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Asia Morning: It’s Just Another Morbid Monday

Asia Morning: It’s Just Another Morbid Monday

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Coronavirus does bring out the morbid ghoulish side of the financial markets, with equities enjoying a bright start as the rate of deaths in Spain, Italy and New York fell. Hundreds of people are passing away each day from the pandemic, but less so than previous days, giving markets hope that that the lockdown measures are finally starting to prove effective. Like the rest of the world, financial markets are searching for any slivers of hope, and although in this case, I hope they are right, but amateur scientists have not had a great track record since January.

 

The ghoulishness swings both ways, of course. The British Pound fell this morning as the UK Prime Minister was taken to hospital having been unable to shake of COVID-19 from isolation at home.

 

Oil too has endured a torrid early morning session, as quarrels amongst the OEPC+ members sees a virtual meeting postponed until Thursday. Both Saudi Arabia and Russia are finger-pointing over who is to blame for the collapse in oil prices. At the same time, the US, a key component in any deal, seems to be threatening tariffs on imported oil and cheap financing to keep the domestic industry afloat. I am somewhat confused why President Trump knocked heads together in the first place if that was his strategy, let OPEC+++ take the pain while insulating the C-Suite ilk of companies in the same sector as Whiting “snouts in the trough” Petroleum.

 

Indeed, just when the world needs to be working together, there does seem to be an every man for himself feel about international relations at the moment. Especially frustrating when COVID-19 has not even got going amongst some of the developing world’s largest economies and has plenty yet still to run within the United States. India has banned the export of hydroxychloroquine, a favourite Trump drug, although with no proven benefit in fighting COVID-19 as yet. The US is threatening tariffs on foreign oil to protect the local industry. A strategy doomed to failure. Meanwhile, the paper tiger known as the European Union, cannot even agree to the joint offering of an EU pandemic bond thank s to resistance from the usual suspects, Germany and the Netherlands.

 

While Asia should enjoy its moment in the sun, I suspect the summer weather is temporary. As the Friday US Non-Farm Payrolls illustrated, COVID-19 is wrecking almost unimaginable havoc of the world’s economy, which is sadly, mostly being led by leaders who appear to be not fit for purpose.

 

Equities rally on falling death rates.

 

US stock futures opened higher this morning as Bill Gates said social distancing works, and the rate of deaths fell in the COVID-19 epicentres of Spain, Italy and New York over the weekend. Despite Friday’s nightmare Non-Farm Payrolls number, Wall Street’s major indices only fell by just over 1.50%, suggesting that a lot of bad news is now built into prices. The key is how much bad news has been loaded into prices. The author believes any rally this week is merely a bear market bounce and the v-shaped desperados will soon be put back into isolation.

 

That said, S&P 500 and NASDAQ futures are both higher by just over 3.0% this morning, albeit on modest Monday morning volumes. That hope versus reality has spilt into regional exchanges. The Nikkei 225 is 2.05% higher, with the Kospi 1.75% higher. The Australian ASX 200 is up 2.50% along with the All Ordinaries. The Straits Times has climbed 1.15% and the Hang Seng by 1.0%.

 

With a very light calendar globally today, there is enough momentum to keep the equity rally running through the course of the day and also into European time. All bets are off after that although I could see a couple of days of positive sentiment ahead, especially if those mortality rates keep falling.

 

Peso pounded as recovery currencies rise.

 

The fall in oil prices this morning has seen the Mexican Peso fall 1.75% against the US Dollar. USD/MXN has risen to 25.4000, just below the recent high of 25.5000. Remarkably, the Norwegian Korone is almost unchanged against both the US Dollar and the Euro. Still, we would expect it and the Russian Ruble later, to come under sustained pressure if this morning’s oil collapse persists. The Malaysian Ringgit has also fallen today, USD/MYR rising to 1.30% to 25.3400 with a test of 25.5000 likely with further stop losses triggered if it breaks.

