Baltic Dry Index. 1385 -16 Brent Crude 87.04
Spot Gold 1987 US 2 Year Yield 4.98 +0.03
Nature's law, That man was made to mourn. Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn! Man was made to mourn.
Robert Burns, 1786.
In the stock casinos, party on! The central bankster punchbowl is coming back, say the punters. What could possibly go wrong?
Well maybe, but a wider Middle-East war looms. Will November 2023 turn into our August 1914?
We are drinking in the last chance saloon.
Asia markets rise
ahead of key economic data across the region
UPDATED FRI, NOV 3 2023 1:26 AM
EDT
Asia-Pacific markets rose at the end of the
week, with investors accessing a fresh round of data for more clues on the
health of business activity through the region.
China’s service sector expanded at a slightly faster pace in
October, with the Caixin services purchasing managers index at 50.4, just above
September’s reading of 50.2.
Hong Kong’s private sector
activity contracted further in October as new business, including that from
mainland China
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index strengthened
2.24%, while China’s CSI 300 rose 0.89%.
South Korea’s Kospi rose
1.09%, while the Kosdaq was up 1.04%. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 ended
1.14% higher at 6,978.20.
Japan markets were shut for a
public holiday.
Wall Street indexes rose on Thursday as Treasury
yields fell, with investors betting the Federal Reserve could be done raising
rates for 2023.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended
1.7%, higher, its best day since June. The S&P 500 added
1.89%, the first time the S&P 500 posted back-to-back gains of more than 1%
since February.
The Nasdaq Composite climbed
1.78%, marking its best session since July.
Live
Updates: Asia Markets, Caixin PMI, India PMI, Hong Kong PMI (cnbc.com)
Nasdaq 100 futures slip after Apple reports
earnings: Live updates
UPDATED FRI, NOV 3 2023 1:25 AM
EDT
Nasdaq
100 futures slipped
on Friday after Apple issued its latest quarterly results.
Futures linked to the tech-heavy
index slid 0.3%, while S&P 500
futures dropped
0.1%. Futures tied to the Dow Jones
Industrial Average edged
39 points, or 0.11% higher.
In after-hours trading Thursday, Apple fell
3% after the iPhone maker issued a weak
revenue outlook for the December quarter. Though the company
beat on top and bottom lines in its fiscal fourth quarter, overall sales
declined for the fourth quarter in a row. Elsewhere, shares of Square popped
16% on an earnings
beat and a raise on full-year guidance, while Paramount Global
jumped nearly 5% on a strong
quarterly report.
Thursday’s regular session saw a
broad rally for stocks as Treasury yields retreated. The S&P 500 notched
its best day since April, up 1.9%, while the Dow saw
its best session since June with a 1.7% gain. The Nasdaq Composite posted
its best day since July, rising about 1.8%.
Whether that positive momentum
continues could depend on the outcome of October’s jobs report, due Friday
morning. Economists polled by Dow Jones are calling for an increase
of 170,000 payrolls, compared to September’s blowout of 336,000
jobs. They also anticipate the unemployment rate will hold steady at 3.8%.
As of Thursday’s close, stocks
are on pace for sizable weekly gains as investors grow hopeful that the Federal
Reserve’s rate-hiking campaign is nearly over.
The Dow is up 4.4%, on pace for
its best weekly performance since October 2022. The S&P 500 is tracking for
a 4.9% advance on the week, while the Nasdaq is up 5.2% — both are tracking for
their best week since November 2022.
In the world of earnings,
consumer goods giant Church & Dwight will issue quarterly results Friday
morning, along with Dominion Energy and Cardinal Health.
Stock
market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
In cryptoland news, to no one’s great surprise, the Great Embezzler, was found guilty on all seven counts charged. Now will the politicised Biden DOJ seek disgorgement from all the Democrat politicians he bribed?
Hunter Biden and “the Big Guy” next? Don’t count on it.
Sam
Bankman-Fried found guilty on all seven criminal fraud counts
A jury has found Sam Bankman-Fried guilty of all seven criminal counts
against him. The FTX founder faces a maximum sentence of 115 years in prison.
