Baltic Dry Index. 640 -28 Brent Crude 81.98
Spot Gold 1915 US 2 Year Yield 4.09 -unch.
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,103
Coronavirus Cases 03/02/23 World 675,910,407
Deaths 6,767,601
“Adam Smith” aka George Goodman.
The Money Game.
In the stock casinos, a rocky start. More and more signs arriving that the Magic Money Tree boom has turned to bust.
In
Asia, is Adani the next FTX or Lehman? Did Hindenburg just torch Adani?
Adani Enterprises
plunges 25% as rout deepens in Hindenburg fallout; Asia stocks mixed
UPDATED FRI, FEB 3 2023 12:38 AM
EST
Stocks in the Asia-Pacific traded mixed on
Friday as shares of Adani Enterprises plunged
25%, continuing a sell-off triggered by allegations
raised by short-seller firm Hindenburg.
The Nifty 50 in
Mumbai traded 0.1% higher despite Adani companies continuing to drop sharply,
while the S&P Sensex rose 0.4% in its early hours of trade.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell
1.5%. In mainland China, the Shanghai
Composite fell 1.2% and the Shenzhen Component lost
1.2% as the Caixin purchasing managers’ index showed services activity in China picked up in January.
The Nikkei 225 in
Japan rose 0.3% and the Topix traded 0.2% higher as the au Jibun Bank Japan
Services Purchasing Managers’ Index for January marked further growth for the
month.
In South Korea, the Kospi also
rose 0.31% and the Kosdaq gained 0.07%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose
0.32% as investors digest new housing loan commitments for December
that fell 4.3%. Singapore will release its retail sales for the final month of
2022 later in the day.
Adani Group founder and chairman Gautam Adani’s
net worth fell further overnight, and now sits at #21 on the Bloomberg
Billionaires Index. He lost a total of $59.2 billion in net worth
year-to-date to $63.1 billion as of Thursday’s market close.
Overnight in the U.S., major
indexes on Wall Street saw a rally driven by technology stocks. Meta surged
23%, marking its best day since 2013 after seeing a better-than-expected earnings
report.
Adani Enterprises to
be removed from Dow Jones sustainability indices
Adani Enterprises will
be removed from the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices, effective Feb. 7, S&P
said in an announcement.
“Adani Enterprises
will be removed from the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices following a Media
& Stakeholder Analysis triggered by allegations of stock manipulation and
accounting fraud,” it said in a one-line notice.
Adani Enterprises
was added to the Dow Jones Sustainability Emerging Markets Index as of Dec. 19,
2022, according to a list of components on S&P Global’s website.
Adani did not respond
to CNBC’s request for comment. Shares traded 30% lower during Mumbai’s trading
session on Friday.
Adani
Enterprises plunges 25% as rout deepens in Hindenburg fallout; Asia stocks
mixed (cnbc.com)
Stocks making the
biggest moves after hours: Apple, Amazon, Ford and more
Apple —
The consumer tech stock tumbled 4% in extended trading after the company
reported weaker-than-expected results for its fiscal first quarter. The company
reported $1.88 in earnings per share on $117.15 billion of revenue. Analysts
surveyed by Refinitiv were expecting $1.94 in earnings per share and $121.10
billion of revenue. Sales
were down 5% year over year.
Amazon — Shares of the e-commerce giant fell more than 3% in
extended trading despite beating revenue estimates for the fourth quarter. Amazon reported
$149.20 billion in revenue for the quarter, above the $145.42 billion expected,
according to Refinitiv. The company reported just three cents in earnings per
share. Amazon’s stock gained more than 7% during regular trading hours, and the
midpoint of the company’s first-quarter revenue guidance was below expectations.
Alphabet —
Alphabet dropped more than 5% in extended trading after the Google parent
company missed
expectations on the top and bottom lines for the fourth quarter,
according to analyst estimates from Refinitiv. Revenues from YouTube
advertising and its Google Cloud offering were both lower than analysts
expected. Alphabet’s stock closed up by more than 7% in the previous trading
session.
Qualcomm —
Shares of the chipmaker dipped 1.5% in extended trading after Qualcomm reported
$2.37 in adjusted earnings per share for its fiscal first quarter. That was
three cents better than estimates, according to Refinitiv. However, Qualcomm’s
adjusted revenue came in at $9.46 billion, below the expected $9.60 billion.
