Baltic Dry Index. 1194 -29 Brent Crude 84.09
Spot Gold 1903 US 2 Year Yield 5.02 +0.05
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, more calm before the coming storm?
It appears that way to this old dinosaur markets follower since 1968.
China is mired in deflation. Europe is headed into recession. Russia is trapped by NATO in a never ending, unwinnable war.
The USA is heading for an election next year between a visibly failing 80 year old and a 70 something potential convict.
US banks are getting downgraded, a commercial real estate bust is building, plus the long term effect of taking interest rates from zero to 5.5 percent are only just now catching up to the non-casino, real US economy.
Other than the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo, I don’t think I’ve seen a more scary stormy time.
Asia
markets mixed as investors assess private business activity reports from
Australia and Japan
UPDATED WED, AUG 23 2023 12:08 AM
EDT
Asia-Pacific markets are mixed on Wednesday as
investors assess private business activity surveys from Australia and Japan, as
well as inflation figures from Singapore.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was
up 0.66%, reversing earlier losses. Australia’s business activity contracted at
the fastest pace in 19 months, according to Juno Bank, with its flash composite purchasing managers index coming
in at 47.1 for August.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 also
was in positive territory as it climbed 0.18%, while the Topix gained 0.16%.
The country saw a faster expansion in its business activity, with its flash PMI
for August at 54.3 compared to July’s 53.8.
However, South
Korea’s Kospi fell 0.56%, and the Kosdaq dropped 1.25%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index hovered
just below the flatline, while mainland Chinese markets were also in negative
territory, with the benchmark CSI 300 index down 0.72%.
Overnight in the U.S., the S&P 500 fell
0.3%, weighed by concerns over rising Treasury yields and ahead of a key
speech later this week from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome
Powell.
Most notably, several regional
and larger banks fell after S&P Global cut
credit ratings and revised its outlook for multiple U.S. banks
on Monday, citing “tough” operating conditions.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost
0.51%, but the tech-heavy Nasdaq
Composite eked out a small gain of 0.06%.
Unpaid workers, silent sites: China's property
woes hit Country Garden
By Laurie
Chen August 23, 20233:52 AM
GMT+1
TIANJIN,
China, Aug 23 (Reuters) - At an unfinished Country Garden (2007.HK) residential
complex on the outskirts of the northern Chinese metropolis of Tianjin,
construction has slowed to a dull whirr and a few idle workers roam a
near-empty site.
"They
haven't paid us since Chinese New Year (in January). We are all worried,"
said a labourer surnamed Wang, 50, who said he had stopped work at the Yunhe
Shangyuan site last week.
The sprawling
complex is one of two projects Reuters visited on Friday in Tianjin, a port
city of 14 million people about 135 km (84 miles) southeast of Beijing. Both
sites are run by Country Garden, China's largest developer by sales volume
before this year, now mired in a debt crisis threatening to spill over to the
wider economy.
Construction had
partially or fully stopped at both sites - the larger one with a few rows of
unfinished five-storey apartment blocks and the other with lifeless cranes and
thick green scaffolding hanging over skeletal high-rises. Workers at dorms on
the sites complained of months without pay.
"I'm under
a lot of pressure," said a worker at the Yunhe Shangyuan site surnamed
Wei, also in his 50s, who added that he had only received a one-off living
stipend of 4,500 yuan ($618) so far this year.
"I have a
wife and kid who's about to return to school, as well as elderly parents ...
Workers can't live on this."
Once considered
one of the more financially sound developers, Country Garden is now a
bellwether of how the cycle has turned for developers.
Its
financial woes have added to the debt crisis in China's real estate sector,
which accounts for roughly a quarter of the world's second-largest economy,
currently losing steam amid a housing slump and
weak consumer spending.
A representative
of Country Garden's Yunhe Shangyuan project said in a Wechat statement its
"registered employees" were all being paid.
At the Yunjing
Huating site, the government in June ordered construction to be suspended to
fix management problems, a project representative told Reuters in a separate
statement. It has since passed inspection and work is expected to resume next
week, the person said, adding the suspension would have no impact on the
targeted completion date of October 2024.
