Baltic Dry Index. 2123 -73 Brent Crude 86.80
Spot Gold 2174 US 2 Year Yield 4.54 -0.05
The State is a gang of thieves writ large - the most immoral, grasping and unscrupulous individuals in any society.
Murray Rothbard.
In the stock casinos, more nervousness in what should be an end of quarter week to dress up stocks and indexes.
After all, the central banksters are about to blow up stock prices this summer with a massive round of interest rate cuts, right. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, with President Biden Joe Biden
and Fed Chairman Powell and the Fed chorus all saying the US economy is
booming, suppose any US interest rate cuts get deferred into 2025? They wouldn’t
do that would they?
Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA
Research, noted that equities have gotten expensive, with the S&P now
trading at a 33% premium to its average price-to-earnings ratio over the last
20 years.
Asia markets
mixed after Wall Street rally pauses; South Korea’s Kospi hits over 2-year high
UPDATED TUE, MAR 26 2024 1:38 AM EDT
Asia-Pacific
markets were mixed Tuesday as the U.S. market took a breather following a rally
sparked by optimism over the Federal Reserve’s interest rate stance at its
latest meeting.
Sam Stovall, chief investment
strategist at CFRA Research, noted that equities have gotten expensive, with
the S&P now trading at a 33% premium to its average price-to-earnings ratio
over the last 20 years.
“We’re coming off of a post-FOMC
high,” he told CNBC, referring to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Federal Open
Market Committee meeting last week. “The market is getting more and more
vulnerable to a market decline or a pullback in prices.”
Investors in Asia digested
economic data, with Japan’s service producer price index for February coming in
at 2.1%.
Singapore’s manufacturing output
increased 14.2% in February from January. January saw a 6.7% decline in
manufacturing. The country’s Straits Times
index rose
0.9%.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was
trading 0.12% lower, while the broader Topix was flat.
South Korea’s Kospi added
0.79%, hitting its highest level since February 2022. The smaller-cap Kosdaq
edged 0.05% lower.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 fell
0.41% to end at 7,780.20, after coming close to its all-time high on Monday.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index climbed
0.17%, powered by energy and industrial stocks, while the mainland Chinese CSI
300 rose 0.02%.
Overnight in the U.S., all
three major indexes lost ground, with the Dow
Jones Industrial Average down 0.41% and the S&P
500 dipping 0.31%, while the Nasdaq
Composite was 0.27% lower.
Asia
markets live updates: Singapore manufacturing data, Japan service PPI
(cnbc.com)
European stocks
head for mixed open as Wall Street rally takes a breather
UPDATED TUE, MAR 26 2024 1:30 AM EDT
European
markets are heading for a lackluster open Tuesday as investors continue to
ponder last week’s central
bank policy decisions in Europe and the U.S.
Regional markets had a tentative
start to the new trading week Monday and the lack of momentum looks set to
continue Tuesday.
Today, investors in Europe, the
Middle East and Africa will be keeping an eye out as Nigeria’s central bank
publishes its latest monetary policy decision, and as earnings come from Smiths
Group, Ocado Retail, Bellway and A.G. Barr.
Asia-Pacific
markets were mixed Tuesday as the U.S. market took a breather
after a rally sparked by optimism over the Federal Reserve’s interest rate
stance at its latest meeting. U.S.
stock futures traded near the flatline Monday night, after the
major averages took a breather from their rally.
European
markets live updates: stocks, news, data and earnings (cnbc.com)
Stock
futures are little changed as market rally takes a breather: Live updates
UPDATED MON, MAR 25 2024 7:37 PM EDT
U.S. stock
futures traded near the flatline Monday night, after the major averages took a
breather from their rally.
Dow
Jones Industrial Average futures inched
up just 11 points, or 0.03%. Futures tied to both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 added
about 0.1% each.
The three major
averages ended Monday lower. The 30-stock Dow dipped
0.4%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite fell
around 0.3% each. The pullbacks come on the back of last week’s strong gains,
during which the indexes reached new all-time closing high levels.
Month to date,
the major U.S. stock benchmarks are on pace for their fifth straight winning
month. The broad market index is up more than 2% in March. The Nasdaq Composite
is toting a 1.8% advance for the period, while the Dow is up 0.8%.
Despite some
concerns that the market rally has crossed into overbought territory, investors
still can’t be underweight on equities as of now, according to 3Fourteen
Research cofounder Warren Pies.
