Baltic
Dry Index. 1576 -39
Brent Crude 74.65
Spot Gold 2664 US 2 Year Yield 4.37 +0.03
With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.
Oscar Wilde.
In the stock casinos a mixed start to a US Thanksgiving Day holiday shortened week.
In the real economy far from the Trump stocks bubble, more gloom led by Germany.
In never ending wars news, all wars, civil wars and insurrections continue apace.
Asia markets kickstart data-heavy
week on a strong note with Aussie stocks hitting record highs
Updated Mon, Nov 25 202411:51 PM EST
Asia-Pacific markets mostly rose
Monday, with investors awaiting a slew of economic data this week including
China industrial data and India’s third-quarter GDP numbers.
Singapore later in the day will
release its inflation figures for October. Economists polled by Reuters expect
the headline inflation rate of 1.8%, down from the 2% in the previous month.
Should this forecast prove correct, this will be Singapore’s lowest rate of
inflation since March 2021.
Other economic data this week
include South Korea central bank’s rate decision due Wednesday.
October inflation readings from
Australia are also out Wednesday, and November inflation numbers from Japan’s
capital city of Tokyo will be released on Friday. Tokyo’s inflation figures are
widely considered a leading indicator of nationwide trends.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.58%,
hitting a new all-time high of 8,458.9 early in the trading session.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was 1.44% up,
while the broad-based Topix rose 0.97%.
South Korea’s Kospi gained 1.28%, and the
small-cap Kosdaq saw a larger rise of 2.9%.
In contrast, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index reversed
gains to fall 0.64%, while mainland China’s CSI 300 was down 0.53%.
On Friday in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed
at a new high, capping off a winning week for stocks.
The blue-chip Dow gained 426.16
points, or 0.97%, to 44,296.51, a new all-time closing high and its third
straight positive session.
The S&P 500 added 0.35% to
finish its fifth winning day in a row, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.16%.
Gains were restricted by slides of
3.2% and 1.7% in Nvidia and Alphabet, respectively.
Asia markets live: India GDP, BOK decision, Singapore CPI
Stock futures rise Sunday ahead of
shortened trading week: Live updates
Updated Mon, Nov 25 2024 7:00 PM EST
U.S. stock futures climbed Sunday
night as Wall Street kicked off a shortened Thanksgiving trading week. Markets
are closed on Thursday for Thanksgiving Day and end early on Friday.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose
211 points, or 0.5%. Futures tied to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 advanced around
0.4% each.
The major averages are coming off a
winning week as the postelection rally picked up again. The 30-stock Dow
advanced around 2% last week and finished at a record close. Meanwhile, the
broad market index and Nasdaq Composite each rose about 1.7%. The small-cap
Russell 2000 jumped roughly 4.5% during the week.
President-elect Donald Trump signaled
his intention to nominate Key Square Group founder Scott Bessent as
Treasury secretary on Friday after the market close. Investors may view the
pick favorably and see the hedge fund manager as someone who will be supportive
of the equity market. To be sure, Trump stated that Bessent would help him
implement protectionist trade policies, which some investors fear will hurt the
market.
“U.S. equities, the dollar and
Treasury yields have all risen sharply in response to better-than-expected U.S.
economic data and have received an additional boost from the election outcome,”
said MRB Partners global strategist Phillip Colmar.
“However,” he added, “investors
should be careful not to be dogmatic in their views and positioning since the
policies proposed by President-elect Trump are a conflicting mix of pro-growth
fiscal stimulus and stagflationary isolationism.”
Despite this week’s shortened
trading week, the interest rate outlook is back in focus with the release of
October’s personal consumption expenditure (PCE) price index, the Federal
Reserve’s preferred inflation measure. Minutes from the Fed’s most recent
policy meeting are also due out ahead of Thanksgiving.
On the corporate earnings front,
several retailers and tech names are slated to release quarterly results during
the week. Bath and Body Works is scheduled to announce its earnings Monday
morning. On Tuesday, retailers Macy’s, Nordstrom and Best Buy are reporting
results, as well as tech companies CrowdStrike and Dell Technologies.
Stock futures rise Sunday ahead of shortened trading week: Live updates
Billionaire Warren Buffett just
bought shares of Domino’s Pizza. Should I grab a slice?
Sat 23 November 2024 at 7:50 am GMT
It’s always fascinating to see what
big-name investors in the US have been doing. Every quarter, we get to peek
behind the curtain through ‘13F’ regulatory filings, which show what they were
buying and selling in the previous quarter. Unsurprisingly, Warren
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B) is very closely
watched.
