Baltic Dry Index. 1595 +187 Brent Crude 93.98
Spot Gold 1687 US 2 Year Yield 3.78 +0.03
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 15/09/22 World 615,502,557
Deaths 6,523,234
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit starts today lasing two days in Uzbekistan.
Leaders attending are from India, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran is expected to join the
SCO as the ninth member.
Will Afghanistan be the next?
In the stock casinos, a very nervous stabilisation after Tuesday’s rout.
But for how long?
Stock futures flat ahead of a fresh batch of economic data
UPDATED THU, SEP 15 2022 12:23 AM EDT
U.S. equity
futures were little changed on Thursday morning as investors looked ahead to
several economic reports scheduled to come out in the morning.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones
Industrial Average inched higher by 26 points, or 0.08%. S&P 500 futures
added 0.09%, and Nasdaq 100 futures ticked 0.06% higher.
Earlier in the day, the major
averages ended a choppy session on a modestly higher note. The Dow closed
slightly higher, by 30 points, after falling more than 200 points at one point.
The S&P 500 rose 0.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.7%.
Stocks sought stability after a
hotter-than-expected inflation report on Tuesday sent them tumbling to post
their worst day since 2020. August’s consumer
price index report showed headline inflation rose 0.1% on a
monthly basis, despite a drop in gas prices.
“One-day events are tough to
extrapolate,” said Jeff deGraaf, founder and chairman of Renaissance Macro
Research, on CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime.” “It is one of those extreme
events that doesn’t have follow-through and that tends to be good news, not
bad.”
“Inflation is really a dark cloud
over equities, but I think it’s really important that people keep in mind that
it’s not about good and bad in the markets, it’s about better and worse,” he
added, “and it does appear that inflation is getting better.”
Wednesday’s producer
price index report showed an decrease in wholesale prices of
0.1% in August, which deGraaf said provided him some comfort.
Investors are looking ahead to a
raft of economic updates on Thursday morning, including retail sales, import
prices and jobless claims, as well as the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing survey
and the Empire State manufacturing survey – all at 8:30 a.m. ET.
---- U.S. 2-year
Treasury yields hits 3.8% again
The U.S. 2-year Treasury note
briefly rose to 3.8% again after
reaching its highest level since November 2007 earlier this week.
Short-term
bond yields, which are most sensitive to Fed policy, soared
following the U.S. inflation report on Tuesday.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury was
also at 3.41% and the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was
at 3.46%.
Yields move
inversely to prices, and a basis point is equal to 0.01%.
Stock futures flat ahead of a fresh batch of economic data (cnbc.com)
The
really big news today will come if the US rail strike actually happens, even if
it only lasts one or two days. Longer lasting and the US economy, the world’s
largest, will get a massive shock.
From carmakers to
refiners, industries brace for rail strike
Car
buyers might not get the vehicle they want on time, commuter rail lines could
see service disrupted, and shipments from everything from oil to livestock feed
could be snarled.
Those
are just a few of the wide-ranging impacts a walkout by U.S. rail workers would
have on the country’s industries and economy. A strike could happen if the railroads and
unions can’t settle their differences before an early Friday
walkout deadline.
Here’s
how some industries are gauging the potential impacts and getting ready for the
possible work stoppage.
AUTO
INDUSTRY
Nearly
all new vehicles that travel more than a couple hundred miles from the factory
to their destination are shipped by rail because it’s more efficient, said
Michael Robinet, an executive director for S&P Global Mobility. So it’s
almost a certainty that new vehicles coming to the U.S. from Mexico or other
countries will be delayed, he said.
“It’s
not like there’s extra truck capacity to take all the vehicles that the
railroads can’t carry,” Robinet said.
Automakers
might be hampered in building vehicles, too, because some larger parts and raw
materials are transported by rail. But Robinet said automakers will go to great
lengths to get the parts to keep their factories running as much as possible.
Mike
Austin, senior mobility analyst for Guidehouse Research, said the strike could
make new vehicles even more scarce, driving prices up beyond current record
levels. That could raise inflation “as other goods aren’t moving through the
rails.”
Carlos
Tavares, CEO of Stellantis, said Wednesday at the Detroit auto show that his
company will wind up apologizing to customers because their orders may not
arrive on time.
