Baltic Dry Index. 1186 +45 Brent Crude 90.65
Spot Gold 1919 U S 2 Year Yield 4.98 +0.04
An investment bankster saw
a lady in tears at the store. He asked if he could be of any help. She said
she had just lost an envelope with all her tax refund inside.
The kind bankster promptly
gave her $100 to help out because he felt sorry for her. Besides, he had just
found $1,500 in the parking lot.
In the stock casinos, more wobble. Are the stock casinos “rolling over?” Is global economy reality finally settling in?
With a US auto strike possible next week and a Australian LNG strike just getting underway, why buy or hold stocks priced to a perfection that was always an illusion based on 2020-2022 central bank’s monetary flooding the G-7 economies.
Besides, inflation hasn’t yet gone away.
S&P 500 closes up slightly ahead of US inflation data
By Sinéad
Carew, Shristi
Achar A and Amruta
Khandekar
Sept 8
(Reuters) - The S&P 500 closed slightly higher on Friday but well below its
session high and all three of Wall Street's major averages posted weekly
declines as investors worried about interest rates and waited anxiously for
upcoming U.S. inflation readings.
Investors
worried about rising oil prices and have been fretting ahead of the Consumer
Price Index (CPI) for August, due out on Sept. 13, seeking signals about the
Federal Reserve's likely moves on interest rates.
While traders
bet on a roughly 93% probability the Fed keeps rates at current levels after
its next meeting ends on Sept. 20., they are pricing in a more divided 53.5%
chance for another pause at the November meeting, according to CME group's
FedWatch Tool.
Yields on
benchmark U.S. 10-year notes were lower, Friday's rise in U.S. 2-year Treasury
yields appeared to pressure stocks. David Lefkowitz, head of US Equities at UBS
Global Wealth Management, noted investors have been increasingly concerned
about rising rates since early August.
"The tone
has changed in recent weeks because of the move up in rates. People are
questioning whether this is a risk to economic growth. Are higher rates going
to lead to some slow down in conjunction with the dwindling of excess consumer
savings," said Lefkowitz, who also cited concerns about high valuations in
equities.
The
Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) rose
75.86 points, or 0.22%, to 34,576.59, the S&P 500 (.SPX) gained
6.35 points, or 0.14%, to 4,457.49 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) added
12.69 points, or 0.09%, to 13,761.53.
For the week, which was shortened by Monday's Labor Day holiday,
the S&P 500 fell 1.3%, while the Nasdaq lost 1.9% with both snapping two
weeks of gains. The Dow fell 0.8%.
More
S&P
500 closes up slightly ahead of US inflation data | Reuters
Europe
stocks close slightly higher, snap longest losing streak since 2018
September 8, 2023
European markets closed slightly higher Friday,
following U.S. stocks with tentative gains amid uncertainty over the
inflationary outlook.
The basic resources sector fell
0.4% as media stocks rose 1.1%. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index closed
0.22% higher, breaking a seven-session losing streak, its longest since
February 2018. The index has lost 1% this week, according to LSEG data.
Global market sentiment has slipped in recent
days as investors assess weak
Chinese data, higher government bond yields and renewed inflationary
concerns in the U.S.
The U.S. consumer price index for
August will be released Sept. 13, while investors are also monitoring oil and
gas prices, which have both climbed this week on Saudi
Arabian supply cuts and strike
action in Australia.
The euro zone released final figures on Thursday, indicating
that the economy grew by 0.1% in the second quarter compared to the previous
period. This was lower than the 0.3% growth estimated in a preliminary reading.
Asia-Pacific markets closed lower on Friday as Japan released revised
second-quarter gross domestic product figures. Hong Kong canceled trade for the whole day because of a storm warning.
European gas prices jump as strikes get
underway at major LNG facilities in Australia
European gas prices
moved sharply higher Friday as workers at Chevron’s Australian natural gas
facilities went on strike, prompting fears that a prolonged halt to production
could squeeze global supplies.
The front-month gas price at the Dutch Title
Transfer Facility (TTF) hub, a European benchmark for natural gas trading, was
last seen trading 4.4% higher at 34 euros ($36.47) per megawatt hour after
rising up to 10% earlier in the session.
Europe
markets open to close: FTSE 100, DAX (cnbc.com)
Apple's $200 billion valuation wipeout may foreshadow a post-US tech future
September 8, 2023
- Apple
experienced a $200 billion market-cap drop amid investor concerns about
China.
