Baltic
Dry Index. 792 +12
Brent Crude 74.86
Spot Gold 2896 US 2 Year Yield 4.26 -0.05
US Federal Debt. 36.489 trillion!
Gold is money. Everything else is credit.
J. P. Morgan.
With US markets closed today for President
Trump’s Day Presidents Day, today’s stock casinos will likely drift
higher but in thin trading volumes.
In France, a hastily called European leaders summit, shocked at their irrelevance to team Trump’s solution to ending the disastrous Ukraine war.
Far left socialist UK Prime Minister Starmer, promises British troops on the ground in Ukraine, the new Napoleon of Europe, oblivious to the fact that the UK Army is now less than 100,000 strong, and that Ukraine is over 1,000 miles from GB. But as in the 1939 promise to guarantee to Poland in the event of war wit Germany, words are cheap, reality more problematic.
Asia-Pacific markets trade mostly higher; shares
of Tencent highest in over three years
Updated Mon, Feb 17 2025 11:34 PM EST
Asia-Pacific markets traded mostly higher
Monday, as investors parsed Japan’s fourth-quarter economic growth data, while
awaiting a slew of central bank decisions from the region this week.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 traded around the
flatline, while the Topix added 0.29%. South Korea’s Kospi added 0.18% andthe
small-cap Kosdaq added 1.2%.
Japan’s economic expansion in the fourth quarter beat analysts’ expectations for
quarter-on-quarter and annualized growth, preliminary government data showed
Monday. On an annualized basis, GDP grew 2.8%, exceeding the Reuters estimates
of 1%.
The Japanese yen strengthened to trade at
151.95 against the greenback.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped
0.64%.
Tencent shares climbed to the highest
level since July 2021, data from LSEG showed, as the company’s Weixin messaging
app began beta testing Deepseek integration. Shares of the Chinese tech giant
last traded 4.25% higher.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.23%.
The Hang Seng Tech Index, which tracks the 30 biggest technology firms listed
in Hong Kong, slipped 0.11%. Mainland China’s CSI 300 traded flat.
Thailand released fourth-quarter GDP data,
which showed its economy grew 3.2% year-on-year, missing Reuters’ expectations
of a 3.9% expansion, data from LSEG showed.
The country’s annual GDP growth for the
year came in at 2.5%, according to Reuters.
The Reserve Bank of Australia has
kickstarted its two-day meeting which could see an interest rate cut on
Tuesday. Indonesia and New Zealand’s central banks are also expected to
announce their rate decisions on Wednesday.
In the U.S., the three major averages
closed mixed Friday. The Dow
Jones Industrial Average shed 165.35 points, or 0.37%, closing at
44,546.08. The S&P 500 ticked
down 0.01% to 6,114.63, and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.41%
to close at 20,026.77.
On a weekly basis, the three major
averages logged gains, as sentiment improved following more certainty around
U.S. President Donald Trump’s
tariff plans, while new inflation data turned out to be more constructive than
first expected. Traders also shrugged off data on Friday showing a 0.9% slump
in retail
sales for January, worse than the 0.2% decline anticipated by Dow Jones.
Asia
markets live updates: Japan GDP, RBA decision
Japan’s fourth-quarter growth tops estimates on
higher exports; domestic consumption remains a worry
Published Sun, Feb 16 2025 7:02 PM EST
Japan’s economic expansion in the fourth
quarter beat analysts’ expectations for quarter-on-quarter and annualized
growth, boosted by a jump in exports.
Preliminary government data showed
Monday that GDP grew 0.7% quarter on quarter, more than the
0.3% rise expected by economists polled by Reuters. It expanded by 0.4% in the previous quarter.
A jump in exports helped boost GDP, while
domestic demand was a drag on growth, contracting marginally. Capital
expenditure also rose 0.5% quarter-on-quarter, but missed Reuters estimates of
a 1% rise.
The GDP data comes against the backdrop of
Japan’s central bank raising
rates to 0.5% — their highest level since October 2008 — and offers it
more room to stick with monetary tightening.
Speaking to CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia,” Stefan
Angrick, associate director and senior economist at Moody’s Analytics, said
that while the headline numbers “all look great,” its not all “sunshine and
rainbows.”
“The only reason the economy expanded in
2024 is because of revisions to historical data, and once you strip those out,
GDP would have contracted,” he said.
Angrick also noted that GDP was supported
by net exports from the county, amid declining imports.
