Baltic
Dry Index. 2083+102
Brent Crude 82.69
Spot
Gold 2319 US 2 Year Yield 4.82 +0.01
Once you run current-account deficits, you depend on the kindness of strangers. This might be the beginning of the end of the American empire.
Nouriel Roubini.
In the stock casinos, was yesterday or today the 2024 top?
Picking tops is never easy, but with stocks priced to perfection, two wars running and with both entering their final phases, to dinosaur Graeme, this doesn’t seem a good time to be gambling on over-priced stocks depending on a greater fool buyer.
Besides, I think inflation, especially food price inflation, is about to soar in the rest of 2024 and there’s nothing that central banksters or bent politicians can do about it.
Time to join the insiders who have been
increasingly selling out of stocks.
Asia-Pacific markets mostly fall as investors
parse through earnings from the region
UPDATED WED, MAY 8 2024 11:11 PM EDT
Asia-Pacific
markets were largely down on Wednesday as investors parsed through earnings
from the region and awaited results of Japanese giants Toyota and Mitsubishi later
in the day.
Singapore’s United Overseas
Bank fell
almost 1% even as the bank’s net profit of 1.47 billion Singapore dollars
($1.08 billion) in the first quarter beat LSEG estimate of SG$1.43 billion.
The broader Straits Times Index was
down 0.73%.
Investors also await China’s
April trade data and Japan’s March pay numbers, both due Thursday.
apan’s Nikkei 225 slipped
1.37%, while the broad based Topix was down 1.22%.
South Korea’s Kospi was
flat after leading Asian markets higher on Tuesday. The small-cap Kosdaq
meanwhile fell 0.65%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was
the only outlier as it rose 0.43%, while mainland China’s CSI 300 index fell
0.45%.
The Australian S&P/ASX 200 also
was trading close to the flatline.
Overnight in the U.S., the Dow
Jones Industrial Average notched a fifth straight day of gains and rose
marginally, while the S&P 500 inched up 0.13%. In contrast, the Nasdaq
Composite slipped 0.1%.
Asia markets live
updates: Toyota, Mitsubishi earnings, UOB earnings (cnbc.com)
European markets head for muted, mixed open
ahead of more earnings reports
UPDATED WED, MAY 8 2024 12:16 AM EDT
European
markets are heading for a mixed open Wednesday as investors look ahead to more
earnings reports in the region.
Alstom, BMW,
Skanska, ABInbev, Siemens Energy, Swatch Group and Munich Re are among the
companies reporting Wednesday.
Asia-Pacific markets were
largely down overnight as investors parsed through earnings from the region and
awaited results of Japanese giants Toyota and Mitsubishi. Meanwhile, Dow Jones Industrial Average
futures sat near flat Tuesday night after the blue-chip average
clinched its longest winning streak since December.
European markets live updates: stocks, news,
data and earnings (cnbc.com)
Dow futures are little changed after index
notches longest winning streak since December: Live updates
UPDATED WED, MAY 8 2024 8:08 PM EDT
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures sat
near flat Tuesday night after the blue-chip average clinched its longest
winning streak since December.
Futures tied to the 30-stock
average lost 10 points, inching marginally below its flatline. S&P 500
futures and Nasdaq 100 futures also
both traded near flat.
In after-hours trading, Lyft and Wynn Resorts added
more than 6% and 2%, respectively, on the back of stronger-than-expected quarterly
results. Reddit surged
more than 14% following its first
earnings report as a public company.
Those moves follow a muted
and mixed day on Wall Street. The Dow ticked
higher by nearly 0.1% and posted its fifth positive session, which marks its
longest winning run going back to December. The S&P 500 also
inched up by about 0.1%, while the Nasdaq Composite slipped
0.1%.
The 10-year U.S.
Treasury yield took
a leg
down in the session, providing upward momentum for stocks. But
the market was hampered by a slide
of more than 9% in Disney shares
after the entertainment giant missed Wall Street’s revenue expectations and
offered soft guidance.
“Stocks are going to celebrate
any decline in yield, and you’ve seen that over the last several days,” said
Adam Crisafulli, founder of Vital Knowledge, on CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime.” “But
eventually, to the extent you see growth slow further, there will be a
disconnect between Treasurys and equities, with Treasurys continuing to rally
while stocks get caught up a little bit.”
Earnings remain top of mind for
investors heading into Wednesday, with Uber and Shopify slated
to post results before the bell. After-the-bell reporters include technology
names Airbnb, Instacart and Bumble,
in addition to so-called meme stock AMC.
Nearly 85% of S&P 500
corporations have already shared quarterly results this earnings season. Of
those, approximately 80% have surpassed Wall Street expectations, according to
FactSet.
