Stocks Bounce. An Exit Rally? Oil Eases, But For How Long?

Baltic Dry Index. 1882 -37     Brent Crude  87.45

Spot Gold 2312            US 2 Year Yield 4.97 unch.

Happy St. Georges Day to all celebrating England’s Patron Saint’s Day.

After a scary brush with Reality last week, the over priced to perfection stock casinos are back on hopium again.

And why not? After all, it’s a US Presidential election year. President Biden Joe Biden and the Fedster’s will be going flat out to bribe the voters to re-elect the 81 year old, deep state candidate who’s never held a real job in his life, over the 78 year old challenger who’s anathema to the deep state, the District of Crooks money pushers, the Fedster’s and an army of politicised Democratic District Attorneys.

Surely they’ve got the stock casinos back covered, right?

Still, shame about all that persistent food price inflation annoying the voters and now there’s extensive El Nino related flooding hitting a large part of southeast China, disrupting the economy and China’s food production.

If China starts swapping dodgy, US weaponised fiat  dollars, for food imports, food price inflation might jump yet again, annoying those US presidential voters expecting another pre-November handout.

Asia markets extend gains ahead of business activity figures from around the region

UPDATED TUE, APR 23 2024 9:56 PM EDT

Asia-Pacific markets extended gains from Monday as tech shares rebounded on Wall Street and investors look toward flash business activity figures from Australia, Japan and India.

Figures from S&P Global show that Australia’s composite purchasing managers index hit a two-year high, coming in at 53.6 against March’s 53.3.

Japan and India’s PMI numbers will be released later Tuesday.

The S&P/ASX 200 started the day up 0.44% after the PMI release.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.17%, while the broad based Topix was up 0.17%.

South Korea’s Kospi climbed 0.12%, and the small cap Kosdaq rose 0.44%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index opened 0.91% up, while the CSI 300 on mainland China was the outlier, falling 0.15%.

Overnight in the U.S., the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both snapped six-day losing streaks, gaining 0.87% and 1.11% respectively, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.67%,

Chipmaker and artificial intelligence favorite Nvidia climbed 4.4%, bouncing from a nearly 14% sell-off last week, its worst since September 2022. Arm Holdings also rebounded nearly 7% on Monday.

U.S. crude prices slipped after Iran said it will not escalate the conflict with Israel. Investors had been concerned higher oil prices could contribute to inflation, leading the Federal Reserve to hold off on cutting rates.

Asia markets live updates: Australia, Japan and India PMI data (cnbc.com)

European markets head for higher open, buoyed by rebound on Wall Street

UPDATED TUE, APR 23 2024 12:38 AM EDT

European markets are heading for a higher open Tuesday, building on positive momentum in the previous session.

Regional markets closed higher Monday, buoyed by a rebound in tech stocks on Wall Street, and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 clocked its fourth daily gain Monday and surpassed its previous record close set on Feb. 20, 2023.

U.K. stocks were boosted, while sterling tumbled against the U.S. dollar as investors raised bets on a summer interest rate cut from the Bank of England.

Investors in the region are looking ahead to bank earnings this week, and will be keeping an eye on a range of tech earnings stateside, with Tesla reporting during U.S. trading hours Tuesday.

In Europe Tuesday, earnings are set to come from Renault, Kering, OVH, Novartis and Associated British Foods. On the data front, preliminary manufacturing and services purchasing managers’ index data for the euro zone in April will be released.

Overnight, Asia-Pacific markets extended gains from Monday as investors look toward flash business activity figures from Australia, Japan and India. U.S. stock futures were little changed on Monday night.

European markets live updates: stocks, news, PMI data and earnings (cnbc.com)

 

Stock futures are little changed after S&P 500 snaps 6-day losing streak: Live updates

UPDATED TUE, APR 23 2024 7:09 PM EDT

U.S. stock futures were little changed on Monday night after the S&P 500 snapped a six-day losing streak, buoyed by a rebound in tech stocks. Wall Street also looked ahead to key earnings and economic data later this week.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose by 18 points, or 0.05%. S&P 500 futures gained 0.02%, while Nasdaq 100 futures slid 0.06%.

