Baltic Dry Index. 2419 +45 Brent Crude 86.68
Spot
Gold 2155 US 2 Year Yield 4.73 +0.01
It's always tempting to do good at someone else's expense.
Frederic Bastiat.
For more on Nvidia scroll down to the technology section.
In the stock casinos, more nervousness. A tepid tech bounce followed by what?
What if Fed Chairman Powell can’t cut
interest rates this year, rescuing President Biden Joe Biden?
What if he delivers President Don
Trump instead?
European markets set to open lower as investors
look ahead to Fed meeting
UPDATED TUE, MAR 19 2024 1:19 AM EDT
European
markets are heading for a negative open Tuesday as global investors look ahead
to the start of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s two-day policy meeting.
Recent inflation reports could
prompt the central bank to signal that interest rates will remain higher for
longer than expected. Fed funds futures currently forecast a 99% likelihood
that the Fed will leave benchmark interest rates unchanged this week, according
to the CME FedWatch Tool.
Meanwhile, it’s been a dramatic
night for Asia-Pacific markets after investors assessed the latest central bank
monetary policy decisions from the Bank of Japan and the Reserve Bank of
Australia.
The BOJ
officially ended its negative interest rate policy at its March
meeting, hiking interest rates for the first time in 17 years and raising its
benchmark interest rate from -0.1% to a range of 0% to 0.1%. The bank also
abolished its yield curve control policy, marking a historic shift in policy. Asia-Pacific
markets largely fell Tuesday following the move.
European
markets live updates: stocks, news, data and Fed meeting (cnbc.com)
Stock futures are little changed as
investors digest news from Nvidia’s AI conference: Live updates
UPDATED MON, MAR 18 2024 8:01 PM EDT
Stock futures were little changed on Monday
after a bounce back in tech shares ahead of Nvidia’s inaugural artificial
intelligence conference. Heading into Tuesday, Nvidia shares showed signs
of cooling as investors shift their focus to the Federal Reserve’s two-day
policy meeting.
Futures tied to the
S&P 500 slipped 0.12%, while Dow Jones Industrial Average futures slid 8
points, or 0.02%. Nasdaq 100 futures were 0.22% lower. The S&P 500 broke a
three-session slump during regular trading. The broad market index and the Nasdaq
Composite entered Monday riding two-week losing streaks.
---- Wall Street is awaiting guidance on the
path forward for monetary policy as the Federal Reserve begins its two-day
policy meeting on Tuesday. A recent slate of worrying inflation reports has
investors concerned that the central bank could signal interest rates will
remain higher for longer than expected. However, fed funds futures currently
forecast a 99% likelihood that the Fed will leave benchmark interest rates
unchanged this week, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
“The Fed is going to be taking a
lot of the oxygen out of the room this week as they conclude their March
meeting on Wednesday afternoon,” said Sam Millete, director of fixed income at
Commonwealth Financial Network. “It’s going to be a really interesting meeting
because markets don’t expect any interest rate changes at this meeting, and in
fact, don’t have any changes priced into the next meeting either.”
Stock
market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
Time is running out for interest rate cuts,
market forecaster Jim Bianco warns before Fed meeting
The window for interest rate cuts may be closing.
On the eve of the Federal Reserve’s
two-day policy meeting, Wall Street forecaster Jim Bianco believes the central
bank will likely stay on hold until next year.
“I’m in the camp that the Fed does not change policy in the summer of an
election year,” the Bianco Research president told CNBC’s “Fast Money” on Monday.
“If they don’t pull the trigger by June, then it’s November [or] December at
the earliest — only if the data warrants it. And, right now, the data isn’t
warranting it.”
For Fed Chair Jerome Powell to cut
this spring, the economy would have to dramatically weaken, according to
Bianco.
“The economy is too strong right
now,” he said. “It’s in a ‘no landing phase’ as we like to call it. It’s not a
Boeing plane. There’s no parts falling off of it, and it’s just continuing to
move along at probably a 2.5% to 3% pace.”
This week’s Fed meeting comes
almost exactly two years after policymakers started their rate hike campaign.
“It looks like we’re probably bottoming
on inflation at around 3%,” he said. “That’s not 2[%], and the
Fed has made it very clear that they need confidence for going to 2[%]. And,
we’re not getting that.”
It appears Wall Street may be on notice. The CME FedWatch tool showed on Monday
expectations for a quarter point rate cut in June dropped below 50%.
Plus, Treasury yields are climbing
higher. The benchmark 10-year Treasury
Note yield is
yielding 4.328% —its highest level in a month and is inching closer to a
four-month high.
“They may even go higher,” added
Bianco. “It’s going to be the reality
of inflation.”
More
Time running out for rate cuts, Jim Bianco warns before Fed meeting (cnbc.com)
In commodities news, the US intends to
restock the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by year-end. But why, if we’re all supposed
to be going electric?
