Baltic Dry Index. 1412 -23 Brent Crude 84.91
Spot Gold 2004 US 2 Year Yield 4.18 +0.10
Coronavirus
Cases 01/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,103
Coronavirus Cases 18/04/23 World 685,740,983
Deaths 6,842,948
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Oscar Wilde.
Will the Chinese economy rescue the global economy for a second time? What does it mean for the dollar’s global position if it does?
For now, it all comes down to how much the Chinese consumer is willing to spend in the weeks and months ahead.
Plus, just how much new dollars Uncle Sam’s Treasury and central bank are willing to create out of thin air at the push of a computer button, assuming a US debt limit raise deal will get done before Uncle Sam is forced into a [hopefully] temporary default sometime in June.
Look away from those rising US Treasury
yields now.
Asia markets
trade mixed as China first quarter GDP beats expectations
UPDATED TUE, APR 18 2023 12:20 AM EDT
Asia-Pacific markets were mixed as China’s
economy grew more than expected at 4.5% year-on-year, beating
estimates to see growth of 4% in a Reuters poll. The onshore Chinese yuan
slightly strengthened following the report.
The Shanghai Composite dropped
marginally and the Shenzhen
Component fell 0.18%. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index declined
0.75% as consumer cyclicals and technology dragged down the index.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell
0.4%, while South Korea’s Kospi fell
0.3% and the Kosdaq shed 0.4%.
Japanese markets
bucked the trend in the region, with the Nikkei 225 up
0.55%, posting its eight straight day of gains and the Topix gaining 0.7% as
financials and healthcare were among those leading the index.
Overnight in the U.S., all three major indexes
rose as traders combed through the latest batch of corporate earnings results,
searching for clues on the health of corporate America.
The S&P 500 rose
0.33%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained
0.3%, and the Nasdaq
Composite added 0.28% to settle at 12,157.72.
Asia
markets trade mixed as China first quarter GDP beats expectations (cnbc.com)
European stocks set for positive open as
investors continue to monitor global economic health
UPDATED TUE, APR 18 2023 12:33 AM EDT
European markets are heading for a higher open
Tuesday as investors continue to gauge the health of the global economy.
Asia-Pacific
markets were mixed as China’s
economy grew more than expected at 4.5% year on year, beating
estimates to see growth of 4% in a Reuters poll. The onshore Chinese yuan
slightly strengthened following the report.
U.S.
stock futures were flat on Monday night after the major
averages rose to kick off a stacked week of corporate earnings. Johnson & Johnson, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs are
reporting Tuesday before the bell.
China’s economy expanded
4.5% in the first quarter of 2023
China’s
gross domestic product rose by 4.5% in the first quarter of
2023, the National Bureau of Statistics said
Tuesday.
That was compared
with the 4% forecast in a Reuters poll and marks the fastest growth seen since
the first quarter of last year. The economy expanded 2.9% in the fourth quarter
of 2022.
Retail sales jumped
by 10.6% in March, higher than Reuters’ expectations to see 7.4% growth –
industrial output rose 3.9% for the month, lower than the forecast of 4% by
Reuters.
The Chinese yuan strengthened
0.1% to 6.8712 against the U.S. dollar after the report.
European
markets live updates: stocks, news, data and earnings (cnbc.com)
China's economy gathers speed, global headwinds
point to challenging outlook
April
18, 2023 5:11 AM GMT+1
BEIJING, April 18
(Reuters) - China's economy grew at a faster-than-expected pace in the first
quarter, as the end of strict COVID curbs lifted businesses and consumers out
of crippling pandemic disruptions, although headwinds from a global slowdown
point to a bumpy ride ahead.
More
than a year-long sweeping streak of global monetary policy tightening to rein
in red hot inflation has dented world economic growth, leaving many countries
including China reliant on domestic demand to spur momentum and raising the
challenge for policymakers looking for post-COVID stability.
