Baltic
Dry Index. 2288 -60 Brent Crude 78.06
Spot Gold 2024 US 2 Year Yield 4.43 -0.01
Every tax ought to be so contrived as
both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as
possible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the state…
Adam Smith, The
Wealth Of Nations, 1776.
In the stock casinos, it’s bubble on into 24. What’s not to like, the central banksters have our backs covered, right.
Stop working now and start gambling
investing. We’re all going to get filthy
rich says Goldman Sachs.
Still that rising oil price is worrying about
a Red Sea shipping war.
Japan’s stocks jump after BOJ keeps monetary
policy unchanged in final meeting of 2023
UPDATED MON, DEC 18 2023 11:44 PM
EST
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index jumped 1% Tuesday after
the the Bank of Japan left its main policy rate unchanged at its final meeting
of the year.
The BOJ made no change to its
negative interest rate policy, holding the benchmark interest rate at -0.1%.
The central bank also kept its stance on its yield curve control policy
unchanged.
The central bank also warned of “high
uncertainties” in Japan, saying that core inflation will stay above
2% throughout fiscal 2024.
The yen weakened 0.5% against the
dollar to 143.50 after the decision. The Nikkei 225 gained
1.04% by midday trading, while the Topix also turned decidedly positive, last
up about 0.23%.
“We maintain our call that the
BoJ will abolish the NIRP (negative interest rate policy) at the April meeting
next year after confirming a robust spring wage settlement,” Shigeto Nagai,
head of Japan Economics at Oxford Economics, wrote in a client note.
“After ending the NIRP, however,
our inflation projection anticipates the BoJ maintaining an effective
zero-interest rate policy for a few years.”
Separately, the Reserve Bank of
Australia’ minutes revealed the Australian central
bank deliberated on whether to raise rates by 25 basis points or leave them
unchanged, with the board members eventually deciding to hold rates at 4.35%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose
0.59%, resuming its climb after the index snapped a six-day winning streak on
Monday.
South Korea’s Kospi was
0.10% down, while the small-cap Kosdaq gained 0.64% after hitting its highest
level since Sept. 22 on Monday.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell
more than 1% by the open, while mainland China’s CSI 300 opened 0.3% lower.
Overnight in the U.S., the S&P 500 and the
Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.45% and 0.61% respectively, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was
flat.
The S&P 500 is now 1.2% away
from its all-time closing high at 4,796.56 that was reached in January 2022.
Asia stock markets:
Live updates, BOJ decision, RBA minutes (cnbc.com)
European markets head for higher open; G7
meeting of finance, central bank officials ahead
UPDATED TUE, DEC 19 2023 12:24 AM
EST
European markets are set to open higher Tuesday,
rebounding slightly from lackluster trade in the previous trading session.
Markets are winding down before
the Christmas holidays, although international gatherings of senior officials
continue, with finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of
Seven industrialized nations meeting Tuesday.
Overnight in the Asia-Pacific region,
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index jumped 1% Tuesday after the the Bank of Japan left its
main policy rate unchanged at its final meeting of the year. U.S. stock futures
hovered near the flatline on Monday evening.
European
markets live updates: Stocks, news, data and earnings (cnbc.com)
Your Evening
Briefing: Suddenly Next Year Looks Glorious for Stocks
December 18, 2023 at 10:52 PM GMT
Just one month after setting their 2024 target for the S&P 500, Goldman Sachs strategists increased that forecast as the year-end rally shows no signs of abating.
The US
Federal Reserve’s pivot last week along with lower consumer prices have
brightened the picture, a team led by David Kostin wrote in a note. “Equities
were already pricing positive economic activity but now reflect an even more
robust outlook,” they said. Kostin sees the S&P 500 at 5,100 points by the
end of next year, joining Wall Street peers at Bank of America and Oppenheimer Asset Management in expecting a fresh high. And the story on Monday was more of the same,
with markets buoyed by a burst of deals as traders largely ignored efforts by
Fed officials to temper expectations. Here’s your markets wrap.
Bloomberg
Evening Briefing: Suddenly Next Year Looks Glorious for Stocks - Bloomberg
In other news, the US assembles a
Red Sea armada to protect Red Sea shipping. Under the incredibly weak
international “leadership” of President “Joe” Biden, we all go to war in 24?
