Baltic Dry Index. 1402 -54 Brent Crude 78.83
Spot Gold 1966 US 2 Year Yield 4.02 +0.08
Coronavirus
Cases 01/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,103
Coronavirus Cases 29/03/23 World 683,483,603
Deaths 6,828,185
“If you are
not happy being in the top one tenth of one percent wealthiest people on earth,
being in the top one hundreth of one percent isn't going to do anything for
you.”
In the stock casinos, nervous hopium has returned largely driven by hopes that the recent bank crisis is over, the global central banks will shortly begin cutting interest rates, never mind about inflation, and news from China that Alibaba is going to split into six. Now word from China yet about how the 40 thieves intend to react.
As fairy tales go this one would have a most unhappy ending. With food price inflation soaring, wage price demands soaring in Germany, France and the UK, civil unrest across much of continental Europe, a global central bankster U-turn on interest rates in 2023 will embed soaring inflation in most of the G-7, collapse much of the emerging economies and turn even more countries into Argentina’s, Pakistan’s and Sri Lanka’s. Most of the world would not live happily ever after.
Besides, our global banking crisis is only in
remission. No one trusts anyone anymore, let alone the fiction published in
bank balance sheets. Deposit flight is only a few days past its start.
Hong Kong shares jump almost 2% as Alibaba
surges 15%; Asia markets largely up
UPDATED TUE, MAR 28 2023 11:53 PM
EDT
Asia-Pacific markets were mostly higher on
Wednesday as Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares spiked at the open after the
Chinese tech giant announced it will split into six business groups.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index gained
1.89%, paring earlier gains, while the Hang Seng Tech index jumped by 2.79%.
The gains were mainly led by Alibaba, whose shares jumped 15% at the open,
before paring some of its gains to 13.2%.
Mainland Chinese markets also
were higher, with the Shanghai
Composite down marginally and the Shenzhen Component up
0.27%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose
0.16%, as its February inflation came in lower than expected at 6.8%.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 was
0.58% higher, and the Topix rose 0.69%. South Korea’s Kospi was down
0.22%, while the Kosdaq index rose 0.43%.
Overnight in the US, all three major indexes
fell, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq
Composite losing 0.45%, the S&P 500 falling
0.16%, and the Dow
Jones Industrial Average shedding 37.83 points, or 0.12%.
Bond
yields rose, with the rate on the 2-year U.S. Treasury note climbing
back above 4%. Rising rates make future profits, like those promised by growth
companies, less attractive.
Hong
Kong shares jump almost 2% as Alibaba surges 15%; Asia markets largely up
(cnbc.com)
European markets head for a broadly higher open,
but doubts linger over banking sector
UPDATED WED, MAR 29 2023 12:30 AM EDT
European markets are heading for a broadly
higher open Wednesday, but the expected lukewarm open suggests doubts remain
for investors as to the overall health of the banking sector.
Regional
markets closed mixed Tuesday, with investors seemingly in a holding
pattern after a serious bout of market volatility.
Asia-Pacific
markets were mostly higher on Wednesday as Alibaba’s Hong
Kong-listed shares spiked at the open after the
Chinese tech giant announced it will split into six business groups.
U.S.
stock futures ticked higher on Tuesday night after the major
averages declined on the back of higher bond yields.
European markets:
Here are the opening calls
European markets
are heading for a broadly higher open Wednesday.
The U.K.’s FTSE 100 index
is expected to open 2 points lower at 7,485, Germany’s DAX 35
points higher at 15,175, France’s CAC up
15 points at 7,103 and Italy’s FTSE MIB 57
points higher at 25,915, according to data from IG.
Earnings are set to
come from Next and data releases will include Italian and Russian unemployment
figures for February.
European
markets live updates: stocks, news, data and earnings (cnbc.com)
BlackRock
Says Forget About Rate Cuts This Year
28 March 2023 at 23:29 BST
Anyone out there betting the US Federal Reserve
will actually cut rates this year has got it very wrong, says BlackRock. The
world’s biggest money manager has taken a dim view of Wall Street wishful
thinkers who expect rate cuts, given the continuing risk of recession. But BlackRock’s position runs counter
to that of TD Securities and DoubleLine Capital, both of which contend the
Fed is mistaken about the need to keep raising rates. The collapse of three
mid-size US banks and the forced marriage of Credit Suisse to UBS may have
prompted a rethink by some on monetary policy, but Fed
Chair Jerome Powell made clear with a fresh rate hike that the inflation
fight will go on. Here’s your markets wrap.
