Baltic
Dry Index. 1576 -18 Brent Crude 73.49
Spot Gold 2730 US 2 Year Yield 3.95 -0.01
The stock market is but a mirror which provides an image of the underlying or fundamental economic situation. Cause and effect run from the economy to the stock market, never the reverse. In 1929 the economy was headed for trouble. Eventually that trouble was violently reflected in Wall Street.
John Kenneth Galbraith.
In the stock casinos, a pause?
How will US stock casinos, priced to perfection, react to a win by Don or Kamala, now just 15 days away? Gold is already reacting, moving higher, hedging against both.
In EV news, welcome to the flammable school bus.
Elsewhere, it’s BRICS week, introducing BRICS Pay.
Asia-Pacific markets mixed as investors assess
China loan prime rate cut
Updated Mon, Oct 21 2024 12:19 AM EDT
Asia-Pacific markets were mixed Monday as
traders assessed China’s loan prime rate announcement, with focus also on
Japan’s general election at the end of this week.
China’s central
bank cut the one- and five-year LPRs by 25 basis points to 3.1% and
3.6%, respectively.
This has been indicated by the People’s Bank of China Governor
Pan Gongsheng on Friday, although the
ING in a note last week also said that the
PBOC was likely to release its rate decision for the medium term lending
facility on Friday, although it is expected to be left unchanged at 2% after
being reduced by 30 basis points last month.
“Data aside, it is worth monitoring if
there are potential further government ministry briefings or a potential
announcement of the timing for the National People’s Congress meeting in the
week ahead, as stimulus rollout remains a major theme for markets,” ING said.
Other key economic data this week will
include October inflation figures for Japan’s capital city of Tokyo, as well as
advance third-quarter GDP figures from South Korea.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 was trading close
to the flatline, while the broad based Topix was 0.17% lower.
South Korea’s Kospi climbed 0.83% and the
small-cap Kosdaq jumped 1.05%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 started the
day up 0.64%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 0.14%,
while mainland China’s CSI 300 rose 0.19%.
In the U.S., both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged
to record highs Friday, sealing six straight weeks of gains.
The broad market benchmark advanced 0.40%
to close at 5,864.67, while the blue-chip Dow gained 36.86 points, or
0.09%, to end at 43,275.91.
The Nasdaq Composite, led by a
postearnings jump in Netflix, ended the day up 0.63% at 18,489.55.
Asia markets live: China LPR, South Korea GDP, Japan inflation
European markets set to start the new trading week
in mixed territory
Updated Mon, Oct 21 2024 12:37 AM EDT
European markets are heading toward a
mixed start to the new trading week.
The U.K.’s FTSE 100 index is expected
to open 17 points higher at 8,373, Germany’s DAX down 12 points at
19,644, France’s CAC up
1 point at 7,611 and Italy’s FTSE
MIB up 55 points at 35,087, according to data from IG.
Regional markets had ended last week on a
high note after the European
Central Bank announced its third interest rate cut of the year last
Thursday, lowering the deposit rate by another 25 basis points, as inflation
risks in the European Union are seen to be easing faster than anticipated.
Overnight, Asia-Pacific markets were
mixed as traders assessed China’s loan prime rate announcement, with focus also
on Japan’s general election at the end of this week.
Stateside, stock futures ticked higher
Sunday night after the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 notched
their best
weekly win streaks of 2024.
European markets live updates: stocks, news, data and earnings
In other news.
Boeing machinists to vote on new proposal with 35%
raises that could end strike
Published Sat, Oct 19 2024 11:05 AM EDT Updated
Sat, Oct 19 2024 6:20 PM EDT
Boeing and
its machinists’ union have reached a new contract proposal, the union said
Saturday, outlining a deal that could end a more than month-long strike
that has hobbled the manufacturers’ aircraft production.
The ratification vote is set for
Wednesday.
The new proposal includes 35% wage
increases over four years, a higher signing bonus of $7,000, guaranteed minimum
payouts in an annual bonus program and higher 401(k) contributions among other
changes.
Acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su
met with both parties earlier this week. “With the help of Acting U.S.
Secretary of Labor Julie Su, we have received a negotiated proposal and
resolution to end the strike, and it warrants presenting to the members and is
worthy of your consideration,” the International Association of Machinists and
Aerospace Workers District 751 said in a statement Saturday.
