Baltic Dry Index. 2113 -32 Brent Crude 106.02
Spot Gold 1693 US 2 Year Yield 3.25 +0.02
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 21/07/22 World 571,707,689
Deaths 6,396,131
21 July 1588 the first engagement between the English fleet and the Spanish Armada off the Eddystone Rocks, off Cornwall but actually part of next door Devon.
The good news this morning is that Gazprom says it has restarted shipping Europe gas again via the Nord Stream One pipeline to Germany. No word yet as to what capacity, although that might take some time to determine.
In the stock casinos, a nervous pause as commodities and the US yield curve inverting suggest stagflation looks like turning into recession.
In Europe, the ECB meets and must decide whether to fight inflation by raising interest rates, further blowing up the PIGS interest rates from Germany’s, or doing nothing or merely a token raise, hammering the Euro lower against most currencies.
Those trapped in the Euro might want to consider cashing out some for fully paid up physical gold and silver at what I think will become historic lows.
Japan’s Nikkei
rises modestly after Bank of Japan keeps rates on hold; Asia markets mixed
SINGAPORE — Japan’s benchmark index rose modestly
on Thursday after the Bank of Japan kept rates on hold, while Asia markets were
mixed.
The Nikkei 225 in Japan
reversed earlier losses to rise 0.15% while the Topix index was fractionally
lower after the central bank’s decision was announced.
----Rio Tinto shares
fell 3.38% after the company said it will pay the Australian Taxation Office an
additional tax of 613 million Australian dollars ($422 million) over a dispute.
Rio previously paid the ATO 378 million Australian dollars.
South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.5%
and the Kosdaq was 0.44% higher.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index slipped
1.37% with real estate and financial stocks pulling the index lower, while
mainland China markets dropped.
The Shanghai Composite fell
0.42% and Shenzhen Component declined
0.17%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares
outside Japan lost 0.33%.
Bank of Japan decision
The Bank of Japan
stuck to its ultra-easy monetary policy as expected, while lowering its growth
forecast for 2022 and raising its inflation predictions.
“The Bank of Japan
stays a bastion of stability here,” Jesper Koll, director at Monex Group Japan,
said.
“In fact, the
revision down in the Bank of Japan’s growth projection suggests that the Bank
of Japan is going to stay put for much, much longer,” he told CNBC’s “Street
Signs Asia” on Thursday.
Japan’s yen changed hands
at 138.27 per dollar following the decision.
The currency has
weakened considerably in recent months as Japan’s easy monetary policy diverges
from that of other countries.
Central banks in
the region and the rest of the world have raised interest rates in a bid to
keep inflation under control. The European Central Bank is expected to hike
rates later Thursday.
Takuji Okubo,
managing director of Japan Macro Advisors, acknowledged that there are concerns
over the falling value of the yen.
----In company news, Hyundai Motor will be
reporting its second-quarter results Thursday.
Overnight in the
U.S., major averages reached their highest points since early June.
The Nasdaq Composite
popped 1.58% to 11,897.65, and the S&P 500 gained 0.59% to 3,959.90.
Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 47.79 points, or 0.15%, to
31,874.84 after struggling for direction in the session.
More
Asia
markets: Stocks mixed as Bank of Japan stands pat (cnbc.com)
Stock
futures slip after Nasdaq’s rally as investors digest corporate earnings
Stock futures dipped on Thursday morning as
investors hoped to build on a strong start to the week amid a flurry of
corporate earnings.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones
Industrial Average shed 33 points, or about 0.1%. S&P 500 futures ticked
down 0.13%, while Nasdaq 100 futures slipped 0.23%.
The move in futures comes as Wall Street is enjoying a July rebound, with
the three major averages hitting
their highest levels in more than a month.
----“The bulls seem to be coming back into the
market now. We’ve seen pretty sharp rallies in tech, crypto and other risk
assets over the past few days,” said Callie Cox, U.S. investment analyst at
eToro. “Which is notable to us, because in an economy with some pretty notable
weakness in it, you’d expect to be seeing other parts of the market performing
well. But the animal spirits are back, at least for now.”
In the early weeks of
earnings season, corporate results have largely held up so far, helping calm
fears about an impending recession.
However, the reports
after the bell on Wednesday were mostly mixed. Shares of Alcoa and CSX jumped
in extended trading after the companies beat expectations. Shares of Tesla were
choppy after the automaker reported stronger-than-expected earnings but
shrinking automotive gross margins.
More
Stock
futures slip after Nasdaq's rally as investors digest corporate earnings (cnbc.com)
Finally,
news from China on that US/NATO proxy war on Russia. As with western “news”
reports, we have no way of telling truth from propaganda.
Yesterday in a speech CIA Director Burns put the US estimate of Russian troop deaths in Ukraine at 15,000, considerably lower than the 34,000 put out by Kiev.
At
the same conference Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., chief of staff
of the U.S. Air Force, said the US and its allies are thinking about widening
the war by providing fighter jets to Ukraine.
How long before we end up in nuclear war with Russia? Not too long I
think.
