FEB2

FEB2, 2022 · by harveyorgan · in Uncategorized · Leave a comment ·Edit

GOLD; UP $7.95 to $1809.35

SILVER: $22.71 UP 15 CENTS

ACCESS MARKET: GOLD: 1807.00..

SILVER: $22.65

Bitcoin: morning price: 36,870 DOWN 1812

Bitcoin: afternoon price: 37,539 DOWN 1143

Platinum price: closing up $11.70 to $1039.60

Palladium price; closing UP $19.00 at $2374.30

END

end

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comex notices//JPMorgan notices filed COMEX//NOTICES:EXCHANGE: COMEX 707/2692

CONTRACT: FEBRUARY 2022 COMEX 100 GOLD FUTURES
SETTLEMENT: 1,800.300000000 USD
INTENT DATE: 02/01/2022 DELIVERY DATE: 02/03/2022
FIRM ORG FIRM NAME ISSUED STOPPED

104 C MIZUHO 800
118 C MACQUARIE FUT 255
132 C SG AMERICAS 21 1
167 C MAREX 1
332 H STANDARD CHARTE 49
363 H WELLS FARGO SEC 28
365 H ED&F MAN CAPITA 1
435 H SCOTIA CAPITAL 6
624 H BOFA SECURITIES 812
657 C MORGAN STANLEY 9
661 C JP MORGAN 500 354
661 H JP MORGAN 353
709 C BARCLAYS 1297 786
730 C PTG DIVISION SG 1
732 C RBC CAP MARKETS 11
800 C MAREX SPEC 22 14
880 H CITIGROUP 50
905 C ADM 13

TOTAL: 2,692 2,692
MONTH TO DATE: 15,229

NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED TODAY FOR FEB. CONTRACT: 2692 NOTICE(S) FOR 269,200 OZ (8.373 TONNES)

total notices so far: 15,229 contracts for 1,522,900 oz (47.368 tonnes)

SILVER NOTICES:

408 NOTICE(S) FILED TODAY FOR 2040,000 OZ/

total number of notices filed so far this month 1022 : for 5,110,000 oz

GLD

WITH GOLD UP $7.95

WITH RESPECT TO GLD WITHDRAWALS: (OVER THE PAST FEW MONTHS):

A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD// A DEPOSIT OF 3.78 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD//

GOLD IS “RETURNED” TO THE BANK OF ENGLAND WHEN CALLING IN THEIR LEASES: THE GOLD NEVER LEAVES THE BANK OF ENGLAND IN THE FIRST PLACE. THE BANK IS PROTECTING ITSELF IN CASE OF COMMERCIAL FAILURE

ALSO INVESTORS SWITCHING TO SPROTT PHYSICAL (phys) INSTEAD OF THE FRAUDULENT GLD//

CLOSING INVENTORY: 1018.04 TONNES/

Silver//SLV

WITH NO SILVER AROUND AND SILVER UP 15 CENTS:/: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV// A DEPOSIT OT 5.411 MILLION OZ OF SILVER INTO THE SLV/

AT THE SLV//

INVESTORS ARE SWITCHING SLV TO SPROTT’S PSLV

CLOSING INVENTORY SLV/ TONIGHT: 539.212 MILLION OZ

Let us have a look at the data for today

SILVER//OUTLINE

SILVER COMEX OI FELL BY A STRONG 1497 CONTRACTS TO 149,136 AND RESTS FURTHER FROM THE NEW RECORD OF 244,710, SET FEB 25/2020 AND DESPITE THIS STRONG LOSS IN OI, IT WAS ACCOMPANIED WITH OUR GOOD $0.18 GAIN IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX ON TUESDAY. OUR BANKERS WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING THE PRICE OF SILVER DOWN (IT ROSE BY $0.18) BUT WERE SUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING OUT A FEW SILVER LONGS AS WE HAD A TINYLOSS OF 52 CONTRACTS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES .

WE MUST HAVE HAD:
I) HUGE BANKER SHORT COVERING AS THEY ARE VERY ANXIOUS TO GET OUT OF DODGE!!/. II)WE ALSO HAD SOME REDDIT RAPTOR BUYING//. iii) A STRONG ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS iiii) A HUGE INITIAL SILVER STANDING FOR COMEX SILVER MEASURING AT 4.110 MILLION OZ FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 1,075,000 OZ QUEUE JUMP//NEW STANDING 5.245 MILLION OZ. V) STRONG SIZED COMEX OI LOSS.

I AM NOW RECORDING THE DIFFERENTIAL IN OI FROM PRELIMINARY TO FINAL:

THE DIFFERENTIAL FROM PRELIMINARY OI TO FINAL OI SILVER TODAY: CONTRACTS -112

HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS FEB. ACCUMULATION FOR EFP’S SILVER/JPMORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES/STARTING FROM FIRST DAY/MONTH OF FEB:

TOTAL CONTACTS for 2 days, total contracts: : 1433 contracts or 7.165 million oz OR3 .582 MILLION OZ PER DAY. (717 CONTRACTS PER DAY)

TOTAL NO OF OZ UNDERGOING EFP TO LONDON 1433 CONTRACTS X 5,000 PER CONTRACT:

EQUATES TO: 7.165 MILLION OZ

LAST 10 MONTHS TOTAL EFP CONTRACTS ISSUED IN MILLIONS OF OZ:

MAY 137.83 MILLION

JUNE 149.91 MILLION OZ

JULY 129.445 MILLION OZ

AUGUST: MILLION OZ 140.120

SEPT. 28.230 MILLION OZ//

OCT: 94.595 MILLION OZ

NOV: 131.925 MILLION OZ

DEC: 100.615 MILLION OZ

JAN 2022// 90.460 MILLION OZ

FEB 2022: 7.165 MILLION OZ//

SPREADING OPERATIONS

(/NOW SWITCHING TO SILVER) FOR NEWCOMERS, HERE ARE THE DETAILS

SPREADING LIQUIDATION HAS NOW COMMENCED AS WE HEAD TOWARDS THE NEW ACTIVE FRONT MONTH OF MAR.WE ARE NOW INTO THE SPREADING OPERATION OF SILVER

HERE IS A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF HOW THE CROOKS FLEECE UNSUSPECTING LONGS IN THE SPREADING ENDEAVOUR ;MODUS OPERANDI OF THE CORRUPT BANKERS AS TO HOW THEY HANDLE THEIR SPREAD OPEN INTERESTS:HERE IS HOW THE CROOKS USED SPREADING AS WE ARE NOW INTO THE NON ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF JAN HEADING TOWARDS THE ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF FEB, FOR GOLD:

YOU WILL ALSO NOTICE THAT THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST STARTS TO RISE BUT SO IS THE OPEN INTEREST OF SPREADERS. THE OPEN INTEREST IN WILL CONTINUE TO RISE UNTIL ONE WEEK BEFORE FIRST DAY NOTICE OF AN UPCOMING ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH (MAR), AND THAT IS WHEN THE CROOKS SELL THEIR SPREAD POSITIONS BUT NOT AT THE SAME TIME OF THE DAY. THEY WILL USE THE SELL SIDE OF THE EQUATION TO CREATE THE CASCADE (ALONG WITH THEIR COLLUSIVE FRIENDS) AND THEN COVER ON THE BUY SIDE OF THE SPREAD SITUATION AT THE END OF THE DAY. THEY DO THIS TO AVOID POSITION LIMIT DETECTION. THE LIQUIDATION OF THE SPREADING FORMATION CONTINUES FOR EXACTLY ONE WEEK AND ENDS ON FIRST DAY NOTICE.”

RESULT: WE HAD A STRONG SIZED DECREASE IN COMEX OI SILVER COMEX CONTRACTS OF 1497 DESPITE OUR $0.18 GAIN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX// TUESDAY THE CME NOTIFIED US THAT WE HAD A STRONG SIZED EFP ISSUANCE OF 1333 CONTRACTS( 1333 CONTRACTS ISSUED FOR MAR AND 0 CONTRACTS ISSUED FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS) WHICH EXITED OUT OF THE SILVER COMEX TO LONDON AS FORWARDS THE DOMINANT FEATURE TODAY: /HUGE BANKER SHORT COVERING AS THEY GET OUT OF DODGE//// WE HAVE A GOOD INITIAL SILVER OZ STANDING FOR FEB OF 4.1 MILLION OZ FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 1,075,000 OZ QUEUE JUMP //NEW STANDING 5.275, MILLION OZ// .. WE HAD A SMALL SIZED LOSS OF 164 OI CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES FOR 0.820 MILLION OZ//

WE HAD 408 NOTICES FILED TODAY FOR 2040,000 OZ

GOLD//OUTLINE

IN GOLD, THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST FELL BY A STRONG SIZED 7171 TO 515,331 AND FURTHER FROM OUR NEW RECORD (SET JAN 24/2020) AT 799,541 AND PREVIOUS TO THAT: (SET JAN 6/2020) AT 797,110.

THE DIFFERENTIAL FROM PRELIMINARY OI TO FINAL OI IN GOLD TODAY: — 315 CONTRACTS

THE STRONG SIZED DECREASE IN COMEX OI CAME DESPITE OUR GAIN IN PRICE OF $3.40//COMEX GOLD TRADING/TUESDAY/.AS IN SILVER WE MUST HAD HUGE BANKER/ALGO SHORT COVERING ACCOMPANYING OUR FAIR SIZED EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL ISSUANCE. WE HAD SOME LONG LIQUIDATION AS THE TOTAL LOSS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES TOTALED 6084 CONTRACTS…

WE ALSO HAD A HUGE INITIAL STANDING IN GOLD TONNAGE FOR FEB AT 64.3 TONNES FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 3100 OZ E.F.P. JUMP TO LONDON //NEW STANDING: 62.572 TONNES

YET ALL OF..THIS HAPPENED WITH OUR GAIN IN PRICE OF $3.40 WITH RESPECT TO MONDAY’S TRADING

WE HAD A STRONG SIZED LOSS OF 6084 OI CONTRACTS (18.94 PAPER TONNES) ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES

E.F.P. ISSUANCE

THE CME RELEASED THE DATA FOR EFP ISSUANCE AND IT TOTALLED A SMALL SIZED 1087 CONTRACTS:

FOR APRIL 1087 ALL OTHER MONTHS ZERO//TOTAL:1087

The NEW COMEX OI FOR THE GOLD COMPLEX RESTS AT 515,331.

IN ESSENCE WE HAVE A STRONG SIZED DECREASE IN TOTAL CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 6084, WITH 7,171 CONTRACTS DECREASED AT THE COMEX AND 1087 EFP OI CONTRACTS WHICH NAVIGATED OVER TO LONDON. THUS TOTAL OI LOSS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 6084 CONTRACTS OR 18.92TONNES.

CALCULATIONS ON GAIN/LOSS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES

WE HAD A SMALL SIZED ISSUANCE IN EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS (1087) ACCOMPANYING THE STRONG SIZED LOSS IN COMEX OI (7171,): TOTAL LOSS IN THE TWO EXCHANGES 6084 CONTRACTS. WE NO DOUBT HAD 1) HUGE BANKER SHORT COVERING ,2.) HUGE INITIAL STANDING AT THE GOLD COMEX FOR FEB. AT 64.30 TONNES WHICH FOLLOWS TODAY’S HUGE EFP JUMP TO LONDON OF 3100 OZ//NEW STANDING 62.572 TONNES// 3)SOME LONG LIQUIDATION ,4) STRONG SIZED COMEX OI. LOSS 5) SMALL ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL

HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS IN 2022 INCLUDING TODAY

FEB

ACCUMULATION OF EFP’S GOLD AT J.P. MORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES: (EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL) FOR THE MONTH OF FEB :

3091 CONTRACTS OR 309,100 oz OR 9.614 TONNES 2 TRADING DAY(S) AND THUS AVERAGING: 1546 EFP CONTRACTS PER TRADING DAY

TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA AS TO THE SIZE OF THESE EFP TRANSFERS : THIS MONTH IN 2 TRADING DAY(S) IN TONNES: 9.614 TONNES

TOTAL ANNUAL GOLD PRODUCTION, 2020, THROUGHOUT THE WORLD EX CHINA EX RUSSIA: 3555 TONNES

THUS EFP TRANSFERS REPRESENTS 9.614/3550 x 100% TONNES 0.270% OF GLOBAL ANNUAL PRODUCTION

ACCUMULATION OF GOLD EFP’S YEAR 2021 TO 2022

JANUARY/2021: 265.26 TONNES (RAPIDLY INCREASING AGAIN)

FEB : 171.24 TONNES ( DEFINITELY SLOWING DOWN AGAIN)..

MARCH:. 276.50 TONNES (STRONG AGAIN/

APRIL: 189..44 TONNES ( DRAMATICALLY SLOWING DOWN AGAIN//GOLD IN BACKWARDATION)

MAY: 250.15 TONNES (NOW DRAMATICALLY INCREASING AGAIN)

JUNE: 247.54 TONNES (FINAL)

JULY: 188.73 TONNES FINAL

AUGUST: 217.89 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE.

SEPT 142.12 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE ( LOW ISSUANCE)_

OCT: 141.13 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE (LOW ISSUANCE)

NOV: 312.46 TONNES FINAL ISSUANCE//NEW RECORD!! (INCREASING DRAMATICALLY)//SIGN OF REAL STRESS//SURPASSING THE MARCH 2021 RECORD OF 276.50 TONNES OF EFP

DEC. 145.12 TONNES//FINAL ISSUANCE//

JAN:2022 247.25 TONNES //FINAL

FEB: 9.614 TONNES//INITIAL

WHAT IS ALARMING TO ME, ACCORDING TO OUR LONDON EXPERT ANDREW MAGUIRE IS THAT THESE EFP’S ARE BEING TRANSFERRED TO WHAT ARE CALLED SERIAL FORWARD CONTRACT OBLIGATIONS AND THESE CONTRACTS ARE LESS THAN 14 DAYS. ANYTHING GREATER THAN 14 DAYS, THESE MUST BE RECORDED AND SENT TO THE COMPTROLLER, GREAT BRITAIN TO MONITOR RISK TO THE BANKING SYSTEM. IF THIS IS INDEED TRUE, THEN THIS IS A MASSIVE CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD AS WE NOW WITNESS A MONSTROUS TOTAL EFP’S ISSUANCE AS IT HEADS INTO THE STRATOSPHERE.

First, here is an outline of what will be discussed tonight:

1.Today, we had the open interest at the comex, in SILVER, FELL BY A STRONG SIZED 1497 CONTRACTS TO 149,136 AND CLOSER TO OUR COMEX RECORD //244,710(SET FEB 25/2020). THE LAST RECORDS WERE SET IN AUG.2018 AT 244,196 WITH A SILVER PRICE OF $14.78/(AUGUST 22/2018)..THE PREVIOUS RECORD TO THAT WAS SET ON APRIL 9/2018 AT 243,411 OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS WITH THE SILVER PRICE AT THAT DAY: $16.53). AND PREVIOUS TO THAT, THE RECORD WAS ESTABLISHED AT: 234,787 CONTRACTS, SET ON APRIL 21.2017 OVER 4 1/2 YEARS AGO.

EFP ISSUANCE 1333 CONTRACTS

OUR CUSTOMARY MIGRATION OF COMEX LONGS CONTINUE TO MORPH INTO LONDON FORWARDS AS OUR BANKERS USED THEIR EMERGENCY PROCEDURE TO ISSUE:

MAR 1333 ALL OTHER MONTHS: ZERO. TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 1333 CONTRACTS. EFP’S GIVE OUR COMEX LONGS A FIAT BONUS PLUS A DELIVERABLE PRODUCT OVER IN LONDON. IF WE TAKE THE COMEX OI LOSS OF 1497 CONTRACTS AND ADD TO THE 1333 OI TRANSFERRED TO LONDON THROUGH EFP’S,

WE OBTAIN A SMALL SIZED LOSS OF 164 OPEN INTEREST CONTRACT FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES.

THUS IN OUNCES, THE LOSS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES 0.82 MILLION OZ,

OCCURRED WITH OUR $0.18 GAIN IN PRICE.

OUTLINE FOR TODAY’S COMMENTARY

1/COMEX GOLD AND SILVER REPORT

(report Harvey)

2 ) Gold/silver trading overnight Europe,

(Peter Schiff,

3. Egon von Greyerz///Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com,

4. Chris Powell of GATA provides to us very important physical commentaries

5. Other gold commentaries

6. Commodity commentaries/cryptocurrencies

3. ASIAN AFFAIRS

i)WEDNESDAY MORNING// TUESDAY NIGHT

SHANGHAI CLOSED //Hang Sang CLOSED /The Nikkei closed up 64.54 PTS OR 0.54% //Australia’s all ordinaires CLOSED UP 1.19% /Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed HOLIDAY /Oil UP TO 88.31 dollars per barrel for WTI and UP TO 89.17 for Brent. Stocks in Europe OPENED ALL GREEN // ONSHORE YUAN CLOSED XX AGAINST THE DOLLAR AT XXX. OFFSHORE YUAN CLOSED UP ON THE DOLLAR AT 6.3613: /ONSHORE YUAN TRADING ABOVE LEVEL OF OFFSHORE YUAN/ONSHORE YUAN AND OFF SHORE TRADING STRONGER AGAINST USA DOLLAR

A)NORTH KOREA//USA/OUTLINE

b) REPORT ON JAPAN

OUTLINE

3 C CHINA

OUTLINE

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

OUTLINE

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

OUTLINE

6.Global Issues

OUTLINE

7. OIL ISSUES

OUTLINE

8 EMERGING MARKET ISSUES

COMEX DATA//AMOUNTS STANDING//VOLUME OF TRADING/INVENTORY MOVEMENTS

GOLD

LET US BEGIN:

THE TOTAL COMEX GOLD OPEN INTEREST FELL BY A STRONG SIZED 7171 CONTRACTS AND FURTHER FROM THE RECORD THAT WAS SET IN JANUARY/2020: {799,541 OI(SET JAN 16/2020)} AND PREVIOUS TO THAT: 797,110 (SET JAN 7/2020). AND THIS COMEX DECREASE OCCURRED DESPITE OUR GAIN OF $3.40 IN GOLD PRICING TUESDAY’S COMEX TRADING. WE ALSO HAD A SMALL SIZED EFP (1087 CONTRACTS). . THEY WERE PAID HANDSOMELY NOT TO TAKE DELIVERY AT THE COMEX AND SETTLE FOR CASH.

WE NORMALLY HAVE WITNESSED EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS ISSUED BEING SMALL AS IT JUST TOO COSTLY FOR THEM TO CONTINUE SERVICING THE COSTS OF SERIAL FORWARDS CIRCULATING IN LONDON. HOWEVER, MUCH TO THE ANNOYANCE OF OUR BANKERS, THE COMEX IS THE SCENE OF AN ASSAULT ON GOLD AS LONDONERS, NOT BEING ABLE TO FIND ANY PHYSICAL ON THAT SIDE OF THE POND, EXERCISE THESE CIRCULATING EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS IN LONDON AND FORCING DELIVERY OF REAL METAL OVER HERE AS THE OBLIGATION STILL RESTS WITH NEW YORK BANKERS. IT SEEMS THAT ARE BANKERS FRIENDS ARE EXERCISING EFP’S FROM LONDON AND NOW THEY ARE LOATHE TO ISSUE NEW ONES.

EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL ISSUANCE

WE ARE NOW MOVING TO THE ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF FEB.. THE CME REPORTS THAT THE BANKERS ISSUED A SMALL SIZED TRANSFER THROUGH THE EFP ROUTE AS THESE LONGS RECEIVED A DELIVERABLE LONDON FORWARD TOGETHER WITH A FIAT BONUS.,

THAT IS 1087 EFP CONTRACTS WERE ISSUED: ;: , & FEB. 0 APRIL: 1087 & ZERO FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS:

TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 1087 CONTRACTS

WHEN WE HAVE BACKWARDATION, EFP ISSUANCE IS VERY COSTLY BUT THE REAL PROBLEM IS THE SCARCITY OF METAL AND IT IS FAR BETTER FOR OUR BANKERS TO PAY OFF INDIVIDUALS THAN RISK INVESTORS ESPECIALLY FROM LONDON STANDING FOR DELIVERY. THE LOWER PRICES IN THE FUTURES MARKET IS A MAGNET FOR OUR LONDONERS SEEKING PHYSICAL METAL. BACKWARDATION ALWAYS EQUAL SCARCITY OF METAL!

ON A NET BASIS IN OPEN INTEREST WE LOST THE FOLLOWING TODAY ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES: A STRONG SIZED 6084 TOTAL CONTRACTS IN THAT 1087 LONGS WERE TRANSFERRED AS FORWARDS TO LONDON AND WE HAD A STRONG SIZED COMEX OI LOSS OF 7171 CONTRACTS..

// WE HAVE A STRONG AMOUNT OF GOLD TONNAGE STANDING FOR FEB (62.572),

HERE ARE THE AMOUNTS THAT STOOD FOR DELIVERY IN THE PRECEDING 12 MONTHS OF 2021:

DEC 2021: 112.217 TONNES

NOV. 8.074 TONNES

OCT. 57.707 TONNES

SEPT: 11.9160 TONNES

AUGUST: 80.489 TONNES

JULY: 7.2814 TONNES

JUNE: 72.289 TONNES

MAY 5.77 TONNES

APRIL 95.331 TONNES

MARCH 30.205 TONNES

FEB ’21. 113.424 TONNES

JAN ’21: 6.500 TONNES.

