Baltic Dry Index. 883 +67 Brent Crude 83.16
Spot Gold 1811 U S 2 Year Yield 4.78 +0.12
By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.
John Maynard Keynes.
Stocks close lower Friday after hot inflation report;
major averages log worst week in 2023: Live updates
UPDATED FRI, FEB 24 2023 5:29 PM EST
U.S. stocks fell sharply Friday, wrapping up
their worst week of 2023, after the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge
showed a stronger-than-expected increase in prices last month.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell
by 336.99 points, or 1.0%, to end at 32,816.92. The S&P 500 dropped
1% to close at 3,970.04. The Nasdaq Composite slid
1.7% to end at 11,394.94. The Dow fell as much as 510 points, or 1.54%, earlier
in the trading session.
The major averages also ended the
week with their biggest losses in 2023. The S&P 500 was down 2.7%, marking
its worst week since Dec. 9. The Dow fell almost 3.0% this week — its fourth
straight losing week. The Nasdaq closed 3.3% lower, notching its second
negative week in three.
Boeing shares slipped
more than 4% after the company temporarily
halted delivery of its 787 Dreamliners over a fuselage issue.
Shares of Microsoft and Home Depot fell
2.2% and 0.9%, respectively.
The core personal
consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s preferred
measurement of inflation, rose 0.6% in January and 4.7% from the prior year,
coming in above economists’ expectations.
The report added to worries that
the Fed may have to keep rates higher for longer to quell inflationary
pressures.
Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment
strategist at Charles Schwab, believes there is more to the market’s downturn
besides the PCE numbers.
“Another reason why the market is
having trouble to some degree, I think, is not just about inflation being
hotter or concerns that the Fed has to stay tighter for longer,” Sonders said
on Friday.
“But there was just a lot of
speculation that kicked back in —speculative froth. And the market tends to
move in a contrarian fashion when sentiment gets a little too frothy. So I
think some of the move has has to do with sentiment. Not just these macro
forces,” she added.
The strategist believes that inflation cannot come
down without a broader economic downturn.
“I think something would have to give either
broadly in the economy, or more specifically in the labor market, to
bring the immaculate disappearance of inflation,” Sonders said. “Without that
commensurate hit to the economy or the labor market, I think it’s a stretch.”
Stock
market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
Key US inflation measure surges at fastest rate since June
WASHINGTON
(AP) — The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge rose last month at its
fastest pace since June, an alarming sign that price pressures remain
entrenched in the U.S. economy and could lead the Fed to keep raising interest
rates well into this year.
Friday’s
report from the Commerce Department showed that consumer prices rose 0.6% from
December to January, up sharply from a 0.2% increase from November to December.
On a year-over-year basis, prices rose 5.4%, up from a 5.3% annual increase in
December.
Excluding
volatile food and energy prices, so-called core inflation rose 0.6% from
December, up from a 0.4% rise the previous month. And compared with a year
earlier, core inflation was up 4.7% in January, versus a 4.6% year-over-year
uptick in December.
The
report also showed that consumer spending rose 1.8% last month from December
after falling the previous month.
January’s
price data exceeded forecasters’ expectations, confounding hopes that inflation
was steadily decelerating and that the Fed could relent on its campaign of rate
hikes. It follows other recent data that also suggested that the economy
remains gripped by inflation despite the Fed’s strenuous efforts to tame it.
Last
week, the government issued a separate inflation measure — the consumer price
index — which showed that prices
surged 0.5% from December to January, much more than the previous
month’s 0.1% rise. Measured year over year, consumer prices climbed 6.4% in
January. That was well below a recent peak of 9.1% in June but still far above
the Fed’s 2% inflation target.
Since
March of last year, the Fed has attacked inflation by raising its key interest
rate eight times. Yet despite the resulting higher borrowing costs for
individuals and businesses, the job market remains surprisingly robust. That is
actually a worrisome sign for the Fed because strong demand for workers tends
to fuel wage growth and overall inflation. Employers added a
sizzling 517,000 jobs in January, and the unemployment rate fell to
3.4%, its lowest point since 1969.
“Reaccelerating
price pressures, coupled with a still-strong labor market that is restoring
incomes and is supporting demand, will keep the Fed on track to hike rates
further over coming meetings,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at
High Frequency Economics.
The
Fed is thought to monitor the inflation gauge that was issued Friday — the
personal consumption expenditures price index — even more closely than it does
the government’s better-known CPI.
Typically,
the PCE index shows a lower inflation level than CPI. In part, that’s because
rents, which have soared, carry twice the weight in the CPI that they do in the
PCE.
The
PCE price index also seeks to account for changes in how people shop when
inflation jumps. As a result, it can capture emerging trends — when, for
example, consumers shift away from pricey national brands in favor of less
expensive store brands.
The
consumer price index showed a worrisome rise from December to January: It
jumped 0.5% — five times the November-to-December increase.
Likewise,
the government’s measure of wholesale inflation, which shows price increases
before they hit consumers, accelerated 0.7%
from December to January after having dropped 0.2% from
November to December.
