.
Hong Kong shares
lead losses in Asia; Australia’s inflation rises
SINGAPORE —
Asia-Pacific shares traded lower on Wednesday with Hong Kong stocks leading
losses, as Australia’s inflation rose and investors looked forward to the Fed’s
policy decision.
Japan’s Nikkei
225 slipped 0.13%, while the Topix index declined 0.19%.
The Hang Seng
index fell around 1% in early trade, and the Hang Seng Tech index slipped
1.19%. Heavyweight Alibaba dropped 3.64% after popping Tuesday after it
announced plans for a dual primary listing in Hong Kong.
Mainland China
markets also fell. The Shanghai Composite declined 0.29% and
the Shenzhen Component lost 0.39%.
In Australia,
the S&P/ASX 200 was fractionally lower.
South Korea’s shed 0.56%,
but the Kosdaq advanced 0.24%.
MSCI’s
broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was 0.72% lower.
Prices
in Australia rose 6.1% in the second quarter compared to the same period a year
ago, up from 5.1% in the first quarter of the year. Economists polled by
Reuters saw inflation hitting 6.2%.
Kristina Clifton,
an economist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, wrote in a note before the
announcement that the CPI reading Down Under could influence the market’s
expectations for future rate hikes.
“We expect
that any impacts on the AUD from today’s CPI will be short lived because the
darkening global outlook will be a greater weight on AUD,” she wrote.
The
International Monetary Fund on Tuesday cut its global GDP forecasts for
2022 and 2023. It now expects growth to come in at 3.2% this year, 0.4
percentage points lower than its April projection.
The weakened
to $0.6924 after the inflation print was reported.
U.S. stocks slipped overnight after
Walmart cut its earnings forecast.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
slipped 228.50 points, or 0.71%, to 31,761.54. The S&P 500 dipped by 1.15%
to 3,921.05, while the Nasdaq Composite fell around 1.87% to 11,562.57.
The Federal Open Market Committee
began its meeting on Tuesday stateside and will continue on Wednesday.
Expectations for a 75 basis point
move were at 72.7%, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool.
More
Asia
markets: Stock indexes fall, Australia inflation rises to 6.1% (cnbc.com)
IMF
slashes global growth forecast as top three economies ‘stall’
Larry Elliott 26 July 2022
The International Monetary Fund has slashed its
growth forecasts for the next 18 months after warning that the world’s three
biggest economies are all stalling.
In a downbeat update to its April world economic outlook (WEO), the IMF said problems in the US, China and the
eurozone had resulted in global output falling in the second quarter of this
year – the first contraction since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Washington-based IMF said it now
expected the global economy to grow by 3.2% in 2022 – a 0.4 point reduction
since April – while inflation is now believed to be higher than previous
forecasts. The slowdown is predicted to continue next year, when growth is now
forecast to be 2.9% – 0.7 points lower than had been pencilled in three months
ago.
“The global economy, still reeling
from the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is facing an increasingly
gloomy and uncertain outlook,” said the IMF’s economic counsellor,
Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas.
“Higher-than-expected inflation,
especially in the United States and major European economies, is triggering a
tightening of global financial conditions. China’s slowdown has been worse than
anticipated amid Covid-19 outbreaks and lockdowns, and there have been further
negative spillovers from the war in Ukraine.”
The IMF said by the fourth quarter of
2022 it was forecasting global inflation of 8.3%, up from its April estimate of
6.9%. It identified the UK – where inflation is now on course to be 2.7 points
higher at 10.5% – and the eurozone (up 2.9 points to 7.3%) as places where cost
of living pressures had particularly intensified.
More
IMF slashes global
growth forecast as top three economies ‘stall’ (msn.com)
Global Inflation/Stagflation/Recession
Watch.
Given
our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its
own.
Nouriel
Roubini says predictions for a mild recession are 'delusional' as severe
financial crisis looms
July
25, 2022
Recession indicators are ringing and key commodities have plunged into a bear market, signaling a
downturn may be on the horizon. And Nouriel Roubini dismissed hopes that an
incoming recession will be shallow.
The famed economist, who
called the 2008 financial crash, told Bloomberg that the economy is headed for a severe recession
as well as a severe debt and financial crisis.
Roubini, also known as
"Dr. Doom," said debt ratios are historically high at 420% for advanced
economies and climbing, while bailouts during the pandemic have resulted in
"zombie corporations" that put the economy at risk.
In contrast, the stagflation
seen during the 1970s was accompanied by low debt ratios, and the debt crisis
during the 2008 financial crash saw falling inflation.
"This idea that it's
going to be short and shallow, it's totally delusional," Roubini said.
His
warning goes against other predictions on Wall Street for a mild recession,
including those from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Pimco, Nomura, and BlackRock's Larry Fink.
More Signs Emerge That Inflation Is Altering Shopping
Habits
A day after Walmart warned investors that its profit would shrink as
rising prices forced shoppers to make fewer purchases at its stores, Unilever, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, three other
consumer-facing giants, reinforced the message, to different degrees, providing
a window into how companies are navigating this fragile economic moment.
On Tuesday, Unilever, the maker
of Dove soap, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Hellmann’s mayonnaise, said it
raised prices until they were 11 percent higher than in the same quarter last
year, offsetting a 2 percent decline in the volume of things that consumers
bought. It was the fourth consecutive quarter in which prices outpaced volume
growth at the company.
