Baltic
Dry Index. 1882 +05 Brent Crude 60.46
Spot Gold 4426 Spot Silver 75.20
US 2 Year Yield 3.47 +0.02
US Federal Debt. 38.568 trillion US GDP 31.036 trillion.
It is the aim of good government to stimulate production, of bad
government to encourage consumption.
Jean-Baptiste Say
Like it or not, the world has entered a new era. Might makes right. Not King Donald the first but Caesar Donald the first.
One can only hope that ultimately it all works out for the people of Venezuela.
What next? The USA seizure of Canada and Greenland? China seizing Taiwan? North Korea seizing South Korea?
Russia seizing Estonia?
Britain seizing Ireland?
Germany seizing Poland?
Argentina seizing Chile?
Look away from rising gold and silver prices now.
The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.
Ernest Hemingway
Defense stocks drive Asia markets to record highs
after U.S. captures Venezuela’s Maduro
Published Sun, Jan 4 2026 7:07 PM EST
Asia-Pacific markets began the first full
trading week of 2026 on a stronger note after the U.S. said it had attacked
Venezuela and captured President Nicolas Maduro over the weekend. Oil prices
edged lower as markets weighed the potential impact of geopolitical tensions.
U.S. authorities said Maduro and his wife,
Cilia Flores, were flown to New York following the operation and charged with
narco-terrorism conspiracy and other crimes. An
indictment said drug trafficking had “enriched and entrenched
Venezuela’s political and military elite.”
Oil prices fell after the escalation
involving the oil-rich nation. Brent crude futures
slipped more than 1% earlier before paring losses, and were last
trading 0.3% lower at $60.57, while the West Texas Intermediate crude
prices fell 0.4% to $57.09 per barrel.
Venezuela, a founding member of OPEC,
holds the largest proven crude oil reserves in the world, at 303 billion
barrels, or about 17% of the global total, according to the U.S. Energy
Information Administration.
Spot
gold prices advanced more than 1.8% to $4,409.29.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index jumped
3.13% in its first trading session of the year, while the Topix index added
2.12% to hit a record high. Defense stocks were among the top gainers on the
index, with IHI Corp surging
nearly 10%, while Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries added
9.17% and 6.89%, respectively.
South Korea’s Kospi index extended gains,
climbing 3.15% to a new all-time high of 4,448.52, after hitting a fresh record
earlier. The small-cap Kosdaq added 1.11%.
Index heavyweight Samsung Electronics
surged more than 7%, after co-CEO TM Roh told Reuters Monday that the company
planned to double the number of its mobile devices with AI features powered by
Google’s Gemini this year.
Shares of South Korean defense giant
Hanwha Aerospace jumped more than 6%, while Poongsan, a manufacturer of
defense-related products, traded 2% higher.
Australia’s ASX/S&P 200 was flat.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index ticked
slightly below the flatline, dragged by energy stocks, while the mainland CSI
300 rose 1.29%. Shares of China’s biggest energy firm, PetroChina, were the biggest
losers on the Hong Kong index, tumbling 4.81%. CNOOC, the largest producer of offshore
crude oil and natural gas in China, fell 3.93%.
India’s Nifty 50 was up 0.13% and the BSE
Sensex index was flat.
U.S. equity futures were steady in early
Asian hours.
On Friday stateside, the first trading day
of 2026, the S&P 500 closed
slightly higher as gains in semiconductor names kept the index afloat.
The benchmark closed up 0.19% at 6,858.47,
while the Nasdaq Composite fell
0.03% to finish at 23,235.63. The two had been solidly positive earlier in the
day, with the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq trading higher by 0.7% and
1.5% at their peaks, respectively.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average moved
up 319.10 points, or 0.66%, to settle at 48,382.39.
Asia-Pacific
markets: Brent crude, WTI, Nikkei 225, Hang Seng index, oil
Denmark tells Trump to stop threatening to seize
Greenland
Published Sun, Jan 4 2026 5:33 PM EST
Danish Prime Minister Mette
Frederiksen warned President Donald Trump to stop
threatening to acquire Greenland just
a day after the U.S. carried out a military operation that captured Venezuelan
leader Nicolas
Maduro.
“The Kingdom of Denmark — and thus
Greenland — is part of NATO and is therefore covered by the alliance’s security
guarantee. We already have a defense agreement between the Kingdom and the
United States today, which gives the United States wide access to Greenland,”
Frederiksen said Sunday, in a statement.
