Baltic Dry Index. 1873 -31 Brent Crude 92.46
Spot Gold 1667 US 2 Year Yield 4.28 -0.02
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 13/10/22 World 628,347,497
Deaths 6,565,787
The Chancellor believes everything, the Treasury suspect everything, the politicians know everything.
With apologies to Oscar Wilde.
In the stock casinos, fear of today’s US inflation figures, hopium that trouble in the stock casinos will force the Fed to stop raising interest rates sooner rather than later.
Well it is hopium after all. I think rallies, if any occur, are exit rallies, our new bear market in stocks has much further to fall and will last longer than most in the casinos expect.
Asia-Pacific
markets mixed ahead of U.S. inflation data
UPDATED THU, OCT 13 2022 12:09 AM
EDT
Shares in the Asia-Pacific were mixed on
Thursday as investors await inflation data from the U.S. due later stateside.
The Nikkei 225 in
Japan was 0.5% lower and the Topix was down 0.68%. Toshiba’s
stock rose
more than 9% after local media Kyodo reported a potential
buyout. Japan’s yen strengthened
in Asia’s morning after touching 146.98 per dollar.
South Korea’s Kospi shed
1.16% and the Kosdaq lost 2.57%.The Hang Seng index in
Hong Kong struggled for direction and last traded 1% lower.
Mainland China’s stocks were up —
the Shanghai Composite gained
0.16% and the Shenzhen Component added
0.525%. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 traded
0.22% higher.
MSCI’s broadest index of
Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.48%. Thailand’s market is closed
for a holiday Thursday.
Economists expect
U.S. consumer prices to have risen 0.3% in September from
August, and 8.1% from the same period a year ago. In August, the CPI rose 0.1%
from July and 8.3% compared with the year before.
U.S.
stocks fell overnight, with the S&P 500 hitting its lowest
close since November 2020.
Asia-Pacific markets mixed ahead of U.S. inflation data (cnbc.com)
European stocks head for lower open as investors
brace themselves for U.S. inflation data
UPDATED THU, OCT 13 2022 12:26 AM
EDT
European
markets are heading for a lower open on Thursday as investors around the world prepare
themselves for the latest U.S. inflation data.
The negative open in Europe comes
amid mixed global sentiment ahead of the latest U.S. inflation reading. U.S.
stock futures were up slightly overnight while markets
in the Asia-Pacific region were mixed as investors await the
data.
Dow Jones’ consensus estimates
show the
CPI rose 0.3% in September, up from 0.1% in August. That would bring
inflation’s annual pace down to 8.1% from 8.3%.
A rise in the consumer price
index would also follow producer price data that came in higher than expected,
data showed on Wednesday. The U.S.′
producer price index, a gauge of final-demand wholesale prices, was
up 0.4% in September, more than the consensus estimate of a 0.2% increase,
according to Dow Jones.
Markets digested minutes released
Wednesday from the September Federal Reserve meeting which showed the
central bank expected to keep hiking interest rates until it sees receding
inflation.
One comment made some think the
Fed might instead slow the rate hikes, if not roll them back, if the tumult in
financial markets continues.
European markets are heading for a lower open on
Thursday as investors around the world prepare themselves for the latest U.S.
inflation data.
The U.K.’s FTSE index is expected
to open 12 points lower at 6,812, the German DAX down 41 points at 12,150, the French
CAC 23 points lower at 5,803 and Italy’s FTSE MIB 40 points lower at 20,324,
according to data from IG.
The lower open in Europe comes amid
mixed global sentiment ahead of the latest U.S. inflation reading. U.S.
stock futures were up slightly overnight while markets
in the Asia-Pacific region were mixed as investors await the
data.
Dow Jones’ consensus estimates show the
CPI rose 0.3% in September, up from 0.1% in August. That would bring
inflation’s annual pace to 8.1% from 8.3%.
A rise in the consumer price index
would also follow producer price data that came in higher than expected, data
showed on Wednesday. The U.S.′
producer price index, a gauge of final-demand wholesale prices, was
up 0.4% in September, more than the consensus estimate of a 0.2% increase,
according to Dow Jones.
European
stocks open to close, U.S. inflation data (cnbc.com)
Fed officials
expect higher rates to stay in place, meeting minutes show
Federal Reserve
officials have been surprised at the pace of inflation and indicated at their
last meeting that they expect higher interest rates to remain in place until
prices come down, according to minutes released Wednesday from the central
bank’s September meeting.
In discussions leading up to a 0.75 percentage point rate hike, policymakers
noted that inflation is especially taking its toll on lower-income Americans.
They reiterated rate hikes are likely to continue and higher rates will prevail
until the problem is showing signs of resolving.
“Participants judged that the Committee needed to move to, and then maintain, a
more restrictive policy stance in order to meet the Committee’s legislative
mandate to promote maximum employment and price stability,” the meeting summary
stated.
Officials further noted that with inflation
“showing little sign so far of abating … they had raised their assessment of
the path of the federal funds rate that would likely be needed to achieve the
Committee’s goals.”
The S&P 500 gained
slightly on Wednesday after the release of the minutes as some
traders took one comment as a signal the Fed could back off its rapid
tightening if there was more financial markets turbulence.
