Baltic Dry Index. 1558 -50 Brent Crude 74.17
Spot Gold 2011 U S 2 Year Yield 3.98 +0.09
May 10, 1940 - Nazis invade France,
Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands; Winston Churchill becomes British
Prime Minister.
May 15, 1940 - Holland surrenders to the
Nazis.
May 26, 1940 - Evacuation of Allied
troops from Dunkirk begins.
May 28, 1940 - Belgium surrenders to the
Nazis.
While the stock casinos, cryptoland and the global economy give a very impressive act of appearing to be rolling over and that’s before President Biden’s version of Uncle Scam’s maybe debt default next month, the G-7 finance ministers meeting, all expenses taxpayer paid, in Japan, were busy fiddling while the USA’s Rome was smouldering if not actually starting to burn.
The
communique made no mention of the U.S. debt ceiling stalemate, which hits markets at a time when
borrowing costs are rising because of aggressive monetary tightening by U.S.
and European central banks.
Is May 2023 about to
become the financial disaster equivalent of the WW2 war disaster May 1940?
I hope not, but it’s a
good idea to have a Plan B in case a petulant President Biden doesn’t recognise
when he’s trapped over a barrel and doesn’t negotiate a compromise next week
over the US debt ceiling hike. Clearly, the G-7 finance ministers don’t have a
Plan B.
S&P 500 closes lower, notches a second week of losses, following
disappointing consumer sentiment data: Live updates
UPDATED FRI, MAY 12 2023 5:56 PM EDT
The S&P 500 fell
Friday as concerns around the U.S. economy dampened investor sentiment.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped
8.89 points lower, or 0.03%, to close at 33,300.62. The Nasdaq Composite fell
0.35%, ending the day at 12,284.74. The S&P 500 slipped
0.16%, closing at 4,124.08.
A preliminary reading on the University of
Michigan’s consumer sentiment index fell to a six-month low of 57.7. Economists
polled by the Dow Jones expected a May reading of 63.0. The survey also showed
the outlook for inflation over the next 5 years climbed to 3.2%, tying the
highest clip since June 2008.
Investors are also keeping an eye
on Washington as concern around debt ceiling negotiations persisted. CNBC reported
that a debt ceiling meeting between President Joe Biden and
congressional leaders that was set for Friday was postponed
to next week.
“None of the sectors are making
convincing moves in either direction, reflecting a general lack of conviction
in the market,” said Joe Cusick, portfolio specialist and senior vice president
at Calamos Investments.
The S&P 500 and Dow fell for
a second consecutive week, down 0.29% and 1.11%, respectively. The Nasdaq
gained 0.4%.
In the world of regional banks, PacWest fell 2.9%.
PNC lost roughly 1%, and Zions Bancorporation closed 1.1% lower. On Thursday,
regional banks dropped after PacWest
said its deposits fell sharply last week.
Meanwhile, weaker-than-expected
wholesale prices data issued Thursday, a sign of easing inflation, failed to
shield investors from ongoing concerns of a downturn — particularly as a
handful of stocks continue to carry the market.
Import prices were 0.4% month
over month in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday, marking the
first rise so far in 2023. Economists polled by Dow Jones were expecting a 0.3%
rise last month, compared to the decline of 0.8% the prior month.
Stock
market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
SoftBank shares
drop after its Vision Fund tech investment unit posts a $32 billion record loss
Shares of Japanese tech investor SoftBank fell
on Friday after the company reported a record loss at its Vision Fund tech
investment unit.
SoftBank shares closed 3.68% lower
in Tokyo.
The company said on Thursday that its Vision
Fund segment lost a record 4.3 trillion Japanese yen ($32
billion) for its fiscal year ending Mar. 31.
It reported a loss on investments at its Vision
Funds of 5.28 trillion Japanese yen.
The $100 billion Vision Fund was
launched in 2017 under the stewardship of SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son and shook
up the tech investing world.