“I would therefore strongly urge the
United States to stop the threats against a historically close ally and against
another country and another people who have said very clearly that they are not
for sale,” she said.
The warning from Frederiksen comes
after Trump
was quoted by The Atlantic magazine, saying, “We do need Greenland,
absolutely.”
Trump ordered a military operation over
the weekend that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. The
pair has been brought to the U.S. on drug-related
charges.
The operation came after months of U.S.
military buildup and threats against Venezuela, which the Trump administration
claims is complicit in trafficking drugs to the U.S.
The move to topple Maduro led to
speculation that Trump’s other territorial ambitions could be obtained by
force.
Katie Miller, the wife of top White House
aide Stephen Miller, posted to
X a map of Greenland covered with an American flag with the caption “SOON,”
shortly after Maduro was captured.
Trump has long mused about acquiring
Greenland, the mineral-rich and self-governing territory of Denmark. Last
month, he appointed Louisiana’s
GOP Gov. Jeff Landry special envoy to Greenland. Trump has also openly spoken
about making Canada, an independent nation, the 51st state of the U.S.
Greenland and Canada have both repeatedly
rebuked Trump’s advances.
Trump
warned by Denmark to stop threatening Greenland
In other news, crude oil quiet for now. Could any US jury or judge, Supremes included, dare find the Maduro’s not guilty?
Maduro overthrow in oil-rich Venezuela
unlikely to shake energy markets in the near term
Published Sat, Jan 3 2026 4:20 PM EST Updated
Sat, Jan 3 2026 4:36 PM EST
President Donald Trump’s overthrow of
President Nicolas Maduro in oil-rich Venezuela is unlikely to shock energy
markets in the near term, analysts told CNBC on Saturday.
While the scale of the U.S. attack was
unexpected, markets had already priced in a conflict with Venezuela that would
disrupt oil exports, said Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, chief analyst and head of
research at A/S Global Risk Management.
Venezuela, a founding member of OPEC, has
the largest proven oil reserves in the world. But the South American nation
currently produces less than a million oil barrels a day, which is less than 1%
of global oil production, according to Rasmussen.
It exports just about half its production,
or some 500,000 barrels, Rasmussen said. The conflict also comes as the global
oil market is oversupplied and demand is relatively weak, a pattern that is
customary in the first quarter of the year, he said.
Rasmussen estimated that Brent crude prices will
only rise by about $1 to $2, or even less, when futures trading opens on Sunday
night. He projected that Brent will edge lower next week than where it closed on Friday, which was
$60.75.
“Despite this being a huge geopolitical
event that you would normally expect to be positive or push up oil prices,” he
said, “the bottom line is there’s still too much oil in the market, and that’s
why oil prices will not go ballistic.”
Analyst Bob McNally of Rapidan Energy said
he was advising clients before the weekend that about a third of Venezuela’s
oil production was at risk. While he does not predict that all of Venezuela’s
output would be cut off, he told CNBC that it would not pose a meaningful risk
to oil markets in the short term.
The oil market in 2025 posted its biggest
annual decline in five years. The global benchmark Brent fell about 19% last
year, while U.S. crude oil lost nearly 20%.The market has been under pressure
as OPEC+ ramped up production after years of output cuts. The U.S. also
produced at a record level of just over 13.8 million barrels per day.
Oil prices may decline further as the
regime overthrow raises the possibility of eventually boosting oil production
in Venezuela, analysts told CNBC.
Saul Kavonic, head of energy research at
MST Financial, estimated that exports could approach 3 million barrels in the
medium term if a new Venezuelan government led to the lifting of sanctions and
the return of foreign investors.
“If anything, the future of Venezuela will
have a bearish impact on the market, because there’s really nowhere to go but
up,” said energy industry consultant David Goldwyn, a former top State
Department energy official in the Obama administration.
Currently, the embargo on Venezuelan oil
is still in effect, Trump said during a press conference Saturday. He also said
that U.S. oil companies will invest billions of dollars
to rebuild Venezuela’s energy sector. Trump did not provide details on which
companies would invest or how, nor did he clarify how the U.S. would
temporarily run Venezuela “with a group.”
Goldwyn said it is hard to predict whether
U.S. oil companies will invest, given the uncertainty about the interim and
future governments in Venezuela.
“Everything we have learned about
government transitions from Iraq, from Afghanistan, from other countries, is
that transitions are hard,” he said. “No company is going to want to commit to
invest billions of dollars for a long-term operation until they know what the
terms are. And they can’t know what the terms are until you know what the
government is going to be.”
