Baltic Dry Index. 946 -30 Brent Crude 84.51
Spot Gold 1920 US 2 Year Yield 4.12 -0.08
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,103
Coronavirus Cases 16/01/23 World 671,376,056
Deaths 6,730,581
John Maynard Keynes.
It’s party time in Davos again, except most A list politicians are missing.
It’s a January holiday on Wall
Street today, but for most of the USA it would make more sense to move it to
the spring, summer or autumn.
In the global stock casinos, more
optimism that the high in inflation is in.
In the normally sunny state of
California, the Great Rains. Does anyone remember 1983 when Queen Elizabeth
visited the Reagan’s in Santa Barbara amid an earlier Great Rains.
Shenzhen
stocks rise 2%, Asia markets mixed on cooled U.S. inflation outlook
UPDATED MON, JAN 16 2023 12:16 AM
EST
Markets in
the Asia-Pacific mostly rose as expectations of cooled inflation in the U.S.
lifted investor sentiment in the region.
In mainland China, the Shenzhen Component rose
2.25%, leading gains in the wider region. The Shanghai Composite rose
1.44% as the nation saw home prices further drop in December. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was
up 0.74%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose
0.9% while Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell
1% and the Topix shed 0.61%. South Korea’s Kospi inched
up 0.2% and the Kodaq gained 0.62%.
Over the weekend, China reported
a surge of nearly 60,000
Covid deaths since dropping restrictions last month. The
announcement came after the World Health Organization criticized China,
alleging it was underreporting deaths.
China’s home prices
drop further in December
China’s home prices
fell 1.5% in December nationwide on an annualized basis, Refinitiv calculations
of data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.
House prices fell
0.25% in December on a monthly basis, the same rate of decline seen in
November. Existing home prices saw a drop of 0.48% compared with a year ago,
slightly faster than November’s 0.44% decline.
Separately, the People’s Bank of China on Friday
hinted at forthcoming changes to its “three red lines” for developers.
Introduced in 2020, the measures aimed at reducing developers’ debt levels and
curtailing financial risks in real estate — amid a broader push to limit
speculation in home prices.
Asia-Pacific
markets: Japan wholesales price, bitcoin, China Covid, US inflation (cnbc.com)
Dow closes 100
points higher, S&P 500 and Nasdaq notch best week since November
UPDATED FRI, JAN 13 2023 5:37 PM EST
Stocks rose Friday
as investors digested bank earnings and bet inflation would ease in 2023.
All of the major
indexes fought their way into the green after beginning the day deep in the
red. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 112.64 points, or 0.33%, to
34,302.61. The S&P 500 rose 0.40% to 3,999.09, and the Nasdaq Composite
advanced 0.71% to 11,079.16.
The S&P and
Nasdaq each posted their second consecutive positive week and best weekly
performance since November. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was the outperformer for the
week after rising 4.82%. The S&P advanced 2.67%, and the Dow added 2%.
Bank earnings weighed on equities to start the
day, but sentiment reversed as investors appeared to shrug off negative news
that was expected to some degree, according to Ross Mayfield, investment
strategy analyst at Baird.
“Financials weren’t really quite expected to
have a blockbuster quarter,” he said. “It’s just providing a bit of a sentiment
wave, and since the banks lead earnings season they can kind of set the tone
for how investors look at the broader picture.”
“Frankly, the market has rallied pretty nicely
over the last few weeks, absent a catalyst, and so there might be a little bit
of profit taking out of earnings season going,” Mayfield added.
Wells Fargo, whose profits for the last
quarter had been cut by half,
said it’s preparing for the economy to “get worse than it’s been over the last
few quarters.”
JPMorgan Chase posted revenue that beat
expectations, but even so, the bank warned it’s setting aside more money to
cover credit losses because a “mild recession” is its “central case.” The bank posted a $2.3 billion provision for credit
losses in the quarter, a 49% increase from the third quarter.
The CEOs of Citigroup and
Bank of America also said they’re anticipating a “mild recession.”
More
Dow closes 100 points higher, S&P 500 and Nasdaq
notch best week since November (cnbc.com)
In Lords of the Universe news, they’re back in Davos again. Coming
next, the return of the secretive Bilderbergers?
