Baltic Dry Index. 538 +08 Brent Crude 83.67
Spot Gold 1845 US 2 Year Yield 4.60 -0.02
Coronavirus
Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,103
Coronavirus Cases 20/02/23 World 678,700,643
Deaths 6,791,125
There is no art which one government
sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the
people.
Adam Smith, The
Wealth Of Nations, 1776.
With US markets closed today for a pre-Spring
shopping holiday, aka Presidents Day, the global stock casinos face a nervous day
largely awaiting news from later in the week.
President Biden heads to Europe this week to
deliver more aid and support for Ukraine in its NATO proxy war with Russia.
Of concern, as the war enters its second year
this week, how well will Spring planting take place this year, plus how much
fertiliser was available within Ukraine.
As noted below, grain shipments from Ukraine
have lately been falling, generating concern about more food price inflation to
come.
Asia markets
mostly rise ahead of Fed minutes; China leaves loan prime rates unchanged
UPDATED MON, FEB 20 2023 12:08 AM
EST
Asia-Pacific
markets were mostly higher on Monday, as investors look ahead to a batch of
economic data later in the week, including minutes for the U.S. Federal Open Market
Committee (FOMC).
The People’s Bank of China left
its 1-year and 5-year prime loan rates unchanged, widely in line with
expectations. The Shenzhen
Component was up 0.81%, while the Shanghai Composite rose
1%. In Hong Kong, the Hang
Seng index gained 0.43% and the Hang Seng Tech index rose
0.67%.
In South Korea, the Kospi was also marginally
lower while defense stocks traded mixed after North Korea fired missiles
towards its eastern waters. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was
fractionally lower, with the Topix up 0.34% as investors looked ahead to the
nominated Bank
of Japan governor Kazuo Ueda’s appearance in parliament slated for
Friday.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 traded
flat as the minutes for Reserve Bank of Australia’s meeting is scheduled to be
released Tuesday.
On Wall Street, stocks ended
Friday mixed, with the Dow
Jones Industrial Average rallying more than 100 points. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite both
fell. U.S. markets will be closed for Presidents’ day.
Asia markets, U.S.
FOMC minutes, PMI, RBNZ, RBA minutes, Australia wage prices (cnbc.com)
Morning
Bid: Up, up and away
February
20, 2023 5:33 AM GMT
A look at the day
ahead in European and global markets from Anshuman Daga
Asian
shares edged up from their lowest levels in about one month but trading was slow
ahead of minutes of the last Federal Reserve meeting and a reading on core
inflation, with rising interest rates still seen as a risk for markets.
In
Europe, money markets show that investors are already betting on a peak
European Central Bank rate around 3.75% by late summer, up from levels around
3.4% earlier this month.
Investors are
unwinding earlier bets after a string of hawkish comments from policymakers,
forcing European shares to retreat further from one-year highs.
ECB
officials have highlighted their fears about stubborn underlying inflation.
The
central bank raised rates by 50 basis points this month and pre-announced another
increase of the same size for March 16 but it kept an open mind about future
moves, with most policymakers expecting another rate hike in May.
Geopolitical
tensions heightened again as U.S. Secretary of State Antony
Blinken warned top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi of consequences should China
provide material support to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, saying in an
interview after the two met that Washington was concerned Beijing was considering
supplying weapons to Moscow.
Meanwhile,
in a week when India hosts the year's first G20 finance and central bank chiefs meeting, from Feb. 22-25, tough global
discussions over debt forgiveness for poor nations are going to get even
trickier.
China, the
world's largest bilateral creditor, is under fire for playing tough on terms.
Stand-out
items on this week's economic calendar include the Federal Reserve's preferred
inflation gauge, earnings reports from big U.S. retailers, global flash PMIs, and
inflation readings from the euro zone and Japan.
More
Morning
Bid: Up, up and away | Reuters
In
cryptoland, has the peak already passed?
Will regulation kill off all the many scams?
World Wide Web
inventor Tim Berners-Lee calls crypto ‘dangerous’ and likens it to gambling
Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide
Web, called cryptocurrency “dangerous” and likened it to gambling in an episode
of CNBC’s “Beyond The Valley”
podcast published last Friday.
Discussing the future of the web,
Berners-Lee said digital currencies are “only speculative” and compared it to
the dot-com bubble, in which internet stocks, often without a solid business
behind them, were highly inflated.
“It’s only speculative. Obviously, that’s really dangerous,” Berners-Lee
told CNBC. ”[It’s] if you want to have a kick out of gambling, basically.”
“Investing in certain
things, which is purely speculative, isn’t what, where I want to spend my
time,” he added.