It invested in some of the
highest-profile tech firms in the world, but some of those bets, such
as that on WeWork, turned sour.
The Vision Fund, which also has exposure to
Chinese tech firms, has also suffered from Beijing’s crackdown on the domestic
tech sector and subsequent plunge in share prices. SoftBank said Thursday that
it had logged losses on its investment in SenseTime, the Chinese artificial
intelligence company.
And while there has been a recovery in the tech-heavy Nasdaq in
the U.S. this year to date, over SoftBank’s fiscal year — which ended on Mar.
31 — the index is still lower. Tech stocks have faced headwinds from interest
rate rises around the world which have forced investors to move out of riskier
assets such as high-growth equities.
To weather the storm, SoftBank has
been selling down stakes in Alibaba,
the Chinese e-commerce giant that made Son and SoftBank its fortune, as well as
U.S. ride-hailing company Uber.
SoftBank’s management pledged a
year ago to go into “defense” mode and be more disciplined in their investment
strategy. The pace of investing has slowed down in recent months.
But the company is now looking toward
what it considers the next investment opportunity: artificial intelligence.
More
SoftBank
shares drop after Vision Fund posts a $32 billion record loss (cnbc.com)
G7 finance chiefs warn of global
uncertainty as US debt crisis looms
May 13, 2023 4:34 AM GMT+1
NIIGATA, Japan, May 13 (Reuters) - Finance leaders
of the Group of Seven (G7) rich nations warned of heightening global economic
uncertainty on Saturday, as they wrapped up a three-day meet overshadowed by a
U.S. debt ceiling stalemate and fallout from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Their gathering in the Japanese city of Niigata
came as worries over a U.S. default fuelled uncertainty over the global
outlook, already clouded by stubbornly high inflation and U.S. bank failures.
"The global
economy has shown resilience against multiple shocks, including the COVID-19
pandemic, Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, and associated
inflationary pressures," the leaders said in a communique after the
meeting.
"We
need to remain vigilant and stay agile and flexible in our macroeconomic policy
amid heightened uncertainty about the global economic outlook."
The communique made no mention of the U.S. debt ceiling stalemate, which hits markets at a time when borrowing costs are rising because of aggressive monetary tightening by U.S. and European central banks.
U.S.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Friday she would meet senior Wall Street
bankers next week about the possibility that Washington could default on its
debt for the first time since 1789.
"Clearly,
distress in the world's biggest economy would be negative for everyone,"
World Bank President David Malpass told Reuters on the sidelines of the G7
meeting the same day. "The repercussions would be bad to not get it
done."
On
the banking troubles, the communique said policymakers would tackle "data,
supervisory, and regulatory gaps in the banking system".
They
retained their April assessment that the global financial system was
"resilient", thanks to regulatory reforms made after the 2008 global
financial crisis.
Warning
that inflation remains "elevated," the G7 central banks stressed
their commitment to price stability and ensure inflation expectations remained
well-anchored, the communique showed.
More
G7
finance chiefs warn of global uncertainty as US debt crisis looms | Reuters
Bitcoin briefly falls below $26,000, posts worst week
since November
Bitcoin traded
at its lowest level since mid-March on Friday as volatility, driven by low
liquidity, continued to hit cryptocurrency markets.
Bitcoin ended the day lower by
2.58% at 26,181.46 after briefly hitting a low of 25,833.34 the lowest level
since March 17, according to Coin Metrics. The biggest crypto asset by market
cap posted a weekly loss of 11.25%, making it its worst week since Nov. 11.
There are a number of issues facing
crypto markets right now including low liquidity, a crackdown on the industry
from regulators in the U.S. and macroeconomic worries.
Bitcoin is up around 59% this year but prices have
remained volatile, with low liquidity exacerbating moves higher and lower.
Clara Medalie, director of
research at Kaiko, said there has been a “notable drop in market depth”
for bitcoin.
