Baltic Dry Index. 1997 +50 Brent Crude 85.19
Spot Gold 2411 US 2 Year Yield 4.45 -0.05
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
Abraham Lincoln.
The big news today continues to be US and international reaction to the assassination attempt on Saturday on former President Trump. More on that below.
In the stock casinos, relative calm. Thankfully Mr. Trump survived with only a minor injury, but it would have been a very different story had Mr. Trump died or been severely injured.
Below, how Asia’s stock casinos are reacting.
China’s GDP miss. More sign of an Asian recession?
Another warning from JP Morgan’s CEO.
Asia markets
mostly slip as investors assess China GDP miss and assassination attempt on
Trump
Asia-Pacific markets mostly fell on Monday as
China’s GDP data missed expectations, while investors also assessed the impact
of an assassination
attempt on former U.S. President Donald Trump at a rally over
the weekend.
David Roche, president of Quantum
Strategy, said in a note on Sunday that Trump would win the presidency, with an
increased probability of a Republican clean sweep of both the House of
Representatives and the Senate.
On Monday, China’s statistics bureau announced that
its economy grew 4.7% in the second quarter, missing expectations of a 5.1%
expansion forecast by a Reuters poll and lower than the 5.3% rise seen in the
first quarter.
China’s retail sales for June also
came in lower than expected, growing 2% year on year, compared with
expectations of 3.3% from economists polled by Reuters. Sales rose 3.7% in May.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index plunged
1.12%, led by consumer non-cyclical and real estate stocks, while mainland
China’s CSI 300 was lower by 0.15% after the economic data came in worse than
expected..
Separately, China’s top leaders
will gather this
week for a highly anticipated meeting known as the Third Plenum, with
analysts expecting the gathering to focus on areas such as high local
government debt levels and a push for advanced manufacturing, instead of the
country’s real estate sector.
Japan’s markets are closed for a
public holiday.
South Korea’s Kospi and
the small-cap Kosdaq were close to the flatline.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 extended
gain to a third straight day, up 0.79%, hitting a fresh all-time high. The
index was the only major Asian benchmark in positive territory.
U.S. market futures were
marginally up late Sunday night, with futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average higher by 0.11%, while S&P 500 and
Nasdaq saw gains of about 0.1%.
Asia markets live:
China GDP, China Third Plenum, Trump assassination (cnbc.com)
JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon warns inflation and
interest rates may stay higher
PUBLISHED FRI, JUL 12 2024 7:49 AM EDT UPDATED FRI, JUL 12 2024 10:47 AM
EDT
JPMorgan
Chase CEO Jamie
Dimon on Friday issued another
warning about inflation despite recent signs of easing in price pressures.
“There has been some progress bringing inflation
down, but there are still multiple inflationary forces in front of us: large
fiscal deficits, infrastructure needs, restructuring of trade and
remilitarization of the world,” Dimon said in a statement along with the
bank’s second-quarter results.
“Therefore, inflation and interest rates may stay higher than the market
expects.”
His comments came after this week’s data
showed the monthly inflation rate dipped in June for the first time in more than four years, which
fueled bets that the Federal Reserve could cut rates soon.
The consumer price index,
a broad measure of the costs for goods and services across the U.S. economy,
declined 0.1% in June from May, putting the 12-month rate at 3%, around its
lowest level in more than three years.
Fed Chairman Jerome
Powell earlier this week expressed concern that
holding interest rates too high for too long could jeopardize economic growth,
teasing that rate reductions could be on the horizon as long as inflation
continues to show progress.
Dimon joined many economists in sounding the alarm
on burgeoning U.S. debt and deficits. The federal government has so far spent
$855 billion more than it has collected in the 2024 fiscal year. For fiscal
2023, the government’s deficit spending came in at $1.7 trillion.
JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon warns inflation and interest rates may stay higher (cnbc.com)
In Trump assassination news, malice or incompetence?
"Malice Or Massive
Incompetence": Erik Prince Gives Detailed Assessment Of Secret Service
Failure
SUNDAY, JUL 14, 2024 - 07:24 PM
Update (1420ET): Former Navy Seal and Blackwater founder Erik Prince
gave a detailed assessment of yesterday's Secret Service debacle in the wake of
a failed assassination attempt on former President Trump.
"Hopefully after the tragedy yesterday in Butler PA we can all recognize that unaccountable bloated bureaucracies continue to fail us as Americans," Prince posted to X.
Donald J Trump is
alive today solely due to a bad wind estimate by an evil would be assasin
[sic].
As the graphics
show the full value wind of just 5mph was enough to displace the unconfirmed
but likely light 55 grain bullet two inches from DJT's intended forehead to his
ear.