US aims to return
emergency oil reserve to prior levels by year-end
By Arathy Somasekhar March 18, 2024 8:39 PM GMT
HOUSTON, March 18 (Reuters)
- U.S. crude oil stockpiles in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) at
year-end will be at or exceeding the level prior to a massive 180 million
barrel sale two years ago, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on
Monday.
The U.S. is replenishing the SPR, after
President Joe Biden's administration announced a sale of 180 million barrels of
oil over six months from the reserve, the largest ever SPR sale, in an attempt
to lower gasoline prices after Russia invaded Ukraine.
While the Department of Energy only expects to
replenish by the end of this year about 40 million barrels since the 180
million sale, another 140 million barrels that would have been drained from
2024-2027 will stay in the SPR due to the cancellation in 2022 of
congressionally mandated sales.
The department declined to provide a final number
of stocks expected to be in the reserve at the end of the year.
The reserve currently holds about 362 million
barrels. Stocks in the reserve stood at 565 million barrels before the
announcement of the sale in March 2022.
Other congressionally mandated sales may also be
canceled, Granholm said at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston.
Having the SPR refilled is a congressional priority
and "that's a conversation we'll be having with them," Granholm said.
Completion of maintenance at one SPR storage site
will allow the U.S. to buy more oil, Granholm said.
More
US
aims to return emergency oil reserve to prior levels by year-end | Reuters
Saudi Aramco CEO says energy transition is
failing, world should abandon ‘fantasy’ of phasing out oil
HOUSTON — Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said Monday
that the energy transition is failing and policymakers should abandon the
“fantasy” of phasing out oil and gas, as demand for fossil fuels is expected to
continue to grow in the coming years.
“In the real world, the current
transition strategy is visibly failing on most fronts as it collides with five
hard realities,” Nasser said during a panel interview at the CERAWeek by
S&P Global energy conference in Houston, Texas.
“A transition strategy reset is urgently needed and my proposal is this:
We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas and instead invest in
them adequately reflecting realistic demand assumptions,” the CEO said to
applause from the audience.
The Paris-based International
Energy Agency forecast last
year that peak oil, gas and coal demand would come in 2030. Nasser said demand
is unlikely to peak anytime soon, let alone by that year. Nasser suggested that
the IEA is focusing on demand in the U.S. and Europe and needs to focus on the
developing world as well.
Nasser said
alternative energy sources have been unable to displace hydrocarbons at scale,
despite the world investing more than $9.5 trillion over the past two decades.
Wind and solar currently supply less than 4% of the world’s energy, while total
electric vehicle penetration is less than 3%, he said.
Meanwhile, the share
of hydrocarbons in the global energy mix has barely fallen in the 21st century
from 83% to 80%, Nasser said. Global demand has increased by 100 million
barrels of oil equivalent per day during the same period and will reach an
all-time high this year, the CEO said.
More
Saudi Aramco CEO: Energy transition failing (cnbc.com)
Finally, Japan enters a terrifying financial
unknown. Well for Japan anyway.
Bank of Japan ends
negative rates, farewells era of radical policy
By Leika Kihara
March
19, 2024 4:44 AM GMT
TOKYO, March 19 (Reuters) - The Bank of
Japan (BOJ) ended eight years of negative interest rates and other remnants
of its unorthodox policy on Tuesday, making a historic shift
away from a focus of reflating growth with decades of massive monetary
stimulus.
While
the move was Japan's first interest rate hike in 17 years, it still keeps rates
stuck around zero as a fragile economic recovery forces the central bank to go
slow in any further rise in borrowing costs, analysts say.
The shift makes Japan the last central bank to exit negative rates and
ends an era in which policymakers around the world sought to prop up growth
through cheap money and unconventional monetary tools.
"The BOJ today took its first, tentative step towards policy
normalisation," said Frederic Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC in
Hong Kong.
"The elimination of negative interest rates in particular signals
the BOJ's confidence that Japan has emerged from the grip of deflation."
In a widely expected decision, the BOJ
ditched a policy put in place since 2016 that applied a 0.1% charge on some
excess reserves financial institutions parked with the central bank.
The BOJ set the overnight call rate as its new policy rate and decided
to guide it in a range of 0-0.1% partly by paying 0.1% interest to deposits at
the central bank.
The central bank also abandoned yield curve control (YCC), a policy that
had been in place since 2016 that capped long-term interest rates around zero.
But in a statement announcing the decision, the BOJ said it will keep
buying "broadly the same amount" of government bonds as before and
ramp up purchases in case yields rise rapidly.
The BOJ additionally decided to discontinue purchases of risky assets
like exchange-traded funds (ETF) and Japanese real estate investment trusts.