Starbucks —
Shares fell about 1% after the coffee-shop chain missed expectations on both
per-share earnings and revenue in its fiscal first
quarter. Starbucks reported an adjusted 75 cents in earnings per
share and $8.71 billion in revenue. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv were
expecting 77 cents per share and $8.78 billion of revenue. The company reported
a 2% decline in comparable transactions year over year, thanks in part to
weakness in China.
Ford —
Shares of the automaker tumbled 6% in extended trading after fourth-quarter
earnings fell far short of expectations, despite
better-than-expected revenue. CEO Jim Farley said the company “left about $2
billion in profits on the table” during the fiscal year.
More
Stocks making big moves after hours: AAPL, AMZN, F (cnbc.com)
Stock futures
fall after earnings reports from Apple, Alphabet disappoint investors
UPDATED THU, FEB 2 2023 7:07 PM EST
Stock futures slid on Thursday evening after
several high-profile earnings misses cast doubt on the recent market rally.
Futures for the S&P 500 fell
0.6%, while Nasdaq 100 futures lost 1.4%. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures
slumped 62 points, or 0.2%.
Struggles of major tech stocks
weighed on the market. Apple and Google-parent
Alphabet both missed
estimates on the top and bottom lines for their December
quarters. Alphabet’s stock fell nearly 4% in extended trading, while Apple
shares were down 3.2%. Amazon’s stock also dipped about 4.2% after the e-commerce
giant’s report.
The earnings picture wasn’t much
better outside of tech, as Ford and Starbucks also missed estimates. Those
stocks fell 6% and 2% respectively in extended trading.
The move in futures threatened to
erase some large gains for the market on Thursday. The Nasdaq Composite rose
3.25% for its best day since November and is on track for a fifth-straight
winning week. The S&P 500 gained 1.47%.
The Dow, however, finished
Thursday slightly lower, weighed down by health-care stocks, but is still
positive for the week.
---- In addition to insight from major companies on earnings calls,
Investors will get a key data point about the U.S. economy on Friday morning
with the January jobs report.
Stock
futures fall after earnings reports from Apple, Alphabet disappoint investors
(cnbc.com)
Strong
U.S. job growth expected in January; wages seen cooling
February 3, 2023 5:03 AM GMT
WASHINGTON, Feb 3
(Reuters) - U.S. job growth likely remained strong in January amid a
persistently resilient labor market, but an anticipated further slowdown in
wage gains should give the Federal Reserve some comfort in its fight against
inflation.
The
Labor Department's closely watched employment report on Friday is also expected
to show the unemployment rate ticking up to 3.6% last month from a more than
50-year low of 3.5% in December. It would allow the U.S. central bank, focused
on wage inflation, to maintain a moderate pace of rate hikes and reduce the
risk of a recession this year.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters on Wednesday that
"the economy can return to 2% inflation without a really significant
downturn or a really big increase in unemployment." With wages moderating
and inflation trending lower, economists are increasingly agreeing with that
sentiment.
"Wage
growth is decelerating less than inflation," said Kate Bahn, chief
economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth in Washington.
"For the Fed, it really makes the case that you don't necessarily need to
rely on tempering labor market growth to address inflation if the labor market
is not the cause of inflation."
The survey of
establishments will likely show that nonfarm payrolls increased by 185,000 last
month after rising by 223,000 in December, according to a Reuters survey of
economists.
Average
hourly earnings are forecast rising 0.3% after a similar gain in December. That
would lower the year-on-year increase in wages to 4.3% from 4.6% in December.
But
great uncertainty surrounds the payrolls forecast, and estimates ranged from
125,000 to 305,000.
With January's
employment report, the government will publish its annual "benchmark"
revisions and update the formulas it uses to smooth the data for regular
seasonal fluctuations in the establishment survey. It will also incorporate new
population estimates in the household survey, from which the unemployment rate
is derived. As such January's unemployment rate will not be directly comparable
to December.
Last year, the
Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimated the economy added
462,000 more jobs in the 12 months through March 2022 than previously reported.
Payrolls data from April through December will also be revised based on the new
benchmark level and updated seasonal factors. The revisions will also affect
average hourly earnings and the workweek.
BLS
will also revise their industry classification system, which would result in
about 10% of employment reclassified into different industries. It warned last
month that the revisions and industry reclassification "will affect more historical
data than is typical in the annual benchmark process."
More
Strong
U.S. job growth expected in January; wages seen cooling | 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.
