Saturday 10 December 2022

Special Update 10/12/2022 The Fed Will Hike But How High.

 Baltic Dry Index. 1386 +01   Brent Crude 76.10

Spot Gold 1797       U S 2 Year Yield 4.33 +0.02

Covid-19 cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000

Deaths 53,100

Covid-19 cases 03/12/22 World 653,031,475

Deaths 6,657,268

"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."

Ludwig von Mises.

After the US producer price index rose more than expected in November, is a US interest rate increase of 0.75 percent back again next week rather than the widely anticipated smaller increase of 0.50 percent?

My guess is probably not, but that wasn’t how the punters in the US stock casinos reacted on Friday.

Is the widely expected year-end Santa Claus rally about to turn into a massive Santa Claus sell-off?

 

Dow tumbles 300 points Friday, posts worst week since September

UPDATED FRI, DEC 9 2022 6:09 PM EST

Stocks finished lower Friday, with all the major averages posting losses for the week as worries persisted over continued rate hikes.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 305.02 points, or 0.9%, to close at 33,476.46. The S&P 500 tumbled 0.73% to end at 3,934.38, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.7% to finish at 11,004.62.

On a weekly basis, the Dow fell 2.77% to post its worst week since September. The S&P tumbled 3.37%, while the Nasdaq dropped 3.99%.

Friday’s moves came after November’s producer price index showed higher-than-expected wholesale prices, which rose 0.3% last month and 7.4% over the previous year. Core PPI, which excludes food and energy, also topped expectations.

Optimistic consumer sentiment data alleviated some fears, but attention remains laser-focused on next week’s busy economic calendar.

Attention shifted toward the consumer price index due out Tuesday, which is expected to show whether inflation has receded. The Federal Reserve will likely deliver a 50 basis point hike at the end of its December meeting on Wednesday. While the increase would be smaller than the previous four hikes, concerns have mounted over whether the central bank can architect a soft landing and prevent a recession.

Investors have long hoped for a pivot from the Fed’s aggressive tightening stance, but the data fails to support that desire, said Stephanie Lang, chief investment officer at Homrich Berg.

“It’s our expectation that we really need to see inflation come down closer to the fed funds rate for the Fed to pause, and we still have quite a bit of delta between those numbers,” she said. “There’s still a bit of work to be done on the inflation front to really see that as the reality.”

In other news, shares of Lululemon tumbled nearly 13% after the company gave a weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter outlook. DocuSign jumped on strong results.

Dow tumbles 300 points Friday, posts worst week since September (cnbc.com)

Finally, news from cryptoland. Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

Bahamas attorneys file emergency motion in FTX case for access to databases with client information

Attorneys in the Bahamas filed an emergency motion on Friday asking a Delaware bankruptcy judge to compel U.S. leaders of failed crypto firm FTX to give them access to databases as part of the proceedings.

The emergency motion claims that despite “many attempts to obtain access,” FTX employees and counsel have stymied Bahamian regulators in their effort to get critical financial information located in Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Portal databases.

The lawyers, working on behalf of the Securities Commission of the Bahamas, said the U.S. bankruptcy proceedings will “suffer no harm or hardship if this relief is granted.” They’re seeking data on FTX international customers that is stored on AWS servers, including “wallet addresses, customer balances, deposit and withdrawal records, trades, and accounting data.” Google’s technology served as an analytics platform for FTX International’s data.

“While the Joint Provisional Liquidators are happy to engage in dialogue with the U.S. Debtors, their refusal to promptly restore access has frustrated the ability of the Joint Provisional Liquidators to carry out their duties under Bahamian law and placed FTX Digital’s assets at risk of dissipation,” the filing read.

FTX filed for bankruptcy protection last month after a liquidity crunch at the crypto exchange, which was intermingling assets with sister hedge fund Alameda Research. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who had an estimated net worth of $16 billion before the collapse, will appear before U.S. lawmakers next week.

Bahamas files emergency motion in FTX case for access to customer data (cnbc.com)

FTX founder Bankman-Fried to testify before U.S. House panel

WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried is set to testify before a U.S. House committee on Tuesday, the cryptocurrency exchange's founder and the congressional panel said on Friday, as regulators investigate his role in the wake of its collapse.

The chair of the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services, Maxine Waters, told Reuters on Thursday that she was prepared to subpoena Bankman-Fried if he did not agree to appear before the panel, which is holding a hearing as part of its probe into FTX.

In a statement late on Friday, the panel said it would hear from newly appointed FTX CEO John Ray and from Bankman-Fried, FTX's founder and former CEO, on Tuesday.

"I still do not have access to much of my data -- professional or personal. So there is a limit to what I will be able to say, and I won't be as helpful as I'd like," Bankman-Fried said on Friday on Twitter.

