Baltic Dry Index. 1460 -94 Brent Crude 78.29
Spot Gold 2049 U S 2 Year Yield 4.14 -0.12
First they came for the
Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
As the USA heads off into holiday weekend MLK Jr. Day, the Great Disconnect between the stock casinos and the harsh reality on the non financialised world of everyday commerce, continues to widen with each passing month.
With the USA and the UK busy expanding the disastrous Gaza war rather than ending it, our world, as in 1914, is sleep walking and stumbling towards World War Three.
In
July 1914 Kaiser Bill gave a blank cheque to Austria to make war on Serbia. In
2024 President Biden Joe Biden has given a blank cheque to Israel to make
war on the Gaza Ghetto, mostly killing women and children as we and the rest of
the world see on our TVs every day with almost 24 hour coverage. When God and His angels slept, 2023 – 2024.
Gavrilo
Princip didn’t intend to set off World War One when he assassinated Archduke Ferdinand
in 1914, but he did. I doubt that the terrorist group Hamas intended to set off
World War Three with the murderous attack on mostly unarmed Israeli civilians
on October 7, 2023, but that is all too likely to be the outcome this US
Presidential election year.
Europe
stocks close higher as U.S. wholesale inflation falls; Burberry down 7%
UPDATED FRI, JAN 12 2024 11:52 AM EST
European markets closed
higher Friday, rounding off a largely negative week, as investors digested
fresh U.K. economic data and a fall in U.S. wholesale inflation.
The Stoxx 600 index
provisionally closed 0.77% higher, with most sectors trading in positive
territory.
Retail stocks climbed 1.46%
despite luxury British brand Burberry trading
down 7% after the company issued a profit warning in response to slowing
demand, sending other luxury lines lower in morning trade.
U.S. wholesale prices, measured
in the producer price index, recorded an unexpected
monthly decline of 0.1% in December. Prices were up 1%
annually.
The U.S.
consumer inflation report released Thursday had showed an
increase in consumer prices of 0.3% on the month and 3.4% year on year, higher
than forecast.
Meantime, fresh data Friday
showed that the U.K. economy returned to growth in November, with gross
domestic product beating expectations and expanding by 0.3%.
More
European
markets live updates: stocks, news and U.S. inflation data (cnbc.com)
JPMorgan
Chase profit falls after $2.9 billion fee from regional bank rescues
JPMorgan
Chase said
Friday that fourth-quarter profit declined after paying a $2.9
billion fee tied to the government seizures of failed regional banks last year.
Here’s what the company reported
versus what analysts surveyed by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv, expected:
- Earnings
per share: $3.04, may not compare with $3.32 expected.
- Revenue:
$39.94 billion vs. $39.78 billion expected.
The bank said quarterly earnings slipped 15% to
$9.31 billion, or $3.04 per share, from a year earlier. Excluding the fee tied
to the regional banking crisis and $743 million in investment losses, earnings
would have been $3.97 per share, according to JPMorgan.
Revenue climbed 12% to $39.94 billion, edging out
analysts’ expectations.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said
full-year results hit a record because the largest U.S. bank by assets
performed better than expected on net interest income and credit quality. The
bank said it generated nearly $50 billion of
profit in 2023, $4.1 billion of which came from First Republic.
Just as it did during the 2008
financial crisis, JPMorgan emerged larger and more profitable from last year’s
regional banking chaos after acquiring First
Republic, a midsize lender to wealthy coastal families. The Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation hit large U.S. banks with a special assessment to
replenish losses from a fund that helped uninsured depositors of seized
regional banks.
---- Despite his bank’s performance, Dimon struck
a cautious note on the American economy.
“The U.S. economy continues to be resilient, with
consumers still spending, and markets currently expect a soft landing,” Dimon
said in the release.
But deficit spending and supply chain adjustments
“may lead inflation to be stickier and rates to be higher than markets expect,”
he said. Risks to markets and economies include central banks’ steps to rein in
support programs and wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, he added.
“These significant and somewhat unprecedented
forces cause us to remain cautious,” he said.
While the bank has navigated the rate environment
capably since the Federal Reserve began raising rates in early 2022, smaller
peers have seen their profits squeezed.
The industry has been forced to pay up for deposits
as customers shift cash into higher-yielding instruments, squeezing margins. At
the same time, rising yields mean the bonds owned by banks fell in value,
creating unrealized losses that pressure capital levels.
Concern is also mounting over rising losses from
commercial loans, especially office building debt, and higher defaults on
credit cards.
More
JPMorgan
Chase (JPM) earnings Q4 2023 (cnbc.com)
Bank
of America shares fall after company reports lower fourth-quarter profit, hit
by regulatory charge
Bank of
America shares
fell 1.1% Friday after the firm reported declining fourth-quarter earnings amid
hefty one-time charges.
