Baltic Dry Index. 1256 +43 Brent Crude 93.73
Spot Gold 1722 US 2 Year Yield 3.58 +0.02
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 13/09/22 World 614,292,991
Deaths 6,518,098
Many people are gullible, and we can expect this to continue.
P. T. Barnum.
In the stock casinos, optimism that today’s US inflation update will trigger a new bull market for stocks.
Ignore what the Fed says, watch what the Fed does next week.
Ignore that rapidly arriving global recession, now led by Germany taking the lead.
Ignore that winter comes next as we pass the low point of the summer of the Arctic Sea ice.
Ignore that last week India just set off a frantic scramble in much of the world to buy rice.
To my way of thinking, it’s not time to buy stocks until the next recession has finally killed off our global inflation, but then I don’t make my living by peddling “greater fool” stocks.
Below, Asian casinos get some second marriage fever.
Asia-Pacific
markets rise ahead of U.S. inflation report; South Korea’s Kospi up 2% on
return after holiday
UPDATED TUE, SEP 13 2022 12:27 AM EDT
Asia-Pacific markets were higher on Tuesday as
investors look ahead to the U.S.
inflation report for the month of August.
South Korea’s Kospi rose
2.62% on its return to trade after a holiday Monday – led by Samsung
Electronics which advanced 4.5% and SK Hynix that rose 3.87%.
The Nikkei 225 in
Japan gained 0.15%, and the Topix index ticked 0.21% higher. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose
0.6%.
Mainland China’s Shanghai Composite advanced
0.33%, while the Shenzhen Component added
0.633%. The Hang Seng index in
Hong Kong was 0.41% higher.
MSCI’s broadest index of
Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.72%.
Headline inflation in the U.S. is expected to decline in August,
according to a Dow Jones survey. But core inflation, excluding energy and food,
is projected to rise. Headline CPI is expected to come in at 8%, compared with
8.5% in July.
Asia
markets rise, South Korea stocks pop ahead of U.S. CPI report (cnbc.com)
Inflation
‘collapse’ will launch powerful market rally, Credit Suisse predicts
Credit Suisse expects the Federal Reserve to pause
interest rate hikes sooner than widely expected due to tumbling inflation.
According to the firm’s chief U.S.
equity strategist, it will launch a powerful market breakout.
“This is actually what’s being priced into the market broadly,” Jonathan Golub told CNBC’s “Fast Money” on Monday. “Every one of us sees when we go to the gas station that the price of gasoline is down, and oil is down. We see it even with food. So, it really is showing up in the data already. And, that’s a really big potential positive.”
In a new note previewing this
week’s August CPI and PPI data, Golub contends the inflation
“collapse” will happen over the next 12 to 18 months.
“Futures indicate that Food and
Energy prices should fall -5.7% and -11.8% by year end 2023, while Goods
inflation has declined from 12.3% to 7.0% since February,” he wrote. “Over the
past year, Services and Rents are up less than Headline CPI (5.5% and 5.8% vs.
8.5%).”
Golub expects signs of an inflation breakdown will
force the Fed to stop hiking rates. His time frame: Over the next four to six
months.
“The market believes that come the
first quarter, if we continue to go on this glide path where things
renormalize, that they’re going to either pause or signal that they might
pause,” he said. “If they do that the stock market wants to move ahead of it.
The stock market is really going to take off.”
And, now may be a strategic time to look for opportunities. Golub particularly likes consumer goods, industrials, refiners and integrated oil producers
More
Inflation
'collapse' will spark big stock market gains: Credit Suisse (cnbc.com)
Fed
set for another 75-basis-point rate hike; early pivot unlikely: Reuters poll
September 13, 20221:09 AM GMT+1
BENGALURU, Sept
13 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve will deliver another 75-basis-point interest
rate hike next week and likely hold its policy rate steady for an extended
period once it eventually peaks, according to a Reuters poll of economists
released on Tuesday.
Policymakers
have done little to push back on market pricing for a third consecutive rate
hike of three-quarters of a percentage point at the U.S. central bank's Sept.
20-21 meeting, with inflation, as measured by the Fed's preferred gauge, running
at more than three times its 2% target. read more
A strong majority
of economists, 44 of 72, predicted the central bank would hike its fed funds
rate by 75 basis points next week after two such moves in June and July,
compared to only 20% who said so just a month ago.
If realized,
that would take the policy rate to the 3.00%-3.25% target range, the highest
since early 2008, before the worst of the global financial crisis. The
remaining 39% still expected a 50-basis-point hike.
The shift in
expectations for the larger hike has pushed the dollar to a two-decade high
against a basket of currencies. TheU.S. currency was forecast to extend its
dominance for the remainder of this year and into early next.
"If there
has been a shift in the Fed's tone in recent months, it has been in the
direction of a stronger commitment to reducing inflation, even at the risk of a
downturn," noted Michael Gapen, chief U.S. economist at Bank of America
Securities, who was among those polled.