"But as the committee still thinks it would be useful, I am willing to testify on the 13th," he added.

The hybrid hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. ET (1500 GMT) on Tuesday, the committee said.

More

FTX founder Bankman-Fried to testify before U.S. House panel | Reuters

Crypto.com CEO has history of red flags including bankruptcy and quick exits

Kris Marszalek wants everyone to know that his company, Crypto.com, is safe and in good hands. His TV appearances and tweets make that clear.

It’s an understandable approach. The crypto markets have been in freefall for much of the year, with high-profile names spiraling into bankruptcy. When FTX failed last month just after founder Sam Bankman-Fried said the crypto exchange’s assets were fine, trust across the industry evaporated.

Marszalek, who has operated out of Asia for over a decade, subsequently assured clients that their funds belong to them and are readily available, in contrast to FTX, which used client money for all sorts of risky and allegedly fraudulent activities, according to court filings and legal experts. 

Bankman-Fried has denied knowing about any fraud. Regardless, FTX clients are now out billions of dollars with bankruptcy proceedings underway.

Crypto.com, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, may well be in fine health. After the FTX collapse, the company published its unaudited, partial proof of reserves. The release revealed that nearly 20% of customer funds were in a meme token called shiba inu, an amount eclipsed only by its bitcoin allocation. That percentage has dropped since the initial release to about 15%, according to Nansen Analytics. 

Marszalek said in a Nov. 14 livestream on YouTube that the wallet addresses were representative of customer holdings. 

On Friday, Crypto.com published an audited proof of reserves, attesting that customer assets were held on a one-to-one basis, meaning that all deposits are 100% backed by Crypto.com’s reserves.  The audit was performed by the Mazars Group, the former accountant for the Trump Organization.

While no evidence has emerged of wrongdoing at Crypto.com, Marszalek’s business history is replete with red flags. Following the collapse of a prior company in 2009, a judge called Marszalek’s testimony unreliable. His business activities before 2016 — the year he founded what would become Crypto.com — involved a multimillion-dollar settlement over claims of defective products, corporate bankruptcy and an e-commerce company that failed shortly after a blowout marketing campaign left sellers unable to access their money.

Court records, public filings and offshore database leaks reveal a businessman who moved from industry to industry, rebooting quickly when a venture would fail. He started in manufacturing, producing data storage products for white label sale, then moved into e-commerce, and finally into crypto.

More

Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek: Red flags from business past (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.

Wall St Week Ahead U.S. stock rally faces gauntlet of CPI data, Fed meeting

NEW YORK, Dec 9 (Reuters) - A double dose of potentially market-moving U.S. events next week could set the tone for asset prices in the rest of 2022 and beyond, as investors brace for a key inflation report followed by the last Federal Reserve meeting of the year.

The S&P 500’s (.SPX) latest rebound stalled in the past week, as stronger-than-expected economic data fueled concerns that the Fed will need to keep interest rates higher for longer in its bid to crush inflation, potentially bringing on a recession. The index has bounced about 10% from its October lows but remains down more than 17% on the year.

Equities’ trajectory in the near future may depend on whether Tuesday’s consumer price index report shows inflation is responding to the most aggressive Fed hiking cycle since the 1980s. Hotter-than-expected data could bolster fears of more Fed hawkishness, pressuring stocks.

“If CPI comes in north of expectations or even doesn’t decline at all, that is not going to be market-positive," said Tom Hainlin, national investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management.

CPI reports have been catalysts for outsized swings in markets this year, with the S&P 500 moving an average of around 3% in either direction over the past six CPI releases, compared with an average daily move of about 1.2% over the same period.

That includes a Sept. 13 inflation release that sparked a 4.3% sell-off and a Nov. 10 report showing softer-than-expected inflation that fueled a 5.5% rise and helped stocks extend their latest rally. A second helping of benign data could bolster the case for a peak in inflation and buoy equities further.

“Typically around the CPI reports it has been pretty volatile this year, and I don’t see a reason to think it still won’t be that way when we get the data next week,” said David Lefkowitz, head of U.S. equities at UBS Global Wealth Management.

Meanwhile, investors are factoring in a half-percentage-point rate hike from the Fed next week, a step down from its recent series of three-quarter-point increases. With Wednesday's rate action largely seen as a foregone conclusion, Wall Street will be focused on the central bank’s projections for how high rates will ultimately rise.

Also key will be Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s views on inflation and the possibility that the economy can slip into recession next year – an idea that has filtered into asset prices and dominated investor thinking lately.

One closely watched indicator can be seen in the U.S. government bond market, where the Treasury yield curve recently inverted to its steepest level in at least 20 years, magnifying a signal that has preceded past economic downturns.

