Baltic Dry Index. 602 +10 Brent Crude 86.39
Spot Gold 1866 U S 2 Year Yield 4.50 +0.02
In
the stock casinos, a bad week. In the
real world, a terrible week.
Dow closes nearly 170 points higher, S&P 500 and
Nasdaq post worst week since December: Live updates
UPDATED FRI, FEB 10 2023 5:06 PM EST
The S&P 500 eked
out a narrow gain in Friday’s session but still had the worst week in nearly
two months.
The broad index was up just 0.2% to end the session at
4,090.46. The Nasdaq Composite slipped
0.61% to close at 11,718.12. The Dow
Jones Industrial Average advanced
169.39 points, or 0.5%, to end at 33,869.27.
Despite the Dow’s Friday gain, it still ended the week down
0.17%. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite lost 1.11% and 2.41%, respectively,
in what was their worst week since December.
Investors digested the most recent interest rate hike, economic
data and recent commentary from Federal Reserve speakers, said Shana Sissel,
founder of Banríon Capital Management. That caused intraday moves, she said, as
investors changed positions while predicting how the central bank will act on
interest rates going forward.
“There’s some mixed signals here, which I think is why
volatility is up,” Sissel said. “There’s not really a consensus coming out with
leading indicators that give you a lot of confidence of what’s coming next. And
the markets hate that.”
Ride-hailing platform Lyft tanked
more than 36% after a
disappointing fiscal fourth-quarter report. Expedia also
saw its shares fall by more than 8% after its earnings and revenue fell below
analysts’ expectations.
Those are the latest reports in what has been considered an
underwhelming quarter by Wall Street. With nearly 70% S&P 500 companies
reporting, around 70% of those companies beat analyst expectations for the
quarter. That’s a smaller share of companies surpassing expectations than the
three-year historical average of 79%, according to The Earnings Scout.
Stock
market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
European markets close lower as investors assess
monetary policy outlook; Stoxx 600 down 1%
UPDATED FRI, FEB 10 2023 11:57 AM EST
European markets closed lower Friday as investors
assess the economic outlook and the potential for further monetary policy
tightening from the U.S.
Federal Reserve.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 index
finished trading down 1%. Most sectors and major bourses closed in the red,
with travel and leisure stocks leading losses, down by 3.8%. Oil and gas stocks
bucked the trend with a 2.3% uptick, while telecoms stocks were 0.2% higher.
The index closed higher
on Thursday with the economic outlook and corporate earnings
high on the agenda.
U.K. preliminary fourth-quarter GDP figures on
Friday morning showed that the economy flatlined in the fourth quarter to
narrowly avoid recession, in line with consensus forecasts. The Bank of England last
week projected that the country would enter a shallow but lengthy recession in
the first quarter of 2023.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell said
earlier this week that although U.S. inflation is easing, rates could still
rise, while several Fed speakers reiterated that the hiking cycle could have
further to run.
European
markets open to close, earnings, data and news (cnbc.com)
In
other news, a terrible week.
Turkey and Syria face threat of ‘secondary disaster’
after earthquakes, even as dramatic rescues offer moments of relief
PUBLISHED FRI, FEB 10 2023 5:51 AM EST
Fears of a “secondary disaster” were momentarily
eclipsed Friday by a flurry of dramatic rescues that saw survivors pulled from the
rubble four days after earthquakes devastated Turkey and Syria, killing more than 23,300 people.
Emergency services, volunteers and
families have toiled despite diminishing hope for those still trapped in
subzero temperatures. Streets have grown heavy with bodies wrapped in
blankets, while residents have huddled over fires as the destruction forced
makeshift morgues for the dead and shelters for the living.
The government and aid groups have
distributed millions of hot meals, as well as tents and blankets, but help was
still struggling to reach many people in need — driving anger in southern
Turkey and in northern Syria, where civil war has only compounded the
difficulties.
---- Despite the moments of joy on the ground, the death toll
continued to rise and the focus was also turning to fears of a ‘secondary
disaster’ for those still lacking warm shelter, food and water across the
border region, which is home to more than 13.5 million people.
The World Health Organization said that survivors
desperately needed vital support providing basic necessities such as clean
water and shelter in worsening weather conditions.