Gross domestic
product grew 4.5% year-on-year in the first three months of the year, data from
the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Tuesday, faster than the 2.9% in
the previous quarter. It beat analyst forecasts for a 4.0% expansion and marked
the strongest growth in a year.
Investors
have been closely watching first quarter data for clues on the strength of the
recovery after Beijing lifted COVID curbs in December and eased a three-year
crackdown on tech firms and property. GDP growth last year slumped to one of
its worst in nearly half a century due to COVID curbs.
"Economic
recovery is well on track. The bright spot is consumption, which is
strengthening as household confidence improves," said Zhiwei Zhang, chief
economist at Pinpoint Asset Management. "The strong export growth in March
also likely helped to boost GDP growth in Q1."
Chinese
policymakers have pledged to step up support for the $18 trillion economy to
keep a lid on unemployment, but they face limited room to manoeuvre as businesses
grapple with debt risks, structural woes and global recession worries.
China's
rebound has so far remained uneven as its investment-fuelled growth of the past
to one now reliant on consumption faces challenges.
Consumption,
services and infrastructure spending have perked up but factory output has lagged in the face
of weak global growth, while slowing prices and surging bank savings are
raising doubts about demand.
More
China's economy gathers speed, global headwinds point to challenging outlook | Reuters
Finally, in other news, the central banksters
desperately want to take away your cash. The road back to serfdom via Central
Bank Digital Currencies. In the maxim of the Davos elite, “you will own nothing
and be happy.” What they leave out is “or else.”
Bank of England
considering urgent reform of deposit guarantee scheme - FT
Reuters) - The Bank of England is considering a major overhaul of its deposit guarantee scheme, including boosting the amount covered for businesses and forcing banks to pre-fund the system to a greater extent to ensure faster access to cash when a lender collapses, The Financial Times reported on Sunday.
The UK’s
Financial Services Compensation Scheme is being urgently reviewed after the
rapid failure of Silicon Valley Bank last month, the FT added citing people
briefed on the matter.
A BoE
spokesperson declined to comment on the report.
The failure
last month of Silicon Valley Bank and two other lenders in the United States,
along with the forced takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS sent banking shares
globally into a tailspin, but markets have since calmed.
The UK’s
Financial Services Compensation Scheme is being urgently reviewed after the
rapid failure of Silicon Valley Bank last month, the FT added citing people
briefed on the matter.
A BoE
spokesperson declined to comment on the report.
The failure
last month of Silicon Valley Bank and two other lenders in the United States,
along with the forced takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS sent banking shares
globally into a tailspin, but markets have since calmed.
BoE Governor Andrew Bailey said last week that the British
central bank was considering improvements to its approach to depositor pay-outs
for smaller banks with a focus on the speed of the pay-outs.
"Going
further and considering increasing deposit protection limits could have cost
implications for the banking sector as a whole," Bailey said on Wednesday
in Washington where he was attending meetings of the International Monetary
Fund. "As with all things relating to bank resolution, there is no free
lunch."
The heightened
concerns about the safety of banks globally have raised questions about how far
authorities should go to shore up the sector if needed, particularly regional
lenders in the United States.
The FT,
quoting its sources, said regulators were worried the UK guarantee’s
85,000-pound limit covered only about two-thirds of deposits and that the
relatively low level of pre-funding meant delays of at least a week for
customers to regain access to their cash.
Bank
of England considering urgent reform of deposit guarantee scheme - FT (msn.com)
These
Asia-Pacific central banks have paused rates for now. Who could be first to
cut?
One by one, countries in Asia-Pacific are putting
a pause on their tightening cycles this year after central banks around the
world tried to keep pace with the U.S.
Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate hikes in 2022.
While inflation in the region
remains well above central bank targets, the problem of balancing economic
growth and the depreciating currencies — as a result of the U.S. dollar peak in
September — appears to be easing for now.
The dollar index is
broadly weaker now on expectations the Fed could soon end its tightening cycle.
