Baltic
Dry Index. 1785 +93 Brent Crude 71.04
Spot
Gold 2563 U S 2 Year Yield 4.31 -0.03
The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the
welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion
of credit. 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.
Did
a harsh reality just return to the US stock casinos? Was Warren Buffett right
all along?
Dow
closes 300 points lower Friday as rate worries hinder postelection rally: Live
updates
Updated
Fri, Nov 15 2024 5:12 PM EST
Stocks
tumbled on Friday as the postelection rally fizzled and investors fretted over
the path of interest rates.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost
305.87 points, or 0.70%, to end at 43,444.99. The S&P 500 slipped
1.32% and closed at 5,870.62, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.24%
to 18,680.12.
Declines
in pharmaceutical stocks weighed on the 30-stock Dow and the S&P 500,
with Amgen down about
4.2% and Moderna off
by 7.3%. President-elect Donald
Trump said on Thursday that he planned
to nominate vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services. The SPDR S&P Biotech ETF (XBI) tumbled
more than 5% and posted its worst week since 2020.
The
information technology sector of the S&P 500 was the worst-performing
corner of the market, down more than 2%, as Nvidia, Meta Platforms, Alphabet and Microsoft tumbled. Tesla was a rare exception
among its “Magnificent Seven” peers, as shares of the electric vehicle giant
and so-called “Trump Trade” were higher by 3%.
“While
we think the macro backdrop still bodes well for risk assets, in the near term
we should expect some micro volatility, particularly around potential policy
shifts under a new administration,” said Kristy Akullian, head of iShares
investment strategy, Americas, at BlackRock. “We expect the U.S. equity market
to continue to move higher, but don’t expect that rise to happen in a straight
line.”
Traders
also grappled with recent comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell,
who said on Thursday that the central
bank wasn’t “in a hurry” to cut interest rates. He noted that the
economy’s strong growth will permit policymakers to take their time as they
decide the extent to which they reduce rates. Boston Fed President Susan
Collins took the cautious sentiment further, telling The Wall Street Journal
that a rate cut next month is not a certainty.
October
retail sales data on Friday showed a 0.4% increase, slightly better than the
0.3% forecast from economists polled by Dow Jones. That finding follows an
October consumer
inflation report that was in line with economists’ projections.
The
major averages had been coasting on a postelection rally since Trump’s victory
at the polls — the three indexes touched fresh highs on Monday — but the upward
momentum has been slowing. The S&P 500 posted a weekly loss of 2.1%, while
the Nasdaq Composite slid about 3.2%. The 30-stock Dow fell 1.2% during the
period.
Stock
market news for Nov. 15, 2024
US
Stocks Erase More Than Half Post-Election Gains: Market Wrap
Fri,
November 15, 2024 at 9:39 PM GMT
(Bloomberg)
-- Stocks fell on Friday, closing out the worst week in more than two months,
as Trump trades lost steam and investors bet the Federal Reserve will have to
slow the pace of policy easing.
The
S&P 500 ended off session lows, with tech stocks leading declines. The
benchmark has now erased over half of the trough-to-peak gains it notched after
the US presidential election. Traders see slightly more than even odds of a
quarter-point cut next month following comments by Jerome Powell this week
indicating the Fed was in no hurry to lower rates and a report Friday on
October retail sales that included large upside revisions to the prior month.
As
the initial euphoria about President-elect Donald Trump’s pro-business agenda
begins to fade, investors are coming to terms with the costs of his fiscal
plans and their potential to reignite inflation.
“It
will come at the expense of potentially larger budget deficits, potentially
larger debt and there is also the inflation dimension,” said Charles-Henry
Monchau, chief investment officer at Banque Syz & Co. “There’s been a
realization that there is a price to pay for this.”
For
the week, the S&P 500 was down 2.1% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 dropped
more than 3%, both posting the biggest declines for the period since Sept. 6.
