Baltic Dry Index. 1838 +20 Brent Crude 92.38
Spot Gold 1652 US 2 Year Yield 4.48 +0.01
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 17/10/22 World 629,959,590
Deaths 6,571,489
The sole purpose of Britain’s Prime Minister Truss is to make President Biden look competent.
With apologies to economists, weathermen, and John Kenneth Galbraith.
This week, either global bonds, led by the chaotic UK bond market will stabilize ending the last few days of near meltdown, or the unthinkable happens and the bond rout and stocks selloff builds on itself, turning into a death spiral.
You have to think that the central banksters led by the Fed are up to the risks and have spent at least the weekend coordinating a response.
But given that Europe and the UK are headed into recession, if not already in one, that a winter of fuel and food scarcity lies directly ahead, plus that Switzerland’s second largest bank is circulating round the drain, the Fed opened a nearly 7 billion swap line with Switzerland just last week, I’d rate the coming week little better than a 50:50 week.
The Lehman style damage may already have occurred.
Asia-Pacific
markets slip as recession fears weigh, China holds medium-term rates
UPDATED MON, OCT 17 2022 12:19 AM EDT
Shares in the Asia-Pacific fell on Monday as
recession fears weigh in over expectations of continued tighten monetary
policies around the world.
The Nikkei 225 fell
1.41% while the Topix lost 1.12%. The U.S. dollar continued to hover at 32-year
highs against Japan’s yen,
last trading at 148.70 per dollar.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell
1.13% while the Hang Seng Tech index lost 2.46%. The Shanghai Composite in
mainland China slipped 0.1% and the Shenzhen Component was
0.36% lower.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was
1.43% lower. South Korea’s Kospi fell
0.16% and the Kosdaq dropped 0.18%. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific
shares outside Japan was 1.24% lower.
Later in the week week, several
countries in the region are slated to report inflation data, while Australia
will release unemployment statistics and China will announce its loan prime
rate decision.
Over the weekend, Chinese President Xi Jinping
gave a speech at the opening ceremony of the ruling Communist Party of China’s
20th National Congress, where he
warned against “interference by outside forces” in Taiwan — a
self-ruled island that Beijing sees as a runaway province.
He also said China “will never
promise to renounce the use of force” for reunification.
U.S.
stocks closed the previous week lower after a University of
Michigan survey showed inflation expectations were increasing.
Asia
markets: Stocks fall as recession fears weigh (cnbc.com)
European markets
head for lower open as investors monitor recession risks
UPDATED MON, OCT 17 2022 12:33 AM
EDT
European markets are heading for a lower open on
Monday as investors survey the deteriorating economic outlook.
The negative open in Europe comes
amid increasingly pessimistic global sentiment. Shares
in the Asia-Pacific fell on Monday as recession fears weighed
on investor sentiment and expectations rise that there will be a continuation
of tightening monetary policies around the world.
In the United States, stock
futures traded higher early on Monday as investors awaited big earnings reports
to roll in from Bank
of America on the same day, while Goldman Sachs will
release numbers Tuesday morning.
Last week, a hotter-than-expected inflation
reading stoked wild price swings in the markets as investors
readjusted their expectations for the U.S. Federal Reserve’s forthcoming rate
hikes.
European
markets open to close, recession risks, data, earnings (cnbc.com)
Larry Summers says
U.K. debt market stress could be the ‘tremor’ signaling global economic
‘earthquake’
October 15, 2022
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers was one
of the first prominent economists to warn that federal policymakers were
underestimating the threat of persistent inflation, and today he is worried
about a global economic crisis that could result from central banks’ efforts to
fight rising prices.
“We’ve got the most complex, disparate and
cross-cutting set of challenges that I think I can remember in the 40 years
I’ve been following this stuff,” Summers told an audience at the Institute of
International Finance annual meeting Friday. “And in all honesty, I think the
fire department is still in the station.”
Summers said that the combination of
rising interest rates, a strong dollar shortages of energy and food,
geopolitical tensions and the challenges of climate change “means somebody
should be proposing something substantial here and moving it along.”
He added that he believes interest
rates are going to have to increase above what the Federal Reserve and
financial markets are forecasting in order to tame inflation, a fact that could
lead to economic dislocation across the world.
“If you try to avoid that you just
find yourself with a stagflation situation and having to do something harder a
little later,” Summers said. “But that’s got all kinds of collateral
consequences for the rest of the world.”