Some workers
are not employed directly by the developer, the Yunjing Huating representative
said, but by its contractor, which "has promised to pay the workers' wages
by the end of this month".
The project
contractor, Shenyang Tengyue Construction, did not pick up calls from Reuters
or respond to emails seeking comment.
More
Unpaid
workers, silent sites: China's property woes hit Country Garden | Reuters
China downturn exposes its economy’s ‘fundamental
weaknesses’ and may affect the world, say experts
August 22, 2023
China‘s
economic downturn is a “worrying” sign that exposes “fundamental weaknesses” in the country’s economy and is likely to affect the global economy, experts say.
The
country is experiencing a protracted slump where growth is stalling, and last
week the Chinese yuan fell to its lowest levels in 16 years.
Dr Jan Knoerich, senior lecturer in
the economy of China at King’s College London, said the downturn exposed
“fundamental weaknesses” in the country’s economy.
The country is going through a crisis
in its property sector, which sector accounts for a quarter of the economy, and
it has long been dependent on the property market booming.
But now major housing development
companies are failing and house prices are falling.
“What the Chinese Government would
normally do is it would prop up the economy – it would start building,
constructing and putting money into the economy, and it’s done that for decades
now,” Dr Knoerich said.
“But what’s different this time is
that it seems the Government is starting to worry that it cannot do that any
more, simply because it has done it too often and has accumulated too much
debt. If it cannot do this, it will have to accept lower economic growth rates,
which will put dampener on confidence in the economy.”
How China’s Faltering Growth Threatens to Derail Commodities
Markets
Energy
transition offers new avenues for consumption
Many
markets including coal and pork are oversupplied
August
22, 2023 at 10:00 PM GMT+1
Updated on August 23, 2023 at
1:59 AM GMT+
Subscription required
How China’s Faltering Economic Growth Threatens to Derail Commodities Markets - Bloomberg
Finally, shipping. More price inflation to
come.
Focus: Historic
drought, hot seas slow Panama Canal shipping
By Lisa Baertlein and Marianna
Parraga August 21, 202312:09 PM
GMT+1
LOS ANGELES/HOUSTON, Aug 21 (Reuters) -
Before the Ever Max ship carrying lava lamps, sofas, Halloween costumes and
artificial Christmas trees could make its inaugural Panama Canal voyage this
month, a historic drought forced it to drop weight by offloading hundreds of
containers.
Weather-related disruptions denied the
vessel, owned by Taiwanese shipping company Evergreen Marine, a chance on Aug.
1 to set a record for carrying the most containers through the vital maritime
shortcut that connects the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
The Panama Canal Authority has reduced
maximum ship weights and daily ship crossings in a bid to conserve water.
Maritime transportation experts fear such events could become the new normal as
rainfall deficits in the world's fifth-wettest country spotlight climate risks
affecting the ocean shipping industry that moves 80% of global trade.
Ship owners have the options of
carrying less cargo, shifting to alternate routes that can add thousands of
miles to the trip or grappling with queues that earlier this month backed up
160 vessels and delayed some ships by as much as 21 days.
The restrictions
already are sending China-U.S. spot shipping prices up as much as 36% amid
soaring sea temperatures that climate scientists warn could supercharge extreme weather.
----Canal operators are on a tightrope
as they work to manage maritime trade disruption and prepare for what is
shaping up to be an even drier period next year, said Peter Sand, chief analyst
at air and ocean freight rate benchmarking platform Xeneta.
More than 14,000 ships crossed the
canal in 2022. Container ships are the most common users of the Panama Canal
and transport more than 40% of consumer goods traded between Northeast Asia and
the U.S. East Coast.
U.S-bound vessels caught in the
bottlenecks have carried Barbie dolls, auto parts, BYD solar panels, water
treatment equipment, diabetes testing kits and other goods, according to data
from Steve Ferreira, CEO of a company that audits ocean shipping bills.