TOTAL SO FAR THIS YEAR (JAN- DEC): 601.213 TONNES

FEB 2022: 62.572 TONNES

THE BANKERS WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN LOWERING GOLD’S PRICE //// (IT ROSE $3.40) BUT THEY WERE SUCCESSFUL IN FLEECING SOME LONGS AS WE HAVE REGISTERED A STRONG LOSS OF 18.92 TONNES OF TOTAL OI, ACCOMPANYING OUR HUGE GOLD TONNAGE STANDING FOR FEB (62.572 TONNES)…

WE HAD –315 CONTRACTS REMOVED FROM COMEX TRADES. THESE WERE REMOVED AFTER TRADING ENDED LAST NIGHT

NET LOSS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES 6084 CONTRACTS OR 608400 OZ OR 18.92 TONNES

Estimated gold volume today: 120,658 /// poor

Confirmed volume yesterday: 138,604contracts poor

INITIAL STANDINGS FOR FEB ’22 COMEX GOLD //FEB 2

Gold	Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers* Inventory in oz*	nil oz
Withdrawals from Customer* Inventory in oz*
Deposit to the Dealer* Inventory in oz*	nilOZ
Deposits to the Customer* Inventory, in oz*	nil
No of oz served (contracts) today	2692 notice(s) 269,200 OZ 8.373 TONNES
No of oz to be served (notices)	4888 contracts 488,800 oz 15.203 TONNES
Total monthly oz gold served (contracts) so far this month	15,229 notices 1,522,900 OZ 47.368 TONNES
Total accumulative withdrawals of gold from the Dealers* inventory this month*	NIL oz
Total accumulative withdrawal of gold from the Customer* inventory this month*	xxx oz

For today:

No dealer deposit 0

No dealer withdrawal 0

0 customer deposit

total deposit: nil oz

0 customer withdrawals

total withdrawals: nil oz

ADJUSTMENTS: 1//dealer to customer

i) Out of Manfra 15,433.271 oz

2/ from eligible Brinks: 443,683.800 oz (13,800 kilobars)///accounting error???

CALCULATIONS FOR THE AMOUNT OF GOLD STANDING FOR JANUARY.

For the front month of FEBRUARY we have an oi of 7580 stand for LOSING 8785 contracts.

We had 8754 contracts served upon yesterday, so we lost 31 contracts or an additional 3100 oz will not stand on this side of the pond and

these guys were E.F.P.’d to London where they received a handsome bonus for their effort. We should now see growth in gold standing at the comex

The month of March saw a gain of 1412 contracts and thus the OI standing is 5450.

April saw a gain of 84 contracts up to 397,226.

We had 2692 notice(s) filed today for 269,200 oz FOR THE FEB 2022 CONTRACT MONTH.

Today, 0 notice(s) were issued from J.P.Morgan dealer account and 0 notices were issued from their client or customer account. The total of all issuance by all participants equates to 2692 contract(s) of which 354 notices were stopped (received) by j.P. Morgan dealer and 353 notice(s) was (were) stopped/ Received) by J.P.Morgan//customer account and 5900 notice(s) received (stopped) by the squid (Goldman Sachs)

To calculate the INITIAL total number of gold ounces standing for the FEB /2021. contract month,

we take the total number of notices filed so far for the month (15,229) x 100 oz , to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of (FEB: 7580 CONTRACTS ) minus the number of notices served upon today 2,692 x 100 oz per contract equals 2,011,700 OZ OR 62.572 TONNES the number of TONNES standing in this active month of FEB.

thus the INITIAL standings for gold for the JAN contract month:

No of notices filed so far (15,229) x 100 oz+ (7580) OI for the front month minus the number of notices served upon today (2692} x 100 oz} which equals 2,014,800 oz standing OR 62.668 TONNES in this active delivery month of FEB.

We lost 31 contracts or an additional 3100 oz will not stand over here and were EFP’d.

TOTAL COMEX GOLD STANDING: 62.572 TONNES (HUGE FOR A FEBRUARY DELIVERY MONTH)

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

COMEX GOLD INVENTORIES/CLASSIFICATION

NEW PLEDGED GOLD:

157,392.690, oz NOW PLEDGED /HSBC 4.89 TONNES

125,410.592 PLEDGED MANFRA 2.90 TONNES

54,339.114oz PLEDGED JPMorgan no 1 1.690

288,481,604, oz JPM No 2 8.97 TONNES

898,821.330 oz pledged Brinks/27,96 TONNES

12,249,333 oz International Delaware: 0..3810 tonne

Loomis: 18,615.429 oz

total pledged gold: 1,553,863.297 oz 48.331 tonnes

TOTAL REGISTERED AND ELIZ GOLD AT THE COMEX: 32,792.149.476 OZ (1023,99 TONNES)

TOTAL ELIGIBLE GOLD: 15,443,772.119 OZ (480.34 tonnes)

TOTAL OF ALL REGISTERED GOLD: 17,348,377.351 OZ (539.60 tonnes)

REGISTERED GOLD THAT CAN BE SERVED UPON: 15,794514.0 OZ (REG GOLD- PLEDGED GOLD) 491.27 tonnes

END

FEBRUARY 2022 CONTRACT MONTH//SILVER

INITIAL STANDING FOR SILVER//FEB 2

Silver	Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers* Inventory*	NIL oz
Withdrawals from Customer Inventory	946,502.07 oz Brinks CNT Manfra
Deposits to the Dealer* Inventory*	nilOZ
Deposits to the Customer Inventory	nil oz
No of oz served today (contracts)	408 CONTRACT(S) 2040,000 OZ)
No of oz to be served (notices)	27 contracts (135,000 oz)
Total monthly oz silver served (contracts)	1022 contracts 5,110,000 oz)
Total accumulative withdrawal of silver from the Dealers* inventory this month*	NIL oz
Total accumulative withdrawal of silver from the Customer* inventory this month*

And now for the wild silver comex results

we had 0 deposits into the dealer

total dealer deposits: nil oz

i) We had 0 dealer withdrawal

total dealer withdrawals: nil oz

We have 0 deposits

JPMorgan has a total silver weight: 185.232 million oz/354.055 million =52.30% of comex

ii) Comex withdrawals: 3

a)Brinks: 333,838.55 oz

b) CNT; 25,398.700 oz

c)Manfra: 587,264.520 oz

total withdrawal 946,502.07 oz

we had 0 adjustments:

the silver comex is in stress!

TOTAL REGISTERED SILVER: 81.944 MILLION OZ

TOTAL REG + ELIG. 353.108 MILLION OZ

CALCULATION OF SILVER OZ STANDING FOR FEBRUARY

silver open interest data:

FRONT MONTH OF FEB//2022 OI: 435 CONTRACTS GAINING 159 contracts on the day. We had 56 contracts served upon yesterday.

So we gained 215 contracts or an additional 1,075,000 oz will stand for silver on this side of the pond.

FOR MARCH WE HAD A loss OF 1851 CONTRACTS UP TO 106,414 CONTRACTS.

APRIL HAD A SMALL GAIN OF 7 CONTRACTS UP TO 15

MAY HAD A SMALL GAIN OF 177 CONTRACTS UP TO 25,979 CONTRACTS.

TOTAL NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED FOR TODAY: 408 for 2,040,000 oz

Comex volumes: 39.991// est. volume today//weak

Comex volume: confirmed YESTERDAY: 52,894 contracts (weak)

To calculate the number of silver ounces that will stand for delivery in FEB. we take the total number of notices filed for the month so far at 1022 x 5,000 oz =. 5,110,000 oz

to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of FEB (435) and the number of notices served upon today 408 x (5000 oz) equals the number of ounces standing.

Thus the standings for silver for the FEB./2021 contract month: 1022 (notices served so far) x 5000 oz + OI for front month of FEB (435) – number of notices served upon today (408) x 5000 oz of silver standing for the FEB contract month equates 5,245,000 oz. .

We gained 215 CONTRACTS OR 1,075,000 ADDITIONAL oz of silver will stand at the comex.

the record level of silver open interest is 234,787 contracts set on April 21./2017 with the price on that day at $18.42. The previous record was 224,540 contracts with the price at that time of $20.44

END

GLD AND SLV INVENTORY LEVELS:

GLD

FEB 2/WITH GOLD UP $7.95//A HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 3.78 TONES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 1018.04 TONNES

FEB 1/WITH GOLD UP $5.40: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1014.26 TONNES

JAN 31/WITH GOLD UP $10.10//NO CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1014.26 TONNES

JAN 28/WITH GOLD DOWN $8.30//NO CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1014.26 TONNES

JAN 27/WITH GOLD DOWN $36.15//ANOTHER HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 1.16 TONNES INTO THE GLD.//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1014.26 TONNES

JAN 26/WITH GOLD DOWN $21.60 A HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 4.65 TONNES INTO THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 1013.10 TONNES

JAN 25/WITH GOLD UP $10.40 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1008.45 TONNES

JAN 24/WITH GOLD UP $10.10 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: AN UNBELIEVABLE DEPOSIT OF 27.59 TONNES INTO THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 1008.45 TONNES

JAN 21/WITH GOLD DOWN $10.80 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 980.86 TONNES

JAN 20/WITH GOLD UP $.20 TODAY: A SMALL CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF .58 TONNES FROM THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 980.86 TONNES

JAN 19/WITH GOLD UP $29.65 TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//A DEPOSIT OF 5.27 TONNES INTO THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 981.44 TONNES

JAN 18/WITH GOLD DOWN $3.25//NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 976.21 TONNES

JAN 14/ WITH GOLD DOWN $5.25/NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 976.21 TONNES

JAN 13/WITH GOLD DOWN $5.75: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 976.21 TONNES

JAN 12/WITH GOLD UP $8.65//NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 976.21 TONNES

JAN 11/WITH GOLD UP $19.25/A SMALL CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF .87 TONNES FROM THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 976.21 TONNES

JAN 10/WITH GOLD UP $2.00/NO CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 977.08 TONNES

JAN 7/WITH GOLD UP $8.15//A SMALL CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWLA OF 1.16 TONNES FROM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 978.83 TONNES

JAN 6/WITH GOLD DOWN $35.30//A SMALL CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//A WITHDRAWAL OF .32 TONNES/INVENTORY RESTS AT 979.99 TONNES

JAN 5/WITH GOLD UP $10.30: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 980.31 TONNES

Jan 4/WITH GOLD UP $14.00//A HUGE CHANGE OF 4.65 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 980.31 TONNES

JAN 3/WITH GOLD DOWN $26.70: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 975.66 TONNES

DEC 31/WITH GOLD UP $14.05 : NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 975.66 TONNES

DEC 30/WITH GOLD UP $7.75 NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 975.66 TONNES

DEC 29/WITH GOLD DOWN $5.00 TODAY:HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 2.03 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 975.66 TONNES

DEC 28/WITH GOLD UP $2.00 TODAY; NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 973.63 TONNES

DEC 27/WITH GOLD DOWN $2.05: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 973.63 TONNES.

DEC 23/WITH GOLD UP $9.85 TODAY//A HUGE CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 4.94 TONNES FROM THE GLD/// INVENTORY RESTS AT 973.63 TONNES

DEC 22/WITH GOLD UP $12.85 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 978.57 TONNES

DEC 21/WITH GOLD DOWN $7.05 TODAY, NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 978.57 TONNES

DEC 20/WITH GOLD DOWN $9.65 TODAY; A BIG CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 1.37 TONNES INTO THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 977.20 TONNES

DEC 17/WITH GOLD UP $7.05 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 977.20 TONNES

CLOSING INVENTORY: 1018.04 TONNES

Now the SLV Inventory/( vehicle is a fraud as there is no physical metal behind them

SLV

FEB 2/WITH SILVER UP 15 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 5.411 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV.//INVENTORY RESTS AT 539.212 MILLION OZ/

FEB 1/WITH SILVER UP 18 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 533.801 MILLION OZ

JAN 31/WITH SILVER UP 7 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.202 MILLION OZ FORM THE SLV.//INVENTORY RESTS AT 533.801 MILLION OZ//

JAN 28/WITH SILVER DOWN 36 CENTS : NO CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 535.003 MILLION OZ//

JAN 27/WITH SILVER DOWN $1.13 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 535.003 MILLION OZ//

JAN 26/WITH SILVER DOWN 7 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 535.003 MILLION OZ//

JAN 25/WITH SILVER UP 10 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 2.311 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 535.003 MILLION OZ/

.JAN 24/WITH SILVER DOWN 48 CENTS TODAY: A MASSIVE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 4.8 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 532.692 MILLION OZ//.

JAN 21/WITH SILVER DOWN 41 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 527.792 MILLION OZ

JAN 20/WITH SILVER UP 52 CENTS TODAY: A BIG CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 1.998 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV///INVENTORY RESTS AT 527.792 MILLION OZ

JAN 19/WITH SILVER UP 71 CENTS TODAY: A BIG CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 1.942 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 525.804 MILLION OZ

JAN 18/WITH SILVER UP 51 CENTS TODAY: TWO HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: 2 WITHDRAWALS OF 1.11 MILLION OZ AND 1.424 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 527.246 MILLION OZ//

JAN 14/WITH SILVER DOWN 21 CENTS: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 529.780 MILLION OZ//

JAN 13/WITH SILVER DOWN 2 CENTS: A BIG CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV:A WITHDRAWAL OF 832,000 OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 529.780 MILLION OZ

JAN 12/WITH SILVER UP 38 CENTS TODAY : NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.612 MILLION OZ//

JAN 11/WITH SILVER UP 33 CENTS TODAY; NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.612 MILLION OZ/.

JAN 10/WITH SILVER UP 9 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.612 MILLION OZ//.

JAN 7/WITH SILVER UP 17 CENTS TODAY:NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.612 MILLION OZ//.

JAN 6/WITH SILVER DOWN 94 CENTS TODAY: A SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL PF 226,000 OZ FROM THE SLV///INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.612 MILLION OZ?/

JAN 5/WITH SILVER UP 8 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.838 MILLION OZ//

JAN 4/WITH SILVER UP 21 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.838 MILLION OZ//

JAN 3/WITH SILVER DOWN 45 CENTS TODAY: A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.219 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV///INVENTORY RESTS AT 530.838 MILLION OZ//

DEC 31/WITH SILVER UP 29 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 533.057 MILLION OZ//

DEC30/WITH SILVER UP 14 CENTS TODAY; HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A HUGE WITHDRAWAL OF 4.624 MILLILON OZ FROM THE SLV.//INVENTORY RESTS AT 533.057 MILLION OZ//

DEC 29/WITH SILVER DOWN 22 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 537.681 MILLION OZ/

DEC 28/WITH SILVER UP 9 CENTS TODAY; A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.682 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 537.681 MILLION OZ//

DEC 27/WITH SILVER UP 6 CENTS TODAY NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 537.681

DEC 23/WITH SILVER UP 19 CENTS TODAY:A HUGE CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.202 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV///INVENTORY RESTS AT 537.681 MILLION OZ//

DEC 22/WITH SILVER UP 29 CENTS TODAY; A HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.202 MILLION OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 538.883 MILLION OZ/

DEC 21/WITH SILVER UP 19 CENTS: A BIG CHANGE IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 2.728 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV///INVENTORY RESTS AT 540.085 MILLION OZ

DEC 20/WITH SILVER DOWN 22 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 538.282 MILLION OZ

DEC 17/WITH SILVER UP 9 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV/INVENTORY RESTS AT 538.282 MILLION OZ//

CLOSING INVENTORY: 539.212 MILLION OZ

PHYSICAL GOLD/SILVER STORIES

1.PETER SCHIFF

Peter Schiff: Stagflation Will Shock The Markets

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 11:25 AM

Via SchiffGold.com,

Peter Schiff recently spoke at the January 2022 Virtual MoneyShow. He talked about the impacts of inflation and said stagflation is going to shock the markets.

Peter said the long-overdue arrival of inflation is completely changing the investment landscape.

This is going to completely change the dynamics that have existed for investors over the last decade. Pretty much everything that worked while the Fed was inflating this bubble is not going to work as the air comes out of it. And the air is going to come out of it despite whatever efforts the Fed may pursue to prevent that.”

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE TALK

“Clearly, we have an inflation problem. And we’ve had this inflation problem for over a decade. It’s just that it hasn’t manifested itself in a way that is problematic to the Fed or investors because the inflation was resulting in asset prices going up rather than consumer prices.”

“Given the ability of the government to pretend that we had inflation below 2%, that gave the Fed cover to create more inflation.”

“We did the worst possible combination of monetary and fiscal policy when we first entered the pandemic.”

“When you’re not working, you need to consume less. But the government didn’t want that because that would have meant the more severe recession. So, the government sent everybody money to buy goods and services that they weren’t producing. And the fact that we have big shortages should not have been a surprise. It’s an obvious consequence of the failure to produce.”

“If you look at what Powell is talking about doing in order to fight this inflation that it now admits wasn’t transitory, it’s too little too late.”

“How are you going to do something about an inflation problem by throwing gasoline on it? Because a 1% interest rate, even if we get there at the end of the year, is still a stimulative rate of interest.”

“The reality is it’s not the worst inflation in 40 years. It’s the worst inflation ever.”

“Even if the Fed follows through with their commitment to raise rates to 1% by the end of the year, inflation, even if you believe the government’s numbers, which I don’t, at 7%, 1% is still a -6% interest rate. You are not going to encourage savings with negative six percent.”

“Inflation is now the number-one problem on the public’s mind. The public is dealing with sticker shock every time they go to the supermarket, the gas station, and that’s only going to get worse.”

“Even though the Fed is still going to be providing cheap money, it’s not going to be cheap enough to sustain the bubble.”

“Anticipation of higher real interest rates have been supporting the dollar. Well, when currency traders realize that even if the Fed raised rates, they won’t do it enough to stop inflation and that real rates are going to be falling even as nominal rates are rising, then the dollar is going to fall through the floor. And we’re going to have the worst of both worlds — inflation and recession.”

“We’re really at the end of the rope for the Fed. They’ve been kicking the can down the road for more than a decade.”

“It was bad monetary policy that inflated this bubble. And it’s bad monetary policy as it deflates that’s going to make the situation much, much worse.”

“You need to be in inflation hedge investments, one obviously being gold and silver.”

“The inflation is going to be much worse. The economy is going to be much weaker. And unfortunately, we won’t be able to put a stop to it like we did in 1980 because we have no ability to raise interest rates because the country is completely insolvent.”

“The one thing that surprises me is not that we’re here, but that it’s taken us so long to get here.”

END

2.LAWRIE WILLIAM//,//Egon von Greyerz///Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com, James RICKARDS

a must read…….

Rickards: The Narrative Is Collapsing

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 01:05 PM

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

Let’s face it: The public health policy response to the pandemic has been abysmal. I realize I’m not exactly breaking news here, but it can’t be said enough.

Even those on the political left, like Bari Weiss, formerly of The New York Times, and comedian Bill Maher are beginning to publicly question mandates and other anti-COVID measures.

Of course the mainstream media have its dutiful lapdogs who still fawn over Dr. Fauci, but what do you expect?

Let’s start at the beginning…

In January 2020, Dr. Fauci said there was no danger the COVID-19 virus would strike the United States. We were soon overwhelmed with it.

Then Fauci told the public not to wear masks. Then he said wear two masks, indoors and out. Fauci and others favored lockdowns and quarantines.

Then they said the vaccines would prevent infection and stop the spread of the virus. You could throw away your masks and return to normal living.

At the same time, they warned against early treatment with drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, despite numerous studies proving that they’re both safe and effective. And the sooner they’re administered, the better.

Killer Medical Advice

But the public health authorities told COVID sufferers to just wait it out at home until they had trouble breathing. Only then should they go to the hospital. But guess what? By the time you’re having trouble breathing, it’s already too late in many cases because the disease process is so advanced.

Besides, if you went to the hospital, there’d be a real chance you’d end up on a ventilator and be treated with remdesivir, a drug that’s shown little effectiveness but that has potentially serious side effects, including heart and kidney damage.

There are a lot of conspiracies surrounding the suppression of early treatment. There’s no need to get into them here, but it’s clear that the public health authorities decided that mass vaccination was the solution, and they knew that effective therapeutics would undermine the rationale for the vaccines.

Remember, the vaccines were granted Emergency Use Authorization, a requirement for which was that no alternate treatments existed. By claiming that there were no effective therapeutics (relying on badly flawed studies a junior high biology student could pick apart), they cleared the way for emergency authorization.

They feared that people wouldn’t take their experimental mRNA vaccines if they knew they could take these safe and effective medicines if they got sick.

So they went all out to discredit the therapeutics and those who promoted them. They said quacks were pushing a “horse dewormer,” which is ridiculous because people have been taking ivermectin for decades.

But the authorities, colluding with Big Tech, wanted it to appear that vaccination was the only legitimate option.

Well, pretty much everything they said was wrong.

You Can’t Vaccinate Your Way out of a Pandemic

The vaccines don’t prevent infection and do not stop the spread. Remember when Fauci and others were calling it a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”? That wasn’t true at all, as statistics from the most highly vaccinated countries like Israel have demonstrated.

The vaccinated are getting sick at very high rates, and it appears that they’re more likely to acquire the Omicron variant than the unvaccinated.

It’s not that the vaccines should have no role whatsoever. But they should be targeted toward the elderly and those with serious comorbidities. They shouldn’t be forced on the population as a whole, especially on children who face practically no risk from COVID whatsoever.

And it’s entirely possible that mass vaccination is actually creating variants because it forces the virus to evolve rapidly in order to perpetuate itself. Many vaccinologists will tell you that you can’t vaccinate your way out of a pandemic because of that strong possibility. It could actually make it worse.

Aside from the vaccines, masks don’t work because the weave is not tight enough and they’re not worn properly. Lockdowns create indoor incubators for the disease. They don’t stop the virus from spreading. Lockdowns also lead to social isolation and so-called diseases of despair, including those produced by drug and alcohol abuse.

A Tale of Three Cities

Needless to say, lockdowns are also economically destructive.

Here’s some dinner reservation data, comparing January 2022 with January 2020:

In Manhattan, reservations are down 64%. In San Francisco, they’re down 66%.

Both New York and San Francisco have vaccine mandates. Here’s one city that doesn’t: Miami. And reservations in Miami are up 14% compared with January 2020.

See a pattern here? You might, but the politicians running cities like New York and San Francisco don’t, or they simply won’t admit that they’ve been wrong. I’ll leave that for you to decide.

The best approach is to be outside without a mask, getting exercise and fresh air. Boosting your immune system is probably the best thing you can do.

All of these lies and incompetence have cost lives, ruined economies and destroyed trust in science and public health officials. Real science (as opposed to THE SCIENCE of phonies like Fauci) shows clearly that the best defense against the virus is natural immunity.

Fauci Has Blood on His Hands

If you’ve had COVID, you have natural antibodies that are far more effective in preventing a severe case than the vaccines. In fact, that’s how human populations have always survived pandemics and plagues — by just recovering and relying on herd immunity to eventually shut down the virus.

