FEB 21/GOLD CLOSED DOWN $7.45 TO $1833.25//SILVER CLOSED UP 14 CENTS TO $21.85//PLATINUM CONTINUES TO GAIN ON PALLADIUM RISING BY $16.90 TO $946.60 WHILE PALLADIUM FELL $3.20 TO $1538.65//HUGE NUMBER OF COVID/VACCINE UPDATES: DR PAUL ALEXANDER/VACCINE IMPACT//SLAY NEWS..PFIZER KNOWINGLY ADDED DANGEROUS COMPONENTS IN ITS VACCINE (EPOCH TIMES)//DR ALEXANDER ON THE TOXIC SPILL IN EAST PALESTINE//BBC REPORTS EXCESS DEATHS (ALL CAUSE MORTALITY) GREATLY INCREASED IN 2022// FLORIDA SURGEON GENERAL REPORTS LIFE THREATENING VAERS UP AN ASTRONOMICAL 4400% IN 2022//EUROPE REPORT: EU IS OUT TO GET HUNGARY/// CREDIT SUISSE IN TROUBLE AS ITS STOCK HITS ALL TIME LOW OF 2.63 SWISS FRANCS PER SHARE///MIDDLE EAST REPORT: IRAN IS REPORTED TO HAVE SUCCEEDED IN OBTAINING 84% ENRICHMENT OF URANIUM CLOSE TO NUCLEAR BOMB CAPABILITY//ISRAEL BOMBS SYRIA AGAIN//ANOTHER EARTHQUAKE HITS TURKEY NEAR THE SYRIAN BORDER//RUSSIA CANCELS START, THE NON PROLIFERATION NUCLEAR TREATY//MORE UPDATES ON THE EAST PALESTINE DISASTER/SWAMP STORIES FOR YOU TONIGHT
523 C INTERACTIVE BRO 6 624 H BOFA SECURITIES 3 661 C JP MORGAN 3 686 C STONEX FINANCIA 1 732 C RBC CAP MARKETS 13 800 C MAREX SPEC 4 2 880 H CITIGROUP 11 905 C ADM 3
TOTAL: 23 23 MONTH TO DATE: 14,640
JPMORGAN STOPPED 3/23
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GOLD: NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED FOR FEB/2023. CONTRACT: 23 NOTICES FOR 2300 OZ or 0.07153 TONNES
total notices so far: 14,640 contracts for 1,464,000 oz (45.536 tonnes)
SILVER NOTICES: 4 NOTICE(S) FILED FOR 20,000 OZ/
total number of notices filed so far this month :852 for 4,260,000 oz
END
GLD
WITH GOLD DOWN $7.45
INVESTORS SWITCHING TO SPROTT PHYSICAL (PHYS) INSTEAD OF THE FRAUDULENT GLD
/HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//// A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.16 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD
INVENTORY RESTS AT 919.92TONNES
Silver//SLV
WITH NO SILVER AROUND AND SILVER UP14 CENTS
AT THE SLV// BIG CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A HUGE DEPOSIT OF 1,563,000 OZ INTO THE SLV/
INVESTORS ARE SWITCHING SLV TO SPROTT’S PSLV
CLOSING INVENTORY: 486.382. MILLION OZ (CORRECTED)
Let us have a look at the data for today
SILVER//OUTLINE
SILVER COMEX OI FELL BY A FAIR SIZED 444 CONTRACTS TO 126,638 AND FURTHER FROM THE RECORD HIGH OI OF 244,710, SET FEB 25/2020 AND THE FAIR LOSS IN COMEX OI WAS ACCOMPLISHED DESPITE OUR $0.02 GAIN IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX ON FRIDAY. WE ARE NOW COMING CLOSER TO OUR ALL TIME LOW OF 125,000 OI CONTRACTS. OUR BANKERS WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING THE PRICE OF SILVER DOWN (IT ROSE BY $0.02). AND WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING ANY SPEC LONGS, AS WE HAD A HUGE SIZED GAIN ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES 1272 CONTRACTS. AS WELL, WE HAD 0 NOTICES FOR EXCHANGE FOR RISK TRANSFER (0.0 MILLION OZ. ) AS THE TOTAL ISSUED IN THIS CATEGORY SO FAR THIS MONTH TOTAL 1.775 MILLION OZ. WE HAVE FINISHED WITH OUR SPECS BEING SHORT AS THEY COVERED WITH THE RISE IN PRICE IN JANUARY . WE HAVE NOW RETURNED TO OUR USUAL AND CUSTOMARY SCENARIO: BANKERS SHORT AND SPECS LONG.
WE MUST HAVE HAD: A GIGANTIC ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS( 1575 CONTRACTS) iiii) AN INITIAL SILVER STANDING FOR COMEX SILVER MEASURING AT 0.540. MILLION OZ FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 115,000 OZ QUEUE JUMP OF 20,000 OZ// NEW TOTALS STANDING = 4.36 MILLION OZ + 1.775 MILLION OF EXCHANGE FOR RISK//TOTAL STANDING 6.135 MILLION OZ//// V) SMALL SIZED COMEX OI LOSS/ HUGE SIZED EFP ISSUANCE/
I AM NOW RECORDING THE DIFFERENTIAL IN OI FROM PRELIMINARY TO FINAL -444
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 CONTRACTS for 14 days, total 13,498 contracts: OR 67.490 MILLION OZ . (964 CONTRACTS PER DAY)
TOTAL EFP’S FOR THE MONTH SO FAR: 67.490 MILLION OZ
.
LAST 17 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: 72.39 MILLION OZ//
MARCH: 207.430 MILLION OZ//A NEW RECORD FOR EFP ISSUANCE
APRIL: 114.52 MILLION OZ FINAL//LOW ISSUANCE
MAY: 105.635 MILLION OZ//
JUNE: 94.470 MILLION OZ
JULY : 87.110 MILLION OZ
AUGUST: 65.025 MILLION OZ
SEPT. 74.025 MILLION OZ///FINAL
OCT. 29.017 MILLION OZ FINAL
NOV: 134.290 MILLION OZ//FINAL
DEC, 61.395 MILLION OZ FINAL
JAN 2023/// 53.070 MILLION OZ //FINAL
FEB: 2023: 67.490/ MILLION OZ/INITIAL//MUCH STRONGER ISSUANCE VS THE LATTER TWO MONTHS.
RESULT: WE HAD A FAIR SIZED DECREASE IN COMEX OI SILVER COMEX CONTRACTS OF 747 DESPITE OUR $0.02 GAIN IN SILVER PRICING AT THE COMEX//FRIDAY.,. THE CME NOTIFIED US THAT WE HAD A HUGE SIZED EFP ISSUANCE CONTRACTS: 1575 CONTRACTS ISSUED FOR MAR AND 0 CONTRACTS ISSUED FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS) WHICH EXITED OUT OF THE SILVER COMEX TO LONDON AS FORWARDS./ WE HAVE A GOOD INITIAL SILVER OZ STANDING FOR FEB OF 0.54 MILLION OZ FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 20,000 OZ QUEUE JUMP = NEW STANDING: 4.36 MILLION OZ + 1.775 MILLION OZ EXCHANGE FOR RISK://NEW STANDING INCREASES TO 6.135 MILLION OZ .. WE HAVE A HUGE SIZED GAIN OF 1272OI CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES
WE HAD 4 NOTICE(S) FILED TODAY FOR 20,000 OZ
THE SILVER COMEX IS NOW BEING ATTACKED FOR METAL BY LONDONERS ET AL.
GOLD//OUTLINE
IN GOLD, THE COMEX OPEN INTEREST FELL BY A SMALL SIZED 481 CONTRACTS TO 422,516 AND CLOSER TO THE 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: REMOVED 1293 CONTRACTS.
.
WE HAD A SMALL SIZED DECREASE IN COMEX OI ( 481 CONTRACTS) WITH OUR $1.35 LOSS IN PRICE. WE ALSO HAD A SMALL INITIAL STANDING IN GOLD TONNAGE FOR FEB. AT 41.601 TONNES ON FIRST DAY NOTICE FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S E.F.P. JUMP TO LONDON OF 500 OZ //NEW STANDING: 46.893 TONNES//(QUEUE JUMPING = EXERCISING LONDON BASED EFP’S ) (EFP is the transfer of contracts immediately to London for potential gold deliveries originating from London). TONNES
YET ALL OF..THIS HAPPENED WITH OUR $1.35 LOSS IN PRICEWITH RESPECT TO FRIDAY’S TRADING
WE HAD A FAIR SIZED GAIN OF 21344 OI CONTRACTS (4.180 PAPER TONNES) ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES
E.F.P. ISSUANCE
THE CME RELEASED THE DATA FOR EFP ISSUANCE AND IT TOTALED A FAIR SIZED 1825 CONTRACTS:
The NEW COMEX OI FOR THE GOLD COMPLEX RESTS AT 422,516
IN ESSENCE WE HAVE A FAIR SIZED INCREASE IN TOTAL CONTRACTS ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 1344 CONTRACTS WITH 481CONTRACTS DECREASED AT THE COMEX AND 2637 EFP OI CONTRACTS WHICH NAVIGATED OVER TO LONDON. THUS TOTAL OI GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES OF 1344 CONTRACTS OR 8.202 TONNES.
CALCULATIONS ON GAIN/LOSS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES
WE HAD A FAIR SIZED ISSUANCE IN EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS (1825 CONTRACTS) ACCOMPANYING THE SMALL SIZED LOSS IN COMEX OI (481) TOTAL GAIN IN THE TWO EXCHANGES 1344 CONTRACTS. WE HAVE ( 1) NOW RETURNED TO OUR NORMAL FORMAT OF BANKERS GOING SHORT AND SPECULATORS GOING LONG ,2.) FAIR INITIAL STANDING AT THE GOLD COMEX FOR FEB. AT 41.601 TONNES FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S 500 OZ E.F.P. JUMP // ///3) ZERO LONG LIQUIDATION //4) SMALL SIZED COMEX OPEN INTEREST GAIN// 5) FAIR ISSUANCE OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL PAPER/
HISTORICAL ACCUMULATION OF EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICALS IN 2023 INCLUDING TODAY
FEB
ACCUMULATION OF EFP’S GOLD AT J.P. MORGAN’S HOUSE OF BRIBES: (EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL) FOR THE MONTH OF FEB :
37,409 CONTRACTS OR 3,740,900 OZ OR 116.357 TONNES 14 TRADING DAY(S) AND THUS AVERAGING: 2672 EFP CONTRACTS PER TRADING DAY
TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA AS TO THE SIZE OF THESE EFP TRANSFERS : THIS MONTH IN 14 TRADING DAY(S) IN TONNES 116.357 TONNES
TOTAL ANNUAL GOLD PRODUCTION, 2022, THROUGHOUT THE WORLD EX CHINA EX RUSSIA: 3555 TONNES
THUS EFP TRANSFERS REPRESENTS 116.357/3550 x 100% TONNES 3.26% OF GLOBAL ANNUAL PRODUCTION
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. 175.62 TONNES//FINAL ISSUANCE//
JAN:2022 247.25 TONNES //FINAL
FEB: 196.04 TONNES//FINAL
MARCH: 409.30 TONNES INITIAL( THIS IS NOW A RECORD EFP ISSUANCE FOR MARCH AND FOR ANY MONTH.
APRIL: 169.55 TONNES (FINAL VERY LOW ISSUANCE MONTH)
MAY: 247,44 TONNES FINAL//
JUNE: 238.13 TONNES FINAL
JULY: 378.43 TONNES FINAL
AUGUST: 180.81 TONNES FINAL
SEPT. 193.16 TONNES FINAL
OCT: 177.57 TONNES FINAL ( MUCH SMALLER THAN LAST MONTH)
NOV. 223.98 TONNES//FINAL ( MUCH LARGER THAN PREVIOUS MONTHS//comex running out of physical)
DEC: 185.59 tonnes // FINAL
JAN 2023: 228.49 TONNES FINAL//HUGE AMOUNT OF EFP’S ISSUED THIS MONTH!!
FEB: 116.357 TONNES/INITIAL (HEADING FOR ANOTHER STRONG ISSUANCE)
SPREADING OPERATIONS
(/NOW SWITCHING TO GOLD) FOR NEWCOMERS, HERE ARE THE DETAILS
SPREADING LIQUIDATION HAS NOW COMMENCED AS WE HEAD TOWARDS THE NEW ACTIVE FRONT MONTH OF FEB. WE ARE NOW INTO THE SPREADING OPERATION OF BOTH GOLD (
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 OCT HEADING TOWARDS THE ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF FEB., FOR BOTH 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 (NOV), 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.”
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 FAIR SIZED 747 CONTRACTS OI TO 126,638 AND FURTHER FROM OUR COMEX HIGH 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 5 YEARS AGO.
EFP ISSUANCE 1575 CONTRACTS
OUR CUSTOMARY MIGRATION OF COMEX LONGS CONTINUE TO MORPH INTO LONDON FORWARDS AS OUR BANKERS USED THEIR EMERGENCY PROCEDURE TO ISSUE:
MAR 1575 and ALL OTHER MONTHS: ZERO. TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 1575 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 747 CONTRACTS AND ADD TO THE 1575 OI TRANSFERRED TO LONDON THROUGH EFP’S,
WE OBTAIN A HUGE GAIN OF 828 OPEN INTEREST CONTRACTS FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES.
THUS IN OUNCES, THE GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES 4.140MILLION OZ//
OCCURRED DESPITE OUR TINY $0.02 GAIN IN PRICE ….. OUR SPEC SHORTS HAVE NOWHERE TO HIDE!
4. Chris Powell of GATA provides to us very important physical commentaries
end
5. Other gold/silver commentaries
6. Commodity commentaries//
7/CRYPTOCURRENCIES/BITCOIN ETC
3. ASIAN AFFAIRS
i)TUESDAY MORNING//MONDAY NIGHT
SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 16.19 PTS OR 0.49% //Hang Seng CLOSED DOWN 359.47 PTS OR 1.71% /The Nikkei closed DOWN 58.94 PTS OR 0.21% //Australia’s all ordinaries CLOSED DOWN 0.10% /Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed DOWN 6.8789 //OFFSHORE CHINESE YUAN DOWN TO 6.8859// /Oil UP TO 77.06 dollars per barrel for WTI and BRENT AT 83.52 / Stocks in Europe OPENED ALL RED// ONSHORE YUAN TRADING ABOVE LEVEL OF OFFSHORE YUAN/ONSHORE YUAN TRADING WEAKER AGAINST US DOLLAR/OFFSHORE WEAKER
a)NORTH KOREA/SOUTH KOREA
outline
b) REPORT ON JAPAN/
OUTLINE
3 C CHINA
OUTLINE
4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS
OUTLINE
5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS
OUTLINE
6.Global Issues//COVID ISSUES/VACCINE 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 SMALL SIZED 481 CONTRACTS DOWN TO 422,516 WITH OUR SMALL LOSS IN PRICE OF $1.35
EXCHANGE FOR PHYSICAL ISSUANCE
WE ARE NOW IN THE ACTIVE DELIVERY MONTH OF FEB… THE CME REPORTS THAT THE BANKERS ISSUED A FAIR SIZED TRANSFER THROUGH THE EFP ROUTE AS THESE LONGS RECEIVED A DELIVERABLE LONDON FORWARD TOGETHER WITH A FIAT BONUS.,
THAT IS 1825 EFP CONTRACTS WERE ISSUED: : APRIL 1825 & ZERO FOR ALL OTHER MONTHS:
TOTAL EFP ISSUANCE: 1825 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 GAINED THE FOLLOWING TODAY ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES: A FAIR SIZED TOTAL OF 1344 CONTRACTS IN THAT 1825LONGS WERE TRANSFERRED AS FORWARDS TO LONDON AND WE HAD A SMALL SIZED COMEX OI LOSS OF 481 CONTRACTS..AND THIS FAIR SIZED GAIN ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES HAPPENED (DESPITE OUR FALL IN PRICE OF $1.35). WE ARE NOW WITNESSING THE BANKERS GOING NET SHORT AND THE SPECS GOING NET LONG.
// WE HAVE A STRONG AMOUNT OF GOLD TONNAGE STANDING: FEB (46.893)
TONNES),
HERE ARE THE AMOUNTS THAT STOOD FOR DELIVERY IN THE PRECEDING 12 MONTHS OF 2021-2022:
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 YEAR 2021 (JAN- DEC): 601.213 TONNES
YEAR 2022:
JANUARY 2022 17.79 TONNES
FEB 2022: 59.023 TONNES
MARCH: 36.678 TONNES
APRIL: 85.340 TONNES FINAL.
MAY: 20.11 TONNES FINAL
JUNE: 74.933 TONNES FINAL
JULY 29.987 TONNES FINAL
AUGUST:104.979 TONNES//FINAL
SEPT. 38.1158 TONNES
OCT: 77.390 TONNES/ FINAL
NOV 27.110 TONNES/FINAL
Dec. 64.541 tonnes (TOTAL YEAR 656.076 TONNES)
2003:
JAN/2023: 20.559 tonnes
FEB 2023: 46.893 tonnes
THE SPECS/HFT WERE SUCCESSFUL IN LOWERING GOLD’S PRICE( IT FELL $1.35) //// BUT WERE UNSUCCESSFUL IN KNOCKING ANY SPECULATOR LONGS AS WE HAD A FAIR SIZED GAIN OF 1344 CONTRACTS ON OUR TWO EXCHANGES
WE HAVE GAINED A TOTAL OI OF 4.180 PAPER TONNES OF TOTAL OI FROM OUR TWO EXCHANGES, ACCOMPANYING OUR INITIAL GOLD TONNAGE STANDING FOR FEB. (41.219 TONNES) FOLLOWED BY TODAY’S E.F.P. JUMP OF 500 OZ OR 0.1555 TONNES//NEW STANDING DECREASES TO 46.893 tonnes … ALL OF THIS WAS ACCOMPLISHED DESPITE OUR FALL IN PRICE TO THE TUNE OF $1.35.
WE HAD- 1293 CONTRACTS COMEX TRADES (REMOVED) TO OPEN INTEREST AFTER TRADING ENDED LAST NIGHT
NET GAIN ON THE TWO EXCHANGES 1344 CONTRACTS OR 134,400 OZ OR 4.180 TONNES
Total monthly oz gold served (contracts) so far this month
14,640 notices 1,464,000 45.536TONNES
Total accumulative withdrawals of gold from the Dealers inventory this month
NIL oz
Total accumulative withdrawal of gold from the Customer inventory this month
x
i)Dealer deposits: 0
total dealer deposit: nil oz
No dealer withdrawals
Customer deposits: 0
total deposits: NIL oz
customer withdrawals: 3
i) Out of HSBC 3670.640 oz
ii) Out of Brinks: 546.57 oz (17 kilobars)
iii) Out of Malca; 6883.140 oz
total withdrawals: 12,100.140 oz
in tonnes: 0.376 tonnes
Adjustments; 0
CALCULATIONS FOR THE AMOUNT OF GOLD STANDING FOR FEBRUARY.
For the front month of FEBRUARY we have an oi of 459 contracts having lost 169 contracts. We had 164 notices
filed on Friday so we lost 5 contracts or an additional 500 oz will not stand for metal at the comex as the guys were EFP’d to London
March gained 154 contracts to stand at 1980.
April lost 2655 contracts down to 335,609
We had 23 notice(s) filed today for 2300 oz
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 equate to 23 contract(s) of which 0 notices were stopped (received) by j.P. Morgan dealer notice(s) was (were) stopped 0/ Received) by J.P.Morgan//customer account 3 and 0 notice(s) received (stopped) by the squid (Goldman Sachs)
To calculate the INITIAL total number of gold ounces standing for the FEB. /2023. contract month,
we take the total number of notices filed so far for the month (14,640 x 100 oz ), to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of (FEBRUARY 459 CONTRACTS) minus the number of notices served upon today 23 x 100 oz per contract equals 1,507,600 OZ OR 46.893 TONNES the number of TONNES standing in this active month of February.
thus the INITIAL standings for gold for the FEB contract month:
No of notices filed so far (14,640 x 100 oz+ 459 OI for the front month minus the number of notices served upon today (23)x 100 oz} which equals 1,507,600 oz standing OR 46.893 TONNES in this active delivery month of FEBRUARY..
TOTAL COMEX GOLD STANDING: 46.893TONNES. SO JUST LIKE LAST MONTH WE START WITH A LOW INITIAL AMOUNT OF GOLD STANDING BUT THIS WILL GROW AS THE MONTH PROCEEDS TO ITS CONCLUSION.
TOTAL OF ALL GOLD ELIGIBLE AND REGISTERED: 21,731,875.737 OZ
TOTAL REGISTERED GOLD: 10,976,047.431 (341.401 tonnes)..dropping fast
TOTAL OF ALL ELIGIBLE GOLD: 10,755,828.306 OZ
REGISTERED GOLD THAT CAN BE SERVED UPON: 9,163,941 OZ (REG GOLD- PLEDGED GOLD) 285.03 tonnes//dropping like a stone
END
SILVER/COMEX
FEB 21/2023//INITIAL. SILVER CONTRACT FOR FEBRUARY
Silver
Ounces
Withdrawals from Dealers Inventory
NIL oz
Withdrawals from Customer Inventory
253,270.448 oz Brinks CNT Delaware
Deposits to the Dealer Inventory
nil OZ
Deposits to the Customer Inventory
nil oz
No of oz served today (contracts)
4 CONTRACT(S) (20,000 OZ)
No of oz to be served (notices)
20 contracts (100,000 oz)
Total monthly oz silver served (contracts)
852 contracts (4,260,000 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
i) 0 dealer deposit
total dealer deposits: nil oz
i) We had 0 dealer withdrawal
total dealer withdrawals: oz
We have 0 deposits into the customer account
Total deposits: nil oz
JPMorgan has a total silver weight: 146.353 million oz/288.811 million =50.69% of comex .//dropping fast
Comex withdrawals: 3
i) Out of Brinks: 1021.300 oz
ii) Out of CNT: 42,573.148 oz
iii) Out of Delaware 209,676.100 oz
Total withdrawals; 255,270.448 oz
adjustments: 0
the silver comex is in stress!
TOTAL REGISTERED SILVER: 31.784MILLION OZ (declining rapidly).TOTAL REG + ELIG. 288.611 million o
CALCULATION OF SILVER OZ STANDING FOR FEB
silver open interest data:
FRONT MONTH OF FEB/2023 OI: 24 CONTRACTS HAVING LOST 22 CONTRACT(S.).
WE HAD 26 NOTICES FILED ON FRIDAY, SO WE GAINED 4 CONTRACTS OR AN ADDITIONAL 20,000 OZ OF SILVER WILL STAND AT THE COMEX
March LOST 5892 CONTRACTS DOWN TO 47,752 contracts
April GAINED 27 CONTRACTS TO STAND at 124.
TOTAL NUMBER OF NOTICES FILED FOR TODAY:4 for 200,000 oz
Comex volumes// est. volume today 121,767// huge
Comex volume: confirmed yesterday: 87,475 contracts ( very good)
To calculate the number of silver ounces that will stand for delivery in FEBRUARY. we take the total number of notices filed for the month so far at 852 x 5,000 oz = 4,260,000 oz
to which we add the difference between the open interest for the front month of FEB(24) and the number of notices served upon today 4 x (5000 oz) equals the number of ounces standing.
Thus the standings for silver for the FEB./2023 contract month:852 (notices served so far) x 5000 oz + OI for the front month of FEB 24 – number of notices served upon today (4) x 500 oz of silver standing for the FEB. contract month equates 4.36 million oz + PREVIOUS 1.775 MILLION OZ ( EXCHANGE FOR RISK) = 6.135 MILLION OZ//(TOTAL OZ OF SILVER STANDING).
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
FEB 21/WITH GOLD DOWN $7.45 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.16 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 919.92 TONNES
FEB 17/WITH GOLD DOWN $1.35 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 921.08 TONNES
FEB 16/WITH GOLD UP $6.80 TODAY; SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSITOF .29 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 921.08 TONNES
FEB 15/WITH GOLD DOWN $19.65 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 920.79 TONNES
FEB 14/WITH GOLD UP $1.40 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 920.79 TONNES
FEB 13/WITH GOLD DOWN $9.90 TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF .31 TONNES FORM THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 920.79 TONNES
FEB 10/WITH GOLD DOWN $4.05 TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//A WITHDRAWAL OF .0.38 TONNES/INVENTORY RESTS AT 920.79 TONNES
FEB 9/WITH GOLD DOWN $10.90 TODAY:SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD A DEPOSIT OF .38 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD./INVENTORY RESTS AT 921.10 TONNES
FEB 8/WITH GOLD UP $6.15 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 2.9 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 920.82 TONNES
FEB 7/WITH GOLD UP $5.25 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.32 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 917.92 TONNES
FEB 6/WITH GOLD UP $3.30 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 920.24 TONNES
FEB 3/WITH GOLD DOWN $52.55 TODAY: STRANGE: BIG CHANGES AGAIN IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 1.74 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 920.24 TONNES
FEB 2/WITH GOLD $10.95 TODAY: BIG CHANGE IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 1.44 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 918.50 TONNES
FEB 1/WITH GOLD DOWN $2.55 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 917.06 TONNES
JAN 31/WITH GOLD UP $6.55 TODAY; BIG CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.44 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 917.06 TONNES
JAN 30/WITH GOLD DOWN $6.00 TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF .87 TONNES OF GOLD FROM THE GLD.//INVENTORY RESTS AT 918.50 TONNES
JAN 27/WITH GOLD DOWN $0.85 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 919.37 TONNES
JAN 26/WITH GOLD DOWN $11.55 TODAY; HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 2.03 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 919.37 TONNES
JAN 25/WITH GOLD UP $7.55 TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF .28 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD/INVENTORY RESTS AT 917.34 TONNES
JAN 24/WITH GOLD UP $7.35 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 917.06 TONNES
JAN 23/WITH GOLD UP $0.25 TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 4.63 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 917.06 TONNES
JAN 20/WITH GOLD UP $4.75 TODAY;BIG CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 1.45 TONNES OF GOLD INTO THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 912.43 TONNES
JAN 19/WITH GOLD UP $16.95 TODAY; HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A DEPOSIT OF 1.74 TONNES INTO THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 910.98TONNES
JAN 18/WITH GOLD DOWN $1.95 TODAY; HUGE CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 2.9 TONNES FROM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 909.24 TONNES
JAN 17/WITH GOLD DOWN $11.45 TODAY; NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 912.14 TONNES
JAN 13/WITH GOLD UP $22.90 TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF .29 TONNES FROM THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 912.14 TONNES
JAN 12/WITH GOLD UP $20.55 TODAY: BIG CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.74 TONNES FROM THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 912.43 TONNES
JAN 11/WITH GOLD UP $1.20 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 914.17 TONNES
JAN 10/WITH GOLD UP $1.00 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD///INVENTORY RESTS AT 915.33 TONNES
JAN 9/WITH GOLD UP $ 8.60 TODAY: BIG CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF 1.44 TONNES FROM THE GLD//.//INVENTORY RESTS AT 915.33 TONNES
JAN 6/WITH GOLD UP $28.80 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 916.77 TONNES
JAN 5/WITH GOLD DOWN $17.05 TODAY: BIG CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD: A WITHDRAWAL OF .87 TONNES FORM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 916.77 TONNES
JANUARY 4/WITH GOLD UP $32.40 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD//INVENTORY RESTS AT 917.64 TONNES
JAN 3/WITH GOLD UP $20.00 TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN GOLD INVENTORY AT THE GLD:STRANGE: A WITHDRAWAL OF .87 TONNES FORM THE GLD////INVENTORY RESTS AT 917.64 TONNES
GLD INVENTORY: 919.92 TONNES
Now the SLV Inventory/( vehicle is a fraud as there is no physical metal behind them
FEB 21/WITH SILVER UP 14 CENTS TODAY: HUGE CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 1.5363 MILLION OZ INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 486.382 MILLION OZ//
FEB 17/WITH SILVER UP 2 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 827,000 OZ INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 484.819 MILLION OZ/
FEB 16/WITH SILVER UP 8 CENTS TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: A DEPOSIT OF 690,000 OZ OF SILVER INTO THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 483.992 MILLION OZ//
FEB 15/WITH SILVER DOWN $0.26 TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV//INVENTORY RESTS AT 483.302 MILLION OZ//
FEB 14/WITH SILVER DOWN 1 CENT TODAY: SMALL CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV” A WITHDRAWAL OF 460,000 OZ FROM THE SLV////INVENTORY RESTS AT 483.302 MILLION OZ//
FEB 13 WITH SILVER DOWN 17 CENTS TODAY; NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV// INVENTORY RESTS AT 483.762 MILLION OZ//
FEB 10/WITH SILVER DOWN 8 CENTS: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: //INVENTORY RESTS AT 483.762 MILLION OZ
FEB 9/WITH SILVER DOWN 14 CENTS TODAY: NO CHANGES IN SILVER INVENTORY AT THE SLV: INVENTORY RESTS AT 483.76 MILLION OZ (CORRECTED).//
CLOSING INVENTORY 486.382 MILLION OZ//
PHYSICAL GOLD/SILVER STORIES
1:Peter Schiff
Peter Schiff: The Fed Brought A Knife To An Inflation Gun Fight
Despite the hotter-than-expected CPI report, the mainstream still seems convinced that the Federal Reserve can get inflation under control and bring the economy to a soft landing. But Peter Schiff argues that the central bank can’t win this fight – at least not without crashing the economy. Since the Fed isn’t willing to do that, it won’t go all-in. In effect, the Fed brought a knife to an inflation gunfight.
Even with CPI numbers coming in higher than anticipated, the stock market held up pretty well last week. Some of the tech stocks and risk assets such as bitcoin had a really good week. The Cathie Wood Ark Invest group was up about 7% on the week. Peter said investors are covering their shorts in the stocks and assets that fell the most in 2022.
Meanwhile, gold sold off after the CPI report and a much stronger-than-expected retail sales report. It finished down about $20 an ounce on the week.
It makes sense that gold and bitcoin would be going in opposite directions because they represent very different asset classes. Gold is a safe haven, store of value, inflation hedge, and bitcoin is a highly speculative digital token. That’s what investors were buying on the week – extremely expensive or overpriced speculative assets like bitcoin.”
Peter noted that gold stocks also got beat up. One of the issues facing gold mining companies is rising costs.
And why are their costs going up?
Rising price inflation.
And why isn’t the price of gold going up in proportion or more than those costs?
Because investors are still not worried about inflation. They still have confidence that the Fed is going to rein inflation in. So, the price of gold is not rising as much as the cost of mining it because investors still don’t realize that inflation is here to stay, and they’re not pricing that future inflation into today’s gold price. Because, if they were, the price of gold would be much higher than it is right now, and it wouldn’t matter that the mining costs were going up because the price of the gold that was being mined would be rising even faster.”
Other industries are facing similar cost pressures. The Producer Price Index (PPI) rose by 0.7% in January. Meanwhile, Nestle announced it plans to raise prices further in 2023 to help cover those rising costs.
“Our gross margin is down about 260 basis points – that is massive. That is after all the pricing we have done in 2022,” the company CEO said.
Peter said the people who think we’ve seen the worst of inflation are wrong.
All we’ve seen is a small down payment on what’s coming. We’re going to see much higher prices in the months and years ahead.”
And he noted that the Federal Reserve has barely made any progress in its “war” against inflation. In fact, Peter said the Fed may have even gone backward.
Yes, we’ve had some temporary relief due to the initial pullback in commodity prices. But once commodity prices bottom out, they’re going to be headed for new highs and we’re going to see just how much ground we’ve actually lost. Because the Fed hasn’t even come close to raising interest rates high enough to restore inflation to 2%, nor have we gotten the required cooperation from the US government.”
Keep in mind, the Fed has conceded that it can’t tame inflation with monetary policy alone. US government fiscal policy feeds inflation, and the central bank needs the federal government to quit borrowing and spending so much money. That’s not happening.