“President Biden believes the collective
bargaining process is the best way to achieve good outcomes for workers, and
the ultimate decision on a contract will be for the union workers to decide,” a
White House spokesperson said in a statement.
The strike
began Sept. 13 after more than 30,000 machinists overwhelmingly
rejected a tentative agreement that included 25% wage increases over four
years. Boeing later made a sweetened
offer but the union blasted it saying it was not negotiated.
“We look forward to our employees voting
on the negotiated proposal,” Boeing said in a statement.
Boeing is working to stop bleeding cash as
it grapples with a safety crisis stemming from a near-catastrophic door
plug blowout on one of its 737 Maxes at start the year and challenges
in its other programs.
The company earlier this month said it
will report a deep loss and take charges of about $5 billion in its commercial
and defense units. A ratified contract on Wednesday, when Boeing also reports
full results, would be a victory for new
CEO Kelly Ortberg, who took the company’s top job in August, tasked with
reshaping the company.
On Oct. 11, he announced job
cuts of 10% of Boeing’s workforce and that the company will stop
making 767s when orders are fulfilled in 2027.
Boeing machinists to vote on new proposal that could end strike
In EV news, would you put your children on an insane, leftist agenda, electric flammable school bus?
Biden-Harris admin recalls hundreds of
electric school buses that could burn
Posted on October 17, 2024
The Federal Transit Administration (FTA)
issued a warning Wednesday about 483 electric transit buses being recalled over
safety defects, according to a safety advisory.
Phoenix Motorcars is voluntarily recalling Proterra 800V catalyst vehicles from 2020 to 2021 and ZX5 Proterra transit buses from 2020 to 2022 over concerns that they could be prone to catching fire, according to an advisory from the FTA. The vehicles were first recalled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in September over issues with their radiator fan electrical circuits overheating, which is a potential fire hazard, according to a Sept. 5 report.
A customer reported that their Proterra
bus started smoking in July 2021, and a second incident with a smoking vehicle
occurred in January 2024, according to a report
from Smart Cities Dive. Phoenix Motorcars obtained Proterra’s transit buses
after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2023.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm faced criticism in 2021 over her owning shares of Proterra, which was seen as a conflict of interest since the company had a direct stake in the department’s work. Granholm did not sell her shares in Proterra until after the House Oversight Committee opened an investigation into her ownership stake in the company in May 2021.
The Biden-Harris administration has led a
green energy push to implement
electric vehicles across the nation.
The administration’s goal of building
500,000 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations across the U.S. by 2030 has
faced major delays.
There have been various issues with the
rollout of electric buses, including a Maryland county’s bus program resulting in millions
of dollars of ‘wasteful spending’ due to mechanical issues and multiple reports of electric
buses across the nation catching on fire. California’s Oakland Unified School
District (OUSD) is also transitioning to electric
school buses amid high levels of substandard academic performance in the
district.
More
Biden-Harris admin recalls hundreds of electric school buses that could burn
Finally, as that infamous US election nears, at long last some are waking up to Uncle Scam’s enormous, unrepayable debts.
As nervous investors worry about the presidential
election, public debt is a top concern financial advisors say
Published Fri, Oct 18 2024 3:27 PM EDT
Many investors worry about how
the outcome of the presidential election will impact their investments.
But there’s another risk financial
advisors are focused on — public debt, according to a new
survey from
Natixis Investment Managers.
Most U.S. advisors — 68% — rank public
debt as the top economic risk, while 64% of advisors worldwide said the same,
according to the survey of 2,700 respondents in 20 countries, including 300 in
the U.S.
“No matter who wins the election, they’re
convinced public debt is going to continue to go up,” said Dave Goodsell,
executive director of the Natixis Center for Investor Insight.
The term
public debt is
used interchangeably by the U.S. Treasury with national debt and federal debt.
The government has borrowed to pay
expenses over time, comparable to how an individual might use a credit card and
not pay off the full balance each month. The U.S. national debt is now more
than $35 trillion and growing.
The next U.S. president and Congress will
inherit that government spending dilemma, as well as looming trust fund
depletion dates for Social Security and Medicare.
More individuals now believe they are on
their own when it comes to funding their retirements, the Natixis survey have
shown, according to Goodsell.
Experts say there are certain moves
individual investors can make to limit the financial exposure they have to
those broader risks.