Bankman-Fried, the 31-year old son
of two Stanford legal scholars and graduate of Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, was convicted of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud
against FTX customers and against Alameda Research lenders, conspiracy to
commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit commodities fraud against FTX
investors, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
He had pleaded
not guilty to the charges, which were all tied to the collapse
late last year of FTX and sister hedge fund Alameda.
“Sam Bankman-Fried
perpetrated one of the biggest financial frauds in American history,” Damian
Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a
briefing after the verdicts were read. “While the cryptocurrency industry might
be new and the players like Sam Bankman-Fried might be new, this kind of
corruption is as old as time. This case has always been about lying, cheating,
and stealing, and we have no patience for it.”
Attorney General
Merrick Garland said in a statement, “Sam Bankman-Fried thought that he was
above the law. Today’s verdict proves he was wrong.”
“This case should
send a clear message to anyone who tries to hide their crimes behind a shiny
new thing they claim no one else is smart enough to understand: the Justice
Department will hold you accountable.”
More
Sam
Bankman-Fried found guilty on all seven criminal fraud counts (cnbc.com)
Hmm. Getting ready to attack Iran?
U.S. QUIETLY EXPANDS SECRET
MILITARY BASE IN ISRAEL
Government
documents pointing to construction at a classified U.S. base offer rare hints
about a little noted U.S. military presence near Gaza.
October 27 2023, 11:55 a.m.
TWO
MONTHS BEFORE Hamas attacked Israel, the Pentagon awarded a multimillion-dollar
contract to build U.S. troop facilities for a secret base it maintains deep
within Israel’s Negev desert, just 20 miles from Gaza. Code-named “Site 512,”
the longstanding U.S. base is a radar facility that monitors the skies for
missile attacks on Israel.
On October 7, however, when
thousands of Hamas rockets were launched, Site 512 saw nothing — because it is
focused on Iran, more than 700 miles away.
The U.S. Army is quietly
moving ahead with construction at Site 512, a classified base perched atop Mt.
Har Qeren in the Negev, to include what government records describe as a “life
support facility”: military speak for barracks-like structures for personnel.
Though President Joe Biden
and the White House insist that
there are no plans to send U.S. troops to Israel amid its war on Hamas, a
secret U.S. military presence in Israel already exists. And the government
contracts and budget documents show it is evidently growing.
The $35.8
million U.S. troop facility, not publicly announced or previously reported, was
obliquely referenced in an August 2 contract announcement by the Pentagon. Though the Defense Department has
taken pains to obscure the site’s true nature — describing it in other records
merely as a “classified worldwide” project — budget documents reviewed by
The Intercept reveal that it is part of Site 512. (The Pentagon did not
immediately respond to a request for comment.)
“Sometimes
something is treated as an official secret not in the hope that an adversary
would never find out about it but rather [because] the U.S. government, for
diplomatic or political reasons, does not want to officially acknowledge it,”
Paul Pillar, a former chief analyst at the CIA’s counterterrorism center who
said he had no specific knowledge of the base, told The Intercept. “In this
case, perhaps the base will be used to support operations elsewhere in the
Middle East in which any acknowledgment that they were staged from Israel, or
involved any cooperation with Israel, would be inconvenient and likely to
elicit more negative reactions than the operations otherwise would elicit.
More
U.S. Quietly Pushes Ahead Secret Military Base in
Israel, Near Gaza (theintercept.com)
Strait of
Hormuz is in focus as Israel-Hamas war threatens to spread
It’s been nearly four weeks since Israel declared
war on Palestinian militant group Hamas, and as the conflict in Gaza enters
the second stage, concerns of a spillover into the wider Middle
East region is also mounting.
Market observers are keeping a
close eye on the the Strait of Hormuz — the world’s
most important oil transit chokepoint, to see if there may be any
potential impact.
The strait, which sits between Oman
and Iran, is a vital channel where about one
fifth of global oil production flow daily, according to the
Energy Information Administration. It is a strategically important waterway
linking crude producers in the Middle East with key markets across the world.
