The Last Exit Ramp Of 2023. Dollars, Yuan Or Bitcoin?

Baltic Dry Index. 3346 -203         Brent Crude  77.21

Spot Gold 2026                  US 2 Year Yield 4.64 -0.07

Q. How can you tell when the US NSA is monitoring your computer?

A. The power is on and you’re connected to the internet.

In the stock casinos, more final 2023 exit rally. Bad things will happen fast in 2024.

Look away from that falling oil price and inverting US Treasury yield curve now.

Asia markets rebound across the region from Tuesday’s broad sell-off

UPDATED WED, DEC 6 2023 12:41 AM EST

Asia-Pacific markets rebounded across the region, following a broad sell-off on Tuesday.

Investors assessed Australia’s third-quarter GDP numbers, as well as the Reuters Tankan survey for Japan in December, which showed improving business sentiment among large Japanese manufacturers.

The Tankan survey, done by the Bank of Japan quarterly, measures economic conditions in Japan and the survey results are considered a key economic indicator.

The Reuters monthly poll is considered to be a leading indicator of the BOJ’s official survey.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.65%, closing at 7,178.4 and at its highest level since September 19.

The country’s economy expanded 2.1% year-on-year in the third quarter, beating expectations from economists polled by Reuters.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 popped 1.97%, leading gains among major Asian indexes, while the Topix advanced 1.86%.

South Korea’s Kospi inched up 0.37%, while the small-cap Kosdaq climbed 1.02%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rebounded from a one-year low to climb 1.35%, while the mainland Chinese CSI 300 index posted a 0.37% gain, after hitting fresh four-year lows on Tuesday.

Overnight in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 slid on Tuesday as a recent rally on Wall Street lost steam.

The 30-stock Dow slid 0.22%, while the S&P 500 inched lower by 0.06%. In contrast, the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.31% to end at 14,229.91 as technology shares outperformed.

Asia stock markets today: Live updates, Reuters Tankan, Australia GDP (cnbc.com)

China blue-chip stocks hit 5-year lows, yuan eases after Moody's move

December 6, 20235:12 AM GMT

SHANGHAI, Dec 6 (Reuters) - China's blue-chip stocks slumped to an almost five-year trough on Wednesday while the yuan currency extended losses, as markets grappled with Moody's cut to China's credit outlook at a time of growing worries about the economy's stuttering recovery.

The ratings agency issued a downgrade warning on China's credit rating on Tuesday, saying costs to bail out local governments and state firms and control its property crisis would weigh on the world's second-largest economy.

 

China stocks opened down with the CSI300 Index (.CSI300) touching its lowest level since Feb. 2019, before recouping earlier losses. It was up 0.2% by midday, while the Shanghai Composite Index (.SSEC) was down 0.1%.

 

Chinese markets have had a torrid time this year as a shaky economic recovery and a deepening property crisis have added to geopolitical challenges, including protracted Sino-U.S. tensions over tech and trade.

The CSI300 Index has tumbled 12.2% so far this year and is set to record one of the worst performer in the region.

The Hang Seng Index (.HSI), meanwhile, rebounded roughly 0.7% in morning trade, with tech shares (.HSTECH) leading gains.

 

"The CSI300 index was hit the hardest in terms of valuation, as the index gets more allocations from foreign investors. Adding the impact of Moody's cut, the index may find a bottom and rebound soon," said Pang Xichun, research director at Nanjing RiskHunt Investment Management Co.

Foreign capital recorded a net inflow via the northbound trading link as of midday, after three consecutive sessions of outflows.

"Moody's decision to downgrade its outlook on China's debt is the latest link in a long string of recent disappointments for investors in Chinese equities," said Yasser El-Shimy, investment analyst at The Motley Fool.

China's economic recovery has shown signs of losing steam quickly after an initial burst in consumer and business activity at the start of the year, weighed down by an ailing housing market, local government debt risks and slow global growth.

More

China blue-chip stocks hit 5-year lows, yuan eases after Moody's move | Reuters

Stock futures rise Tuesday night after the S&P 500, Dow slip for a second day: Live updates

UPDATED TUE, DEC 5 2023 8:24 PM EST

U.S. stock futures climbed Tuesday night after the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid for a second day.

Futures tied to the 30-stock Dow rose 50 points, or 0.1%. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures added 0.2% and 0.4%, respectively.

Cloud company Box was a notable loser in after-hours action, tumbling 12% after reporting third-quarter results that came in below analyst expectations. MongoDB slipped 5%, even as the company beat analysts’ estimates. On the other hand, homebuilder stock Toll Brothers gained nearly 2% after exceeding expectations on the top and bottom lines.

