Baltic Dry Index. 1323 +33 Brent Crude 97.75
Spot Gold 1672 US 2 Year Yield 4.66 -0.05
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 07/11/22 World 637,770,630
Deaths 6,605,751
If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.
Mark Twain. Misattributed.
This week’s stock casino action will largely be determined by the outcome of tomorrow’s US mid-term elections. Will America turn left or right?
Stay with President Biden’s far left Democrats or swing towards ex-President Trump’s far right Republicans?
Most polls show it’s too close to call although lately a few have suggested a late move towards the Republicans.
On Thursday the USA reports on its October inflation numbers but they’re likely to be over shadowed by Tuesday’s US election results.
In the real world, there were bad news reports from Apple and Meta parent of Facebook.
Bloomberg is reporting that Elon Musk’s
Twitter is asking some fired workers to return as they were fired in error, or
are needed to help build out Musk’s future plans for Twitter. You couldn’t make
this sort of thing up. Only in America, as they say.
Hong Kong stocks
rise nearly 4%; China’s exports see first annual drop since May 2020
UPDATED MON, NOV 7 2022 12:28 AM EST
Hong Kong
stocks led gains in the Asia-Pacific early Monday as China’s
trade data fell far short of expectations, marking the first annual
decline in exports since May 2020. Exports fell by 0.3% and imports also fell
by 0.7% — a Reuters poll had forecasted a rise of 4.3% and 0.1% respectively.
The Hang Seng index in
Hong Kong gained 3.92% and the Hang Seng Tech index gained 5.37%. Mainland
China’s Shanghai Composite rose
0.46% while the Shenzhen
Component was 0.59% higher.
The Nikkei 225 in
Japan was 1.28% higher and the Topix also gained 1.08%. In South Korea, the
Kospi was up 0.9%. The S&P/ASX 200 traded
0.52% higher in Australia.
MSCI’s broadest index of
Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was 1.58% higher.
Chinese health officials renewed its stance of sticking by strict
measures, which is seen to dampen market sentiment after seeing soaring risk
appetite last Friday with speculation of “conditional” plans for a reopening.
Apple suppliers in the region are also in focus as the company warned Covid
restrictions in China
are hurting iPhone production.
U.S. and European markets rose on
Friday on hopes the Federal Reserve would scale back future interest rate hikes
following the latest jobs
report, which marked the slowest pace of job gains since December
2020 despite stronger-than-expected growth.
Hong
Kong stocks rise more than 3% as China trade data misses estimates (cnbc.com)
Dow futures slide
200 points as investors await midterm elections and inflation report
UPDATED SUN, NOV 6 2022 7:01 PM EST
U.S. stock
futures fell on Sunday as investors looked ahead to a week packed with the
Congressional midterm elections, as well as the latest consumer inflation
report.
Dow Jones Industrial Average
futures fell by 187 points, or 0.6%. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures dipped
0.7% and 0.8% respectively.
Apple shares may fall after the
tech company said iPhone
production has been temporarily reduced because of Covid-19
restrictions in China.
Those moves follow Friday’s
rally, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained nearly 402 points, or 1.3%.
The S&P 500 rose 1.36%, and the Nasdaq Composite was 1.28% higher. Still,
the major averages closed the week with losses. The Dow ended a four-week win
streak on rate hiking fears.
Tuesday’s midterm election will
determine which party will control Congress, and impact the direction of future
spending. Democrats currently control the House, and have a majority in the
Senate. A Republican sweep could signal
greater support of oil and gas companies.
On the economic front, investors
are anticipating Thursday’s CPI report will give further insight into the
Federal Reserve’s efforts to squash inflation. A hot inflation report could
signal to investors that a pivot from higher interest rates, for longer, could
be further away than expected.
″[In] order for the equity and
bond markets to match the post-peak inflation performance noted in the table,
inflation needs to keep coming down — and at a faster pace than we’ve yet seen.
Until the Fed signals the ‘pivot’ is near, things could remain challenging,”
Baird’s Ross Mayfield wrote in a recent note.
Elsewhere, several companies are
expected to report Monday including Palantir Technologies, Activision Blizzard, Lyft and Take-Two Interactive.
Corporate earnings season is winding down with a majority of companies in the
S&P 500 having reported results.