Here’s what the company reported compared to
Wall Street expectations, according to LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv:
- Earnings per share: 70
cents, adjusted vs. 68 cents expected.
- Revenue: $22.1 billion vs. $23.74
billion expected.
Bank of America said its net income fell to
$3.1 billion, or 35 cents per share, in the fourth quarter, down more than 50%
from $7.1 billion, or 85 cents per share, a year ago.
The bank, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, said
it was hit by a pretax charge of $1.6 billion in the quarter related to the
transition away from the London Interbank Offered Rate. The results also
included a special $2.1 billion fee charged by the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation. The fee is tied to the failures of Silicon Valley Bank
and Signature Bank. Excluding items, the company said it earned 70 cents per
share, which outpaced analysts’ expectations.
However, revenue of $22.1 billion fell short of
Wall Street’s estimates for the first time in two years and was down 10% from
the year-ago period.
More
Bank
of America (BAC) earnings Q4 2023 (cnbc.com)
Next, with a US presidential election due in November and
President Biden trailing his likely opponent former President Trump in the
polls, meet War President Biden Joe Biden.
US military strikes another Houthi-controlled site after warning ships
to avoid parts of Red Sea
Updated 4:09 AM GMT, January 13, 2024
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S.
military early Saturday struck another Houthi-controlled site in Yemen that it
had determined was putting commercial vessels in the Red Sea at risk, a day
after the U.S. and Britain launched multiple airstrikes
targeting Houthi rebels.
Associated Press journalists in
Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, heard one loud explosion.
U.S. Central Command said the
“follow-on action” early Saturday local time against a Houthi radar site was
conducted by the Navy destroyer USS Carney using Tomahawk land attack missiles.
The first day of strikes Friday hit 28 locations and struck more than 60 targets. President Joe Biden had warned Friday that the Houthis could face further strikes.
The latest strike came after the U.S. Navy on
Friday warned American-flagged vessels to steer clear of areas around Yemen in
the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden for the next 72 hours after the initial
airstrikes. The warning came as Yemen’s Houthis vowed fierce retaliation,
further raising the prospect of a wider conflict in a region already beset by
Israel’s war in Gaza.
U.S. military
and White House officials said they expected the Houthis to try to strike back.
More
Biden Takes Election Year Gamble
With Yemen Strikes
January
12, 2024
President Joe Biden is balancing political rewards
and risks after launching air strikes on Yemen right as the 2024 US election
campaign ramps up.
The 81-year-old Democrat will hope the strikes on
Huthi rebels project an image of strength at home and abroad, countering
criticism of his leadership by Republicans led by Donald Trump.
But the risk of further inflaming the Middle East
after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel will weigh heavily on a president
who had vowed to extract America from its "forever wars" in the
region.
The immediate tone from Biden was tough, saying
Washington and its allies had sent a "clear message" that they
"will not tolerate" further attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, one
of the world's most important sea lanes.
"We will make sure we respond to the Huthis if
they continue this outrageous behavior," Biden told reporters on an
election campaign trip in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
"I don’t think the strikes will politically
help or hurt Joe Biden as long as they remain limited," Garret Martin, who
teaches at American University in Washington, told AFP.
More
Biden Takes Election Year Gamble With Yemen Strikes | Barron's (barrons.com)
Finally,
more on so you really, really, really want an EV. Well not if you are car
rental firm Hertz.
Rental giant Hertz dumps EVs,
including Teslas, for gas cars
By Nathan Gomes and Joseph White January
11, 2024 6:48 PM GMT
Jan
11 (Reuters) - Rental firm Hertz Global Holdings (HTZ.O) is selling about 20,000 electric vehicles,
including Teslas, from its U.S. fleet about two years after a deal with the
automaker to offer its vehicles for rent, in another sign that EV demand has
cooled.
Hertz will instead
opt for gas-powered vehicles, it said on Thursday, citing higher expenses
related to collision and damage for EVs even though it had aimed to convert 25%
of its fleet to electric by 2024 end.
CEO Stephen
Scherr had last year at the JPMorgan Auto Conference flagged headwinds from
higher expenses for its EVs, particularly Teslas.
Hertz even
limited the torque and speed on the EVs and offered it to experienced users on
the platform to make them easier to adapt after certain users had front-end
collisions, he said.
Shares
of the company, which also operates vehicles from Swedish EV maker Polestar
among others, fell about 4%. Tesla's (TSLA.O) stock was down about 3%.
Hertz also
expects about $245 million in charges related to depreciation expenses from the
EV sale in the fourth quarter of 2023.