Independent medical studies show that, as Dr. Marty Makary of Johns Hopkins wrote for The Wall Street Journal, “natural immunity was 27 times as effective as vaccinated immunity in preventing symptomatic illness” from the COVID virus. But because the government ignores natural immunity and insists on ineffective vaccines, thousands of nurses, doctors and emergency workers have been fired from their jobs for not getting the vaccines.

In turn, this depletes hospitals and clinics of much-needed staff, including highly experienced clinicians who have worked with tens of thousands of COVID patients.

Ignoring natural immunity is not just stupid — it’s a death sentence for some sufferers who cannot get the help they need because medical professionals have been fired for no good reason.

Preventing early treatment with repurposed drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, among others, is also criminal. Potentially hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved if early treatment options were made widely available. They weren’t.

For many, waiting around at home until they had trouble breathing, i.e., following Fauci’s advice, cost them their lives.

Fauci and his vax-at-all-costs gang have blood on their hands. Hopefully, one day they’ll be held to account. When they are, I think they’re going to need good lawyers.

end

LAWRIE WILLIAMS: 2021 Swiss gold exports point to strong return of Indian demand

DEMAND HIGH FOR GOLD!!!

Switzerland has now announced its gold import and export figures for December and as usual they indicate continuing strong movement of the yellow metal from assumed weaker hands in the west to stronger ones in the east. 69% of the Swiss re-refined gold was destined for Asia and the Middle East during the month although demand from gold-interested nations in Europe was also perhaps a little stronger than usual. Altogether Switzerland imported some 165 tonnes of gold during the month and exported only 98 tonnes leaving the country with surplus imports of around 67 tonnes that month. Over the full 2021 year, the country’s refineries imported some 243 more tonnes of gold than they subsequently exported in higher purity than they received it.

Country by country breakdown of Swiss gold exports in 2021 – Courtesy of Nick Laird’s www.goldchartsrus.com

For the full year, the Swiss refineries imported a total of 1,544 tonnes of gold, mostly in slightly lower purity LBMA good delivery gold bars, plus gold scrap and doré bullion from mines around the world. This is equivalent to over 40% of the world’s new mined gold output which makes the Swiss imports hugely significant for the global gold market and the distribution of the yellow metal to consuming nations.

Historically the Swiss gold refineries have processed an extremely important part of global gold supply and have distributed to buyers around the world, and in recent years this has largely meant purchasers in Asia and the Middle East. Their speciality has been to take larger gold bars, gold scrap and impure gold bullion directly from mines and refine it into the ultra high purity smaller bars and wafers most in demand in world markets, particularly in the East. At times the amount of gold processed through the Swiss refineries has been equivalent to over half of the world’s new mined global gold supply, so the Swiss figures have always been watched closely as representing an excellent indicator of global gold flows.

In 2021, the Swiss figures show that a little over 530 tonnes was destined for India (over 38%), the world’s No.2 gold consumer. China and Hong Kong combined (the world’s No. 1 consumer) received around 370 tonnes in combination from Switzerland. But this does not signify lower demand than in India there, as the country also imports gold directly from a number of gold-producing nations and is, itself, the world’s largest gold producer in its own right. Overall China and Hong Kong together remain comfortably the world’s No. 1 consumer. We have already pointed to a sharp increase this year in mainland China’s gold demand – See: China gold consumption up 45% yoy.

Swiss gold exports in December 2021 courtesy of goldchartsrus.com

Looking at the December figures alone (see above) one can see that India was again the dominant recipient, followed by China and Hong Kong combined. Among other Asian nations, Thailand, which has a big jewellery fabrication sector, stood out, but perhaps even more interesting were the high volumes destined for France, Germany and Italy. The first two of these nations have traditionally seen strong investor interest in gold, while the latter has, like Thailand, a particularly strong jewellery fabrication sector.

This all suggests that the current strength of global gold demand may be a little more deep-seated than had perhaps been recognised which bodes well for global gold demand going forward. It will thus be particularly interesting to see how Swiss gold exports stack up in the months ahead. Certainly the latest Gold Demand Trend figures out of the World Gold Council also suggest a good pick up in the key jewellery demand sector as the world begins to recover from some of the strictures associated with the Covid-19 virus pandemic, while investment demand looks to be remaining strong also.

end

3. Chris Powell of GATA provides to us very important physical commentaries

For your interest….

USAGold’s ‘News & Views’ surveys the age of ‘return-free risk’

Submitted by admin on Tue, 2022-02-01 11:56 Section: Daily Dispatches

11:55a ET Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

USAGold’s “News & Views” letter for February contains a dozen fascinating items about recent developments in the age of “return-free risk.” It’s posted in the clear at USAGold here:

NV#1038FEBRUARY2022

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
CPowell@GATA.org

END

Both of Biden’s two nominees are weirdos and should not be members of the Fed board.

(George Will)

George Will: Biden’s nominees for Fed would try to rig everything

Submitted by admin on Tue, 2022-02-01 12:06 Section: Daily Dispatches

By George Will
Union Leader, Manchester, New Hampshire
Sunday, January 30, 2022

Today’s Federal Reserve illustrates this axiom: When a government entity cannot, or would rather not, adequately perform its primary function, or when it feels that its primary function is insufficiently grand, the agency will expand its mission, thereby distracting attention from its core inadequacy

Next Thursday the Senate Banking Committee will hold confirmation hearings for two presidential nominees to the Federal Reserve Board — Lisa Cook, to a seat on the Fed’s Board of Governors, and Sarah Bloom Raskin, to be vice chair of the board for bank supervision and regulation. Both would ratify the current Fed’s penchant for mission creep — actually, mission gallop. The Senate should tell both to express their abundant political passions through more suitable institutions.

Cook is a Michigan State University professor whose peer-reviewed academic writings pertinent to monetary policy are, to be polite, thin.

The White House noted that she “is on the Board of the Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.” She was put there two weeks before Biden proposed promoting her.

But Cook strokes progressivism’s erogenous zones: She appears to favor racial reparations. And, evidently, defunding the police: When a University of Chicago economist criticized this idea in 2020, she termed the criticism “racial harassment” for which he should be fired as editor of the Journal of Political Economy and denied “access” to students. …

… For the remainder of the commentary:

https://www.unionleader.com/opinion/columnists/george-will-biden-proposes-saddling-an-already-struggling-federal-reserve-with-two-political-activists/article_ca9a95c4-1f73-5077-9a5e-63470a3cfa0c.html

END

Will the Fed hike? Craig Hemke goes through the ramifications

(Craig Hemke)//GATA

Craig Hemke at Sprott Money: To hike or not to hike

Submitted by admin on Tue, 2022-02-01 21:44 Section: Daily Dispatches

By Craig Hemke
Sprott Money, Toronto
Tuesday, February 1, 2022

That is the question. Oh sure, The Fed may attempt to hike the fed funds rate as soon as next month. They may even attempt another hike in April or May. But what happens after that?

Answer that question and you’ll find a timetable for gold prices in 2022.

As February begins we can start to look forward to what the year may have in store for us. In our macrocast for 2022, we wrote about how it will be similar to 2010 and 2019. Both of those years began with the narrative of pending rate hikes and Fed balance sheet reduction, and both of those years ended with the complete opposite of rate cuts and additional quantitative easing.

And now here we are again in 2022. The “markets” and the eight-figure Wall Street sell-side economists all believe that the Fed is about to embark upon an aggressive course of rate hikes. And we’re not just talking about the one or two mentioned above. Instead, these brilliant theoreticians now forecast as many as SEVEN fed funds rate hikes this year. Seven! …

… For the remainder of the analysis:

https://www.sprottmoney.com/blog/To-Hike-or-Not-to-Hike-Craig-Hemke-February-01-2022

END

end

4.OTHER GOLD/SILVER COMMENTARIES

END

5.OTHER COMMODITIES/COTTON

6.CRYPTOCURRENCIES

Steve Brown..

end

Your early currency/gold and silver pricing/Asian and European bourse movements/ and interest rate settings WEDNESDAY morning 7:30 AM

ONSHORE YUAN: CLOSED XX

OFFSHORE YUAN: 6.3613

HANG SANG CLOSED

2. Nikkei closed UP 64.65 PTS OR 0.54%

3. Europe stocks ALL GREEN

USA dollar INDEX DOWN TO 95.88/Euro RISES TO 1.1319-

3b Japan 10 YR bond yield: FALLS TO. +.179/ !!!!(Japan buying 100% of bond issuance)/Japanese yen vs usa cross now at 114.25/ THIS IS TROUBLESOME AS BANK OF JAPAN IS RUNNING OUT OF BONDS TO BUY./JAPAN 10 YR YIELD IS NOW TARGETED AT .11%/JAPAN LOSING CONTROL OF THEIR BOND MARKET//

3c Nikkei now ABOVE 17,000

3d USA/Yen rate now well below the important 120 barrier this morning

3e WTI:: 88.31 and Brent: 89.17–

3f Gold UP /JAPANESE Yen UP CHINESE YUAN: ON -SHORE CLOSED XX// OFF- SHORE UP

3g Japan is to buy the equivalent of 108 billion uSA dollars worth of bond per month or $1.3 trillion. Japan’s GDP equals 5 trillion usa./“HELICOPTER MONEY” OFF THE TABLE FOR NOW /REVERSE OPERATION TWIST ON THE BONDS: PURCHASE OF LONG BONDS AND SELLING THE SHORT END

Japan to buy 100% of all new Japanese debt and by 2018 they will have 25% of all Japanese debt. Fifty percent of Japanese budget financed with debt.

3h Oil UP for WTI and UP FOR Brent this morning

3i European bond buying continues to push yields lower on all fronts in the EMU. German 10yr bund RISES TO +.0.038%/Italian 10 Yr bond yield RISES to 1.42% /SPAIN 10 YR BOND YIELD RISES TO 0.78%…ITALIAN 10 YR BOND YIELD/GERMAN BUND: 1.46: DANGEROUS FOR THE ITALIAN BANKING SYSTEM

3j Greek 10 year bond yield RISES TO : 1.91

3k Gold at $1804.35 silver at: 22.85 7 am est) SILVER NEXT RESISTANCE LEVEL AT $30.00

3l USA vs Russian rouble;// Russian rouble UP 105/100 in roubles/dollar AT 75.85

3m oil into the 88 dollar handle for WTI and 89 handle for Brent/

3n Higher foreign deposits out of China sees huge risk of outflows and a currency depreciation. This can spell financial disaster for the rest of the world/

JAPAN ON JAN 29.2016 INITIATES NIRP. THIS MORNING THEY SIGNAL THEY MAY END NIRP. TODAY THE USA/YEN TRADES TO 114.25 DESTROYING JAPANESE CITIZENS WITH HIGHER FOOD INFLATION

30 SNB (Swiss National Bank) still intervening again in the markets driving down the FRANC. It is not working: USA/SF this morning .9184– as the Swiss Franc is still rising against most currencies. Euro vs SF 1.0396 well above the floor set by the Swiss Finance Minister. Thomas Jordan, chief of the Swiss National Bank continues to purchase euros trying to lower value of the Swiss Franc.

USA 10 YR BOND YIELD: 1.778 DOWN 2 BASIS PTS

USA 30 YR BOND YIELD: 2.094 DOWN 2 BASIS PTS

USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 13.48

Futures, Global Markets Soar In Biggest 4-Day Rally Since November 2020

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 08:12 AM

US equity futures and global stocks from Europe to Asia were headed for the biggest four-day rally since November 2020, supercharged by blockbuster earnings AMD and Google, which hit an all time high overnight after rising 9%. As of 745am, Emini S&P futures traded at session highs, up 40 points or 0.9%…

… while Nasdaq futures were up roughly double, some 252 point to 15,247 or 1.7% higher…

… and the Dow was roughly flat. Oil fluctuated around a seven-year high as OPEC+ agreed on just a 400Kb/d increase in output, as expected to discuss increased supplies. Treasury yields, the dollar and Bitcoin were marginally lower.

MSCI’s index of world stocks added 0.4% on Wednesday, taking its four-day increase to 4.6%. While Alphabet and AMD exploded higher on stellar earnings, with GOOGL reversing all the losses from the recent tech tumble and trading at all time highs, PayPal was a rare disappointment and plunged after missing analysts’ forecasts. Here are some of the biggest U.S. movers today:

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) shares are up 2% after the chipmaker reported fourth-quarter results that beat expectations and gave an outlook that is seen as strong.
Arbutus Biopharma (ABUS) shares gain 4% after Jefferies upgrades to buy from hold, citing “lots of long-term potential” from the company’s Hepatitis B portfolio.
Brinker (EAT) shares jump 5% after the Chili’s parent reported adjusted earnings per share for the second quarter that beat the highest analyst estimate.
Capri Holdings (CPRI) climbs as much as 2.3% after the accessories company boosted its forecasts for the full year, and topped average analyst estimates.
Dynatrace (DT) shares are down 3% after the infrastructure software company reported its third- quarter results and gave a forecast.
Electronic Arts (EA) announced results with adjusted revenue results for its third quarter that missed analysts’ expectations, and a forecast for the metric in the fourth quarter also missed consensus. Analysts pointed to the video-game maker’s Battlefield 2042 disappointment, and shares are down by 2%.
General Motors (GM) shares are up 2.5% after the automaker reported adjusted fourth- quarter earnings that beat expectations and gave an outlook.
MicroStrategy (MSTR) shares are down 1% after the software maker reported fourth-quarter results. Analysts wrote that the results show improved software growth.
PayPal (PYPL) share sink 2% after the company said spending growth continued to slow in the fourth quarter, prompting a wave of downgrades and price target cuts from analysts including Raymond James, BTIG and Oddo.
Shares of companies that derive revenue from online advertising are climbing in U.S. premarket trading following stronger-than-expected results from Google-parent Alphabet.
Software companies ironSource and Matterport were both initiated with buy ratings at Deutsche Bank, with analyst Bhavin Shah noting their growth potential.
Under Armour (UAA) upgraded to overweight at Morgan Stanley on attractive setup for 2022 relative to peers and after pullback in the apparel maker’s shares since November’s earnings report. Stock up 1%.

“Robust fundamentals should support a resumption of the equity rally, ” said Mark Haefele, chief investment officer of UBS Wealth Management. Haefele expects markets to remain volatile as investors navigate the shift from a high-growth, high-inflation environment to one of more moderate growth and inflation. Meanwhile, none of six Fed officials speaking so far this week have backed the idea of a half-point rate increase in March, a sharp contrast with Street expectations of seven rate hikes in 2022.

Investors have been swinging between nervousness over Federal Reserve tightening and confidence in the economic recovery as they navigate a volatile start to the year. A robust earnings outlook is helping to ease the uncertainty, at least for the moment. However, a wall of worries including stubborn inflation, regulatory risks in China and pandemic flare-ups still lingers in the background.

“Fed tightening is still the path forward,” said Dennis DeBusschere, founder of 22V Research. “But a short term rebound in equities will continue — led by growth and cyclicals — as investors focus on a narrative of ‘peak tightening’ ahead of what is likely to be a weak payroll report.”

Traders also continued to monitor tensions between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine. Western officials say Russia has massed more than 100,000 troops near the Ukraine border. Diplomatic talks have yet to make a breakthrough.

In Europe, the Stoxx Europe 600 Index gained, led by travel and leisure, financials and technology stocks. FTSE MIB and FTSE 100 outperformed at the margin. Novo Nordisk A/S contributed the most to gains in the European benchmark as traders welcomed its 2022 guidance and assurances on the supply of an obesity drug. Vodafone Group Plc. advanced after sales growth beat expectations. Data showing euro-area inflation accelerated to a record sent Germany’s 10-year yield to as high as 0.046%, a level last seen in May 2019.

The moves echoed in the U.S. premarket session where Alphabet and AMD led stocks rising on the strength of earnings. Of the 200 S&P 500 companies that have reported results so far, 80% have met or beaten estimates. Profits are coming in 5.3% above levels predicted.

Earlier in the session, Asian stocks advanced as investors shifted their focus to positive earnings from consumer and technology firms amid dissipating concerns over U.S. monetary-policy tightening. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index jumped as much as 1% as consumer-discretionary and information-technology sectors rose. Japan’s Sony Group and Keyence were among the single largest contributors to the day’s advance. Sony raised its fiscal-year forecast on Wednesday, while Keyence posted record 3Q operating profit Tuesday. Futures on the Nasdaq 100 rose after upbeat earnings from Google-parent Alphabet, which lifted sentiment for its Asian peers. The internet giant reported 4Q sales and profit that topped analysts’ projections, showing the resilience of its advertising business in the face of major economic upheaval as the pandemic persists. “Buying continues to return to growth stocks,” said Naoki Fujiwara, chief fund manager at Shinkin Asset Management. Following the recent selloff and solid results from heavyweights like Apple and Google, “people seem to realize these stocks will be alright after all, with their valuations now having been adjusted downwards.” The Asian stock benchmark is extending its four-day gain to about 3.2%, and poised for its best such performance since August. The rally was preceded by a stock rout that sent the measure down by more than 4% in January on concern over steeper and faster-than-expected rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve. Many markets in Asiaremain shut for the Lunar New Year holidays including China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.

Japanese equities rose, with the Topix capping its best four-day gain since May 2021, amid an extended global equity rally. Electronics and auto makers were the biggest boosts to the Topix, which climbed 2.1%, pushing its four-day advance to 5.1%. Tokyo Electron and Shin-Etsu Chemical were the largest contributors to a 1.7% rise in the Nikkei 225 on Wednesday. “Earnings have been good,” said Naoki Fujiwara, chief fund manager at Shinkin Asset Management. “Growth stocks were subject to selloffs due to worry over faster-than-expected U.S. rate hikes, but following Apple’s earnings release people seem to realize these stocks will be alright after all.”

Indian stocks rose, adding to gains in the previous two sessions, on optimism among investors that the government’s budget proposal of higher capital spending will drive growth in Asia’s third-largest economy. Shares of lenders helped the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex rise 1.2% to 59,558.33 in Mumbai — its highest level in two weeks and its biggest three-day gain in nearly a year. The NSE Nifty 50 Index also advanced by a similar magnitude. HDFC Bank Ltd. rose 2.3% and was the biggest boost for the Sensex. All 19 sectoral gauges compiled by BSE Ltd. were in the green, headed by a measure of bank stocks. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed boosting capital spending by 35% to 7.5 trillion rupees ($100 billion) in the financial year that starts in April. The government also pushed for infrastructure-led growth with spending centered around sectors like roads, rail, logistics and energy. “Focus on higher infrastructure spend has a strong multiplier effect on business activities and job creation,” Mitul Shah, head of research at Reliance Securities Ltd., said in a note. “Preference to higher growth over fiscal discipline was cheered by the market participants.”

Australian stocks advanced as materials, banks gained. The S&P/ASX 200 index rose 1.2% to close at 7,087.70, supported by miners and banks. All sectors gained, except for utilities and tech. Champion Iron was the top performer, jumping to its highest since early August. Block was among the worst performers, falling with other payments shares after PayPal’s earnings results. In New Zealand, the S&P/NZX 50 index rose 1.9% to 12,289.64.

Elsewhere, Australia’s central bank governor said the monetary authority will do what is necessary to maintain low and stable inflation, indicating that policy makers will act should prices accelerate too sharply.

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell a third consecutive day and the greenback was steady to weaker against its Group-of-10 peers as they continued to rebound after last week’s sell-off. The yen and Scandinavian currencies led G-10 gains while the euro also climbed, boosted by the higher-than forecast euro-zone inflation data. The pound was also higher against the dollar. Front-end volatility in the major currencies turned modestly bid Wednesday ahead of meetings of the ECB and the BOE as well as the U.S. payrolls report. Australia’s bonds underperformed as Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe’s comments did little to ease market expectations for a rate hike later this year. New Zealand bonds gained despite a record low unemployment rate.

In rates, Treasuries were steady, with front-end marginally underperforming as German 2-year yields extend climb after hot preliminary euro-zone inflation print for January. U.S. stock futures trade above Tuesday’s high. Treasuries slightly cheaper across front-end, richer in long- end, all within 1bp of Tuesday’s close; 10-year ~1.785% outperforms German counterpart by ~0.5bp. Focal points for U.S. session include ADP employment and quarterly refunding announcement. In front-end 2-year German yields cheapen by 1.2bp, while 5s30s curve flattens sharply following block trades, reaching lowest level since March 2020.

Treasury quarterly refunding announcement at 8:30am ET reveals size of next week’s 3-, 10- and 30-year new issues and expected sizes for all coupon auctions (including TIPS) in February, March and April. Half of the 24 primary dealers expect nominal coupon auction sizes to be cut by the same amounts as last time; the other half expect smaller cuts to at least one tenor in anticipation that Fed balance-sheet reduction will necessitate larger auction sizes in the future.

In commodities, crude futures are choppy ahead of today’s OPEC+ gathering. WTI holds above $88, Brent trades either side of $89. LME copper rises 1.2%, outperforming in the base metals complex. Spot gold climbs back above $1,800/oz

To the day ahead now, and data releases include the Euro Area flash CPI reading for January, whilst in the US there’s also the ADP’s report of private payrolls for January. From central banks, we’ll hear from Bank of Canada Governor Macklem. Finally, earnings releases include Alphabet, Meta, AbbVie, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Qualcomm, T-Mobile US and Spotify

Market Snapshot

S&P 500 futures up 0.6% to 4,563.50
STOXX Europe 600 up 0.6% to 477.63
MXAP up 1.0% to 187.36
MXAPJ up 0.4% to 609.67
Nikkei up 1.7% to 27,533.60
Topix up 2.1% to 1,936.56
Hang Seng Index up 1.1% to 23,802.26
Shanghai Composite down 1.0% to 3,361.44
Sensex up 1.1% to 59,517.82
Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 1.2% to 7,087.69
Kospi up 1.9% to 2,663.34
Brent Futures up 0.5% to $89.64/bbl
Gold spot little changed at $1,800.33
U.S. Dollar Index down 0.20% to 96.20
German 10Y yield little changed at 0.02%
Euro little changed at $1.1281

Top Overnight News from Bloomberg

In contrast to tightening efforts by the Fed and BOE that have prompted investors to bet on such moves in the euro zone, ECB Governing Council members are focusing on potential “normalizing” as they ponder an inflation outlook close to their 2% goal
U.K. currency and bond markets are testing levels last breached before the Brexit referendum as the Bank of England looks poised to leave the ECB in the dust by tightening monetary policy again this week
U.K. retailers raised their prices at the fastest pace in more than nine years in January, passing on soaring costs to consumers already grappling with a cost-of- living squeeze, a survey by the British Retail Consortium showed
Vladimir Putin repeated his claim that it’s the U.S. and NATO stoking security tensions over Ukraine, while suggesting further talks could help defuse them
Boris Johnson’s latest effort to get the British public’s attention back onto his policy plans was drowned out on Wednesday by more reports of lockdown parties at 10 Downing Street
A stronger zloty would amplify the impact of Polish interest-rate increases, central bank Governor Adam Glapinski said, pledging to do whatever it takes to drive down spiraling inflation
If women invested at the same rate as men, the global fund management industry could have had more than $3 trillion in additional cash to allocate last year, according to a new study
Citigroup Inc. offered a glimpse of the conditions facing India’s debt when it withdrew a buy call within a day of recommending purchases. Yields surged the most in almost two years Tuesday after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman unveiled a bigger-than-anticipated borrowing plan without signaling who could buy the paper
Ten million dollars, $15 million, $25 million, more: Big money is back on Wall Street. Not since the late 2000s, when lavish bonuses rained down before and after federal bailouts, have pay packages at U.S. investment banks swelled as much as they have right now

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

Asian stocks were positive as the region took impetus from Wall St’s best 3-day performance since 2020. ASX 200 (+1.2%) was led higher by outperformance in the commodity related sectors and after RBA Governor Lowe stuck to his dovish message that the board is prepared to be patient and the end of QE does not imply an imminent hike. Nikkei 225 (+1.7%) climbed above 27,500 amid a predominantly weaker currency and as Japan continues to hold off on considering a state of emergency.