Market depth refers to a market’s
ability to absorb relatively large buy and sell orders. When market depth is
low, then relatively small orders can cause the price of an asset to move up or
down in a substantial way.
And the liquidity situation could
be set to get worse after Bloomberg reported that Jane Street and
Jump Crypto, two of the biggest crypto market makers, will take a step back
from crypto trading in the U.S. as the country’s regulators continue their
crackdown on the nascent industry.
“While it is yet unclear the catalyst for today’s
sharp drop, the volatility is to be expected given the current state of
liquidity, especially after larger market maker Jane Street and Jump Crypto
revealed they were winding down their crypto exposure,” Medalie said.
Liquidity has been a big issue for
crypto markets since the
closure of Silvergate and Signature Bank — two key platforms
that people used to buy into the crypto market.
More
Bitcoin briefly falls below $26,000, posts worst week since November (cnbc.com)
Significant El Niño event is almost guaranteed this year,
experts warn. And it could be a big one.
The chance of the
ocean-warming event known as El Niño hitting this year is now over 90%. It will
likely begin in the coming months, and there is a good chance it will persist
into 2024 and have a widespread impact, experts have warned.
El
Niño, which means "the little boy" in Spanish, is a major climatic
event caused by changes to ocean currents in the Pacific Ocean. This heating
event is strong enough to trigger major changes in global weather patterns and
seriously impact marine ecosystems, especially combined with the effects of
human-caused climate change. El Niño, along with its counterpart La Niña,
or "the little girl" — a cooling event triggered by changes to the
same ocean current system — make up the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
cycle.
Experts
have suspected that an El Niño event could be on the horizon for some time. And
on May 3, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) predicted there was a 60% chance that it would begin between May and July.
But
on May 11, the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) released
its own forecast, which suggested that it is a near certainty that El Niño will
begin during the same period. The agency also said there was a 90% chance that El Niño will persist into 2024.
ENSO cycle 101
The ENSO cycle is mainly linked to trade winds in the Pacific
Ocean that blow westward along the equator. Normally, this blows warmer surface
waters from South America toward Asia, which are in turn replaced by cooler
deep ocean waters in a process known as upwelling, according to NOAA.
During El Niño, the trade winds weaken, which leads to reduced
upwelling and in turn warmer surface waters. During La Niña, the trade winds
are unusually strong, which has the opposite effect. Both events can trigger
extreme weather events, such as the potentially record-breaking Cyclone Freddy
that battered parts of Africa in February and March.
The periods between El Niño and La Niña events are known as ENSO
neutral.
More
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.
‘Still a long way to go’: UK finance minister warns
inflation remains far too high
LONDON — U.K. Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt
signaled the nation’s inflation remains too high, a day after the Bank of
England agreed its 12th consecutive interest rate hike in a bid to combat
stubbornly high household prices.
“I think we are aware there is
still a long way to go. We still have inflation that is too high, growth is
still not as high as we would like it to be,” he told CNBC’s Martin Soong on
Friday, hours after the latest official data showed the UK economy eked out
0.1% growth in
the first quarter.
“I think the U.K. is back and those are numbers that no one would
have predicted even three months ago. These are much higher growth
projections,” he noted of the first-quarter print, nevertheless flagging
ongoing concerns over labor supply, productivity rates and how to increase
long-term growth.
He defended that U.K. economic performance has been
impacted by macro-economic concerns, citing a “once-in-a-century pandemic and
an energy price shock that is probably the biggest since the 1970s.”
The Covid-19 pandemic has led to severe global
logistical and production bottlenecks, while sanctions following Russia’s
full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year have deprived Western
consumers of Moscow’s fuel supplies.
Hunt stressed his support of the Bank of England’s
Thursday decision to increase interest rates by a further 25 basis points
despite the latest GDP results, arguing the measure will counter the
“fundamental instability” triggered by high inflation.
The successive spring collapse of several
international banks, including Europe’s Credit Suisse, had brought into
question whether central banks would begin to ease their policies of rapidly
raising interest rates.
