Thursday 27 April 2023

A Short Squeeze Coming? More Yuan Trade.

Baltic Dry Index. 1536  +26          Brent Crude 77.94

Spot Gold 2000                US 2 Year Yield 3.86 -0.26

Coronavirus Cases 01/04/20 World 1,000,000

Deaths 53,103

Coronavirus Cases 27/04/23 World 686,791,545

Deaths 6,861,758

Taxpayer funds were also paid out to fraudsters but shortcomings in the performance of the Companies House businesses register is making it easy to defraud taxpayers, MPs warn.

Confidence in the register of companies and directors is being undermined by errors and inaccuracies, the report says. “False statements, fake entries, errors, fictional company directors and individuals named without their consent can be used to commit crime, including fraud. Making a false declaration to Companies House has been a criminal offence since 2009 but there has only been a single conviction for this offence, in 2018.”

So now we all know how to do it, let’s get started!!!

We are rapidly approaching te end of the trading month in the gambling stock casinos; the May Day bank holiday across Europe and much of the world and the start of the Labour Day Golden Week holiday in China.

Sounds to this old dinosaur markets follower like it’s a no brainer to dress up the stock casinos and try to run a classic short squeeze on the shorts.

When it happens, it’s more exit rally opportunity for most, ahead of what looks highly likely to be a summer of distress and stagflation.

 

Asia markets trading mixed as new Bank of Japan chief chairs first policy meeting

UPDATED WED, APR 26 2023 11:36 PM EDT

Asia-Pacific market were trading mixed on Thursday as investors focus on the Bank of Japan’s first policy meeting led by new BOJ governor Kazuo Ueda.

Ueda is expected to maintain the ultra loose monetary policy of predecessor Haruhiko Kuroda for now, but expectations are that he will plot a path out of this policy in the future, according to media reports.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 fell 0.23% and the Topix rose marginally, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.38%.

South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.22% and the Kosdaq rose 1.18%, as electronics giant Samsung Electronics posted a 94% year-on-year drop in operating profit for the first quarter.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 0.12%, while the Hang Seng Tech index saw a larger drop at 1.16% down. Mainland Chinese markets were mixed, with the Shenzhen Component marginally down and the Shanghai Composite up 0.33%.

Singapore’s benchmark Straits Times Index inched down 0.52%, after news overnight that the country will increase stamp duties on property purchases, with the largest increases going to property purchases by foreigners.

Overnight in the U.S., stocks ended mixed as banking fears eclipsed Big Tech earnings on Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.68%, paring earlier gains. The S&P 500 slid 0.38%, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 0.47%, trimming gains after jumping as much as 1.43% in the trading day.

Asia markets trading mixed as new Bank of Japan chief chairs first policy meeting (cnbc.com)

Nasdaq 100 futures rise Wednesday night following Meta’s quarterly results: Live updates

UPDATED THU, APR 27 2023 12:10 AM EDT

U.S. stock futures ticked higher on Thursday morning.

Nasdaq 100 futures gained 0.51%, while S&P 500 futures added 0.22%. Futures linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced by 29 points, or 0.09%.

Meta shares leapt in after-hours trading as the company reported quarterly revenue that beat analysts’ expectations. The company issued stronger-than expected guidance for the current period.

During regular trading Wednesday, the Dow shed 228.96 points, or 0.68%. The S&P 500 slid 0.38%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.47%.

In Wednesday’s session, Microsoft shares jumped more than 7%, buoyed by an earnings beat posted late Tuesday. Meanwhile, First Republic shares tumbled almost 30%, as investors became concerned over the regional bank’s health.

Liz Young, head of investment at SoFi, warns investors that despite the majority of S&P 500 companies reporting earnings higher than expectations, the worst is not yet behind the market.

“We’ve seen expectations get revised downward about 15%,” she said. “So the fact that companies are beating those lowered expectations — although probably a good thing for sentiment in the moment, because markets don’t like to hear about misses — we’re beating pretty unimpressive numbers.”

Thursday will be action packed for earnings, with Eli Lilly, Merck, Southwest Airlines and American Airlines posting results before the bell. Comcast – which owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC – is also expected to report in the morning.

Tech giants Amazon and Intel will share their quarterly results after the closing bell Thursday.