 

The AUD/USD has enjoyed a positive morning, rising 0.45% to 0.6020. It and the New Zealand Dollar will be favourite recovery plays for the COVID-19 pandemic, and as such are likely to enjoy a decent couple of days’ worth of sessions as hopes rise that the worst has passed. For the very brave, one could possibly add the Indonesian Rupiah and the South African Rand into that grouping, although I emphasise the word “brave.”

 

The GBP/USD recovered its early Boris A&E losses and is now down only 0.30% at 1.2235. Elsewhere, the USD/JPY has risen by 0.40% to 108.95 as Asia awaits PM Abe’s probably announcement of an official COVID-19 emergency finally. That should have happened weeks ago, and with the Olympics postponed, and a spike in COVID-19 cases in Tokyo, another not fit for purpose, national leader appears to be conceding to the inevitable. USD/JPY is unlikely to see 107.00 again for some time. 

 

Oil gushes lower as OPEC+ quarrels.

 

Oil enjoyed a mighty session on Friday as production cut hopes saw Brent crude rise 15% and WTI rise 12.25%. Squabbling and finger-pointing by Russia and Saudi Arabia over the weekend have seen the OPEC+ meeting pushed back to Thursday and oil prices collapse in early Asia. With the G-20 energy ministers meeting scheduled for Friday, the pressure is being heaped on the grouping to produce a 10 million barrel cut to shore up energy prices and bring the damaging price war to some sort of truce.

 

Of course, anything involving Russia and Saudi Arabia is going to be complicated. Both quite rightly are saying the US must be included, despite the legal barriers to doing so. With the Canadian’s and Norwegian’s also indicating they are prepared to do their part in an OPEC++++++ arrangement, it may well fall to the State of Texas to enact powers last used over 50 years ago, forcing production cuts in the Lone Star State. 

 

With oil priced having risen by over 30% last week, it wouldn’t have taken much for some profit-taking to have set in. And with the entire rally built on Trump rhetoric, who could blame them? Brent crude futures have fallen 3.60% to $32.90 a barrel; meanwhile, WTI is 6.0% lower at $26.70 a barrel.

 

Oil prices will remain vulnerable to further corrections on negative headlines. The reality on the ground is that you cannot find crude storage or buyers for love nor money. Realistically, OPEC+++++ will need to deliver cuts of around 15 million barrels a day by Thursday just to stabilise prices. Even is prices continue rallying this week, any announcement on Thursday will probably be a buy the rumour, sell the fact situation.

 

Gold’s consolidation continues.

 

Gold rose by 0.35% on Friday to 1619.00 an ounce, as the precious metal continues to see record inflows to bullion ETF’s rather than the futures markets. Friday’s closing price puts it dead centre of its recent $1600.00 to $1640.00 current range with Asia showing little interest today, as gold climbs meekly to $1620.00 an ounce.

 

Although gold is consolidating at the upper end of its recent $150 an ounce range; its next real test will be how it weathers the next sharp equity sell-off. Only then will we see if the liquidate everything correlation has finally come to an end, and that gold is free to choose its own path. Complicating the picture is the strong underlying demand for US Dollars globally, which is showing no signs of receding anytime soon.

 

The sheer volume of central bank quantitative easing and government borrowing should, in the end, be positive for gold. 

 

 

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Mike Pompeo Doesn’t Rule Out Serving In 2nd Trump Administration

Mike Pompeo Doesn’t Rule Out Serving In 2nd Trump Administration

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Former Secretary…

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Mike Pompeo Doesn't Rule Out Serving In 2nd Trump Administration

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a new interview that he’s not ruling out accepting a White House position if former President Donald Trump is reelected in November.

“If I get a chance to serve and think that I can make a difference ... I’m almost certainly going to say yes to that opportunity to try and deliver on behalf of the American people,” he told Fox News, when asked during a interview if he would work for President Trump again.

I’m confident President Trump will be looking for people who will faithfully execute what it is he asked them to do,” Mr. Pompeo said during the interview, which aired on March 8. “I think as a president, you should always want that from everyone.”

Then-President Donald Trump (C), then- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L), and then-Vice President Mike Pence, take a question during the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus at the White House in Washington on April 8, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

He said that as a former secretary of state, “I certainly wanted my team to do what I was asking them to do and was enormously frustrated when I found that I couldn’t get them to do that.”

