Baltic Dry Index. 1871 +05 Brent Crude 82.67
Spot Gold 2034 US 2 Year Yield 4.69 +0.02
The laws of economics tell us that the expansion of the central state can't go on forever. Its limit is reached when the looted turn on the looters.
Llewellyn Rockwell.
In the stock casinos, a pause, a wobble, or the top? Has the AI feeding mania over egged the bubble? What happens next if it has.
Suppose the PCE, “the U.S Federal Reserve’s favored inflation gauge,” comes in “hot.”
JP Morgan’s boss gets cold feet.
Sell? To whom, sir?
Asia-Pacific
stocks trade mixed as Wall Street benchmarks slip from record highs
UPDATED TUE, FEB 27 2024 1:14 AM EST
Asia-Pacific
markets traded mixed Tuesday, with Hong Kong stocks leading the declines and
Japan’s Nikkei 225 giving up gains from earlier in the session.
Trading sentiment
was subdued following a pause in Wall Street’s rally on Monday as its key
indexes retreated from record highs.
Major economic
data this week include China’s manufacturing purchasing managers’ index and the
U.S. personal consumption expenditures price index data, which is the Federal Reserve’s preferred
inflation metric.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 traded
0.1% higher to close at 39,239.52. It had hit a record high in the previous
session. The broader Topix index added 0.18% to close at 2,678.46.
The S&P 500 retreated
from record highs notched last Friday as investors awaited key inflation data.
The benchmark index fell
0.38%, while the Nasdaq Composite declined
0.13%. The Dow Jones
Industrial Average slipped
62.30 points, or 0.16%.
Asia-Pacific stocks
mixed as Wall Street benchmarks slip from record highs (cnbc.com)
European stocks
head for lower open following global market pullback
UPDATED TUE, FEB 27 2024 12:34 AM EST
European
markets are heading for a negative open Tuesday, following their global
counterparts lower.
Asia-Pacific markets turned
lower overnight, with Hong Kong stocks leading the declines and Japan’s Nikkei
225 giving up gains from earlier in the session.
Trading sentiment was subdued
following a pause in Wall Street’s rally on Monday as its key indexes retreated
from record highs. S&P
500 futures are near flat early Tuesday as the rally took a
breather.
Investors stateside are keeping
an eye out this week for the monthly personal consumption expenditures price
index, the U.S Federal Reserve’s favored inflation gauge. It’s due out
Thursday.
European
markets live updates: stocks, news, data, inflation data (cnbc.com)
S&P 500
futures are little changed after index slips from record: Live updates
UPDATED TUE, FEB 27 2024 12:12 AM EST
S&P
500 futures are
near flat early Tuesday as the market rally took a breather.
Futures tied to the broad market
index inched down by 0.04%, and Dow Jones
Industrial Average futures
slipped 15 points, off by 0.04%. Nasdaq 100 futures slid
0.12%.
In after-hours action, CarGurus and Unity Software dropped
more than 12% and 18%, respectively, after offering weak guidance on financial
performance to investors. On the other hand, Zoom Video and Hims & Hers surged
10% and 19%, respectively, following earnings reports that exceeded Wall Street
expectations.
Those moves follow a losing
day on Wall Street that pulled the Dow and S&P 500 off
record highs seen last week. The Dow and S&P 500 slipped 0.16% and 0.38%,
respectively, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite inched
lower by 0.13%.
Monday was also notable because
it was the first day with e-commerce giant Amazon replacing Walgreens Boots Alliance as
one of 30 members in the blue-chip Dow.
“It’s kind of one of those
holding-pattern days,” said Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at
Baird, of Monday’s session. “You’re digesting so much of what happened last
week with big earnings, and then you have big data on the horizon.”
Looking ahead, investors will
watch Tuesday for economic data on durable goods, housing and consumer
confidence. They’ll also watch for earnings reports from retailers Lowe’s and Macy’s before
the bell, followed by Beyond Meat, Virgin Galactic and Rocket Lab after
the market closes.
Those come before January’s
reading of the closely watched personal consumption expenditure price index, as
well as data on personal income, due later this week. Investors will watch
these releases for future clues into the health of the economy and for insights
into the path of monetary policy.
“PCE has the potential to be a
big catalyst in either direction,” Mayfield said. “PCE is, by far, the biggest
thing to keep an eye on.”
Stock
market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
Jamie Dimon is
‘cautious about everything’ as he sees risks to a soft landing
JPMorgan
Chase CEO Jamie Dimon thinks
there’s a better-than-even chance that the U.S. is heading for a recession,
though he doesn’t see systemic issues looming.
Speaking Monday from the JPMorgan
High Yield and Leveraged Finance Conference in Miami, the head of the largest
U.S. bank by assets said markets probably aren’t pricing in a strong enough
probability that interest rates could stay higher for longer.
Dimon noted “there are things out there which are kind of concerning,” and
he disagreed with the high level of probability being assigned to the economy
missing a recession.
“The market is kind of pricing in a
soft landing. That may very well happen,” he told CNBC’s Leslie Picker. “But
the [market’s] odds are 70 to 80 percent. I’ll give you half that, that’s all.”