“There are a lot
of people who are underweight or under-exposed to this market, and they’re
going to scramble to get exposed,” Pies told CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime”
on Monday. “I think the combination of a soft landing, a Fed that has your back
and under-invested strategists and institutions means that this rally can keep
going.”
More economic
data releases are slated for Tuesday. March’s consumer confidence data will be
released in the morning. Durable goods orders and the Richmond Fed’s
manufacturing survey will also provide insight on the health of the
manufacturing sector.
Stock
market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
Hedge funds flock to
Europe, ditch US stocks
By Carolina Mandl
March
25, 2024 8:32 PM GMT
NEW YORK, March 25 (Reuters)
- Global hedge funds have been adding European stocks to their portfolios this
year while trimming their exposure to North America amid an ongoing debate over
how expensive U.S. equities are, Morgan Stanley's proprietary data showed.
Europe's STOXX 600 (.STOXX) is up 6.5% this year, still
lagging the S&P 500 (.SPX), which rose 9.6%. Last year, the
S&P rallied 24%, posting the double of the STOXX performance.
The S&P 500 trades at 21 times forward earnings
estimates, while European equities are trading at 14 times, BofA Securities
showed.
Hedge funds "have bought EU equities in nearly
70% of the trading sessions since the Euro STOXX 600 began its rally in
mid-January," Morgan Stanley said. Following the acquisitions, hedge funds
portfolio exposure to Europe has grown from below 17% at the end of 2023 to
roughly 19%.
Morgan Stanley said investors are mostly adding
long positions to Europe, betting shares will rise. Their favorite sectors in
the continent are information technology services, industrial conglomerates,
semi-conductors, electrical equipment and life science tools and services.
As one of the biggest global prime brokerages
providing services to hedge funds, Morgan Stanley tracks its clients' money
flow to show trends.
Many market participants
believe that U.S. stocks are trading at hefty valuation premiums over
global equities.
Michael Wilson, Morgan Stanley's equity strategist, said further
multiple expansions in U.S. equities depends on better earnings outlooks for
this and next year. "We think this rally has been mostly about looser
financial conditions and falling cost of capital as a result of the Fed's 4Q
dovish shift," he wrote.
More
Hedge
funds flock to Europe, ditch US stocks | 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.
The
US economy is booming says, the US central bank. So why the need to cut US
interest rates at all, risking another burst of consumer price inflation?
Here’s
why the Fed doesn’t see a US recession in coming years
March
24, 2024
America’s central bank
doesn’t see any signs of a recession on the horizon. Not this year nor the year
after.
The Federal Reserve’s
policymaking committee of 19 officials released a new set of economic
projections last week, showing that
they now expect economic growth in 2024, 2025 and 2026 to be even stronger than
they previously thought.
That optimism seems to be the
consensus among analysts, including Goldman Sachs’ chief economist: The ruthless economic pains of a recession, such as
mass layoffs and tepid consumer spending, probably won’t happen anytime soon.
“The economy is strong, the
labor market is strong and inflation has come way down,” Fed Chair Jerome
Powell said Wednesday.
Corporate
earnings have been robust, the
stock market continues to break record after record and
America might be in the thick of a productivity boom that
could boost growth without stoking inflation.
And even though interest
rates are at their highest levels in two decades, the economy continues to
display remarkable resilience. Economists say that strength could persist
through the coming years.
Fed officials continue to
expect three rate cuts this year but the days of ultra-low interest rates are
long gone. Interest rates will eventually settle down at levels well above the
near-zero rates seen before the Fed began to hike in 2022.
But economists say that won’t
present any problem for the sturdy US economy.
“A lot of my peers are
calling it higher-for-longer, but it’s really stronger-for-longer,” Mike
Skordeles, head of US economics at Truist Advisory Services, told CNN.
US gross domestic product,
the broadest measure of economic output, registered at a strong 3.2% annualized rate in the fourth quarter. That was after a gangbusters 4.9% rate in
the prior three-month period. The Atlanta Fed is currently projecting that the
economy expanded at a 2.1% rate in the first three months of 2024.
Fed officials estimate that
growth in 2024 overall will hit 2.1%, then 2% in each of the following two
years.
