Baltic Dry Index. 977 -27 Brent Crude 80.33
Spot Gold 1970 US 2 Year Yield 4.74 +0.06
Gold would have value if for no other reason than that it enables a citizen to fashion his financial escape from the state.
William F. Rickenbacker.
In the stock casinos, only a small group of overpriced tech stocks now fuel the 2023 bubble. But for how much longer?
Back in the real world, food scarcity looms for the world’s poorest thanks to NATO’s proxy war on Russia in the Ukraine.
Does anyone in fat cat Washington, London or well fed NATO Brussels care? I doubt it. They’re too busy stoking up the optional war by introducing cluster bombs.
Asia markets mixed as Japan’s inflation rises slightly in June
UPDATED FRI, JUL 21 2023 12:21 AM EDT
Asia-Pacific markets fell on Friday as investors digested Japan’s consumer price index figures for June. The country’s core inflation rate - which strips out costs of fresh food - came in at 3.3%, in line with expectations of economists polled by Reuters, official data showed.
This is slightly higher than May’s figure of 3.2%, and also above the Bank of Japan’s 2% target. The country’s headline inflation rate also came in at 3.3% in June, up from May’s figure of 3.2%.
The Nikkei 225 fell 0.24%, but the Topix was 0.21% up as the inflation data comes ahead of the BOJ’s closely watched meeting next week for its rate decision.
South Korea’s Kospi fell marginally, and the Kosdaq retreated from its 16 month high to fall 0.22% as producer prices fell for the first time since November 2020.
Separately, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slid 0.3% lower.
In contrast, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index climbed 0.72%. Mainland Chinese stocks were also all in positive territory, with both the Shanghai Composite and the Shenzhen Component up marginally.
Overnight in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped for a ninth straight day after better-than-expected earnings results from drug maker Johnson & Johnson. It was the Dow’s best daily winning streak since 2017.
Despite this, the broader market suffered after post-earnings declines in trader favorites Netflix and Tesla. The S&P 500 slipped 0.68% and the Nasdaq Composite tumbled 2.05%.
TSMC shares fall 3% after reporting first profit drop in 4 years
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chipmaker, fell 3.11% in morning trade on Friday after posting its first quarterly net income decline in 4 years.
On Thursday, TSMC posted a 10% decline in second quarter revenue from a year ago to NT$480.84 billion, while net income fell 23.3% from a year ago to NT$181.8 billion.
Despite exceeding market expectations, the company’s shares still fell.
The firm said that business was affected by macroeconomic conditions which decreased demand for electronics. TSMC produces chips for some of the largest names in smartphones and laptops.
Asia markets mixed as Japan's inflation rises slightly in June (cnbc.com)
Dow Notches Longest Win Streak Since 2017
Tesla stock drags the S&P 500 lower
By
The Dow rose about 160 points, or 0.5%, to clinch its longest winning streak since September 2017. The S&P 500 declined 0.7%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq pulled back 2.1%. The Dow outperformed the Nasdaq by the widest one-day percentage-point margin since March 2021.
Though the 2023 stock-market rally has been broadening in recent weeks, most of this year’s gains have been driven by a small group of megacap tech stocks, including Tesla. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are weighted by market cap, so the biggest companies have a greater influence on index performance than the smallest ones. That makes the major indexes vulnerable to a pullback if a few heavyweights fall.
“The danger of any market being so top-heavy is that if any of them slip, they can really drive the market south,” said Eric Sterner, chief investment officer at Apollon Wealth Management.
Tesla fell 9.7% after Chief Executive Elon Musk cautioned that the electric-vehicle maker might need to cut prices further. Netflix, another tech-focused stock that has climbed this year, slid 8.4% after the streamer reported revenue that fell short of its own projections, despite adding 5.9 million subscribers.
More
Dow Notches Longest Win Streak Since 2017 - WSJ
Finally, in food price inflation news, bad news keeps piling up on more bad news.
