Baltic
Dry Index. 1515 Brent Crude 82.83
Spot Gold 1809 US 2 Year Yield 4.31 -0.01
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,103
Coronavirus Cases 29/12/22 World 663,380,366
Deaths 6,691,567
Woop Woop, Terrain Terrain, Pull Up Pull Up! Crash!!!
With just two trading days left in a dismal year for most stocks and all of cryptoland, does a stock market crash lie ahead in early 2023?
Hopefully
not, but if rising doubts about crypto’s Binance exchange are even halfway
correct, a crypto crash spill over into the larger G-7 economy lies ahead.
Next
week, alleged FTX fraudster SBF gets to enter his plea to all the charges.
Rollover time, but on whom?
Getting out early always beats getting carried out last, as does making a deal.
Asia-Pacific
markets fall, taking lead from Wall Street’s losses
UPDATED THU, DEC 29 2022 12:38 AM EST
Asia-Pacific
markets traded lower, taking the lead from Wall Street’s losses overnight as
investors looked to the year ahead.
The Nikkei 225 in Japan
fell 1.05% while the Topix shed 0.8%. South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.51% as
the country’s retail sales for November fell 1.8%, the
third consecutive month of declines, reversing gains seen in the third quarter.
The S&P/ASX 200 in
Australia also fell 0.97%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped
0.92% – despite further
easing of Covid restrictions takes into effect today, with
stocks related to re-opening being closely watched. The city will release its
trade data later in the day.
In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite lost
0.27% and the Shenzhen
Component bucked the trend and traded 0.31% higher.
The U.S. government announced it will require
airline passengers arriving from China, Hong Kong and Macau to show a negative
Covid test starting Jan. 5 regardless of nationality of vaccination status.
Overnight on Wall Street, the
major indexes closed lower as investors headed into the final
trading days of the 2022, with Apple weighing heavily on the Dow as it broke a
key level and fell to another
52-week low.
Asia-Pacific markets, Wall Street, industrial output, Hong Kong eases restrictions (cnbc.com)
U.S.
stocks drop on recession fears, Nasdaq closes at new bear market low
December 28, 2022 11:54 PM GMT
Dec 28 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main
indexes ended weaker on Wednesday, with the Nasdaq hitting a 2022 closing low,
as investors grappled with mixed economic data, rising COVID cases in China,
and geopolitical tensions heading into 2023.
The Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) ended at 10,213.288, the
lowest since the bear market began in November 2021 after the index hit a
record high. The last time the Nasdaq ended lower was in July 2020. Its
previous closing low for 2022 was 10,321.388 on Oct. 14.
"There was no Santa rally this year. The Grinch showed up this December for investors," said Greg Bassuk, chief executive at AXS Investments in Port Chester, New York.
December is typically a strong month for equities, with a rally in
the week after Christmas. The S&P 500 index (.SPX) has posted only 18 Decembers
with losses since 1950, Truist Advisory Services data show.
---- All
11 of the S&P 500 (.SPX) sector
indexes fell on Wednesday. Energy stocks (.SPNY) were the biggest losers,
dipping over 2.2% as worries over demand in China weighed on oil prices.
Investors have been assessing China's move to reopen its
COVID-battered economy as infections surged.
"With this current combination of
rising cases with an opening up of China restrictions, we're seeing that
investors are concerned that the ramifications are going to spread through many
different industries and sectors as it did in the earlier COVID period,"
Bassuk said.
The benchmark S&P 500 (.SPX) is down
20% year-to-date, on track for its biggest annual loss since the financial
crisis of 2008. The rout has been more severe for the tech-heavy Nasdaq
Composite (.IXIC), which closed at the lowest level
since July 2020.
While recent data pointing to an easing
in inflationary pressures has bolstered hopes of smaller interest rate hikes by
the Federal Reserve, a tight labor market and resilient American economy have
spurred worries that rates could stay higher for longer.
Markets are now pricing in 69% odds of
a 25-basis point rate hike at the U.S. central bank's February meeting and see
rates peaking at 4.94% in the first half of next year. .
Shares of Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) gained 3.3% in choppy trade,
a day after hitting the lowest level in more than two years. The stock is down
nearly 69% for the year.
Southwest Airlines Co (LUV.N) dropped 5.2% a day after the
carrier came under fire from the U.S.
government for canceling thousands of flights.
Apple Inc (AAPL.O), Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) and Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) fell between 1.5% and 3.1% as
the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield recovered from a brief fall to rise for a third
straight session.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell 365.85 points, or 1.1%, to
32,875.71; the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost
46.03 points, or 1.20%, at 3,783.22; and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) dropped 139.94 points, or
1.35%, to 10,213.29.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers
on the NYSE by a 3.77-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.97-to-1 ratio favored
decliners.
