Baltic Dry Index. 2675 +35 Brent Crude 103.45
Spot Gold 4730 Spot Silver 76.18
US 2 Year Yield 3.79 +0.01
US Federal Debt. 39.152 trillion
US GDP 31.351 trillion.
A Very Happy St. George’s Day to all celebrating St George today.
Not just England - all the countries
celebrating St George's Day on Thursday
22 April 2026
St George's Day is the most
important day on the calendar for England, but the patron saint is celebrated
around the world in April and May - not just here in the UK.
While England will officially honour
its patron saint on Thursday, April 23, many other countries will also pay
their respects to the legendary figure who is championed in both Christian and
Islamic mythology.
It means that St George, who is
believed to have died 1,700 years ago in 303 AD, is celebrated by many
countries around the globe this week and beyond.
As explained by English Heritage:
"England shares St George with Venice, Genoa, Portugal, Ethiopia and
Catalonia among others as their patron saint and many of these places have
their own celebrations and ceremonies in his honour."
Indeed, many more countries around
the world will hold events for St George, who is honoured by the Eastern
Orthodox Church as 'a great martyr'.
In Bulgaria, George's Day is held on
May 6 and is a public holiday (unlike in England, where it is still
not a Bank Holiday).
In Serbia and Bosnia and
Herzegovina, the day is also celebrated on May 6, while in Egypt, the day is
celebrated on May 1.
In India, feasts and events for
George are held from April 27 to May 14.
The nation of Georgia, in Europe, is
not technically named after St George but does use the St George's Cross as its
national flag, which makes it very similar to the English flag (always
confusing during football matches).
Turkey and Brazil also celebrate St
George, as well as Greece, Romania, Syria, Lebanon and others - a truly
international event.
English Heritage adds: "He
might be our national patron, St George was likely a Greek-speaker who lived
and died in the Roman Near East. A Christian, he died a martyr's death in about
AD 303.
"His tomb at the city of
Diospolis or Lydda (now Lod in Israel) in Roman Palestine soon attracted
pilgrims."
More
Not just England - all the countries celebrating St George's
Day on Thursday
In
stock casino news, is war trumping hopium? Get ready for a big change at the US
central bank.
Asia-Pacific markets give up early
gains amid reports U.S. intercepted Iranian oil tankers in Asian waters
Published Wed, Apr 22 2026 7:49 PM
EDT
Asian markets gave up early gains
and swung to losses, as investor confidence wavered on media reports that the
U.S. has intercepted at least three Iranian oil tankers in Asian waters,
heightening uncertainty that the Middle East conflict may drag on.
Earlier in Thursday’s session, Japan
and South Korea stocks hit record highs, trailing overnight gains on Wall
Street after President Donald
Trump’s extended a ceasefire with Iran, boosting investor sentiment
alongside strong corporate earnings.
The U.S. military has intercepted at
least three Iranian-flagged tankers in Asian waters and is redirecting them
away from positions near India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka, shipping and security
sources said on Wednesday.
This followed Iran’s navy saying it
had seized
two container ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump extended a two-week
U.S. ceasefire on Tuesday, saying it was warranted due to Tehran’s “seriously
fractured” government.
“Based on the fact that the
Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the
request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of
Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until
such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified
proposal,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
The ceasefire will remain in place
until Iran submits a proposal or talks conclude, while the U.S. military
continues its blockade of Iranian ports, Trump said.
However, the timeline remains
uncertain. Iranian state media reported Wednesday that Tehran’s negotiators
would not attend talks with the U.S., calling them a “waste of time.” A lack of
commitment from Iran reportedly prompted Vice President JD Vance to
pause his trip to join peace talks.
Oil prices extended gains. The West Texas Intermediate futures
rose 1.60% to $92.96 per barrel as of 12:03 p.m. ET. Brent crude added 1.28% to
$101.91 per barrel.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 briefly touched
an all-time intraday high of 60,013.98, before slipping 1.20% on profit taking.
Japan’s manufacturing activity
expanded at its fastest pace in four years in April, according to the S&P
Global flash Purchasing Managers’ Index, as firms boosted output amid
supply concerns linked to Middle East tensions.
Index heavyweight Softbank Group Corp was
at 3.01% higher, paring early gains. A Bloomberg report said the company is taking on more debt in its
push for AI, seeking a $10 billion margin loan backed by its OpenAI holdings.