US-led Red Sea patrol
force to respond to attacks by Houthis
By Bassam Masoud, Phil Stewart and James Mackenzie
GAZA/MANAMA/JERUSALEM, Dec 19 (Reuters) -
Several countries have agreed to jointly carry out patrols in the southern Red
Sea and Gulf of Aden to try to safeguard commercial shipping against attacks by
Yemen's Houthi rebels, who say they are supporting Palestinians under siege by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
U.S.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, on a visit to Bahrain, identified several
countries taking part in an international force. It was unclear whether those
countries are willing to do what U.S. warships have done in recent days - shoot
down Houthi missiles and drones and rush to the aid of commercial ships under
attack.
"This
is an international challenge that demands collective action. Therefore today I
am announcing the establishment of Operation Prosperity Guardian, an important
new multinational security initiative," Austin said in a statement on
Tuesday.
It
identified participating nations led by the United States as including among
others Bahrain, Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles
and Spain.
The
Iran-backed Houthis have waded into the Israel-Hamas conflict by attacking
vessels in vital shipping lanes and even firing drones and missiles at Israel,
more than 1,000 miles from their seat of power in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.
Houthis
attacked two commercial shipping vessels in the southern Red Sea on Monday, the
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement. The chemical/oil tanker
motor vessel Swan Atlantic was attacked by a drone and an anti-ship ballistic
missile, it said. At about the same time in a separate incident, the bulk cargo
ship MSC Clara reported an explosion in the water near its location, CENTCOM
said.
There
were no injuries reported by either vessel.
Houthi spokesperson Yahya Sarea on Monday
identified the same vessels as being attacked and said
drones were used because the crews failed to respond to calls from the group.
The
Houthis have threatened to target all ships heading to Israel, regardless of
their nationality, and warned international shipping companies against dealing
with Israeli ports.
Mohammed
al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthi politburo, told Al Jazeera on Monday his
group would be able to confront any U.S.-led coalition that could deploy to the
Red Sea.
More
US-led Red Sea patrol force to respond to attacks by Houthis | Reuters
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.
Washington-area office default risk surpasses San
Francisco
Published Tue, Dec 19, 2023 · 8:17 am Updated Tue, Dec 19, 2023 · 8:21 am
THE Washington area has passed San Francisco for the highest share of
office buildings with bank loans at risk of default, as US government employees
continue to work remotely.
Loans of concern on offices in the US capital region climbed to 72 per
cent in the third quarter, topping San Francisco’s 71 per cent, real estate
data firm Trepp reported. The rate for Washington was 38 per cent at the end of
2022.
Seattle is the only other US metro area with more than 50 per cent of
“criticised” bank loans, which Trepp defines as backed by properties with high
vacancies, expiring leases, maturing debt or other red flags for refinancing or
repayment.
San Francisco’s office troubles have been blamed on a combination of the
high number of tech employees working remotely and concerns about the city’s
safety and quality of life. Washington’s woes are more protracted because the
federal government is slow to respond to changing work patterns, and office
demand could soften dramatically if government austerity measures kick in,
according to Stephen Buschbom, a research director at Trepp.
“Washington, DC, could be the new ground zero for office distress,”
Buschbom said.
Response to a return-to-office mandate for the federal government and
General Services Administration “has been bleak, and time will tell if they
will start to decentralise out of the DC area”, Trepp said. “If remote work is
more of a permanent strategy for these government entities, there is a lot of
excess inventory that could flood the market.”
Washington-area
office default risk surpasses San Francisco, Property - THE BUSINESS TIMES
Bank of Japan sticks to ultra-easy monetary
policy in light of ‘extremely high uncertainties’
Japan’s central bank expectedly left its
ultra-loose monetary policy unchanged at its final policy meeting this year in
light of “extremely high uncertainties” affecting the world’s third-largest
economy, pushing any likely unwinding to the new year.
The Bank of Japan decided unanimously to keep interest
rates at -0.1%, while also sticking to its yield curve control policy that
keeps the upper limit for 10-year Japanese government bond yield at 1% as a
reference.
“With extremely high uncertainties
surrounding economies and financial markets at home and abroad, the Bank will
patiently continue with monetary easing, while nimbly responding to
developments in economic activity and prices, as well as financial conditions,”
the BOJ said in a policy statement Tuesday.