On Oct. 7, Hamas militants launched
a multi-pronged attack by land, sea and air and infiltrated Israel, killing more than 1,400 people. In
retaliation, Israel launched air strikes and a ground invasion into the Gaza
Strip, which has so far killed more than 9,000 people in the
enclave.
Risks of it spiraling into a wider
conflict remain. The U.S. has deployed military assets to the region to
support Israel which is fending off rocket volleys from Iran-backed militants
in neighboring Lebanon and Syria.
The U.S. has also carried
out airstrikes against targets linked to Iran’s
Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria.
A retaliation from Israel against Iran risks a
closure of the strait, pushing oil prices to above $250 a barrel, a
recent Bank of America note predicted. Iran is a major oil
producer, and its proxies include Hamas and the Hezbollah, militant
organizations that are respectively based in Gaza and Lebanon and have stated
aims to destroy Israel.
Observers worry that Israel’s
intense bombardment of the Gaza Strip will incite more of its adversaries to
attack from new fronts, risking a spill over into the wider Middle East region.
More
Strait
of Hormuz is in focus as Israel-Hamas war threatens to spread (cnbc.com)
Israel-Hamas
war live updates: White House calls for ‘humanitarian pauses’; Gaza Strip
situation is ‘desperate,’ UN agency says
UPDATED FRI, NOV 3 2023 1:40 AM
EDT
The
international community is continuing efforts to evacuate civilians from the Gaza
Strip after an initial batch of foreign nationals was allowed
to enter Egypt on Wednesday for the first time since the start of the conflict.
Egypt is now working to evacuate 7,000
international passport holders, the country’s foreign ministry said.
The evacuations come after the
U.S., Hamas, Israel and Egypt struck a deal mediated by Qatar in coordination
with the U.S.
Gaza’s ministry of Health has
told NBC News that its main
power generator has stopped working, putting the lives of
hundreds of people at risk. More than 20,000 people remain injured with limited
health care in the Gaza Strip due to the onslaught on the territory, according
to Doctors Without Borders.
Around 690,000 internally
displaced people are taking refuge in 149 shelters run by the UN Agency for
Palestine Refugees, the relief organization said Thursday, describing the
situation in the Gaza Strip as “desperate.”
Amid this, U.S. President Joe
Biden on Wednesday said he thinks there should be a humanitarian
“pause” in the conflict to allow more time to get “prisoners”
out. He made the comments in response to a protester interrupting him at a
fundraiser, calling for a cease-fire.
Israel-Hamas war live updates: Latest news on Gaza conflict (cnbc.com)
Finally, get ready for the coming northern
hemisphere winter, hopefully not one like 1812s that ruined Napoleon’s Grand
Army in November 1812, eventually saving Europe in 1815 at the Battle of
Waterloo.
Snow cover in the Lower 48 is at record levels as
November starts
November 1, 2023
The season’s first snows have frosted
the Rocky Mountains, the northern Plains, the Great Lakes and northern New
England over the past week, resulting in the most extensive early-November snow
cover in at least two decades.
On Wednesday morning, snow was on the
ground in 17.9 percent of the Lower 48, according to the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration.
Locations from eastern Minnesota to western New York
saw snow on Halloween — even enough to shovel in Minneapolis; Milwaukee;
Muskegon, Mich.; and Buffalo. Areas downwind of Lakes Erie and Ontario were also
blanketed early Wednesday, including Cleveland and Akron, Ohio, while several
inches were anticipated along some of the west-facing slopes of the Appalachian
Mountains.
This
latest batch of wintry weather comes on the heels of two other storm systems
that brought snow to the Mountain West, the northern Plains, the Midwest and
northern New England over the past week.
The
current abundance of snow was made possible by a powerful early-season outbreak of cold air. It brought a handful of record lows in the northern Plains on Halloween and in areas to the south and east of there on
Wednesday morning.
