Baltic
Dry Index. 1628 -41 Brent
Crude 91.17
Spot
Gold 2330 U S 2
Year Yield 4.73 +0.08
April
6, 1917, the USA declares war on Germany.
In the US stock
casinos, a dead cat bounce. Rarely have US stock gamblers so mis-read the US
centra bank.
Far from frontrunning
the US central bank cutting interest rates three times this year, it now seems more likely any
interest rate cuts won’t come until 2025, with the possibility of an interest
rate hike this year if rising the crude oil price and rising food inflation
send the US CPI higher.
All in all, US stocks
are way over priced.
Dow closes 300 points higher in Friday rebound, but
registers worst week in 2024: Live updates
UPDATED FRI, APR 5 2024 5:14 PM EDT
Stocks
rebounded Friday following the Dow Jones
Industrial Average’s
worst session in more than a year as traders cheered a stronger-than-expected
jobs report and looked past a jump in rates.
The 30-stock Dow climbed
307.06 points, or 0.8%, to settle at 38,904.04. The S&P 500 gained
1.11% to end the day at 5,204.34. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced
1.24%, closing at 16,248.52.
Despite the bounce, all three
indexes posted a losing week. The Dow slid 2.27%, posting its worst weekly
performance in 2024. The S&P 500 declined 0.95% during the period, while
the Nasdaq lost 0.8%.
On Friday, Treasury yields jumped
following the Labor Department’s report showing that job growth totaled
303,000 in March. Nonfarm payrolls were expected to increase by
200,000, according to Dow Jones estimates. Wages rose 0.3% for the month and
4.1% from a year ago, both in line with estimates.
Investors are torn between
wanting a strong economy to support further corporate earnings growth and
wanting a weaker jobs market that will give the Federal Reserve the green light
to begin cutting interest rates.
“Markets are understandably
confused, but the underlying economic circumstances which are the actual data
series being released, like the jobs report, just continue to affirm two
things: strong employment growth … and that the economy is not anywhere near
recession,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner of Harris Financial Group.
“At the end of the quarter,
markets ran up a lot more than they should have, so there was going to be some
selling pressure regardless this week,” he continued, adding that this week’s
sell-off was accelerated by fears of escalation in the Middle East and
inconsistent speeches from various Fed speakers.
The Dow tumbled
about 530 points, or 1.35%, on Thursday, marking its biggest daily drop since
March 2023 and its fourth consecutive losing session. A jump in crude oil and
comments from Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari, where he
questioned if interest rates should come down amid sticky inflation, were
behind the pullback.
Stock
market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
Fed Governor Bowman says additional rate hike could be
needed if inflation stays high
Noting a number of potential upside
risks to inflation, Bowman said policymakers need to be careful not to ease
policy too quickly.
“While it is not my baseline outlook, I continue to see the risk that at a
future meeting we may need to increase the policy rate further should progress
on inflation stall or even reverse,” she said in prepared remarks for a speech
to a group of Fed watchers in New York. “Reducing our policy rate too soon or
too quickly could result in a rebound in inflation, requiring further future
policy rate increases to return inflation to 2 percent over the longer run.”
As a member of the Board of
Governors, Bowman is a permanent voting member of the rate-setting Federal Open
Market Committee. Since taking office in late 2018, her public speeches have
put her on the more hawkish side of the FOMC, meaning she favors a more
aggressive posture toward containing inflation.
Bowman said her most likely outcome
remains that “it will eventually become appropriate to lower” rates, though she
noted that “we are still not yet at the point” of cutting as “I continue to see
a number of upside risks to inflation.”
The speech, to the Shadow Open
Market Committee, comes with markets on edge about the near-term future of Fed
policy. Statements this week from multiple officials, including
Chair Jerome Powell, have indicated a cautious approach to cutting
rates. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic, an FOMC voter, told
CNBC he likely sees just one reduction this year, and
Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari indicated no cuts could happen if
inflation does not decelerate further.
Futures traders are pricing in
three cuts this year, though it has become a close call between June and July
for when they start. FOMC members in March also penciled in three cuts this
year, though one unidentified official in the “dot plot” indicated no decreases
until 2026 and there was considerable dispersion otherwise about how
aggressively the central bank would move.