“I think we all believe, certainly we in the U.K.
believe, that the most important thing we need to do is focus on getting
inflation down,” Hunt underlined. “Once inflation is down and you have
stability, you can start to get growth up.”
More
UK
finance minister Jeremy Hunt warns inflation remains far too high (cnbc.com)
Below,
why a “green energy” economy may not be possible, and if it is, it won’t be
quick and it will be very inflationary, setting off a new long-term commodity
Supercycle. Probably the largest seen so far.
The
“New Energy Economy”: An Exercise in Magical Thinking
https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/R-0319-MM.pdf
Mines,
Minerals, and "Green" Energy: A Reality Check
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/mines-minerals-and-green-energy-reality-check
"An
Environmental Disaster": An EV Battery Metals Crunch Is On The Horizon As
The Industry Races To Recycle
by Tyler Durden Monday, Aug 02, 2021 - 08:40 PM
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
This
weekend, did big pharma vaccine profits have any influence on this?
US Failure to Recognize Natural Immunity Negatively Affected
Pandemic Response: NIH Scientist
May 11, 2023 Updated: May 11, 2023
The failure to recognize
how post-infection immunity is similar or superior to that bestowed by
vaccination led to prolonged school closures and other problems, a National
Institutes of Health (NIH) scientist told Congress on May 11.
U.S. public health
agencies “chose to disregard natural immunity,” leading to “lost jobs, staffing
shortages, children kept out of school, and wasted vaccines,” said Margery
Smelkinson, a research scientist at the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
She was one of three experts who testified at a
hearing on immunity during the pandemic conducted by the U.S. House’s Select
Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in Washington.
Smelkinson, who said she was testifying in her
personal capacity, is employed by the same agency that was led for decades by
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who repeatedly downplayed natural immunity along with other
top public health officials.
Fauci and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), were among the officials
to meet secretly in 2021 to decide whether post-infection immunity should count
as one or more vaccine doses in the recommended COVID-19 vaccination schedule,
according to documents obtained by The Epoch Times. The meeting resulted in no
changes to the recommendations, which advise virtually all Americans to get a
vaccine even if they’ve recovered from COVID-19.
The government’s position on natural immunity meant
that COVID-19 vaccine mandates across the country featured no exceptions for
the naturally immune, in contrast to some other countries.
The CDC has said that
there is post-infection protection but that it varies by person, it’s unclear
how long it lasts, and recovered people should still get vaccinated.
But evidence from before
the vaccines were even available signaled that natural immunity was robust, and
later studies provided evidence that natural immunity was similar to or even
better than vaccination, Smelkinson noted.
One study in
July 2020, for instance, found a strong immune response in people who had
recovered from COVID-19. Another in October 2020 provided similar findings. And a
paper in November 2020 found that mild infections also triggered
strong responses.
As early as April 2021, research suggested protection on par with
that from vaccines. A CDC study found natural immunity was better than vaccination
against the Delta variant, and a more recent CDC paper provided the same conclusions for the Omicron strain.
An analysis of dozens of studies found that post-infection protection was similar to or
better than vaccination, depending on the strain.
---- Dr. Marty Makary,
a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told the panel that
the stance against natural immunity adopted by Fauci and others didn’t make
sense. He pointed in part to Fauci saying previously that people who had recovered from influenza
didn’t need vaccination “because the most potent vaccination is getting
infected yourself.”
More
Some more useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus
resource centre
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
The Spectator
Covid-19 data tracker (UK)
https://data.spectator.co.uk/city/national
World Health Organization - Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines
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
Technology Update.
With events happening fast in the
development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Reusable
nanoparticle-coated sponge removes heavy metals from water
Ben Coxworth May 11, 2023
Removing heavy metal pollutants from water could soon be
easier than ever, thanks to an experimental new sponge. With just one
treatment, the device brought contaminated water down to safely drinkable
levels.