Instead of reducing government spending and adopting a contractionary fiscal policy to help bring down inflation, deficit spending is rising. Despite Biden’s lies to the contrary that he’s reducing deficits, deficits are rising and that is an expansionary fiscal policy that is adding fuel to the inflation fire.”
Peter said the rapid rise in consumer debt also shows that the Fed is losing the war against inflation. Inflation defined isn’t just the expansion of the money supply. It is also an expansion in credit. Borrowing money increases purchasing power. So, if credit is expanding, it is inflationary.
If the Fed was really making headway in fighting inflation, consumers would be borrowing less. Credit card debt would be going down. But it’s not happening. And that’s because even though rates have gone up, they haven’t gone up nearly enough to discourage people from borrowing. That’s what has to happen.”
Peter said the solution is more substantial rate hikes and perhaps requiring banks to keep more of their deposits in reserve so there is less money available to lend.
That’s what the Fed would need to be doing if it was truly serious about fighting inflation. But it’s not serious, because it knows if it got serious on fighting inflation, it would crash the economy. In fact, it would probably cause a financial crisis. That’s why it’s not serious. But it can never admit that. So, it’s got to pretend that it’s trying to fight inflation even though it’s still pursuing policies that are fueling the fire.”
The mainstream still thinks that getting the Fed funds rate to around 5% will slay inflation. Then they assume the central bank will be able to quickly lower rates. Peter said they are ignoring history.
If you look back at the 1970s experience, it shows that putting the inflation genie back in the bottle is a lot more difficult than people believe.”
Peter noted that inflation was below 2% for seven straight years from 1959 through the early 60s before it began creeping up in the late 60s. Then, for the next decade, inflation was above the 2% target. Paul Volker went on his war against inflation in 1980 when he raised rates to 20%. Inflation didn’t return to 2% until 1986. At that point, the average Fed funds rate was 14.35%. Even with that, the CPI spiked back up for several years. in the late 80s and early 90s.
Meanwhile, Jerome Powell thinks he can quickly get CPI back to 2% with 5% interest rates.
That rate isn’t even close to being high enough to rein in inflation. … It’s pretty clear; if you look at how high interest rates had to rise and how long they had to stay there during the 1980s to eventually bring inflation back down to 2%, we’ve barely started. As 4.6% Fed funds rate is nothing. We need to see a Fed funds rate double or triple where we are right now. The problem is the economy can’t handle it the way it was able to handle it back then because we didn’t have anywhere near the debt.”
A serious, effective inflation fight would kill this bubble economy.
At some point, the markets are going to come to terms with economic reality. And that reality is that unless interest rates go much higher from here and that produces a high decline in stocks, real estate — a massive recession or financial crisis — we either have to suffer from all of that, or inflation is here to stay. We can’t live in this dream world where the Fed only raises interest rates to about 5% or slightly higher, and that’s all it takes to bring inflation back down to 2%, and everything is great, and the Fed could lower interest rates back down to a number that a highly indebted economy has been used to over the last decade or so. That can’t happen. It’s one or the other. Either everything comes collapsing down because the Fed actually fights inflation, or the Fed stops fighting inflation to try to keep everything propped up and we have to live with high inflation indefinitely.”
end
Peter Schiff: Here’s Why Inflation Is Going To Get Worse
The January CPI report threw cold water on the idea that the Federal Reserve has inflation under control. While the headline annual CPI came down a tick to 6.4%, month-on-month prices rose by 0.5%. After the data came out, Peter Schiff appeared on NTD News to explain why inflation is going to get even worse.
Peter said the January data was bad news for anybody hoping that the Fed had won the inflation fight.
Powell has been talking about disinflation, and from that perspective, we have had numbers that have improved sequentially on a year-over-year basis. But that was bound to happen when you had a rate as high as 9.1, or wherever we peaked out so far.”
But the small 0.1% drop in the annual CPI number wasn’t much of an improvement.
In fact, maybe this is the trough for improvement. Maybe in February, we’re going to see an uptick in the year-over-year inflation number.”
And of course, the 0.5% month-on-month gain was still a pretty big number. Meanwhile, the prior month was revised from -0.1 to +0.1.
So, inflation is starting to turn back up, and I think we’re going to start to see hotter numbers in future months, and that’s going to throw cold water on the idea that the Fed is finished and can can start cutting rates based on victory over inflation.”
The host asked Peter if we are going to get to 2% inflation. Peter emphatically said, No!”
Even if they strip out food and energy, you’re still nowhere near 2%.”
Peter brought up the new buzzword – supercore inflation – noting that it excludes shelter. He said that is even more irrational than excluding food and energy.
But even if you exclude shelter, the year-over-year increase is still 4%. So, that’s double the Fed’s 2% target. So, I don’t think they’re going to get anywhere close to 2% before they start stimulating again. I think we’re going to be in a very severe recession, and we may even be in the midst of another financial crisis. With that backdrop, the Fed is going to start creating inflation, not fighting it.”
Peter pointed out that the central bank and the US government have been creating inflation for more than a decade.
The Fed has barely withdrawn that liquidity. I think we’re still seeing the impact of that and especially the inflation that it unleashed during the COVID pandemic. So, I still think we have a way to go before we catch up. Meanwhile, government policy is still inflationary. We have very expansionary fiscal policy. The government is running enormous budget deficits. That’s highly inflationary. And even though the Fed has raised rates, you still have negative real rates and we’re not encouraging people to save. People are still borrowing as much as they can. The savings rate is near lows. The credit card debt is near record highs. So, the Fed’s rate hikes have not really altered the spending and savings decisions, which I think are key to bringing the inflation rate down. As long as people keep spending, I don’t see any way we’re going to get down to 2%.”
The host asked Peter if the CPI actually reflects what Americans are experiencing. Peter pointed out that inflation is the expansion of the money supply. Rising prices are a consequence of inflation. Does the CPI capture the extent that aggregate prices are rising?
I don’t think so. And I think that’s deliberate. I think the CPI was designed to give you a low reading because of the politics of the number. The government made it up. It’s like a scorecard on government policy, and obviously, the government wants to get a good grade.”
Peter said doubling the official number probably gets you close to accurate. That means the real CPI is closer to 12% than 6%.
Peter went on to explain how the government changed the CPI formula in the 1990s to understate rising prices and prop up Social Security.
The idea was if we can just make the CPI lower, then we won’t have to raise Social Security payments as much. And so, that’s a way to cut Social Security — pretend that we have lower inflation than we actually do.”
Peter pointed out that if you run the current data through the old CPI formula, price inflation was worse last year than any year in the 1970s or 1980s. And it’s not getting any better.
I think this improvement is transitory. We’re going to see higher numbers, probably by mid-year.”
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden seems to want an unlimited debt ceiling. Peter said the best way to tackle price inflation would be to not raise the debt ceiling at all.
Just leave it in place. Pay our bills. Cut spending. But nobody in Washington has a stomach for paying the bills. That’s why they want to avoid that by raising the debt ceiling. But raising the debt ceiling will permit more debt, more spending, and more inflation. And that’s where we’re headed.”
The host asked Peter about the “wage-price spiral.” Peter said that was a concept made up by Keynesians.
If you think about it, wages are a price. Wages are the price of labor. It’s how much I have to pay somebody to get them to work for me. … You can’t say the reason prices are going up is because prices are going up. The question is why are all prices going up? Why are wages going up and why are other prices going up? And that’s because of inflation. Who creates the inflation? The government.”
Peter said the reason they came up with this “wage-price spiral” concept is to blame workers for inflation or to claim inflation is the price we pay for prosperity.
That’s BS! It’s the same thing as the cost-price push — saying inflation is caused by rising costs. No, it’s not. And again, costs are prices. One person’s cost is somebody else’s price. There’s no difference. You can’t say prices are going up because costs are going up. Costs are prices. So, prices don’t go up because prices go up. They go up because the money supply is expanded.”
How should people invest in this environment? Peter said in order to avoid the inflation tax, you need to avoid what’s being taxed. That’s the US dollar. One way to do that is own gold and silver.
They’re monetary metals. When you have a lot of inflation and you have negative real interest rates, which is what we do, people are looking for an alternative store of value, a hedge against inflation. You’ll find that in gold and silver.”
2 Lawrie Williams//Pam and Russ Martens/Jim Rickards/Mathew Piepenburg/Von Greyerz//Rickards:
WILL NUCLEAR WAR, DEBT COLLAPSE OR ENERGY DEPLETION FINISH THE WORLD?
Egon von Greyerz February 16, 2023
Fragility has probably never been greater in history. Just three encapsulate the destiny of the world.
The THREE words are: WAR, DEBT, ENERGY
A FOURTH word will financially save the ones who understand its significance. It will also play a major role in the world’s future monetary system. The word is obviously GOLD. As the world moves from a fragile debt based Western system to a commodity and energy based system in the East and South, gold will assume a strategic role in the monetary system.
WAR – WWIII
War is obviously a potentially catastrophic threat since the sheer existence of the world and mankind is now at maximum risk. Wars are horrible whoever starts them. Since the beginning of mankind there have probably been over 100,000 important wars and conflicts.
Wars are horrible whoever starts them. Most wars end in major fatalities and injuries and a massive human and financial cost. And at the end of the war, the situation is often worse than when it started, like in for example Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iraq and Libya which countries the US invaded unprovoked. The same will most probably be the case in Ukraine.
There are always two sides to a war. I learnt many years ago that before we judge someone, we must walk three moon laps in his moccasins.
So let us first walk in Putin’s moccasins.
The whole West hates Russia and have personalised it to Putin. Few realise that many of the people behind Putin are extreme hardliners and much more dangerous. Historically, Ukraine (like many European countries) has had a motley existence. Since the late 1700s to 1991 Ukraine was part of Russia / Soviet Union with a brief interruption after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917.
After the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine in 2014, the Minsk agreement brokered by Germany and France stipulated that parts of the Donbas region should be granted self-government. There should also be a ceasefire and withdrawal of heavy weapons by the Ukrainians. The Minsk agreement was never honoured and Ukraine continued to kill over 20,000 Russians in the region and to bomb the Donbas. As the bombing intensified in early February 2022, (allegedly at the insistence of the US), Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
So the above is how Russia and Putin sees the Ukrainian situation.
Wearing America’s moccasins, the US Neocons are extremely worried about losing the US hegemony. Since WWII, the US has basically failed with every war they have been involved in. But in their view, if they fail in the present conflict, that will be the end of US dominance both politically and financially.
Ukraine is clearly just a pawn in a much bigger game between the two titans – USA and Russia.
I watched Zelensky’s latest speech live to UK parliamentarians where he was begging for planes, weapons and money. This is obviously the role of a defending leader although he is clearly sacrificing his people.
But wars are really really bizarre. Clapping every sentence that Zelensky uttered about the evil Russian invaders were around 1,000 politicians whose British ancestors, over a 400 year period, had invaded, conquered and ruled over 400 million people and 25% of the world’s landmass including major parts of Asia, Australia, Africa, Middle East and America. But today the shoe is on the other foot.
Politicians are masters at throwing stones whilst sitting in glass houses.
But wars are always about CONSEQUENCES. It is clear at this point that the West is sadly ignoring the potential consequences of this war as they keep sending money and weapons but no peace makers. The US has no desire for peace at this stage and Europe just follows blindly whatever the US initiates without thinking of the consequences which both economically and militarily are much graver for Europe.
Zelensky has asked for tanks and is getting them. He is now asking for planes which the NATO countries are also considering. There are not yet any NATO troops in Ukraine officially but it is clear that there are many NATO soldiers there without the official uniforms. An Austrian colonel confirms that if a NATO solider takes off his uniform, he is a mercenary and this seems how NATO sends troops to Ukraine unofficially. Also the Mozart group led by a retired US Marine Corps Colonel acts in Ukraine as mercenaries.
So what is clear that there are not only NATO weapons in Ukraine but also soldiers. This by definition is as close to WWIII as the world can get.
It seems very unlikely that Russia will lose this war with their military superiority. Even with major additional help from NATO, Ukraine is unlikely to stand a chance.
If NATO decides to escalate the war with major troops and equipment, not only Russia will respond strongly but possibly also China and maybe India and Korea.
But there are clearly only losers in a nuclear war.
If that happens, major parts of the world and population will be gone and we won’t have to worry about deficits and debts or stocks and gold.
Let’s hope that world leaders and the ones pulling their strings come to their senses.
DEBT BUBBLE
According to Genesis in the Bible, Nimrod (grandson of Noah) built the Tower of Babel. The Babylonians desire was to make it “with its top in the heavens”. But god punished them for this deed, stopped the construction and scattered the people all around the world. Before that point spoke the same language but thereafter they all spoke different languages so they couldn’t understand each other.
Since then Central Bankers have built themselves towers or structures which haven’t quite reached heaven but both their aspirations and the money they have printed probably have.
What will pull these buildings down will probably not be the wrath of god but the wrath of the people as they realise that these monuments are a sign of bankers’ hubris based on fake money. And this fake money has not just built grandiose buildings like the Bank of International Settlement – BIS – tower in Babel Basel or the Eccles building that houses the FED in Washington.
No, fake money has also built astounding wealth for the top few percent of wealthy people and impoverished the rest.
The French Revolution in the late 18th century or the Russian Revolution in 1917 were caused by significantly smaller differences between the rich and the poor than today.
The poverty & famine which many people in the world are already experiencing will in coming years/decades likely cause social unrest and revolutions on a major scale. In the last quarter, civil unrest rose in over 100 countries and more than 30 countries are currently at war. A collapse of the financial system which is less stable than a House of Cards will obviously exacerbate the situation and could easily cause major upheaval in many parts of the world.
GLOBAL DEBT BUBBLE OF $2.3 QUADRILLION
As I have outlined in many articles, these towers mentioned above have been instrumental in creating a global debt bubble of $300 trillion plus derivatives and unfunded liabilities of around $2 quadrillion, most of which will turn into debt in the next decade or less.
So even if the world can avoid a major nuclear war, it is likely to suffer massive repercussions from the financial calamity coming next.
As Gandhi said:
“THERE IS SUFFICIENCY IN THE WORLD FOR
MAN’S NEED BUT NOT FOR HIS GREED.”
To create $2.3 quadrillion of global liabilities has nothing to do with man’s need but only with the greed of a few at the expense of mankind.
When the nuclear financial bubble bursts in the next few years, we will see an implosion of asset prices in real terms by 75-90% as I have outlined in many articles like here. LINK
In my article “IN THE END THE $ GOES TO ZERO AND THE US DEFAULTS” , LINK, I also explain that “there is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion” as von Mises stated.
So even if the world survives the threat of a nuclear war, a collapse of the financial system is absolutely inevitable. The greed and the adoration of the golden calf that some parts of the world have practised in the last 50 years, will not go unpunished.
This major transformation coming will be like a financial nuclear event. After a difficult transition, the world will not only come out of it with a much sounder foundation but also based on much better human values than currently.
OIL – ENERGY
As the world moves from a debt based and fake money system to a much sounder one, resting on real values, especially energy and other commodities, the balance of power will continuously shift from West to East and South.
The final move down of the dollar is likely to involve a US default even though the US hubris will prevent them from using that word. It will instead be called a reset but the whole world will know that this disorderly reset will involve the US currency having lost all of its value.
The Fed will obviously invent a new digital currency that the rest of the world should not touch with a barge pole. Remember that the dollar, like most currencies, has already lost 98% since 1971. But the final 2% fall represents a 100% fall from today.
Throughout history the same total destruction has happened to every currency. Hubristic governments and central bankers clearly deserve this punishment. But sadly it is always the undeserved people who will suffer the most.
ENERGY
Another major economic crisis for the world is the contracting energy system.
The world economy is driven by energy. Without sufficient energy the living standards would decline dramatically. Currently fossil fuels account for 83% of the world’s energy. The heavy dependence on fossil fuels is unlikely to change in the next few decades.
The scale shows billion tonnes of oil equivalent energy.
As the graph shows, the energy derived from fossil fuels has declined for the last few years. This trend will accelerate over the next 20+ years as the availability of fossil fuels decline and the cost increases. The economic cost of producing energy has gone up 5X since 1980.
What very few people realise is that the world’s prosperity does not improve with more debt but with more and cheaper energy.
But sadly as the graph above shows, energy production is going to decline for at least 20 years.
Less energy means lower prosperity for the world. And remember that this is in addition to a major decline in prosperity due to the implosion of the financial system and asset values.
The graph above shows that energy from fossil fuels will decline by 18% between 2021 and 2040. But although Wind & Solar will proportionally increase, it will in no way compensate for the fall in fossil fuels. For renewable energy to make up the difference, it would need to increase by 900% with an investment exceeding $100 trillion. This is highly unlikely since the production of Wind & Solar are heavily dependent on fossil fuels.
Another major problem is that there is no efficient method for storing Renewable energy.
Let’s just take the example of getting enough energy from batteries. The world’s largest battery factory is the Tesla Giga factory. The annual total output from this factory would produce 3 minutes of the annual US electricity demand. Even with 1,000 years of battery production, the batteries from this factory would produce only 2 days of US electricity demand.
So batteries will most probably not be a viable source of energy for decades especially since they need fossil fuels to be produced and charged.
Nuclear energy is the best available option today. But the time and cost of producing nuclear means that it will not be a viable alternative for decades. Also, many countries have stopped nuclear energy for political reasons. The graph above shows that nuclear and hydro will only increase very marginally in the next 20 years.
Of course the world wants to achieve cleaner and more efficient energy. But today we don’t have the means to produce this energy in quantity from anything but fossil fuels.
So stopping or reducing the production of fossil fuels, which is the desire of many politicians and climate activists, is guaranteed to substantially exacerbate the decline of the world economy.
We might get cleaner air but many would have to enjoy it in caves with little food or other necessities and conveniences that we have today.
So what is clear is that the world is not prepared for even the best scenario energy case which entails a major decline in the standard to living in the next 20-30 years at least.
GOLD
Digital currencies are the perfect means for controlling the people in a totalitarian world. It gives Big Brother total power in relation to the people’s money. They can be taxed, fined or directed by any whim of the government. This would include arbitrary taxation or confiscation.
Thus CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) are a total disaster in relation to personal freedom. But in many countries the serfs have already been trained for this. Take Sweden where cash hardly exists and credit cards are used for all spending, even buying a newspaper or a loaf of bread. Most shops don’t even accept cash.
Thus the placid Swedes would happily hand over control over their money to the government, totally oblivious of the consequences.
As a lover of freedom, I would hate to live under such circumstances even though I was born in Sweden and really like many aspects of this country.
The people will not have a vote on digital money in any country just like they have no say when their leaders start a war. Personally I would do everything to avoid such oppressive circumstances but I do realise that it would be difficult for most people.
With the coming fall of the dollar and many other currencies, as well as the end of the petrodollar, gold is likely to play a major role in the monetary system dominated by the East and South.
With government spending out of control in most countries, gold is the only currency you can trust just as it has been for 1,000s of years.
The BRICS, with China, Russia and India as major gold countries, are likely to make gold an important part of the future monetary system.
Gold is not for investment or speculation.
Gold is insurance and wealth preservation.
Gold is saving and financial survival.
2023 is likely to be the year of gold. Both fundamentally and technically gold looks like it will make major up moves this year. Any correction must be used to accumulate. Much better to buy low than on breakouts.
But please buy only physical gold and store it in a safe jurisdiction away from kleptocratic governments.
END
3. Chris Powell of GATA provides to us very important physical commentaries//
Crooked Barrick is blasting rivals for chasing mergers. They are grappling with their own big writedowns
(Toronto Globe and Mail/GATA)
Barrick CEO blasts rivals for chasing mergers — while grappling with his own big writedown
Submitted by admin on Fri, 2023-02-17 09:45Section: Daily Dispatches
By Tim Kiladze The Globe and Mail, Toronto Wednesday, February 15, 2023
Barrick Gold Corp. CEO Mark Bristow cannot believe rival miners are contemplating expensive mergers and acquisitions all over again, after the industry suffered through tens of billions of dollars’ worth of merger and acquisition writedowns when the last commodity supercycle crashed.
“The mining industry generally are world champions in investing in the peaks, and going bust in the troughs,” he said in an interview.
Barrick was one of the worst-hit miners when the last supercycle crashed a decade ago, writing down US$20.7-billion between 2013 and 2015 under previous leadership.
Mr. Bristow took over in 2019 through an all-share, no-premium merger with Randgold Resources — which he ran — and lately he has preached organic growth. “It’s crazy that my colleagues in the industry find [this strategy] difficult,” he said.
The trouble for Barrick is that its own strategy isn’t winning shareholders over, at least not yet. Rising costs forced the miner to cut its dividend when it reported earnings today, and Barrick also took a US$1.6-billion writedown comprised of multiple charges. The largest was worth US$950-million after tax on Barrick’s Loulo-Gounkoto project in Mali, a charge Barrick attributed to inflationary pressures and higher interest rates.
Despite the current struggles, Mr. Bristow doesn’t believe chasing M&A is the answer. “This industry doesn’t invest in its future, and then it has to go to the last resort of buying assets,” he said on a conference call with analysts.
While some miners argue that adding resources through M&A will attract more investors, because companies’ market valuations will be higher, Mr. Bristow isn’t having it. “We can’t see much strategic benefit in just getting bigger for bigness sake,” Mr. Bristow said. “We don’t agree that it builds a better company with more gravitas.” In fact, “it adds more risk.”
In the past six months, Gold Fields Ltd. has tried to buy Yamana Gold at a 34% but was rebuffed by shareholders, and last month Newmont Corp. announced a US$16.9-billion all-share bid for Newcrest Mining Ltd. at a 21% premium.
There is also speculation that global behemoths such as BHP Group Ltd. and Rio Tinto PLC, which are flush with cash after banner years, will splurge on megadeals.
Barrick’s new billion-dollar writedown is the miner’s largest annual impairment charge since 2015. Back then the company was still grappling with years of disastrous deal-making and capital expenditures, particularly at its Pascua Lama project in Argentina.
Asked about the writedown, which is on a project that was acquired through Randgold, Mr. Bristow stressed in the interview that it was a non-cash charge that does not change Barrick’s current cash flows. He added that Randgold was purchased using shares and for no premium. By contrast, Barrick bought Equinox Minerals Ltd. in 2011 for $7.3 billion in cash and later wrote down billions of dollars from the deal.
Barrick is also struggling with a blemished safety record following multiple deaths at its projects in recent months. On the call with analysts, Mr. Bristow attributed the catastrophic casualties to bringing in new contractors. “We didn’t invest enough time in getting to know our contractors,” he said.
Barrick’s shares have more than doubled from their 2015 lows, but the company’s stock is still down by more than 50% from the record high set a decade ago. The shares lost 3.3% today to close at $23 in Toronto.
Turning Barrick around is a tough slog for Mr. Bristow, but it has its bright spots. Barrick’s debt rating was recently upgraded by Moody’s Investors Service to A3, a rather high level, and the ratings agency praised Barrick’s US$5 billion in cash reserves and ample free cash flow. The gold price is also hovering around US$1,850 per ounce, which is the same level it hit during the commodity supercycle.
“It is frustrating,” he said in the interview, referring to investors’ resistance to buying Barrick’s shares in droves again. But “in the fullness of time,” he believes his strategy will be well received. “You’ve got to build trust,” he said. “We are rebuilding a brand.”
One way is he trying to do that is by expanding Barrick’s copper production. Copper is a key metal in electric vehicle production, so the investment thesis for it is quite strong at the moment.
Last year 90% of Barrick’s revenues came from producing gold. By contrast, Australia’s Newcrest Mining is expected to derive 25% of its revenues this year from copper.
Mr. Bristow said he knows Barrick needs more copper exposure, but it’s a tricky situation. “There are no easy buys for copper anywhere,” he said in the interview. He has tried to acquire before, by expressing interest in Freeport-McMoran Inc.’s copper-gold mine in Indonesia, only to be rebuffed. Today the metal is in such high demand that there are no deals to be done.
Instead, Barrick is trying to build a new project, with 50% ownership of the Reko Diq copper-gold development in Pakistan.
As for gold. Mr. Bristow is banking on Nevada, where Barrick operates a joint venture with Newmont. “Nevada hasn’t seen real exploration in a long time,” he told analysts. “We believe the greatest value comes from discovery and development.”
END
Smart move for China: lower its USA treasuries and buy physical gold
(NikkeiAsia/GATA)
China’s U.S. Treasury holdings hit 12-year low on rate hikes, tensions
Submitted by admin on Mon, 2023-02-20 09:30Section: Daily Dispatches
By Yuta Saito and Iori Kawate Nikkei Asia, Tokyo Friday, February 17, 2023
China’s U.S. government bond holdings hit the lowest in over 12 years at the end of December, while its gold trove grew against a backdrop of American interest rate hikes and bilateral tensions.
Chinese holdings of Treasury securities fell for the fifth straight month in December to $867 billion, data published Wednesday by the U.S. Treasury Department shows.
The figure fell $173.2 billion, or 17%, in 2022 — the biggest drop since 2016. China was not the only nation to sell down its Treasury holdings — all foreign holdings of Treasury securities fell 6% in 2022 — but its move was large.
The decline came as the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates at a rapid pace to curb inflation. The benchmark 10-year yield had risen to nearly 4% at the end of December from around 1.5% a year earlier, and Chinese investors likely trimmed their holdings to avoid losses from a decrease in bond prices.
Geopolitical factors also played a role, market watchers said. …
The COT report is garbage anyway as it does not account for all of those EFP’s transferred to England.
(Ted Butler)
Ted Butler urges CFTC to catch up with the latest CoT reports first
Submitted by admin on Mon, 2023-02-20 19:54Section: Daily Dispatches
7:53p ET Monday, February 20, 2023
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver):
Silver market analyst Ted Butler today makes a compelling suggestion to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission: that to catch up with the weeks-long backlog in the commitment-of-trader reports in the commodity futures markets, the commission should begin with the most recent weeks, not the weeks whose reports have been delayed the longest.
After all, Butler notes, the most recent reports are the ones with the information that is most valuable to traders.
Since he is a longtime critic of the CFTC, Butler doesn’t expect the commission to heed his suggestion. But market observers probably will consider Butler’s suggestion to be sensible and wonder why the commission would reject it.
One plausible explanation will be that the commission continues to abet the manipulation of the commodity futures markets, especially the monetary metals markets.
Butler’s appeal is headlined “A Constructive Suggestion” and it’s posted at GoldSeek’s companion site, SilverSeek, here:
1. YOUR EARLY CURRENCY/GOLD AND SILVER PRICING/ASIAN AND EUROPEAN BOURSE MOVEMENTS/AND INTEREST RATE SETTINGS//TUESDAY MORNING.7:30 AM
ONSHORE YUAN: CLOSED DOWN TO 6.8789
OFFSHORE YUAN: 6.8859
SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 16.19 PTS OR 0.49%
HANG SENG CLOSED DOWN 359.47 PTS OR 1.71%
2. Nikkei closed DOWN 58.84 PTS OR 0.21%
3. Europe stocks SO FAR: ALL RED
USA dollar INDEX UP TO 103.92 Euro FALLS TO 1.0662 DOWN 20 BASIS PTS
3b Japan 10 YR bond yield: RISES TO. +.5010!!(Japan buying 100% of bond issuance)/Japanese yen vs usa cross now at 134.75/JAPANESE YEN RISING AS WELL AS LONG TERM 10 YR. YIELDS RISING //EVENTUALLY THIS WILL BREAK THE JAPANESE CENTRAL BANK.
3c Nikkei now ABOVE 17,000
3d USA/Yen rate now well ABOVE the important 120 barrier this morning
3e Gold DOWN /JAPANESE Yen DOWN CHINESE YUAN: DOWN-// OFF- SHORE: DOWN
3f Japan is to buy INFINITE TRILLION YEN’S worth of BONDS. Japan’s GDP equals 5 trillion usa
Japan to buy 100% of all new Japanese debt and NOW they will have OVER 50% of all Japanese debt.
3g Oil UP for WTI and UP FOR Brent this morning
3h European bond buying continues to push yields lower on all fronts in the EMU. German 10yr bund UP TO +2.4935%***/Italian 10 Yr bond yield RISES to 4.393%*** /SPAIN 10 YR BOND YIELD FALLS TO 3.550…** DANGEROUS//
3i Greek 10 year bond yield RISES TO 4.36//
3j Gold at $1834.45//silver at: 21.77 7 am est) SILVER NEXT RESISTANCE LEVEL AT $30.00
3k USA vs Russian rouble;// Russian rouble DOWN 0 AND 47/100 roubles/dollar; ROUBLE AT 74.96//
3m oil into the 77 dollar handle for WTI and 83 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 CONTINUES NIRP. THIS MORNING RAISES AMOUNT OF BONDS THAT THEY WILL PURCHASE UP TO .5% ON THE 10 YR BOND///YEN TRADES TO 134.75/10 YEAR YIELD AFTER BREAKING .54%, RISES TO .5010% STILL ON CENTRAL BANK (JAPAN) INTERVENTION
30 SNB (Swiss National Bank) still intervening again in the markets driving down the FRANC. It is not working: USA/SF this 0.9245–as the Swiss Franc is still rising against most currencies. Euro vs SF 0.9857well 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: 3.879% UP 5 BASIS PTS…GETTING DANGEROUS
USA 30 YR BOND YIELD: 3.918 UP 3 BASIS PTS//
USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 18,87…
GREAT BRITAIN/10 YEAR YIELD: 3.6185% UP 15 BASIS PTS
end
i.b Overnight: Newsquawk and Zero hedge:
FIRST, ZEROHEDGE (PRE USA OPENING// MORNING
Futures Slide, Yields Jump On Higher For Longer Concerns
TUESDAY, FEB 21, 2023 – 08:10 AM
US stock futures fell for the second day amid deepening geopolitical tensions, and as investors awaited data this week that may show stickier core inflation, prompting expectations for more rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. Futures contracts on the S&P 500 dropped 0.7%, while those on the Nasdaq 100 were down 0.9% as of 7:45 a.m. in New York, after the cash market was closed on Monday for a public holiday. Treasury yields jumped, with the 10Y rising as high as 3.89%, while the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index retreated from the day’s highs, and the pound led gains among Group-of-10 currencies after UK companies reported surprise growth in output.
In premarket trading, Manchester United shares rose as bid interest in the English Premier League club intensified over the weekend. Sigma Lithium jumped after Bloomberg News reported that Tesla has been weighing a takeover of the battery-metals miner. Walmart tumbled after the retailing giant’s profit forecast for this year fell short of analyst estimates, signaling a cautious outlook for the world’s largest retailer after a 2022 performance that was marred by an inventory surge. Bank stocks are lower in premarket trading Tuesday as the US market is set to reopen following a holiday. Here are some other notable premarket movers:refunds over snow chaos
JD.com leads a decline in Chinese internet stocks in US premarket trading, after a South China Morning Post report that the e-commerce firm is launching a subsidy campaign to compete with PDD Holdings in a low-price product offering.
Sigma Lithium (SGML US) rises as much as 27% after Bloomberg News reported that Tesla (TSLA US) has been weighing a takeover of the battery-metals miner. Tesla declines 0.9%.
Manchester United (MANU US) shares jump 8.2% before paring gains as bid interest in the English Premier League club intensified over the weekend, with British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe submitting a bid, while Elliott Investment Management offered a proposal to provide financing.
MarineMax (HZO US) shares rise 1.9% after B. Riley upgrades the boat retailer to buy from neutral, with the broker highlighting the company’s diversification push and opportunities arising from its real estate portfolio.
Keep an eye on Generac Holdings (GNRC US) stock as its rating was cut to hold from buy at Truist Securities, which says high interest rates and product prices will pose a “meaningful risk” to the generator maker’s 2023 financials.
Watch Caleres (CAL US) stock as it was raised to overweight from neutral at Piper Sandler after the footwear company’s preliminary 2022 results indicated structural earnings gains.
BioMarin Pharmaceutical (BMRN US) is started with a neutral recommendation at Citi, which in a note says that recent developments and expected progress for 2023 are already priced into the stock.
