Baltic Dry Index. 1401 -88 Brent Crude 65.08
Spot Gold 2999 US 2 Year Yield 3.73 +0.05
US Federal Debt. 36.697 trillion!!!
The real cause of the beginning of the Great Depression was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. This shocking and totally unprecedented legislation ended up imposing an average 60 percent tax on more than 3,000 import items. It was the equivalent of exploding a bomb that devastated the global trading system.
Steve Forbes (Inflation: What It Is, Why It's Bad, and How to Fix It)
In the stock casinos and commodity markets, madness, rumours, massive whipsaw movements. How not to run the global economy unless financial anarchy and a global depression is the aim.
The good news, was Monday the capitulation bottom for now? Probably, but I doubt it will last for long.
The moves come after yet another volatile trading day on Wall Street, which saw the highest trading volume in at least 18 years at roughly 29 billion shares:
Stock futures rise after S&P 500 posts
three-day losing streak amid tariff turmoil: Live updates
Updated Tue, Apr 8 2025 7:44 PM EDT
Stock futures rose on Monday evening after
the S&P 500 extended
its losses for a third day following President Donald Trump’s tariff rollout.
Futures tied to the S&P 500 were
up 0.9%, while Nasdaq-100
futures gained about 1%. Dow futures jumped 444
points, or nearly 1.2%.
The moves come after yet another volatile
trading day on Wall Street, which saw the highest trading volume in at least 18
years at roughly 29 billion shares:
- The
30-stock Dow Jones
Industrial Average fell 349 points, or 0.9%, paring back losses
earlier in the session, when the blue-chip index plunged more than 1,700
points. Between session highs and lows, the index swung 2,595 points.
- The
S&P 500 lost 0.2% after being down 4.7% at session lows. While the
broad market index finished the day more than 17% off its 52-week high, it
briefly entered bear market territory in the session.
- The Nasdaq Composite ticked
0.1% higher, with investors buying shares of key megacap technology names
like Nvidia and Palantir. The tech-heavy
index was off more than 5% at its session low.
At one point in Monday’s session, stocks
saw a sharp rise into the green after speculation on social media of a tariff
pause. The White House later told CNBC, however, that any chatter of a 90-day
tariff reprieve was “fake
news,” leading the indexes to pull back.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested
in an interview with Fox News Monday that tariff negotiations with other
countries could
last until June. He said that “maybe almost 70” countries, including Japan,
have contacted the White House regarding negotiating tariffs.
Meanwhile, the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield climbed
above the 4% level. That’s despite Trump’s tariffs exacerbating fears of a
possible recession hitting the U.S. economy.
“It appears that the storm is easing,
perhaps helped by the fake story of the easing of the tariffs,” said Louis
Navellier, founder and chief investment officer of Navellier & Associates.
“The rising Treasury yields are a strong indication that recession fears had
become overblown, and perhaps the expectation that the Fed will not be making
any emergency cuts. It also may be that Trump’s strategy will not turn out to
be as destructive as the bears insist they are.”
Nevertheless, the S&P 500 has lost
more than 10% over the past three trading sessions. The CBOE Volatility Index – known
as Wall Street’s so-called fear gauge – spiked to about 60 on Monday.
On the economic data front Tuesday, the
National Federation of Independent Business will issue its small business index
reading for March. Later this week, the consumer price index report is due.
Stock
market today: Live updates
China says it will 'fight to the end' after Trump
threatens 50% additional tariffs
Published Mon, Apr 7 2025 9:14 PM EDT
China's Commerce Ministry said it
"resolutely opposes" U.S. President Donald Trump's threat of
escalating tariffs, and vowed to take countermeasures to safeguard its own
rights and interests.
The comments came after Trump said he
would impose an additional 50% duty on U.S. imports from China Wednesday, if
Beijing does not withdraw the 34% tariff it imposed on American products last
week.
"The U.S. threat to escalate tariffs
on China is a mistake on top of a mistake," the statement said, according
to a CNBC translation. "China will never accept it. If the U.S. insists on
its own way, China will fight to the end."
Last Friday, China's Finance Ministry
announced 34%
in additional tariffs on all goods imported from the U.S., starting
April 10, in retaliation to Trump imposing new levies of 34% on China.