In Q3, one big move made by Buffett
— or more likely one of his investing lieutenants, Ted Weschler and Todd Combs
— was the purchase of Domino’s Pizza (DPZ).
Berkshire scooped up 1.27m shares of
the pizza restaurant chain, worth roughly $550m.
The stock has been a massive
long-term winner, rising 5,520% in the past 15 years (excluding dividends).
What’s so attractive about this
stock?
I see a number of things that make
this a classic Buffett/Berkshire buy. For starters, Domino’s is the world’s
leading pizza company, with more than 20,500 locations worldwide.
Crucially, it has an instantly
recognisable brand. Buffett loves strong brands, as his 36-year holding
in Coca-Cola (KO)
proves. Top brands normally enjoy pricing power, enabling them to raise prices
without losing customers, thereby enhancing profitability.
More
Billionaire Warren Buffett just bought shares of Domino’s Pizza. Should I grab a slice?
Is This As Good As It Gets for US Inflation?
If the inflation story this year was
complicated, just wait until 12 months from now
November 24, 2024 at 9:00 AM GMT
Week Ahead
Monday: Nigeria’s
third-quarter GDP will likely show slowing growth amid flooding and inflation;
Zoom reports earnings as it tries to expand beyond video calls.
Tuesday: The Fed will release the
minutes from its Nov. 6-7 meeting; Crowdstrike reports its first full quarter
since its July
outage;
Nigeria is expected to raise rates a quarter point.
Wednesday: The October
personal consumption expenditures index (PCE) will provide clues
on US inflation and
how the Fed will respond in December (more on that below).
Thursday: The Bank of
Korea will hold interest rates steady, according to Bloomberg Economics, as it
threads the needle between a struggling
economy and
strengthening dollar. US markets are closed for Thanksgiving.
Friday: Ireland
heads to the polls as
its centrist coalition hopes to buck the anti-incumbent trend roiling the rest
of the world; India and Canada report GDP; the Eurozone and Tokyo report CPI;
US markets remain closed.
Also: Brazil’s
long-anticipated spending cuts could be announced this week,
according to Bloomberg Economics.
Is This As Good As It Gets for US
Inflation?
For most of this year, US inflation has
been on a steady downward trend, fanning hopes that surging prices would give
way to falling interest rates.
But as 2025 looms, there are signs that
some pockets of inflation are proving more
stubborn than expected, prodding economists to ask if this is as good as it
gets.
We will get an update on the state of play
when a gauge of prices that is closely watched by the Federal Reserve is
released on Wednesday. The personal consumption expenditures index (PCE) is
expected to have risen 0.2% in October from the prior month and 2.3% from a
year ago.
The Fed watches this indicator because
it's generally understood to be more comprehensive than other inflation
measures, capturing not only what consumers spend out-of-pocket, but also
indirect expenditures, including by third parties and the government.
If this week’s reading comes in as
forecast or on the lower side of those expectations, then it will cement views
that the great disinflation trend remains broadly intact and the Fed will have
room to cut rates when it meets in mid-December.
But a higher reading would stoke the
opposite reaction and ignite bets that the Fed has less room to maneuver. That
scenario has extra potency given president-elect Donald Trump has promised
sweeping tariffs on imported goods, which economists say will pressure
inflation.
All of which means that if policy makers at the Fed thought the inflation story
this year was complicated, just wait until 12 months from now.
Will US Inflation Keep Falling? - Bloomberg
In other news.
Romania election stunner: Unexpected hard-right
candidate surges in presidential vote
Ultranationalist Călin Georgescu comes
from nowhere to lead center-left PM Marcel Ciolacu and liberal Elena Lasconi in
first round.
November 24, 2024 10:59 pm CET
Romanian ultranationalist Călin Georgescu
is currently on track to make it to the final round of presidential elections,
according to Sunday’s provisional results with more than 90 percent of
precincts reporting.
According to the partial results,
Georgescu leads with 22.2 percent followed by center-left Prime Minister Marcel
Ciolacu on 20.2 percent. Reformist candidate Elena Lasconi is on 18 percent,
while another hard-right candidate, George Simion, trails with 14.1 percent
support, with 96 percent of precincts reporting.