More
Fed
minutes October 2022: (cnbc.com)
Treasury yields
fall slightly as traders await Thursday’s CPI report
Treasury yields fell slightly Wednesday as
investors absorbed stronger-than-expected September’s producer price index
inflation figures, and awaited Thursday’s CPI report.
The 2-year Treasury yield
was down 2.9 basis points at 4.287% at 4:00 p.m. ET. The benchmark 10-year Treasury
yield ticked down 4 basis points to 3.898%.
Yields and prices have an inverted relationship and one basis point is
equivalent to 0.01%.
Wholesale prices came
in hotter than expected. September’s producer price index data, which measures
wholesale prices of goods, rose 0.4%, according to a Wednesday report from the
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Excluding food, energy and trade services, PPI
increased 0.3%.
Economists surveyed
by Dow Jones were expecting headline PPI to add 0.2%.
Investors are also
bracing for Thursday’s CPI data as they look for signs on whether the Federal
Reserve’s interest rate hikes are working as a measure to throttle persistent
inflation.
In recent weeks, Fed
speakers have said they are not satisfied with the development of inflation and
will not shy away from hiking interest rates further to change this. Concerns
that the central bank is dragging the U.S. into a recession have grown louder
in response.
More
Treasury yields fall slightly as traders await Thursday's CPI report (cnbc.com)
In other news, nothing good.
NYC
office market faces ‘real estate apocalypse’
Published Oct. 10,
2022
- Office
valuations in New York City are forecasted to decline by as much as 39% by
2029 due to remote work trends, according to a recent report from
professors at the NYU Stern School of Business and Columbia University
Business School.
- That plunge
represents a $453 billion valuation drop for New York City office
buildings, while similar declines could occur in other U.S. cities, the
report noted. What the authors call an “office real estate apocalypse”
also will have negative implications for nearby businesses and local
public finances.
- The authors
said that lower quality, less expensive office buildings will experience
much more volatile swings in valuation, while higher quality office
buildings are somewhat buffered against the downward trend.
The COVID-19
pandemic accelerated the push for remote work, which in turn, decreased office
space demand. Physical occupancy, or the amount of people working in an office
building on any given day, fell from 95% in February 2020 to about 47% last
month in major U.S. office markets, according to the report.
In a worrisome sign
for office markets, the study estimates the trend toward more remote work
likely will persist.
To determine this,
the research studied office REITS focused on New York City. The model indicated
“office REIT investors believe remote-work practice to be long-lasting,”
according to the report. Many U.S. corporations have announced permanent remote
or hybrid work arrangements, and several have begun to shrink their physical
footprint.
That was the basis
for the report’s forecast of valuations dropping 39% by 2029.
More
NYC
office market faces ‘real estate apocalypse’ | Construction Dive
Biden
administration may block Russian aluminum imports
The Biden administration is weighing restricting
imports of Russian aluminum as it charts possible responses to Moscow’s
military escalation in Ukraine, a person briefed on the conversations told
Reuters.
Such a move, which has not been
finalized, would likely boost global prices for the metal used in a wide range
of consumer products and could reverse a previous White House stance that such
sanctions could wreak havoc on global markets.
“We’re always considering all
options,” said a White House official. “There is no movement on this as of
now.”
The Treasury and Commerce
departments did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
The administration’s choices
include an outright ban, raising tariffs to levels so punitive they would
constitute an effective ban, or sanctioning United Co Rusal International PJSC,
the company also known as Rusal that produces Russia’s metal, according to
Bloomberg, which first reported the conversations about an aluminum ban earlier
on Wednesday.
Rusal,
the world’s largest aluminum producer outside China, did not immediately reply
to a Reuters’ request for comment.
More
Biden
administration may block Russian aluminum imports (cnbc.com)
Europe
likely entering another COVID wave, says WHO and ECDC
October 12, 2022 6:56 PM GMT+1
Oct 12 (Reuters)
- Another wave of COVID-19 infections may have begun in Europe as cases begin
to tick up across the region, the World Health Organization and European Centre
for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said on Wednesday.
"Although
we are not where we were one year ago, it is clear that the COVID-19 pandemic
is still not over," WHO's Europe director, Hans Kluge, and ECDC's
director, Andrea Ammon, said in a joint statement.
"We are
unfortunately seeing indicators rising again in Europe, suggesting that another
wave of infections has begun."
WHO's
region-wise data showed that only Europe recorded a rise in COVID-19 cases in
the week ended Oct. 2, clocking an increase of 8% from the prior week.
Public
health experts have warned that vaccine fatigue and confusion over available
vaccines will likely limit booster uptake in the region. read more
More
Europe
likely entering another COVID wave, says WHO and ECDC | 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.
Wholesale prices
rose 0.4% in September, more than expected as inflation persists
Wholesale prices rose
more than expected in September despite Federal Reserve efforts to control
inflation, according to a report Wednesday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The producer price
index, a measure of prices that U.S. businesses get for the goods and services
they produce, increased 0.4% for the month, compared with the Dow Jones
estimate for a 0.2% gain. On a 12-month basis, PPI rose 8.5%, which was a
slight deceleration from the 8.7% in August.
