Baltic Dry Index. 592 -11 Brent Crude 84.08
Spot Gold 1860 US 2 Year Yield 4.48 +0.03
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,103
Coronavirus Cases 10/02/23 World 677,088,951
Deaths 6,778,927
The world has a way of undermining complex plans. This is particularly true in fast moving environments. A fast moving environment can evolve more quickly than a complex plan can be adapted to it. By the time you have adapted, the target has changed.
Carl von Clausewitz.
Nothing this Friday looks good.
Stocks are wobbly again.
The disaster in Turkey and Syria seems never ending. More layoffs in the tech sector. FTX takes off the kid gloves. The Adani scandal keeps on growing. Yet another Nickel scandal surfaces.
NATO keeps pressing for WW3 with Russia.
Oh well, maybe Superbowl 57 can provide a
lift on Sunday. How well did FTX Superbowl 56 work out?
Asia-Pacific
markets mixed as China’s inflation ticks up: Live updates
UPDATED THU, FEB 9 2023 11:29 PM
EST
Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed on Friday,
following moves on Wall Street as China’s inflation data came in lower than
expected.
Consumer prices in the nation
rose 2.1% in January compared to a year ago. The Shanghai Composite fell
0.46% and the Shenzhen
Component shed 0.83%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index also
shed 1.78%, dragged down by technology stocks. The Hang Seng Tech index led
losses in the region as it slid 3.92%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 fell
0.69% as investors digested the Reserve Bank of Australia’s statement on
monetary policy indicating further hikes ahead. Earlier this week, the central
bank raised its benchmark interest rates by 25 basis points to 3.25%.
The Nikkei 225 rose
0.32% while the Topix gained 0.22%. The Kospi in
South Korea fell 0.75% and the Kosdaq also inched 1.43% lower.
In corporate earnings, Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing Company,
or TSMC, will release its monthly sales report later in the day. Japan’s Honda, Shiseido and Olympus will
also report quarterly results.
Overnight in the U.S., stocks
closed lower Thursday. All three major indexes hit session lows
in the final hour of trading — after giving up earlier gains as concerns over
the Federal Reserve’s future moves on monetary policy offset excitement around
the latest batch of corporate earnings.
Asia
markets: Reserve Bank of Australia, China inflation, K-pop, Bank of Japan
(cnbc.com)
Yahoo
to lay off more than 20% of staff
February 9, 202310:22 PM GMT
Feb 9 (Reuters) -
Yahoo said on Thursday it plans to lay off more than 20% of its total workforce
as part of a major restructuring of its ad tech division.
The
cuts will impact nearly 50% of Yahoo's ad tech employees by the end of this
year, including nearly 1,000 employees this week, the company said.
Yahoo,
which is owned by private equity firm Apollo Global Management (APO.N) since a $5 billion buyout in
2021, added that the move would enable the company to narrow its focus and
investment on its flagship ad business called DSP, or demand-side platform.
This comes as
many advertisers have pared back their marketing budgets in response to
record-high inflation rates and continued uncertainty about a recession.
A
raft of U.S. companies from Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) to
Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) have also laid off thousands
this year to ride out a demand downturn wrought by high inflation and rising
interest rates.
Axios
first reported the news of the layoffs at Yahoo.
Yahoo
to lay off more than 20% of staff | Reuters
In other news.
Anger grows in
Turkey as earthquake death toll passes 20,000 and rescue hopes dwindle
ADIYAMAN, Turkey — As the temperatures plunged,
anger was growing in Turkey over the government’s response to two massive earthquakes earlier this
week.
On Thursday, the number of those
killed by the tremors in Turkey and neighboring Syria passed 20,000.
With their homes destroyed,
thousands spent a freezing Wednesday night amid the debris in streets of
Adiyaman, huddled around small fires and with little shelter. Electricity and
water were nonexistent in the southern city.
Fearful of another earthquake, some chose to stay out in the open,
avoiding buildings that appeared intact and choosing instead to brave the
sub-zero temperatures.
---- Others said they were furious at what they
said was a slow response from the government, and said that rescue teams had
arrived in the city with the wrong equipment to dig through the rubble. NBC
News could not independently confirm this assertion.
“Nobody was here to
help us, I have complaints about all the authorities here,” said Nursen Guler
on Wednesday, adding that she had one son in the hospital and another who was
still trapped under rubble.
