Baltic
Dry Index. 1572 +27
Brent Crude 82.13
Spot Gold 2022 US 2 Year Yield 4.4- +0.02
This is the way
things are, and the Game has been so successful that, like everything, it will
get more and more successful until it stops being successful.
George Goodman, aka Adam Smith, The Money
Game. 1968.
It is US Consumer Price Index day. What could possibly go wrong? Buy Bitcoin as a hedge against the latest stock casino mania?
Oh wait, Bitcoin is in a bubble all of its own and has no intrinsic value or any other value except finding a greater fool buyer.
That this doesn’t end well is a given, bubbles and manias never end well as history shows, but when?
My guess is March 11th, when the Fed’s emergency bank bailout program, the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) ends and US banks must somehow replace the emergency relief.
Asia stocks nudge higher, dollar steady ahead of US inflation
report
By Ankur Banerjee
February
13, 2024 2:03 AM GMT
SINGAPORE, Feb 13 (Reuters)
- Asian stocks inched higher and the dollar held steady on Tuesday ahead of a
key U.S. inflation report that could help shape the Federal Reserve's rates
outlook and determine the timing of interest rate cuts.
Bitcoin remained strong after crossing
$50,000 for the first time in over two years, thanks to inflows into exchange
traded funds backed by the digital asset. It was last at $50,0097 in Asian
hours.
MSCI's broadest index of
Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) was 0.15% higher in early
trading. The index is down 3% so far in the year.
Japan's Nikkei (.N225) on the other hand has carried on from last year and
is up 12% for the year. On Tuesday, the index rose 1.7% to hit a fresh 34-year
high on the back of a weak yen which is nearing the closely-watched 150 per
dollar level.
China's financial markets are closed for the Lunar New Year
holiday and will resume trade on Monday, Feb. 19, with Hong Kong markets due to
resume on Feb. 14, leaving trading in Asia subdued and taking cues from the
Wall Street.
On Monday, the Nasdaq (.IXIC) slipped in the afternoon
session after briefly surpassing its record closing high from November 2021.
The benchmark S&P 500 (.SPX) closed lower but remained
just above the 5,000-point level it crossed on Friday. E-mini futures for the
S&P 500 fell 0.16%.
Investor attention this week will be on crucial reports on
January's U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI), due later in the day, and Producer
Price Index, scheduled to be released on Friday.
A slew of recent data, led by strength in the
labour market, has underlined the resilience of the U.S. economy and pushed
traders to scale back expectations of early and deep interest rate cuts from
the Fed.
Markets have all but chalked off chances of a rate
cut in March, with traders pricing in a 13% chance of an easing compared with
77% a month earlier, the CME FedWatch tool showed.
Economists polled by Reuters expect CPI to rise
2.9% on a year-on-year basis, down from 3.4% in the previous month, with annual
core CPI inflation also expected to slow to 3.7% in January from 3.9% a month
earlier.
More
Asia
stocks nudge higher, dollar steady ahead of US inflation report | Reuters
Stock futures slip after fresh Dow record,
Wall Street looks to inflation data: Live updates
UPDATED MON, FEB 12 2024 7:44 PM EST
Stock
futures ticked lower on Monday evening as investors prepared for a key
inflation report.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones
Industrial Average lost
43 points or 0.1%. S&P 500
futures slipped
0.1%, while Nasdaq 100 futures dropped
0.2%.
Shares of Avis Budget Group slipped
about 2% in extended trading after fourth-quarter revenue missed analyst
estimates. JetBlue Airways spiked
16% after activist investor Carl Icahn reported a
nearly 10% stake in the airline.
In regular trading, the 30-stock Dow closed
at a fresh record. The S&P 500 ended
the day lower by nearly 0.1%, but the broad-market index just closed above
5,000 for the first time on Friday. The Nasdaq Composite
slipped 0.3%. All three of the major averages are riding a five-week winning
streak.
“I think if anything, all this
talk about how narrow the market has been [is] overstated,” Strategas head of
technical and macro research Chris Verrone said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime”
on Monday. “The small caps are getting better, the equal-weight S&P just
made a two-year high, [so] this idea that it’s just been five six or seven
stocks driving this whole thing I think is misleading.”
Investors will now look to the
January consumer price index report for the latest read on price pressures, due
Tuesday morning. The results of the report will likely be closely watched by
Federal Reserve officials as they weigh a path forward on rate policy.
Headline inflation is expected to
have increased 0.2% month over month and 2.9% from a year earlier, according to
economists polled by Dow Jones. Core prices, which exclude volatile food and
energy components, are expected to have increased 0.3% in January and 3.7% from
a year earlier, respectively.
Earnings on deck for Tuesday
include soft drinks giant Coca-Cola, toymaker Hasbro and Marriott International
in the morning. Casino operator MGM Resorts and kidney dialysis company DaVita
will post results after the close.