Inflation is also seen to be less sticky in the region compared to the U.S. and
Europe — BofA economists led by Helen Qiao said inflation in Asia’s emerging
markets has already “peaked out and started to moderate in the region.”
In fact, economists say some
central banks may have already reached the end of their tightening cycles and
could begin to shift their focus to what will stimulate growth through rate cuts.
Citi and ING are among those expecting to see such moves as soon as the second
half of this year.
China and Japan are still outliers
in the current global tightening cycle. Here are other central banks in the
region that have hit the brakes for now — and what they could end up doing
next.
More
Some Asia-Pacific central banks have paused rates. Who could cut first? (cnbc.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.
US: Inflation high and
sticky; bank tensions ease – ANZ
Analysts
at Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) banking group offer a snippet on the state
of the US economy in their latest client note.
Key quotes
“Tensions
in the US banking sector continue to ease. There has been incrementally less
use of the Fed’s emergency lending facilities, while bank lending rose for the
first time in three weeks and deposits increased.”
“The minutes to the 2-3 March FOMC meeting showed that all Fed officials agreed to raise the target
policy range by 25bp as they weighed up the risks of persistently high
inflation and a tightening in credit conditions following a string of bank
failures.”
“Core CPI inflation eased in March (0.4% m/m) relative to February (0.5%) as rents came in softer than expected. Even though there was some softening in inflation, it remains well above levels consistent with 2%.”
US: Inflation high
and sticky; bank tensions ease – ANZ (fxstreet.com)
UK
inflation poised to slip out of the double digits for first time since last
summer
SUNDAY 16 APRIL 2023 12:42 PM
UK inflation is poised to slip out of the double
digits for the first time since last summer in what could be the beginning of
the cost of living crisis gradually releasing its grip on families over the
rest of the year.
Official figures from the Office for National
Statistics (ONS) on Wednesday are expected to show inflation trimmed to 9.8 per
cent in March, down from 10.4 per cent.
A large drop in petrol prices is tipped to bring
down the consumer price index, Britain’s main measure of inflation.
But there are likely to be strong price pressures
hidden within the numbers, with the rate of core inflation poised to stay
elevated.
Core inflation – expected to fall slightly to six
per cent – has become market participants’ key gauge of how much inflation is
persisting in response to the Bank of England’s eleven successive interest rate
rises to a post-financial crisis high of 4.25 per cent.
Bank Governor Andrew Bailey and his team of rate setters have signalled the core services inflation, which analysts don’t think is on course to have fallen materially last month.
“We don’t anticipate a big easing in
core services inflation,” Paul Dales, chief UK economist at consultancy Capital
Economics, said.
More
UK inflation poised to slip out of the double digits (cityam.com)
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
IN-DEPTH: The $5 COVID-19
Treatment That Could Have Helped Save Thousands of Lives
Clinical
immunologist on an effective treatment for COVID-19 that health authorities
ignored
April 17, 2023 Updated: April 17, 2023
If the authorities had heeded advice from those
with the most profound knowledge of the mechanics of COVID-19, the pandemic
could have been handled more adeptly, according to an immunologist, one of
perhaps a few hundred in the world with the specific expertise. Instead, he
said, his and others’ voices were silenced.
Shortly after news of the SARS-CoV-2 virus emerged
in Wuhan, China, in early 2020, Vojtěch Thon, clinical immunologist and
professor at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic, started examining tissue
samples of infected patients. His goal wasn’t just to understand how the virus
infects people but mainly to see the immune response dynamics that would
protect a person. He focused on the mucosal system in the nose, mouth, and
lungs—his area of expertise.
His findings were striking and ran counter to many
of the public health narratives heard worldwide.
He concluded that:
1) Early treatment was possible, available, and
critical.
2) Pandemic mitigation measures were misused and,
in many cases, counterproductive to fighting the disease.