Apple says iPhone
production temporarily reduced because of Covid-19 restrictions in China
Apple said iPhone
14 production has been temporarily
reduced because of Covid-19 restrictions at its assembly plant
in Zhengzhou, China, according to a statement Sunday.
The warning could
mean the tech company may struggle to meet demand in December as it deals
“significantly reduced capacity” at the plant. The company has previously
signaled slowing growth in its iPhone business in its earnings
report last month.
The warning from
Apple comes as China in the past week ordered lockdowns in Zhengzhou, where
Apple does the majority of its iPhone production. According to Reuters, employees have fled the facility because
of Covid restrictions and outbreaks.
Dow
futures slide 200 points as investors await midterm elections and inflation
report (cnbc.com)
Facebook
parent Meta is preparing large-scale layoffs this week, Wall Street Journal
reports
November 6, 2022 10:23
PM GMT
Nov 6 (Reuters) -
Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) is planning to begin large-scale
layoffs this week that will affect thousands of employees, the Wall Street
Journal reported on Sunday citing people familiar with the matter, with an
announcement planned as early as Wednesday.
Meta
declined to comment on the WSJ report.
Facebook
parent Meta in October forecasted a weak holiday quarter and
significantly more costs next year wiping about $67 billion off Meta's stock
market value, adding to the more than half a trillion dollars in value already
lost this year.
The disappointing
outlook comes as Meta is contending with slowing global economic growth,
competition from TikTok, privacy changes from Apple (AAPL.O), concerns about massive spending on
the metaverse and the ever-present threat of regulation.
Chief
Executive Mark Zuckerberg has said he expects the metaverse investments to take
about a decade to bear fruit. In the meantime, he has had to freeze hiring,
shutter projects and reorganize teams to trim costs.
"In 2023,
we're going to focus our investments on a small number of high priority growth
areas. So that means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams
will stay flat or shrink over the next year. In aggregate, we expect to end
2023 as either roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization
than we are today" Zuckerberg said on the last earnings call in late
October.
The
social media company had in June cut plans to hire engineers by at
least 30%, with Zuckerberg warning employees to brace for an economic downturn.
Meta's shareholder Altimeter Capital Management in an open
letter to Mark Zuckerberg had previously said the company needs to streamline
by cutting jobs and capital expenditure, adding that Meta has lost investor
confidence as it ramped up spending and pivoted to the metaverse.
More
Finally, this won’t help end global food
price inflation.
Rescue efforts in
full swing as Australia’s inland towns brace for flood peaks
PUBLISHED SAT, NOV 5 20225:40 AM
EDT
Emergency crews in Australia’s most populous state
New South Wales were evacuating people and livestock and sandbagging towns on
Saturday ahead of an expected peak in floodwaters, with one river forecast to
hit a 70-year high water mark.
Australia’s east is in the grip of the fourth
major flood crisis this year due to a multi-year La Nina weather phenomenon,
typically associated with increased rainfall. The flooding has left thousands
homeless and damaged agricultural industries.
Authorities have announced at least A$2 billion
($1.3 billion) in disaster relief to help thousands of residents repair homes
and in some cases move from flood-prone areas.
Across New South
Wales (NSW) state there were 103 flood warnings on Saturday.
In Forbes, a rural
town in the state’s wheatbelt about five hours drive from Sydney, some
businesses have already been swamped by the rising Lachlan River, which is
forecast to peak at a 70-year high of 10.8 metres (32 feet) on Saturday.
Rescuers used high
clearance vehicles on Friday to access a pregnant woman whose water broke and
needed urgent medical care, the NSW State Emergency Service (SES), said in a
statement.
“We’ve had a couple
of flood rescues…right now I am at a property east of Forbes helping move some
horses. We’ve been sandbagging, resupplying essential supplies, evacuations and
flood rescues,” said Ryan Jones from the Forbes SES unit.
“It has been non-stop
all day.”
Along the
Murrumbidgee River near the town of Wagga Wagga floods peaked on Friday at the
highest level since 2010.
NSW Minister for
Flood Recovery Steph Cooke warned that while the wet weather had eased, towns
downstream from swollen rivers now faced the risk of flooding.
