Baltic
Dry Index. 1017 -65 Brent Crude 100.01
Spot Gold 1725 US 2 Year Yield 3.46 +0.04
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 31/08/22 World 607,318,274
Deaths 6,492,384
There can be few fields of human endeavour in which history
counts for so little as in the world of finance. Past experience, to the extent
that it is part of memory at all, is dismissed as the primitive refuge of those
who do not have the insight to appreciate the incredible wonders of the
present.
John Kenneth Galbraith
It is the last day of August, time to dress up the stock casinos again for the month-end.
Never mind reality, who cares if the central banksters will keep raing interest rates.
So what that the UK, Europe and probably the USA will all be in recession by Christmas.
Who cares that most of Europe can’t pay their winter heating bills assuming that there’s any gas and electric at all.
Buy more over-priced stocks, there will always be a greater fool along to buy them from you later at a higher price.
But will there? My guess is that this new
bear market will last into the second quarter of 2023 if we’re lucky, into 2024
if we’re not.
Stock futures rise after Wall Street’s sell-off stretches into third day
Stock
futures were higher early Wednesday after Wall Street’s losing streak stretched
into its third day and endangered the market’s recent summer rebound.
Shares of Chewy
tumbled more than 11% in extended trading after the pet
products retailer issued weak revenue guidance. HP Inc’s stock
dipped after the company missed revenue estimates.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones
Industrial Average gained 178 points, or 0.56%. The S&P 500 also rose
0.56%, and Nasdaq 100 futures traded 0.65% higher.
Investors have sold off heavily
since Friday after hawkish remarks from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
Most recently, New York Fed President John Williams called for “somewhat
restrictive policy to slow demand.”
The sell-off on Wall Street
rolled into Tuesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average sliding 308.12
points, or nearly 1%, to 31,790.87. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.1%, to
11,883.14. The S&P 500 slumped 1.1% to 3,986.16, falling below the 4,000
mark for the first time since late July. All the major averages were on
pace to finish August with losses.
All S&P 500 sectors finished
the regular trading session in negative territory, led to the downside by
energy, materials and industrials. As of Tuesday’s close, energy and utilities
were the only sectors up year to date and on pace to end the month with gains.
Despite Tuesday’s sell-off and
hawkish Fed remarks, some investors are hopeful that the rate hiking cycle
could be nearing its end.
“We think we’re close to the end
of this rate-hiking cycle, but it certainly depends on a lot of things,”
Brenda Vingiello, chief investment officer of Sand Hill Global Advisors
said on CNBC’s “Closing
Bell: Overtime” on Tuesday. “No doubt the Fed’s gonna raise rates in
September, and likely two more times this year, but they will have at that
point done a lot and we will be in restrictive territory.”
Ahead of Friday’s closely watched
August jobs data, more Fed speeches are slated for Wednesday. Chicago PMI and
ADP employment data are also due out in the morning.
Stock
futures rise after Wall Street's sell-off stretches into third day (cnbc.com)
China markets
drop as factory activity shrinks; Asia stocks mixed
UPDATED WED, AUG 31 2022 12:31 AM EDT
China’s Shenzhen Component index led losses in
mixed Asia-Pacific trade on Wednesday following a negative lead from Wall
Street, and as investors digest China’s factory activity data.
The Shanghai Composite in
mainland China dipped 1.18%, and the Shenzhen Component shed
1.74%.
China’s official manufacturing
Purchasing Managers’ Index for August beat
expectations slightly, coming in at 49.4, official data showed. The
non-manufacturing PMI was at 52.6. Major cities in China, including Dalian and
Shenzhen, also tightened Covid restrictions on Tuesday.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index pared
some earlier losses and traded 0.39% lower, while the Hang Seng Tech index
gained 0.78%.
The Nikkei 225 in
Japan shed 0.49%, and the Topix index slipped 0.4%. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined
0.2%.
In South Korea, the Kospi traded
0.36% higher while the Kosdaq was up 0.8%. MSCI’s broadest index of
Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was little changed.
Overnight on Wall Street, major stock indexes
fell for a third straight session.
The S&P 500 dipped 1.1% to
3,986.16, falling below the 4,000 level for the first time since July. The
Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.1%, to close at 11,883.14, and the Dow Jones
Industrial Average shed 308.12 points, or nearly 1%, to 31,790.87.
“Equity markets continued to be
impacted by expectations central banks will keep their foot on the accelerator
in terms of rate hikes,” Brian Martin and Daniel Hynes of ANZ Research wrote in
a note Wednesday.
On Tuesday stateside, New York
Federal Reserve President John Williams said he sees rates
rising further and staying at those levels until inflation is subdued.
Asia
markets mixed; China stocks fall as factory activity shrinks (cnbc.com)
In energy news, it’s bad news from Shell’s
CEO and terrible news from EV man Elon Musk.