South Korea’s Kospi also reached an
all-time intraday high of 6,538.72, before slipping 0.74%. The small-cap Kosdaq
was 0.58% higher. The country’s economy grew more than expected in the
first three months of the year, recording the fastest growth since the third
quarter of 2020.
The 1.7% growth in January to March
from the previous quarter exceeded Reuters’ estimates of 1.0% and rebounded from the 0.2% contraction in the
prior quarter.
Samsung Electronics shares hit a new
intraday record of 227,000 in early trade. Investors were also monitoring labor
developments, as the company’s unions expected more than 30,000 workers to
attend a rally in South Korea on Thursday, ahead of a planned strike next
month.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 traded
choppy, fallling 0.88%.
Mainland China’s CSI300 index fell
0.79%, while Hong Kong’s Hang
Seng index fell 1.12% ahead of the release of the city’s March
inflation data.
India’s Nifty50 fell 0.62%.
S&P 500 futures slipped
0.1%, while the Nasdaq 100
futures were around the flatline. Futures tied to the Dow Jones
Industrial Average fell by 173 points, or 0.4%.
During Wednesday’s regular session,
the S&P 500 added
1.05% to finish at 7,137.90, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 1.64% to settle
at 24,657.57. The latter had hit a new all-time intraday high in the session.
Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced
340.65 points, or 0.69%, to end the day at 49,490.03.
Asia
markets today: Nikkei 225, Hang Seng Index, Kospi
S&P futures decline following
another record-setting day for benchmark: Live updates
Updated Thu, Apr 23 2026 12:22 AM
EDT
S&P 500 futures declined
early Thursday after both the broad market index and Nasdaq Composite rose to
fresh records during the regular session.
S&P 500 futures slipped
0.63%, while the Nasdaq 100
futures fell 0.71%. Futures
tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 353 points, or 0.71%.
Some of the biggest movers on
Wednesday night included IBM and ServiceNow, which were
respectively trading
6% and 13%
lower after reporting their latest results. Shares of Tesla initially rose on
better-than-expected earnings. However, the stock later shed about 2% when
CEO Elon Musk warned capital expenses would rise “substantially” as the
electric vehicle maker moves into AI-powered self-driving cars and humanoid
robots.
Both the broad market index and
tech-heavy Nasdaq finished at record levels on Wednesday after President Donald Trump extended
the U.S. ceasefire with Iran. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq rose 1.05%
and 1.64%, respectively. The Dow
Jones Industrial Average gained 340.65 points, or 0.69%.
Late Tuesday afternoon, Trump said
that the ceasefire extension was warranted due to Tehran’s government being
“seriously fractured.”
Still, geopolitical relations in the
region remain tense. A lack of commitment from Iran reportedly resulted in Vice
President JD
Vance pausing his trip to join peace talks. Iran state media also
reported that Tehran negotiators said they wouldn’t be present, calling talks
with the U.S. a “waste of time.” And on Wednesday, Iran’s navy said that it
had seized
two container ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
Investor sentiment has also been
strengthened by a strong earnings season so far. Of the 87 S&P companies
that have reported so far, 81% have reported an earnings beat, while 76% have
reported revenue that surprised to the upside.
“The thing that’s really difficult
is we keep getting these very, very intense news headlines that give everyone a
lot of pause, everyone a lot of heartburn. But at the end of the day, earnings
estimates continue to rise, and that really kind of indicates that businesses
are figuring out a way to muddle through all of this noise and manage through
this uncertainty in a way that they can still deliver profit growth,” said
Julie Biel, chief market strategist at Kayne Anderson Rudnick, on CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime”
on Wednesday afternoon.
Honeywell, American Express, Blackstone, American Airlines and Lockheed Martin are among the
stocks reporting earnings Thursday morning. Traders will also watch out for
April’s S&P Global PMI manufacturing and services preliminary readings.
Stock
market today: Live updates
Kevin Warsh gave his preferred way
for measuring inflation. It could come back to bite him
Published Wed, Apr 22 2026 2:00 PM
EDT Updated Wed, Apr 22 2026 3:29 PM EDT
Kevin
Warsh, President Donald
Trump’s nominee for Federal
Reserve chair, told lawmakers that he would like the central bank to
change its strategy for measuring inflation.