The
Davos party returns, with the shakes
January
16, 2023 12:34 AM GMT
DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 16 (Reuters
Breakingviews) - There’s a hangover happening in Davos even though the party
hasn’t yet started. The World Economic Forum’s annual winter shindig in the
Swiss mountain resort, which kicks off on Monday, marks a return for glitzy
parties and high-minded debates following a three-year hiatus. A record number
of business leaders are set to make the trip, and the passage of commercial,
private and government aircraft through Zurich’s airport suggests overall
attendees are at pre-Covid-19 levels. Yet the direction for the future – and
those who will lead it – is more clouded than ever.
Corporate and
financial chieftains who skipped last May’s low-key Davos gathering are back.
JPMorgan (JPM.N) boss Jamie Dimon, a regular at
the conference, will be joined by Wall Street leaders including David Solomon
of Goldman Sachs (GS.N) and Morgan Stanley’s (MS.N) James
Gorman. Chevron (CVX.N) Chief Executive Mike Wirth and
BP’s (BP.L) Bernard Looney will represent
resurgent oil majors. All in all, the WEF expects to welcome some 2,700 leaders
from 130 countries, including 370 public figures.
Yet
the apparent return to business as usual only serves to highlight the changes
that have taken place since the last full gathering of the Davos elite. The
global pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have added more friction to
the already creaking globalised world that Davos epitomised.
Meanwhile, the political leaders responsible for
shaping the new order are mostly staying at home. U.S. President Joe Biden is
not making the trip – unlike his predecessor. Though a smattering of U.S. Congress members are expected
to come they are hardly well-known international figures. China’s most senior
representative is Vice-Premier Liu He. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak,
grappling with a slowing economy and striking public sector workers, is also
staying home.
More
The Davos party returns, with the shakes | Reuters
Finally, it never rains but it
pours.
In California, a
drought turned to floods. Forecasters didn’t see it coming.
January 15 2023
Coming into this winter,
California was mired in a three-year drought, with forecasts offering little
hope of relief anytime soon. Fast forward to today, and the state is
waterlogged with as much as 10 to 20 inches of rain and up to 200 inches of
snow that have fallen in some locations in the past three weeks. The drought isn’t over,
but parched farmland and declining reservoir levels have been supplanted by
raging rivers and deadly flooding.
The
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center
(CPC) issues seasonal forecasts of precipitation and temperature for one to 13
months into the future. The CPC’s initial outlook for this winter, issued on Oct. 20,
favored below-normal precipitation in Southern California and did not lean
toward either drier- or wetter-than-normal conditions in Northern California.
However, after a series of
intense moisture-laden storms known as atmospheric rivers, most of California
has seen rainfall totals 200 to 600 percent above normal over
the past month, with 24 trillion gallons of water having
fallen in the state since late December.
Floods, landslides, sinkholes: See the
devastation of heavy rain in California
The stark
contrast between the staggering amount of precipitation in recent weeks and the
CPC’s seasonal precipitation outlook issued before the winter, which leaned
toward below-normal precipitation for at least half of California, has water
managers lamenting the unreliability of seasonal forecasts.
“You
have no idea come Dec. 1 what your winter is going to look like because our
seasonal forecasts are so bad,” said Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow with the
Public Policy Institute of California’s Water Policy Center, in an interview.
“They are just not reliable enough to make definitive water supply decisions.”
The CPC’s seasonal and monthly outlooks do not provide specific
forecasts of precipitation amounts, but rather the probability that
precipitation will be above or below average. Such information is intended to
“help communities prepare for what is likely to come in the months ahead and
minimize weather’s impacts on lives and livelihoods,” NOAA stated in its winter outlook.
The
precipitation forecast for California remained virtually unchanged in the CPC’s Nov. 17 update to
the winter outlook. That forecast called for a 33 to 50 percent chance of
below-normal precipitation in the southern half of California, and equal
chances of precipitation being above or below normal in the northern half of
the state.
More
In
California, a drought turned to floods. Forecasters didn’t see it coming.
(msn.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.
Recession is top concern for
CEOs worldwide, survey finds
Jan.
15, 2023 2:20 PM ET
Chief executives around the
world have one major concern for the year -
recession, a survey by nonprofit think tank The Conference Board found.