Key
US inflation measure surges at fastest rate since June | AP News
As new data shows inflation rose in January, here’s what
consumers can expect next
A new U.S. government reading showing persistent
high inflation rattled
Wall Street on Friday.
Consumers can expect the rate of price growth will
likely stay higher than average through 2023.
“Inflation is going to come down gradually, if the Fed conducts policy the
way it says it intends to,” said William Luther, director of the American
Institute for Economic Research’s Sound Money Project.
“We’re looking at higher than normal price increases, certainly
through 2023 and probably through much of 2024, as well,” Luther said.
---- Declines in inflation that have happened
since June actually reversed in January.
“It’s possible that this is just a blip, that we
had more price increases in January and fewer price increases in December,”
Luther said.
---- The personal consumption expenditures price index, or
PCEPI, is the central bank’s preferred measure as it seeks to bring inflation
down to a 2% target.
There are two reasons why the PCEPI may be a better
measure than the CPI, according to Luther.
First, the PCEPI measures all consumption
expenditures, including those that are not coming directly out of consumers’
discretionary income, such as those made on their behalf by the government or
employers.
“It puts more accurate weights on the categories of
expenditures that are being made in the economy by consumers,” Luther said.
The CPI, on the other hand, only looks at a basket
of goods purchased from individuals’ discretionary incomes. Moreover, the
basket of goods the CPI tracks is updated every year, while the PCEPI gets
updated each month.
That really matters in cases where you have some
individual prices that are changing a lot, according to Luther.
More
As
new data shows inflation rose in January, what consumers can expect (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.
This
weekend, does Germany need Grexit?
UK edges further away from recession as families’ economy
and inflation outlook brightens
FRIDAY 24 FEBRUARY 2023 7:00 AM
Another
brighter than expected set of economic numbers out today indicate the UK has a
chance of avoiding a much-tipped recession this year.
Consumer
confidence climbed faster than forecast to minus 38 points this month, up seven
points from minus 45 points in January, according to research firm Growth for
Knowledge’s index which has been running since the 1970s.
Despite
the shock upturn, confidence is still running at historically low levels after
rebounding from the lowest reading ever when Liz Truss took charge of the
country in September.
The
survey is the latest in a string of data that indicate the UK economy is
holding up much better than experts had forecast just a few months ago.
Numbers
out earlier this month revealed the country narrowly avoided a recession at the
end of last year, while the Office for National Statistics last week said
inflation in January fell for the third straight month to 10.1 per cent, a
faster descent than analysts had forecast.
That
body of evidence has prompted City economists to trim their projections for how
much gross domestic product will drop this year.
“Despite
widely reported headwinds of inflation continuing to outstrip wage rises, and
the ongoing household challenge from the cost-of-living crisis, consumers have
suddenly shown more optimism about the state of their personal finances and the
general economic situation, especially for the coming year,” Joe Staton, client
strategy director at GfK, said.
While
inflation is in the early throes of a sustained decline this year that some
City experts have predicted will bring it down to the Bank of England’s two per
cent by Christmas, wage growth is expected to trail it for most of the year,
delivering a record hit to spending power.
All of GfK’s measurements that generate the overall consumer
confidence index strengthened in February.
More
UK edges away from
recession as economic and inflation outlook brightens (cityam.com)
German economy shrinks 0.4% in
fourth quarter, weak start to 2023 seen
February 24, 2023 9:11 AM GMT
BERLIN, Feb 24 (Reuters) - The German economy contracted more strongly
than expected in the final three months of 2022, as inflation and the energy
crisis took their toll on household consumption and capital investment.
The German economy shrank by 0.4% in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared
with the previous three months, the statistics office said on Friday.
Preliminary data from the office had pointed to a 0.2%
quarter-on-quarter contraction adjusted for price and calendar effects. In the
third quarter of 2022, gross domestic product saw slight growth of 0.5%
compared to the three months prior.
The second
consecutive drop
in the Ifo's current assessment component, a falling manufacturing
PMI, weak consumer confidence and a willingness to spend close to historical
lows, all point to a contraction of the German economy once again in the first
quarter, ING's global head of macro Carsten Brzeski said.
The worse-than-expected final result
for the fourth quarter increases fears of a winter recession. A recession is
commonly defined as two successive quarters of contraction.
"Today's numbers show that the sharp rise in energy prices has
noticeably slowed down the economy despite the government's extensive aid
measures," Commerzbank's economist Ralph Solveen said. With the global
tightening of monetary policy, Solveen said a noticeable economic recovery is
hardly to be expected.
After relief measures such as the fuel discount and the 9-euro transport
ticket ended, consumers spent less in the fourth quarter than in the third
quarter, the statistics office said. Household spending was down 1.0%, while
government spending rose 0.6% compared to the previous quarter.
More
German economy shrinks 0.4% in fourth quarter, weak start to 2023 seen | 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.
COVID-19 linked to 40% increase in autoimmune disease
risk in huge study
February
22, 2023
Catching COVID-19 may raise the risk of developing autoimmune
disease by 43% in the months
following the infection, according to the largest study of its kind.