Stock
market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
In
other news, a commercial real estate crash next?
Real estate pain for
US regional banks is piling up, say investors
By Carolina Mandl, Matt Tracy and Saeed Azhar
February
12, 2024 9:13 PM GMT
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON, Feb 12
(Reuters) - New York Community Bancorp's (NYCB.N) exposure to commercial real
estate has intensified investor scrutiny around regional banks, with some
expecting more pain for those with office and multifamily property loans.
Fears about the health of the smaller banks have escalated again
a year after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in
spring of 2023 triggered a regional banking crisis.
NYCB's recent earnings release which sparked a dive of about 60%
in its shares has particularly focused investors on combing through portfolios
of regional banks, as small banks account for nearly 70% of all commercial real
estate (CRE) loans outstanding, according to research from Apollo.
“As long as interest rates
stay high, it's hard for the banks to avoid problems with CRE loans," said
short-seller William C. Martin of Raging Capital Ventures, who decided to place
a bet against NYCB after the bank's disastrous Jan. 30 earnings release which
detailed real estate pain and led him to believe that shares could sink further
on more real estate losses.
Martin, who shorted Silicon Valley Bank last year before its
collapse, said he shorted NYCB because he thought its earnings power would be
diminished and that it might have to raise capital. NYCB said on Wednesday that
a capital increase is an option, but that it has no plan to do this "right
at the moment."
The bank declined to comment
on the short-seller's view.
"The regional banks ... (are) doubly more exposed to
rates," said Dan Zwirn, co-founder and CEO of distressed debt investment
firm Arena Investors, who is avoiding real estate for the next year or two,
citing in part higher risk of default. The KBW Regional Banking index (.KRX) is down around 11% since
NYCB's announcement.
The CRE market has been hit by the repercussions of the COVID-19
pandemic. Delinquency rates on commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) are
expected to rise to 8.1% in 2024, according to Fitch, as many companies
struggle to convert remote and hybrid-working employees. Meanwhile CMBS loan
delinquencies in commercial multifamily - housing properties with more than
five units - are expected to touch 1.3% in 2024 versus 0.62% in 2023.
CRE has also faced pressure from higher interest
rates where roughly $1.2 trillion in commercial mortgages are set to mature
this year and next, Goldman Sachs research showed.
Some have also assigned greater risk to commercial
multifamily assets in New York City.
More
Real estate pain for US regional banks is piling up, say investors | Reuters
Finally,
what happens to EV sales when government subsidies stop. Well in Germany, so do
sales. Approx. 8 minutes.
EV market destroyed in Germany after the German
Government did this...
EV market destroyed in Germany after the German
Government did this... (youtube.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.
Winter recession to be confirmed for UK economy – but
experts are upbeat about 2024
February 12, 2024
New figures are likely to confirm
that the UK economy fell into a shallow recession in the second half of last
year, but experts are hopeful that 2024 will be a better year.
City economists think that UK GDP
shrunk by 0.3 per cent in December, meaning that the economy will have
contracted 0.1 per cent across the fourth quarter.
December’s figures, set to be
published on Thursday, will be weighed down by yet more strike action, which
impacted both the health sector and rail industry.
Already
published retail sales figures showed the steepest drop since January 2021
which will hit activity in the all-important services sector. The flurry of
storms in December is also likely to have constrained construction activity.
The slight contraction in the
final quarter of last year would come after a 0.1 per cent contraction in the
third quarter, meaning the UK will have fallen into a recession. A recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.
“It was a tough end to the
year for the UK economy,” Ellie Henderson, economist at Investec noted.
The
UK economy has struggled to generate any real momentum in 2023 as stubborn
inflation and high interest rates have eaten into consumer spending power.
But most experts said that
focusing excessively on a recession would create a misleading impression of the
economy. Analysts at Pantheon Macronomics said “talk of a recession seems like
overkill”.
“A better description of the
trend might be stagnation,” Henderson said.
Data since the turn of the
year has painted a much more positive picture too, suggesting the growth might
pick up in 2024 as inflationary pressures ease.
Inflation dropped sharply in
the final quarter of last year, ending 2023 at four per cent. Analysts at Deutsche Bank predict
that real wages will grow at 1.75 per cent in 2024, making it one of the
highest growth rates in the last decade.
Lower inflation has also
fuelled bets that the Bank of England will start cutting interest rates in
the first half of this year, easing the pressure on households further. Traders
expect three rate cuts this year.
Business surveys suggest that
activity has already started picking up this year, with private sector output
accelerating for the third straight month in a row and at a faster pace than
experts expected.
“The reality is the economy
is now on the up,” analysts at Pantheon Macroeconomics said.
Winter recession to be confirmed for UK economy – but experts are upbeat about 2024 (msn.com)
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Care
home 'cooperating fully' as police probe 22 Covid pandemic deaths
Police
are questioning management and staff at Fullarton Care Home in Irvine.