Restrictions at the canal started
earlier this year, affecting about 170 countries and virtually every type of
good - including soybeans and liquefied natural gas from the United States,
copper and fresh cherries from Chile, and beef from Brazil.
Bulk carriers that transport
commodities from corn to iron ore, as well as tankers that move oil, fuel, gas
and chemicals also are affected. Some energy companies are rerouting vessels
laden with coal and liquefied natural gas to the Suez Canal.
WATER WATCH
A naturally
occurring El Nino climate pattern associated
with warmer-than-usual water in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean
is contributing to Panama's drought.
The area around the canal is
experiencing one of the two driest years in the country's 143 years of keeping
records, data from the canal authority and the Smithsonian Tropical Research
Institute (STRI) showed. Rainfall measurements around the area are 30-50% below
normal.
---- Canal operators have lowered ship
weight limits to accommodate lower water depth - posing a problem for large
vessels like the Ever Max.
The ship was built to carry more than
8,650 40-foot (12-metre) cargo boxes. It arrived at the Pacific side of the
canal over the limit even though it was only carrying the equivalent of 7,373
containers.
The vessel unloaded
about 700 containers onto trains, retrieved them on the Atlantic side and
continued on to the U.S. East Coast, according to the Canal Authority and Eikon
vessel tracking. Ship owner Evergreen Marine (2603.TW) declined comment.
Canal operators also cut the number of
daily ship crossings to 32 from about 36 during normal operations since each
passage requires about 50 million gallons of water, only a portion of which is
recycled.
Some shipping executives are bracing
for more reductions later this year, noting that in 2020 a less severe drought
prompted canal operators to reduce crossings to 27 per day.
"Anyone shipping product around
the world should be paying attention to possible disruptions due to climate
change," said Brian Bourke, global chief commercial officer at SEKO
Logistics. "The Panama Canal is just the latest example."
Focus: Historic drought, hot seas slow Panama Canal
shipping | Reuters
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.
Wall Street is declaring
victory too early — the US is still headed for a recession
August 22, 2023
There's a
saying in markets that being early is being wrong. Given that maxim, it's
fair to say that over the past two years pessimistic economists and market
analysts have been wrong.
Bearish
forecasters began to warn of a recession and corresponding stock-market selloff
as early as April 2022. Take, for example, an October 2022 Reuters poll in which 65% of the
economists it surveyed said a recession would arrive in the following 12
months. Things were supposed to get ugly, and soon.
Fast-forward
to today and the sun is still shining on the US economy. Unemployment is below
4%, inflation is sliding, consumers are still spending, and the S&P 500
rallied as much as 20% this year before cooling off recently. And GDP is
projected to grow by 1.6% in this third quarter, economists surveyed by the
Philadelphia Fed said. Hardly recession material.
Optimistic,
bullish economists are of course relishing the opportunity to
say "I told you so," as consensus starts to bend toward their view
that the economy will achieve a soft landing — lower inflation without the need
for an economic shock like a recession. Economists at Bank of America and
JPMorgan now say a recession will not happen this year, or perhaps at all.
But just
because the economy's flight path seems gentle now doesn't mean that there
won't be turbulence ahead. According to top Wall Street strategists and
economists I've spoken with in recent weeks, there's plenty of evidence that a
recession is on the way. In other words, bulls are declaring victory far too
early.
"To
say today that we're going to have a soft landing is so premature,"
Michael Kantrowitz, the chief investment strategist at Piper Sandler, told me.
"History tells you you really can't make that assessment."
----Instead
of this hard reboot, however, the economy has been through more of a soft
reset. Inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index has fallen from its
year-over-year peak of 9.1% in June 2022 to 3.2% as of July. And Americans have
been spending right through the higher interest rates: Personal consumption
expenditures and retail sales numbers have continued to forge upward.
Sure, the
economy has seemed to shake off the Fed so far, but experts say that higher
cost of debt will eventually bite. As the legendary economist Milton Friedman
famously said interest rate changes have "long and variable
lags" — it takes time for the changes to work their way to
households and businesses. Bob Doll, the chief investment officer at Crossmark
Global Investments and a former chief US equity strategist at BlackRock, told
me that the full impact has yet to be felt.