"The impact of this study is huge — it's the
strongest evidence so far answering this question of COVID-19 and autoimmune
disease risk," said Anuradhaa Subramanian(opens in new tab), a research fellow in health informatics at the University
of Birmingham, who was not involved in the study. The new research, which has
yet to be peer reviewed, was posted Jan. 26 in the preprint database medRxiv(opens in new tab).
Scientists previously linked COVID-19 to an increased
risk of autoimmune disease, in which the immune system mistakenly
attacks healthy parts of the body. However, this research was limited to small
studies that focused on just a few conditions, such as autoimmune hemolytic
anemia, which affects red blood cells, and Guillain-Barre syndrome, which
affects nerve cells.
Now, researchers have analyzed the health
records of 640,000 people in Germany who caught COVID-19 in 2020 and 1.5
million people who didn't knowingly catch the coronavirus that year to explore
how the infection might affect the risk of developing any of 30 autoimmune
conditions.
They examined the rate at which people were newly
diagnosed with autoimmune diseases in the three to 15 months after they tested
positive for COVID-19. They compared these rates to those of the people who
hadn't caught COVID-19. Roughly 10% of the participants in each group had
preexisting autoimmune diseases.
Among the people with no history of autoimmunity,
more than 15% of people who'd caught COVID-19 developed an autoimmune disease
for the first time during the follow-up period, compared with roughly 11% of
the people who hadn't caught COVID-19. In other words, the COVID-19 group had a
43% higher likelihood of autoimmune disease than the control group.
Among those with existing autoimmunity, those who caught
COVID-19 had a 23% higher chance of developing an additional autoimmune disease
in the follow-up period.
----
"These findings just cannot be ignored," Subramanian said. "We
need to pursue research into how COVID-19 is potentially triggering autoimmunity
because many people are continuing to suffer from the effects of
COVID-19." There are several hypotheses as to how COVID-19 might trigger
autoimmunity, and it's possible that different mechanisms affect different
organ systems, the researchers noted.
"Understanding how COVID-19 impacts autoimmune
disease risk will help in executing the prevention measures and early
treatments to prevent associated morbidity and mortality," said Jagadeesh Bayry(opens in new tab), a
professor of biological sciences and engineering at the Indian Institute of
Technology Palakkad who was not involved in the study.
More
COVID-19 linked to
40% increase in autoimmune disease risk in huge study | Live Science
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.
Ramping up domestic graphite production could aid the
green energy transition
A
key ingredient to lithium-ion batteries' supply chain is not built to last
Date:
February 22, 2023
Source: Northwestern
University
Summary: Given the growing importance of graphite in
energy storage technologies, a team of esearchers has conducted a study
exploring ways to reduce reliance on imports of the in high-demand mineral,
which powers everything from electric vehicles (EVs) to cell phones.
The paper, which published this week in the
journal Environmental Science and Technology, is the first natural
and synthetic graphite material flow analysis for the U.S., and considers 11
end-use applications for graphite, two waste management stages and three
recycling pathways.
"If we want to produce more batteries
domestically, we're going to need to increase our production of graphite,"
said Northwestern University chemical engineer Jennifer Dunn. "But the
question is, how can we do so in a way that contributes to decarbonization
goals?"
Dunn is an associate professor of chemical and
biological engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and
director of the Center for Engineering Sustainability and Resilience. The paper
was co-authored by Jinrui Zhang, who at the time of the study initiation was a
post-doctoral scholar in chemical and biological engineering, and Chao Liang,
previously a member of Northwestern's Institute for Sustainability and Energy
(ISEN). Both co-authors are alumni of Dunn's research group.
The U.S. uses mostly synthetic graphite, which is
produced from by-products of the fossil fuel industry and creates a paradoxical
relationship between graphite and technologies like electric vehicles (EVs)
that aim to remove fossil fuel supply chains from transportation and cut
greenhouse gas emissions.
Natural graphite, alternately, is sourced from
mines and imported to the U.S. mostly from China. Nearly all the graphite used
in the U.S. goes into electrodes for steel manufacturing. As the battery supply
chain in the U.S. ramps up, measures like the Inflation Reduction Act seek to
incentivize the use of domestically sourced materials -- including graphite --
in U.S.-made batteries.
Given the growing importance of graphite in energy
storage technologies like lithium-ion batteries, the team carried out this
analysis to characterize the major production routes of the mineral, its main
uses and opportunities to reduce consumption through recycling. Data from 2018
-- the most recent period with sufficient data for this type of analysis -- was
used for the study.
More
This weekend’s music diversion. Approx. 11 minutes.
Antonín
Reichenauer Bassoon Concerto in C major, Sergio Azzolini
Antonín
Reichenauer Bassoon Concerto in C major, Sergio Azzolini - YouTube
This
weekend’s chess update. Approx. 11 minutes.
Greek
Gift or Greco's Gift || Error in Translation?
Greek Gift or Greco's Gift || Error in Translation? - YouTube
This
weekend’s math’s update. Approx. 14 minutes.
9.999...
really is equal to 10
9.999... really is equal to 10 - YouTube
Inflation is taxation without legislation.
Milton Friedman.
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