---- With Bank of Japan’s possible unwinding of its ultra-loose
monetary policy being challenged by a slowing economy and cooling inflation,
most economists expect Governor Kazuo Ueda to only make changes next year, once
the annual spring wage negotiations confirm a trend of meaningful wage
increases.
Ueda is due to meet
the press in Tokyo later Tuesday, where he may offer forward guidance on the
BOJ’s future path of action.
---- On Friday, the Japanese central bank also
said it expects core inflation — which it defines as inflation that excludes
food prices — to stay above 2% through fiscal 2024. Despite core inflation
exceeding its stated 2% target for 19 consecutive months, the BOJ has
“patiently continued” with its super accommodative monetary policy.
The so-called “core
core inflation” — inflation minus food and energy prices — has exceeded BOJ’s
2% target for 13 straight months now.
More
BOJ sticks to ultra-easy monetary policy in light of 'extremely high uncertainties' (cnbc.com)
ECB rate cut bets
premature, markets have eased too much: Vasle
By Balazs Koranyi December 18, 2023 9:05 AM GMT
FRANKFURT, Dec 18
(Reuters) - The European Central Bank will need at least until spring before it
can reassess its policy outlook and market expectations for an interest rate
cut in March or April are premature, ECB policymaker Bostjan Vasle said on Monday.
The
ECB left interest
rates unchanged last week and guided for
steady policy in coming months, even as investors piled pressure on the bank to
follow the U.S. Federal Reserve in signalling rate cuts given an a string of
unexpectedly benign inflation data.
But Vasle,
Slovenia's central bank governor, pushed back on market bets and even argued
that financing conditions may no longer be restrictive enough, given tumbling
bond yields and expectations for 150 basis points of rate cuts in 2024.
"Market
expectations for interest rates cuts are premature in my view, both with regard
to the start of cuts and the totality of moves," Vasle told Reuters.
"The market
pricing has lowered the level of restriction and this recent accommodation
priced into interest rates is inconsistent with the stance appropriate to
return inflation to target," said Vasle, who is considered among the more
conservative members of the ECB's rate-setting Governing Council.
Sources
close to the discussion last week told
Reuters that a revision of the ECB's
message before March was unlikely, making any rate cut before June difficult.
Markets now see a
50-50 chance of a rate cut in March while a cut is fully priced in by April and
more than two moves are seen by June.
But Vasle argued
that the ECB may need to see the back of the first quarter to even contemplate
revising its stance.
"We will
receive limited new data before the January meeting so it won’t be before March
or April that we get more information about inflation, growth, fiscal policy
and the labour market," Vasle said. "We will need to understand the
underlying trends better, and we need the new projections, too."
Although
inflation, last at 2.4%, has likely bottomed out for now, it is seen increasing
again before it can drop to 2% by the second half of 2025.
"Inflation
could increase back already at the turn of the year, and then hover in a 2.5%
to 3% corridor through the first half of next year," Vasle said. "So
it’s appropriate to wait and observe price growth through this period and
reassess our outlook."
Wages are also a
unknown as workers who lost a chunk of their real incomes to high inflation in
recent years demand compensation.
However, labour
markets are behaving differently than the historical norm.
Unemployment
normally rises when the central bank tightens policy and growth stalls as a
result. This time, the labour market remains exceptionally tight even with the
bloc near recession, as firms hoard labour in preparation for a rebound.
"Most of the
wage formation is going to happen in the first quarter and we need to see if
workers demand extra compensation or whether firms absorb some of the wage
growth via margins," Vasle said.
ECB rate cut bets premature, markets have eased too
much: Vasle | Reuters
Covid-19 Corner
This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
FDA Fails to
Address DNA Adulteration Concerns
FDA’s Dr. Peter Marks resorts to
gaslighting instead of facts in his response to Florida Surgeon General Inquiry.