Traders will also watch for
economic data on wholesale inventories due Wednesday morning. Federal Reserve
officials including Vice Chair Philip Jefferson, Boston Fed President Susan
Collins and Fed Governor Lisa Cook are all expected to give remarks throughout
the day.
Stock market today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
In other disturbing food chain news, the news
from Brazil’s “granary” goes from bad to worse.
Flood-hit
Brazil scrambles to deliver aid, water amid forecasts of more rain
Teams
in flood-ravaged southern Brazil scrambled Tuesday to deliver humanitarian aid
to Porto Alegre and other inundated municipalities, where queues formed for
drinking water as forecasters warned of more downpours.
Issued
on:
The worst
natural calamity ever to hit the state of Rio Grande do Sul has claimed at least 95 lives,
with 372 people reported injured and 131 still missing, according to the civil
defense force that handles disaster relief.
Nearly 400 municipalities have been hit, including state capital Porto Alegre, with more than 160,000 people forced to leave their homes as streets have transformed into rivers after days of record-breaking rain.
Porto Alegre is home to some 1.4 million people and the larger metropolitan area has more than double that number.
The state's Guaiba River, which runs through Porto Alegre, remained at historic high levels Tuesday, and officials said five dams were at risk of rupturing.
For tens of thousands of people stranded by impassable roads, collapsed bridges and flooded homes in Rio Grande do Sul, "the most urgent demand is (drinking) water," said civil defense official Sabrina Ribas.
Helicopters were buzzing overhead Tuesday delivering water and food to communities most in need, while work continued on restoring road access.
In Alvorada, a municipality east of Porto Alegre, people queued with buckets and plastic bottles, collecting drinking water from the few taps still working.
Most shops have run out of bottled water.
----President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said more emergency funds would be freed up Tuesday, vowing there would be "no lack of resources to meet the needs of Rio Grande do Sul."
Brazil's neighbors Uruguay and Argentina have sent rescue equipment and trained personnel.
Celebrities were also chipping in, with footballer Neymar sending a plane with donations. He said on Instagram he was "praying for everything to return to normal."
As the calamity showed no signs of abating, weather forecasts suggested it could still get worse.
The Inmet meteorological
institute warned of possible storms in the south of Rio Grande do Sul until
Wednesday, followed by rainfall in the center and north which it said would
imperil rescue efforts.
According to weather agency
MetSul, the flooding has "changed the map of the metropolitan region"
of Porto Alegre.
Lula warned that if harvests are delayed by the
flooding in this deeply agricultural region, the country "will have to
import rice and beans."
Flood-hit Brazil scrambles to deliver aid, water amid forecasts of more rain (france24.com)
Finally, as the Biden USA runs up an unsustainable more federal debt of 1 trillion fiat dollars every 100 days, a global rush to get hold of gold is now underway.
Just don’t tell anyone in Washington, District of Crooks, London, or Brussels.
For where I think we are headed, visit the new LIR CBDC page.
Gold bars are selling like hot
cakes in Korea’s convenience stores and vending machines
Aside from ramen and sausages, South Korea’s
convenience stores have a new popular item on the menu — gold bars.
The country’s largest convenience
store chain, CU, has been collaborating with the Korea Minting and Security
Printing Corporation (KOMSCO) to offer customers mini gold bars — and they’re
selling like hot cakes.
A variety of finger-nail sized gold bars weighing
between 0.1 gram and 1.87 gram have been up for sale at CU outlets since April.
A 1.87 gram bar sells for 225,000 won ($165.76) and a 0.5 gram bar sells for
77,000 won.
Priced at 113,000 won each, 1 gram
bars were sold out within two days, according to local
news reports. The bars come with congratulatory messages, birthday wishes and
even designs for personality types.
People in their 30s were most
active in purchasing these gold bars, accounting for over 41% of the total
sales since their launch, according to CU’s commerce phone app Pocket CU. Those
in their 40s make up 35.2% of the sales, followed by people in their 50s at
15.6%. People in their 20s accounted for 6.8% of all sales.
Demand for bars and coins in South
Korea rose 27% year on year to 5 tons in the first quarter of this year amid
rising prices of the yellow metal, the World Gold Council said in a recent report. This was the sharpest quarterly
increase in gold purchases in South Korea in more than two years, WGC
noted.
Other convenience stores are
also riding the bullion wave. In South Korea’s GS25 convenience store chain,
customers can buy small gold wafers from vending machines.
---- Consumers in Asia’s largest economy, China,
have has also been buying gold, with the collecting of 1 gram small beans in glass
jars becoming a trend among the country’s youth. China is also
leading consumer demand for bullion, with the country overtaking
India in 2023 to become the world’s largest buyer of gold jewelry.
