Baltic Dry Index. 1721 -22 Brent Crude 89.50
Spot
Gold 2368 U S 2
Year Yield 4.96 unch.
What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.
Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the
Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776.
In the stock casinos,
it’s bubble on to infinity and beyond.
But is it all down to
Uncle Scam wracking up new fiat dollar federal debt by an unsustainable
trillion dollars every hundred days?
Too much newly
created dollars generating ever more stock mania?
Back in the real
world, it’s starting to look like inflation never really went away.
Next week the US
central banksters must try to make sense of it all. Do nothing until 2025 and
probably sink President Biden’s Joe Biden’s re-election prospect. Start
cutting interest rates fuelling yet more inflation but stopping a Trump win in
November.
An interesting summer’s
coming up.
S&P
500 posts best week since November, Nasdaq surges 2% Friday as Alphabet soars:
Live updates
UPDATED FRI, APR 26 2024 4:15 PM EDT
Stocks
jumped Friday, and the S&P 500 and
Nasdaq Composite notched
their best week since November as Big Tech names rallied on
strong earnings and traders pored through fresh U.S. inflation data.
The broad market index advanced
1.02% to settle at 5,099.96. The tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed
2.03% to close at 15,927.90 and secure its best daily move since February. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose
153.86 points, or 0.4%, to finish at 38,239.66.
The S&P and Nasdaq clinched
their best week since November. The S&P popped 2.7% to snap a three-week
losing streak, while the Nasdaq gained 4.2% for its first positive week in
five. The Dow edged up 0.7%.
“We are finishing a volatile week
on a strong note,” said Mona Mahajan, senior investment strategist at Edward
Jones. “It’s nice to see some green on the screen. Clearly one of the drivers
has been the stellar reports coming out of megacap technology.”
Stocks got a boost from robust
results from artificial intelligence competitors Alphabet and Microsoft after
the bell Thursday. Alphabet jumped
more than 10% on better-than-expected
first-quarter earnings and recorded its best day since July
2015. The company also authorized its first-ever dividend and a $70
billion buyback. Microsoft added
nearly 2% as the software maker posted strong fiscal
third-quarter results and showed an acceleration in cloud
growth.
Both companies have impressed
investors by not only investing in artificial intelligence, but also by showing
results, Mahajan said. The prints also helped alleviate some fears on the back
of Meta
Platforms’ disappointing guidance earlier this week, she said.
Investors also parsed March’s core
personal consumption expenditures reading following a spate of
reports that suggested slowing growth and sticky inflation. The gauge,
excluding food and energy, rose 2.8% from a year ago and came in ahead of the
2.7% expected by Dow Jones. Personal spending rose 0.8%, ahead of a 0.7%
estimate.
Those moves helped Wall Street
regain some of its footing after a down day. The blue-chip Dow slid 375 points
Thursday after new U.S. economic data showed a sharp slowdown in growth and
pointed to persistent inflation.
The busy earnings season
continues next week, headlined by results from technology giants Apple and
Amazon. The Federal Reserve’s next rate decision is due out Wednesday.
Stock
market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
But, is inflation
back? Did it ever really go away?
Prices rises sharply again, PCE shows, and signals progress
on slowing inflation stalls
By Jeffry Bartash April 25, 2024
Prices in the U.S. jumped again in March based on the Federal Reserve’s
preferred PCE index, signaling that progress on reducing inflation has stalled.
The PCE index rose 0.3% last month, the government said Friday. Economists
polled by The Wall Street Journal had forecast a 0.3% gain.
The more closely followed core rate that strips out food and energy also
increased 0.3%. The core index is viewed as a better predictor of future
inflation.
The inflation readings in February and January, meanwhile, were revised to
show slightly bigger increases than previously reported. But the changes were
small enough that the prior estimates for headline and core PCE were basically
unchanged due to rounding.
The yearly rate of inflation, meanwhile, climbed to 2.7% from 2.5%.
The rate of core inflation in the 12 months ended in March was unchanged at
2.8%.
The latest reading on inflation has sown further
doubts about the Fed cutting U.S. interest rates anytime soon.
All
the data so far is showing inflation isn’t going away, and is making things
tough on the Fed
The last batch of inflation news that Federal
Reserve officials will see before their policy meeting next week is in, and
none of it is very good.
In the aggregate, Commerce Department indexes that
the Fed relies on for inflation signals showed prices continuing to climb at a
rate still considerably higher than the central bank’s 2% annual goal,
according to separate reports this week.
Within that picture came several salient points: An
abundance of money still sloshing through the financial system is giving
consumers lasting buying power. In fact, shoppers are spending more than
they’re taking in, a situation neither sustainable nor disinflationary.
Finally, consumers are dipping into savings to fund those purchases, creating a
precarious scenario, if not now then down the road.
Put it all together, and it adds up to a Fed likely
to be cautious and not in the mood anytime soon to start cutting interest
rates.
“Just spending a lot of money is creating demand,
it’s creating stimulus. With unemployment under 4%, it shouldn’t be that
surprising that prices aren’t” going down, said Joseph LaVorgna, chief
economist at SMBC Nikko Securities. “Spending numbers aren’t going down anytime
soon. So you might have a sticky inflation scenario.”
