Baltic Dry Index. 1896 +06 Brent Crude 73.05
Spot Gold 2575 US 2 Year Yield 3.56 -0.01
The history of fiat money is little more than a register of monetary follies and inflations. Our present age merely affords another entry in this dismal register.
Hans F. Sennholz.
Day one of the US central bank’s interest rate policy meeting, with a 25 basis point rate cut widely expected although the market seems to be expecting a bigger 50 basis point interest rate cut.
Either rate cut is likely to boost most US stocks, but I view any syrge in US stocks as an exit rally.
From China, to Europe, to the US economy heading into recession, I think the stock casinos are far divorced from economic reality.
Nikkei falls over 2% as yen strengthens; Asia
markets trade mixed ahead of Fed meeting
Published Mon, Sep 16 2024 7:55 PM EDT
Asia-Pacific stocks traded mixed on
Tuesday with Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropping over 2%, as investors awaited for the
Federal Reserve to kick off its monetary loosening cycle.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 declined 2.06%,
while the Topix was down 1.8% as the yen strengthened for a sixth straight
session, last at 140.40 against the dollar.
The yen strengthened to
139.58 yen overnight, its weakest level since July 2023.
The Fed is expected to announce its first
interest rate cut since March 2022, but markets are split over the size of the
reduction from the two-day policy meeting which begins Tuesday.
U.S. retail sales data is also set to take
center stage as investors monitor the health of the consumer in the lead up to
the Fed’s meeting.
Traders in Asia will also parse Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports for August, which
rose 10.7% from a year ago, official data showed Tuesday, while falling 4.7%
from the previous month. The figures compare with a Reuters forecast of a 15%
year-on-year expansion and a 3.3% month-on-month drop.
Tuesday’s economic data also includes
India’s wholesale prices for August, which are anticipated to have gained 1.85%
year-on-year, a cooler reading than 2.04% in July.
Shares of Chinese appliance maker Midea Group surged over 9% in
their Hong Kong debut from its offer price of HK$54.80 apiece. This is the
city’s largest listing in more than three years.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index climbed 1.1%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose
0.24%.
South Korea, mainland China and Taiwan’s
markets were closed for a holiday.
Overnight in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose
0.55% to a new record high at 41,622.08, tracking the rise in the S&P 500 which was up
0.13% settling at 5,633.09. If its momentum holds up, the broad-based index
could notch a new all-time this week.
Meanwhile the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.52%
to finish at 17,592.13, weighed down by tech stocks.
Asia-Pacific markets live: Fed meeting; Singapore NDOX; India inflation (cnbc.com)
Stock futures dip slightly as Wall Street braces
for retail sales data, Fed policy meeting: Live updates
Updated Tue, Sep 17 20241 2:06 AM EDT
Stock futures dipped slightly Monday
evening as Wall Street readied for key retail sales data and the start of the
Federal Reserve’s September policy meeting.
Intel shares popped
about 8% in extended trading after the company said it plans to make
its foundry business a subsidiary. The Biden administration also awarded
the company up to $3 billion in funding through the CHIPS Act.
Futures tied to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 futures both lost
about 0.1%, while futures linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were
little changed.
Wall Street is coming off a mixed trading
session. The 30-stock Dow rose
more than 228 points, or 0.55%, to close at a record high, while the S&P 500 added 0.13%.
The Nasdaq Composite lost
0.52% as Apple and prominent chip stocks declined.
Investors on Tuesday will parse retail
sales data for August for one final glimpse into the health of the U.S.
consumer ahead of the Fed rate decision. Economists polled by Dow Jones are
bracing for a 0.2% decline. Excluding autos, they see a 0.2% gain. The results
could affect the rate cut outcome.
Wall Street is on standby for the Fed’s
long-anticipated rate cut, a move that could help boost earnings growth for
companies following a backdrop of steep borrowing costs and high inflation. The
Fed first embarked on its aggressive hiking campaign in March 2022.
While Wall Street expects a cut Wednesday,
the market is divided on the size of the potential reduction. Traders are
currently pricing in a 67% chance that the central bank eases rates by 50 basis
points, according to CME Group’s Fed Watch tool. That’s up from a roughly 47%
chance Friday.