“There are no teams
here, everyone is waiting for rescue teams,” she said.
---- The government’s response was also questioned by people in
several other cities where residents have also been forced to sleep in the
open, in tents or in temporary accommodation.
“Where is the state?
Where have they been for two days? We are begging them. Let us do it, we can
get them out,” Sabiha Alinak told Reuters amid the rubble in the city of
Malatya on Wednesday.
But the sheer scale
of the disaster appeared to overwhelm authorities.
The first of Monday’s
devastating quakes struck Turkey and neighboring Syria in the early hours, and
registered at magnitude 7.8. It qualified as “major” on the official magnitude
scale. Hours later, a second quake, registering at 7.6-magnitude, struck
nearby.
More than 17,130 people have died in Turkey,
according to the country’s disaster management agency. In Syria, over 3,000 people have been killed,
according to officials there.
Osman Yıldırım, a civil engineer,
said that after the last major earthquake hit Turkey in 1999, a torrent of new
regulations were introduced to make buildings more resistant, but the
government didn’t go far enough.
“This could have been prevented with
the right steps starting 25 years ago,” said Yıldırım, 55, adding that
unregistered construction work, corruption and poor enforcement of regulations
had put people in danger.
“The government didn’t take
necessary steps to minimize risks through urban planning, low rise buildings,
construction codes, and strict control,” he said, adding that as a result “new
buildings and old buildings collapsed.”
More
Anger grows in Turkey as earthquake death toll passes 20,000 and rescue hopes dwindle (cnbc.com)
Finally, in corporate scandal news, today we
are spoiled for choice.
Trafigura faces hit of up to $577mn over alleged nickel fraud
Commodities trader discovers
shipments it had purchased did not contain the metal
February 9 2023.
Trafigura has alleged it has been the victim of a “systematic fraud” and faces
a writedown in excess of half a billion dollars after discovering shipments of
nickel that it purchased failed to contain the metal.
The
commodity trader said in a statement on Thursday that it had recently
discovered the alleged fraud and had begun legal action against a group of
companies “connected to and apparently controlled” by Dubai-based metals trader
Prateek Gupta, including TMT Metals and companies owned by UD Trading Group.
It
added that a small proportion of containers purchased from these companies had
been inspected since December and that they did not contain nickel. It added
that the majority of the shipments were in transit and “awaiting further
inspection”.
Privately
held Trafigura, one of the world’s biggest commodity traders, has close
relationships with dozens of banks that provide billions of dollars of
financing that help underpin its daily operations.
An
impairment charge of up to $577mn will be recorded in the first half of 2023
related to the alleged fraud, which Trafigura said involved “misrepresentation
and presentation of a variety of false documentation” by the companies.
TMT Metals describes itself as a non-ferrous metals, minor metals and
ferroalloys trading merchant. UD Trading Group’s website says its is part of UD
group, which operates in metal trading, wind power generation and mining and
has revenues in excess of $4.5bn and a presence in nine countries.
TMT
Metals Holding lists Gupta, an Indian national and United Arab Emirates
resident, as a director, according to UK Companies House records.
TMT Metals, Gupta and UD Trading did not immediately respond to requests for
comment. No TMT Metals representative responded when the Financial Times on
Thursday visited the shared office where its London business is based.
Nickel
is the most highly valued base metal, rising 6 per cent on Thursday to more
than $29,000 per tonne compared with roughly $9,000 for copper. Gupta’s
companies and Trafigura traded about 25,000 tonnes of nickel but some of the
cargoes were found to have held metal of far lower value than nickel, according
to people familiar with the matter.
More
Trafigura
faces hit of up to $577mn over alleged nickel fraud | Financial Times (ft.com)
FTX gets court approval to subpoena founder
Bankman-Fried, other insiders
8 February 2023
Wed, 8 February 2023 at 8:59 pm GMT·2-min read
(Reuters) - Failed
crypto firm FTX received court approval on Wednesday to issue subpoenas to its
founder Sam Bankman-Fried and members of his family as part of the company's
investigation into "misappropriated and stolen" funds.
FTX, a
once-prominent crypto exchange, filed for bankruptcy protection in November
amid allegations that Bankman-Fried used FTX customers' money to prop up the
balance sheet of the FTX-affiliated hedge fund Alameda Research. FTX said that
it needs more information from former insiders, including its indicted founder,
to identify misspending that could be clawed back to repay FTX's customers.