On Friday, shares of all “Magnificent Seven” megacaps retreated except Elon
Musk’s Tesla Inc., with Amazon.com Inc., Nvidia Corp. and Meta Platforms Inc.
sliding more than 3%. Applied Materials Inc., the largest US maker of
chip-manufacturing equipment, suffered its worst stock decline in a month after
giving a disappointing revenue forecast.
Late
Friday, traders priced about a 56% chance the Fed will deliver a quarter-point
reduction at its December meeting, down from 80% earlier this week. Bets on
cuts were pared after Powell warned Thursday that the central bank may take its
time easing policy.
Boston
Fed President Susan Collins said Friday a December cut remained on the table,
emphasizing the central bank’s decision will be guided by incoming data.
Chicago Fed chief Austan Goolsbee said as long as inflation continues down
toward the central bank’s 2% goal, rates will be “a lot” lower over the next
12-18 months. He agreed with Powell, however, noting policymakers aren’t in a
hurry to lower borrowing costs.
More
US
Stocks Erase More Than Half Post-Election Gains: Market Wrap
U.S.
companies could be caught in the crosshairs if China retaliates to fight Trump
Published
Fri, Nov 15 2024 10:47 AM EST Updated Fri, Nov 15 2024 12:48 PM EST
With
President-elect Donald Trump’s
trade and foreign policy team taking a hawkish stance toward China, U.S.
companies are increasingly concerned a hard-line approach could stunt their
prospects in the world’s second-largest economy – and turn them into targets of
Chinese retaliation.
Trump
has threatened to hit China with at least 60% tariffs and vowed to end reliance
on the country. That alone would be disruptive. It would force companies to
scramble to find other sources of supply, American consumers to pay higher
prices at the store, and, according to many experts, lead to job losses.
On
top of that, the Chinese government could respond with an expanded tool kit to
target American businesses.
“The
Trump administration’s actions may be seen or may be interpreted as economic
war,” Scott Kennedy, senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, told reporters in Beijing on Thursday. “If they are
interpreted in that way, China might have a much more vigorous response, not
limited to tariffs.”
Those
actions could range from economic changes to matters of diplomacy and security,
Kennedy said, adding China may “push back as hard as they can.”
More
combative relations between the U.S. and China also brings the risk of public
backlash amid rising Chinese nationalism. The Chinese government has strong
controls over information flow which has led to consumer boycotts of
international brands.
“The
worst part is the consumer brands that are not of a strategic nature and
themselves are not controversial and would not be subject to export
restrictions might be punished by the local consumer because of their
nationality,” said, Michael Hart, president of the American Chamber of Commerce
in China. “Since Covid, companies have been looking to diversify and bolster
their supply chains, but there are still no easy and reliable replacements for
the supply chains and manufacturing that has developed in China over the past
decades.”
China’s
retaliation tool kit
During
Trump’s first term, the Chinese government retaliated against U.S. tariffs by
imposing its own tariffs on U.S. imports.
The
U.S.-China Business Council, in conjunction with Oxford Economics, estimates a
new tit-for-tat tariff battle could result in a “permanent loss of revenue and
pressure businesses to slash jobs and investment plans” with as many as 801,000
net job losses by 2025.
The
report projected that Nevada, Florida and Arizona would be among the states
hardest hit by such tariffs due to their economic reliance on consumer demand.
Manufacturing states such as Indiana, Kansas, Michigan and Ohio would also be
vulnerable, the Oxford report found. Swing states Nevada, Arizona and Michigan
all flipped to Trump in the 2024 election, helping to deliver him back to the
White House.
James
McGregor, a business consultant on China for three decades, said he sees
Beijing using its leverage on U.S. agricultural purchases if it feels pressed
this time, too.
“China
is already focused on ridding itself of dependence on U.S. farm products. If
alternative supplies are available, China may well shift away from American
farmers where they can,” McGregor said.