“Market expectations are split between a
25 basis point and a 50 basis point rate cut, as the decision is complicated by
conflicting signals of solid economic activity but a weakening labor market,”
said Principal Asset Management’s Seema Shah. “Rarely have market expectations
been so torn, so close to a [Federal Open Market Committee] meeting.”
While a 50 basis point cut isn’t out of
the question, the chief global strategist thinks that the Fed should take a
more cautious approach to cutting and ease rates by 25 basis points. She is
forecasting additional 25 basis point cuts in November and December.
In other economic news, industrial
production and manufacturing production data is due out for August, along with
September’s National Association of Home Builders Housing Market Index.
Stock market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
In other news.
Boeing freezes hiring in sweeping cost cuts as it
grapples with factory worker strike
Published Mon, Sep 16 2024 11:01 AM EDT
Boeing announced
sweeping cost cuts Monday, including a hiring freeze, a pause on nonessential
staff travel and a reduction on supplier spending to preserve cash as it deals
with a strike by more than 30,000 factory workers.
Boeing factory workers, mostly in the
Seattle area, started walking off the job early Friday after overwhelmingly
rejecting a tentative labor deal, halting most of Boeing’s aircraft production.
The manufacturer will make “significant
reductions” to supplier spending and stop most purchase orders for its 737 Max,
767 and 777 jetliners, CFO Brian West said in a note to staff. It was the first
clear sign of how the strike will affect the hundreds of suppliers that rely on
Boeing work.
“We are working in good faith to reach a
new contract agreement that reflects their feedback and enables operations to
resume,” West said in his note. “However, our business is in a difficult
period. This strike jeopardizes our recovery in a significant way and we must
take necessary actions to preserve cash and safeguard our shared future.”
He added that Boeing is not making cuts to
funding for safety, quality and direct customer support work.
The financial impact of the strike will
depend on how long it lasts, but Boeing is focused
on conserving cash, West said at a Morgan Stanley conference Friday. He
said the company’s new CEO, Kelly
Ortberg, wants to get back to the bargaining table right away to reach a
new deal.
“We are also considering the difficult
step of temporary furloughs for many employees, managers and executives in the
coming weeks,” West said.
On Friday, Moody’s put all of Boeing’s
credit ratings on review for a downgrade and Fitch Ratings said a prolonged
strike could put Boeing at risk of a downgrade. That could drive up the
borrowing costs of a manufacturer that already has mounting debt.
Boeing burned about $8 billion in the
first half of the year as production slowed in the wake of a near-catastrophic
door-panel blowout at the start of the year.
Boeing freezes hiring in sweeping cost cuts as it grapples with strike (cnbc.com)
China’s economy is going through a ‘slow, painful,
grinding adjustment,’ analyst says
Published Mon, Sep 16 2024 3:58 AM EDT
SINGAPORE — Following a slew of data
released over the weekend from China that painted a fairly bleak outlook for
its economy, analysts have tapered their expectations for the country’s full
year GDP growth.
“There hasn’t been much good news in this
latest round of data, and this has been the pattern for the last few months,”
said Eswar Prasad, professor of international trade and economics at Cornell
University, on CNBC’s “Street
Signs Asia” on Monday.
“Both the long term issues related to
property prices and so on, and the short term issues related to domestic demand
in particular, especially private investment and household consumption have not
been doing well at all,” Prasad said.
He warned that Beijing’s economic outlook
for the second half of the year is now “flashing red, or pretty close to red.”
Duncan Wrigley, chief strategist at
Everbright Securities International, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” that on
the “positive side, you could say, given the size of this big housing downturn,
what China hasn’t seen — say, compared with many other subprime crisis, Japan’s
big housing downturn — you haven’t seen a systemic financial crisis in China,
or certainly not globally.”
“So to some extent, the Chinese government
has managed to insulate this big adjustment in the housing market from the
financial sector and prevent a bigger crisis. So instead, they’re going through
this sort of slow, painful, grinding adjustment,” Wrigley added.
Data released Saturday showed that
China’s retail
sales, industrial production and urban investment in August grew
slower than expected in August, all missing the expectations of economists
polled by Reuters. Urban jobless rate rose to a six-month high, while
year-on-year home prices fell at their fastest pace in nine years.
