Baltic Dry Index. 1669 +19 Brent Crude 71.06
Spot Gold 2987 US 2 Year Yield 4.02 +0.08
US Federal Debt. 36.606 trillion!!
"You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone."
President Trump Al Capone.
In the stock casinos, a nervous relief rally, with the US central bank starting its two day meeting tomorrow. Only a few are predicting any change to the Fed’s key interest rate.
European markets set to open the new trading week
higher; German debt reform vote ahead
Updated Mon, Mar 17 2025 1:39 AM EDT
European stocks are expected to start the
new trading week in positive territory, although investors will be looking to
see if global market volatility continues.
The U.K.’s FTSE 100 index is expected
to open 21 points higher at 8,653, Germany’s DAX up 90 points at 23,019,
France’s CAC 9
points higher at 8,034 and Italy’s FTSE MIB 182 points higher
at 38,819, according to data from IG.
There are no major earnings releases on
Monday; on the data front, however, Italy will publish its latest inflation
print.
European markets ended the week higher
Friday after German
lawmakers reportedly came closer to agreeing on reforming the country’s
so-called debt brake rule. Media reports said Germany’s likely next
chancellor Friedrich Merz had won support from the Greens party to hike public
borrowing to allow an increase in defense spending.
The motion, which requires a change to the
German Constitution, needs
backing from two-thirds of the lawmakers elected to the country’s
parliame
Investors will be keeping a close eye on
U.S. markets this week after the Dow posted
its worst week going back to 2023 last week, with investors grappling
with President Donald Trump’s fast-changing tariff policies, on top of growing
signs of economic weakness.
The uncertainty has many wondering whether
the stock market correction could turn into a bear market. U.S.
stock futures fell early Monday, signaling the pessimism could
continue into this week.
Asia-Pacific
markets mostly climbed overnight, with investors keeping a close watch
on Chinese
equities after the Chinese government announced a “Special
Action Plan to Boost Consumption” to revive consumption by boosting
incomes.
Other measures announced on Sunday
included plans to stabilize the stock and real estate market and raising the
country’s birth rate.
European
markets live updates: stocks, news, data and earnings
Stock futures fall after Dow posts worst week
since 2023: Live updates
Updated Mon, Mar 17 2025 1:14 AM EDT
Stock futures fell early Monday, after
the 30-stock index posted
its worst week going back to 2023.
Dow futures slid 170 points, or 0.41%.
S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures dipped 0.52% and 0.62%,
respectively.
Wall Street is coming off yet another
brutal week for equities. The Nasdaq
Composite sank deeper into correction territory last week, while the
small-cap Russell 2000 neared
a bear market, or 20% off from its high. The S&P 500 briefly dipped
into a correction as well, before snapping back above that level.
Those moves come as investors have
struggled to keep pace with President Donald Trump’s fast-changing tariff
policies, on top of growing signs of economic weakness, that have put markets
in a tailspin. The uncertainty has many wondering whether the stock market
correction could turn into a bear market.
“If you look at the companies that were
talking at big conferences in March, a lot of things are slowing. And so, I
think this is more than a growth scare already. This is actually like a growth
slowdown. And so the question is, will we get negative guidance in April?” Adam
Parker, CEO of Trivariate Research, told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” on Friday.
More
Stock
market today: Live updates
Wall Street Week Ahead
Mar. 16, 2025 6:59 AM ET
All eyes are on the Federal Reserve next
week, with the central bank scheduled to deliver its second interest rate
decision of the year. Markets expect the Fed to keep rates steady, and the real
focus will be on the updated dot plot and Chairman Jerome Powell's press
conference.
Sentiment has been slammed by U.S. President Donald Trump's back-and-forth on
tariffs and trade war escalation, and growth prospects for the world's largest
economy have soured. Traders will be looking at the dot plot to get an idea of
the Fed's growth projections, and will be keenly watching for any commentary on
tariffs from Powell.
In terms of earnings, investors will receive quarterly results from two
heavyweight names in the world's largest shoe company Nike (NKE)
and global economic bellwether FedEx (FDX).
Wall Street Week Ahead | Seeking Alpha
In other news, has President Trump killed the
US golden goose, aka the US consumer?
US shoppers cut spending as economic outlook
concerns mount
Tariffs, market volatility and political
uncertainty threaten to undermine key driver of growth in world’s largest
economy
Sun Mar 16 2025 - 18:58
US shoppers are cutting back on spending
and sentiment is sliding as US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and market
volatility threaten to undermine one of the key drivers of the world’s largest
economy.