"To think
that the only consequence is that a couple banks go under in the middle of
March for about a day and a half, and then we move on our merry way, I think is
a little naive," Doll told me, referring to the collapse of Silicon Valley
Bank and other regional banks.
David Rosenberg, an economist and the founder of Rosenberg Research, was one of
the first to sense the cataclysm that turned into the 2008 recession. He's been
calling for a recession since last year and told me that despite the more
upbeat recent data, a downturn is still on the way. Rosenberg noted that the
average time from the Fed's first interest-rate hike in a cycle to the start of
a recession is about 15 months — and the current hiking cycle has been going
for 16.
More
Wall
Street is declaring victory too early — the US is still headed for a recession
(yahoo.com)
Recession warning
flashes after ‘gloomy’ UK manufacturing data
August 22, 2023
Recession
concerns intensified today after new data showed manufacturing output fell at
its fastest pace since September 2020 in July.
According to
the Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) industrial trends survey, the
balance of factories reporting a rise in output versus a fall slumped to -19
per cent, compared to plus three per cent in the three months to July.
Output fell in
15 out of the 17 sub-sectors included in the survey, with motor vehicles &
transport, mechanical engineering and paper production driving the fall. The
survey was based on the responses of 277 manufacturing firms.
Looking
forward order books were slightly below average, at -15 per cent compared to
the long run average of -13 per cent.
Martin
Sartorius, the CBI’s principal economist, said: “With output volumes
contracting at their fastest pace since the Covid-19 pandemic and order books
deteriorating, this survey makes for gloomy reading for manufacturers.”
---- The survey also showed that inflation is likely to continue
falling over the next few months with expectations for selling price inflation
over the next quarter at its softest since February 2021.
Expectations for selling prices have now eased for
eight consecutive months.
“Easing price pressures will bring some relief to
many manufacturing firms and the broader economy,” Sartorius said.
Gabriella Dickens, senior UK economist at Pantheon
Macroeconomics, said that the survey pointed to a likely fall in inflation over
the second half of the year.
“This (survey) adds to our conviction that the rate
of increase in the core goods CPI will slow sharply in the second half of this
year,” she said. Inflation fell to 6.8 per cent in July, although core inflation continued to rise.
Recession warning flashes after ‘gloomy’ UK
manufacturing data (msn.com)
German stagnation
blows...as China cuts rates again
August 21, 2023
Germany’s moribund economy faces
another quarter of stagnation after crashing into recession at the end of last
year, according to the country’s central bank.
The Bundesbank said Europe’s largest
economy is ‘still lacklustre’ and ‘still experiencing a period of weakness’.
Germany has been dubbed ‘the sick man
of Europe’ with output falling 0.4pc in the final three months of last year and
by another 0.1pc in the first three months of this year.
The two consecutive quarters of
decline meant the economy was in recession. There was no growth at all in the
second quarter of the year and the Bundesbank believes the same will be true in
the third quarter, which runs from July to September.
The forecast underlines Germany’s
status as the laggard of the world’s largest developed economies.
The International Monetary Fund
believes Germany will be the only member of the Group of Seven advanced nations
to shrink in 2023. The Bundesbank also warned that inflation may remain stuck
above 2pc despite recent declines.
‘The
ongoing high wage pressures could make it harder to press ahead with curbing
inflation,’ the report said.
More
German stagnation blows...as China cuts rates again
(msn.com)
In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value.
Alan Greenspan.
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
How COVID-19 Changes
the Immune System
Mon, August 21, 2023 at 5:20 PM GMT+1
If the COVID-19 pandemic has done
one thing, it’s made us all more familiar with some of the important players in
the immune system. Antibodies, B cells, and T cells are among the best known
parts of the body’s response to a virus like SARS-CoV-2, but they don’t act
alone.
