Baltic Dry Index. 1258 +47 Brent Crude 86.60
Spot Gold 1848 US 2 Year Yield 4.89 +0.03
Coronavirus
Cases 01/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,103
Coronavirus Cases 07/03/23 World 680,764,405
Deaths 6,805,882
The desire for constant action irrespective of underlying conditions is responsible for many losses in Wall Street even among the professionals, who feel that they must take home some money everyday, as though they were working for regular wages.
Jesse Livermore.
In the Asian stock casinos, more hopium that Fed Chairman Powell can tame inflation without causing a hard landing.
Well maybe, but that’s highly unlikely. With 2024 a US presidential election year, any taming of inflation must be done in the remainder of 2023. That probably means taking US interest rates higher than most punters in the US stock casinos are anticipating.
Of
course, the Powell Fed could just opt to declare victory and wimp out. But that
means high inflation for all of 2023 and 2024. Election year 2024 to be a
repeat of 1980 assuming no direct war on Russia or China or both?
Asia-Pacific
markets mostly higher as investors look ahead to Powell’s congress testimony
UPDATED TUE, MAR 7 2023 12:32 AM
EST
Asia-Pacific
shares were mixed as traders looked ahead to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome
Powell’s congressional testimony on Tuesday and Wednesday, which will inform the
central bank’s next moves on its rate-hiking decision.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was
up 0.53%. The RBA raised its overnight cash rate by 25 basis points to 3.6%,
which would mark the highest rate since June 2012. The country also posted a narrow trade
surplus for January, according to official data.
Japan’s Nikkei 225′s rose
0.36%, and the Topix added 0.40%. South Korea’s Kospi inched up
0.36% while the Kosdaq rose 0.11%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index traded
0.72% higher. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite climbed
fractionally, while the Shenzhen
Component was down 0.607%.
Philippines’ inflation showed signs of easing as
consumer price index for February rose 8.6% year-on-year, based on official
data.
China will post its trade data
later in the day. Thailand’s inflation data is also slated for release.
Overnight in the U.S., stocks
largely held onto gains as the Dow notched a four-day win streak.
Powell is set to appear before Congress with the task
of convincing legislators that he’s committed to bringing down
inflation while not dragging the economy down.
China’s exports and
imports fall as trade surplus beats expectations
China saw its
exports fall by 6.8% in February, declining less than expectations of a 9.4%
drop, according to economists surveyed by Reuters. The drop was also less than
the previous month’s fall of 9.9%.
Imports also fell
10.2%, down more than expectations to see a drop of 5.5% on an annualized basis
and a further decline from the previous month’s contraction of 7.5%.
The economy’s trade
surplus in U.S. dollar terms were at $116.88 billion, higher than expected and
an increase from the previous month’s surplus of $78 billion.
Asia-Pacific
markets, China trade, Australia CPI, RBA (cnbc.com)
Fed’s Powell
heads to Capitol Hill this week, and he’s going to have his hands full
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is
set to appear before Congress with a tall task: Persuade legislators that he’s
committed to bringing down inflation while not pulling down the rest of the
economy at the same time.
Markets have been on tenterhooks
wondering whether he can pull it off. Sentiment in recent days has been more
optimistic, but that can swing the other way in a hurry should the central bank
leader stumble this week during his semiannual testimony on monetary policy.
“He has to thread the needle here with two messages,” said Robert Teeter,
Silvercrest Asset Management’s head of investment policy and strategy. “One of
them is reiterating some of the comments he has made that there has been some
progress on inflation.”
“The second thing is being really persistent in
terms of the outlook for rates remaining high. He’ll probably reiterate the
message that rates are staying elevated for some time until inflation is
clearly solved,” Teeter said.
Should he take that
stance, he’s likely to face some heat, first from the Senate Banking Committee
on Tuesday, followed by the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday.
Democratic
legislators in particular have been worried that the Powell Fed risks dragging
down the economy, and in particular those at the lower end of the wealth scale,
with its determination to fight inflation.
Slow out of the blocks
The Fed has raised its
benchmark interest rate eight times over the past year, most
recently a quarter percentage point increase early last month that took the
overnight borrowing rate to a target range of 4.5%-4.75%.
Markets also have been torn between wanting the
Fed to bring down inflation and being worried that it will go overboard. The
central bank’s slow start in tackling the rising cost of living has intensified
fears that there’s virtually no way it can bring down prices without causing at
least a modest recession.
