Baltic Dry Index. 1325 -30 Brent Crude 92.67
Spot Gold 1770 US 2 Year Yield 4.40 +0.06
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 15/11/22 World 640,651,049
Deaths 6,616,589
Christmas
is coming and the [the bird flu surviving] geese are getting fat, Please put a
trillion in the banksters’ hat. If you haven’t got a trillion a billion will
do, If you haven’t got a billion, God damn you!
Ebenezer
Squid.
In the stock casinos, nervousness that this year’s Santa Claus rally may be the final exit rally before the Great Biden Bust of the global recession of 2023.
The US Republican Party may have just dodged a bullet by not gaining power and buying ownership of what comes next in a very gloomy looking 2023.
Hong Kong stocks
up 3% as tech stocks rise; China’s activity data disappoints
UPDATED MON, NOV 14 2022 11:28 PM
EST
Shares in
the Asia-Pacific were mostly higher on Tuesday following the
meeting between its president Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose
3.62%, lifted by the Hang Seng Tech index that climbed 6.81%.
In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite advanced
1.27%, while the Shenzhen Component also
gained 1.563% as
the country’s industrial production and retail sales data fell short of
expectations.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 slipped
0.12%. South Korea’s Kospi was
about flat and the Nikkei 225 in
Japan rose 0.18% as the nation’s economy unexpectedly contracted in the third
quarter, official data showed.
Major U.S. stock indexes closed lower overnight following
a choppy session, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average
slipping 211.16 points, or 0.6%, to 33,536.70. The S&P 500 shed 0.89% to
3,957.25, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 1.12% to 11,196.22.
Hong Kong stocks up 3% as tech stocks rise; China's activity data disappoints (cnbc.com)
European markets
head for mixed open as investors gauge economic outlook
UPDATED TUE, NOV 15 2022 12:30 AM EST
European
markets are heading for a mixed open on Tuesday as investors guage the economic
outlook in the region and wider global economy.
The mixed sentiment comes after a
choppy session in the United States on Monday, after comments from Federal
Reserve leaders Lael Brainard and Chris Waller about interest rate hikes.
While Brainard said the central
bank could ease rate increases, Waller said the market was overly optimistic
and should brace itself for higher rates. U.S.
stock futures were higher Monday evening after ending the day lower.
Shares in the Asia-Pacific were
mostly higher on Tuesday following the
meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden.
Global markets will be watching
events at the Group of Twenty summit in Bali, Indonesia, that kicks off on
Tuesday.
China’s industrial
output, retail sales miss expectations in October
China’s industrial
production grew 5% in the month of October compared with a year ago, slowing
from an increase of 6.3% seen in September.
The latest figure misses estimates of a 5.2% rise predicted in a Reuters poll.
Separately, retail
sales in China fell 0.5% in October from a year ago, missing expectations.
Analysts polled by
Reuters expected a 1% increase, and retail sales grew 2.5% in September.
European
markets open to close, data and earnings (cnbc.com)
Amazon reportedly
plans to lay off about 10,000 employees starting this week
Amazon is
planning to lay off approximately 10,000 employees in corporate and technology
roles beginning this week, according to a report from The New York Times. Separately, The Wall Street Journal also cited
a source saying the company plans to lay off thousands of employees.
Shares of Amazon closed down about
2% on Monday.
The cuts would be the largest in the company’s history and would primarily
impact Amazon’s devices organization, retail division and human resources,
according to the report. The reported layoffs would represent less than 1% of
Amazon’s global workforce and 3% of its corporate employees.
The report follows headcount reductions at other
tech firms. Meta announced last week that it’s laying off more than 13% of its
staff, or more than 11,000 employees, and Twitter laid off approximately half
its workforce in the days following Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of the
company.
Amazon reported 798,000 employees at the end of
2019 but had 1.6 million full- and part-time employees as of Dec. 31, 2021, a
102% increase. The New York Times said the total number of layoffs “remains
fluid” and could change.
A representative from Amazon did
not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The holiday shopping season is
critical for Amazon, and usually, one where the company has increased
its headcount to meet demand. But Andy Jassy, who took
over as CEO in July 2021, has been in cost-cutting mode to
preserve cash as the company confronts slowing sales and a gloomy global
economy.
The company has already announced plans to freeze
hiring for corporate roles in its retail business. In recent
months, Amazon shut
down its telehealth service, discontinued
a quirky, video-calling projector for kids, closed all but one of its U.S. call
centers, axed its roving delivery robot, shuttered
underperforming brick-and-mortar
chains, and is closing, canceling or delaying some
new warehouse locations.