“We are in real danger of seeing a secondary
disaster which may cause harm to more people than the initial disaster, if we
don’t move with the same intention and intensity as we are doing on the search
and rescue side,” said WHO incident manager for the earthquake, Rob Holden at a
WHO news conference Wednesday.
The need is especially dire in rebel-held areas of
northwest Syria, grappling with 12 years of civil war and now a border crossing
made nearly inaccessible for international aid after the earthquake damaged
roads.
The U.S is pushing for more safe passages for
U.N. humanitarian supplies across the Turkish border into the region.
Photos taken Tuesday by Maxar
Technologies, a U.S. defense contractor headquartered in Colorado, show the
scale of infrastructure damage in places like Nurdagi, Turkey.
A bird’s-eye view before and after
the temblors shows silos that burst open after the earthquake, blanketing the
ground with grain.
In a statement issued Friday, the
United Nations World Food Programme said it had delivered urgently needed food
assistance, primarily hot meals, food packages, and ready-to-eat food rations,
to around 115,000 people in Syria and Turkey in the first four days since the
earthquakes struck the region.
“For the thousands of people
affected by the earthquakes, food is one of the top needs right now and our
priority is to get it to the people who need it fast,” said WFP Regional
Director for the Middle East and North Africa Corinne Fleischer.
Death
toll rises, rescues dwindle in Turkey-Syria earthquake aftermath (cnbc.com)
Children rescued from ruins days
after earthquake, but death toll tops 23,700
February
11, 2023 12:12 AM GMT
ANTAKYA,
Turkey/JANDARIS, Syria, Feb 10, (Reuters) - Rescue crews saved a 10-day-old baby and his mother trapped in
the ruins of a building in Turkey on Friday and dug several people out from
other sites as President Tayyip Erdogan said authorities should have reacted
faster to this week's huge earthquake.
The
confirmed death toll from the deadliest quake in the region in two decades
stood at more than 23,700 across southern Turkey and northwest Syria four days
after it hit.
Hundreds of
thousands more people have been left homeless and short of food in bleak winter
conditions and leaders in both countries have faced questions about their
response.
Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad made his first reported trip to affected areas since
the quake, visiting a hospital in Aleppo with his wife Asma, state media
reported.
His
government also approved humanitarian aid deliveries across the
frontlines of the country's 12-year civil war, a move that could speed up the
arrival of help for millions of desperate people. The World Food Programme said
earlier it was running out of stocks in rebel-held northwest Syria as the state
of war complicated relief efforts.
The
earthquake, which struck in the early hours of Monday, ranks as the seventh most deadly natural
disaster this century, ahead of Japan's 2011 tremor
and tsunami and approaching the 31,000 killed by a quake in neighbouring Iran
in 2003.
More
Children
rescued from ruins days after earthquake, but death toll tops 23,700 | Reuters
No Deal As IMF Leaves Crisis-hit
Pakistan
ByAFP News02/10/23
AT 5:36 AM EST
An IMF team left Pakistan on Friday after crisis
talks with the government failed to deliver a deal on financial aid that would
help the South Asian country avert economic collapse.
After months of deadlock, the International
Monetary Fund delegation arrived last week for last-ditch negotiations with a
government fearing the political consequences of enforcing bailout conditions
in an election year.
Pakistan's economy is in dire straits, stricken by
a balance-of-payments crisis as it attempts to service high levels of external
debt amid political chaos and deteriorating security.
Inflation has rocketed, the rupee has plummeted and
the country can no longer afford imports, causing a severe decline in industry.
"Considerable progress was made during the
mission on policy measures to address domestic and external imbalances,"
the IMF said in a statement.
"Virtual discussions will continue in the
coming days to finalise the implementation details of these policies."
The IMF is demanding that the nuclear-armed nation
boost its pitifully low tax base, end tax exemptions for the export sector, and
raise artificially low petrol, electricity and gas prices meant to help
low-income families.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif previously called the
conditions for the $1.2 billion loan instalment "beyond imagination".
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar addressed the nation
after the IMF team left the country on Friday morning, saying talks had
"concluded successfully" and that a draft memorandum on broadly
agreed policies had been shared by the lender with the government.
He said petrol prices would rise by roughly four
percent and additional taxes would be imposed, without giving further details.
Economic analyst Abid Hasan, a former adviser to
the World Bank, said "there will be disappointment in the business
community".
"The only way stability can be achieved is
through a deal. This has heightened the uncertainty," he told AFP in the
capital Islamabad.
