Baltic Dry Index. 1843 +05 Brent Crude 92.33
Spot Gold 1661 US 2 Year Yield 4.45 -0.03
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 18/10/22 World 630,319,096
Deaths 6,572,850
“You are a slow learner, Truss."
"How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes?
Two and two are four."
"Sometimes, Truss. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three.
Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder.
With apologies to George Orwell 1984. The G-20, 2022.
In the stock casinos today, more dead cat bounce exit rallies. But the outlook for the rest of 2022 and 2023 doesn’t look good, to use old fashioned British understatement.
In the UK, finally a little political and economic realism, but I suspect that the damage has already occurred and has yet to surface.
We have reached mid-October with the northern hemisphere winter just about to start. Anything less than a much warmer than usual winter will present big problems for most of continental Europe, with a big spill over impact on GB if Europe has to start drawing electricity from GB rather than acting as a backup electricity supplier.
All in all, not a coming winter for most
punters to be risk on.
Australia’s
stocks lead gains in Asia after Wall Street’s jump; yen hovers near 149-levels
UPDATED TUE, OCT 18 2022 12:12 AM EDT
Shares in
the Asia-Pacific traded higher on Tuesday after Wall Street’s rally overnight.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 gained
1.68%, leading gains in the wider region. The Reserve Bank of Australia released
its meeting minutes for its October meeting. The Nikkei 225 was
1.38% up, while the Topix added 1.11%. Japan’s yen touched
149.08 against the dollar and was last trading near 148.80.
The Hang Seng index in
Hong Kong rose 1.03%, with the Hang Seng Tech index up 2.49%. In mainland
China, the Shanghai Composite ticked
0.16% higher and the Shenzhen Component added 0.582%.
China was due to report gross
domestic product data, but has delayed that and a slew of economic releases for
the third quarter, according to an updated calendar posted on the National
Bureau of Statistics’ website. The unusual move comes as the Communist Party of
China holds its 20th National Congress.
South Korea’s Kospi was
0.86% higher and the Kosdaq was 1.67% up. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific
shares outside Japan added 1.17%.
Overnight in the U.S., major
indexes jumped following some better-than-expected earnings reports.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
added 550.99 points, or 1.86%, to close at 30,185.82. The S&P 500 popped
2.65% to 3,677.95. The tech heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 3.43% for its best
day since July, finishing at 10,675.80.
Asia-Pacific
markets rise after Wall Street jump; yen near 149-levels (cnbc.com)
Microsoft
confirms job cuts after calling for growth to slow
A Microsoft spokesperson
on Monday confirmed that the company let go of additional workers as the
software maker’s revenue is expected to slow, thanks to weaker sales of Windows
licenses for PCs.
The move aligns with efforts at
technology companies big and small to lower costs. Meta Platforms and Salesforce are
among those in Silicon Valley that have slowed
their pace of hiring this year, even as Coinbase, Netflix and
others have resorted to layoffs.
“Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular
basis, and make structural adjustments accordingly,” a Microsoft spokesperson
told CNBC. “We will continue to invest in our business and hire in key growth
areas in the year ahead.”
Monday’s announcement comes three months after Microsoft
said it trimmed less than 1% of employees.
In July, Microsoft called for about
10% revenue growth in the fiscal first quarter, slower than it’s been in more
than five years. The company will be announcing earnings on Oct. 25.
Axios, which reported the layoffs earlier on
Monday, said the cuts impacted fewer than 1,000 people and cited an unnamed
person.
Microsoft
confirms job cuts after calling for growth to slow (cnbc.com)
Forecast
for US Recession Within Year Hits 100% in Blow to Biden
Josh Wingrove – October 17, 2022 3:02 PM
(Bloomberg) -- A US recession is effectively
certain in the next 12 months in new Bloomberg Economics model projections, a
blow to President Joe Biden’s economic messaging ahead of the November midterms.
The latest recession
probability models by Bloomberg economists Anna Wong and Eliza Winger forecast
a higher recession probability across all timeframes, with the 12-month
estimate of a downturn by October 2023 hitting 100%, up from 65% for the
comparable period in the previous update.
The
forecast will be unwelcome news for Biden, who has repeatedly said the US will
avoid a recession and that any downturn would be “very slight,” as he seeks to reassure Americans the economy is
on solid footing under his administration.