“That speaks to the weakness in domestic
demand, which is really the story we’ve been dealing with over the last two to
three years ... people probably want to be careful and maybe keep the champagne
on ice. It’s probably not the time to celebrate.”
Citi economist Katsuhiko Aiba warned
earlier this month that consumer spending will remain weak in the first quarter
of 2025, forecasting a full-scale recovery after the second quarter.
He said that real wage growth is likely to
remain negative in the first quarter as well, despite government energy
subsidies resuming, pressured by pass-through inflation from yen depreciation.
Japan’s November and October household
spending contracted 0.4% and 1.3%, respectively, year on year in real terms,
but it rose 2.7% in December — massively
beating expectations from economists polled by Reuters and marking its
first rise since July 2024.
On an annualized basis, GDP grew 2.8%,
exceeding Reuters estimate of 1%.
Japan’s economy grew 1.2% year on year in
the fourth quarter, compared with the 0.6% rise in the third quarter.
Despite the better-than-expected growth in
the fourth quarter, full-year GDP growth slowed to 0.1%, a sharp fall from the
1.5% growth seen in 2023.
The Nikkei 225 fell 0.29% after
the data release, while the yen strengthened
0.2% to trade at 152.02 against the dollar.
Japan's GDP expands 0.7% in fourth quarter
Keir Starmer 'ready to put British troops in
Ukraine' to guard against Russians
The Prime Minister has met with European
leaders to discuss the war in Ukraine.
22:12, Sun, Feb 16, 2025 |
UPDATED: 22:28, Sun, Feb 16, 2025
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is ready
to send British soldiers to Ukraine, he will announce
on Monday.
The troops would be put on the ground as
part of a peacekeeping force in the country if a deal to end the conflict were
reached.
The Prime Minister wrote that he had not
taken the decision that could see British servicemen and women “in harm’s way”
lightly in an article for the Telegraph.
Sir Keir wrote: “The UK is ready to play a
leading role in accelerating work on security guarantees for Ukraine. This includes
further support for Ukraine’s
military – where the UK has already committed £3billion a year until at least
2030."
But any role in helping to guarantee Ukraine’s security is
helping to guarantee the security of our continent and the security of this
country. The end of this war, when it comes, cannot merely become a temporary
pause before Putin attacks again.”
In recent days, the prospect of a deal to
end the war in Ukraine has
been placed at the forefront of international discussions.
The US President Donald
Trump and Vladimir Putin had
a 90-minute phone call earlier this week.
This has led to concern that Russia may be given
concessions as regards territory in Ukraine before
discussions even begin.
More
In other news, there ma be EU/USA trouble
ahead.
EU’s New Agricultural Import Rules Could Impact US
Trade
16 December 2025
The European Union is considering stricter
rules for imported agricultural products.
The goal is to ensure that food entering
the EU meets the same high standards set within the bloc.
This could lead to tensions with trade
partners like the United States. A major point of discussion is that products
grown with pesticides banned in the EU may face stricter import regulations.
One of the first products affected could
be US soybeans, which are treated with substances that the EU does not allow,
reports Ziare.
Oliver Varhelyi, the European Commissioner
for Animal Health and Welfare, stated that European farmers and the European
Parliament want all products sold in the EU to follow the same standards.
This means that if a substance is banned
in the EU, it should not be used on products imported into the market.
This move comes at a time when trade
policies are becoming more protectionist. The United States, under President
Donald Trump, has criticized other countries for rejecting American products.
Trump has even threatened to impose extra
tariffs on countries that do not allow US goods into their markets.
Although the European Commission has been
hesitant to impose such restrictions in the past, officials in Brussels argue
that these new measures will target harmful pesticides.
They also plan to conduct impact studies
before implementing any decisions. The EU also plans to raise animal welfare
standards in future trade agreements.
This means that any products sold in the
EU will need to meet strict rules about the way animals, such as laying hens
and calves, are treated.
While the EU is looking to protect its
environment and farmers, this approach could create economic conflicts,
especially with countries like the US.
If adopted, these new import regulations
will have a significant impact on international trade and how agricultural
products are produced and traded globally.
EU’s New Agricultural Import Rules Could Impact US Trade
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.