“You cannot control what Congress is
doing, but you can control how you plan, how you save, invest and react to the
news,” said Marguerita Cheng, a certified financial planner and CEO of Blue
Ocean Global Wealth in
Gaithersburg, Maryland. Cheng is also a member of the CNBC FA Council.
----As the equity market has
reached new all-time highs, investors have ratcheted up their expectations for
higher returns.
The Natixis research found that investors
expect returns of 15.6% above inflation, while financial professionals say
about 7.1% above inflation is more realistic, Goodsell said.
More
Ahead of U.S. election, financial advisors say public debt is top concern (cnbc.com)
Putin says BRICS, not the West, will drive global
economic growth
Published Sat, Oct 19 20247:08 AM EDT
The BRICS group will generate most of the
global economic growth in the coming years thanks to its size and relatively
fast growth compared with that of developed Western nations, Russian President
Vladimir Putin said on Friday.
Putin hopes to build up BRICS - which has
expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates as well
as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - as a powerful counterweight
to the West in global politics and trade.
The Kremlin leader is due to host a BRICS
summit in the Russian city of Kazan on Oct. 22-24.
“The countries in our association are
essentially the drivers of global economic growth. In the foreseeable future,
BRICS will generate the main increase in global GDP,” Putin told officials and
businessmen at BRICS business forum in Moscow.
“The economic growth of BRICS members will
increasingly depend less on external influence or interference. This is
essentially economic sovereignty,” Putin added.
Next week’s summit is being presented by
Moscow as evidence that Western efforts to isolate Russia over its actions in
Ukraine have failed.
Russia wants other countries to work with
it to overhaul the global financial system and end the dominance of the U.S.
dollar.
China, India and the UAE confirmed on
Friday that their leaders would attend the summit in Kazan.
‘Doors are open’
Putin said 30 countries around the world
had expressed interest in cooperation with the BRICS grouping and that next
week’s summit would consider possible options for the group’s further
enlargement.
Cuba plunged into a countrywide blackout
after the collapse of one of its major power plants Friday.
“The doors are open, we are not barring
anyone,” Putin told reporters from BRICS countries .
Putin cited some of the initiatives that Russia has previously outlined ahead
of the summit, including a joint cross-border payments system and a reinsurance
company.
Putin said that group members were working
on a SWIFT-like financial messaging system immune to Western sanctions and the
use of national digital currencies in financing investment projects with high
growth potential inside and outside BRICS.
He stressed that Russia’s financial
initiatives for the summit implied the extensive use of national currencies,
while talk of creating a single currency for the BRICS grouping was
“premature”.
He called on the New Development Bank, the
BRICS’ only functioning multilateral development institution, to invest in
technology and infrastructure across the countries of the Global South.
More
Putin says BRICS, not the West, will drive global economic growth
BRICS Pay.
There can be few fields of human endeavor in which history counts for so little as in the world of finance.Past experience, to the extent that it is part of memory at all, is dismissed as the primitive refuge of the those who do not have insight to appreciate the incredible wonders of the present.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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.
Germany’s
auto giants are struggling to stay relevant
Published Fri, Oct 18 2024 3:38 AM EDT Updated Fri, Oct 18 2024 4:36 AM EDT
Germany’s
automotive sector, long recognized for
producing reliable and innovative internal combustion engine (ICE) cars, is
struggling to preserve its relevance in the age of electrification.
Major
domestic manufacturers such as Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz Group and BMW have issued profit warnings in
recent weeks, citing economic weakness and sluggish demand in China, the world’s
largest car market.
The
headwinds, while not unique to Europe’s largest economy, come on top of the
specter of historic job cuts and possible German
plant closures at
Volkswagen, an abrupt
end to
Germany’s electric car subsidy program late last year and Berlin’s recent
failure to prevent fellow European Union member states from voting in favor of EU
tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs).
The
latter appeared to hint at the Germany’s waning
influence over
regional policy — a likely unthinkable notion only a few years ago.
This
storm of issues has stoked concerns that the high-quality ‘made in Germany’
moniker may be losing its luster in the shift away from ICE vehicles.
“I
believe the German quality label generally still holds, but that’s not enough
as the world of automotive is changing rapidly,” Rico Luman, senior sector
economist for transport and logistics at Dutch bank ING, told CNBC by email.