"We judged that sustainable, stable
achievement of our price target came in sight," the central bank said in a
statement explaining the decision to dismantle former Governor Haruhiko
Kuroda's massive stimulus programme.
More
Bank
of Japan ends negative rates, farewells era of radical policy | Reuters
Japanese
bank trains staff for a novel scenario: positive interest rates
By Takahiko Wada and Leika Kihara March 18, 2024 3:05 AM GMT
TOKYO, March 18 (Reuters) - As Japan nears
an end to eight years of negative interest rates, a regional lender in Kyoto is
offering e-learning to train up staff who have no experience lending money or
collecting deposits in a positive interest rate environment.
One
of the sessions, targeting roughly 3,300 Bank of Kyoto (5844.T), opens new tab employees,
explains why interest rates are important, how the lending rate is set and how
rising interest rates affect the bank's business and its clients.
In other sessions, the bank's older executives with experience of the
days when Japan had positive interest rates share their know-how on convincing
borrowers to swallow higher charges.
The e-training, which is offered in sessions of about 30 minutes
viewable on smartphones, also aims to get younger staff geared up for
intensifying competition to attract deposits, which until now had been a
liability as lenders sat on a huge pile of money.
Other sessions offer more practical guidance on how to explain to
borrowers that lending rates will rise and to increase deposits through better
communication with customers.
"It's pretty basic because we want younger staff, in particular, to
understand what it's like in a world where interest rates are positive,"
Tadashi Shimamoto, deputy general manager at Bank of Kyoto's human resources
and general affairs division, said in an interview.
"It's crucial to have our staff understand that
things are quite different when interest rates rise, and to change their
mindset so we're ready when the moment comes," he added.
More
Japanese bank trains staff for a novel scenario: positive interest rates | 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.
House
prices reach highest level in 10 months in March
MONDAY 18 MARCH 2024 6:00 AM
Green shoots continue to emerge in the property market as
March has welcomed the highest rise in house prices in 10 months.
According
to a report by Rightmove, the average price of newly marketed properties
rose by £5,279 this month to £368k.
The figure trumped the average March increase of
1.0 per cent and is the biggest leap in 10 months.
The number of sales being agreed is now 13 per
cent higher than at this time last year and buyer demand is now eight per
cent higher than the year before.
Despite the above average price increases in the
opening three months of the year, asking prices are still £4,776 below their
peak last May.
In London house prices rose by 0.9 per cent to
£686k, remaining the most expensive in the UK.
Rightmove said London has seen the biggest increase
in buyer demand, both overall and for top-of-the-ladder properties, compared to
this time last year.
“The return to the office, wage increases, stable
house prices and the slowing of inflation have all played their part in
increasing buyer interest in living in the capital again,” it said.
Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s director
of property science, added: “March is typically a strong month for asking price
growth, as both buyer and seller activity levels rise and the spring selling
season gets underway.
“However, the stronger than usual
price growth this March indicates that new sellers are feeling much more
confident, with some perhaps being over-optimistic, that there is enough buyer
activity and affordability in their local market to achieve a higher price.”
Britain’s housing market has shown signs of recovery this year despite mortgage rates rising and the economy slipping into a technical recession in the last quarter of 2023.
House prices reach highest level in 10 months in March (cityam.com)
China's BYD launches
new version of Destroyer 07 hybrid at lower starting price
Reuters March 18, 2024 5:18 AM
GMT
BEIJING, March 18 (Reuters) - Chinese electric vehicle giant
BYD (002594.SZ), opens new tab launched on Monday a
new version of its Destroyer 07 hybrid car at a starting price 11.3% lower than
its predecessor, Reuters calculations showed.
China's BYD launches new version of Destroyer 07
hybrid at lower starting price | Reuters
Covid-19
Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Today, something different, or
is it? Could it be Covid related or Covid vaccine related? Could it be related
to the massive over use of plastics and massive rise of micro plastics?
Scientists confirm the new number one cause of
disease around the world
March 18, 2024
Scientists have confirmed
that the new number one cause of disease around the world involves the nervous
system.
Thanks to events like
the Covid-19 pandemic and the re-emergence of ancient diseases, it can seem like there is no end to the harm humans
might face.
But, a major US study has
confirmed that the conditions which affect the nervous system, like strokes,
migraines and dementia, are the leading cause of ill health. It surpassed heart
disease for the first time after strokes were reclassified by the World Health
Organisation from cardiovascular to neurological.
The analysis was
conducted by hundreds of researchers, who were led by the US-based Institute
for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). Their results were published in The
Lancet journal last week.
Their results found that in
2021, over 3.4 billion people experienced a neurological condition – 43 per
cent of the world’s population. Experts were stunned by the results, which far
exceeded the numbers they previously thought.
Neurological conditions have
increased by 59 per cent over the last three decades. The rise may be
attributed to our ageing and growing populations.