About
119 million Americans began Wednesday at
or below freezing; the temperature averaged over the Lower 48 was 31.3 degrees
— more than 10 degrees below average.
Numerous locations across
Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri flirted with or broke record lows
Wednesday morning. This included a teeth-chattering 8 degrees in Mount LeConte,
Tenn., in the Smoky Mountains — the location’s earliest
single-digit low on record.
More
Snow cover in the Lower 48 is at record levels as
November starts (msn.com)
U.S. and Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover
Northern
Hemisphere Snow Cover - NOHRSC - The ultimate source for snow information
(noaa.gov)
Arctic
Sea Ice News.
Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis | Sea ice data updated daily with one-day lag (nsidc.org)
As best I can tell, Frobisher Bay in Baffin Island, Canada is iced up, but nearby and larger Cumberland Sound is still mostly ice free. Lacking readers in either location, I am unlikely to get a local update.
"Nothing matters very much and few things matter at all".
Lord Balfour, Prime Minister and later Foreign Secretary.
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.
UAW deals with Detroit 3 include some back pay
for strike, layoffs
Those
who were on strike or were laid off will receive about $110 per day for each
day of work missed in addition to the ratification bonus all workers get.
November
02, 2023 09:10 PM
Subscription
required.
Detroit
3 union deals include back pay for UAW strike, layoffs | Automotive News
(autonews.com)
Bank of England keeps
rates at 15-year high
November 2, 2023 12:03 PM GMT
LONDON, Nov 2 (Reuters) - The Bank of
England held interest rates at a 15-year peak as it kept up its fight against
the highest inflation among the world's big rich economies, and it stressed
that it did not expect to cut them any time soon.
Despite publishing forecasts which now
show the British economy now skirting close to a recession and flat-lining in
the coming years, the BoE held Bank Rate at 5.25% for the second meeting in a
row after 14 back-to-back increases.
It also reinforced its message that
borrowing costs were set to stay high, even though only about half of the
impact of its long run of rate hikes have been felt in the economy so far.
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC)
voted 6-3 to keep Bank Rate on hold, in line with economists' expectations in a
Reuters poll.
"The MPC's latest projections
indicate that monetary policy is likely to need to be restrictive for an
extended period of time," the BoE said. "Further tightening in
monetary policy would be required if there were evidence of more persistent
inflationary pressure."
In September, the BoE had said rates
would need to remain "sufficiently restrictive for sufficiently
long."
Governor Andrew Bailey also tried to
hammer home the message that inflation's fall over the past year from its
highest since the 1980s and the weaker economic outlook should not be seen as a
sign that rate cuts might soon be on the table, and a more likely possibility
was another rate hike.
"We need to see inflation
continuing to fall all the way to our 2% target," Bailey said in a
statement.
"We've held rates unchanged this
month, but we'll be watching closely to see if further rate increases are
needed. It's much too early to be thinking about rate cuts."
The decision to keep rates on hold
echoed moves by the European Central Bank and the U.S. Federal Reserve over the
past week. They are also waiting to see if their strong dose of rate hike
medicine will curb the world's worst outbreak of inflation in decades.
Policymakers are also watching for any
signs that the conflict in the Middle East causes a fresh round of higher
inflation as it pushes up oil and gas prices.
MPC members Megan Greene, Jonathan
Haskel and Catherine Mann voted to raise rates to 5.5%.
Sarah Breeden voted to keep rates on
hold at her first meeting as an MPC member since replacing Jon Cunliffe.
More
Bank of England keeps rates at 15-year high | Reuters
Exclusive: BOJ plans
to exit from easy policy next year but needs some good fortune
By Leika Kihara November 2, 2023 8:55 AM GMT
TOKYO, Nov 2
(Reuters) - Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda will continue to dismantle the
central bank's ultra-easy monetary policy settings and look to exit the
decade-long accommodative regime sometime next year, an inherently risky plan
that would require skilful execution.
Ultimately,
however, the BOJ chief's exit strategy will require a bit of good fortune too,
especially given global uncertainties including the Middle East conflict and worries about whether the U.S. economy could achieve a soft landing as well as China's
growth trajectory.