Years of financial mismanagement and political
instability have damaged Pakistan's economy -- exacerbated by a global energy
crisis and devastating floods that submerged a third of the country.
After months of holding out in search of alternatives, the
government began to bow to IMF pressure in mid-January, loosening controls on
the rupee to rein in a rampant black market in US dollars -- a step that caused
the currency to plunge to a record low. Authorities also hiked petrol prices by
16 percent.
----On Thursday, the central bank released data saying its
foreign exchange reserves had plunged by $170 million in a week, standing at
just $2.9 billion as of last Friday.
Since January, the world's fifth most populous
nation is no longer issuing letters of credit, except for essential food and
medicine, causing a backlog of raw material imports the country can no longer
afford.
The logjam coupled with the rupee devaluation has
sparked a major decline in manufacturing, including textiles and steel, and building
projects.
"This situation has triggered fears the
construction industry will close down very soon, plunging thousands of
labourers into unemployment," Syed Ashfaq Hussain, head of the
Constructors Association of Pakistan, told AFP.
More
No Deal As IMF Leaves Crisis-hit Pakistan (ibtimes.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.
U.S. recession still
likely despite resilient economic data: PIMCO
Last Updated: Feb 08, 2023, 10:29 PM
IST
U.S. bond manager Pacific Investment Management Company
(PIMCO) is sticking to its previous forecast that the U.S. economy is headed
toward a recession, despite recent data indicating economic resilience.
An
employment report last week showed U.S. job growth accelerated sharply in
January while the unemployment rate hit a more than 53-1/2-year low of 3.4%,
pointing to a tight labor market that could be a headache for the Federal
Reserve in its battle against inflation.
Tiffany
Wilding, PIMCO North American economist, said the strong economic data suggests
a recession may come later than previously expected, but remains likely.
"Recent data on net haven't caused us to change our
outlook for a mild U.S. recession - we're only pushing the timing back a little
bit," she said in a note.
PIMCO,
which manages $1.7 trillion in assets, said last month it would focus on
high-quality bonds this year due to their higher returns and the protection
they offer should the global economy economic downturn be deeper than
anticipated.
Some investors believe signs of strength in the labor market
make a recession less likely and increase the chances of a soft landing, in
which the Fed tames inflation without pushing the economy into a recession.
Goldman Sachs now sees a 25% probability of the United States entering a
recession in the next 12 months, down from a previous 35% forecast.
Markets have rallied over the past few months on the back of
moderating inflation. In January, U.S. Treasury yields - a benchmark for
borrowing costs on assets ranging from mortgages to corporate loans - declined
by about 30 basis points.
That rally, however, stumbled last week as the jobs data
raised the prospect of more interest rate hikes by the Fed.
"Although
market-based measures of financial conditions have eased somewhat recently,
financial conditions are still tight by historical standards," Wilding
said.
"We
think it's underappreciated how much tightening pressure the overnight rate
actually puts on the economy."
UK narrowly avoided recession last year, official figures show
10
February 2023
Britain’s
flatlining economy narrowly
avoided sliding into recession by the smallest of margins at the end of last
year, official figures revealed on Friday.
The Office
for National Statistics (ONS) said output in December fell 0.5 per
cent.
That
means the economy was flat over the fourth quarter and did not quite meet the
technical definition of a recession - two consecutive quarters of
negative growth. The
economy shrank 0.3 per in the third quarter from July to September.
The
overall figure for December was dragged down by a 0.8 fall in the dominant
services sector which was hit by a range of one-off factors. These included the
impact of strikes, fewer visits to doctors and hospitals after the pandemic and
the lack of Premier League football matches during the World Cup.
Annual GDP is estimated to have grown by 4.1 per cent in
2022, following growth of 7.4 per cent in 2021
UK narrowly avoided recession last year, official
figures show | Evening Standard
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.
Messenger RNA Sequences Found in Blood 28 Days After COVID-19
Vaccination
Feb 9
2023
Messenger RNA sequences
from the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines were found in the blood of
multiple individuals weeks after vaccination, according to a new study.
Researchers in Denmark
analyzed samples from the vaccinated and detected partial or even full
sequences of the messenger RNA (mRNA) following vaccination. The sequences were
found as late as 28 days after vaccination, or the longest time period the
study analyzed.