“Inflation is a
pernicious problem. It was made worse by the Fed not recognizing it in 2021,”
said Komal Sri-Kumar, president of Sri-Kumar Global Strategies.
Sri-Kumar thinks
the Fed should have attacked sooner and more aggressively — for instance, with
a 1.25 percentage point hike in September 2022 when inflation
as measured by the consumer price index was running at an 8.2%
annual rate. Instead, the Fed in December began reducing the size of its rate
hikes.
Now, he said, the Fed likely will have to take its funds rate to
around 6% before inflation abates, and that will cause economic damage.
More
Fed
Chair Powell heads to Capitol Hill, and he's got his hands full (cnbc.com)
In other news, China issues a
warning, but is it just domestic politics or serious? If serious, is anyone
even listening in Washington in a pre-US election year?
China says U.S.
relations have left ‘rational path,’ warns of conflict unless they ‘hit the
brake’
BEIJING – China’s new
foreign minister Qin Gang said relations with the U.S. have left a rational
path and warned of conflict if the U.S. doesn’t “hit the brake.”
Qin, who was until
recently China’s ambassador to the U.S., said China would “pursue a sound and
stable relationship with the U.S.”
However, he said the
Biden administration’s call for “establishing guardrails and not seeking
conflict simply means that China should not respond in word or in action when
attacked.”
“That’s not
possible,” Qin said.
“If the U.S. does not
hit the brake but continue to speed down the wrong path, no amount of
guardrails can prevent derailing and there will surely be conflict and
confrontation,” he said.
Qin was speaking at
his first press conference since becoming foreign minister. On Taiwan, he
reiterated the issue is an internal affair of China. Beijing considers the
democratically self-ruled island part of its territory.
Qin said the question
of Taiwan is the first red line of U.S.-China relations that must not be crossed.
“The U.S. acted with
the presumption of guilt,” he said, regarding the balloon incident last month.
Qin reiterated China’s position that the vehicle was unmanned and subject to
forces beyond Beijing’s control.
“The result is the
U.S. and China policy has entirely deviated from the rational and sound track,”
Qin said.
Qin on Tuesday also
presented Beijing’s relations with Moscow as an example for relations with
other countries.
He said “major
countries” need to consider whether they are pursuing “exclusive political
blocs” or “fostering friendship.”
Qin said China-Russia
relations are not a threat to any country, nor is it subject to any
interference by any third country.
“The more unstable
the world becomes the more imperative it is for China and Russia to steadily
advance relations,” Qin said via an official English translation.
During a reshuffle of the ruling Chinese Communist Party in
October, Qin was also named to the party’s central
committee.
China's
new foreign minister on U.S. relations, Taiwan, spy balloon (cnbc.com)
China denies Mark
Mobius’ claims that its government is restricting capital flow
Chinese authorities have denied claims by
billionaire investor Mark Mobius, who said he is unable to wire funds out of
China due to government restrictions on capital flow.
Asked in an interview with Fox Business last week about
whether he’s reduced his exposure to China, Mobius said, “the government is
restricting the flow of money out of the country.”
He warned investors of “all kinds
of barriers” imposed by the government.
“I’m personally affected because I have an account with HSBC in
Shanghai,” he told Fox Business. “I can’t get my money out.”
Officials at the State Administration on Foreign
Exchange (SAFE) told CNBC in a Monday statement that it’s a
matter of a “basic process and internal control requirements of the bank
handling specific business.” They did not name HSBC.
“We have noticed that relevant
market participants have doubts about the bank’s handling of their personal
fund remittance businesses,” SAFE said in its statement. “There is no change in
the country’s policy on cross-border remittance of funds.”
On Tuesday, Mobius told Hong Kong
newspaper Ming Pao the “problem has been resolved”
but did not elaborate.
When asked about the Ming Pao
report, HSBC said, “We do not comment on individual client circumstances.”
More
China
denies Mark Mobius' claims that its government is restricting capital flow
(cnbc.com)
Finally,
in crypto news, banks are getting very nervous as well they should. But then I
think cryptocurrency is a scam with no redeeming actual use outside of
criminality.
Crypto:
Nationwide bans credit card exchange payments and HSBC limits digital currency
spending as consumer risk fears grow
FRIDAY 03 MARCH 2023 11:23 AM
Several UK banks have restricted their customers
from buying crypto assets as concern grows about the risks posed by digital
currency to customers.