Building upon two previous studies, the technology is being
developed by scientists at Illinois' Northwestern University.
The
researchers started out with a cheap commercially available cellulose sponge,
and placed it in a slurry of manganese-doped goethite nanoparticles. They then
removed it, let it dry, and rinsed it with water to flush out any loose
particles.
The
result was a sponge with a high-surface-area nanoparticle coating that was just
tens of nanometers thick. Manganese-doped goethite particles were chosen not
only because they adsorb lead
ions, but also because they're inexpensive and non-toxic to humans.
When the sponge was
immersed in tap water containing more than one part per million of lead, it
sequestered lead ions to the point that they were no longer detectable in the
water … this made the water safe to drink.
What's more, the lead
could subsequently be removed from the sponge by rinsing the latter in mildly
acidic water. That reclaimed lead could then conceivably be utilized in
products such as batteries, while the rinsed-out sponge was reused to treat
more tainted water – it wasn't quite as effective in later cycles, although it
was still able to remove over 90% of lead ions from samples.
The
scientists have now developed a platform known as Nanomaterial Sponge Coatings
for Heavy Metals (Nano-SCHeMe), to guide other teams in selecting different
types of nanoparticles for sequestering different types of heavy metals.
"The
presence of heavy metals in the water supply is an enormous public health
challenge for the entire globe," said Prof. Vinayak Dravid, senior author
of a paper on the study. "It is a gigaton problem that requires solutions
that can be deployed easily, effectively and inexpensively. That’s where our
sponge comes in. It can remove the pollution and then be used again and again."
The
paper was recently published in the journal ACS
ES&T Water.
Source: Northwestern University
Reusable
nanoparticle-coated sponge removes heavy metals from water (newatlas.com)
This weekend’s music diversion. Vivaldi
again. Approx. 7 minutes.
Vivaldi:
RV 360 / Concerto per Carlo VI d'Austria (La Cetra ms n. 1) / La Magnifica
Comunità
This weekend’s chess update. Approx.
11 minutes.
She
Is Destroying Grandmasters || Some in 16 Moves
She Is
Destroying Grandmasters || Some in 16 Moves - YouTube
This weekend’s maths update. The geniuses of long forgotten Indian mathematics.
Approx. 27 minutes.
Powell’s
Pi Paradox: the genius 14th century Indian solution
Powell’s Pi
Paradox: the genius 14th century Indian solution - YouTube
Finally,
the follies of war.
Battle of
Palmito Ranch
The Battle of Palmito Ranch,
also known as the Battle of Palmito Hill, is considered by some criteria
as the final
battle of the American Civil War. It was fought May 12 and 13, 1865, on the banks of
the Rio Grande east
of Brownsville, Texas, and a few miles from the seaport of Los Brazos de
Santiago, at the southern tip of Texas. The battle took place more than a month
after the general surrender of Confederate forces to Union forces at Appomattox Court House, which had since been communicated to both commanders at
Palmito, and in the intervening weeks the Confederacy had collapsed entirely, so it could also be
classified as a postwar action.
Union and Confederate forces in
southern Texas had been observing an unofficial truce since the
beginning of 1865, but Union Colonel Theodore H. Barrett, newly assigned to
command an all-black unit and never having been involved in combat, ordered an
attack on a Confederate camp near Fort Brown for unknown reasons. The Union attackers captured a
few prisoners, but the following day the attack was repulsed near Palmito Ranch
by Colonel John Salmon Ford, and the battle resulted in a Confederate victory. Union
forces were surprised by artillery said to have been supplied by the French
Army garrison occupying the up-river
Mexican town of Matamoros.
Casualty estimates are not
dependable, but Union Private John
J. Williams of
the 34th
Indiana Infantry Regiment is
believed to have been the last man killed during the engagement. He could then
arguably be reckoned as the last man killed in the war.
More
Battle
of Palmito Ranch - Wikipedia
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