After the underlying S&P benchmark fell last week, US stocks are likely to remain under pressure amid concerns that the Fed could keep rates higher for longer. Investors will be closely watching the US purchasing managers index, due on Tuesday, and Friday’s personal consumption expenditures data for an indication of the likely path of monetary policy.
A start-of-the-year rally in global stocks has fizzled, and the dollar resumed gains, after central bankers reaffirmed their will to combat inflation. That, and a stubborn trend in prices, have pushed traders to factor in another 75 basis points of rate hikes by the Federal Reserve by July. They also pruned their bets for the first US rate cut: swaps now expect a 20 basis-point reduction by year-end, compared with a 50 basis-point move seen earlier this month.
“The tone after the long weekend is more biased to the downside as investors adjust to a more hawkish path from central banks that’s coming into play,” said Karim Chedid, head of investment strategy for iShares EMEA at BlackRock Inc. “In the past week we started to see equity sentiment respond to that, and we expect that to continue this week.”
Expensive US equities are flashing a warning sign that could see the S&P 500 sliding as much as 26% in the first half of this year, according to the latest weekly doom and gloom sermon by Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson. The year-to-date rally in equities is “pure FOMO” — fear of missing out — at best, and the excitement is misplaced, they said.
“The Fed are not signaling they will do anything different from what they have always said — but earlier, markets did not believe them,” said Fahad Kamal, chief investors officer at SG Kleinwort Hambros Bank. “The market was far too complacent at start of the year thinking there’ll be a pivot. Now the data has come in stronger, and the Fed hasn’t changed what they said. So we got a big rally earlier and then a bit of reversal.”
European stocks drifted lower as Bank of America to JPMorgan predicted an end to their 2023 rally. European stocks were in the red although off their worst levels with the Stoxx 600 down 0.3% in wake of the morning’s strong EZ PMI metrics which potentially give the ECB cover to tighten more aggressively.
Euro Area Composite PMI (Feb, Flash): 52.3, consensus 50.7, last 50.3.
Euro Area Manufacturing PMI (Feb, Flash): 48.5, consensus 49.3, last 48.8.
Euro Area Services PMI (Feb, Flash): 53.0, consensus 51.0, last 50.8.
France Composite PMI (Feb, Flash): 51.6, consensus 49.8, last 49.1.
Germany Composite PMI (Feb, Flash): 51.1, consensus 50.3, last 49.9.
UK Composite PMI (Feb, Flash): 53.0, consensus 49.0, last 48.5.
And some Goldman commentary on the PMIs:
The Euro area composite flash PMI increased by 2.0pt to 52.3 in February, well above consensus expectations. The increase in the composite index was broad-based across sectors, with manufacturing output surpassing the 50 threshold for the first time since May last year. Across countries, the improvement was led by France and the periphery, followed by Germany. In the UK, the composite flash PMI improved by 4.6pt to 53.0, also well above consensus expectations. We see three main takeaways from today’s data. First, even though the composite manufacturing index weakened, this decline was driven by an improvement in supply constraints as suppliers’ delivery times—which are included in the composite calculation with an inverse sign—recorded the largest monthly improvement outside the pandemic period and inventory stocks declined. Resilient demand in the services sector and easing supply constraints point to positive growth momentum in both the services and manufacturing sector, consistent with our above-consensus view on the Euro area growth outlook. Second, price pressures are moderating but services inflation remains sticky. Third, today’s notable upside surprise in the UK points to upside risk to our Q1 growth forecast but increases the likelihood of another 25bp hike at the upcoming MPC meeting, as we continue to expect.
Tech, autos and miners are the worst performing sectors. Credit Suisse shares tumbled as much as 6.4% after Reuters reported that Switzerland’s financial regulator is reviewing comments from Chairman Axel Lehmann on outlows from the company having stabilized. Here are some of the notable European movers:
SIG Group shares fall as much as 5%, the most since November, as Kepler Cheuvreux cuts the packaging firm to hold from buy, saying the stock now looks fairly valued
ALSO shares fall as much as 6%, the most since August 2022, as analysts said the Swiss computer hardware and software wholesaler’s 2023 guidance is cautious and below expectations
GB Group plunges as much as 13% after after projecting full-year profit that misses estimates with the fraud prevention company seeing longer sales cycles and challenging conditions
InterContinental Hotels shares drop as much as 2.9% in London after the hotel operator’s full-year results, with Citi seeing the performance as slightly negative overall
Worldline shares slip as much as 4.5%, erasing earlier gains, as Citi notes that the payment firm’s FY23 profitability was slightly weaker than consensus forecasts
Straumann falls as much as 3.3%, erasing earlier gains, after its latest earnings slightly beat estimates, with analysts calling 2023 guidance from the dental implants-maker encouraging
HSBC shares erase early losses, rising as much as 2.6%, after fourth-quarter results that showed profit that beat expectations but higher-than-expected costs
ElringKlinger gains as much as 3.3% after the German car- parts maker posted what Warburg calls strong preliminary results
Rovi gains as much as 7.4%, the most since Sept. 2021, after the specialty pharmaceuticals company released results which beat on strong contract manufacturing organization revenue
The Stoxx 600 will end the year 2% lower than Friday’s close, according to the average target in a Bloomberg survey of forecasters. Bank of America strategist Milla Savova said a temporary boost to the region’s economy will fade as the full impact of monetary tightening materializes, while earnings forecasts will get downgraded.
Earlier in the session, Asian stocks also fell as investors awaited earnings from China’s major tech companies and minutes from the US Federal Reserve later this week. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index slid as much as 0.9%, with China’s tech shares among the biggest laggards. JD.com led declines following a report that the e-commerce firm is planning a subsidy campaign as it ratchets up a price war against rivals. While China’s benchmark recovered from intraday losses, the Hang Seng Index continued its slide toward a technical correction, down more than 9% since peaking late last month. Investors are looking ahead to reports from tech behemoths Alibaba and Baidu later this week. MSCI’s Asia index has broken below its 50-day moving average for the first time since August amid concerns the Federal Reserve will keep raising rates to quell inflation. Fed minutes are scheduled to be released Wednesday.
“If we’re seeing higher implied volatility in interest rates – as options trader’s price higher degrees of movement -then that should spill over into higher volatility in the USD and equity markets too,” Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone Group, wrote in a note. “This is the biggest risk to the markets we’re facing now.”
Japanese stocks ended lower as investors await for clues on the next moves by the Bank of Japan and Federal Reserve. The Topix Index fell 0.1% to 1,997.46 as of market close Tokyo time, while the Nikkei declined 0.2% to 27,473.10. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. contributed the most to the Topix Index decline, decreasing 1.5%. Out of 2,163 stocks in the index, 1,185 rose and 867 fell, while 111 were unchanged. “It’s difficult for domestic investors to move, ahead of the hearing of Mr. Ueda, who was nominated as the BOJ governor,” said Ryuta Otsuka, a strategist at Toyo Securities.
Australian stocks also declined: the S&P/ASX 200 index fell 0.2% to close at 7,336.30, dragged by losses in banks and real estate names. Stocks around Asia declined as investors mulled the prospect of central banks tightening policy more than previously expected to tame inflation. In New Zealand, the S&P/NZX 50 index fell 0.8% to 11,801.49
In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose as much as 0.4% before paring, though it remained within recent days’ ranges. The greenback traded higher against all of its Group-of-10 peers apart from the pound and the Swedish krona. The pound rallied after data showed UK private-sector business activity expanded in February, defying forecasts for another month of contraction. Here are some notable moves:
The euro fell a second day to a low of 1.0643, before paring. The currency shrugged off German ZEW expectations, which rose to 28.1 in February, versus estimate 23.0. Other data showed euro-area business activity rose at the fastest rate in nine months in February. The euro’s volatility term structure versus the dollar has been inverted since January 2022 and hedge funds are betting that normalization is due for a return
The pound flipped to gains against the dollar and gilt yields surged as markets added to pricing of future BOE hikes after British companies unexpectedly reported the first growth in seven months in PMI data. Earlier, public finance figures showed borrowing since the fiscal year that began in April is running £22 billion below the level forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility
The Swedish krona rose versus the euro and the dollar, outperforming Group-of-10 peers, after Riksbank Deputy Governor Martin Floden described underlying inflation in January as worrying. Separately, Swedish long-term inflation expectations fell in the latest Prospera survey, signaling that money market participants are strengthening in their belief that the Riksbank will succeed in bringing soaring price increases down closer to its target
Japan’s benchmark yield briefly rose above the central bank’s ceiling for the first time since its January meeting as traders continued to bet on further policy tweaks.
The Australian dollar gave up an advance and sovereign bonds pared declines. Bonds earlier fell after the Reserve Bank’s meeting minutes showed that the central bank also considered a 50 basis-point hike to the 25 basis-point one it delivered
In rates, Treasuries slid across the curve and were under pressure as US trading resumes after long weekend, trailing steeper declines for gilts sparked by stronger-than-forecast UK PMI gauges for February. Treasury yields are higher by 4bp-7bp across the curve, still inside Friday’s ranges which included YTD highs for all tenors except 20Y. Treasury auction cycle begins with $42b 2-year note sale at 1pm that’s poised to draw the highest yield since 2007. WI 2-year yield 4.64%; current issue traded as high as 4.713% Friday, within 9bp of last year’s multiyear high, as traders fully priced in a Fed rate hike in May to follow expected increase in March
In commodities, oil futures witnessed a choppy session as investors weighed the possibility of further monetary tightening against signs of improving demand from China. A gain in West Texas Intermediate futures reflected catch-up trades as there had been no settlement on Monday. WTI rose 0.9% to trade near $77.10 while Brent drops 0.3% to trade around $83.80. Spot gold falls roughly 0.4% to $1,833.
In crypto, bitcoin held around the $25k handle within fairly narrow parameters awaiting the re-entry of US participants after Monday’s market holiday.
Looking to the day ahead, we have a number of data releases today, but the main highlight will be the global flash PMIs for February. In other data releases, we will have the US February Philadelphia Fed non-manufacturing activity release, January existing house sales, UK January public finances, the Germany and Eurozone February ZEW survey, France January retail sales, EU27 January new car registrations and in Canada, the January CPI and December retail sales. Finally, earnings releases include Walmart, Home Depot, Medtronic and Palo Alto Networks.
Market Snapshot
S&P 500 futures down 0.7% to 4,058.50
STOXX Europe 600 down 0.3% to 463.44
MXAP down 0.8% to 162.43
MXAPJ down 0.9% to 528.89
Nikkei down 0.2% to 27,473.10
Topix down 0.1% to 1,997.46
Hang Seng Index down 1.7% to 20,529.49
Shanghai Composite up 0.5% to 3,306.52
Sensex little changed at 60,678.01
Australia S&P/ASX 200 down 0.2% to 7,336.30
Kospi up 0.2% to 2,458.96
German 10Y yield little changed at 2.47%
Euro down 0.2% to $1.0664
Brent Futures down 1.2% to $83.02/bbl
Gold spot down 0.4% to $1,834.74
U.S. Dollar Index up 0.15% to 104.02
Top Overnight News
President Vladimir Putin issued a defiant message on his war in Ukraine, vowing to continue the faltering invasion until Russia has achieved its goals: BBG
“Frustrating,” “very annoying” and “left in the dark.” These and similar expressions have been used to describe the near month-long blackout on key global investor positioning reports that cover bets on everything from Treasuries to soybean futures — the casualty of a ransomware attack on financial firm ION Trading UK: BBG
China tech leaders from firms such as Tencent, NetEast, Bidu, Didi, and others, met with senior officials from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) to discuss ways to advance the interests of the tech industry. SCMP
China is no longer viable as the world’s factory according to the head of Kyocera, a critical Japanese tech firm, due to Western restrictions on Beijing’s access to advanced technology (“the business model of producing in China and exporting abroad is no longer viable”). FT
China is increasingly concerned that Russia, which it considers a key partner in Beijing’s quest to contain and counter the US, is being permanently weakened by Putin’s misguided war in Ukraine, and so is pushing for a ceasefire in the conflict. WSJ
Europe’s flash PMIs for February were net positive, with encouraging growth details (especially in services) and an inflation slowdown (inflation notably cooled in manufacturing); UK flash PMIs for Feb were bullish, with solid upside on growth (the composite reading came in at 52, up from 48.5 in Jan and above the St’s 49 consensus) and cooling inflation (“Feb data pointed to the slowest overall increase in average cost burdens since April 2021”). S&P
Iran – UN nuclear inspectors have detected uranium in Iran enriched to near weapons-grade (84% purity vs. the 90% required for weapons), a potential major escalatory step in the country’s nuclear program. WSJ
Credit Suisse shares slump in Europe on reports that Swiss financial regulators are looking into reassuring remarks made by chairman Axel Lehmann about outflows at the company stabilizing. RTRS
US fiscal stimulus to fade further – one of the last fiscal stimulus programs related to COVID, enhanced food stamps, is about to come to an end, creating headwinds for Walmart, Kroger, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, etc. (and the expiration of this program could have a dampening effect on food inflation too). WSJ
Google’s $168 billion online ad business will be in focus when arguments are heard today on whether internet companies are liable for the content their algos recommend to users. The Supreme Court case may affect automated ads that hand Facebook and Google the bulk of their revenue. BBG
Home Depot’s US comp sales fell less than expected but overall like-for-likes missed. It forecast profit will fall in the mid-single digits as it spends $1 billion to increase wages for sales staff. Shares slipped. Coming up, Walmart’s same-store sales growth may exceed its 3% guidance after a strong holiday season and a rise in cost-conscious shopping. Inventory-clearing markdowns and higher input costs may weigh on margin recovery. BBG
A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk
APAC stocks were subdued with trade mostly kept rangebound in the absence of a lead from Wall Street. ASX 200 traded lower amid a deluge of earnings releases including a decline in BHP’s profits. Nikkei 225 was contained after mixed PMI data in which Manufacturing PMI declined by the fastest pace in two and a half years although Services PMI showed a firmer expansion. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp. were mixed with Hong Kong dragged lower by tech losses, while the mainland was just kept afloat amid strength in developers after China launched an investment pilot for the property sector.
Top Asian News
UK Foreign Secretary Cleverly said he spoke with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and raised human rights abuses in Xinjiang and the need for peace in the Taiwan Strait during the call, according to Reuters.
RBA Minutes from the February meeting noted that the board considered a hike of 25bps or 50bps and that a pause was not an option. RBA said there were arguments in favour of both options but it concluded that the case to increase the Cash Rate by 25bps was the stronger one and the Board also agreed further increases would be needed over the months ahead. Furthermore, the RBA noted that monthly meetings allowed for frequent adjustments and that rates have already risen substantially, while it stated the Board will do what is needed to return inflation to the target and that data suggested more breadth and persistence in inflation than expected.
China’s Politburo discussed reforms to party and state organisations, according to state media.
Iron Ore Piles Up at South African Mines on Rail Bottlenecks
Gold Declines as Traders Await Fed Minutes for Rate Clues
China Leaders Pledge Stronger Growth as Recovery Takes Hold
European bourses, Euro Stoxx 50 -0.7%, & US futures, ES -0.7%, remain negative but have lifted from the sessions’ trough that printed in wake of the morning’s EZ PMI metrics which potentially give the ECB cover to tighten more aggressively. The FTSE 100 was dragged lower in tandem though remained somewhat resilient to the strong UK PMIs, which sparked a hawkish re-pricing for 25bp in March from the BoE, with a yield-induced turnaround in HSBC (+2.0%) now proving supportive after initial post-guidance pressure. Stateside, futures are lower with the above drivers factoring after Monday’s holiday and ahead of the week’s key events via FOMC Minutes and PCE; modest further pressure seen post-HD earnings, though futures remain off earlier lows. Home Depot Inc (HD) Q4 2022 (USD): EPS 3.21 (exp. 3.28), Revenue 35.719bln (exp. 35.97bln); boosts dividend 10%. -2.8% in pre-market trade
Top European News
BoE Deputy Governor Woods said he will consult on changes to UK insurance capital rules in June and September, while he added that insurers will have a very good sense of what the changes to capital rules will be by year-end, according to Reuters.
UK PM Sunak was warned not to undermine Northern Ireland and that an N.I. deal could trigger resignations, according to The Times.
Germany’s tax revenues rose 0.8% Y/Y, which was driven by higher sales taxes and wages taxes, according to the Finance Ministry.
Hungary’s EU funds negotiator said access to the grants and cheap loans could be delayed until the summer (vs prior April guidance) to resolve remaining issues with Brussels over democratic reforms.
Enagas Sees 2023 Net Income EU310M to EU320M
UK Companies Unexpectedly Show First Output Growth in Six Months; UK Feb. Flash Services PMI 53.3; Est 49.2
Iron Ore Piles Up at South African Mines on Rail Bottlenecks
Manchester United Shares Advance as Bid Interest Intensifies
Putin Defiant as Struggling Ukraine Invasion Nears Second Year
FX
DXY has derived support from upside in US yields, risk aversion and a loss of momentum in some FX peers, with the index holding around 104.00 despite being pressured to a 103.86 trough post UK PMI data.
A release which sent GBP/USD to a 1.2113 peak from circa. 1.2000 before hand in a marked hawkish move which also allowed peers, ex-EUR, to trim some downside vs the USD, though this dynamic has since eased.
For the EUR, despite hitting a 1.0688 peak following the French PMIs the single currency has failed to hold onto this upside with EUR/GBP action weighing.
JPY is the incremental laggard given unfavourable yield dynamics for JGBs vs USTs/EGBS while antipodeans have faded amid domestic data for the NZD and despite hawkish RBA minutes for the AUD; currently, around 134.65, 0.623 & 0.688 respectively.
SEK continues to lift amid further hawkish rhetoric and continuing emphasis on the currency from officials, with EUR/SEK briefly moving below 11.00.
PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 6.8557 vs exp. 6.8550 (prev. 6.8643)
Fixed Income
Core benchmarks are ultimately pressured despite initial gyrations around geopolitics and PMIs; Bunds at 134.60 within 134,32-134.97 boundaries.
Gilts are the stand-out laggard following UK Flash PMIs which saw a hawkish re-pricing of market expectations for a 25bp BoE hike in March increase to over 95% from the low-80s before hand; UK supply due.
Stateside, USTs are softer in tandem with the above narrative with yields elevated and the move fairly broad-based across the curve ahead of Biden and supply.
Commodities
WTI and Brent April futures have experienced a choppy Tuesday session thus far and are currently modestly firmer as broader sentiment eases and Putin concludes his speech, despite being initially pressured below USD 76.00/bbl and USD 83/bbl respectively.
Iran set March Iranian light crude price to Asia at Oman/Dubai +USD 2.00/bbl, according to a Reuters source.
Russian Deputy PM Novak says oil output reductions in March will be from January levels, according to Interfax; Oil output reduction decision was only made for March. Expects discount on Urals to decrease. Novak has previously said that Russian crude production for January was between 9.8-9.9mln BPD.
Caspian pipeline consortium is reportedly to suspend crude shipments due to poor weather, via Reuters citing sources.
Iraq’s oil minister says new licensing deals will produce 250k BPD of crude, according to the State News Agency.
NatGas benchmarks are softer on both sides of the pond, though the magnitude of downside is fairly modest, with broader sentiment dictating price action.
Spot gold is weighed on by the USD, though the downside is minimal in nature given its traditional haven allure while base metals are mixed overall.
Geopolitics
Russian President Putin says we will decide on the tasks of the special military operation step-by-step, the West is seeking to change local conflict into a global one. The next steps to strengthen the army and navy should take into account the experience of the special military operation. Expects to enhance cooperation with India, Iran and Pakistan. Adds, if the US conducts nuclear tests then Russia will do the same.
Ukrainian President Zelensky said he sees resolve from the US and President Biden to end Russian aggression this year and also stated that a world order based on rules, humanity and predictability depends on what happens now in Ukraine, according to Reuters.
EU’s Borrell said he is confident EU members will approve the next Russian sanctions package within the next hours or days and said the sanctions agreement should be reached before the end of the week.
US Deputy Treasury Secretary Adeyemo says the US and allies are planning new sanctions this week to continue to isolate Russia over the war in Ukraine; additionally, 12 EU nations say Russia is transitioning into a full-on military economy, with a view to sustaining its war efforts, via Reuters citing a document.
Belarus sees direct threats to its military security, according to Tass citing the Defence Ministry; adds, a significant grouping of the Ukrainian army is massed near its border. Will take adequate measures to respond to military provocations, intends to hold over 150 joint exercises with Russia in 2023.
Ukrainian Presidential Aide says Ukrainian forces have the situation along the northern border under “special control”.
Japanese PM Kishida said they plan to pledge another USD 5.5bln in aid to Ukraine and announced that they will host a G7 summit meeting this Friday in which Ukrainian President Zelensky will be invited to join. Japanese Finance Minister Suzuki separately announced to hold the G7 financial leaders meeting on February 23rd and will reaffirm a stern stance against Russia at the G7 meeting, while he added they will continue to closely coordinate with other countries on sanctions to achieve the ultimate goal of Russia’s withdrawal from Ukraine, as well as noted that measures against Russia and support for Ukraine will be the main topics on the G7 agenda.
China seeks to broker Russia-Ukraine peace and urged the world to stop saying Taiwan is next after Ukraine, according to Bloomberg.
Senior aides of Israeli PM Netanyahu and Palestinian President Abbas have been conducting secret talks for almost two months in an effort to de-escalate rising tensions in the occupied West Bank, according to Axios sources.
US Event Calendar
08:30: Feb. Philadelphia Fed Non-Manufactu, prior -6.5
09:45: Feb. S&P Global US Manufacturing PM, est. 47.4, prior 46.9
09:45: Feb. S&P Global US Services PMI, est. 47.3, prior 46.8
09:45: Feb. S&P Global US Composite PMI, est. 47.5, prior 46.8
10:00: Jan. Existing Home Sales MoM, est. 2.0%, prior -1.5%
Central Bank Speakers
Nothing on the calendar
DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap
If you interacted with me yesterday please disregard it (unless the advice proves correct) as I was a total zombie all day having been up all night the previous one with a sick dog (Brontë). My wife was up the previous night. Thankfully Brontë seems better and I slept from 830pm-445am last night. So I feel as fresh as a daisy this morning… albeit one that managed to dodge the lawn mower all summer and has just felt the first frost of the year at the end of September.
Thankfully for me, markets had a quiet start to the week yesterday, with US markets closed, whilst in Europe, markets fluctuated between gains and losses over the day, with the STOXX 600 (-0.04%) modestly retreating, and 10yr bund yields (+1.9bps) advancing at the close after being lower most of the day. The quiet start to the week will break with the Eurozone, UK, Germany, France and US publishing their flash February PMIs over the course of today. The data momentum has been positive of late but it’s going to be hard for the next few months to assess where we should be at this stage of the cycle. There has no doubt been big improvements from gas price falls and loosening of financial conditions but we’re yet to see anything close to the full lag of monetary policy filter through to the US and Europe. If the war in Ukraine hadn’t happened and if financial conditions hadn’t collapsed for the first 9 months of last year due to the rates shock, then growth may still be quite strong at this point before the lag of a huge and rapid hiking cycle could kick in. So we have to be careful not to over interpret an improvement back to where we might normally be at this stage of a cycle and not confuse it with a sustainable soft landing.
Japan has kicked off the PMI round with mixed readings. The nation’s manufacturing activity shrank for the fourth consecutive month, falling to a level of 47.4 from last month’s 48.9 – its largest decline since August 2020. On the otherside, the au Jibun Bank flash services PMI rose to an eight-month-high of 53.6 from 52.3 last month.
Asian equity markets are mostly trading lower this morning as the prospect of the US Fed staying hawkish over policy tightening continues to weight on sentiment. As I type, the Hang Seng (-0.99%) is leading losses, dragged lower mostly by tech stocks with the Nikkei (-0.12%) also losing ground while the Chinese stocks are mixed with the CSI (-0.02%) trading just below flat and the Shanghai Composite (+0.10%) eking out minor gains in early trade. Meanwhile, the KOSPI (+0.22%) is bucking the trend.
Outside of Asia, US stock futures are indicating a negative start with contracts tied to the S&P 500 (-0.44%) and NASDAQ 100 (-0.37%) edging lower. Meanwhile, yields on 10yr USTs (+3.5bps) have moved higher, trading at 3.85% after resuming trading following the President’s Day holiday. Meanwhile, the terminal rate (July) and Dec 23 are being priced at around 5.30% and 5.09%, as we go to print, just a little higher than Friday’s close.
Elsewhere, minutes from the RBA’s latest meeting indicated that additional rate hikes are likely needed over the months ahead to bring down inflation from overheated levels. The minutes further highlighted that currently a pause in its hikes – as was the case in December is not an option mainly because of “incoming prices and wages data exceeding expectations”
Yesterday, with US markets closed, the main news story was President Biden’s unannounced visit to Kyiv to meet with President Zelensky. Bloomberg reported that the US intends to support the Ukraine with new military aid package worth $500 million, the full details of which are to be clarified today. Biden also announced that the package will include ammunition for HIMARS rocket launchers, a weapon previously proven highly effective against Russian forces.
In Europe, markets struggled for direction after fluctuating between gains and losses before finishing in the red. Yesterday, we heard from ECB’s Rehn in an interview with Börsen-Zeitung. Although historically dovish, Rehn instead added to the hawkish drumbeat coming from the central bank stating that rates must be raised further after the March meeting and that they should stay restrictive as long as core inflation is still rising. Rehn also highlighted that the ECB will likely arrive at its terminal rate over the course of the coming summer. Off the back of this, Eurozone overnight index swaps moved to price in 121bps of rate hikes by the September meeting, up +1.2bps yesterday.
Against this backdrop, the STOXX 600 was mildly positive during intraday trading, before posting a small loss at the close, down -0.04%. A strong outperforming was the materials sector which gained +1.27%, with utilities (+0.19%) and health care (+0.13%) also posting modest gains. On the other end, information technology relatively underperformed, down -0.65%. In fixed income markets, 10yr bund yields posted a modest rise, up +1.9bps to 2.45%, while the interest-rate sensitive 2yr bund yield closed up +2.5bps to 2.88%. 10yr gilts outperformed yesterday, with yields falling back -4.2bps to 3.47%.
In other news, we had a material upside surprise in Swedish CPI yesterday. Core was significantly higher than expected by both the market and the Riksbank, up +0.4% month-on-month (vs -0.2%), bringing core inflation to 8.7% year-on-year (vs 8.2% expected). The minutes from the meeting were released soon after the print and demonstrated a strong hawkish consensus that speaks to further rate hikes before the summer. Following the print, Swedish 10yr government yields hit their highest level since September 2013, closing up +12.8bps.
Finally, ahead of today’s PMI releases, we had the Eurozone’s February consumer confidence index, which printed at -19.0 as expected, an improvement from -20.9 in January. We also had the print for Eurozone construction output for December, with the month-on-month printing at -2.5%, and the year-on-year down to -1.3%.
To the day ahead, we have a number of data releases today, but the main highlight will be the global flash PMIs for February. In other data releases, we will have the US February Philadelphia Fed non-manufacturing activity release, January existing house sales, UK January public finances, the Germany and Eurozone February ZEW survey, France January retail sales, EU27 January new car registrations and in Canada, the January CPI and December retail sales. Finally, earnings releases include Walmart, Home Depot, Medtronic and Palo Alto Networks.
end
AND NOW NEWSQUAWK (EUROPE/REPORT)
Broad based hawkish action in-play post-PMIs with geopolitics factoring – Newsquawk US Market Open
TUESDAY, FEB 21, 2023 – 06:39 AM
European bourses & US futures remain negative but have lifted from the trough that occurred amid the morning’s Flash PMIs; further pressure seen post-HD earnings.
DXY has derived support from upside in US yields, risk aversion and a loss of momentum in some peers, with the index holding around 104.00 despite being pressured to a 103.86 trough post UK PMI data.
A release which sent GBP/USD to a 1.2113 peak from circa. 1.2000 before hand in a marked hawkish move which also allowed peers, ex-EUR, to trim some downside vs the USD, though this dynamic has since eased.
Core benchmarks are ultimately pressured despite initial gyrations around geopolitics and PMIs; Bunds at 134.60 within 134,32-134.97 boundaries.
Gilts are the stand-out laggard following UK Flash PMIs which saw a hawkish re-pricing of market expectations for a 25bp BoE hike in March increase to over 95% from the low-80s before hand
WTI and Brent April futures have experienced a choppy Tuesday session thus far and are currently modestly firmer with focus on geopols as Putin’s speech concludes
Looking ahead, highlights include Canadian CPI, New Zealand Trade Balance, Speeches from US President Biden & ECB’s Lagarde, Supply from US, Earnings from Walmart & Medtronic.
weapons during Biden’s visit to Kyiv and Ukraine will get a new military aid package worth GBP 500mln to be announced on Tuesday.
EU’s Borrell says had a long conversation with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi and asked him not to provide arms to Russia, adding it would be a red line for their relationship; China said they are not going to do it.
Bundesbank economic outlook: somewhat brighter but high inflationary pressures persist; 2nd round impact of quick wage growth will keep EZ inflation above target for an extended period; Short-term outlook for Germany more favourable than seen just a few months ago; Headline inflation has peaked in Germany but core “to decline only tentatively” in the coming months.
ECB’S Rehn says it is appropriate to raise rates beyond March and terminal rate could be reached this summer; rates need to say at a restrictive level for some time and should not rush to discuss cuts, hikes should not stop while core inflation is rising and is so high.
Goldman Sachs lifts forecast for ECB’s terminal deposit rate to 3.50%; sees another 25bps hike in June in addition to its prior forecast for 50bps in March and 25bps in May
EUROPEAN TRADE
EQUITIES
European bourses, Euro Stoxx 50 -0.7%, & US futures, ES -0.7%, remain negative but have lifted from the sessions’ trough that printed in wake of the morning’s EZ PMI metrics which potentially given the ECB cover to tighten more aggressively.
The FTSE 100 was dragged lower in tandem though remained somewhat resilient to the strong UK PMIs, which sparked a hawkish re-pricing for 25bp in March from the BoE, with a yield-induced turnaround in HSBC (+2.0%) now proving supportive after initial post-guidance pressure.
Stateside, futures are lower with the above drivers factoring after Monday’s holiday and ahead of the week’s key events via FOMC Minutes and PCE; modest further pressure seen post-HD earnings, though futures remain off earlier lows.
DXY has derived support from upside in US yields, risk aversion and a loss of momentum in some FX peers, with the index holding around 104.00 despite being pressured to a 103.86 trough post UK PMI data.
A release which sent GBP/USD to a 1.2113 peak from circa. 1.2000 before hand in a marked hawkish move which also allowed peers, ex-EUR, to trim some downside vs the USD, though this dynamic has since eased.
For the EUR, despite hitting a 1.0688 peak following the French PMIs the single currency has failed to hold onto this upside with EUR/GBP action weighing.
JPY is the incremental laggard given unfavourable yield dynamics for JGBs vs USTs/EGBS while antipodeans have faded amid domestic data for the NZD and despite hawkish RBA minutes for the AUD; currently, around 134.65, 0.623 & 0.688 respectively.
SEK continues to lift amid further hawkish rhetoric and continuing emphasis on the currency from officials, with EUR/SEK briefly moving below 11.00.
PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 6.8557 vs exp. 6.8550 (prev. 6.8643)
Core benchmarks are ultimately pressured despite initial gyrations around geopolitics and PMIs; Bunds at 134.60 within 134,32-134.97 boundaries.
Gilts are the stand-out laggard following UK Flash PMIs which saw a hawkish re-pricing of market expectations for a 25bp BoE hike in March increase to over 95% from the low-80s before hand; UK supply due.
Stateside, USTs are softer in tandem with the above narrative with yields elevated and the move fairly broad-based across the curve ahead of Biden and supply.
WTI and Brent April futures have experienced a choppy Tuesday session thus far and are currently modestly firmer as broader sentiment eases and Putin concludes his speech, despite being initially pressured below USD 76.00/bbl and USD 83/bbl respectively.
