Baltic Dry Index. 939 +20 Brent Crude 76.51
Spot Gold 1961 US 2 Year Yield 4.46 -0.04
Coronavirus
Cases 01/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,103
Coronavirus Cases 06/06/23 World 689,943,620
Deaths 6,887,834
In a bull market your game is to buy and hold until you believe
that the bull market is near it’s end. To do this you must study general
conditions and not tips or special factors affecting individual stocks. Then
get out of all your stocks; get out for keeps!
Jesse Livermore.
In
the stock casinos a pause, or the start of something more?
Did
Australia’s central bank just force another interest rate hike on the other
major central banks?
In
the real world far from financialised fiat money fuelled gambling, more harsh
economic reality.
In
dodgy mostly shady cryptoland, is the end finally in sight?
Australia stocks fall as central bank hikes
again; Asia markets mixed
UPDATED TUE, JUN 6 2023 12:39 AM
EDT
Asia-Pacific
markets were largely lower on Tuesday, tracking
moves on Wall Street after the S&P 500 erased earlier gains
that brought the benchmark index to trade at its highest level on an intraday
basis in nine months.
Markets are “catching their
breath after Friday’s broad-based rally,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market
strategist at the Carson Group. “It’s a very lackluster news day, which isn’t a
bad thing as we consolidate some of those big recent gains we’ve had.”
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell
1% after the central bank surprised markets and raised its cash rate by 25
basis points to 4.1%. The Australian dollar strengthened by 0.8% to 0.6669 against
the U.S. dollar.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 bucked
the trend and continues its run above the 32,000 mark, gaining 0.52%, and the
Topix was up 0.32%.
The last time the Nikkei traded
at these levels, Japan was in the middle of its bubble economy — a period from 1986 to 1991 where
real estate prices and stock prices were hugely inflated. The Nikkei reached
its all-time high of just above 38,900 in December 1989.
South Korea’s markets are closed
Tuesday for a holiday.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index climbed
0.51%, propelled by property stocks. But mainland Chinese markets were more
mixed, with the Shanghai
Composite up marginally, and the Shenzhen Component dropping
0.54%.
Overnight in the U.S., the
S&P 500 lost 0.2%, while the Nasdaq Composite dipped
0.09%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped
0.59%.
Notably, tech giant Apple lost about
0.8%, retreating from all-time
highs touched earlier in the session. The iPhone maker on
Monday unveiled
its highly anticipated virtual
reality headset and a slew of software updates at its annual
Worldwide Developers Conference.
Australia stocks fall
as central bank hikes again; Asia markets mixed (cnbc.com)
Stock futures are down slightly on Monday
evening after rally takes a breather: Live updates
UPDATED MON, JUN 5 2023 8:54
PM EDT
Stock futures are modestly lower Monday night as
investors are coming off a losing session that took a small bite out of last
week’s advance.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones
Industrial Average shed 22 points, or about 0.07%. S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100
futures slipped 0.06% and 0.1%, respectively.
The moves follow a losing day on
Wall Street that marked a modest reversal from last
week’s broad gains. The Dow finished Monday down about 0.6%,
while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite lost about 0.2% and 0.1%,
respectively.
Apple contributed
to the leg down, as the iPhone maker briefly touched
all-time highs earlier in the session only to end about 0.8%
lower. The Big Tech company — which swung between a 2.2% gain and a 1.6% loss
Monday — debuted its highly
anticipated virtual
reality headset as well as new software at its annual Worldwide
Developer Conference on Monday. Shares were up slightly after hours.
Apple’s conference also weighed
on other tech names, with Intel dropping
more than 4% after Apple unveiled a new chip.
“If you’re a $3-trillion company,
the tail kind of wags the dog to an extent,” said Keith Buchanan, senior
portfolio manager at Globalt Investments. “Apple, just given the sheer
magnitude of its market cap, is going to have its way with most broader
indices.”
Elsewhere, bank stocks slid
following news that regulators are contemplating increasing capital
requirements for large banks. Goldman Sachs and Bank of America each
lost about 0.6% on Monday, while Morgan Stanley slipped
around 0.7% and JPMorgan shares
slid nearly 1%. The SPDR S&P Bank
ETF dropped
about 2.2%.
Stock
market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
Two Supply
Storms Threaten to Disrupt Asia-US Trade Again
5 June
2023 at 15:02 BST
Two
simmering disruptions threaten to boil over this summer just as supply chain
managers in the US prepare for what’s typically the busiest time of year for international
shipping.
