Baltic Dry Index. 2073 +30 Brent Crude 101.18
Spot Gold 1742 US 2 Year Yield 3.03 +0.06
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 08/07/22 World 558,704,131
Deaths 6,369,096
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to report its nonfarm payrolls data Friday stateside. Economists expect a gain of 250,000 jobs for June, according to a Dow Jones survey. That would be less than the 390,000 jobs added in May.
The big economic news today will likely be the US Labour
figures from the US Bureau of Lying Labor Statistics.
But the news will likely be overshadowed by the assignation attempt on former Japanese Prime Minister Abe. Latest reports suggest that Mr. Abe was killed. Which if true will dominate mainstream media for the rest of day.
In UK news, it’s all about how to get rid of a dodgy lame duck Prime Minister from hanging around all summer pretending to still be in office. It’s also about the anti-Brexit Remainiacs plotting to seize power to rejoin the energy-less EUSSR.
Meanwhile in Ukraine the proxy war on Russia continues, with the latest updates being Russian missile strikes on grain facilities in Ukraine’s main port of Odessa.
Japanese stocks give up some gains after reports that former PM Shinzo Abe was shot
SINGAPORE — Japan’s stocks gave up some gains and the yen rose on news that former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was gravely injured in a shooting.
The Nikkei 225 was up 0.56% and the Topix index was 0.83% higher. Both indexes were more than 1% higher earlier in the session, but fell after reports that Abe was shot during campaigning.
The yen last traded at 135.60 per dollar. Earlier in the day, it was at 135.9 per dollar.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno confirmed that Abe was shot at around 11:30am Japan time and said his condition was unknown.
Abe is still a heavyweight in Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Reuters said. He was giving a speech in the city of Nara, campaigning on behalf of other LDP members ahead of Japan’s upper house elections on Sunday.
Elsewhere in the region, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 advanced 0.57%.
South Korea’s Kospi added 0.85%, while the Kosdaq was 0.83% higher.
The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was just above the flatline.
Mainland China markets were higher. The Shanghai Composite increased 0.17%, while the Shenzhen Component advanced 0.13%.
But fears of rising prices and an economic slowdown remain.
“The risk out there, of course, would be the heightened inflation and on top of that, there is also the risk of impending recession,” DBS Chief Investment Officer Hou Wey Fook told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Friday.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to report its nonfarm payrolls data Friday stateside. Economists expect a gain of 250,000 jobs for June, according to a Dow Jones survey. That would be less than the 390,000 jobs added in May.
----Overnight in the U.S., major indexes rose.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 346.87 points, or about 1.12%, to close at 31,384.55. The S&P 500 gained 1.5% to 3,902.62, while the Nasdaq Composite added 2.28% to 11,621.35.
European markets rose on Thursday as U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/08/asia-markets-us-jobs-report-politics-fed.html
'Reducing inflation will come at a great cost': Ray Dalio warns that the Fed will likely trigger something far worse than high prices. Here's what he likes today
Thu, July 7, 2022 at 9:00 PM
Some say cash is king. But according to Ray Dalio, founder of the world’s largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, it may not be wise to keep too much of your investment money in cash these days.
“Cash is not a safe investment, is not a safe place because it will be taxed by inflation,” Dalio told CNBC last year.
But 40-year high inflation isn’t the only thing that’s concerning the billionaire investor at the moment.
In a LinkedIn post last month, Dalio warns that Fed’s tightening could lead to stagflation – an economic condition marked by high inflation, but without the robust economic growth and employment that usually come with it.
“My main point is that while tightening reduces inflation because it results in people spending less, it doesn’t make things better because it takes buying power away. It just shifts some of the squeezing of people via inflation to squeezing them via giving them less buying power,” he writes.
“[O]ver the long run the Fed will most likely chart a middle course that will take the form of stagflation.”
If you are wondering what to do given this gloomy outlook, here’s a look at some of the biggest holdings at Dalio’s hedge fund.
More
https://www.yahoo.com/news/reducing-inflation-come-great-cost-200000780.html
Finally, more on Ukraine’s current wheat crop.
