Baltic Dry Index. 2374 +24 Brent
Crude 85.34
Spot Gold 2156 U S 2 Year Yield 4.72 +0.04
When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.
Frederic Bastiat.
Are US stocks rolling over ahead of next week’s Fed meetings?
Maybe, but it also is starting to look like many US consumers have run out of cash, credit and an ability to service their existing debt.
Stick around, next week could get very
interesting.
S&P
500 closes lower on inflation worries, notches second straight weekly loss:
Live updates
UPDATED FRI, MAR 15 2024 4:27 PM EDT
The S&P 500 fell
on Friday and notched its second-straight weekly loss, with technology stocks
under pressure as inflation concerns remain front and center ahead of the
Federal Reserve’s policy meeting next week.
The broad market index lost 0.65%
to close at 5,117.09. The Dow Jones
Industrial Average dipped
190.89 points, or 0.49%, to finish the session at 38,714.77, while the Nasdaq Composite slipped
0.96% to 15,973.17.
The S&P 500 shed 0.13% this
week. The 30-stock Dow inched lower by 0.02% on the week, and the Nasdaq
slipped 0.7%.
Tech shares were broadly lower,
with Amazon and Microsoft down
more than 2% each. Shares of Apple and
Google-parent Alphabet also
fell. Chip giant Nvidia has
whipsawed this week as traders worry about the stock’s valuation and book
profits in the high-flying name; it ended the day slightly lower but was up
about 0.4% for the week.
Investors remain hyper vigilant
after a slew of data from earlier in the week. February’s producer price index,
a gauge of wholesaler inflation, advanced more
than economists anticipated. The data has helped push the benchmark 10-year Treasury higher
by about 22 basis points this week, as investors wondered if the recent
economic data was too strong for the Federal Reserve to loosen monetary policy.
The Fed will begin its two-day policy meeting on March 19.
Recent economic releases could
throw into question whether the Fed feels inflation has cooled enough to begin
lowering levels later this year and could raise long-term borrowing rates,
according to Macquarie global FX and rates strategist at Thierry Wizman.
“I think the other issue here is
not just the 2024 and 2025 [dot plot], its the other issues that the Fed is
thinking about which includes that the market is too frothy,” Wizman said. “For
that reason it could signal that it thinks long-term interest rates should be
higher.”
To be sure, fed funds futures are
pricing in a 99% likelihood of the central bank keeping interest rates
unchanged at its policy meeting next week, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
Stock
market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
Laid-off
techies face ‘sense of impending doom’ with job cuts at highest since dot-com
crash
Allison Croisant, a data scientist with about a
decade of experience in technology, was laid off by PayPal earlier
this year, joining the masses of unemployed across her industry. Croisant has
one word to describe the process of looking for a job right now: “Insane.”
“Everybody else is also getting
laid off,” said Croisant, who lives in Omaha, Nebraska, where she worked
remotely for PayPal.
Her sentiment is reflected in the
numbers. Since the start of the year, more than 50,000 workers have been laid
off from over 200 tech
companies, according to tracking website Layoffs.fyi. It’s a continuation of the
predominant theme of 2023, when more than 260,000 workers across nearly 1,200
tech companies lost their jobs.
Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft have
all taken part in the downsizing this year, along with eBay, Unity Software, SAP and Cisco.
Wall Street has largely cheered on the cost-cutting, sending many tech stocks
to record highs on optimism that spending discipline coupled with efficiency
gains from artificial intelligence will lead to rising profits. PayPal announced in
January that it was eliminating 9% of its workforce, or about 2,500 jobs.
For the tens of thousands of people
in Croisant’s position, the path toward reemployment is daunting. All told,
2023 was the second-biggest year of cuts on record in the technology sector,
behind only the dot-com crash in 2001, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Not since the spectacular flameouts of Pets.com, eToys and Webvan have so many
tech workers lost their jobs in such a short period of time.
Last month’s job cut count was the highest
of any February since 2009, when the financial crisis forced
companies into cash preservation mode.
More
Laid-off
techies struggle to find jobs with cuts at highest since 2001 (cnbc.com)
American Debt
Stings Like Never Before in New Era for Households
Claire Ballentine and Eliza Ronalds-Hannon Fri, March 15, 2024 at 11:00 AM GMT
(Bloomberg) -- After years of managing household budgets through the
stress of the worst inflation in a generation, US families are increasingly
pressured by a different kind of financial squeeze: The cost of carrying debt.