Unilever raised its
forecast for revenue this year but said that its profit would most likely be at
the bottom of its expected range, held back by a sharp increase in the prices
of plastics, palm oil, aluminum and other commodities it uses as inputs.
Alan Jope,
Unilever’s chief executive, said on a call with analysts that “peak cost
inflation” was likely to come in the second half of the year. Sales volumes may
fall more in the second half than the first, Mr. Jope said, “as the full impact
of pricing lands.”
Passing higher
prices on to shoppers has led some to buy less or trade down to cheaper store
brands, Unilever’s results suggested, a trend also seen in Walmart’s recent
financial reports. To keep its higher-priced brands in consumers’ minds,
Unilever said that it added about $200 million to its marketing budget in the
first half of the year, another factor that put a dent in its profits.
Investors appeared heartened by Unilever’s ability to balance prices and costs,
with its London-listed shares rising almost 3 percent.
More
More
Signs Emerge That Inflation Is Altering Shopping Habits – DNyuz
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.
Omicron has shattered what we know about COVID reinfections.
Here’s why you may be vulnerable
Cindy Krischer Goodman, South Florida Sun Sentinel – July
25 2022
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Initially, enduring
COVID had one redeeming quality: It gave you some short-term immunity from
getting infected again.
But the new omicron
subvariants are shattering that trend. BA.5, which now makes up 66% of COVID cases in Florida, has caused more people to catch COVID for the second or
third time than previous strains.
BA.5 is known for having a
structure that is maximized to evade immunity and for transmitting from
person-to-person more easily than other subvariants in the omicron family.
Here’s what you need to know
about reinfections.
Emerging research shows the percentage of
reinfections is rising.
Helix, which sequences
COVID-19 tests to surveil variants, found out of nearly 300,000 infections
since March 2021, the share that was reinfections almost doubled to 6.4% during
the BA.5 wave in July from 3.6% during the BA.2 wave in May.
The Helix data shows that
most reinfections in July occurred in people who had COVID-19 in 2021.
Experts expect the rate of
reinfections to continue to climb for two main reasons: BA.5 is highly
contagious, and the majority of the country — and Florida — has already
contracted COVID-19 at least once.
Early in
the pandemic, strains like delta weren’t replaced as fast by new variants and
people who had COVID-19 had some protection against reinfection for several
months. But now, new strains are sweeping through the country one after the
other.
Just
since April, BA.2, BA.2.12.1 and now BA.5, have had turns at being the dominant
strain. So Floridians who got an earlier variation of omicron in spring could
be vulnerable to reinfection from a different strain circulating this summer or
fall.
Experts
differ on how soon you can get reinfected
More
Long COVID may cause hair, libido loss, as
well as brain fog, study says
JULY 25, 2022 / 11:00 AM
July 25 (UPI) -- Long COVID sufferers are experiencing a broader array of symptoms
than previously thought, including hair loss and sexual dysfunction, as well as
fatigue, breathing difficulties and brain fog, according to new research.
The
British study, published Monday in Nature Medicine, found that
patients with previous infection from SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus reported 62
symptoms much more frequently 12 weeks after initial infection than did people
with no history of COVID-19.
The
research also identified key demographic groups and behaviors that seem to
suggest which people are at increased risk of developing long COVID, including
women, younger people, and individuals of Black, mixed or other ethnic groups.
Also,
people from low socioeconomic backgrounds, smokers, and people who are overweight
or obese, as well as individuals with a wide range of pre-existing health
conditions, were associated with persistent post-COVID infection symptoms.
The
research validates what patients have been telling clinicians throughout the
pandemic -- that the prolonged symptoms of long COVID "are extremely broad
and cannot be fully accounted for by other factors, such as lifestyle risk
factors or chronic health conditions," Dr. Shamil Haroon, the study's
senior author, said in a news release.
More
Long COVID may cause hair, libido loss, as well as
brain fog, study says - UPI.com
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.
SCA and
Scania Develop Electric Timber Trucks
SCA, together with Scania, has
developed the world’s first electric timber truck with a capacity of 80 metric
tons. SCA’s goal is to make the entire value chain fossil fuel-free.
The intention is that the vehicle will
transport timber on the stretch between SCA’s timber terminal in Gimonäs and
the paper mill in Obbola outside Umeå in Sweden. The new electric timber truck
can be driven with a total weight of 64 metric tons on public roads and 80
metric tons on private roads.
SCA Obbola’s paper mill currently has a
virtually fossil-free production process and the intention of the new vehicle
is to reduce the fossil fuel elements in the transport chain of raw material to
the mill.
The electric timber truck will be
test-driven during the summer and continuously studied by the research
institute Skogforsk to collect relevant data that can form the basis for
comparisons with conventional diesel-powered timber transports. After that, the
plan is for it to be included in SCA’s regular operations.
“Sustainability and reduced carbon
dioxide emissions are important for society as a whole, which means that the
business is also dependent on us driving development. Our forests and forest
products have created enormous climate benefits for a long period of time and
our industries are very climate-efficient, which is why it is also obvious with
high climate ambitions for our transports,” says Hans Djurberg.
The studies carried out during the summer will,
among other things, compare energy consumption, productivity and costs against
existing vehicles and map out what would be required for a broad implementation
of electric timber trucks across the country.
More
SCA and Scania
Develop Electric Timber Trucks (environmentalleader.com)
As money got tighter, call-money rates went higher and prices of
stocks lower.
Jesse Livermore.
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