The Calm Before The Storm?

 Baltic Dry Index. 1432  +60          Brent Crude 81.03

Spot Gold 2000                US 2 Year Yield 4.14 -0.10

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

Deaths 53,103

Coronavirus Cases 20/04/23 World 686,194,218

Deaths 6,858,227

 

The propensity to swindle grows parallel with the propensity to speculate during a boom, the implosion of an asset price bubble always leads to the discovery of frauds and swindles.

Charles P. Kindleberger.

In the stock casinos this morning, nervousness. Why aren’t stocks rising?

Why are US institutional investors pulling money out of money market funds?

More trouble to come in US banks?

Why are crude oil prices falling?  Why is the inverted US yield curve relentlessly signalling recession?

 

Asia Pacific markets lower as Japan’s core inflation holds steady

UPDATED THU, APR 20 2023 11:30 PM EDT

Asia-Pacific markets were lower on Friday as Japan’s core inflation for March came in at 3.1%, unchanged from February, data from the Statistics Bureau showed. 

This is the second straight month that core inflation has come in lower than January’s core inflation figure of 4.2%, the highest since 1981.

The Nikkei 225 and the Topix fell marginally, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.38%.

South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.77%, while the Kosdaq saw a larger loss at 1.44%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was 0.57% down, with the Hang Seng Tech index sliding 1.76%.

Mainland Chinese markets were also lower, as the Shanghai Composite dropped 0.59% and the Shenzhen Component shed 1.23%.  

Overnight in the U.S., all three major indexes fell as investors assessed a mixed bag of corporate earnings, including disappointing results from Tesla.

The Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.8%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.33%. The broad-based S&P 500 dropped 0.6%.

Asia Pacific markets lower as Japan's core inflation holds steady (cnbc.com)

 

Stock futures are flat Thursday night as Wall Street processes earnings results: Live updates

UPDATED THU, APR 20 2023 7:00 PM EDT

U.S. stock futures were little changed on Thursday night.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures inched lower by 18 points, or 0.05%. S&P 500 futures were unchanged, while Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.07%.

The Dow fell about 110 points, or 0.33%, during regular trading Thursday. The S&P 500 dropped 0.6%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 0.8%. Tesla shares weighed on the Nasdaq, tumbling nearly 10% the day after the company posted first-quarter net income that declined sharply from the year-ago quarter.

The major averages are on pace to end the week in the red, with the Dow and the S&P 500 on track for their worst weekly performances since March. 

There is much more macro-level uncertainty surrounding this earnings season than in the recent past, according to Matt Stucky, senior portfolio manager at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management.

“The concept of rolling recessions is something that I think is going to be uniquely appropriate to describe what we’re likely to see over the next 12 to 24 months. And so, industries like semiconductors have kind of been going through a recession in the last six to 12 months,” Stucky said, adding that there are other areas that have yet to see any weakness at all.

“So it’s kind of case by case, which is why at the individual stock and industry level, we’re seeing outsized moves that maybe a lot of investors might miss if they’re looking [at just the] top level moves of the S&P 500 or the Dow,” he added. 

Earnings season continues Friday, with Procter & Gamble, Regions Financial, SLB, Freeport-McMoRan and HCA Healthcare set to report earnings before the bell. Investors will also be looking at the Purchasing Managers’ Index for the manufacturing and services sectors to get insight into the economy.

Investors took cash out of money market funds in the largest dollar outflow since July 2020

Total assets in money market funds fell by $68.64 billion in the week ended April 19, according to data from the Investment Company Institute.

It marked the largest dollar outflow from these funds since July 2020, according to the ICI. The outflows come at a time when investors have been parking cash into relatively safe instruments to capture attractive yields. Indeed, even after the outflows, there are still $5.21 trillion in assets in these funds. The Crane 100 Money Fund Index is touting an annualized 7-day current yield of 4.64% as of April 20.

Institutional funds were responsible for the lion’s share of the outflows: $58.92 billion. However, assets declined for retail money market funds to the tune of $9.72 billion.

Stock market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)

 

Explainer: Looming US debt ceiling fight is starting to worry investors

April 20, 2023 8:59 PM GMT+1

NEW YORK, April 20 (Reuters) - A debt ceiling fight is looming in the U.S. yet again, giving investors another worry for markets this year.

The U.S. government's deadline to raise the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling could be sooner than expected, analysts have said, pulling forward the risk of a debt default that could have wide repercussions across global financial markets.

Recurring legislative standoffs over the debt limits this last decade have largely been resolved before they could ripple out into markets. That has not always been the case, however: A protracted standoff in 2011 prompted Standard & Poor's to downgrade the U.S. credit rating for the first time, sending financial markets reeling.