More
U.S. stocks drop on recession fears, Nasdaq closes at
new bear market low | Reuters
S&P 500 futures
rise slightly as Wall Street heads into the final trading days of 2022
UPDATED WED, DEC 28 2022 11:05 PM EST
S&P 500
futures rose slightly on Wednesday night, as investors head into the final
trading days of 2022.
Dow Jones Industrial Average
futures added 29 points, or 0.09%. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures climbed
0.14% and 0.23%, respectively.
The action follows a broad
sell-off during the regular session Wednesday as recession
fears weighed on investor sentiment in a losing week, month and year. The Dow
Jones Industrial Average lost 365.85 points, or 1.1%. The S&P 500 fell
1.2%, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.35%.
The major averages are headed
toward their worst year since 2008. The Dow has lost 9.5%, while the S&P
500 shed 20.6%. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq is the worst performer, down 34.7% as
investors dumped growth stocks.
“Investors are anticipating an
economic recession to materialize early in 2023, as evidenced by the three
quarters of projected S&P 500 earnings declines and continued defensive
sector leanings,” Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research,
wrote in a Wednesday note. “The severity of the recession remains in question.
We expect it to be mild.”
On Thursday, traders are
expecting the latest data on weekly jobless claims before the bell. Economists
surveyed by Dow Jones are forecasting initial jobless claims to total 223,000
for the week ended Dec. 24, a rise from 216,000 during the previous period.
S&P
500 futures rise slightly in the final trading days of 2022 (cnbc.com)
In cryptoland
news, more trouble at FTX. New doubts about Binance.
FTX diverted $200
million of customer money for two venture deals that caught the SEC’s attention
PUBLISHED WED, DEC 28 2022 5:34
PM EST
Of the billions of dollars in customer deposits
that disappeared from
FTX in a flash, $200 million was used to fund investments in two companies,
according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which charged founder Sam Bankman-Fried with “orchestrating a
scheme to defraud equity investors.”
Through its FTX Ventures unit, the crypto firm in
March invested $100 million in Dave, a fintech company that had gone public two months earlier
through a special purpose acquisition company. At the time, the companies said
they would “work together to expand the digital assets ecosystem.”
The other deal the SEC appears to have referenced
was a $100 million investment round in September for Mysten Labs, a Web3 company. In total, it was a $300 million funding round that valued Mysten at $2 billion and included
participation from Coinbase Ventures,
Binance Labs and Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto fund.
While FTX Ventures has done dozens of
transactions, according to PitchBook, the Mysten Labs and Dave investments were
the only two disclosed investments of $100 million, based on documents
published by the Financial Times, which broke down how the company put $5.2 billion to
work. FTX Ventures was described as a $2 billion venture fund, in its press
release with Dave.
Bankman-Fried, 30, stands accused of committing widespread fraud after FTX, which was valued by private investors at
$32 billion earlier this year, sank into bankruptcy in
November. A central theme in the charges is how Bankman-Fried diverted funds
from FTX to his hedge fund, Alameda Research, which then used that money for
risky trades and loans. FTX Ventures was allegedly part of that scheme.
Neither Mysten nor Dave have been linked to any
alleged wrongdoing within Bankman-Fried’s empire. But the investments appear
to be the first identified examples of customer money
being used by FTX and Bankman-Fried for venture funding. As investigators and
FTX lawyers attempt to retrace the outflow of FTX funds, these identified
investments and others in the $5 billion venture pool will attract heavy
scrutiny.
In explicitly linking the two $100 million
investments to customer money, the SEC has raised the possibility that they’ll
be prospects for clawbacks.
More
FTX used $200 million of customer funds for two
venture investments (cnbc.com)
Binance
May Be Next Crypto COLLAPSE as Withdraws Increase & US DOJ Considers Money
Laundering Charge
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.
Inflation, recession and earnings among factors to drive U.S.
stocks in 2023
December
28, 2022 6:09 AM GMT
NEW YORK, Dec 28 (Reuters) - U.S. stock
investors could not be more eager to turn the page on 2022, a brutal year
dominated by market-punishing Federal Reserve rate hikes designed to tamp down
the steepest inflation in 40 years.
The S&P 500 (.SPX) is down nearly 20% year-to-date
with only a few trading days left in 2022, on pace for its biggest
calendar-year drop since 2008. The carnage has been even more severe for the
Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), which had
tumbled by nearly 34% so far for the year.