“Whilst we are
experiencing a reprieve in the weather, the risk has not abated in relation to
the amount of water that is in our river systems, passing through our
communities and impacting on the daily lives of communities right across New
South Wales,” said Cooke at a press conference.
The southern state of
Victoria was also preparing for floodwaters in the Murray River reaching Swan
Hill in the northwest of the state in the next few days.
All four of
Australia’s eastern states, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania
have been hit with floods this year.
Rescue efforts in full swing as Australia's inland towns brace for flood peaks (cnbc.com)
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.
Column:
Fed and BoE dismantle sterling rate support :Mike Dolan
November 4, 20221
0:00 AM GMT
LONDON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - The U.S.
Federal Reserve and the Bank of England sent two very clear signals to
financial markets this week - don't underestimate how high U.S. interest rates
will go and don't overstate peak UK rates.
By design or not, the deliberately
crafted messages opened another trapdoor under sterling by widening the
Transatlantic gap between Fed and BoE 'terminal rates' for 2023, a spread which
crossed again this week in the dollar's favour for the first time since the
British fiscal shock began brewing in August.
The pound duly took its cue and dropped
almost 2% against the U.S. currency following the one-two salvo - its worst
one-day hit since the botched British budget of Sept. 23.
The jawboning on both sides of the
ocean was a curious attempt to fine tune market expectations rather than some
random asides at respective press briefings.
As both central banks delivered
swingeing 75 basis point hikes to their main policy rates this week, the
Fed on Wednesday pushed back against any vain investor hopes that the
end of its tightening cycle may be nigh - even if the sheer pace of hiking
inevitably slows from here.
The net effect was to catapult next
year's implied Fed terminal rate well above 5%. Both one and two year rates
soared to their highest in 15 years and show that little to no retreat from
those peaks seems likely over that horizon.
And with the dollar re-invigorated
worldwide as a result, the BoE supercharged
it against the pound on Thursday by insisting money markets had got it wrong
about either its willingness or ability to match those U.S. peak rates above
5%.
"Based on where we stand today, we
think Bank Rate will have to go up by less than currently priced in financial
markets," said Governor Andrew Bailey in an unusually blunt message
delivered even as implied market rates had retreated by half to 4.75%.
The BoE's argument was pretty simple.
Britain's economy simply can't take that level of monetary tightening and if it
matched prior market assumptions of peak rates at 5%-plus then Britain would
sink into its worst recession on record lasting two full years.
That view is reinforced by fears the
British government's fiscal plan will now swing back from the wildly
destabilising tax cuts of September to a biting austerity of spending
reductions and tax rises later this month.
What's more, the peculiar exposure of
Britain's high percentage of homeowners to brutal mortgage rate rises only rams
home the limitations of a scorched earth interest rate policy.
Independent British think tank the
National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimated on Thursday that
monthly variable rate mortgage repayments by some two and half million
households would double if BoE rates hit 5% - and 30,000 households could have
monthly mortgage payments exceed their incomes.
---- BANK "IN A
HOLE"
Although the BoE insisted further hikes
from 3% would likely be needed, two of the nine person policymaking council
voted for a smaller rate rise this week. And the Bank's own models suggest it
could basically hit its 2% inflation target in two years' time anyway if rates
stayed here at 3%.
"The implications are that the BoE
has done the majority of what they feel they need to do and we may not even see
a 4% handle on the base rate," said Candriam fund manager Jamie Niven.
"Given underlying economic challenges for the UK and the lag in the impact
of recent hikes, I tend to agree. The stark contrast to the tone of the Fed
last night is notable."
State Street's EMEA macro strategist
Tim Graf also thinks a terminal rate closer to 4% is now "the more likely
end state for policy rates."
All of which spells more trouble for an
ailing pound - just 7% off a record low of $1.0380 hit during September's
shock. If British inflation doesn't dissipate quite as quickly as Bank models
assume and the BoE remains as doubtful about the horizon for peak rates as it
did this week, then relative real yields could sap sterling even further.
More
Column: Fed and BoE dismantle sterling rate support :Mike Dolan | Reuters
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
Corne
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.
Do new
Covid ‘Scrabble’ variants make omicron boosters pointless? Here’s what experts
say
Published Sat, Nov 5 20229:00 AM EDT
If you’ve received a new omicron-specific
Covid booster, you’re the most protected you possibly can be against the
virus.