Today,
did the BOE and ECB just make a policy mistake yesterday in not following the
Fed’s rate increase easing? I think both did, with the ECB promising another
mistake at their next meeting.
Aggressively
tightening into a likely recession when they had cover to follow the Fed’s
lead, is a gamble that China’s economic reopening will undo much of the effect
of the aggressive tightening. It might, but why pass up the cover for a lighter
touch?
Bank of England
hikes rates by 50 basis points, now sees ‘much shallower’ recession than feared
PUBLISHED THU, FEB 2 2023 7:06 AM
EST
LONDON — The Bank
of England on Thursday hiked interest
rates by 50 basis points and dialed back some of its previous bleak economic
forecasts.
The Monetary Policy Committee voted 7-2 in favor
of a second consecutive half-point rate hike, taking the main Bank rate to 4%, but indicated in its
decision statement that smaller hikes and an eventual end to the hiking cycle
may be in the cards in coming meetings. The two dissenting members voted to
leave rates unchanged at this meeting.
Crucially, the Bank also dropped the word
“forcefully” from its rhetoric around continuing to raise rates as necessary to
rein in inflation. It sees a forthcoming easing in the annual Consumer Price
Index:
“Annual CPI inflation
is expected to fall to around 4% towards the end of this year, alongside a much
shallower projected decline in output than in the November Report forecast,”
the Bank said.
“In the latest modal
forecast, conditioned on a market-implied path for Bank Rate that rises to
around 4½% in mid-2023 and falls back to just over 3¼% in three years’ time, an
increasing degree of economic slack, alongside falling external pressures,
leads CPI inflation to decline to below the 2% target in the medium term.”
However, the MPC noted that the labor market
remains tight and domestic price and wage pressures have been stickier than
expected, suggesting risks of “greater persistence in underlying inflation.”
U.K. inflation came in at 10.7% in December, down slightly from the previous month’s 41-year high of
11.1% as easing fuel prices helped to ease price pressures. However, high food
and energy prices continue to squeeze U.K. households and drive widespread
industrial action across the country.
The Bank on Thursday revised its economic outlook
to forecast a shorter and shallower recession than previously set out in the
November projections.
More
European Central
Bank raises rates by 50 basis points, pledges further hike in March
PUBLISHED THU, FEB 2 2023 8:19 AM
EST
The European Central
Bank on Thursday confirmed expectations of a 50 basis point interest rate
increase, taking its key rate to 2.5%.
In a statement, it
pledged to “stay the course in raising interest rates significantly at a steady
pace” and, in unusually firm language, said it intended to hike by another 50
basis points in March.
It said keeping rates
at restrictive levels would control price rises by dampening demand and keeping
inflation expectations under constrained. Decisions at future meetings will be
data-dependent, it added.
The
move follows four hikes in 2022 which brought euro zone rates out of negative
territory for the first time since 2014.
Euro
zone inflation fell for
the third straight month in January, flash figures published Wednesday showed,
but headline inflation remained high at 8.5%. Core inflation, which excludes
energy and food, was flat at 5.2%.
---- On Thursday, it said that in line with
current practice it would continue partial reinvestments of its maturing debt.
“The remaining
reinvestment amounts will be allocated proportionally to the share of
redemptions across each constituent programme of the APP (Asset Purchase
Programme) and, under the public sector purchase programme (PSPP), to the share
of redemptions of each jurisdiction and across national and supranational
issuers,” its statement said.
European Central
Bank raises rates by 50 basis points, pledges further hike in March (cnbc.com)
Fed's
Powell says no rate cuts this year, and markets hear it differently
February
2, 2023 11:18 AM GMT
Feb 2 (Reuters) -
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had a clear message on Wednesday: as
"gratifying" as it is that inflation has begun to slow, the central
bank is nowhere near to reversing course or declaring victory.
"It's going
to take some time" for disinflation to spread through the economy, Powell
said in a news conference following the Fed's latest quarter-point interest
rate increase. He said he expects a couple more rate hikes still to go, and,
"given our outlook, I just I don't see us cutting rates this year."
Investors ignored
him, keeping bets on just one more rate hike ahead and piling further into bets
that rates will be lower by year's end than they are now.
It's not obvious
which view will prove right: neither the Fed nor markets have a great
predictive record since the central bank's current round of rate hikes began
last March.
Markets have
repeatedly had to scrap bets for a quick pivot, pushing those expectations out
farther as the central bank charged ahead with the most aggressive policy
tightening in 40 years.