DJT was not saved
by USSS brilliance. The fact that USSS allowed a rifle armed shooter within 150yds
to a preplanned event is either malice or massive incompetence. Clearly
there was adequate uncontrolled dead space for a shooter to move into position
and take multiple aimed shots.
More
FBI
identifies gunman after Trump assassination attempt in Pennsylvania
July 14, 2024
Federal prosecutors have
named the suspected gunman who
shot at Donald Trump in an apparent assassination attempt as he spoke at a
rally in Pennsylvania.
The ex-US President, 78, grabbed
his right ear as blood splattered across his face at the event in Butler on Saturday.
His Secret Service bodyguards
rushed to cover him. Two people, including the suspected gunman, died. A
spokesman said Mr Trump was "grazed by gunfire" but
"fine".
The FBI has confirmed the name of the alleged gunman as
20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.
----Pennsylvania
voter records reveal that Crooks was registered as a Republican. However,
federal campaign finance reports paint a more complex picture.
Documents show Crooks made a
$15 donation to a progressive political action committee on 20 January 2021 –
the day of President Joe Biden's inauguration.
This conflicting information
has raised questions about the suspect's political leanings and motivations
behind the attack at the Trump rally.
A man who was attending the
rally says he alerted Secret Service agents to a gunman on a nearby roof
minutes before shots were fired at the former president.
The witness, identified only
as Greg, expressed disbelief at the apparent lack of action from security
personnel. He recounted: "I'm thinking to myself, why is Trump still
speaking, why have they not pulled him off the stage? The next thing you know,
five shots ring out."
Greg, a Trump supporter, described
seeing the shooter prepare for the assassination attempt. He claimed other
attendees also spotted the man on the roof for several minutes without
intervention from law enforcement.
"We noticed a guy crawling, you
know army, bear crawling up the roof of the building 50ft away from us,"
Greg said. "We are standing there pointing at the guy crawling up the
roof, he had a rifle, we could clearly see he had a rifle."
More
FBI identifies gunman after Trump assassination
attempt in Pennsylvania (msn.com)
What we know about Thomas
Matthew Crooks, the suspected Trump rally shooter
14 Jul 2024
A look
at America’s long history of presidential assassination attempts
July 14, 2024
On March
30, 1981, Ronald Reagan was walking out of the Washington Hilton Hotel where he
had just addressed labor leaders when the mentally ill son of a wealthy Texas
energy executive stepped from the crowd and emptied a six shot revolver at him.
More
A look at America’s long history of presidential assassination attempts (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.
Though, as widely expected England lost to the punter's favourite Spain, the European football competition gave a one off sugar boost to the UK economy. Now on to the Paris Olympics.
Euros gives £3bn boost to British economy
13 July 2024 • 1:00pm
Football fans have given a
£3.1bn boost to the British economy over the past four weeks as Euros fever
sweeps the country.
At least £405m is expected to
be spent in pubs and supermarkets for Sunday night’s final as England take on Spain in the highly anticipated tournament
decider.
More than 17 million people are expected
to watch the match in their local pub, bar or restaurant, with fans predicted
to spend £70.5m on drinks and £54.3m on food.
Retailers are expected to receive a
£280.1m boost, according to research by industry analyst GlobalData Retail for
the website VoucherCodes. The majority of this will be spent in supermarkets on
last-minute snacks and drinks for the match.
Tesco, for example, said it was
expecting to sell more than one million pizzas and 180,000 packs of burgers
between Friday and Sunday. The supermarket said it was preparing to sell around
four million packs of beer and cider.
Kris Hamer, the director of insight
at the British Retail Consortium, said: “After success against the Netherlands,
we expect more people across England to tune into Sunday’s finals, meaning more
spending on snacks and drinks, and potentially an uptick in TV sales as
households try to watch the big game on even bigger screens.”
More
Euros gives £3bn boost to British economy (msn.com)
Inflation Relief Spurs Rotation From Tech To Laggards
Jul 13, 2024,10:18am EDT
Better-than-expected
inflation numbers paved the way for interest rate cuts later this year,
prompting a rotation in the stock market away from mega-cap tech and into other
market segments that have lagged in the rally.
The June
consumer price index inflation data was
the most significant economic release of the year. Disinflation was
broad-based, core goods prices and non-housing services fell, and rents slowed
significantly. The report solidifies that inflation is on track to meet the
Fed’s 2% target with sufficient confidence, a criteria that needed to be met
before the Federal Reserve eases interest rates. The inflation data and the
ongoing weakening of the labor market should set the stage for the first rate
cut in September.
Climbing odds of a
September rate cut have served as a tipping point for markets: yield curves are
steepening and rates-sensitive equity market sectors are rallying. A major
equity market rotation was triggered, with the move likely to continue in the
coming weeks as portfolio managers adjust to the reality of peak rates and seek
to rebalance exposure away from the trades that performed well in the “higher
for longer” camp.
