Baltic
Dry Index. 1499 -08
Brent Crude 82.22
Spot
Gold 2022 US
2 Year Yield 4.28 -0.06
Fisher
Ames.
In the stock casinos, more worry that the electric vehicle fad may have passed its peak.
The USA GDP came in slightly beating expectations.
In Europe, despite slowdowns in Europe’s leading economies including Germany, the ECB left its key interest rates unchanged and said that they might stay that way for some time.
Later today, the International Court of Justice will give its interim decision on South Africa’s genocide petition against Israel.
Probably a good day to be safely parked in 6
month US T. Bills.
Asia markets
mostly lower as EV stocks extend sell-off after Tesla’s slowdown warning
UPDATED THU, JAN 25 2024 11:03 PM EST
Asia-Pacific markets mostly declined Friday as
electric vehicle stocks in the region dropped for a second day, while investors
also digested inflation data from Tokyo.
Hong Kong-listed shares of Xpeng and Li Auto fell
about 2.5% each, while BYD fell 3.5%. The broader Hang Seng Index dropped
0.4%, while the Hang Seng Tech index, housing most EVs, shed 1.7%.
Tesla
shares fell 12% in U.S. trading on Thursday after the EV giant
missed earnings expectations and warned of a slowdown in 2024, which also
triggered a sell-off in Asian EV companies.
China’s CSI 300 dropped 0.3%,
retreating from a 2% bounce in the previous session after property stocks got a
boost from Beijing’s plans to boost
liquidity in the beleaguered sector.
They extended gains on Friday,
with the CSI 300 real estate sector hitting a near four-week high after rising
2.7% in morning trading.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped
1% after the January inflation reading from Tokyo came in softer compared to
December. Tokyo’s data is widely considered to be a leading indicator for
nationwide inflation. The broad based Topix fell 0.9%
Tokyo’s headline and core
inflation rate for January both came in at 1.6%, compared with 2.4% and 2.1%,
respectively, in December.
South Korea’s Kospi rose
0.8%, while the small-cap Kosdaq rose 1.5%.
Overnight in the U.S., all three major indexes
gained, with the S&P500 index advancing 0.53% to reach a record high of
4,894.16, notching a six-day winning streak.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added
0.64%, while, the Nasdaq Composite rose
0.18%, weighed down by a post-earnings tumble in Tesla shares.
Asia markets live
today: Tokyo inflation, Singapore manufacturing, EVs fall (cnbc.com)
Nasdaq 100
futures slide after Intel’s guidance disappoints: Live updates
UPDATED FRI, JAN 26 2024 12:31 AM EST
Nasdaq
100 futures slid
on Friday morning after Intel issued an outlook that fell short of Wall
Street’s expectations.
Futures linked to the tech-heavy
index shed 0.71%. S&P 500
futures dropped
0.36%, while Dow Jones
Industrial Average futures slipped
121 points, or 0.32%.
In after-hours trading, Intel’s
stock price sunk 10% after the chip manufacturer posted disappointing
fiscal first-quarter guidance for the top and bottom lines.
Semiconductor stock KLA Corp slid
more than 5% after the company posted light revenue and earning per share
guidance for its fiscal third quarter.
During the regular session, the S&P 500 leapt
to a fresh all-time high. The broad market index and the Nasdaq Composite posted
gains for the sixth straight day and overcame significant drag from Tesla
shares, which slumped more than 12%. The S&P 500 advanced 0.5%, and the
Nasdaq ticked up by 0.2%, while the Dow added 0.6%.
The major averages are also
tracking for a winning week. The S&P 500 is up 1.1%, while the Dow has
added 0.5%. The Nasdaq is the outperformer of the three, pacing for a 1.3%
jump.
Stocks’ steady gains were buoyed
by encouraging economic data released on Thursday. Gross domestic product data revealed
higher-than-expected economic growth in the fourth quarter,
piling onto investors’ hopes that the economy has avoided a deep recession.
Additional inflation data is on
deck, with December’s personal consumption expenditures price index due Friday
morning. The PCE is a preferred inflation gauge for the Federal Reserve, and
the outcome could inform the central bank’s upcoming policy decision.