But Bank of America economist Aditya
Bhave warned Wednesday that such a reconfiguration — part of a broader “regime
change” that Warsh has promised for the central bank — might not pan
out as he hopes.
The Fed has long favored the core
price index for personal consumption expenditures, known in short as the core
PCE, because it excludes volatile food and energy prices.
But Warsh wants to go a step
further, by rooting out extreme price shocks when calculating overall
inflation.
“What I’m most interested in is:
What’s the underlying inflation rate? Not: What’s the one-time change in prices
because of a change in geopolitics or change in beef?” Warsh said at his Senate
hearing Tuesday.
“The measures I prefer are looking
at things that are called trimmed averages,” Warsh added. “We take out all of
the tail-risks, all of the one-off items, and we ask ourselves whether the
generalized change in prices is having second-order effects on the economy.”
Under Warsh’s system, Bank of
America’s Bhave said, inflation today does look softer. The bank found a
12-month inflation gauge that’s using the trimmed method would have a mean of
2.3% and median of 2.8% as of February. By comparison, core PCE sat at 3%.
Warsh called the current trend in
inflation “quite favorable” during Tuesday’s hearing.
Be careful what you wish for
But Bhave said that making this
switch may mean energy and food — currently excluded — would matter more for
Fed policy.
“Even if these shocks get trimmed
out, they might still raise the trimmed mean by preventing other shocks from
getting trimmed,” Bhave said. “This is ironic because Warsh also argued
yesterday for looking through one-off, supply-driven price increases.”
In other words, by trimming only the
most extreme readings, some more minor spikes in inflation — perhaps caused by
food and energy prices jumping — could creep into the inflation reading under
Warsh’s method and cause it to be higher than the Fed’s current preferred view.
And Bank of America’s data showed
that’s occurred in the past.
A trimmed-median inflation gauge
tracked by Bank of America was higher than the core PCE in 2019 and 2020. In
those years, using a trimmed basket would have encouraged a hawkish stance from
the Fed.
If trimmed inflation outpaced the
core PCE in the future, Bhave said, Warsh would likely have to stand by his
view, tying his hands.
“To preserve Fed credibility and
avoid optics of cherry picking, Warsh will need to stick with his preferred
metrics even when they are outpacing the core,” Bhave said.
Critics of Warsh said they expect
him to sway the Fed in a direction that appeases Trump rather than by what’s
best for the economy.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Warsh
pushed back on the idea that he would lower interest rates solely at the
request of Trump. But the former Fed governor faced tough lines of questioning
over his wealth and ability to break with Trump.
Kevin
Warsh's preferred inflation measure could come back to bite him
In other news.
Clearing Strait of Hormuz of mines could take 6
months, Pentagon tells Congress
April 22, 2026
It could take six months to fully clear
the Strait of Hormuz of mines deployed by the Iranian military, and any such
operation is unlikely to be carried out until the U.S. war with Iran ends, the
Pentagon has informed Congress — an assessment that means the conflict’s
economic impact could extend late into this year or beyond.
A senior Defense Department official
shared the estimate during a classified briefing Tuesday for members of the
House Armed Services Committee, said three officials familiar with the
discussion. The timeline — met with frustration by Democrats and Republicans
alike, two of these people said — is the latest sign that gasoline and oil
prices could remain elevated long after any peace deal is reached.
Beyond any economic ramifications, such an
outcome also could have significant implications politically in the United
States — particularly for Republicans — as November’s midterm elections draw
near. President Donald Trump’s decision to start the war has proved unpopular
with most Americans, recent polls have shown, and it has fractured his political base, which voted him into office
based in part on his repeated promises to New foreign military entanglements
and focus more on domestic issues.
On Wednesday, the average cost of a gallon of
gas in the United States was $4.02, according to AAA, up from $2.98 just before the war began in February.
Trump has vacillated on the question of when gas prices may
come down, saying this month that they “could be the same or maybe a little bit
higher” by the midterms before declaring that they would be “much lower” before
the election. His treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has said it could be late
September before “we can have $3 gas again.”
Three officials, speaking on the condition
of anonymity because of the discussion’s sensitivity, said lawmakers were told
that Iran may have emplaced 20 or more mines in and around the Strait of
Hormuz, a vital waterway for the movement of Middle Eastern oil through the
Persian Gulf. Some were floated remotely using GPS technology, which has made
it difficult for U.S. forces to detect the mines as they are deployed, the
senior defense official told lawmakers. Others are believed to have been laid
by Iranian forces using small boats.