The first potential shock is
man-made — a labor slowdown at West Coast ports, where contract talks with
management have dragged on for more than a year. The two sides now appear at
loggerheads over pay, and how to divvy up carriers’ pandemic-era profits in a
market that’s returned to rock- bottom freight rates.
As Bloomberg reported on Friday,
members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union stopped operations
at some marine terminals at the port of Los Angeles heading into
the weekend. Similar actions were seen in Oakland, Tacoma and Seattle, the PMA
said.
The Local 13 chapter of the ILWU, which represents
workers at the ports of LA and Long Beach, said cargo operations in the ports
continue, but that about 12,000 of its members in Southern California have
“taken it upon themselves to voice their displeasure with the ocean carriers’
and terminal operators’ position.”
The second escalating problem is
an act of nature: A severe drought in Central America is cutting
containership capacity and increasing shipping costs through the Panama
Canal.
A Shallower Panama Canal Poses
Challenge to Fed’s Inflation Fight
Lake Gatun, which provides the freshwater needed to lift
vessels over a series of canal locks from the Pacific to the Atlantic, is
suffering historically low water levels this year and the drought is projected
to get worse through the summer.
Rising Surcharges
The result is higher surcharges per vessel and limits on
how low ships can sit in the water, meaning each ship must load less cargo.
Some carriers are already passing some of the cost to cargo owners via a
$300-$500 fee per container.
If things get really extreme, the canal could be forced to
cut the number of ships it transits each day to between 28 and 32, from as many
as 36 now, said Ricaurte Vásquez, the Panama Canal Authority’s administrator.
Many cargo owners had
diverted Asia-originated cargo through Panama in recent months to avoid the
prospect of labor disruptions on the West Coast.
Now, facing the drought restrictions and a deteriorating
labor situation, they may be left with more expensive and time-consuming
alternatives: routing goods from Asia through the Suez Canal instead of Panama,
or risking delays at LA-Long Beach and paying for extra rail rates.
More
Supply Chain
Latest: Panama Canal and West Coast Dockworkers Strike - Bloomberg
In
cryptoland, the US SEC starts to go after Binance and its CEO CZ. Is Binance
the next FTX?
SEC sues Binance and CEO Changpeng Zhao for U.S.
securities violations
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed 13 charges against Binance,
the world’s largest crypto exchange, and its founder, Changpeng Zhao, alleging
both comingled billions of dollars worth of user funds and sent them to a
European company controlled by Zhao.
The U.S. regulator alleged on
Monday that Zhao and his exchange worked to subvert “their own controls” to
allow high net worth U.S. investors and customers to continue trading on
Binance’s unregulated international exchange.
----The complaint alleges Binance created Binance.US as a
shield for the main company and Zhao, to “reveal, retard, and resolve” law
enforcement targets and insulate Binance.
Two successive
Binance.US CEOs expressed deep concern over Zhao’s level of control, according
to the SEC. Both testified before federal regulators: Neither were named, but
its first and second chief executives were Catherine Coley and Brian Brooks.
“I’m not actually the
one running this company, and the mission that I believe I signed up for isn’t
the mission. And as soon as I realized that, I left,” a former Binance.US CEO
identified as “BAM CEO B” testified to the SEC.
Binance earned $11.6
billion in revenue, most of which came from transaction fees, from June 2018
through July 2021, the complaint said. Since its inception, the exchange has
“at first overtly and later furtively” worked to entice U.S. customers, at the direction
and control of its founder Zhao, the SEC alleged.
Binance knew that
tens of thousands of customers were in the U.S. but chose not to act, the SEC
alleged, despite federal law barring the unregistered offer and sale of
securities. Binance’s ultimate compliance, in 2019, was largely a public show,
the SEC complaint continues.
The SEC alleges Zhao
ordered the creation of an evasion plan for high net worth customers, using a
VPN service to hide their U.S. location and submitting compliance documents to obscure
their country of origin.
---- The SEC also alleged that Binance and Zhao
used market-making companies that they controlled to inflate trading prices and
profit off their customers.
Merit Peak and Sigma
Chain allegedly acted as “market makers” for Binance’s two platforms, meaning
they were always available to fill a customer order to buy or sell a crypto
asset. But the SEC complaint highlighted multiple issues with the two
companies’ roles: They were both beneficially owned by Zhao and collected “tens
of billions of dollars” of customer money. The firms also mixed customer funds
with Binance’s money, similar to allegations against bankrupt crypto exchange
FTX.
Most damaging to
investors, they allegedly engaged in “wash trading,” trading with themselves to
artificially prop up the price of crypto assets.
More
SEC
sues Binance and CEO Changpeng Zhao for U.S. securities violations (cnbc.com)
Finally,
a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.