The comments come as the market
indeed has had
to reprice its expectations for monetary policy. Where futures
traders earlier in the year had been assigning a high probability to an
aggressive series of interest rate cuts starting in March, they now see the
easing not starting until June or July, with three cuts now priced in — half of
the prior expectations.
Along with the elevated rates,
markets have had to contend with the Federal Reserve rolling off its bond
holdings, a process known as quantitative tightening. While the central bank is expected
to start tapering the program soon, it remains another factor
in tight monetary policy.
“It’s always a mistake to look at
just the year,” Dimon said. “All these factors we talked about: QT, fiscal
spending deficits, the geopolitics, those things may play out over multiple
years. But they will play out and they will have an effect and in my mind I’m
just kind of cautious about everything.”
However, Dimon said he doesn’t expect a replay of some of the other
serious downturns the U.S. economy has faced, such as the 2008 financial crisis
that saw Wall Street plunge as banks were hit with fallout from the subprime
mortgage industry collapse.
Higher interest rates along with a
recession could hit areas such as commercial real estate and regional banks
hard, but with limited macroeconomic impacts, Dimon said.
“If we have a recession, yes, it’ll
get worse. If we don’t have recession, I think most people will be able to
muddle through this,” he said. “Part of this is just a normalization process.
[Rates] were so low for so long. If rates go up, and we have recession, there
will be real estate problems, and some banks will have a much bigger real
estate problem than others.”
As far as regional banks go,
he labeled issues that hit institutions such as Silicon Valley Bank and
New York Community Bank as “idiosyncratic” and said private credit could take
hit but not at a systemic level.
Jamie Dimon is 'cautious about everything' as he sees risks to a soft landing (cnbc.com)
Next up, Europe’s farm protests get messy in
Brussels.
Belgian
farmers spray police with manure
February
26, 2024
Brussels police officers were
sprayed with manure by angry farmers who used
their tractors to storm cordons in a protest over the European Union’s green deal.
Demonstrators hauled
barbed-wire fences to the side of the road to create room for the agricultural
vehicles to barge through the barricades.
Footage of one of the incidents
showed a handful of police officers, wearing full riot gear, failing to stop
the farmers as they approached a meeting of EU agricultural ministers nearby.
Baton-wielding police were doused in
manure from one truck which blockaded a road in the city.
The police were left with no option
but to retreat.
Local media also reported seeing
farmers hurling oranges and fire crackers at the police barricades.
Water
cannons were deployed to douse the flames from mounds of burning tyres and hay
bales strewn across the Rue de la Loi, a four-lane highway that runs parallel
to the European Council’s headquarters.
“There is indeed an ongoing
intervention on rue de la Loi, at Rue du Taciturne, where farmers have set fire
to tires. Two sprinklers are on site to try to extinguish the fireplace,”
Brussels police said in a statement.
The authorities counted more than 300
tractors pouring into the Belgian capital’s European quarter early on Monday
while the ministers held their talks.
Farmer protests have erupted
across the continent, including in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland,
Italy and Spain, over the impact of EU environmental laws,
as well as tariff-free imports from Ukraine.
Many farmers argue their
traditional, rural ways of life are being destroyed by
liberal and metropolitan politicians living in the cities.
Officers closed access to Schuman
Square, which is at the heart of Brussels’ European district, after farmers
used a cycle lane to get around the barricades set up to keep them away.
A nearby metro station was also
closed.
Traffic ground to a halt with all the
major road access points towards the centre being snarled up by the protesters.
Away from the European district,
several tractors, blaring their horns, drove into the historic centre and the
Grand Place.
Belgian farmers spray police with manure (msn.com)
Finally, EVs, who actually needs or wants
them?
Car
shoppers aren’t electrified by electric vehicles
February 25, 2024
PITTSBURGH — Joe Pegher likes the
idea of electric vehicles. He’s enjoyed test-driving them. And at the annual
auto show here last week, he crossed the crowded convention center to eyeball
Ford’s electric pickup, the F-150 Lightning.
But when it came time to buy a new
truck recently, Pegher stuck with a gas-powered model.
“I get the concept of [EVs]
and I think it’s a good idea. It’s probably about ten years too soon,” he said
from the sidelines of the show, citing a lack of charging infrastructure as his
biggest concern. “I think everybody’s kind of jumping the gun.”
That view,
common among show attendees and consumers nationwide, is taking the shine off
the EV transition three years after automakers and the Biden administration
barnstormed the United States with grand electric plans.
Sales of fully electric
vehicles are still growing much faster than gasoline-car sales in the United
States — they were up 49 percent last year, to 1.1 million vehicles, according
to Wards Intelligence.
But automakers say growth has cooled lately
amid lower gasoline prices and persistent worries about a lack of charging
stations, contributing to a 10.8 percent drop in the average EV price over the
past year, to $55,353, according to Cox Automotive data.
The start of the year has
been rough. Mercedes-Benz this week delayed its
electrification goals by up to five years. Ford slashed the price of its
electric Mustang Mach-E to compete with Tesla’s Model Y, which got its own
price cut this month. Hertz has begun jettisoning some 20,000 EVs from its
global fleet. And EV ads from Detroit automakers were noticeably absent from
the Super Bowl for the first time in several years.
