Baltic
Dry Index. 2150 -69 Brent Crude 79.65
Spot Gold 2035 US 2 Year Yield 4.34 -0.07
Christmas
is coming and the geese are getting fat, Please put a trillion in the
banksters’ hat. If you haven’t got a trillion a billion will do, If you haven’t
got a billion, God damn you!
Ebenezer
Squid.
In the stock casinos, a major wobble. Why
take on year-end profit taking risk when you can book winners, drop losers and
ride out next week’s holiday shortened trading week safely parked in one, two
and three month US T. Bills earning over 5 percent.
Asia markets track Wall Street decline, but
China and Hong Kong reverse earlier losses
UPDATED THU, DEC 21 2023 12:30 AM EST
Most Asia-Pacific markets fell Thursday after
Wall Street dropped overnight, while investors awaited gross domestic product
reading and inflation numbers from the U.S.
However, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index reversed
earlier losses to rise 0.31%, while the mainland Chinese CSI 300 climbed 0.73%.
Economists polled by Reuters
expect the U.S. economy to post a 5.2% year-on-year growth in the third
quarter, while the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index is expected to
climb 2.3% in the same period — its slowest rise since the fourth quarter of
2020.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was
down 0.45%, closing at 7,504.1
Japan’s Nikkei 225 plunged
1.50%, while the Topix fell 0.9%, dragged by safety scandals at automaker
Toyota.
South Korea’s Kospi also
dropped 0.77% and the small-cap Kosdaq shed 0.34%, on pace to snap a three-day
winning streak.
Overnight in the U.S., all three major indexes lost
ground as investors took some profits, after nine straight days
of gains for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite.
The Dow slid 1.27%, while
the tech heavy Nasdaq tumbled 1.5%. The broader S&P 500 declined 1.47%,
after coming within 1% of its all time high of 4,796, hit in January 2022.
Asia stock markets
today: Live updates, South Korea PPI, Indonesia interest rates (cnbc.com)
S&P 500 futures inch higher after the
index’s worst session since September: Live updates
UPDATED WED, DEC 20 2023 7:54 PM
EST
Stock futures edged higher Wednesday night after
the recent market rally took a breather.
S&P
500 futures added
0.16%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures
advanced 0.24%. Futures connected
to the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed
56 points, or 0.15%.
Micron jumped
more than 4% in postmarket action after beating Wall Street expectations for
the first three months of its new fiscal year. The company also offered
current-quarter guidance that exceeded analysts’ consensus forecasts.
The moves follow a losing
day on Wall Street, during which investors took profits after recent
gains. The S&P 500 dropped
almost 1.5%, its worst day since September.
The Dow and Nasdaq slipped
about 1.3% and 1.5%, respectively, to notch their worst sessions since October.
Wednesday’s session also also snapped nine-day winning streaks for both.
Those drops mark a breather from
the recent market rally. From their late October closing lows through Tuesday,
the Dow and S&P 500 both jumped more than 15%. The Nasdaq Composite surged
roughly 19% over the same period.
“The markets have run so strongly
for so long,” said Rob Haworth, senior investment strategist at U.S. Bank Asset
Management. “There’s maybe just some exhaustion in terms of buyers, and we’re
starting a bit of a short-term consolidation phase.”
Investors will watch Thursday for
data on jobless claims and the third-quarter gross domestic product before
Friday’s reading of the personal consumption expenditures price index, which is
a closely followed gauge of inflation. Traders will also monitor Nike earnings
expected Thursday after the bell.
Stock
market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
Exporters explore
cargo flights as way out of deepening Red Sea bottleneck
By Jonathan Saul, Helen Reid and Corina Pons
December
21, 2023 1:18 AM GMT
LONDON/MADRID, Dec 20 (Reuters) -
Exporters are scrambling to find alternative air, land and ocean routes to get
toys, apparel, tea and auto parts to retailers as disarray ripples through
freight supply chains around the world during a wave of attacks in the Red Sea.
Iran-backed Houthi
militants in Yemen have stepped up attacks on vessels in the
Red Sea since Nov. 19 to show support for Hamas during Israel's military
offensive in Gaza.
The attacks have
disrupted a key
trade route linking Europe and North America with Asia via the
Suez Canal. Container shipping costs have surged, more than tripling in some
cases, as companies seek to move goods via other,
often longer, ocean routes.