That aligns with some management
commentary in Q4 earnings calls on Friday. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) said its central case is for a
mild recession. Also, the World Bank slashed its global growth forecast
as inflation, higher interest rates, and geopolitical events constrain economic
activity.
The Conference Board survey, which polled ~700
CEOs and over 450 other C-suite executives, found that fears of a recession or
economic downturn ranked as the top external worry for 2023.
Recession fears intensified from last year's
poll, in which recession was ranked as the sixth external concern. Inflation
and higher borrowing costs were among the other top concerns for CEOs globally
in 2023.
Most CEOs polled by the think tank expect little
or no economic growth for most of 2023. 60% of U.S. CEOs surveyed and 51% of
CEOs globally expect growth to resume in their region in late 2023 or mid-2024.
Attracting and retaining talent topped the list
of CEOs' internal concerns for the year amid labor shortage.
"While CEOs globally are looking to contain
costs, employees may be able to breathe a sigh of relief as few executives are
turning to layoffs," said Dana Peterson, chief economist, The Conference
Board. "Instead, they plan to mitigate risk by accelerating digital
transformation, pursuing new opportunities in higher-growth markets, and
revising business models."
More
Recession
is top concern for CEOs worldwide, survey finds | Seeking Alpha
Brian Moynihan
says Bank of America expects ‘mild recession’ and is preparing for worse
PUBLISHED FRI, JAN 13 2023 10:13
AM EST UPDATED FRI, JAN 13 2023 6:53 PM EST
Bank
of America CEO Brian Moynihan said
Friday that the bank is preparing for a potential recession in 2023, including
a scenario where unemployment rises rapidly.
“Our baseline scenario contemplates a mild
recession. ... But we also add to that a downside scenario, and what this
results in is 95% of our reserve methodology is weighted toward a recessionary
environment in 2023,” Moynihan said on a call with investors.
That pessimistic case, which is more negative than it was last
quarter, calls for unemployment to rise to 5.5% early this year and remain at
5% or above through the end of 2024, Moynihan said.
The CEO’s statement mirrors the earnings report
for JPMorgan Chase,
whose economic outlook calls for “a mild recession in the central case.”
Bank of America beat estimates on the top and bottom lines for its fourth
quarter, but its $1.1 billion provision
for credit losses was a sharp reversal from a negative number in that metric a
year ago.
While the bank said net credit charge-offs are
still below pre-Covid pandemic levels,
outstanding balances on credit cards are up 14% year over year, and Moynihan
said delinquencies are rising from their unusually low pandemic levels.
Shares of Bank of America were up 2.2% on Friday.
Bank of America
expects a 'mild recession' but is preparing for worse (cnbc.com)
Saudi
inflation edges up to 3.3% in December
January
15, 2023 8:17 AM GMT
DUBAI, Jan 15
(Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's annual inflation rate ticked up to 3.3% in December
from 2.9% in November, government data showed on Sunday, with price rises again
driven mainly by housing costs.
Prices rose 0.3%
month on month in December, compared with a 0.1% monthly rise in November,
Saudi Arabia's General Authority for Statistics said.
Housing, water,
electricity, gas and other fuels, with a 25.5% weight of the consumer basket,
rose 5.9% from a year earlier and were 0.9% higher compared with November.
The statistics
authority said the rise was "as a result of the increase in actual rentals
for housing by 1.1%."
Food and beverage
prices, which were the main driver of inflation during much of 2022, fell 0.1%
on a monthly basis, though they were still up 4.2% compared to December 2021.
"The annual
consumer price index for 2022 increased by 2.5% compared to 2021, mainly
influenced by the rise in food and beverages prices by 3.7% and transport
prices by 4.1%, due to their weight in the index," the General Authority
for Statistics said in a separate report.
The housing
category rose 1.8% in 2022, "mainly resulting from the increase in actual
rentals for housing by 2.0%," the authority said.
The finance
ministry, in its 2023 budget statement, had said it expected an average
inflation rate of 2.6% at the end of 2022.
Saudi inflation
edges up to 3.3% in December | 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.
Possible Safety Concern With New
Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Identified: CDC
January
13 2022
Data indicates Pfizer’s
new COVID-19 vaccine
could cause a type of stroke in elderly people, two U.S. health agencies said
on Jan. 13.
