Baltic
Dry Index. 1993 -04 Brent Crude 84.63
Spot Gold 2428 US 2 Year Yield 4.44 -0.01
There is a better way for everything. Find it.
Thomas A. Edison.
Yesterday, Fed Chairman Powell folded to Wall Street and Wall Street loved it.
I think both the Fed and Wall Street are making a big mistake. The Fed Chairman Powell has waited too long to start cutting interest rates and a new US recession is already underway. I think it started in April, though others suggest May.
Wall Street is buying into a new recession at the very top of a bubble about to burst in a 1987 style crash.
Elsewhere, the stock casinos are getting
nervous.
Asia-Pacific
markets mixed after Fed Chair Powell’s rate cut comments lift Wall Street
Asia-Pacific markets were mixed on Tuesday after Federal Reserve Chair
Jerome Powell’s dovish comments sent Wall Street higher overnight.
Powell said the central bank will
not wait until inflation hits 2% to cut interest rates, as the
Fed’s policy works with “long and variable lags.” So, “if you wait until
inflation gets all the way down to 2%, you’ve probably waited too long,” he
said.
His comments combined with
expectations that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s failed
assassination attempt will lead to big gains for the party and
friendlier fiscal policies pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average to
close at fresh highs.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dipped
1.37%, led by consumer stocks, while mainland China’s CSI 300 climbed 0.21%.
Insurance company Ping An was
one of the top losers on the index, with shares sinking more than 5% as the
firm announced that it will cancel $102.6 million A shares in its
repurchased securities account. Separately, Chinese insurers proposed to issue $3.5 billion of convertible bonds due in
2029.
India’s benchmark Nifty 50 hit
an all-time high, gaining 0.23%. The country is set to present its union budget
for financial year 2025 next week.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained
0.24% and the Topix rose 0.48% as markets resumed trading after a public
holiday.
Shares of Japan’s TDK Corporation,
the sixth largest stock on the Nikkei by weight, jumped more than 4%.
South Korea’s Kospi climbed
0.14%, while the Kosdaq swung the opposite direction and fell 1.33%
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell
marginally, retreating from the index’s all-time closing high on Monday.
Following Monday’s weaker-than-expected China
GDP print, Goldman Sachs lowered its forecast for China’s full-year
gross domestic product to 4.9% from 5%, while JPMorgan cut its predictions from
5.2% to 4.7%.
“This highlights the need for the
government to step up policy support in the second half if they want to ensure
around 5% growth for the full year,” Hui Shan, chief China economist at Goldman
Sachs told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Tuesday, elaborating that weak domestic
demand remains a big issue.
Investors continue to look for
developments from China’s Third
Plenum, where high local government debt levels and a push for
advanced manufacturing will be on the agenda.
“This is a potential window for the
leadership to give us more clues about what they think about the policy
trajectory forward,” she said.
Elsewhere, Singapore state investor
Temasek announced plans to invest up to $10 billion in India over three years
in the country’s financial services and healthcare industries. As of March, the
company had 7% of investments in the South Asian nation.
Temasek, which has 19% of its
investments in China, said it continues to take a cautious stance due to trade
tensions.
Overnight in the U.S., the
blue-chip Dow advancing 0.53% to close at a record 40,211.72. The S&P 500
added 0.28% to finish at 5,631.22, while the Nasdaq Composite gained
0.4% to end at 18,472.57.
Asia
stock markets: Dow record high, Powell comments, China Third Plenum (cnbc.com)
Europe heads for
mixed open as markets digest Powell’s comments on cutting rates
LONDON — European stocks are expected to open in
mixed territory Tuesday as investors assess the economic and political outlook
in the region and beyond.
The U.K.’s FTSE index
is seen opening 15 points lower at 8,164, Germany’s DAX down
19 points at 18,580, France’s CAC 40 up
7 points at 7,633 and Italy’s FTSE MIB down
31 points at 34,493, according to data from IG.