India's rice export ban could send decade-high prices spiking even further
July 21, 2023
- India has banned the exports of non-basmati white rice with immediate effect, the latest in the government's effort to rein in high food prices.
- India is the world's leading rice exporter, accounting for more than 40% of the global rice trade.
- Analysts told CNBC this week's ban could send already elevated prices shooting even higher, compounding effects from the country's September ban on shipments of broken rice.
India banned the exports of non-basmati white rice with immediate effect late Thursday, the latest in the government's effort to rein in high food prices.
The Ministry of Consumer Affairs said the ban would help ensure "adequate availability" of non-basmati white rice in India, as well as "allay the rise in prices in the domestic market."
India is the world's leading rice exporter, accounting for more than 40% of the global rice trade, as well as the second-largest producer after China.
Analysts told CNBC this week's ban could send already elevated prices shooting even higher, compounding effects from the country's September ban on shipments of broken rice.
"Global rice [supplies] would drastically tighten ... since the country is the world's second top producer of the food staple," said Eve Barre, ASEAN economist at trade credit insurer Coface.
Barre said Bangladesh and Nepal would be hardest hit by the ban, as both countries are top export destinations.
The ban could also exacerbate food insecurity for countries heavily reliant on rice, agriculture analytics firm Gro Intelligence predicted in a recent report published before the announcement.
According to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, non-basmati white rice constitutes about 25% of India's rice exports.
Affected importers may turn to alternative suppliers in the region, like Thailand and Vietnam, DBS Bank senior economist Radhika Rao said.
Price of rice to go higher?
"In addition to a reduction in global rice supply, panic reactions and speculation on global rice markets would exacerbate the increase in prices," said Coface's Barre.
Prices are already hovering at decade highs, in part due to tighter supplies when the staple became an attractive alternative as prices of other major grains surged following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
More
India's rice export ban could send decade-high prices spiking even further (msn.com)
Russia bombs Ukraine ports, threatens ships, as Kyiv deploys cluster munitions
By Viktoria Lakezina and Vitalii Hnidyi
MYKOLAIV/NEAR KUPIANSK, Ukraine, July 20 (Reuters) - Russia jolted world grain markets with an escalation in the Black Sea, mounting a third straight night of air strikes on Ukrainian ports and issuing a threat against Ukraine-bound vessels to which Kyiv responded in kind.
At least 27 civilians were reported hurt in the air strikes on the ports, which set buildings ablaze and damaged China's consulate in Odesa.
The United States said Russia's warning to ships indicated Moscow might attack vessels at sea following Moscow's withdrawal on Monday from a U.N.-brokered deal to let Ukraine export grain. The signal that Russia was willing to use force to reimpose its blockade on one of the world's biggest food exporters set global prices soaring.
Moscow says it will not participate in the year-old grain deal without better terms for its own food and fertiliser sales.
The U.N. Security Council will meet on Friday over "the humanitarian consequences" of Russia's withdrawal, said Britain's U.N mission.
---- "These attacks are also having an impact well beyond Ukraine," said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, adding higher wheat and corn prices hurt everyone, especially vulnerable people in the global south.
Kyiv is hoping to resume exports without Russia's participation. But no ships have sailed from its ports since Moscow pulled out of the deal, and insurers have had doubts about whether to underwrite policies for trade in a war zone.
Since quitting the deal, Moscow has rained missiles down nightly on Ukraine's two biggest port cities, Odesa and Mykolaiv. Thursday's strikes appeared to be the worst yet.
More
Russia bombs Ukraine ports, threatens ships, as Kyiv deploys cluster munitions | Reuters
Extend ban on Ukrainian grain, say five EU states
Poland warns it will take unilateral action unless Brussels prolongs curbs on exports
July 19, 2023
Poland and four other EU member states asked Brussels on Wednesday to extend trade curbs on Ukrainian grain amid concerns that Russia’s blockage of Black Sea shipments could put further pressure on their domestic markets.
Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania have restricted imports of Ukrainian grain since last spring in response to protests by their farmers about a grain glut that sent cereal prices crashing and which they blamed on Ukrainian imports.