Goldwyn added that companies,
including Exxon Mobil, are still
waiting to collect on debt owed by Venezuela’s national oil company, Petróleos
de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA).
Rapidan Energy’s McNally said it is a
complicated proposition for U.S. oil companies. Oil producers have not
forgotten being kicked out of Venezuela in the early 2000s, when the country
expropriated the assets of foreign oil companies, he said. That said, accessing
the world’s largest oil reserves would be “tantalizing” to U.S. oil companies
if sanctions were lifted, he added.
But it would take decades of investment
and billions of dollars, McNally said. Whether it’s worth it comes down to one
central question, he said: Does the world need that much oil?
“Until late last year, the market
consensus had been that demand for oil is going to stop growing in four years.
It’s over because of EVs and fuel efficiency policies and climate change
policies,” McNally said.
But as the U.S. and other nations,
including China and Canada, weaken their climate policies and sales of electric
vehicles fall, the prospect of investing in Venezuela has become much more
attractive.
“All of a sudden you’re starting to say:
“Whoa, we’re going to need more oil,” he said.
Venezuela attack
unlikely to shake oil markets in near term
But…
Venezuela's oil exports paralyzed amid political
turmoil, sources say
January 3, 2026 9:35 PM GMT
Jan 3 (Reuters) - Venezuela's oil exports,
which had fallen to a minimum amid U.S. President Donald Trump's announced
blockade of all sanctioned tankers going in and out of the country's waters,
are now paralyzed as port captains have not received requests to authorize
loaded ships to set sail, four sources close to operations said on Saturday.
The paralysis emerges as the U.S.
extracted President Nicolas Maduro and his wife from capital Caracas and
announced it will oversee a political transition in the South American country
President Trump said on Saturday that an
"oil embargo" on the country was in full effect.
Several vessels that have recently loaded
crude and fuel bound for destinations including the U.S. and Asia have not set
sail, while others that had waited to load have left empty, according to
monitoring data. No tankers were loading on Saturday at the country's main oil
port of Jose, TankerTrackers.com said.
A total suspension of oil exports,
including tankers chartered by state-run PDVSA's main partner Chevron (CVX.N), opens new
tab,
could accelerate the country's need to cut back output at oilfields, since
storage tanks and even ships used for floating storage have filled rapidly in
recent weeks, according to sources and PDVSA's documents.
PDVSA and Chevron did not immediately
reply to requests for comment.
Venezuela's oil
exports paralyzed amid political turmoil, sources say | Reuters
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.
Approx.
7 minutes.
Moody’s Analytics’ Mark Zandi says 'no jobs' could be focus of Fed in
2026
Moody’s Analytics’ Mark Zandi says 'no jobs' could be focus of Fed in
2026 | Watch
After a bruising 2025, the Fed faces another slew of challenges in the
year ahead
Published Sat, Jan 3 2026 9:37 AM EST
The Federal Reserve heads
into 2026 facing a slew of political and policy challenges, headlined by a new
chair and an economy fed by both tailwinds and headwinds that will make
policymakers' choices all the more important.
Coming off three consecutive interest
rate cuts, the central bank is expected to follow a more
tepid path for the year ahead in which additional cuts could be hard to come by
considering expectations for solid growth and ongoing inflation pressures.
One thing does seem certain: After a year of
extraordinary upheaval surrounding the Fed, 2026 looks to offer more of the
same.
"I do think there'll be a big spotlight.
There'll be lots of intrigue," said Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at
Nationwide. "There's still a lot of uncertainty that keeps the Fed in the
spotlight, and probably in the hot seat too."
The previous year saw the Fed come under that
spotlight in ways that it never had before.
As he started his second term at the White House,
President Donald
Trump repeatedly threatened
to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell for
not being quicker to push for interest rate cuts. Around mid-year, the Fed came
under fire again, this time for cost
overruns at a renovation project it had
undertaken at its Washington headquarters.
In between, Trump tried to remove
Governor Lisa Cook over allegations — as yet unproven and not
even brought as formal charges — that she committed mortgage fraud. That all
came against a backdrop of who would
succeed Powell as chair when his term expires in May, with
as many as 11 candidates considered during an interview process led by Treasury
Secretary Scott Bessent.