For their part,
Fed policymakers each quarter through last year kept ratcheting up their own
estimates for how high they'd push interest rates as inflation proved stronger
and stickier than anticipated. Not once did they signal rates would get cut
this year.
How the current
disconnect resolves will largely come down to whether inflation drops faster
than the central bank expects, or labor markets soften further than it hopes.
More
Fed's Powell says no rate cuts this year, and markets hear it differently | 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.
Biophytis Announces
Positive Final Results of the Phase 2-3 COVA Study with Sarconeos (BIO101) in
Severe COVID-19
Thu, February 2, 2023 at 7:20 AM GMT
- COVA study met primary end
point with 44% significant reduction in the risk of respiratory failure or
early death
- Filing for Early Access
Programs to Sarconeos (BIO101) is being initated while preparing for
Marketing Authorisation in Europe and the USA
PARIS, FRANCE /
CAMBRIDGE, MA / ACCESSWIRE / February 2, 2023 / Biophytis SA
(NasdaqCM: BPTS, Euronext Growth Paris:ALBPS) (the "Company" or
"Biophytis"), a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the
development of therapeutics that slow the degenerative processes associated
with aging, including severe respiratory failure in patients suffering from COVID-19,
today released the final results from its phase 2-3 COVA clinical study
evaluating Sarconeos (BIO101) in the treatment of COVID-19-related respiratory
failure. Biophytis announces today final results following the reintegration of
data from 54 patients, among 233 patients treated, that were missing in the Top
Line analysis released on September 7, 2022. The final analysis demonstrates
that COVA study met the primary endpoint, with a 44% statistically significant
reduction (p = 0.043) in the risk of respiratory failure or early death in
hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19, in line with positive Post-Hoc
analysis released on November 3, 2022.
Stanislas Veillet, CEO of Biophytis,
said: " The COVA study is positive, with a statistically significant reduction
of 44% in the risk of respiratory failure or early death, demonstrating the
therapeutic potential of Sarconeos (BIO101) in the treatment of severe
COVID-19. This huge success is the result of Biophytis scientific excellence
and hard work of the clinical and medical teams involved in the COVA clinical
study in France, Belgium, the USA and in Brazil.
This is tremendous news for patients
worldwide, especially for the elderly with co-morbidities, who are at high risk
of developing severe COVID-19, despite the great progress made in vaccination
and anti-viral treatments now available. While there is a resurgence of
COVID-19 patients in China and still unacceptable levels of patients dying from
COVID-19 in Europe, the USA and Brazil, Sarconeos (BIO101) may offer an
effective therapeutic option to reduce further the threat of COVID-19 pandemic.
We are now accelerating the start of
our Early Access Program, with the target to give access to Sarconeos (BIO101)
in Brazil and France in the second half of 2023, while preparing for filing
conditional Marketing Authorisation (CMA) in Europe and Emergency Use
Authorization (EUA) in the USA. "
Biophytis is nowinitiating key regulatory activities to give
access to Sarconeos (BIO101) to hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19 at
risk of respiratory failure and death in 2023.The strategy to give access to
Sarconeos (BIO101) as quickly as possible is to file for Early Access Programs
(EAP) in France and Brazil, while filing for conditional Marketing
Authorisation (CMA) in Europe and Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) in the USA.
An EAP has already been approved in 2022 in Brazil to treat
COVID-19 patients at critical stage in Intensice Care Units (ICU) and the
request to lift the hold given completion of the study and positive results is
pending.
The filing of the request for starting the EAP program in
France is being prepared and will be made in Q1 2023 with the objective to be
granted approval in Q2 2023.
Requests for pre-submission meetings regarding conditional
Marketing Authorisation in Europe and Emergency Use Authorization in the USA
are under preparation and will be sent in Q1 2023, targeting an approval later
in 2023, depending on feedback from authorities.
Biophytis will present the results in detail at the American
Thoracic Society conference in Washington, DC, USA in May 2023 and at the
European Respiratory Society Lung Science meeting in Estoril, Portugal, in
March 2023.
More
Immune Exhaustion Emerges After
3rd Vaccine Dose: Current Findings
Finding
suggests how little we know about the immune system
Jan 30 2023
Vaccines have been upheld as the
best strategy for dealing with infectious diseases, but that’s largely because
of a limited understanding of the immune system and how to best complement and
support its function. Our bodies are normally able to separate the wheat from
the chaff when it comes to invading pathogens or when a vaccine stimulates an
immune reaction, but there are factors that can compromise that.