The across-the-board tariffs followed two
previous rounds of 10%-15% tariffs, targeting mostly agricultural and energy
products imported from the U.S. The broadened tariff scope reflects Chinese
leadership's diminished hopes for a trade deal with the U.S., said Gabriel
Wildau, managing director at Teneo.
Trump's 34% tariffs on China were on top
of the 20% duties rolled out since February, bringing the
total new tariffs this year on China to 54%. The additional
levies have lifted U.S. weighted average tariff rate on China to as high as
65%, and could dent China's economy by 1.5 to 2 percentage points this year,
according to Morgan Stanley.
"Since China already faces more than
60% in tariff rate, it doesn't really matter if it goes up by 50% or
500%," said Tianchen Xu, senior economist at the Economist Intelligence
Unit, suggesting Beijing is prepared for a "full on" trade war with
the U.S.
"China is on the defensive side, but
basically the two sides are testing each other's limit," Xu said.
As risks of an intense U.S.-China trade
war rise, Beijing might resort to further retaliatory measures, such as
stopping purchases of U.S. agricultural goods, matching U.S. tariffs and
further expansion of export controls on metals and minerals, Xu added.
Beijing has already placed export curbs
on key rare earth elements, prohibited exports of dual-use items to a dozen of U.S. entities, U.S. firms to
its "unreliable entities list," subjecting them
to broader restrictions while operating in China.
The People's Bank of China on Tuesday set
the midpoint rate for onshore yuan at 7.2038 per dollar, the weakest level since September
2023, according to data provider Wind Information. The yuan is allowed to trade
within a 2% band of this midpoint rate.
The yuan's weakening is a "big
signal," Robin Brooks, senior fellow at Brookings Institution told
CNBC's Squawk Box Asia,
"this is Beijing politely saying this is getting a little too much, we are
putting you on notice, we can devalue if we want and bigger things may come if
you keep this up."
"This is a clear shot across the bow
of Washington," Brooks added.
More
China
says it will 'fight to the end' after Trump threatens 50% additional tariffs
CNBC Daily Open: Trump rejects offers to tear down
tariffs, threatens more on China
Published Mon, Apr 7 2025 9:19 PM EDT
The meaning of the word “reciprocity” is
being strained by the Trump administration. Not only did the White House use a
bizarre formula to determine the degree of its “reciprocal” tariffs on other
countries, but it also refused to return the favor when Vietnam and the
European Union offered to remove tariffs on U.S. imports.
White House trade advisor Peter Navarro
said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that it’s Vietnam’s “nontariff cheating that
matters,” citing examples such as how Chinese goods are often exported from
Vietnam and intellectual property theft. This suggests that the Trump
administration sees tariffs not just as a means to address U.S. trade imbalance
(which, itself, is already not a good indicator of economic health), but also a
way of fundamentally changing the way global trade and manufacturing are being
conducted.
Business leaders, many of them steering
companies that rely on — and have profited from — the current economic
paradigm, are starting to voice their concerns and even vent their displeasure
at Trump tariffs. Some are supporters and donors of the Republican Party. With
the Trump administration’s idiosyncratic understanding of “reciprocity,”
however, it seems unlikely it will repay their goodwill with its own.
More
CNBC
Daily Open: Trump rejects zero tariffs, threatens more on China
Trump is losing the confidence of business
leaders, billionaire investor Bill Ackman says
Published Sun, Apr 6 2025 11:18 PM EDT
Billionaire investor Bill Ackman said that
America was heading toward a self-inflicted “economic nuclear winter” as a
result of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff policy rollout.
“By placing massive and disproportionate
tariffs on our friends and our enemies alike and thereby launching a global
economic war against the whole world at once, we are in the process of
destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner,” Ackman, who had
endorsed Trump during the elections, wrote on social media platform X.
Trump’s latest tariffs, signed into effect Wednesday,
set a 10% baseline levy on all imports, hitting over 180 countries and
hammering global markets.
China faces the highest tariffs, with the
Trump administration having imposed 54% in duties since January. Beijing has retaliated with 34% tariffs
on all goods imported from the U.S.
----
“Business is a confidence game. The president is losing the confidence
of business leaders around the globe,” Ackman said.
