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Spot Gold 2394 US 2 Year Yield 4.36 -0.05
When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'
Theodore Roosevelt
In the stock casinos, it’s time once again to dress up stocks and stock indexes for the money manager month-end bonuses.
The US central bank meets on Tuesday and Wednesday to consider whether to alter its key interest rate. No change is expected, but a rate cut is expected in September.
To no one’s surprise, with a weaponised US dollar and Uncle Scam almost 35 trillion in unrepayable debt, Malaysia has applied to join the BRICS.
Japan stocks rebound to lead gains in Asia as
traders assess U.S. inflation data, await BOJ meeting
Published Sun, Jul 28 2024 7:45 PM EDT
Asia-Pacific markets climbed on Monday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 leading gains in the region after a key U.S. inflation report late last Friday raised hopes for an interest rate cut.
The U.S. June personal consumption expenditures price index rose 0.1% month on month, and 2.5% compared to the same period a year ago, in line with estimates from economists polled by Dow Jones.
The Nikkei rose 2.26% while the broad-based Topix was up 2.02%. Should the Nikkei manage to hold on to its gains, this would snap the index’s eight-day losing streak. The Japanese yen strengthened 0.18% against the greenback to trade at 153.44.
Automaker Mitsubishi Motors was one of the top gainers in the Nikkei index, rising over 6% after Nikkei Asia reported that the company will join the Honda-Nissan alliance to standardize in-vehicle software.
“The tie-up, whose members sell more than 8 million vehicles worldwide, will consolidate the domestic market into two forces: the Toyota Motor Group and the Honda-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance,” Nikkei said.
Shares of Eisai, however, plunged 13% after the European Medicines Agency on Friday did not approve the drugmaker’s Leqembi treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, making it the biggest laggard among the 10 Nikkei 225 stocks that fell amid a broad rally.
In Asia, the highlight for this week will
be the Bank of Japan’s monetary policy meeting starting July 30. A Reuters poll
of economists expects the central bank to raise rates by 10 basis points to
0.1%.
A note from ING has said that the bank will lift rates by 15 basis points and reduce its bond-buying program simultaneously.
“We believe that the economy is back on a recovery track after an unexpected contraction in the first quarter of 2024, and solid wage growth for May should the central bank give more confidence,” the analysts wrote.
Other key inflation data from the region include China’s July PMI data, while Australia will release its latest set of inflation data before the central bank’s Aug. 6 monetary policy meeting.
South Korea’s Kospi was 1.3% higher, while
the small-cap Kosdaq rose 0.59%.
Hong Kong Hang Seng index climbed 1.1%, but mainland China’s CSI 300 slipped 0.3%, dragged by utilities stocks.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was 0.84% up.
The Taiwan Weighted Index rebounded 1.04%, after plunging over 3% last Friday. The island’s market was closed last Wednesday and Thursday due to a typhoon.
On Friday in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 1.64%, while the S&P 500 climbed 1.11% and the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.03%.
Friday’s moves stem from a combination of
oversold sentiment, a stronger-than-expected GDP report Thursday and the view
that the Federal Reserve will begin cutting rates, said CFRA Research’s Sam
Stovall.
Asia stock markets: BOJ meeting, China PMI, Australia inflation (cnbc.com)
Stock futures rise slightly ahead of loaded week
for tech earnings
Updated Sun, Jul 28 2024 6:56 PM EDT
Stock futures rose modestly on Sunday evening as Wall Street gears up for a busy week of corporate earnings.
Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed
87 points, or about 0.2%. S&P
500 futures gained 0.2%, while Nasdaq 100 futures added
0.3%.
The move in futures comes after a volatile week in the stock market.
The S&P 500 dipped 0.8%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 2.1%. However, the Dow rose 0.8% and the small-cap Russell 2000 rose 3.5%.
The cooling off of the tech trade has hurt the broader market indexes, but the catch-up of areas like small caps has been encouraging to many market strategists.
“Now that we’re seeing more participation, even though it’s caused some volatility over the past few weeks, I think this is ultimately a better story for long-term investors as we move forward,” said Callie Cox, chief market strategist at Ritholtz Wealth Management.
