Baltic
Dry Index. 921 -25 Brent Crude 86.71
Spot Gold 1901 US 2 Year Yield 4.18 -0.04
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,103
Coronavirus Cases 18/01/23 World 671,911,033
Deaths 6,733,607
"We shouldn't pour cold water on everything. We, the eight
or nine players in global investment banking, have a very good future."
Deutsche Bank, CEO Josef Ackermann. Davos, January 2007. Near
collapse 2009 onwards.
In the stock casinos, another
wobble. What if the January bounce is the high of the year?
In the Lords of the Universe
gathering in Davos, rising gloom on the state of the global economy.
In Japan, bond losses from a
sneaky central bank currency devaluation. More trade war it seems.
In high tech, yet more firings.
The hi-tech bubble has burst.
European markets
head for mixed open as global economic outlook remains uncertain
UPDATED WED, JAN 18 2023 12:22 AM EST
European markets are heading for a mixed open
Wednesday as investors remain uncertain on the economic outlook, a topic high
on the agenda at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.
CNBC will be speaking to a range of delegates at
the summit on Wednesday, including the CEOs of Unicredit, Infosys, Nokia,
Aramco and Credit Suisse as well as Greece and Poland’s finance ministers and
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, among many others. Follow our coverage here.
Elsewhere overnight, Asia-Pacific shares traded
mostly higher even as the Bank of Japan announced no change to its yield curve control policy, while U.S. stock futures were
lower on Tuesday night.
---- Oil prices climb
on more China reopening optimism and demand rebound
Oil prices are supported on further China
reopening optimism and fuel demand, with OPEC forecasting that Chinese oil
demand is on track for a bounce.
Brent crude futures rose 0.85% to $86.65 a barrel, while
the U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures gained 0.91% to $80.91 a barrel.
“Chinese oil demand is on course to rebound due to
the recent relaxation of the country’s zero-Covid measures,” OPEC’s monthly oil report stated.
It added that China’s first quarter oil demand
will rebound from an annual decline of 0.3 million barrels per day year-on-year
in 2022′s fourth quarter to 0.2 million barrels per day annualized growth.
European markets live updates: Stocks, data, earnings,
WEF news (cnbc.com)
Stock futures
fall as earnings season continues
UPDATED
TUE, JAN 17 2023 7:02 PM EST
U.S. stock futures were lower on Tuesday night.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 77 points, or 0.23%. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures dipped 0.23% and 0.26%, respectively.
Shares of United Airlines rose
more than 1% in extended trading after the company beat
Wall Street’s estimates in the latest quarter, propelled
by strong travel demand.
Meanwhile, shares of Moderna jumped more than 6% in extended trading after the pharmaceutical company said its vaccine targeting respiratory syncytial virus can prevent the disease in older adults.
During the regular session Tuesday, the Dow declined about 391 points, or 1.14%. Shares of Goldman Sachs tumbled —and dragged on the 30-stock index — after the bank posted an earnings miss. The S&P 500 dipped 0.20%. Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was the only one among the major averages to buck the trend, rising 0.14%.
Those moves follow earnings results from big banks that suggested
diverging paths ahead even for names within the same sector. Goldman Sachs’
shares fell more than 6% following a drop in investment banking and asset
management revenues. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley gained 5.9%, boosted by
better-than-expected wealth management revenue.
More
Stock futures fall as earnings season continues (cnbc.com)
Stock-market rally
looks ‘unsustainable’ as S&P 500 enters ‘new, lower valuation regime,’
warns Citi
Published: Jan. 17, 2023 at 1:30 p.m.
ET
This year’s
stock-market rally has pushed the S&P 500 index to valuation levels that
make it difficult for the index to climb much higher based on the current
macroeconomic environment, according to Citigroup Inc.
The S&P 500’s
trailing price-to-earnings ratio is back to 18.2x, “dangerously close to the
upper end of our fair value range,” Citi analysts said in a research report
dated Jan 13. “We are comfortable with a 3700-4000 S&P 500 trading range
call for now.”