If all that sounds exhausting, consider that 2026
begins with a Supreme Court hearing scheduled for Jan. 21 to decide whether
Trump has the authority to remove Cook. A week later, the Federal Open Market
Committee holds its interest rate vote. At some point during the month, Trump
is expected to unveil his choice
for Fed chair. And Powell, cagey on the issue so far, also will
have to disclose whether he plans on serving out his term on the Board of
Governors that runs until January 2028.
There also have been multiple dissents at recent
rate votes, and new regional presidents set to come on board at the FOMC have a
hawkish bent, meaning they're likely to resist additional cuts.
"It's still a tough spot for the Fed,"
Bostjancic said.
Focus on policy
Still, when it comes to policy, most on Wall Street
expect the Fed to put the noise in the background and continue down the road of
lowering its benchmark interest rate just a bit more until it gets closer to a
neutral level around 3%. Neutral is considered a spot that neither boosts nor
holds back economic activity, and the funds rate is just half a percentage
point above where most on the FOMC see the rate landing over the long term.
"Chair Powell helped orchestrate three
25-basis-point rate cuts in a row. It's not as if he was standing in the way of
the FOMC cutting rates," Bostjancic said. As far as further cuts go,
"For us, it's [about] the economic data."
Bostjancic sees the data pointing to two cuts this
year, one around mid-year and another toward the end. The Fed's "dot
plot" grid of expectations indicates just one cut, while outliers such
as Moody's
Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi and
Citigroup seeing labor market weakness pointing to three.
More
Federal
Reserve, Powell face challenges in 2026
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.
This tiny
chemistry change makes flow batteries last far longer
Date: January 1, 2026
Source: Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese
Academy Sciences
Summary: A new advance in bromine-based flow batteries could
remove one of the biggest obstacles to long-lasting, affordable energy storage.
Scientists developed a way to chemically capture corrosive bromine during
battery operation, keeping its concentration extremely low while boosting
energy density through a two-electron reaction. This approach sharply reduces
damage to battery components and allows the use of cheaper materials
Bromine-based flow batteries store
energy using a chemical reaction between bromide ions and elemental bromine.
This chemistry is attractive because bromine is widely available, has a high
electrochemical potential, and dissolves well in liquid electrolytes. The
downside appears during charging, when large amounts of bromine are produced.
This reactive material can attack battery components, reduce how many charge
cycles the battery can handle, and raise overall system costs. Additives known
as bromine complexing agents can help limit corrosion, but they often cause the
electrolyte to separate into different phases, which disrupts uniformity and
makes the system harder to manage.
In a study published in Nature
Energy, researchers led by Prof. Xianfeng Li from the Dalian Institute of
Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) reported a new
approach to bromine-based battery chemistry. The team designed a
bromine-related reaction that transfers two electrons instead of one and
successfully applied it to a zinc-bromine flow battery. Their results show both
a working proof of concept and successful scale-up toward a long-life battery
system.
Capturing Bromine to Boost Performance
The researchers achieved this by adding
amine compounds to the electrolyte, where they act as bromine scavengers.
During battery operation, the bromine (Br2) formed through
electrochemical reactions is converted into brominated amine compounds. This
process lowers the amount of free Br2 in the electrolyte to an
ultra-low level of about 7 mM. Traditional bromine chemistry relies on a
single-electron transfer from bromide ions to Br2. In contrast, the
new process enables a two-electron transfer from bromide ions to the brominated
amine compounds, which increases energy density. At the same time, keeping Br2 levels
extremely low greatly reduces corrosive effects, helping extend battery
lifespan.
Long-Term Stability and Lower Costs at Scale
The team then tested this chemistry in
zinc-bromine flow batteries under practical conditions. Because the electrolyte
contains very little free Br22, the battery can operate reliably
using a standard non-fluorinated ion exchange membrane (SPEEK), which helps
bring down costs. In a 5 kW scale-up test, the battery ran stably for more than
700 cycles at a current density of 40 mA cm-2 and reached an
energy efficiency above 78%. With the Br2 concentration kept so
low, no corrosion was detected in critical components -- including current
collectors, electrodes, and membranes -- either before or after cycling.
Implications for Future Energy Storage
"Our study provides a novel
approach to the design of long-life bromine-based flow batteries and lays the
foundation for the further application and promotion of zinc-bromine flow
batteries," said Prof. Li.
This tiny chemistry change makes flow batteries last far longer |
ScienceDaily
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
The difficulty lies, not in finding a producer, but in finding a
consumer.
Jean-Baptiste Say
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