Investors are coming off a winning session on Monday. The 30-stock Dow closed 0.67% higher. The S&P 500 advanced 0.87%, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.11%. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended a six-day losing run.

Those moves come as investors bought the dip in tech stocks after a recent sell-off in key names such as Nvidia, which had been dinged recently amid fears of higher inflation and the prospect of elevated interest rates. Information technology was the best-performing S&P 500 sector on Monday. Nvidia jumped more than 4% during the trading session. The chip giant pulled back by nearly 14% last week, its worst weekly performance since September 2022.

“A short-term bounce in the market makes a lot of sense here in that, you know, we had a rough week and a half plus, and so now we’re seeing a little bit of a rebound as we go into tech,” Wealth Enhancement Group’s senior portfolio manager Ayako Yoshioka told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” on Monday.

Traders are also bracing for the release of mega-cap earnings results this week. First up will be Tesla reporting after the close on Tuesday. The electric vehicle stock has underperformed this year — down more than 40% — amid fears of greater competition from Chinese competitors. Meta Platforms is slated to post results on Wednesday afternoon, followed by Alphabet and Microsoft on Thursday.

“I think those earnings from Microsoft and Alphabet and Meta are going to be really important to determine whether or not that tech trade can continue to take the market higher,” Yoshioka added.

On the economic front, investors will watch for the release of new home sales data on Tuesday.

Stock market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)

 

Oil prices stabilise, Middle East tensions remain in focus

By Mohi Narayan  April 23, 2024 4:29 AM GMT+1

NEW DELHI, April 23 (Reuters) - Oil prices edged higher on Tuesday, after falling in the previous session, as investors continued to assess the risk from geopolitical concerns in the Middle East.

Global benchmark Brent crude oil futures traded 27 cents higher at $87.27 a barrel by 0308 GMT, and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures also gained 26 cents to $82.16 a barrel.

Both benchmarks fell 29 cents in the previous session on signs that a recent escalation of tensions between Israel and Iran had little near-term impact on oil supplies from the region.

"The unwinding of geo-political risk premium has dented crude oil prices recently as supply was not disrupted meaningfully," said Sugandha Sachdeva, founder of Delhi-based research firm SS WealthStreet.

But the evolving geopolitical landscape remains critical in steering crude oil prices, she said.

"While there are no indications of an imminent full-scale war between the countries involved, any escalation in tensions could quickly reverse the current trend," Sachdeva added.

More

Oil prices stabilise, Middle East tensions remain in focus | Reuters

Next up, yet more bad news, is there any other kind, from EV fantasy-land.

Approx. 4 minutes.

Would you buy a used EV from anyone, let alone an used EV dealer?  And what about the fire risk from all these stored crashed/junked EVs?

EVs aren't even WORTH FIXING, sent to JUNK YARD instead | MGUY Australia

EVs aren't even WORTH FIXING, sent to JUNK YARD instead | MGUY Australia (youtube.com)

Finally, the “experts” say a worrisome US Atlantic summer hurricane season lies directly ahead.

 

Get ready for one of the busiest Atlantic hurricane seasons on record, forecasters say

April 20, 2024

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season is likely to be destructive and costly and has the potential to be one of the busiest on record.

That’s the consensus of at least four major forecasting services, all of whom point to conditions in the tropical Pacific and in the Atlantic hurricane formation zone that are ripe for a tropical storm harvest.

The latest to join the chorus were the meteorologists who assembled the outlook for the Weather Channel, who on Thursday called for 24 named storms, those with winds of 39 mph or higher, and 11 hurricanes, with winds of at least 74 mph. Of those, six are forecast to be “major” hurricanes, with peak winds of 111 mph or higher.