Excluding food,
energy and trade services, the index increased 0.4% for the month and 5.6% from
a year ago, the latter matching the August increase.
Food prices helped
boost the increase in goods inflation, with a 1.2% monthly increase. Energy
rose 0.7% after posting massive gains the previous two months.
Inflation has been
the economy’s biggest issue over the past year as the cost of living is running
near its highest level in more than 40 years.
The Fed has responded
by raising rates five times this year for a total of 3 percentage points and is
widely expected to implement a fourth consecutive 0.75 percentage point
increase when it meets again in three weeks.
“Inflationary
momentum has built up in the U.S. economy and will persist near-term, keeping
the Fed hiking aggressively,” said Bill Adams, chief economist for Comerica
Bank.
More
Producer
price index September 2022: Wholesale prices rose 0.4% in September (cnbc.com)
Why questions are
swirling about who will buy more than $31 trillion of U.S. debt — and at what
price
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.
As Omicron mutates wildly the virus shows first signs
of convergent evolution
Rich Haridy October 09, 2022
Over the
last couple of months researchers tracking emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants have
started noticing something strange. No one new variant has looked like taking over
but instead a variety of different subvariants seemed to be accumulating the
same mutations.
These
mutations all seemed to be converging in a way to evade our pre-existing
immunity, and a striking study recently appeared speculating the virus has the potential
to completely escape our current immune responses. As many people around the
world return to normality, deeming the pandemic over, these new evolutionary
signals suggest we may be done with thinking about COVID but SARS-CoV-2 is most
certainly not done with us …
Twitter has been
described by some as a town-square, analogous to a massive open space where
anyone can offer their two cents on anything. But in practice it’s actually
nothing like that. A more apt analogy would be Twitter resembles a massive
apartment building filled with countless rooms devoted to conversations between
people with shared interests or beliefs.
Inside one small
room in the gargantuan Twitter high rise resides a diverse assortment of
virologists, infectious disease researchers, epidemiologists, data
visualization nerds, and ambitious armchair experts. They all focus on one
particular subject – tracking the genetic mutations of SARS-CoV-2.
Wading into the
world of Variant Tracking Twitter can be dizzying for the uninitiated. A
whirlwind of dense terminology accompany tweets filled with graphs tracking
coded mutations and increasingly complicated variant names. Pango lineages,
GISAID data, Nextstrain clades.
In September a word
started popping up frequently amongst the coded conversations citing RBD
mutations in K444T and N460K. That word was "convergence."
For the last two
years the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 has been strange, to say the least. Across
2020 experts frequently warned of the potential for this novel coronavirus to
mutate, but initially, it remained remarkably unchanged until a trio of
variants emerged late in the year.
Alpha, Beta and
Gamma all suddenly popped up. Three different lineages, in three different
parts of the world. All with relatively similar mutations.
The changes had
begun and in 2021 we saw a series of infection waves cross the world, each one
driven by a new variant. Alpha leading to Delta leading to Omicron. What was
particularly unusual about these successive waves was each subsequent variant
was different from the one that preceded it. This wasn’t the case of a single
lineage slowly mutating and changing but big evolutionary leaps were taking
place, with new lineages coming out of nowhere.
Since Omicron hit
in late 2021 and early 2022 the path of the pandemic seems to have changed.
Instead of big evolutionary leaps the Omicron lineage has splintered into
scores of different subvariants.
More
As Omicron mutates
wildly the virus shows first signs of convergent evolution (newatlas.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.
Graphene Battery
Market Size: 2022 Share, Size, Trends, Growth And Business Analysis Report
Published: Oct. 12, 2022 at 1:52 a.m. ET
Oct 12, 2022 (The
Expresswire) -- Graphene Battery Market Size | 2022 Energy and Power Industry
Global Analysis By Covid-19 Impact On,Share, Trends, Merger, Growth, Business,
Key Players, Statistics, Competitive Landscape, And Regional Forecast To 2029
is the latest study published by Fortune Business Insights.
Get
Sample PDF Brochure:https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/sample/105711
A detailed analysis of
the Graphene Battery Market companies' strategies, with special attention to
supply, demand, and import/export consumption (2022-2029). A thorough analysis
of numerous segments, including potential, size, development, innovation,
sales, and overall growth of significant companies, is covered in the Graphene
Battery. A perfect combination of primary data and secondary sources was used
to compile and validate the study's quantitative and qualitative market data.
The Graphene Battery
Market is expected to increase significantly over the following seven years,
exceeding 2022 in terms of revenue, according to this most recent analysis. To
estimate the market size for keywords, 2022 has been used as the base year and
the forecast period is from 2022 to 2029.
To get a detailed and profound idea about the Graphene Battery
market insights, it is very important to create a competitive environment
amongst the different key players at different market locations all around the
country. All the market players are competing with each other globally in the
international markets by implementing various types of strategies such as
product launches and upgrades, mergers and acquisitions, partnerships, etc.
More
It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you place the blame.
Oscar Wilde.
No comments:
Post a Comment