Economists polled by Dow Jones expect that core PCE prices gained 3% in
December on a year-over-year basis.
Stock
market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
The U.S.
economy grew at a 3.3% pace in the fourth quarter, much better than expected
PUBLISHED THU, JAN 25 2024 8:30
AM EST
The economy grew at a
much more rapid pace than expected in the final three months of 2023, as the U.S.
easily skirted a recession that many forecasters had thought was inevitable,
the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
Gross domestic
product, a measure of all the goods and services produced, increased at a 3.3%
annualized rate in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to data adjusted
seasonally and for inflation.
That compared to the
Wall Street consensus estimate for a gain of 2% in the final three months of
the year. The third quarter grew at a 4.9% pace.
The U.S. economy for
all of 2023 accelerated at a 2.5% annualized pace, well ahead of the Wall
Street outlook at the beginning of the year for few if any gains.
As had been the case
through the year, a strong pace of consumer spending helped drive the
expansion. Personal consumption expenditures increased 2.8% for the quarter,
down just slightly from the previous period.
State and local
government spending also contributed, up 3.7%, as did a 2.5% increase in
federal government expenditures. Gross private domestic investment rose 2.1%,
another significant factor for the robust quarter.
On the inflation
front, the price index for personal consumption expenditures rose 2.7% on an
annual basis, down from 5.9% a year ago, while the core figure excluding food
and energy posted a 3.2% increase annually, compared to 5.1%.
However, the
inflation rates both were much lower in a quarterly basis. Core prices, which
the Federal Reserve prefers as a longer-term inflation measure, rose 2% for the
period, while the headline rate was 1.7%.
Markets showed only
modest reaction to the report. Stock futures gained slightly while Treasury
yields moved lower.
More
GDP Q4 2023: The U.S. economy grew at a 3.3% pace in
the fourth quarter (cnbc.com)
Next up, commodities. Commodity price inflation
looks set to stay.
Commodity
markets are in a ‘super squeeze’ — and higher prices could be here to stay
Global commodity
markets are in a “super squeeze” amid supply disruptions and lack of investment
— and it’s only going to get worse as geopolitical and climate risks exacerbate
the situation, HSBC said.
“For some time now we
have described global commodity markets as being in a ‘super-squeeze,’” its
chief economist Paul Bloxham told CNBC.
A commodity “super
squeeze” is denoted by higher prices driven by supply constraints more than a
robust growth in demand, he explained.
“If it’s a supply
constraint that’s driving high commodity prices, it’s a very different story
for global growth,” said via Zoom. Higher prices as a result of a super squeeze
are “not as positive.”
“We see the deeper
‘super-squeeze’ factors on the supply-side as still set to play a key role in
keeping commodity prices elevated,” he said, outlining factors like political
uncertainties, climate change and the lack of investments into the green energy
transition.
Geopolitical risks include the ongoing
Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza and the Ukraine war, which have hampered
global trade, as seen in shipping
disruptions from the recent Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.
Another reason is
climate change, which disrupts supply chains as well as commodities supply,
especially in the agricultural space.
“The super squeeze could be deeper, or more
prolonged if geopolitical, climate change or energy transition related supply
disruptions are larger than expected,” he added.
Lack of investments
The world’s pursuit
of a net-zero carbon future is fueling demand for energy transition metals such as copper
and nickel, Bloxham pointed out.
However, there are
insufficient investments allocated to procuring these critical minerals,
leading to a sharper supply squeeze on energy transition metals — in particular
copper, aluminum and nickel, he said.
As energy
transition ramps up, markets could be looking at a shortage of a slew of metals
like graphite, cobalt, copper, nickel and lithium in the next decade, the
Energy Transitions Commission said in a report in July.
More
Commodity markets are in a 'super squeeze'— higher prices may continue (cnbc.com)
In European news, as expected, the ECB did
nothing, while French farmers continue raising a stink over taxes, low prices
and mostly Spanish imports.
European
Central Bank holds rates steady, gives no hint at cuts ahead
PUBLISHED THU, JAN 25 2024 8:18
AM EST
The European Central
Bank on Thursday held interest rates unchanged, and reiterated it would keep
them high for a “sufficiently long duration” to bring inflation to target.