Top Asian News

HSBC Raises 2022 Bund Yield Call to -0.30%; Still -0.50% in 2023
Morgan Stanley Tie Up Helps MUFG Lead Profit at Japan Banks
Asia Stocks Head for Best Four-Day Gain Since August on Earnings
Novo Tries to Catch Up With Booming Demand for Obesity Drug

European bourses are firmer benefitting from after-market US updates amid a number of European earnings releases including Novartis (-2.5%) weighing on the SMI/Healthcare names. Sectors are predominantly in the green with Tech outperforming post-Google while Energy names pull-back slightly from yesterday’s gains. US futures are bolstered across the board as the NQ outperforms given Google’s +10.5% gains in the premarket and its heavyweight status in the index; note, Meta and Amazon earnings are due Wednesday and Thursday respectively. Alphabet Inc (GOOGL) – Q4 earnings beat, approved 20-for-1 stock split via special dividend. EPS 30.69 (exp. 27.32), revenue 75.33bln (exp. 72.13bln). Google Services revenue USD 69.40bln (exp. 66.64bln), advertising revenue USD 61.24bln (exp. 58.2bln, vs 46.2bln Y/Y), Google Cloud revenue USD 5.54bln (exp. 5.42 bln), Google Cloud operating loss USD 890mln (exp. loss 820.9mln) (Newsquawk). CFO said slower YouTube ad sales reflected lapping strong brand sales a year ago, FX expected to be a headwind this year, expects a meaningful increase in capex this year.

Top European News

Julius Baer Falls; Results May Spur Earnings Downgrades for Citi
Europe Gas Edges Higher as Russia Keeps Market Guessing on Flows
HSBC Raises 2022 Bund Yield Call to -0.30%; Still -0.50% in 2023
Kepler Sees Carrefour Acquired in 2022, ‘French Solution’ Likely

In FX:

Greenback continues to soften on repositioning and a paring of 50bp Fed liftoff bets.
Euro pops as Eurozone inflation exceeds expectations by a significant margin in advance of the ECB.
Kiwi capped by mostly sub-consensus NZ labour and wage metrics, bar a record low jobless rate.
Sterling underpinned ahead of anticipated BoE rate hike and as UK shop prices rise at the fastest pace in a decade

In commodities:

Crude benchmarks are steady near the unchanged mark, but within reach of recent peaks, in a continuation of the contained APAC trade pre-OPEC+.
Newsflow has been minimal but focused on Geopols amid marginally more positive commentary out of the Kremlin.
Spot gold/silver remain within yesterday’s parameters and as such the cluster of DMAs for the yellow metal around USD 1800/oz are still in-play.
US Private Inventory Data (bbls): Crude -1.6mln (exp. +1.5mln), Cushing -1.0mln, Gasoline +5.8mln (exp. +1. 6mln), Distillates -2.5mln (exp. -1.5mln)
Texas Governor Abbott said that no one can guarantee there won’t be power outages amid winter storms, according to Axios.

US Event Calendar

7am: Jan. MBA Mortgage Applications, prior -7.1%
8:15am: Jan. ADP Employment Change, est. 184,000, prior 807,000

DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

I was back in my home office yesterday after knee surgery and was hooked up to a machine that pumps ice around my knee and compresses it every couple of minutes. Given I also have a bad back, I’ve ordered an electric massage heat pad that arrives today. So at some point today I’m going to have the mains help pump ice around my knee and also heat in my back. The ESG rating of my body is going to plummet and the bid-offer of my high/low skin temperatures is going to be wild.

The wild markets of the last week were put to one side yesterday even after stronger than expected US data releases led to renewed expectations that the Fed would not be deterred from hiking rates in order to clamp down on inflation. In turn, sovereign bonds gave up their gains from the European morning and US equities got the month off to a decent start after yet another late rally. Alphabet’s strong earnings after the bell cemented this. Meanwhile, with commodities continuing their relentless march higher, there was no sign of relief from inflationary pressures there either. The Euro Area flash CPI comes out this morning and will make for interesting reading ahead of the ECB meeting tomorrow. The strong regional prints from earlier this week mean that this will not fall anywhere near as much as hoped in January.

Reviewing the last 24 hours now and the S&P 500 spent most of the day little changed before making another late-day rally to finish +0.69% higher, while the Vix index of volatility continued to fall, dropping another -2.86pts. Within the S&P energy was the standout sector yet again, increasing +3.54%, driven by a very strong earnings release from ExxonMobil, which had its biggest profits in nearly a decade. The S&P 500 energy sector is now +23.18% year-to-date. The next closest sector is financials at +1.35%, while every other sector is in the red along with the broader index.

Back to yesterday, and other cyclical sectors performed well, while defensive sectors lagged. Outside of energy, four other S&P 500 sectors wound up advancing more than 1%: materials (+1.67%), financials (+1.43%), industrials (+1.42%), and communications (+1.28%). Mega-cap and technology stocks also performed well, with the FANG+ Index gaining +1.13% and the NASDAQ climbing +0.75%. After a slow start to the year, mega-cap shares have done well the last three days, with FANG+ gaining a massive +10.24%. Small-caps also rode the wave higher, with the Russell 2000 outperforming other major US indices, climbing +1.10%. European equities performed even better, although much of that reflected a catch-up to the late rally in the previous US session, with the STOXX 600 up +1.28%.

After the close Alphabet was the latest mega-cap to report earnings, with both earnings and revenue estimates beating consensus expectations. They also announced a 20-for-1 stock split. All this drove shares +8.56% higher in after-hours trading. We’re now about halfway through the Q4 equity earnings season, and Binky and team have wrapped up where we stand so far (link here). Earnings beats versus consensus are running above average, as the team expected, but well below the beats from earlier in the recovery. Sales are also beating consensus expectations strongly, though margin beats are drifting back in line with historical averages.

Moving onto the data. One of the more interesting releases yesterday came from the JOLTS job openings numbers for December, which has been very closely watched over recent months as investors seek to understand just how tight the US labour market is. The latest numbers showed that it remains very tight indeed, with the total number of job openings unexpectedly rising in December to 10.925m (vs. 10.3m expected), whilst the quits rate (the number voluntarily quitting their jobs) came in at 2.9%, which is just shy of the record 3.0% reading in September and November but still very elevated historically. Other measures similarly pointed towards a tight labour market, including the ratio of job openings per unemployed person, which hit another record high in December.

Alongside that we also had the ISM manufacturing reading for January, and although the headline number was basically in line with expectations at 57.6 (vs. 57.5 expected), the prices paid measure came in some way above consensus at 76.1 (vs. 67.0 expected), thus bringing an end to the last two months of declines. To be fair, that reading is still below the 80+ numbers we had for much of 2021, but the single month jump of +7.9pts on December’s 68.2 reading is actually the biggest monthly gain for the measure in over a year.

With price pressures showing no sign of abating, sovereign bonds sold off once again and yields on 10yr Treasuries were up +1.4bps to 1.79% having been 1.74% at the day’s lows. Nevertheless, for the first time in a week we actually saw the 2s10s curve steepen yesterday, with a +2.8bps rise to 62.4bps. Bear in mind for each of the last 3 weeks, the 2s10s curve has flattened on 4 days and only steepened on 1, so the direction of travel has been pretty much one way lately. Meanwhile in Europe, sovereign bond yields continued to set fresh milestones ahead of tomorrow’s ECB and Bank of England policy decisions. Yields on 10yr bunds had moved back into negative territory in the European morning, but the afternoon selloff saw them close up another +2.6ps at 0.03%, marking their highest closing level since April 2019. At the same time, yields on 10yr OATs (+2.6bps) also closed at their highest level since March 2019.

While we’re on the topic of inflationary pressures, it’s worth noting that commodity prices more broadly are showing no signs of abating and are instead continuing to trend higher. In fact, Bloomberg’s commodity spot index was up another +0.66% yesterday to a fresh record, and leaves the index up +9.59% on a YTD basis already. Obviously a decent chunk of that is an energy story, but other commodities and agricultural products in particular have seen sizeable gains in recent days, with soybean futures (+2.55%) climbing to their highest level since June yesterday. As we’ve previously been discussing, it’ll be much more difficult to get the inflation numbers to move lower if a number of important commodities continue to show sizeable year-on-year gains.

Overnight in Asia, several equity markets remain closed for the Lunar New Year holiday, including China and South Korea. However, the Nikkei (+1.65%) is trading higher this morning, extending its gains into a 4th consecutive session. Elsewhere, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 (+1.24%) is trading in the green after the RBA Governor Philip Lowe watered down speculation of imminent rate hike in his speech today. Lowe reiterated that the end of money printing does not mean the central bank will swiftly move on interest rates while acknowledging that inflation has risen faster than the RBA had expected. Looking ahead, US stock futures are trading higher with contracts on the Nasdaq 100 (+1.07%) higher following strong earnings number from Alphabet, whilst S&P 500 futures are up +0.52%.

In terms of yesterday’s other data, German unemployment fell by a much bigger than expected -48k in January (vs. -6k expected), which is the biggest decline since August. That pushed the unemployment rate down to a post-pandemic low of 5.1% (vs. 5.2% expected). Separately, the Euro Area unemployment rate in December fell to 7.0% (vs. 7.1% expected), which is the lowest since the formation of the single currency, but French inflation only subsided to 3.3% in January on the EU-harmonised measure (vs. 2.9% expected), which follows the upside surprise in Germany the previous day. Otherwise, the final manufacturing PMIs for January were mixed relative to the flash readings we already had. The Euro Area number came in at 58.7 (vs. flash 59.0), but UK’s was revised up to 57.3 (vs. flash 56.9).

3. ASIAN AFFAIRS

i)WEDNESDAY MORNING// TUESDAY NIGHT

3 a./NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA

///NORTH KOREA

3B JAPAN

end

3c CHINA

CHINA

END

CHINA

end

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

UK/VACCINE MANDATE

Vaccine mandate now scrapped for health and care home workers.

(Zhou/EpochTimes)

England Halts Vaccine Mandates For Health And Care Home Workers

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 03:30 AM

Authored by Lily Zhou via The Epoch Times,

England’s CCP virus vaccine mandates for health care and care home workers are set to be scrapped, subject to consultation and parliamentary approval, the UK’s Health Secretary Sajid Javid said on Monday.

Britain’s Health Secretary Sajid Javid arrives for a cabinet meeting at Number 10 Downing Street in London on Jan. 25, 2022. (Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images)

The latest government U-turn came just three days before the deadline by which National Health Service (NHS) and other health care workers would have to get their first doses to avoid redeployment or termination.

The deadline will no longer apply while the government carries out a two-week consultation on the proposed policy reversal before putting a motion to Parliament for approval.

However, the vote in Parliament could be a formality as the main opposition Labour Party – which supported the mandates – said it will also support the government on their reversal.

In the previous consultation on mandating the vaccines for older adult care homes, 57 percent of the respondents opposed the proposal, while 65 percent of those responding to the consultation on extending the mandate to the NHS and wider social care sector were against the mandate (pdf). In both proposals, the responses from the sectors were mixed, while the service users—who the mandates aimed to protect—mostly opposed them.

The policy reversal means patient-facing NHS and other health and social care staff who choose not to take the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus vaccines will not have to be redeployed or sacked from April 1.

However, Javid insisted that health care workers have a “professional duty” to take the vaccines, saying those “who would not do the responsible thing and choose to remain unvaccinated” were “choosing to walk away from their jobs in health and care.”

Javid told MPs that he had asked the NHS to “review its policies on the hiring of new staff and the deployment of existing staff, taking into account their vaccination status,” and ordered a consultation on updating the Code of Practice for England’s health care and social care providers registered with the Care Quality Commission.

He also asked health regulators to “urgently review current guidance” on vaccinations to “emphasise their professional responsibilities in this area.”

According to NHS weekly data, by Jan. 23, around 5 percent (77,591) of England’s NHS staff members and 18 percent (193,354) of social care workers had not received any CCP virus vaccines.

Javid said the government estimates 19,300 workers have already lost their jobs due to the care home vaccine mandate, which came into effect in November 2021. These workers are now free to reapply to their old jobs, but the health secretary declined to offer them continuity of service and pension contributions, saying it was “their choice” to leave their jobs rather than “do the professional thing” and get vaccinated.

A nurse administers a CCP virus vaccine to a health and care staff member at the NHS Louisa Jordan Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland, on Jan. 23, 2021. (Jane Barlow/PA)

Javid said the government “makes no apology” for proposing the mandates when the Delta variant of the CCP virus was dominant, arguing it was the right policy at the time as “the weight of clinical evidence in favour of vaccination as a condition of deployment outweighed the risks to the workforce.”

He said the policy reversal is due to two new factors: England’s population is “now better protected against hospitalisation from COVID-19,” because of both the widespread natural immunity from the highly infectious Omicron variant and the vaccination programme, and that the Omicron variant, which currently dominates in England, “is intrinsically less severe.”

But he refused to rule out mandating vaccination in the future, saying the government “will always listen to the evidence, be guided by the evidence as it has been today.”

Jeremy Hunt, former health secretary and current chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, said he’s concerned the U-turn will bring uncertainty to potential future vaccine mandates such as with flu vaccines, while other MPs spoke to support the withdrawal of the mandates.

Several MPs criticised the language Javid used to describe health workers who choose not to be vaccinated, saying it was a “disgrace” and doesn’t show respect to people’s bodily autonomy.

Compared to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, England has the fewest legal CCP virus restrictions on the general public, but is the only UK nation that has mandated the CCP virus vaccines in the health sector.

end

GERMANY/EU

Strange indeed! Germany is shuttering nuclear power just when the EU needs it the most

(zerohedge)

Germany Is Shuttering Nuclear Power Just When The EU Needs It The Most

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 04:15 AM

Despite some countries embracing nuclear power as the obvious solution to the green energy problem that it is over the last 12 months, Europe is still shuttering reactors at a time when it needs them most.

With Europe is a massive energy crisis, what remains of a nuclear industry in Germany is about to be taken offline. This comes as “wholesale power prices are more than four times what they were at the start of the coronavirus pandemic,” Bloomberg reported this week.

This comes despite the fact that the EU was slated to label uranium “green” this year. Meanwhile, as the rest of the world moves on to pragmatic solutions, government’s across the EU are now facing massive energy bills and a supply crunch.

China, for example, is embracing nuclear in an attempt to try and clean up its air quality. Russia is also embracing new stations and has more than 20 reactors confirmed or planned, Bloomberg wrote. Japan called nuclear “key” to its decarbonization goals late last year.

Peter Osbaldstone, research director for power and renewables at Wood Mackenzie Group Ltd. in the U.K., told Bloomberg: “I don’t think we’re ever going to see consensus across Europe with regards to the continued running of existing assets, let alone the construction of new ones. It’s such a massive polarizer of opinions that national energy policy is required in strength over a sustained period to support new nuclear investment.”

Macron in France has also been promising an “atomic renaissance” in the coming years. Poland and the Netherlands have also adopted the idea of adding more nuclear capacity.

But Belgium and Spain are following in Germany’s lead and abandoning the power, with worries about another Fukushima continuing to echo, despite the fact that nuclear has been proven to be extremely reliable and safe.

Chris Gadomski, head of nuclear research at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, commented: “Despite growing international calls to address climate change and a growing number of national net-zero pledges, the global nuclear industry remains largely on its heels.”

And the EU is still bickering over the “sustainable” label for nuclear. Vince Zabielski, partner at New York-based law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP said: “It comes down to politics. Everything political ebbs and flows, but when the lights start going off people have a completely different perspective.”

Austria isn’t helping the matter, and has threatened to sue the European Commission over attempts to label atomic energy as green, Bloomberg writes.

Investment in nuclear would need to be about $568 billion over the next 30 years to meet emissions targets, Bloomberg writes.

Elina Brutschin at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis said: “Nuclear power is a very long-term investment and investors need some kind of guarantee that it will generate a payoff.”

Manuel Koehler, managing director of Aurora Energy Research Ltd., added: “Other countries don’t have this strong political background that goes back to three decades of anti-nuclear protests.”

Osbaldstone concluded: “Any investment decisions you make now aren’t going to come to fruition until the 2030s. Nuclear isn’t an answer to the current energy crisis.”

END

GERMANY/CYBERATTACK

Critical German Oil Network Hit With Cyberattack Amid Rising US-Russian Tensions

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 11:45 AM

The energy crisis surrounding Europe worsened as Germany’s fuel-supply network was hit with a cyberattack on Jan. 29. The incident follows mounting tensions between the US and Russia over Ukraine and the possibility Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany could be axed if Russia invades Kyiv.

The US has insisted it would block the pipeline opening upon a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Western governments and their corporate media counterparts aren’t helping the situation as they drum up the prospects for conflict between Russia and the US. This week, it just so happened a cyberattack partially paralyzed Germany’s most critical fuel network as the geopolitical turmoil worsened in the region.

S&P Global Platts reports the attack targeted energy company Mabanaft Group and storage company Oiltanking Group. Disruptions to some oil products in Germany, Europe’s biggest oil consumer, are being reported.

Oiltanking declared force majeure at eleven terminals in Germany and was operating at “limited capacity.”

“All parties continue to work to restore operations to normal in all our terminals as soon as possible,” both companies said in a joint press release.

Traders told S&P Global Platts the cyberattack might last for upwards of two weeks as the companies are expected to “just pay off the blackmailers.”

The head of Germany’s IT security system called the incident serious “but not grave.”

Bloomberg reports the entirety of the damage is not yet known but serves as a reminder of how cybercriminals have been attacking critical infrastructure networks in recent years. A similar incident occurred last May when hackers forced the US’ largest fuel pipeline network, owned by Colonial Pipeline Co., down, forcing it to pay millions in ransomware. The disruption resulted in shortages and price spikes at gas stations across the US’s Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast parts.

“All parties continue to work to restore operations to normal in all our terminals as soon as possible,” Mabanaft said. There was no communication from the company on when the cyber attack would be resolved.

“Given the potential fragility of the fuel supply chain — as highlighted by recent shortages in the UK — disruptive cyber attacks can cause widespread disruption for consumers and businesses,” Huntsman Security Head of Product Management Piers Wilson said.

“With luck the attack on Oiltanking won’t see widespread disruption in Germany, but it must be seen as a wake-up call to organizations that still are not 100% confident in their own and their partners’ cyber defenses,” Wilson said.

The cyberattack on Germany’s oil network comes as the US and its European allies are readying sanctions against Russia if it invades Ukraine. Further, Germany is experiencing an energy crisis as it phases out fossil fuel power plants and nuclear ones for unreliable renewables.

So far, the Russians have yet to be blamed for the cyberattack.

END

Euro Area Inflation Unexpectedly Hits Record High One Day Ahead Of ECB Decision

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 12:48 PM

Euro area inflation surprised markets on Wednesday, coming in far hotter than expected and rising to a new record high, piling even more pressure on the ECB’s Christine Lagarde to do something when it makes its announcement tomorrow, instead of just pretending Europe’s inflation is some bizarre transitory outlier that will magically normalize this year.

The cost of living for the 16 nations that share the euro currency rose 19bps to 5.1% in January, despite expectations for a sharp drop to 4.4% from December’s (previous record) 5.0%. Core inflation which excludes energy, food, alcohol and tobacco fell 28bps to 2.34, just off their recent all-time highs. Energy inflation and food, alcohol, and tobacco inflation increased more than expected.

The breakdown by main expenditure categories in the Euro area showed that services inflation was stable at 2.4%, and non-energy industrial goods inflation fell 0.6pp to 2.3%. Of the non-core components, energy inflation rose 2.7pp to 28.6%, while food, alcohol and tobacco inflation rose 0.4pp to 3.6%.

The consensus expected both numbers to decline due to technical reasons. As Nordea explains, the dramatic change in weights inside the consumption basket in January 2021 and the base effect from a temporary VAT cut in Germany in 2H 2020, which took inflation numbers up in January 2021, were now removed from the annual inflation numbers and were expected to take inflation down from December. However, headline inflation rose marginally and given that the decline was smaller than expected in core inflation it seems that the inflationary pressures are indeed accumulating faster than expected.

One positive surprise came again from energy. The oil price has risen in January and the gas price has continued at highly elevated levels. Thus, energy inflation accelerated to 28.6% and it continued to contribute more than a half of the headline inflation. Although energy inflation is mostly transitory, the longer it lasts the stronger its second-round effects on wages and prices are likely to be.

There are signals that also the wider price pressures are stronger than expected. Although the non-energy industrial goods price inflation showed some signs of cooling off (partly due to temporary reasons), the monthly changes in service prices have continued to be strong. For example, in France the average monthly change in service prices over the past 3 months indicate higher annual numbers are in a pipeline and in Germany, service price inflation in monthly terms actually accelerated further in January, according to our estimates.