The figures were the latest in a series of
disappointments for the world’s second-largest economy, which has experienced a
lackluster recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
More
China's economy is going through a 'slow, painful, grinding adjustment,' analyst says (cnbc.com)
Finally, will the central Europe flooding and disruption push the EU into recession. It’s still far to early to tell, but with Germany already in recession, I suspect that it will.
Central Europe braces for further flooding
'apocalypse' as death toll rises
By David W Cerny, Radovan Stoklasa and Janis Laizans
September 17, 2024 3:09 AM GMT+1
JESENIK/LITOVEL, Czech Republic Sept 16
(Reuters) - Residents of several areas of Poland and the Czech Republic rushed
to evacuate on Monday as others in central Europe began cleaning up after the
worst flooding in over two decades left a trail of destruction and a rising
number of deaths.
Border areas between the Czech Republic
and Poland were hit hard over the weekend as heavy rain that has fallen since
last week and surging water levels collapsed some bridges, forced evacuations
and damaged cars and houses.
At least 17 people have died in flooding
from Romania to Poland in the past few days.
On Monday afternoon, the mayor of Nysa, a
town of more than 40,000 people in southern Poland, called on residents to
evacuate immediately after a nearby floodbank was damaged.
In the northeastern Czech city of Ostrava,
a broken barrier on the Odra river at its confluence with the Opava river
caused flooding of the city's industrial area including the BorsodChem chemical
plant, coking plant OKK Koksovny and others. Hundreds of people were being
evacuated from more residential areas as well.
More
Central Europe braces for further flooding 'apocalypse' as death toll rises | Reuters
Central Europe factories and retailers shut in
flood-hit areas
16 September 2024
PRAGUE (Reuters) -Factories and stores
across central Europe shut down production lines and closed their doors on
Monday due to flooding that has killed at least 10 people, forced tens of
thousands to evacuate and submerged towns from Poland to Romania.
In Ostrava - an industrial city of 290,000
people in northeast Czech Republic - the BorsodChem chemical plant was shut, a
spokesperson for the company, partially owned by China's Wanhua Chemical Group,
said.
The OKK Koksovny coking plant - one of the
largest producers of foundry coke in Europe - stopped chemicals production but
was continuing to keep coking batteries heated to minimum levels, spokesman
Jindrich Vanek said.
"There is water that has started
rising and there must be a breach of the flood barriers," he said.
"We are without electricity and we are heating our batteries with coking
gas, keeping them at technological minimum."
Czech soft drinks maker Kofola
CeskoSlovensko said it was pumping water out of its production facilities in
Krnov, some 70 km (44 miles) from Ostrava, and would have a better view on the
length of the outage early next week.
The company said it was premature to
estimate damage and that it could cover supplies of most products from other
plants.
Border areas between the Czech Republic
and Poland were hit hard over the weekend, following days of heavy rain. Some
bridges collapsed and homes were destroyed, while villages and towns in eastern
Romania were submerged.
While rivers in the Czech-Polish border
area were starting to recede on Monday, flooding was widening to more areas and
leaving bigger cities in both countries on alert.
Veolia Energie has shut its Trebovice
electricity and heating plant, which has cut hot water and heating supplies to
large parts of Ostrava following flood damage, the company said in a statement.
"At the moment, the supply of heat
and hot water in Ostrava is interrupted," the company said. "The key
technologies remained undamaged and therefore if the situation develops
favourably we estimate the restoration of supplies in a few days."
TRANSPORT PROBLEMS
An economist for Czech bank Ceska
Sporitelna predicted industry in general would take a hit.
"Industry will receive a negative
impulse of one or two percentage points, while the construction sector will
receive a positive impulse... thanks to the reconstruction of damaged buildings
and infrastructure," Ceska Sporitelna Chief Economist David Navratil
wrote.
The Czech Confederation of Industry said
some companies not directly affected by the flooding still had to stop
production in hard-hit regions because or problems transporting materials by
rail.
Belgian firm Umicore said both its battery
materials site in the Polish city of Nysa and its automotive catalysts facility
in Nowa Ruda had been secured with limited impact from the floods.