“It’s
always a mix of product, quality and price. And quality is also associated with
the past, while we’re in a full-scale make-over of model ranges now. So,
customers are looking at new concepts anyway,” Luman said.
“The
question is whether German car makers manage to adjust their product
portfolios, change their organizations, and ramp up productivity quickly enough
to preserve the status and relevance they had for decades.”
Luman
said the industry’s transition to electrification means it is going to be
increasingly important for German automakers to scale tech-rich supplies for
EVs, particularly for
batteries –
noting that this hasn’t yet been developed in Berlin.
VW, BMW, MBG: Germany’s top car brands are struggling in the EV era (cnbc.com)
Spirit
AeroSystems to furlough 700 workers as Boeing machinist strike continues
Published
Fri, Oct 18 2024 8:55 AM EDT Updated Fri, Oct 18 2024 9:55 AM EDT
Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems will
furlough some 700 workers as a strike by
machinists at the plane maker enters its sixth week, a spokesman for the
supplier said Friday.
More
than 32,000 Boeing workers walked off the job Sept. 13 after overwhelmingly
rejecting a tentative labor deal with Boeing,
deepening the aircraft producer’s financial strain and handing a new challenge
to CEO Kelly Ortberg, who took the
reins just over two months ago.
The
temporary furloughs account for about 5% of Spirit’s U.S. workforce, according
to its latest annual filing.
The
temporary furloughs will affect employees at Spirit’s largest facilities, in
Wichita, Kansas, and account for about 5% of Spirit’s U.S. workforce,
according to its latest annual filing. Meanwhile, Boeing and its machinists’
union remain at an
impasse,
and Spirit is considering deeper cuts.
“If
the strike continues beyond November, we will have to implement layoffs and
additional furloughs,” Spirit spokesman Joe Buccino told CNBC on Friday.
Ortberg,
who faces investors in his first earnings call next Wednesday, last week
announced a series of drastic measures meant to slash costs as the company’s
losses mount, including cutting the workforce by 10%, or about 17,000 people.
Boeing is also ending 767 commercial production when orders are fulfilled in
2027 and said its long-delayed 777X wide-body jet won’t debut until 2026,
pushing it back yet another year.
Boeing
is in the process of raising debt or equity to increase liquidity.
More
Spirit AeroSystems to furlough 700 workers as Boeing strike continues (cnbc.com)
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Did CDC Officials Mislead The Public About COVID Vaccine Efficacy? Rep.
Massie Says "Yes"
Friday, Oct 18, 2024 -
10:00 PM
When Congressman Thomas
Massie (R-KY) contacted officials from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) in December of 2020, he wanted to know if taking the newly
released Covid vaccine would benefit him, since he’d already contracted the illness.
After reading the scientific studies himself, and
seeing no benefit, Massie contacted the CDC to learn why they were putting out
incorrect information which claimed that their studies showed that the Covid
vaccine does provide a benefit to those who have previously had Covid.
Massie says those
secretly recorded conversations with CDC officials in December of 2020 show
that they were lying about their Pfizer Covid vaccine trial data.
In those phone calls, Massie says CDC officials
were caught deliberately downplaying the effectiveness of natural immunity
while pushing for Covid-19 vaccinations for everyone, regardless of prior
infection.
According to Attkisson,
in the recordings, CDC officials thanked Massie for finding the mistake in
their studies and admitted that the claims of vaccine efficacy for the
previously infected wasn’t true, yet they pushed back on correcting the
falsehood, saying it would confuse the public.
Attkisson says, the very next day, those same
officials who had admitted their mistake regarding the vaccine’s effectiveness
to Massie nevertheless conducted a webinar for doctors that repeated the same
misinformation.
In the recording, Massie
expresses concern that continuing to encourage previously infected people with
natural immunity to get the vaccine, which was in short supply, could prevent
others who were at greater risk from Covid from having access to the vaccine.
In a call with CDC’s
Washington D.C. Director Anstis Brand, Massie says, “If there’s a
“they” who is refusing to fix something that is factually and provably wrong, I
want to know who “they” is. Because this is going to result and is already
resulting in misallocation of the vaccine.”
Brand tells him that
she’ll have to look into it and get back to him.
In another call with the
CDC’s Dr. Sara Oliver, Massie points out the error in which the study
erroneously claims that the vaccine is efficacious for those with prior
infection and he asks to get it corrected.