European gas shortages likely to last several winters,
says Shell chief
Warning raises prospect of continued rationing, as Total
boss says Europe has to plan for future without Russian supplies
Mon 29 Aug 2022 18.47 BST
Gas shortages across Europe are likely to last
for several winters to come, the chief executive of Shell has
said, raising the prospect of continued energy rationing as governments across
the continent push to develop alternative supplies.
Cuts to the supply of Russian gas since the
invasion of Ukraine have plunged European countries into a
devastating energy crisis, driving up wholesale prices to leave consumers
facing huge bills and the highest rates of inflation since the 1980s.
Speaking at a press conference in Norway on
Monday, Ben van Beurden said the situation could persist for several years. “It
may well be that we will have a number of winters where we have to somehow find
solutions,” he said.
Van Beurden said solutions to the energy crisis would have to found
through “efficiency savings, through rationing and a very, very quick buildout
of alternatives”.
“That this is going to be somehow easy, or over, I think is a fantasy
that we should put aside,” he added.
His comments come as Europe’s biggest economies brace for a tough winter
of soaring inflation and the threat of recession, as record increases in gas
and electricity bills pile pressure on households and businesses across the
continent.
Russia, the major supplier of gas to most of the EU before the war in
Ukraine, has throttled exports in response to western sanctions imposed since
Vladimir Putin’s invasion six months ago. While not all EU countries are
directly reliant on Russian supplies, competition for scarce resources has
pushed wholesale European gas prices up by a factor of 12 compared with a year
ago.
More
European gas
shortages likely to last several winters, says Shell chief | Gas | The Guardian
'Civilisation would crumble' if sourcing oil and gas in the short term suddenly stops, claims Elon Musk
29 August, 2022
Elon Musk has claimed "civilisation would crumble" if the world stops drilling for gas and oil in the short term - but must continue "accelerating" sustainable sources of energy.
The Tesla chief was taking part in the Offshore Northern Seas conference in Norway on the future of the energy industry, including the role and development of new technologies.
Speaking to reporters, he
also said another challenge the world is facing is the birth rate, claiming we
must "make more babies" or "we will die with a whimper in adult
diapers".
Asked whether we should be
using oil and gas, the world's richest person said: "Realistically, we do
need to use oil and gas in the short term, otherwise civilisation would
crumble.
"For
civilisation to continue to function, we do need oil and gas. Especially these
days, with the Russia sanctions, we do need to provide oil and gas to keep
civilisation running.
"I think any reasonable person
would conclude that. While at the same time accelerating the advent of
sustainable energy."
Asked if Norway should continue to
drill for oil and gas, he said: "I think some additional exploration is
warranted at this time.
"One of the biggest challenges
the world has ever faced is the transition to sustainable energy and to a
sustainable economy. That will take some decades to complete."
He said offshore wind power
generation in the North Sea, combined with stationary battery packs, could
become a key source of energy. "It could provide a strong, sustainable
energy source in winter," he said.
More
Next up, cryptocurrency scam news. One down, thousands more
still to come.
Turkish
Cryptocurrency Boss Arrested In Albania
By Remi BANET with Briseida MEMA in Tirana08/30/22 AT 8:57 AM
The founder of
cryptocurrency exchange Thodex, suspected of having fled Turkey with the assets
of his clients, has been arrested in Albania, the Turkish interior ministry
said on Tuesday.
Turkey issued an
international arrest warrant in April last year for fugitive businessman Faruk
Fatih Ozer, who fled with a reported $2 billion in investors' assets.
Tirana had informed
Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu that Ozer, who was wanted by Interpol,
"was arrested in Vlora, Albania", the ministry said.
It added that
"extradition procedures to Turkey have been initiated."
The Istanbul-based
Thodex exchange launched aggressive campaigns to lure investors.
It first pledged to
distribute luxury cars through a flashy advertising campaign featuring famous
Turkish models.
But the exchange
suspended trading in April 2021 after having posted a mysterious message days
earlier saying it needed five days to deal with an unspecified outside
investment.
It went dark after running a promotional campaign that sold
Dogecoins at one-fourth the price at which they were trading on other
exchanges.
But the exchange
locked in those investments and did not allow the coins to be either sold or
converted into other cryptos.
Turkish security
officials then released a photo of Ozer going through passport control at
Istanbul airport on his way to an unspecified location.
Media reports said
the exchange shut down while holding at least $2 billion from 391,000 investors
and more than 60 people linked to the company were arrested.
In a statement
Tuesday Albanian police said a 28-year-old Turkish national had been arrested
at a hotel in Himara, a small town in southern Albania on the Ionian coast.
Two people
suspected of having assisted him were also arrested, police said, with
computers, mobile phones and bank cards seized.