Some investors worry the Republican party's narrow majority in Congress could make it harder to reach a compromise this time.

Here is a Q&A about the implications for markets:

More

Explainer: Looming US debt ceiling fight is starting to worry investors | Reuters

Finally, yet another warning of a possible impending food crisis to come.  Well maybe, but it’s far to early to start guessing on the next El Nino’s likely impact.

 

World could face record temperatures in 2023 as El Nino returns

April 20, 2023 6:53 PM GMT+1

BRUSSELS, April 20 (Reuters) - The world could breach a new average temperature record in 2023 or 2024, fuelled by climate change and the anticipated return of the El Nino weather phenomenon, climate scientists say.

Climate models suggest that after three years of the La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean, which generally lowers global temperatures slightly, the world will experience a return to El Nino, the warmer counterpart, later this year.

During El Nino, winds blowing west along the equator slow down, and warm water is pushed east, creating warmer surface ocean temperatures.

"El Nino is normally associated with record breaking temperatures at the global level. Whether this will happen in 2023 or 2024 is not yet known, but it is, I think, more likely than not," said Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Climate models suggest a return to El Nino conditions in the late boreal summer, and the possibility of a strong El Nino developing towards the end of the year, Buontempo said.

The world's hottest year on record so far was 2016, coinciding with a strong El Nino - although climate change has fuelled extreme temperatures even in years without the phenomenon.

The last eight years were the world's eight hottest on record - reflecting the longer-term warming trend driven by greenhouse gas emissions.

More

World could face record temperatures in 2023 as El Nino returns | Reuters

Column: US corn yield conundrum: 181.5 or even higher?

April 20, 20239:26 AM GMT+1

NAPERVILLE, Illinois, April 19 (Reuters) - U.S. corn yield possibilities for this summer are still wide open, though industry participants might disagree over what represents a “normal” yield due to some recent trends.

In the last four seasons, U.S. corn yield has fallen below the initial trend calculated by the Department of Agriculture, but that follows a five-year streak where yields surpassed trends.

So what is the true starting point for 2023?

This question was discussed during USDA’s data users’ meeting on Tuesday, where the agency’s unofficial 2023 U.S. corn trend yield of 181.5 bushels per acre was challenged as potentially too high. That is well above the record of 176.7 bpa set in 2021.

Critics of USDA’s trend yield argue that if the number is excessively high, it can falsely inflate the printed ending stock estimates until survey data is first collected in August.

USDA officials on Tuesday reminded the audience that the trend yield model for corn assumes both normal summer weather and planting progress, adding that a yield above 181.5 bpa might be expected with normal planting progress and above-average summer weather.

More

Column: US corn yield conundrum: 181.5 or even higher? | Reuters

The period of financial distress is a gradual decline after the peak of a speculative bubble that precedes the final and massive panic and crash, driven by the insiders having exited but the sucker outsiders hanging on hoping for a revivial, but finally giving up in the final collapse.

 

Charles P. Kindleberger.

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.

More Americans Are Losing Their Homes as Foreclosures on US Properties Rise

Filings have increased 23 straight months on annual basis

New York and Chicago among cities with most foreclosure starts

19 April 2023 at 15:01 BST

US foreclosure filings jumped 22% in the first quarter compared to the same period a year ago, according to a report from real estate data analytics firm ATTOM. 

 

While still below pre-pandemic levels, foreclosure activity has increased on an annual basis for 23 straight months. The uptrend reflects higher jobless rates, ongoing economic challenges and backlogged foreclosures working through the pipeline after the lifting of government interventions to help struggling homeowners during the pandemic, said Rob Barber, chief executive officer of ATTOM.

“However, with many homeowners still having significant home equity, that may help in keeping increased levels of foreclosure activity at bay,” Barber said in a statement.

The number of foreclosure filings has been climbing since the federal moratorium ended in mid-2021. During the pandemic, an estimated 2 million homeowners fell behind on their mortgages. 

Major metropolitan cities with populations of more than 200,000 that had the most foreclosures starts last quarter included New York (4,674); Chicago (3,549); Los Angeles (2,210); Houston (2,120); and Philadelphia (1,985).

Meanwhile, on a percentage basis, Michigan topped the list of states with a 41% increase in foreclosure filings from the previous quarter.

More

US Foreclosures on Properties Rise 22% in First Quarter - Bloomberg

Covid-19 Corner

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

More vaccine lies from the CDC but why?