Key economic data releases include the initial reading of U.S. gross domestic product for the first quarter, slated for 8:30 a.m. Weekly jobless claims are due at the same time. Other major data points include pending home sales for March and the Kansas City Federal Reserve’s manufacturing index reading.

Stock market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)

Finally, in other news back in the real world, Russia “temporarily” seizes some foreign assets. More on Elon’s Big Bang. Australia’s gold rock. More Trade in China’s Yuan. More Layoffs.

Russia seizes more Western assets, narrowing options for company exits

April 26, 2023

MOSCOW/HELSINKI (Reuters) -Russia seized temporary control of assets of Finnish energy group Fortum and its former German subsidiary Uniper, sowing confusion over the fate of other Western companies in Russia as pressure grows to hit Moscow with more sanctions over Ukraine.

President Vladimir Putin late on Tuesday signed a decree establishing temporary control of the Russian assets of the two European state-owned energy firms. Fortum said it was "investigating" and both Uniper and the German finance ministry had no immediate comment.

The decree - outlining possible retaliation if Russian assets abroad are seized - showed Moscow had already taken action against Uniper's Russian division Unipro and Fortum's assets. Russia made clear that the move could be reversed.

Moscow has reacted angrily to reports that Group of Seven nations are considering a near-total ban on exports to Russia, while many have called for far tougher sanctions to limit Russia's ability to fight in Ukraine. The European Union is looking at using frozen Russian assets to rebuild Ukraine.

Uniper owns 83.73% of Unipro, which operates five power plants with a total capacity of over 11 gigawatts in Russia and about 4,300 employees.

Fortum is majority-owned by Finland, which joined the NATO military alliance early this month. Moscow said Finland had made a dangerous mistake.

The Finnish foreign ministry would not immediately comment on how Russia's decision would reflect on relations between the two countries.

"Fortum's current understanding is that the new decree does not affect the title (registered ownership) of the assets and companies in Russia," the company said in a statement.

"However, it remains unclear how this affects e.g. Fortum's Russian operations or the ongoing divestment process," it added.

More

Russia seizes more Western assets, narrowing options for company exits (msn.com)

 

Disastrous SpaceX launch under federal investigation after raining potentially hazardous debris on homes and beaches

April 26, 2023

SpaceX's Starship has been grounded by the U.S. government following claims that the rocket's explosive first launch spread plumes of potentially hazardous debris over homes and the habitats of endangered animals.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) — the U.S. civil aviation regulator — has stopped SpaceX from conducting any further launches until it has concluded a "mishap investigation" into Starship's April 20 test launch. The massive rocket’s dramatic flight began by punching a crater into the concrete beneath the launchpad and ended when the giant rocket exploded in mid-air around 4 minutes later.

Dust and debris from the test reportedly rained down on residents in Port Isabel, Texas — a town roughly 6 miles (10 kilometers) from the launchpad — and across Boca Chica's beaches, which are nesting grounds for endangered animals, including birds and sea turtles. 

Dave Cortez, a chapter director for the Sierra Club environmental advocacy group, said that Port Isabel residents reported broken windows in their businesses and ash-like particles covering their homes and schools. 

SpaceX's launchpad was also left with extensive damage that includes charred, twisted metal and shattered concrete. The force from the rocket's engines blew a hole in the launchpad and created a crater beneath it. "Concrete shot out into the ocean," Cortez told CNBC, creating shrapnel that "risked hitting the fuel storage tanks which are these silos adjacent to the launch pad." 

----The FAA's mishap investigation is standard practice when rockets go astray. The FAA’s investigation will need to conclude that Starship does not affect public safety before it can launch again. As debris spread far further than anticipated, the FAA's "anomaly response plan" has also come into force, meaning SpaceX must complete extra "environmental mitigations" before reapplying for its launch license.

More

Disastrous SpaceX launch under federal investigation after raining potentially hazardous debris on homes and beaches (msn.com) 

Detectorist Down Under Finds 10-Pound Gold Nugget Worth $250,000 As Gold Prices Soar in Australia

 APRIL 19, 2023

An amateur gold hunter Down Under hit pay dirt in March when he stumbled on a massive nugget worth a cool quarter million.