“The consequences for our country and the
millions of our citizens who have supported the president — in particular
low-income consumers who are already under a huge amount of economic stress —
are going to be severely negative. This is not what we voted for,” the hedge
fund manager said.
Trump has the opportunity to call for a
timeout for any negotiations to resolve any “unfair” tariff deals.
“Alternatively, we are heading for a
self-induced, economic nuclear winter, and we should start hunkering down,” he
said.
In
a separate tweet,
Ackman also took potshots at U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. “He
profits when our economy implodes. It’s a bad idea to pick a Secretary of
Commerce whose firm is levered long fixed income,” Ackman said, adding that it
is an “irreconcilable conflict of interest.”
On Sunday, Lutnick told CBS that the Trump
administration will remain
steadfast in its reciprocal tariffs against key trading partners even in the
face of a global stock rout.
The U.S. Department of Commerce did not
immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Trump is losing
the confidence of business leaders, billionaire investor Bill Ackman says
CEOs think the U.S. is ‘probably in a recession
right now,’ says BlackRock’s Larry Fink
Published Mon, Apr 7 2025 1:10 PM EDT Updated
Mon, Apr 7 2025 2:14 PM EDT
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said Monday that
many business leaders believe the United States economy is already in a
significant downturn.
“Most CEOs I talk to would say we are
probably in a recession right now,” Fink said at an event for the Economic Club
of New York.
“One CEO specifically said the airline
industry is a proverbial bird in a coal mine — canary in the coal mine — and I
was told that the canary is sick already,” Fink added.
The asset management executive also said
that he thinks the tariff
policies of President Donald
Trump could put upward pressure on inflation and make it difficult for
the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, as the central bank often does
during recessions.
“This notion that the Federal Reserve is
going to
ease four times this year, I see zero chance of that. I’m much more worried
that we could have elevated inflation that’s going to bring rates up much
higher than they are today,” Fink said.
Pricing in the fed funds futures market
currently suggests that traders expect the central bank to lower its benchmark
interest rate by at least 1 percentage point by the end of the year, according
to the CME FedWatch tool, which could be four cuts of 0.25
percentage point.
BlackRock as a firm held more than $11
trillion in assets as of the end of 2024, spread across public and private
investments.
Fink’s comments were broadcast on
Bloomberg Television.
CEOs think the U.S. is 'probably in a recession right now,' says BlackRock's Larry Fink
I was 21 and looking for work in 1932, one of the worst years of the Great Depression. And I can remember one bleak night in the thirties when my father learned on Christmas Eve that he'd lost his job. To be young in my generation was to feel that your future had been mortgaged out from under you, and that's a tragic mistake we must never allow our leaders to make again.
Ronald Reagan
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.
The end of the decline of the Stock Market will probably not be
long, only a few more days at most.
Irving Fisher, 1929
JPMorgan
CEO Jamie Dimon says Trump tariffs will boost inflation, slow an already
weakening U.S. economy
Published
Mon, Apr 7 2025 6:15 AM EDT
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Monday
that tariffs announced by
President Donald Trump last week
will likely boost prices on both domestic and imported goods, weighing down a
U.S. economy that had already been slowing.
Dimon,
69, addressed the tariff policy Trump
announced on April 2 in his annual shareholder letter, which has become a
closely read screed on the state of the economy, proposals for the issues
facing the U.S. and his take on effective management.
“Whatever
you think of the legitimate reasons for the newly announced tariffs – and, of
course, there are some – or the long-term effect, good or bad, there are likely
to be important short-term effects,” Dimon said. “We are likely to see
inflationary outcomes, not only on imported goods but on domestic prices, as
input costs rise and demand increases on domestic products.”
“Whether
or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will
slow down growth,” he said.
Dimon
is the first CEO of a major Wall Street bank to publicly address Trump’s
sweeping tariff policy as global markets crash. Though the JPMorgan chairman
has often used his platform to highlight geopolitical and financial risks he
sees, this year’s letter comes at an unusually turbulent time. Stocks have been
in freefall since Trump’s announcement shocked global markets, causing the
worst week for U.S. equities since the
outbreak of the Covid pandemic in 2020.
His
remarks appear to backtrack earlier comments he made in January, when Dimon
said that people should “get over” tariff concerns
because they were good for national security. At the time, tariff levels being
discussed were far lower than what was unveiled last week.