Amazon reported disappointing
third-quarter earnings in October that spooked investors and
caused shares to sink more than 13%. It marked the first time Amazon’s market
cap fell below $1 trillion since April 2020, and the report was the second time
this year that Amazon’s results have been enough to spark a double-digit
percentage sell-off. The sell-off continued for days after the report and erased
almost all of the stock’s pandemic surge.
Amazon stock is down about 41% for
the year, more than the 14% drop in the S&P 500, and is on pace for its
worst year since 2008.
More
Amazon
reportedly plans to lay off about 10,000 employees starting this week
(cnbc.com)
Japan's
economy unexpectedly shrinks as hot inflation, global slowdown take toll
November 15, 2022 5:06
AM GMT
TOKYO, Nov 15
(Reuters) - Japan's economy unexpectedly shrank for the first time in a year in
the third quarter, stoking further uncertainty about the outlook as global
recession risks, a weak yen and higher import costs took a toll on household
consumption and businesses.
The
world's third-biggest economy has struggled to motor on despite the recent
lifting of COVID curbs, and has faced intensifying pressure from red-hot global
inflation, sweeping interest rate increases worldwide and the Ukraine war.
Gross domestic
product fell an annualised 1.2% in July-September, official data showed,
compared with economists' median estimate for a 1.1% expansion and a revised
4.6% rise in the second quarter.
It
translated into a quarterly decline of 0.3%, versus a forecast 0.3% growth.
On
top of being squeezed by a global slowdown and soaring inflation, Japan has
been dealing with the challenge of the yen's slide to 32-year lows against the
dollar, which has magnified cost-of-living strains by further lifting the price
of everything from fuel to food items.
---- The risks to Japan's outlook have risen as
the global economy teeters on the brink of recession.
Economy
Minister Shigeyuki Goto said a global recession could hit households and
businesses.
At
home, policymakers and citizens are bracing for a potential eighth wave of the
COVID pandemic, adding to the gloom for private consumption which makes up more
than half of the Japanese economy.
In
the third quarter, private consumption grew 0.3%, a touch above consensus
estimate for 0.2% growth but slowing sharply from the second quarter's 1.2%
gain.
The
data suggested consumer spending will remain pressured over the coming months,
with real compensation of employees falling 1.6% in the third quarter, posting
a second straight quarter of declines and extending from previous quarter's
1.2% decline.
More
Japan's
economy unexpectedly shrinks as hot inflation, global slowdown take toll |
Reuters
In cryptoland, a rising reality that bitcoin
68,000 was the crypto top, but where is the crypto bottom? Does cryptocurrency
have any value at all or was it all just a 21st century version of tulipmania?
Crypto peaked a
year ago — investors have lost more than $2 trillion since
PUBLISHED FRI, NOV 11 2022 7:00 AM EST
A year ago this week, investors were describing
bitcoin as the future of money and ethereum as the world’s most important
developer tool. Non-fungible tokens were
exploding, Coinbase was
trading at a record and the NBA’s Miami Heat was just into its first full
season in the newly renamed FTX Arena.
As it turns out, that was peak crypto.
In the 12 months since bitcoin topped
out at over $68,000, the two largest digital currencies have lost
three-quarters of their value, collapsing alongside the riskiest tech stocks.
The industry, once valued at roughly $3 trillion, now sits at around $900 billion.
Rather than acting as a hedge against inflation,
which is near a 40-year high, bitcoin has proven to be another speculative
asset that bubbles up when the evangelists are behind it and plunges when
enthusiasm melts and investors get scared.
And the $135 million that FTX spent last year for
a 19-year deal with the Heat? The crypto exchange with the naming rights is
poised to land in the history books alongside another brand that once had its
logo on a sports facility: Enron.
In a blink this week, FTX sank from a $32 billion
valuation all the way to bankruptcy as liquidity dried up, customers demanded
withdrawals and rival exchange Binance ripped up its nonbinding agreement to buy the company. FTX founder Sam
Bankman-Fried admitted on
Thursday that he “f---ed up.” On Friday, he stepped down as CEO.
“Looking back now, the excitement and prices of
assets were clearly getting ahead of themselves and trading far above any
fundamental value,” said Katie Talati, director of research at Arca, an
investment firm focused on digital assets. “As the downturn was so fast and
violent, many have proclaimed that digital assets are dead.”
Whether crypto is forever doomed or will
eventually rebound, as Talati expects, the 2022 bloodbath exposed the
industry’s many flaws and served as a reminder to investors and the public why
financial regulation exists. Bankruptcies have come fast and furious since
midyear, leaving clients with crypto accounts unable to access their funds, and
in some cases scrapping to retrieve pennies on the dollar.
If this is indeed the
future of finance, it’s looking rather bleak.