More
Clearing Strait of
Hormuz of mines could take 6 months, Pentagon tells Congress
Hormuz is just a ‘dry run’ if China and
U.S. go to war in the Pacific, Singapore foreign minister warns
Published Tue, Apr 21 2026 11:15 PM EDT
Should a war break out between China and
the U.S. in the Pacific, “what you are seeing in the Strait of Hormuz will be a
dry run,” Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said Wednesday.
Balakrishnan made the remarks at
CNBC’s CONVERGE
LIVE event
in Singapore, responding to a question on whether the city-state was facing any
pressure from Washington and Beijing to choose between the two.
Singapore has relationships with both the
countries, and is uniquely positioned to take advantage of developments in the
U.S. and China, Balakrishnan told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick.
The U.S. is Singapore’s largest foreign
investor with around 6,000
American companies based in the city-state. Singapore also runs a
goods trade deficit with Washington to the tune of about $3.6
billion, according to the office
of the U.S. Trade Representative.
Meanwhile, China has been
Singapore’s largest
trading partner, and
Singapore has been China’s largest foreign investor.
Singapore will “refuse to choose” one over
the other, he added. “The way we conduct our affairs is we assess what is in
Singapore’s long term national interests, and if I have to say no to Washington
or Beijing or anyone else, we don’t flinch from that.”
“We are acting in our own long term
national interest. We will be useful, but we will not be made use of,” he
added.
‘Choke points matter’
Separately, Balakrishnan also said that
said the conflict in the Middle East had shown that “chokepoints matter,”
pointing out that Singapore also sits astride one of the world’s critical trade
arteries in the form of the Strait of Malacca.
At its narrowest point, the Strait of
Malacca is two nautical miles, compared to 21 nautical miles for the Strait of
Hormuz.
The minister was also asked if the actions
of Iran in trying to extract tolls from ships passing the Strait of Hormuz
would be have other countries thinking of also collecting tolls through
chokepoints such as the Strait of Malacca.
More
With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.
Oscar Wilde
Global Inflation/Stagflation/Recession
Watch.
Given
our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians.
The Dollar Is Still King—But Treasury Bonds Have Lost Their Crown
Featuring Wenxin
Du. By Rachel Layne on April
15, 2026.
Treasuries and the US
dollar—safe havens that have long moved in parallel—are on the road to divorce.
A persistent gap between
the value of the dollar, the modern world’s bedrock currency, and US Treasuries
began after the 2008 global financial crisis and widened further around 2015,
says research by Harvard Business School Professor Wenxin Du. The trend
continued in 2020 as the US government borrowed at rock-bottom rates to prop up
the economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Investors now see more
risk in owning US government-issued debt, which could raise questions about
future borrowing, write Du and collaborators Ritt Keerati, economist for the
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and Columbia Business School
Associate Professor Jesse Schreger in “Decoupling
Dollar and Treasury Privilege.” The Fed formally released the working paper in December.
Traditionally, investors
have accepted a lower yield—or interest rate—for Treasuries because of their
perceived safety and liquidity. Buy a Treasury and you could sell or pledge it
almost instantly for cash anywhere in the world. Today, that "convenience
yield” has disappeared amid record US debt.
Treasuries help stabilize
the US economy, covering funding gaps and providing a source of stimulus during
crises. The findings come as US policymakers and central bankers wrestle with
inflation concerns, rising unemployment, and geopolitical uncertainty.
Two factors speeding decoupling
The value of Treasuries
should track the value of the dollar, but two factors have pushed them apart:
Scarcity
in dollar lending
Regulations enacted in
the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis limited banks' ability to lend in
US dollars. The premium that buyers outside the US pay to acquire dollars rose
as lending capacity shrank.
Oversupply
of Treasuries
Starting in 2008, the US
issued massive amounts of Treasuries, flooding the global market and lowering
their value, making them less “special” than other instruments used as dollar
equivalents. The outstanding value of Treasury bonds reached $29 trillion in
2025, up from $5 trillion in 2008.
Measuring the waning appeal of Treasuries
To compare the two forms
of American financial “privilege”—the unique global clout of the dollar and
Treasuries—the authors used a tool called covered interest parity deviations.
Think of it this way: If
you are a European investor who wants to earn a dollar return, you have two
choices:
·
Buy a US government bond
directly.