Two years after the Federal Reserve began hiking interest rates to tame
prices, delinquency rates on credit cards and auto loans are the highest in
more than a decade. For the first time on record, interest payments on those
and other non-mortgage debts are as big a financial burden for US households as
mortgage interest payments.
The figures suggest a difficult reality for the millions of consumers
who are the engine of the US economy: The era of high borrowing costs — however
necessary to slow price increases — has a sting of its own that many families
may feel for years to come, especially the ones that haven’t locked in cheap
home loans. And the Fed, which meets next week for a policy decision, doesn’t
appear poised to cut rates until later in 2024.
As monthly debt payments take up more of workers’ paychecks, those
consumers are more exposed to potential economic contractions.
And the cost of money affects people’s perception of their own
prosperity: A February paper from IMF and Harvard University researchers posits
that the recent high cost of borrowing — which isn’t captured in inflation
figures — is key to understanding why consumer sentiment remains lackluster
even as inflation has moderated and businesses are hiring at a healthy pace.
That theory suggests the debt burden could be a drag on President Joe
Biden’s reelection bid, with the economy consistently registering as a top
concern at the ballot box.
More
American
Debt Stings Like Never Before in New Era for Households (yahoo.com)
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.
This weekend, a reality check on those US
inflation figures, Reality not spin. Approx. 8 minutes.
TOO
LATE: Yellen Is Forced To Admit She Was Wrong As Inflation Heats Up and US
Deficit Surges
This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Covid most likely came from a lab
leak amid 'unusual' activity, new study reveals
March 15, 2024
Covid-19 most
likely originated in a lab, a new study has concluded.
The origin of the pandemic has long been contentious.
Some believe the virus was zoonotic and spread from animals to humans, such as
via the wet market in Wuhan, China. Others believe it
leaked, accidentally or otherwise, from a laboratory – namely the Wuhan
Institute of Virology, also in China.
Now, scientists have
discovered that Covid-19 is more likely to have had an ‘unnatural’ origin than
a ‘natural’ one. A research team used an established risk analysis tool called
the Grunow-Finke assessment to create a likelihood scale for possible pandemic
causes.
Results from the assessment pointed to the virus having
an ‘unnatural’ origin – with the fact that the first infections were in the
vicinity of laboratories studying coronaviruses noted as one of the strongest
indications. The study highlights that the first cases of Covid-19 were
reported in Wuhan, China, on December 30 2019 – all within close proximity of
both the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and the Wuhan Center for Disease
Control and Prevention (WHCDC).
Dr Xin Chen, a researcher at the University of New South
Wales (UNSW) in Australia, said: “The WIV had
been conducting experiments involving SARS-like coronavirus in bats since 2010.
One of the bat viruses being studied at the WIV shares a 96.1 per cent homology
with SARS-CoV-2, something which was only revealed after the pandemic began.
“The WIV was only eight miles away from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale
Market, where some of the initial cases were linked to. The WHCDC was also
studying coronaviruses, and on 2 December 2019, less than a month before the
first infections, it moved to a location 280m from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale
Market. A move may have increased the chance of a laboratory accident.”
Dr Chen added that although some scientists use the outbreak at the wet
market as an indication of a ‘natural’ or zoonotic origin, several of the first
infected people had not visited Huanan. “This points to the possibility that
Huanan was a source of an amplification event, rather than 105 the origin of
SARS-CoV-2,” he said. "It is also worth noting that evidence of an
intermediary animal host – necessary for this theory – is lacking.”
The team also highlighted ‘unusual’ actions by scientists working at the
WIV as a factor pointing to a lab leak origin of Covid-19.
More
Covid
most likely came from a lab leak amid 'unusual' activity, new study reveals
(msn.com)
'Long Covid' doesn't
EXIST, doctors say in stunning pushback against term that's creating
'unnecessary fear'
March 15,
2024
Long Covid is not a thing and the medical profession must scrap this
term immediately, doctors say in a scathing assessment of a phenomenon that's
believed to affect around 1.9 million Britons.
According to the chief health officer of Queensland, Australia, the
designation implies that there's something unique about the long-term symptoms
of Covid-19.
In reality, the after-effects of Covid are indistinguishable from those
caused by other viruses, such as the flu. These persistent complaints, which
can include fatigue and shortness of breath, fall under the umbrella of
post-viral syndrome.
Warping the language in this way perpetuates a climate of fear and
impedes recovery, warns Doctor John Gerrard, Queensland’s chief health officer.
He said: "We believe it is time to stop using terms like 'long
Covid'.