Many retailers reported solid sales at the
end of last year, but warned of slower growth in 2025, and industry data shows
that their forecasts are already playing out.
Footfall to US stores fell by 4.3 per cent
year on year in early March, according to RetailNext, a consultancy – extending
declines that began at the start of the year. Placer.ai, which aggregates
signals from consumers’ mobile devices, has recorded fewer visits to big-box
stores including Walmart, Target and Best Buy in recent weeks.
On Friday the University of Michigan’s
consumer sentiment index recorded its third consecutive monthly drop and the
lowest reading since November 2022. Inflation expectations were rising, the
survey also showed.
Mr Trump has declined to rule out a
recession, while the stock market’s recent tumble has dented the investment
portfolios of wealthier Americans who propel US consumption.
“The consumer is being barraged with so
many different elements,” said Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst at Circana,
which compiles retail purchase data. “It’s easier for the consumer to just step
back and say: ‘I’m going to ride this out and wait and see what happens’.”
The US Federal Reserve is expected to keep
interest rates on hold at its meeting this week, and Fed chair Jay Powell
recently downplayed concerns about growth, saying that the US central bank did
“not need to be in a hurry” to cut rates.
But investors are increasingly concerned
that Mr Trump’s erratic policymaking, marked by a series of sudden U-turns, is
disrupting businesses and slowing growth. Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500
stock index fell into correction territory this week, before inching back.
Consumer spending was a key driver of the
US’s economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, outpacing Europe and other
big economies.
More
US
shoppers cut spending as economic outlook concerns mount – The Irish Times
A Market Indicator From Early 1900s Is Blaring an
Alarm for Stocks
March
14, 2025
(Bloomberg) -- A century-old indicator
that has helped predict the direction of the US stock market is signaling more
pain ahead for battered investors.
Known as the Dow Theory, it holds that
moves in the Dow Jones Industrial Average must be confirmed by transport
stocks, and vice versa, to be sustained. As of Thursday’s close, the 20-member
Dow Jones Transportation Average — a barometer of consumer and industrial
demand — has slumped 19% from its November peak, teetering near so-called bear-market
territory.
Taken together with the 9.3% slump in the
Dow Jones Industrial Average from its December record, the indicator is
flashing a worrisome sign for the broader stock market, which has been hammered
in recent days by deepening concerns over the economy and the Trump
administration’s aggressive stance on tariffs.
“As a risk barometer check, that’s not a
great backdrop for the overall market,” said Todd Sohn, managing director of
ETF and technical strategy, at Strategas Securities.
The weakness in the two Dow indexes
highlights how bearish signals are starting to come in fast from different
corners of the market, he added, noting steep declines in homebuilders,
chipmakers and industrials.
For
some time now, investors have been concerned about the toll that an uncertain
macroeconomic environment can take on businesses and consumers. Those worries
came to the forefront over the past week as several airlines and retailers
released cautious outlooks, citing weak
demand.
This
week, Delta Air Lines Inc. cut its profit outlook in
half and
American Airlines Group Inc. said its first-quarter
loss would
be roughly double its prior guidance. Sales forecasts from retailers like Dick’s
Sporting Goods Inc. and Kohl’s Corp. also deeply lagged expectations.
Fading Spirits
“The animal spirits created after the
presidential election appear to have given way to increased pessimism about the
impact tariffs could have on inflation and economic activity in the US,”
Bloomberg Intelligence’s senior analyst Lee Klaskow wrote in a note this
week.
“An economy in transition is not good for
freight demand,” he said. He noted President Donald Trump’s comments over the
weekend that the US economy faces a “period of
transition.”
Critics of the Dow Theory point out that
the usefulness of this indicator has worn off in recent years, given the makeup
of the broader economy has changed and is now largely driven by services and
technology rather than industrial manufacturing.
Still, at a time when the broad stock
market has slumped into a correction, the plunge in transportation stocks —
with the index on track for its worst weekly decline since September 2022 —
points to bigger troubles ahead.
For technical strategists, these two
indexes declining indicates that it’s time to sell. Adam Turnquist, chief
technical strategist at LPL Financial, noted that the current selloff has
pushed the Dow Jones Transportation Average below its 2024 lows, a key level
for technicians.
“To make matters worse, its Dow Theory
cousin — the Dow Jones Industrial Average — has also rolled over and violated
the pullback lows from January, checking the box for a sell signal as the
averages confirm the primary trend of the market is no longer higher,” he said.