If there are extended disruptions, the
consumer goods sector that supplies the world's top retailers like Walmart and
IKEA will face the biggest impact, S&P Global said in a report.
Alan Baer, CEO of OL USA, has teams
advising shipping and logistics clients to prepare for at least 90 days of Red
Sea disruptions.
"It doesn't help that it's
Christmas weekend," said Baer. "We'll have a quiet period from now
until Jan. 2, and then everybody will be frenetic."
Some fast-acting companies already are
trying to switch to so-called intermodal transport, which can involve two or
more modes of transportation, said Jan Kleine-Lasthues, chief operating officer
airfreight with leading German freight forwarder Hellmann Worldwide Logistics.
Hellmann has seen increased demand for
combined air and sea routing for consumer goods like apparel as well as
electronics and tech items, he said. For example, that could mean goods being
transported first by sea to a port in Dubai, where they are then loaded onto
planes.
"This alternative route allows
customers to avoid the danger zone in the Red Sea and the long voyage around
the southern tip of Africa," Kleine-Lasthues told Reuters.
While companies moving urgent or
critical items might opt to use air freight, the expense means it is not a
blanket solution, said Paul Brashier, vice president of Drayage and Intermodal
for supply chain group ITS Logistics.
Moving goods by air costs roughly
5-15 time more than by sea, where container shipping rates are still low by
historical standards, said Brian Bourke, global chief commercial officer at
SEKO Logistics.
If the time it takes to get goods to
shelves doubles, more shippers will switch to air - especially for high value
goods like designer clothing and high-end electronics, said Bourke, who has
already received queries from customers.
More
Exporters
explore cargo flights as way out of deepening Red Sea bottleneck | Reuters
In other news, so you really, really, want to invest in EVs. Shanghai turns chilly.
Electric scooter company Bird files for
bankruptcy
The electric scooter company Bird,
once valued at $2.5 billion by investors, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection in Florida federal court Wednesday.
The company has entered into a
“stalking horse” agreement, which sets a floor for Bird’s value, with its
existing lenders, according to a release. Bird said
it will use the bankruptcy proceeding to facilitate a sale of its assets, which
it expects to complete within the next 90 to 120 days.
Bird’s electric scooters are touted as an environmentally friendly
alternative to driving and other forms of public transit. They exploded in
popularity before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the company raised
more than $275 million in 2019, which pushed its
valuation to $2.5 billion.
But after customers stopped riding
as they were forced into lockdown in 2020, Bird struggled to
recover. The company went public via a merger with a special purpose
acquisition company in 2021, but its share price tumbled.
Bird’s bankruptcy proceedings come
after the New York Stock Exchange delisted
the company in September. Bird failed to comply with the
exchange’s requirements after it was unable to keep its market capitalization
above $15 million for 30 consecutive days.
The company’s shares began trading
on the over-the-counter exchange later that month. As of Wednesday, the stock
was trading at less than $1 per share.
Bird Canada and Bird Europe are not
part of the company’s Wednesday filing and will “continue to operate as
normal,” according to the release.
Electric
scooter company Bird files for bankruptcy (cnbc.com)
China's cold snap
reaches Shanghai with chilliest year-end in 40 years
By Casey Hall and Ryan Woo December 21, 2023 5:31
AM GMT
SHANGHAI,
Dec 21 (Reuters) - China's financial hub Shanghai was set to record its
chilliest period in December in four decades, spurring authorities to issue
warnings for low temperatures and wind, while northern cities battled icy
conditions forecast to ease only next week.
The
city's lowest temperatures on Thursday will be minus 4 to minus 6 degrees
Celsius (21 to 24 degrees Fahrenheit) in Shanghai's suburbs, and temperatures
will remain below zero all day throughout the city, the Shanghai Meteorological
Bureau said in a post on its Weibo social media account.
Wang
Kaiyun, 59, who works as a cleaner in downtown Shanghai and commutes from the
city's suburbs on an electric scooter, said the temperature was minus 5 C on
her one-hour ride in on Thursday.
"Even
though I was wearing gloves, I quickly lost feeling in my hands and they are
still painful now," Wang said.