In May, Brussels persuaded them to drop unilateral measures, which violated EU trade law, by agreeing that Ukrainian shipments would only transit through the five countries on route to other destinations. The EU also handed out €100mn to the affected countries.
Ukrainian grain has provoked an embarrassing U-turn for Poland, one of the staunchest western supporters of Kyiv’s war against Russia. Poland has led calls for solidarity with Ukraine and last year Warsaw backed the EU removing tariffs on Ukrainian foodstuffs to help its economy.
But ahead of a fiercely contested national election this autumn, the rightwing government in Warsaw has grown worried about losing the support of farmers who are a cornerstone of its electorate.
The demand for an extension of controls beyond mid-September is likely to meet strong resistance. Several member states whose own industries have suffered from sanctions on Russia are annoyed that Poland and others are seeking special treatment.
“The initial illicit grain blockade was like the camel’s head under the tent. By giving in to the demands of these countries, it’s now become excessively hard for the commission to counter the further escalation of these issues by Poland,” said one diplomat.
But Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki warned Brussels against preventing what was agreed by the five countries on Wednesday.
“Either the European Commission will agree to develop common regulations that will extend this ban, or we will do it ourselves,” Morawiecki told a news conference in Warsaw. “We will be tough, determined and we will certainly defend the Polish farmers.”
More
Extend ban on Ukrainian grain, say five EU states | Financial Times (ft.com)
We have gold because we cannot trust governments.
Herbert Hoover.
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.
Wheat prices soar for a third day as Russia-Ukraine tensions stoke fears of major food crisis
PUBLISHED THU, JUL 20 2023 8:21 AM EDT
Wheat prices rose on Thursday after Russia threatened to treat ships heading for Ukrainian ports as military cargo carriers, deepening fears of a global food security crisis.
It marks the third consecutive day of price rises. The most actively traded wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade was last seen trading around 1.4% higher at 737.6 cents per bushel, notching a three-week high.
It follows a jump of 8.5% in the previous session, the biggest daily gain in more than a year, on mounting geopolitical tensions. Wheat prices remain well below the peak levels of 1,177.5 cents per bushel reached in May of last year, however.
The rise follows the Kremlin’s decision Monday to pull out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a critically important wartime deal that provided a maritime humanitarian corridor for the export of Ukrainian grain.
U.N. chief António Guterres said he “deeply” regretted Russia’s decision to terminate the initiative, which in effect ended a “lifeline” for hundreds of millions across the globe facing hunger, as well as those already struggling with spiraling food costs.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Thursday that Russia’s decision to pull out of the pact would imperil global food security.
“What we already know is that this is going to create a big and huge food crisis in the world,” Borrell said Thursday ahead of an EU foreign minister’s meeting.
Russian forces have launched extensive missile and drone attacks against port and grain infrastructure in southern Ukraine in recent days.
The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank, said Wednesday that it believes the recent attacks were likely to reaffirm Russia’s objections to the renewal of the Black Sea grain deal and hinder Kyiv’s ability to export agricultural commodities.
Ukraine’s Agriculture Ministry said Wednesday that recent attacks on Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa and other cities had destroyed 60,000 tons of grain as well as crucial infrastructure.
----Ratcheting tensions up further, Moscow warned that from Thursday all vessels sailing toward Ukrainian ports would be deemed “to be involved in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of the Kyiv regime.”
----“Ukraine will now be forced to export most of its grains and oilseeds through its land borders and Danube ports. This will significantly drive up transportation costs and pile further pressure on Ukrainian farmers’ profits,” Carlos Mera, head of agricultural commodities markets at Dutch lender Rabobank, said Monday.
“The knock-on effect of this is it could prompt them to plant less next season, placing further pressure on supplies going forward,” he added.
More
Wheat prices soar as Russia-Ukraine tensions stoke food crisis fears (cnbc.com)
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
US Government Suspends Funding to Wuhan Lab Over Risky Experiments
July 19, 2023 Updated: July 19, 2023
The Biden administration has suspended funding to the laboratory in China that’s located in the same city where COVID-19 cases were first identified, according to a new document.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is cutting off the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s access to U.S. grants, an HHS official said in a memorandum dated July 17.