An early exit poll had suggested that
Lasconi was set to qualify for the presidential runoff but Georgescu surged as
vote counting continued Sunday night, heralding a result that is set to upend
Romanian politics. Preliminary results are subject to change as votes continue
to come in.
“The 35-years-long economic uncertainty
imposed on the Romanian people became uncertainty for the political parties
today,” Georgescu said in his first reaction after polls closed. He called the
result “an amazing awakening” of the Romanian people.
Georgescu, extremely religious and
nationalistic, campaigned on reducing Romania’s reliance on imports,
supporting farmers and increasing the domestic production of food and energy.
He has also argued that the EU and NATO do
not properly represent Romanian interests and claimed Russia’s war in Ukraine,
a Romanian neighbor, is manipulated by American military companies.
In 2022, he claimed that the U.S. anti-missile shield located in the southern
Romanian village of Deveselu is part of a
confrontation policy and not a peaceful measure. Russian President
Vladimir Putin has argued the same.
He said at the time that he had no support
from Russia but felt close to its culture. He described Putin as “a man who
loves his country.”
Georgescu also said he admired Hungary
because it knows how to negotiate internationally.
Georgescu is a university professor and
international consultant on sustainable development, who worked for different
United Nations organizations for more than a dozen years.
More
Romania election stunner: Unexpected hard-right candidate surges in presidential vote – POLITICO
The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.
George Orwell.
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.
Bosch
slashes hours and wages as auto industry struggles
24
November 2024
Bosch,
the largest supplier of automotive parts, will reduce working hours and cut
salaries for 10,000 employees in Germany. This follows the recent announcement
of 5,500 job cuts. These decisions are driven by increasing competition from
China.
According
to Reuters, Bosch, a leader in automotive parts production, has
announced a reduction in working hours and pay for 10,000 employees in
Germany.
The
changes primarily affect those on 38—or 40-hour contracts, who will now work 35
hours per week. A company spokesperson confirmed this, as reported by the
German agency dpa.
Crisis
in the German automotive industry
Bosch's
decision is a response to challenges in the German automotive industry,
resulting from a weak economic climate and a decrease in
demand for electric vehicles. The company had previously announced 5,500
redundancies, with the largest cuts impacting the department responsible for
driver assistance systems.
Bosch
employs around 130,000 individuals in Germany. Similar measures have been taken
by other companies, such as Ford, which plans to cut 2,900 jobs by 2027, and
Volkswagen, which has also announced wage reductions and factory closures.
Bosch
slashes hours and wages as auto industry struggles
VW
boss sticks to factory closure plans despite looming strike
23
November 2024
Volkswagen
is sticking to its plans for factory closures in Germany even though the union
has voted to go on strike in early December.
"We
need to reduce our capacities and adjust to the new realities," chief
executive officer of the VW brand, Thomas Schäfer, told Die Welt newspaper in
an article published on Saturday.
Included
in the cost-cutting moves were component locations and vehicle plants. When
asked if VW could forgo shutting a factory, Schäfer said, "We do not
currently see this."
Schäfer
did not rule out the threatened redundancies either. Trimming the work force
via retirements and severance offers "will not be enough" and would
take too long, he said.
Schäfer
thinks the reorganization should be done in three to four years to reposition
the Volkswagen brand.
"There
is no point in dragging out a restructuring until 2035. The competition would
have left us behind by then," he said.
The
aim is to return Volkswagen to the time of the mass-market passenger car
segment, which Schäfer said will require placing Volkswagen on stable economic
footing.
"Specifically,
our capacities in Europe are too high. They were planned for a market of around
16 million vehicles per year, but now the car market in Europe has shrunk to 14
million," he said.
At
the same time, VW is struggling with structural disadvantages in Germany
including in labour costs. Schäfer said VW's labour costs in Germany are about
twice as high as competitors - and as the company's own plants in southern and
eastern Europe.
----The
chief negotiator for the IG Metall trade union, Thorsten Gröger, did not
provide details of when and where strikes would begin. But he threatened to
mount a bitter labour struggle against the VW cuts.
"If
necessary, it will be a labour dispute the likes of which Germany has not seen
for decades," he said.
VW boss sticks to
factory closure plans despite looming strike
Mass
job losses as major factory owner moves business overseas
23
November 2024
A
major New York tire factory that has operated for over a century is set to
close after its executives moved its manufacturing overseas.
Sumitomo
Rubber USA, which owns tire maker Dunlop, fired 1,550 people this week as the
Japanese company plans to close its Buffalo factory.