Mr. Pompeo, a former U.S. representative from Kansas, served as Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2018 before he was secretary of state from 2018 to 2021. After he left office, there was speculation that he could mount a Republican presidential bid in 2024, but announced that he wouldn’t be running.

President Trump hasn’t publicly commented about Mr. Pompeo’s remarks.

In 2023, amid speculation that he would make a run for the White House, Mr. Pompeo took a swipe at his former boss, telling Fox News at the time that “the Trump administration spent $6 trillion more than it took in, adding to the deficit.”

“That’s never the right direction for the country,” he said.

In a public appearance last year, Mr. Pompeo also appeared to take a shot at the 45th president by criticizing “celebrity leaders” when urging GOP voters to choose ahead of the 2024 election.

2024 Race

Mr. Pompeo’s interview comes as the former president was named the “presumptive nominee” by the Republican National Committee (RNC) last week after his last major Republican challenger, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, dropped out of the 2024 race after failing to secure enough delegates. President Trump won 14 out of 15 states on Super Tuesday, with only Vermont—which notably has an open primary—going for Ms. Haley, who served as President Trump’s U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

On March 8, the RNC held a meeting in Houston during which committee members voted in favor of President Trump’s nomination.

“Congratulations to President Donald J. Trump on his huge primary victory!” the organization said in a statement last week. “I’d also like to congratulate Nikki Haley for running a hard-fought campaign and becoming the first woman to win a Republican presidential contest.”

Earlier this year, the former president criticized the idea of being named the presumptive nominee after reports suggested that the RNC would do so before the Super Tuesday contests and while Ms. Haley was still in the race.

Also on March 8, the RNC voted to name Trump-endorsed officials to head the organization. Michael Whatley, a North Carolina Republican, was elected the party’s new national chairman in a vote in Houston, and Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, was voted in as co-chair.

“The RNC is going to be the vanguard of a movement that will work tirelessly every single day to elect our nominee, Donald J. Trump, as the 47th President of the United States,” Mr. Whatley told RNC members in a speech after being elected, replacing former chair Ronna McDaniel. Ms. Trump is expected to focus largely on fundraising and media appearances.

President Trump hasn’t signaled whom he would appoint to various federal agencies if he’s reelected in November. He also hasn’t said who his pick for a running mate would be, but has offered several suggestions in recent interviews.

In various interviews, the former president has mentioned Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Vivek Ramaswamy, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, among others.

Tyler Durden Wed, 03/13/2024 - 17:00

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Riley Gaines Explains How Women’s Sports Are Rigged To Promote The Trans Agenda

Riley Gaines Explains How Women’s Sports Are Rigged To Promote The Trans Agenda

Is there a light forming when it comes to the long, dark and…

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Riley Gaines Explains How Women's Sports Are Rigged To Promote The Trans Agenda

Is there a light forming when it comes to the long, dark and bewildering tunnel of social justice cultism?  Global events have been so frenetic that many people might not remember, but only a couple years ago Big Tech companies and numerous governments were openly aligned in favor of mass censorship.  Not just to prevent the public from investigating the facts surrounding the pandemic farce, but to silence anyone questioning the validity of woke concepts like trans ideology. 

From 2020-2022 was the closest the west has come in a long time to a complete erasure of freedom of speech.  Even today there are still countries and Europe and places like Canada or Australia that are charging forward with draconian speech laws.  The phrase "radical speech" is starting to circulate within pro-censorship circles in reference to any platform where people are allowed to talk critically.  What is radical speech?  Basically, it's any discussion that runs contrary to the beliefs of the political left.

Open hatred of moderate or conservative ideals is perfectly acceptable, but don't ever shine a negative light on woke activism, or you might be a terrorist.

Riley Gaines has experienced this double standard first hand.  She was even assaulted and taken hostage at an event in 2023 at San Francisco State University when leftists protester tried to trap her in a room and demanded she "pay them to let her go."  Campus police allegedly witnessed the incident but charges were never filed and surveillance footage from the college was never released.  