While the city's temperatures remain far warmer
than those in northern China, where many provinces have recorded historically low temperatures in recent
weeks, the run of cold weather was unusual for Shanghai.
The
city's weather bureau said it expects the minimum temperature at one downtown
reading station to remain below zero for five straight days until Dec. 25, a
run of cold in the month of December that hasn't occurred in 40 years.
The unusually frigid weather ushered in by a
powerful wave of cold air from Siberia has spread across China
since the middle of last week, with many northern provinces rewriting December
records as the mercury sank as low as minus 30 C in some cities.
While the snowfall was modest compared to deep
snowdrifts and blizzards seen in North America and Europe, the bitter cold, ice
and gusty conditions in China have disrupted road, rail and air transportation,
sharply increased demand for heating, and even hampered rescue efforts in the
northwest where an earthquake destroyed over 200,000 homes.
In
Lvliang, a city of 3 million people in the province of Shanxi, firefighters had
to put out a fire in a building even as their protective helmets and jackets
quickly became encased in ice in minus 18 C conditions, state media reported on
Thursday.
The
cold snap has also threatened to freeze China's busy online food delivery
sector. On social media, some people have expressed their reluctance to order
takeout in the extreme cold due to worries for the safety of delivery drivers.
Their
concerns prompted the official Workers' Daily on Thursday to urge people
"not to dwell on narratives of suffering", but instead, think of the
potential loss of income for delivery drivers.
The
prolonged sub-freezing conditions across China are expected to ease from
Friday, with temperatures rising back to historical averages next week,
according to national forecasters.
China's
cold snap reaches Shanghai with chilliest year-end in 40 years | Reuters
Finally, AI can’t hold patents, at least in
the UK (and US?) unless in the UK Parliament changes existing UK law.
AI cannot be patent
'inventor', UK Supreme Court rules in landmark case
December 20, 2023 11:06 AM GMT
LONDON, Dec 20
(Reuters) - A U.S. computer scientist on Wednesday lost his bid to register
patents over inventions created by his artificial intelligence system in a
landmark case in Britain about whether AI can own patent rights.
Stephen Thaler
wanted to be granted two patents in the UK for inventions he says were devised
by his "creativity machine" called DABUS.
His attempt to
register the patents was refused by Britain's Intellectual Property Office on
the grounds that the inventor must be a human or a company, rather than a
machine.
Thaler appealed
to the UK's Supreme Court, which on Wednesday unanimously rejected his appeal
as under UK patent law "an inventor must be a natural person".
"This appeal
is not concerned with the broader question whether technical advances generated
by machines acting autonomously and powered by AI should be patentable,"
Judge David Kitchin said in the court's written ruling.
"Nor is it
concerned with the question whether the meaning of the term 'inventor' ought to
be expanded ... to include machines powered by AI which generate new and
non-obvious products and processes which may be thought to offer benefits over
products and processes which are already known."
Thaler's lawyers
said in a statement that "the judgment establishes that UK patent law is
currently wholly unsuitable for protecting inventions generated autonomously by
AI machines".
Thaler
earlier this year lost a similar
bid in the United States, where the
Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office's refusal to issue patents for inventions created by his AI system.
Giles Parsons, a
partner at law firm Browne Jacobson, who was not involved in the case, said the
UK Supreme Court's ruling was unsurprising.
"This
decision will not, at the moment, have a significant effect on the patent
system," he said. "That's because, for the time being, AI is a tool,
not an agent.
"I do expect
that will change in the medium term, but we can deal with that problem as it
arises."
AI cannot be patent 'inventor', UK Supreme Court rules
in landmark case | 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.
Big UK inflation drop
bolsters bets on Bank of England cuts early next year
By Andy Bruce and David Milliken December 20, 2023 10:05 AM GMT
LONDON, Dec 20 (Reuters) - British
inflation plunged in November to its lowest rate in over two years, prompting
investors to pile further into bets that the Bank of England will cut interest
rates in the first half of next year.
The annual rate of increase in consumer
prices dropped to 3.9% from 4.6% in October, pushed down in part by cheaper
petrol, for its lowest reading since September 2021, the Office for National
Statistics said on Wednesday.
The headline Consumer Prices Index
(CPI) inflation reading was below all forecasts in a Reuters poll of economists
which had pointed to a figure of 4.4%. Core and services measures of inflation
- closely watched by the BoE - also dropped.