More
Turkish
Cryptocurrency Boss Arrested In Albania (ibtimes.com)
Finally, Ukraine’s grain is shipping again but at about a third
of the monthly rate pre-war. Still it’s a start and hopefully things will get
better.
Around
1.5 mln tonnes of food have left Ukraine under grain export deal
August 30, 202210:29 AM GMT+1
KYIV, Aug 30
(Reuters) - A total of 61 cargo ships carrying around 1.5 million tonnes of
food have left Ukraine under a deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey
to unblock Ukrainian sea ports, the Ukrainian infrastructure ministry said on
Tuesday.
The ministry said
six ships with 183,000 tonnes of agricultural products left Ukrainian Black Sea
ports on Tuesday.
Ukrainian grain
traders union UGA said in a separate statement on Tuesday that corn dominated
the overall export volume, accounting for 62%.
Wheat accounted
for 17% and barley for 6%. Ukraine has also exported rapeseed, sunseed, soybean
and other commodities.
Ukraine's grain
exports slumped after Russia invaded the country on Feb. 24 and blockaded its
Black Sea ports, driving up global food prices and prompting fears of shortages
in Africa and the Middle East.
Three Black Sea ports were
reopened under a deal signed on July 22 by Moscow and Kyiv and the ministry
said these ports are able to load and send abroad 100-150 cargo ships per
month.
Ukraine's Agriculture
Minister Mykola Solsky told Reuters on Monday that the country's agricultural
exports could rise to 6 million-6.5 million tonnes in October, double the
volume in July, as its sea ports gradually reopen. read more
Around 1.5 mln tonnes of food have left Ukraine under
grain export deal | Reuters
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.
Spain
August 12-month inflation slows to 10.4% YoY; oil gives a break
August 30, 2022 8:45 AM GMT+1
Aug 30 (Reuters) -
Spanish domestic consumer prices have eased despite remaining high, mainly due
to lower fuel prices against a rise in power prices, preliminary data from the
National Statistics Institute (INE) showed on Tuesday.
The figure stood at
10.4% year-on-year in August, down from 10.8% the previous month. The reading
was lower than the 10.9% forecast by analysts polled by Reuters.
Core inflation,
which strips out volatile food and energy prices, was at 6.4% year-on-year, the
highest since January 1993 and up from 6.1% a month earlier, the INE data
showed.
---- Although inflation has softened, it remains high mainly
due to massive electricity prices and higher prices of food, restaurants and
package tours, INE said.
In an attempt to
curb inflation Spain said last month it will send a proposal to the European
Union on limiting carbon emission permit prices in a bid to reduce the energy
prices and their effects on inflation. read more
More
Spain August
12-month inflation slows to 10.4% YoY; oil gives a break | Reuters
Spain
retail sales fall 0.5% y/y in July
August 30,
20228:20 AM GMT+1
Aug 30 - Spanish
retail sales fell by 0.5% in July from a year earlier on a calendar-adjusted
basis, the National Statistics Institute (INE) said on Tuesday.
The June figure was
revised down to a +0.7% from a preliminary reading of +1.0%, INE said.
Spain retail sales
fall 0.5% y/y in July | Reuters
Pubs
and brewers at risk from energy crisis, warn UK’s biggest pub companies
TUESDAY 30 AUGUST 2022 6:00 AM
Pubs and brewers across the UK are at
risk of closure within months amid price hikes upwards of 300%, industry bosses
have warned.
Bosses of six of the UK’s biggest pub
and brewing companies have signed an open letter to the Government urging it to
act in order to avoid “real and serious irreversible” damage to the sector.
Greene King, JW Lees, Carlsberg
Marston’s, Admiral Taverns, Drake & Morgan and St Austell Brewery all
sounded the alarm on Tuesday.
Out of control gas
prices following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia have contributed to
rocketing energy bills for operators.
On Friday,
regulator Ofgem
confirmed that bills for an average UK household would surge by 80% in October
when the new price cap comes into force.
However, businesses
operate without a regulated price cap, with some pub owners warning that their
bills have quadrupled or are struggling to even find suppliers willing to power
their venues when contracts come up for renewal.
William Lees Jones,
managing director of the JW Lees pub group, said: “We have publicans who are
experiencing 300% plus increases in energy costs and some energy companies are
refusing to even quote for supply.
“In some instances,
tenants are giving us notice since their businesses do not stack up with energy
at these costs.
“These are not just pubs but people’s
homes and the hearts of the communities that they sit in.
“Government needs to extend the
energy cap to business as well as households.”
Nick Mackenzie, chief executive
officer of 2700-strong group Greene King, said one tenant has seen their energy
bill jump £33,000 for the year.
He said: “While the Government has
introduced measures to help households cope with this spike in prices,
businesses are having to face this alone, and it is only going to get worse
come the autumn.
More
Pubs' energy crisis: Landlords could be forced to call
last orders as bills hit (cityam.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.