U.S.
stocks have rallied so far this month, with S&P 500 up 4.2% through Friday,
as investors headed into a three-day weekend honoring Martin Luther King Jr. On Tuesday afternoon, the index SPX, -0.20% was trading down 0.1% at around 3,994, according to
FactSet data, at last check.
“For now, we
suspect valuation could put a near-term cap on upside momentum,” the Citi
analysts said. “Based on our fair value framework, valuations much above
current levels are unsustainable unless there is a significant change in the
macro backdrop.”
In Citi’s view, the
S&P 500 is entering “a new, lower valuation regime” compared with the
period seen since the global financial crisis of 2008.
“This implies index
gains in this new environment will need to be ‘earned’ vis-à-vis near- and
medium-term fundamental improvement, less so from macro tailwinds behind
multiple re-rating triggered by lower interest rates,” the analysts
wrote.
BOJ defies market bets for policy tweaks, sending yen tumbling
January
18, 20235:49 AM GMT
TOKYO, Jan 18
(Reuters) - The Bank of Japan on Wednesday maintained ultra-low interest rates,
including a bond yield cap it was struggling to defend, defying market
expectations it would phase out its massive stimulus programme in the wake of
rising inflationary pressure.
The surprise
decision sent the yen skidding against other currencies and bond yields
tumbling the most in decades, as investors unwound bets they made anticipating
the central bank would overhaul its yield control policy.
Instead of
overhauling its stimulus programme, the BOJ crafted a new weapon to
prevent long-term rates from rising too much - a move some analysts took as a
sign Governor Haruhiko Kuroda will hold off on making big policy shifts during
his term that ends in April.
At a two-day
policy meeting, the BOJ kept intact its yield curve control (YCC) targets, set
at -0.1% for short-term interest rates and around 0% for the 10-year yield, by
a unanimous vote.
The central bank
also made no change to its guidance that allows the 10-year bond yield to move
50 basis points either side of its 0% target.
Underscoring its
resolve to keep defending the cap, the BOJ beefed up a key market operation
tool to more effectively curb rises in long-term interest rates.
More
BOJ defies market bets for policy tweaks, sending yen
tumbling | Reuters
Finally, from
cryptoland. Did the US just buy bitcoin to pay-off a general aviation
hack? FTX solvent says SBF.
FTX
reports $415 mln in hacked crypto, Bankman-Fried says FTX US is solvent
January 18, 20232:29
AM GMT
Jan 17 (Reuters)
- Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX said in a report to creditors on Tuesday that
about $415 million in cryptocurrency had been stolen in hacks.
FTX has said it
had recovered over $5 billion in
crypto, cash and liquid securities, but that significant shortfalls remained at
both its international and U.S. crypto exchanges. FTX attributed some of the
shortfall to hacks, saying that $323 million in crypto had been hacked from
FTX's international exchange and $90 million had been hacked from its U.S.
exchange since it filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11.
Bankman-Fried
said FTX has more than enough money to repay U.S. customers, whom he says are
owed between $181 million and $497 million based on his "best guess."
Bankman-Fried has not had access to FTX records since stepping down as CEO in
November.
A spokesperson
for Sullivan and Cromwell declined to comment. Attorneys at the firm said in a
recent court filing that they have rebuffed Bankman-Fried's efforts to stay
involved in the company's bankruptcy proceedings.
---- During FTX's
initial investigation into hacks of its system, it uncovered a
November asset seizure by the Securities Commission of the Bahamas, which led
to a dispute between
FTX's U.S.-based bankruptcy team and Bahamian regulators.
The two
sides settled their
differences in January, and Ray said on Tuesday that the Bahamian government was
holding $426 million for creditors.
Bahamas Prime
Minister Philip Davis referenced the dispute during a Tuesday event at the
Atlantic Council in Washington, saying Ray's team had "come around"
and accepted that the Bahamian asset seizure "was appropriate and perhaps
has saved the day for many of the investors in FTX."
More
FTX reports $415
mln in hacked crypto, Bankman-Fried says FTX US is solvent | 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.