BUMPY ROAD FOR EV GROWTH
Its
decision underscores the bumpy road EVs have hit as their sales growth slows,
causing carmakers like General Motors (GM.N) and Ford (F.N) to scale back production plans.
Morgan Stanley
analyst Adam Jonas said in a note Hertz's move was another sign that EV
expectations need to be "reset downward".
More
Rental giant Hertz dumps EVs, including Teslas, for
gas cars | Reuters
Electric
London buses 'must be withdrawn until they're declared safe' as burned out
double-decker moved from Wimbledon fire scene
January
12, 2024
London's
electric buses should be withdrawn from service until they are declared safe
following a fire in Wimbledon yesterday morning (Thursday, January 11), a
Conservative London Assembly member has said. The damaged vehicle has been
moved from the scene of the incident after the route number 200 caught fire
with passengers onboard.
The back of the double-decker is missing windows and part
of it has been badly blackened by the heat, a photo of it being removed shows.
The route number, 200, remains visible.
A video of the incident posted yesterday
showed billowing clouds of black smoke filling Wimbledon Hill and Alwyne Road as the bus
stood stationary aflame. In the clip firefighters and police can be seen at the scene dealing
with the incident. No injuries as a result of the fire have been reported.
Now,
City Hall Conservatives' transport spokesperson, Keith Prince AM, has said that
the vehicles must be withdrawn from service after the incident to safeguard
customers' safety. He said: "We're calling on Sadiq Khan to withdraw these electric buses until the
cause of the Wimbledon bus fire is understood.
"We're
also calling for urgent checks on the remaining electric buses in the fleet to
ensure they are safe. Londoners need to have confidence that their bus is safe
and won't burst into flames.
More
Then they came for the
Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Global
Inflation/Stagflation/Recession Watch.
Given
our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation/recession now needs an entire
section of its own.
US Budget Deficit Soars By 50% In December As Fiscal
Collapse Under Biden Accelerates
THURSDAY, JAN 11, 2024 - 08:23 PM
Remember when we showed that the "stealth" secret
sauce behind Bidenomics was nothing more than a
massive, multi-trillion debt-fueled spending spree, which led
to the biggest peactime, non-crisis budget deficit in US history, with
the total deficit for fiscal 2023 ending just over $2 trillion, or double the
prior year, something which BofA's Michael Hartnett called the "era of fiscal excess"?
Well, we have news for you: if 2023 was bad, 2024 - an
election year of course - is shaping up to be far worse.
Moments ago the US
Treasury reported the budget deficit picture for December
and it will come as no surprise to anyone that the US has continued to spend
like a drunken sailor, or rather, even more. As shown in the chart below, in
the month of December, the US collected $429 billion through various taxes,
while total outlays hit $559 billion...
... resulting in a December deficit of
$129.4 billion.
This may not sound like a lot, but December is
actually one of those months when the US deficit is relatively tame, or used to
be.
As shown in the next chart, traditionally the
December deficit was barely in the $10-20BN range... until 2020 when it
exploded to an all time high of $140BN. And while it dropped sharply in
2021, it rebounded dramatically in 2022, and rose to just shy of the
December crisis high last month!
Here is some more context: tax receipts of $429.3BN
in December were down 5.6% from the $454.9BN in December 2022
and down a whopping 11.8% from December 2021. On an LTM basis, US total
tax receipts were $4.521TN, or down 7.2% YoY. This is now the 9th
consecutive YoY decline in LTM tax receipts, something that historically has
only taken place when the US was in a recession. As an aside, the "smart
economists" were certain that the collapse in tax receipts would reverse after
November when the postponed California taxes would be collected. Well, November
has come and gone and the big picture is just as ugly.
Looking at outlays, unlike tax receipts, there is danger of a
decline... ever; and indeed in December the US spent a total of $559
billion, up 3.5% from the $540BN spent a year ago,
and up even more from the $508BN in 2021. On a 6 month moving average basis, we
are rapidly approaching the exponential phase even when accounting for the
spending burst in 2020 and 2021.
Putting it all together, we get the scariest chart of all: the
YTD budget deficit three months into fiscal 2024 is already $509 billion, which
would be the biggest deficit in US history after one quarter with the exception
of the covid outlier year of 2021 when the US injected multiple trillions in
stimmies.
As for the final, and most shocking, data point, the
December budget deficit of $129.4 billion was more than $40BN higher than the
$87.5BN median estimate, and was more than 50% higher compared to the $85BN
December deficit in fiscal 2022.