In a paper published on August 18 in the journal Cell, scientists report that innate immune cells—a critical
part of the immune system activated to battle COVID-19—remain altered for at
least a year after infection. The finding suggests that these cells may play a
role in some of the lingering symptoms associated with Long COVID,
although more studies are needed to confirm that connection.
The innate immune system is the
body’s first line of defense, made up of general pathogen-fighting cells that
are designed to recognize and fight off all kinds of pathogens, including
bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites in a non-specific way. (B cells and T
cells, in contrast, are more customized to remember and recognize specific
pathogens, and only those pathogens.) Steven Josefowicz, an associate professor
of pathology and laboratory medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, and his
colleagues found, however, that even innate immune cells retain some memory of
fighting SARS-CoV-2 after a severe infection. This recall, and the response it
generates, can last for at least a year after infection.
The new paper has important
implications for understanding how the immune system—even the less bespoke
parts that aren’t targeting specific bacteria or viruses—is changed by
infections. Understanding these alterations could also shed light on why some
people continue to experience long-term symptoms after encountering SARS-CoV-2, says Josefowicz.
---- By analyzing those
stem cells, “what’s clear is that the immune system is fundamentally changed
after a severe infection like COVID-19,” he says. These cells contain genetic
changes that alter which genes they express, skewing them toward generating more
inflammatory factors. The change lasts for at least a year following a severe
COVID-19 infection, which is how long Josefowicz studied cells from a few dozen
patients. Since these stem cells are responsible for producing more copies of
innate immune cells, the changes in the genes they express are carried over to
the new generations of cells they make. When he studied the cells in a dish,
Josefowicz found that they're capable of producing higher levels of
inflammatory factors and are more likely to migrate—which, in a human body,
means they can spread their inflammatory effects to other tissues. In animal
models, these hyper responsive cells preferentially gravitate toward the lungs,
brain, and heart, some of the organs most heavily affected by Long COVID.
More
How COVID-19 Changes the Immune System (yahoo.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.
‘Superfast’
LFP battery to offer 249-mile range with 10-minute charge
August 22, 2023
Chinese battery giant CATL has unveiled an EV battery said to
be capable of delivering 400km (249 miles) of driving range with a 10-minute
charge.
Dubbed Shenxing – which means ‘god-like movement’ – the new 4C superfast
charging lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery is also claimed to have a range
of over 700km (435 miles) on a single full charge.
The EV battery giant, which supplies to Tesla, Toyota and VW, said the
new battery would considerably alleviate fast charging anxiety for EV users,
and opens up an era of EV superfast charging.
According to the business, Shenxing leverages super electronic network
cathode technology and fully nano-crystallised LFP cathode material to create a
super-electronic network, which facilitates the extraction of lithium ions and
a rapid response to charging signals.
It’s said to combine superfast charging, high energy density and a high
level of safety at the same time, advancing innovation in the battery industry.
Other benefits include charging as normal at low temperatures. CATL says at
room temperature, Shenxing can charge to an 80% state of charge in 10 minutes
but it’s also claimed to enable a 0-80% charge in just 30 minutes in
temperature as low as -10°C, and “uncompromised 0-100km/h acceleration
performance at low temperatures”.
Dr Wu Kai, chief scientist of CATL, said: “The future of the EV battery
technology must remain steadfastly anchored at the global technology frontier
as well as the economic benefits. As EV consumers shift from pioneering users
to ordinary users, we should make advanced technology accessible for all and
enable everyone to savour the fruits of innovation.”
It’s expected to achieve mass production by the end of 2023, while
electric vehicles equipped with Shenxing will be available on the market in the
first quarter of next year.
More
‘Superfast’ LFP
battery to offer 249-mile range with 10-minute charge (fleetworld.co.uk)
The inflated
imitations of gold and silver, which after the rapture are thrown into the
fire, all is exhausted and dissipated by the debt. All scrips and bonds are
wiped out. At the fourth pillar dedicated to Saturn, split by earthquake and
flood: vexing everyone, an urn of gold is found and then restored.
No comments:
Post a Comment