In the Southern European countries, wider price pressures are gaining pace gradually. According to the national definition, core inflation increased to 2.4% in Spain and remained unchanged at 1.5% in Italy.

Looking ahead, Goldman writes that having updated its core and headline inflation forecast – which completely missed the bounce in headline prices this month – the bank now expects both to peak in March of this year at 2.7%yoy and 5.6%yoy respectively. Goldman then expects Euro area core inflation to fall to 1.7%yoy and look for headline inflation of 2.9%yoy in December of this year.

Then again, this won’t be the first time Goldman has been dead wrong in timing the peak of a “transitory” inflation.

In response to the surprisingly high inflation data, the euro jumped to a session high versus the dollar, trading at 1.1309…

… while 10Y Bund yields crossed decisively into the green after trading in negative territory every since April 2019.

The red hot inflation print will make tomorrow’s ECB announcement especially interesting, with markets now pulling forward their estimate for the first rate hike to July:

TRADERS BRING FORWARD BETS ON 10BPS ECB RATE HIKE TO JULY: BBG

As a result, the market will closely watch whether ECB President Christine Lagarde will come out with changes to previous statements that a rate hike is “very unlikely” in 2022, or whether there will be a tweak in the ECB’s assessment over the “transient” nature of the current spike in inflation.

One thing that is certain is that the ECB is set to concentrate on inflation, geopolitical risks, the recent rise in bond yields and its implications for financing conditions, although according to Nordea, “it is too early for the ECB to change its stance on its meeting tomorrow, but the hawks most likely got more ammunition from the January inflation data.”

However, given that the ECB has constantly underestimated inflation lately, it will be interesting to hear Lagarde’s formulation of the ECB’s view of inflation returning to below target next year. The most likely outcome is that the ECB will still retain its baseline view, as it wants to see more data on especially wage developments, but it cannot deny the upside risks. However, even the discussion of upside risks is likely to feature stronger in the monetary policy account than the this week’s communication.

Another key question will be how independent monetary policy can be set in the region, at a time when banks like the U.S. Federal Reserve are entering a forceful tightening cycle.

“Inflation continues to surprise to the upside, the U.S. Fed looks set to raise rates up to six times this year, starting on 16 March,” said Holger Schmieding, a chief economist with Berenberg Bank, in a research note. “Against this backdrop the debate at the European Central Bank will likely become even more controversial than before.”

Another item high on the agenda, according to CNBC, will be the tensions between Russia and Ukraine, including any potential implications.

“If tensions deepen, resulting in disruptions in energy supply to Europe, we expect the ECB to turn increasingly dovish, focusing on the impact of growth and financial stability, despite likely higher energy inflation in the short term,” explained Anatoli Annenkov, an ECB watcher with Societe Generale, in a note.

More broadly, the ECB will probably underscore that it still has no idea what is going on, and will “accept the fact” that there is still significant uncertainty surrounding the inflation outlook.

“There were 17 uses of the word ‘uncertainty’ in the December [ECB] press conference, up from none in October, and the December accounts mentioned ‘exceptionally high uncertainty’ around inflation,” said DB chief economist Mark Wall.

end

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

TURKEY

What a joke: both parties are upset with the number published by statistian chief at 36%. Erdogan fires him(zerohedge)

Erdogan Fires Turkey’s Statistics Chief After Inflation Hits 36%

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 05:45 AM

Turkish ~~dictator~~ president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sacked the head of the state statistics agency, according to a decree published this weekend, after releasing data showing last year’s inflation rate hit a 19-year high of 36.1%.

Sait Erdal Dincer was just the latest in a series of numerous economic dismissals by Erdogan, who has sacked three central bank governors since July 2019, and countless ministers. As AFP notes, Erdogan has railed against high interest rates, which he believes cause inflation, the exact opposition of conventional economic thinking.

Hilariously, the 2021 inflation number published by Dincer angered both the pro-government and opposition camps. The opposition said it was understated, claiming that the real cost of living increases were at least twice as high.

In December, opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu was refused an appointment with Dincer and turned away by security guards when he sought to enter the statistic agency’s headquarters in Ankara. He had accused the agency of “fabricating” the numbers to hide the true impact of the government’s policies and slammed it as “no longer a state institution but a palace institution”, in reference to Erdogan’s presidential complex.

Erdogan meanwhile criticized the statistics agency in private for publishing data that he felt overstated the scale of Turkey’s economic malaise.

Realizing what was coming, Dincer was resigned to his impending fate: “I sit in this office now, tomorrow it will be someone else,” he said in an interview with the business newspaper Dunya earlier this month.

“Never mind who is the chairman. Can you imagine that hundreds of my colleagues could stomach or remain quiet about publishing an inflation rate very different from what they had established?”

“I have a responsibility to 84 million people,” he added.

Erdogan did not explain his decision to appoint Erhan Cetinkaya, who had served as vice-chair of Turkey’s banking regulator, as the new state statistics chief.

“This will just increase concern about the reliability of the data, in addition to major concerns about economic policy settings,” BlueBay Asset Management said in a note to clients. The agency is due to publish January’s inflation data on February 3, and it will likely cost another Erdogan puppet their job.

Also on Saturday, Erdogan appointed a new justice minister, naming former deputy prime minister Bekir Bozdag to replace veteran ruling party member Abdulhamit Gul.

“I have resigned from my duties at the ministry of justice, which I have been serving since July 19, 2017,” Gul wrote on Twitter. “I would like to express my gratitude… for accepting my request,” he added, without explaining his decision.

Ali Babacan, former deputy prime minister who left the ruling AKP party and founded the Deva Party, took to Twitter to vent fury over the changes.

“The justice minister is being replaced, (statistics agency) TUIK chairman is being dismissed before the inflation data is published. Nobody knows why,” he said. “The authoritarian alliance… keeps on harming the country,” he said, referring to the AKP and its nationalist partner MHP.

Another presidential decree published on Saturday urged authorities to prevent the spread of threats stemming from media activities that are incompatible with national and moral values — which was slammed as censorship by observers.

end

HUNGARY/USA/RUSSIA

Orban gets it: After Biden asks Hungary for a troop hosting, Orban gives Biden his answer: he flies to Moscow for marathon meeting with Putin

(zerohedge)

Hungary’s Orbán “Answers” Biden Troop Hosting Request: Flies To Moscow For Marathon Meeting With Putin

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 02:45 AM

Last week the Biden administration approached Hungary to formally request that it host a temporary deployment of US forces aimed at Russia, amid the ongoing Ukraine crisis which has resulted in a flurry of diplomatic activity and ratcheting accusations. The country’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto confirmed days ago it had “received an American request about temporary deployment of troops.”

It appears the White House has received its answer from the ‘wayward’ NATO-member ally, as Viktor Orban was in Moscow on Tuesday where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. They greeted each other as old friends and settled in for a marathon meeting, which the Kremlin said lasted nearly five hours.

Breaking with the Western alliance’s security concerns at this crucial time of a Russian troop build up near Ukraine, Orbán unapologetically said, “I would like to establish during these talks that in this difficult period with energy price hikes, we can enlarge the natural gas quantity that has been agreed in Russian-Hungarian relations.”The two leaders have met more than a dozen times: Kremlin press ofice.

EU officials and Hungary’s political opposition hurled accusations of “treason” over the visit to Moscow at a moment Russia has come under near-universal condemnation in the West. “Viktor Orbán is undermining joint decisions in Brussels by continuing to veto them,” Hungarian MEP Márton Gyöngyösi was quoted as saying after the trip was first announced.

“In the world of diplomacy, the date and place of a high-level meeting, sometimes even the mere fact, has a very important message value,” he added. Orban himself seems to be fully aware of this, apparently using the opportunity to ultimately snub Biden who from the US president’s entry into office has sought to isolate Orban on the world stage. Citing Gyöngyösi further, Euronews writes:

According to the European lawmaker, the fact that Orban is not negotiating and developing a strategy to defend NATO and the EU during this period, but is negotiating with Russia, is “roughly rubbing against a qualified case of treason”.
But Orban says the talks in the Russian capital are necessary to get more cheap gas from Russia.

Upon the Orban-Putin talks wrapping up, a Kremlin statement said the meeting lasted nearly whopping five hours. In a statement translated by Russian media, Putin said, “In spite of all obstacles, the volume of trade increased by 30% over the past 11 months.” He added: “This is a good sign, and large-scale projects are continuing, such as the construction of nuclear power plants.”

Both leaders praised the positive “mutual work” and relationship between the two countries. Orban said, “This is our 13th meeting. That is a rarity. Nearly everyone who was a colleague of mine in the European leadership no longer is. So, you and I have built up 13 years of meaningful memories of the past of Russia and the EU. And, speaking honestly, I’m not planning to leave. There are elections in April, and I’m planning to run in them and win. So, I have a good hunch that you and I will be working together for many more years.”

Further, at a moment much of Western Europe and its ally Washington is charging the Kremlin with seeking to hold the ‘energy weapon’ over Europe to gain Russia’s desired geopolitical outcomes, it appears that Hungary doesn’t have to worry so much.

Putin took the opportunity to again lash out at the West for “ignoring” Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding NATO expansion…

Following the meeting, the following was confirmed:

Putin went on to say that Russia and Hungary had signed long-term contracts that would allow the EU nation to purchase discounted gas from Russia until 2036. He also reported that Hungary currently buys gas five times cheaper than the European market rate. “This is primarily the result of your work,” he told his counterpart.
Orban replied that many in Europe are in fear of an upcoming energy crisis, and that Hungary is grateful for the contract.

Meanwhile, as Western media and officials have been expressing increased concern over the question of whether Putin may be successfully “dividing Europe” and NATO unity, it appears that Hungary is a first example showing that yes, this is precisely what’s happening with the Ukraine crisis 2.0. Germany has of course also featured centrally in this, given its refusal to allow German-made weapons to be transferred to Ukraine forces.

end

Putin correctly states that the USA is trying to goad Russia into war

(zerohedge)

Putin Says US Trying To Goad Russia Into War As Ukraine Ready For Talks “In Any Format”

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 11:02 AM

After for weeks firmly denying that there are any plans in place for a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said the United States is actively trying to goad Russia into an armed conflict with Ukraine. The Russian president suggested this would be used as a pretext to severely isolate Russia both economically and diplomatically on the world stage.

“Their most important task is to contain Russia’s development,” he said of Washington aims. “Ukraine is just an instrument of achieving this goal. It can be done in different ways, such as pulling us into some armed conflict and then forcing their allies in Europe to enact those harsh sanctions against us that are being discussed today in the United States.”Image: dpa/TASS

The Biden administration has lately touted far-reaching sanctions against Putin’s inner circle, oligarchs, energy firms and banks – and has even threatened sanctions on the Russian leader personally. At the same time the Senate is readying a “mother of all sanctions” package. All of these options would be akin to the type of all encompassing US-led measures currently in place which have wrecked Iran’s economy.

Putin further said the US has thus far refused to meet its conditions and take seriously its legitimate security concerns. He stressed Tuesday “that the principal Russian concerns turned out to be ignored.”

“I hope that eventually we will find this solution though it’s not easy, we understand that,” Putin added. “But to talk today about what that will be — I am, of course, not ready to do that.”

On Wednesday, the Biden administration for the first time ordered the deployment of up to 3,000 troops to NATO ‘eastern flank’ countries – including Romania and Poland, aimed at deterring what Washington sees as a potential “imminent” Russian invasion of Ukraine, despite the Ukraine government itself lately downplaying the threat.

Some of the Pentagon’s own statements too have struck a less dire and urgent tone than those of the White House…

Meanwhile, Kiev has continued to press for a diplomatic resolution, and for Moscow to withdraw it’s force build-up from near the border…

“Ukraine is ready to negotiate with Russia in any format to look for a diplomatic solution to a military conflict between our countries that has lasted for eight years already,” the foreign minister said during a press conference for foreign media that was broadcast on Facebook.

Among fears expressed by the Zelensky government is that Western powers would negotiate Ukraine’s fate directly with Russia but without significant Ukrainian input. The Ukrainians have long worried about being sidelined as broader NATO-Russia issues are hashed out.

end

Biden Deploys 3,000 Troops To NATO ‘Eastern Flank’ Countries

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 10:25 AM

The White House has pulled the trigger on a fresh troop deployment which marks the first amid the still ratcheting Russia-Ukraine crisis, days after President Biden announced he would bolster US forces in East European allied countries. Senior defense officials have confirmed that 3,000 American troops have been ordered to depart to Poland, Romania, and Germany – after last month they were placed on “alert” as part of ‘prepare to deploy’ status.

“Mr. Biden is sending roughly 2,000 troops from Fort Bragg, N.C., to Poland and Germany this week and also repositioning about 1,000 troops that are part of a Germany-based infantry Stryker squadron to Romania, on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s eastern flank closest to Russia, the officials said,” according to details in The Wall Street Journal. File image: Fort Bragg’s 82nd Airborne Division

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had reportedly begun intense discussions with European allies last week in preparation for the new deployment, particularly in talks with defense counterparts in Romania, Germany, and Poland. Interestingly, it was also revealed that the administration had approached Hungary, but on Tuesday Viktor Orbán showed up in Moscow to meet with Putin, where to two pledged deepening cooperation and inked a new deal for discounted natural gas delivery.

Critically, as the WSJ notes, the 3,000 newly deployed troops are not authorized to enter Ukraine, at a moment diplomacy and dialogue is still happening between NATO and the Russia, albeit is icy and characterized by continued accusations and counter-accusations:

While a few hundred American military trainers and special operations forces are inside Ukraine, none of the new forces have been authorized to enter the country, and all of the deployments are expected to be temporary, the officials said.

A senior defense official was quoted in the report as saying, “They are trained and equipped for a variety of missions during this period of elevated risk.” The official added,

The deployments also are “meant to deter the threat against the alliance. We are literally willing to put skin in the game.”

And further, after last month’s controversial US Embassy staff reduction, which was met with frustration and anger by Ukraine’s government, which called it “premature” and unnecessary at this point, Washington appears to be concerned over another ‘Afghan evacuation chaos’ scenario in the event of a Russian military offensive on Ukraine.

“Should that be needed, the official said, the troops are unlikely to be sent inside Ukraine to do so and instead would facilitate an evacuation operation by land along the Ukrainian border,” the WSJ writes.

Pentagon says “Mr. Putin continues to add forces” in Western Russia, Belarus, and in Crimea…

At the same time on Wednesday, Ukraine officials are busy reiterating that the current Russian military build up is as yet not enough for the invasion that the West is so worried about. President Zelensky himself has for the past week been stressing that Washington must calm down and not inflate the true nature of the threat.

END

Jets Scrambled To Intercept Russian Bombers Approaching UK

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 12:25 PM

On Wednesday the UK’s military scrambled ‘quick reaction’ fighter jets to intercept a group of at least four Russian military aircraft heading toward Britain off the north of Scotland.

The British jets proceeded to shadow the Russian aircraft near the UK to prevent any breach of Britain’s airspace. A Royal Air Force spokesperson described in a statement, “Quick Reaction Alert Typhoon fighters from RAF Lossiemouth, supported by a Voyager Tanker from RAF Brize Norton, have been launched against unidentified aircraft approaching the UK area of interest.”Illustrative image: AP

“We will not be offering any additional detail on this ongoing operation until complete,” the RAF added.

UK media reports suggested that while such Russian military flights in the region are not uncommon, having occurred since the Cold War era, the military is in a heightened state of awareness given the current climate of ratcheting Russia-NATO tensions over Ukraine.

According to details in the BBC, the “recent incident included RAF Lossiemouth Typhoons intercepting two Russian Tu-142 Bear-F aircraft over the North Sea in March last year.”

“Tu-142 aircraft are used for reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare,” the report continues. “RAF Lossiemouth on Scotland’s north east coast is a base for dedicated quick reaction alert pilots.”

Air traffic monitors described that Russia on Wednesday may have sent 3 bombers total, with the support of 3 tankers and an A-50 AWACS aircraft in the vicinity of Scotland; however, these precise details remain unconfirmed by RAF officials.

end

IRAN/USA

Biden is nuts!!

US & Iran Close To Reaching Nuclear Deal In Vienna, Biden Officials Signal

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 02:25 PM

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

Biden administration officials are signaling that the US and Iran are close to reaching an agreement to revive the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, The New York Times reported on Monday.

The JCPOA negotiations that have been ongoing in Vienna are currently on pause as diplomats have returned to their capitals for consultations. Envoys on all sides have signaled the talks are entering their final stage and that now “political decisions” need to be made.‘Grand Hotel Vienna’ where nuclear talks have been located, via AP.

Even though the Biden administration has maintained a hardline stance towards Iran, US officials are putting the responsibility to revive the JCPOA on Iranian leadership. A senior State Department official told reporters on Monday that if Iran is willing to make the necessary “decisions” quickly, the US can “see a path to a deal.”

The official wouldn’t detail what the major sticking points are between the US and Iran. An Iranian official said Monday that there are still “significant issues” regarding the removal of sanctions to resolve. Iran is also seeking guarantees that the US won’t withdraw from the deal again.

According to NBC:

The U.S., Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia, which are taking part in the negotiations, “are united on this notion that we have little time, that tough decisions need to be made and now’s the time to make them,” the senior State Department official said.

“This is the message that our European partners in particular left the Iranian delegation in Vienna with last Friday,” the official added.

If President Biden decides to give Iran the necessary sanctions relief to revive the JCPOA, he will come under a significant amount of political pressure. Virtually every Republican and some hawkish Democrats are against the deal. But the State Department official said Biden is willing “to make the political decisions necessary to achieve that goal.”

The US stance on the talks is more positive than it has been, but Biden officials are still warning that time is running out on the negotiations. The US claims that the JCPOA will no longer be a viable deal after a certain point, but there are no real time constraints since Iran can reduce its nuclear activity at any point.

UKRAINE/RUSSIA/USA/ EU/UK/NATO

end

6// GLOBAL COVID ISSUES/VACCINE MANDATE ISSUES/

CORONAVIRUS/UPDATE/VACCINE MANDATE

CANADA//QUEBEC

Quebec Scraps Planned Tax On Unvaccinated Residents Amid Growing Backlash

TUESDAY, FEB 01, 2022 – 07:20 PM

Perhaps seeing the massive response to the Canadian truckers’ “Freedom Convoy” this weekend – and, more importantly, their prime ministers’ cowering response before he conveniently tested positive for COVID himself just weeks after receiving his booster – was enough to make the provincial government in Quebec rethink its plans to tax any adult who refuses the vaccine.

Plans for the “health tax” have reportedly been scrapped, according to Francois Legault, the premier of the French-speaking province, who made the announcement during a news conference earlier on Tuesday. Even Legault acknowledged that the planned tax had “deeply divided Quebecers.”

“Right now we have to build bridges,” he added. “To move Quebec forward in a calm social climate, I am announcing that the government will not introduce this bill on the health contribution.”

In early January, Legault had announced plans to tax residents who had not yet taken the COVID vaccine, citing a “burden” they were placing on the province’s health-care networks.

“Those who refuse to receive their first dose in the coming weeks will have to pay a new health contribution,” Legault said at the time. “I know the situation is tough, but we can get through this together. We need to focus our efforts on two things: Getting the first, second, and third doses of vaccine and reducing our contacts, especially with older people.”

As a reminder, Quebec has faced levels of oppression and encroachment on personal liberty that are unmatched anywhere outside of China. /p>

Last week, Quebec’s Health Ministry required “anyone without a vaccination passport must be accompanied at all times by a store employee and cannot purchase products other than those related to the pharmaceutical service they are receiving.”

While MSM reports didn’t mention them until lower in the story, it’s clear the reaction to the Canadian truckers, who held a “Freedom rally” in Ottawa over the weekend, likely contributed to the governor’s decision.

Of course, public opinion polling has shown that a majority of Canadians want all COVID restrictions removed, as the Epoch Times has reported.

Meanwhile, RCMP units have reportedly been called in to arrest truckers blocking the border between the US and Canada in Alberta, according to the CBC. Police are reportedly moving in ready to make arrests and seize equipment.

Update (1600ET): The RCMP has reportedly started with “enforcement actions

Although some local towing companies have reportedly refused service.

Monday’s announcement marked the second time the Quebec government has walked back public health measures meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus. It also nixed compulsory inoculations for all health care workers last year fearing it would lead to thousands of nurses quitting their jobs, worsening an already severe worker shortage in the sector.

END

The convoys created because of vaccine mandates have created the first mess: 150 meat trucks stranded at USA Canada border.

(zerohedge)

150 Meat Trucks Stranded At US-Canada Border As Protests Continue

TUESDAY, FEB 01, 2022 – 09:55 PM

The U.S. is Canada’s largest export buyer for beef and Canada’s largest importer supplier. Any disruption to the meat trade between both countries would have severe consequences for meat processors in Canada and consumers in the US.

Days after the “Freedom Convoy” of truckers protesting vaccine mandates in Ottawa, the country’s capital, protests are spreading to US-Canadian border crossings and furthering logistical headaches.

Bloomberg reports 150 trucks packed with beef, bound for the US, are stuck in a traffic jam at the border at Coutts, Alberta, the Canadian Meat Council said. Since the weekend, a convoy of truckers has slowed processing times between Alberta and Montana.

We reported as of Monday, more than 100 truckers blocked the US-Canadian border between Alberta and Montana.

On Sunday, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney called for an end to the blockade, stating: “Canadians have a democratic right to engage in lawful protests. I urge those involved in this truck convoy protest to do so as safely as possible, and not to create road hazards that could lead to accidents or unsafe conditions for other drivers.”

“It is not yet clear what the provincial or federal government is doing to facilitate a resolution. The longer this takes, it will cause more supply chain issues and this will affect everyone from producer to consumer,” Marie-France MacKinnon, a spokesperson for the council, said.

What sparked convoys across border crossings and the capital is a new measure imposed by the Canadian government on Jan. 15 requiring unvaccinated cross-border truckers to quarantine upon returning home, making it virtually impossible for them to work.

Trucker convoys are so disruptive to trade between the US-Canada that local officials are expected to take action to resolve the ~~protest~~ revolt.

Every truck taken out of the supply chain is one less truck that can haul goods. This comes as virus-related worker absenteeism and labor shortages have prolonged supply chain woes. Snarling chains, even more, has been an answer by the people to band together against medical tyranny by the government. There’s just one problem, blocking cross-border trade or at least slowing it down will further supply chain issues and could spark meat shortages in the US.