The long-term averages are 14 named storms and seven hurricanes, with three of those major.

The Weather Channel outlook has a copy-and-paste similarity to forecasts issued in the last few weeks by AccuWeather Inc.; the Colorado State University Tropical Meteorology Project; and Tropical Storm Risk, a British firm.

Record-high sea-surface temperatures have persisted in the Atlantic hurricane spawning grounds, and as of Thursday they were running several degrees above normal levels, according to NOAA data.

Human-caused climate change certainly is a factor, with natural variability likely a contributor — and cleaner air, researchers say. Amy Clement, a professor and researcher at the University of Miami’s School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, is among those who have noted that erasing veils of pollutants has enhanced the amount of solar energy reaching the surface.

“While, obviously cleaning up the air is a good thing,” said Colorado State hurricane specialist Philip Klotzbach “it has likely helped fuel the more active Atlantic hurricane seasons that we’ve seen in recent years.”

Heat is fuel for hurricanes. The Atlantic was quite warm last season also, but conditions of the Pacific may have had some mitigating effects, and the tropical storm season, although active in terms of raw storm numbers, wasn’t especially ferocious.

A cooldown in the Pacific could boost hurricane traffic

----Here is a summary of the outlooks by major services for named storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin:

• AccuWeather: 20 to 25 named storms, 8 to 12 hurricanes, 4 to 7 major hurricanes
• Colorado State University: 23 named storms, 11 hurricanes, 5 major hurricanes
• Weather Channel: 24 named storms, 11 hurricanes, 6 major hurricanes
• Tropical Storm Risk: 23 named storms, 11 hurricanes, 5 major hurricanes
• Long-term average, according to the National Hurricane Center: 14 named storms, 7 hurricanes, 3 major hurricanes
• Records, according to Colorado State: 30 named storms (2020), 15 hurricanes (2005), 7 major hurricanes (2005)

Get ready for one of the busiest Atlantic hurricane seasons on record, forecasters say (msn.com)

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.

Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day: Europe

April 22, 2024 at 6:00 AM GMT+1

The ECB looks set to cut interest rates and a flood of supply tests Treasuries. Can the Magnificent Seven group of technology behemoths stay that way? Here’s what people are talking about this morning.

ECB forging ahead

The European Central Bank won’t be swayed from a first interest-rate cut in June by oil price uncertainity, Governing Council member Francois Villeroy de Galhau said. Even if Middle East tensions do further drive up oil prices, “we must not wait too much,’’ he said. ECB officials are converging on their June 6 decision as the moment to start lowering borrowing costs. Villeroy has been a vocal supporter of such a move, while his more hawkish colleagues have expressed varying levels of conviction. The ECB’s apparent determination to go ahead has caught the Bank of England in a trans-Atlantic divide . On one side are City of London economists and BOE Governor Andrew Bailey who say the UK’s outlook seems more like the ECB’s. On the other are investors, who are betting the BOE’s path to rate cuts more closely resembles the Federal Reserve as they rapidly unwind expectations for easing in the US this year. Only one can be right.

Treasuries test looms

With Treasuries on track for their worst month this year, a hefty slate of auctions looms as a major test of whether yields have peaked after reaching the highest levels of 2024. Investors are bracing for a tricky week, even beyond the risk of further volatility because of tensions in the Mideast. The market must absorb a combined $183 billion calendar of two-, five- and seven-year note sales — the first two of which will be at record levels — before a crucial inflation reading at the end of the week. At the same time, the Fed’s mode of forecasting and communicating looks increasingly limited. The issue is not the forecasts themselves, it’s that the focus on a central projection in an economy still undergoing post-pandemic tremors fails to cover the plausible range of outcomes. Enter former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, who has made the case to the BOE for an alternative method called scenario analysis. Sweden’s Riksbank is already using scenarios to track alternative policy paths.

Stock Markets Today: ECB policy outlook, Treasuries, Magnificent Seven - Bloomberg

The first derivative is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

 

Charles P. Kindleberger.