The moves came after a trading session where both the Dow and the S&P 500 closed lower for the second day in a row, dropping 0.2% and 0.06%, respectively. The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.3% to end the day.

Despite these losses, the past five weeks of consecutive gains means that all three stock indexes are still on track to end the quarter and year with big gains.

Looking past this rally, come the new year Wolfe Research chief investment strategist Chris Senyek sees disappointment ahead for investors. In his base case scenario, Senyek sees the S&P 500 dropping 8% by the end of 2024.

“We think the lagged impacts of the Fed rate hikes are going to really start to hit the economy in the first half of next year,” he said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime.”

As inflation falls, companies will lose their pricing power because they lose their ability to pass prices through the consumers, he said. Senyek also expects that higher risk aversion and slower earnings growth will put additional pressure on stocks next year.

Stock market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)

European markets set to regain positive momentum and rebound at the open

UPDATED WED, DEC 6 2023 12:30 AM EST

European markets are heading for a positive open Wednesday, rebounding from mixed trade seen earlier in the week.

Positive momentum was seen elsewhere overnight. Asia-Pacific markets rebounded across the region, following a broad sell-off on Tuesday. Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures climbed overnight after the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid for a second day Tuesday.

European markets live updates: stocks, news, data and earnings (cnbc.com)

Next, who really needs a weaponised US fiat dollar? I’m not sure switching from a debtor fiat dollar to a creditor fiat Yuan makes any sense, but in a world with people prepared to buy worthless Bitcoin for 44,000 dodgy US dollars, nothing much makes financial sense in the now ending of the Great Nixonian Error of Fiat Money.

Against the odds, China’s push to internationalise its currency is making gains

Geopolitical concerns help support the use of the renminbi despite weak foreign investment trends

December 6, 2023

It has been an extraordinary year for the renminbi. On the one hand, it has clearly disappointed investors, who were expecting the currency to appreciate as the Chinese economy moved out of zero-Covid policies at the end of 2022.

Instead, after a short respite, it depreciated about 8.5 per cent against the US currency from January lows until it found a floor at about 7.30 renminbi per dollar. The trend reflected the stubborn weakness of the Chinese economy and the large capital outflows. More recently the renminbi has appreciated but that is in line with other currencies as the US Federal Reserve shifted to a less hawkish tone on interest rates.

However, that very same weak renminbi has achieved something quite impressive in 2023: a fast increase in its cross-border use. Since China started to push for the internationalisation of its currency in 2004, its share in global payments largely remained stagnant. But this year its share went from 1.9 per cent in January 2023 to 3.6 per cent in October.

Such a share remains low compared with the dollar (47.25 per cent) and the euro (23.36 per cent). But the growth could be pointing to a change. And the People’s Bank of China has reported a steep increase in renminbi-denominated current account transactions. Nearly 30 per cent of the trade in goods and services in and out of the country was settled in the currency. 

When looking at the main drivers for this change, several issues stand out. Firstly, China seems increasingly keen to settle its trade in renminbi. The reasons behind this seem to go beyond reducing hedging costs, which have always existed. It is also, of course, driven by geopolitical concerns.

Reducing the dependence on the US dollar or other G7 currencies has become more important for China, given the step-up in western sanctions on Russia after it invaded Ukraine in 2022 and tensions with the US over Taiwan. These sanctions also seem to have been a catalyst for other countries to accept the renminbi for trade settlements. The fact that China had its own international payment system (Cips) ready to be used when western sanctions hit Russia has undoubtedly helped. Some renminbi international payments settled through Cips, do not use the Swift interbank messaging system, which makes them very difficult to be traced. This also means that the share of renminbi for global cross-border transactions might be underestimated.

Beyond the establishment of Cips, Chinese authorities have introduced other important instruments to support renminbi internationalisation, such as bilateral currency swaps between the PBoC and more than 30 central banks. These swap lines used to sit idle in host central banks but they are now starting to be withdrawn given some emerging countries’ growing financial needs. A notable example is Argentina, which has already withdrawn the equivalent of $1bn in renminbi from its swap line to cover repayments to the IMF. Chinese authorities have also stepped up efforts to increase renminbi liquidity offshore by setting up clearing centres for the currency.

More

Against the odds, China’s push to internationalise its currency is making gains (ft.com)

Finally, worrying news about artificial intelligence. The intelligence may be more artificial than intelligent.

 

Free ChatGPT may incorrectly answer drug questions, study says

PUBLISHED TUE, DEC 5 2023 12:01 AM EST

The free version of ChatGPT may provide inaccurate or incomplete responses — or no answer at all — to questions related to medications, which could potentially endanger patients who use OpenAI’s viral chatbot, a new study released Tuesday suggests.