Global markets are digesting dovish
comments from U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in which
he said the central bank will
not wait until inflation hits 2% to cut interest rates, as the
Fed’s policy works with “long and variable lags.”
So, “if you wait until inflation
gets all the way down to 2%, you’ve probably waited too long,” he said Monday.
His comments, combined with expectations that the failed
assassination attempt on Republican presidential candidate
Donald Trump will lead to big gains for the party and friendlier fiscal
policies from a Trump administration, sent Wall Street higher Monday.
Asia-Pacific
markets were mixed overnight as traders reacted to Powell’s
comments. U.S.
stock futures were slightly higher on Monday after the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed
at a record high.
Ocado, SEB and Swedbank are
releasing earnings in Europe, and there are no major data releases.
European
markets: stocks, news, data, earnings, Powell comments (cnbc.com)
Powell indicates
Fed won’t wait until inflation is down to 2% before cutting rates
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said
Monday that the central bank will not wait until inflation hits 2% to cut
interest rates.
Speaking at the Economic Club of
Washington D.C., Powell referenced
the idea that central bank policy works with “long and variable lags” to
explain why the Fed wouldn’t wait for its target to be hit.
“The implication of that is that if
you wait until inflation gets all the way down to 2%, you’ve probably waited
too long, because the tightening that you’re doing, or the level of tightness
that you have, is still having effects which will probably drive inflation
below 2%,” Powell said.
Instead, the Fed is looking for
“greater confidence” that inflation will return to the 2% level, Powell said.
“What increases that confidence in
that is more good inflation data, and lately here we have been getting some of
that,” he said.
Powell also said he thinks a “hard
landing” for the U.S. economy was not “a likely scenario.”
Monday was Powell’s first public
speaking appearance since the consumer price index report for June showed cooling
inflation, with prices actually falling month over month.
Powell said at the beginning
of his appearance that he was not intending to make any signals
about when the Fed might start to cut interest rates. The central bank’s next
policy meeting is at the end of July.
Powell made the remarks as part of
a discussion with David Rubenstein, chairman of the Economic Club of
Washington, D.C., and co-founder of The Carlyle Group, where the Fed chair
previously worked.
The target range for the federal
funds rate is currently 5.25% to 5.50%. That is up from a range of 0% to 0.25%
during the Covid-19 pandemic, and a range of 1.50%-1.75% before that health
crisis.
The federal funds rate influences,
directly or indirectly, the cost of money throughout the economy, such as
mortgage rates.
Powell indicates Fed won't wait until inflation is down to 2% before cutting rates (cnbc.com)
Next, Bloomberg’s (Ameican) spin on Germany’s economic decline.
So nothing to do with an increasingly fragile and confused Biden having the Nord Stream gas pipelines blown up in 2022, the same pipelines from Russia bringing the cheap Russian natural gas that under pinned the German business model, then!
Germany’s
Factories Founder While Competition From China Revs Up
July 15, 2024 at 12:00 PM GMT+1
The German government is facing a dilemma. Its industry,
which has powered the growth of Europe’s biggest economy since the end of World
War II, isn’t breaking out of its pandemic- and
energy-crisis-induced slump.
“The sector appears to have taken a permanent hit,” said
Martin Ademmer from Bloomberg Economics. Half of an estimated 7% shortfall in
industrial activity is due to structural factors, meaning that productive
capacity will not return to pre-2019 levels, last week’s BE study shows. That’s in line with
Bloomberg’s previous reporting which points to Germany’s days
as an industrial superpower coming to an end.
On top of that, the industrial sector has to decarbonize by
2045 — a tall order for an economy running on
carbon-intensive steel, chemicals and combustion-engine cars. Green hydrogen,
the government’s favored solution for the transition, is expensive and not
available in sufficient quantities. A sluggish bureaucracy isn’t helping.