The central bank is
holding steady for the third straight meeting, after hiking its deposit rate to
4% in September.
It said that recent
data had “broadly confirmed” its previous medium-term inflation outlook and
that, despite energy effects, a declining trend in underlying inflation had
continued.
“The Governing
Council will continue to follow a data-dependent approach to determining the
appropriate level and duration of restriction,” the ECB said in a statement.
Its “future decisions
will ensure that its policy rates will be set at sufficiently restrictive
levels for as long as necessary,” it added, echoing previous language.
The central bank is facing a sluggish euro area economy and fragile financial stability, but it is also
focused on bringing inflation down to 2% from 2.9% currently. The
ECB is highly concerned with cutting rates too soon and undoing some of the
effects of the existing tightening.
Some ECB officials have spent the month pushing
back against market expectations for rate cuts in the spring, stressing the
need to wait for first-quarter wage data. On Thursday morning, markets were
factoring in a 62% probability of an April cut, according to LSEG data.
More
European Central Bank holds rates steady, gives no
hint at cuts ahead (cnbc.com)
French farmers block
roads, dump produce as protest edges closer to Paris
By Nacho Doce, Sudip Kar-Gupta and Charlotte Van
Campenhout
January 25, 2024 11:57 AM GMT
AGEN, France, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Farmers blocked highways across France
and emptied the contents of several trucks carrying foreign-grown vegetables on
Thursday as they pressed the government to protect them from cheap imports,
rising costs and red tape.
Farmers said the protests, now in their second week after breaking out
in the southwest, would continue as long as their demands are not met, posing
the first big challenge for new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.
As Attal convened senior ministers, farmers used bales of hay and
tractors to block major arteries across the country, the European Union's
biggest agricultural producer.
Crates of tomatoes, cabbages and cauliflowers that one group of farmers
said had been imported from neighbouring countries were strewn across the A7
highway that links Marseille and Lyon, France's second and third biggest
cities.
Some farming unions have threatened to blockade Paris. On Thursday,
dozens of tractors led a go-slow during rush-hour near Versailles on the
southwestern edge of the capital.
The powerful FNSEA farming union late on Wednesday handed the government
a list of 100 demands.
Yohann Barbe, FNSEA spokesman, told RMC radio the demands revolved
around "helping farmers regain their dignity, their ability to earn a
living income, and above all putting an end to the overload of
regulations".
Farmers cite a government tax on tractor fuel, cheap imports, water
storage issues, price pressures from retailers and red tape and environmental
rules among their grievances.
Farmer discontent over price levels is particularly acute in the dairy
sector, where producers say the government's anti-inflation push has undermined
legislation designed to safeguard farmgate prices.
French retailers are locked in annual price negotiations with suppliers,
which the government wants concluded by the end of the month. Farmers say they
will be on the sharp end of efforts to haul prices lower.
Fearing a spillover from farmer unrest in Germany, Poland and Romania,
the French government has already postponed a draft farming law meant to help
more people become farmers, saying it will beef up the measures and ease some
regulations.
Ahead of European Parliament elections in June, President Emmanuel
Macron is wary that farmers are a growing constituency for the far right.
Far right leader Marine Le Pen accused the government of complacency and
backing European regulations that hurt farmers, such as rules on mandatory
fallow land.
"Emmanuel Macron addresses farmers with a hand on the shoulder and
then knifes them in the back in Brussels," Le Pen told reporters.
Farmers in the southwest who on Wednesday sprayed liquid manure over a
local prefecture building in Agen, on Thursday directed their animal waste at a
nearby Leclerc superstore, France's biggest supermarket chain, as police looked
on.
French farmers block roads, dump produce as protest edges closer to Paris | 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.
China is
ramping up stimulus to boost market confidence — but is it enough?
PUBLISHED THU, JAN 25 2024 12:44
AM EST
BEIJING — Expectations for more support from China
to boost its economy and stock markets are rising— especially after the central
bank’s easing announcements on Wednesday.
Starting Feb. 5, the People’s
Bank of China will allow banks to
hold smaller cash reserves, central bank governor Pan Gongsheng said at a press conference, his first in
the role.