In 2014, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) awarded a grant to EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit based in the United States that is focused on research into emerging infectious diseases, to fund a project called “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.”
The institute (WIV) received more than $1.4 million in U.S. government funds for testing under the project, which included experiments that made a bat coronavirus more harmful. Mice infected with a modified version of the virus became sicker than those infected with the original virus, according to documents made public in 2021.
That violated the terms of the grant, the HHS official said.
U.S. officials have given WIV opportunities to contest that conclusion, the official said, but the institute “has failed to do so.”
“As such, there is risk that WIV not only previously violated, but is currently violating, and will continue to violate,” protocols of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which provided the grant money and is part of the HHS, the official added. “Therefore, I have determined that the immediate suspension of WIV is necessary to mitigate any potential public health risk.”
Reasons for suspensions and debarments include fraud and violations of a contract.
More
US Government Suspends Funding to Wuhan Lab Over Risky Experiments (theepochtimes.com)
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 Vehicles for Everyone? The Impossible Dream
July 12th, 202366 Mark P. Mills
Executive Summary
A dozen U.S. states, from California to New York, have joined dozens of countries, from Ireland to Spain, with plans to ban the sale of new cars with an internal combustion engine (ICE), many prohibitions taking effect within a decade. Meanwhile, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in a feat of regulatory legerdemain, has proposed tailpipe emissions rules that would effectively force automakers to shift to producing mainly electric vehicles (EVs) by 2032.
This is all to ensure that so-called zero-emission EVs play a central role in radically cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. To ensure compliance with ICE prohibitions and soften the economic impacts, policymakers are deploying lavish subsidies for manufacturers and consumers. Enthusiasts claim that EVs already have achieved economic and operational parity, if not superiority, with automobiles and trucks fueled by petroleum, so the bans and subsidies merely accelerate what they believe is an inevitable transition.
It is certainly true that EVs are practical and appealing for many drivers. Even without subsidies or mandates, millions more will be purchased by consumers, if mainly by wealthy ones. But the facts reveal a fatal flaw in the core motives for the prohibitions and mandates. As this report illustrates:
- No one knows how much, if at all, CO2 emissions will decline as EV use rises. Every claim for EVs reducing emissions is a rough estimate or an outright guess based on averages, approximations, or aspirations. The variables and uncertainties in emissions from energy-intensive mining and processing of minerals used to make EV batteries are a big wild card in the emissions calculus. Those emissions substantially offset reductions from avoiding gasoline and, as the demand for battery minerals explodes, the net reductions will shrink, may vanish, and could even lead to a net increase in emissions. Similar emissions uncertainties are associated with producing the power for EV charging stations.
- No one knows when or whether EVs will reach economic parity with the cars that most people drive. An EV’s higher price is dominated by the costs of the critical materials that are needed to build it and is thus dependent on guesses about the future of mining and minerals industries, which are mainly in foreign countries. The facts also show that, for the majority of drivers, there’s no visibility for when, if ever, EVs will reach parity in cost and fueling convenience, regardless of subsidies.
Ultimately, if implemented, bans on conventionally powered vehicles will lead to draconian impediments to affordable and convenient driving and a massive misallocation of capital in the world’s $4 trillion automotive industry.
More
Electric Vehicles for Everyone? The Impossible Dream | Manhattan Institute
Another weekend and almost no more Black Sea grain shipments out of the Ukraine since Russia abandoned the UN/Turkey Ukraine exports deal. But that also creates complications for Russia’s grain and fertiliser exports too.
Suddenly we are transitioning from food price inflation towards food exports scarcity. Whose big idea was it to suddenly force Russia into a NATO proxy war in the Ukraine rather than give Russia security guarantees? Buy now for Christmas 2023? Have a great weekend everyone.
Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked: "Account Overdrawn."
Ayn Rand.
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