----The US government is coming for
crypto. The CFTC lawsuit against Binance, the world’s
biggest digital-asset exchange, was just the latest. In recent weeks entrepreneur Justin Sun and the crypto app
Sushi were sued by regulators and Coinbase also fell under scrutiny.
Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler has asserted that
cryptocurrencies are subject to the same regulations as securities, and
just this year banking regulators issued the sternest warning yet against
crypto. Since then, many banks have reduced their exposure to digital assets,
and crypto-friendly banks Silvergate and Signature blew up. Meanwhile, US
prosecutors added a new charge against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried for
allegedly bribing Chinese government officials in order to get them to unfreeze accounts at
Alameda Research, a Hong Kong-based trading firm affiliated with FTX.
More
Bloomberg
Evening Briefing: Fed Unlikely to Cut Rates in 2023, BlackRock Says - Bloomberg
In banksterism news, is another big scandal about to rock the big banks? Nestle considers diversifying its banks.
As Oscar Wide almost quipped, banksters, they
can resist anything except temptation.
French financial
prosecutors search bank offices over dividend stripping - spokesperson
March 28, 2023
PARIS (Reuters) - French authorities on Tuesday searched offices of
several large banks, including Societe Generale, BNP Paribas and HSBC on the
suspicion of money laundering and fiscal fraud, a spokesperson of the PNF
financial prosecution office told Reuters.
Societe
General confirmed the searches. The other concerned banks could not immediately
be reached for comment.
The
spokesperson confirmed earlier reports by paper Le Monde which said the probe
was linked to dividend stripping and also hit Exane and Natixis.
The PNF said
that five investigations were ongoing linked to so-called "cum-cum"
practices, through which wealthy clients sought to evade taxes on dividends
through complex legal structures.
"The
ongoing operations, which have required several months of preparation, are
being carried out by 16 investigating judges and over 150 investigation
agents", the PNF said in a statement issued around midday on Tuesday.
French financial
prosecutors search bank offices over dividend stripping - spokesperson
(msn.com)
Nestle to examine
banking relationships following Credit Suisse downfall
March 28, 2023
ZURICH (Reuters) -Nestle will examine its banking relationships
following the planned takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS, the food group's Chief
Executive Mark Schneider said on Tuesday.
The world's
largest food group was a client of Credit Suisse, Schneider told broadcaster
TeleZueri in an interview to be shown on Tuesday evening, and had been
following the collapse of Switzerland's second-biggest bank.
"We have
worked closely with Credit Suisse for many decades in a spirit of trust,"
Schneider told the broadcaster.
"You can
see from such an example that Switzerland as a business location and a
financial centre are very closely linked. We now have to see how to reorganise
our banking relationships, both with Swiss and international providers."
Schneider said
the intervention by the Swiss government, the central bank and financial market
regulator to engineer a merger with UBS had stabilised the situation and
restored confidence.
Speaking
about Nestle, Schneider said the company had made a good start to 2023,
although further price rises by the company were likely, Schneider said, to
offset inflation of raw material costs.
The maker of
Nescafe instant coffee and KitKat chocolate bars raised prices by 8.2% last
year, but that did not fully offset the impact of increased ingredient costs on
margins.
Price
increases had so far only had a "very limited" impact on consumer
spending, Schneider said.
"As
inflation continues, and then also affects our own profitability, we will have
to adjust prices," Schneider said.
"We will
continue to do this in a responsible way, we don't want to be a price driver.
We respond to inflation, we don't fuel it," he said.
The food maker
was also working on savings to reach its goal for a full-year underlying
trading operating profit margin target of between 17% and 17.5% , Schneider
added.