Separately, in the U.S. last year, retail warehouse giant Costco became a popular one-stop shop for one ounce gold bars priced at close to $1,900.
Gold is selling like hot cakes in Korea's convenience stores, vending machines (cnbc.com)
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.
Bank of England not yet ready to cut interest rates,
say economists
May
7, 2024
UK borrowers
might need to wait longer for a cut in interest rates, as experts suggest the
Bank of England isn't ready to make a reduction just yet.
The bank's
Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), responsible for setting UK interest rates, is
expected to maintain the current 5.25% rate at its upcoming Thursday
announcement. This rate has been steady since August last year.
Those waiting
for borrowing costs to drop may face an extended period of pressure. In the
March MPC meeting, only Swati Dhingra voted for a reduction of 0.25 percentage
points, while the other eight members opted for no change.
Investec's
chief economist Philip Shaw said, "This broad direction illustrates that
collectively the committee is moving gradually towards a rate cut."
However, he believes it's unlikely they'll take action this time around,
expecting the Bank rate to stay at 5.25% for the sixth consecutive meeting.
Mr Shaw also
mentioned the possibility of another MPC member joining the "easing
camp" and voting for a rate decrease on Thursday. Interest rates serve as
a mechanism to control UK inflation, which has seen a significant drop from the
high levels experienced in 2022 amid soaring energy costs and the peak of the
cost-of-living crisis.
The latest official
figures reveal that the rate of Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation dropped
to 3.2% in March. However, experts have indicated that two key economic
indicators for the Bank of England pay growth and services sector inflation
have remained more stubborn.
More
Bank of England not yet ready to cut interest rates,
say economists (msn.com)
Stagflation
warning: Service economy contracts as prices rise
In
another stagflation warning sign, the U.S. service sector contracted in April
even as service prices rose.
The Institute for Supply Management's non-manufacturing PMI dropped to 49.4 in April, dipping from
51.4 in March. The expectation was for the index to increase to 52.0.
A PMI
reading below 50 signals a contraction in the service economy.
It was
the lowest non-manufacturing PMI reading since December 2022.
Services
account for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.
An
index measuring new orders for service businesses dipped to 52.2 in April,
falling from a March reading of 54.4. Meanwhile, production in the service
sector plunged from 57.4 to 50.9. The last time the services production index
fell that low was May 2020, in the early months of the pandemic.
The survey's
measure of services sector employment also fell, dropping from 48.5 in March to
45.9 in April.
Even as the
service economy contracts, prices are heating up. The survey's measure of
business input prices jumped to 59.2 from 53.4 in March.
This dovetails
with CPI data that showed service price inflation increased to 5.27 percent in
March. That was up from 4.95 percent in February. Service prices account for 57
percent of the CPI.
There
is a word for a combination of rising prices, lagging economic growth, and
rising unemployment - stagflation.
After the Federal Reserve FOMC meeting last week, Fed Chair Jerome Powell insisted there were no signs of
stagflation.
“I
don't really understand where concerns about stagflation are coming from. I
don’t see the stag or the 'flation.”
You
can certainly argue that the economic picture is nothing like the
stagflationary years of the 1970s. But the warning signs are clearly there - as
evidenced by the services PMI report and other recent economic data.
And
the macroeconomic foundation has been set for a period of stagflation. We had
an unprecedented amount of inflation created during the pandemic. The Federal
Reserve alone injected nearly $5 trillion in new money into the economy. This
is the definition of inflation. One of the consequences of monetary inflation
is price inflation. And despite the Fed's efforts to quell price inflation, the
central bank hasn't done enough. In fact, monetary policy remains loose by
historical standards. That means the Fed continues to create inflation.
But the Fed
has hiked interest rates enough to break things in this debt-riddled bubble
economy. We're beginning to see signs of economic stagnation, including the
recent non-manufacturing PMI, the first quarter GDP slowdown, and the April
labor report.
Powell's
assurances notwithstanding, stagflation appears to be a very real possibility.
Stagflation warning: Service economy contracts as prices rise (fxstreet.com)
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
US shared intel with UK showing 'high likelihood' of
COVID-19 lab leak: report
COVID-19 lab leak theory information
disseminated through 'Five Eyes' intelligence alliance
Published May 5, 2024
12:24pm EDT
Mike Pompeo, when
he was U.S. secretary of state, shared intel with the United Kingdom during the
COVID-19 pandemic suggesting a "high likelihood" that the deadly
coronavirus leaked from a Chinese lab, according to The Telegraph.
An intelligence
alliance known as "Five Eyes" reportedly met in January 2021 to
discuss the lab-leak theory, the outlet reported. Around the same time, Pompeo
is said to have shared information from classified American reports put
together by the State Department to then-U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab,
as well as representatives from New Zealand, Canada and Australia.