Covid-19 Corner

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

More and more it looks like Covid 19 was an escape from a Chinese virology lab, doing gain of function research banned in the USA and funded by Fauci with US funds laundered by Fauci via the NYC based non-profit, EcoHealth Alliance.

If the FBI finds that true, unlikely for obvious reasons, Uncle Scam has a lot of explaining to do and needs to start talking about damage payments to the rest of the world.

What does Uncle Joe, sorry that was nice guy Stalin, President Biden Joe Biden know and when did he know it?

Toxic: How the search for the origins of COVID-19 turned politically poisonous

April 22, 2024

The hunt for the origins of COVID-19 has gone dark in China, the victim of political infighting after a series of stalled and thwarted attempts to find the source of the virus that killed millions and paralyzed the world for months.

The Chinese government froze meaningful domestic and international efforts to trace the virus from the first weeks of the outbreak, despite statements supporting open scientific inquiry, an Associated Press investigation found. That pattern continues to this day, with labs closed, collaborations shattered, foreign scientists forced out and Chinese researchers barred from leaving the country.

The investigation drew on thousands of pages of undisclosed emails and documents and dozens of interviews that showed the freeze began far earlier than previously known and involved political and scientific infighting in China as much as international finger-pointing.

As early as Jan. 6, 2020, health officials in Beijing closed the lab of a Chinese scientist who sequenced the virus and barred researchers from working with him.

Scientists warn the willful blindness over coronavirus’ origins leaves the world vulnerable to another outbreak, potentially undermining pandemic treaty talks coordinated by the World Health Organization set to culminate in May.

At the heart of the question is whether the virus jumped from an animal or came from a laboratory accident. A U.S. intelligence analysis says there is insufficient evidence to prove either theory, but the debate has further tainted relations between the U.S. and China.

Unlike in the U.S., there is virtually no public debate in China about whether the virus came from nature or from a lab leak. In fact, there is little public discussion at all about the source of the disease, first detected in the central city of Wuhan.

Crucial initial efforts were hampered by bureaucrats in Wuhan trying to avoid blame who misled the central government; the central government, which muzzled Chinese scientists and subjected visiting WHO officials to stage-managed tours; and the U.N. health agency itself, which may have compromised early opportunities to gather critical information in hopes that by placating China, scientists could gain more access, according to internal materials obtained by AP.

----It could have played out differently, as shown by the outbreak of SARS, a genetic relative of COVID-19, nearly 20 years ago. China initially hid infections then, but WHO complained swiftly and publicly. Ultimately, Beijing fired officials and made reforms. The U.N. agency soon found SARS likely jumped to humans from civet cats in southern China and international scientists later collaborated with their Chinese counterparts to pin down bats as SARS’ natural reservoir.

But different leaders of both China and WHO, China’s quest for control of its researchers, and global tensions have all led to silence when it comes to searching for COVID-19’s origins. Governments in Asia are pressuring scientists not to look for the virus for fear it could be traced inside their borders.

More

Toxic: How the search for the origins of COVID-19 turned politically poisonous (msn.com)

US-Funded Experiments In China Could Secretly Manipulate Viruses: Email

MONDAY, APR 22, 2024 - 07:45 AM

Experiments in China funded by the U.S. government could manipulate coronaviruses and leave no trace, according to newly disclosed emails.

Details of the experiments showed that changing the viruses could be done and “would leave no signatures of purposeful human manipulation,” an unknown person told the FBI on April 23, 2020, one of the emails showed.

The details were outlined on a webpage for a grant funded by the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the agency headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci until late 2022. The government has funded $4.3 million for the grant. A portion of the funds were sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a laboratory located in the same Chinese city in which the first COVID-19 cases appeared in 2019.

An FBI official forwarded the email to another FBI official about an hour after receipt. “Hey are you going to be in office tomorrow? We just interviewed our person from [redacted] again and he provided us with some alarming new info,” the official wrote. “Give me a call if you can.”