Many trading themes had multiple standard
deviation moves after the CPI report; most revolved around unwinding the
melt-up in mega-cap technology companies. These companies have dominated the
performance of the broad indexes over the last 18 months, and many portfolio
managers and allocators have capitulated into owning this narrow set of the
market to avoid repeated underperformance despite lofty valuations. The near
certainty of a Fed rate cut is a great excuse to sell and rebalance risk.
More
Inflation Relief Spurs Rotation From Tech To Laggards
(forbes.com)
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
So much for the UK Court of “Protection.” What was Mr. Justice Burrows thinking?
Mother
wins battle to stop son having Covid vaccine she feared could kill him
July 13, 2024
The mother of a disabled son
with a rare heart condition has won a landmark case to prevent the state from
injecting him with the Covid-19 vaccine she
feared could kill him.
After a three-year court battle,
the mother, who can only be named as Sarah, said she had endured a “Kafkaesque
nightmare” to protect her son, Tom, who has severe learning difficulties as
well as a range of life-threatening conditions.
Mr Justice Hayden, sitting in
the Court of Protection, has now ruled it is “no longer in Tom’s best interests
to receive the jab” because the virus “landscape” had changed so much since the
peak of the pandemic.
He made
the ruling after an American professor of paediatrics said Tom was more likely
to suffer heart complications – such as myocarditis and pericarditis – if given
the mRNA vaccine.
But Sarah says the battle has
eroded her trust in public organisations such as social services, doctors and
the courts, and accused the Government of introducing a policy that ignores
individual circumstances.
Tom’s conditions include a
chromosome abnormality which causes severe learning difficulties, meaning he
has the mental age of an 18-month-old child despite being 24.
His
mother feared the messenger
RNA (mRNA) vaccine, which tells cells how to trigger an
immune response to Covid, could cause an adverse reaction in his heart. So, she
resisted doctors and social workers’ demands that he be injected for the
“greater good of society”.
Because Tom was over 18 when the
Government ruled that the most vulnerable should be injected during the pandemic,
the Court of Protection assigned him a lawyer to act in his “best interests”.
That lawyer, along with the local integrated care board, backed calls for him
to be jabbed.
Sarah raised £60,000 through
crowdfunding and spent her £25,000 life savings to fight the case.
She claims she was threatened with
arrest, jail, seizure of her assets and the possibility of her son being
removed from their home to be “forcibly jabbed”.
Sarah, 60, who lives in north west
England, fought back tears as she told The Telegraph: “It has felt like a
Kafkaesque nightmare because I was taking on the state that wouldn’t budge.
“I went from being a loving mother
and Tom’s sole carer to a near criminal. I have been made to feel like a liar,
a bad person and a fanatic.
----Two
years ago, Judge Burrows, sitting in the Court of Protection in Preston, ruled
Tom was in an at-risk group and so should have the jab, adding that the court
was “ill-equipped” to say whether the vaccine was safe or not but taking it was
“altruistic” and required of every citizen.
More
Mother wins battle to stop son having Covid vaccine
she feared could kill him (msn.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.
North East bulletproof shield
maker reveals role in US military footwear project
Graphene
Composites is working with academics in the US to create footwear for extreme
cold weather
09:57, 12 JUL 2024
Nano-materials engineering firm Graphene Composites is involved in a
project to develop the next generation of US military footwear.
The County Durham-based creator of bulletproof shields and air filter
technology, which has US offices in Providence, Rhode Island, is taking part in
the Supporting Warfighters through Innovative Footwear Technologies (SWIFT)
programme. It will see Graphene Composites extend its patented GC Composite
graphene and aerogel technology to create ultra-lightweight materials that
offer insulation in extreme cold weather.
The firm's expertise
will be used to create footwear that offers greater protection, comfort and
durability, that are to be manufactured in the US. Graphene Composites says its
work will attempt to overcome the significant scientific obstacle that comes in
enhancing thermal capabilities of footwear in severe conditions.
Other partners in the
project, which comes via the Harnessing Emerging Research Opportunities to
Empower Soldiers (HEROES) initiative, include DEVCOM Soldier Center, the US
Army's efforts to create technologies for soldiers; University of Massachusetts
Lowell and Natick MA.
Mox Weber, VP GC USA ,
said: "GC Composites stand out due to their unique combination of low
density, better insulative abilities, and robust durability. We will apply our
nanomaterials and advanced materials engineering expertise to graphene and aerogel
composites to achieve super thermal insulation and enhanced durability of the
nano-porous structure."
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt
Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
You can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.
Abraham Lincoln.
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