As if these struggles weren’t
enough, competition from China is undercutting German prices in nearly all
areas of production. While average Chinese EV prices decreased to €32,000,
Germany’s average EV price increased over the past years to €52,700. Support
for German carmakers could come from the EU’s announced tariffs against Chinese
EV’s — if there weren’t the potential counter tariffs from China.
These would make German cars, including
its popular combustion engines like the Mercedes G-Class, more expensive in
China, which is the biggest market for carmakers like Mercedes-Benz or
Volkswagen.
More
Supply Chain Latest: Germany's Industrial Struggles -
Bloomberg
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.
Economist
who predicted recession reveals signs economy is on downturn
July 15, 2024
An economist who accurately
predicted the 2008 recession has forecast another downturn based on waning
employment numbers.
Famed economist David Rosenberg made
the dire prognosis following the release of June's nonfarm payrolls report
Friday.
He
told clients how despite a 206,000 job bump for the month, the results are
somewhat foreboding - and hold at least five surefire signs the US
economy is on the brink of a breakdown.
The first, and perhaps the most telling,
involves full-time employment, which while up for the month, is down 1.2
percent year-over-year.
Declines of this level have coincided with
every recession for fifty years, from the recessions of the early 1970s to the
one a few years ago wrought by COVID-19.
'Since the beginning of 2023, the nonfarm
payroll data have been revised down 82 percent of the time,' Rosenberg wrote in
the July 8 note, referencing that while headline numbers were strong, downward
revisions were made to prior months.
'One thing we do know about revisions
in the data, and in both directions, is that they have this historical tendency
to be highly pro-cyclical and predictive of the direction of overall economic
activity,' he continued.
He went on to point to what he
painted as a weak breadth beneath the broader stock market, evident by a
few stocks driving the bulk of returns.
'Nvidia alone accounted for nearly
one-third of the S&P 500's total return in the first half of this year,' he
explained, citing the tech stock as an example.
'Tack on Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and
Eli Lilly, and 55 percent of the market's return came from just those five
stocks.
'That is epic. So is the fact that 40
percent of the S&P 500 constituents are down for the year.'
Another example of poor performance
outside of such stocks was a 4.3 percent decline in the small and mid-cap
Russell 2500 index in Q2, he said - masked by the S&P 500's simultaneous
rise of 4.3 percent.
He said such decreases show a need
for the Fed to act urgently, as the labor market continues to weaken. He added
how that is already happening, before offering three self-professed
'indicators' meant to prove his point.
More
Economist
who predicted recession reveals signs economy is on downturn (msn.com)
Jul 12, 2024 @ 07:00pm by Iain Burns
'Terrible management':
Financial expert says it will take 'decades' to fix Canada's economy
Canada’s economy has suffered for decades from
“terrible management” and it will take decades to fix it, a finance expert has
argued.
Stephen Johnston, who works as Omnigence Asset
Management’s director in Calgary, said Canada has become the “poster child for
stagflation.”
Stagflation occurs
when a country’s economy suffers from sluggish growth – stagnation – and rising
prices – inflation – at the same time.
That combination “makes nobody
happy,” Johnston told NowMedia video host Jim Csek, since it leads to lower
living standards.
Explaining Canada’s precarious
economic position, Johnston emphasized the country’s lack of manufacturing,
loss of capital, fiscal deficits, overvalued housing, uncertainty about natural
resources development and penchant for borrowing.
“Basically, Canada is the poster
child for stagflation,” he said. “Like, if you think, there was a list of 20
things you shouldn't do … And you certainly shouldn't do all of them. We've
basically done all of them.”
Canadians – as well as foreigners –
have been investing their cash, or capital, outside of the country “in earnest
for the last decade,” Johnston said, describing that situation as “a travesty.”
“Without capital, you don't have
affluence,” he explained. “I mean, it's very straightforward.”
What capital the country does have,
he added, “is disproportionately focused on residential real estate.” In other
words, people are spending their savings on homes rather than investing in, for
example, Canadian start-ups.
Meanwhile, the country has “borrowed
to consume,” a practice Johnston classes as “effectively stealing growth from
the future.”