One such consequence is governments
potentially struggling to fund themselves through debt markets, as evidenced by
recent turmoil in the markets for U.K. government debt
“What’s happened in the United
Kingdom, some of that is a self-inflicted wound, but some of that is tremors of
what’s happening the in the global system,” Summers said. “And when you have
tremors, you don’t always have earthquakes, but you probably should be thinking
about earthquake protection.”
How
Britain's pension scheme hedge became a trillion pound gamble
October
15, 2022 8:02 AM GMT+1
LONDON, Oct 15
(Reuters) - It started out simply enough: British pension schemes were looking
for a way to match their assets to future pension payments.
Schemes run for
pharmacy Boots and bookseller WHSmith were early adopters in the 2000s of an
investment strategy of dumping stocks for bonds, to shield themselves from
interest rate changes.
But fifteen years
later, the strategy now adopted by nearly two-thirds of pension schemes has
ended up revolving around financial derivatives rather than just bonds -
injecting a growing amount of risk to schemes that is only now becoming
apparent as interest rates surge.
In the so-called LDI or liability-driven investment
strategy that became popular,
pension schemes would use derivatives - contracts that derive their value from
one or more assets - to protect themselves from potential swings in interest
rates. With a small amount of capital they could gain large exposures.
There is a catch:
if the derivative becomes loss-making for the pension fund because of a change
in underlying asset prices, for example, it can be called up for more money, sometimes
at short notice.
None of this
mattered for a long time and consultants predicted in 2018 that the market
would soon reach the "The Age of Peak LDI" - it was so popular that
the pensions industry was running out of assets to hedge.
LDI assets quadrupled
in a decade to 1.6 trillion pounds ($1.79 trillion) last year.
But the strategy
gradually became riskier, according to interviews with pension scheme trustees,
consultants, industry experts and asset managers. Things began to unravel as
Britain's Sept. 23 "mini-budget" sparked a jump in UK government bond
yields, driving pension funds to race to raise cash to prop up their LDI
hedges.
Those derivatives
came close to imploding, forcing the Bank of England to pledge on Sept 28 to buy bonds to calm the panic.
The scale of the
money using the LDI strategy, and ever higher borrowing through the
derivatives, had amplified risks that appeared hidden during a decade of low
interest rates.
When rates began
rising in 2022 and warnings about risk got louder, schemes were slow to act,
according to those interviewed.
"I do not
like the term (LDI) and never did, it has been hijacked by consultants and has
morphed into what we are seeing now," said John Ralfe, who in 2001 led the
2.3 billion pound Boots Pension Fund's shift into bonds. The fund didn't load
up on debt, he told Reuters.
"Pension
schemes were doing disguised borrowing, it's absolutely toxic," Ralfe
said. "There was much greater risk in the financial system than anyone -
including me - would have thought."
More
How Britain's pension scheme hedge became a trillion
pound gamble | Reuters
In
other news, Hurricane Ian’s damage to Florida agriculture is still a work in
progress.
After
Hurricane Ian, Florida citrus and agriculture struggle
October 15, 2022
ZOLFO SPRINGS, Fla. (AP) — The thousands of oranges
scattered on the ground by Hurricane Ian’s fierce winds like so many green and yellow marbles are only the
start of the disaster for citrus grower Roy Petteway.
The fruit strewn about his 100-acre (40-hectare) grove in
central Florida since the storm swept through will mostly go to waste. But what
are even worse are the flood and rain waters that weakened the orange trees in
ways that are difficult to see right away.
“For the next six months we’ll be evaluating the damage,”
Petteway said in an interview at his farm, where he estimates about a 40% crop
loss. “You’re going to have a lot of damage that will rear its head.”
Citrus is big business in Florida, with more than 375,000
acres (152,000 hectares) in the state devoted to oranges, grapefruit,
tangerines and the like for an industry valued at more than $6 billion
annually. Hurricane Ian hit the citrus groves hard, as well as the state’s
large cattle industry, dairy operations, vegetables like tomatoes and peppers,
and even hundreds of thousands of bees essential to many growers.
----The orange forecast for 2022-2023, released
Wednesday, puts production at about 28 million boxes, or 1.26 million tons,
according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. That’s 32% below the year before
and does not account for damage from the hurricane, which will surely worsen
those numbers.
Most Florida
oranges are used to make juice, and this season’s drastically lower harvest,
combined with the still-unquantified slam from Ian, will press prices upward
and force producers to rely even more heavily on California and imported
oranges from Latin America.
“This is a gut
punch. There’s no doubt about it,” said Matt Joyner, CEO of the Florida Citrus
Mutual trade association. “You’ve really got about 72 hours to get the water
off these trees before you start sustaining significant damage if not
mortality. Trees need water to grow. They don’t need to be standing in water.”