Two
years ago, China started importing corn from Brazil. The country is now China’s
biggest supplier of corn, surpassing the U.S.
Beijing
could also broaden its retribution methods to include targeting U.S. companies
operating on Chinese soil.
More
U.S.
companies in the crosshairs if China retaliates to fight Trump
GM
lays off 1,000 employees amid reorganization, cost-cutting
Published
Fri, Nov 15 2024 9:13 AM EST Updated Fri, Nov 15 2024 4:59 PM EST
DETROIT
– General Motors laid
off roughly 1,000 employees on Friday as the automaker attempts to cut costs
and realign priorities amid changing market conditions, according to a person
familiar with the decision.
The
layoffs, which were announced Friday morning to those impacted, were across the
business. Some were due to poor performance, while others were part of a review
to reorganize priorities by the automaker, according to the person, who agreed
to speak about the decision on the condition of anonymity.
A
majority of the employees impacted were salaried workers in suburban Detroit at
the automaker’s global technical center in Warren, Michigan, the person said.
The United Auto Workers said about 50 union members were included in the
layoffs.
The
company is targeting $2 billion in fixed cost reductions this year as it deals
with slowing U.S. sales, business deterioration
in China and a shift in its “all-in”
strategy for electric vehicles amid slower-than-expected consumer
adoption.
A
spokesman for GM confirmed the layoffs but declined to disclose the total
amount.
---- UAW Vice President Mike Booth, who oversees
the union’s GM unit, condemned the layoffs. “GM is trying to cut around 50 UAW
jobs, when they’re making record profits. We will fight for our laid off
members with the full force of our contract,” he said in an emailed statement.
Friday’s
layoffs follow more than 1,000
salaried employees working in GM’s software and services organization
being let go in August.
GM’s
global salaried workforce was 76,000 as of the end of last year. That included
about 53,000 U.S. salaried employees.
GM
lays off 1,000 employees amid reorganization, cost-cutting
Finally,
well if they say so but it doesn’t look that way to me.
The
Predicted Rise in Eurozone Growth
November
15, 2024 at 6:08 PM GMT
Economic
growth in the eurozone economies will tick up in the next two years from 0.8% this year to 1.3% next year and 1.6% in 2026,
according to the European Commission – higher than previous forecasts from the
International Monetary Fund. In a report published today, the EC said that
growth would be boosted by a range of factors including inflation returning to
the European Central Bank’s 2% target, record lows of unemployment, and
increasing consumption and investment. However, they added a note of caution
around “structural challenges” and “geopolitical uncertainty” in the future.
The looming possibility of tariffs raised by US President-elect Donald Trump on
European exports were not mentioned, though this could pose a particular issue
given their significance, with last year seeing a volume of €850 billion ($898
billion) for goods and another €650 billion for services. Added growth would
help the eurozone, which has faced a series of economic challenges recently,
including a recession in Germany, its largest economy. — Helen Chandler-Wilde
The Predicted Rise in Eurozone Growth - Bloomberg
Global Inflation/Stagflation/Recession
Watch.
Given our Magic Money
Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation/recession now needs an entire
section of its own.
Recession could create an ‘abrupt shift’ in
AI adoption: ‘That’s when you really see the effects of automation’
13 November 2024
The widespread
replacement of workers by AI won’t happen until a recession strikes, according
to IMF first deputy managing director Gita Gopinath.
Since OpenAI’s
ChatGPT kicked off the generative AI revolution in late 2022, there has been
extensive handwringing that the technology would result in mass layoffs.
he promise of a
tool that could understand complex questions posed in normal, everyday speech
and spit out cohesive answers seemed poised to end a host of professions
ranging from customer service reps to journalists.
Ultimately,
those concerns haven’t panned out as the most fearful had imagined, largely
because the economy was on solid footing. However, if things should take a turn
for the worse, then the labor market could start to experience an “abrupt
shift” of human workers being replaced by AI.