The finder, who wished to remain anonymous, was scanning Victoria’s “golden triangle” between St Arnaud, Bendigo, and Ballarat when he heard his detector sound.

The man brought the gold specimen to gold expert Darren Kamp, operator of Lucky Strike Gold Prospecting in Newcomb, to have it appraised.

“He came into our shop and was asking some basic questions about pin-pointers and other equipment and he pulled a rock out of his backpack and said, ‘Do you think there would be $10,000 worth of gold in this?’” Kamp told The Epoch Times. “He dropped it into my hand.

“Gold is very, very heavy and the rock was dirty, so although you could see some gold on the outside, the weight of the rock told me there was a hell of a lot of gold on the inside.”

He said, “My hand dropped under the unexpected weight and my wife says that my jaw dropped with it. I said to the guy, ‘Try $100,000!’”

Surprised, the finder told Kamp that this was just half the rock.

“What do you mean?” Kamp said.

The man said, “I have the other half at home.” He had split it in two expecting to find a nugget inside.

The gold-bejeweled quartz rock specimen weighs 10.14 pounds (4,600 grams)—very heavy for its size as it contains 91 ounces (2,580 grams) of the precious yellow metal inside.

After performing specific gravity and water displacement tests to calculate the content, Kamp said it’s worth 245,000 Australian dollars (US$164,000) in today’s value. Meanwhile, gold prices are only on the rise, having hit record highs in Australia last month.

The prospector sold the nugget to Lucky Strike, splitting the proceeds with his two grown children, according to Kamp.

More

Detectorist Down Under Finds 10-Pound Gold Nugget Worth $250,000 As Gold Prices Soar in Australia (theepochtimes.com)

Argentina to pay for Chinese imports in yuan rather than dollars

BUENOS AIRES, April 26 (Reuters) - Argentina will start to pay for Chinese imports in yuan rather than dollars, the government announced Wednesday, a measure that aims to relieve the country's dwindling dollar reserves.

In April, it aims to pay around $1 billion of Chinese imports in yuan instead of dollars and thereafter around $790 million of monthly imports will be paid in yuan, a government statement said.

The decision aims to ease the outflow of dollars, Argentina's Economy minister Sergio Massa said during an event following a meeting with the Chinese ambassador, Zou Xiaoli, as well as with companies from various sectors.

The decision comes as the South American nation battles critical levels in its dollar reserves amid a sharp drop in agricultural exports caused by a historic drought, as well as political uncertainty ahead of elections this year.

In November last year, Argentina expanded a currency swap with China by $5 billion, seeking to strengthen Argentina's international reserves.

The agreement will allow Argentina "to work on the possibility" of advancing the rate of imports, Massa added, with yuan-denominated import orders being authorized in 90 days rather than the standard 180 days.

Argentina to pay for Chinese imports in yuan rather than dollars | Reuters

Tyson Foods to eliminate 10% of corporate jobs, 15% of senior leaders

CHICAGO, April 26 (Reuters) - Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N) will eliminate about 10% of corporate jobs and 15% of senior leadership roles, Chief Executive Donnie King told employees on Wednesday.

The layoffs are the latest cost-cutting move for the biggest U.S. meat company by sales as it grapples with declining profit and struggles to improve results in its iconic chicken business.

Discussions with most affected employees are slated to take place this week, King said in a memo to employees seen by Reuters. Shares closed 1.1% lower at $60.35 on Wednesday.

"We will drive efficiency by focusing on fewer initiatives with greater intensity and removing duplication of work," King said.

Tyson had about 6,000 U.S. employees working in corporate offices as of Oct. 1 and 118,000 workers at non-corporate sites such as meat plants and warehouses, according to regulatory filings.

The eliminated roles in senior leadership are mostly vice presidents and senior vice presidents, a company spokesperson said.

Some corporate employees already quit after Tyson said in October it was relocating all corporate jobs to its headquarters in Springdale, Arkansas. The 10% reduction in corporate roles is not due to employees leaving the company rather than relocating to Arkansas, a spokesperson said.

More

Tyson Foods to eliminate 10% of corporate jobs, 15% of senior leaders | 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.

"We tend to buy commodities nine to 12 months out," Pepsico chief financial officer Hugh Johnston said.