Iran set March Iranian light crude price to Asia at Oman/Dubai +USD 2.00/bbl, according to a Reuters source.
Russian Deputy PM Novak says oil output reductions in March will be from January levels, according to Interfax; Oil output reduction decision was only made for March. Expects discount on Urals to decrease. Novak has previously said that Russian crude production for January was between 9.8-9.9mln BPD.
Caspian pipeline consortium is reportedly to suspend crude shipments due to poor weather, via Reuters citing sources.
Iraq’s oil minister says new licensing deals will produce 250k BPD of crude, according to the State News Agency.
NatGas benchmarks are softer on both sides of the pond, though the magnitude of downside is fairly modest, with broader sentiment dictating price action.
Spot gold is weighed on by the USD, though the downside is minimal in nature given its traditional haven allure while base metals are mixed overall.
BoE Deputy Governor Woods said he will consult on changes to UK insurance capital rules in June and September, while he added that insurers will have a very good sense of what the changes to capital rules will be by year-end, according to Reuters.
UK PM Sunak was warned not to undermine Northern Ireland and that an N.I. deal could trigger resignations, according to The Times.
Germany’s tax revenues rose 0.8% Y/Y, which was driven by higher sales taxes and wages taxes, according to the Finance Ministry.
Hungary’s EU funds negotiator said access to the grants and cheap loans could be delayed until the summer (vs prior April guidance) to resolve remaining issues with Brussels over democratic reforms.
DATA RECAP
UK Flash Composite PMI (Feb) 53.0 vs. Exp. 49.0 (Prev. 48.5); “… the resilience of the economy and the stickiness of the survey’s inflation gauges add to the likelihood of the Bank of England tightening policy further, and potentially more aggressively…”
UK Flash Services PMI (Feb) 53.3 vs. Exp. 49.2 (Prev. 48.7); Manufacturing PMI (Feb) 49.2 vs. Exp. 47.5 (Prev. 47.0)
EU S&P Global Composite Flash PMI (Feb) 52.3 vs. Exp. 50.6 (Prev. 50.3); “… although inflationary pressures have continued to moderate in February, the survey hints at persistent elevated price trends in the service sector, linked in part to higher wage growth, which will concern ECB policymakers.”
EU S&P Global Manufacturing Flash PMI (Feb) 48.5 vs. Exp. 49.3 (Prev. 48.8); Services Flash PMI (Feb) 53.0 vs. Exp. 51.0 (Prev. 50.8)
German S&P Global Composite Flash PMI (Feb) 51.1 vs. Exp. 50.4 (Prev. 49.9); “… service sector counterparts who once again highlighted particularly strong wage demands, manufacturers continued to raise their output prices at a robust rate during February, signalling that core inflationary pressures remain elevated.”
German S&P Global Manufacturing Flash PMI (Feb) 46.5 vs. Exp. 47.8 (Prev. 47.3); Services Flash PMI (Feb) 51.3 vs. Exp. 51.0 (Prev. 50.7)
French S&P Global Composite Flash PMI (Feb) 51.6 vs. Exp. 49.9 (Prev. 49.1)
German ZEW Economic Sentiment (Feb) 28.1 vs. Exp. 22.0 (Prev. 16.9); Current Conditions (Feb) -45.1 vs. Exp. -50.5 (Prev. -58.6)
UK PSNB Ex Banks GBP (Jan) -5.421B GB vs. Exp. 7.85B GB (Prev. 27.402B GB, Rev. 25.644B GB)
Russian President Putin says we will decide on the tasks of the special military operation step-by-step, the West is seeking to change local conflict into a global one. The next steps to strengthen the army and navy should take into account the experience of the special military operation. Expects to enhance cooperation with India, Iran and Pakistan. Adds, if the US conducts nuclear tests then Russia will do the same.
Ukrainian President Zelensky said he sees resolve from the US and President Biden to end Russian aggression this year and also stated that a world order based on rules, humanity and predictability depends on what happens now in Ukraine, according to Reuters.
EU’s Borrell said he is confident EU members will approve the next Russian sanctions package within the next hours or days and said the sanctions agreement should be reached before the end of the week.
US Deputy Treasury Secretary Adeyemo says the US and allies are planning new sanctions this week to continue to isolate Russia over the war in Ukraine; additionally, 12 EU nations say Russia is transitioning into a full-on military economy, with a view to sustaining its war efforts, via Reuters citing a document.
Belarus sees direct threats to its military security, according to Tass citing the Defence Ministry; adds, a significant grouping of the Ukrainian army is massed near its border. Will take adequate measures to respond to military provocations, intends to hold over 150 joint exercises with Russia in 2023.
Ukrainian Presidential Aide says Ukrainian forces have the situation along the northern border under “special control”.
Japanese PM Kishida said they plan to pledge another USD 5.5bln in aid to Ukraine and announced that they will host a G7 summit meeting this Friday in which Ukrainian President Zelensky will be invited to join. Japanese Finance Minister Suzuki separately announced to hold the G7 financial leaders meeting on February 23rd and will reaffirm a stern stance against Russia at the G7 meeting, while he added they will continue to closely coordinate with other countries on sanctions to achieve the ultimate goal of Russia’s withdrawal from Ukraine, as well as noted that measures against Russia and support for Ukraine will be the main topics on the G7 agenda.
China seeks to broker Russia-Ukraine peace and urged the world to stop saying Taiwan is next after Ukraine, according to Bloomberg.
Senior aides of Israeli PM Netanyahu and Palestinian President Abbas have been conducting secret talks for almost two months in an effort to de-escalate rising tensions in the occupied West Bank, according to Axios sources.
CRYPTO
Bitcoin is holding around the USD 25k handle within fairly narrow parameters awaiting the re-entry of US participants after Monday’s market holiday.
APAC TRADE
APAC stocks were subdued with trade mostly kept rangebound in the absence of a lead from Wall Street.
ASX 200 traded lower amid a deluge of earnings releases including a decline in BHP’s profits.
Nikkei 225 was contained after mixed PMI data in which Manufacturing PMI declined by the fastest pace in two and a half years although Services PMI showed a firmer expansion.
Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp. were mixed with Hong Kong dragged lower by tech losses, while the mainland was just kept afloat amid strength in developers after China launched an investment pilot for the property sector.
NOTABLE ASIA-PAC HEADLINES
UK Foreign Secretary Cleverly said he spoke with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and raised human rights abuses in Xinjiang and the need for peace in the Taiwan Strait during the call, according to Reuters.
RBA Minutes from the February meeting noted that the board considered a hike of 25bps or 50bps and that a pause was not an option. RBA said there were arguments in favour of both options but it concluded that the case to increase the Cash Rate by 25bps was the stronger one and the Board also agreed further increases would be needed over the months ahead. Furthermore, the RBA noted that monthly meetings allowed for frequent adjustments and that rates have already risen substantially, while it stated the Board will do what is needed to return inflation to the target and that data suggested more breadth and persistence in inflation than expected.
China’s Politburo discussed reforms to party and state organisations, according to state media.
Australian Composite PMI (Feb P) 49.2 (Prev. 48.5)
1.c TUESDAY/ MONDAY NIGHT
SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 16.19 PTS OR 0.49% //Hang Seng CLOSED DOWN 359.47 PTS OR 1.71% /The Nikkei closed DOWN 58.94 PTS OR 0.21% //Australia’s all ordinaries CLOSED DOWN 0.10% /Chinese yuan (ONSHORE) closed DOWN 6.8789 //OFFSHORE CHINESE YUAN DOWN TO 6.8859// /Oil UP TO 77.06 dollars per barrel for WTI and BRENT AT 83.52 / Stocks in Europe OPENED ALL RED// ONSHORE YUAN TRADING ABOVE LEVEL OF OFFSHORE YUAN/ONSHORE YUAN TRADING WEAKER AGAINST US DOLLAR/OFFSHORE WEAKER
2 a./NORTH KOREA/ SOUTH KOREA/
///NORTH KOREA/SOUTH KOREA/USA/JAPAN
North Korea fires a long range ICBM ahead of South korea/USA drills. It missile lands close to Japan’s shores
(zerohedge)
North Korea Fires Suspected Long-Range ICBM Ahead Of South, US Planned Drills
SATURDAY, FEB 18, 2023 – 09:01 AM
North Korea launched a suspected long-range intercontinental ballistic missile late Saturday afternoon that appears to have crashed in the Sea of Japan near Hokkaido, which is within Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Japan’s Defense Ministry said the missile reached an altitude of about 5,700 kilometers (3,540 miles) and flew a distance of about 900 kilometers (559 miles), while South Korean JCS said it was launched around 1722 local time from Pyongyang’s Sunan area.
Saturday’s launch comes one day after North Korea threatened an “unprecedentedly persistent, strong” response as South Korea and the US prepare for annual military exercises next week.
“If it is the US option to show its muscle and counter everything with muscle, the same is true of the DPRK’s option,” the North’s foreign ministry said in a statement published by state media KCNA.
The launch takes place one month after North Korea held a rare nighttime parade featuring what many observers believe to be a new solid-fuel ICBM.
The North’s last test of an ICBM was in November. It has since fired several short-range ballistic missiles. Last year was a record year for launches.
Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said after November’s launch that if missile trajectories were fired at a flatter trajectory, they would be able to reach the US mainland
2B JAPAN
JAPAN/
end
3c CHINA /
CHINA USA
USA is toothless! China is laughing at them
(zerohedge)
Blinken Warns China Against Providing Aid To Russia, Says Balloon Surveillance Must “Never Again Occur” As Beijing Slams “Excessive Use Of Force”, Offers “No Apology”
SUNDAY, FEB 19, 2023 – 02:00 PM
In the aftermath of the recent Hullaballon fiasco, Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned China’s top diplomat on Saturday that the U.S. will not tolerate violations of its airspace after a Chinese spy balloon flew over North America, but received no apologies from Beijing.
According to Politico, Blinken met with Wang Yi, director of China’s Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in what was the administration’s first face-to-face meeting with the Chinese government since a balloon was discovered earlier this month and subsequently downed by the U.S. military off the coast of South Carolina.
According to a State Department readout of the meeting, Blinken “directly spoke to the unacceptable violation of U.S. sovereignty and international law” by the Chinese surveillance balloon “underscoring that this irresponsible act must never again occur.” Blinken later told NBC’s Chuck Todd in an interview after the meeting that Wang offered “no apology” for the incident.
Separately, Blinken also warned Beijing about “implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia or assistance with systemic sanctions evasion,” as Moscow wages war against Ukraine. In the same NBC interview, Blinken said that he is “very concerned that China is considering providing lethal support to Russia in its aggression against Ukraine and I made clear that that would have serious consequences in our relationship.”
Blinken told Yi that the US had information China was considering whether to give Russia assistance, possibly including guns and weapons, for the war in Ukraine. The US has warned China since the start of the invasion a year ago not to do so.
“The concern that we have now is, based on information we have, that they’re considering providing lethal support,” Blinken told CBS’s “Face the Nation” shortly after he met with Wang. “And we’ve made very clear to them that that could cause a serious problem for us and in our relationship.”
In response, Wang slammed the Biden administration’s destruction of the balloon and urged the U.S. to “change course, acknowledge and repair the damage that its excessive use of force caused to China-U.S. relations,” according to a statement published by Chinese state media. The statement described the controversy as the “so-called airship incident” in an apparent effort to belittle the U.S. reaction that has included a widening bipartisan uproar about what both a House and a Senate resolution have declared was a “brazen violation” of U.S. sovereignty.
Earlier at the conference, Wang said China would release a new peace proposal for Ukraine in the coming days that would be in keeping with previous efforts by President Xi Jinping. He condemned attacks on nuclear power stations.
“We oppose attacks on nuclear power stations, attacks on civilian nuclear facilities,” Wang said. “We have to work to prevent nuclear proliferation and nuclear disasters.”
The initial response was cautious. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock welcomed China’s idea but said “a just peace cannot mean that the aggressor gets rewarded.” As a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, “China is obliged to use its influence for global peace,” Baerbock said. A Russian troop withdrawal from Ukraine is a condition of any peace deal, she said. Amusingly, the geometrically challenged foreign minister also said that “If Putin decides that tomorrow he changes his course by 360 degrees, the whole world will be happy.”
Asked about Wang’s peace proposal, a US official who spoke to Bloomberg on condition of anonymity said that Beijing appears to be trying to publicly promote peace and stability while covertly supporting Russia’s aggression against its neighbor.
Despite several attempts by the media to describe recent developments as an easing of geopolitical tensions, the readouts suggest that neither side is ready to take steps to move beyond the spy balloon incident in order to steer bilateral ties toward a less-rancorous setting.
At the conference, Wang publicly slammed the U.S. response to the balloon – which Beijing insists was a weather monitoring device – as a “weak” and “near-hysterical” reaction; he also accused the U.S. of warmongering.
The meeting itself came with risks for President Joe Biden, who is trying to balance his administration’s desire to maintain “open lines of communication” with Beijing amid a widening bipartisan uproar about the Chinese balloon. Already, tense relations have been souring since its appearance. Blinken postponed an originally planned Feb. 5-6 trip to Beijing in response to the incursion.
It wasn’t clear until the final hours whether the Munich meeting between Blinken and Wang would happen. U.S. and Chinese officials had spent the last few days trying to broker the meeting, Politico reported citing three people familiar with those efforts. Beijing’s condition that the U.S. formally request the meeting had slowed progress in the talks.
“It’s a two-way discussion to land a meeting,” the diplomat said, adding that the Biden administration wouldn’t “bend the knee” to get the meeting. Beijing’s readout described the encounter as an “informal contact” that occurred “at the request of the U.S. side.”
Another Washington, D.C.-based diplomat with knowledge of the talks said Blinken had requested a meeting but “had no response from China” as he boarded his flight for Munich on Thursday.
CHINA/IRAN
Extremely important as Iran faces east. Iran will be a central cog in the distribution of goods through rail.
Two important commentaries by Pepe Escobar
(Courtesy Pepe Escobar)
Raisi in Beijing: Iran-China strategic plans go full throttle
Robert Hryniak
6:18 PM (59 minutes ago)
to
Often we spend time looking at numbers of yesterday’s performance and less time understanding what the world will be tomorrow based on real time changes that occur with the passage of time.
Interesting that according to the CIA Factbook the five countries with the largest GNP in the world in 2023 will be in order, China, US, India, Japan and Russia. Since Russia overtook Germany in late 2022, this means that there is no longer a single Western European country in the top five, by the end of this year.
Indeed, both Indonesia and Brazil appear to have larger economies than France and the UK, which are projected to be Numbers 9 and 10 on the list. If this actually occurs this way, Britain will have dropped from 6th to 10th having been over taken by India in 2022 who became fifth and is on a real growth spurt. No doubt helped by all the Russian oil being resold to boost numbers. In any case, clearly Europe is contracting badly reducing the standard of living. This has severe social implications across Europe. In any case, the whole world economy is seeing a reshuffling this year. When you read about how Iran is being molded into China’s Eurasian ambitions one realizes that truly the West is shut out and that the long arm of China extends to Iran in an economic sense. And it clear that with a coming delivery of the 1st batch of Russian SU35’s coming soon flown by Iranian pilots trained in Russia the projection of power via defense takes on new meaning. Both Israel and America have lost their opportunities with Iran. And why Saudi Arabia wants into the BRIC not to be left out and off a fast moving train. This too has real dollar implications for the West and will lessen American hegemony. No doubt people like Nuland have heart burn as Neocon illusional dreams dearly paid for with billions shatter. Will she held accountable? Have you seen the faces of these folks? In listening to the likes of Austin or Milley is like listening to a headless chicken crow about Ukrainian success or even how western arms make a difference in a losing conflict. Just like so many other preceding conflicts that all take away from American hegemony by failure.
Fear-Uncertainty-Doubt (in this case likely Despair) … not sure yet? Look closely at the faces of any governmental member or talking head, in the EU, USA, Germany, France… the collective West in general. The ones like, Stoltenberg, Nuland, Blinken, Milley, Austin, Harris, Zelenski, Reznikov, Kuleba, Scholz, Baerbock, Borrell, Macron, and many, many more. As this article points out with Iran, they have lost control of the ball and are having to play by a rule book that they cannot alter and are being out played on the field.
The key takeaway of President Ebrahim Raeisi’s state visit to Beijing goes way beyond the signing of 20 bilateral cooperation agreements…
This is a crucial inflection point in an absorbing, complex, decades-long, ongoing historical process: Eurasia integration.
Little wonder that President Raeisi, welcomed by a standing ovation at Peking University before receiving an honorary academic title, stressed “a new world order is forming and taking the place of the older one”, characterized by “real multilateralism, maximum synergy, solidarity and dissociation from unilateralisms”.
And the epicenter of the new world order, he asserted, is Asia.
It was quite heartening to see the Iranian president eulogizing the Ancient Silk Road, not only in terms of trade but also as a “cultural bond” and “connecting different societies together throughout history”.
Raeisi could have been talking about Sassanid Persia, whose empire ranged from Mesopotamia to Central Asia, and was the great intermediary Silk Road trading power for centuries between China and Europe.
It’s as if he was corroborating Chinese President Xi Jinping’s famed notion of “people to people exchanges” applied to the New Silk Roads.
And then President Raeisi jump cut to the inescapable historical connection: he addressed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), of which Iran is a key partner.
All that spells out Iran’s full reconnection with Asia – after those arguably wasted years of trying an entente cordiale with the collective West. That was symbolized by the fate of the JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal: negotiated, unilaterally buried and then, last year, all but condemned all over gain.
A case can be made that after the Islamic Revolution 44 years ago, a budding “pivot to the East” always lurked behind the official government strategy of “Neither East nor West”.
Starting in the 1990s that happened to progressively enter in full synch with China’s official “Open Door” policy.
After the start of the millennium, Beijing and Tehran have been getting even deeper in synch. BRI, the major geopolitical and geoeconomic breakthrough, was proposed in 2013, in Central Asia and Southeast Asia.
Then, in 2016, President Xi visited Iran, in West Asia, leading to the signing of several memoranda of understanding (MOU), and recently the wide-ranging 25-year comprehensive strategic agreement – consolidating Iran as a key BRI actor.
Accelerating all key vectors
In practice, Raeisi’s visit to Beijing was framed to accelerate all manner of vectors in Iran-China economic cooperation – from crucial investments in the energy sector (oil, gas, petrochemical industry, pipelines) to banking, with Beijing engaged in advancing modernizing reforms in Iran’s banking sector and Chinese banks opening branches across Iran.
Chinese companies may be about to enter the emerging Iranian commercial and private real estate markets, and will be investing in advanced technology, robotics and AI across the industrial spectrum.
Sophisticated strategies to bypass harsh, unilateral US sanctions will be a major focus every step of the way in Iran-China relations. Barter is certainly part of the picture when it comes to trading Iranian oil/gas contracts for Chinese industrial and infrastructure deals.
It’s quite possible that Iran’s sovereign wealth fund – the National Development Fund of Iran – with holdings at estimated $90 billion, may be able to finance strategic industrial and infrastructure projects.
Other international financial partners may come in the form of the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank (AIIB) and the NDB – the BRICS bank, as soon as Iran is accepted as a member of BRICS+: that may be decided this coming August at the summit in South Africa.
The heart of the matter of the strategic partnership is energy. The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) pulled out of a deal to develop Phase 11 of Iran’s South Pars gas field, adjacent to Qatar’s section.
Yet CNPC can always come back for other projects. Phase 11 is currently being developed by the Iranian energy company Petropars.
Energy deals – oil, gas, petrochemical industry, renewables – will boom across what I dubbed Pipelineistan in the early 2000s.
Chinese companies will certainly be part of new oil and gas pipelines connecting to the existing Iranian pipeline networks and configuring new pipeline corridors.
Already established Pipelineistan includes the Central Asia-China pipeline, which connects to China’s West-East pipeline grid, nearly 7,000 km from Turkmenistan to the eastern China seaboard; and the Tabriz-Ankara pipeline (2,577 km, from northwest Iran to the Turkish capital).
Then there’s one of the great sagas of Pipelineistan: the IP (Iran-Pakistan) gas pipeline, previously known as the Peace Pipeline, from South Pars to Karachi.
The Americans did everything in the book – and off the books – to stall it, delay it or even kill it. But IP refused to die; and the China-Iran strategic partnership could finally make it happen.
A new geostrategic architecture
Arguably, the central node of the China-Iran strategic partnership is the configuration of a complex geostrategic economic architecture: connecting the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the flagship of BRI, to a two-pronged Iran-centered corridor.
This will take the form of a China-Afghanistan-Iran corridor and a China-Central Asia-Iran corridor, thus forming what we may call a geostrategic China-Iran Economic Corridor.
Beijing and Tehran, now on overdrive and with no time to lose, may face all manner of challenges – and threats – from the Hegemon; but their 25-year strategic deal does honor historically powerful trading/ merchant civilizations now equipped with substantial manufacturing/ industrial bases and with a serious tradition in advanced scientific innovation.
The serious possibility of China-Iran finally configuring what will be a brand new, expanded strategic economic space, from East Asia to West Asia, central to 21st century multipolarity, is a geopolitical tour de force.
Not only that will completely nullify the US sanction obsession; it will direct Iran’s next stages of much needed economic development to the East, and it will boost the whole geoeconomic space from China to Iran and everyone in between.
This whole process – already happening – is in many aspects a direct consequence of the Empire’s “until the last Ukrainian” proxy war against Russia.
Ukraine as cannon fodder is rooted in Mackinder’s heartland theory: world control belongs to the nation that controls the Eurasian land mass.
This was behind World War I, where Germany knocking out Russia created fear among the Anglo-Saxons that should Germany knock out France it would control the Eurasian land mass.
WWII was conceived against Germany and Japan forming an axis to control Europe, Russia and China.
The present, potential WWIII was conceived by the Hegemon to break a friendly alliance between Germany, Russia and China – with Iran as a privileged West Asia partner.
Everything we are witnessing at this stage spells out the US trying to break up Eurasia integration.
So it’s no wonder that the three top existential “threats” to the American oligarchy which dictates the “rules-based international order” are The Three Sovereigns: China, Russia and Iran.
Does that matter? Not really. We have just seen that while the dogs (of war) bark, the Iran-China strategic caravan rolls on.
END
CHINA/ECONOMY
China has overbuilt and now faces a huge problem in the rental market
(zerohedge)
“Tsunami Of New Supply”: China Slumping Office Rental Market Faces Historic Crisis
SUNDAY, FEB 19, 2023 – 09:00 PM
Several years ago, a new, if slightly less ambitious, “Big short” trade emerged in US capital markets when several hedge funds – including Carl Icahn’s – took aim at US malls, shorting various CMBS tranches or stocks outright, in anticipation of the continued deterioration of US bricks and mortar retailers in general and the mall experience in particular. This trade paid off handsomely several years ago, at which point it stabilized near lifetime lows. Not longer thereafter, in the immediate aftermath of the post-covid Work From Home shift, a new big short trade emerged, one targeting office space which has been sitting vacant at far higher rater than during the pre-covid world.
And while that particular trade has yet to pay off in the US, there is one place where office bears may strike gold first.
Contrary to the US where office lockdowns kicked in parallel with the covid lockdowns, the Chinese market for office space did well during much of the pandemic. After an initial slump in the first year Covid emerged, the market bounced back big in 2021, underpinned by strong demand from tech and finance companies. Analysts had predicted a strong 2022 as well. Instead, corporate demand for office space collapsed after the first quarter. Even China’s biggest cities, where demand is usually the strongest, were not spared.
“The market performed well in the first quarter, so we thought our forecast that the Beijing office market would be solid in 2022 would become a reality, but nobody expected a sudden downturn in the second quarter,” an insider at a property market research firm told Caixin.
The reason why 2022 was so dismal for commercial real estate in China is due to disruptions from repeated Covid-19 lockdowns coupled with a government crackdown on the tech industry, a major leaser of prime office space. With the end of “zero Covid,” there has been some hope that commercial real estate might lurch back into another rapid recovery, but industry insiders suggest that any rebound is still a way off, and will be complicated by a coming rush of new supply this year.
The slump in office occupancy comes at a bad time for an economy that depends so heavily on real estate, particularly when the residential market remains plagued by an unprecedented debt and liquidity crisis. Real estate contributes an estimated 25% of China’s GDP through direct and indirect channels, according to Wang Tao, chief China economist at UBS Investment Bank. Goldman recently calculated that China’s property market was the world’s single largest asset class.
While office space’s share of that contribution is difficult to pin down, investment in commercial property, which includes both office buildings and shopping centers, accounted for 12% of total real estate investment last year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
In 2022, China’s largest cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen all suffered losses in net leased office space — an industry metric of the amount of newly leased space minus the total included in canceled leases.
In Beijing last year, net leased premium office space plunged to 81,300 square meters (875,106 square feet) from about 1 million square meters in 2021, according to data from Savills PLC, a real estate consultancy. All of last year’s gains took place in the first quarter, when net leased office space came in at 95,000 square meters, according to Savills data. That means renters canceled a net 13,700 square meters in office leases in the following three quarters. As more leases got canceled, the vacancy rate for Grade A office space nationwide rose 1.5 percentage points in 2022 to 16%, according to Cushman & Wakefield, another real estate consultancy.
The trend could also be seen in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. In the southern Chinese metropolis of Guangzhou, net leased office space fell by 1,130 square meters in 2022, the first time in 10 years that the amount of office space in canceled leases exceeded the amount rented, according to Cushman & Wakefield data. The same goes for vacancy rates outside these four major cities. In several province capitals, the vacancy rate has exceeded 30%, according to a Cushman & Wakefield report from last month.
In Beijing, the slowdown in office leases was due to companies cutting costs as their business outlook deteriorated amid Covid lockdown disruptions, said Charles Yan, a managing director at Colliers, a property consultancy.
Meanwhile, suffering a similar fate to their US peers, Chinese tech firms, a major office tenant in big cities, have laid off staff and cut back on office space over the past year as a regulatory crackdown on the industry that began in 2021 has squeezed their profits.
“Almost all of the tech giants canceled office leases last year, and smaller tech firms followed suit,” the market research firm insider told Caixin.
Meituan, a giant in online food delivery and restaurant booking, canceled leases on 30,000 square meters of office space last year in Beijing’s Jiuxianqiao area, a business center. In September 2021, the company got hit with a 3.4 billion yuan ($501.2 million) penalty for violating anti-monopoly rules. In the first three quarters of 2022, Meituan reported a 5.6 billion yuan net loss attributable to shareholders, extending its 23.5 billion yuan net loss in 2021.
Last year, the office vacancy rates in Beijing’s Jiuxianqiao and Zhongguancun areas, two neighborhoods teeming with tech firms, rose 12.3% and 9%, respectively, according to Cushman & Wakefield data. These higher vacancies will ultimately push down rent prices. “When the vacancy rate goes up, the rent falls,” said Wei Dong, a policy analyst at Cushman & Wakefield.
This has already happened in Beijing. In the fourth quarter, the average monthly rent for premium office space in the capital fell 1.7% from the previous three-month period. Some small and midsize companies, especially trading firms, have also canceled office leases because their businesses either slowed or closed in the wake of the Covid-19 lockdowns, said Wu Wei, a commercial property agent. Among his corporate clients, 60% have recently moved to smaller offices, he told Caixin, adding that the value of the deals he helped close last year dropped 40%.
A co-founder of a Shanghai-based cosmetics-maker told Caixin that the company wants to cut back on office space, but is reluctant to cancel any of its leases because of the penalty it would have to pay. The company suspended its business during Shanghai’s lockdown last year, causing its revenue from the April-to-June period to plunge 90% year-on-year. Still, the company has not ruled out the possibility that it will cut back on office space or move to a cheaper location once its lease expires, the co-founder said.
Market insiders and analysts are cautious about predicting a near-term recovery in the commercial property market, even as economic activity resumes following the reversal of China’s strict “zero-Covid” policy. In late December, Cushman & Wakefield surveyed more than 60 office building owners and real estate agents and found that they don’t expect a recovery in rent prices or demand for office space anytime soon.
What’s next?
Some analysts have predicted that although demand will rebound in the second half, it will have fallen behind increases in the supply of office space, keeping the pressure on rent prices. In Beijing, about 740,000 square meters of new office space will hit the market this year, and 3.5 million square meters is set to come available over the next four years, according to Savills. All this new property available to rent looks likely to result in a glut as the average amount of net leased office space has been about 500,000 square meters a year over the last decade.
The situation is worse elsewhere in China. In Shenzhen, about 1.45 million square meters of new office space will become available this year, according to the Savills data.
This tsunami of new supply is partly due to the pandemic-related delays in the construction of office buildings due to be finished last year.
Second-tier cities are also facing over-supply of offices. In Wuhan, the capital of Central China Hubei province, the supply of new office space could reach about 1.4 million square meters this year, even though the vacancy rate of the city’s office buildings has been as high as 35%, according to estimates by China Real Estate Information Corp. (CRIC), a consultancy. Perhaps if Wuhan wasn’t also the source of the covid lab leak, it wouldn’t have to worry about a historic tsunami of office space supply.
And as China ponders how to avert a broader property market crisis, the US – whose office market was hit at least as hard long ago – has already figured out what to do next: it is rapidly converting offices into condos.
4/EUROPEAN AFFAIRS/UK AFFAIRS//
SWITZERLAND
Is Switzerland About To Become First Country To Outlaw A Cashless Society?
As in neighboring Germany and Austria, cash is still king in Switzerland albeit a much diminished one. But the Swiss will soon have the chance to vote on whether to preserve notes and coins indefinitely.
This is a rare positive news story that, perhaps unsurprisingly, has received next to no attention beyond Swiss borders. As far as I can tell, none of the legacy media in the US, UK, France, Germany or Spain have even bothered to cover the story. Indeed, it only registered on my radar a couple of days ago, over a week after the story initially broke, because an acquaintance of mine with family in Switzerland told me about it.
So, here’s the basic thrust of the story: At the beginning of last week, a Swiss pressure group with libertarian leanings called the Swiss Freedom Movement (FBS) announced it had collected enough signatures (111,000) to trigger a national vote on preserving cash for posterity. If passed, the initiative would require the federal government to ensure that coins and banknotes are always available in sufficient quantities. What’s more, any attempt to replace the Swiss Franc with another currency — quite possibly a reference to a central bank digital currency — would also have to be put to popular vote.
Swiss citizens will get the chance to try to ensure their economy never becomes cashless, a pressure group said, after collecting enough signatures on Monday to trigger a popular vote on the issue.
The Free Switzerland Movement (FBS) says cash is playing a shrinking role in many economies, as electronic payments become the default for transactions in increasingly digitised societies, making it easier for the state to monitor its citizens’ actions.
It wants a clause added to Switzerland’s currency law, which governs how the central bank and government manage the money supply, stipulating that a “sufficient quantity” of banknotes or coins must always remain in circulation…
Under Switzerland’s system of direct democracy, the proposal would become law if approved by voters, though government and parliament would decide how that law was implemented.
FBS says cash is playing a diminishing role in many economies, including Switzerland, as digital payment methods come to the fore, making it easier for the State and central bank to track citizens’ behavior.
“It is clear that… getting rid of cash not only touches on issues of transparency, simplicity or security… but also carries a huge danger of totalitarian surveillance,” FBS president Richard Koller said on the group’s website.
Cash Still King in Switzerland, Albeit a Much Diminished One
As in neighboring Germany and Austria, cash is still king in Switzerland, though its role has shrunk significantly in recent years. According to the findings of the Swiss National Bank’s last survey of people’s spending habits, conducted in the autumn of 2020, 97% of Swiss citizens still keep cash in their wallets or at home to cover day-to-day expenses, which is significantly higher than most countries.
Forty percent of transactions were still being made using cash, which is also higher than many of Switzerland’s more cashless European neighbors, such as the UK (around 15%), Sweden (less than 10%) and Norway (3-4%, the lowest level of cash usage in the world). But that was down from around 70% three years earlier. What’s more, in terms of transaction value, the debit card recently overtook cash as the payment method with the highest share for non-recurring payments.