Dr. Oliver says admits
that Massie is correct but says that the CDC still is recommending that
previously infected individuals get the vaccine, saying “We wouldn’t want to
put out that if you’ve had Covid before, you shouldn’t get the vaccine.”
Massie’s recorded calls
with CDC officials clearly show the agency was pushing vaccination even for
those who likely didn’t need it due to natural immunity.
These revelations appear to vindicate those who
expressed worries that U.S health officials were being driven by an agenda to
promote vaccines rather than by honest science.
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.
China builds
record-breaking magnet — but it comes with a cost
The resistive
magnet required a significant amount of energy to produce a field of 42.02
tesla.
18
October 2024
China
is now home to the world’s most powerful resistive magnet, which produced a
magnetic field that was more than 800,000 times stronger than Earth’s.
On 22
September, the magnet, at the Steady High Magnetic Field Facility (SHMFF) at
the Chinese Academy of Science’s Hefei Institutes of Physical Science,
sustained a steady magnetic field of 42.02 tesla. This milestone narrowly
surpasses the 41.4-tesla record set in 2017 by a resistive magnet at the US
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL) in Tallahassee, Florida.
Resistive magnets are made of coiled metal wires and are widely used in magnet
facilities across the world.
China’s
record-breaker lays the groundwork for building reliable magnets that can
sustain ever-stronger magnetic fields, which would help researchers to discover
surprising new physics, says Joachim Wosnitza, a physicist at the Dresden High
Magnetic Field Laboratory in Germany.
The
resistive magnet — which is open to international users — is the country’s
second major contribution to the global quest to produce ever-higher magnetic
fields. In 2022, the SHMFF’s hybrid magnet, which combines a resistive magnet
with a superconducting one, produced a field of 45.22 tesla, making it the most
powerful working steady-state magnet in the world.
Research
tool
High-field
magnets are handy tools for uncovering hidden properties of advanced materials,
such as superconductors —
materials that, under very low temperatures, carry electric current without
producing waste heat. High fields also offer the chance to glimpse entirely new
physical phenomena, says Marc-Henri Julien, a condensed-matter physicist at the
National Laboratory for Intense Magnetic Fields in Grenoble, France. “You can
create or manipulate new states of matter,” says Julien.
High
fields are also useful for experiments that rely on very sensitive
measurements, because they boost the resolution and make it easier to see faint
phenomena, says Alexander Eaton, a condensed-matter physicist at the University
of Cambridge, UK. “Every extra tesla is exponentially better than the last,” he
says.
Guangli
Kuang, a physicist who specializes in high magnetic fields at the SHMFF, says
the team spent years modifying the magnet to hit the latest record. “It wasn’t
easy to achieve,” he says.
Reliable
but costly
Resistive
magnets are an older technology, but they can sustain high magnetic fields for
longer periods than can their newer hybrid and fully superconducting
counterparts, says Wosnitza. Their magnetic fields can also be ramped up much
quicker, making them versatile experimental tools. “You can just twist a knob
and go from zero tesla to high fields within minutes,” he says.
The
big drawback of resistive magnets is the amount of power they consume, making
them costly, says Eaton. For instance, the SHMFF’s resistive magnet drew 32.3
megawatts of electricity to produce its record-breaking field. “You’ve got to
have a very good science case to justify that resource,” says Eaton.
That
challenge is driving the race to develop hybrid and fully superconducting
magnets that can generate high fields using less power. In 2019, NHMFL
researchers built a miniature, proof-of-concept superconducting magnet that
briefly sustained a 45.5-tesla
field , and are currently developing a larger 40-tesla superconducting
magnet that can be used for experiments. The team at the SHMFF is building a
55-tesla hybrid one. Although these newer magnets are expected to be cheaper to
run than their resistive counterparts, they come with their own hurdles: they
are more expensive to build and require complicated cooling systems, says
engineer Mark Bird, a co-leader of the NHMFL’s magnet science and technology
division. “The technology is still being developed, and the costs are not clear
yet,” says Bird.
doi:
https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-03382-6
China builds
record-breaking magnet — but it comes with a cost (nature.com)
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt
Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
“When it becomes serious, you have to lie.”
Jean-Claude Juncker. Failed former Luxembourg P.M., serial liar, ex-president of the European Commission. Scotch connoisseur.
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