More

Wall St Week Ahead U.S. stock rally faces gauntlet of CPI data, Fed meeting | 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

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/environmental-disaster-ev-battery-metals-crunch-horizon-industry-races-recycle

Covid-19 Corner

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

As COVID-19 becomes routine, Africa readies for next crisis

The World Health Organization’s Africa director said that the continent is preparing for the next health crisis by strengthening gaps in health systems found in the continent's response to the COVID-19 pandemic

8 December 2022

Building on the experience of battling the COVID-19 pandemic, African countries are strengthening health systems to prepare for the next health crisis, the World Health Organization’s Africa director said Thursday.

At the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, some of the 54 countries in the continent of 1.3 billion people lacked the facilities or trained health workers to respond adequately to the health crisis, with some struggling to provide hospital isolation wards and intensive care units, Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization’s Africa regional director, said at an online briefing Thursday.

However, over the course of three years, African countries have ramped up investments in health infrastructure in the race against the pandemic with support from global donors, she said.

“The future, however difficult the past couple of years have been, will find us in a much better situation in terms of our strategies, our investments and our capacities to confront public health threats,” said Moeti.

"We know now what we need to do to be able to make sure that our systems are resilient to the impact of a shock like an outbreak,” she said.

---- “Whatever happens in the future, the next pandemic will find the world and Africa much readier” in its response, she said, optimistic about “important partnerships” and African institutions being established “to take the lead to work in the area of preparedness and also in primary healthcare.”

More

As COVID-19 becomes routine, Africa readies for next crisis | The Independent

World Health Organization - Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccineshttps://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines

NY Times Coronavirus Vaccine Trackerhttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html

Regulatory Focus COVID-19 vaccine trackerhttps://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker

Some more useful Covid links.

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource centre

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.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, I’ve added this section.

Scientists pit AI algorithms against each other to optimize graphene nanotube synthesis

DECEMBER 8, 2022

An international research team led by Skoltech scientists has identified the best artificial intelligence algorithm for determining the synthesis conditions that favor the formation of carbon nanotubes with properties tailored to specific applications in drug delivery, environmental monitoring sensors, lasers, hydrogen power tech, and elsewhere. The study is published in Carbon.

If you picture graphene as a one-atom-thick layer of carbon with the atoms arranged in a honeycomb pattern, then single-walled nanotubes are what you would get by wrapping a sheet of graphene into a cylinder, although that is not how CNTs are actually made.

"Our study sheds light on new ways of fine-tuning carbon nanotube properties," the study's lead author, Senior Research Scientist Dmitry Krasnikov of Skoltech, commented. "Owing to their amazing properties, CNTs have diverse applications: from drug delivery to specific tissues to devices that adsorb atmospheric carbon dioxide to offset climate change. And there is no such thing as 'one nanotube to rule them all.'

"Consider the amount of defects, for example: While perfectly structured nanotubes are sought in electronics, extra defects are key for hydrogen power-related applications."

More

Scientists pit AI algorithms against each other to optimize graphene nanotube synthesis (phys.org)

This weekend’s music diversion. The very talented Benedictine monk MK. Approx. 8  minutes.

Marianus Königsperger (1708-1769) - Concerto ex G à Organo principale (1754)

 Marianus Königsperger (1708-1769) - Concerto ex G à Organo principale (1754) - YouTube

This weekend’s chess update. Approx. 11  minutes.


Wait Till You See This Checkmate

Wait Till You See This Checkmate - YouTube

 

This weekend’s update on finance from Professor of Finance at King’s College, London, Patrick Boyle. Approx. 15 minutes.

Top Ten Finance Books For Traders & Investors

Top Ten Finance Books For Traders & Investors - YouTube

 "This first stage of the inflationary process may last for many years. While it lasts, the prices of many goods and services are not yet adjusted to the altered money relation. There are still people in the country who have not yet become aware of the fact that they are confronted with a price revolution which will finally result in a considerable rise of all prices, although the extent of this rise will not be the same in the various commodities and services. These people still believe that prices one day will drop. Waiting for this day, they restrict their purchases and concomitantly increase their cash holdings. As long as such ideas are still held by public opinion, it is not yet too late for the government to abandon its inflationary policy.

But then, finally, the masses wake up. They become suddenly aware of the fact that inflation is a deliberate policy and will go on endlessly. A breakdown occurs. The crack-up boom appears. Everybody is anxious to swap his money against 'real' goods, no matter whether he needs them or not, no matter how much money he has to pay for them. Within a very short time, within a few weeks or even days, the things which were used as money are no longer used as media of exchange. They become scrap paper. Nobody wants to give away anything against them."

Ludwig von Mises.

 


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