Signs of
de-dollarisation emerging, Wall Street giant JPMorgan says
5
June, 2023
LONDON
(Reuters) -Signs of de-dollarisation are unfolding in the global economy,
strategists at the biggest U.S. bank JPMorgan said on Monday, although the
currency should maintain its long-held dominance for the foreseeable future.
The impact of
steep U.S. interest rate rises and the use of sanctions that have frozen the
likes of Russia out of the global banking system are driving the so-called
BRICs nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - to challenge
the dollar’s hegemony.
JPMorgan's
strategists Meera Chandan and Octavia Popescu at the Wall Street bank laid out
that while overall dollar usage remains within its historical range, its usage
was more "bifurcated under the hood".
The dollar's
share of traded currency volumes is just shy of record highs, at 88%, while the
euro's share has shrunk by 8 percentage points in the last decade to a record
low of 31%. The share of the Chinese yuan, meanwhile, has risen to a record
high of 7%.
"De-dollarisation
is evident in FX reserves where (the dollar's) share has declined to a record
as share in exports declined, but is still emerging in commodities," the
strategists said.
JPMorgan's
assessment is the most high profile of any large U.S. bank although heavyweight
asset managers such as Goldman Sachs Asset Management have also voiced views on
the trend.
JPMorgan's
note on Monday estimated for global exports, the U.S. share is now down to a
record low 9%, whereas China was at a record high of 13%.
In global
central bank FX reserves too, the dollar's share is down to a record low of
58%, albeit a level that is still by far the largest globally.
That share is
lower, however, when accounting for gold, which now comprises 15% of reserves
compared to 11% five years ago.
Progress in
internationalising the yuan has been limited, meanwhile, JPMorgan added, and is
unlikely to change much given the country's capital controls.
The
"CNY" is 2.3% of SWIFT payments, JPMorgan's analysts said, versus 43%
for the dollar and 32% for the euro.
Signs of
de-dollarisation emerging, Wall Street giant JPMorgan says (msn.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.
Australia’s central bank hikes rates by 25 basis
points, defies expectations
The Reserve Bank of Australia on
Tuesday again defied market expectations and raised its benchmark rate by 25
basis points to 4.1%.
Economists polled by Reuters were
widely expecting the central bank to hold its rates steady.
The Australian dollar rose by
0.73% to 0.6667 against the U.S. dollar shortly after the decision as the
central bank grapples with the latest inflation rate of 7% for March quarter.
Australian stocks fell further, and the S&P/ASX 200 last traded 1.14%
lower.
Australia's
central bank hikes rates by 25 basis points, defies expectations (cnbc.com)
Eurozone
investor mood darkens due to 'problem child' Germany, survey finds
June 5, 20239:34 AM GMT+1
BERLIN, June 5 (Reuters) - Investors
got more gloomy on prospects for the euro zone economy in June, dragged down by
negative expectations for Germany, Europe's biggest economy, a survey showed on
Monday.
Economic analysis company Sentix said
its monthly survey on investor views on the 20-member euro zone, which gauges
whether investors are positive or negative on growth prospects, fell to minus
17 points for June from minus 13.1 in May.
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected
it to fall to minus 15.1.
The index on the current situation in
particular took a fall, dipping to minus 15.8 from minus 7.0, raising the
question of whether recession had already begun in the Eurozone, Sentix said.
"A look at the Sentix data of the
largest economy then clearly shows that the cause of the misery in Euroland is
probably linked to the weakness of the German economy," it said. "The
biggest problem child in the Eurozone remains Germany."
The German economy fell into recession
in early 2023 after household spending, a key source of growth in Europe's
economic engine, succumbed to pressures from high inflation, an estimate from
the statistics office showed last month.
German industry had a strong first
quarter, benefiting from the easing of supply chain constraints and a backlog
in orders, but incoming orders have recently declined, limiting companies to
maintaining their activities rather than expanding them.
The Sentix index for Germany in June
fell to the lowest since November last year, at minus 21.1, from minus 14.5 the
previous month.
"No matter how hard the (German)
Federal Minister of Economics tries, the story he is writing is not a positive
summer fairytale," the survey said.
The poll of 1,197 investors was
conducted between June 1-3, Sentix said.
Eurozone investor mood darkens due to 'problem child' Germany, survey finds | Reuters
European equities
could correct 10% over summer - Morgan Stanley
June
5, 2023
(Reuters) -
European equities could fall by 10% over the summer as slowing economic growth
and deteriorating liquidity dampens earnings, Morgan Stanley said on Monday.