It's probably the last thing a champion female swimmer ever expects, but her head-on collision with the trans movement and the institutional conspiracy to push it on the public forced her to become a counter-culture voice of reason rather than just an athlete.

For years the independent media argued that no matter how much we expose the insanity of men posing as women to compete and dominate women's sports, nothing will really change until the real female athletes speak up and fight back.  Riley Gaines and those like her represent that necessary rebellion and a desperately needed return to common sense and reason.

In a recent interview on the Joe Rogan Podcast, Gaines related some interesting information on the inner workings of the NCAA and the subversive schemes surrounding trans athletes.  Not only were women participants essentially strong-armed by colleges and officials into quietly going along with the program, there was also a concerted propaganda effort.  Competition ceremonies were rigged as vehicles for promoting trans athletes over everyone else. 

The bottom line?  The competitions didn't matter.  The real women and their achievements didn't matter.  The only thing that mattered to officials were the photo ops; dudes pretending to be chicks posing with awards for the gushing corporate media.  The agenda took precedence.

Lia Thomas, formerly known as William Thomas, was more than an activist invading female sports, he was also apparently a science project fostered and protected by the athletic establishment.  It's important to understand that the political left does not care about female athletes.  They do not care about women's sports.  They don't care about the integrity of the environments they co-opt.  Their only goal is to identify viable platforms with social impact and take control of them.  Women's sports are seen as a vehicle for public indoctrination, nothing more.

The reasons why they covet women's sports are varied, but a primary motive is the desire to assert the fallacy that men and women are "the same" psychologically as well as physically.  They want the deconstruction of biological sex and identity as nothing more than "social constructs" subject to personal preference.  If they can destroy what it means to be a man or a woman, they can destroy the very foundations of relationships, families and even procreation.  

For now it seems as though the trans agenda is hitting a wall with much of the public aware of it and less afraid to criticize it.  Social media companies might be able to silence some people, but they can't silence everyone.  However, there is still a significant threat as the movement continues to target children through the public education system and women's sports are not out of the woods yet.   

The ultimate solution is for women athletes around the world to organize and widely refuse to participate in any competitions in which biological men are allowed.  The only way to save women's sports is for women to be willing to end them, at least until institutions that put doctrine ahead of logic are made irrelevant.          

Tyler Durden Wed, 03/13/2024 - 17:20

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Part 1: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-March 2024

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Part 1: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-March 2024
A brief excerpt: This 2-part overview for mid-March provides a snapshot of the current housing market.

I always like to star…

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Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Part 1: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-March 2024

A brief excerpt:
This 2-part overview for mid-March provides a snapshot of the current housing market.

I always like to start with inventory, since inventory usually tells the tale!
...
Here is a graph of new listing from Realtor.com’s February 2024 Monthly Housing Market Trends Report showing new listings were up 11.3% year-over-year in February. This is still well below pre-pandemic levels. From Realtor.com:

However, providing a boost to overall inventory, sellers turned out in higher numbers this February as newly listed homes were 11.3% above last year’s levels. This marked the fourth month of increasing listing activity after a 17-month streak of decline.
Note the seasonality for new listings. December and January are seasonally the weakest months of the year for new listings, followed by February and November. New listings will be up year-over-year in 2024, but we will have to wait for the March and April data to see how close new listings are to normal levels.

There are always people that need to sell due to the so-called 3 D’s: Death, Divorce, and Disease. Also, in certain times, some homeowners will need to sell due to unemployment or excessive debt (neither is much of an issue right now).

And there are homeowners who want to sell for a number of reasons: upsizing (more babies), downsizing, moving for a new job, or moving to a nicer home or location (move-up buyers). It is some of the “want to sell” group that has been locked in with the golden handcuffs over the last couple of years, since it is financially difficult to move when your current mortgage rate is around 3%, and your new mortgage rate will be in the 6 1/2% to 7% range.

But time is a factor for this “want to sell” group, and eventually some of them will take the plunge. That is probably why we are seeing more new listings now.
There is much more in the article.

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