Baltic
Dry Index. 2377 +32
Brent Crude 82.51
Spot Gold 2176 US 2 Year Yield 4.51 +0.03
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
Aesop.
Yes, it’s that time of the month again, when the global stock casinos try to guess the first of the USA’s inflation numbers and how that will influence Chairman Powell and his gang over at the US central bank.
Look away from the real US economy, where a distressed Manhattan office building recently changed hands for a dollar. (There were other considerations involved like walking away from an unwise 45 million cash injection, but you get the drift.)
Hong Kong
leads gains in Asia as most markets rise; Nikkei slides further
UPDATED TUE, MAR 12 2024 1:42 AM EDT
Asia-Pacific
markets mostly rose led by gains in Hong Kong as the Hang Seng index surged
over 2%, on track to extend its winning streak to three days, while the
mainland Chinese CSI 300 rose 0.37%.
This come as Japan’s corporate
inflation rate for February rose to 0.6%, beating the 0.5% expected by
economists polled by Reuters and climbing from January’s figure of 0.2%.
A strong inflation reading could
also clear the way for the Bank of Japan to raise rates sooner rather than
later, which would weigh on Japan’s equity markets.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped
for a second straight day, losing 0.23%, while the broad based Topix was down
0.67%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rebounded
and gained 0.11%, closing at 7,712.5. South Korea’s Kospi also
regained some ground, trading up 0.52%, while the small cap Kosdaq climbed
1.25%.
Investors will also be keeping an
eye on inflation figures out of India as well as the U.S. later Tuesday, which
could give a clue as to when the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates.
Overnight in the U.S., all three major indexes
ended the session mixed as the tech rally continues to cool, with both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite seeing
a second straight negative session and falling 0.11% and 0.41%, respectively.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average bucked
the trend, adding 0.12%.
Asia
markets live updates: Japan CGPI, US inflation (cnbc.com)
European
markets set to open higher ahead of the latest U.S. inflation report
UPDATED TUE, MAR 12 2024 1:35 AM EDT
European
markets are heading for a higher open Tuesday as global investors await the
latest U.S. inflation report.
The February
reading of the consumer price index, which is set to be released on
Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. ET, is being closely watched to see how it could inform
the Federal Reserve’s interest rate trajectory.
Economists expect that prices
across a broad spectrum of goods and services rose 0.4% on the month, just
ahead of the January pace of 0.3%, according to the Dow Jones consensus.
The uptick in January’s CPI figure
rattled the markets and prompted Fed officials to
shift their rhetoric afterward to a more cautious tone about
easing policy. The current market pricing indicates that the Fed won’t cut
interest rates at its meeting on March 19-20 or the one on April 30 to May
1.
Overnight, Asia-Pacific
markets mostly rose as Japan’s corporate inflation figures for
January came in higher than expected.
European
markets live updates: stocks, news, U.S. inflation data (cnbc.com)
Stock
futures inch up as all eyes are on key inflation reading: Live updates
UPDATED TUE, MAR 12 2024 1:26 AM EDT
Stock futures rose slightly early
Tuesday as investors await a key inflation report that could inform the path of
the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy.
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 54 points,
or 0.14%. S&P 500 futures inched up 0.38%, and Nasdaq 100 futures gained
about 0.63%.
All eyes are on the February
reading of the consumer price index, which is set to be released
Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. ET. Economists polled by Dow Jones forecast a monthly gain
of 0.4% and a 3.1% increase on headline.
The
uptick in January’s CPI figure rattled the markets and prompted
Fed officials to
shift their rhetoric afterward to a more cautious tone about
easing policy. The current market pricing indicates that the Fed won’t cut
interest rates at its meeting on March 19-20 or the one on April 30 to May
1.
“The CPI index likely ran hot in February
on higher gasoline prices, but core inflation likely slowed
further as car prices fell and rent increases moderated,”
said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank.
The technology-led market rally has lost momentum as of late
as some of the biggest winners this year continued to retreat. Nvidia lost
another 2% Monday, after dropping more than 5% Friday, its largest one-day
decline since May 2023.
Some of the other members of the “Magnificent Seven” also
pulled back recently. Apple shares have lost 8.5% in the past month, while
Alphabet has slid 7.6%. Microsoft has retreated nearly 4% during the same
period and Tesla has fallen 8.2%.
“As the market broadens beyond mega-cap tech names, investors
can expect to see more consolidation and fairly modest returns in the
high-level market-based indexes,” said Mark Hackett, Nationwide’s chief of
investment research.
Stock market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
Finally, just how bad will America’s commercial
real estate/banking bust get?
What a $1 deal says about America's office market
March 10, 2024
New York City deli owner Jimmy Yavrodi looks grimly out of the shop that he opened 27 years ago in one of the city's prime business districts.
"Everything is empty," he says. "I don't understand it."
From his perch on Park Avenue South, the 61-year-old sent two children to university and employed 12 people, slinging sandwiches and salads for the office workers that streamed in from nearby buildings.