The threshold for a safety signal was met for Pfizer’s
bivalent booster in the Vaccine Safety Datalink, a monitoring system run by the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The signal was for ischemic stroke, a type of stroke
caused by blood clotting.
The signal was triggered for people aged 65 and older,
the CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in a joint statement.
Safety signals are triggered when an adverse event such
as stroke happens at a certain rate following vaccination.
Signals suggest a connection between an adverse
event and a vaccine but further study must be done to verify a connection.
“All signals require further investigation and
confirmation from formal epidemiologic studies,” the CDC and FDA said. “Often
these safety systems detect signals that could be due to factors other than the
vaccine itself
Unlikely
a ‘True Clinical Risk’
The agencies did not say when the signal was detected
other than saying it happened after the updated shot became available, which
was in early September 2022. Neither agency returned a request for comment.
Other systems monitored for vaccine safety, such as
the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, have not shown a signal
for ischemic stroke among the elderly or other age groups, according to
U.S. authorities.
“Although the totality of the data currently suggests
that it is very unlikely that the signal in VSD represents a true clinical
risk, we believe it is important to share this information with the public, as
we have in the past, when one of our safety monitoring systems detects a
signal,” the agencies said.
“CDC and FDA will continue to evaluate additional data
from these and other vaccine safety systems. These data and additional analyses
will be discussed at the upcoming January 26 meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and
Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.”
More
Possible Safety
Concern With New Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Identified: CDC (theepochtimes.com)
Doctor Calls for Withdrawal of
Pfizer, Moderna COVID-19 Vaccines Following New Research
Jan 13 2023
An American doctor is joining the calls for the
withdrawal of the messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccines, pointing to new research
that highlights a connection between the shots and adverse events.
Dr. Joseph Fraiman, a doctor based in Louisiana who also
conducts research on COVID-19 and other health issues, says it’s time to halt
the administration of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines until new clinical trials prove
the benefits from the vaccines outweigh the harms.
The new research, including a reanalysis of the trials
for the vaccines, raise concerns about whether the benefits from the vaccines
outweigh the harms, according to the doctor.
“I don’t see how anyone couldn’t be certain that the
benefits are outweighing the harms on a population level, or even in the
high-risk groups. I don’t see the evidence to support that claim,” Fraiman told
The Epoch Times. “But I also can’t say that there’s evidence to support that
it’s potentially more harmful, but there’s also uncertainty here. … Given that
scenario, I believe that people should not be given the [vaccines] outside of a
clinical trial, because we need to figure out … if their benefits outweigh harm
or if harm outweighs benefits.”
“The only thing that can answer that question is going to
be a randomized trial,” he added.
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.
Today, mining electricity. Well I
suppose it’s better than building Death Rays in space and firing the
electricity at planet Earth.
Scientists propose turning abandoned mines into
gravity batteries
Ben Coxworth January 12, 2023
Once a mine
has been exhausted of its ore, there's really no use for it anymore – it just
becomes an abandoned hole in the ground. According to a new study, however, the
shafts of such mines could serve in energy-storing gravity batteries.
First of
all, just what is a gravity
battery?
Well, in a
nutshell, it's a system in which electricity is generated by releasing a heavy
load, allowing it to drop. That electricity can then be used at times when
demands on the municipal grid are high. At other times, when there's excess energy
in the grid, the gravity battery system uses some of that energy to pull the
load back up, effectively storing the energy for later use.
One of the most
common types of the technology is what's known as a pumped-storage
hydroelectric system. In this setup, water is released from a high elevation,
generating electricity by spinning up turbines as it flows downhill. When
excess energy is available, that water is pumped back up to the starting point.
Last year, scientists from
Austria's International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) proposed
a different
type of gravity battery. The basic idea
was that the elevators in high-rise buildings would use regenerative braking
systems to generate electricity while lowering weighted payloads from higher to
lower floors. Autonomous trailer robots would pull the loads in and out of the
elevators, as needed.
That brings us to the
mine-based Underground Gravity Energy Storage (UGES) system, recently proposed
by the same researchers. It would likewise utilize elevators, but these ones
would be in existing disused mine shafts, and they'd be raising and lowering
containers full of sand.
More
Scientists propose
turning abandoned mines into gravity batteries (newatlas.com)
Economics is extremely useful as a form of
employment for economists.
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