Berners-Lee said,
however, that digital currencies could be useful for remittances if they’re
immediately converted back into fiat currency when they’re received.
The British computer
scientist is credited with inventing the World Wide Web in 1989. But
Berners-Lee has been dissatisfied with the way his original vision for the web
has panned out. Alongside John Bruce, Berners-Lee is looking to reshape the
future of the internet through his startup Inrupt, with the aim of giving
people more control of their data. Both spoke to CNBC’s “Beyond The Valley” in
a wide-ranging interview about the future of the internet.
More
Web
inventor Berners-Lee calls crypto dangerous, likens it to gambling (cnbc.com)
The SEC has a
stablecoin firm in its sights — and it could shake up the whole $137 billion
market
The U.S. Securities
and Exchange Commission could be gearing up to take action against Paxos, a
company that issues a type of cryptocurrency called stablecoin.
The move will have
major implications for the $137 billion market, experts told CNBC.
Stablecoins are a
type of cryptocurrency designed to mirror real-world assets such as the U.S.
dollar.
These stablecoins are often backed by real assets
such as bonds or cash in reserve. They have become the backbone of the crypto
market as they allow people to trade in and out of different coins quickly
without having to convert in and out of fiat currency.
Paxos issued a digital currency
called Binance USD or BUSD.
It is a stablecoin associated with Binance, one of the world’s biggest
cryptocurrency exchanges. BUSD is pegged one-to-one with the U.S. dollar.
Last week, New York state’s
financial regulator ordered
Paxos to stop issuing BUSD.
Separately, Paxos said that
the SEC had issued it a notice that the regulator is considering recommending
an action alleging that BUSD is a security. Paxos said the notice suggests
Paxos should have registered the offering of BUSD under federal securities
laws.
The SEC hasn’t started official action. But the
agency’s actions are being watched closely because if it starts an official
procedure, it could have huge implications for all stablecoins including tether and USDC,
the two largest which combined are worth $110 billion.
“If the SEC charges Paxos, any
other issuer of stablecoins should register or prepare for a court fight with
the SEC,” Renato Mariotti, a partner at law firm BCLP, told CNBC.
---- If BUSD is deemed a security by the SEC then
the regulator would have oversight over the stablecoin. Whatever company issues
BUSD would need to register with the SEC and accept more stringent regulation.
Another implication
is that other stablecoins will also be given the same label.
“The basis for that
action will necessarily be fact-specific to the Paxos BUSD structure but will
likely have wide ranging implications for other stablecoin issuers selling
coins into the U.S.,” Townsend Lansing, head of product at CoinShares, told
CNBC.
More
How
the SEC and Paxos-BUSD fight could impact the stablecoin market (cnbc.com)
Binance's
U.S. partner confirms firm run by CEO Zhao operated on exchange
February 17, 2023 10:35 PM GMT
LONDON, Feb 17 (Reuters) - The U.S.
partner of global cryptocurrency exchange Binance has confirmed that a trading
firm managed by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao operated as a market maker on its
platform.
Reuters reported
on Thursday, citing banking records and company messages, that Binance had
secret access to a bank account belonging to its purportedly independent U.S.
partner and transferred large sums of money from the account to the trading
firm, Merit Peak Ltd.
"While there was a market making
firm named Merit Peak that operated on the Binance.US platform, it stopped all
activity on the platform in 2021," Binance.US said in a tweet on Thursday
after the Reuters story was published. It did not elaborate on when in 2021 the
activity ceased, or comment on Zhao's role at the trading firm.
The global Binance exchange is not
licensed to operate in the United States but the transfers to Merit Peak
revealed by Reuters suggest that Binance controlled the finances of Binance.US,
despite saying publicly that the American entity is "fully
independent" and operates as its "U.S. partner."
Binance transferred over $400 million
from the account at California-based Silvergate Bank to Merit Peak between
January and March of 2021, Reuters reported on Thursday.
Before that story's publication,
Binance.US had told Reuters that "Merit Peak is neither trading nor
providing any kind of services on the Binance.US platform," without giving
further details.
Binance.US's executives were concerned
by the outflows from the Silvergate account to Merit Peak because the transfers
were taking place without their knowledge, according to the company messages
reviewed by Reuters.
A spokesperson for the global Binance
exchange, which did not respond to Reuters' questions for the story on
Thursday, told crypto news outlet CoinDesk that the transfers were "a
Binance.US issue."
Zhao, the Binance CEO, said
on Friday that the global exchange has pulled back on potential
investments in the United States, a move that comes amid growing
scrutiny by U.S. regulators of crypto companies so far this year.