Pharmacists at Long Island University who posed 39 questions to the free ChatGPT in May deemed that only 10 of the chatbot’s responses were “satisfactory” based on criteria they established. ChatGPT’s responses to the 29 other drug-related questions did not directly address the question asked, or were inaccurate, incomplete or both, the study said. 

The study indicates that patients and health-care professionals should be cautious about relying on ChatGPT for drug information and verify any of the responses from the chatbot with trusted sources, according to lead author Sara Grossman, an associate professor of pharmacy practice at LIU. For patients, that can be their doctor or a government-based medication information website such as the National Institutes of Health’s MedlinePlus, she said.

Grossman said the research did not require any funding.

ChatGPT was widely seen as the fastest-growing consumer internet app of all time following its launch roughly a year ago, which ushered in a breakout year for artificial intelligence. But along the way, the chatbot has also raised concerns about issues including fraud, intellectual property, discrimination and misinformation. 

Several studies have highlighted similar instances of erroneous responses from ChatGPT, and the Federal Trade Commission in July opened an investigation into the chatbot’s accuracy and consumer protections. 

In October, ChatGPT drew around 1.7 billion visits worldwide, according to one analysis. There is no data on how many users ask medical questions of the chatbot.

Notably, the free version of ChatGPT is limited to using data sets through September 2021 — meaning it could lack significant information in the rapidly changing medical landscape. It’s unclear how accurately the paid versions of ChatGPT, which began to use real-time internet browsing earlier this year, can now answer medication-related questions.  

Grossman acknowledged there’s a chance that a paid version of ChatGPT would have produced better study results. But she said that the research focused on the free version of the chatbot to replicate what more of the general population uses and can access. 

More

Free ChatGPT may incorrectly answer drug questions, study says (cnbc.com)

What’s the opposite of artificial intelligence?

Natural stupidity!

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.

Moody’s cut China’s credit outlook to negative on rising debt risks

PUBLISHED TUE, DEC 5 2023 4:48 AM EST

Ratings agency Moody’s downgraded its outlook on China’s government credit ratings to negative from stable, expecting Beijing’s support and possible bailouts for distressed local governments and state-owned enterprises to diminish China’s fiscal, economic and institutional strength.

Moody’s though retained China’s “A1” long-term rating on the country’s sovereign bonds, while expecting China annual GDP growth to slow to 4% in 2024 and 2025 and average 3.8% from 2026 to 2030.

Structural factors including weak demographics will drive a decline to 3.5% by 2030, it said.

The move underscores concerns over rising debt levels and the impact on broader growth in the world’s second-largest economy as Beijing resorts to fiscal stimulus to support local governments and contain the spiraling debt crisis among the country’s property developers.

“The outlook change also reflects the increased risks related to structurally and persistently lower medium-term economic growth and the ongoing downsizing of the property sector,” Moody’s said in a statement issued Dec. 5.

“These trends underscore the increasing risks related to policy effectiveness, including the challenge to design and implement policies that support economic rebalancing while preventing moral hazard and containing the impact on the sovereign’s balance sheet,” Moody’s added.

China credit default swaps (the cost of insuring against a government default) rose 4 basis points from Monday’s closing level, according to Reuters data.

Beijing disappointment

China’s Finance Ministry expressed its disappointment with Moody’s downgrade decision.

“Moody’s concerns about China’s economic growth prospects and fiscal sustainability are unnecessary,” the ministry said in a statement Tuesday.

More

Moody's cut China's credit outlook to negative on rising debt risks (cnbc.com)

Covid-19 Corner

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

Vaccinated People More Likely to Suffer Blood Disorders, Ear Disease: Studies

 

People who received COVID-19 vaccines at higher risk of a range of conditions, South Korean researchers find.

11/28/2023 Updated: 12/4/2023

People who received a COVID-19 vaccine were more likely to suffer a range of conditions, including a lack of blood cells being produced and ear disease, according to new studies.

Researchers in South Korea analyzed data from the Korean National Health Insurance Service to examine whether vaccinated or unvaccinated people had experienced higher rates of dozens of adverse events, including menstrual disorder, ear disease, and aplastic anemia.

They found that vaccination increased the risk of many of the adverse events or health conditions.

In one study, for instance, they found that the incidence rates of 13 immune-related nonfatal adverse events (irAEs) were higher among the vaccinated. The nonfatal problems included menstrual disorder, bruising, tinnitus, inner ear disease, middle ear disease, and other ear disease.

"Vaccination significantly increased the risks of non-fatal irAEs," Dr. Eun Mi Chun, with Ewha Womans University's School of Medicine, and the co-authors wrote.