More
Here’s why the Fed doesn’t see a US recession in coming years (msn.com)
Covid-19
Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
COVID-19
Had a Much Greater Impact on Life Expectancy Than Previously Thought
By
A recent study published in The Lancet never-before-seen
unprecedented details on the exceptionally high death rates due to the COVID-19 pandemic both within nations and
internationally. Regions including Mexico City, Peru, and Bolivia experienced
some of the most significant reductions in life expectancy from 2019 to 2021.
This research, offering new estimates from the 2021 Global Burden of Disease
Study, delivers the most thorough examination yet of the pandemic’s impact on
human health. It reveals that the worldwide average life expectancy decreased
by 1.6 years between 2019 and 2021, a sharp reversal from past increases.
Among GBD’s other key findings, child mortality continued to drop amid
the COVID-19 pandemic, with half a million fewer deaths among children under 5
in 2021 compared to 2019. Mortality rates among children under 5 decreased by
7% from 2019 to 2021.
“For adults worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a more profound
impact than any event seen in half a century, including conflicts and natural
disasters,” says co-first author Dr. Austin E. Schumacher, Acting Assistant
Professor of Health Metrics Sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and
Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.
“Life expectancy declined in 84% of countries and territories during this
pandemic, demonstrating the devastating potential impacts of novel pathogens.”
Researchers from IHME identified high mortality during the COVID-19
pandemic in places that were previously less recognized and/or reported. For
example, the study reveals that after accounting for the age of the population,
countries such as Jordan and Nicaragua had high excess mortality due to the
COVID-19 pandemic that was not apparent in previous all-age excess mortality
estimates. In analyzing subnational locations not previously investigated, the
South African provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo had among the highest
age-adjusted excess mortality rates and largest life expectancy declines during
the pandemic in the world. Conversely, the places with some of the lowest
age-adjusted excess mortality from the pandemic during this period included
Barbados, New Zealand, and Antigua and Barbuda.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, mortality among older people worldwide
rose in ways unseen in the previous 70 years. While the pandemic was
devastating, killing approximately 16 million people around the globe in 2020
and 2021 combined, it did not completely erase historic progress – life
expectancy at birth rose by nearly 23 years between 1950 and 2021.
GBD 2021 analyzes past and current demographic trends at global,
regional, national, and subnational levels. The study provides globally
comparable measures of excess mortality and is one of the first studies to
fully evaluate demographic trends in the context of the first two years of the
COVID-19 pandemic. In estimating excess deaths due to the pandemic, the authors
accounted for deaths from the virus that causes
COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, as well as deaths associated with indirect
effects of the pandemic, such as delays in seeking health care.
More
COVID-19 Had a Much Greater Impact on Life Expectancy
Than Previously Thought (scitechdaily.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.
Chinese EV battery maker in talks to invest £1bn in new
UK gigafactory
Plant
on outskirts of Coventry could create up to 6,000 jobs and will be part of
planned Centre for Electrification
Sun 24 Mar 2024 16.58 GMT
A Chinese manufacturer of electric vehicle batteries is
in talks to invest more than £1bn to build a giant new factory on the outskirts
of Coventry.
EVE Energy, which says it employs 28,000 staff worldwide, is understood to be in talks to construct a 5.7m sq ft
gigafactory, which will form one of the main parts of the planned UK Centre for
Electrification, an investment zone in the West Midlands.
Sources with knowledge of the talks confirmed EVE’s
interest in the project, which could create up to 6,000 jobs in partnership with local councils and Coventry
airport, where the plant will be located.
The Chinese company is thought to be considering
committing an initial £1.2bn to the project, according to the Sunday Times,
which first reported the discussions. Subsequent phases of the works are
expected to expand the site, which would make it almost twice the size of
Nissan’s electric battery factory in Sunderland.
Last year, Tata Group, the owner of Jaguar Land Rover,
also made a £4bn pledge to
build an electric car battery gigafactory in Britain. The plant, to be sited in Somerset,
will bring 4,000 new jobs to the area.
The West Midlands is
home to a number of carmaking facilities – including ones run by Jaguar Land
Rover, Aston Martin Lagonda and BMW – as well as the UK’s largest battery
research centre, the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre.
The Coventry gigafactory plan could attract total private
funding of up to £2bn, but any investment is likely to be contingent on
hundreds of millions of pounds of UK subsidies.
More
Finally,
our latest new section, the world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP
compared.
World Debt
Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
The natural tendency of government, once in charge of money, is to inflate and to destroy the value of the currency.
Murray Rothbard.
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