In particular, the activities of crypto
platforms' market makers - firms that typically buy and sell assets at
exchanges to deepen trading volumes - have drawn regulatory and political focus
since the collapse of major exchange FTX in November.
More
Binance's U.S.
partner confirms firm run by CEO Zhao operated on exchange | 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.
Ukrainian grain shipments
drop as ship backups grow
LONDON (AP) — The amount of grain leaving Ukraine has dropped even as a
U.N.-brokered deal works to keep food flowing to developing nations, with inspections of ships falling to half what they were
four months ago and a backlog of vessels growing as Russia's invasion nears the
one-year mark.
Ukrainian and some U.S.
officials are blaming Russia for slowing down inspections, which Moscow has
denied. Less wheat, barley and other grain getting out of Ukraine, dubbed
the “breadbasket of the world, ” raises concerns about the impact to those going hungry in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia
— places that rely on affordable food supplies from the Black Sea region.
The hurdles come as
separate agreements brokered last summer by Turkey and the U.N. to keep supplies moving from the warring nations and reduce soaring food prices
are up for renewal next month. Russia is also a top global supplier of wheat,
other grain, sunflower oil and fertilizer, and officials have complained about
the holdup in shipping the nutrients critical to crops.
Under the deal, food
exports from three Ukrainian ports have dropped from 3.7 million metric tons in
December to 3 million in January, according to the Joint Coordination Center in
Istanbul. That's where inspection teams from Russia, Ukraine, the U.N. and
Turkey ensure ships carry only agricultural products and no weapons.
The drop in supply equates to about a
month of food
consumption for Kenya and Somalia combined. It
follows average inspections per day slowing to 5.7 last month and 6 so far this
month, down from the peak of 10.6 in October.
That has helped lead to backups in the number of
vessels waiting in the waters off Turkey to either be checked or join the Black
Sea Grain Initiative. There are 152 ships in line, the JCC said, a 50% increase
from January.
This month, vessels are waiting an average of 28 days
between applying to participate and being inspected, said Ruslan Sakhautdinov,
head of Ukraine's delegation to the JCC. That's a week longer than in January.
Factors like poor weather hindering inspectors’ work,
demand from shippers to join the initiative, port activity and capacity of
vessels also affect shipments.
“I think it will grow to be a problem if the
inspections continue to be this slow,” said William Osnato, a senior research
analyst at agriculture data and analytics firm Gro Intelligence. “In a month or
two, you’ll realize that’s a couple a million tons that didn’t come out because
it’s just going too slowly.”
“By creating the bottleneck, you’re creating sort of
this gap of the flow, but as long as they’re getting some out, it’s not a total
disaster,” he added.
----Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro
Kuleba and Infrastructure Minister
Oleksandr Kubrakov said in statement Wednesday on Facebook that Russian
inspectors have been “systematically delaying the inspection of vessels” for
months.
They accused Moscow of obstructing work under the
deal and then “taking advantage of the opportunity of uninterrupted trade
shipping from Russian Black Sea ports.”
Osnato also raised the possibility that Russia might
be slowing inspections “in order to pick up more business” after harvesting a
large wheat crop. Figures from financial data provider Refinitiv show
that Russian
wheat exports more than doubled to 3.8 million
tons last month from January 2022, before the invasion.
Russian wheat shipments were at or near record highs
in November, December and January, increasing 24% over the same three months a
year earlier, according to Refinitiv. It estimated Russia would export 44
million tons of wheat in 2022-2023.
Alexander Pchelyakov, a spokesman for the Russian
diplomatic mission to U.N. institutions in Geneva, said last month that the
allegations of deliberate slowdowns are “simply not true.”
Russian officials also
have complained that the country's fertilizer is not being exported under the
agreement, leaving renewal of the four-month deal that expires March 18 in
question.
More
Ukrainian grain
shipments drop as ship backups grow (msn.com)
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.
COVID-19 Can Cause Viral-Induced
Trauma
Virus interrupts a process
linked to depression, leading to higher percentages of PTSD than war veterans
Feb 16 2023
COVID-19 infections are
responsible for an upswing in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but now the underlying mechanisms
are emerging from research, offering a deeper understanding of this
virus-induced mental health disorder.
A metabolic process ongoing in the
gut is interrupted when angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 (ACE-2), the receptor site for SARS-CoV-2, is occupied by the
virus.
Tryptophan transporter is
typically co-expressed with ACE-2, but when the virus is taking over ACE-2,
tryptophan is not absorbed.