12/15/2023 Updated: 12/15/2023
The
failure of government regulatory authorities to identify and disclose DNA
fragment contamination of the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech COVID vaccine
products prior to independent laboratories disclosing their contamination study
findings has raised serious questions about quality control oversight of the
manufacturing processes used to produce these products, as well as their
overall safety. Rather than rigorously addressing specific safety questions
concerning the previously undisclosed contamination or adulteration of
both modified-mRNA vaccines, in a written Dec. 14 reply to
a prior Dec. 6 inquiry, Dr. Peter Marks of
the FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research has resorted to
redirecting, gaslighting, and stonewalling the Surgeon General of the State of
Florida.
Experts from around the world have
raised concerns about the safety implications of DNA fragment contamination in
COVID gene therapy-based “vaccine” products. Leading regulatory authorities have conceded that these rushed novel and complex biological products
are contaminated, and deliver both synthetic modified messenger ribonucleic
acid (mod-mRNA) and a wide variety of uncharacterized shorter DNA fragments
into the cells and tissues of those who have accepted these product. The Biden
administration has previously mandated and currently markets these products in
the United States for Americans of all ages including during pregnancy,
fraudulently claiming that they prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection and spread as well
as COVID-19 disease and death.
These
DNA fragments are left over contaminants from manufacturing the mod-mRNA
“payload.” The contamination was first detected and reported by experienced U.S. and Canadian genomic researchers,
and their findings have been replicated by many other laboratories.
To manufacture
the COVID shots, both the DNA contaminants and the mod-mRNA are assembled into
the most highly active lipid nanoparticle genetic delivery system ever
developed, and this final drug product has been injected into over a billion
human arms. After injection, the material distributes throughout the body and
delivers both DNA and mod-mRNA to a wide variety of cells and tissues including
ovaries.
Both mRNA and DNA can control a wide variety
of cell functions. The mod-mRNA directs cells and tissues of the recipient to
produce genetically engineered SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (as well as other uncharacterized “frameshifted” proteins and
peptides). The DNA fragments come from the circular bacterial DNA (“plasmids”)
used to manufacture the mod-mRNA. These plasmids include DNA sequences which
can produce a variety of functions inside both bacterial and human cells;
proteins which confer antibiotic resistance, sequences which guide DNA into the
nucleus of cells, and highly active genetic switches for turning on adjacent
genes in either bacterial or animal cells.
More
FDA Fails to Address DNA Adulteration Concerns | The Epoch Times
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.
Today something different, if you live
near the sea, how to start to build your own dirty A-bomb. Progress?
Electrified cloth extracts uranium from seawater
David
Szondy
December 17, 2023
A team of scientists from China's
Northeast Normal University has developed an electrochemical method for
extracting uranium from ordinary seawater that has the potential to supply
humanity with an effectively unlimited energy source.
By current
estimates, there are about 8 million tonnes of known reserves of uranium on
land. That's enough to fuel the world's nuclear reactors for centuries based on
current technology, but in the sea there is an estimated 4.5 billion tonnes in
the form of dissolved uranyl ions. If we could extract this economically, it
would vastly extend our energy future. Even better, as uranium is removed from
seawater, more would leach in from the Earth's crust, providing our descendants
with over a billion years worth of nuclear fuel at any projected scale.
Led by Rui Zhao and Guangshan
Zhu, the Northeast Normal team is looking at a novel way to extract these
radioactive riches. Extraction isn't a new idea. In the past, other researchers
have looked at using polymer
mats, conductive
fibers, and other methods. Now,
Northeast Normal is looking at a flexible cloth woven from carbon fibers coated
with two specialized monomers and treated with hydroxylamine hydrochloride. The
porous cloth provides tiny pockets for the amidoxime, which captures the uranyl
ions.
The capture itself seems
almost like a school chemistry experiment in its simplicity. The cloth was
placed in either seawater or a solution of uranyl ions where it acted as a
cathode. Meanwhile, a graphite anode was added. When a current was run between the
two, bright yellow, uranium-based precipitates accumulated on the cathode cloth
in the same way that bronze coats a baby shoe as a parental memento.
In tests, the team reported
extracting 12.6 mg of uranium per gram of water over 24 days, which is a higher
amount and at a faster rate than other materials tested or simply allowing
uranium to naturally accumulate on cloth.
The research was published
in ACS
Central Science.
Source: American Chemical Society
Electrified cloth extracts uranium from seawater
(newatlas.com)
"On
the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the
time.”
George
Orwell.
No comments:
Post a Comment