More
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Former CDC Director Says
FDA Underreported Adverse Vax Side Effects To Prevent Vaccine Hesitancy
MONDAY, JUL 15, 2024 - 03:45 AM
Dr. Robert Redfield, the former director of Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) said Thursday that the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) pushed a false “safe and effective” COVID vaccine
narrative by underreporting adverse events. The mRNA shots “never
should have been mandated,” Redfield told the Senate Committee on Homeland
Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday.
The Democrat-controlled Senate oversight
hearing entitled “Risky Research: Oversight of U.S. Taxpayer
Funded High-Risk Virus Research,” included witnesses Dr. Gerald Parker,
Dr. Carrie Wolinetz, Dr. Kevin Esvelt, and Redfield.
Former President
Trump’s CDC director accused the Biden government of suppressing data about
vaccine injuries in an effort to prevent vaccine hesitancy.
“There was not
appropriate transparency from the beginning about the potential side effects of
these vaccines, and I do think there were inappropriate decisions by
some to try to underreport any side effects because they argued that would make
the public less likely to get vaccinated” Redfield testified.
Redfield said the
biggest mistake of all was the Biden regime’s decision to mandate the mRNA
products.
“They never
should have been mandated,” he said. “It should have been open to personal
choice. They don’t prevent infection, they do have side effects.”
A growing number of
doctors and scientists now say that the cost to society and the cost to the
individual taking the COVID injection far outweighed any of the proposed
benefits.
More
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.
Villagers 'shell-shocked' after solar farm approved
15 July 2024
Campaigners opposed to a
2,500-acre solar farm said they were "shell-shocked" after the plan
was approved by the secretary of state for energy, external.
Sunnica's £600m energy farm on
the Cambridgeshire-Suffolk border was given the green light on Friday.
Opponents say the scheme takes
some of the most productive land in the UK out of use, while ignoring
alternative sites such as south-facing commercial roof space.
The Department of Energy
Security and Net Zero says the "benefits of the proposed development
outweigh its adverse impacts".
Catherine
Judkins, who chairs the Say No to Sunnica action group, said villagers were
"pretty shell-shocked".
"What's really
frustrating and why everyone is so angry is this seemingly rash decision goes
against the expert advice of the [Planning Inspectorate] examiners."
Their report concluded that
the perceived benefits did not outweigh the "very many harms" and it
should not be approved.
Secondly, she pointed to
"pledges Labour made throughout the election campaign on how food security
is a matter of national security".
"This land is capable of
growing high-value crops," she said.
Finally, solar is a
"wonderful technology because it's so versatile".
Ms Judkins said: "It can
go on rooftops, carparks, brownfield sites, we've got landfill sites being
covered, not to mention the UK has over 600,000 acres of south-facing
commercial roofs.
"In Germany, they installed 14 gw of solar energy in 2023, external, nearly 70% delivered through rooftops - the speed
and scale you can roll out solar is incredible."
A decision on
the plans had been delayed several times, including most recently due to the UK general election.
The new Energy
Security Secretary, Ed Miliband, said solar power was "crucial to
achieving net
zero on the mission towards 2030".
He said some cases had been "held
up for months before I arrived in the department" and "I've made the
decision in three days".
“We will make tough decisions
with ambition and urgency – all part of our plan to make the UK a clean energy
superpower," he added.
Suffolk County Council, East
Cambridgeshire District Council and former Conservative MPs Matt Hancock for
West Suffolk and Lucy Fraser for Ely had opposed it.
Sunnica said its
solar farm would power 172,000 homes and create 1,500 jobs during construction.
Its rejigged plans mean it will cover three sites connected by
underground cables to each other and to the National Grid at Burwell
substation.
More
Villagers
'shell-shocked' after Sunnica solar farm approved - BBC News
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt
Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
I never view mistakes as failures. They are simply opportunities to find out what doesn't work.
Thomas A. Edison.
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