High-profile casualties include the once-soaring shares of Amazon.com
Inc (AMZN.O), which have slumped around 50%
this year, while those of Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) are down some 70% and
Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) shares have lost about 65%.
Meanwhile, energy stocks (.SPNY) have
bucked the trend by posting eye-popping gains.
Inflation, and the Fed's degree of aggressiveness in trying to contain it,
will likely remain a critical factor driving equity performance as 2023 gets
under way. But investors will also be watching for fallout from higher interest
rates, including how tighter monetary policy ripples through the economy and
whether it makes other assets more competitive with stocks.
Here is a look at some of the big themes
for the U.S. stock market in 2023.
RECESSION OR SOFT LANDING?
Perhaps the biggest question that will
sway stocks as the new year begins is whether the economy is headed for a
recession, as many investors are expecting.
If a recession starts next year, stocks
could be set for another slide: A bear market has never bottomed before the
beginning of a recession, historic data showed.
Recessions tend to hit stocks hard,
with the S&P 500 falling an average of 29% during recessions since World
War Two, according to Truist Advisory Services. Those declines, however, have
usually been followed by a strong rebound.
More
Inflation, recession and earnings among factors to
drive U.S. stocks in 2023 | 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 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.
Kulldorff ‘Not Surprised’ About Being Censored by Twitter, Says
Trust in Science Has Been Undermined
Epidemiologist Martin
Kulldorff reacts to being censored by Twitter following the latest 'Twitter
Files' revelations
By and December
27, 2022 Updated: December 28, 2022
Martin Kulldorff, a prominent epidemiologist,
biostatistician, and former Harvard School of Medicine professor, said he was
“not surprised” after seeing concrete evidence that a post he shared on Twitter
was flagged and prevented from wider dissemination.
He expressed disapproval and said that the social media
giant’s overall censorship actions have stifled free debate on COVID-19 topics
and undermined trust in science.
In
the latest installment of the Elon Musk-endorsed “Twitter Files” published early on Dec. 26, journalist David Zweig shared how posts from Kulldorff
and several others about COVID-19, including about vaccines, were flagged and
censored in various ways by Twitter.
It
marked the first trove of direct evidence from the “Twitter Files” showing how
Twitter censored scientists, potentially at the behest of the U.S. government,
ever since journalist Bari Weiss revealed in early December that Stanford University
professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya had been put on a blacklist due to his views on COVID-19-related lockdowns
and school closures.
While
Kulldorff said he was not surprised by evidence showing how he and others were
censored, he said Twitter should not be the arbiter of which scientists have
valid views, and that such censorship shouldn’t happen.
“There
should be an open discussion. You can’t expect people to trust public health
and trust the scientific community if you don’t have that open communication
and open debate,” Kulldorff told The Epoch Times.
In
the Twitter post of concern, dated March 26, 2021, Kulldorff said that children and those who had been infected
with SARS-CoV-2 do not need to be vaccinated, but that vaccines were
important for older high-risk people and their caretakers. The post was flagged
by a Twitter moderator as having violated the company’s COVID-19
“misinformation policy.”
An
internal email shared by Zweig showed that the moderator claimed
Kulldorff had shared “false information regarding the efficacy of the COVID-19
vaccines, which goes against CDC guidelines.” Twitter subsequently labeled the
post as “misleading” and turned off all likes and replies.
“But
Kulldorff’s statement was an expert’s opinion—one which also happened to be in
line with vaccine policies in numerous other countries. Yet it was deemed
‘false information’ by Twitter moderators merely because it differed from CDC
guidelines,” Zweig wrote. “After Twitter took action, Kulldorff’s tweet was
slapped with a ‘Misleading’ label and all replies and likes were shut off,
throttling the tweet’s ability to be seen and shared by many people, the
ostensible core function of the platform.”
Kulldorff
reiterated his views on COVID-19 vaccination in children, telling The Epoch
Times late Monday: “We know and we’ve known ever since the very beginning of
the pandemic, and the data from Wuhan, that children are at minuscule risk …
from dying from COVID-19.”
“So the benefit of
the vaccine, therefore, is almost nothing, because it doesn’t prevent
[transmission]. [And] the risk of death and hospitalization [with children] is
very low. The benefit is very, very small. We know that,” he added.
“So then the question is, what are the potential harms? And
we know there are potential harms, with myocarditis, for example. I think the
benefit is so tiny it’s not worth taking the risks of adverse reactions, which
we know there is myocarditis, but we don’t know the full extent of adverse
reactions yet.”
More
Pfizer’s Shots Aren’t Safe and Were Never Shown to Be
Dec 27 2022
mRNA spike
protein wasn’t the only thing autopsies found in people who died shortly after
getting the jab. Combined with insurance datasets showing the increase in
deaths had a 1 in 390,632,286,180 chance of occurring spontaneously, this is a
dagger through the heart for Pfizer and their crew.