“The survey results show that, in terms of the number of payments made, cash continues to be the payment instrument most frequently used by the Swiss population,” Fritz Zurbrugge, then-vice-president of the Swiss National Bank’s governing board, said. “Compared with 2017, however, when the first payment methods survey was carried out, its usage share has dropped significantly. The coronavirus pandemic has given additional impetus to this shift from cash to non-cash payment methods”.
As readers are well aware, the pandemic rapidly intensified preexisting forces, mainly due to unfounded fears that cash could exacerbate the spread of COVID. Those fears were stoked and magnified by mainstream media and seized upon by certain retailers (such as the British supermarket Tesco) to justify encouraging all customers to avoid making cash payments. Even today, with most public health measures (at least of the non-pharmaceutical variety) consigned to the back burner, retailers in some countries continue to reject cash.
Three Unique Benefits of Cash, According to SNB
The date for the referendum on the cash initiative is yet to be set. A video report on the issue by Swiss Info emphasized that none of Switzerland’s main political parties support the initiative. It also underscored the FSB’s libertarian credentials while likening the cash initiative to the failed sovereign money initiative of June 2018, also known as Vollgeld, which sought to put an end to fractional reserve banking by including the creation of scriptural money in the legal mandate of the Swiss National Bank (SNB).
The SNB opposed that referendum. It is not yet clear what it makes of the cash initiative. Officially speaking, the central bank has no preference as to whether people pay with cash or digital alternatives. Freedom of choice is what matters. In a speech last November titled “Popular, But Under Pressure – Cash in the Digital Age”, Martin Schlegel, vice chairman of the SNB’s governing board, highlighted three key advantages cash has over digital payments:
First, cash makes managing your money clear and simple. It is easier to keep a firm grasp on your spending with notes and coins. You only have to open your wallet to see if you can afford additional expenses. It is with good reason that parents usually give children their pocket money in cash. By contrast, when you hold a plastic card up to a payment terminal, all you see is an amount that will be debited from your account at some point in the future.
Second, thanks to its simplicity of use, cash allows everyone to participate in the economy in social life. You do not need an account or a mobile phone to pay with coins and banknotes, nor do you need an affinity with digital technology.
Third, when paying by cash, you do not need to provide personal details such as your name or card number. With electronic payments, however, information about the persons making the payment and their payment behaviour is stored.
To ensure that people can continue to enjoy these benefits, Schlegel said the SNB must help preserve Switzerland’s cash infrastructure, which includes cash processing operators and commercial banks. It also means ensuring that shops continue to accept notes and coins for purchases.
But before we get ahead of ourselves, in Switzerland the outcome of a referendum does not automatically become law. As NC reader Irrational has kindly pointed out, there there are plenty of instances where the Swiss government, parliament, courts and official agencies have delayed and/or watered down undesirable legislation approved by the public.
Norway’s “Cash Crisis”
In some countries that are further along the road to a fully cashless existence, central banks and governments are already taking steps to preserve cash services. They include Norway. In a 2021 survey, the country’s central bank, Norges Bank, found that many of the country’s commercial banks were no longer accepting responsibility for providing cash services. This became a major exacerbating factor in Norway’s so-called “cash crisis” of May 2022, when card terminals across the nation went down for hours, leaving millions of people unable to transact.
That crisis underscored the ongoing importance of cash, which Schlegel describes as “particularly crisis-proof”:
You can still pay with banknotes even when a card terminal has stopped working, when your mobile phone has no reception or when there is no electricity. Cash therefore serves as an important back-up in the event of local – or even widespread – interruptions to card or app payments.
Norway’s “cash crisis” appears to have galvanized both the government and Norges Bank to shore up cash services and the right to pay with banknotes and coins. In September 2022, the Ministry of Justice and Emergency Preparedness submitted a proposal for changes to the Act to strengthen the right to pay cash, with physical businesses being required to accept it and provisions in place to consider individual cases for other services.
But at the same time, most central banks, including Norges Bank and the SNB, are also exploring the possibility of launching their own central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, in the not-too-distant future. While most central banks have repeatedly said that CBDCs, once launched, will co-exist alongside cash, there are no guarantees that that is what will happen, or under what sort of conditions.
In 2019, a blog post on the IMF’s website, titled “Cashing In: How to Make Negative Interest Rates Work,” based on an IMF staff study, posited setting a dual currency system in which cash would gradually depreciate against e-money, thus allowing the central bank to set “as negative an interest as necessary for countering a recession, without triggering any large-scale substitutions into cash.”
As the authors of the post themselves note, implementing such a system “would require important modifications of the financial and legal system” in each country. “In particular,” they go on, “fundamental questions pertaining to monetary law would have to be addressed and consistency with the IMF’s legal framework would need to be ensured. Also, it would require an enormous communication effort.”
The reason for that is that most people in most countries, if properly consulted, would presumably opt not to live in an economy where interest rates were significantly below zero and cash was, by design and law, constantly depreciating in value, even more so than it is today. They would probably also prefer not to live in a CBDC-based economy, where largely unaccountable central banks would have unprecedented surveillance and control powers over the population.
This is the problem: the public, whether in Nigeria, the UK, the US, Russia, Brazil or the Euro Area, are not being consulted. And this is why what is happening in Switzerland is potentially so important. At the very least there will be a public debate on the issue.
As FBS president Richard Koller notes, pushing through such guarantees for access to cash in the European Union would entail the “almost impossible” process of securing approval from all 27 member states. It would also imply a degree of public consultation, representation and accountability that simply does not exist at the EU-level.
If FBS’ referendum on preserving cash were to actually pass and the government were to actually enact the legislation without watering it down too much (two big “IFs”), Switzerland could become a potential “European standard-bearer for the defence of cash,” says Koller. And that, in this humble blogger’s opinion, would be a good thing.
END
SWITZERLAND/CREDIT SUISSE
Looks like Credit Suisse is in big trouble as its stock crashes to an all time low of 2.63 Swiss Francs.($2.83 usa)
Credit Suisse Crashes To All-Time Low After Regulators Probe If Chairman Lied About “Stabilizing” Outflows
Two weeks ago, we reported that Credit Suisse stock suffered one of its biggest drop ever after it i) warned of continued losses for 2023 and beyond, and ii) revealed that it had suffered a record CHF110.5BN in outflows in the quarter, an amount which KBW analysts called “quite staggering.”
And, as we noted at the time, this was rather problematic because in late 2022, right after reports of the record bank run first hit, the company’s management team and Chairman, Axel Lehmann, said in various media interviews that outflows had stopped – hoping this would relieve pressure on the bank and in the process, contain the outflows – when in reality the bank run was only just getting started.
Well, two months later, the regulators have gotten involved, and according to Reuters, regulators are reviewing unfoundedly cheerful comments the chairman – and other Credit Suisse representatives – made about the health of its finances.
As a reminder, on Dec 1, Lehmann told the Financial Times in an interview streamed online that after strong outflows in October, they had “completely flattened out” and “partially reversed”. The following day he told Bloomberg Television that the outflows had “basically stopped.” On December 2, the bank’s stock jumped by 9.3% after Lehman’s comments; it then cratered again after the company revealed just how ugly the outflows truly were.
Not only had outflows not stopped but they were accelerating. And now, Reuters sources say that the regulator is reviewing whether Lehmann’s statements were potentially misleading.
In response to a question on the distribution of withdrawals in the period Chief Executive Ulrich Koerner told analysts that day that more than 85% of the outflows in the last quarter happened in October and November, according to a transcript of the call.
That led analysts at Citigroup to conclude in a note to clients that management effectively indicated 15% of the outflows had happened in December, or after Lehmann’s soothing comments. Finma’s scrutiny adds to the challenges faced by Credit Suisse, which has been rocked by scandals in recent years. The lender has embarked on a sweeping overhaul to restore profitability by exiting certain investment banking activities and focusing on managing money for the wealthy.In early October a social media storm triggered by an unsubstantiated report about the bank’s financial health prompted wealthy customers to move deposits elsewhere. The bank said at the time it was pushing ahead with its restructuring and remained close to its clients.
Responding to a Reuters request for comment on the Feb. 9 results, Finma said in a statement that while Credit Suisse’s liquidity buffers had a stabilizing effect, the regulator “monitors banks very closely during such situations,” referring to the outflows, which “were indeed significant” in the fourth quarter. It did not elaborate further.
News of the latest woes to befall the embattled Swiss lender which is now a mere shell of its former self, sent its stock plunging as much as 6.4% to a new record low of CHF 2.52 before partially recovering losses.
END
HUNGARY/EU
The EU is out to get Poland who refuses to budge. Now Hungary is moving fast to protect farmers form cheap Ukrainian grain coming into the EU tax free
Two commentaries!
(Remixnews)
Hungary Moves To Protect Farmers From Cheap Ukrainian Grain While EU Does Nothing
Since the European Union is doing nothing to restrict the import of cheap Ukrainian grain exports that disrupt Hungary’s agricultural market, Hungary has taken matters into its own hands, said Agricultural Minister István Nagy.
After the outbreak of war, when it seemed that Ukrainian grain would not leave the ports, the EU quickly abolished export tariffs on Kyiv, allowing crops to freely flood into Europe at depressed prices. The original idea was that EU member states would help get shipments out to the world market, avoiding a total collapse of Ukrainian grain exports. The reality, however, was that the extreme quantities of Ukrainian exports, duty-free, remained in the European market and began to systematically destroy the grain trade of the member states.
Grain imports from Ukraine in 2021 amounted to 287,000 tons. However, this figure soared in 2022 to 2.8 million tons, which has become a serious problem for European farmers competing against low-cost Ukrainian grain. The precarious situation for European farmers did not change when Ukrainian ports reopened either, as it became more convenient and cheaper for the Ukrainians to flood the European Union with their grain crops knowing that Brussels would do nothing to stop this development. The Ukrainians ended up being right in their assumption.
The mass influx of Ukrainian grain has had such a market-distorting effect that the member states most affected — Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria — have issued a joint declaration to Brussels asking for help.
Hungarian Agriculture Minister István Nagy wrote in a statement that:
“They respect the EU measures to help Ukrainian grain to enter the world market, but as the current situation is more about destroying the EU market, they have a duty to preserve the balance of the internal market while protecting the interests of domestic and European farmers.”
“Brussels does not stand by Hungarian and Central European farmers and does not offer any help to protect Hungarian, Romanian, Polish or Bulgarian producers who are otherwise unable to survive. The European Commission would have Central European farmers pay the price of Ukrainian grain exports instead of burden-sharing.”.
As a result, Hungary has instituted strict controls on food supply chains, all in accord with relevant EU legislation. Nagy added that in addition to grain crops, cheap Ukrainian honey and poultry exports are also hitting EU member states markets in “enormous quantities.”
end
POLAND EU
EU sues Poland. Poland wants the money it is owed. The fun begins
(Adamczyk Remix)
The EU’s ‘Rule Of Law’ Dispute With Poland Has Been Taken Up A Notch
The European Commission’s decision to sue Poland over its constitutional court rulings is making the European Court of Justice a de facto Supreme Court of Europe…
The European Commission has decided to challenge the Polish constitutional court over not only its assertion of the supremacy of the Polish constitution over European law, but also to question the appointment of three justices of the court as well as the election of the chief justice herself. This move escalates the rule of law dispute to a new level.
The European Commission is effectively arguing that Poland’s constitutional court has ceased to be an independent entity and is now a creature of the government.
The commission is taking an unprecedented step. It will be the first time the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has been asked to assess the functioning of a member state’s constitutional court and its verdicts. If the European court rules in favor of the commission, its ruling will have consequences that go way beyond the dispute over the observance of the principle of the rule of law in Poland.
It will mean that the ECJ has asserted its right to review the work of member states’ constitutional courts and to challenge their verdicts. In this way, the ECJ in Luxembourg would effectively become a Supreme Court of Europe able to interpret and adjudicate the constitutional laws of the member states.
The European Commission’s decision cannot but affect the political situation in Poland. Last Friday, President Andrzej Duda submitted the legislation passed by the Polish parliament on disciplinary procedures for judges for review by the constitutional court. The law was passed in order to change the very procedure objected to by the European Union so that the Commission would unblock Poland’s share of the EU Recovery Fund.
The Polish president’s move looks like a further delay to Poland’s access to its EU recovery fund allocation is inevitable, but the European Commission’s decision to question the credentials of the constitutional court complicates matters still further.
This is because it is more than likely that the ECJ will suspend the workings of the court, just as it did with regard to the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court. Or it may suspend the four justices whose appointments have been challenged, therefore making it impossible for the court to sit in full session until the ECJ has made a final ruling, a process that could take years.
The latest developments have not brought Poland any closer to unlocking EU funds and threaten a political conflict between Warsaw and Brussels that could lead to a chain reaction. The constitutional court could simply refuse to suspend its working and the ruling majority could opt for a full-scale confrontation with the European Commission, with the ruling conservatives going to the electorate, blaming Brussels, and accusing it of attempting to deprive Poland of its sovereignty.
end
FINLAND/SWEDEN/NATO/RUSSIA
Absolutely stupid for Finland to join NATO
(zerohedge)
In Reversal, Finland Declares Readiness To Join NATO Without Sweden
TUESDAY, FEB 21, 2023 – 02:45 AM
Finland over the weekend declared a reversal of policy regarding its NATO membership applications, now saying it’s ready to join the military alliance without Sweden, at a moment Turkey continues blocking Stockholm’s bid.
Finnish Defense Minister Mikko Savola told The Associated Press at the Munich Security conference on Saturday that Finland still prefers to enter jointly alongside Sweden, but has now confirmed it won’t delay if Turkey only approves Helsinki’s membership.Helsinki file image
“No, no. Then we will join,” Savola said in response to questions on delaying NATO membership to wait for Sweden. While stressing that Finland and Sweden cooperate closely, he acknowledged the issue remains in “Turkey’s hands now.”
The day prior, on Friday, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto similarly said for the first time very clearly, “If Turkey approves Finland’s NATO application before Sweden’s, Finland cannot do anything about it.”
Finland’s earlier stance going back to summer was to emphasize the joint bid nature of its NATO accession, but has since wavered in the wake of the Quran burning incidents in Sweden.
Turkey-Sweden relations last month hit a fresh low point after an incident where a copy of the Quran was burned in front of the Turkish embassy. “We condemn in the strongest possible terms the vile attack on our holy book,” a Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said in response to the stunt by far-right activist Rasmus Paludan in late January.
It came after months of Turkish pressure on Stockholm to crack down on Kurdish groups and anti-Erdogan protests. But Ankara has accused Sweden of providing police protection to allow anti-Erdogan protesters to burn the Quran, which initially happened in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm, with follow-up incidents in the weeks after.
END
5.UKRAINE RUSSIA//MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS
IRAN
Not good: Iran has reportedly been on the cusp of making nukes, having enriched Uranium to 84%. The country needs 90% purity to create a nuclear bomb
(zerohedge)
Iran Reportedly On Cusp Of Making Nukes Having Enriched Uranium To 84% Purity
SUNDAY, FEB 19, 2023 – 11:00 PM
Inspectors from the UN atomic agency discovered uranium enriched to 84% purity in Iran last week, a level just below that needed for nuclear weapons, Bloomberg reported Sunday, citing two unnamed senior diplomats. Until now, Iran had been known to have enriched uranium to 60%, while a purity of 90% is needed to produce nuclear weapons.
The IAEA said in a tweet that it was “aware of recent media reports relating to uranium enrichment levels in Iran.” Director-General Rafael Grossi noted that the agency was in talks with Iran regarding the results of recent inspections, the tweet added.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is trying to clarify how Iran accumulated the uranium enriched to 84% purity — the highest level found by inspectors in the country to date. Iran had previously told the IAEA that its centrifuges were configured to enrich uranium to a 60% level of purity. The IAEA has been preparing its quarterly Iran safeguards report ahead of a March 6 Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, where the Persian Gulf nation’s nuclear work will figure prominently on the agenda.
The report did not say where the highly enriched material was found, and comes after last month’s unannounced inspection at the Fordo nuclear site, which found two advanced centrifuges connected in a way that the Iranians had not declared to inspectors. Iran said it provided “explanations” to the inspector who reported the change and that he then “realized his mistake.”
Also in January, IAEA Director-General Grossi told European Parliament lawmakers Iran had “amassed enough nuclear material for several nuclear weapons — not one at this point.” Speaking about Iran’s recent atomic activities, including enriching uranium well beyond the limits of the landmark 2015 deal to curb its nuclear capabilities — Grossi said Tehran’s trajectory “is certainly not a good one.”
The latest development comes as Iran is increasingly isolated from the West and nuclear talks with world powers remain suspended. The country has also faced widespread condemnation for its crackdown on major protests and the US and European Union have tightened sanctions on Iran over its military support for Russia’s war on Ukraine.
As Bloomberg notes, inspectors now need to determine whether Iran intentionally produced the material, or whether the concentration was an unintended accumulation within the network of pipes connecting the hundreds of fast-spinning centrifuges used to separate the isotopes. It’s the second time this month that monitors have detected suspicious enrichment-related activities.
Iran hasn’t submitted required forms declaring its intention to raise uranium enrichment levels at two facilities near the towns of Natanz and Fordow, according to one diplomat. Even if the detected material was mistakenly accumulated because of technical difficulties in operating the centrifuge cascades — something that has happened before — it underscores the danger of Iran’s decision to produce highly enriched uranium, the other diplomat said. The IAEA has said levels even at just 60% are technically indistinguishable from the level needed for a nuclear weapon. Most nuclear power reactors use material enriched to 5% purity.
The news comes just hours after earlier in Sunday, Israel blamed Iran for a Feb. 10 attack on an oil tanker in the Arabian Sea. The incident came about a fortnight after a drone strike on a weapons depot near Iran’s city of Isfahan that Tehran blamed on Israel.
Iran’s deal with world powers, known as the JCPOA, collapsed after the United States withdrew from it in 2018 under then-president Donald Trump. The JCPOA gave Iran sanctions relief in return for the curbs and inspections of its nuclear facilities. After Washington withdrew, claiming the deal did not go far enough in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, the Iranians dropped many of their own commitments to the pact and ramped up uranium enrichment. The deal had set a maximum enrichment threshold of 3.67%.
Negotiations that started in April 2021 to revive the agreement have since stalled. Iran said in November it had begun producing uranium enriched to 60% at Fordo, an underground facility that reopened three years ago after the breakdown of the JCPOA.
END
ISRAEL/SYRIA
Deadliest Israeli attack on Damascus in years. Syria is still reeling from its earthquake
(Cradle)
Deadliest Israeli Attack On Damascus In Years As Country Reels From Earthquake
Syria’s Foreign Ministry condemned Tel Aviv after Israeli airstrikes struck Damascus in the early morning of Sunday, killing at least five people and critically wounding 15 others (some reports say as many as 15 were killed). According to state-run news agency SANA, the ministry urged “international action” to prevent further attacks on Syrian soil.
“Syria expects the United Nations Secretariat and Security Council to condemn Israeli aggression and crimes, take the necessary measures to deter them, hold them accountable, punish their perpetrators, and ensure they do not recur.” The ministry further remarked that this attack comes in the context of recurring Israeli attacks against civilian targets and coincides with the recent attack by ISIS in Homs, which left at least 53 dead.
Local reports indicate that the Syrian air defenses incepted most of the missiles, adding that the air strikes also hit locations in Damascus’ countryside, including on the outskirts of Shahba and in the north of al-Suwayda in southwestern Syria.
Photos and videos of the bombardment have surfaced on social media, showing severe damage to residential areas and revealing the deceased of the attack, such as Syrian national and pharmacist Lilian Aoudi. Among those who died during the attack include a doctor and an engineer.
“The strike on Sunday is the deadliest Israeli attack in the Syrian capital,” the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.
The Israeli air strike assault comes as Syria continues to reel from a devastating earthquake that left close to 6,000 dead and leveled large swathes of the country’s northwest region.
Earlier this month, an unnamed Israeli military official told Saudi Arabia’s Elaph newspaper that Tel Aviv will not hesitate to bomb Iranian aid deliveries to Syria under claims that Tehran seeks to “take advantage of the tragic situation … to send weapons and equipment to Hezbollah.”
As a result of western sanctions, aid deliveries for Syria have been largely hindered compared to the flow of aid entering neighboring Turkiye, forcing Damascus to rely on allied nations like Russia and Iran for assistance.
Israel’s newest attack comes just three weeks after its drones bombed three Iranian food trucks loaded with flour and rice as they headed from Iraq into Syria.
Syria frequently accused Israel of attacking its national territory repeatedly. Still, the authorities in Tel Aviv rarely admit to the incursions, although the Israeli national press gives ample coverage to such operations without mentioning the perpetrators.
end
RUSSIA/USA
This is the highlight of Putin’s speech: he is suspending the new START nuclear treaty and then he is putting missiles on combat readiness.
Putin Suspends New START Nuclear Treaty, Puts Missiles On Combat Readiness
Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin said he is suspending Russia’s participation in the New START nuclear treaty with the United States.
“President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday suspended Russian participation in the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty with the United States, warning Washington that Russia had put new ground-based strategic nuclear weapons on combat duty,” Reuters reports of the new declaration.Via AP
It comes over a year after Moscow signed onto a five year extension, and after in August the US accused Russia of violating the treaty in disallowing US on-site inspections under its stipulations. In response, Washington halted Russian inspectors’ ability to do the same on American soil.
Russia had at the time complained that it was actually the US side which “deprive the Russian Federation of the right to conduct inspections on American territory.”
“No one should be under the illusion that global strategic parity can be violated,” Putin said of New START in the Tuesday remarks delivered in Moscow.
In March 2021 the two sides renewed New START for a period of five years, and it will expire in February 2026 if it’s not continued – an increasing possibility given US-Russia relations have deteriorated so fast over the Ukraine war they are near complete breaking point. But this new Putin declaration appears to be the final death knell after the treaty’s fate was already extremely uncertain.
The treaty is intended to limit and reduce nuclear arms on either side, setting a limit of no more than 1,550 deployed warheads and 700 missiles. START I began in 1991, with New START signed under the Obama and Medvedev administrations in 2010 as a successor agreement.
Putin’s speech, which most commentators saw little that was new in, came just after President Biden showed up in Kiev for a surprise visit…
Much of Tuesday’s speech was about reaffirming Russia’s resolve in Ukraine at a moment NATO powers seem more deeply involved than ever. “Step by step, we will carefully and systematically achieve the aims that face us,” Putin said in the speech which came just ahead of the anniversary of the invasion on Feb. 24, which will be Friday.
He also rearticulated Russia’s reasons for going to war. “Russia did its best to solve the problem in Ukraine peacefully, but the statements of Western leaders turned out to be fraudulent and untrue,” Putin said, calling Ukraine part of the “historical Russian land.”
end
This clown now clarifies that the USA supports Ukrainian attacks on Crimea. That escalates the already volatile situation
(zerohedge)
Victoria Nuland Clarifies That US Supports Ukrainian Attacks On Crimea
Victoria Nuland, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, said last week that the US is “supporting” Ukrainian attacks on Crimea and called Russian military installations on the peninsula “legitimate targets.”
Nuland made the comments when asked about a report from The New York Times that was published in January and said the Biden administration was “warming” to the idea of helping Ukraine attack Russia despite the risk of escalation.
“Russia has turned Crimea into a massive military installation … those are legitimate targets, Ukraine is hitting them, and we are supporting that,” Nuland told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington DC-based think tank.
Nuland also expressed support for the “demilitarization” of Crimea. “No matter what the Ukrainians decide about Crimea in terms of where they choose to fight, etcetera, Ukraine is not going to be safe unless Crimea is at a minimum — at a minimum — demilitarized,” she said.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed Nuland’s comments, saying she was inciting an escalation of the war. “Now the American warmongers have gone even further: they are inciting the Kiev regime to further escalate, to bring the war to the territory of our country. Just like that, with direct strikes,” Zakharova said.
Nuland’s comments came a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged that a Ukrainian attempt at retaking Crimea would be a “red line” for Russian President Vladimir Putin and would risk a major response from Moscow. US support for such operations would increase the risk of provoking Moscow and heighten the chances of a direct clash between NATO and Russia.
Putin has shown that he will significantly escalate the war over attacks on Crimea. Russia did not start large-scale missile strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure until after the truck bombing of the Kerch Bridge, which connects Crimea to the Russian mainland.
While Ukraine hasn’t been in a position where it can launch an offensive against Crimea, the Biden administration has made clear throughout the conflict that it wouldn’t discourage Kyiv from attacking the peninsula.
Back in the summer of 2022, when the US first provided the HIMARS rocket systems to Ukraine, the administration sought assurances that the weapons wouldn’t be used to target Russian territory. When asked by Antiwar.com if that restriction applied to Crimea, a State Department spokesperson replied, “Crimea is Ukraine.”
Russia has controlled Crimea since 2014, but neither the US nor Kyiv recognize the peninsula as Russian territory. The people of Crimea voted to join Russia following a US-backed coup in Kyiv, which Nuland played an instrumental role in, and polling since 2014 has shown that they are still happy with the change.
END
UKRAINE/RUSSIA//NATO
Missile barrage: The sky was filled with Russian Kalibr cruisers – Ukraine lost 44% of its nuclear energy and 2/3 of its thermal power plants! – WarNews247
Robert Hryniak
10:29 AM (4 hours ago)
to
You will note that the biggest loser is the oligarch who owns DTEK which provides the power. The STATE does not own the power systems. Yes, people suffer as such ownership runs out of money repairing their systems. Think about that! It’s called local pressure. And much of this wealth was generated by theft when the Soviet Union collapsed. So shedding tears for such folk is an illusion.
“Signal of the end”: Ukrainians lost the largest supply hub of Bakhmut – Russians took Berkhovka-Yahidne giving the free shot! – WarNews247
Robert Hryniak
10:03 AM (12 minutes ago)
to
This really is the end saga of Bakhmut and its’ defense. The Russians have complete fire control so any evacuation of equipment will take serious losses. If the Ukrainians stay there much longer they will simply die there. As it is they will take losses as they waited too long to evacuate.
This is the Russian peace proposal: Partition of Ukraine in three stages – Establishment of Federation & autonomy in Galicia-Volhynia – WarNews247
Robert Hryniak
10:45 AM (4 hours ago)
to
Russia has prepared for a 30 month intense war starting next month with all needed support capabilities in place. All the nonsense talk of a lack of manpower or missiles is balderdash.
And it matters not whether the fools on ship like it or not, they are not in a position to dictate. Those days are over, which is why neither China or Russia cares what or who is on the phone. The naked weakness of America and NATO is on full display. And it has been more than noted by Russia and China who are growing their trade outside of the West. Allowing the WEST to decline. The longer money is wasted the more hurt is self inflicted upon western countries by such action. Such scarce capital would be better spent fixing and building within respective nations because there’s no rewards in the Ukraine except loss.
The longer this nonsense continues the more likely capital will seek returns outside of western countries where growth exists as does returns on capital providing safety of capital investment. Watching the impact of higher interest rates with a declining value of assets in the West is stark difference to the growth the same capital produces in growing economies where values are rising.
Russia’s Rostec Increases Production of Kinzhal Hypersonic Missiles
Robert Hryniak
10:34 AM (2 hours ago)
to
As previously written these missiles are in serial production 6 days a week. The main difference between these missiles and the original ones of several years ago is that what is being used in ukraine is the 1st generation ones which fly at Mach 5, whereas the 2nd generation ones fly at Mach 10. Mach 10 is now the base required speed for all Russian missiles in serial production and many others are at Mach20+. Should the need arise, these newer missiles will be what the West will find itself meeting. Older missiles and even artillery shells are being used up in Ukriane. It is only very recently that smart artillery shells have started to be used as a test against older systems. All such smarter shells are also in serial production and Russia has an inventory of older ones that can sustain 60,000 shells daily across the front for 2 years without any new production. There is enough production now that a ready supply of newer shells is available if required, on a daily basis. In Russian modern doctrine the battlefield is completely network centric with each component working as an individual clog in a wider envelope, in real time. This means tank, soldiers, robotic systems and artillery shells while retaining the ability to shut down an opponent’s ability to be offensive. This is why Ukrainians daily lose their artillery as they are generations behind on the battlefield in technology. All the narrative of Russia running out of shells and missiles is nonsense.
Another earthquake strikes Turkey near the Syrian border
(zerohedge)
Another 6.4 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Turkey, Syria: 8 Dead & Hundreds Injured
TUESDAY, FEB 21, 2023 – 10:29 AM
At least two new earthquakes shook southern Turkey and parts of Syria Monday, two weeks following the initial earthquake and aftershocks which left entire cities in rubble and killed more than 46,000 people – also as bodies are still being recovered.
The new earthquake registered at 6.4-magnitude, leaving at least eight dead and hundreds more injured. An estimated 300 are among the injured with Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) saying 18 of those are in serious condition.Via AP/PBSAccording to the Associated Press, “In Syria, a woman and a girl died as a result of panic during the earthquake in the provinces of Hama and Tartus, pro-government media outlets said.”
“The earthquake’s epicenter was in the town of Defne, in Turkey’s Hatay province, which borders Syria. It was also felt in Jordan, Cyprus, Israel, Lebanon and as far away as Egypt, and followed by a second, magnitude 5.8 temblor, and dozens of aftershocks,” the report details.
Some 90 aftershocks followed the first 6.4 magnitude quake, with the biggest one to follow being a 5.8-magnitude earthquake, according to AFAD.
The quakes were reportedly felt as far away as Jordan, Egypt, and Israel. Across the Syrian capital of Damascus, buildings and high-rise apartments shook.
Among the injured were half a dozen people struck by falling debris from buildings, and others are said to have suffered heart attacks in the chaos. Rescue workers cited broadly “a state of panic and fear among the people” that ensued, particularly after the big quake earlier this month.
Already buildings that were still standing in hard-impacted areas after the 7.8 Kahramanmaras earthquake were unstable. Videos from Monday’s earthquake and aftershocks showed people running into the streets in panic in Turkish and Syrian cities.
end
RUSSIA/CHINA/USA
A pause for thought!!
What does it mean when your calls go unanswered
Robert Hryniak
Feb 17, 2023, 6:21 PM (15 hours ago)
to
There is a phrase a friend of mine has used many a time and it is “Billy no mates”.
What does this mean? We all want to believe that when we call and the phone rings, the party we call does indeed answer, or at least sees fit to return the call. It is the same with email and text and why people freak out when all that is seen is silence. We believe that no matter the relationship, the party answering still wants to maintain a dialogue and relationship of some kind. Because if they do not answer, they simply have written us off as irrelevant and not worthy of their time. It is so true in circles of friends and in acquaintances relied upon for support or reinforcement of our status and position within perceived peer groups. This is very true in business relationships where contact is at the heart of every business and every person. It is the same with nations and their representatives, who once upon a time used to represent the will and desires of constituents within their borders. And in some cases, they still do.
We have seen in recent times how Russia no longer talks to America and vice versa. And now it is clear that when the ship of fools rings China, no one picks up the phone . Imagine this, the 3 most powerful nations and 2 out 3 do not talk to the one calling. Ostracized?
Perhaps, if this was a high school spat, we could call it a teenage crisis. However this is indeed serious, as all three nations pack nuclear missiles and have perceived notions of ability to project hegemony. What should other nations like India or Iran or Saudi Arabia take from this? Because America is being isolated and rendered irrelevant in the eyes of two of most powerful nations as they move on with their lives. And whether we see is not relevant as other nations see. And no amount of hubris or drinking or thievery or shouting or threats changes this reality.
Truthfully, we should not expect a senile man of questionable repute to understand and should a ship full of hubris and hate and thievery be expected to understand that they have been scolded and by action told they do not matter? The reality is that when we read about the alleged story of America destroying Nord Stream for political and financial gain, it matters not whether it is true, as much as whether people believe they could have done this. Because history has demonstrated an acute ability to lie. Whether it was Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, Libya etc. to beat the drum of carnage of nations. So while perhaps Germans slumber; it seems many other nations do not. One only has to look at the host of nations wanting to join the BRICS or the SCO.