Power utility Tauron said six of its
hydroelectric plants in southern Poland were not working due to the floods.
More than 60,000 people were left without
power on Monday morning, its press service said.
Polish retailer Zabka said around 80
outlets were currently closed, mainly in the area around the southwest town of
Klodzko. The shops were closed due to flooding, lack of electricity or
evacuation ordered by the emergency services, its press service told Reuters
via email on Monday.
The retailer, owned by private equity fund
CVC Capital Partners, added that it had provided water, provisions and
transport support to its franchisees and was gathering information on their
needs.
Central Europe factories and retailers shut in flood-hit areas (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.
In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value.
Alan Greenspan.
Harland
& Wolff: Titanic shipbuilder to enter administration as job losses loom
Monday
16 September 2024 11:48 am | Updated: Monday
16 September 2024 12:20 pm
Embattled
shipbuilder Harland & Wolff
has declared insolvency and said its status as a London-listed company will
“likely come to an end in the near future,” leading to job losses across its
sites in the UK.
The
AIM-listed firm,
which has a 1,500-strong workforce, said steps were now underway to reduce
headcount in “non-core” and certain “central support areas” of the business,
having been announced to staff earlier this morning.
Administrators
from Teneo will be appointed this week, it added, while
advisers Rothschild and Co are assessing on strategic options amid interest
from a number of suitors. Reports suggest Babcock, Spain’s Navantia and
former chief executive John Wood could be weighing up bids.
The
board confirmed
to markets that shareholders would likely receive “no
return” from the administration process, which is expected to commence this
week.
The
group’s core operations and its Islandmagee Gas Storage project will continue
to run as normal, although a number of its non-core subsidiaries are in the
process of being wound down.
The
announcement puts the future of a key £1.6bn Ministry of Defence contract
to build warships for the Royal Navy at risk, raising serious questions about
the future of Britain’s shipbuilding industry.
It
comes after months turmoil following the new Labour government’s decision not
to guarantee a £200m UK Export Finance loan seen as central to Harland &
Wolff’s continued operation. Shares in the Belfast-based firm have been
suspended since July, after it failed to publish audited annual accounts.
Interim
chair Russell Downs, who was appointed following John Wood’s exit, said: “The
group faces a very challenging time given the overhang of significant historic
losses and its failure to secure long term financing. Good progress has
been made to test the market for investor appetite.
Harland & Wolff: Titanic shipbuilder to enter administration as job losses loom (cityam.com)
UK
Jobs Market Report: Permanent Pay Growth Weakest in Five Months
September
15, 2024 @ 4:36 pm
The KPMG and REC, UK
Report on Jobs survey, compiled by S&P Global, signalled a softening of
UK labour market conditions during August.
Latest data showed that
permanent placements “continued to fall, and at an accelerated pace, amid
reports of reduced demand amongst companies for new staff. Temp billings also
declined over the month, albeit only marginally.”
Permanent
salaries meanwhile continued “to rise, but at the weakest pace since March and
at a rate well below the survey’s historical trend.”
Concurrently,
temp pay increased at the “weakest pace for three-and-a-half years.”
Reduced
placements and slower pay growth “occurred as recruitment consultants
registered a fall in vacancies for a tenth successive month.”
Staff
availability also rose amid some “reports of increased redundancies.”
The
report is compiled by S&P Global from “responses to questionnaires sent to
a panel of around 400 UK recruitment and employment consultancies.”
August’s
KPMG/REC Report on Jobs survey showed “another reduction in permanent staff
placements, extending the current downturn to 23 months.”
Moreover,
the rate of contraction was the “steepest since March amid reports of lower
demand from clients and a lack of workplace vacancies.”
Temp
billings also fell for similar reasons, “although the rate of contraction was
again only marginal, and little changed since July.”
Permanent
staff salaries increased “again in August, in line with a trend that stretches
back three-and-a-half years.”
Starting
pay was generally raised to attract candidates, “especially for positions where
supply was limited.”
However,
the increase in permanent pay levels “was the weakest since March and well
below the survey’s historical average.”
Moreover,
temp pay rose only slightly and “to the weakest degree for three-and-a-half
years.”
Latest
vacancy data signalled a marginal “decline in vacancy numbers during August.”