Nestle to examine
banking relationships following Credit Suisse downfall (msn.com)
ECB may copy Bank of
England's way of steering rates: Schnabel
March
27, 2023
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The European Central Bank could take a leaf from the Bank of England's book as it looks for new ways of managing liquidity in the banking sector and steering short-term interest rates on the market, ECB board member Isabel Schnabel said on Monday.
The ECB is now
rapidly shrinking its balance sheet but this is unlikely to fall back to its
level of before the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, so policymakers are now
studying a new way to steer short-term interest rates in a new normal.
Outlining
possible changes to the ECB's 'corridor system' of a wide gap between the
deposit and lending rates, Schnabel pointed to the BoE's example, in which
banks themselves determine the amount of liquidity they want to hold.
"The Bank
of England’s approach has a number of benefits that may be particularly
relevant for a large and heterogeneous currency area like the euro area,"
Schnabel, the head of the ECB's market operations, said.
"One is
that it may provide better insurance against potential fragmentation
shocks," she told a lecture at Columbia University. "A more balanced
reserve distribution could strengthen the resilience of the currency
union."
The BoE currently offers regular collateralised lending operations based on individual bank demands to fill any shortfall in the need for reserves as quantitative tightening or the reduction of bond holdings proceeds.
Using the same
rate for providing and remunerating reserves ensures that money market rates
will trade closely to the policy rate, Schnabel argued.
A benefit is
that the BoE can wind down its massive government bond portfolio without
needing to know ahead of time the demand for excess reserves, Schnabel added.
Another
benefit of such a demand-driven framework is that it offers more flexibility on
how the central bank provides reserves.
"A third
benefit is that the Bank of England’s approach may potentially lead to a leaner
balance sheet depending on banks’ demand for reserves," Schnabel said.
Schnabel also
examined but appeared to dismiss a 'floor system' used by the U.S. Federal
Reserve, in which the policy rate creates a lower bound, or floor, for the
market interest rate, removing any incentive for banks to lend funds at a lower
rate.
ECB may copy Bank of England's way of steering rates: Schnabel (msn.com)
Bank regulators eye tougher oversight after Silicon Valley Bank
collapse
March
28, 2023
Silicon Valley Bank’s failure was a “textbook case of mismanagement”
that shows that banks with more than $100 billion in assets may need tougher
oversight, and the government will review the federal insurance program that
protects deposits, regulators told a Senate committee looking into the crisis.
But lawmakers
squabbled Tuesday over the causes of the meltdowns at SVB and Signature Bank.
In a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee, Republicans disputed the idea
that tougher rules for midsize banks would have kept the institutions from
failing and raised concerns that regulators’ decisions to insure all deposits
at those two banks could set a dangerous precedent. Democrats, meanwhile,
insisted that the recent meltdown leaves little ambiguity on the need for
revamped rules.
Top officials
from the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, and Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation said they would support strengthening banking regulations,
including for firms with assets over $100 billion. Silicon Valley Bank had $211
billion in assets at the end of last year.
The
FDIC will also embark on a “comprehensive” review of bank deposit insurance,
with its chair saying the decision to cover all uninsured depositors at SVB and
Signature Bank was a “highly consequential one that has implications for the
system.” The cost of SVB’s failure to the government’s Deposit Insurance Fund —
funded mainly through quarterly premiums on insured banks — is roughly $20
billion, according to FDIC estimates. FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg said 88
percent of SVB’s deposits when it failed were over the usual $250,000 limit for
insurance, and the top 10 largest accounts had $13.3 billion.
More
Bank
regulators eye tougher oversight after Silicon Valley Bank collapse (msn.com)
U.S.
FDIC tells Signature Bank's crypto clients to close accounts by April 5
March 29, 2023 1:04
AM GMT+1
March 28
(Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) has informed
collapsed lender Signature Bank's (SBNY.O) crypto clients that they have
until April 5 to close their accounts and move their money.
The
deposits in question were not part of a rescue deal arranged with Flagstar
Bank, a unit of New York Community Bancorp (NYCB.N), earlier this month.
"Flagstar's
bid did not include about $4 billion in deposits related to Signature's
digital-asset business," an FDIC spokesperson said.