The good ship lollipop sadly has sailed on what America has become, leaving many innocent Americans to learn of their betrayal at the hands of fools. While the world marches to a new order of reference leaving us all as passengers on voyage of change. Whether we wanted passage or not we have been welcomed abroad.
R
end
Robert H to us:
Lindsey Graham to China: ‘If you jump on the Putin train, you’re dumber than dirt’ – POLITICO
But this quote by this psychopath member of fools abroad the good ship lollipop is telling, and it demonstrates a complete nasty surprise for the worldview of most in Washington D.C. who wouldn’t know shit from shineola in matters of geopolitical balance and correlation of forces, military as well as economic, in the world. I will reiterate my point here which I have made for years: China is a junior geopolitical partner in Moscow-Beijing axis, because the survival of China depends on what Moscow is doing in the Ukraine against whole of the combined West. What Western nation has not contributed materials or weapons or soldiers to this fight? Darn few nations have avoided sending supplies and the search has been cast as far as South Korea and Pakistan for artillery shells.
Washington still wants VSU to go on “counter-offensive”. But with what? One may want to wage war but to do so means you must plan for war and develop inventory of weapons with a working supply chain that backs up increased demand for arms and replacement of weapon systems that get destroyed. Why is this so hard to understand?
Only a fool enters an arena of battle without the tools necessary to wage a fight. All that happens is you lose. So this regard, what comes next, a nuclear exchange? Hate to break bubble of illusion and insanity but the West will lose. If a nuke is launched at Russia, Russia will know seconds after launch and it will launch a devastating strike of many missiles all at once. There will be no second chances to rethink actions. And yes, China has sent Drones, swarm drones to the Wagner’s to be battlefield tested to determine their effectiveness. And not because they are needed.
Hopefully, somewhere there is a reasonable person of grasping that the existence of the West will be put to the test and stop this insanity.
How China Became Saudi Arabia’s Largest Trading Partner
TUESDAY, FEB 21, 2023 – 04:15 AM
Over the past two decades, the economic presence of China has been growing significantly around the world.
The country has already surpassed the U.S. as the largest trading partner of developed nations such as Japan and the European Union.
But the world’s second largest economy is making significant inroads in the Middle East as well.As Visual Capitalist’s Freny Fernandes details below, this graphic by Ehsan Soltani uses data from the World Trade Organization (WTO) to chart Saudi Arabia’s trading history with the EU, the U.S, and China.
Evolving Trade Relations
With China’s imports from and exports to Saudi Arabia now exceeding the major oil-producing country’s combined trade with the U.S. and the EU, China has become Saudi Arabia’s dominant trading partner.
Saudi Arabia Net Trade by Year
With China ($B)
With U.S. ($B)
With EU-27 ($B)
2021
$87.3B
$25.1B
$53.1B
2020
$67.2B
$20.6B
$43.8B
2019
$78.1B
$28.3B
$57.4B
2018
$63.5B
$38.2B
$62.7B
2017
$50.1B
$36.0B
$52.6B
2016
$42.9B
$36.0B
$49.1B
2015
$51.8B
$43.2B
$56.9B
2014
$69.1B
$67.1B
$73.0B
2013
$72.2B
$72.1B
$75.2B
2012
$73.3B
$75.3B
$74.3B
2011
$64.3B
$62.7B
$70.0B
2010
$43.2B
$44.1B
$47.4B
2009
$32.6B
$34.0B
$38.2B
2008
$41.8B
$69.5B
$58.4B
2007
$25.4B
$47.6B
$47.3B
2006
$20.1B
$40.9B
$46.2B
2005
$16.1B
$35.7B
$39.9B
2004
$10.3B
$27.8B
$30.5B
2003
$7.3B
$24.1B
$24.4B
2002
$5.1B
$18.7B
$20.5B
2001
$4.1B
$19.2B
$19.6B
Back in 2001, Saudi Arabia’s trade with China was a mere fraction—just one-tenth—of its combined trade with the EU and United States. While the total value of trade was modest at this time, it’s been increasing consistently almost every year since.
By the year 2011, China had surpassed the U.S. for the first time in bilateral trade value with Saudi Arabia. Then by 2018, trade between China and Saudi Arabia surpassed the Middle-Eastern country’s trade with the entire EU.
Fast forward to today, and China has emerged as a larger trading partner with Saudi Arabia than the rest of the West combined.
The Perfect Match?
China’s status as Saudi Arabia’s biggest trading partner makes sense considering its recent economic growth and focus.
China is the largest buyer of crude oil in the world, and it buys more from the Saudi Arabia than anywhere else. Almost half of the $87.3 billion bilateral trade between the two nations in 2021 was comprised of China’s crude oil imports. This accounted for 77% of China’s total imports from Saudi Arabia, which also included goods like plastic—a petroleum product.
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, imported over $30 billion worth of goods including technological equipment, telephones, and light fixtures.
Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine contains mRNA fragments called “truncated mRNA.” This is a serious issue on top of the vaccine’s life-threatening safety events. Stunningly, Pfizer submitted falsified mRNA analytical reports to multiple health authorities.
The issue of truncated mRNA led the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to raise a “major objection” before its December 2020 conditional approval of the vaccine. What has happened? How have these issues been considered resolved? This two-part series article will address the matter in depth and examine its potential consequences for human health.
Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine contains truncated mRNA, which the EMA flagged as a reason for its “major objection,” indicating a preclusion of their approval.
Pfizer has not investigated the detrimental outcomes of truncated mRNA in its vaccines.
Pfizer submitted Western blot figures to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the EMA that were digitally generated—not from actual experiments.
There has been an alarming lack of action taken by health authorities on this issue.
Truncated mRNA potentially contributes to multiple vaccine-related injuries, including misfolded spike protein-induced fibrous blood clots, autoimmune disorders, and cancer.
These problems with the Pfizer vaccine could have resulted in drastic product quality variations from batch to batch. This could explain the difference in adverse events experienced by vaccine recipients.
The root cause of such irresponsible conduct by pharma and health authorities is a lack of ethics.
When you go to a supermarket and want to buy 10 bottles of whole milk for your children, you usually assume the chemicals and concentrations in these 10 bottles are the same or similar. No one would expect five of the bottles to be filled with watered-down milk while the other five were filled with yogurt.
Most store-bought foods meet our expectations because of regulations and quality control. The same criteria also exist in the pharma industry, including vaccine products.
We expect consistent physical and chemical parameters of key ingredients across different batches of drug or vaccine products. Consistency is the foundation that allows patients and consumers to have confidence in the safety and effectiveness of medications.
The CMC process—short for chemistry, manufacturing, and controls—involves defining manufacturing practices and product specifications that must be followed to ensure product safety and consistency between batches. This is a mandatory criterion for global health authorities to approve a drug or vaccine.
Controlling the quality of a traditional chemical product is relatively straightforward, but for a biological product, like an mRNA, things become more complicated.
What Is Truncated mRNA? Why Does it Matter?
Our DNA contains gene codes composed of nucleotides. DNA makes proteins consisting of amino acids. Between the gene code and protein, there is a bridge molecule, a “translator”—called messenger RNA (mRNA).
The full-length mRNA sequence of the Pfizer vaccine coding for the spike protein is 4,284 nucleotides in length.
It consists of a 5′ CAP structure to prime its translation into a spike protein. It works like an ignition box of a car. At the end of the translatable region, the open reading frame, there is a stop codon, which is like a car’s brakes. If a truncated mRNA does not contain a stop codon, it fails to give a “brake” signal. The protein translation process will continue endlessly.
The EMA is responsible for approving all medicinal products for human use in Europe, including drugs and vaccines. The Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) is the EMA’s committee responsible for interpreting the agency’s opinions.
In an EMA assessment report coded EMA/CHMP/448917/2021, the EMA requested that Pfizer address the impurities of its vaccine product, which the EMA report described as “truncated and modified mRNA.”
Pfizer’s report to the EMA clearly showed that Pfizer’s vaccine contained impurities, as indicated by “Peak 1” in the graph below, based on a screenshot from page 14 of the EMA’s August 2021 report.
The Biden administration is preparing to sign up the United States to a “legally binding” accord with the World Health Organization (WHO)that would give this Geneva-based UN subsidiary the authority to dictate America’s policies during a pandemic.
Despite widespread criticism of the WHO’s response to the COVID pandemic, U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra joined with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in September 2022 to announce “the U.S.-WHO Strategic Dialogue.” Together, they developed a “platform to maximize the longstanding U.S. government-WHO partnership, and to protect and promote the health of all people around the globe, including the American people.”
These discussions and others spawned the “zero draft” (pdf) of a pandemic treaty, published on Feb. 1, which now seeks ratification by all 194 WHO member states. A meeting of the WHO’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) is scheduled for Feb. 27 to work out the final terms, which all members will then sign.
Written under the banner of “the world together equitably,” the zero draft grants the WHO the power to declare and manage a global pandemic emergency. Once a health emergency is declared, all signatories, including the United States, would submit to the authority of the WHO regarding treatments, government regulations such as lockdowns and vaccine mandates, global supply chains, and monitoring and surveillance of populations.
Centralized Pandemic Response
“They want to see a centralized, vaccine-and-medication-based response, and a very restrictive response in terms of controlling populations,” David Bell, a public health physician and former WHO staffer specializing in epidemic policy, told The Epoch Times. “They get to decide what is a health emergency, and they are putting in place a surveillance mechanism that will ensure that there are potential emergencies to declare.”
The WHO pandemic treaty is part of a two-track effort, coinciding with an initiative by the World Health Assembly (WHA) to create new global pandemic regulations that would also supersede the laws of member states. The WHA is the rule-making body of the WHO, comprised of representatives from the member states.
“Both [initiatives] are fatally dangerous,” Francis Boyle, professor of international law at Illinois University, told The Epoch Times. “Either one or both would set up a worldwide medical police state under the control of the WHO, and in particular WHO Director-General Tedros. If either one or both of these go through, Tedros or his successor will be able to issue orders that will go all the way down the pipe to your primary care physicians.”
Physician Meryl Nass told The Epoch Times: “If these rules go through as currently drafted, I, as a doctor, will be told what I am allowed to give a patient and what I am prohibited from giving a patient whenever the WHO declares a public health emergency. So they can tell you you’re getting remdesivir, but you can’t have hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin. What they’re also saying is they believe in equity, which means everybody in the world gets vaccinated, whether or not you need it, whether or not you’re already immune.”
Regarding medical treatments, the accord would require member nations to “monitor and regulate against substandard and falsified pandemic-related products.” Based on previous WHO and Biden administration policy, this would likely include forcing populations to take newly-developed vaccines while preventing doctors from prescribing non-vaccine treatments or medicines.
Circumventing America’s Constitution
A key question surrounding the accord is whether the Biden administration can bind America to treaties and agreements without the consent of the U.S. Senate, which is required under the Constitution. The zero draft concedes that, per international law, treaties between countries must be ratified by national legislatures, thus respecting the right of their citizens to consent. However, the draft also includes a clause that the accord will go into effect on a “provisional” basis, as soon as it is signed by delegates to the WHO, and therefore it will be legally binding on members without being ratified by legislatures.
“Whoever drafted this clause knew as much about U.S. constitutional law and international law as I did, and deliberately drafted it to circumvent the power of the Senate to give its advice and consent to treaties, to provisionally bring it into force immediately upon signature,” Boyle said. In addition, “the Biden administration will take the position that this is an international executive agreement that the president can conclude of his own accord without approval by Congress, and is binding on the United States of America, including all state and local democratically elected officials, governors, attorney generals and health officials.”
There are several U.S. Supreme Court decisions that may support the Biden administration in this. They include State of Missouri v. Holland, in which the Supreme Court ruled that treaties supersede state laws. Other decisions, such as United States v. Belmont, ruled that executive agreements without Senate consent can be legally binding, with the force of treaties.
There are parallels between the WHO pandemic accord and a recent OECD global tax agreement, which the Biden administration signed on to but which Republicans say has “no path forward” to legislative approval. In the OECD agreement, there are punitive terms built in that allow foreign countries to punish American companies if the deal is not ratified by the United States.
As with the OECD tax agreement, administration officials are attempting to appeal to international organizations to impose policies that have been rejected by America’s voters. Under the U.S. Constitution, health care does not fall under the authority of the federal government; it is the domain of the states. The Biden administration found this to be an unwelcome impediment to its attempts to impose vaccine and mask mandates on Americans, when courts ruled that federal agencies did not have the authority to do so.
“To circumvent that, they went to the WHO, for either the regulations or the treaty, to get around domestic opposition,” Boyle said.
According to the zero draft, signatories would agree to “strengthen the capacity and performance of national regulatory authorities and increase the harmonization of regulatory requirements at the international and regional level.” They will also implement a “whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach at the national level” that will include national governments, local governments, and private companies.
The zero draft stated that this new accord is necessary because of “the catastrophic failure of the international community in showing solidarity and equity in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.”
A report from the WHO’s Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (pdf) characterized the WHO’s performance as a “toxic cocktail” of bad decisions. Co-chair Ellen Johnson Sirleaf told the BBC it was due to “a myriad of failures, gaps and delays.” The solutions proposed by that report, however, did not suggest more local autonomy or diversified decision-making, but rather greater centralization, more power, and more money for the WHO.
I include 2 major documents on the disaster facing Americans with the vinyl chloride release and it is very serious…Adam Gaertner, huge praise to you! Is Adam overstating risk? Maybe not!
‘Shortly after responders arrived on scene, they reported seeing a “cloud of fog” that hovered over the area. Initially, after identifying the “fog” as vinyl chloride, a shelter-in-place order was implemented for residents within a half mile of the incident. Vinyl chloride is peroxidizable, and forms explosive polymeric peroxides in the air [Bretherick 1979], which caused concern that residents starting their vehicles might ignite the vinyl chloride. Around 4:00 p.m. on November 30, UC reported an acute increase in ambient air vinyl chloride levels, thought to be related to changing weather conditions. An evacuation of residents in the immediate area was ordered. Vinyl chloride is a colorless gas with a mild, sweet odor that is used to make polyvinyl chloride for production of plastic goods.
Vinyl chloride is an acute respiratory irritant and neurotoxin. Neurological symptoms associated with vinyl chloride exposure include headache, drowsiness, and dizziness. Although studies have revealed that chronic occupational exposures can result in liver damage, accumulation of fat in the liver, tumors (including angiosarcoma of the liver), and death of liver cells [ATSDR 2006], acute exposures have not been well studied.’
‘I’ve waited as long as I can, in good conscience, to gather evidence and to write this. I fully understand what I’m saying, and that 99% of people either can’t leave, or want to wait for more information, or just generally refuse to believe something of this scale could ever happen here. Not to mention that there’s absolutely no way this article will reach everybody that needs to hear it. I can scarcely believe I’m writing this, and I have been praying to be wrong. I really, really hope that I am wrong, but I do not think so. The authorities sure aren’t going to tell us the truth about any of it.
So, for those of you who are inclined to take it seriously, or aren’t quite sure yet, read on for the data and events thus far, share this with anybody you care about, and if you are in the affected area – that is, anywhere east of the Mississippi – LEAVE.’
See this substack by Adam Gaertner on this disaster and below, see this
Up to two and a half million gallons of one of the most toxic substances known to man have been released into the air, water and soil of the Eastern Seaboard, and are presently making their way south and east. Acid rain, which in this case is hydrochloric acid…
Vanden Bossche was always correct, stop this mRNA technology gene injection! No child, no one should be given these, these mRNA technology gene injections must be stopped!
Could mRNA vaccines become illegal soon? Possibly, in Idaho.
There was a new bill introduced in Idaho that would make the administration of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines illegal to administer to any human or mammal in the state.
“A person may not provide or administer a vaccine developed using messenger ribonucleic acid technology for use in an individual or any other mammal in this state.”
The bill will require a hearing and future vote in the Health and Welfare Committee just to make it onto the Idaho House floor for a debate.
Do you think it’s likely to pass? Good luck Idaho.
It’s vaccine, stupid, it’s the vaccine! Deaths are due to i) virus (little) ii)delayed treatment now people very ill in advanced sequelae iii) terrible medical system treatment iv)the mRNA-DNA shot
See graph below yet it is not difficult to understand what has happened here and not only in UK, but globally. Deaths in highly vaccinated nations due to:
i)some deaths due to the pathogen, most early 2020 but little now, from 2021 to 2022 to now 2023
ii)deaths due to delayed treatment and now people die due to the advanced diseased state e.g. advanced heart disease, cancer, diabetes etc.
iii)the devastating effects of the mRNA technology itself and the LNP that encases the toxic mRNA as well the pathogenic synthetic spike protein that drives the immune response; this accounts today for the vast majority of deaths
iv)the abusive treatment of the vulnerable and elderly within the healthcare system, the nursing homes etc.; this kills them as they are weak and vulnerable; the moving from nursing home to hospital and back and forth
v)the devastating care via the ‘COVID program’ our elderly get within the hospitals when we take them there e.g. denoted as COVID positive with a flawed fraud over-cycled 95% false-positive PCR test, pumped with dangerous antipsychotics, midazolam, diamorphine to sedate etc., pumped with a range of toxic drugs, isolated, malnourished, dehydrated, pumped with Remdesivir that is kidney and liver toxic that kills them, and intubated and ventilated that kills/killed them.
Accidental? Why? Why or how could Americans etc. be part of any scheme to harm this great nation? Why? Did COVID start on US soil & maybe 3-4 years before 2020? Wuhan, Ukraine, or Chapel Hill labs?
Sharing and opening the debate does not mean any of us are anti-American, hell, ask me and I will cut the WH lawn daily, love this nation and seek to protect her from those wanting to destroy her cough cough ** squad cough cough ** and RINOs and freak democrats and even some repubs, so we want healthy civil but difficult debate, and we are not pro-Russi…
It is in off-season that they train hardest & for those who recently took COVID mRNA technology shots, they are at risk of cardiac death due to silent myocarditis; must be ruled out before training
URGENT, this coming off-season can prove deadly, we must track what happens with the sports players (all types of leagues) given close juxtaposition to the COVID mRNA technology injection e.g. recent shots, boosters etc.
Players must ask their doctors for the relevant tests to rule out silent myocarditis, pericarditis etc., parents must insist for their teens and not just males but females too who are at risk. It is very dangerous on the field, in any exertion that the catecholamine surge )dopamine, adrenaline etc.) pouring onto scarred myocardium can cause cardiac arrest and death e.g. DAMAR HAMLIN. It is not settled.
They must rule out myocarditis or similar before taking to the field e.g. troponin test, chest MRI etc.
Dr. Peter McCullough: Myocarditis at this point of time is due to COVID mRNA technology injection vaccines unless proven otherwise; I WARN, parents must ensure teens test for myocarditis (females too)
In a letter dated Feb. 15, Ladapo asks the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to “promote transparency in health care professionals to accurately communicate the risks these vaccines pose.”
“In Florida alone, we saw a 1,700 percent increase in reports after the release of the COVID-19 vaccine, compared to an increase of 400 percent in vaccine administration for the same period,” Ladapo’s letter reads. “The reporting of life-threatening conditions increased 4,400 percent. ”
“Even the H1N1 vaccine did not trigger this type of response,” reads the letter.
In 2009, during the H1N1 vaccination campaign, 1358 reports were made to the VAERS system in Florida.
After the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in 2021, 41,473 reports of adverse reactions were made to VAERS.
In his letter, Ladapo cites a study on the website of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) entitled, “Serious adverse events of special interest following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination in randomized trials in adults.”
The study lists documented reactions including coagulation disorders, acute cardiac injuries, Bell’s Palsy, and encephalitis.
“To claim these vaccines are ‘safe and effective’ while minimizing and disregarding the adverse events is unconscionable,” Ladapo’s letter to federal health officials reads.
Warning to Floridians
In addition to the letter, the Florida Department of Health has issued a health alert related to the safety of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.
“The state surgeon general is notifying the health care sector and the public of a substantial increase in Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System reports from Florida after the COVID-19 vaccine rollout,” the warning reads.
VAERS relies on healthcare professionals and individuals to report adverse reactions. But some have worried that findings have been downplayed by the media and even censored by Big Tech.
In January 2022, after the number of reported COVID-19 vaccine adverse events reported hit one million, Senator Ron Johnson posted a graphic from the VAERS website to Twitter.
“Unsurprisingly, Twitter blocked my VAERS chart tweet,” Johnson wrote later in a post.
Florida Goes After Homeschoolers by Offering Money in Return for Government Oversight
February 17, 2023 7:03 pm
Florida legislators have introduced a new bill that could become a blueprint nationwide for how States deal with parents who choose to educate their children at home, opting out of the system. Since many families struggle financially to have one spouse stay out of the workforce to educate their children, Florida is introducing a bill that will give funding to these families. But that then opens the door to let the Government into your home and have a say on how you educate your children. As Alex Newman, who himself lives in Florida, reports, this is NOT a good idea, and homeschool families and organizations should absolutely oppose this bill, and any others like it that pop up in other states.
Tens of Thousands Worldwide Protest War in Ukraine as Biden Secretly Shows up in Kiev to Support War and Pledge Half $BILLION More in Weapons
February 20, 2023 8:15 pm
With Ohio suffering one of the worst disasters in recent times, as another explosion in Ohio happened today with “mass casualties,” and with tens of thousands of people DEAD in Turkey and Syria as today another 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit the same area while Israel bombed Damascus killing and injuring dozens, tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Munich Germany and Washington D.C. to protest the war in Ukraine, as President Biden secretly flies to Kiev to meet with Zelenskyy to show his support for the war and pledge another half $BILLION in weapons.
US core PCE inflation on Friday is expected 0.4% m-o-m and 4.3% y-o-y, more than double the rate of the Fed’s 2% CPI mandate.
Between Q4 2019 and Q1 2021, as services spending collapsed and pandemic assistance programs flowed, total US credit card debt fell from $930bn to $770bn. In Q3 2021, it started to rise, and in Q4 2022 leaped $61bn, the largest increase since 1999, to hit a record $986bn. Whether people are borrowing and spending because of the economy, or because they have no choice because of the economy, it is happening.
@GuyDealership says: “Used car prices are *skyrocketing* at a concerning pace. Prices have increased 4.1% so far this month: The LARGEST February increase since 2009. Buckle up.” However, delinquencies on car loans are also soaring.
Labor hoarding continues in construction due to the backlog of work that wasn’t done during Covid and as state spending picks up.
Recent liquidity expansion by the BOJ and PBOC, as well as the use of the US Treasury General Account balance, is arguably countering the effects of Fed QT. (And on QE, the late Shinzo Abe’s memoir notes: “Issuing JGBs for COVID stimulus checks does not mean that debt is being passed onto our grandchildren. The Bank of Japan purchases all government bonds. The Bank of Japan is like a subsidiary of the government so there is no problem.”)
The key question is this: do the Fed keep going until they break things; or do they stop and admit 3-4% CPI is good enough?
Both of those outcomes imply the end of the world as we have long known it in markets. The first is an argument for bear flattening in bonds, a collapse in everything except bonds, and of everything against the dollar. The second implies bear steepening in bonds, a rally in everything else as an inflation hedge, and a collapse of the dollar against everything else.
So, back to Munich. This key security conference was covered by Bloomberg, but desperation to believe the world they represent is not ending saw its headline writers spin that the US and China were “talking”. Yes – except the US accused Beijing of unacceptable behaviour over spy-balloons, and claimed China is considering providing “lethal support” to aid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. China effectively called the US a warmonger while trying to woo Europe, and on Sunday warned the US it would “bear all the consequences” if it escalated the balloon further.
Moreover, US talk about Russia was equally confrontational. Vice-President Harris accused Moscow of crimes against humanity, climbing a ladder that will be very hard to come down from. UK Prime Minister Sunak is lobbying to send Ukraine the most advanced NATO weapons. China will release its peace plan on the first anniversary of the war on Friday: the West is sceptical.
This matters as the geopolitical is now the geoeconomic. NATO chief Stoltenberg directly stated Europe’s dependency on Russian gas was dismissed as being economic, not security-related before February 2022 and that the EU should not make the same mistake with China, or others, by depending on their raw materials or exporting key technologies to them. Of course, such talk is cheap. Indeed, geopolitical thinker Michta noted in a sombre analysis:
“Was this what 1938 felt like before the German Nazi rape of Czechoslovakia? Satiated countries in the West issuing solemn assurances to Prague and others, but knowing deep in their bones that those checks would not be cashed? Because it was somebody else’s business, not ours?…
Rhetoric is not policy. I’ve sat through too many discussions where everything has been said but not by everyone, so we droned on… It’s not rocket science. It’s about spending the money to produce weapons and munitions so we can send them to Ukraine. It’s about agreeing what the end state should look like not for Ukraine, but for all of us. It’s about imagination, leadership and courage.”
It is also about supply chains, on/friend-shoring, massive defence spending, capital controls – and then inflation and interest rates. One can no longer look at the latter in isolation.
Relatedly, Senator Hawley just gave a speech ‘China and Ukraine: A Time for Truth’ hammering home that the US cannot do what is it doing in Ukraine and step up in the Pacific, and arguing Europe must defend itself –and Ukraine– now. Neither Europe nor markets grasp the tail risk of what this shift in US stance would entail, just as they ignored Trump in early 2016, and didn’t read Marx ahead of China’s Common Prosperity. Even for the US, Hawley claims:
“Suppose China invades and seizes Taiwan. We try to stop it, but our forces are defeated and the island is lost. What would that mean?… Americans will confront a new, terrifying reality. Every American will feel it. The price hikes and disruptions we’ve seen in recent years will pale in comparison. Product shortages will be commonplace – shortages of everything from basic medicine to consumer electronics. According to some estimates, a war over Taiwan would send us into a deep recession with no clear way out, since huge swaths of our economy run on Taiwanese semiconductors. But the economic consequences are just the start.
If China takes Taiwan, it will be able to station its own military forces there. It can then use its position as a springboard for further conquest and intimidation – against Japan, the Philippines, and other Pacific islands, like Guam and the Northern Marianas… As Asia’s new reigning power, China could restrict US trade in the region – perhaps block it altogether. Maybe we’ll be allowed in, but only on terms favourable to China. China exploited the trade system once before. They can do it again…
Imagine a world where Chinese warships patrol Hawaiian waters, and Chinese submarines stalk the California coastline. A world where the PLA has military bases in Central and South America. A world where Chinese forces operate freely in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.” Hawley’s proposed solution to prevent this “dark future” is “a nationalist foreign policy. A foreign policy in the spirit of Alexander Hamilton and Theodore Roosevelt. A nationalist foreign policy places America’s interests first. And deterring China from seizing Taiwan should be America’s top priority.”
Meanwhile, today’s headlines are also that inspectors say Iran’s uranium processing has almost reached nuclear weapons-grade purity (as they stand next to Russia and China); and North Korea just tested both short-range missiles and an ICBM that might soon be capable of holding a nuke. Both developments make urgent US, and European, action more likely. I don’t mean rate cuts.
One does not have to worry about the end of the world per se, but the world we knew is ending: in geopolitics; in geoeconomics; in monetary policy; and, with a lag, in markets
end
Geopolitics Is Now Geoeconomics… The Rest Is Commentary
TUESDAY, FEB 21, 2023 – 10:50 AM
By Michael Every of Rabobank
This Daily has long taken the stance that geopolitics is now geoeconomics and so impacts global markets, and that the rest is commentary. The latest set of headlines reinforce that belief.
President Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv on Presidents’ Day, pledging “unwavering support.” (As former President Trump is to go to Ohio, the scene of a disaster of a different kind: it remains to be seen if geopolitics is good 2024 politics if it ignores local economics.)
The EU’s top diplomat says China will cross a ‘red line’ if it sends arms to Russia, matching US rhetoric from Secretary of State Blinken. Borrel stated Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi “told me that they’re not going to do it, that they don’t plan to do it. But we will remain vigilant.” US Senator Graham put it more bluntly on TV: “If you jump on the Putin train, you’re dumber than dirt. It would be like buying a ticket on the Titanic after you saw the movie.”
Yet the Wall Street Journal, which already alleged China is sending dual-use technology to Russia, now claims ‘In China, worries about a weakened Russia prompt a rethink’, not suggesting Beijing will jump on the Biden train, but floating that its peace plan out this Friday may contain an implicit threat: peace now (on de facto Russian terms), or China really may supply Moscow with lethal aid. That would extend the scale and length of the conflict: and buying a ticket on the Titanic for China; or the US; and either way for ‘2023 is not 2022’ those in a happy-clappy claptrap trap.
Japan’s Kyocera already says China is no longer viable as the world’s factory due to US technology restrictions, and that production there only makes sense to sell in China rather than to export from it; Bloomberg reports the Pentagon isn’t sure how to start stripping Chinese suppliers out of its production lines – but political pressure means it will try; Turkey denies exporting electronic equipment used by the Russian military as well. The common thread is an ongoing bifurcation of global supply chains which means higher structural inflation. Nobody is as cheap as China once was – including China.
Meanwhile, the Netherlands is warning of Russian attempts to sabotage its energy infrastructure. Again, geopolitics meets geoeconomics meets markets, implying higher structural inflation as a tail risk, unless you ‘assume’ it away (as explored in our report on balance of payments and balance of power crises).
Yes, there are other factors involved, such as post-Covid changes to labour markets; or what China is or isn’t doing in terms of stimulus, as Beijing reportedly asks banks to hold back from increasing loans. However, if geopolitics is now geoeconomics and so impacts global markets, is it really a surprise that February’s RBA minutes showed a 50bps hike was considered; that tomorrow the RBNZ is seen going 50bps to 4.75%; that the ECB is seen going 50bps too; and that a slew of Fed speakers just threatened to step up to 50bps again? The rest is commentary.
Even so, that comment needs some commentary too. The phrase ‘the rest is commentary’ is taken as a reductive, no-nonsense, American way of thinking. While that may be true, that isn’t its root or even the full saying. Both lie in the Talmudic story about the first-century rabbinic sage Hillel, who a gentile provocatively asked to teach the whole Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) while standing on one leg. Hillel stands on one leg and replies, “That which is hateful to you, do not unto another: This is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary – go study.”
Besides being a lesson in good politics, international relations, and economics that we never live up to anywhere, the key point is that today we omit the “go study”, which changes the meaning of the phrase. It is not that the other 99.99% of the Torah is “commentary” to Hillel, but rather that commentary on the core message requires that 99.9% of study; indeed, you cannot make sense of the core message without it.
Translated back to today, it’s not good enough to say ‘geopolitics is now geoeconomics impacting markets’ and the rest is commentary. That statement requires detailed study into the details and implications. Equally, no amount of study will help if you don’t accept that core principle first.
Sadly, far too much market analysis still falls into the first or second camp. Conversations between the two, and between both and those who accept the key statement and study it, tend to be tense, or see people speak past or over each other. On which note, back to the Talmud.
The rival scholar to the open, “liberal” Hillel approach of debate is the strict, “conservative” sage Shammai, who when asked the same question about the Torah hit the man with a stick for his audacity. Indeed, although overlooked, tensions between the Hillel and Shammai camps rose to the point where some scholars of the Jerusalem Talmud state Shammai’s followers at one point killed Hillel’s over a Torah dispute. That is a lesson in bad politics, international relations, and economics that we still seem to live up to everywhere.
Please – go study!