More
After Hurricane
Ian, Florida citrus and agriculture struggle | AP News
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.
Former Bank of
England chief says households have been living in a 'fool's paradise' because
they assumed low interest rates would last forever
October
15, 2022
Households have been
living in a 'fool's paradise' because they have mistakenly assumed low interest
rates would last forever, former Bank of England chief Mervyn King said this
weekend.
Lord King
warned rates are returning to 'normal levels'.
But he
insisted the economy will benefit from the change and that central banks
'should not try to stand in the way'.
The veteran of
the financial crisis was governor of the Bank of England for a decade until
2013. His opinions are still highly regarded and often shape public
discourse.
The benchmark
rate, which is set by the Bank and began the year at 0.25 per cent, rose by 0.5
percentage points to 2.25 per cent last month as inflation soared.
There are two
further rates decisions before Christmas and markets have already pencilled in
an increase to as much as 6 per cent next year.
----Lord King said:
'We have been in a fool's paradise where people seem to believe we could have
very low interest rates indefinitely.'
'The
adjustment has to take place one way or another and central banks cannot afford
to back off on the grounds that, 'Gosh, assets are falling, this is a
terrible surprise.'
Speaking to
the Australian Weekend newspaper, he said the recent volatility which has
rocked pension funds was 'an inevitable consequence of a return to more normal
levels of interest rates, which ought to be very welcome. Central banks should
not try to stand in the way.
'The repricing
is going to have significant impacts on portfolios of many investors,
including the pension funds that we have seen struggle in London. These pension
funds are now being caught out.'
The Bank of
England launched an emergency £65billion bond-buying programme to bail out
funds that had been relying too heavily on complex financial products –
liability driven investments, or LDIs.
'There will be
quite a debate as to why the pension funds were allowed to borrow a great
deal through embedded leverage in derivative transactions,' he said.
Households are
struggling with a cost of living crisis and energy and food bills rise.
More than five
million families could see annual mortgage payments increase by £5,100 by the
end of 2024, according to a report last week.
More
US Year-Ahead Inflation
Views Rise for First Time Since March
Fri, October 14,
2022 at 4:37 PM
(Bloomberg) -- US year-ahead inflation
expectations rose in early October for the first time in seven months and the
long-term outlook also crept up, a potentially worrisome development for the
Federal Reserve as it tries to keep views anchored.
Consumers expect prices will climb
5.1% over the next year, up from 4.7% in September, according to a survey from
the University of Michigan. They see costs rising at an annual rate of 2.9%
over the next five to 10 years, a pickup from 2.7%, data Friday showed.
The University of Michigan’s
preliminary sentiment index increased to a six-month high of 59.8 in October,
reflecting an improvement in buying conditions for durable goods. The median
estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a reading of 58.8.
The pickup in inflation expectations
follows government figures on Thursday that showed a key measure of core
consumer prices accelerated in September to a 40-year high.
Fed officials are not only trying to
bring inflation down, but also keep price views stable. In minutes of their
September meeting released Wednesday, policy makers said that moving rates to
restrictive territory would “help ensure that elevated inflation did not become
entrenched and that inflation expectations did not become unanchored.”
The rise in the inflation outlook
comes as gasoline prices are back on the rise. Relief at the pump over the
summer contributed to improved sentiment and lower price expectations in recent
months.
“Continued uncertainty over the
future trajectory of prices, economies, and financial markets around the world
indicate a bumpy road ahead for consumers,” Joanne Hsu, director of the survey,
said in a statement.
What Bloomberg Economics Says...
“With household inflation
expectations so sensitive to energy prices, the long-term gauge is likely to
deteriorate in coming ahead as gasoline prices increase... If the gauge
continues to deteriorate, the Fed might not be able to downshift the pace of
rate hikes in December.”
--Anna Wong, economist
To read the full note, click here
More
US Year-Ahead
Inflation Views Rise for First Time Since March (yahoo.com)
As the causes of US inflation grow, so do the dangers
WASHINGTON (AP) — What keeps driving inflation so high?
The answer, it seems, is nearly everything.
Supply chain snarls and parts shortages inflated the cost of factory
goods when the economy rocketed out of the pandemic recession two years ago.
Then it was a surge in consumer spending fueled by federal stimulus checks.
Then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted gas and food supplies and sent
those prices skyward.
Since March, the Federal Reserve has been aggressively
raising interest rates to try to cool the price spikes. So far, there’s little
sign of progress. Thursday’s report on consumer prices in September came in hotter than expected even as some previously big drivers of inflation —
gas prices, used cars — fell for a third straight month.