The researchers looked at records from people aged 20 and up. People were counted as vaccinated if they received their second dose or completed a primary series before Sept. 30, 2021. People were counted as unvaccinated if they received no doses. People were excluded if they received one dose or had any of the conditions already.

The vaccinated group included 1.4 million people, compared to 289,576 in the unvaccinated group. The latter skewed younger, with fewer comorbidities, one factor that potentially affected the results.

Researchers measured cumulative incidence rates of the adverse events, which were picked because the doctors felt that nonfatal immune-related problems after COVID-19 vaccination "have yet to be comprehensively elucidated."

The rates were measured by examining diagnoses among the two cohorts.

More

Vaccinated People More Likely to Suffer Blood Disorders, Ear Disease: Studies | 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.

Dec 05, 2023

Tiny electromagnets made of graphene (Nanowerk News) An international research team has now added another facet to graphene's diverse properties with experiments at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR): The experts, led by the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE), fired short terahertz pulses at micrometer-sized discs of graphene, which briefly turned these minuscule objects into surprisingly strong magnets. This discovery may prove useful for developing future magnetic switches and storage devices.

The working group presents its study in the scientific online journal Nature Communications ("Strong transient magnetic fields induced by THz-driven plasmons in graphene disks") Graphene consists of an ultra-thin sheet of just one layer of carbon atoms. But the material, which was only discovered as recently as 2004, displays remarkable properties. Among them is its ability to conduct electricity extremely well, and that is precisely what international researchers from Germany, Poland, India, and the USA took advantage of. They applied thousands of tiny, micrometer-sized graphene discs onto a small chip using established semiconductor techniques. This chip was then exposed to a particular type of radiation situated between the microwave and infrared range: short terahertz pulses. To achieve the best possible conditions, the working group, led by the UDE, used a particular light source for the experiment: The FELBE free-electron laser at the HZDR can generate extremely intense terahertz pulses. The astonishing result: "The tiny graphene disks briefly turned into electromagnets," reports HZDR physicist Dr. Stephan Winnerl. "We were able to generate magnetic fields in the range of 0.5 Tesla, which is roughly ten thousand times the Earth's magnetic field." These were short magnetic pulses, only about ten picoseconds or one-hundredth of a billionth of a second long. Radiation pulses stir electrons The prerequisite for success: The researchers had to polarize the terahertz flashes in a specific way. Specialized optics changed the direction of oscillation of the radiation so that it moved, figuratively speaking, helically through space. When these circularly polarized flashes hit the micrometer-sized graphene discs, the decisive effect occurred: Stimulated by the radiation, the free electrons in the discs began to circle – just like water in a bucket stirred with a wooden spoon. And because, according to the basic laws of physics, a circulating current always generates a magnetic field, the graphene disks mutated into tiny electromagnets. "The idea is actually quite simple," says Martin Mittendorff, professor at the University of Duisburg-Essen. "In hindsight, we are surprised nobody had done it before." Equally astonishing is the efficiency of the process: Compared to experiments irradiating nanoparticles of gold with light, the experiment at the HZDR was a million times more efficient – an impressive increase. The new phenomenon could initially be used for scientific experiments in which material samples are exposed to short but strong magnetic pulses to investigate certain material properties in more detail. The advantage: "With our method, the magnetic field does not reverse polarity, as is the case with many other methods," explains Winnerl. "It, therefore, remains unipolar." In other words, during the ten picoseconds that the magnetic pulse from the graphene disks lasts, the north pole remains a north pole and the south pole a south pole – a potential advantage for certain series of experiments. The dream of magnetic electronics In the long run, those minuscule magnets might even be useful for certain future technologies: As ultra-short radiation flashes generate them, the graphene discs could carry out extremely fast and precise magnetic switching operations. This would be interesting for magnetic storage technology, for example, but also for so-called spintronics – a form of magnetic electronics. Here, instead of electrical charges flowing in a processor, weak magnetic fields in the form of electron spins are passed on like tiny batons. This may, so it is hoped, significantly speed up the switching processes once again. Graphene disks could conceivably be used as switchable electromagnets to control future spintronic chips. However, experts would have to invent very small, highly miniaturized terahertz sources for this purpose – certainly still a long way to go. "You cannot use a full-blown free-electron laser for this, like the one we used in our experiment," comments Stephan Winnerl. "Nevertheless, radiation sources fitting on a laboratory table should be sufficient for future scientific experiments." Such significantly more compact terahertz sources can already be found in some research facilities.   Source: Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (Note: Content may be edited for style and length) Tiny electromagnets made of graphene (nanowerk.com) Thanks to computer autocorrect, 1 in 5 children will be getting a visit from Satan this Christmas.