"Those are
the deposits we are encouraging customers to move before April 5. If they have
not by that day, we will mail checks to the address on record."
Flagstar
on March 19 entered into an agreement with U.S. regulators to buy deposits and
loans from New York-based Signature Bank.
The
FDIC had said that the deal would see Flagstar
Bank assume substantially all of Signature Bank's deposits, some of its loan
portfolios and all 40 of its former branches. Roughly $60 billion of Signature
Bank's loans and $4 billion of its deposits would remain with it in
receivership.
More
U.S.
FDIC tells Signature Bank's crypto clients to close accounts by April 5 |
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.
Food
inflation soars to record 15 per cent as sugar price hike leaves retailers
warning of more misery to come
TUESDAY 28 MARCH 2023 7:00 AM
Shop
price inflation is yet to reach its “peak” as the rising cost of sugar
and high manufacturing costs present a double whammy ahead of crucial Easter
trade, a leading retail body has warned.
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) shop price index showed annual inflation accelerated to 8.9 per cent in March, up from 8.4 per cent in February – a fresh high for shoppers who have had no relief from soaring living costs.
Food inflation also continued to sky rocket
in March, rising to 15 per cent from 14.5 per cent in February – the highest
rate on record.
Grocery
stores battled supply shortages due to bad weather in southern Europe
and northern Africa, which disrupted crop growth, seeing the rise in fresh food
prices soar to 17 per cent, up from 16.3 per cent in February.
What is driving food price inflation?
“Shop price inflation has yet to peak. As Easter
approaches, the rising cost of sugar coupled with high manufacturing costs left
some customers with a sour taste, as price rises for chocolate, sweets and
fizzy drinks increased in March,” said Helen Dickinson OBE, chief executive of
the BRC.
“Fruit and vegetable prices also rose as poor
harvests in Europe and North Africa worsened availability, and imports became
more expensive due to the weakening pound. “
Costs of ambient food, such as canned goods, rose
to 12.4 per cent in March, up from 12.2 per cent in February.
The cost of goods in stores have been on a steady
increase due to a hike in energy costs, shortages of goods and materials and
the impact of Covid-19, with consumers bearing the brunt of this fallout.
“Inflation continues to have an impact on the
spending power of shoppers and increased energy bills from April will add more
pressure,” Mike Watkins, head of retailer and Business Insight, NielsenIQ,
said.
He added: “Since food prices have risen retailers
have seen more visits but less basket spend, as shoppers manage their weekly
food bills by shopping little and more often and seeking out the lowest
prices.”
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Major Media Fall for Fake Wuhan
Raccoon Dog Story
March 27, 2023
Updated: March 27, 2023
Recent reports from major media
organizations claim that new evidence points to raccoon dogs at
the Wuhan Seafood Market as the origin of COVID-19. The story was first reported by The Atlantic, which claimed that the
raccoon dog discovery was “The Strongest Evidence Yet That an Animal Started
the Pandemic.” The New York Times scrambled to put out a same-day story of their own,
titled “New Data Links Pandemic’s Origins to Raccoon Dogs at Wuhan Market.”
Science Magazine, the outlet that
helped Dr. Anthony Fauci seed the natural origin narrative for COVID-19’s
emergence, also put out an urgent same-day news story, claiming that “Unearthed genetic
sequences from China market may point to animal origin of COVID-19.”
The problem with the reporting is
that the raccoon dog narrative was entirely made up out of thin air and the
news organizations who reported it knew this to be the case. There was no new
evidence. Additionally, the scientists involved in pushing the story were known
to be close associates of Fauci and have a history of pushing false narratives.
The raccoon dog story is closely
linked to a private teleconference that Fauci organized on Feb. 1, 2020, during
which the elevating of the natural origin narrative and suppression of the lab
leak theory for COVID-19’s emergence was discussed. It was at that
teleconference that Fauci commissioned a paper from four scientists who were
in attendance: Kristian Andersen, Edward Holmes, Robert Garry,
and Andrew Rambaut.