Russian aerospace
forces destroy three Ukrainian aircrafts
By Xinhua Published: Jul
17, 2022 08:47 AM
The following are the latest
developments in the Ukraine crisis:
Fighter aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces destroyed three Ukrainian
aircraft in an air battle, including two MiG-29s in the settlements of
Novopavlovka in the Nikolaev region and Vladimirovka in the Dnepropetrovsk
region, the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday.
The other Su-25 was destroyed in the area of Seversk, it added.
In addition, two Ukrainian helicopters were shot down in the air, including a
Mi-8 and a Mi-24.
A total of 256 Ukrainian airplanes and 139 helicopters, 1,557 drones, 355 anti-aircraft
missile systems, 4,073 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 746 multiple
launch rocket systems, 3,149 field artillery and mortars, and 4,253 special
military vehicles were destroyed in the course of the special military
operation.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has instructed the country's armed
forces to "intensify actions in all directions" to prevent the
Ukrainian troops from massively shelling Donbass and other regions, the Russian
Defense Ministry said Saturday.
Shoigu has paid an inspection visit to Russia's South and Center military
groupings, which are involved in the special military operation in Ukraine, the
ministry said in a statement.
He heard reports from the commanders of the two military groupings on the
Ukrainian forces' actions and the progress of the Russian forces' combat
missions. Shoigu presented medals to two generals for their work in the special
military operation.
Russian armed forces launched missile strikes at a building of the garrison
house of officers in the Western city of Vinnytsia in
Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said Friday.
The ministry said that high-precision sea-based Kalibr missiles were launched
at the building.
It added that a conference was being held at the facility at the time of the
strike between the command of the Ukrainian armed forces and foreign arms
suppliers.
Russian aerospace
forces destroy three Ukrainian aircrafts - Global Times
CIA estimates about 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine war
July 20 2022
Around 15,000 Russian soldiers have
been killed and a further 45,000 have been wounded in the war in
Ukraine, the United States believes.
Key
points:
- Military
deaths are classified as state secrets in Russia and regular updates have
not been provided
- Last
month, the government in Kyiv said 100 to 200 Ukrainian troops were killed
every day
- CIA
director William Burns said Russia had retreated to a "more
comfortable way of war"
CIA director William
Burns said Russia's efforts to occupy about a fifth of Ukraine had come at
a great cost for both countries.
"The latest estimates from the
US intelligence community would be something in the vicinity of 15,000
[Russian forces] killed, and maybe three times that wounded," he
said.
"The Ukrainians have suffered
as well, probably a little less than that.
But, you know,
significant casualties."
Russia classifies its
military deaths as a state secret and has not updated its official
casualty figures frequently during the war.
Its latest update was
on March 25, when it reported 1,351 Russian soldiers had been killed.
Last month, the
government in Kyiv said 100 to 200 Ukrainian troops were being killed each day.
More
CIA
estimates about 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine war - ABC
News
U.S., allies weigh providing Ukraine fighter jets to counter
Russia
July 20 2022
Senior U.S. officials acknowledged
Wednesday that the United States and its allies are considering whether to
provide Ukraine with new fighter jets and the training needed to operate them,
a move that would dramatically expand Western involvement in the war with
Russia.
Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.,
chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, said that although he would not speculate
what type of aircraft might be transferred, discussions are ongoing about how
to reinforce Ukraine’s fleet, including with new planes. The Ukrainian air
force has been outgunned by Russia since the invasion began Feb. 24, sparingly
flying an assortment of MiG jets and other Cold War-era planes.
Brown
said there are several possibilities, including American-made fighters or some
made in Europe. Options include the Gripen fighter made
in Sweden, the Rafale made
in France, and the Eurofighter Typhoon,
which is built by a consortium of companies in several countries.
“It’ll
be something non-Russian, I can probably tell you that,” Brown said during an
appearance at the Aspen Security Forum in
Colorado. “But I can’t tell you exactly what it’s going to be.”
U.S., allies weigh providing Ukraine fighter jets to counter Russia (msn.com)
Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given
our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its
own.
UK inflation hits
new 40-year high of 9.4% as cost-of-living crisis deepens
PUBLISHED WED, JUL 20 20222:04 AM
EDT
LONDON — U.K. inflation hit yet another new
40-year high in June as food and energy prices continued to soar, escalating
the country’s historic cost-of-living crisis.
The consumer price index rose 9.4% annually,
according to estimates out Wednesday, slightly above a consensus forecast among
economists polled by Reuters and up from 9.1% in May.
This represented a 0.8% monthly incline in
consumer prices, exceeding the the previous month’s 0.7% rise but remaining
short of the 2.5% monthly increase in April.
The U.K.’s Office for National Statistics said in
Wednesday’s report that its indicative modelled consumer price inflation
estimates “suggest that the CPI rate would last have been higher around 1982,
where estimates range from nearly 11% in January down to approximately 6.5% in
December.”
The most significant contributors to the rising
inflation rate came from motor fuels and food, the ONS said, with the former
soaring 42.3% on the year, the highest rate since before the start of the
constructed historical series in 1989.