- A new phone from Huawei has
been built mostly with equipment from China.
- It's a sign US export controls
aren't hurting China, which is becoming technologically independent.
With
less than a week to go before the release of the iPhone 15,
there should be a huge buzz around Apple as it prepares for the biggest event
in its calendar year. Instead, it's having to nurse a sudden $200 billion drop
in market value.
Recent rumblings in China, which is Apple's fastest-growing
region outside the US, signal that the new phone may not fly off the shelves.
It's also ominous for US tech dominance more broadly.
China
has been a hugely important market for Apple, which generated almost a fifth of
its $394.3 billion net sales from the region in its most
recent fiscal year.
CEO
Tim Cook visited Chinese government officials in March to try to smooth
relations.
"Innovation
is developing rapidly in China, and I believe it will further accelerate,"
Cook reportedly said
at the time. He was right, but probably didn't foresee what it might
cost his firm.
A post-US tech future may well be taking shape.
Apple's main competition in China, Huawei, launched a new 5G smartphone,
the Mate 60 Pro. The big shock: Despite heavy Western chip sanctions on Huawei
that should have kneecapped its phone business, the Mate 60's hardware is
pretty much all made in China.
Though China has had numerous homegrown tech companies serve its
domestic market for some time now, such as Huawei, Xiaomi, and Oppo, these
companies have historically depended on US exports to secure parts that put
their phones close to par with Western ones.
More
Apple's
$200 billion valuation wipeout may foreshadow a post-US tech future (msn.com)
Auto workers reject Detroit Three contract offers, ready to
strike
By David
Shepardson September
9, 20232:42 AM GMT+1
Sept 8 (Reuters)
- United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain said on Friday the union
representing 146,000 workers wants a deal to avoid walkouts at the Detroit
Three automakers but expects to go on strike against all of them next week if
they do not improve their contract offers.
With
contracts set to expire next Thursday at 11:59 p.m. ET (0359 GMT next Friday),
Fain said the union had rejected General Motors (GM.N),
Ford (F.N) and Chrysler parent company Stellantis
North America (STLAM.MI) and remained far apart.
Contract
talks between the UAW and the Detroit automakers have gone to the strike
deadline and beyond in years past. The pace of the negotiations has picked up
since Aug. 31 when the union filed unfair labor practice complaints with U.S.
labor regulators accusing GM and Stellantis of refusing to make timely economic
proposals.
With a trash
can labeled "Big Three Proposals" behind him, Fain said the company
offers were inadequate - although he noted movement on some points. The
automakers started the talks rejecting restoration of cost-of-living
adjustments (COLA) pegged to inflation. Now, Ford has proposed what Fain called
a "deficient" cost-of-living adjustment formula.
"Suddenly
COLA is back on the table," Fain said.
Stellantis said
on Friday it offered U.S. hourly workers a 14.5% wage hike over four years but
no lump sum payments.
"This is
movement," Fain said. "We went from 9% at Ford to 14.5% at
Stellantis."
But the
Stellantis proposal is still "deeply inadequate," Fain added.
The UAW said
the GM and Ford offers would change the formula for calculating profit-sharing,
and if it had been in effect last year GM workers would have received 29% less
and Ford workers 21%.
GM said on
Thursday it had offered workers a 10% wage hike and two additional 3% annual
lump sum payments over four years. Stellantis is not offering additional lump
sum payments.
Last
week, Ford (F.N) said it had offered
a 9% wage increase through 2027 and 6% lump sump payments. Company
officials confirmed on Friday that Ford boosted its offer to 10% in wage hikes
along with the lump sum payments.
More
Auto workers reject Detroit Three contract offers, ready to strike | Reuters
In other news, another warning about the global economy.
GB held a wind farm auction but no one showed up with the right price.
Asian
Development Bank says the world faces ‘immense’ funding challenges
PUBLISHED FRI, SEP 8 2023 5:29 AM
EDT
Asia and the rest of the world face “immense”
challenges, and the Asian Development Bank must work with others to address
those issues, its director general told CNBC on Friday.
“The challenge that we are facing in this region
and also globally, are immense, including climate change. pandemic and natural
disasters,” Tomoyuki Kimura told CNBC’s Tanvir
Gill on the sidelines of the G20
Summit held in the Indian capital of New Delhi.
After Covid, he explained, many countries had to
borrow more money. “So this is a limitation for different countries to take
more debt for their sustainable development and climate change.”