This week’s earnings slate will play a role in determining whether tech stocks can now bounce back. Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Apple and Amazon are all set to report their quarterly results in the coming days.
Another key event this week will be
the Federal Reserve meeting,
with the central bank set to release a new policy statement on Wednesday. The
Fed is not expected to cut interest rates this week, but traders will be
looking for clues as to how likely the central bank is to make a move at its
September meeting.
Stock futures rise slightly ahead of loaded week for tech earnings: Live updates (cnbc.com)
In other, real US economy news, CRE trouble is arriving in spades.
US Office Loan Pain Is Only Starting to Ramp Up
July 27, 2024 at 8:00 PM GMT+1
Any hopes that falling borrowing costs would stem the pain from the US office downturn were swept away this week.
Deutsche Bank AG set aside more money for souring US commercial real estate loans, while a Blackstone Inc. mortgage trust slashed its dividend. New York Community Bancorp’s shares then plunged the most since the last bout of CRE-related turmoil in March after provisions for losses came in at more than double the average expected by analysts.
The announcements signal that lenders may not be able to just amend and extend loans in the hope that lower interest rates will ease borrowers’ pain and give property owners more time to refinance debt. More than $94 billion of US commercial real estate is currently distressed, according to MSCI Real Assets, with a further $201 billion at risk of slipping into that category.
“As a $1.5 trillion wall of loan maturities hits over the next two years, the implications are profound,” John Murray and François Trausch at Pacific Investment Management Co. wrote in a note this week. “Lenders and borrowers will be forced to ‘face the music’: In the near term, we expect further declines in appraised valuations and price indices, making loan extensions even more difficult to rationalize.”
The bad news began when Deutsche Bank said the office sector in the US will continue to impact earnings in the coming months, although it expects CRE provisions to be lower in the second half. Later that day, Blackstone Mortgage Trust Inc., a target for short sellers, reported a quarterly loss to the trust of $61 million compared with a $101.7 million profit in the same period a year earlier. It cut its dividend by 24%.
The following day, New York Community
Bancorp said it set aside another $390 million during the second quarter to
cover loan losses, primarily due to office lending.
More
Credit Weekly: US Office Loan Pain Is Only Starting to Ramp Up - Bloomberg
Malaysia applies to join BRICS, boost ties with Russia
Monday, 29 Jul 2024
PUTRAJAYA: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim says Malaysia submitted an application to Russia to join the BRICS intergovernmental organisation.
In a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office, Anwar said Malaysia’s desire to join the BRICS organisation was the main topic of his discussion with visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov who called on the Prime Minister at the Seri Perdana Complex here yesterday.
“Malaysia has sent a letter of application to join the (BRICS) organisation to Russia as the BRICS chairman, besides expressing openness to participate as a member country or strategic partner,” he said.
On June 18, Anwar confirmed Malaysia’s intention to join BRICS to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
BRICS, which initially included Brazil, Russia, India and China, was established in 2009 as a cooperation platform for emerging economies, with South Africa joining the bloc in 2010.
The bloc now has been expanded to include Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates.
BRICS now contributes to a quarter of the global economy, accounts for one-fifth of global trade and represents about 40% of the world’s population.
Earlier, Lavrov and his delegation, who arrived at the Seri Perdana Complex at 10am, were welcomed by Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan, Bernama reported.
Also present were Defence Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin and Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abd Kadir.
During the nearly hour-long meeting, Anwar
and Lavrov also discussed boosting Malaysia-Russia ties and cooperation in
various sectors, including trade, investment,
Malaysia applies to join BRICS, boost ties with Russia | The Star
Finally, curiouser and curiouser. Is the US Treasury now working for team Biden/Harris?
Hedge fund study on U.S. Treasury issuance fuels
debate
By Davide Barbuscia July 27, 20241 2:35 AM GMT+1
NEW YORK, July 26 (Reuters) - A hedge fund study that said the U.S. Treasury last year effectively provided economic stimulus by moderating long-dated bond sales has sparked a debate in the bond market and a denial from the U.S. Treasury that said it was not aiming for such an effect.