Needless to say, this is completely unsustainable and assures
fiscal collapse for the US, not if, but when. Then again, we already knew this
thanks to the CBO which was kind enough to chart the endgame:
More
US Budget Deficit Soars By 50% In December As Fiscal Collapse Under Biden Accelerates | ZeroHedge
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Study Shows Cannabis Has The Potential To Prevent And Treat Covid-19
Jan 11, 2024,02:44pm EST
Compounds in cannabis have
the potential to prevent and treat Covid-19, according to a review of research
published last month. The study found that cannabis compounds known as
cannabinoids could prevent infection by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19,
as well as lessen the severity of the disease after it has been contracted.
“Cannabinoids have the
potential to be used as a preventive approach to limiting the susceptibility
and severity of COVID-19 infections by preventing viral entry, mitigating
oxidative stress, and alleviating the associated cytokine storm,” the authors
of the study wrote.
The study, which was reported by cannabis new source
Marijuana Moment on Wednesday, was conducted by researchers at Dalhousie
University in Nova Scotia, Canada, who conducted a thorough review of the
available scientific literature. The research focused on numerous prior studies
that investigated how endocannabinoid system (ECS) modulation might affect
patients in the early and post-infection stages of Covid-19.
Previous
research has shown that cannabis might affect Covid-19, including a laboratory
study published in 2022 that showed cannabinoids
prevented infection of human cells by SARS-CoV-2. A separate study
published in October found that cannabis users who contracted Covid-19
had better
outcomes and reduced mortality compared with non-cannabis users.
Cannabis Might
Help Patients With Long-Covid
The
new study also found that cannabinoids could one day be used to treat patients
with long Covid, a group of persistent health problems that can last for weeks,
months or years following a bout with Covid-19.
“Post-SARS-CoV-2
infection, cannabinoids have shown promise in treating symptoms associated with
post-acute long COVID-19, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress
injury, insomnia, pain, and decreased appetite,” the researchers wrote.
More
Study Shows Cannabis Has The Potential To Prevent And Treat Covid-19 (forbes.com)
Technology Update.
With events happening fast in the
development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Graphene
Quantum Dots for Chemodynamic Cancer Therapy
January 11, 2024
A metal-free nanozyme based on graphene quantum
dots (GQDs) for extremely effective tumor chemodynamic treatment (CDT) has been
developed by a research team headed by Prof. Hui Wang from the Hefei Institutes
of Physical Science (HFIPS) of the Chinese Academy of
Sciences and reported in Matter.
When it comes to resolving the toxicity issues related to metal-based
nanozymes in tumor CDT, GQDs offer a viable and affordable solution. However,
GQDs’ low catalytic activity has made it difficult for them to be used in
clinical settings, especially in harsh catalytic environments.
The obtained GQDs, which are made from red blood
cell membranes, are highly effective in treating tumors with few side effects.
One of the advantages is that they are metal-free. In addition, they function
as excellent peroxidase-like biocatalysts.
Hongji Liu, Professor, Hefei Institutes of Physical
Science (HFIPS), Chinese Academy of Sciences
More
Graphene Quantum Dots for Chemodynamic Cancer Therapy
(msn.com)
This weekend’s music
diversion. Another long forgotten mixed-race composer. Approx. 10 minutes.
Violin
Concerto in G Major, Op. 8, No. 2: I. Allegro (From
"Chevalier"/Visualizer Video)
Chevalier de
Saint-Georges
Joseph
Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George(s) (25
December 1745 – 9 June 1799) was a French violinist, conductor, composer and soldier. His
historical significance lies in his distinctive background as a biracial free man of color.[a] Bologne was the
first classical
composer of African descent to
attain widespread acclaim in European music. He composed an array of violin concertos, string quartets, sinfonia concertantes, violin duets, sonatas, two symphonies and
an assortment of stage works, notably opéra comique.[1] Moreover he
demonstrated excellence as a fencer, an athlete and an
accomplished dancer.
More
Chevalier de
Saint-Georges - Wikipedia
This weekend’s chess
update. Approx. 11 minutes.
A
Draw Was Never An Option! || Polgar vs Topalov || Dos Hermanas (1996)
A Draw Was Never An Option! || Polgar vs Topalov ||
Dos Hermanas (1996) (youtube.com)
Finally,
San Pedro Bay, California.
Why We Have Two Major Seaports in San Pedro Bay
August 31, 2020
Together
the Port of Long Beach (POLB) and the Port of Los Angeles (POLA), the two cheek
by jowl mega ports in San Pedro Bay, are the busiest container ports not only
in the U.S. but also in North America. Handling almost 17 million twenty-foot
equivalent unit (TEU) containers each year, they dwarf the volume of most other
container ports on either coast. How did this happen historically? What is it
about these ports that continue their success? The answers lie in geography,
railroads, civic pride, economics, and climate.
More,
including an aerial view of both ports.
5. Why We Have Two Major Seaports in San Pedro Bay -
USC Sea Grant
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)
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