In an email to customers earlier this week, Nationwide said it would not allow payments to crypto exchanges using its credit cards and would impose a £5,000 daily limit on current account crypto spending.
The building society cited concerns
from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) over possible risks to
consumers.
A Nationwide spokesperson said: “To help protect
our members from cryptocurrency scams, the Society has introduced a daily limit
on debit card payments to crypto assets of £5,000 per day.”
“Members will also be prevented from using a
Nationwide credit card to purchase crypto assets.”
HSBC also introduced restrictions on the purchase
of crypto currencies, with customer prevented from purchasing cryptocurrencies
using an HSBC credit card from February.
HSBC said this was because of the possible risk to
customers citing the FCA’s concerns that cryptocurrencies are high-risk
speculative assets.
Charles Kerrigan, a crypto and digital assets partner with law firm CMS suggested that banks are taking a more cautious approach to crypto as the new consumer duty will put more pressure on banks to protect their customers.
“The regulators start and finish with consumer
harm on any question where retail investors are concerned. The banks are
preparing for the new consumer duty rules which put them on the hook for
customers’ bad choices,” he said.
The moves come after Santander introduced limits on
the amounts customers could transfer to crypto exchanges in November last year,
while NatWest introduced restrictions in
2021.
Lloyds blocked crypto transactions via its credit
cards in 2018.
More
Nationwide and HSBC place restrictions on purchasing crypto currencies (cityam.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.
The
financial crisis lurking in the shadows: Why regulators must now turn their
attention to shadow banking
MONDAY 06 MARCH 2023 6:30 AM
Some would argue that predicting the next financial
crisis is a near impossible task. But Nobel-prize winning economist Douglas
Diamond said in October last year: “The last [financial crisis] started in the
banks, it stayed in the banks. This one’s going to start in the shadow banks
and the companies.”
Shadow banking encompasses a variety of financial
institutions that provide similar services to banks but without equivalent
regulation. They do not take deposits. Instead they generally rely on short-term
funding, which can often leave them facing liquidity troubles if something goes
wrong.
Over the past few years, a series of major
financial blow-ups in the shadow banking sector, such as the collapse of
Archegos Capital and implosion of Greensill Capital, have sparked calls for
stricter regulations to be imposed on the sector.
Near the end of last year the Bank of
International Settlements said the sector had “the potential to cause financial
stability concerns”, while the Financial Stability Board (FSB) identified
non-banks as a “key priority” for regulators to focus on in 2023.
On the lookout
Despite these concerns, some financial watchdogs
have been criticised for falling behind on regulating the shadow banking
sector.
At Davos last month, Colm Kelleher, chair of
banking giant UBS, said regulators had “taken their eye off the ball” when it
came to shadow banks, while François Villeroy de Galhau, governor of the Bank
of France, said the world’s regulators “lag behind” when it comes to keeping up
with the sector.
Regulators in the UK have not been idle, however.
Following the LDI crisis, the UK introduced stress testing for private equity
funds and hedge funds, the first country in the world to do so.
‘Market-based finance’ (MBF), the term most regulators
use for shadow banking, was a prominent topic in the Bank of England’s
financial stability report too. MBF is the system of markets, non-bank market
participants and infrastructure which provides credit alongside the traditional
financial sector.
At the end of 2021, MBF accounted for £776bn, about
55 per cent of all lending to UK businesses.
The Bank said “international and domestic
regulators urgently need to develop and implement appropriate policy reforms to
address the risks from MBF”.
“Until this policy work is complete… the underlying
risks remain significant and could resurface.”
Risky business
Despite the mostly peripheral nature of shadow
banks, experts are concerned that the traditional financial sector will still
face risks of contagion if large shadow banks were to collapse.
While it is difficult to predict where the
pressure points are in the sector, the FSB identified the commodities market as
a potential flashpoint due to the widespread use of leverage in the sector.
More
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Laser used to spot and identify bacteria in a matter
of minutes
Ben Coxworth March 03, 2023
Currently, in order to see what type of bacteria (if any) are
present in a liquid sample, bacterial cultures have to be grown in a lab over
the course of several hours – or even a few days. A new laser technique,
however, works in just minutes.
It was already known that when exposed to laser light,
bacteria reflect the light back in a spectral pattern which is unique to that
particular species.