Investors moved to fully price in a BoE
rate cut by May 2024 and now see a nearly 50% chance of a cut by March. The
pound shed almost half a cent against the U.S. dollar, falling from $1.271 to
$1.266. British government bond yields also tumbled.
With its headline rate of inflation now
matching that of France, Britain no longer looks like such an outlier in
international terms. But the almost 21% rise in consumer prices since 2020 is
still more than any other Group of Seven advanced economy and the joint-highest
increase in western Europe.
CPI inflation peaked at a 41-year high
of 11.1% in October 2022, driven higher by a surge in energy prices after
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which aggravated existing bottlenecks
that were pushing up prices after the COVID-19 pandemic.
BoE officials have been cautious about
whether recent signs of cooling inflation truly represent a sign that
persistent, longer-run price pressures are receding, but economists said the
latest figures may prompt a rethink.
"This provides strong evidence
that disinflationary pressures are building in the UK," PwC economist Jake
Finney said. "Headline, core and services inflation are all now materially
below the Bank of England's expectations in their last November Monetary Policy
Report."
The ONS said transport - and
particularly motor fuels - was the biggest downward contributor to inflation in
November. Fuel prices were 10.6% lower than the year before.
A much smaller monthly rise in food and
drink prices than in November last year also helped, although they remain 27%
higher than two years ago and have risen more than 9% in the past 12 months.
More
Big UK inflation drop bolsters bets on Bank of England cuts early next year | Reuters
Covid-19 Corner
This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
The New COVID
Variant JN.1 Has More Tricks Than Previous Ones
A
new SARS-CoV-2 variant arrived at year-end. At the same time, "white
lung" pneumonia has increased substantially. Is the timing purely
coincidental?
12/19/2023 Updated: 12/19/2023
The new
JN.1 variant of COVID-19 has been spreading rapidly around the world. Notably,
mainland China has witnessed a surge in crowded children's hospitals, reporting
cases of "white lung syndrome" or "white lung" pneumonia
and increased deaths since November. Similar occurrences were noted in the
United States. Are they purely coincidental or is there a link between these
two events?
Quickly
Becoming a Global Trend
JN.1 was first detected in August. It has
since been identified in 12 countries, including the United States.
According to the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC), in the United States, JN.1 rose from less than 0.1
percent of SARS-CoV-2 circulating viruses at the end of October to 15–29 percent as of Dec. 8.
It also
spreads in Europe, including the United Kingdom, France, and Asia.
JN.1
Has Tricks
JN.1 originates from a
subvariant of Omicron "Pirola"—BA.2.86 and is a recombinant form of
two variants: the early BA.2 sublineage and the subsequent XBB lineage.
What's
particularly concerning about JN.1 is its notable divergence from other
recently prevalent variants.
Compared to XBB.1.5, JN.1 contains 41 additional unique mutations,
with most of the changes, i.e., 28 located in the spike protein, one in the N
protein, three in the M protein, eight in the ORF1a, and one in ORF 7b.
Dr. Ishii and other Japanese researchers
used a kind of virus-like particle to mimic the infection process of a virus,
with results showing that JN.1 has a significantly increased infectivity
compared to Pirola, according to the preprint paper published in December.
Weakened
Protection by XBB.1.5 Vaccine
An October preprint paper by Dr. Yunlong Cao
from Peking University also showed the XBB variants' mutations at sites 455 and
456 that help these viruses further avoid the body's immunity, especially neutralizing antibodies.
In simpler terms,
the virus adapts, making it harder for our immune system to fight it off, even
if people have been vaccinated or had previous COVID-19 infections.
Notably, JN.1
contains a new mutation of L455S, making the latest XBB.1.5 vaccine less likely
to protect against JN.1.
More
The New COVID Variant JN.1 Has More Tricks Than Previous Ones | 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 and tomorrow something different,
46 year on and sill working! Both Voyagers, and all done without AI. When NASA really worked. Approx 14 minutes.
The
Only Reason the Voyager Probes are Still Working Today
The
Only Reason the Voyager Probes are Still Working Today (youtube.com)
"Why did the central bankster
stare at the bottle of orange juice for two hours? Because the label said
concentrate."
With apologies to Ken Dodd and
blondes.
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