Crypto was supposed
to bring transparency. Transactions on the blockchain could all be tracked. We
didn’t need centralized institutions — banks — because we had digital ledgers
to serve as the single source of truth.
That narrative is
gone.
More
Crypto peaked in
Nov. 2021: Investors lost more than $2 trillion since (cnbc.com)
Sam
Bankman-Fried’s downfall sends shockwaves through crypto
November 14, 2022
NEW YORK (AP) — Sam Bankman-Fried received numerous
plaudits as he rapidly achieved superstar status as the head of
cryptocurrency exchange FTX: the savior of crypto, the newest force
in Democratic politics and potentially the world’s first trillionaire.
Now the comments about the
30-year-old Bankman-Fried range from bemused to hostile after FTX filed for
bankruptcy protection Friday, leaving his investors and
customers feeling duped and many others in the crypto world fearing the
repercussions. Bankman-Fried himself could face civil or
criminal charges.
“I’ve known him for a number of
years and what just happened is just shocking,” said Jeremy Allaire, the
co-founder and CEO of cryptocurrency company Circle.
Under Bankman-Fried, FTX quickly
grew to be the third-largest exchange by volume. The stunning collapse of this
nascent empire has sent tsunami-like waves through the cryptocurrency industry,
which has seen a fair share of volatility and turmoil this year, including a
sharp decline in price for bitcoin and other digital assets. For some, the
events are reminiscent of the domino-like failures of Wall Street firms during
the 2008 financial crisis, particularly now that supposedly healthy firms like
FTX are failing.
----Bankman-Fried and his company are under
investigation by the Department of Justice and the Securities
and Exchange Commission. The investigations likely center on the possibility
that the firm may have used customers’ deposits to fund bets at Bankman-Fried’s
hedge fund, Alameda Research, a violation of U.S. securities law.
“This is the direct result of a
rogue actor breaking every single basic rule of fiscal responsibility,” said
Patrick Hillman, chief strategy officer at Binance, FTX’s biggest competitor.
Early last week Binance appeared ready to
step in to bail out FTX, but backed away after a review of FTX’s
books.
----The ultimate impact of FTX’s bankruptcy is uncertain,
but its failure will likely result in the destruction of billions of dollars of
wealth and even more skepticism for cryptocurrencies at a time when the
industry could use a vote of confidence.
“I care because it’s retail
investors who suffer the most, and because too many people still wrongly
associate bitcoin with the scammy ‘crypto’ space,” said Cory Klippsten, CEO of
Swan Bitcoin, who for months raised concerns about FTX’s business model.
Klippsten is publicly enthusiastic about bitcoin but has long had deep
skepticism about other parts of the crypto universe.
More
Sam
Bankman-Fried's downfall sends shockwaves through crypto | 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.
High inflation for longer
Danish
inflation increased from 10.0% in September to 10.1% in October. Energy and
food prices are key drivers but inflation is also broad based. 10.1% is
1.6%-point higher for October than what we expected in early October and this
can largely be explained by energy prices.
The very large
spot price declines we have seen on electricity would usually pull inflation
down significantly. However, it looks like price increases on fixed price
agreements have been so substantial that CPI increased instead. It is unclear
what has exactly happened but it changes our view on the inflation outlook for
2023 substantially. District heating prices have also increased earlier than
expected and we think there is more to come in the New Year.
The underlying
price pressure in the economy remains elevated but the price pressure (CPI
excluding energy and unprocessed food, taxes and subsidies) has not
accelerated. M-o-m changes have actually moderated over the recent months.
Retailers are
still seeing price increases ahead, even if the trend is declining somewhat.
Thus, it looks like there remains a backlog of cost that has yet to feed
through to consumers. The labour market remains strong and wage growth has
picked up. That means, consumers still have more money to spend and that pushes
prices higher.
We continue to
pencil in an elevated underlying price pressure lifting core inflation further,
which is also underpinned by the historically tight labour market. The pressure
should begin to wear off by the end of 2023, on the back of a looser labour
market by then. Higher energy prices is the key reason for lifting the
inflation forecast, though.
We change our
inflation forecast and now expect 7.9% inflation in 2022 (previously 7.5%) and
4.9% in 2023 (previously 3.4%).
High inflation for longer (fxstreet.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.
A long-term mystery:
TTUHSC experts talk concerns, treatments for Long COVID-19
Mon, November 14, 2022 at 3:13 AM
Loss of taste or smell, brain fog,
and respiratory problems are just a few of the lingering symptoms for some of
those who have had COVID-19.