The brokerage
cut its sector rating on financials to "neutral," while upgrading
pharmaceuticals one notch to "overweight," amid a shift in preference
to defensive stocks over cyclicals.
Morgan Stanley
said that European companies have held up better than those from the rest of
the world in 2023 and narrowed the estimated fall in profit this year to 6%
from 10% earlier.
"We still
anticipate a downgrade cycle commencing in H2 2023 due to lower margins and
weaker economic growth (which we think is just beginning)," lead equity
analyst Graham Secker said.
However, this downgrade
cycle is starting later than expected, which limits a potential rebound in
2024, Secker added.
The
pan-European STOXX 600 index has been resilient, with a more than 8.8% increase
this year after losing nearly 13% in 2022.
The index has
come under pressure recently after the European Central Bank remained steadfast
in its commitment to taming price pressures, lagging behind the S&P 500
index that is up nearly 12% year-to-date.
Secker said
that financials have been driving Europe's "superior" earnings
performance this year but flagged limited scope for further growth.
Since it has
been more than a year into the Fed's aggressive hiking cycle, the headwinds to
profit from the monetary policy are likely coming closer, the brokerage said,
noting that historically, tighter credit conditions manifested over the longer
term.
European equities
could correct 10% over summer - Morgan Stanley (msn.com)
Heatwaves Hit Asian Power Grids
|
|
China, Bangladesh, Vietnam see demand
soar |
Power grids in Asian
nations are struggling to keep up with
demand in the face of relentless heat. In China, heat waves have hit across the
southern and eastern part of the nation, boosting overall power demand. Overall
demand for electricity has surged, as China Southern Power Grid, one of the
country's two grid operators, is expecting peak power load to surpass 200
million kilowatts, near historical highs, and weeks earlier than normal, as
Ryan Woo and David Kirton report here.
In Vietnam,
big manufacturing hubs are seeing blackouts as well. Vietnam is also dealing
with the heavy heat and more than 11,000 companies have agreed to cut
consumption, as Khanh Vu and Francesco Guarascio report.
In Bangladesh,
power cuts could worsen in coming weeks due to a fuel shortage that has caused
power generating units to shut – including its biggest coal-fired power plant,
as Ruma Paul and Sudarshan Varadhan report here. Nasrul Hamid, minister of state for
power, energy, and mineral resources, said right now that there is “no
alternative other than to cope with the shortage. We will have to bear with
this for another two weeks."
More
newslink.reuters.com/public/31695161
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Nearly Everyone in US Has
Antibodies Against COVID-19: Study
June 3, 2023
Nearly everyone in the United States has some form of protection against COVID-19, according to a new study.
Some 96.4 percent of people aged 16 and older who donated blood had evidence of antibodies against COVID-19, researchers found. Samples of the blood were analyzed between July and September 2022.
The percentage of people with antibodies was up from 93.5 percent during January to March 2022 and from 68.4 in mid-2021.
People had antibodies from prior infection, vaccination, or both.
About 26 percent of people had antibodies from vaccination only, 22.6 percent had antibodies from infection only, and 47.7 percent had antibodies from both, the researchers found.
Infection-induced immunity was more common among the unvaccinated in the
cohort.
Donated blood was tested for
antibodies against the spike protein that both COVID-19 and the vaccines have,
as well as nucleocapsid proteins that are produced when one is infected.
U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) researchers worked with officials from the American Red
Cross, Creative Testing Solutions, Vitalant, and Westat for the research, which
was published by the CDC’s quasi-journal on
June 2.
The increase in antibodies, or
seroprevalence, “is likely contributing to lower rates of severe disease and
death from COVID-19 in 2022–2023 than during the early pandemic,” the CDC
researchers said.
Many studies have found that natural immunity is similar to or better
than protection bestowed by vaccines, including a recent paper funded by the CDC. The effectiveness of the vaccines has fallen as
newer strains have emerged, dropping to near-zero against infection after several months and
just 24 percent against hospitalization among healthy
people after 120 days.
But the CDC researchers asserted
that the new study provides evidence that vaccination still protects against
infection.
More
Nearly Everyone in
US Has Antibodies Against COVID-19: Study (theepochtimes.com)
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.
Electric cars were
hailed as the greener and cheaper way forward... but they actually cost MORE to
run than petrol vehicles
5 June, 2023
They were
hailed as a cheaper – and greener – alternative to petrol-run cars.
But it has now
emerged that electric cars can now cost more to run than their gas-guzzling
counterparts – and could plague Britain's roads with potholes.
With rising
electricity prices, recharging cars at major public points can now cost almost
£50 – often making them more expensive to run than a petrol alternative.