·
Buy a German government
bond and use currency markets to convert your euros into dollars, creating what
researchers call a "synthetic" dollar investment.
If US and German
government bonds are equally desirable, both strategies should produce the same
return. When they don’t, and investors willingly accept a lower return to hold
a real US government bond instead of the synthetic alternative, that gap is the
Treasury "convenience yield.” It measures the premium the world places on
holding US government bonds.
For most of the pre-2008
era, that premium was real and meaningful. Investors accepted lower yields on
US government bonds because they were uniquely liquid, safe, and universally
accepted as collateral. However, the Treasury premium has now essentially vanished.
By the researchers’
calculations, long-term US government bonds have been offering higher yields
relative to comparable foreign bonds since 2008. Even more striking, this shift
has spread to short-term maturities for the first time in recent years. The premium
on Treasury bills, the short-term IOUs issued by the US government, held up for
more time than longer-dated bonds, but they too have also vanished since 2023
when the Treasury department issued more short-term bills.
“Treasuries have lost
‘specialness’ in the international comparison, in the sense that bond investors
need to be incentivized with extra return for holding the actual Treasury,”
says Du, the Sylvan C. Coleman Professor of Financial Management.
More
The Dollar Is Still King—But Treasury Bonds Have Lost Their Crown |
Working Knowledge
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.
Global Wind
Power Adds Record 165 GW in 2025, Still Below Pace Needed for Climate Goals
Wednesday, 22 April 2026 09:58
Wind energy hit a new milestone in 2025,
with global capacity continuing its steady expansion.
According to a report released Monday by
the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), the industry added 165 gigawatts (GW) of
new capacity last year. This brought total installed wind power worldwide to
nearly 1,299 GW and extended a 25-year growth streak.
Since 2001, when global capacity stood
at just 24 GW, the sector has grown continuously. Installed capacity increased
tenfold by 2012, surpassed 500 GW in 2017 and crossed 1,000 GW in 2023,
supported by falling equipment costs and resilience despite disruptions such as
the COVID-19 pandemic and global supply chain constraints.
GWEC said wind energy is becoming a
central technology in modern electricity systems. It noted that among clean
energy sources, wind is currently the only one that combines sufficient
maturity, reliability and geographic flexibility at scale to support power
grids, meet rising industrial demand and strengthen energy security.
Onshore wind led growth in 2025, with
155.3 GW of new capacity commissioned, up 42% from 2024. Offshore wind expanded
more moderately, adding 9.3 GW, a 16% increase.
China drives global expansion
China remained the dominant player. The
country added 120 GW of new capacity, bringing its total installed wind fleet
to 640 GW in 2025, more than half the global total, according to GWEC. It also
remains the world’s largest supplier of wind equipment.
Strong investment in both onshore and
offshore wind is driving growth across Asia. The region accounted for 131 GW of
new capacity, or 80% of the global total. India also posted solid gains,
installing an additional 6.34 GW.
Europe ranked second, adding 19.1 GW and
pushing its total capacity above 300 GW. The United States installed nearly 7
GW of new onshore wind capacity.
In Africa, South Africa led expansion,
adding 509 megawatts (MW) to reach 4,037 MW. Morocco followed with 261 MW,
bringing its total to 2,629 MW, while Egypt added 242 MW to reach 3,097 MW.
Egypt could regain the regional lead in the near term, with 1.3 GW currently
under construction.
Strong outlook, but gaps remain
GWEC expressed optimism about future
growth, describing wind as an abundant, affordable, scalable and locally
available energy source that can support energy sovereignty.
Global wind capacity is expected to grow
by 969 GW between 2026 and 2030, averaging 194 GW per year. At that pace, total
capacity would exceed 2 terawatts by 2029, with China playing a central role.
In September 2025, China said it aims to
cut greenhouse gas emissions by 7% to 10% by 2035. It has also adopted a new
five-year plan covering 2026 to 2030 that requires annual wind installations of
at least 120 GW, including a minimum of 15 GW offshore.
Analysts say current efforts will need
to accelerate significantly.
Data from the International Renewable
Energy Agency shows that annual wind installations must reach 320 GW by 2030 to
meet the COP28 target of tripling global renewable energy capacity. That goal
is aimed at keeping global warming within 2 degrees Celsius above
pre-industrial levels, in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
Albert Einstein
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