More
Fed
Governor Bowman says additional rate hike could be needed if inflation stays
high (cnbc.com)
Up next, the Port of
Baltimore reopening timetable. No timetable yet though on replacing that
collapsed bridge.
Baltimore shipping set to resume by end of April with full
capacity by end of May
By Daniel Trotta April 5, 2024 1:56 AM GMT+1
April 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday it
expects to open a new channel to the Port of Baltimore by the end of April,
freeing up commercial shipping blocked by a collapsed bridge, and then restore
port access to full capacity by the end of May.
The main channel has been blocked by wreckage since the fully loaded
container ship Dali lost power and rammed into a support column of the Francis
Scott Key Bridge on March 26, killing six road workers and causing the highway
bridge to tumble into the Patapsco River.
The Army Corps, part of a multiagency team responding to the Baltimore
disaster, announced the plans one day ahead of a visit by President Joe Biden,
saying that within four weeks the channel would be suitable for some
roll-on/roll-off vessels that transport automobiles and farm equipment.
The Port of Baltimore ranks first in the United States for the volume it
handles of autos and light trucks and farm and construction machinery,
according to the state of Maryland. Most of that traffic has been suspended
since the accident, though some terminal operations outside the affected area
have resumed.
Earlier this week, two auxiliary channels suitable for emergency
vessels, tugs and barges were opened on either side of the disabled ship, which
is stuck beneath bridge debris with thousands of containers and a crew of 21
sailors still aboard.
But with depths limited to 11 feet (3.35 meters) and 14 feet, those two
channels are too shallow for major cargo ships, which need a depth of 35 feet.
"USACE expects to open a limited access channel 280 feet wide and
35 feet deep, to the Port of Baltimore within the next four weeks - by the end
of April," the corps said.
By the end of May, the corps said it expects to restore port access to
its full capacity with a 700-foot-wide by 50-foot-deep navigation channel.
Before then, salvage crews must remove steel bridge debris from atop the
Dali in order to extract it from the harbor, then clear the twisted metal and
highway wreckage that fell into the water.
Ensconced within that debris are the bodies of four of the six highway
workers who were killed.
The
Biden administration has provided an initial $60 million in emergency funding
to clear the channel and begin recovery, and Biden has said he would ask
Congress to fund the complete rebuilding of the bridge.
Baltimore shipping set to resume by end of April with
full capacity by end of May | Reuters
Finally, commodities,
rising concern over US beef.
Bird flu dairy cow outbreak widens in Ohio, Kansas, New
Mexico
By Tom Polansek April 4, 2024 9:29 PM GMT+1
CHICAGO, April 4 (Reuters) -
Bird flu has infected a dairy herd in Ohio for the first time and was detected
in additional herds in Kansas and New Mexico, according to the U.S. government,
expanding an outbreak in cows that has raised concerns about possible risks to
humans.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has confirmed
infections in herds across six states since it first reported
cases in Texas and Kansas on March 25.
The infected dairy in Ohio
received cows on March 8 from a Texas dairy, which later confirmed a detection
of bird flu, the Ohio Department of Agriculture said.
The USDA has said transmission of the disease between cows
cannot be ruled out.
The initial cases in Texas and Kansas appear to have been
introduced by wild birds,
and the strain of the virus in subsequent cases in New Mexico, Michigan and
Idaho was very similar, according to USDA.
Migratory birds have spread avian flu around the
globe since 2022, infecting poultry and other species.
"In the state of Kansas, all the genetic
sequencing data that we can come up with is still indicating it is a spillover
event from a wild bird exposure," Kansas Animal Health Commissioner Justin
Smith said in an interview on Thursday.
Bird flu has been found in three dairy herds in
Kansas, two in New Mexico, seven in Texas and one each in Ohio, Idaho and
Michigan, according to USDA.
The spread to an increasing
number of species and its widening geographic reach have raised the risks of
humans being infected, the head of the World Organization for Animal Health
said on Thursday.
Texas officials reported on Monday that a farm worker tested
positive, and the only symptom was eye inflammation. The U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention considers the risk of bird flu for
humans to be low.
Bird flu dairy cow outbreak widens in Ohio, Kansas, New Mexico | Reuters
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.
Food
Inflation Risks Are Brewing Across the Supermarket Again
April 5, 2024 at 12:00 PM GMT+1
As cocoa steals the spotlight with its red-hot rally, prices of other major crops are also
ticking up — reviving the risk of food inflation that has remained stubbornly
high in parts of the world.