Oil giants BP
and Shell – which oversee the UK's biggest recharging networks – charge 79p and
85p per kWh respectively. In May 2022 you could recharge at a rate of 44.55p
per kWh.
Meanwhile, the
price of petrol has dropped to around 144p a litre, meaning it costs £72 to
fill up a typical car. As a result, the cost per mile for the electric VW ID.3
is 21.43p compared to 13.03p for VW's petrol equivalent the Golf 1.5L,
according to The Sun.
RAC spokesman
Simon Williams said: 'When charging at home, the running costs are far cheaper.
But that is only possible for those who have a driveway and can install a home
charger on their house.'
He urged the
Government to reduce VAT on public chargers from 20 to five per cent to match
the rate levied on domestic electricity.
The vast
weight of electric vehicles may also cause more potholes, according to the
road-building association the Asphalt Industry Alliance. Due to their large
batteries, electric vehicles are usually more than twice as heavy as average
cars.
On Saturday,
Mr Bean star Rowan Atkinson said in an interview that he feels 'duped' having
bought an e-car.
'When you
start to drill into the facts, electric motoring doesn't seem to be quite the
environmental panacea it is claimed to be,' he wrote.
Old multi-storey car parks could collapse due to heavy
electric vehicles, warn engineers
The urgent guidance follows the collapse of a multi-storey
car park in New York City in April, in which one person died and five were
taken to hospital
02:17,
Mon, Jun 5, 2023 |
UPDATED: 07:32, Mon, Jun 5, 2023
Older multi-storey car
parks need to be modified to cope with heavier electric vehicles or risk
partial collapse, engineers have warned.
A review by the
Institution of Structural Engineers said weight limits should be imposed or
buildings strengthened to support the increasingly large and heavier electric
cars that weigh on average more than two tonnes.
The guidance follows the
collapse of a multi-storey car park in New York City in April, in which one
person died and five were taken to hospital.
Chris
Whapples, an IStructE fellow and overseeing consultant for the review, told the
PA news agency: “Potentially if we just ignore this issue then we could have a
partial collapse. It would not necessarily be a wholesale collapse — nobody
wants that — but we want the public to have confidence in driving and in using
car parks.
“I’m not trying to create any scaremongering, and I want to emphasise that
not all 6,000 multi-storey car parks across the UK have to be closed.
“It’s only the very old
ones, built in the 60s and 70s, which are in a very poor state of repair and
have weakened over time which will probably need to have some work done to
them.
“It’s not the little city
electric cars that are likely to be a problem or the average family saloon, but
some of the top end electric vehicles like executive saloons or SUVs which are
about three tonnes or over which could potentially be overloading some of these
older multi-storey car parks.”
Over the past two years Mr
Whapples has led a team of 10 engineers, commissioned by IStructE, to update
design recommendations for multi-storey car parks. The review proposes that car
park owners have their buildings inspected by engineering firms to see if they
need to be strengthened.
If this is too expensive
owners may have to impose a vehicle weight limit of up to two-and-a-half
tonnes.
More
Multi-storey car
parks electric vehicles | UK | News | Express.co.uk
Mythbusting the world of EVs: are today's lithium-ion
batteries obsolescent?
I had a
conversation recently with a senior Nissan engineer about solid state
batteries, one of those buzzword new technologies that make you imagine the
world will never be the same again.
Today’s
battery cells have gel electrolyte between each anode and cathode. That gel
needs cooling, especially when the car is being rapid charged. The liquid
coolant and the passages it runs through inevitably add weight and bulk. Also,
manufacturing these is very tricky.
A solid state
battery replaces the gel with a solid electrolyte that won’t overheat, so needs
no bulky cooling system. By Nissan’s reckoning we’re looking at half the cost
per kWh versus today’s gel batteries, and twice the energy density. They would
charge three times as fast, and sustain that to 100 per cent.
Come on then,
Mr Nissan, let’s be having it. Ah, says he, not so fast. Nissan is probably at
or near the head of the race for solid state batteries, but it’s still
very much lab-scale. And when they do go into production, they’ll need
largely new car platforms to take advantage.
That’s likely
to mean a 2028 intro. And Nissan and its Alliance partners have several cars to
launch before (and after) then on what is today a pretty new mid-size platform
and the yet-unseen smaller one that supports the R5. So gel batteries will
still be fitted under new cars, and will still be being improved, beyond the
middle of the next decade.
Mythbusting the
world of EVs: are today's lithium-ion batteries obsolescent? (msn.com)
When
it comes to selling stocks, it is plain that nobody can sell unless somebody
wants those stocks.
Jesse Livermore.
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