Indeed, data the Bureau of Economic Analysis released Friday indicated
that spending outpaced income in March, as it has in three of the past four
months, while the personal savings rate plunged to 3.2%, its lowest level since
October 2022.
At the same time, the personal
consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s key measure in
determining inflation pressures, moved up to 2.7% in March when including all
items, and held at 2.8% for the vital core measure that takes out more volatile
food and energy prices.
A day earlier, the department reported that annualized inflation in the
first quarter ran at a 3.7% core rate in the first quarter in total, and 3.4%
on the headline basis. That came as real
gross domestic product growth slowed to a 1.6% pace, well below
the consensus estimate.
The stubborn inflation data raised several ominous
specters, namely that the Fed
may have to keep rates elevated for longer than it or financial
markets would like, threatening the hoped-for soft economic landing.
There’s an even more chilling
threat that should inflation persist central bankers may have to not only
consider holding rates where they are but also contemplate
future hikes.
More
All
data shows inflation isn't going away, making things tough on Fed (cnbc.com)
Finally, back in the
real world, yet more bad news from EV land. Also see this weekend’s last
YouTube item on fire risk. Has the EV boom become an EV bust?
Hertz To Sell More EVs as Q1 Loss
Exceeds Expectations
Hertz Global Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: HTZ) has raised the number of electric vehicles
it plans to sell this year as it is cutting its EV fleet to reduce losses that
have weighed on the car rental giant’s earnings.
In the first quarter, Hertz upsized its EV
disposition plan by 10,000 vehicles, for a total of 30,000 EVs intended for
sale in 2024. Most of these EVs will be Teslas.
The company incurred a $195
million charge to vehicle depreciation to write down the EVs held for sale
which were remaining in inventory at quarter-end to fair value and recognize
the disposition losses on EVs sold in the period, Hertz said in a statement on
Thursday.
Vehicle
depreciation in the first quarter of 2024 increased by $588 million, or $339 on
a per unit basis. Of the $339 per unit increase, $119 was related to EVs held
for sale, the company said. [if !supportLineBreakNewLine] [endif]
Hertz
reported a much larger loss for the first quarter than analysts had forecast.
Adjusted net loss stood at $392 million, or $1.28 loss per diluted share.
This compares with an analyst consensus estimate of a loss of $0.45 per
share.
Following
the earnings release on Thursday, Hertz’s stock crashed by 21% on the NASDAQ as
of 10:03 a.m. EDT.
Hertz
was an early mover in buying EVs to rent to customers, but it and other car
rental companies have recently started to sell the EVs they had previously
purchased due to weaker customer demand for EV rentals.
Hertz,
unlike other rental firms, has a more risky approach because it fully owns all
the EVs it has bought and is losing money if the resale value slumps. As it
did.
Earlier this year, Hertz said in a
regulatory filing to the SEC it is selling roughly one-third of its electric
vehicle fleet, highlighting the risk of its first-mover strategy when it comes
to EVs.
Hertz To Sell More EVs as Q1 Loss Exceeds Expectations
| OilPrice.com
Flood
of CHEAP Chinese EVs will DESTROY Europe's car industry | MGUY Australia
Flood of CHEAP Chinese EVs will DESTROY Europe's car industry | MGUY Australia (youtube.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.
The US
economy may be barrelling towards stagflation, an outcome worse than recession
April 25, 2024
The latest GDP and inflation readings were what
investors were least eager to see, and could hint at serious trouble ahead.
"This was a worst of
both worlds report – slower than expected growth, higher than expected
inflation," wrote David Donabedian, chief investment officer of CIBC
Private Wealth US.
First-quarter
growth fell well behind estimates, rising at an annualized rate of 1.6%,
according to the Bureau
of Economic Analysis. Not only is that
far under forecasts of 2.5%, but it also fails to live up to the 3.4% increase
achieved in the fourth quarter.
While such a cooldown would
usually bolster calls for interest rates to start easing, the report noted a
hotter-than-expected rise in consumer prices as well. That puts serious limits
on the Federal Reserve's ability to take action, as the central bank has made
clear it needs inflation to climb lower (???) before any rate cuts can
happen. Stocks — which have long priced in those cuts — sold off sharply.
It's also
bad news for the economy, as sputtering growth and higher prices are the key
ingredients for stagflation, which is characterized by economic listlessness
and stubbornly elevated inflation over a prolonged period. Such a scenario that
can be even harder to combat than a recession, because of the dynamic outlined
above: the Fed's hands are largely tied.
America's last dalliance with
stagflation came in the 1970s. The precedent can offer a glimpse into how the
US economic picture could unfold, and makes it clear why economists are
desperate to avoid a re-run.
Early that decade,
geopolitical disagreement prompted the OPEC coalition to restrict crude exports
to the US, and energy prices rocketed in
response. With additional help from high government spending and the dollar's de-coupling from gold, inflation surged into double digits, while the
economy tumbled.