Palm oil — used across a host of grocery items — is at a
17-month high, robusta coffee futures are the priciest since at least 2008, and
white corn is up more than 30% this year. Bad weather shriveling harvests and
tightening supplies is a key driver behind the latest increases.
While it takes time for changes in wholesale
prices to filter through to retailers, the gains could start to reverse a
lengthy downturn across food-commodity prices and mean consumers
eventually feel the pinch at the supermarket beyond just chocolate bars. Food
inflation is running above overall inflation in more than 60% of 167 countries
most recently assessed, the World Bank said in a report in late March.
In Vietnam, heatwaves are hitting growing regions in the
world’s largest robusta coffee shipper. Production problems are also made worse
by farmers shifting to alternative crops like durian and avocados. That has
helped push robusta — the type of coffee that goes into espresso and instant
drinks — up nearly 70% in the past year.
Meanwhile, drier and hotter-than-usual weather linked to El
Niño is hurting the outlook for South Africa’s key corn harvest. The looming shortage has fueled a rally
in white-corn prices and could force significant imports of the food staple — used to make corn
meal known locally as pap — for the first time since 2017.
Then there’s palm oil, the world’s most-consumed vegetable
oil found in everything from candy and cookies to lipstick. Worries about
lower-than-expected supplies from top two growers Indonesia and Malaysia
has boosted futures to their highest since 2022.
Another grain to watch is wheat. Although Russia’s bumper
harvests have helped cool global prices from record highs in 2022, geopolitical
risks still linger as it maintains its invasion of Ukraine and both sides
target infrastructure. That could once again disrupt crop
shipments out of the breadbasket region.
“Ukraine’s resilience in maintaining agricultural
production amidst the war underscores its role as a global supplier, but
prospects for peace remain uncertain, exacerbating market volatility,” the
World Bank report said.
Global Food Roundup: Inflation at the Grocery Store -
Bloomberg
German industrial orders rise less than expected in February
By Reuters April 5, 2024
7:18 AM GMT+1
April 5 (Reuters) - German industrial orders rose in February but less
than expected, showing that the weakness in demand in the manufacturing sector
continues.
New orders increased by 0.2% on the previous month on a seasonally and
calendar adjusted basis, the federal statistics office said on Friday.
A Reuters poll of analysts had pointed to a rise of 0.8%.
After a revision of the provisional data, there was an 11.4% decrease in
January on the month, instead of a 11.3% decline.
The
downturn in Germany's manufacturing sector, which accounts for about a fifth of
the country's economy, continued in March, the manufacturing Purchasing
Managers' Index (PMI) showed.
German industrial orders rise less than expected in
February | Reuters
This section will
continue until it becomes unneeded.
CDC Releases Hidden
COVID-19 Vaccine Injury Reports
The
agency was forced by a federal judge to disclose the reports.
4/3/2024 Updated: 4/3/2024
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) has released previously hidden reports of facial paralysis and other
adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination.
The 780,000 reports were received shortly after the
COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out and show that people experienced a wide range
of post-vaccination problems, including heart inflammation, miscarriages, and
seizures.
“Loss of consciousness and seizure immediately
following injection. Went to ER by ambulance,” one person reported.
Another stated, “Diagnosed with Bells Palsy today due to left-sided facial
numbness and paralysis.”
People
lodged the reports with V-safe, a text-message system created by the CDC to
monitor for possible side effects of COVID-19 vaccines.
The CDC, for years, declined to make the
V-safe data public, instead publishing studies that described the reports as providing
reassurance about the safety of the vaccines. However, according to data
released in 2022, nearly 8 percent of the 10 million users required medical
attention or hospital care after vaccination, and many others reported missing
school, work, or other normal activities.
The same judge who ordered the release of
that data ordered the agency in
January to disclose free-text entries from a different section in which
individuals could describe their experiences. U.S. District Judge Matthew
Kacsmaryk, appointed by former President Donald Trump, dismissed the
government’s arguments that processing the responses and redacting sensitive
information would require too much work.
The first two tranches, made
up of 780,000 reports from some 523,000 people, include dozens of reports of
heart inflammation, hundreds of reports of facial paralysis, and thousands of
reports of tinnitus.