"So to the degree that the rate of inflation decreases - and it will be a decrease in the rate of inflation, not deflation by any stretch of imagination - that's going to happen very slowly over the course of 2023."

No kidding!

Cost inflation is slowing but shoppers may not see lower prices soon

April 26, 2023

LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) - The world's top consumer goods companies, making everything from instant noodles to soap and ice cream, are paying less for their raw materials and energy, but it may take time before shoppers see significantly lower price tags for their household goods.

Rising expenses for everything from sunflower oil to milk and grain have hit the packaged goods industry hard over the past two years, prompting companies to hike prices and helping fuel a cost-of-living crisis in many parts of the world.

Cost inflation rose during the COVID-19 pandemic and was exacerbated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which sent energy prices soaring to record highs last year. Energy costs have since dropped, however, and global prices for some commodities are rising at a slower pace.

Companies like Nestle, Reckitt Benckiser and Danone continued to raise prices for their goods sharply in the first quarter even though input price rises have eased and are expected to moderate further.

Cost of goods inflation will be "significantly" lower this year - the 5% to 9% level is what Reckitt is expecting versus 18% last year, the company's finance chief Jeff Carr said on a call on Wednesday to discuss earnings results.

Carr said that while salary costs have increased, commodities are a "mixed bag" and freight costs have declined. First quarter price/mix, rose 12.4% while sales volumes declined 4.5%.

Danone CFO Juergen Esser said in a post-earnings call with analysts on Wednesday that while labour costs, liquid milk and sugar prices are up, some other costs are down, so "we expect inflation to decrease through the year."

The maker of Activia yoghurt, Evian water and Aptamil infant milk raised first-quarter prices by 10.3% and volume/mix rose 0.2%.

It is unclear when companies may start passing on some of their lower costs to customers. On Tuesday, Associated British Foods said it does not expect many more price increases in the second half of this year, as costs including wheat, vegetable oils, freight and energy start to fall.

Companies including Unilever, which reports earnings on Thursday, acknowledged in February that the industry was past "peak inflation, but not yet past peak pricing".

Several firms have since made near-record price hikes: beverage giant Coca-Cola Co said average selling prices rose by 11% in the first quarter, while rival PepsiCo Inc said its prices gained 16%.

Many in the industry bought ingredients far in advance, when prices were higher, so it will take time for that to trickle through to the supermarket shelves.

"We tend to buy commodities nine to 12 months out," Pepsico chief financial officer Hugh Johnston said.

"So to the degree that the rate of inflation decreases - and it will be a decrease in the rate of inflation, not deflation by any stretch of imagination - that's going to happen very slowly over the course of 2023."

More

Cost inflation is slowing but shoppers may not see lower prices soon (msn.com)

China Jan-Mar industrial profit slump underlines patchy economic recovery

BEIJING, April 27 (Reuters) - China's industrial firms' profits shrank at a slightly slower pace in January-March but the decline remained in the double-digits as the economy struggled to fully recover despite the country's exit from its zero-COVID policy.

Profits at these firms fell 21.4% in the first three months from a year earlier, cumulative data released by the statistics bureau showed on Thursday, as the factory sector remained underpowered by the crippling pandemic.

The decline compared with a 22.9% slump in industrial profit in the first two months, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed.

In March alone, profits for the sector fell 19.2%, according to the data by the NBS which only occasionally discloses monthly figures.

Industrial earnings fell 4.0% in 2022, and the latest numbers underline the gloomy conditions facing China's vast factory sector as global demand is hit by slowing world growth. However, some analysts expect to see a recovery over the second half.

The narrower profit decline in the fist three months was in part due to a notable improvement in equipment manufacturing firms’ profits, NBS statistician Sun Xiao said.

Sun cited the automobile manufacturing sector, which saw profits rising by 9.1% in March, recovering part of the 41.7% plunge in the January-February period, as production and sales picked up amid a revival in market demand.

Industrial firms' profits will likely return to growth in the second half of the year, Luo Huanjie, senior researcher at the Zhixin Investment Research Institute, said in a note to clients.

More

China Jan-Mar industrial profit slump underlines patchy economic recovery | Reuters

Covid-19 Corner

 

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

Nearly £1bn in Covid loans paid out in error or fraud set to be ‘written off’

Taxpayers money still ‘at risk’ by Business Ministry’s lax approach

April 26, 2023

The Government is set to write off nearly £1bn in Covid-support loans that were paid out in error or to fraudsters, according to a critical report by MPs.