More
Jamie Dimon says
Trump tariffs will boost inflation, slow U.S. economy
Trump’s
finance chief rejects US recession fears
Scott
Bessent insists American economy will remain buoyant despite stock market
collapse
06
April 2025 5:41pm BST
Donald
Trump’s finance chief has rejected fears of a US recession despite the
president’s trade war sparking a $6 trillion (£4.7 trillion) stock
market collapse.
Scott
Bessent, the treasury secretary, said on Sunday there was “no reason” to expect
a downturn in America, claiming that the economy will remain buoyant thanks to
strong job numbers, low borrowing rates and falling oil prices.
That
is despite mounting fears over Mr Trump’s tariffs, which have upended global
trade and rattled global stock markets.
Mr
Bessent said: “I see no reason that we have to price in a recession. Markets
are organic animals and you never know what the reaction’s going to be. We get
these short-term market reactions from time to time.
“There
doesn’t have to be a recession. Who knows how the market is going to react in a
day, in a week?”
His
comments come after Mr Trump told Americans over the weekend that they needed
to “hang tough” during this period of turmoil.
He
sought to reassure households after JP
Morgan predicted tariffs
would tip the American economy into recession this year.
By
tearing up its growth forecasts, the Wall Street bank said US GDP is expected
to shrink by 0.3pc in 2025, down from previous estimates of 1.3pc growth.
It
said the chance of a global recession had also risen from 40pc to 60pc.
JP
Morgan’s gloomy outlook comes after more than $6 trillion was wiped off
America’s most valuable companies last week in the wake of Mr Trump’s
“liberation day” announcement.
As
part of his tariff blitz, Mr Trump imposed wide-ranging levies on countries
around the world. This included hitting
China with
a headline rate of 54pc, while the UK and EU were handed rates of 10 and 20pc
respectively.
Mr
Bessent dismissed the markets’ negative reaction as a temporary blip, saying
stock markets were for the “long term”.
More
Trump’s finance
chief rejects US recession fears
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue only occasionally when something of interest occurs.
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.
Beyond
Graphene: Scientists Create Ultra-Thin 2D Metals for the First Time
By Chinese
Academy of Sciences April 6, 2025
A new
method called vdW squeezing enables the creation of stable, atomically thin 2D
metals, opening doors to advanced devices and fundamental discoveries in
materials science.
Since
the discovery of graphene in 2004, research into two-dimensional (2D)
materials has advanced rapidly, opening new frontiers in both fundamental
science and technological development. While nearly 2,000 2D materials have
been theoretically predicted and hundreds successfully synthesized in
laboratories, the vast majority are limited to van der Waals (vdW) layered
crystals.
A
major goal in the field has been the development of atomically thin 2D metals,
which would significantly broaden the scope of 2D materials beyond vdW
structures. These ultrathin metals could also unlock new physical phenomena and
enable novel device architectures. Despite considerable effort in recent years,
producing large-area, high-quality 2D metals at the atomic scale has remained a
major challenge.
Breakthrough
via vdW Squeezing
Now,
however, researchers from the Institute of Physics (IOP) of the Chinese Academy of
Sciences have developed a convenient, universal, atomic-level
manufacturing technique—called vdW squeezing—for the production of 2D metals at
the angstrom thickness limit. This study was recently published in Nature.
The
manufacturing technique involves melting and squeezing pure metals between two
rigid vdW anvils under high pressure. With this method, the researchers
produced diverse atomically thin 2D metals, including Bi (~6.3 Å), Sn (~5.8 Å),
Pb (~7.5 Å), In (~8.4 Å) and Ga (~9.2 Å).
Stability
and Performance of 2D Metals
More
Beyond Graphene:
Scientists Create Ultra-Thin 2D Metals for the First Time
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt
Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
In the
Great Depression in which I grew up and remember vividly, unemployment was over
25 percent, and over 35 percent where I lived. A grown man would work all day,
16 hours, for a dollar. I remember hundreds of people walking by, people who
had come down from the North just to get warm. They would come to our house as
beggars even though they might have a college education. People didn't have
money. They bartered; they'd trade eggs or pigs. It was just completely
different.
Jimmy
Carter
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