“You see it when
the recession strikes,” Gopinath said during an onstage interview at the
Fortune Global Forum in New York. “That's when you really see the effect of
automation on the labor market.”
When the economy
is strong companies don’t need to cut their headcount and prefer to be fully
staffed, Gopinath argues.
“When you have
good times, and companies are making lots of profits, they hold on to workers,”
she said. “They're investing in the technology [AI], but they're holding on to
workers.”
The corporate
belt-tightening of a recession forces companies to lay off workers.
However, once
the economy emerges from that recession some of those jobs never return.
This phenomenon,
which economists call a jobless recovery, happened after the Great Recession
permanently gutted American manufacturing jobs.
A “jobless
recovery is a reflection of companies finally letting go of workers, fully
automating the task, and not hiring both workers back,” Gopinath said.
The extent to
which AI will impact the labor market is a hotly debated topic.
A widely cited
2023 report from Goldman Sachs estimated that AI could impact roughly 300 million jobs in
the U.S. and Europe. Not all those jobs would see the entirety of their duties
automated away, with some only seeing between 25% and 50% of their workloads
taken over by AI.
“So the caution
here for policymakers is, just because you're not seeing it now doesn't mean
you won’t see an abrupt shift in a recession,” Gopinath said.
That said, AI,
like all technologies, is not merely a deadweight on the global economy.
Technologies
carry with them the promise of productivity gains, where
the economy can produce more goods and services with fewer resources.
More
Covid-19 Corner
This section will
continue until it becomes unneeded.
Study reveals COVID-19 vaccine safety in patients
with atrial fibrillation/flutter
14 November 2024
Development of the
coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine has been key to countering the
pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
(SARS-CoV-2). Despite the current endemic status of COVID-19, patients with
comorbidities and older adults remain vulnerable to severe illness and death
due to COVID-19 infection. Therefore, medical agencies and organizations
worldwide recommend COVID-19 vaccination, especially for individuals with an
underlying disease.
However, several
real-world studies have reported complications following COVID-19 vaccination
such as thromboembolism—a health complication where circulating blood clots
block the flow of blood to organs and bleeding events. Additionally, patients
with atrial fibrillation/flutter (AF/AFL) are predisposed to higher risks of
thrombo-embolic events.
To evaluate the risks of
thromboembolism following COVID-19 vaccination in patients with AF/AFL, a
collaborative team of researchers led by Professor Jin Oh Na from Korea
University College of Medicine, and Professor Hyung-Kwan Kim from Seoul
National university College of Medicine have conducted a self-controlled case
series (SCCS) study. Their research findings were made available online on 12
July 2024 and was published in the European Heart Journal on
August 21, 2024.
"Recent studies in
France and UK have identified elevated risks of pulmonary embolism, acute
myocardial infarction, and thrombo-embolic events after COVID-19 vaccination.
Our findings are crucial for the development of future COVID-19 vaccine
policies and treatment guidelines," says Prof. Na, explaining the inspiration
behind the present research.
Initially, the team of
researchers utilized data from the National Health Insurance Service database
of South Korea to include 124,127 patients with AF/AFL who received COVID-19
vaccine between February 2021 to December 2021. Subsequently, they measured the
incidence of thrombo-embolic events, such as ischemic stroke and transient
ischemic attack, within the 21-day risk period post-vaccination.
Preliminary analysis
revealed that there was no increase in the risk of thrombo-embolic events
following COVID-19 vaccination with an incidence rate ratio (IRR) of 0.93. To
clarify whether the risks varied with respect to specific categories, Prof. Na
and co-researchers conducted subgroup analyses. While the risks of
thromboembolism did not vary with sex, age, or vaccine type, patients with
AF/AFL who did not receive anticoagulant therapy after vaccination had a
significantly increased IRR of 1.88.
"This finding
underscores the necessity of anticoagulant therapy in real-world clinical
practice, particularly for patients with AF/AFL following COVID-19
vaccination," remarks Prof. Na.