He said multilateral development banks “can and
must take bold action to help address the challenges.”
The ADB “very much welcomes the efforts by all
parties to ensure MDBs are well equipped to play this critical role,” he said,
adding: “We also welcome India’s strong leadership advocacy for the importance
of multilateralism.”
Additionally, the director general highlighted the
need for ADB to increase its lending capacity in order to help countries
achieve their climate goals, but emphasized that more needs to be done.
“First of all, we need to ramp up our lending
capacity ... but also, we need extra efforts to mobilize more money from
private sector,” he said.
According to the World Bank,
developing nations need more than $1 trillion per year to make significant
headway in climate transition.
To aid in climate financing goals, Kimura called
for the development of more pressing pipelines, de-risking projects, and
reiterated the bank’s role in helping countries mobilize their domestic
resources.
“We also need to play a very important role in
overall debt issues,” Kimura said, highlighting that many countries have taken
more debt following the pandemic.
In July, the United Nations reported that global public debt rose to a colossal record of $92 trillion in
2022.
More
Asian Development Bank says the world faces 'immense'
funding challenges (cnbc.com)
‘The economics did not stand up’:
Renewable auction fails to deliver any new offshore wind projects
FRIDAY 08 SEPTEMBER 2023 7:32 AM
No new
offshore wind farms have been commissioned in a key auction, dealing a blow to
the Government’s hopes of decarbonising the UK’s electricity production.
In the annual auction which lets companies bid to supply the grid with electricity, many onshore wind projects and solar farms bid to get a contract.
However, no offshore wind contracts, seen as the backbone of the UK’s green electricity ambitions, were included this year, the Government announced.
---- Wind farm builders had warned for
months that the Government was not taking into account how much their costs had
soared during the cost-of-living crisis which has also pushed up prices for
businesses.
“The
economics simply did not stand up,” the boss of ScottishPower said on Friday
after the result.
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.
Oil cut extension raises risk of Saudi economic contraction
this year
By Yousef Saba and Rachna Uppal September
8, 202310:27 AM GMT+1
DUBAI, Sept 8
(Reuters) - Saudi Arabia faces the risk of an economic contraction this year
following its decision to extend crude production cuts, highlighting its still
heavy reliance on oil as reforms to diversify are slow moving.
Riyadh
says it aims to stabilise the oil market by extending
a voluntary oil output cut of 1 million barrels per
day until the end of 2023. Its announcement on Tuesday sent oil prices above
$90 for the first time this year, but they are below average prices of around
$100 a barrel last year in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Declining
oil production and revenue this year could see Saudi Arabia's economy shrink
for the first time since 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, although
a hefty dividend from state oil producer Saudi Aramco (2222.SE) should provide a
cushion for public finances.
Cutting oil
output for another three months, on top of
production cuts earlier in the year, translates into a 9% fall in production in
2023 - the biggest production drop in nearly 15 years for OPEC's de facto
leader - said analyst Justin Alexander at Khalij Economics.
Monica Malik,
chief economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, now sees Saudi gross domestic
product (GDP) contracting 0.5% this year, revising her forecast from last month
of 0.2% growth this year, while Alexander said non-oil growth would need to
average about 5% this year to maintain growth.
"This
was actually precisely the growth rate in H1, but leading indicators such as
the PMI (purchasing managers' index) have pointed to a modest slowdown, so that
might be hard to sustain in H2. As a result a small real GDP contraction is
looking likely," Alexander, also Gulf analyst at GlobalSource Partners,
said.
Last
year the Saudi economy grew 8.7% and generated a fiscal surplus of 2.5% of GDP,
its first surplus in nine years as oil soared to highs near $124. This year the
government has forecast a surplus of 0.4% of GDP, but some economists say even
that may be optimistic.
More
Oil cut extension raises risk of Saudi economic contraction this year | Reuters
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
New Covid BA.2.86 variant with many mutations spreads into
community hospitalising five people
September 8, 2023
A new Covid variant
with significant mutations is believed to have spread into “community transmission”
with five people being hospitalised, health chiefs warned on Friday.
The UK Health Security Agency
said 34 cases of the BA.2.86 strain had been detected in England including
an outbreak, affecting 28 people, in a care home.
It added that it was now likely to be community transmission of this
variant in the country.
The health chiefs stressed that there is currently not enough evidence
to know if the variant has altered clinical severity or will predominate in the
UK.