Useless
COVID-19 treatments worth millions were given to patients, study says
AUG. 29, 2022 / 4:24 PM
U.S.
doctors administered more than 150,000 doses of useless monoclonal antibody
treatments to COVID-19 patients early this year, spending loads of
cash on therapies that had been deemed of no benefit, a new study has found.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration deauthorized
the use of two COVID-19 monoclonal antibody treatments in January, after it was
found that the therapies did not work against the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2.
Despite
this, COVID-19 patients received more than 158,000 doses of
bamlanivimab/etesevimab and casirivimab/imdevimab well into 2022, potentially
costing millions of dollars while providing little to no relief, according
to the study by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center in Boston.
The
proportion of COVID-19 cases for which the unauthorized treatments were
deployed did not peak until late March, weeks after the FDA had said not to use
them, the researchers found.
"Continued
use of these treatments represents low value care and may reflect conflicting
state government guidance or a lack of hospital awareness of
deauthorization," said researcher Dr. Timothy Anderson of the BIDMC Center
for Healthcare Delivery Science.
"Though
the FDA clearly stated these treatments were no longer authorized for use, the
FDA did not fully revoke their emergency use authorizations based on the
possibility that they may work to treat future COVID-19 variants," he
added in a BIDMC news release. "This could have led to confusion and
misinterpretation."
Monoclonal antibodies are designed in the lab and are
tailor-made to attack specific viruses. If a virus evolves enough, the
treatments can be rendered ineffective.
More
Useless COVID-19
treatments worth millions were given to patients, 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.
Is it cheaper to run
an electric car than a petrol? With energy bills soaring from October will
there still be a payback for switching to battery power...
29 August, 2022
With less than eight years before the Government bans the sale of
new petrol and diesel cars from 2030, the push to get people to switch to
greener vehicles is already well underway.
Ministers and EV-advocates have hailed the cheaper cost of recharging
over filling up with petrol and diesel as one of the most compelling selling
points for making the transition to a battery-powered model today, and demand
for electric cars has been booming as a result.
However, with news that energy prices will soar again from October and
predictions for further increases, this will undoubtedly put a dent in
cost-saving benefits of running an electric vehicle versus a car with a petrol
engine. But by how much?
Ofgem's announcement
that the energy price cap will be increased from 1 October will mean spiralling
household bills for Britons. And analysts have predicted that, without
government intervention, they will continue to stay sky-high in 2023.
If you own an electric car or plan to
buy one imminently, the running costs associated with a plug-in model will
likely rise as a result.
The regulator on Friday confirmed it
is increasing the energy price cap on 1 October by £1,578 a year - or 80 per
cent - from £1,971 to £3,549 for a household on a default tariff paying via
direct debit.
Under the current price cap,
electricity costs to the nearest pence is as high as 28p per kilowatt hour
with a standing charge of 45p per day.
October's hike will see this rise to
52p per kWh and the daily standing charge upped to 46p.
What does this mean for electric car
charging costs for those who can - and those who can't - plug their
zero-emission vehicles into sockets at home?
For electric car owners who have an
charger at home and use their domestic tariff to cover the cost of boosting
their EV's battery, the impact of the increased price cap will depend on a
number of different factors.
These include the EV they own and its
battery size, how many miles they drive, their charging device, the type of
energy tariff they have and time of day they generally charge up.
To put the rising cost of electricity
into context, we have based our calculation on the charging costs for the
popular Volkswagen ID.3 powered by the mid-level 58kWh battery, which in the UK
is currently priced from £36,195.
We have then compared it to the fuel
costs for a similarly-sized VW Golf family hatchback with a 1.5-litre petrol
engine, which starts from a more affordable £25,950.
More
Deflation: Making
Sure "It" Doesn't Happen Here
----The
sources of deflation are not a mystery. Deflation is in almost all cases a side
effect of a collapse of aggregate demand--a drop in spending so severe that
producers must cut prices on an ongoing basis in order to find buyers.1 Likewise, the economic effects of a
deflationary episode, for the most part, are similar to those of any other
sharp decline in aggregate spending--namely, recession, rising unemployment,
and financial stress.
-----The
conclusion that deflation is always reversible under a fiat money system
follows from basic economic reasoning
-----But
the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its
electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it
wishes at essentially no cost. By increasing the number of U.S. dollars in
circulation, or even by credibly threatening to do so, the U.S. government can
also reduce the value of a dollar in terms of goods and services, which is
equivalent to raising the prices in dollars of those goods and services. We
conclude that, under a paper-money system, a determined government can always
generate higher spending and hence positive inflation.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/Speeches/2002/20021121/default.htm
Lesson: always have some fully paid up
gold and silver as insurance, held safely outside of the larcenous reach of
Uncle Scam and John Bull….
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