Ueda's intentions
are based on interviews with six sources familiar with the BOJ's thinking,
including government officials with direct interaction with the bank.
Ueda will stick
to a pattern he established six months in his tenure, which is to move
gradually toward an exit while maintaining the dovish rhetoric of his
predecessor, the sources say.
Since taking the
helm in April, the central bank chief has mostly echoed his predecessor's
pledge to keep monetary policy ultra-loose until sustained achievement of the
BOJ's 2% price target comes into sight.
With inflation
exceeding 2% for over a year, however, Ueda has steadily been phasing out the
Kuroda-era stimulus starting with a removal in April of a commitment to keep
rates at low levels.
Yet, Ueda will be
mindful of the narrow exit path as even small hints could trigger a spike in
bond yields and upend the BOJ's plan for a soft-landing.
"The BOJ's
main message now is to maintain ultra-loose policy, even it seems to conflict
with what it's actually doing," one source said on condition of anonymity
as he was not authorised to speak publicly.
"Given
uncertainty over the economic outlook, the BOJ probably wants to wait at least
until spring next year in normalising policy," said another source.
"If so, it makes sense to keep the BOJ's guidance dovish."
More
Exclusive: BOJ plans to exit from easy policy next year but needs some good fortune | Reuters
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
More
contempt for the public, by all parties in the Commons, on display yet again,
on the issue of Covid-19 vaccine safety.
I will leave this callous display of contempt for the UK public up for
the rest of the week. Approx. 14
minutes.
Safe
and effective
The Veil Of Silence Over
Excess Deaths
MONDAY,
OCT 30, 2023 - 06:00 AM
Around the world, there has been a deafening
silence over excess deaths from governments and the mainstream media, who
not so long ago were quite fixated on the daily death toll for Covid.
On October 20th, a 30-minute adjourned debate
(20 rejections later) on excess deaths in the UK House of Commons was finally
secured by Andrew Bridgen, MP for
North West Leicestershire and member of the Reclaim Party.
Bridgen began his speech to the sound of
erupting cheers from the full, upper public gallery, in stark contrast to the
almost empty chamber below.
Where were the hundreds of MPs who would
normally sit shoulder to shoulder in the chamber? It appears, an increase in
deaths of their constituents was not a pressing issue for them on that Friday
afternoon.
We’ve experienced more excess deaths
since July 2021 than in the whole of 2020, unlike the pandemic, however, these deaths are not
disproportionately of the old, in other words, the excess deaths
are striking down people in the prime of life but no-one seems to care.
I fear history will not judge this house kindly.
Strikingly, excess deaths have been seen
across all age groups, which Bridgen pointed out during
his speech.
More
The Veil Of Silence Over Excess Deaths | ZeroHedge
All variants of COVID-19 virus can infect the brain,
study finds
Rich Haridy October 31, 2023
Several
years after the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19,
researchers still face plenty of unanswered questions. For example, we know
COVID is associated with a variety
of neurological symptoms, both
short- and long-term, but it still isn’t entirely clear whether these cognitive
issues are the result of the virus directly infecting brain cells or simply due
to a broader systemic inflammatory response.
Studies
looking at human brain tissue have yielded contradictory results. Some have
found direct
traces of SARS-CoV-2, while others report
only inflammatory damage. Animal
models certainly demonstrate it is possible for the virus to infect the brain,
but human tissue samples are obviously taken after a patient dies, meaning
researchers can only hypothesize what happens during an acute infection.
In a new study, led
by scientists from Institut Pasteur and Université Paris Cité, an animal model
was used to investigate several questions yet to be resolved. How could the
SARS-CoV-2 virus enter the brain through the olfactory system? Are different SARS-CoV-2
variants more or less likely to enter the brain? And is losing one’s sense of
smell directly linked to the virus entering the brain?