COMMUTING
Metra
commuter rail service, which operates in the Chicago area, said Wednesday that
it would suspend operations on four of its 11 lines on Friday if a work
stoppage occurs. Some disruption on those lines would begin after rush hour
Thursday night. In Minnesota, the operators of a commuter rail line that
carries workers along a densely populated corridor from Minneapolis to
northwestern suburbs and towns warned that service could be suspended as early
as Friday.
In
the Puget Sound region of Washington state, any strike would cancel the rail
service until employees return to work, said David Jackson, a spokesman for the
regional transit agency Sound Transit. Some Caltrain riders in the San
Francisco Bay Area could be impacted by a rail strike, officials said.
The
Maryland Transit Administration warned this week that a strike would mean the
immediate suspension of service on two of its three MARC commuter rail lines.
Amtrak,
meanwhile, said that starting Thursday, all its long-distance trains are
canceled to avoid possible passenger disruptions while en route.
ENERGY
A
strike could have a significant impact on the energy industry, and could hurt
consumers who would likely end up paying more for gasoline, electricity and
natural gas. Refineries might have to halt production if they can’t get the
deliveries they need, or if they don’t have access to rail to ship gasoline.
No one
wants to risk leaving flammable chemicals stranded on the railroad tracks if a
strike occurs. That’s why railroads began curtailing shipments of hazardous
materials on Monday to protect that dangerous cargo.
Roughly
300,000 barrels of crude oil move by rail each day, which could supply about
two mid-size refineries, according to AFPM. And about 5 million barrels of
propane, representing a third of U.S. consumption, are moved by rail monthly,
the group said.
Roughly
70% of ethanol produced in the U.S. is shipped by rail, and ethanol accounts
for about a tenth of U.S. gasoline volume, according to S&P Global
Commodity Insights. Nearly 75% of the coal moved to electric utilities in the
first half of 2022 was moved by rail, the group said.
AGRICULTURE
Livestock
producers could see problems almost immediately if shipments of feed abruptly
ended, according to the National Grain and Feed Association.
Meat
and poultry groups noted the reliance on rail for shipments of feed and called
for a quick resolution of the rail dispute. Every week, the nation’s chicken
industry receives about 27 million bushels of corn and 11 million bushels of
soybean meal to feed chickens, said Tom Super, senior vice president of the
National Chicken Council.
RETAIL
Experts
say retailers have been shipping goods earlier in the season in recent months
as a way to protect themselves from potential disruptions. But this buffer will
only slightly minimize the impact from a railroad strike, which is brewing
during the critical holiday shipping season, said Jesse Dankert, vice president
of supply chain at the Retail Industry Leaders Association, a retail trade
group that counts more than 200 retailers like Best Buy as its members. She
noted that retailers are already feeling the impact from the uncertainty as
some freight carriers are limiting services.
Dankert
noted that retailers, noticing a slowdown in shipments, are now making
contingency plans like turning to trucks to pick up some of the slack and
making plans to use some of the excess inventory that it has in its
distribution centers.
But
she noted that there are not enough trucks and drivers to meet their needs.
That scarcity will only drive up costs and make inflation worse, she said.
“As
we have seen in the past two and half years, if there is a breakdown anywhere
along the supply chain, one link falters, you see that ripple effect pretty
quickly and those effects just spread from there,” Dankert said.
Rail
strike impact: From carmakers to refiners | AP News
In food production news, western sanctions on Russia risk a food production deficit in 2023 if farmers can’t get, or can’t afford needed fertiliser for crops.
Who
knew that sky high priced natural gas is used in making fertilizer, or that
Russia is/was a major fertilizer supplier to the world. Well certainly no one
in Washington, Ottawa, London or NATO Brussels, or perhaps they might have
given Russia the security guarantees they were asking for in December and
January.
Clearly
no one in the EUSSR had ever heard of, or thought about, the unintended
consequences of imposing sanctions on Russia. They are now.
UN: Food exports from Ukraine are up, Russia
fertilizer down
September 13,
2022
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Food exports from Ukraine and Russia
have increased since a July 22 grain deal, but critically needed fertilizer
exports from Russia are still down despite being covered by the agreement, with
financing and shipping still issues, the United Nations said Tuesday.