END

Amazing@@!! farmers break through police blocade assisting the convoy

(zerohedge)

Farmers Break Through Police Blockade, Leading Trucker Convoy Closer To US-Canada Border

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 02:05 PM

Truckers for “Freedom Convoy” were greeted by farmers who used their tractors to penetrate the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s (RCMP) roadblocks at the Canada-US border in Coutts, Alberta, as talks broke down.

True North and Rebel News reported farmers joined to strengthen the convoy as negotiations in Coutts between the truckers and Mounties collapsed on Tuesday afternoon.

RCMP tried to establish a barricade, but that failed as farmers broke through and led a convoy of truckers closer to the border with Montana.

Farmers and truckers stepped out of the respective tractors and trucks and sang the national anthem of Canada, “O Canada,” in unison. Apparently, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (who, by the way, is still in hiding and is triple-jabbed after testing positive for COVID-19), has called these folks “fringe” and “racists.”

Maybe Trudeau is the “racist” one?

Here’s a drone video of the convoy on the border from last night.

Canada’s freedom rally is being watched worldwide as ordinary citizens band together and protest medical tyranny by the government.

Elon Musk, the richest man on the planet, recently tweeted Canadian truckers “rule.” Joe Rogan has said the “country is in revolt.”

Canada is in revolt, and the president is in hiding; people are standing up for their medical freedom — this is something governments have yet to deal with in the last two years of the pandemic. The world is watching Canada, and these demonstrations are spreading worldwide.

end

Special thanks to Robert H for sending this to us:

Convoy

Inbox

This email is from a friend of an old friend from army days who lives in Ottawa.

“I visited the truckers this pm, and found a folk festival atmosphere at their major concentration, the street fronting the Parliament buildings. Despite every possible obstacle thrown their way by City Hall (threatening fines, closing washrooms, denying them permission to bring in Porta-Potties, and going after their GoFundMe donations), they are in good spirits, enjoy engaging with visitors, get food and water brought in by supporters, and diesel delivered by jerry can. They intend to stay. I hope they do, because they are our best hope to get out of this ‘pandemic’. Before their epic move there was no possibility of any effective protest in Canada, but they’ve shown that it is possible and that it resonates with a large proportion of awake members in the population. I just hope that our fool of a Mayor doesn’t try to arrange a physical removal with federal assistance. There are too many trucks packed too tightly to make it easy.

A favourite picture I took is this triple line of trucks looking east on Wellington St. (and a performer of unknown provenance). There is a strip of bare pavement in front of the line of trucks. Its significance is that it was left as a pedestrian crossing over Wellington St. between the Parliament buildings and the Prime Minister’s Office, the “PMO”, which functions at times as Canada’s version of Nixon’s “Boiler Room”. Now all trucks blow their horns for 10 minutes before the hour and the half hour to make their presence known. Except the trucks at the PMO; they take turns blasting their horns constantly, and they’re the biggest trucks with the ‘baddest’ horns. Poor PMO staff .“

Natural Immunity lasts at least 18 months according to one study

(Stieber/EpochTimes)

Natural Immunity Lasts For At Least 18 Months: Study

TUESDAY, FEB 01, 2022 – 10:20 PM

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The protection people experience after recovering from COVID-19, known widely as natural immunity, lasts for at least 18 months, according to a recently published study.A 3D print of a spike protein of SARS-CoV-2—the virus that causes COVID-19—in front of a 3D print of a SARS-CoV-2 virus particle. (Courtesy of NIAID/RML)

Researchers in Italy analyzed the level of antibodies in 36 patients who were documented as contracting COVID-19 in March 2020. About half of the patients went on to get COVID-19 vaccines, but the rest remained unvaccinated. Samples from all but two were tested at timed intervals, ending in September 2021, using assays that have received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“At 18 months, 97% participants tested positive for anti-NCP, hinting towards the persistence of infection-induced immunity even for the vaccinated individuals,” researchers wrote in the preprint paper, which was published on the medrxiv website.

NCP stands for nucleocapsid, a part of SARS-CoV-2. Antibodies are believed to protect people against against infection from the virus.

“Antibodies against nucleocapsid will be present only in recovered individuals and not vaccinated,” Dr. Asiya Zaidi, a research fellow at the Associazione Naso Sano and one of the authors, told The Epoch Times in an email.

That means even the people who got vaccinated received protection from natural immunity.

Researchers did find that vaccination with Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines gave those with prior infection a significant boost, but that the increase in protection waned relatively quickly.

“Our study findings demonstrate that while double dose vaccination boosted the IgG titers in recovered individuals 161 times, this “boost” was relatively short-lived. The unvaccinated recovered individuals, in contrast, continued to show a steady decline but detectable antibody levels. We do believe that further studies are required to re-evaluate the timing and dose regimen of vaccines for an adequate immune response in recovered individuals,” Zaidi said.

Limitations of the longitudinal observational study include the small number of patients.

The researchers, who fund their own research, said the limited sample size was due to a lack of funding because repeated serology tests for each patient for 18 months was expensive and because following up with all the patients and reminding them of the testing was difficult.

Its strengths include the remarkable length of time.

“This is the longest observation (March 2020-September 2021) for the presence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in recovered individuals along with the impact of 2 dose-BNT162b2 vaccination on the titers,” the researchers wrote.

SARS-CoV-2, also known as the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, causes COVID-19. BNT162b2 is the trade name for the Pfizer jab.

Previous studies have demonstrated the powerful effect of natural immunity against the virus, including a study published in Nature in mid-January that found that the response of memory B cells, a marker of protection against severe COVID-19, evolved in the months following infection “in a manner that is consistent with antigen persistence.”

Other markers of protection were observed in studies in 2021 to last at least over 7 months, at least 8 months, at least 10 months, at least 11 months, at least 13 months, and at least 14 months. The studies were completed before the emergence of the Omicron virus variant, which early data indicate is better at evading both natural immunity and vaccine-derived protection.

END

We told you that lockdowns have no effect on public health//TWO COMMENTARIES

(Pentchoukov/EpochTimes) AND SUMMIT NEWS

“Ill-Founded” Lockdowns Had “Little To No Public Health Effect”; Analysis Of 24 Studies Concludes

TUESDAY, FEB 01, 2022 – 09:00 PM

Authored by Ivan Pentchoukov via The Epoch Times,

Lockdown measures used by governments worldwide to reduce the death toll from the pandemic had little or no impact on COVID-19 mortality, according to three researchers who analyzed 24 studies.

The researchers, led by Steve Hanke, the co-founder of The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise, screened 18,590 studies to select the 24 papers used for the final analysis.

They concluded that lockdowns in Europe and the United States reduced the mortality from COVID-19 by 0.2 percent on average. Shelter-in-place orders reduced mortality by 2.9 percent on average, they found.

“While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted,” the researchers wrote.
“In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”

The study specifically looked at mandated government measures, including mask mandates and travel bans, rather than voluntary measures.

Of all the lockdown measures analyzed, the closure of non-essential business appeared to have the largest impact, reducing COVID-19 mortality by 10.6 percent on average, the study found. The researchers speculate that this is largely due to the closure of bars.

“Only business closure consistently shows evidence of a negative relationship with COVID-19 mortality, but the variation in the estimated effect is large. Three studies find little to no effect, and three find large effects. Two of the larger effects are related to closing bars and restaurants,” the study states.

The study found that lockdowns and limiting gatherings slightly increased COVID-19 mortality by 0.6 percent and 1.6 percent respectively.

“Overall, we conclude that lockdowns are not an effective way of reducing mortality rates during a pandemic, at least not during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the researchers wrote.

The finding of the meta-analysis is in line with an analysis of 100 COVID-19 studies published in September last year, which concluded “that lockdowns have had, at best, a marginal effect on the number of Covid-19 deaths.”

Meanwhile, the conclusion contrasts with a late 2020 meta-analysis that found that lockdowns successfully reduced COVID-19 mortality. The researchers in the Johns Hopkins study point out that the 2020 analysis used several modeling studies “which we have explicitly excluded.”

While having little to no impact on COVID-19 mortality, lockdowns had a significant effect on people suffering from other ailments.

Lockdowns led to some 40 percent of American adults delaying or avoiding getting urgent medical care in June 2020. In the U.K., lockdown-related delays to lung cancer diagnoses could lead to 2,500 extra deaths, according to an analysis by the UK Lung Cancer Coalition.

end

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 12:05 PM

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

A new study out of the renowned Johns Hopkins University has concluded that global lockdowns have had a much more detrimental impact on society than they have produced any benefit, with researchers urging that they “are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”

The study was authored by Jonas Herby, special advisor at Center for Political Studies in Copenhagen, Denmark; Lars Jonung, professor emeritus in economics at Lund University, Sweden; and Steve H. Hanke, a Professor of Applied Economics and Founder & Co-Director of The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.

The authors wrote that “While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted.”

The focus of the study, according to the authors was to “determine whether there is empirical evidence to support the belief that ‘lockdowns’ reduce COVID-19 mortality.”

The researchers defined lockdowns as “any government mandate that directly restrict peoples’ possibilities, such as policies that limit internal movement, close schools and businesses, and ban international travel.”

The researchers further noted that “To answer our question, we focused on studies that examine the actual impact of lockdowns on COVID-19 mortality rates based on registered cross-sectional mortality data and a counterfactual difference in-difference approach.”

In other words, did lockdowns reduce COVID deaths?

The conclusion is no.

“Lockdowns have had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality. More specifically, stringency index studies find that lockdowns in Europe and the United States only reduced COVID-19 mortality by 0.2% on average,” the study notes.

It adds “shelter-in-placeorders (SIPOs) were also ineffective, only reducing COVID-19 mortality by 2.9% on average,” further noting “Specific non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) studies also find no broad-based evidence of noticeable effects on COVID-19 mortality.”

In other words, lockdowns don’t do anything to save people from COVID.

The authors concluded, “our meta-analysis fails to confirm that lockdowns have had a large, significant effect on mortality rates.”

In a further analysis of “lockdown vs. no lockdown, facemasks, closing non-essential businesses, border closures, school closures, and limiting gatherings,” the study also found “no broad-based evidence of noticeable effects on COVID-19 mortality.”

The findings bolster a host of previous scientific findings that all conclude lockdowns are ineffective instruments of virus control, and have actually caused more damage to people’s health and well being.

Stanford University professor of medicine Jay Bhattacharya noted last year that in years to come lockdowns will be looked back upon as the most catastrophically harmful policy in “all of history”.

The epidemiologist added “Every single poor person on the face of the earth has faced some harm, sometimes catastrophic harm, from this lockdown policy,” adding that “We will be counting the catastrophic health and psychological harms, imposed on nearly every poor person on the face of the earth, for a generation.”

A peer reviewed study by Stanford researchers found that mandatory lockdowns do not provide more benefits to stopping the spread of COVID-19 than voluntary measures such as social distancing.

The researchers found “no clear, significant beneficial effect of [more restrictive measures] on case growth in any country.”

The effects of lockdown have been devastating, with leading cancer charities in the UK warning that there is a crisis underway with huge numbers of people not receiving referrals or treatment because they’ve been told to stay at home and not to burden the National Health Service.

According to Professor Karol Sikora, an NHS consultant oncologist, there could be 50,000 excess deaths from cancer as a result of routine screenings being suspended during the lockdown in the UK.

Professor Richard Sullivan also warned that there will be more excess cancer deaths in the UK than total coronavirus deaths due to people’s access to screenings and treatment being restricted as a result of the lockdown.

His comments were echoed by Peter Nilsson, a Swedish professor of internal medicine and epidemiology at Lund University, who said, “It’s so important to understand that the deaths of COVID-19 will be far less than the deaths caused by societal lockdown when the economy is ruined.”

A major study by German scientists at Munich University also found that lockdowns had no effect on reducing the country’s coronavirus infection rate.

“Statisticians at Munich University found “no direct connection” between the German lockdown and falling infection rates in the country,” reported the Telegraph.

As we also previously reported, Academics from Duke, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins have concluded that there could be around a million excess deaths over the next two decades as a result of lockdowns.

The World Health Organization’s Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge also warned governments should stop enforcing lockdowns, unless as a “last resort,” because the impact on other areas of health and mental well-being is more damaging.

Kluge’s warning matched that of the WHO’s special envoy on COVID-19, Dr David Nabarro, who told the Spectator in an interview that world leaders should stop imposing lockdowns as a reflex reaction because they are making “poor people an awful lot poorer.”

The warnings resonate with numerous other experts who have desperately tried to warn governments that lockdowns will end up killing more people than the virus itself, but have been largely ignored.

Germany’s Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development, Gerd Muller, warned that COVID-19 lockdowns will result in “one of the biggest” hunger and poverty crises in history.

“We expect an additional 400,000 deaths from malaria and HIV this year on the African continent alone,” Muller said, adding that “half a million more will die from tuberculosis.”

Muller’s comments arrived months after a leaked study from inside the German Ministry of the Interior revealed that the impact of the country’s lockdown could end up killing more people than the coronavirus due to victims of other serious illnesses not receiving treatment.

Another study found that lockdowns will conservatively “destroy at least seven times more years of human life” than they save.

A Guardian analysis has found that there have been thousands of excess deaths of people at home in the UK due to the lockdown.

Government data showed that England’s lockdown caused an extra 1 million people to become addicted to alcohol since the start of the pandemic.

Figures released by the the Office of National Statistics (ONS) revealed that there were 8,974 deaths “from alcohol-specific causes” in 2020, an 18.6% increase compared with 2019.

Experts in the fields of health, academia and charity have warned that the lockdown in the UK is creating a runaway pandemic of anxiety and depression. Paul Farmer, chief executive of the mental health charity Mind said “It’s no understatement to say that the nation is facing a mental health pandemic.” Since the lockdowns, hospitals have reported an explosion in suicides and intentional injury.

Infectious diseases expert and University of Edinburgh professor Mark Woolhouse acknowledged that the decision to lockdown the UK was a “crude measure” that was enacted because “we couldn’t think of anything better to do.”

Woolhouse said the lockdown was a “panic measure” and a “monumental mistake on a global scale,” adding “I believe the harm lockdown is doing to our education, health care access, and broader aspects of our economy and society will turn out to be at least as great as the harm done by COVID-19.”

Another infectious diseases expert Professor Steven Riley warned that current research “certainly doesn’t support the conclusion that lockdown is working.”

As we further previously highlighted, a data analyst consortium in South Africa found that the economic consequences of the country’s lockdown will lead to 29 times more people dying than the coronavirus itself.

Experts have also warned that there will be 1.4 million deaths globally from untreated TB infections due to lockdowns.

In addition, a study published in The Lancet that notes “physical distancing, school closures, trade restrictions, and country lockdowns” are worsening global child malnutrition.

Thousands of doctors and scientists are also on record as opposing lockdown measures, warning that they will cause more death than the coronavirus itself.

END

Not good!

(Watson/SummitNews)

Masks On Planes To Become Permanent, Like Anti-Terror Rules

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 02:00 AM

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Budget airline Ryanair says that mask mandates on planes will become as ingrained as post-9/11 rules about liquids in carry on bags, suggesting they will basically become permanent.

The comments on face coverings were made by Neil Sorahan, the airline’s finance chief, who suggested rules put in place to fight COVID-19 will become fixed in a similar way to measures introduced after the terror attack on America in 2001.

“Masks will be something that will be with us for a while longer to come. If that is the price we have to pay for the next few months, into summer – it’s a small price to pay,” said Sorahan.
“It’s a bit like after 9/11, we ended up with our toiletries in plastic bags, maybe we’ll have to live with masks for a while longer,” he added.

The company lost between 1.5m and 2m customers after tough restrictions were imposed to fight Omicron, despite the variant proving to be mild.

Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary has repeatedly lobbied for unvaccinated people to be discriminated against, asserting they should be ostracized from society, not allowed to travel, go to the supermarket to get food, or the pharmacy to get medicine.

Mask mandates were introduced despite initial assertions by experts that they would have no impact on stopping the spread of the virus.

The proof of their effectiveness is dubious at best.

The UK government’s own investigation found that the evidence for the efficacy of face masks stopping the spread of COVID-19 in schools is “not conclusive.”

We previously reported on the comments of UK government SAGE adviser Dr Colin Axon, who dismissed masks as “comfort blankets” that do virtually nothing, noting that the COVID-19 virus particle is up to 5,000 times smaller than the holes in the mask.

“The small sizes are not easily understood but an imperfect analogy would be to imagine marbles fired at builders’ scaffolding, some might hit a pole and rebound, but obviously most will fly through,” Axon said.

A study in Denmark involving 6,000 participants also found that “there was no statistically significant difference between those who wore masks and those who did not when it came to being infected by Covid-19,” the Spectator reported.

As we previously highlighted, a speech therapist said that mask wearing during the pandemic has caused a 364% increase in patient referrals of babies and toddlers who have developed cognitive difficulties as a result of adults wearing face coverings

end

VACCINE IMPACT

Vaccine Impact

Michael Every

on the major topics of the day

Michael Every…

Rabobank: Russia Is Prepared To Declare Economic War On The West, Inflicting “Huge Economic Pain”

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 09:39 AM

By Michael Every of Rabobank

Choosing wallpaper during the Blitz

We really are back to elements of the 1920s and 1930s in tandem, it seems, even if markets still don’t grasp that underlying reality. Actually, markets are starting to grasp the 20s parallel when it comes to social unrest, political breakdowns where political parties are either compromised or irrelevant, and popular ‘movements’ emerge spontaneously instead (luckily so far absent charismatic leaders). Indeed, Wall Street appears to be all in — by which I mean exacerbating — it. The smart money also sees the end parallel of the everything bubble and a Fed raising rates anyway. Some focus on a 30s background where Russian President Putin says on European security: “It’s already clear…that Russia’s principal concerns were ignored” and that the West is using Ukraine as a “tool to hinder Russia”.

There seems no way to bridge the fundamental differences in interpretations of the 1975 Helsinki European security agreement that says all states are sovereign and free to decide which defence alliance they want to join, and that no state should join an alliance seen as a threat by another. Which clause has primacy? The former, if you view NATO as defensive. The latter, if you see NATO as offensive.

As in the 1920s/30s, you also get passionate, polarized views on who is to blame. There are those who see Putin as Hitler and Ukraine as the Sudetenland – or Poland. There are those who see the ‘US Deep State’ driving things. And both can be true, which just makes matters worse.

Meanwhile, the scandal-plagued UK government (this time it is about prosecco, not cake) and its Polish and Ukrainian counterparts are to sign a trilateral defence treaty. Of course, such defense pacts are not new – back in September 1996 the same trio were saying the same thing. Yet the UK guaranteeing not just Ukraine’s but Poland’s border…are history, and the UK government, slurring old lyrics, rhyming or repeating themselves?

There is also pressure building in the Balkans: Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia –maybe even EU member Bulgaria– are all in a pot Russia is helping to stir. Its Foreign Minister just stated he does not accept that Montenegro and North Macedonia should be NATO members when they already are.

Yet NATO member Hungary’s PM just visited Moscow, and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs oozed: “Hungary has invariably confirmed its reputation as a reliable partner in the transit of Russian fuels. Naturally, we are willing to build up mutually advantageous cooperation in this area.” In other words, don’t expect any EU energy sanctions if Budapest has a veto? Yet that means the West has no pressure point against Russia except the military, where it is outgunned.

Meanwhile, Russia just banned the export of ammonium nitrate for two months (while Lithuania has fully blocked the rail shipment of potash from Belarus). The potential upside impact on fertilizer prices in Europe should be obvious. So should the fact that Russia clearly understands the geopolitical and geoeconomic pressure points that *it* controls. They can see the US does not want to raise rates but has to. They can also see that they can force inflation far higher, inflicting huge economic pain, even if they take some too. That is how economic wars work. Are we ready to fight one, or are we going to redraw borders to avoid one?

The scale of what is happening over markets’ heads –and the naval-gazing drivel on Bloomberg this morning– is summarized by former Portuguese politician Bruno Maçães in a Time magazine article, “What Happens Next in Ukraine Could Change Europe Forever”. In it, he notes: “The Russian television anchor Dmitry Kiselyov, known as a reliable Kremlin mouthpiece, explained on air during the past weekend that the current crisis is not about Ukraine: ‘The scale is much bigger.’” I concur: which is why I called it a metacrisis.

Maçães adds another line I have been stressing since 2017: “We no longer live in the old liberal order where rules must be enforced, and violators punished. We live in a new order where power must be balanced with power.” And the EU has no such power! If only its preparations had been made as far back as 2017 when ‘The Great Game of Global Trade’ came out.

As such, Maçães argues “The US must reflect on whether it can afford to reduce its presence in Europe before a proper counterweight to Russia has been created in Brussels. The pivot to Asia may need to wait for a solution to the European crisis. As for Europeans, they need to quickly prepare themselves for a new world, where their sovereignty and security may well be at stake.” Except the dynamic in the US is not moving in that direction. Asia is the priority, regardless.

He continues: “The existing order is starting to buckle, and Washington needs to decide how best to replace it with new arrangements. Does it prefer to reach a grand bargain with Moscow whereby the two powers divide Europe among themselves? Or does it prefer to encourage and support the development of a new European pole capable of balancing Russian power?” He is literally talking about a new partition of Europe into spheres of interest: and European markets are looking at what the ECB will do on Thursday. I can tell you ECB rates are unlikely to rise ahead –what’s new there?– but I can’t tell you what the geography and political architecture of the EU where you borrow that money will look like in 5 years. Keeping a focus just on the screens at times like this is akin to happily choosing new wallpaper during the London Blitz.

Maçães concludes: “To me the choice seems an obvious one, but what is frustrating about the current crisis is how we keep avoiding the larger questions of political order. By hesitating we allow others to assume the role of reformers and innovators. Eurasia, the supercontinent, is being reshaped before our eyes.” Yes – as the EU is talking about its usual soft, cuddly 2005-vintage talking points. But don’t worry – the Conference on the Future of Europe is waiting for your input! The website hasn’t added Russian as a language option yet.