Consumer prices, excluding volatile food and energy
costs, skyrocketed 6.6% from a year ago — the fastest such pace in four
decades. Overall inflation did decline a touch, mostly because of cheaper gas.
But costlier food, medical care and housing pointed to a widening of price
pressures across the economy.
High
inflation has now spread well beyond physical goods to the nation’s vast
service sector, which includes everything from dental care and apartment rents
to auto repairs and hotel rates. The broadening of inflation makes it harder to
tame. Thursday’s report underscored that the Fed may have to jack up its key
short-term rate even higher than had been expected — and keep it there longer —
to curb inflation.
Such action would mean even higher loan rates for
consumers and businesses. It could also cause recessions in both the U.S. and
global economies, international financial officials warn. Higher U.S. rates encourage investors to pull money
from foreign markets and invest it in U.S. assets for a higher return, a shift
that can cause upheaval in overseas economies.
Here’s what’s driving persistent inflation and what it
means:
More
As the causes of US inflation grow, so do the dangers | AP News
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
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/environmental-disaster-ev-battery-metals-crunch-horizon-industry-races-recycle
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.
German health minister urges stepped-up COVID-19 measures
BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s health minister on Friday urged
the country’s 16 states to consider stepping up their measures against the
coronavirus amid a rise in new cases.
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said he favors requiring
mask-wearing indoors, a measure that has largely faded in Germany except on
public transport, in medical facilities and care homes.
“The direction we’re going in isn’t a good one,”
Lauterbach told reporters in Berlin.
He added that it would be better for states to impose
limited restrictions now than stricter ones later. “The sooner we step on the
brake the better it will be,” he said.
German authorities registered over 114,000 newly
confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, and 165 COVID-related deaths. The number
of newly confirmed cases per 100,000 inhabitants over a seven-day period stood
at 760, compared with 695 a week earlier.
Lauterbach said the actual number of cases could be
three-to-four times higher, as many positive results with rapid tests are never
reported to authorities.
A rise in cases in Bavaria has been linked to the recent Oktoberfest, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors every
year.
Lauterbach said more could have been done to limit the
spread of the virus at the beer festival in Munich, such as offering or
mandating on-site testing for visitors.
The
Health Ministry launched a new nearly 33 million-euro ($32 million) advertising
campaign Friday, using 84 case studies of real people affected by COVID-19 to
encourage vaccinations.
German health
minister urges stepped-up COVID-19 measures | AP News
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.
Not the usual update today. Today a
sign of our new times.
Revealed: Energy theft
reports soar amid rising gas and electricity bills
Sun,
16 October 2022 at 2:51 pm
Reports of energy theft
have soared as Britons face rising bills for
electricity and gas, figures show.
With the cost of living
crisis mounting, the number of reports made to the
Crimestoppers charity has almost trebled since 2017-18 – with a rise of more
than 20 per cent in just six months.
The chair of an influential
select committee of MPs warned the increase shows the “desperation” of households
hit by rocketing electricity and gas prices.
Electricity theft, which pushes
up bills for customers, carries a maximum prison sentence of five years, while
gas theft is also illegal. Crimestoppers figures show 8,289 reports of energy
theft in the UK in the year to the end of July, a rise from 2,876 reports in
the 12 months to July 2018.
In the six months to the end of
July, there were 4,559 energy theft reports to Crimestoppers in the UK, up from
3,730 in the six months before that – representing a 22 per cent increase when
comparing the two periods.
Crimestoppers is contracted by
the non-profit Retail Energy Code Company (RECCo) to run the energy theft
tip-off service, allowing people to anonymously make reports. RECCo’s website
explains: “Crimestoppers securely notify the tip-off to the relevant gas or
electricity supplier for investigation.”
Additionally, energy fraud
reports to trade body UK Revenue Protection Association (UKRPA) increased by 54
per cent in just six months – from 717 in the six-month period from July to
December 2021, up to 1,104 from January to June this year. Police forces in
England and Wales received nearly 3,600 reports of “dishonest use of
electricity” in the year to March, up 13 per cent year on year.
Peter Smith, director of policy
and advocacy at the fuel poverty charity National Energy Action, said:
“Whatever the motivations, it’s truly shocking that despite the danger and the
criminality of energy theft, it appears to be on the rise.”
More
Revealed:
Energy theft reports soar amid rising gas and electricity bills (yahoo.com)
Every day in every way I’m
getting better and better.
UK Prime Minister Truss,
with apologies to Emile Coue.
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