U.N. trade chief Rebeca Grynspan, who leads the team
trying to facilitate unimpeded global access to Russian food and fertilizer,
said Russia reported a 12% increase in food exports from June to July. But
while there has been “important progress,” the U.N. is concerned about fertilizer
exports needed by October and November, the latest for the northern hemisphere
planting season, she said.
Fertilizers now are three times the price they were
before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, Grynspan said, adding that “the
crisis of affordability that we have now will be a catastrophic crisis if we
don’t solve the problem of fertilizer.”
As an example, she said the sowing season for new crops
in West Africa is over and planting was down by a very high percentage because
of fertilizer costs.
Grynspan told a U.N. press conference by video from
Geneva that the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reported that food
prices declined globally in August for the fifth straight month. But she
expressed concern that this decrease has not been seen in domestic markets, and
developing countries especially are still struggling with high food prices as
well as inflation, currency devaluations and interest rate hikes.
Amir Abdulla, the United Nations coordinator for the deal
to ship Ukrainian grain, said 129 fully laden ships carrying over 2.8 million
tons of grain have left the three designated Ukrainian Black Sea ports for
different countries.
With grain prices dropping, Abdulla said, the U.N. has
seen that people who had been hoarding grain to sell at high prices are now
putting it on the market in one or two countries. “Hopefully that will bring
some of those local prices down” he said by video from Istanbul.
On July 22, Russia and Ukraine signed separate agreements
with Turkey and the United Nations clearing the way for the export of
desperately needed grain and fertilizer, ending a wartime standoff that
threatened food security around the globe. The deal expires in November after
120 days and can be renewed.
---- Ukraine was one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat, corn and
sunflower oil, but Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of the country and naval blockade
of its ports had halted shipments.
Some Ukrainian grain is transported through Europe by
rail, road and river, but the prices of vital commodities such as wheat and
barley had soared before the grain deal, which U.N. Secretary-General Antonio
Guterres called an unprecedented agreement between two parties engaged in a
bloody conflict.
More
UN: Food exports
from Ukraine are up, Russia fertilizer down | AP News
Inflation to Tamp Down Fertilizer Use in Top Importer Brazil
, Bloomberg New
(Bloomberg) -- Fertilizer demand in top importer Brazil is expected to fall for the first time in eight years, boosting weather risk for corn and the world’s biggest soy harvest.
Brazilian farmers will probably consume 7.2% less fertilizers in 2022 due to higher costs, according to an estimate from StoneX. Producers will take advantage of nutrients that remained in soil from previous seasons, especially phosphorus and potassium.
“With favorable weather and the absence of plagues and diseases, less fertilizer should not hurt yields,” Luigi Bezzon, an analyst at StoneX in Sao Paulo, said in a telephone interview. “But crops will be more susceptible to weather conditions.”
Declining fertilizer use in the planting season starting next week is another concern for growers and buyers who are already closely monitoring rains patterns amid a third consecutive La Nina, which usually boosts dryness in south Brazil. In 2021-22, the phenomenon caused the nation’s soybean output to drop by 10%.
As demand slackens, Brazilian storage depots are brimming with crop nutrients following a period of record imports. In Paranagua, private warehouses are at 90% of their maximum storage capacity, according to Luiz Teixeira da Silva, operations director at the port. In Santos, over 60% of the main terminal for fertilizers is full.
Almost 5 million metric tons of fertilizer are expected to arrive through December, according to Alphamar, an agricultural shipping agency, focused in Brazilian Agribusiness. Despite the surplus, prices have not fallen enough to spur more purchases from farmers since grains are off the highs seen in May and June. Fertilizer suppliers are reluctant to cut prices given they purchased much of the product as prices surged to avoid shortages after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked global bottlenecks.
Some are concerned the concentration of product in the ports could cause some bottlenecks to deliveries inland for the next plantings, including the winter-corn crop in March, according to agriculture consultant Diogo Mazotini.
However,
fertilizer flow to farms from the main port of Paraguana will speed up
along with rising corn exports in the coming months --companies usually use the
same trucks that carry grains to ports in return trips to the interior, said da
Silva.