U.S.
Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey, who is overseeing FTX's Chapter 11 proceedings,
approved FTX's request to issue subpoenas to Bankman-Fried, his parents Barbara
Fried and Joseph Bankman, his brother Gabriel Bankman-Fried, former FTX Chief
Technology Officer Gary Wang, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, and
former FTX chief operating officer Constance Wang.
FTX said in
court papers filed Wednesday that most of the subpoena targets had begun
cooperating with its investigation. FTX said that it is still in discussions
with Ellison and that Sam Bankman-Fried "remains non-responsive."
Ellison and
Gary Wang have pleaded guilty to fraud charges for their role in the collapse
of FTX and Alameda. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty, and is scheduled to
face trial in federal court in Manhattan in October.
The subpoenas
focus on questionable spending by FTX insiders. That includes $16.7 million
spent on Bahamian real estate by Bankman-Fried's parents and a Washington,
D.C., headquarters building purchased by Guarding Against Pandemics, an
advocacy organization founded by the Bankman-Fried brothers.
FTX is also
seeking information about political donations. In addition to donations by Sam
Bankman-Fried, his mother founded a political action committee called Mind the
Gap, which makes recommendations to a network of political donors.
More
FTX gets court
approval to subpoena founder Bankman-Fried, other insiders (yahoo.com)
FTX's new boss says security was so weak that founders
could 'download half a billion dollars' of crypto without detection
Feb
7, 2023, 12:14 PM
FTX's weak security
meant its cofounders — who have both been charged with fraud — could easily
have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of crypto, the bankrupt
firm's new CEO said in court testimony.
John J. Ray III,
who was drafted in to oversee FTX after its collapse and previously handled
Enron's liquidation, made the comments at the Delaware bankruptcy court Monday.
"Literally one
of the founders could come into this environment, download half a billion
dollars' worth of wallets onto a thumb drive, and walk off with them," he
said in a recording of the hearing reviewed by Insider. "And there'd be no
accounting for that whatsoever."
Ray said FTX crypto wallets have now been moved
into "cold storage," adding that the crypto firm previously had
"hot wallets in a system where multiple people had access to
passwords."
"Where we are
today is pretty satisfying," he added.
Then-CEO Bankman Fried
resigned his position, and FTX filed for bankruptcy protection in the US on
November 11. FTX lawyers later said the company ran out of assets partly
because executives had a $65 billion line of credit to draw on customers' funds.
More
New FTX CEO Says
Security so Bad Execs Could Have Stolen $500M (businessinsider.com)
Norway
wealth fund has sold its stakes in Adani companies
February
9, 2023 10:30 AM GMT
OSLO, Feb 9
(Reuters) - Norway's sovereign wealth fund has sold its stakes in three Adani
Group companies worth just over $200 million since the start of the year, the
world's largest stock investor said on Thursday.
The $1.35
trillion fund at the end of 2022 held stakes in Adani Total Gas (ADAG.NS), Adani
Ports & Special Economic Zone (APSE.NS) and
Adani Green Energy (ADNA.NS).
"Since
year-end, we have further reduced in Adani companies. We have no exposure
left," Christopher Wright, the fund's head of ESG risk monitoring, told a
news conference.
"We have
monitored Adani for many years (on ESG) issues, many on their handling of
environmental risks," he said.
Adani's seven
main Indian-listed stocks have plunged by
some $110 billion after a scathing Jan. 24 report by U.S. short seller
Hindenburg Research accused the conglomerate of improper use of offshore tax
havens and stock manipulation.
The Adani Group
has denied any wrongdoing.
More
Norway wealth fund has sold its stakes in Adani companies | Reuters
MSCI
to cut weighting of four Adani firms in wake of Hindenburg report
February
10, 2023 5:08 AM GMT
Feb 10 (Reuters)
- Index provider MSCI said it will cut the weightings of four Adani Group
companies, including flagship firm Adani Enterprises (ADEL.NS), in its indexes after reassessing
the number of shares that are freely traded.
The
move comes in the wake of a Jan. 24 report by U.S. short seller Hindenburg
Research that has accused the Indian conglomerate of stock manipulation and
improper use of offshore tax havens that obscure the extent of stock ownership
of Adani family members in group firms. The group has denied any wrongdoing.