ECB's
Panetta sees little inflation impact from higher U.S. tariffs
Sat
15 February 2025 at 10:43 am GMT
TURIN,
Italy (Reuters) -Higher U.S. tariffs on European exports are likely to have
little effect on euro area inflation, a top European Central Bank policymaker
said, adding the main risk remained that of medium-term inflation falling below
2%.
In
the text of a speech prepared for Italy's annual Assiom-Forex financial
conference, ECB Governing Council member Fabio Panetta also called for policy
decisions to be "supported by communication focused on the medium-term
outlook for the real economy and inflation".
Panetta,
who is governor of Italy's central bank, said the main threat for price
developments came from energy markets, where prices, especially for natural
gas, are rising amid increased volatility, warranting close monitoring.
However,
"overall, the available indicators seem to suggest that the predominant
risk remains inflation falling below 2% over the medium term," he said.
A
possible weakening of the euro in response to the introduction of higher U.S.
tariffs and any retaliation from Europe, Panetta said, would be countered by a
slowdown in the global economy and by China diverting goods hit by the tariffs
to European markets.
"According
to our estimates, the net effect of the tariffs on inflation would be limited,
if not slightly negative," he said.
The
full implementation of the tariffs announced before the U.S. election, followed
by retaliatory measures, would shave 1.5 percentage points off global economic
growth, Panetta said.
"For
the euro area, the impact would be more limited -– around half a percentage
point – but Germany and Italy would be more affected due to their strong trade
ties with the United States," he added.
ECB's Panetta sees
little inflation impact from higher U.S. tariffs
‘No one wants to pay $25 for breakfast’: US restaurants are cracking under inflation
14
February 2025
Most
menu items at the popular Philadelphia breakfast chain Green Eggs Cafe are –
true to its name – made with eggs.
Co-owner
Stephen Slaughter said that about 90% of its dishes depend on eggs, ticking off
a short list: “Our French toast, our pancake batters, our hollandaise sauce,
obviously eggs and omelets.” So when his vendors started charging $8 for a
dozen eggs, all six Green Egg Cafe locations felt the pinch.
Slaughter
said that a year ago, the ingredients for a plate of bacon, eggs and toast with
a side of coffee might have cost $3 or $4; he estimates those costs have now
doubled.
“It’s
cutting into our margins pretty significantly,” he said. And that’s a problem
in a part of the restaurant sector known for converting relatively inexpensive
ingredients into fast, affordable comfort foods.
Egg
prices alone have nearly doubled since
December, according to the US Department of Agriculture, and many breakfast
restaurants and diners are reeling. Waffle House, a chain with more than 2,000
locations, recently announced a
$0.50-per-egg surcharge due to inflation and the worst avian influenza outbreak
in history, as tens of millions of birds have been culled to contain its
spread.
It’s
not just eggs that have gone up in price. Coffee is at a 47-year high, driven
by climate
disruptions in
Brazil and Vietnam, the world’s largest producers. The cost of frozen
orange juice has
nearly doubled since 2020, due to citrus disease and climate shocks. Flour,
too, has become
more expensive in
recent years, with prices spiking in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine.
Slaughter’s
team last increased prices in October 2023 due to inflation. “We’re trying to
do everything we can to not raise our prices. No one wants to go into a
breakfast place and have to pay $25,” he said.
Experts
and restaurateurs say breakfast spots – which often rely on markups made
possible by cheap and versatile ingredients, high-volume sales and loyal
customers – are particularly vulnerable to these price shocks. The industry’s
conventional wisdom that it’s easier to turn a profit with breakfast food may
be in jeopardy.
Amy
Smith, an economist with the consulting group Advanced Economics Solutions,
said the median price increase for popular breakfast items like eggs, coffee,
sausage, bacon and orange juice was 19% compared with last year and double 2020
costs.
But
restaurants risk alienating customers who are already feeling squeezed by
inflation. “Companies that are selling these things don’t have a lot of room to
increase prices because consumers are already on edge,” Smith said. “If they’re
paying triple or quadruple for a dozen eggs every week and coffee is going up,
it’s certainly going to impact the decision to go out for a fancy brunch.”
More
‘No one wants to pay $25 for breakfast’: US restaurants are cracking under inflation
Covid-19
Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Today, something different.
Killing cancer by puffer fish.
Researchers find cancer's 'off-grid' power supply – and how to cut it
By Michael Franco February 13, 2025
Researchers have discovered a particular type of cancer cell that relies
on its own biological electric utility company to thrive. Disrupting this power
plant – with the help of a puffer fish – showed a breakthrough way to fight the
tumors.
Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is a highly
malignant and very aggressive type of cancer responsible for about 13% of all
lung cancers. It is also sneaky. Typically, by the time the disease is
diagnosed, it has already metastasized, making it
extremely hard to treat.
Now, researchers from the Francis Crick Institute
(FCI) have discovered that some of the cells involved with the formation of
SCLC tumors demonstrate high levels of electrical activity. They've also
determined the source of this power boost and say that using neurological drugs
that typically disrupt electrical signals could be a powerful way to fight SCLC
and, potentially, other tumors that operate in the same way.
"We knew that some cancer cells can mimic
neural behavior, but we didn’t know how developing an independent electrical
network might impact the development of disease," said study co-author
Leanne Li, who is the head of the Cancer-Neuroscience Laboratory at FCI.
"By combining neuroscience and cancer research techniques, we’ve been able
to look at this disease from a different perspective."
Using mice engineered to have SCLC, the FCI
researchers identified two types of cells involved in the disease:
Neuroendocrine (NE) cells, which are similar to cells involved in the
electrical activity of the nervous system, and non-neuroendocrine (non-NE)
cells. Over time, the researchers found, cancer-activated gene expression
caused some NE cells to turn into non-NE cells. What's more, they saw that the
two types of cells began to work together, much in the same way neurons and
supporting cells called astroglia work together in the nervous system.
----With the deeper understanding of the electrical activity taking
place in SCLC tumors, the researchers set out to see if they could disrupt it,
and how that would impact the cancer's growth.
They exposed the cancer cells to a toxin from a
puffer fish known as tetrodotoxin, which is known to suppress electrical
activity. Sure enough, while the tetrodotoxin didn't kill the
electricity-producing NE cells, it did reduce their potential to form tumors
long-term, showing that interrupting the electrical activity of SCLC could be a
powerful, breakthrough way to fight the disease.
The researchers are now looking at the electrical
activity of other cancers, to see if they too exhibit similar properties to
SCLC. If so, they might be susceptible to new treatment options that disrupt
their growth by tamping down their electrochemical activity.
"There’s still a long way to go to understand
the biological impact of this electrical activity and the specific disease
mechanisms that make the tumor more aggressive and harder to treat," said
Li. "But we hope that in understanding the way these cancer cells are
fueled, we can also expose vulnerabilities that could be targeted with future
treatments."
More
Researchers find cancer's
'off-grid' power supply – and how to cut it
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.
Bosch’s
brake-by-wire system may be the next big leap in automotive tech
By Utkarsh Sood February 13, 2025
Bosch has
just completed testing its new new brake-by-wire technology on public roads.
The Bosch development team traveled more than 2,050 miles (3,300 km) across
several climate zones to reach the Arctic Circle in six days ... in a Nissan
Ariya.
The
technology, known as hydraulic brake-by-wire, removes the mechanical link
between the brake system and the brake pedal. The system works by forcing the
brake pads against the rotating brake disc when a remote-controlled actuator is
engaged – the driver's actual braking request is sent to the brake-by-wire
system as an electrical signal only.
The
technology saves weight and installation space by eliminating the requirement
for hydraulics – that is, the hoses, reservoirs, braking cylinders and control
units. Bosch states that it has already received orders from automakers, and
anticipates that over 5.5 million vehicles globally will have brake-by-wire by
2030.
This
is big news for makers of electric vehicles, which depend on lightweight design
to extend their range.
The
technology incorporates two independent hydraulic brake actuators – a by-wire
actuator and an ESP (electronic stability program) actuator. This arrangement
does away with the redundancy required for conventional integrated power brake
systems, in which malfunctions may occur in the mechanical connection to the
brake pedal.
There's
another big plus to this tech – it's easier to manufacture right-hand and
left-hand-drive versions of vehicles, thanks to the flexibility in where the
brake actuators can be installed. It's also possible to come up with new brake
pedal concepts that have considerably less travel, which frees up room for
innovative interior designs.
What’s
more – in the event of a malfunction, the ESP and the by-wire brake actuator
can independently increase the necessary brake pressure at all four wheels.
This is because they are connected to separate channels of the electrical
system.
More
Bosch’s
brake-by-wire system may be the next big leap in automotive tech
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt
Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
No
other commodity enjoys as much universal acceptability and marketability as
gold.
Hans F.
Sennholz.
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