Their technique incorporates a modified inkjet printer that utilizes
acoustic pulses to print out tiny dots of the liquid in question. Printed onto
a slide, each dot has a volume of just two trillionths of a liter. Because the
dots are so small, they contain only a few dozen cells at most, so any bacteria
that are present have very little competition for getting seen.
Additionally, gold nanorods which are added to the tiny samples attach
themselves to the bacteria, serving as antennas that draw in the laser light.
As a result, the bacteria's reflected spectral fingerprint is 1,500 times
stronger than it would be otherwise. This makes it very easy for
machine-learning-based software to spot that fingerprint, and match it up to a
specific type of bacteria.
And although the technology was developed mainly using infected mouse
blood as the liquid, Dionne believes that it should be equally effective at
analyzing other fluids – it could even be adapted to target other types of
cells, such as viruses.
"It’s
an innovative solution with the potential for life-saving impact," said
the study's senior co-author Amr Saleh, a former postdoctoral scholar in
Dionne’s lab and presently a professor at Cairo University. "We are now
excited for commercialization opportunities that can help redefine the standard
of bacterial detection and single-cell characterization."
A
paper on the research was recently published in the journal Nano
Letters.
Laser used to spot
and identify bacteria in a matter of minutes (newatlas.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.
Today, breakthrough battery news from
Xiaomi. My latest smartphone is a Xiaomi
9AT budget smartphone from Vodafone. Unfortunately, it’s far, far, smarter than
me!
XIAOMI SOLID STATE BATTERY TECHNOLOGY, A WHOLE NEW
REVOLUTIONARY BATTERY FOR SMARTPHONES
On Weibo today, Xiaomi
unveiled a solid-state battery technology. This new battery technology has the
potential to transform the battery business. According to numerous studies,
this new battery technology is a big advancement for smartphones. This is
because it has a high energy capacity and is safer than conventional batteries.
The form of the
electrolyte is one of the key distinctions between solid-state batteries and
conventional batteries. Solid-state batteries completely or partially replace
the electrolyte with solid-state electrolytes. This increases their resistance
to impacts and extends their battery life.
ADVANTAGES OF
THE XIAOMI SOLID-STATE BATTERY TECHNOLOGY
·
Energy density exceeds 1000Wh/L.
·
Discharge performance at low temperatures
increases by 20%.
·
Success rate against mechanical shocks
(needle insertion test) increases significantly.
The
high energy density of solid-state batteries is a key benefit. The chemical
battery industry has faced major difficulties in boosting energy density.
Solid-state batteries have an energy density that is two to three times higher
than that of silicon oxide materials due to their greater storage capacity.
Solid-state batteries are also built to be
more resilient. This dramatically lowers the risk of short circuits
inside the battery.
This battery technology still has a long way to go before it
can be mass produced. The reason being the severe development and production
constraints. The energy density of solid-state batteries, however, reaches
1000Wh/L, according to laboratory studies. The Xiaomi 13 prototypes used
a 6000mAh ultra-large capacity solid-state battery from Xiaomi. A 4500mAh
battery powers the Xiaomi 13’s finished product. It is evident that the new
battery technology has a significantly higher capacity than conventional
batteries.
Solid-state batteries are more dependable over the winter
because of the 20% improvement in low-temperature discharge performance. The
liquid’s unique characteristics, which are employed in the electrolytes of conventional
batteries. This makes the viscosity of the liquid dramatically rises at low
temperatures. When this happens, it impedes the passage of ions. As a result,
conventional batteries deplete substantially worse in the cold. Solid-state
electrolytes are the best choice for sustaining discharge performance even in
low-temperature settings in place of current electrolytes.
In the upcoming years, numerous Xiaomi smartphone models will
use the new solid-state battery technology. The technology’s ability to
significantly reduce the size of high-capacity batteries and significantly
reduce phone thickness is its most interesting feature.
Xiaomi Solid-State Battery is the New Revolution -
Gizchina.com
There is a time for all things,
but I didn’t know it. And that is precisely what beats so many men in Wall
Street who are very far from being in the main sucker class. There is the plain
fool, who does the wrong thing at all times everywhere, but there is the Wall
Street fool, who thinks he must trade all the time. No many can always have
adequate reasons for buying and selling stocks daily – or sufficient knowledge
to make his play an intelligent play.
Jesse Livermore.
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