The
company did not announce plans at the same time to open a new factory, but said
it made the 'difficult decision' because the New York manufacturer couldn't
keep up with overseas prices.
'The
plant closure is primarily due to overall facility performance within the
increasingly competitive international tire market,' Sumitomo said in a
statement to Cycle News.
'This
difficult decision follows a multi-year analysis of the company’s financial
situation and general market conditions.'
Sumitomo
said it has spent a staggering $140 million in recent years to modernize the
plant, but the investment was not enough to rescue its struggling bottom
line.
Local
lawmakers in the region quickly slammed the move and claimed the local
government could have stepped in to save the jobs before they were lost.
'It
appears this decision was made by the Japanese owner’s board without any
discussion with local and state officials about the possibility of
closure,' Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said in response to the
news.
Poloncarz
claimed that Sumitomo made no efforts to halt the closure of the factory
through the local government.
'At
no point did Sumitomo ask for any additional assistance to remain in operation,
despite the fact we have always supported their efforts to succeed here in Erie
County with tax incentives and assistance through the Erie County Industrial
Development Agency,' he said.
More
Mass job losses as
major factory owner moves business overseas
Stagflation
is coming as Labour takes us back to the 1970s
22
November 2024
The
Labour Government is intent on replicating the 1970s, the last time the party
tried implementing the policies now being introduced. The
rise in the annual consumer price index above the Bank of England’s two per
cent target brought echoes of so-called “stagflation” across the decades. This
phenomenon – a toxic mix of rising prices and stagnant or falling growth – is
now very much in evidence.
Prices
rose by 2.3 per cent in the year to October, up from 1.7 per cent, the sharpest
increase for two years. It is attributed mainly to an increase in energy costs,
another characteristic of the 1970s, though inflation then was in double
figures.
Stagflation
is a serious brake on economic ambition, because it makes investment less
worthwhile and militates against risk-taking and entrepreneurialism. One way
out is to stimulate the economy through tax cuts and deregulation but the
Government is heading in the opposite direction. It is pumping money into
the unproductive public sector without as yet offering any glimpses of
reform.
Labour
came to office promising to place growth at the heart of everything it does and
yet its rhetoric is so far not matched by its actions. Ministers will say that
given time the Budget measures will do what is required; but when the bills for
public sector failure are being dumped on businesses and farmers it is hard to
see how.
Even
the Office
for Budget Responsibility has predicted that growth will remain sluggish
for years to come and the latest inflation figures have put paid to another
early cut in interest rates. Revivals of the 1970s may be all the rage, but
stagflation is one comeback to be avoided at all costs.
Stagflation is
coming as Labour takes us back to the 1970s
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
More on an interesting development we covered earlier.
COVID-19
infections may actually shrink cancerous tumors, shock study reveals
Research
led by Justin Stebbing, Anglia Ruskin University Nov 22, 2024
A
fascinating new study, published in
the Journal of Clinical Investigation, has revealed an unexpected
potential benefit of severe COVID infection: it may help shrink cancer.
This
surprising finding, based on research conducted in mice, opens up new
possibilities for cancer treatment and sheds
light on the complex interactions between the immune system and cancer cells –
but it certainly doesn’t mean people should actively try to catch COVID.
The
data outlining the importance of the immune system in cancer is considerable and many
drugs target the immune system, unlocking its potential, an important focus
of my own research.
The
study here focused on a type of white blood cell called monocytes. These immune
cells play a crucial role in the body’s defense against infections and other
threats. However, in cancer patients, monocytes can
sometimes be hijacked by tumor cells and transformed into cancer-friendly cells
that protect the tumor from the immune system.
What
the researchers discovered was that severe COVID infection causes the body to
produce a special type of monocyte with unique anti-cancer properties. These
“induced” monocytes are specifically trained to target the virus, but they also
retain the ability to fight cancer cells.
To
understand how this works, we need to look at the genetic material of the virus
that causes COVID. The researchers found that these induced monocytes have a
special receptor that binds well to a specific sequence of COVID RNA. Ankit
Bharat, one of the scientists involved in this work from Northwestern
University in Chicago explained this relationship using a lock-and-key analogy:
“If the monocyte was a lock, and the COVID RNA was a key, then COVID RNA is the perfect fit.”
To
test their theory, the research team conducted experiments on mice with various
types of advanced (stage 4) cancers, including melanoma, lung, breast, and
colon cancer. They gave the mice a drug that mimicked the immune response to a
severe COVID infection, inducing the production of these special monocytes. The
results were remarkable. The tumors in the mice began to shrink across all
four types of cancer studied.