Since the risk period of
the current study was only 21 days post-vaccination, future research involving
longer time-frames and booster doses of vaccine are needed to comprehensively
understand the long-term complications associated with the COVID-19 vaccination.
More
Study reveals COVID-19 vaccine safety in
patients with atrial fibrillation/flutter
Technology Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
The Role of 3D Printing in Battery Manufacturing
8 November 2024
Additive
Manufacturing (AM), or 3D printing, is a process in which a complete
product is created from a 3D computer model by joining material layer by layer.1 With
3D printing replacing traditional manufacturing techniques, industries are
utilizing AM for rapid production, reduced fabrication costs, and promoting
sustainable practices. The battery manufacturing sector, in particular, has
adopted AM for its customization capabilities.
3D Printing of Lithium-Ion Batteries
With sustainability becoming a key focus, electric vehicles are
becoming popular to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels. In these vehicles,
batteries are critical, with shorter charging times and durability being
preferred features.2
Structural batteries provide many benefits and can be easily
integrated into the electric system without added technology. Recently,
researchers at Shanghai University used 3D printing to manufacture customizable
Li-ion batteries that can be shaped to specific user requirements. Integrating
3D printing with electrical energy storage (EES) systems also reduces strain on
energy storage materials.3
The 3D printing technology used enables robust design
configurations, allowing the batteries to withstand higher tensile stress.
Researchers developed a composite-based Li-ion battery made from Carbon Fiber
Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) that operated safely under a maximum 3-point bending
stress of 123 MPa, with an energy density of 120 Wh kg−1 and a
charge retention of 92 % after 500 cycles.
Experimental data indicates that the customizable 3D-printed
lithium battery performs effectively for autonomous vehicles and can be scaled
for broader industrial engineering applications.4
Advancements in 3D-Printed Electrolytes
Various strategies are being implemented globally to enhance
battery performance and support sustainable battery development. Solid polymer
electrolytes (SPEs), an improved alternative to traditional liquid
electrolytes, offer superior electrochemical stability, thereby extending
battery life.5
Vat photopolymerization has been used to fabricate 3D-printed
polyethylene oxide (PEO) electrolytes with an ionic conductivity of 3.7 × 10–4 S·cm−1,
a suitable range for battery applications. Researchers have also applied Direct
Ink Writing (DIW) to produce 3D-printed poly(vinylidene
fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF) solid electrolytes, which demonstrated
superior performance compared to conventional electrolyte-containing batteries
and most other solid electrolytes.
Related Stories
Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) is the most widely used 3D
printing technique for manufacturing solid electrolytes in lithium batteries.
However, this technique has been less effective for producing components for
sodium batteries.6
The rise in manufacturing high-performance solid-polymer and
composite electrolytes through 3D printing is attracting several companies to
develop bipolar multilayer batteries. This method enhances the flexibility and
performance of modern batteries, particularly benefiting applications in
wearable devices and electric vehicles.
More
The Role of 3D
Printing in Battery Manufacturing
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
This
weekend’s music diversion. Old J. S. Bach again. Approx. 20 minutes.
Johann
Sebastian Bach Keyboard Concerto in E major, BWV 1053
Johann Sebastian
Bach Keyboard Concerto in E major, BWV 1053 - YouTube
This
weekend’s chess update. Approx. 14 minutes.
Finally
- The Big Clash! || Arjun vs Carlsen || Tata Steel Chess India (2024)
Finally - The Big
Clash! || Arjun vs Carlsen || Tata Steel Chess India (2024)
This
weekend’s final diversion. Approx. 45
minutes.
The
USN Pacific Submarine Campaign - The Struggle is Real (Jan'43 - Jun'43)
The USN Pacific
Submarine Campaign - The Struggle is Real (Jan'43 - Jun'43)
Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation
of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a
protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in
understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard.
Alan Greenspan.
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