But
tightening financial conditions, persistent inflation and expectations of a
hawkish Federal Reserve pressing ahead with rate hikes are raising the risk of
a contraction.
The model is more certain of a recession than
other forecasts. A separate Bloomberg survey of 42 economists predicts the
probability of a recession over the next 12 months now stands at 60%, up from
50% a month earlier.
The forecasts provide a sharp
contrast to Biden’s upbeat tone. The president has focused on strong job growth
as he campaigns to help Democrats retain their House and Senate majorities in
elections three weeks from now.
But inflation, which has hovered near
a four-decade high, has been a drag on Democrats’ prospects in an election
where polls indicate the economy is voters’ top issue.
The Bloomberg Economics model uses 13
macroeconomic and financial indicators to predict the chance of a downturn at
horizons of one month to two years.
While the chance of a recession
within 12 months has reached 100% under the model, the odds of a recession
hitting sooner are also up. The model forecasts the likelihood of a recession
within 11 months at 73%, up from 30%, and the 10-month probability rose to 25%
from 0%.
The deterioration in the outlook was
driven by a broad-based worsening in the economic and financial indicators used
as inputs to the model, Bloomberg Economics found.
Forecast
for US Recession Within Year Hits 100% in Blow to Biden (msn.com)
Dozens
of LNG-laden ships queue off Europe's coasts unable to unload
October
17, 2022 9:57 PM GMT+1
LONDON/MADRID,
Oct 17 (Reuters) - Dozens of ships carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG)
circling off the coasts of Spain unable to secure slots to unload have prompted
grid operators for the country to warn they may have to suspend loading to deal
with this "exceptional situation".
Europe
is facing an energy supply squeeze as Russia has progressively cut gas flows
after the West imposed sanctions in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in
late February.
The region has had
to find alternative supplies, including LNG, but the arrival of multiple
cargoes of the superchilled fuel has exposed Europe's lack of
"regasification" capacity, as plants that convert the seaborne fuel
back to gas are operating at maximum limit.
If
the backlog is not cleared soon those ships may start looking for alternative
ports outside Europe to offload their cargo.
There
are more than 35 LNG-laden vessels drifting off Spain and around the
Mediterranean, with at least eight vessels anchored off the Bay of Cadiz alone,
traders, analysts and sources at LNG terminals familiar with the situation said
on Monday.
Spain is offering just six
slots at its regasification terminals for cargoes this week, an industry source
said, less than a fifth of the number of vessels queuing off its coasts. The
country has six terminals in total.
"Floating
storage levels in LNG shipping is at all time high levels with slightly more
than 2.5million tonnes tied up in floating storage," said Oystein
Kalleklev, chief executive of shipowner FLEX LNG Management.
The
shortage of regasification plants, or pipelines connecting countries that have
those facilities to other European markets, means that the LNG floating
offshore cannot be used. "We have seen a high number of cargoes waiting
offshore in southern Spain or circling in the Med, as well as some cargoes
waiting off the UK," said Alex Froley, LNG analyst at data intelligence
firm ICIS.
More
Dozens of LNG-laden ships queue off Europe's coasts unable to unload | 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.
Truss
and Hunt to oversee protracted recession, EY Item Club forecasts
MONDAY 17 OCTOBER 2022 6:00
AM
The UK is on course for a long
recession that will last from this winter through to next summer, underscoring
the tough challenge facing prime minister Liz Truss and her new chancellor
Jeremy Hunt.
Rising inflation compounded by higher
interest rates will force the economy into reverse in the current quarter until
the summer of 2023, according to the EY Item Club.
Consumers and businesses are being
squeezed by higher prices, forcing them to cut activity. As a result, the
economy is expected to shrink 0.3 per cent next year.
Brits are facing the biggest hit to
their living standards since the 1970s, the EY Item Club said. Pay is set to
trail price rises until 2024.
Hywel Ball, chair of EY UK, said:
“There’s no doubt the UK economy faces a difficult period ahead, with global
headwinds adding to domestic pressures.”
Financial market turmoil sparked by
Truss and her former chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launching £45bn of unfunded
tax cuts and ramping up government borrowing.
Truss dumped Kwarteng last Friday,
jettisoned Hunt into Number 11 and reversed plans to scrap the six percentage
point corporation tax rise.
However, the move failed to tame
markets. UK gilt yields, which rise inversely to prices, fired higher and the
pound fell.