A Market Indicator
From Early 1900s Is Blaring an Alarm for Stocks
Trump has pummelled America to the edge of
recession. It could destroy his dreams
The president is executing a grand plan to
reshape the US – even if it crushes the markets
16 March 2025 6:00am GMT
From the day David Funk started his energy
consulting firm two years ago in Spokane, Washington, business was strong.
Zero Emissions NorthWest turned a profit
in its first year and Funk was expecting revenue growth of no less than 70pc
this year.
That was until Donald Trump’s election.
On Jan 20, Trump’s first day in the White
House, the US president signed a blizzard of executive orders that he promised
would kickstart a “complete restoration of America”.
These included an immigration crackdown,
fast-tracking fossil fuel production, rescinding 78 executive actions taken by
his predecessor, Joe Biden, and freezing all payments due to be made under the
outgoing president’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
The end result for Funk was that, a week
later, the US government refused to pay a $65,000 (£50,000) invoice for work
that his company had completed last year. By the end of January, he had been
forced to stop paying all three of his employees. “It’s been devastating,” Funk
says.
His experience exemplifies the economic
reality of Trump 2.0. While the president has promised to make Americans rich
again, he has so far done the opposite. A blizzard of executive orders, job
cuts and punitive tariffs have destabilised large parts of the US economy
and stoked concerns
about a possible recession, something Trump himself has refused to rule out.
Initial market euphoria, triggered by
hopes of tax cuts and deregulation, has rapidly evaporated as the president has
pressed ahead with promises to impose an unprecedented $770bn of tariffs in a
global trade war, forcibly deport
11m undocumented migrants and slash $1 trillion off the federal
government’s budget this year.
The scale, speed and aggression of Trump’s
first 50 days in power have sent stock markets tumbling.
The S&P 500, a Wall Street bellwether,
has dropped by more than 10pc since its February peak, putting it in so-called
“correction” territory and erasing all of its initial “Trump bump” election
gains. The Nasdaq 100 has similarly fallen by more than 13pc since February.
As for the real economy, warning signs are
flashing red: investment is dropping, job creation is weak and consumer
confidence is evaporating fast.
For now, a recession is not certain – it
is a spectre haunting the country rather than a grim reality. But even just a
slowdown for the US economy could have huge implications, not only for
Americans but also the UK, Europe and the world. It could also prove to be
Trump’s own undoing.
The president is embarking on an ambitious
attempt to reshape not just the global economy but also the federal government.
Economic pain has so far been the by-product – and it remains to be seen just
how much the American people will bear.
Trump has in the past proved sensitive to
stock market gyrations, and the recent crash may prompt him to moderate the
pace and aggression with which he is prosecuting his agenda. But so far he has
showed no signs of slowing down.
“We’ve never had policymakers before that
are prepared to do things that potentially damage the economy – just do them
and see what happens,” says Dario Perkins, a managing director at TS Lombard, a
economic research company.
“The question is, what is the pain
threshold for this stuff?”
Recession alarm bells ring
Just how close the US is to a recession
depends on who you ask, but almost everyone agrees that the risk is rising.
Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s
Analytics, part of one of the biggest US credit agencies, says the threat of
recession in the US has more than doubled from 15pc at the start of the year to
35pc today. Analysts at JP Morgan put the risk at 40pc.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta said
last week that the US economy was on track to contract sharply in the first
three months of the year.
More
Trump has
pummelled the US to the edge of recession. It could destroy his dreams
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.
Stagflation
Trade Emerges as Rare Winner in US Stock Market Rout
March
14, 2025
(Bloomberg)
-- There have been few winning strategies to seek refuge in as the stock rout
sparked by President Donald Trump’s start-stop tariff war drags on for a third
week. One, though, is soaring right now: a pair trade that bets on stocks that
thrive in an economy sinking into stagflation.
A
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. basket bets on strength in commodities and defensive
sectors like health care, and is short on the consumer discretionary sector,
semiconductors and unprofitable tech stocks. As of Tuesday, it’s the bank’s
best-performing US long-short basket in 2025, up nearly 20% compared to the
S&P 500 Index’s 5.3% decline.
Data
released on Wednesday gave traders some relief, showing US
consumer prices rising at the slowest pace in four months. However, some
investors remain concerned that import levies could bring on stagflation, where
rising costs collide with weak economic growth.
“All
our policy analytical work says that if you get tariffs for any length of time
on the order of what is already being proposed and considered, that’s a recipe
for much slower growth and much higher inflation,” said Julian Emanuel, chief
equity & quantitative strategist at Evercore ISI.