These days it offers a window from which to watch what some are calling America's office "apocalypse".
The famous triangular Flatiron building nearby has been vacant since 2019. Last autumn, the owners said it would be turned into condos.
Around the corner, there's work under way on a new office fronting Madison Square Park. But its anchor tenant, IBM, is consolidating from other spaces in the city.
His next door neighbour, 360 Park Avenue South, has been empty since 2021 for redevelopment. The 20-storey building, which sold for $300m (£233m) that year, recently drew headlines after one of the owners handed over its 29% stake to one of its partners, walking away from commitments to fund $45m more in upgrades, in exchange for $1.
The area still boasts Michelin-starred restaurants and stable tenants, including part of the state's court system.
On the street,
residents will tell you life has returned since Covid.
But sales at Mr
Yavrodi's Taza Cafe & Deli, which have sunk 70% since 2020, tell a
different story - one revealing the enormous challenges facing owners of office
properties around the country, and the risks those issues are creating for the
wider economy.
"We depend
on office employees and office employees are not here. It's very simple
math," he says. "If they don't come to work, places like us can't
survive."
Four years
after the pandemic sparked a revolution in work-from-home practices, especially
pronounced in the US, the shift is proving hard to reverse - and the
consequences no longer possible to ignore.
About 20% of
office space around the US was unleased at the end of last year - the highest
vacancy rate in more than 40 years, according to Moody's Analytics.
With that
number forecast to rise over the next 12 to 18 months, the fall in demand is
changing city neighbourhoods and hitting property values, which have already
plunged an estimated 25% on average across the country.
One recent paper estimated that the US saw more than $660bn in value
wiped out between the end of 2019 and the end of 2022.
The declines
have coincided with a sharp rise in borrowing costs, creating incentives for
even well-financed firms to walk away from their properties, as the value of
their buildings sinks below what they owe on their loans.
----With an
estimated 44% of office mortgages in the country in that position, the troubles
have raised widespread concerns about how banks - and the wider economy - will
absorb the impact as loans start to sour.
Lenders in
countries as far away as Germany and Japan are socking away hundreds of
millions of dollars in anticipation of loans going bad.
In the US, some
300 banks are at risk of failure due to the problem, according
to a recent paper.
The issues are
especially acute among local and regional firms, some of which, such as New
York Community Bank, have already seen shares swoon perilously as investors
flee possible trouble.
As banks
collapse or reduce their lending, analysts say the situation could spiral,
making it harder for people and other firms to get loans and leading to more
severe economic slowdown.
More
What a $1 deal says about America's office market - BBC News
"I wasn't worth two cents two years ago, and now I owe $2 million dollars."
Quoted by Mark
Twain.
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.
London
remains UK’s strongest region as capital powers country out of recession
MONDAY 11 MARCH 2024 6:00 AM
Business activity in London remained
comfortably in expansionary territory, according to a new survey, providing the
engine driving the country out of a recession.
Natwest’s London purchasing managers’
index (PMI) fell to 56.5 in February from 58.3 the month before. The 50 mark
separates growth from contraction.
Despite the decrease, the figures
still pointed to a “robust expansion in activity” with London remaining the
strongest-performing region in the UK.
The survey showed that new orders
increased for the sixth consecutive month, although at a slower pace than
January.
Continued strength in
new orders helped business confidence hit its highest level in two years with
63 per cent of firms forecasting that output would grow in the next year.
Businesses expected to see an improvement in sales and stronger business
investment.
However, firms faced
stubborn cost pressures largely due to high
levels of wage growth. Input prices rose at
their fastest rate for six months after falling to a 33-month low in January.
Firms passed higher costs onto
consumers with the survey pointing to a “sharp and accelerated” increase in
prices charged. Inflation in London was the strongest recorded nationwide and
was comfortably above the long-run average.
Sebastian Burnside, chief economist
at Natwest, said: “Inflation indicators remain particularly high in London, but
they have picked up again in most other areas, too.”
“Price pressures
generally increased across the UK in February, with businesses reporting a
combination of growing wage demands and costs increases related to the Red
Sea shipping disruption,” he continued.
The UK entered a
technical recession with the announcement of a contraction in Q4 of last year,
however more up-to-date readouts of economic activity at the start of 2024
indicate it is likely to be a short-lived downturn.
London remains UK's strongest region despite slight drop in activity (cityam.com)
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
How cost-of-living crisis has changed Britain's shopping habits: Covid hand sanitisers and Guinness are pulled from ONS inflation tracker - while vinyl, air fryers, gluten-free bread and women's socks are added to list
March 11, 2024
Covid hand sanitisers and Guinness have been pulled from the inflation tracker in the first sign of how the cost of living crisis and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic fading has changed Britain's shopping habits.
Meanwhile
people flocking to buy trendy air fryers in a bid to cut their energy bills has
seen the gadget added to The Office of National Statistics' (ONS) 'basket' of
goods.
Gluten-free
bread, rice cakes, sunflower and pumpkin seeds are also included by the ONS as
health-conscious Brits become more wary of their diet.