Inflation to Tamp
Down Fertilizer Use in Top Importer Brazil - BNN Bloomberg
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.
Average UK house
price leaps by 15.5% annually in biggest jump in 19 years
14 September,
2022
The average UK house price leapt by 15.5%
annually in July, marking the biggest increase in 19 years, according to
official figures.
The percentage increase was around
double the rate recorded in June, when the typical property value increased by
7.8% annually.
The Office for National Statistics
(ONS) said the inflation rate was the highest recorded since May 2003.
The jump in annual inflation was
mainly because of “a base effect” from the falls in prices seen this time last
year, as a result of changes in the stamp duty holiday, the report said.
Borrowers envisage further rate rises
and are taking action to protect themselves
Mark Harris, SPF Private Clients
Average UK house prices increased by
£6,000 between June and July this year – compared with a fall of £13,000
between the same months last year.
The average UK house price was
£292,000 in July 2022, which is £39,000 higher than this time last year.
Average house prices increased over
the year in England to £312,000 (a 16.4% annual increase), in Wales to £220,000
(17.6%), in Scotland to £193,000 (9.9%) and in Northern Ireland to £169,000
(9.6%).
A temporary “nil rate” tax threshold
under the stamp duty holiday in England and Northern Ireland was reduced from
July last year, before the holiday was completely phased out from October 2021.
A similar property tax holiday in
Wales ended on June 30 2021 and the equivalent holiday in Scotland ended on
March 31 2021.
Distortions from the end of the most
generous period of the stamp duty holiday last June are playing an enormous
role in price rises
More
Average UK house
price leaps by 15.5% annually in biggest jump in 19 years (msn.com)
Inflation eases slightly in August to 9.9%
14 September,
2022
The UK’s annual inflation rate
eased slightly to 9.9 per cent in August, but remains close to a 40-year high.
The Office for National Statistics said the consumer price index fell last month after
a record reading of 10.1 per cent in July.
The drop comes as a suprise
with a city economists forecasting a modest rise to 10.2 per cent.
The ONS said the biggest downward
pressure on the inflation rate was the price of motor fuels, which has been
falling in recent months.
The 6.8 per cent drop in fuel prices
was the highest since between March and April 2020, the early days of the
pandemic when oil prices briefly went negative on some markets.
"The easing in the annual
inflation rate in August 2022 reflected principally a fall in the price of
motor fuels in the transport part of the index," the ONS said.
"Smaller, partially offsetting,
upward effects came from price rises for food and non-alcoholic beverages,
miscellaneous goods and services, and clothing and footwear."
Inflation eases
slightly in August to 9.9% (msn.com)
BLS: Inflation in Price of Food Highest Since 1979
September 13, 2022 | 11:19am EDT
(CNSNews.com)
- The Consumer
Price Index (CPI) report released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that prices on all items in the United
States increased by 8.3 percent from August of 2021 to August of 2022, with the
price of gasoline rising 25.6 percent, the price of electricity rising 15.8
percent and the price of food rising 11.4 percent.
The
report indicated that the 11.4 percent year-to-year increase in the price of
food was the highest in 43 years.
"The
food index continued to rise, increasing 0.8 percent over the month as the food
at home index rose 0.7 percent," said the report.
"The
food index increased 11.4 percent over the last year, the largest 12-month
increase since the period ending May 1979," said the report.
More
BLS: Inflation in
Price of Food Highest Since 1979 | CNSNews
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.
Study shows risk for developing
Alzheimer’s increases in older adults who had COVID-19
Tue,
September 13, 2022 at 8:51 PM
Older people who were infected with
COVID-19 show a substantially higher risk — as much as 50% to 80% higher than a
control group—of developing Alzheimer’s disease within a year, according to a
study of more than 6 million patients 65 and older.
In a study published Tuesday in the
Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, researchers reported that people 65 and older
who contracted COVID-19 were more prone to developing Alzheimer’s disease in
the year following their COVID diagnosis. And the highest risk was observed in
women at least 85 years old.
The findings showed that the risk for
developing Alzheimer’s disease in older people increased from 0.35% to 0.68%
over a one-year period following infection with COVID. In a news release, the
researchers said it was unclear whether COVID-19 triggers new development of
Alzheimer’s disease or accelerates its emergence.