Governor Andrew Bailey last
week said a steeper rate rise to deal with the government’s fiscal mishaps is
likely necessary at the Bank’s next meeting on 3 November.
Higher borrowing costs
could trigger a 10 per cent fall in house prices, Martin Beck, chief economic
adviser to the EY Item Club, predicted.
Truss and Hunt to
oversee protracted recession, EY Item Club forecasts (cityam.com)
UK economy to enter recession until summer 2023,
financial experts warn
Mon, 17 October 2022 at 12:01 am
Britain’s economy is expected to
shrink around 0.2% each quarter from October through to June next year,
economists have warned.
This prolonged economic decline will
result in a 0.3% fall in gross domestic product (GDP) for 2023 as a whole, the
EY Item Club predicted in its autumn forecast.
The economic forecasting group has
significantly downgraded its previous summer forecast which estimated the
economy would grow by 1% in 2023.
A combination of high energy prices,
surging inflation, rising interest rates and global economic weakness have
driven up the likelihood that the UK economy will face a recession until the
middle of next year.
An economy enters a technical
recession when its GDP falls for two or more consecutive quarters.
However, the risk of a severe
downturn has been reduced by the Government’s energy bills cap, EY Item Club
said, meaning that it will not be as bad as previous recessions.
The Government intervened in early
September to put a ceiling on energy bills at £2,500 a year for the typical
household, and has since pledged to cover a proportion of rocketing electricity
costs for businesses as well.
The move is set to ease the pressure
on household incomes and prevent the collapse of businesses that would
otherwise be unable to afford the mounting bills.
Furthermore, once high inflation
eases, the weaker pound boosts exports and the Bank of England’s interest rate
hikes end, GDP should return to growth in the second half of 2023, EY said.
The economy is then expected to
expand 2.4% in 2024 and 2.3% in 2025.
But the group warned that there is a
risk that growth could be dragged down by further economic shocks.
More
UK
economy to enter recession until summer 2023, financial experts warn
(yahoo.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.
Unique
study links specific gene variant to COVID vaccine efficacy
Rich Haridy October 16, 2022
Compelling new research
from the University of Oxford has homed in on a specific genetic variant that
seems to play a significant role in how well people generate an immune response
to COVID-19 vaccines and their chances of experiencing a breakthrough infection
in the year following vaccination.
For years, scientists
have known not everyone responds to vaccination the same way. Some can develop
strong immune responses quickly, while others may still be relatively
susceptible to a pathogen despite several vaccine shots.
Prior studies have found one particular complex of genes, known as the
human leukocyte antigen (HLA) system, may play some kind of role in how
effectively a person responds to vaccinations. There is evidence HLA gene
variants are associated with antibody responses to tetanus, measles and
hepatitis B vaccines, but actual real-world evidence of efficacy in regards to
infections hasn't ever been robustly investigated.
The COVID-19 pandemic offers researchers a unique real-world experiment
with billions of people participating. A novel virus spreads amongst an
immunologically naive population. A new vaccine is administered en masse. And
then thousands of people are tracked for over a year to see what
characteristics correlate with those most likely to get infected despite
vaccination.
Focusing firstly on people enrolled in early clinical trials for
COVID-19 vaccines, the researchers discovered one specific gene variant – HLA-DQB1*06
– correlated with higher antibody responses following vaccination. Between 30%
and 40% of the UK population are estimated to carry this particular gene
variant. That same cohort was then followed for nearly 18 months and the
researchers report those with the HLA-DQB1*06 gene variant were less likely to
report a PCR-confirmed case of COVID compared to those without the gene
variant.
"From this study we have evidence that our genetic makeup is one of
the reasons why we may differ from each other in our immune response following
COVID-19 vaccination," said Julian Knight, chief investigator on the
study. "We found that inheriting a specific variant of an HLA gene was
associated with higher antibody responses but this is only the start of the
story."
Understanding exactly how this particular genetic variant could be
heightening a person's immune response to vaccination offers researchers
important clues to improving future vaccines. Here, the researchers can only
hypothesize what could be going on, but the study does speculate this gene
variant helps bind immune cells more effectively to the coronavirus spike
protein antigens in vaccines. This can lead to better memory B call activation
and improved T-cell proliferation.