The worry in Davos: Globalization is under siege
January 17 2023
DAVOS, Switzerland — A decade ago, political power brokers and
corporate bigwigs gathered here in the Swiss Alps under an upbeat theme. It
was a time for “resilient dynamism,” declared the organizers of the 2013 meeting of the
World Economic Forum. After the travails of the global financial crisis, they
explained, the world was now in a “post-crisis” stage. It was incumbent on the
elites convened at Davos to usher in further reforms in the service of economic
“sustainability” and “competitiveness,” perennial WEF watchwords that tap into
the liberal dogma that long underlay its proceedings, where the desire to do
good need not interfere with profit margins.
Ten years
on, there seems to be less optimism. Instead of a “post-crisis” moment, it’s
more common to talk of a “permacrisis,” of a world
buckling under a never-ending cascade of calamity — war, climate catastrophe,
energy price chaos, inflation, epidemics of hunger and disease, political
instability and widening economic inequity. This year’s WEF theme, a plaintive
appeal to find “cooperation in a fragmented world,” seems more possessed by the
ruptures that have already taken place. In a press call with reporters last
week, WEF President Borge Brende said the meeting “will happen against the most
complex geopolitical and geoeconomic backdrop in decades.”
Top on the agenda are concerns over a possible
global recession. There’s also the vexing challenge of climate change and the
ongoing war in Ukraine and its downstream effects, including the snarling of
the world’s grain trade that contributed to the onset of famine conditions in
swaths of sub-Saharan Africa. Beneath it all is a deeper Davos anxiety: Few
institutions are so immediately connected to neoliberalism and the project of
globalization as the forum. In an age of ascendant nationalism and great power
rivalry, where the United States itself is waging trade wars, where does
globalization go?
More
The worry in Davos: Globalization is under siege (msn.com)
More than 25,000
global tech workers laid off in the first weeks of 2023, says layoff tracking
site
Last
Updated: Jan. 17, 2023 at 4:07 p.m. ET
More than 25,000 global technology sector
employees have been laid off in the first few weeks of 2023, according to data
compiled by the Layoffs.fyi website.
The data suggest 2023 is on pace
to surpass 2022 for global tech redundancies, with 101 tech companies laying
off 25,436 employees in the first few weeks of the year. Last year, 1,024 tech
companies laid off 154,336 employees, according to Layoffs.fyi.
Layoffs.fyi was set up by San
Francisco-based startup founder Roger Lee to track layoffs during the COVID-19
pandemic. Lee is the co-founder of Human Interest, a digital 401 (k) provider
for small businesses and Comprehensive, an employee compensation platform.
Major U.S. tech companies have been
in the layoffs spotlight recently. And more could be
coming soon: Microsoft Corp. MSFT, +0.47% reportedly
plans to eliminate several thousand jobs this week, according to Sky News.
Microsoft declined comment on the report.
In early January Amazon.com
Inc. AMZN, -2.11% said
that layoffs, which were first announced last year, will impact more than
18,000 employees, more than originally expected.
In a filing with the Securities
and Exchange Commission on Jan. 4, Salesforce Inc. CRM, -0.70% said it will lay off 10% of its workforce as part
of a restructuring plan. As of February 2022, the company, which provides
customer-relationship-management software, had over 78,000 employees globally.
Last week crypto exchange
Coinbase Global Inc. COIN, +8.32% announced 950 job cuts in an attempt to cut costs.
Microsoft
to cut thousands of jobs across divisions - reports
January 18, 2023
5:18 AM GMT
Jan 17 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) plans
to cut thousands of jobs with some roles expected to be eliminated in human
resources and engineering divisions, according to media reports on Tuesday.
The expected layoffs would be the
latest in the U.S. technology sector, where companies including Amazon.com
Inc (AMZN.O) and
Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) have announced retrenchment exercises in
response to slowing demand and a worsening global economic outlook.
Microsoft's move could indicate that
the tech sector may continue to shed jobs.
"From a big picture perspective,
another pending round of layoffs at Microsoft suggests the environment is not
improving, and likely continues to worsen," Morningstar analyst Dan
Romanoff said.
U.K broadcaster Sky News reported, citing sources, that Microsoft plans to cut about
5% of its workforce, or about 11,000 roles.
More
Microsoft to cut thousands of jobs across divisions -
reports | Reuters
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.