Cutting the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) by 50
basis points is set to release 1 trillion yuan ($139.8 billion) in long-term
capital, the central bank said.
“The latest [PBOC] announcements may be
interpreted as the beginning of a policy pivot from previous reactive and
piecemeal measures by investors, and they will continue to look for further
signs and acts of policy support,” Tao Wang, head of Asia economics and chief
China economist at UBS Investment Bank, said in a note Thursday.
Beijing has been reluctant to embark on massive
stimulus, which would also widen the yield gap between China and the U.S. given
the Federal Reserve’s tighter stance on monetary policy. The PBOC kept a
benchmark lending rate unchanged again on Monday, holding pat on loan prime rates.
The magnitude of the central bank’s announcement
Wednesday on the RRR cut exceeded Nomura’s forecast for a 25 basis point
reduction, said the firm’s chief China economist, Ting Lu.
“We think this larger-than-expected RRR cut is a
further sign that the PBoC and top policymakers have become increasingly
concerned about the ongoing economic dip, which we have been flagging since
mid-October last year, and the latest equity market performance,” he said in a
note Thursday.
“More interestingly, the policy decision was
revealed in a less-usual fashion, as the PBoC Governor made the announcement
personally during a Q&A session at the press
conference,” Lu said.
Pan on Wednesday told reporters the central bank
and the National Financial Regulatory Administration would soon publish
measures to encourage banks to lend to qualified developers. The document was released later that
day.
“It is a significant step from the regulators to
enhance credit support for developers,” UBS’ Wang said. “For developer
financing to fundamentally and sustainably improve, property sales need to stop
falling and start to recover, which could require more policy efforts to
stabilize the property market.”
Real estate troubles are just one of several
factors that have weighed on Chinese investor sentiment. The massive property
industry has dragged down growth, and along with a slump in exports and
lackluster consumption, kept the economy from rebounding from the pandemic as
quickly as expected.
The mainland Chinese and Hong Kong stocks have
steadily dropped to multi-year lows.
More
China is ramping up stimulus to boost market
confidence. Is it enough? (cnbc.com)
China
property stocks jump as Beijing takes steps to boost liquidity in the
beleaguered sector
PUBLISHED THU, JAN 25 2024 2:01
AM EST
China’s property stocks jumped after the country’s
central bank announced measures that
would help boost the liquidity available to property developers.
The move will ease a lingering cash crunch for
Chinese developers that have been at the receiving end of Beijing’s crackdown
aimed at addressing the sector’s bloated debt levels.
The CSI property index jumped 5.2%, while the
mainland’s broader CSI 300 added 1.8%.
Shares of Hong Kong-listed Country
Garden jumped 2.94%, Logan
Group gained 5.17% and Longfor
Group added 4.61%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Mainland
Properties index rose as much as 3.9%.
The People’s Bank of China and the Ministry of
Finance said in a joint statement late Wednesday that these new measures will be valid
until the end of 2024.
Banks can now issue loans to commercial real
estate firms “with good comprehensive benefits that have passed the completion
inspection and acceptance, obtained the real estate ownership certificate, and
been put into operation, with the operating property as collateral.”
China’s property crisis could take years to
resolve, with Oxford Economics estimating at least four to six years for real estate developers in the country to
complete unfinished residential properties.
More
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
“People who are not vaccinated may also have
a higher risk of facing lingering symptoms.”
What scientific evidence supports this posit?
None, I suspect.
Scientists Find
Indicators in Blood Linked to Long Covid, Hinting at Future Treatments
One
part of the immune system appeared to be overly active in long Covid patients
in a small study, a finding researchers hope could help diagnose or treat the
condition
January 23, 2024
Researchers have
found signatures in the blood of people suffering from long Covid, which might
point the way to treatments for the condition. In a small study, participants
with long Covid symptoms showed different levels of certain proteins compared
to people who had recovered from Covid-19 or those who had not been infected.
These changes were
tied to an increased activation of the complement system, a part of the immune
system, the researchers wrote Friday in the journal Science. Complement system
proteins work alongside antibodies, surveilling the bloodstream for infections.