The Hindenburg
report has plunged the group, led by billionaire Gautam Adani, into crisis,
wiping some $110 billion off the value of the group's main seven listed firms.
In
addition to Adani Enterprises - the group's coal-miner-cum-incubator for new
projects, MSCI said it plans to cut the weightings for Adani Total Gas (ADAG.NS) - a venture with France's
TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) and Adani Transmission (ADAI.NS), a power transmission company.
It will also
reduce the weighting of ACC (ACC.NS), a major Indian cement company the
Adani Group acquired from Holcim last year and which is not one of the group's
main seven listed firms.
The
four companies had a combined 0.4% weighting in the MSCI emerging markets index
as of Jan. 30. The changes come into effect on March 1.
Adani
Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters on
Friday.
Hindenburg
founder Nathan Anderson tweeted on Thursday when MSCI flagged the changes, that
his firm viewed the decisions as a "validation of our findings".
Adani
Enterprises dropped 1.6% in Friday morning trade while Adani Transmission and
Adani Total Gas slid 5%, down by its daily limit. Shares in ACC were down 1%.
More
MSCI
to cut weighting of four Adani firms in wake of Hindenburg report | 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.
Exclusive:
JPMorgan CEO says too early to declare victory against inflation
February 9, 2023 2:41 AM GMT
MIAMI, Feb 8 (Reuters) - The chief
executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM.N), the
biggest U.S. bank, cautioned against declaring victory against inflation too early,
warning the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates above the 5% mark if
higher prices ended up "sticky."
Dimon's warning came after Federal
Reserve officials said more
rate rises are on the cards, although none were ready to suggest that
January's hot jobs report could push them back to a more aggressive monetary
policy stance.
In reference to inflation, Dimon said
"people should take a deep breath on this one before they declare victory
because a month’s number looked good."
"It’s perfectly reasonable for the
Fed to go to 5% and wait a while," Dimon said.
But if inflation comes down to 3.5% or
4% and stays there, "you may have to go higher than 5% and that could
affect short rates, longer rates," he said.
From a peak of nearly 7% in June, the
Fed's preferred measure of inflation stood at 5% in December - well above its
2% target but heading steadily downward.
In a wide-ranging interview with Reuters,
Jamie Dimon warned stricter regulation of credit card fees could prompt lenders
to extend less credit. He also said he planned to visit China, saying it was
important to maintain relations there.
Dimon also said a default on U.S. debt
- a prospect the country faces unless its debt ceiling is raised - would be
potentially "catastrophic."
"We cannot have a default,"
Dimon said. It could cause permanent damage to America and "could destroy
its future," he said.
More
Exclusive: JPMorgan CEO says too early to declare victory against inflation | 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.
A Crucial Group of Covid Drugs Has
Stopped Working
A key tool in the early pandemic response, monoclonal
antibodies are now ineffective against new variants. Immunocompromised patients
are especially at risk.
FEB
8, 2023 7:00 AM
IN MARCH 2020, as a
mysterious respiratory virus was sweeping the globe, researchers at Vanderbilt
University Medical Center in Tennessee tracked down some of the first known
Covid-19 patients in North America and asked them for blood samples.
Doctors
shipped vials of the blood to Nashville, where the Vanderbilt team got to work
analyzing it for proteins called antibodies, which the immune system generates
when it’s exposed to a virus or other foreign substance. In particular, the
Vanderbilt team was looking for neutralizing antibodies—those capable of
binding to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and preventing it from entering cells and
causing infection.
They isolated hundreds of
antibodies and, by the end of April 2020, identified two particularly potent
ones that became the basis of Evusheld, a preventive drug for people with
weakened immune systems who don’t respond well to the Covid-19 vaccines. Made
up of two
lab-made antibodies, Evusheld mimics natural ones that fight infection. But the
latest coronavirus variants can evade the drug. On January 26, the US Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) pulled Evusheld from the market, saying that it’s
unlikely to work against more than 90 percent of the Covid-19 variants
currently circulating in the United States.
“We had been seeing the data,” says Robert Carnahan,
associate director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center. “We had already mourned
the loss of Evusheld and knew it was just a matter of time.” It was the last
remaining antibody drug designed to fight Covid-19.