UPDATE ON UKRAINE CROPS, 30% LESS ACRES
PLANTED, HARVEST BEING DELAYED BY THE WAR
Jul. 7, 2022
Agri-Pulse
reports:
Russian military advances are threatening fields in
southern and eastern Ukraine that are some of the most fertile in the country
and are located in the country's primary growing regions for winter wheat,
according to market analysts and researchers.
Ukrainian farmers last year were heading out into
the fields to harvest their winter wheat on more than 7 million hectares, or 17
million acres. Now, farmers will be lucky to harvest 4.8 million hectares, or
about 12 million acres, according to a new forecast by UkrAgroConsult, a firm
based in Kyiv. Farmers are harvesting winter wheat in Odesa, a southwest
province that has been attacked by Russian missiles, but fields on Ukraine's
eastern provinces are either under occupation or siege. "
After the northern part of Ukraine was liberated in
early April, all of the hostilities became concentrated in southern and eastern
Ukraine," says Maryna Marynych, a research analyst for UkrAgroConsult.
Displaying photos of fields pockmarked with blackened blast craters, she added:
"As of the end of June, nearly 20% of Ukraine is under occupation, and
fields that are close to the frontline look like this."
While 20% of Ukraine may be occupied by Russian
forces, more than half the country's winter wheat fields are considered either
occupied or at high risk because of their proximity to the fighting. Large
swaths of Ukraine's most productive wheat-growing area are in Kherson and
Zaporizhzhia provinces - or oblasts - but that's where the heaviest fighting
is, and much of the region is under Russian control.
To read the entire article click
here.
https://www.agrimarketing.com/s/141566
On July 8, 1972, the Nixon administration announced a deal to sell $750 million in grain to the Soviet Union. (However, the Soviets were also engaged in secretly buying subsidized American grain, resulting in what critics dubbed “The Great Grain Robbery.”)
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Wharton professor Jeremy Siegel says there's 'no question' the US is already in a recession and the Fed could shock markets with a much smaller rate hike this month if data weakens
Wed, July 6, 2022 at 5:51 PM
The US is already in a recession and there's a possibility that the Federal Reserve won't have to hike interest rates as much as markets have anticipated if data continues to weaken, Jeremy Siegel, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, said.
Siegel predicted that second-quarter gross-domestic-product growth would be negative for the second straight quarter, which would meet the technical definition of a recession.
"We are really in a recession. There's no question," Siegel said in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday.
His comments came ahead of the Fed's release of the minutes from its June meeting at 2 p.m. ET. Loretta Mester, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland's president, told CNBC last week that she would be pushing for a 75-point rate hike at the meeting at the end of this month. It would be another episode of dramatic interest-rate increases to tame prices.
Siegel is skeptical that such a move will be necessary. Inflation is hot, he said, with the May consumer price index clocking in at 8.6%, the fastest rise since 1981. The S&P 500 also just finished its worst half of the year since 1970, cutting deep into investors' earnings.
But a 75-basis-point hike could be "excessive" given softening economic conditions, he said, and observers are overestimating how tight policy needs to get to fight inflation.
iegel said there were signs inflation had peaked and that the Fed may be going too far in its hawkish pivot. Certain segments like commodity and housing prices have peaked, though wages continue to rise. Money supply has grown stagnant, which is another indicator that inflation is no longer accelerating.
"The Fed has to be careful not to slam on the brakes and just crash this economy," Siegel said. "They have to realize most of the inflation now is behind us, even though it's going to go through the official statistics for the next six to 12 months."
Siegel said that if high-level economic data points weakened ahead of the next Fed meeting, a much lower rate hike could be delivered by the central bank, even as low as 25 basis points versus the 75 basis points markets expect.
"Yes, the Fed has to do some more tightening, but may they don't have to go to that 3.75% the funds rate is projecting," he said.
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.