We do perhaps see key movement from Germany – not against Russia, but China. It is reported Chancellor Scholz is to officially prioritize engagement with democratic partners in the Indo-Pacific instead of China, will travel to Japan to hold consultations, and fully supports Lithuania against Chinese coercion; hawkish Foreign Minister Baerbock will be allowed to champion initiatives against China; and German diplomats in the Indo-Pacific are “being encouraged to push the envelope and resist old habits to self-censor” when developing new China strategies. Obviously, this will greatly exacerbate EU-China economic tensions – but there is no military component. So, are these steps a quid pro quo to try to ensure the US stays committed to the EU’s defence, rather than –as Maçães says– carving it up with Russia and looking to Asia?

Perhaps. Yet if you have decided to turn your economy into a weapon, as the EU thinks it has, then using it involves taking hits: armies take damage in war – economies take damage during economic wars. That is how economic wars work. The US is most unlikely to change its mind on strategic options vis-à-vis Asia unless the EU is prepared to take pain on the sanctions front to send Russia a message. Even then, what to do about Hungary, should consensus be required?

Let’s all go and look at wallpaper patterns instead, why not?

7. OIL ISSUES

90 Million Americans Brace For Groundhog Day Winter Storm; Is Texas Ready This Time?

TUESDAY, FEB 01, 2022 – 05:20 PM

More than 90 million Americans are in the path of a cross-country storm system set to unleash heavy snow, ice, and even severe thunderstorms on Groundhog day from the Rockies to northern New England. We told readers to monitor the system on Sunday as forecasts would become more concrete.

“We’re closely monitoring the major winter storm impacting a large swath of the U.S. from New Mexico, northeast into New England. It’s a complex forecast from winter precipitation types, to amounts, and more,” the National Weather Service (NWS) tweeted Tuesday morning.

Fox News Senior Meteorologist Janice Dean sheds more color on the upcoming storm that will “bring a widespread mess of hazards: heavy snow, flooding rain and accumulating ice from Texas to the Northeast.” In a series of tweets, she outlines the future track of the system, potential snow totals, and ice forecasts — even pinpointing areas that are considered high impact zones.

Columbia, Missouri; Peoria, Illinois; Fort Wayne, Indiana; Detroit, Michigan; and Toledo, Ohio, could all receive more than a foot of snow. Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City could pick up 12-18 inches.

“The winter storm traversing the country this week has a chance at breaking into the top-five heaviest snowstorms to ever occur in Detroit. If the city records more than 14 inches, it will rank in the top five snowstorms,” AccuWeather said.

There’s also an ice component of the storm in the areas listed below.

Dean said “another blast of arctic air will settle” into the western half of the country by the end of the week.

AccuWeather Meteorologist Matt Benz said the “arctic air will produce some of the coldest air of the season for places like North Dakota and northern Minnesota by Thursday morning.” We noted Monday that Texas’ power grid was at risk due to colder weather trends. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott warned Tuesday that power demand would be the highest on Friday morning. The governor said that the primary grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), will be ready for increasing power usage due to soaring heating demand.

Are Abbott and ERCOT ready for two shots of arctic air?

Meanwhile, March natural gas futures have risen 33.5% in the last two weeks on colder weather and numerous snowstorms as heating demand increases. Prices have retraced a little more than 50% of the down move from late October’s high to December’s low.

Also, the famous market trade known as the “widowmaker” (natgas March-April 22 futures spread) has rebounded from a low in the last two weeks as speculators bet on colder weather.

Forecasts are becoming more locked as the massive winter storm is about to begin. We do expect air travel disruptions this week.

8 EMERGING MARKET& AUSTRALIA ISSUES

Australia//// NEW ZEALAND/ SOUTH AFRICA/BRAZIL//COVID/VACCINES/LOCKDOWNS

AUSTRALIA

Real numbers from Australia: 76% of deaths since Mid January 2022 are in the vaccinated. Deaths in the boosted are soaring and deaths from the unvaccinated were too sick to receive the shot.

(Alex Berenson)

Real Covid numbers from Australia’s largest state. 76 percent of deaths since mid-January are in the vaccinated. Deaths in the boosted are soaring.

Alex Berenson

8 hr ago

2,693

275

Every day, the Australian state of New South Wales reports Covid deaths by age – and vaccination status.

Unlike American figures, these do not depend on inaccurate hospital reporting of vaccination status. They are not manipulated or “age-adjusted.”

They are as close to real time data as exists anywhere in the world. New South Wales even reports whether people under 65 had serious health conditions.

Overall coronavirus deaths have accelerated dramatically in New South Wales in the last month, as the Omicron variant speads. (The state has about 8.2 million people, so 40 deaths a day there is equivalent to 1,600 in the United States.)

So who is dying?

In the last 15 days, 417 of the 552 people who died of Covid in New South Wales were vaccinated, compared to 135 who were unvaccinated.

Sixty of the vaccinated people who died had received a booster shot. Those deaths skew markedly to the last few days. Forty-nine of the 60 boosted people died in the last week – including the most recent, a man in his thirties who had no preexisting conditions. (CORRECTION: HE WAS NOT BOOSTED, HE HAD RECEIVED TWO SHOTS – AS THE SCREENSHOT CLEARLY STATES. MY ERROR – I WAS THINKING ABOUT THE LACK OF PREEXISTING CONDITIONS.)

SOURCE

—

The adult population in New South Wales is roughly 95 percent vaccinated, including about 40 percent boosted. So the “adjusted rate ratios” the Centers for Disease Control and media bluechecks love to present instead of actual numbers probably still show that the vaccinated have great protection.

But NSW also recently provided strong evidence that many of the unvaccinated elderly people who died were too sick to be vaccinated. On Jan. 28, it reported a batch of 35 deaths that had occurred earlier in January from nursing homes.

Nursing home residents are generally the frailest of the elderly – a 2010 study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found that 65 percent of residents died within a year of entering the home.

SOURCE:

Thus, for the last year, they have been vaccinated as a matter of course.

Yet New South Wales reported that 14 of the 35 nursing home residents who died – 40 percent – had NOT been vaccinated. The only conceivable explanation for the fact that so many unvaccinated residents are among the dead is that most were too sick to be vaccinated.

When it comes to Covid deaths and vaccines, the adjusted ratios – especially from the United States – are effectively meaningless. The raw numbers are what matter.

Which is why the public health authorities and elite media go out of their way to hide them.

UPDATED with live links and corrected repeated word in headline.

END

Your early currency/gold and silver pricing/Asian and European bourse movements/ and interest rate settings WEDNESDAY morning 7:30 AM

Euro/USA 1.1319 UP .0046 /EUROPE BOURSES //ALL GREEN

USA/ YEN 114.625 DOWN 0.472 /NOW TARGETS INTEREST RATE AT .11% AS IT WILL BUY UNLIMITED BONDS TO GETS TO THAT LEVEL…

GBP/USA 1.3568 UP 0.0044

Last night Shanghai COMPOSITE CLOSED LUNAR HOLIDAY

Hang Sang CLOSED//LUNAR HOLIDAY

AUSTRALIA CLOSED UP 1.19% // EUROPEAN BOURSES OPENED ALL GREEN

Trading from Europe and ASIA

I) EUROPEAN BOURSES ALL GREEN

2/ CHINESE BOURSES / :Hang SANG CLOSED LUNAR HOLIDAY

/SHANGHAI CLOSED HOLIDAY

Australia BOURSE CLOSED UP 1.16%

(Nikkei (Japan) CLOSED UP 64.54 PTS OR 0.54%

INDIA’S SENSEX IN THE GREEN

Gold very early morning trading: 1804.40

silver:$22.84-

USA dollar index early WEDNESDAY morning: 95.88 DOWN 51 CENT(S) from TUESDAY’s close.

THIS ENDS WEDNESDAY MORNING NUMBERS

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

And now your closing WEDNESDAY NUMBERS 1: 00 PM

Portuguese 10 year bond yield: 0.71% UP 2 in basis point(s) yield from YESTERDAY/

JAPANESE BOND YIELD: +0.179% down 0 AND 3/10 BASIS POINTS from YESTERDAY/JAPAN losing control of its yield curve/

SPANISH 10 YR BOND YIELD: 0.79%// UP 1 in basis points yield from yesterday.

ITALIAN 10 YR BOND YIELD 1.42 UP 7 points in basis points yield from yesterday./

the Italian 10 yr bond yield is trading 63 points higher than Spain.

GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD: RISES TO +0.037% IN BASIS POINTS ON THE DAY//

THE IMPORTANT SPREAD BETWEEN ITALIAN 10 YR BOND AND GERMAN 10 YEAR BOND IS 1.45% AND NOW ABOVE THE 3.00% LEVEL WHICH WILL IMPLODE THE ENTIRE ITALIAN BANKING SYSTEM. AT 4% SPREAD THERE WILL BE A HUGE BANK RUN…

END

IMPORTANT CURRENCY CLOSES FOR WEDNESDAY

Closing currency crosses for WEDNESDAY night/USA DOLLAR INDEX/USA 10 YR BOND YIELD/1:00 PM

Euro/USA 1.1298 UP .0025 or q25 basis points

USA/Japan: 114.34 DOWN 0.392 OR YEN UP 39 basis points/

Great Britain/USA 1.3560 UP 36 BASIS POINTS

Canadian dollar UP 1 pts to 1.2689

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The USA/Yuan, CNY: closed ON SHORE (CLOSED )..XX

THE USA/YUAN OFFSHORE: (YUAN CLOSED (up)..6.3625

TURKISH LIRA: 13.48 EXTREMELY DANGEROUS LEVEL/DEATH WISH/HYPERINFLATION TO BEGIN.

the 10 yr Japanese bond yield at +0.179

Your closing 10 yr US bond yield DOWN 4 IN basis points from MONDAY at 1.755% //trading well ABOVE the resistance level of 2.27-2.32%) very problematic

USA 30 yr bond yield: 2.082 DOWN 3 in basis points

Your closing USA dollar index, 96.06 DOWN 33 CENT(S) ON THE DAY/1.00 PM/

Your closing bourses for Europe and the Dow along with the USA dollar index closing and interest rates for WEDNESDAY: 12:00 PM

London: CLOSED UP 60.32 PTS OR 0.80%

German Dax : CLOSED UP 8.76 points or 0.06%

Paris CAC CLOSED UP 26.50PTS OR 0.37%

Spain IBEX CLOSED DOWN 1.80PTS OR 0.02%

Italian MIB: CLOSED UP 206.40 PTS OR 0.76%

WTI Oil price 87.23 12: EST

Brent Oil: 88.56 12:00 EST

USA /RUSSIAN / RUBLE RISES: 76.45 THE CROSS LOWER BY 44 RUBLES/DOLLAR (RUBLE HIGHER BY 44 BASIS PTS)

GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD; +.037

CLOSING NUMBERS: 4 PM

Euro vs USA: 1.1311 UP .0038 OR 38 BASIS POINTS

British Pound: 1.3578 UP .0054 or 54 basis pts

USA dollar vs Japanese Yen: 114.42 DOWN .317

USA dollar vs Canadian dollar: 1.2659 DOWN .0031 (cdn dollar UP 31 basis pts)

West Texas intermediate oil: 88.30

Brent: 89.53

USA 10 yr bond yield: 1.781 DOWN 1 points

USA 30 yr bond yield: 2.116 UP 1 pts

DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE: UP 224.09 PTS OR 0.63%

NASDAQ 100 UP 120.06 OR 0.80%

VOLATILITY INDEX: 20.85 DOWN 1.11 PTS (DOWN 5.15%

GLD/NYSE CLOSING PRICE $168.82 UP $0.59 OR 0.35%

SLV/NYSE CLOSING PRICE: $20.93// DOWN $.01 OR 0.05%

end)

USA trading day in Graph Form

PayPal Pukes, Google Gains, Crypto Crokes, Dollar Dumps

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 04:01 PM

Sigh… another day, and yet another ugly macro data point, as ADP employment data crashed most since the COVID lockdown crisis in 2020. That print stole the jam out of the market’s Alphabet-driven overnight donut.

However, once European markets closed, the bid resumed, lifting The Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq into the green. S&P 500 closed up 1%, best of the bunch, as Small Caps remained ugly, down 1% on the day)…

Dow and S&P gapped open above their 100DMAs and spent the morning battling to cling on to it. Once Europe closed, The Dow extended above its 50DMA and S&P built on its gains above the 100DMA…

However, the big stories of the day were in two stocks.

Alphabet exploded almost 10% higher today after blockbuster earnings, making new record intraday highs…

And Paypal puked hard today (down 25%), with a notable absence of dip-buyers…

Its biggest volume day ever and worst day on record (back to its lowest since May 2020)…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields were all very modestly lower on the day with the belly outperforming (7Y -2bps, 2Y & 30Y unch). 2Y is still lower on the week but the rest of the curve is now basically flat

Source: Bloomberg

30Y Yields were all over the pace today (within an interesting post-FOMC range) but closed back at pre-Fed levels…

Source: Bloomberg

Interestingly, the odds of a 50bps hike in March are fading (back at around 13% from 30%). December is still pricing a 75% chance of 5 rate-hikes this year…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar was dumped for 3rd straight day, erasing the post-FOMC spike and back to unchanged on the year…

Source: Bloomberg

Crypto was slammed today with bitcoin back below $38k…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices pumped and dumped.. and then re-pumped to get back to prefectly unchanged on the day…

NatGas surged 14% higher today to its highest since Nov 2021…

Gold managed to extend gains above $1800…

Finally, we note that the Nasdaq has surged relative to Small Caps (to the strongest since Oct 2020) as real yields have soared higher…

Source: Bloomberg

Something’s gotta give.

I) MORNING/AFTERNOON TRADING/

Stocks, Crude, Crypto, & Bond Yields Are All Dumping

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 09:59 AM

Everything ‘was‘ awesome…

But now it appears things are going just a litte bit pear-shaped (and no obvious headline driven or technical catalyst yet).

US Equity indices are rapidly erasing the overnight exuberance, with even Nasdaq’s Alphabet-driven spike fading fast. Small Caps are deep in the red and Dow is back to unchanged…

Notably The S&P and The Dow (far left and far right respectively) are clinging to their 100DMAs…

As Nomura’s Charlie McElligott noted this morning that the face-ripping rally of the last few days has now “officially” has puts Dealers back into a shock-absorbing “Neutral / Long Gamma vs Spot” position in both SPX and QQQ index / ETF options (and importantly, $Delta now nearing “neutral” as well), which means greater “stability” in Equities with Dealer hedging flows which should now tend to “insulate” market from the swings we have previously been experiencing under the “short Gamma” regime…

Adding that:

“I actually still believe that for the next 300 point move in SPX, we are more likely to hit 4250 before 4850…”

The weakness accelerated after the ugly ADP print this morning, but notably that initially sent Treasury yields higher… but hey have puked that all back now…

Crypto is also getting clubbed like a baby seal with Bitcoin back below $38k…

And finally, crude prices – which spiked on OPEC+ – have erased the entire spike ahead of this morning’s inventory data.

Presumably this chaotic trading has as much to do with running out of short-squeeze ammo, as it is the collapse in liquidity across markets as most investors are just marking time ahead of Thursday’s ECBdecision and Friday’s January non-farm payroll report. Lunar New Year celebrations are also slowing activity.

Finally, McElligott reminds investors of the catch-22 here – “…the higher Equities go, the easier it will be for the market to price-in renewed Fed hawkishness again – as the Equities rally will then ‘ease’ Financial Conditions, which is the opposite of what the FOMC is seeking to achieve; rinse, repeat.“

II) USA DATA

Private ADP signals biggest montly job loss since 2020 lockdowns

(zerohedge)

ADP Signals Biggest Monthly Job Loss Since 2020 COVID Lockdowns

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 08:19 AM

Ahead of Friday’s much-narrative-managed payrolls print, ADP’s employment report gives us the first glimpse – outside of the ugly ISM/PMI jobs sub-indices – at just how bad things could get.

Everyone from talking heads, banks, The White House, and The Fed has front-run the potentially negative print, as we note that almost half of analysts’ expectations are for a drop in employment in January.

Source: Bloomberg

So, after December’s big surprise surge in employment (+807k) led by a jump in Services jobs (which was very much absent in the payrolls data for that month), expectations were for ADP to print a considerably lower +180k for January… but as we suspected it was a huge miss with ADP printing a terrible 301k drop in jobs…

Source: Bloomberg

“The labor market recovery took a step back at the start of 2022 due to the effect of the Omicron variant and its significant, though likely temporary, impact to job growth,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP.

The Services sector lost 274k jobs in January and Goods-Producing jobs fell 27k…

The majority of industry sectors experienced job loss, marking the most recent decline since December 2020. Leisure and hospitality saw the largest setback after substantial gains in fourth quarter 2021, while small businesses were hit hardest by losses, erasing most of the job gains made in December 2021.

This bodes poorly for Friday but as several Fed Speakers have already noted, this is ‘transitory’ is unlikely to affect their decision to hike rates asap.

END

IIb) USA COVID/VACCINE MANDATE STORIES

Awful!

(zerohedge)

COVID Testing Company Faked Results, Lied To Patients And Improperly Stored Samples: Lawsuit

TUESDAY, FEB 01, 2022 – 09:20 PM

An Illinois-based Covid-19 testing company which operates at least 13 sites in Washington state has been accused of faking, delaying, or failing to provide test results, lying to patients, and improperly storing test samples, according to a lawsuit filed in King County Superior Court by Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, the Seattle Times reports.A testing site run by the Center for Covid Control, in Cincinnati in January. Liz Dufour / The Enquirer via USA Today Network

The defendant is the Center for COVID control, which has expanded to roughly 300 locations across the Untied States – taking advantage of residents when frequent Covid-19 testing was in high demand as a “critical tool in the fight against COVID-19,” the filing reads.

“Center for COVID Control contributed to the spread of COVID-19 when it provided false negative results,” said Ferguson in a statement, adding “These sham testing centers threatened the health and safety of our communities. They must be held accountable.“

The suit also alleges the Center for COVID Control stored tests in garbage bags for more than a week, rather than properly refrigerating them; backdated sample-collection dates so stale samples would still be processed; and instructed its employees to “lie to patients on a daily basis” when Washingtonians asked about delayed results.
Ferguson also named Akbar Syed, Aleya Siyaj and Doctors Clinical Laboratory in the lawsuit.
Syed and Siyaj, who are married, co-founded the testing company and live in Illinois, according to the suit. Doctors Clinical Laboratory is also based in Illinois and tests samples collected in Washington, though it’s not registered with the Washington Secretary of State’s Office, the suit says. -Seattle Times

For the last several weeks, customers across the country have been complaining about delayed or missing test results, causing health authorities in multiple states – including CA and IL, to launch investigations.

According to the Washington AG’s office, the company failed to procure a license to operate in Washington (aside from Yakima), and plans to file for a preliminary injunction to stop them “soon,” the statement reads.

One former Illinois-based employee quit the Center for COVID Control after they said they saw “trash bags of tests piled up and (their) team was instructed to lie to patients on a daily basis.”

As the company fell further behind on processing samples, the statement said, they were “flooded” with calls asking about results — leading to hourslong wait times. Employees were then told to tell patients to expect results in 24 hours, even if there was no information about the particular sample, or that their results were inconclusive, which would require the patient to get another test.
As of Monday, the company had also billed the federal government $124 million for tests for “uninsured” patients, the statement said. -Seattle Times

“The company frequently marked patients as ‘uninsured,’ even if they were insured,” said Ferguson’s office. “Employees were instructed to mark patients as ‘uninsured’ if the patient didn’t provide their insurance information by the time of testing or if their insurance company wasn’t listed on the company’s data entry form.”

Read the rest of the report here.

END

I guess this company does not read! Hershey tells unvaccinated employees to get the shot or be fired. Maybe we should boycott their products.

(Beth Brelje/EpochTimes)

Hershey Tells Unvaccinated Employees To Hit The Highway

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 06:30 AM

Authored by Beth Brelje via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Hershey Company has begun firing office workers who did not get vaccinated against COVID-19. On the way out the door, Hershey is asking employees to sign a nine-page confidentiality and release agreement that would remove their rights to sue the company or talk about their experience.Hershey’s chocolate bars in Chicago, Ill., on July 16, 2014. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Although their signature comes with a “special separation payment,” many have not signed the agreement and won’t get the money. Employees say the payment was determined by an algorithm and for some, amounted to just over two months’ pay.

By most accounts, working at Hershey was a great job. Employees at the Hershey, Pennsylvania headquarters and at offices in other states report higher than average wages and bowls of candy placed around the offices for snacking. During holidays, employees would get a big bag of treats to take home, although that practice stopped after Easter 2021. There is a sample room for trying new products, colorful graphics decorating the walls, and the products are more fun than selling insurance.

But it stopped being fun after months of human resources meetings that employees say included education about the vaccines, asking if the employee had changed their mind about getting the shots, and uncomfortably invasive questions.

“I really thought I’d be OK,” Kim Durham, a payment analyst and sourcing buyer, told The Epoch Times. “I thought, you cannot question my faith. Nobody can question that.”

Durham asked for a religious accommodation in August and assumed she would get it.

“I thought this was behind me until September when I met with an HR representative. It was an interrogation on your religious beliefs. They twisted your words and tried to put words in your mouth. It was terrible. I was asked such personal questions that had nothing to do with religion.”

She was shocked when, in November, she received word that her request for religious accommodation had been denied.

The Epoch Times interviewed two other Hershey employees who are in their final days with the company and didn’t want their names used until they are fully separated, for fear of losing certain benefits.

Everyone interviewed mentioned being troubled by similar questions during the meetings, usually held with an immediate supervisor and someone from HR, such as:

Have you ever been vaccinated? Are your children vaccinated? How do you protect yourself when you leave your home? How often do you go to church? Do you take Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Tums, or Midol? If so, how can you say that you’re truly a religious person, because a lot of those medicines also have the same ingredients as the vaccine?

Several people were told the Pope is vaccinated, and he says that the greatest gift you can give your community is to be vaccinated as well.

One new parent submitted their baby’s birth certificate and other papers to set up insurance, and was asked why the baby had received vaccinations if the parent wouldn’t get the COVID shots.

“What does that have to do with me keeping a job? From the time we started this ordeal, we have had seven meetings about my vaccination status,” one employee said. “It was like harassment. I felt like I wanted to crawl under a rock when I was done.”

While office workers must be vaccinated or fired, employees working in food production and Chocolate World, the company’s retail outlet stores, are encouraged but not required to get the vaccination.