The findings could potentially help physicians
diagnose long Covid by looking for differences in complement protein activity.
And down the line, the research “will hopefully pave the way for further
studies to try and develop therapies for what is, at the moment, pretty much an
impossible thing to treat,” Aran Singanayagam, a
respiratory physician at Imperial College London who did not contribute to the
findings, tells Nature News’
Miryam Naddaf.
Still, the findings will need to be validated with
larger studies that test patients farther along in their illness, the authors
note.
Long Covid is defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
as effects that persist or appear four or more weeks after first becoming
infected with the virus that causes Covid-19. At least 65 million people
globally are thought to have long Covid, per a January 2023 study, and it has been
tied to more than 200 symptoms that vary widely, including fatigue, shortness
of breath, chest pain, headaches, brain fog, depression or anxiety, sleep
problems, diarrhea, rashes and joint or muscle pain.
While long Covid most commonly develops in people
who have had a severe case of Covid-19, anyone infected with the virus can
develop the condition, per the CDC. People who are not vaccinated may also have a higher risk of facing
lingering symptoms.
---- For the study, the researchers followed 39
people without Covid-19 and 113 people with Covid-19. After six months, 40 of the
infected patients had developed long Covid. The researchers took 268 blood
samples from participants and measured more than 6,500 proteins.
Patients with long Covid showed increased
activation of the complement system, which targets pathogens and damaged cells.
When it’s too active, this system can also damage
healthy cells, writes Stat News’ Elizabeth
Cooney. This heightened activity appeared when the long Covid patients
were first infected, as well as during a follow-up after six months.
Other recent research, which has yet to be peer reviewed, also found a link
between the complement system and long Covid, according to MIT Technology Review’s
Cassandra Willyard.
In the new study, patients with long Covid had
lower levels of a protein that helps prevent blood clots and higher levels of
proteins tied to clot formation, writes Nature News.
More
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.
Fast-charging lithium battery
seeks to eliminate 'range anxiety'
Date: January 24, 2024 Source: Cornell University
Summary: Engineers have created a new lithium battery
that can charge in under five minutes -- faster than any such battery on the
market -- while maintaining stable performance over extended cycles of charging
and discharging.
Cornell
University engineers have created a new lithium battery that can charge in
under five minutes -- faster than any such battery on the market -- while
maintaining stable performance over extended cycles of charging and
discharging.
The
breakthrough could alleviate "range anxiety" among drivers who worry
electric vehicles cannot travel long distances without a time-consuming
recharge.
"Range
anxiety is a greater barrier to electrification in transportation than any of
the other barriers, like cost and capability of batteries, and we have
identified a pathway to eliminate it using rational electrode designs,"
said Lynden Archer, professor of engineering and dean of Cornell's College of
Engineering, who oversaw the project.
"If you
can charge an EV battery in five minutes, I mean, gosh, you don't need to have
a battery that's big enough for a 300-mile range. You can settle for less,
which could reduce the cost of EVs, enabling wider adoption."
The team's
paper, "Fast-Charge, Long-Duration Storage in Lithium Batteries,"
published in Joule. The lead author is Shuo Jin, a doctoral student
in chemical and biomolecular engineering.
Lithium-ion
batteries are among the most popular means of powering electric vehicles and
smartphones.
The batteries
are lightweight, reliable and relatively energy-efficient.
However, they
take hours to charge, and lack the capacity to handle large surges of current.
The
researchers pinpointed indium as an exceptionally promising material for
fast-charging batteries.
Indium is a
soft metal, mostly used to make indium tin oxide coatings for touch-screen
displays and solar panels.
The new study
shows indium has two crucial characteristics as a battery anode: an extremely
low migration energy barrier, which sets the rate at which ions diffuse in the
solid state; and a modest exchange current density, which is related to the
rate at which ions are reduced in the anode.
The
combination of those qualities -- rapid diffusion and slow surface reaction
kinetics -- is essential for fast charging and long-duration storage.
More
Fast-charging lithium battery seeks to eliminate
'range anxiety' | ScienceDaily
Another weekend and an interesting
weekend depending on the decision of the International Court of Justice later today. Have a great weekend everyone.
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. May 2017.
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