Another universal coronavirus vaccine readies for human trials
Rich Haridy July 06, 2022
As scientists frantically chase a rapidly mutating SARS-CoV-2 virus by trying to update current COVID vaccines to better target circulating variants, a huge project is bubbling away in the background. The goal is to create a universal coronavirus vaccine designed to generate such broad immunity it will protect people from all currently circulating strains of SARS-CoV-2, as well as any future variants yet to emerge. And there are several compelling candidates in the pipeline.
A new study published in the journal Science is reporting promising results from preclinical studies led by researchers at Caltech. The vaccine utilizes a novel mosaic nanoparticle technology to protect not only against SARS-CoV-2 but also the original SARS, and several common cold coronaviruses.
The experimental vaccine focuses on a particular genera of coronaviruses called betacoronaviruses. These are the most clinically relevant types of coronaviruses to humans, including SARS, MERS, SARS-CoV-2, and two coronaviruses linked to the common cold - OC43 and HKU1.
Pamela Bjorkman, a Caltech researcher leading the project, said generating broad immunity against the entire group of betacoronviruses should offer protection from new viruses that could emerge in the future. And considering we’ve had three dangerous viruses emerge from the betacoronavirus family over the past 20 years, it is crucial to get ahead of what could be the next pandemic.
“What we're trying to do is make an all-in-one vaccine protective against SARS-like betacoronaviruses regardless of which animal viruses might evolve to allow human infection and spread,” said Bjorkman. “This sort of vaccine would also protect against current and future SARS-CoV-2 variants without the need for updating."
The Caltech vaccine uses nanoparticle scaffolds to attach a number of different betacoronavirus fragments. Eight different betacoronaviruses are targeted by the vaccine: SARS-CoV-2, and seven other betacoronaviruses currently only circulating in animals but all holding the potential for mutating into a form that could infect humans in the future.
The vaccine does not focus on the traditional coronavirus spike protein, but instead uses viral fragments called receptor-binding domains (RBDs). These are parts of the virus that act as a kind of interface between the spike protein and ACE2 receptors in human cells. RBDs are like the anchor that links the virus up with the human receptor.
More
Another universal coronavirus vaccine readies for human trials (newatlas.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.
Electron whirlpools: Scientists witness electricity behaving like water
Michael Irving July 07, 2022
Researchers at MIT have observed “electron whirlpools” for the first time. The bizarre behavior arises when electricity flows as a fluid, which could make for more efficient electronics.
Like water, electricity is made up of discreet particles, so one might expect that they would both flow in similar ways. But while water molecules are big enough to jostle each other and flow together, electrons are much smaller, meaning they’re more influenced by their surroundings than each other.
However, it has been predicted that under ideal conditions – at temperatures close to absolute zero and in pure, defect-free materials – quantum effects should take over their movement and allow them to flow as an electron fluid with the viscosity of honey. If scientists could harness this, it could make for more efficient electronic devices where electricity flows with less resistance.
In the new study, the MIT team has observed a clear sign of an electron fluid – whirlpools. These are common structures in fluid flows but not something that electrons can usually produce, and as such they’ve never been observed before. The researchers spotted the electron whirlpools in crystals of tungsten ditelluride.
----In this material, the team etched a narrow channel with a circular chamber on either side, then ran a current through it and measured electron flow. In standard materials like gold, the electrons would always flow in the same general direction, even as they spread out into the chambers and then came back into the central channel. But in the tungsten ditelluride, the electrons swirled through the circular chambers, reversing direction and creating whirlpools.
“Electron vortices are expected in theory, but there’s been no direct proof, and seeing is believing,” said Levitov. “Now we’ve seen it, and it’s a clear signature of being in this new regime, where electrons behave as a fluid, not as individual particles.”
The team says that this confirmation of a long-standing prediction could help scientists design more efficient electronics.
The research was published in the journal Nature.
Source: MIT
Electron whirlpools: Scientists witness electricity behaving like water (newatlas.com)
Another weekend and still no end in sight to the useless war in the Ukraine. How long can it last before spreading into a wider European war?
Have a great weekend everyone.
On July 8th 1853, an expedition led by Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Yedo Bay, Japan, on a mission to seek diplomatic and trade relations with the Japanese.
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