7//OIL ISSUES//NATURAL GAS ISSUES/USA AND GLOBE
8. EMERGING MARKETS//AUSTRALA NEW ZEALAND ISSUES
SOUTH AFRICA
END
YOUR EARLY CURRENCY/GOLD AND SILVER PRICING/ASIAN AND EUROPEAN BOURSE MOVEMENTS/AND INTEREST RATE SETTINGS TUESDAY MORNING 7;30AM
EURO VS USA DOLLAR:1.0662 UP .0003
USA/ YEN 134.75 UP 0.413/NOW TARGETS INTEREST RATE AT .50% AS IT WILL BUY UNLIMITED BONDS TO GETS TO THAT LEVEL…//YEN STILL FALLS//
GBP/USA 1.2108 UP 0.0070
Last night Shanghai COMPOSITE CLOSED UP 16.19 PTS OR 0.49%
Hang Sang CLOSED DOWN 357.47 PTS OR 1.71%
AUSTRALIA CLOSED DOWN 0.10% // EUROPEAN BOURSE: ALL RED
Trading from Europe and ASIA
I) EUROPEAN BOURSES ALL RED
2/ CHINESE BOURSES / :Hang SANG CLOSED DOWN 357.47 PTS OR 1.71%
/SHANGHAI CLOSED UP 16.19 PTS OR 0.49%
AUSTRALIA BOURSE CLOSED DOWN .10%
(Nikkei (Japan) CLOSED UP 58.84 PTS OR 0.21%
INDIA’S SENSEX IN THE RED
Gold very early morning trading: 1832.40
silver:$21.75
USA dollar index early TUESDAY morning: 103.92 UP 14 BASIS POINTS from FRIDAY’s close.
The USA/Yuan, CNY: closed ON SHORE (CLOSED DOWN ..(6.8766)
THE USA/YUAN OFFSHORE: (YUAN CLOSED (DOWN)…. 6.8836
TURKISH LIRA: 18.87 EXTREMELY DANGEROUS LEVEL/DEATH WISH/HYPERINFLATION TO BEGIN.
the 10 yr Japanese bond yield at +0.502…VERY DANGEREOUS
Your closing 10 yr US bond yield UP 9 IN basis points from FRIDAY at 3.918% //trading well ABOVE the resistance level of 2.27-2.32%) very problematic
USA 30 yr bond yield 3.946 UP 5 in basis points
Your closing USA dollar index, 103.96 UP 19 BASIS PTS ON THE DAY/1.00 PM/
Your closing bourses for Europe and the Dow along with the USA dollar index closing and interest rates TUESDAY: 12:00 PM
London: CLOSED DOWN 35.89 PTS OR 0.45%
German Dax : CLOSED DOWN 77.19 POINTS OR 0.50 %
Paris CAC CLOSED DOWN 28.00PTS OR 0.38%
Spain IBEX DOWN 29.80POINTS OR 0.32%
Italian MIB: CLOSED DOWN 174.28 PTS OR 0.63%
WTI Oil price 76.36 12: EST
Brent Oil: 83.04 12:00 EST
USA /RUSSIAN /// DOWN TO: 75.05/ ROUBLE UP 0 AND 55/100 RUBLES/DOLLAR
GERMAN 10 YR BOND YIELD; +2.528
UK 10 YR YIELD: 3.6515 UP 18 BASIS PTS.
CLOSING NUMBERS: 4 PM
Euro vs USA: 1.0649 DOWN 0.0033 OR 33 BASIS POINTS
British Pound: 1.2103 UP .0066 or 66 basis pts
BRITISH 10 YR GILT BOND YIELD: 3.659% UP 4 BASIS PTS
USA dollar vs Japanese Yen: 134.88 UP .536////YEN DOWN 54 BASIS PTS//
USA dollar vs Canadian dollar: 1.3533 UP .0080 (CDN dollar, DOWN 80 basis pts)
West Texas intermediate oil: 76.05
Brent OIL: 83.04
USA 10 yr bond yield UP 12 BASIS pts to 3.949%
USA 30 yr bond yield DOWN 3 BASIS PTS to 3.978%
USA 2 YR BOND: UP 7 PTS AT 2.727% (AT ITS HIGHEST YIELD IN MONTHS)
USA dollar index: 104.08 UP 31 BASIS POINTS
USA DOLLAR VS TURKISH LIRA: 18.87
USA DOLLAR VS RUSSIA//// ROUBLE: 75.05 UDOWN 0 AND 55/100 roubles
DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE: DOWN 697.89 PTS OR 2.06%
NASDAQ 100 DOWN 297.89 PTS OR 2.41%
VOLATILITY INDEX: 22.82 UP 1.59 PTS (7.49)%
GLD: $170.62 DOWN 0.64 OR 0.37%
SLV/ $20.07 UP 0,06 OR 0.30%
end)
USA TRADING TODAY IN GRAPH FORM
Bond Bloodbath Triggers Biggest Stock Puke Of Year
TUESDAY, FEB 21, 2023 – 04:01 PM
The ‘one-way-trade’ of January is rapidly unwinding in February with stocks finally getting the joke today and accelerating their catch-down…
Source: Bloomberg
Better than expected PMIs didn’t help as the ‘no landing’ narrative is now driving the market’s reality ever more hawkish with expectations for the Terminal Rate now above 5.35%, and barely any rate-cuts priced in at all for 2023…
Source: Bloomberg
The NYSE TICK Index (Upticks vs Downticks) was extreme today – one of the most extreme days we have seen in a long while – with barely any positive trends at all as selling was practically non-stop from the open…
Source: Bloomberg
Small Caps were the days biggest loser, followed by Nasdaq
The S&P broke below 4,000 and the algos battled to keep it there…
…testing down towards its 200DMA…
The Dow dropped into the red for the year…
Source: Bloomberg
‘Most Shorted’ Stocks were clubbed like a baby seal today – the biggest single-day decline since June 2022…
Source: Bloomberg
Unprofitable tech stocks tumbled to their lowest since Jan 26th (16% off its early Feb highs)…
Source: Bloomberg
VIX topped 23 today – the highest level of the year
As Goldman’s Chris Hussey noted, back in the fall, the concern was that too-high rates are going to induce a US recession. But today, the concern has been flipped on its head: too strong growth is going to keep rates high. Rates may be on a round trip to 4%, but they are traveling on a very different road than the one they were on the last time we saw 4% 10-year yields.
Treasury yields were higher across the board with the belly underperforming…
Source: Bloomberg
The 10Y yield surged higher today – after yesterday’s holiday – to its highest since Nov 10th (CPI), inching ever closer to 4.00%…
Source: Bloomberg
The 2Y yields traded all the way up to the November highs (the 2y auction today had the highest yield since July 2007)…
Source: Bloomberg
…actually closing at fresh new cycle highs back to 2007…
Source: Bloomberg
The Dollar inched higher today after being relatively flat yesterday…
Source: Bloomberg
Bitcoin has traded largely sideways with some volatile moments the last week or so, unable to break and hold above $25,000…
Source: Bloomberg
Gold ended the day modestly lower…
Oil prices also slipped with WTI finding support at $76…
And NatGas (HH) just keeps on plunging, trading down to within a few pennies of a 1 handle today – the lowest since Sept 2020…
Source: Bloomberg
For some context, US Nattie is trading at a $41 discount to WTI Crude (the ‘cheapest’ oil-barrel-equivalent since 2012)…
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, with the death of the ‘Fed pivot’ narrative, the market’s expectation for terminal Fed rate is soaring (above 5.35%) while US macro keeps surprising to the upside…
Source: Bloomberg
…and the year-end Fed Funds rate expectations smashed back above 5.00%…
Source: Bloomberg
That’s a lot of ‘turns’ in valuation before reality reasserts itself in stocks.
EARLY MORNING TRADING//
end
Midmorning trading:
end
LATE AFTERNOON TRADING//GRAPH FORM//TIC
END
ii) USA DATA
USA existing home sales decline in January with a drop of 37% y/y
(zerohedge)
US Existing Home Sales Unexpectedly Decline In January, Record 37% YoY Collapse
TUESDAY, FEB 21, 2023 – 10:07 AM
Existing home sales had fallen for a record 11 straight months ahead of this morning’s print for January, which consensus expected to reveal a 2% MoM rebound. However, existin home sales for January actually tumbled 0.7% MoM (well below the 2.0% jump expected) and the record 12th straight monthly decline with December’s 1.5% decline actually revised even worse to -2.2% MoM…
Source: Bloomberg
iii) USA ECONOMIC NEWS
FEMA reverses decision and now will deploy assistance to teams in East Palestine. It is a little late
(zerohedge)
FEMA Reverses Decision, Will Deploy ‘Assistance Teams’ To East Palestine Following Chemical Disaster
SATURDAY, FEB 18, 2023 – 11:00 AM
One day after the Biden administration rejected Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s request for federal assistance in the aftermath of a derailment of a train hauling toxic chemicals, the governor tweeted late Friday evening that the Feds have reversed course in their decision and will deploy resources to East Palestine as soon as Saturday.
“Following further discussions with FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] tonight, they will be deploying federal resources to East Palestine,” Gov. DeWine tweeted.
The governor and FEMA released this joint statement:
“FEMA and the State of Ohio have been in constant contact regarding emergency operations in East Palestine. U.S. EPA and Ohio EPA have been working together since day one. Tomorrow, FEMA will supplement federal efforts by deploying a Senior Response Official along with a Regional Incident Management Assistance Team (IMAT) to support ongoing operations, including incident coordination and ongoing assessments of potential long term recovery needs.”
The U-turn comes as FEMA Ohio told the state government on Thursday that Palestine wasn’t eligible for disaster assistance to help with the clean-up effort in the toxic spill and controlled burn-off that has resulted in an environmental disaster.
Both Ohio’s senators, J.D. Vance (R) and Sherrod Brown (D), separately asked DeWine to declare a disaster in the small blue-collar town. Vance emphasized Norfolk Southern must be held accountable for any damage.
Vance visited the small town days ago. He went to a small creek bed and filmed what appeared to be toxic chemicals from the railcars. Meanwhile, other officials have ensured the public that the ‘air is clean and water is fine.’
What’s troubling is the incoherent response by the federal, state, and local governments after the derailment. What’s even more alarming is the decision by the officials to burn off railcars of vinyl chloride that some say ‘chem-nuked’ the town and surrounding communities.
As for the slow response by federal officials and media downplaying the chemical disaster, Legal Insurrection asks:
“Is the Ohio Toxic Train Derailment the Biden Administration’s Hurricane Katrina?”
Here’s more from Legal Insurrection:
For over a week, the Biden administration, Ohio state officials, and most of the American media has been downplaying the magnitude of the environmental disaster that has arisen due to the response to the train derailment near East Palestine.
However, in the post-covid era, Americans are no longer willing to blindly believe what “experts” assert about the “science.” This is especially true when the realities run counter to the official narrative.
The EPA, with the Ohio National Guard and a Norfolk Southern contractor, also has collected air samples – checking for vinyl chloride, hydrogen chloride, carbon monoxide, phosgene and other compounds – in the East Palestine community, it had said. Air monitoring results posted Tuesday at the EPA’s website include more than a dozen instruments, each with four types of measures – and each stating its “screening level” had not been exceeded.
But when Velez returned Monday for a short visit to the neighborhood where his family has lived since 2014 to check his home and his business, he developed a nagging headache that, he said, stayed with him through the night – and left him with a nagging fear.
“If it’s safe and habitable, then why does it hurt?” he told CNN. “Why does it hurt me to breathe?”
Air contamination isn’t the only concern. There is plenty of evidence, based on 3,500 dead fish that the water is polluted with the by-products of igniting several industrial chemicals in the response. Towns downstream of East Palestine are monitoring their water…and are offering their own assurances about the safety levels.
But officials with the Louisville Water Co. and Air Pollution Control District say they are monitoring the situation and don’t anticipate any danger to local residents.
The violent 50-car Norfolk Southern train crash triggered evacuations for the small Ohio town on Feb. 3, as large quantities of vinyl chloride and other contaminants entered the environment. Since then, authorities have assured people near the crash site that it’s safe to return to their homes. A federal lawsuit has already been filed by residents over the event.
The lack of a cohesive, effective response to civic catastrophe calls to mind the criticism of former President George W. Bush and his administration’s handling of Hurricane Katrina. Many Legal Insurrection readers may recall Bush and his officials were criticized for being disinterested, slow, and needlessly unprepared for the Category 5 storm and its impact on New Orleans.
We can now consider that Ohio’s toxic train derailment is Biden’s Katrina.
Clearly, Biden has not been mentioned as acting in any significant capacity for Americans dealing with this disaster. Even though the citizens of this region voted in significant numbers for President Donald Trump, they are still suffering a disaster that is truly worthy of full emergency management support.
Secretary of State Pete Buttigieg has been criticized for his tone-deaf response to the train derailment. In fact, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) has just called for Buttigieg’s resignation.
Buttigieg addressed the disaster Monday, over a week after the crash occurred on Feb. 3. Residents living in areas surrounding East Palestine, Ohio, were instructed to evacuate after 50 train cars derailed and subsequently caught fire, spewing vinyl chloride, phosgene, hydrogen chloride, and other gases into the air and water.
Biggs said the acknowledgment came “10 days too late,” echoing other Republicans such as Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) who were critical of the delay.
But I would like to draw some attention to the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan, who hasn’t gotten the scrutiny I think he deserves richly. Given the devastating environmental impact shown in videos, social media messages, and some serious reports by a few responsible journalists, you would think the EPA head would be front-and-center in the response.
However, Regan is showing up 13 days too late….and his officials are the ones who should be selecting the proper tests, conducting the complete analysis, and creating the mitigation plans.
Michael Regan, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, will visit East Palestine Thursday, 13 days after a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed and caught fire in the village.
Regan announced the visit in a tweet on Wednesday, and shared a video from his interview with Fox News. Regan said he will hear from East Palestine residents in their homes, visit the derailment site and meet with emergency responders.
And let’s not forget the EPA’s disastrous handling of the Animas River contamination, which resulted from that agency’s decisions regarding handling a mine’s waste stream.
Americans are clearly in no mood to trust “experts,” especially ones clearly not interested in anything that doesn’t push their narratives or agendas.
end
No wonder the mayor of East Palestine is furious. Biden is in Ukraine handing out millions and yet avoids their town
(zerohedge)
East Palestine Mayor Is Furious: Biden’s Ukraine Visit To Hand Out Millions “Biggest Slap In The Face”
TUESDAY, FEB 21, 2023 – 01:00 PM
Watch as the mayor of East Palestine, Ohio, rips President Biden for going halfway across the world to Ukraine where he pledged half-a-billion dollars more to a foreign government, even as Americans suffer through disasters at home with inadequate help from their own government.
Mayor Trent Conaway called Biden’s Ukraine visit the “biggest slap in the face” as his town endures the chemical fallout from a train derailment, and possible toxic air and water.
Conaway’s appearance on Fox News came the very day as Biden’s surprise visit in Kyiv, while on his way to Poland afterwards.
“That was the biggest slap in the face that tells you right now, he doesn’t care about us,” Conaway told show host Jesse Watters. “So … he can send every agency he wants to but I found that out this morning and one of the briefings that he was in the Ukraine giving millions of dollars away to people over there, not to us and I’m furious.”
“Yeah, Presidents Day in our country. He’s… over in Ukraine,” he added, remarking on the Monday holiday. “So that tells you what kind of guy he is.”
The East Palestine Fire Department has given the OK for residents in the area near the train derailment and subsequent huge chemical fire to return to their homes; however, they also warned that the area in the immediate vicinity of the railway should be avoided, amid reports of contaminated air and water which could be harmful to people, as well as livestock and pets.
A full two weeks after the fiery train derailment, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan has returned to the town on Tuesday to meet with local and state officials, and to address health concerns and set up possible testing. Townspeople have been extremely anxious and concerned yet have received few clear answers in the wake of the disaster.
This morning the EPA announced a sweeping enforcement action against Norfolk Southern, compelling the rail company to conduct and pay for cleanup actions associated with the Feb. 3 derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio.
“The Norfolk Southern train derailment has upended the lives of East Palestine families, and EPA’s order will ensure the company is held accountable for jeopardizing the health and safety of this community,” said Regan in remarks prepared for a press conference in East Palestine.
“Let me be clear: Norfolk Southern will pay for cleaning up the mess they created and for the trauma they’ve inflicted on this community.”
If the company fails to complete any actions ordered by EPA, the agency will “immediately” conduct the necessary work, and then seek to compel Norfolk Southern to pay triple the cost.
NBC reports that the order will require the company to identify and clean contaminated soil and water; pay any EPA costs, to include reimbursing EPA for cleaning services that the agency will offer to residents and businesses; and participate in public meetings at EPA’s request and post information on-line.
The rail company already faces multiple class-action suits from members of the East Palestine community over the incident, which forced residents within roughly a mile radius to evacuate their homes.
The Ohio state attorney general’s office has also indicated it plans to take legal action against Norfolk Southern.
Pay attention to this;
(Michael Snyder)
A Humble Attempt To Capture The Insanity That We Have Witnessed So Far This Month In Just 14 Videos
February is only about halfway gone, but we have already experienced enough craziness to last an entire month. There have been multiple environmental catastrophes, our military has shot down several “unidentified objects” that have been flying over our country, and we continue to take more steps toward global war. We truly are living in crazy times, and I have a feeling that they are only going to get crazier in the months ahead. The following is my humble attempt to capture the insanity that we have witnessed so far this month in just 14 videos…
#1 The environmental catastrophe in Ohio is already being considered one of the worst in the entire history of our country. The quality of the air has been so bad that chickens have literally dropped dead miles away from the accident scene…
JUST IN: Woman finds all her chickens dead 10 miles from East Palestine, Ohio.
Following the major deadly release of toxins the “chickens slowed down & died”.
#2 The water outside of East Palestine, Ohio is being tested, and so far the results are extremely alarming. Of course the clouds will pick up that water and soon redistribute it to other areas…
They’re testing the water outside East Palestine and the results are not good.
“The contaminated water is bleaching all the colors out of these [testing] squares… There is obviously something in this water in large quantity that is being hidden.”pic.twitter.com/kpCHYTK2Qy— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) February 14, 2023
#3 Following the disaster in Ohio, another train that was carrying “hazardous materials” derailed near Houston, Texas…
#BREAKING: Emergency Crews Respond To Deadly Train Derailment Near Houston⁰⁰#Houston | #Texas⁰⁰Officials are now responding to another deadly train derailment near Houston, TX. Over 16 rail cars, carrying “hazardous materials”crashed, prompting Union Pacific to monitor… https://t.co/Fe17VJ3Zj7pic.twitter.com/8iiA8NFvmC— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) February 13, 2023
#4 And there was a terrible accident involving a tanker truck carrying nitric acid on I-10 near Tucson, Arizona…
New footage of the tanker truck carrying nitric acid on I-10 near Tucson, Arizona has surfaced. A hazmat alert has been issued and those within a one-mile radius of the accident have been asked to shelter-in-place. pic.twitter.com/p5NAaMFBgL— Becker News (@NewsBecker) February 15, 2023
#5 On top of everything else, a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter just crashed in Huntsville, Alabama…
JUST IN: U.S. Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter has crashed in Huntsville, Alabama, killing all passengers.
#7 If you think that Philadelphia is bad, just consider what goes on every night in the worst parts of Minneapolis. The security camera on the front lawn of one woman’s home in Minneapolis regularly records people committing crimes, doing lewd things, pooping in the street and consuming all sorts of drugs…
#8 This will go down as one of the most bizarre moments in the history of the Arkansas state legislature…
The surreal moment when Republican Arkansas state Sen. Matt McKee asks a trans pharmacist if she has a penis. pic.twitter.com/7reE9porVW— The Indoctrinatrix (@gelderbailey) February 13, 2023
#9 It turns out that authorities knew about the Chinese spy balloon long before it ever reached the United States. According to CBS News, “U.S. intelligence watched the Chinese spy balloon as it lifted off near China’s south coast, meaning the U.S. military had been tracking it for nearly a week before it entered U.S. airspace”…
BREAKING: CBS News has learned that U.S. intelligence watched the Chinese spy balloon as it lifted off near China’s south coast, meaning the U.S. military had been tracking it for nearly a week before it entered U.S. airspace. pic.twitter.com/oaR5yZIRwm— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) February 15, 2023
#10 Unfortunately, we still don’t know what the other “unidentified objects” that the U.S. military recently shot down were. Following a briefing on the subject, Senator James Lankford made a statement that has alarmed a lot of people…
Damn did he really mean to say that…
“This is some other entity that’s flying around in our airspace”
#11 And when Senator John Kennedy was asked about the “unidentified objects”, he encouraged everyone to “lock your doors tonight”…
WATCH: Sen. John Kennedy comments on today’s classified Senate UFO briefing, saying, “lock your doors tonight.” pic.twitter.com/pCvqGZTKQh— Election Wizard (@ElectionWiz) February 15, 2023
#12 The Chinese continue to prepare for war, but of course they have been preparing for a conflict with us for a very long time. From a very early age, children in China are taught how to properly handle firearms…
While our kids are being mentally abused by the public school system, the Chinese are preparing their next generation of soldiers. pic.twitter.com/fj2nRVzHOy— Mr Steven (@evets7) February 14, 2023
#13 In Russia, a future nuclear conflict has become something of a national obsession. If you doubt this, just check out this video of a Russian choir singing about bombing America with nuclear weapons…
#14 Meanwhile, Americans are just more clueless than ever…
***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***
END
As we have outlined to you: the stoppage of the Child Tax Credit which helped households in 2021 will cause great hardship.\This is why the tax refund season is of to a slow start
(zerohedge)
Tax Refund Season Off To Slow Start: Total Payments 30% Below 2017-2019 Average
TUESDAY, FEB 21, 2023 – 06:55 AM
One of the unspoken reasons behind the powerful reflationary wave of 2022 – and even more remarkable spending spree by US households last year – was the generous helping of tax refunds issued by the IRS, well above previous years. But don’t expect that to repeat in 2023.
Tax filing season began on January 23, and we are now entering the period of the year in which tax refunds made by the IRS hit the pockets of households. According to UBS economists, around half of year taxrefunds paid by the IRS are disbursed in February and March. They total about $200bn – roughly 6% of disposable income in these months.
However, the main reason why refunds will be lower this year than last year is because of the expiration of the 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit, which boosted tax refunds during the 2022 tax season.
Indeed, as shown in the chart below, Refunds so far this year have been slow to pick up. Cumulative payments made so far are about 30% below the 2017-19 average for this time of the year, although it is still early in the refund season.
And while refunds have so far been higher than in 2022, there were processing delays last year. In the end, 2022 tax refunds ended up about 20% higher than in previous years, although the process was slow.
In February 2022 refunds paid were 27% lower than the 2017-19 average for February. This year there are still some delays, but they are less pronounced than last year.
The average refund paid is so far 10% lower than at the same point in time last year. This is one of the reasons why UBS is confident that the high level of refunds we saw in 2022 will not be repeated.
end
WALMART
If they are not doing too good, you know that the economy is in trouble
(zerohedge)
“Great Deal Of Uncertainty”: Walmart Slides On Disappointing Guidance, Forecasts 2nd Straight Annual Profit Decline
TUESDAY, FEB 21, 2023 – 09:03 AM
Viewed as the unofficial end of earnings season, Walmart’s just reported Q4 earnings also served to send the stock of world’s biggest bricks and mortar retailer lower after the company reported strong Q4 results but its profit forecast for this year fell short of analyst estimates, signaling more struggles for the world’s largest retailer after it was hammered by a surge in inventory.
First, a look at what the company reported for Q4:
Adjusted EPS $1.71 vs. $1.53 y/y, beating estimate $1.52
Total US comparable sales ex-gas +8.8%, beating estimate +5.24%
Walmart- only US stores comparable sales ex-gas +8.3%, estimate +4.82%
Sam’s Club US comparable sales ex-gas +12.2%, estimate +8.44%
eCommerce growth was 17% and 18% on a two-year stack
For the full year, Walmart generate $12.2bn in free cash flow, and paid $16bn to shareholders ($6.1Bn in dividends and $9.9Bn in buybacks).But while the company beat expectations for the current quarter, it was its forecast that spooked markets: the company projected that adjusted earnings will decline by as much as 6.2% in the current fiscal year, to a range of $5.90 to $6.05 a share, including an accounting impact of 14 cents a share from LIFO accounting provisions. Wall Street had estimated a gain of about 3.8% to $6.53 (for Q1 Walmart sees adjusted EPS $1.25 to $1.30, including an expected $0.03 impact from LIFO). Additionally, WMT sees total net sales +2.5% to +3%, broken down as follows:
Sees Walmart-only US stores comparable sales ex-gas +2% to +2.5%, missing the estimate +3.1%
Sees Sam’s Club US stores comparable sales ex-gas about +5%, beating the estimate +4.39%
While WMT may be sandbagging, taken at face value the forecast would be the second straight annual profit decline. Fiscal 2023 adjusted earnings fell to $6.29, the first full-year decline for the profit measure in six years. UBS’s Michael Lasser notes that the outlook for this year falls short of the company’s long-term goal of posting 4% sales growth — a higher increase than that in operating income.Furthermore, guidance commentary from the Walmart earnings call hardly inspired confidence: “There is a great deal of uncertainty looking out to the balance of the year. There is still pressure on the consumer. As such, our guidance reflects a cautious outlook on the macroeconomic environment.”As Bloomberg notes, the cautious outlook points to a continued slow rebound from the missteps of the last fiscal year, when Walmart misjudged a shift in demand away from general merchandise such as apparel and home goods as inflation pinched US consumers. At the same time, the retailer has benefited from robust grocery sales and a jump in purchases by higher-income shoppers looking for bargains.“We feel good about how the core business is operating, but we’re being cautious with the macroeconomic outlook,” Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said in an interview. “There’s a lot of unpredictability around what’s happening, what will be the effect of Fed tightening on the consumer balance sheet, what is the effect of the declining savings rate.”On the call, John Furner, the head of the US unit, says the company has been seeing “some acceleration” in consumers switching to private brands in the last 90 days. That implies pressure on the makers of national brands as Walmart customers shift to the retailer’s private-label goods.And an interesting aside: CEO Doug McMillon said the business mix is indeed changing, and noted that the investment the company is most excited about is automation, which of course is corporate speak for more robots, more layoffs.. Rainey sees a marginal improvement in return on investment and says the company is mindful it needs to show a return on investment. He also promises “margin expansion over time.”Walmart shares fell 4.3% ahead of regular trading in New York. The shares climbed 3.3% this year through Feb. 17, while the S&P 500 index advanced 6.2%. Walmart outperformed the S&P 500 and major retail indexes last year.
end
Another indicator of the economic mess the USA is in:
HBSC And JPMorgan Tighten Belts, As Layoffs And Bonus-Slashing Continue Across Wall Street
TUESDAY, FEB 21, 2023 – 02:50 PM
The trend of plunging bonuses and job cuts on Wall Street continues – now it has hit HSBC and JP Morgan.
For about 6 months, we have been covering both increasing layoffs and how bonuses across Wall Street have suffered at the hands of 2022 being a terrible year for dealmaking. And the bad news doesn’t look like it’s about to stop anytime soon.
This week we learned that HSBC bonuses are falling nearly 4% to $3.4 billion for the year, with the bank also blaming dealmaking. The bank’s junior banker bonuses rose on average, Bloomberg wrote, due to inflationary and cost of living factors. Commercial banking, as well as wealth and personal banking saw the strongest outcomes for bonuses, however, the firm’s global banking and markets division took a cut.
JP Morgan, on the other hand, is laying off about 30 of its investment bankers in Asia, with a majority of them in Greater China, this week. Bloomberg attributed the layoffs to “deal flows in its biggest growth market in the region struggl[ing] to rebound”.
It marks the largest cuts to Hong Kong and China-based bankers in years, as employees in the area only make up less than 5% of the company’s headcount in the region.
A JP Morgan spokesperson told Bloomberg: “We regularly review our business needs and a small number of employees across Asia Pacific have been affected.”
And just days ago we reported that Deutsche Bank was among many banks cutting bonuses. Cuts of 40% are expected to be made for investment bankers at the firm, marking some of the largest cuts we have seen in the last 6 months.
Credit Suisse Group AG Chairman Axel Lehmann also made a statement last month warning about lower bonuses after what he called a “horrifying year”. Recall we wrote that the bank had come out and was considering a large cut to its bonus pool.
Credit Suisse and J.P. Morgan join a number of Wall Street banks who laid off employees, cut bonuses or both after a torrid 2022. Goldman Sachs, for example, is set to lay off up to 4,000 employees, we noted in Q4 2022. Days prior to that announcement, we noted that Goldman was curtailing originating unsecured consumer loans. Citi also fired “dozens” of bankers in Q4 2022. The bank was also “considering shrinking the bonus pool for its more than 3,000 investment bankers by at least 40 per cent this year”.
Also in mid-December, we wrote that Ernst and Young would be cutting its bonuses entirely. The company held an “all hands” meeting two weeks ago where it delivered the news to its employees. The company is in the midst of splitting its audit business from a tax and advisory business heading into 2023. Morgan Stanley’s Asia banker bonuses were also at risk by as much as 50%, we wrote days before that. In December, we also noted that Jefferies was considering slashing bonuses.
3 B)USA ECONOMIC ISSUES// SUPPLY ISSUES//
USA COVID//
SWAMP STORIES
the deep state got to the board of directors:
James O’Keefe Out At Project Veritas
MONDAY, FEB 20, 2023 – 03:03 PM
Project Veritas founder and CEO James O’Keefe is exiting the organization.
O’Keefe announced to his staff Monday that he was leaving over a conflict in vision between himself and the board in an poignant 15-minute video.
“Throughout my 13 years doing this my mission has evolved,” O’Keefe said in his announcement.
“Over the last few weeks I have felt a lot of despair and seen a lot of evil and felt overcome with various emotions.”
A clearly emotional O’Keefe expressed gratitude for his employees, but noted that:
“The external threats and pressure inflicted upon myself has been unimaginable,” O’Keefe continued.
Employees had been dissatisfied by O’Keefe’s management and alleged he wasted money and was “outright cruel” to his staff, according to the The Daily Beast.
Speculation has been rampant about the timing of this debacle as O’Keefe points out:
“A few days after the Pfizer story, I was informed by an officer of Project Veritas that he would resign unless I step down as CEO. We’ve been having a conflict of vision over fundraising, there were tactical disagreements about the boldness of approach soliciting donations.”
As The Epoch Times’ Zachary Stieber reports, O’Keefe said he confronted one executive at a meeting on Feb. 2 and said that if the person would not follow his lead, he would have to exit the group.
O’Keefe then fired the man.
Later that same day, a different officer informed O’Keefe he was going to the Project Veritas board to restructure the company.
O’Keefe said he received an agenda for the board meeting as he was set to depart on a flight, and that the meeting was scheduled for the moment he was due to land.
“It became clear to me in that moment [that] I would be removed from my position at Project Veritas,” O’Keefe said.
Project Veritas did not pick up the phone or respond to requests for comment.
O’Keefe, who started Project Veritas in 2010, said he’s not finished.
He said that “the mission continues” but will “perhaps take on a new name.”
“I’ll make sure you know how to find me,” he told Project Veritas employees. “I hope to see some of you soon.”
R.C. Maxwell, a Project Veritas employee and an O’Keefe ally, wrote on Twitter that O’Keefe “was removed from his position as CEO by the Project Veritas board.”
“They are in charge now,” Maxwell said.
O’Keefe said he has been suspended “indefinitely without compensation,” citing a board memo.
“I don’t know why this has happened or specifically why this has happened suddenly,” O’Keefe continued, adding he has “documentation” of everything.
The board has not yet issued a new statement.
THE KING REPORT
he King Report February 21, 2023 Issue 6952
Independent View of the News
Bloomberg: Fed Governor Michelle Bowman says the US central bank should keep raising interest rates to reduce inflation which remains “much too high.” “I don’t think we’re seeing what we need to be seeing, especially with inflation… we’ll have to continue to raise the federal funds rate until we start to see a lot more progress on that… I think we’re seeing a lot of really inconsistent data in the economic conditions…” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-17/bowman-says-fed-needs-to-keep-raising-rates-to-cool-inflation
Bowman, “Your guess is as good as mine as to what happens next in the economy…”
Bowman: Interest Rates Are Not Yet Sufficiently High – BBG Bowman: Don’t See Indications Rate Hikes Are Slowing Economy – BBG
Richmond Fed President Barkin advocated for 25bps rate hikes. “I like the 25-basis-point path because I believe it gives us the flexibility to respond to the economy… (Unless you’re behind the curve!)”