The U.S. Treasury Department announced in November it would slow the pace of auction size increases of long-dated debt securities, a move that gave relief to bond markets rattled by previous increases in long-term debt supply.
This led to a decline in 10-year Treasury yields equivalent to the economic stimulus that would be provided by a one percentage point reduction in the Fed's policy rate, according to a study published by Hudson Bay Capital Management.
The study was authored by senior economic advisor Nouriel Roubini, an economist who rose to prominence for predicting the global credit crisis, and senior strategist Stephen Miran, who was an advisor for economic policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury under former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, when Republican nominee Donald Trump was U.S. president.
"Our interpretation is that while the Fed was raising the Fed fund rate all the way to 5.5%, these (Treasury) policies were effectively pushing long yields lower," said Roubini in an interview. "The Fed has been trying to raise rates to pull down the economy and achieve a soft landing, but ... it looks like we could be in a no landing zone, with growth persistently above potential."
The study echoes suggestions by
Republican senators last
month that the Treasury deliberately increased issuance of short-term Treasury
bills to give the economy a "sugar high" ahead of the elections.
Roubini's paper drew a similar parallel.
More
Hedge fund study on U.S. Treasury issuance fuels debate | Reuters
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.
Even September may be too late for a rate cut to swing the U.S. economy out of a recession, warns former Fed president
July 26, 2024
While Wall Street is largely convinced September will mark the month when Fed chairman Jerome Powell at last drops the base rate, some experts are warning it may already be too late to save the economy from a recession.
The likes of Goldman Sachs and UBS are pricing in a first cut before the November presidential elections—which may anger White House hopeful Donald Trump—but not as early as the Fed's next meeting in July.
However Bill Dudley, the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, believes Powell and the Fed need to cut rates as soon as possible.
Having led the New York institution from 2009 to 2018, Dudley is a powerful voice on monetary policy who was previously in the "higher for longer" camp.
However the tenth president of the NY Fed said he had simply "changed his mind" in an opinion piece published by Bloomberg Wednesday.
"The facts have changed, so I’ve changed my mind. The Fed should cut, preferably at next week’s policy-making meeting," Dudley wrote.
Dudley cited the consumer slowdown noted by the likes of Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan and Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, who have said while consumers are generally holding up "cracks" are beginning to appear at the lower end of the income spectrum.
What is now appearing are more significant fissures: car repossessions are up 23% compared with the same period last year, while the delinquency rate on consumer loans has also been steadily ticking up—according to data from the St Louis Fed.
These factors, combined with the fact that unemployment is also creeping up, led Dudley to rethink his advice to Powell and his six peers on the board.
Some economists are skeptical about quite how bad the jobless rate is. The U.S. Department of Labor’s most recent figures reveal a 20,000 person increase from the week prior, though experts like Wharton Professor Jeremy Siegel note: "Some attribute the rise in jobless claims to Hurricane Beryl’s impact on Texas which should be reversed in the coming weeks."
This counter is not enough to convince Dudley the economy is not on a bumpy road downwards. He adds: "Although it might already be too late to fend off a recession by cutting rates, dawdling now unnecessarily increases the risk."
The Sahm Rule
At the heart of Dudley's concern is a metric known as the Sahm Rule which in the past has been fairly accurate in signaling when the U.S. is about to head into a recession.
The Sahm Rule looks at two factors: the current three-month moving average of U.S. unemployment and the lowest three-month moving average of U.S. unemployment over the past year.
If the current average is higher than the lowest average by more than half a percentage point, the American economy is headed for a recession.
The recession indicator, developed by macroeconomist Claudia Sahm, tipped higher in the early months of 2020 for example (proceeded by the COVID recession) and latter months of 2008 (predating the 2008 recession).
Other notable peaks in the indicator with a subsequent or coinciding recession include the double dip recession of 1980 and the Dotcom recession of 2001.
In
the Sahm Rule's latest
update for June 2024—with
0.50 percentage points as the benchmark not to cross—the figure stood at 0.43.
More
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Supplement could help protect against Covid-19 as UK cases rise
July 26, 2024
Certain vitamins and
minerals are vital to ensure our bodies work to the best of their abilities.