More
Unique study links
specific gene variant to COVID vaccine efficacy (newatlas.com)
Moderna
COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness Turns Negative Within Months: Study
By October 10, 2022 Updated: October 11, 2022
The
effectiveness of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine against infection turns negative over time,
according to a new study that was funded by the vaccine maker.
The
effectiveness of three doses—a primary series and a booster—against infection
remained above 50 percent after 150 days against BA.1, a subvariant of the
Omicron virus variant, researchers estimated.
However,
against more recent strains, including the currently dominant BA.5, the
effectiveness turned negative. Against BA.2, BA.4, and BA.5, the effectiveness
went negative after 150 days; against BA.1.12.1, the effectiveness turned
negative after 91 days.
Negative
effectiveness means that a vaccinated person is more likely to contract
COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, than an unvaccinated person.
Researchers
with Moderna and Kaiser Permanente, which carried out the study, also
found that people who received three Moderna doses were more likely to become
infected when compared to people who received just two doses.
Researchers
said that they attempted to reduce potential bias by taking actions such as
adjusting for comorbidities, but that some confounding may remain.
They
said that some of the negative effectiveness estimates “could be due to
differential risk behaviors among vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals when
protection from antibodies becomes minimal.”
Hung
Fu Tseng, a researcher with Kaiser Permanente Southern California and the
study’s corresponding author, declined to provide evidence for the statement or
otherwise comment on the negative effectiveness estimates.
“The
manuscript is under review by a journal. I can’t comment on your questions now.
I can, however, answer your question[s] when it is accepted,” Tseng told The
Epoch Times in an email.
The
study was published ahead of peer review
on medRxiv, a preprint server.
Researchers reached the numbers after analyzing data from Kaiser
Permanente Southern California, which provides health care and insurance to
millions of members.
Moderna
officials didn’t respond to a request for comment.
More
Moderna COVID-19
Vaccine Effectiveness Turns Negative Within Months: Study (theepochtimes.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.
Rooftop wind system delivers 150% the energy of solar
per dollar
Loz Blain October 16, 2022
Aeromine
says its unique "motionless" rooftop wind generators deliver up to
50% more energy than a solar array of the same price, while taking up just 10%
of the roof space and operating more or less silently. In independent tests,
they seem legit.
Distributed
energy generation stands to play a growing part in the world's energy markets.
Most of this currently comes in the form of rooftop solar, but in certain
areas, wind could definitely play a bigger part. Not every spot is appropriate
for a bladed wind turbine, though, and in this regard, University of Houston
spinoff Aeromine Technologies has designed a very different, very tidy form of
rooftop wind energy capture that looks like it could be a real game-changer.
As with traditional
wind turbines, size is key. So while Aeromine's wind energy boxes take up a
relatively small footprint on your roof, they're still pretty bulky. The wings
themselves are maybe 10 feet (3 m) high, at a rough guess, and looking at the
latest imagery they're now sitting on top of boxes that might add another 6 ft
(1.8 m) or more to their height – so they're no shrinking violets. On the other
hand, they don't create the noise, or the constantly moving visual distraction
of a regular, bladed turbine, so they may prove to be less unwelcome in
populated areas.
They work
differently too – kind of like a set of race-car spoiler wings sandwiched
together facing each other, with a round pole in between them. Angled into the
wind, these stationary wings generate a low pressure vacuum in the center of
the device, which sucks air through perforations either in the wings themselves
or in the round pole, which also aids in accelerating the ambient airflow over
the wings.
So where's the
turbine? Depending on the installation, it can either be at the bottom of that
central pole, surrounded by a duct, or in more compact designs that sit right
down on the roof instead of up on top of a box, the fan can be down in the roof
of the building itself, in a pipe connecting either to that central pole or to
hollow chambers in the perforated wings. Either way, the wings create a
low-pressure zone, air is sucked through a tube to fill that low-pressure zone,
and Aeromine places a relatively small, cheap internal propeller (perhaps 36
inches/91 cm in diameter) in that tube to run a generator.
It's very quiet,
very safe and very cheap to build; you don't need any fancy materials like
carbon fiber, there's nothing special about the fan itself, and the whole thing
comes apart for transport and a relatively simple construction process on site.
More
Rooftop wind system
delivers 150% the energy of solar per dollar (newatlas.com)
The
market, like the Lord, helps those who help themselves. But, unlike the Lord,
the market does not forgive those who know not what they do.
Warren
Buffett.
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