"They wrongly imply there is something unique and exceptional about
longer term symptoms associated with this virus.
"This terminology can cause unnecessary fear, and in some cases,
hypervigilance to longer symptoms that can impede recovery."
The doctor's comments follow a new study of long Covid by the Australian
state of Queensland. Researchers surveyed 5,112 adults who had either Covid or
flu between 29 May and 25 June 2022.
A year later, participants were asked about ongoing symptoms and the
degree of functional impairment using a questionnaire.
Overall, 16 percent of all respondents reported ongoing symptoms a year
later, and 3.6 percent reported moderate-to-severe functional impairment in
their activities of daily life.
The analysis found no evidence that those who had Covid were more likely
to have moderate-to-severe functional limitations a year after their diagnosis
than those with other viral infections, including flu.
Those who were more likely tended to be aged 50 years or older, and
those who had symptoms of dizziness, muscle pain, shortness of breath,
post-exertional malaise, and fatigue.
The
findings will be presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology
and Infectious Diseases conference in Barcelona next month.
More
Finally,
our latest new section, the world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP
compared.
World Debt Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
Technology Update.
With events happening fast in the
development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
New ‘healable’ material could lead
to a battery revolution, creators say
A new “healable” material
could lead to a battery revolution, the engineers behind it say.
Scientists have long been
hoping to create solid-state batteries out of
lithium and suphur. Such technology could be a much better alternative the
existing lithium-ion batteries that currently power our phones, cars and much
else besides, because they can store more energy and cost less.
Such batteries could store up to twice as much energy than conventional
batteries. That would double the range of an electric vehicle without adding
any more weight, for instance.
They would also use easily sourced material that would make them better
for the environment and cheaper to make.
But those lithium-sulfur solid-state batteries have proven difficult
because of the problems of making sulphur cathodes. The material is bad at
conducting electrons, and they can expand and contract as they charge, meaning
that they get damaged and work less reliably.
Now scientists have made a new cathode material, creating a crystal out
of sulphur and iodine. That iodine makes the material far more conductive: 100
billion times more conductive than sulphur alone.
“We are very excited about the discovery of this new material,” said
Ping Liu, a professor of nanoengineering and director of the Sustainable Power
and Energy Center at UC San Diego. “The drastic increase in electrical
conductivity in sulfur is a surprise and scientifically very interesting.”
What’s more, the crystal can be melted at a low temperature, under that
of a hot cup of coffee. That means that it can be melted down after it is
charged, and allow it to heal from the intense process of charging.
That should help address the problems of damage from repeated charge and
use that have blighted the technology so far.
“The low melting point of our new cathode material makes repairing the
interfaces possible, a long sought-after solution for these batteries,” said
study co-first author Jianbin Zhou, a former nanoengineering postdoctoral
researcher from Liu’s research group. “This new material is an enabling
solution for future high energy density solid-state batteries”.
Researchers note that there is much yet to be done to make a solid-state
battery that could be used in applications such as cars. But the new discovery
helps bring us much closer to that being possible, scientists said.
“This discovery has the potential to solve one of the biggest challenges
to the introduction of solid-state lithium-sulfur batteries by dramatically
increasing the useful life of a battery,” said study co-author Christopher
Brooks, chief scientist at Honda Research Institute USA. “The ability for a
battery to self-heal simply by raising the temperature could significantly
extend the total battery life cycle, creating a potential pathway toward
real-world application of solid-state batteries.”
The findings are reported in a new paper, ‘Healable and Conductive
Sulfur Iodide for Solid-State Li-S Batteries’, published in Nature.
New ‘healable’ material could lead to a battery
revolution, creators say (msn.com)
This weekend’s music diversion. Approx. 4 minutes.
Arcangelo
Corelli - Concerto grosso in D major, Op. 6 No. 4: I. Adagio . Allegro - Trevor
Pinnock
This weekend’s chess
update. Approx. 14 minutes.
"Ivanchuk
has Lost a Pawn, His Mind, and his Queen (not necessarily in that order)"
"Ivanchuk has Lost a Pawn, His Mind, and his
Queen (not necessarily in that order)" (youtube.com)
Finally, why China’s
troubles are a warning for the Biden Joe Biden USA. Approx. 5 minutes.
Why
China’s Deflation Is More Dangerous Than High Inflation | WSJ
Why
China’s Deflation Is More Dangerous Than High Inflation | WSJ (youtube.com)
When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe.
Frederic Bastiat.
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