The findings mean that the mRNA,
which is situated in lipid nanoparticles for deliverance into the body, lingers
for much longer than authorities in the United States and elsewhere
acknowledge.
The U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, for instance, has claimed that the mRNA is broken down “within a few
days.” The Infectious Diseases Society of America says the mRNA “is quickly metabolized and eliminated
via cellular processing mechanisms.”
Henrik Westh, a professor of
clinical microbiology at the University of Copenhagen, and co-authors of the
new study described being surprised by the findings.
“We surprisingly found fragments
of COVID-19 vaccine mRNA up to 28 days postvaccination in blood from
chronic HCV patients vaccinated with mRNA vaccines from both Pfizer-BioNTech
and Moderna,” they wrote.
The study featured taking samples from 108 vaccinated people with chronic hepatitis C virus, or HCV, and examining them for up to 28 days after vaccination.
Ten of the samples, or 9.3
percent, had partial or full sequences of the mRNA sequence.
The vaccines deliver mRNA inside
lipid nanoparticles.
The researchers said that the
detected mRNA was likely still inside the nanoparticles, which “have been
slowly released from the injection site either directly to the blood or through
the lymph system.” Without the nanoparticles, the mRNA “would rapidly degrade.”
They claimed that the new
data “does not in any way change the conclusion that both mRNA vaccines are
safe and effective.”
That conclusion shows bias and it
overlooks how pseudouridine, which is used to modify the RNA in the
vaccines, “alters the stability of RNA considerably,” Dr. Robert Malone
told The Epoch Times. Documents leaked in 2022 showed European regulators expressed
concern about truncated and modified RNA in the vaccines.
More
Messenger RNA Sequences Found in Blood 28 Days After
COVID-19 Vaccination (theepochtimes.com)
World
Health Organization - Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines
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 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.
Vestas
looks to recycle turbine blades headed for landfill
February 09, 2023
When a wind
turbine reaches the end of its working life, components like towers and
nacelles can be recycled but blades often end up in landfill. Vestas is looking
to commercialize a new chemical process that can break down all epoxy-based
turbine blades for reuse.
Harvesting
wind is already proving to be an important part of the renewable energy mix,
with more projects coming
online and larger
turbines being produced. Unfortunately, when
turbine blades come to the end of their operational lives, they end up as waste
in landfill. And this is a big problem, with WindEurope estimating that around 25,000 tonnes of turbine blades
will be retired annually from 2025, which could increase to 52,000 tonnes by
2030.
We've seen scientists and energy
companies come up with new recipes
to help make spent turbines recyclable, but the new solution from the CETEC coalition - set up in 2021 by Vestas Wind Systems
A/S, the Olin Corporation, the Danish Technological Institute and Aarhus
University – could negate the need for blade redesign and reuse all end-of-life
epoxy-based turbines currently in use or already in landfill.
"Until now, the wind
industry has believed that turbine blade material calls for a new approach to
design and manufacture to be either recyclable, or beyond this, circular, at
end of life," said Lisa Ekstrand, VP and Head of Sustainability at Vestas.
"Going forward, we can now view old epoxy-based blades as a source of raw
material. Once this new technology is implemented at scale, legacy blade
material currently sitting in landfill, as well as blade material in active
windfarms, can be disassembled, and re-used."
The advance hinges on the
development of a new chemical process from the Troels Skrydstrup Group at
Aarhus University, other CETEC members and project partners. Using widely
available chemicals, this process is able to break down epoxy resin and recover
it as virgin-grade raw material for use in the manufacture of new turbines or
other products.
Having now established a
value chain with Stena Recycling and Olin, Vestas will now scale up and
commercialize the process.
Source: Vestas
Vestas looks to
recycle turbine blades headed for landfill (newatlas.com)
This weekend’s music diversion.
Approx. 10 minutes.
Johann
Christoph Schultze (1733-1813) - Concerto in G major
Johann Christoph
Schultze (1733-1813) - Concerto in G major - YouTube
This
weekend’s chess update. Approx. 14 minutes.
Hikaru
Refutes The Scotch!
Hikaru Refutes The
Scotch! - YouTube
This
weekend’s Math’s update. Magic Squares. Approx. 30 minutes.
New
magic in magic squares
New
magic in magic squares - YouTube
“Military men are just dumb, stupid
animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.”
Henry Kissinger.
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