The British
newspaper says two former Trump administration officials believe Raab – and the
U.K. government as a whole – ignored the lab leak theory due to pressure from
government scientists who leaned toward the theory that the illness had been
transferred from animals to humans.
"We saw
several pieces of information and thought that they were, frankly,
gobsmacking," one former official who worked on the intelligence in
Pompeo's report told The Telegraph. "They obviously pointed to the high
likelihood that this was indeed a lab leak."
The reports,
consisting of information collected in the early days of the pandemic, were
also shared with the U.K. via Five Eyes between October and December 2020. Five
Eyes consists of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the
United States.
Information in one
document obtained by The Telegraph states U.S. officials accused Chinese
officials of "stonewalling," as well as "gross corruption and
ineptitude." The information also reportedly showed that the Chinese
military had been working with the Wuhan Institute of Virology for years before
the pandemic, and that lab researchers got sick soon before COVID-19 was first
reported in the area.
On May 1, the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the
Coronavirus Pandemic called
for a criminal probe into the origins of the COVID-19 virus.
The demands for an investigation come after the release
of an interim staff report accusing EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter
Daszak of funding "dangerous gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, without sufficient oversight."
EcoHealth Alliance is a non-governmental organization
based in the United States and
focused on researching pandemic prevention.
According to congressional lawmakers, EcoHealth used
taxpayer dollars "to fund dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)" in
China.
The
NGO disputes that claim.
Fox News Digital previously reported that EcoHealth
Alliance received millions of dollars in grants from the National
Institutes of Health (NIH),
and that U.S. taxpayer funds flowed to Chinese entities conducting coronavirus
research through EcoHealth Alliance.
US shared intel with UK showing 'high likelihood' of
COVID-19 lab leak: report | Fox News
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.
Today, who needs doctors, when coming
soon, there’s an internet AI “doctor” ready and able to diagnose you.
Google's medical AI destroys GPT's benchmark and
outperforms doctors
Paul McClure May 06, 2024
Google Research and Google’s AI research lab,
DeepMind, have detailed the impressive reach of Med-Gemini, a family of
advanced AI models specialized in medicine. It's a huge advancement in clinical
diagnostics with massive real-world potential.
Doctors treat a multitude of
patients daily, with needs ranging from simple to very complex. To deliver
effective care, they must be familiar with each patient’s health record and
keep up-to-date with the newest procedures and treatments. And then there’s the
all-important doctor-patient relationship, built on empathy, trust, and
communication. For an AI to come close to emulating a real-world doctor, it
needs to be able to do all of these things.
The intersection of AI and medicine has really taken off. In
the last six months, New Atlas has reported on AI models that aid
less experienced doctors in
identifying the precursors of colon cancer, diagnose childhood
autism from eye images, and predict in real-time
whether a surgeon has removed
all cancerous tissue during breast
cancer surgery. But Med-Gemini is something else.
Google’s Gemini
models are a new generation of
multimodal AI models, meaning that they can process information from different
modalities, including text, images, videos, and audio. The models are adept at
language and conversation, understanding the diverse information they’re
trained on, and what’s called ‘long-context reasoning,’ or reasoning from large
amounts of data such as hours of video or tens of hours of audio.
Med-Gemini has all of the
advantages of the foundational Gemini models but has fine-tuned them. The
researchers tested these medicine-focused tweaks and included their results in
the paper. There’s a lot in the 58-page paper; we’ve selected the most
impressive bits.
Arriving at a diagnosis and formulating a treatment plan
requires doctors to combine their own medical knowledge with a raft of other
relevant information: patient symptoms, medical, surgical and social history,
lab results and the results of other investigative tests, and the patient’s
response to prior treatment. Treatments are a ‘movable feast,’ with existing
ones being updated and new ones being introduced. All these things influence a
doctor’s clinical reasoning.
That’s why, with Med-Gemini, Google included access to
web-based searching to enable more advanced clinical reasoning. Like many
medicine-focused large language models (LLMs), Med-Gemini was trained on MedQA,
multiple-choice questions representative of US Medical License Exam (USMLE)
questions designed to test medical knowledge and reasoning across diverse
scenarios.
----Med-Gemini was tested on 14 medical benchmarks and
established a new state-of-the-art (SoTA) performance on 10, surpassing the
GPT-4 model family on every benchmark where a comparison could be made. On the
MedQA (USMLE) benchmark, Med-Gemini achieved 91.1% accuracy using its
uncertainty-guided search strategy, outperforming Google’s previous medical
LLM, Med-PaLM
2, by 4.5%.
More
Google's
medical AI destroys GPT's benchmark and outperforms doctors (newatlas.com)
Finally,
our latest new section, the world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP
compared.
World Debt
Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a
misprint.
Mark Twain.