Dubbed Long COVID, Dr. Steven Berk,
dean of the School of Medicine at Texas Tech Health Sciences Center, said there
is no real definition for the long-term symptoms many have reported in the
nearly three years since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
“The National Institutes of Health
has been defining long COVID,” Berk said. “What we mean by long COVID is
persistent symptoms, months after someone has been infected with COVID-19 and
it's becoming a huge issue for the country, especially because we now realize
that some individuals might have very mild COVID symptoms, and yet the real
problem could be the long haul symptoms.”
The reason it's hard to put a
definition to these continued effects is due to how the symptoms manifest in
each individual.
Dr. Victor Test, division chief of
pulmonary and critical care for TTUHSC, said the American Medical Association
has identified 50 symptoms related to Long COVID, and with so many symptoms it
makes it easy for doctors to misdiagnose Long COVID or another underlying
illness.
“Over 50 symptoms have been
identified, but 58% of people with Long COVID have fatigue and 44% of patients
have headache,” Test said.
Not only are headaches a leading
symptom, according to the AMA, but so are other neurological symptoms, Berk
said.
“People even say, there was me before
COVID and now there's me after COVID which is pretty, pretty serious,” he said.
“Chronic fatigue is a big one, just not having the same energy that they had
before COVID-19 — actually very similar to what we used to call chronic fatigue
syndrome.”
However, the most confusing mental
health symptom is the brain fog patients talk about, Berk said.
More
A long-term mystery: TTUHSC experts talk concerns, treatments for Long 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.
More detail on a subject we’ve covered
before.
"Telescoping can" wave energy device beats
test predictions by 20%
Loz Blain November 06, 2022
Scotland's AWS Energy has reported
results some 20% better than predicted for its Archimedes Waveswing, a
prototype wave energy generator that's been undergoing ocean-based testing at
the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney for the last six months.
The Waveswing is a
cylindrical metal buoy that's tethered to a single point on the ocean floor. In
operation, it stays beneath the surface and responds to water pressure changes.
As a wave passes overhead, the pressure increase pushes down on the top "floater"
section of the device, sliding it downward relative to the lower
"silo" section, with a rolling seal ensuring no water gets in.
This linear
motion in this "telescoping can" compresses the air in the Waveswing
device, creating an air spring to push the floater section back up as the wave
rolls onward. As the floater moves up and down, it drives a hydraulic motor,
which converts the linear motion into rotation, and a regular electrical
generator draws power from both the upward and downward strokes.
The device
can be raised and lowered on its tether for maintenance and deployment, and
there's also a facility to regulate the air pressure inside the cylinder,
effectively tuning the air spring to take maximal advantage of the wave
conditions.
AWS reports that
"during a period of moderate wave conditions" at the EMEC
installation, the prototype machine captured an average of 10 kW, with peaks up
to 80 kW, against its rated capacity of 16 kW. The test has also demonstrated
that the Waveswing can be fully deployed from sitting quayside to fully
operational in less than 12 hours, and that it can survive Force-10 gale
conditions.
The power output
frankly looks surprisingly low to us given the size of this machine. It stands
a towering 7 m (23.0 ft) tall fully extended, with a diameter of 4 m (13.1 ft),
and it weighs 50 tons; it makes a pretty impressive sight as it's driven down
the road on a trailer.
But this is not the
commercial device. AWS says these units will be configurable for power ratings
between 15 kW and 500 kW – although it's unclear whether these half-megawatt
versions will need to be physically bigger, or if so, by how much. The company
sees commercial deployments taking the shape of multi-absorber structures,
which could see 20 of the most powerful units arrayed together into a 10-MW
platform.
According to IRENA, there's
enough energy in the motion of the ocean – specifically, in wave energy as
opposed to tidal energy – to meet the world's entire energy demand. But the
technology here is in its infancy; there are plenty of pilots and prototypes,
but precious few commercial installations. And since nothing has proven itself
yet, there's a
fascinating proliferation of different designs all duking it out in search of a solution that's
cheap, easy to deploy and maintain, eco-friendly, and capable of producing
power in all sorts of conditions for decades despite the brutal corrosive
assault of salty seawater and sludgy biofouling.
More
"Telescoping
can" wave energy device beats test predictions by 20% (newatlas.com)
Crypto is a confidence trick. If you put up the right signs, the
wizards of finance themselves will come in and ask you to take their money.
With apologies to Jules Bertillon and the House of All Nations.
House of All Nations
The novel portrays the inner
workings of the financial world of a bank in Paris in the early 1930s. The bank
is populated by a cast of shady characters who are manipulative, unsavory
schemers. The owner of the Bertillon Brothers bank, Jules Bertillon, exemplifies
all that is bad about the bank and will stop at nothing to achieve his sole aim
of making as much money as he can.
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