Durham had been working from home since March 2020, except for once every two weeks when her tasks required her to be in the office. But even when she was there, it was just a skeleton crew of in-person co-workers, everyone had a temperature check before entering the building, and masking was mandatory.

Hershey required employees to be vaccinated by Oct. 4, and when she was still unvaccinated on Oct. 5, she was told she was no longer allowed in the building, but she continued working until January. After her last day, the company sent an empty box to her home so she could ship her work equipment back to them.

“We are losing our jobs over this vaccine policy,” Durham said. “It’s just wrong that a company can terminate you, and you lose your livelihood. This should not be forced.”

Some employees trained their replacements, only to find their replacements would continue working remotely.

The separation agreement Hershey gave employees prohibits those who sign it from disclosing the existence, terms, and conditions of the agreement, including the details of their separation from employment. The agreement contains a broad non-disparagement clause and it also releases Hershey from liability for all legally waivable claims.

Hershey did not respond to requests for comment or to provide information about how many people have been fired.

Employees estimate 1,400 workers applied for a religious exemption. It is unknown if any were granted.

“I know people who got the vaccine just to keep their job. It wasn’t something they wanted to do, but they needed the job,” Durham said. “I need a job too. But I’m not going to do something I don’t feel comfortable doing, just keeping my job.”

end

U.S. Senator suffers stroke… – CITIZEN FREE PRESS

Inbox

Hmmm .. anyone wanting a booster to go ?

https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/u-s-senator-suffers-stroke/end

iiiA) important USA economic stories for you tonight

USA debt surpasses $30 trillion

(zerohedge)

US Debt Hits $30 Trillion For The First Time

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 07:00 AM

Congratulations, America: it took just over 245 years but as of the last day of January, the country’s debt just crossed above $30 trillion for the first time ever, hitting $30,012,386,059,238.29.

While it was always guaranteed that this historic milestone of civilizational greatness would fall at some point, we can safely say that thanks to the global financial crisis, thanks to covid and thanks to MMT, the golden age of US debt came about twice as fast as it would have otherwise.

And just to put this stunning achievement in context, here is a recent take from Visual Capitalist which put America’s world-leading success in context.

Visualizing the State of Global Debt, by Country

Since COVID-19 started its spread around the world in 2020, the global economy has been put to the test with supply chain disruptions, price volatility for commodities, challenges in the job market, and declining income from tourism. The World Bank has estimated that almost 97 million people have been pushed into extreme poverty as a result of the pandemic.

In order to help with this difficult situation, global governments have had to increase their expenditures to deal with higher healthcare costs, unemployment, food insecurity, and to help businesses to survive. Countries have taken on new debt to provide financial support for these measures, which has resulted in the highest global debt levels in half a century.

To analyze the extent of global debt, we’ve compiled debt-to-GDP data by country from the most recent World Economic Outlook report by the IMF.

The debt-to-GDP ratio is a simple metric that compares a country’s public debt to its economic output. By comparing how much a country owes and how much it produces in a year, economists can measure a country’s theoretical ability to pay off its debt.

Let’s take a look at the top 10 countries in terms of debt-to-GDP:

Japan, Sudan, and Greece top the list with debt-to-GDP ratios well above 200%, followed by Eritrea (175%), Cape Verde (160%), and Italy (154%).

Japan’s debt level won’t come as a surprise to most. In 2010, it became the first country to reach a debt-to-GDP ratio 200%, and it now sits at 257%. In order to finance new debt, the Japanese government issues bonds which get bought up primarily by the Bank of Japan.

By the end of 2020, the Bank of Japan owned 45% of government debt outstanding.

What is the main risk of a high debt-to-GDP ratio?

A rapid increase in government debt is a major cause for concern. Generally, the higher a country’s debt-to-GDP ratio is, the higher chance that country could default on its debt, therefore creating a financial panic in the markets.

The World Bank published a study showing that countries that maintained a debt-to-GDP ratio of over 77% for prolonged periods of time experienced economic slowdowns.

COVID-19 has worsened a debt crisis that has been brewing since the 2008 global recession. A report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shows that at least 100 countries will have to reduce expenditures on health, education, and social protection. Also, 30 countries in the developing world have high levels of debt distress, meaning they’re experiencing great difficulties in servicing their debt.

This crisis is hitting poor and middle-income countries harder than rich countries. Wealthier countries are borrowing to launch fiscal stimulus packages while low and middle income countries cannot afford such measures, potentially resulting in wider global inequality.

The IMF Warns of Interest Rates

Global debt reached $226 trillion by the end of 2020, seeing the biggest one-year increase since World War II.

Borrowing by governments accounted for slightly over half of the $28 trillion increase, bringing global public debt ratio to a record of 99% of GDP. As interest rates rise, IMF officials warn that higher interest rates will diminish the impact of fiscal spending, and cause debt sustainability concerns to intensify. “The risks will be magnified if global interest rates rise faster than expected and growth falters,” the officials wrote.

“A significant tightening of financial conditions would heighten the pressure on the most highly indebted governments, households, and firms. If the public and private sectors are forced to deleverage simultaneously, growth prospects will suffer.”

END

PayPal crashes after shutting millions of “bad actor” accounts. Serves them right

Morons!

(zerohedge)

PayPal Crashes Most On Record After Shutting Millions Of “Bad Actor” Accounts, Abandons Long-Term User Goal

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 10:16 AM

PayPal, best known recently for aggressively deplatforming and demonetizing all voices which the woke liberal “cancel-culture” brigade disagrees with (this website included), crashed the most on record on Tuesday morning one day after it reported dismal results, slashing guidance and warning that it will no longer reach its long-term goal of 750 million active accounts by 2025, abandoning a goal that contributed to a jump in spending last year on sales campaigns.

The payments giant which was the original source of Elon Musk’s wealth, lowered its forecast for new customers after saying that “bad actors” were taking advantage of its incentives and rewards programs, and is also overhauling its marketing strategy as a result.

PayPal last year began offering its first ever sign-up incentives, handing out as much as $10 to encourage new customers to open an account. But the firm’s risk-management team – which apparently is made up of gullible 19-year-olds who could never anticipate such an outcome – discovered that many of the accounts were being created by bot farms. Shock!

PayPal immediately began closing those accounts and is attempting to recoup the incentives from those customers, a company spokesman said. Good luck with that.

“We regularly assess our active account base to ensure the accounts are legitimate,” CFO John Rainey said during a Tuesday conference call with analysts after the company released fourth-quarter results which missed across the board. “This is particularly important during incentive campaigns that can be targets for bad actors attempting to reap the benefit from these offers without ever having an intent to be a legitimate customer on our platform.”

“Bad actors”, of course, is what you blame when you blow up your entire business model after demonetizing millions of people whose only transgression is disagreeing with you.

The “problem” – which apparently the company was not aware of until just now – was disclosed along with an earnings report that fell well short of Wall Street estimates, sending the shares plunging.

Going forward, PayPal said it will refocus its marketing efforts on increasing usage of its products among active customers.

Meanwhile, the company said low-income customers are spending less as they struggle to keep up with rising prices amid the highest levels of U.S. inflation in decades. Adding insult to cancel culture injury, growth in e-commerce spending also slowed as supply-chain disruptions affected shipping times and consumers did more of their shopping in stores during the holiday season.

The abrupt shift in marketing strategies was a “shocker,” Lisa Ellis, an analyst at MoffettNathanson, said in a note to clients. “You can officially add PayPal to your list of pandemic high-fliers that are experiencing a quite-bumpy landing.” And for confirmation look no further than the company’s stock which has plunged 25% today, its biggest drop on record.

All we can add here is the familiar refrain: “get woke, go broke”

iii)B USA inflation commentaries//LOG JAMS//

Now beef prices are rising as herds drop due to severe drought
(zerohedge)

Meatflation To Stick Around As US Cattle Herds Drop Amid Severe Drought

TUESDAY, FEB 01, 2022 – 10:41 PM

A severe drought grips the Western U.S. has caused an unexpected plunge in the cattle herd, indicating ‘meatflation’ will be sticking around this year as consumers pay near record-high beef prices.

U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) biannual cattle inventory report for the second half of 2021 shows that the U.S. herd fell 2% a year ago. Bloomberg’s survey estimated a 1% decline.

“Plains squeezed supplies of hay and feed for cattle, prompting some ranchers to sell to slaughterhouses animals usually held for breeding. Now, deepening drought in the southern part of the Plains — where most cattle in the U.S. are raised — could force another round of herd reductions later this year,” Bloomberg said.

Derrell Peel, an extension livestock marketing specialist at Oklahoma State University, warned a “drought is looming large.”

“The cycle we are in right now is a liquidation phase,” Peel said. He means that worsening drought conditions will likely lead to more herd reductions.

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the Western U.S. is plagued with a severe drought, reminiscent of the 1930s Dust Bowl era. The unrelenting drought will likely worsen in the months ahead.

Declining herd count is a significant concern for beef packers who face tighter markets that could send meat prices even higher. Consumers are already paying near-record high prices and could result in another price shock ahead of summer.

Meanwhile, the misguided Biden administration is approaching the meat crisis entirely wrong, blaming greedy meat processors for meatflation. But the fact is, there’s a lot more to the story than the White House admits. From declining herds, labor shortages, soaring shipping costs, snarled supply chains, and rising commodity costs, many of these inputs are increasing costs than greedy meat processors.

As shown below, Americans pay some of the highest costs ever for ground beef at the supermarket. Still, under President Biden’s plan to tame meatflation, prices have yet to come down.

Worst comes to worst, the Biden administration could just tell Americans who can no longer afford beef just to eat protein-packed bugs. Ultimately, that’s what the elites want us peasants to eat.

iv)swamp stories

KING REPORT/SWAMP STORIES

Let us close out tonight with this offering courtesy of Greg Hunter interviewing Charles Nenner

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/financial-cycle-down-war-cycle-charles-nenner-warns

Financial Cycle Down, War Cycle Up – Charles Nenner Warns

WEDNESDAY, FEB 02, 2022 – 09:08 AM

Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

Renowned geopolitical and financial cycle expert Charles Nenner says his cycle analysis shows the highs are in for the stock market, and it’s downhill from here—way downhill.

Nenner’s analysis show major support was breached at the beginning of 2022. Nenner explains, “If it closes below the trend line, you better get out of the stock market, and it did. Now, in January, it has closed much lower that all the quarterly lows.”

” This is not making lows on a daily chart but a quarterly chart, and that is much more important than short term. . . . I did a report about how many stocks are in an uptrend and how many stocks are in a down trend. I think 50% is already in a bear market. There are just a few stocks that are holding up the market, like . . . Microsoft, Apple, Google. I looked into what the earnings are . . . it was clear they are never going to sustain those prices…
…I think 1% of the stocks are holding up 40% of the S&P. Once they give in, the markets go down. A lot of people have already lost a lot of money because most stocks do not perform anymore. I think we are very close, and my target is still 5,000 (on the DOW). It seems very farfetched, but it you just do the math…
…The media will not help you. They will invite you if you talk about markets going up because the companies that want to advertise with them want to sell. So, very few companies like to talk about stocks going up and do not care if it goes up or down. We just tell you the truth.” Nenner says he and his clients are out of the stock market since the first of the year.

Nenner does cycle work for oil, the dollar, Bitcoin, interest rates and the bond market, to name a few.

Nenner says interest rates have hit their lows and “are going up for the next thirty years.”

Nenner thinks gold will be going up to at least $2,500 per ounce, but it has a short while before it starts moving up.

Nenner says the only market investors should be long is the commodity markets. Commodities are going to go up for years to come, according to Nenner’s cycle work.

No cycle is more important to Nenner these days than the “War Cycle.” Nenner does not see a war with Russia, but he expects after the Winter Olympics in China, things are going to turn dramatically more intense with the CCP. Nenner says:

“I think the big problem after the Olympics is going to be China. . . . nobody is going to do anything against China, and I think they are going to take over Taiwan. If the West is going to fight, then we have major war.”

(There is much more in the 30-minute interview.)

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with renowned cycle analyst and financial expert Charles Nenner. (1.25.22)

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/financial-cycle-down-war-cycle-charles-nenner-warns

Well that is all for today, I will see you tomorrow night

end


The King Report February 2, 2022 Issue 6690	Independent View of the News
U.S. factories grow at slowest pace in 14 months amid omicron wave, ISM finds The… ISM barometer of manufacturers slipped to a 14-month low of 57.6% in January… Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal forecast the index to decline to 57.7% from 58.8% in December… *The index of new orders dropped 3.1 points to 57.9%, the lowest level in a year and a half…* *The index of prices paid rose to 76.1%* (67 exp.) *from 68.2% in December… https://t.co/UybiVmuMc8 December JOLTS Job Openings increased to 10.925m from 10.775m in November (revised from 10.562m); 10.3m was expected. U.S. job openings rose unexpectedly in December while quits declined slightly, suggesting that labor demand held steady in the month despite a surge in Covid cases* https://t.co/Qrwgy0ssPw (This undercuts the WH preemptive whining that Covid impaired job growth in January.) @FactSet: The December JOLTS release showed that 4.3 million workers quit their jobs in December, the 6th consecutive month where this number has exceeded 4 million. In total, 47.4 million workers quit their jobs in 2021, a new high https://twitter.com/FactSet/status/1488556510821208066 @zerohedge: 10.9 million job openings; 6.3 million unemployed https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1488549499320606721 December Construction Spending increased only 0.2% m/m; +0.6% was consensus. Yesterday, inflation angst weighed on the markets. Bonds, utes, and consumer staples declined sharply. Energy stocks soared, led by XOM, which reported great Q4 results: EPS 2.05, 1.93 consensus. Manchin Says Biden Plan (Build Back Better) ‘Dead’, Talks Must Start from Scratch 12:32 ET “What Build Back Better bill?” Manchin (D-WV) said when asked about the legislation. “It’s dead.” Pfizer, FDA Ask Court to Further Delay Release of COVID Vaccine Safety Data (WHY?) Days prior to today’s scheduled release of documents related to the Pfizer COVID vaccine, the pharmaceutical company asked a federal court to let it intervene before any information is released. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it agreed with the drugmaker’s request. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/pfizer-fda-delay-release-covid-vaccine-safety-data/ The FT: US options trading heats up even as speculative stock rally cools *Industry participants see ‘no sign’ US equities wobble has caused exodus from derivatives bets* The average daily volume in January was 44.9mn contracts, compared with 39.4mn last year… https://www.ft.com/content/b3db7eca-8bee-4178-91cb-f6e20da9e242 After the close, Google reported Q4 EPS of $30.69 (27.35 exp); Revenue ex-TAC of $61.9 ($59.37B exp.); and announced a 20-1 stock split. GOOGL soared 9% in after-hour trading. PayPal shares fall more than 11% on weak earnings guidance https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/01/paypal-pypl-q4-2021-earnings.html Conflict of Interest: New Washington Post National Editor Recused from FBI Coverage The Washington Post has recused its new national editor, Matea Gold, from the news organization’s coverage of the FBI and Justice Department over a personal conflict of interest. A month before Gold was promoted, her husband, Jonathan Lenzner, was named FBI chief of staff… In the wake of Durham’s findings, the Post has retracted or corrected inaccuracies in several stories about Trump and his team. Gold also will be restricted from directing coverage of the ongoing Jan. 6 investigation or editing stories about the U.S. Capitol riot probe led by FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland… Gold married Lenzner in 2006. Her husband is the son of the late private investigator Terry Lenzner, who earned a reputation as President Clinton’s “private CIA” for digging up dirt on Clinton’s mistresses and other enemies. He helped squelch a series of what were internally known as “bimbo eruptions” during the 1990s, reportedly with the approval of Hillary Clinton… After Terry Lenzner retired in 2015, his son took over the Washington private-investigations firm he founded: Investigative Group International, or IGI. Like his father, Jon Lenzner is a Democrat and a Clinton donor; he contributed at least $1,700 to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, Federal Election Commission records show. In December, Wray appointed Lenzner as his chief of staff… *IGI was the first investigative shop to launder payments for opposition research from political campaigns through law firms* so that no record of payments to IGI showed up in Federal Election Commission disclosures. It first did this in 1994 while digging up dirt on then-Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy’s opponents. In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign employed a similar model in funneling more than $1 million in payments to private investigator Fusion GPS and dossier author Christopher Steele through the law firm Perkins Coie. *It’s not known if IGI did any sleuthing work for Clinton or her campaign in 2016, but the firm has investigated Trump in the past.* IGI did not respond to requests for comment. IGI has a number of connections to the Clintons. Jon Lenzner’s sister, Emily Lenzner, a Biden donor who sits on IGI’s board, previously worked in the Clinton White House for Communications Director George Stephanopoulos and years later served as a production assistant for Stephanopoulos at ABC News… https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/02/01/new_washington_post_national_editor_recuses_herself_from_fbi_coverage_814615.html?s=02 @julie_kelly2: WashPo hasn’t published a single story on the FBI-rigged Whitmer “kidnapping” plot. Not a single piece on a highly scandalous case of FBI entrapment, a criminal informant, and a wife-abusing agent who was fired by the FBI. It is easy to see why and how the FBI and the MSM have become so corrupted and biased! It’s also easy to see who is leaking stuff to the MSM. Judge Releases Dominion Audit Report: System ‘Designed’ to ‘Create Systemic Fraud’ *Court unseals details of audit on machines in Michigan’s Antrim County* “We conclude that the Dominion Voting System is intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results,” Russell Ramsland Jr., co-founder of Allied Security Operations Group, said in a preliminary report. “The system intentionally generates an enormously high number of ballot errors… https://www.thestandardsc.org/jay-greenberg/judge-releases-dominion-audit-report-system-designed-to-create-systemic-fraud/ @DonaldJTrumpJr: Consequences only go one-way folks. You should know this by now. ‘Why is there one rule for Whoopi and another for everyone else?’ Staffers’ fury at ABC’s ‘anti-Semitic blind spot’ for not firing Goldberg over her claim the Holocaust ‘wasn’t racist’ https://t.co/e26WEspuRA (Whoopi apologized yesterday.)

Robert Hryniak	10:15 AM (8 minutes ago)
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Robert Hryniak	2:57 PM (2 minutes ago)
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FEB2

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NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED TODAY FOR FEB. CONTRACT: 2692 NOTICE(S) FOR 269,200 OZ (8.373 TONNES)

total notices so far: 15,229 contracts for 1,522,900 oz (47.368 tonnes)

1/COMEX GOLD AND SILVER REPORT

3. ASIAN AFFAIRS

b) REPORT ON JAPAN

3 C CHINA

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

6.Global Issues

7. OIL ISSUES

8 EMERGING MARKET ISSUES

Peter Schiff: Stagflation Will Shock The Markets

Rickards: The Narrative Is Collapsing

Killer Medical Advice

You Can’t Vaccinate Your Way out of a Pandemic

A Tale of Three Cities

Fauci Has Blood on His Hands

USAGold’s ‘News & Views’ surveys the age of ‘return-free risk’

George Will: Biden’s nominees for Fed would try to rig everything

Craig Hemke at Sprott Money: To hike or not to hike

Your early currency/gold and silver pricing/Asian and European bourse movements/ and interest rate settings WEDNESDAY morning 7:30 AM

Futures, Global Markets Soar In Biggest 4-Day Rally Since November 2020

3 a./NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA

3c CHINA

4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

England Halts Vaccine Mandates For Health And Care Home Workers

Germany Is Shuttering Nuclear Power Just When The EU Needs It The Most

Critical German Oil Network Hit With Cyberattack Amid Rising US-Russian Tensions

Euro Area Inflation Unexpectedly Hits Record High One Day Ahead Of ECB Decision

5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS

Erdogan Fires Turkey’s Statistics Chief After Inflation Hits 36%

Hungary’s Orbán “Answers” Biden Troop Hosting Request: Flies To Moscow For Marathon Meeting With Putin

Putin Says US Trying To Goad Russia Into War As Ukraine Ready For Talks “In Any Format”

Biden Deploys 3,000 Troops To NATO ‘Eastern Flank’ Countries

Jets Scrambled To Intercept Russian Bombers Approaching UK

US & Iran Close To Reaching Nuclear Deal In Vienna, Biden Officials Signal

6// GLOBAL COVID ISSUES/VACCINE MANDATE ISSUES/

Quebec Scraps Planned Tax On Unvaccinated Residents Amid Growing Backlash

150 Meat Trucks Stranded At US-Canada Border As Protests Continue

Farmers Break Through Police Blockade, Leading Trucker Convoy Closer To US-Canada Border

Convoy

Natural Immunity Lasts For At Least 18 Months: Study

“Ill-Founded” Lockdowns Had “Little To No Public Health Effect”; Analysis Of 24 Studies Concludes

Lockdowns “Imposed Enormous Economic & Social Costs”, Had “Little To No Public Health Effects”; New Johns Hopkins Study Finds

Masks On Planes To Become Permanent, Like Anti-Terror Rules

Vaccine Impact

Michael Every

Rabobank: Russia Is Prepared To Declare Economic War On The West, Inflicting “Huge Economic Pain”

Choosing wallpaper during the Blitz

7. OIL ISSUES

90 Million Americans Brace For Groundhog Day Winter Storm; Is Texas Ready This Time?

8 EMERGING MARKET& AUSTRALIA ISSUES

Real Covid numbers from Australia’s largest state. 76 percent of deaths since mid-January are in the vaccinated. Deaths in the boosted are soaring.

Your early currency/gold and silver pricing/Asian and European bourse movements/ and interest rate settings WEDNESDAY morning 7:30 AM

PayPal Pukes, Google Gains, Crypto Crokes, Dollar Dumps

Stocks, Crude, Crypto, & Bond Yields Are All Dumping

ADP Signals Biggest Monthly Job Loss Since 2020 COVID Lockdowns

COVID Testing Company Faked Results, Lied To Patients And Improperly Stored Samples: Lawsuit

Hershey Tells Unvaccinated Employees To Hit The Highway

U.S. Senator suffers stroke… – CITIZEN FREE PRESS

US Debt Hits $30 Trillion For The First Time

PayPal Crashes Most On Record After Shutting Millions Of “Bad Actor” Accounts, Abandons Long-Term User Goal

Meatflation To Stick Around As US Cattle Herds Drop Amid Severe Drought

Financial Cycle Down, War Cycle Up – Charles Nenner Warns

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