Evercore
said stagflation occurs when US gross domestic product growth falls below 1.5%
annually while inflation — the core personal consumption expenditures index —
rises above 3%. That scenario would trigger the firm’s bear case, where the
S&P 500 could fall to 5,200 by year-end, from about 5,600 now.
Souring
sentiment has already prompted a number of economists to cut their outlooks on
the US economy. Goldman’s Jan Hatzius on Monday slashed his GDP forecast for
2025 to 1.7% from 2.4% and boosted his inflation outlook. And Wall Street
strategists are getting more pessimistic about the
performance of US stocks.
Guidance
from blue-chip US companies has been deteriorating as well. Two of the biggest
US airlines have slashed their
forecasts, while Walmart Inc., a barometer of US consumer strength, also warned
of weakness ahead.
Who
are the winners in a stagflation scenario? Typically, they’re stocks that
generate steady cash flows no matter how weak the economy is. Defensive sectors
like health care, energy and consumer staples have been the top S&P 500
performers in 2025.
“We
like our “stagflation” long/short pair basket for investors looking to
reposition their portfolios and hedge against rising possibilities around
stagflation,” Faris Mourad, vice president of Goldman’s US custom baskets team,
wrote in a note to clients on Monday. The basket hasn’t outpaced the S&P
500 on a full-year basis since 2022, when the Federal Reserve started
ratcheting up interest rates aggressively to tame inflation.
David
Lin, CEO & founder of Linvest21, recommends focusing on companies with
stable consumer demand that can successfully pass costs on to consumers. Lin
said utilities and healthcare stocks could perform well thanks to favorable
regulatory environments.
According
to Lin’s AI-driven portfolio models, consumer staples giants Johnson &
Johnson and Procter & Gamble Co. might outperform in a stagflationary
environment due to their diversified product portfolios.
In
the energy sector, Lin sees NextEra Energy Inc. as well-positioned to
capitalize on growing renewable energy demand, which he expects to remain
resilient in the face of an economic slowdown or rising inflation.
Stagflation Trade
Emerges as Rare Winner in US Stock Market Rout
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Since the Covid outbreak is largely over, I ended this section on Saturday March 15th.
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.
Green
steel plant glugs out first ton of molten metal
By Michael Franco March 13, 2025
MIT
spinout Boston Metal has powered up its electricity driven steel production
reactor and made over a ton of metal in a crucial step toward commercializing
its process. With clean electricity, the process could make steel with zero CO2
emissions.
According
to the World
Steel Association,
steel production releases almost twice its weight in carbon dioxide (CO2)
pollution. Specifically, it says, for every one metric tonne of the metal
produced, 1.92 metric tonnes of the greenhouse gas is released. That accounts
for between seven and nine percent of global CO2 emissions.
---- Joining other
efforts to decarbonize the steel-production process such as
those using
hydrogen to refine iron ore, Boston Metal has pioneered a process known as molten
oxide electrolysis (MOE).
This method of producing the metal involves combining
iron ore with an electrolyte in a reactor and then using electricity instead of
coke to heat the mix to about 1,600 °C (2,900 °F). Doing so causes electrons to
split the bonds in the iron ore to purify it while outputting only oxygen. Not
a single molecule of carbon dioxide is released during the process.
If the electricity that drives the reaction is provided
via a clean method such as wind or solar, then the molten metal that results
would be completely carbon neutral.
The key to the success of the recent test that led to
the creation of a ton of molten metal is Boston Metal's inert anode which can
drive the electrical process in the reactor without degrading. To scale the
process, multiple anodes are required, and the recent output of the Woburn,
Massachusetts-based factory proves that such a multi-anode approach is
effective.
“We are the only company with a direct and scalable
approach to more efficient and clean steelmaking, and I can now say that
tonnage steel is flowing from our multi-inert anode MOE cell,” said Tadeu
Carneiro, CEO of Boston Metal. “With this milestone, we are taking a major step
forward in making green steel a reality and we’re doing it right here in the
US, demonstrating the critical innovation that can enhance domestic
manufacturing.”
Because the current reactor can only make about a ton
or two of material per month, the company plans to build an even larger
demonstration plant set to come online in 2026 and begin operations a year
later. Ultimately, Boston Metal hopes to license its green production process
to other steel manufacturers.
You can watch the molten metal flow from Boston Metal's
test plant in the following video.
Green steel plant glugs out first ton of environmentally friendly molten
metal
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt
Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
"Very
few people can afford to be poor."
George
Bernard Shaw.
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