A study published in Science Immunology in January
2023 (but first submitted in August 2022) shows that incremental doses
of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine boosters may be one such factor, based on how they
train our immune systems. In this case, the immune system seemed to gain a
false sense of security from dealing with the booster version of the vaccine,
which is supposed to teach the immune system how to deal with the virus.
Unfortunately, in this case, it seemed that the immune system has learned that
it doesn’t need to mount a strong counterattack. Worse, the vaccine boosters
might not even induce any effect in people at high risk of severe infection.
According to the study, the third dose of the mRNA vaccines seems to
be linked with a class switch in subtypes of immunoglobulin G (IgG), the
dominating serum antibody in our immune system, which raises the question of
immune exhaustion. Class switching is when B cells redirect their efforts
toward producing IgG. To start, they produce generic immunoglobulin cells such
as IgM. But once they find that the invading pathogen is tougher than they
thought, they switch to producing the more effective IgG to ward off the
infection.
IgG is an important serum antibody that makes up roughly 80 percent of all antibodies in our immune system. After class switching occurs, B cells release different types of IgG instead of other less-effective immunoglobulin cells. Depending on the severity of the infection, the ratio of IgG may also vary.
IgG is the more effective fighter in our immune system, as it has the
ability to opsonize and fixate complements, meaning that it attaches to
infected cells or pathogens and instructs killer cells to swallow intruders up
through phagocytosis. It’s also the only antibody that crosses into the
placenta, playing a critical role in protecting the unborn fetus.
More
Immune Exhaustion Emerges After 3rd Vaccine Dose:
Current Findings (theepochtimes.com)
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.
Scientists Use Graphene to Construct
Tractor Beam
By Jessica Hall on January 31, 2023 at 9:23 am
Physicists in China report that
they have built a tractor beam capable of moving objects on the macroscale.
It’s counter-intuitive; like laser cooling, the system does the opposite of
what you might expect when you point a laser at it. Instead of pushing, the
laser pulls.
In the latest issue
of Optics Express, the group reports that when using a 90mW laser,
their tractor beam in a box can produce about a micronewton of pulling force.
The setup is deceptively simple. The scientists vapor-coated a sliver of glass
with reflective gold, and then stuck a flake of cross-linked graphene to the
other side. Then, they pointed blue, cyan, and green lasers at the flake of
graphene. Lo and behold, it moved toward the laser emitter.
The setup is built on
established technology. Optical tweezers and solar sails also use light to move
things around. However, optical tweezers usually confine themselves to objects
the size of single molecules. Not so for this experiment, says the team.
“In previous studies, the
light-pulling force was too small to pull a macroscopical object,” said
research team member Lei Wang from China’s Qingdao University of Science and
Technology. “With our new approach, the light pulling force has a much larger
amplitude. In fact, it is more than three orders of magnitude larger than the
light pressure used to drive a solar sail, which uses the momentum of photons
to exert a small pushing force.”
Spooky Action at a Distance
The device works partly
by way of graphene’s unique properties. Graphene is
optically absorptive, meaning it retains some percent of the energy when
photons hit it. It’s also a semiconductor and an effective heat pipe. So
effective, the paper concludes, that when the scientists pointed the laser at the
graphene sandwich, the graphene carried that energy right to the far side of
the piece. Thermodynamics says that hot things emit more energy than cold
things, all else being equal. In the lab environment, that differential heating
was enough to make the object move.
More
Scientists Use Graphene to Construct Tractor Beam - ExtremeTech
Another weekend and the start of the
EU-G7 Russian oil products cap on the 5th. How long before a lack of
diesel brings the EUSSR to a halt? Have a great weekend everyone.
"Such a corporation is called a
"conglomerate" or a "free-form" company, very popular when
the market gets to tulip-time. A conglomerate is a company that grows by
acquiring other companies, and other companies can be in wildly different
businesses. Conglomerate managers are supposed to be a new breed of
brilliant wheeler-dealers, and the idea of the whole game is to take an
ice-cream freezer company and merge it into a valve company and merge with a
flour mill. The valves and the flour and the ice cream never get together
except on a balance sheet and an income statement, but Wall Street does look
for growing earnings, and with the right accountant this whole process can make
the earnings grow like crazy. Capitalism enters a new stage."
“Adam Smith” aka George Goodman.
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