EV transition cools as demand slows and automakers trim
production
Growing consumer caution is
forcing the Biden administration to rethink some of its big ambitions for a
green transition. The Environmental Protection Agency is considering relaxing regulations
that would have required automakers
to rapidly scale up production of electric vehicles, people familiar with the
matter told The Washington Post this
week. The news came after thousands of auto dealers wrote to the
administration complaining that EVs were piling up on their lots.
More
Car shoppers aren’t electrified by electric vehicles (msn.com)
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.
What
do these insiders know that we don’t? It’s purely a coincidence, of course,
that so many are now selling. Still, what if it isn’t?
Flush with cash
It seems
like a lot of bigwigs are cashing in on the market while the going is good. The
selling is also taking place across different industries, with Jeff Bezos dumping $9B worth of Amazon (AMZN) shares this past week,
while JPMorgan (JPM) CEO Jamie
Dimon unloaded $150M of the bank's stock in his
first-ever sale. Meta's (META) Mark
Zuckerberg additionally took profits by dropping $650M in shares of the social media giant
in recent weeks, as well as a number of big sales by other executives and
directors like the Walton family of Walmart (WMT).
Snapshot: These bulletins may get some investors nervous, even if the
sales were telegraphed in advance, with smart money departing some of the most
valuable companies in the world. Over the weekend, the latest glimpse of Warren
Buffett further showed that Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A, BRK.B) cash pile continued to grow, hitting a record of $167B at the end of 2023, up nearly $40B over the course of the year. As
the market continues to hit all-time highs, are these high-profile players getting liquid and out when they can,
or is there a bigger picture at play?
While the personal moves make splashy headlines, it's
important to recognize that many CEOs or founders wait until stocks hit records
to cash in or diversify their wealth, which is the case in all the firmly
established companies mentioned above. It doesn't mean that the market is going
to tank or enter a correction anytime soon, but rather a recognition that these
players have been waiting several rocky years in the aftermath of the pandemic
to take money off the table. As for Buffett, he's been sitting on a cash hoard
for a long time, and he's known to only put his money to work if an opportunity
is undervalued, the price is right, and he fully understands the investment.
More
Covid-19 Corner
This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
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.
There’s a
New Theory About Where Dark Matter Is Hiding
An
idea derived from string theory suggests that dark matter is hidden in an
as-yet-unseen extra dimension. Scientists are racing to test the theory to see
if it holds up.
February 25, 2024
When it comes to understanding the fabric of the universe,
most of what scientists think exists is consigned to a dark, murky domain.
Ordinary matter, the stuff we can see and touch, accounts for just 5 percent of
the cosmos. The rest, cosmologists say, is dark energy and dark matter,
mysterious substances that are labeled “dark” partly to reflect our ignorance
about their true nature.
While no single idea is likely to explain everything we
hope to know about the cosmos, an idea introduced two years ago could answer a
few big questions. Called the dark dimension
scenario, it offers a specific recipe for dark matter, and it suggests an
intimate connection between dark matter and dark energy. The scenario might
also tell us why gravity—which sculpts the universe on the largest scales—is so
weak compared to the other forces.
The scenario proposes an as-yet-unseen dimension that
lives within the already complex realm of string theory, which attempts to
unify quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory of gravity. In addition to the
four familiar dimensions—three infinitely large spatial dimensions plus one of
time—string theory suggests that there are six exceedingly tiny spatial
dimensions.
In the dark dimension’s universe, one of those extra
dimensions is significantly larger than the others. Instead of being 100
million trillion times smaller than the diameter of a proton, it measures about
1 micron across—minute by everyday standards, but enormous compared to the
others. Massive particles that carry the gravitational force are generated
within this dark dimension, and they make up the dark matter that scientists
think comprises about 25 percent of our universe and forms the glue that keeps galaxies
together. (Current estimates hold that the remaining 70 percent consists of
dark energy, which is driving the universe’s expansion.)
The scenario “allows us to make connections between string
theory, quantum gravity, particle physics, and cosmology, [while] addressing
some of the mysteries related to them,” said Ignatios Antoniadis, a physicist at Sorbonne
University who is actively investigating the dark dimension proposal.
While there’s no evidence yet that the dark dimension
exists, the scenario does make testable predictions for both cosmological
observations and tabletop physics. That means we may not have to wait long to
see whether the hypothesis will bear up under empirical scrutiny—or be
relegated to the list of tantalizing ideas that never fulfilled their original
promise.
“The dark dimension envisioned here,” said the
physicist Rajesh Gopakumar, director of the
International Center for Theoretical Sciences in Bengaluru, has “the virtue of
being potentially ruled out fairly easily as upcoming experiments grow
sharper.”
More
There’s a New Theory About Where Dark Matter Is Hiding
| WIRED
Wealth is not a given or an accident of history. It is not bestowed on us like rain from above. It is the product of human creativity in an environment of freedom. The freedom to own, to make contracts, to save, to invest, to associate, and to trade: these are the key to prosperity.
Llewellyn Rockwell.
No comments:
Post a Comment