Using a hamster
model, the research compared infection with the original SARS-CoV-2 virus from
2020 to several subsequent variants including Gamma, Delta and Omicron/BA.1
variants. Interestingly, the findings confirmed epidemiological observations
showing acute disease severity is reduced in Omicron infections, however, all
variants demonstrated similar neuroinvasive capabilities. And most strikingly,
all variants infected the brain’s olfactory regions regardless of whether
symptoms of anosmia (loss of sense of smell) were present or not.
"This
suggests that anosmia and neuronal infection are two unrelated phenomena,"
says first author Guilherme Dias de Melo. "If we follow this line of
reasoning, it is quite possible that even an asymptomatic – and therefore
clinically benign – infection is characterized by the spread of the virus in
the nervous system."
---- The researchers conclude this suggests all SARS-CoV-2
variants have the capacity to infect the brain, via the olfactory pathway,
regardless of clinical disease presentations. This means it is possible even
mild infections can lead to the virus infiltrating the brain.
Hervé Bourhy,
another author on the study, says future work will need to explore the
relationship between acute SARS-CoV-2 brain infections and persistent symptoms
seen in long COVID.
More
All variants of COVID-19 virus can infect the brain,
study finds (newatlas.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.
Offshore Wind Firm Cancels N.J.
Projects, as Industry’s Prospects Dim
November 1, 2023
Orsted, the Danish
company that is a leading offshore wind farm developer, said on Wednesday that
it would write off as much as $5.6 billion as it gives up on plans to build two
wind farms off the coast of New Jersey.
The charges were
further evidence that offshore wind in the United States is going through a
major shakeout, crimping Biden administration plans to make the industry a
critical component of plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. High inflation
and soaring interest rates are making planned projects that looked like winners
several years ago no longer profitable.
“The
world has in many ways, from a macroeconomic and industry point of view, turned
upside down,” Mads Nipper, Orsted’s chief executive, said on a call with
reporters on Wednesday. The two projects, known as Ocean Wind 1 and 2, were
destined to provide green energy to New Jersey.
Offshore wind and other parts of the renewable industry have hit
some snags in Europe,
especially in Britain, but Mr. Nipper said the problems were more acute in the
United States, because early contracts lacked protection from inflation and
developers incurred high costs because of delays in approvals during the Trump
administration.
The
company’s stock price fell about 20 percent on Wednesday morning as the company
reported a loss of about $3.2 billion for the third quarter and warned that the
write downs — essentially, a reduction in the value of the company’s
investments — would have what it called an “impact” on Orsted’s finances.
Orsted
is writing off 28.4 billion krone, or about $4 billion, now. The company
estimates that it may take another charge of up to 11 billion krone later in
the year.
Orsted
is not alone in encountering hazards in the fledgling offshore market in the
United States.
On
Tuesday, BP, the London-based energy giant, said it would write down $540
million on three planned wind projects off New York, after the state
authorities declined to renegotiate their terms. BP says it is assessing future
plans for the schemes in light of the decision.
In its announcement, Orsted said it would move forward
with a $4 billion project called Revolution Wind intended to supply power to
consumers in Rhode Island. And other developers have projects under
construction, like Vineyard Wind, which will eventually have 62 turbines in the waters
off Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.
Offshore
wind is not dead, but the industry and its backers are certainly learning some
harsh lessons. The ambitions of the Biden administration and states along the
East Coast like New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts to install large amounts
of clean electric power generation through offshore wind in the coming decades
are likely to be set back.
More
Offshore Wind Firm Cancels N.J. Projects, as
Industry’s Prospects Dim – DNyuz
Another weekend and a continuing
tragic weekend in the Gaza Strip where no one is listening, or paying any
attention to US President Biden, reputedly the most powerful western leader
and leader of the western democracies. Not quite the Warsaw Ghetto destruction
1943, but Gaza is uncomfortably close.
Have a great weekend everyone. If a
believer, perhaps if we all ask God this weekend for help He will provide a timely and
just solution avoiding another 1914 but with nukes.
“The bell of man's inhumanity to man does not toll for any one man. It tolls for you, for me, for all of us.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
No comments:
Post a Comment