The group, which is now also
behind the raccoon dog story, immediately set about writing the
fraudulent Proximal Origin paper as a cudgel that Fauci could use against
anyone who deigned to question the natural origin narrative. In fact, when
President Donald Trump questioned the narrative at an April 17, 2020, White
House press conference, Fauci invoked the Proximal Origin paper without
acknowledging his role in creating it. Fauci even pretended not to know who the
authors of the paper were.
The problem for Fauci and the
Proximal Origin authors was that their narrative was entirely contrived, which
meant that the group had to make up a plausible-sounding story. The story they
came up with was that pangolins were responsible for the outbreak. Pangolins
are scaly, anteater-type mammals that have been known to be used in traditional
Chinese medicine. There is no evidence that pangolins played any role in the
pandemic, nor that they were sold at the Wuhan Seafood Market, where Fauci’s
group wanted to place the origin of the pandemic. In addition, all animals at
the market tested negative for COVID-19.
Notwithstanding these problems,
Fauci’s group initially hung on to its pangolin narrative. Then, in the Summer
of 2022, the group co-published another paper,
this time raising the possibility that raccoon dogs were responsible for the
pandemic. As evidence, the group included a photo of raccoon dogs that a member
of the group, Edward Holmes, had allegedly taken at the Wuhan Seafood Market in
2014. The group did not explain how the presence of raccoon dogs in 2014 led to
an outbreak six years later. Notwithstanding, the idea that raccoon dogs might
have been responsible was seeded.
Then, earlier this month, in what
superficially appears to have been a huge coincidence, Florence Debarre, a French
scientist who is associated with Fauci’s group and is known for pushing the
natural origin narrative on Twitter, suddenly discovered raccoon dog DNA in a
data sample uploaded by Chinese scientists who were themselves studying the
Wuhan Seafood Market.
Debarre told The Atlantic she
came across this data “by almost pure happenstance” when she “spotted the sequences pinging onto the server late
last Thursday night with no warning or fanfare.”
Incredibly, the data that Debarre
had apparently stumbled upon included raccoon dog DNA, which, even more
incredibly, came from Stall 29, the same spot where Holmes had snapped the photo of raccoon dogs nearly
a decade earlier.
Debarre quickly
teamed up with Fauci’s group of scientists to promote the raccoon dog
narrative. Notably, the same four scientists—Andersen, Holmes, Garry, and
Rambaut—who led Fauci’s Feb 1, 2020, secret teleconference, and who also led
the Proximal Origin effort, are now leading the raccoon dog story.
More.
Much, much, more.
Major Media Fall
for Fake Wuhan Raccoon Dog Story (theepochtimes.com)
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.
I have my doubts that battery swapping
is financially viable, scalable, or safe.
China's Nio opens
trial for high-speed EV battery swapping stations
With capacity to store up to 21
battery packs each, Nio's Power Swap Station 3.0 can speed up battery swapping
to less than five minutes and lower the service cost per swap, Shen Fei, Nio
senior vice president for power management, told reporters at an event in
Shanghai last Thursday. The comments were embargoed for release on Tuesday.
Tesla's rapid-charging Supercharger
allows EV users to top up vehicles to a range of 200 miles in 15 minutes.
Battery swapping allows drivers to
replace depleted packs quickly with fully charged packs, rather than plugging
the vehicle in to a charging point. Swapping could help to ease the strain on power
grids at peak times when drivers recharge, but industry analysts and executives
expect it would only become feasible if batteries become more standardised.
Nio is among only a handful of EV
makers betting on battery swapping as a major power option for electric cars.
Rival Tesla has dismissed battery swapping as "riddled with problems and
not suitable for widescale use".
Nio, which has set a target of 2,300
battery swapping stations globally by year-end, had 1,323 in operation as of
March 23, Shen said. It aims for 900 of the latest power swap stations to be
operating this year, he added.
Nearly 60% of the power replenished
for Nio cars in February was via battery swapping, while another 23% was from
home chargers, Shen said.
Fewer than 10% of Nio users used
public chargers while 80.5% of the power charged from Nio's 14,000 chargers
nationwide was for non-Nio users, including Tesla and BYD vehicles, he added.
“Cash, though, is to a business as oxygen is to
an individual: never thought about when it is present, the only thing in mind
when it is absent.”
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