And as a result many people rely on taking supplements as part of their daily
routine.
They can help to bolster
your nutrient intake, and even have a protective effect against certain
illnesses. According to some studies, topping up on vitamin D tablets could do
just this - potentially helping you avoid a more serious COVID-19 infection.
One such study, published
in Pharmaceuticals journal in 2023, found that you could diminish
the impact of Covid by taking vitamin D supplements. The research, conducted by
a team from Italy, followed on from previous trials investigating the use of
vitamin D.
Researchers used
information from four randomised controlled trials “suitable” for their
analysis. They found a correlation between taking vitamin D supplements and
less severe outcomes for Covid patients.
“Vitamin D administration
results in a decreased risk of death and ICU admission,” the study said. “The
trial sequential analysis of the protective role of vitamin D and ICU admission
showed that, since the pooling of the studies reached a definite sample size,
the positive association is conclusive.”
The team noted that
various other studies conducted before the pandemic showed that patients who
received vitamin D supplements “had a lower risk of acute respiratory
infections and a shorter duration of symptoms”. This was true among patients
taking between 400 and 1,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D daily for up
to a year.
However, the NHS warns against
taking more than 4,000 IU (equivalent to 100 micrograms) of vitamin D a day as
this can be “harmful”.
A separate study,
published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and
Metabolism, concluded that Covid
patients with low levels of vitamin D were more likely to then suffer the
effects of long Covid. A team from the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University and
IRCCS San Raffaele Hospital in Milan examined 100 patients aged from 51 to 70
years, with and without long Covid.
More
Supplement could help protect against Covid-19 as UK cases rise (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.
Partnership
aims to convert industrial plastic scrap to synthetic graphene
July
26, 2024
Global
Green USA, the American affiliate of nongovernmental organization Green Cross
International based in Santa Monica, California, says it is formally endorsing
and entering into a strategic partnership with Astera and the Carbon Conversion
Group Inc. (CCG) as they look to convert industrial plastic scrap into
high-grade graphene.
The
firms say the partnership seeks to drastically reduce the landfill burden and
carbon emissions. Astera, Long Beach, California, and CCG, a plastic recycling
technology company that specializes in transforming industrial and commercial
plastic scrap into synthetic graphene, graphite, hydrogen and other commodities
based in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, will use technology that supports local
industries, reduces reliance on imported graphene and aligns with the U.S.’
commitment to sustainability and reduced global supply chain vulnerabilities.
The companies say it sets a new standard for environmental conservation,
transforms global sustainability and accelerates the timetable to net-zero.
Global Green USA CEO
William Bridge says the organization’s endorsement of the technology comes
after a thorough review and consideration of its potential to make a
substantial impact on global sustainability.
“By
endorsing Astera and Carbon Conversion Group, we
are not just supporting a technology; we are catalyzing a shift towards
substantial environmental improvement,” Bridge says. “Their innovative approach
to converting industrial plastic waste into valuable resources is advancing
global sustainability. This initiative directly addresses the urgent need to
reduce plastic pollution and showcases a viable path to converting waste into a
resource that benefits both the planet and our economy. We look forward to this
partnership, which is a game-changer for environmental conservation and global
development.”
Robert
C. Doherty, CEO of the Carbon Conservation Group, says the company’s technology
not only reduces industrial plastic scrap but also helps prevent the pollution
that “plagues our ecosystems.”
“By
converting these plastics to graphene, we’re not just recycling; we’re creating
a greener future,” he adds.
Astera
Chairman Bob Switzer has expressed gratitude for Global Green’s support. “This
endorsement from Global Green USA and their partnership, is a testament to the
hard work and dedication of our team in developing technologies that pave the
way for a sustainable future,” he says. “Our partnership with CCG enhances our
ability to tackle the pressing issue of industrial plastic waste, transforming
it into valuable resources for a greener tomorrow.”
Partnership aims
to convert industrial plastic scrap to synthetic graphene - Recycling Today
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt
Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
Do
Something Now. If not you, who? If not here, where? If not now, when?
Theodore Roosevelt.
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