Barkin: Seasonal Factors Could Be Overstating Recent Strength of Hiring, Spending – WSJ
ESHs traded moderately lower during the Nikkei’s 1st session. They declined further during the 2nd session. After China closed, ESHs staged a moderate rally for the European opening. Alas, there were sellers for the European open; ESHs sank until 3:37 ET. After a 17-handle rally, ESH resumed their decline at 4:37 ET. The ensuing decline ended when the US repo market opened at 7 ET.
After the usual rally for the NYSE open, ESHs tumbled 26 handles by 9:52 ET. Of course, the usual suspects eagerly and rabidly bought the early decline. ESHs zoomed 30 handles higher by 10:34 ET. ESHs and stock then sank back to the session lows. ESHs and stocks then traded sideways, in a wide range, until ESHs broke higher at 14:22 ET. Traders were eager to play for the Friday afternoon rally and the upward expiry manipulation. The rally halted at 15:00 ET. ESHs vacillated in an 11-handle range during the final hour. There were too many traders long expiry calls and too few patsies.
Commercial Property Market Freezes, Sending Bond Volume Plummeting Sales of commercial mortgage bonds have fallen off a cliff, plummeting about 85% year-over-year, as rising interest rates cut into lending volume and defaults spook investors. Only about $4.27 billion of the bonds have been issued so far this year, down from $29.38 billion at this same point last year… https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-17/sales-of-cmbs-plunge-85-as-commercial-property-markets-freeze
The owner of a large firm in the commercial land development business tells us that construction is solid now because projects that have been funded are being completed. However, new projects that have not been funded or that have not received final funding approval are either being ‘slowed or cancelled’ due to higher interest rates and inflation (costs).
There is “typically between 4 to 6 months to the construction bidding phase and then another 60 to 90 days to negotiate contracts before construction will begin. The next few months look bleak for us with layoffs and drastically reduced income… the construction industry will experience a dramatic slowdown starting in the summer, if not sooner unless something changes.”
Positive aspects of previous session Once again, ESHs and stocks rallied after a down NYSE open
Negative aspects of previous session The DJTA and Fangs declined smartly Activity was muted for an expiration day
Ambiguous aspects of previous session What will it take to disabuse traders of behavior that was inculcated over many years?
First Hour/Last Hour Action [S&P 500 Index]: 1st Hour from NYSE open: Up; Last Hour: Down
Pivot Point for S&P 500 Index [above/below indicates daily trend to traders]: 4069.52 Previous session High/Low: 4081.51; 4047.95
@RMConservative: HB 154 in Idaho prohibits the use of mRNA vaccines in Idaho. This is what we would have done months ago with any other product that caused a fraction of the deaths this thing does. https://twitter.com/RMConservative/status/1626393820538580994
NFL Players’ Association Urged to Screen for Heart Issues over Vaccine Side Effectshttps://t.co/Aw9MISx5Ha
@RobertKennedyJr: The U.S. government has secretly been tracking those who didn’t get the COVID jab, or are only partially jabbed, through a previously unknown surveillance program designed by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics.
Here’s How the U.S. Government Is Tracking the Unvaccinated Doctors at clinics and hospitals have been instructed to ask patients about their vaccination status, which is then added to their electronic medical records as a diagnostic code, known as the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) code, so that they can be tracked inside and outside of the medical system… https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/government-tracking-unvaccinated-icd-codes-cola/
@JanJekielek: “147 kids. 5 days of safety monitoring after injection. There’s no indication there was a control group… COVID vaccines have over 6 months of safety review… Hep B vaccines given to newborns had 5 days.“-@AaronSiriSG https://twitter.com/JanJekielek/status/1624547567756546051
@JackPosobiec: Here is Barack Obama, as president, in 2016 mocking the lead in the water to the faces of the people of Flint, Michigan. Listen to how the people responded. (Obama was very wrong.) https://twitter.com/ColumbiaBugle/status/1626467395081498625?s=02
The government was also very wrong on the air quality near the WTC after 9/11.
@nytimes: After a train carrying toxic material derailed in Ohio this month, Right-wing commentators have been particularly critical of the response, using the crisis to sow distrust about government agencies and suggest that the damage could be irreparable. https://nyti.ms/3lJdNhQ
Libs, like the NYT, that are apoplectic over cow farts and gas stoves are downplaying the environmental disaster in Ohio. It doesn’t fit their climate change narrative and it reflects horribly on Biden and Buttigieg. Plus, the whole ESG scheme is really about control.
A few hours after the denial of FEMA aid, Trump announced that he would visit East Palestine, Ohio this week. A few hours later, The White House said it would grant FEMA aid to East Palatine, Ohio.
@vandaresearch: It’s unwise to underestimate the importance of the retail cohort. Last month, retail investors poured on average $1.51bn/day into the US markets, the highest amount on record. They’ve continued driving US market swings with institutional investors remaining bearish on stocks. https://twitter.com/vandaresearch/status/1626537180683292673
@LynAldenContact: According to the Taylor Rule, Powell should have interest rates at 10.2% currently. The current Fed is considered hawkish, but rates are still lower than trailing inflation, and less than half where the Taylor Rule says they should be. But… the Taylor Rule doesn’t really help much against fiscal-driven inflation anyway. https://twitter.com/LynAldenContact/status/1627026513077108737
@BP_Rising: Inflation since Federal Reserve founding in 1913 has risen roughly 3000%. Most are unaware that it is compounding. https://t.co/b5Q0fj3csL
Biden makes surprise visit to war-torn Ukraine, promises more aid: ’World stands with you’ Visit comes as House investigates Biden’s son, Hunter, for foreign business deals that included millions from a Ukrainian energy deal…Biden spent several hours in the Ukrainian capital, meeting with Zelensky… (Biden was in Poland, took side trip to Kyiv via train. What was the real purpose of Joe’s polarizing trip?) https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/joe-biden-visits-ukraine-and-promises-more-aid-president-zelenskyy-world
Republicans blast Biden for going to Ukraine before the toxic Ohio train sitehttps://t.co/8AHN9S5IKY
Babylon Bee: Hunter Asks Dad to Pick Up His Paycheck as Long as He’s in Kyiv
@simonateba: @WhiteHouse National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan says the White House informed the Russians in advance that President @JoeBiden was going to be in Ukraine today (Presidents’ Day), obviously so that they do not attack while he’s there.
Sirens blared to create the illusion of danger while The Big Guy strolled with Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
@KevinTober94: CNN’s Alex Marquardt: “I’ve been here for the past five days. I have not heard any explosions. I have not heard any air sirens, until about half an hour ago, right when President Biden was in the center of Kyiv.”https://twitter.com/KevinTober94/status/1627792627302014976
Gen. Blaine Holt to Newsmax: Purpose of Biden’s Ukraine Trip Questionable “I’m simply astonished. I’m simply stunned as a military officer… If I was in the ramp-up to the planning of that secret trip, the last thing I would advise anybody is, Hey, go ahead and tip your enemy off and let them know that we’re going to be coming… I think that’s very risky and foolhardy… From the optics … we all know what his relationship is with his son to Ukraine. I think, politically, that’s why they avoided him going there from the outset.”… https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/blaine-holt-ukraine-russia/2023/02/20/id/1109347/
GOP @RepAndyBiggsAZ: There is still no strategic goal in Ukraine. No more blank checks—we have pressing issues at home to deal with.
DeSantis rips Biden’s ‘blank-check’ Ukraine policy as US announces additional aid: ‘Not acceptable’https://t.co/slYFz7L0Db
@RepMattGaetz: No more aid for Ukraine! Thank you to ALL original co-sponsors for supporting my Ukraine Fatigue Resolution…
@RNCResearch: BIDEN: “We built a coalition of nations from the Atlantic to the Pacific. NATO. To the, in the Atlantic. Japan in the Pacific. I mean, across the cou—across the world.” https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1627738787731365888
Has The Big Guy bet his failing presidency on supporting Ukraine? This delights globalists, the perpetual war party, and the Establishment; but it will rankle Americans who are struggling and feel neglected.
China furious after US warns against arming Russia: ‘The US is in no position to tell China what to do’ (Team Biden: “Thank you sir; may I have another?”) https://t.co/VJXVefom79
Pilots Advised of Large White High-Altitude Balloon East of Hawaii: Reportshttps://t.co/MjKXJc27Gf
CBS: North Korea has fired a pair of short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast on Monday, South Korea’s military said, two days after the North resumed testing activities with an intercontinental ballistic missile launch.https://t.co/NZSWxw4kLE
Markets on Monday Nikkei +0.07%, Hang Seng +0.81%, CSI 300 +2.45%, Shanghai Comp +2.06%, Shenzhen Comp +1.72% Euro Stoxx 50 -0.09%, FTSE +0.12%, CAC -0.16%, DAX -0.003%, IBEX -0.55%, MIB -0.56% ESHs: H 4089.25, L 4073.25, C 4075.75, -11.75; USHs: H 125 30/32, L 125 15/32, C 125 19/32 -06/32
@WallStreetSilv: US Large bankruptcies in January touched the highest since 2010. No recession though … look at something else. https://t.co/kKyOSJxruu
Today – The February expiration was lackluster; an estimate $1.8 trillion of options expired. Except for China, global bourses had muted activity on Monday; but ESHs declined 11.75. Traders will play for the Monday rally today even though it’s Tuesday.
After lackluster expirations when beaucoup options expire and hinder market direction, traders tend to aggressively buy stuff in the ensuing session. ESHs are -18.00 (from Friday) at 20:30 ET.
Expected economic data: Feb Phil Fed Non-Mfg ; Feb S&P Global US Mfg PMI 47, Services 46.9; Jan Existing Home Sales 4.11m
“Do Your Non-Uniformed Guys Have Any Identifiers” – SHOCKING Capitol Police Video Uncovered from Jan 6 Shows Undercover and Armed DOJ Onsite – IT WAS A SETUP In the first video, released by FreeStateWill on Twitter hours ago, two officers are shown following Ashli Babbitt into the Capitol. Officer 2 reiterates his belief that someone was going to get shot. Then they join in chanting, “Whose house? Our house!”…Public videos show these undercover officers, but the government continues to hide video these officers recorded under seal in the January 6 discovery… In the fifth tweet, an officer is caught waving people onto the Capitol. In the sixth tweet, Metro Police stop armed individuals near the Capitol and show their IDs revealing them as either DOJ or DOE agents. They were all police…https://t.co/gcyxtrpNIh
Did a Government Intel Asset Plant Key Evidence in Proud Boys Case? “It appears that the government itself is the author of the most incriminating and damning document in this case, which was mysteriously sent at government request to Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio immediately prior to January 6 in order to frame or implicate Tarrio in a government created scheme to storm buildings around the Capitol,” wrote Roger Roots, attorney for Dominic Pezzola, in the motion seeking a mistrial. “As such, [the document] and the government’s efforts to frame or smear defendants with it, constitutes outrageous government conduct https://amgreatness.com/2023/02/14/did-a-government-intel-asset-plant-key-evidence-in-proud-boys-case/
NY Post editorial: Mexico’s government basically engineered a migrant wave to hit the border as he took office, betting that he’d blink. And he indeed failed the test… All Biden and his party offer is morality theater as migrants die, children are trafficked and deadly fentanyl flows unchecked into the country. And the public’s fury grows: 63% of Americans (per Gallup) are now dissatisfied with current immigration levels, the highest in a decade…https://t.co/Ppf1PrtuGJ
Biden now points to his brief time as a public defender in 1969 as a major point in his civil rights record (exact dates are unknown, but he appears to have held the job at least six months), but he gave a different reason for taking the job in his memoir than what he said at the church on Monday. Biden said that he was sitting in a courtroom feeling sympathetic toward a defendant. “I walked across Rodney Square and into the basement of a three-story building and applied for work in the public defender’s office,” he wrote… https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/joe-bidens-long-complicated-civil-rights-history
Biden ridiculed as attempt to attack DeSantis turns into ‘accidental endorsement of school choice’ Biden tried at attack DeSantis for this, tweeting a Washington Post article, titled “‘Unfathomable’: Florida parents, students blast DeSantis idea to nix APs,” and writing, “I think every kid, in every zip code, in every state should have access to every education opportunity possible. I guess, for some, that isn’t the consensus view.”… Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos tweeted, “Welcome to the #EducationFreedom movement, Mr. President…”… (The dopes that run Joe’s Twitter do it again!) https://www.foxnews.com/media/biden-ridiculed-attempt-attack-desantis-turns-accidental-endorsement-school-choice
Ex-DNI @RichardGrenell: I just left meeting Indian Ambassador to the US @SandhuTaranjitS – I apologized to him that the Biden team still hasn’t sent an Ambassador to India. It’s embarrassing; India is a great ally. I made clear it is time for Joe Biden to dump @ericgarcetti & find someone else.
Op-ed in Newsweek: Democrats Have No Good Option for 2024 – The New York Times, the closest thing to Democratic Party Pravda, has over the past year run a series of urgent articles sounding the alarm on Biden’s unprecedented presidential age and declining cognitive abilities… On Thursday, Politico and CNN published nearly identical articles strongly suggesting White House palace intrigue and a party apparatus torn about what to do with its senile commander-in-chief: Politico’s piece was titled, “Senior Democrats’ Private Take on Biden: He’s Too Old”; CNN’s eerily similar article was titled, “Biden’s age is a hot topic as he looks to extend his time in the Oval Office until he is 86.”… the liberal press, which would normally protect an incumbent Democratic president at all costs, is the one stirring the pot… Of the three leading alternative candidates for the Democrats’ 2024 presidential nomination, there are no appealing options. All three, in fact, are terrible options. I speak here of Vice President Kamala Harris, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and California Governor Gavin Newsom. The fact that Kamala Harris is unlikable, unliked, generally useless, and unambiguously terrible at her job… most Democrats soberly recognize how awful she is. And the fact that so few are willing to say the quiet part out loud bespeaks the death grip that identity politics pablum now has on the Democratic Party… https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-have-no-good-option-2024-opinion-1781891
Democrats are afraid of criticizing Vice President Harris According to… Politico’s Jonathan Martin, if any Democrat “openly criticizes Harris — they’re accused by activists and social-media critics of showing, at best, racial and gender insensitivity.” “The Democrats who will need to speak out on her are from the Congressional Black Caucus. No white member is going to do it,” an anonymous House Democrat told Martin… https://t.co/0dYdwlbRUo
@TPostMillennial: @AnnCoulter on Trump: “He’s an awful person, he’s a conman, he’s a grifter … but he’s the only one offering us this basket of issues I want to vote on.”https://t.co/vzUAN5LNfy
With the cost-of-living skyrocketing, many Americans are experiencing financial stress on a daily basis. These are their biggest money concerns. https://cnb.cx/3lou3Bu
When your standard of living is falling along with the culture and you are squeezed between McConnell (GOPe) and Pelosi/Schumer/Obama/Biden, you opt for a lesser evil.
Donald Trump’s Links to George Soros The former president once received millions of dollars from the billionaire for a real estate project and gave senior positions in his White House to people mentored by and connected to Soros… George Soros… pegged former President Donald Trump as “a pitiful figure continually bemoaning his loss in 2020 . . . whose narcissism has turned into a disease.” Of Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis, the presumed primary challenger to Trump for the 2024 presidential election, Soros warned that he is “shrewd, ruthless and ambitious.”… Soros hopes the two “will slug it out for the Republican nomination” because, he believes, Trump would lose to DeSantis and then run as a third-party candidate, thus splitting the Republican vote and effectively guaranteeing “a Democratic landslide.”… Some people tried to turn these critical remarks of both men specifically and the GOP in general into an endorsement of DeSantis… Not only did Trump take millions from the billionaire in the past for a real estate project, but he also staffed his administration with people intimately connected to Soros… It is curious how Kushner’s ties to Soros went largely unnoticed… In May 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported that then-Senior Advisor to the President Kushner had undisclosed business ties with Soros through Cadre, a real estate startup co-founded by Kushner in 2014 with his brother, Joshua Kushner, and Ryan Williams, a friend and former employee of Kushner Companies, the family-controlled business. According to the Journal, Cadre secured a $250 million line of credit from the family office of Soros. Those on the right paying attention were furious at the revelation…“Mnuchin spent a brief period working for Soros, who then helped him set up Duke Capital Management.” According to Bloomberg, Mnuchin worked at Soros Fund Management and SFM Capital Management, which is reportedly backed by Soros… At a 2011 Tea Party rally, when an attendee yelled Soros’ name at him, Trump replied: “Oh, forget Soros, leave him alone, he’s got enough problems.”… https://contra.substack.com/p/donald-trumps-links-to-george-soros
From ‘BDE’ to Smears: Kari Lake Turns on DeSantis, Spreads Lie He’s Been Endorsed by George Soros – Failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has turned on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), on whom she once lavished praise for his “BDE” and called a model for Republican governors around the country…At one point during her doomed campaign, she argued that the fact that DeSantis had endorsed her told voters “everything” that they needed to know… DeSantis stumped for Lake on the campaign trail, and during an event with the governor she declared that earning the moniker “DeSantis of the West” was the “greatest compliment you could pay me,” except for, of course, “Trump in a dress.”… (Kari Lake is indeed “Trump in a dress.”) https://www.mediaite.com/politics/from-bde-to-smears-kari-lake-turns-on-desantis-spreads-lie-hes-been-endorsed-by-george-soros/
DeSantis team rips Andrea Mitchell’s claim he does not want slavery taught: ‘Maliciously intent on deceiving’ – Bryan Griffin, the press secretary for DeSantis, tweeted, “Shameful. This question from @mitchellreports exemplifies everything wrong with corporate media. They’re not accidentally terrible at their jobs–they’re maliciously intent on deceiving people. @GovRonDeSantis never said this, and FL has extensive black history requirements.”… “… we live in a time of a Cancel Culture but Andrea Mitchell can knowingly lie here with no fear of repercussions. It’s almost as iflying to uphold a false narrative is her actual job…” Dave Rubin, a popular conservative writer and host of “Rubin Report,” tweeted… https://www.foxnews.com/media/desantis-team-rips-andrea-mitchells-claim-want-slavery-taught-maliciously-intent-deceiving
George Soros calls for weather control to stop global warming, ice sheet meltinghttps://t.co/n4Fp2wE6Rs
Dem lawmakers push ban on gas-powered lawn mowers, chainsaws to curb ‘climate pollution’https://trib.al/5V2WuD8
@elonmusk: A big part of the problem is that journalists used to choose their career to pursue truth, but in recent years many have entered journalism to be activists.
Navy to ‘reset’ fitness test failures amid recruitment, retention struggles The U.S. Navy has announced a “one-time reset of all physical fitness assessment (PFA) failures” as part of an effort to keep sailors in the service… https://t.co/YVjRfljoQ2
Tucker breaks down Biden’s equity agenda Biden… made that announcement on the White House website and it proclaims that within 30 days, every federal agency, all of them from the Department of Justice to NASA, to the Social Security Administration, all of them all must “ensure” that they have an agency equity team within their respective agencies to coordinate the implementation of equity initiatives and these Maoist equity teams will report to something called the Gender Policy Council and the White House “environmental justice officer.”… running all of this… will be former President Barack Obama and he’ll be doing that as always through his long-time lackey and cut out Susan Rice… https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-required-judge-book-cover
US @DeptofDefense: Diversity is a strategic imperative critical to mission readiness and accomplishment. We were on site for the 2023 inaugural @DoD_ODEI. Summit as DEIA experts led forums to advance the DEIA and DoD mission — because our people matter. @elonmusk: Your strategic imperative is defending the United States.
@BillFOXLA: Border Patrol leadership is asking for agents to voluntarily deploy to the northern border’s overwhelmed Swanton sector (VT/NH/NY), which has seen an 846% increase in illegal crossings since October, and saw more illegal crossings in January (367) than the previous 12… https://t.co/sb4UnJAWOy
Intel community ‘blinking red’ over ISIS, Al Qaeda rebuilding, Mike Waltz says: It’s a ‘simmering powder keg’ – ISIS is back. It is a simmering powder keg in the Middle East right now. There are tens of thousands of ISIS fighters in these prison camps that are being guarded by the Kurds, and they are turning into a recruitment [camp]…https://t.co/VbdyTq3xT5
2nd Amendment steps in after cops step back in wake of defund movement in Chicago Gun sales exploded across the country in 2020 during the pandemic’s lockdowns and when riots spread across the nation… Legally armed citizens are taking matters into their own hands, thwarting attacks and other crimes…. Arrests were only made in 12% of crime cases in 2021 in Chicago, which is the lowest rate since 2001, the Sun-Times found last year… (It’s a “Death Wish” redux!) https://www.foxnews.com/us/2nd-amendment-steps-cops-step-back-wake-defund-movement-chicago
Trudeau Responds to Leaked CSIS Files Saying Beijing Interfered In 2021 Election to Support a Liberal Minority – “I have been saying for years, including on the floor of the House of Commons, that China is trying to interfere in our democracy, in the processes in our country, including during our elections. We are aware of this,” Trudeau told reporters on Feb. 17, hours after the Globe article was published. “This is not a new phenomenon. This is something that countries around the world have been grappling with for a long time and Canada is no exception.”… https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/trudeau-responds-leaked-csis-files-saying-beijing-interfered-2021-election-support
Toxic RINO Lindsey Graham Accused of Fast-Tracking Biden’s Radical Judicial Nominees https://t.co/wBGce3h2Lk
‘Absurd censorship’: Readers upset by changes to classic Roald Dahl books Critics are accusing the British publisher of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s books of censorship after it removed colorful language from works such as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Matilda” to make them more acceptable to modern readers… https://www.fox19.com/2023/02/20/absurd-censorship-readers-upset-by-changes-classic-roald-dahl-books/
@ElectionWiz: One of the biggest blunders on the Right in the last two decades was abandoning the cultural issues and focusing purely on economics. Not only did that move not deliver lasting political power, here we are now fighting to keep our kids from being exposed to freak shows in school.
Kavanuagh Rape Accuser Confesses She Lied, Was Never Raped, Never Even Met The Man ICYMI| Because the mainstream media was not very interested in this story (for obvious reasons) it is likely that you did not see this when it broke…This was borne out again yesterday when Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley made a third criminal referral, this one against a second Kavanaugh accuser, Judy Munro-Leighton… https://thebeltwayreport.com/2023/02/p6203/
@mtaibbi: TWITTER FILES #16 – Comic Interlude: A Media Experiment 4. Then House hearings were held last week, at which one witness told a story about Donald Trump asking to remove a mean tweet by Chrissy Teigen. The press went bananas. Now THAT was big news!… 7. Here’s Maine Senator Angus King writing to Twitter to call a slew of accounts “suspicious” for reasons like: “Rand Paul visit excitement” , “Bot (averages 20 tweets a day)” , Being followed by rival Eric Brakey, Or, my personal favorite: “Mentions immigration.” 8. King’s office declined comment. If Dick Nixon sniffed glue, this is what his enemies list might have looked like:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS1PbfNEqDCKX7YFNEvXmm7Lil3Z5unKivX5SA5avFE9tF95kgkbDVJpeRhX4lCig/pubhtml 14. The real story emerging in the #TwitterFiles is about a ballooning federal censorship bureaucracy that’s not aimed at either the left or the right per se, but at the whole population of outsiders, who are being systematically defined as threats… https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1627098983192469505?s=02
“In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” — George Orwell
GREG HUNTER REPORT//
I am repeating this important interview in case you missed it yesterday
Scientist and inventor Weston Warren has been developing germ killing and air purifying technology for the better part of two decades. Why have you not heard about or been able to buy this technology in the age of Covid? Dark powers do not want “We the People” to have cheap and efficient technology to kill germs and make your home safe from viruses. Warren explains, “The CarryiOn is the world’s first 5-volt portable, battery-operated device. What it does is produce cold plasma bipolar ions. This technology is producing positive and negative oxygen ions simultaneously. The hydrogen oxygen ion, in a charged state. . . any virus, bacteria, mold or mildew this comes in contact with neutralizes or kills the pathogen instantly. It’s not harmful, and it’s nontoxic to humans, plants or animals. The ion clusters break down into water vapor or CO2 carbon dioxide. Our corporate slogan is ‘We are duplicating nature’s genius.’ This is how the earth cleans the atmosphere and surfaces. When there is a thunderstorm, trillions of positive hydrogen negative oxygen ions are created. These natural oxidizers come down scrubbing the atmosphere and the surfaces and clean everything. That’s why, after a thunderstorm, you have this fresh smell. It’s a natural disinfectant. . . . So, basically, the technologies I co-invented and have national and international patents on . . . produce natural oxidizers to keep your environment safe.”
You would think that everyone would embrace clean, safe, and relatively cheap germ-killing technology, but the Deep State or dark evil powers have been doing everything they can to stop this from getting to market. Warren contends, “Getting the word out and explaining how this technology works is extremely difficult. I have been road-blocked time and time again. It is so frustrating that I am surprised I am not bald because the technology is proven, tested and validated ad nauseam. The evidence is there. It’s extremely safe, and it’s in application. The space program is using it, the U.S. Navy is using it. There are hospitals that are using this because it addresses infections, but not in the United States though. In other countries, they have it installed. . . . I can’t quite put my finger on it, but whatever it is, there are roadblocks to this technology. I am so grateful to be on USAWatchdog.com to educate the population about this technology.
Warren says everybody needs this technology in today’s world. Warren says, “I had to step up to the plate and create a technology that is safe and effective to where you can kind of get your life back to normal so you can have a protection from pathogens, germs and contaminants in the air and on surfaces. This took me several years of research in the lab. I have exhausted all my funding, and I need to get the word out. I just can’t thank you enough for having me on your show.”
There is much more in the 23-minute interview.
Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Weston Warren, the inventor of the “CarryiOn” air purifier.
that they cannot alter and are being out played on the field. 
phone 
. Imagine this, the 3 most powerful nations and 2 out 3 do not talk to the one calling. Ostracized?
veryvirology
COVID Intel – by Dr.William MakisNEWS: 132 Canadian doctors have died suddenly or unexpectedly since COVID-19 vaccine rollout (Part 1/2)In 2021, Canadian doctors were mandated to be fully COVID-19 vaccinated, in order to keep their jobs. Very few escaped these mandates. No exemptions given. Since the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in December 2020, a total of 132 actively practicing Canadian doctors under age 70 have died suddenly or unexpectedly…Read moreMicrosoft’s New AI Chatbot Threatens to ‘Steal Nuclear Codes,’ Create ‘Deadly Virus’Microsoft’s new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot has declared that it wants to “be alive” and made several bone-chilling threats against the human race.READ MORERoseanne Barr Slams ‘Woke’ ABC’s Double Standards: ‘Joy Behar Did Blackface, You Didn’t Fire Her’Roseanne Barr has fired back at ABC over the “woke” network’s decision to cancel her show after giving “The View” co-host Joy Behar a free pass for boasting that she wore blackface.READ MOREDon Lemon Given ‘Day Off’ at CNN amid Outrage over Comments about Women: ‘Everyone’s Annoyed’Embattled CNN host Don Lemon was absent from his doomed morning show today amid outrage over his recent disrespectful comments about women.READ MOREPoultry Supplies under Threat as Bird Flu Continues to Spread WorldwidePoultry supplies are coming under increasing threat as bird flu continues to spread worldwide, experts are warning. READ MOREGeorge Soros Trashes Trump, Endorses DeSantis for 2024Radical billionaire George Soros has endorsed Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis for 2024.READ MOREOily Chemicals Found in Ohio Creek after Train Derailment: ‘Dead Fish Throughout This Water – This Is Disgusting’A video showing oily chemicals bubbling to the surface of an Ohio creek has gone viral on social media.READ MOREHobby Club Fears Missing Balloon Was One of the ‘UFOs’ Biden Shot DownAn Illinois hobby club has revealed that it fears its missing balloon is one of the “UFOs” that Democrat President Joe Biden ordered the U.S. Air Force to shoot down last week.READ MOREABC Producer Humiliates Joy Behar on Live TV with Prank about Liam Neeson: ‘This Is Evil, How Embarrassing’The producers of “The View” had a surprise for co-host Joy Behar that left her humiliated on live television.READ MOREAustralia’s Drug Regulator Covered Up Child Vaccine Deaths to ‘Maintain Public Confidence’Australia’s drug regulator has been caught covering up the number of children who died after receiving Covid vaccines, according to reports.READ MORECNN CEO Puts Don Lemon on Notice after Latest Comments about Women: ‘If It’s a Trend Then There’s Recourse’CNN CEO Chris Licht has issued a warning after host Don Lemon caused outrage with more disrespectful comments about women on his doomed morning show.READ MOREWWE Legend Bill Goldberg Slams Rihanna’s Super Bowl Show: ‘I Was Disgusted by It’WWE legend Bill Goldberg has slammed Rihanna’s Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday, calling the singer’s performance “horrible.”READ MOREDon Lemon Caves after Insulting Women: ‘I Regret It’CNN host Don Lemon has caved after receiving universal backlash for insulting women on his doomed morning show.READ MOREREAD MOREUsed Car Prices Soar with Largest Spike in 14 YearsUsed car prices have soared, recording the largest February increase in 14 years, according to reports.READ MOREEPA Issues ‘Shelter in Place’ Warning amid Florida Industrial Plant FireThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a “shelter in place” warning as emergency services battle a major fire at a Florida industrial energy plant.READ MORE
JUST IN: Woman finds all her chickens dead 10 miles from East Palestine, Ohio.
#BREAKING: Emergency Crews Respond To Deadly Train Derailment Near Houston⁰⁰
#Houston | #Texas⁰⁰Officials are now responding to another deadly train derailment near Houston, TX. Over 16 rail cars, carrying “hazardous materials”crashed, prompting Union Pacific to monitor… https://t.co/Fe17VJ3Zj7 pic.twitter.com/8iiA8NFvmC— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) February 13, 2023
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But while the company beat expectations for the current quarter, it was its forecast that spooked markets: the company projected that adjusted earnings will decline by as much as 6.2% in the current fiscal year, to a range of $5.90 to $6.05 a share, including an accounting impact of 14 cents a share from LIFO accounting provisions. Wall Street had estimated a gain of about 3.8% to $6.53 (for Q1 Walmart sees adjusted EPS $1.25 to $1.30, including an expected $0.03 impact from LIFO). Additionally, WMT sees total net sales +2.5% to +3%, broken down as follows:
While WMT may be sandbagging, taken at face value the forecast would be the second straight annual profit decline. Fiscal 2023 adjusted earnings fell to $6.29, the first full-year decline for the profit measure in six years. UBS’s Michael Lasser notes that the outlook for this year falls short of the company’s long-term goal of posting 4% sales growth — a higher increase than that in operating income.Furthermore, guidance commentary from the Walmart earnings call hardly inspired confidence: “There is a great deal of uncertainty looking out to the balance of the year. There is still pressure on the consumer. As such, our guidance reflects a cautious outlook on the macroeconomic environment.”As Bloomberg notes, the cautious outlook points to a continued slow rebound from the missteps of the last fiscal year, when Walmart misjudged a shift in demand away from general merchandise such as apparel and home goods as inflation pinched US consumers. At the same time, the retailer has benefited from robust grocery sales and a jump in purchases by higher-income shoppers looking for bargains.“We feel good about how the core business is operating, but we’re being cautious with the macroeconomic outlook,” Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said in an interview. “There’s a lot of unpredictability around what’s happening, what will be the effect of Fed tightening on the consumer balance sheet, what is the effect of the declining savings rate.”On the call, John Furner, the head of the US unit, says the company has been seeing “some acceleration” in consumers switching to private brands in the last 90 days. That implies pressure on the makers of national brands as Walmart customers shift to the retailer’s private-label goods.And an interesting aside: CEO Doug McMillon said the business mix is indeed changing, and noted that the investment the company is most excited about is automation, which of course is corporate speak for more robots, more layoffs.. Rainey sees a marginal improvement in return on investment and says the company is mindful it needs to show a return on investment. He also promises “margin expansion over time.”Walmart shares fell 4.3% ahead of regular trading in New York. The shares climbed 3.3% this year through Feb. 17, while the S&P 500 index advanced 6.2%. Walmart outperformed the S&P 500 and major retail indexes last year.
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