3) Vaccines were rolled out improperly and
presented to the public inaccurately. They couldn’t achieve sterilizing
immunity, that is, elimination of the virus before it could multiply in the
body.
Virtually
all of this was known at the pandemic’s beginning or at least by late 2020. Yet
his attempts to make his expertise available to authorities were largely shut
down.
More
XBB.1.16 ‘Arcturus’ Is New Covid-19 Variant Under
Monitoring By The WHO
Apr 16, 2023,10:31am EDT
Guess what? There’s
yet another Covid-19 coronavirus variant spreading around the world and in the
U.S. This one has the oh-so-easy-to-remember name XBB.1.16 because when has the
name of another Omicron subvariant started with the letters XBB, right? On March 22,
the World Health Organization (WHO) classified the XBB.1.16 as a new variant
under monitoring (VUM), which isn’t as serious as a variant of interest (VOI)
which isn’t as serious as a variant of concern (VOC). Nevertheless, a VUM could
always eventually become a VOI or even a VOC. And the spread of the XBB.1.16
seems to have already fueled what’s been called by Business Today a “massive surge” of Covid-19 cases in India and sparked the return of face mask mandates there.
These days the term “massive surge” isn’t great to hear unless you are talking
about chocolate or sex. So the big question is how concerned should you be
about this new subvariant that some have unofficially dubbed the “Arcturus”
subvariant?
Well, “Acturus-lly,”
the XBB.1.16 has gone from being about 0.21 percent of all Covid-19 cases
worldwide in late February to an estimated 3.96% a month later. In the U.S,,
the XBB.1.16 accounted for an estimated 7.2% of all Covid-19 samples from April
9 to April 15, according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC). That’s up from
3.9% the week before and 2.1% the week prior to that. XBB.1.5 is still the
alpha-dog of variants in the U.S., accounting for an estimated 78.0% of all
COvid-19 samples. But the XBB.1.16 has already overtaken all the other XBB’s to
reach second place in the U.S. and seems to have XBB.1.5 in its sights,
metaphorically, of course, since we don’t want to imply that the severe acute
respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has eyes.
So it does look like
the XBB.1.16 has a “growth advantage” over other existing SARS-CoV-2 variants
and subvariant. A growth advantage may sound like a good thing when you are
using the term to describe yourself or certain parts of yourself. But it’s a
much more ominous term when being used to describe a still dangerous pathogen
like the SARS-CoV-2. In this case, it’s when a given variant or subvariant has
characteristics that makes it better able to spread than others.
More
XBB.1.16
‘Arcturus’ Is New Covid-19 Variant Under Monitoring By The WHO (forbes.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.
Saltwater
flow battery produces graphene while charging
Salgenx
has developed a way to produce graphene on demand from its saltwater flow
battery. The tech exploits the electrochemical properties of the battery’s
cathode to exfoliate graphite into individual layers of graphene. The company
says it can produce graphene for less than USD 1.25 ($1.85) per gram, providing
storage businesses with an additional revenue stream.
APRIL 17, 2023 MARIJA MAISCH
Salgenx has developed a graphene production method that
uses its saltwater redox flow battery. The membrane-less battery charges and discharges by
using an electrolyser that splits sodium chloride (NaCl) into sodium (Na) and
chlorine.
“The
chlorine is then stored in the aqueous electrolyte, while the sodium is stored
in the cathode,” Salgenx CEO Greg Giese told pv magazine.
“In this instance, the cathode comprises a sacrificial material, graphite,
which intercalates the sodium. Salgenx applies a proprietary technique that
exfoliates the graphite into individual layers of graphene, which can be
further processed for higher purity.”
The
process of graphene exfoliation occurs during charging due to an
electrochemical process. When an electric potential is applied to the graphite
host, it causes guest-charged species in the electrolyte to intercalate into
the graphite’s interlayer galleries and produce gaseous products that
contribute to structural expansion, according to a recent paper on the topic.
More
Life is never
fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.
Oscar Wilde.
No comments:
Post a Comment