STORY
AT-A-GLANCE
·
Dr. Kathryn Edwards, a member of Pfizer’s data
safety monitoring board (DSMB), was previously a paid adviser to Pfizer. DSMBs
are supposed to be independent, and aren’t if members have previous relationships
with the company
·
German autopsies found “highly unusual tissue
inflammation” in people who died shortly after getting the jab, and
investigators suspect the inflammation observed would be fatal. They also found
spike protein in the tissues of the deceased, but not another key part of
SARS-CoV-2. This suggests the actual virus was not part of the problem; the
only possible source of the spike protein was the jab
·
Data from the German health insurance provider
BKK, which covers about 10.9 million Germans, show 2.05% of COVID jab
recipients sought medical care after their jab
·
The largest German statutory health insurance
dataset, which encompasses 72 million Germans, show massive increases in sudden
and unexpected deaths after the COVID jabs rolled out
·
December 13, 2022, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis
petitioned the Florida Supreme Court for a statewide grand jury investigation
of crimes and wrongdoing committed against Floridians related to the COVID-19
jabs. He also established an independent Public Health Integrity Committee to
analyze and assess federal health guidance before they’re implemented in Florida
Contrary
to the official narrative (and hence popular belief), the COVID shots have no
demonstrated safety. In Episode 298 of The Highwire, Del Bigtree interviews
attorney Aaron Siri about the various lawsuits his firm has brought to reverse
COVID jab mandates.
More
Pfizer’s
Shots Aren’t Safe and Were Never Shown to Be (theepochtimes.com)
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.
Today, someone tell Elon Musk there’s
a real technology company for sale and it doesn’t cost 44 billion for a bunch
of FBI twits. It might eventually make something useful too.
Redcar's Applied
Graphene Materials receives buyer interest amid funding challenges
28 December 2022
A decision on the future of Applied Graphene
Materials could be made in the coming weeks, a new update from the company
suggests.
The Redcar-based graphene
dispersion specialist told the London Stock Exchange it had received takeover
proposals from "interested parties" and now hopes to receive final
offers so a decision can be made by the firm's board in early January. It comes
as 12-year-old Applied Graphene has faced funding challenges and had
started redundancy consultations with staff as a precaution in case a strategic
review led by consultants did not find a way to plug the finance gap.
The firm, which employs about
30 people, has previously said it has enough cash to continue trading until the
end of January, and in this latest update to investors it said some of the
offers on the table would require interim financing. Applied Graphene's share
price fell sharply in November when it announced it was in a race to find
funding, and it rallied slightly on news of a possible future deal.
Earlier in 2022 Applied Graphene reported
increased operating losses of £1.9m although overall revenue increased from
£42,000 to £46,000. Covid had impacted its key market as customers' focus
shifted away from research and development and supply chain issues had also
caused a "severe impact". At the time, the firm said that, despite
the challenges, more potential customers were becoming interested in graphene's
uses and that it had leased further space at its Wilton base to accommodate
anticipated increased demand.
Graphene is the thinnest and lightest
material known to science and has good strength and conductivity qualities. The
firm is built around technology first developed at Durham University and
specialises in creating dispersions - suspensions of graphene nanoplatelets in
the likes of coatings, paints and lubricants.
In an update to the London Stock
Exchange, the company said: "Current discussions with interested parties
may be altered or terminated at any time and, accordingly, there can be no
certainty that any final proposals will be made, nor as to the terms on which
any such final proposals may be made. The board previously notified that the
company has sufficient working capital to continue in operation until January
31, 2023.
"The board continues to take
action to seek to protect the financial position of the company, its
shareholders and creditors in the event that the strategic review does not
achieve a satisfactory conclusion. In parallel with the strategic review, the
process of statutory redundancy consultations with the group's employees
announced on November 23, 2022 is therefore ongoing."
Redcar's Applied
Graphene Materials receives buyer interest amid funding challenges (msn.com)
"Indeed the temporary
breaks in the market which preceded the crash were a serious trial for those
who had declined fantasy. Early in 1928, in June, in December, and in February
and March of 1929 it seemed that the end had come. On various of these
occasions the [New York] Times
happily reported the return to reality. And then the market took flight again.
Only a durable sense of doom could survive such discouragement. The time was
coming when the optimists would reap a rich harvest of discredit. But it has
long since been forgotten that for many months those who resisted reassurance
were similarly, if less permanently discredited.”
J. K. Galbraith. The Great
Crash: 1929.
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