Like many others
in the poll, Gapen recently changed his forecast to show the Fed hiking rates
by 75 basis points next week instead of half of a percentage point.
But raising
borrowing costs so quickly comes with its own risks. The poll put the
probability of a U.S. recession over the coming year at 45%, unchanged from the
previous forecast, with the chance of one occurring over the next two years
rising to 55% from 50%.
More
Fed
set for another 75-basis-point rate hike; early pivot unlikely: Reuters poll |
Reuters
Finally,
rice news. Following India’s rice export restrictions and taxes of last week,
driving up prices, more bad rice news from California where drought will
greatly reduce the crop size and exports.
California Drought Leaving Rice Farmers Dry
Sept. 10, 2022 8:00 am ET
COLUSA, Calif.—Rick Richter has spent the past 43
years flying biplanes over California’s Sacramento Valley, dropping rice seeds
into vast, flooded fields that churn out grain for consumers across the globe.
In a typical year, Mr. Richter’s company seeds 42,000
acres of rice, earning more than $3 million in revenue. This year, as a
worsening drought prompts unprecedented cuts in water allocations to rice
farms, he has seeded just 7,000 acres and expects sales of $550,000.
“This
is a year that is just a disaster,” said Mr. Richter, who has laid off two of
his four permanent employees, turned away 20 seasonal employees, and sent his
son to fly over corn fields in Indiana.
The American West has been caught in the worst drought in more than a millennium for most of the past two
decades, spurring farmers in businesses from tomatoes to alfalfa to cut output
and change the way they do business.
But until this year, Northern California farmers who
grow rice, one of the state’s most water-intensive crops, have largely been
spared. In the system of water allocation run by the federal government, rice
farmers hold some of the state’s most senior rights, meaning they have received
much of their assigned water while other crops withered.
Record dry weather this past winter prompted federal
officials to cut the amount set aside for rice—turning what normally in summer
are lush green fields stretched along Interstate 5 north of Sacramento into
parched brown expanses.
Rice farmers in Colusa County, 60 miles north of
Sacramento, received 18% of the federal water shipments to which they are
entitled, far less than normal and too little for many to grow the crop at all.
---- California farmers sowed 285,000 acres of rice
this spring, a 30% drop from the year prior and the lowest since the 1950s,
according to a June estimate by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That is the
steepest decline for any major California crop this year, said Daniel Sumner,
an agricultural economist at the University of California, Davis, who expects
even lower plantings.
California typically produces about one-fifth of U.S.
rice, most of it medium-grain Japonica varieties used in foods such as sushi
and paella. Lower U.S. rice production has helped push the country’s rice
exports down 16% in the first six months of this year compared with the same
period in 2021, according to the USDA. Imports, the agency projects, will hit
an all-time high in the 12 months ending in July.
More
California
Drought Leaving Rice Farmers Dry - WSJ
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.
Inflation,
contraction to plague German economy in 2023 -Ifo
September
12, 2022
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's economy will contract next year as a dramatic
rise in energy costs due to the war in Ukraine extinguishes the chances of
recovery after pandemic-related lockdowns, the Ifo institute said on Monday.
The institute reversed its June
forecast of 3.7% growth for 2023 and now predicts that Europe's largest economy
will contract by 0.3%. At the same time, it bumped up its forecast for 2023
inflation by 6 percentage points to 9.3%.
For 2022, Ifo lowered its growth
forecast to 1.6% from 2.5% and raised its inflation forecast to 8.1% from 6.8%.
"These are unusually large
changes in such a short period of time," said Timo Wollmershaeuser, head
of Ifo's economic forecasts.
Price increases should grow less
dramatically over the course of the coming year - calculated under the
assumption that there will be enough gas in winter - and energy prices will
begin sinking in spring 2023 at the latest, said the institute.
For 2024, the institute predicts
economic growth of 1.8% and inflation at 2.5%.
The German economy grew slightly in
the second quarter, propped up by household and government spending.
Inflation,
contraction to plague German economy in 2023 -Ifo (msn.com)
Inflation continuing its
upward drive
Inflation figures across
the region will be in the spotlight this week as many countries will publish
their August prints. We expect consumer price growth to have accelerated
somewhat all over CEE, with CPI prints ranging between 12.6% y/y in Croatia to 17.7%
y/y in Czechia.
The key drivers should
remain the same – namely, food and energy prices; but domestic inflationary
pressures are also likely to have remained a visible contributor to consumer
price growth.
Price pressures remain
elevated also on the production side and we expect this trend to be confirmed
in Czechia for its August PPI. Moreover, Romania will publish its industrial
production figure for July which should show a decline of 5% y/y, as suggested
by ESI manufacturing survey. Poland will release its trade balance for July,
whereas Romania should publish the current account balance for the same month.
Finally, July wage growth will be out in Romania and Slovakia.
Inflation
continuing its upward drive (fxstreet.com)
UK
trade exports in and outside of EU grow by £2.1bn
12
September 2022
The UK’s trade exports in and outside of the
European Union (EU) rose in July, according to official figures, as the
country’s GDP inched higher.