Antibody drugs—also known as monoclonal antibodies—have
been an important weapon against the virus. Meant to boost the immune system,
these drugs have shown they can keep high-risk patients out of the hospital.
Over the past two years, the FDA authorized a
handful of them for the treatment of mild to moderate Covid-19,
while Evusheld was meant as a prophylaxis. (Evusheld is given as an injection;
others are a one-time infusion.) But one by one, all of them faltered as the
virus mutated.
More
A Crucial Group of
Covid Drugs Has Stopped Working | WIRED
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, something a little different.
How the CIA/US Navy blew up the Nord Stream pipelines.
Silly me, I thought that Washington
had outsourced it to the UK Royal Navy rather than, as it is alleged, the
Norwegian Royal Navy. Where will Russia
retaliate, when and against what?
Has WW3 already started?
Russia
calls for international probe into Nord Stream blasts after blogger report
February
9, 2023 7:02 AM GMT
MOSCOW, Feb 9
(Reuters) - A blog by a U.S. investigative journalist alleging the United
States was behind the explosions that ruptured the Nord Stream gas pipelines
should become the basis for an international investigation, Russia's top
lawmaker said on Thursday.
The White House
on Wednesday dismissed the
report, published by U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, which said an
attack on the pipelines was carried out last September at the direction of U.S.
President Joe Biden.
"The
published facts should become the basis for an international investigation,
bringing Biden and his accomplices to justice," Vyacheslav Volodin, the
chairman of the Russian State Duma, said.
Volodin said the
United States should pay "compensation to countries affected by the
terrorist attack."
Moscow, without
providing evidence, has repeatedly said the West was behind the explosions
affecting the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines last September -
multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects that carried Russian gas to Germany
under the Baltic Sea.
Investigators
from Sweden and Denmark - in whose exclusive economic zones the explosions
occurred - have said the ruptures were a result of sabotage, but have not said
who they believe was responsible.
President
Vladimir Putin has accused "Anglo-Saxon" powers of blowing up the
Nord Stream pipelines, a Kremlin-designed project to circumvent Ukraine in
exporting its gas directly to Germany and further to Europe.
Russia's foreign ministry said
on Wednesday the United States had questions to answer over its role in
explosions on the undersea Nord Stream gas pipelines last year.
Russia calls for international probe into Nord Stream
blasts after blogger report | Reuters
Nord Stream Sabotage Was
CIA, US Navy Covert Op: Seymour Hersh Bombshell Prompts White House Response
WEDNESDAY, FEB 08, 2023 - 05:32 PM
Famed journalist
and Pulitzer prize winner Seymour Hersh, who for decades was a star
reporter writing for The New York Times and New
Yorker, on Wednesday published a new bombshell as his
first Substack post, prompting a quick White House response
After conducting
his own investigation into who sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines via a series
of underwater blasts on Sept. 26, Hersh has concluded the United States blew
up the Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline as part of a covert operation
under the guise of the BALTOPS 22 NATO exercise.
Hersh, relying on unnamed national security
sources, describes months of discussions and back-and-forth involving the Biden
White House, CIA, and Pentagon. The report says planning was in
the works all the way back to December 2021, with a special task force
formed under the aegis of US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
"The Navy proposed using a newly
commissioned submarine to assault the pipeline directly. The Air Force
discussed dropping bombs with delayed fuses that could be set off
remotely. The CIA argued that whatever was done, it would have to
be covert. Everyone involved understood the stakes," the
report, entitled How America Took
Out The Nord Stream Pipeline reads.
"The Biden Administration was doing
everything possible to avoid leaks as the planning took place late in 2021 and
into the first months of 2022," it continues.
As momentum gained to proceed with a covert
sabotage attack, "Over the next few weeks, members of the CIA’s working
group began to craft a plan for a covert operation that would use deep-sea
divers to trigger an explosion along the pipeline," Hersh writes.
More
Another weekend and how long before Europe
runs out of diesel? How long before Russia retaliates for the US Navy attack on
the Nord Stream pipelines? How long before Nato’s de facto war on Russia expands
into nuclear war? Have a great weekend everyone. The answer to those question’s
might be much closer than we think.
No one starts a war--or rather, no one in his sense ought to do so--without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by the war and how he intends to conduct it.
Carl von Clausewitz.
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