CDC Director Admits Vaccinated Individuals Can Transmit COVID-19 to Others

April 20, 2023

A top U.S. health official acknowledged on April 19 that people who have received a COVID-19 vaccine can transmit the disease to others.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), made the unsupported claim in 2021 that people who had received a COVID-19 vaccine “do not carry the virus” and “do not get sick.”

“We’ve had an evolution of science and an evolution of the virus,” Walensky told a congressional committee in Washington, adding that the statement “is no longer correct with the Omicron subvariants that we have right now.”

The Biden appointee also doubled down on her initial claim.

“Was that statement correct?” Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) asked.

“At the time it was,” Walensky responded. “It was a wildtype virus that we had, it was even before the Alpha variant, it was the initial wildtype variant, and all the data at the time suggested that people who were vaccinated, even if they got sick, couldn’t transmit the virus to anyone else.”

Asked for citations for the claim, Walensky’s press secretary Jason McDonald provided four studies, including two published by the CDC’s quasi-journal.

 

“None of the studies are randomised trials, and they all have various flaws. Irrespective of that they all show—what I think nobody can deny—that a proportion of vaccinated individuals get ill, and when ill they also have positive PCR tests as an indication that they will excrete virus,” Christine Stabell Benn, a health professor at the University of Southern Denmark, told The Epoch Times in an email. “Conclusion: vaccinated individuals can get ill and they can transmit.”

 

Dr. Tracy Hoeg, an epidemiologist based in California, also said the papers don’t support Walensky’s claim.

 

“They all report observed reductions but none of them found that ‘vaccinated people do not carry the virus, do not get sick,'” Hoeg told The Epoch Times in a Twitter message. “Are they kidding? Seems delusional to come to that conclusion from those article.”

More

CDC Director Admits Vaccinated Individuals Can Transmit COVID-19 to Others (theepochtimes.com) 

Some Americans Shouldn’t Get Another COVID-19 Vaccine Shot, FDA Says

April 18, 2023

Some Americans cannot receive another COVID-19 vaccine dose, U.S. regulators said on April 18, as they made sweeping changes to the vaccine system.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the changes, including replacing the old Pfizer and Moderna vaccines with updated bivalent shots that had previously only been available as boosters.

Regulators are also scaling back the number of recommended doses for most individuals, including people who haven’t received a shot.

 

Key changes include:

·         Most unvaccinated Americans are still being encouraged to get a COVID-19 vaccine but only need a single dose of a bivalent, the FDA said. The exception is young children. Children aged 6 months through 5 years can receive two doses of Moderna’s bivalent while those aged 6 months through 4 years can get three doses of Pfizer’s bivalent.

·         Americans who have received a primary series of a COVID-19 vaccine and one of the bivalent boosters still cannot get an additional dose, unless they’re in certain groups.

·         Any individual 65 years old or older can receive a bivalent dose, even if they’ve already received one, provided four months or more has elapsed since their last shot.

·         People aged 5 and older and deemed immune compromised can get another bivalent at least two months after their last shot, even if it was a bivalent, and can get additional doses “at the discretion of, and at intervals determined by, their healthcare provider.”

 

Little Data to Support Bivalents

The FDA authorized the original vaccines in late 2020 based on clinical trial efficacy data. The original vaccines targeted the Wuhan virus strain, which hasn’t circulated since 2020.

 

The updated bivalents target the Wuhan strain and the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of the Omicron strain. The subvariants were displaced in 2022.

Regulators authorized the bivalents as boosters in 2022 despite no clinical trial data being available. In letters formally announcing the bivalents as replacing the old vaccines, the FDA made clear that scientists aren’t sure whether the bivalents protect against COVID-19.

“Based on the totality of the scientific evidence available, FDA concluded that it is reasonable to believe that Pfizer-BioNTech COVID‑19 Vaccine, Bivalent may be effective in individuals 6 months of age and older for the prevention of COVID-19,” the letter to Pfizer states. The same language was used for Moderna’s shot.

Most of the data supporting Pfizer’s expanded authorization comes from the old vaccines and a bivalent that has never been used in the United States. The only trial data for the available bivalent showed that children had higher levels of neutralizing antibodies when they received a bivalent. Antibodies are thought to protect against COVID-19.

No clinical trial data for Moderna’s shot was cited, and no efficacy data was cited for either vaccine.

More

Some Americans Shouldn’t Get Another COVID-19 Vaccine Shot, FDA Says (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.

No update today. Normal service in the weekend update.

Another weekend and in the UK a coming test on Sunday of the mobile phone emergency alert system. What does His Majesty’s Government  know that we don’t? Have a great weekend everyone.

On the whole, H.M.G. wants to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

With apologies to George Orwell.