The factors that play into the
development of Alzheimer’s disease have been poorly understood, but two pieces
considered important are prior infections, especially viral infections, and
inflammation,” said Pamela Davis, a professor at the Case Western Reserve
School of Medicine, the study’s coauthor.
“Since infection with SARS-CoV2 has
been associated with central nervous system abnormalities including
inflammation, we wanted to test whether, even in the short term, COVID could
lead to increased diagnoses,” she said.
The research team analyzed the
anonymous electronic health records of 6.2 million adults 65 and older in the
United States who received medical treatment between February 2020 and May 2021
and had no prior diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.
They then divided this population two
groups: one composed of people who contracted COVID-19 during that period, and
another with people who had no documented cases of COVID-19. More than 400,000
people were enrolled in the COVID study group, while 5.8 million were in the
non-infected group.
“If this increase in new diagnoses of
Alzheimer’s disease is sustained, the wave of patients with a disease currently
without a cure will be substantial, and could further strain our long-term care
resources,” Davis said. “Alzheimer’s disease is a serious and challenging
disease, and we thought we had turned some of the tide on it by reducing
general risk factors such as hypertension, heart disease, obesity and a
sedentary lifestyle. Now, so many people in the U.S. have had COVID and the
long-term consequences of COVID are still emerging. It is important to continue
to monitor the impact of this disease on future disability.”
Rong Xu, the study’s corresponding
author, professor of Biomedical Informatics at the School of Medicine and
director of the Center for AI in Drug Discovery, said the team plans to
continue studying the effects of COVID-19 on Alzheimer’s disease and other
neurodegenerative disorders—especially which subpopulations may be more
vulnerable—and the potential to repurpose FDA-approved drugs to treat COVID’s
long-term effects.
Study shows risk
for developing Alzheimer’s increases in older adults who had COVID-19
(yahoo.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.
Through the quantum looking
glass
Date:
September 12, 2022
Source: DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Summary: An ultrathin invention could make future computing,
sensing and encryption technologies remarkably smaller and more powerful by
helping scientists control a strange but useful phenomenon of quantum
mechanics, according to new research.
An ultrathin invention could make
future computing, sensing and encryption technologies remarkably smaller and
more powerful by helping scientists control a strange but useful phenomenon of
quantum mechanics, according to new research recently published in the
journal Science.
Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories
and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light have reported on a device
that could replace a roomful of equipment to link photons in a bizarre quantum
effect called entanglement. This device -- a kind of nano-engineered material
called a metasurface -- paves the way for entangling photons in complex ways
that have not been possible with compact technologies.
When scientists say photons are
entangled, they mean they are linked in such a way that actions on one affect
the other, no matter where or how far apart the photons are in the universe. It
is an effect of quantum mechanics, the laws of physics that govern particles
and other very tiny things.
Although the phenomenon might seem
odd, scientists have harnessed it to process information in new ways. For
example, entanglement helps protect delicate quantum information and correct
errors in quantum computing, a field that could someday have sweeping impacts
in national security, science and finance. Entanglement is also enabling new,
advanced encryption methods for secure communication.
Research for the groundbreaking
device, which is a hundred times thinner than a sheet of paper, was performed,
in part, at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, a Department of Energy
Office of Science user facility operated by Sandia and Los Alamos national
laboratories. Sandia's team received funding from the Office of Science, Basic
Energy Sciences program.
More
NOT even a decade ago, everybody believed. Events did seem under control. Inflation would creep, not gallop; the New Economics would fine-tune the economy; productivity would increase; wars would be fought, but not by us—we were the mediators, understanding but tough; problems would be articulated, and that articulation was half the solution; we would begin upon the solutions. Kennedy rhetoric: let us begin; let the word go forth; let us never negotiate from fear, nor fear to negotiate; let anybody call upon us. Confident, ambitious, optimistic, even naïve—the very best of the American tradition. Hail Columbia, happy land.
Then, one thing and another, the John Philip Sousa music
faded a bit. Could rational men make events behave rationally? Maybe they
couldn’t.
George Goodman, aka Adam Smith, Supermoney, 1972.
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