More
CDC Releases Hidden COVID-19 Vaccine Injury Reports |
The Epoch Times
Technology Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Unlocking exotic physics: Exploring
graphene's topological bands in super-moiré structures
April 4, 2024
In a new study, scientists from Singapore and
Spain have presented a new avenue for exploring exotic physics in graphene.
They focus on electronic interactions in graphene when it is sandwiched in a
three-layer structure which provides a platform to exploit unique electronic
band configurations.
Graphene is a 2D sheet of
carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice (arrangement) which demonstrates
properties like high electrical conductivity, mechanical strength, and
flexibility. This has grabbed the interest of scientists as a promising candidate
for electronic applications.
However, very little has been
studied about the electronic properties of monolayer graphene.
In this
new Physical
Review Letters study, the
researchers focused on studying these properties by sandwiching graphene
between two bulk boron nitride layers.
The work was part of the
first author, Mohammed M. Al Ezzi's Ph.D. at the National University of
Singapore (NUS), who is now working as a post-doc under Prof. Shaffique Adam at
NUS.
In material science, different layers of materials are stacked on top of
one another to create a new structure known as a moiré structure. These layers
are misaligned leading to the formation of a moiré pattern.
These layers interact with each other through various forces, in this
case, through van der Waal forces. This leads to variations in the potential
energy experienced by the electron within the material (graphene or boron
nitride), known as the moiré potential.
So, the moiré potential arises from the interference between the atomic
arrangements of the two materials, resulting in a periodic modulation of the
potential energy within the graphene layer.
This moiré potential plays a crucial role in influencing the electronic
properties of the material and can lead to the emergence of unique phenomena
such as flat bands and topological states.
The researchers propose a three-layer structure, with the graphene layer
in the middle to induce topological bands. The resulting structure is known as
a super-moiré structure.
It is called a super-moiré structure because there are two distinct
moiré structures, from the top and bottom boron nitride substrates. This gives
rise to some exotic physics, which is to say unconventional physics.
More
Unlocking exotic physics: Exploring graphene's
topological bands in super-moiré structures (msn.com)
Finally,
our latest new section, the world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP
compared.
World Debt Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
This
weekend’s music diversion. We repeat a 10 year old, flawlessly plays long forgotten English composer John
Baston’s recorder music and from memory. Approx. 8 minutes.
Baston
concerto for recorder No. 2 in C major Bagi Flóra
Baston concerto for recorder No. 2 in C major Bagi
Flóra (youtube.com)
This
weekend’s chess update. Approx. 11 minutes.
And
it's Only Move 10! || Wesley So vs Levon Aronian || American Cup (2024)
And it's Only Move 10! || Wesley So vs Levon Aronian
|| American Cup (2024) - YouTube
No
weekend Math’s update today. Today our EV future of forever waiting in line to recharge.
Approx. 2 minutes.
EV
Quickie: LINE OF TESLAS waiting to charge over Easter | MGUY Australia
EV Quickie: LINE OF TESLAS waiting to charge over
Easter | MGUY Australia (youtube.com)
Poor resale values of EVs threaten adoption, warn
some experts
A car loses value as soon as you drive it off the
lot, but electric vehicles are taking this adage to a new level. That’s
becoming a major barrier to wider adoption, according to some industry and
investment experts.
A recent study from
iSeeCars.com showed the average price of a 1- to 5-year-old used EV in the U.S.
fell 31.8% over the past 12 months, equating to a value loss of $14,418. In
comparison, the average price for a comparably aged internal combustion engine
vehicle fell just 3.6%.
While lower used EV prices could increase their desirability to some
buyers, they can also reduce demand for new electric vehicles, according to
Karl Brauer, executive analyst at iSeeCars.
“The value a new car loses in the
first few years is the single most expensive aspect of owning a new vehicle,”
he said, explaining that “as more new car shoppers become aware of the massive
drop in EV values they will be less interested in buying one.”
Speaking to CNBC’s “Street Signs
Asia” on Monday, David Kuo, stock analyst and co-founder at the Smart Investor,
said that the inability of EVs to retain value had kept him from investing in
the industry.
More
Poor
resale values of EVs are a problem for the industry, warn experts (cnbc.com)
Adam Smith's key insight was that both parties to an exchange can benefit and that, so long as cooperation is strictly voluntary, no exchange can take place unless both parties do benefit.
Milton Friedman.
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