According
to lead study author Jaimie Steinmetz of the IHME, the results show that
nervous system conditions are currently “the world's leading cause of overall
disease burden”.
Between 1990 and 2021, the
researchers analysed how 37 different neurological conditions had an impact on
ill health, disability and premature death across 204 countries and
territories.
Using the data, it was calculated how
many years of healthy life are lost to different conditions, with experts
naming this number the disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).
Around the world in 2021, over 443
million DALYs were lost to disorders of the nervous system. The figure is up by
18 per cent from 1990. However, when the figure was adjusted for age and
population size, DALYs and deaths fell by a third.
Stroke emerged as the worst
neurological condition as it counted for 160 million years of healthy life
lost.
Scientists confirm the new number one cause of disease
around the world (msn.com)
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.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announces new AI
chips: ‘We need bigger GPUs’
Nvidia on
Monday announced a new generation of artificial intelligence chips and software
for running artificial intelligence models. The announcement, made during
Nvidia’s developer’s conference in San Jose, comes as the chipmaker seeks to
solidify its position as the go-to supplier for AI companies.
Nvidia’s share price is up
five-fold and total sales have more than tripled since OpenAI’s ChatGPT kicked
off the AI boom in late 2022. Nvidia’s high-end server GPUs are essential for
training and deploying large AI models. Companies like Microsoft and Meta have
spent billions of dollars buying the chips.
The new generation of AI graphics
processors is named Blackwell. The first Blackwell chip is called the GB200 and
will ship later this year. Nvidia is enticing its customers with more powerful
chips to spur new orders. Companies and software makers, for example, are still
scrambling to get their hands on the current generation of “Hopper” H100s and
similar chips.
“Hopper is fantastic, but we need
bigger GPUs,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Monday at the company’s developer
conference in California.
Nvidia shares fell more than 1% in
extended trading on Monday.
The company also introduced
revenue-generating software called NIM that will make it easier to deploy AI,
giving customers another reason to stick with Nvidia chips over a
rising field of competitors.
Nvidia executives say that the
company is becoming less of a mercenary chip provider and more of a platform
provider, like Microsoft or Apple, on which other companies can build software.
“Blackwell’s not a chip, it’s the
name of a platform,” Huang said.
More
Nvidia
announces GB200 Blackwell AI chip, launching later this year (cnbc.com)
Hot rock batteries are coming to Europe — soon
March 16, 2024
For investors in new
decarbonisation technologies, there is one question that trumps all others.
When will they become competitive with existing fossil fuel alternatives?
Solar and wind power have
crossed the line; electric vehicles are close. The next candidate for this
coveted position is the heat-based battery for plants and factories.
Such electro-thermal installations,
variously made of rocks, bricks and other materials heated with an electric
coil, aim to solve one of the energy transition’s largest and least
talked-about problems. Delivering high temperatures — anything from 100 to
1,500 degrees — to make food, beverages, paper, chemicals and a host of other
materials accounts for about a quarter of current fossil fuel consumption
globally. This is also 20 per cent of carbon emissions.
Potential solutions, such as burning
hydrogen or capturing carbon, are almost by definition more expensive than
existing gas-fired boilers. So is using electricity directly: wholesale prices
in the UK are around £60/MWh, almost three times the cost of natural gas.
That is now changing. Advances in
heat pumps, which get over the cost hurdle by delivering two to three times the
energy they need to run, make them a candidate for temperatures up to 200C.
Beyond that, electro-thermal batteries lead the field.
Their selling point is that
they can heat up bricks and such using the cheapest six hours of electricity in
any given day. These can soak up the midday glut in southern European solar
power, or a midnight excess of northern European wind. Then these batteries
discharge heat over the next 18 hours.
Today, that would cut perhaps
30 to 40 per cent off the cost of electricity from wholesale prices. As more
renewables enter the mix, midday prices might fall to zero or even negative.
On top of that, bricks and
rocks are cheap — costing perhaps 15-20€/MWh compared with electro-chemical
batteries at €150/MWh — and lose very little energy in the process. They are
already competitive in Spain. Portuguese utility EDP last week joined up with
San Francisco-based hot-brick maker Rondo to pitch this to clients across
Europe.
There are still hurdles to
clear. Today’s heat batteries only reach 400 degrees, according to a report by Systemiq,
although some manufacturers say they can go to 650 degrees heating with steam.
The lower limit would lop off around half of the addressable market.
Meanwhile, much of Europe has been
saddled with an electricity-pricing mechanism that does not pass on the full
benefits of cheap peak renewable production and lower grid congestion. But this
is changing. Thus the business of hot rocks already has a solid future.
Hot
rock batteries are coming to Europe — soon (msn.com)
Finally, our
latest new section, the world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
Frederic Bastiat.
No comments:
Post a Comment