It
was the tenth month in a row that “demand for staff has fallen, with slight
declines seen for both permanent and temporary workers.”
Notably,
August marked the first fall in temporary staff demand since April.
Staff
availability continued to increase in August, “both for permanent and temporary
workers.”
Although
similar, growth was the strongest “in four months for temp workers but the
slowest since February for perm staff.”
A
mixture of redundancies and lower placement volumes “reportedly led to the rise
availability.”
The
steepest fall in placements was seen “in the South of England. In contrast,
there was little change recorded in the North of England.”
More
UK Jobs Market Report: Permanent Pay Growth Weakest In Five Months | Crowdfund Insider
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
XEC Covid variant - everything you need to know about new strain and what to do
15
September 2024
Health
experts are raising concerns about a new Covid variant that
is rapidly spreading worldwide, cautioning that it's "just
beginning."
The XEC strain, a combination of
the KS.1.1 and KP.3.3 variants, was first identified in Germany in June but has
since been detected in 15 countries across three continents.
US
specialists, including Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research
Translational Institute in California, suggest it could become the dominant
strain. Topol remarked that XEC is "just getting started globally and in
the US."
The
latest figures for the UK show a 4.3 percent increase in Covid cases week on
week. There were also 102 Covid deaths in the week to August 30 in England.
1,465 patients were admitted to hospitals with Covid in the same week. However,
it's important to note that the UK Health Security Agency hasn't released
detailed data on the specific XEC variant yet.
Dr
Elizabeth Hudson, regional chief of infectious diseases for Kaiser Permanente
Southern California, highlighted that health authorities will keep a close
watch on this variant in the weeks ahead. We break down everything you need to
know about the XEC variant, from its symptoms to protective measures, reports
the Mirror.
Symptoms
of the XEC Covid variant mirror those of common respiratory illnesses like
colds and flu. While many recover within weeks, some may take longer, and
there's a risk of severe illness leading to hospitalisation.
More
XEC Covid variant - everything you need to know about new strain and what to do (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.
Pore-Free
Graphene Oxide Offers Superior Protection
14
September 2024
The
research team at Kumamoto
University, under the direction of Assistant
Professor Kazuto Hatakeyama and Professor Shintaro Ida of the Institute of
Industrial Nanomaterials, has reported a ground-breaking advancement in
hydrogen ion barrier films utilizing graphene oxide (GO) without internal pores
in a study that was published in Small. Significant improvements in
protective coatings for a range of applications will be possible with this
novel method.
In
their study, the scientists were able to effectively create a thin film from a
novel, pore-free type of graphene oxide. Since GO has a history of strong ionic
conductivity, using it as an ion barrier has proven difficult. On the other
hand, the researchers produced a material with significantly better hydrogen
ion barrier qualities by removing the interior pores.
Out-of-plane
proton conductivity data from AC impedance spectroscopy show that the novel
graphene oxide film performs up to 100,000 times better in terms of hydrogen
ion barrier than standard GO films. This innovation was further validated in
tests by the non-porous graphene oxide layer, which successfully shielded
lithium foil from water droplets and stopped any interaction between the two.
The
study further demonstrated that hydrogen ions pass through the pores in
conventional GO, emphasizing how important it is to close these pores to
improve barrier properties. This development provides new opportunities for the
use of protective coatings, hydrogen infrastructure, and rust prevention.
The
study represents a major breakthrough in the field of materials science and
could result in the development of coatings with improved protective qualities
in the future.
Moving
forward, we plan to harness the hydrogen ion barrier performance for practical applications,
while also addressing the challenges posed by the 'pores' in the GO structure
to unlock additional functionalities.
Hatakeyama,
Assistant Professor, Kumamoto University
Journal
Reference:
Tsugawa,
T., et al. (2024) Anomalous Proton Blocking Property of Pore-Free
Graphene Oxide Membrane. Small. doi.org/10.1002/smll.202400707
Pore-Free Graphene
Oxide Offers Superior Protection (msn.com)
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt
Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
In the
long run, the gold price has to go up in relation to paper money. There is no
other way. To what price, that depends on the scale of the inflation - and we
know that inflation will continue.
Nicholas
Deak.
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