The period was so tumultuous
that it undid long-standing macroeconomic theories,
and required the Fed to step up its role in the economy. In order to finally
reign things in, then-Fed Chairman Paul Volcker was forced to raise interest
rates a staggering 20%, calming price highs but throwing the US into a deep
recession.
It's for this reason current
analysts shudder at comparisons to
the period 50 years ago, and why stagflationary forecasts bear weight.
JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon is
among those who have recently made allusions to the stagflationary
1970s, warning that markets have become too cheerful about the state of
the economy.
"I worry it looks more
like the '70s than we've seen before," the prominent bank chief said at the Economic Club of New York last week.
More
The US economy may be barrelling towards stagflation,
an outcome worse than recession (msn.com)
This section will
continue until it becomes unneeded.
COVID-19 Vaccine Protection
Among Children Plummets Within Months: CDC Study
Agency
says results show why it recommends kids get an updated shot.
4/23/2024 Updated: 4/24/2024
Children who received an original COVID-19 vaccine
have little protection against hospitalization just months after vaccination,
according to a new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC).
Children initially have 52 percent protection
against hospitalization but that estimated effectiveness plummeted to 19
percent after four months, according to the paper.
Protection against so-called critical illness also
dropped sharply, from 57 percent to 25 percent, researchers found.
The
researchers include CDC employees and the paper was published in the CDC’s
weekly digest on April 18.
Click here to watch the full documentary “The Unseen Crisis: Vaccine Stories
You Were Never Told”
The study covered children who received
two or more doses of the original Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines
from Dec. 19, 2021, through Oct. 29, 2023.
The study involved children aged 5 to 18 who were
hospitalized with acute COVID-19 and tested positive for the illness and
compared them to a control group of children hospitalized with COVID-19-like
symptoms but who tested negative for COVID-19.
Researchers drew data from the Overcoming COVID-19
Network, which includes health care sites in most of the United States, and
ended up with 1,551 case patients and 1,797 in the control group.
The study found that “receipt of ≥2 original monovalent
COVID-19 vaccine doses was associated with fewer COVID-19–related
hospitalizations in children and adolescents aged 5–18 years; however,
protection from original vaccines was not sustained over time,” Laura Zambrano,
a CDC epidemiologist, and her co-authors wrote.
----Dr. Jane
Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and
Surgeons, noted that, according to the new paper, the maximum effectiveness
estimates against hospitalization were 61 percent, regardless of how the data
were sliced, that more deaths were recorded among the case patients, and the
median hospitalization duration was four days for both groups.
“I do not see how a clinician whose concern is
treating patients and whose job does not depend on pushing mRNA vaccines would
find this a basis for recommending shots—quite the contrary,” Dr. Orient, who
was not involved in the research, told The Epoch Times in an email. “It reeks
of conflict of interest.”
More
COVID-19 Vaccine Protection Among Children Plummets
Within Months: CDC Study | The Epoch Times
Technology Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Georgia Tech group create world’s first
graphene-based semiconductor
By Anthony
Wrighton
A group of researchers at
the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) have created the world’s
first functional semiconductor made from graphene, a development that could
lead to advanced electronic devices and quantum computing applications.
Seen as the building block
of electronic devices, semiconductors are essential for communications,
computing, healthcare, military systems, transportation and countless other
applications.
Semiconductors are
typically made from silicon, a material that revolutionised the electronics
industry and ushered in the digital age. Purified silicon is used in devices
such as computer chips, transistors, integrated circuits and liquid crystal
displays.
Its highly stable atomic
structure means it has the conductive properties of metal as well as being an
insulator, so silicon can both conduct and block electricity. This
characteristic allows semiconductors to switch on and off.
Despite its advantages,
silicon is reaching its limit in the face of increasingly faster computing and
smaller electronic devices, according to the Georgia Tech research team who
published their findings in Nature earlier this year.
In a drive to find a
viable alternative to silicon, Walter de Heer, Regents’ Professor of physics at
Georgia Tech, led a team of researchers based in Atlanta, Georgia and Tianjin,
China to produce a graphene semiconductor that is compatible with microelectronics
processing methods.
More
Georgia
Tech group create world’s first graphene-based semiconductor | Semiconductors |
gasworld
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. Vivaldi again. Approx. 4 minutes.
Concerto
grosso in F Major, RV 574: III. Allegro
Concerto grosso in F Major, RV 574: III. Allegro
(youtube.com)
This
weekend’s chess update. Engine v engine. The game starts about 3 minutes in. Approx.
21 minutes.
Stockfish
Repeats Nezhmetdinov's IMMORTAL Queen Sacrifice!
Stockfish Repeats Nezhmetdinov's IMMORTAL Queen Sacrifice! (youtube.com)
This
weekend’s final YouTube diversion, More on EV fires. Approx. 4 minutes.
Homeowner
questions EV safety after fire destroys her Nocatee home
Homeowner questions EV safety after fire destroys her Nocatee home (youtube.com)
The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition . . . is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things toward improvement, in spite of the extravagance of government, and of the greatest errors of administration.
Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the
Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776.
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