Of an estimated £2.2bn lost to fraud and error in Covid schemes, ministers and officials were making slow progress getting the money back with only about £11m recovered so far, MPs on the influential Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said.

Since March 2020, the Business Department has provided councils with £25bn of pandemic business-support grants to help eligible firms, but errors in council databases led to millions being paid out erroneously – the total is estimated to be as much as £985m.

“The department believes it will not recoup the majority of this, given there was not deliberate fraud, and the businesses were generally struggling due to Covid,” the report says.

The payments “were not paid in line with Parliament’s intention therefore it is unclear why the department is not attempting to recover grants paid in error”, it adds. The committee’s MPs said they have yet to see the defence from officials that most of the missing money was paid in error rather than fraud.

It accused the department of taking a “laissez-faire approach”. The report adds: “It is not clear how the department holds to account third parties that deliver multibillion-pound programmes on its behalf. [We] are concerned that a laissez-faire approach may lead to failure to properly protect taxpayers’ money.”

This is despite promises from Rishi Sunak that the losses were not “written off” and Government investigators would pursue those who took improper advantage of the Covid support. Failures over how Covid Bounce Back loans were awarded has also increased the risk of taxpayer losses, the PAC warned.

Taxpayer funds were also paid out to fraudsters but shortcomings in the performance of the Companies House businesses register is making it easy to defraud taxpayers, MPs warn.

Confidence in the register of companies and directors is being undermined by errors and inaccuracies, the report says. “False statements, fake entries, errors, fictional company directors and individuals named without their consent can be used to commit crime, including fraud. Making a false declaration to Companies House has been a criminal offence since 2009 but there has only been a single conviction for this offence, in 2018.”

More

Nearly £1bn in Covid loans paid out in error or fraud set to be ‘written off’ (inews.co.uk)

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.

Quantum Transport Discovered Combines High-Temperature Superconductors And Graphene

April 26, 2023

Developing new quantum devices relies on controlling how electrons behave. A material called graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms, has fascinated researchers in recent years because its electrons behave as if they have no mass. For decades, scientists have also been interested in high-temperature superconductors: ceramic materials where electron interactions yield a macroscopic quantum state where electrons pair with each other. They do so at a temperature above the usual superconducting temperature of metals, which approaches absolute zero.

In a recent study published in Physical Review Letters, researchers from the SUNY Polytechnic Institute, Stony Brook University and the Brookhaven National Laboratory in the US, along with Aalto University in Finland, demonstrated a new electronic device that employs the unique ways in which electrons behave in these two materials – graphene and high-temperature superconductors.

The experiment, led by Sharadh Jois and Ji Ung Lee from SUNY with the support of theoretical work done by Jose Lado, assistant professor at Aalto, demonstrated a new quantum device that combines both graphene and an unconventional high-temperature superconductor. In particular, the team demonstrated that the electronic transport between graphene and the high-temperature superconductor was dominated by a unique transport process arising from the combination of two peculiar properties: graphene’s Klein tunneling and the superconductor’s Andreev reflection. The team showed experimentally, for the first time, that this transport process was fully consistent with the existing theoretical predictions concerning hybrid Andreev-Klein electronic transport.

----A milestone in graphene quantum devices
‘The demonstration of electronic transport stemming from graphene’s Klein tunneling and unconventional superconducting pairing establishes a milestone in graphene-based quantum devices. This observation establishes the starting point to develop a whole new family of graphene-based superconducting quantum circuits that exploit unconventional superconductivity,’ Lado says.

The unique electronic properties of graphene have made it a promising platform for developing electronics that do not consume a lot of power. Conventional superconductors are key materials in a variety of quantum devices, and they are especially important in one of the strategies to build both qubit and topological quantum computers. By combining the two, the study’s results can open new fundamental physics in these materials and ultimately establish a whole new platform for quantum technology devices.

Quantum Transport Discovered Combines High-temperature Superconductors And Graphene – India Education | Latest Education News | Global Educational News | Recent Educational News (indiaeducationdiary.in)

 “To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.”

Winston S. Churchill.

 

 

 

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