Omicron Subvariant XBB.1.5 Could
Be More Likely to Infect Vaccinated: NYC Health Officials
Jan 16 2023
The Omicron XBB.1.5 variant of COVID-19 is more likely to infect individuals who have
been vaccinated, according to New York City health officials.
“Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 now
accounts for 73 percent of all sequenced COVID-19 cases in NYC. XBB.1.5 is the
most transmissible form of COVID-19 that we know of to date and may be more
likely to infect people who have been vaccinated or already had
COVID-19,” the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene wrote on
Twitter on Jan. 13.
Despite this, the department urged
New Yorkers to get vaccinated and receive the updated COVID-19 booster shot,
stating that doing so “is still the best way to protect yourself from
hospitalization and death from COVID-19, including from these new variants.”
The XBB.1.5 variant is
quickly becoming the dominant subvariant in the United
States. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) show that XBB.1.5 accounted for an estimated 43
percent of COVID-19 cases in the country for the week ending Jan. 14.
World Health Organization (WHO)
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said earlier this month that the subvariant is on
the rise in the United States and Europe and has now been identified in
more than 25 countries.
“Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 now
accounts for 73 percent of all sequenced COVID-19 cases in NYC. XBB.1.5 is the
most transmissible form of COVID-19 that we know of to date and may be more
likely to infect people who have been vaccinated or already had
COVID-19,” the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene wrote on
Twitter on Jan. 13.
Despite this, the department urged
New Yorkers to get vaccinated and receive the updated COVID-19 booster shot,
stating that doing so “is still the best way to protect yourself from
hospitalization and death from COVID-19, including from these new variants.”
----Barbara Mahon, head of the
CDC’s proposed Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Viruses Division, also told CBS News on Jan. 6 that there is no suggestion
that XBB.1.5 is more severe than previous strains of Omicron.
The WHO in its risk assessment
did, however, note that “the overall confidence in the assessment is low” owing
to a lack of data on the subvariant, most of which come from the United States,
and said that more data and laboratory testing is needed to know for sure
how severe the subvariant is.
The health body also noted
that XBB.1.5 is one of the COVID-19 subvariants that is most resistant to antibodies acquired
from vaccination or previous infection.
More
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.
Fortescue looks toward greener mining with 240-tonne
electric truck
Paul Ridden January 16, 2023
Australian
mining company Fortescue has taken delivery of a 1.4-MWh prototype battery
that's heading for a 240-tonne electric mining haul truck developed in
partnership with Liebherr, and will begin testing later in the year.
The monster battery was
developed by a 50-strong engineering team at the UK's Williams Advanced
Engineering (WAE), which was acquired
by Fortescue in March last
year.
The battery has now arrived at Fortescue's workshop in Perth, and is
actually made up of eight individually cooled sub packs, each containing 36
battery modules.
When assembled, the power pack measures a whopping 3.6 x 1.6 x 2.4 m
(11.8 x 5.25 x 7.8 ft). It's reported to be the first mining haul truck battery
with energy storage of 1.4 MWh, and is also the first capable of fast-charging
in just 30 minutes. A regenerative braking system will also recoup energy as
the truck moves downhill.
In
June 2022, Fortescue inked a deal with German/Swiss multinational Liebherr to
integrate zero-emission technologies into the latter's T 264 mining truck – which currently runs a 2,700-hp
diesel engine. And this vehicle is to be the recipient of the 15-tonne
prototype power system, before being transported to a facility in Pilbara,
Western Australia, for testing later in the year.
Fortescue
is one of the largest producers of iron ore in the world, and is aiming for
"real zero terrestrial emissions" from its operations by 2030 and
replacing its diesel fleet with battery electric or green hydrogen vehicles is
a big part of the company's US$6.2 billion decarbonization plan.
"This
system is the first of many technologies that can help enable Fortescue to
realize its industry leading 2030 net-zero target," said WAE CEO, Craig
Wilson. "Powered solely by renewable energy, it will help prevent enormous
amounts of fossil fuel from being used in the mining industry, with the goal to
not compromise the vehicle’s load capacity."
Source: WAE
Fortescue looks
toward greener mining with 240-tonne electric truck (newatlas.com)
21st
century adage: Is that true, or did you hear it on the BBC?
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