February 12, 2024
A care home is “cooperating fully” amid a police
investigation into the deaths of 22 residents during the Covid pandemic.
Management and
staff are being questioned at Fullarton Care Home in Irvine, North Ayrshire,
one of the worst hit facilities in Scotland as coronavirus spread across the
country.
Police Scotland’s
Major Investigations Team is speaking to the families of 22 people that died at
the home.
A Care Inspectorate
report issued in May 2020 had raised issues around hygiene, infection control
and inconsistent use of PPE in Fullarton Care Home.
A dedicated Crown Office unit, the Covid-19
Death Investigation Team, was set up in May 2020 to examine deaths linked to
Covid at 474 care homes in Scotland.
A spokesperson for Fullarton Care Home said:
“Our thoughts and sympathies remain with all those who lost loved ones during
the pandemic.
“Police Scotland, on the instruction of the
Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, are investigating all deaths that
occurred in all care homes across Scotland during this time, and we are
cooperating fully and openly in line with this national review.”
Following investigations, prosecutors will
determine if any of the deaths in care settings across Scotland should be
subject to a fatal accident inquiry or prosecution.
Assistant chief constable Bex Smith said: “We
understand how upsetting and difficult this is for the many families who lost
loved ones as a result of the Covid pandemic.
“Police Scotland is supporting the Crown
Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) review into deaths in care homes.
“While we continue to gather information, a
number of investigations have now commenced at the request of COPFS.
“As the investigations are ongoing it would be
inappropriate to comment further.”
Care home 'cooperating fully' as police probe 22 Covid
pandemic deaths | STV News
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.
28-ton,
1.2-megawatt tidal kite is now exporting power to the grid
Loz Blain February 11, 2024
Minesto's fully operational Dragon 12 looks
like some sort of futuristic military drone – but it behaves remarkably like a
kite underwater. It uses lift generated by tidal flows to fly patterns faster
than the currents, harvesting renewable energy.
Solar energy is the bedrock of most renewable
energy grid plans – but lunar energy is even more predictable, and a number of
different companies are working to commercialize energy generated from the
regular inflows and outflows of the tides.
One we've completely missed is Minesto, which
is taking a very different and remarkably dynamic approach compared to most.
Where devices like Orbital's
O2 tidal turbine more or less just sit there in the water
harvesting energy from tidal currents, Minesto's Dragon series are anchored to
the sea bed, and fly around like kites, treating the currents like wind.
Just as land-based
wind energy kites fly in figure 8 patterns to accelerate
themselves faster than the wind, so does the Dragon underwater. This, says
Minesto, lets the Dragon pull more energy from a given tidal current than other
designs – and it also changes the economic equations for relevant sites, making
slower tidal flows worth exploiting.
These are by no means small
kites – the Dragon 12 needs to be disassembled to fit in a shipping container.
It rocks a monster 12-meter (39-ft) wingspan, and weighs no less than 28 tons.
But compared to other offshore power options like wind turbines, it's an
absolute minnow, and extremely easy to install using a single smallish boat and
a sea bed tether.
As with any renewable energy
project, the key figure here is LCoE (levelized cost of energy) – so what's it
gonna cost? Well, back in 2017, Minesto projected about
US$108/MWh once its first hundred megawatts of capacity are installed – with
costs falling thereafter as low as $54/MWh.
For an unfair
comparison, Orbital has claimed it's
hoping for an LCoE less than $253/MWh for its very first O2 tidal turbine, a
figure that'll drop with scale, and fixed-bottom offshore wind projects in 2022
had an estimated average LCoE around $89/MWh in 2022, according to the US DoE.
The Dragon 12, like other
tidal devices, will be more effective in some places than others – and
Denmark's Faroe Islands, an archipelago in the chilly North Atlantic between
Scotland and Iceland, offer ideal conditions. Home to about 55,000 people and
more than a million puffins, the Faroe Islands funnel tidal currents through a
number of slim channels. This accelerates the water significantly, and thus
increases the energy that devices like the Dragon 12 can harvest.
That's where the
first Dragon has been deployed, and on Friday, it was connected to the local
power grid to begin delivering energy.
"This is a big
day for Minesto," said Dr Martin Edlund, CEO of Minesto, in a press
release. "We have reached the most significant milestone in the history of
the company by producing electricity to the grid with our mega-watt scale
powerplant. We are both proud and happy and more than ever look forward to the
journey ahead ... The competitiveness of the Dragon 12 is straight to the
point; it's powerful, cost-effective and feeds predictable electricity to the
grid."
Video.
28-ton, 1.2-megawatt tidal kite is now exporting power
to the grid (newatlas.com)
Somebody has to be
on the other side.
George Goodman, aka Adam Smith. The Money Game. Why
Are The Little People Always Wrong?
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