More
COVID-19 infections may actually shrink cancerous tumors, shock study reveals
Covid
very likely came from a Chinese lab leak and there was 'obviously' a cover-up
by Beijing, British expert says
Professor
Tim Spector warned of a repeat of the pandemic 'if we're not careful'
Published: 09:44, 22
November 2024 | Updated: 13:08, 22 November 2024
Covid
most likely came from a lab leak in China and its origins were 'obviously' the
subject of a cover-up by Beijing, a top British
epidemiologist has said.
Professor
Tim Spector, who co-created the Zoe symptom tracker app and was given an OBE
for his work during the pandemic response, questioned whether the virus could
have been manipulated by scientists before it was allegedly leaked.
'I
don't think there's any doubt that this virus emanated in China, in a place
near Wuhan,' The King's
College London epidemiology
professor told the Zoe podcast.
'The
question is, did this come from bats? Did it come from a lab that was working
on this virus and manipulating it to make it grow faster? Or was it a totally
artificially generated virus to?'
Covid-19 emerged in
Wuhan, central China, with differing theories among scientists over whether it
could have come from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) or a wet market in
the region.
Debate
has raged about the source of the pandemic that claimed 7 million lives
globally and more than 200,000 in the UK.
The
theory that it was a lab leak gained traction after being shared by the chief
of the FBI, who stated last
year that the origins of the pandemic 'are most likely a potential lab
incident'.
Professor
Spector said that Covid has proven that labs across the world should be
more strictly monitored and be treated with the same seriousness as a nuclear
threat, warning that it 'could happen again in another lab if we’re not
careful.'
He
also highlighted claims at US congressional hearings that Chinese and American
labs had worked together to study the infectiousness of coronaviruses and how
to 'control or speed them up'.
Describing
a potential cover-up, he pointed to 'the trail of shredded documents and email
exchange between the US and China at the time.'
He
added that 'there was a very obvious cover-up very early on by various
governments saying we have to get a report out there saying this is all down to
bats so people aren't going to blame labs and scientists to keep that
credibility going.'
'I
don't think the idea that someone built a virus from scratch would be very easy
to do. So I think it's more likely that was a mistake rather than anything
deliberate, but I think these were people working with hazardous viruses that
got out of control rather than it being a plot,' he said.'
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.
Graphene
extends batteries life and efficiency
Coating
lithium batteries with graphene extends its life and performance
By Jay Kakade 23 Nov, 2024
Since
Lithium-ion batteries have
witnessed a growing application in portable electronics and electric vehicles,
researchers are keen to improve their performance and cost further. In those efforts,
researchers have made a promising discovery to enhance the life and performance
of these batteries.
With
its cheap and energy-efficient performance, Lithium-ion batteries have
revolutionized the use of electricity. Any battery works by creating chemical
energy between the cathode and the anode, and converting it into electricity.
As the
chemicals in the two ends of the battery are utilized over time, it may not
completely recover to its original state. The more times we charge the
batteries, the less batteries we have left.
The
foremost challenge in battery use is the dissolution of transition metals from
the cathode material. Such dissolution results in unwanted side reactions,
which eventually stick to the anode, thereby reducing anode performance.
Therefore,
cobalt-bearing cathodes are preferred instead of manganese cathodes. However,
cobalt is a relatively expensive and scarce metal. In between the search for
better alternatives, Graphene enters
into play.
In a
collaboration, Caltech and
Jet Propulsion Laboratory have proposed a novel method to coat lithium-ion battery
cathodes with graphene. This not only improved battery performance, but also
reduces its reliance on scarce metals like Cobalt.
Since
graphene is an allotrope of carbon, it
offers better capacity, cycling stability, and capacity retention.
Additionally, it’s readily available and more effective than metals like
Silicon.
The
widespread use of graphene wasn’t possible until Caltech senior research
scientist David Boyd discovered that graphene
could be produced at room temperature. Before this
discovery, graphene production required temperatures up to 1,000 degrees.
Following
this breakthrough, the collaborated work successfully demonstrated the improved
performance and suppression of transition-metal dissolution.
More
Graphene extends
batteries life and efficiency
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt
Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
An optimist
will tell you the glass is half-full; the pessimist, half-empty; and the
engineer will tell you the glass is twice the size it needs to be.
Oscar Wilde.
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