Vinyl
records have also been added for the list of 740 different goods for the first
time since 1992.
Every
month, the ONS measures inflation - that is to say how
past prices are increasing, or decreasing - for British households.
To do that the statisticians need to figure out what
households normally buy. They have what they call a 'basket' of more than 740
different goods and services that they think people buy.
But over time what people buy changes and the ONS has to make
changes to that list. For instance, in 1992, as CDs and cassettes increased in
popularity, the ONS removed vinyl records from the basket.
Another addition to the list is a
result of the energy crisis. As energy bills soared, people turned to the air
fryer, with manufacturers saying they are a lower-energy way of cooking.
There is a happier sign of the times
in the removals from the list, as hand sanitisers were removed.
Hand sanitisers were added to the
basket in 2021, to reflect how the Covid-19 pandemic was changing peoples'
shopping habits. This year they have been removed.
Some removals from the list are less
about what people are buying less of, and more that the ONS does not think it
needs to track the price of that item specifically.
That is the case for Guinness. This
year, draught stout has been removed from the list, because the price of
draught stout and draught bitter often move together. Therefore the ONS does
not think it needs to track both of them
Other additions to the list this year
include gluten-free bread, rice cakes, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, and women's
socks.
More
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.
Video:
Wave Engine's UAV test flight brings pulsejet into 21st century
Paul Ridden March 08, 2024
Wave Engine
Corp has aced a demonstration flight of a simple jet engine with no moving
parts. A modern version of a pulsejet, the J-1 engine powered a UAV through
take-off and several mid-air stop/starts before the aircraft nailed the
landing.
The Wave
Engine is an evolution of the pulsejet
engine, a simple jet propulsion device where air is
fed into a chamber and fuel introduced. This is ignited to produce a fireball
that forces high-pressure heated gasses down a tube and out of the tailpipe,
creating thrust. As this happens, the pressure inside the engine drops and
creates a partial vacuum which draws fresh air in, and another burst of fuel is
ignited to repeat the process.
This is not new technology of
course. The pulsejet has been around in one form or another for more than a
hundred years, most notably during WWII when it powered the so-called buzz
bombs – an early cruise missile with a fairly limited range that caused daily
mayhem and destruction throughout London from mid-1944.
The advent of online video
platforms has become fertile ground for backyard inventors to test their
pulsejet mettle, with "crazy rocketman" Robert
Maddox regularly breathing fire on
motorcycles, karts, trikes, skateboards and dragsters. But it's the
ever-charismatic Colin Furze we've selected to highlight the essence of these
ear-splitting madcap builds, with his now 10-year-old jetbike test video.
Wave Engine has
spent the last few years tweaking the formula, and now reckons that its
"proprietary technology enables high speeds and allows for an
order-of-magnitude reduction in the cost and complexity of jet
propulsion."
Where some designs
utilize mechanical valves, the digitally controlled Wave Engine uses a short
intake tube as its valve. The combustion chamber sits in front of this and then
curves into the tailpipe. When the air/fuel is ignited, the explosion – or more
correctly deflagration – sends the hot gasses out of both tubes to generate
thrust. Air is sucked in by the resulting vacuum inside, and the process starts
afresh with a new ignition.
The first
full-scale prototypes were developed and tested at the University of Maryland
in 2016. An initial seed round in 2018 raised US$1.45 million, followed by
development funding from DARPA to the tune of $3 million. The company then took
to the air with the first manned aircraft demonstrator in 2020 – where the
prototype engine was reportedly engaged mid-flight. The US Air Force Armament
Directorate added a cool million to the development pot in 2021, and a second
seed round in 2022 brought in another $3.5 million from the private sector.
Now Wave
Engine's first product has been launched in the shape of the 55-lbf-thrust
(245-N) J-1, which has been used as the sole powerplant for a 100-lb (45-kg)
Conventional Take-Off and Landing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) dubbed the
Scitor-D. This time the test flight included remote start using liquid fuel,
self-powered take-off, climb-cruise, mid-air engine stops and landing. Ear
protectors at the ready for the video below!
More
Video: Wave Engine's UAV test flight brings pulsejet
into 21st century (newatlas.com)
Finally, our
new section, the world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
The State of Counterfeit Money Statistics (2023 Update)
August 10,
2023
Counterfeit money is a problem that has been around
for as long as currency has been in use. In recent years, the problem has
become increasingly prevalent, with an estimated $200 billion worth of
counterfeit bills in circulation worldwide.
This number continues to grow as technology makes
it easier and easier to create fake money. While various measures have been
taken to try and combat this issue, it remains a significant problem for
governments and businesses alike.
In this article, we will explore the state of
counterfeit money statistics, looking at how much counterfeit money is in
circulation, which currencies are most commonly counterfeited, and how much
this illegal activity is worth.
More
The
State of Counterfeit Money Statistics (2023 Update) (businessdit.com)
"Blessed are the young, for they shall
inherit the national debt."
Herbert Hoover, 31st US President.
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