This is problematic because
tryptophan, an essential amino acid that must be taken in by the diet, plays a
vital role in making serotonin and melatonin. Tryptophan—found in foods like
bananas, oats, tuna, chicken, cheese, and turkey—is the sole
precursor for serotonin, a neurotransmitter involved in mood, behavior, and
cognition. About 30 percent of those with acute COVID infections also
have PTSD.
“As serotonin is an
antidepressant, the virus can cause depression directly,” Dr. Adonis Sfera,
psychiatrist, told The Epoch Times. “Tryptophan is also important for PTSD and
we think that virus-induced PTSD occurs because of low tryptophan. Thus, in
addition to being depressed because they got infected, people can develop
depression and PTSD directly by virus-disrupted tryptophan absorption.”
This may explain the phenomenon of
infections causing higher percentages of PTSD than those seen in military and
war veterans, which is about 16
percent. Besides COVID, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Ebola are
also associated with PTSD rates of 30 percent or higher.
Furthermore, Sfera and others hypothesized in 2021 that COVID disrupts the intestinal and
blood-brain barriers and produces premature endothelial cell senescence, a
cellular arrest process involved in age-related disease. This can activate
stress molecules, and give them access to the amygdala and other areas of the
brain. It explains not only PTSD but also other symptoms of long-COVID such as
chronic fatigue and brain fog. Those findings have since been validated by
other studies.
More
COVID-19 Can Cause
Viral-Induced Trauma (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.
Heat-loving lightweight superalloy promises higher
turbine efficiency
Loz Blain February 09, 2023
One factor limiting the
output of today's power stations is the metals used in the blades, bearings and
seals of their steam turbines, which tend to soften and elongate well before
their melting point. Solve these problems, and you could conceivably raise
temperatures on anything that converts heat to electricity using a steam
turbine, with a resulting boost in efficiency and a reduction in waste heat
being lost.
Researchers
at Sandia Labs, Ames National Laboratory and Iowa State University say they've
created a 3D-printable high-performance superalloy that's stronger and lighter
than the state-of-the-art high-temperature alloys used today. They've published
their findings in the journal Applied Materials Today.
Composed of 42%
aluminum, 25% titanium, 13% niobium, 8% zirconium, 8% molybdenum and 4%
tantalum, this material is an example of a "multi-principal-element
superalloy," or MPES. Most alloys are made chiefly out of one primary
element, combined with low concentrations of other elements to boost certain
properties, but multi-principal-element alloys have high concentrations of
three or more elements.
According to the
research team, a wide variety of these alloys are showing great promise on a
number of metrics; strength-to-weight, fracture toughness, corrosion and
radiation resistance, wear resistance, and others. But the MPES subset this
team has explored excels at high strength in high-temperature situations.
"The specific
strength of the MPES based on the ratio of hardness and density is 1.8–2.6
GPa-cm3/g," reads the study, "a value that surpasses all known
alloys, including intermetallic compounds and legacy titanium aluminides,
refractory MPEAs, and conventional Ni-based superalloys. This specific strength
is a 300% improvement over Inconel 718 based on measured peak hardness [28] of
4.5 GPa and density of 8.2 g/cm3, which gives a ratio of 0.55 GPa-cm3/g."
It's also designed
specifically to be 3D-printable in powdered form, enabling it to be laid out in
"unusual nanoscale microstructures" that the research team found were
"insensitive to exposure at 800 °C [1,472 °F] for one hour" –
considerably hotter than the 570-odd °C (1,058 °F) at which a typical coal-based
power plant runs.
The researchers say this work
points to a larger class of MPES materials ready to be explored, with
immediately interesting potential in aerospace as well as energy. They warn
that further work on the 3D printing process is needed before they'll reliably
be able to produce large parts in these alloys without microscopic cracks, and
that the feedstock includes some fairly expensive metals that'll make this
particular MPES tough to scale up for broader use in applications where cost is
a high priority.
“With all those caveats, if
this is scalable and we can make a bulk part out of this, it’s a game changer,”
says Sandia scientist Andrew Kustas in a press release. “We’re showing that
this material can access previously unobtainable combinations of high strength,
low weight and high-temperature resiliency. We think part of the reason we
achieved this is because of the additive manufacturing approach.”
The study is open access in
the journal Applied Materials Today.
Heat-loving
lightweight superalloy promises higher turbine efficiency (newatlas.com)
By means of glasses, hotbeds, and
hotwalls, very good grapes can be raised in Scotland, and very good wine too
can be made of them at about thirty times the expense for which at least
equally good can be brought from foreign countries. Would it be a reasonable
law to prohibit the importation of all foreign wines, merely to encourage the
making of claret and burgundy in Scotland?
Adam Smith, The
Wealth Of Nations, 1776.
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