Further testing is ongoing
Out of the 34 cases, five indviduals were hospitalised and no deaths due
to Covid-19 reported.
The UKHSA explained further that multiple unlinked cases in different
regions without reported travel history suggests a degree of community
transmission within the country.
Twenty-eight cases were from a single outbreak at a care home in
Norfolk. Specialists from UKHSA have been working with Norfolk County Council
to offer infection control advice and support.
More
Technology Update.
With events happening fast in the
development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
World record: Wind turbine generates enough energy in a day
to power 170,000 homes
September 7, 2023
The world’s largest wind turbine has smashed the record for the most
power produced by a single turbine in a day.
Offshore from Fujian Province, China, the giant
Goldwind GWH252-16MW towers above the sea.
On 1 September, the mammoth turbine - which has a 252-metre diameter -
produced 384.1 megawatt hours (MWh) in 24 hours, as a typhoon hammered
southeast China.
This is enough to power roughly 170,000 homes, or 38 million LEDs, or
2.2 million kilometres driven in an electric car.
It exceeds the previous record of 364 MWh, set in Denmark in August.
Why can the Goldwind Turbine continue to operate in a typhoon?
Most turbines cannot operate
in typhoon conditions, and Typhoon Haikui forced many wind farms to shut down.
However, the Goldwind can
adjust its blades in real time when winds reach high speeds, allowing it to
continue generating power.
“We are closely monitoring critical components like the main control
programme, pitch system and generators to gradually lift power restrictions
while ensuring operational safety,” a spokesperson for Goldwind told the
South China Morning
Post.
The Goldwind GWH252-16MW rotor has a diameter of 252 metres - around 2.5
football pitches - and each blade can reach more than two thirds of the speed
of sound.
China leads
the world on wind power.
In 2021, it installed more offshore wind generation capacity than every
other country in the world over the last five years.
China alone accounted for 49 per cent of the 64.3GW of total global
offshore wind capacity in 2022 - more than Europe’s 47 per cent.
The country is also planning the world’s largest wind farm, a facility
so huge it could power the whole of Norway. Work on the
project is slated to begin before 2025.
However, China’s green credentials are far from spotless, warns Li Shuo,
senior policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia.
“China is the 800 pound gorilla when it
comes to the global power sector,” he said, speaking in April.
“China has no doubt been leading global renewable energy expansion. But
at the same time, the country is accelerating coal project approval.”
The global superpower hopes to generate a third of its electricity from
renewables by 2025. However, it plans to hit net-zero by 2060
- a distant target compared to many other countries.
World record: Wind turbine generates enough energy in
a day to power 170,000 homes (msn.com)
Approx. 9 minutes.
Denmark
Very Angry! China Steals $45 Billion In Wind Power Orders | Who Will Win The
Energy War
This weekend’s music
diversion. John Bach, the “London Bach.”
The Catholic Bach, but he might equally be called the English Law Music Copyright
Bach. Approx.12 minutes.
Johann
Christian Bach (1735-1782) - Concerto a 4 voce (1763)
Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782) - Concerto a 4 voce
(1763) - YouTube
Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach (September 5, 1735 – January 1, 1782) was a
German composer of
the Classical era, the eighteenth child of Johann Sebastian Bach, and the youngest of his eleven sons.[1] After living in
Italy for five years (1757-1762), Bach moved to London,[2] where he became
known as "The London Bach".[3] He is also
sometimes known as "The English Bach", and during his time spent
living in the British capital, he came to be known as John Bach. He is noted
for playing a role in influencing the concerto styles of Haydn and Mozart. He
contributed significantly to the development of the new sonata principle.
More
Johann Christian Bach - Wikipedia
Bach v Longman
This weekend’s chess
update. Approx. 11 minutes.
Lowest
Rated Divya Deshmukh Wins Ahead of World Champion Ju Wenjun!
Lowest Rated Divya Deshmukh Wins Ahead of World
Champion Ju Wenjun! - YouTube
This
weekend the math's update. Approx. 8 minutes.
Math
in the Simpsons: Homer's theorem
Math in the Simpsons: Homer's theorem - YouTube
Two men are in a balloon, when
a strong wind blows them off course. They see a man in a field, and one of them
shouts down, “Where are we?”
The man looks up and
shouts back, “You’re in a balloon!”
One of the guys in the balloon shouts down, “You’re obviously an economist.” The man shouts back, “How can you tell?” “Because what you said is absolutely true, and absolutely useless.”
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