But there’s a new batch of so-called “Scrabble”
variants circulating globally. While omicron’s BA.5 subvariant still
accounts for nearly 40% of U.S. Covid cases, strains like BQ.1, BQ.1.1 and
BA.4.6 are rising each week, according to the latest Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention data.
The new strains present an uncomfortable question: Are the new bivalent
boosters still worth getting, or has the virus already outmaneuvered them?
“A booster is a booster,” Dr. Roy Gulick, chief of the division of infectious disease
at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian Hospital, tells CNBC Make
It. “What about all these new Scrabble variants? The message remains the same:
Get boosted, provoke your immune system to make a good response to the virus.”
The emerging strains are new enough that booster-shot-protection data
doesn’t yet exist for them. But experts still expect the shots to ramp up your
immunity against all Covid variants, to some degree.
Here’s why, and what else you need to know.
The new variants are
descendants of omicron, which is a promising initial sign for the boosters.
“We have some hope, especially since this is all the same omicron. They’re
just multiple subvariants,” says Dr. Rachael Lee, an associate professor in the
division of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
“I’m hoping that that is enough to protect us through fall.”
Even though the Scrabble variants have found new ways to “cut through our
immunity,” they likely can’t evade vaccine-induced protection entirely, says Dr.
Deborah Fuller, a University of Washington School of Medicine
microbiologist.
More
Experts weigh in
on omicron Covid booster protection against variants (cnbc.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.
Why Do Batteries Lose Charge When You Aren’t Using Them?
NOV 3,
2022, 7:00 AM ED
You charge a tablet or a battery pack for your
power drill to 100%, put it in a drawer, and forget about it. The next time you
pull it out, the battery is dead. What gives? Here’s why batteries don’t (and
can’t) stay charged.
----Although we take them
for granted, batteries are a bit of a technological miracle. With batteries,
we’ve managed, improbably, to create a system where we can temporarily store
electrical energy in a compact container and access it on demand—and, for the
most part, it stays put without escaping into the environment.
But
the electrical energy we stash away in batteries is not entirely unlike a bunch
of school children all squashed into a classroom. The children fidget about,
full of energy, really wishing they could be outside the confines of the
classroom, racing about the playground. You could easily argue that it is not the
natural state of children to stay calm and still in neatly organized rows.
The
electrons packed away in your battery are like those fidgety kids, practically
dying to be free and bouncing around again. The natural organization of the
chemical compounds in the battery is not calm and neatly organized rows, so to
speak—which is why batteries can be quite dangerous when things go wrong.
Even
when your device is completely turned off or the battery is disconnected
entirely, as is the case with power tool batteries removed from the tool, it’s
not truly off on an atomic level. The chemical reaction inside the battery that
makes the battery possible is still active, albeit in a much more subdued way
than when you’re actually using the battery.
This
continued low-level activity within the battery slowly depletes the stored
energy. It’s called self-discharge—electrical discharge in the absence of an
external load placed upon the battery—and it’s unavoidable.
Different Battery Types Discharge at Different Rates
If
you’ve paid attention to the kind of batteries your different devices use and
how often they seem to run down when left off the charger for too long, you’ve
likely noticed that not all batteries are created equal.
While
all batteries suffer from self-discharge as a fundamental side effect of their
design and, you know, obeying the physical laws that govern the universe, the
rate at which they discharge is significantly different. Here are some common
rechargeable battery types and how quickly they discharge.
|
Battery Type |
Self-Discharge
Rate Per Month |
|
Lithium-Ion |
2-3% |
|
Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMH) |
25-30% |
|
Low-Discharge Nickel-Metal Hydride |
0.25-0.50% |
|
Nickel-Cadmium (Ni-Cad) |
15-20% |
|
Lead-Acid |
4-6% |
Lithium-ion
batteries are the kind of batteries most of us have the most frequent
experience with. That’s the kind of batteries used in smartphones, smartwatches,
tablets, laptop computers, and a wide variety of other consumer electronics
like drones, action cameras, Bluetooth speakers, and so on. They’re also the
kind of batteries found in electric vehicles.
More
Why Do Batteries Lose Charge When You Aren’t Using Them? (howtogeek.com)
“The people who cast
the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”
Joseph Stalin.
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