Exports to the EU rose 7.9 per cent
in July – the equivalent of £1.3bn, the Office for National Statistics revealed
this morning, While exports to non-EU countries increase by 5.4 per cent, or
£800m.
In total, exports grew by £2.1bn.
UK
trade exports in and outside of EU grow by £2.1bn (msn.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.
Saving
US Healthcare From A Disaster Worse Than Covid-19
Robert Pearl, M.D.Sep 12, 2022,03:36am EDT
For decades, the U.S.
medical system has suffered from access and quality issues, outdated
technologies and unaffordable prices. And, as I wrote last month, this failing
system now stands in the path of the perfect storm—a confluence of three mega forces:
1. Healthcare inflation.
Medical costs will increase by double-digits rates starting in 2023, experts
say. Should those estimates hold, total health expenditures will double in just
seven years—from $4 trillion to over $8 trillion.
2. The nursing shortage. A
recent study indicates 90%
of nurses are considering exiting the profession in the next year.
Nurses report unrealistic job demands, abusive patients and lack of support as
reasons for quitting.
3. The burnout crisis. Nearly
half of physicians feel overworked and underappreciated. Many hospital-based
doctors (anesthesiologists, ER physicians and surgical specialists) have turned
to private equity firms for greater negotiating power.
Quick, to the hospital!
These three mega forces
will negatively impact every aspect of the healthcare system, but no area will
be hit harder than our nation’s 6,000 hospitals, which employ nearly 6 million
people, provide care for 30 million Americans each year and account for more
than one-third of all medical spending.
Already, 900 U.S.
hospitals are at financial risk of closure, threatening to leave millions of patients without
access to lifesaving medical care.
These developments
pose a grave risk to public health and will prove far deadlier than Covid-19, unless
our nation takes urgent action. Like a Category 5 hurricane on the horizon,
there’s no way to stop the storm. But hospital administrators can limit the
damage and buy the time our nation needs to repair healthcare’s broken
foundation.
More
Saving
US Healthcare From A Disaster Worse Than Covid-19 (forbes.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.
Scientists see spins in a 2D
magnet
Date: September 7, 2022
Source: Columbia University
Summary: Research shows that spinning quasiparticles,
or magnons, light up when paired with a light-emitting quasiparticle, or
exciton, with potential quantum information applications.
All magnets --
from the simple souvenirs hanging on your refrigerator to the discs that give
your computer memory to the powerful versions used in research labs -- contain
spinning quasiparticles called magnons. The direction one magnon spins can
influence that of its neighbor, which affects the spin of its neighbor, and so
on, yielding what are known as spin waves. Information can potentially be
transmitted via spin waves more efficiently than with electricity, and magnons
can serve as "quantum interconnects" that "glue" quantum
bits together into powerful computers.
Magnons have
enormous potential, but they are often difficult to detect without bulky pieces
of lab equipment. Such setups are fine for conducting experiments, but not for
developing devices, said Columbia researcher Xiaoyang Zhu, such as magnonic
devices and so-called spintronics. Seeing magnons can be made much simpler,
however, with the right material: a magnetic semiconductor called chromium
sulfide bromide (CrSBr) that can be peeled into atom-thin, 2D layers,
synthesized in Department of Chemistry professor Xavier Roy's lab.
In a new
article in Nature, Zhu and collaborators at Columbia, the
University of Washington, New York University, and Oak Ridge National
Laboratory show that magnons in CrSBr can pair up with another quasiparticle
called an exciton, which emits light, offering the researchers a means to
"see" the spinning quasiparticle.
As they
perturbed the magnons with light, they observed oscillations from the excitons
in the near-infrared range, which is nearly visible to the naked eye. "For
the first time, we can see magnons with a simple optical effect," Zhu
said.
The results
may be viewed as quantum transduction, or the conversion of one "quanta"
of energy to another, said first author Youn Jun (Eunice) Bae, a postdoc in
Zhu's lab. The energy of excitons is four orders of magnitude larger than that
of magnons; now, because they pair together so strongly, we can easily observe
tiny changes in the magnons, Bae explained. This transduction may one day
enable researchers to build quantum information networks that can take
information from spin-based quantum bits -- which generally need to be located
within millimeters of each other -- and convert it to light, a form of energy
that can transfer information up to hundreds of miles via optical fibers
The coherence time -- how long the oscillations can last --
was also remarkable, Zhu said, lasting much longer than the five-nanosecond
limit of the experiment. The phenomenon could travel over seven micrometers and
persist even when the CrSBr devices were made of just two atom-thin layers,
raising the possibility of building nano-scale spintronic devices. These
devices could one day be more efficient alternatives to today's electronics.
Unlike electrons in an electrical current that encounter resistance as they
travel, no particles are actually moving in a spin wave.
More
Scientists
see spins in a 2D magnet -- ScienceDaily
The common man, no matter how sharp and tough, actually enjoys having the wool pulled over his eyes, and makes it easier for the puller.
P. T. Barnum.
No comments:
Post a Comment