The identities of the source and FBI officials were redacted in the messages, which were obtained by the nonprofit Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The FBI and EcoHealth did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“These smoking gun documents showed the FBI quickly understood that Fauci’s agency funded the gain-of-function research that could disguise the resulting coronavirus as ‘natural,’” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “These new documents further demonstrate the need for a comprehensive criminal investigation into Fauci’s gain-of-function scandal.”

Robert Garry, who has a doctorate in microbiology and also studied virology, said in private messages that genetic manipulation doesn’t leave signatures. One could “synthesize bits of the genes ... with perfect provision and then add them back in without a trace,” he wrote in early 2020 while analyzing COVID-19.

Mr. Garry and others later wrote in a paper called Proximal Origin that the available evidence showed COVID-19 “is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.” Two of the authors defended the change during a hearing in Congress.

Records previously obtained by Judicial Watch showed that the FBI opened an inquiry into the research in Wuhan, which was done under a grant called “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.”

It’s not clear what specific actions the FBI took but the bureau has since determined that COVID-19, a coronavirus, likely originated at the Wuhan lab.

“You’re talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab that killed millions of Americans,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in 2023.

More

US-Funded Experiments In China Could Secretly Manipulate Viruses: Email | ZeroHedge

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.

The bad and the ugly: AI is harmful, unreliable, and running out of data

By Paul McClure  April 22, 2024

Outperforming humans is one thing, but its rapid rise has meant that AI has created some problems for itself – and we're nervous.

Last week, we discussed AI's incredible evolution in terms of its performance against humans. Almost across the board, AI has surpassed humans in a range of performance-based tasks, necessitating the development of new, more challenging benchmarks. Arguably, that degree of development could be classed as a 'good.' This follow-up article discusses the not-so-good that has resulted from AI's rapid evolution.

The recently released 2024 AI Index report by Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) comprehensively examines AI's global impact. The seventh edition of the annual report has more content than previous editions, reflecting AI's rapid evolution and growing significance in our everyday lives.

Written by an interdisciplinary team of academic and industrial experts, the 500-page report provides an independent, unbiased look at the health of AI. We've already spoken about the 'good' – now it's time to tackle the bad and the ugly.

With AI now integrated into many facets of our lives, it must be responsible for its contribution, especially to important sectors like education, healthcare, and finance. Yes, the addition of AI can provide advantages – optimizing processes and productivity, discovering new drugs, for example – but it also carries risks.

In short, it needs to 'get it right.' And, of course, a good deal of that responsibility falls to developers.

What is responsible AI and how's it measured?

According to the new AI Index report, truly responsible AI models must meet public expectations in key areas: data privacy, data governance, security and safety, fairness, and transparency and explainability.

Data privacy safeguards an individual's confidentiality, anonymity, and personal data. It includes the right to consent to and be informed about data usage. Data governance includes policies and procedures that ensure data quality, with a focus on ethical use. Security and safety include measures that ensure a system's reliability and minimize the risk of data misuse, cyber threats, and inherent system errors.

Fairness means using algorithms that avoid bias and discrimination and align with broader societal concepts of equity. Transparency is openly sharing data sources and algorithmic decisions, as well as considering how AI systems are monitored and managed from creation to operation. Explainability means the ability of developers to explain the rationale for their AI-related choices in understandable language.

For this year's report, Stanford researchers collaborated with Accenture to survey respondents from more than 1,000 worldwide organizations and asked them which risks they considered relevant. The result was the Global State of Responsible AI survey.

More

The bad and the ugly: AI is harmful, unreliable and running out of data (newatlas.com)

Finally, our latest new section, the world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.

World Debt Clocks (usdebtclock.org)

The propensity to swindle grows parallel with the propensity to speculate during a boom the implosion of an asset price bubble always leads to the discovery of frauds and swindles.

Charles P. Kindleberger.