The Bank
of England has implemented five
consecutive 25 basis point hikes to interest rates as it looks to rein in inflation,
but Governor Andrew Bailey suggested in
a speech at the Mansion House
Financial and Professional Services Dinner on Tuesday that the Monetary Policy
Committee could consider a 50 basis point hike at its August policy meeting.
This would constitute the U.K.’s biggest single
increase in interest rates for nearly 30 years, and Bailey vowed that there
would be “no ifs or buts” in the Bank’s commitment to return inflation to its
2% target. The governor has received public criticism from several of the Conservative Party hopefuls to replace Boris Johnson as
prime minister.
“From the perspective of monetary policy, these
times are the largest challenge to the monetary policy regime of inflation
targeting that we have seen in the quarter century since the MPC was created in
1997,” Bailey said.
----The Bank expects inflation to peak at around
11% later in the year, while new ONS figures Tuesday showed that real wages in
the U.K. over the three months to May experienced their steepest decline since
records began in 2001, as pay increases failed to draw close to the inflation
rate.
“The intense cost of
living squeeze is putting significant pressure on the UK’s consumer-led economy
and means the risk of recession is high,” said Hussain Mehdi, macro and
investment strategist at HSBC Asset Management.
More
UK inflation hits
new 40-year high of 9.4% as cost-of-living crisis deepens (cnbc.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.
Big
study reveals increased heart disease & diabetes risk after COVID-19
Rich Haridy July 19, 2022
There is both good and bad news in
the findings from a massive new UK study tracking half a million subjects for
up to a year following COVID-19. The study found COVID patients were at
significantly greater risk of cardiovascular problems and new diabetes
diagnoses for many weeks after an infection, however, that risk did return to
baseline after several months.
Alongside
the acute challenges of COVID-19 and the distinct persistent condition of long
COVID, researchers are increasingly seeing that recovered patients suffer
higher rates of stroke, diabetes and heart
disease in the months following an infection. But
the long-term outcomes from COVID-19 are still unclear.
One of the largest
longitudinal studies on the subject was published earlier this year. From
Washington University, around 150,000 COVID cases were followed for up to 12 months.
Those subjects were 55
percent more likely to experience a
serious cardiovascular event in the year after recovering.
This new research, led by a
team from King’s College London, looked at health records from 428,650 COVID-19
patients in the United Kingdom. Each patient was demographically matched
against a control patient and two specific health outcomes were tracked in the
12 months following COVID infection: new diagnoses of cardiovascular disease
and diabetes.
More
Big study reveals increased heart disease & diabetes risk after COVID-19 (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.
Film
captures wasted wavelengths of light to boost solar cell efficiency
Michael Irving July 19, 2022
Solar cells are one of the most important
technologies in the transition to renewable energy, but there’s still plenty of
room for improvement. Researchers at New York University (NYU) Tandon have now
developed a thin film that boosts solar cell efficiency by converting wasted
wavelengths of light into ones that can be used to produce electricity.
Silicon is the material of choice for most
solar cells in use today, but while it excels at absorbing the red end of the
visible spectrum of sunlight, it all but ignores shorter wavelengths like
ultraviolet and blue light. Scientists have been experimenting with
different solar
cell designs, materials and dyes that might be able to make use of more of the spectrum,
but so far it’s been tricky to make meaningful headway.
Now, the NYU Tandon
researchers may have made a breakthrough, with a thin film that can convert UV
and blue photons from sunlight into near-infrared photons. The film could be
used to boost the efficiency of an existing silicon solar cell by essentially
allowing it to harvest energy that would otherwise go to waste.
Importantly, it
doesn’t block the other wavelengths of light that silicon can readily tap into.
And as an added bonus, reducing the amount of UV radiation that hits the solar
cell can help them last longer.
The film is made up
of an inorganic perovskite material doped with small amounts of ytterbium. The
perovskite is adept at absorbing blue light and transferring that energy to the
ytterbium, which emits it as near-infrared light. These red photons can then be
picked up by the silicon solar cell, supplementing its usual diet coming
directly from the Sun.
In tests, the team
found that the film could convert blue photons to red with an efficiency of
82.5 percent. It’s important not to get this figure confused with the
efficiency of the solar cell itself – those are still hovering in the mid-20s
for silicon – but this new film should help boost that. To what extent is a
question for further tests to address.
More
Film captures wasted
wavelengths of light to boost solar cell efficiency (newatlas.com)
21 July 1545.
The Chronicle of Charles Wriothesley (died 1562) reports: "The 21 day of July the French galleys and navie came before Portesmouth haven, and landed certeine of theyre armye in the Yle of Wyght, and there burned and camped there about to the nomber of 2,000 men, and came every tyde with theyr gallies and shott their ordinaunce at the Kinges ships in the haven; but the winde was so calme that the Kinges shippes could bear noe sayle, which was a great discomfort for them." Three days later a muster of 1500 men was sent from the City of London to repel them, but by the King's command turned back at Farnham, the French having left the Isle of Wight "and divers of them slaine and drowned".
No comments:
Post a Comment