Spread & Containment
Equity turmoil in the wake of rising bond yields
The combination of the uncertain path of the Ukraine conflict, heavy-duty lockdowns in China in response to the Omicron surge and rising bond yields resulted…

The combination of the uncertain path of the Ukraine conflict, heavy-duty lockdowns in China in response to the Omicron surge and rising bond yields resulted in sharp falls in volatile equity markets in April.
Global equities rebounded initially, but the rally ran out of steam given the continuing Russia/Ukraine conflict. The US Federal Reserve’s increasingly hawkish tone accelerated the rise of long-term bond yields. In this environment, equities fell by 8.1% in April (MSCI AC World index in US dollar terms), marking the largest decline since the 13.7% drop in March 2020 and sending the index back to its lowest since March 2021.
In some markets, it became clear towards the end of the month that investors were capitulating and preferring to hedge against further falls over repositioning themselves in the market.
Pandemic problems continue in China
Another element that weighed on investor sentiment was the imposition of tighter restrictions by Chinese authorities in response to the Omicron wave, and the risk of further lockdowns after the mandatory testing campaign in Beijing in late April. This hampered consumption and was seen as a risk to global manufacturing activity.
Against this background, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) announced a widely predicted cut in its reserve requirement ratio (RRR). The poor short-term economic outlook, and the government’s desire to achieve its 5.5% GDP growth target for 2022, led the authorities to step up their measures to support economic activity and financial markets. These measures included those affecting digital economy companies, which had suffered from stricter regulation.
As a result, emerging market equities held up better than developed equities in April (-5.7% for the MSCI Emerging Markets index in US dollar terms).
Growth stocks suffer
One characteristic of recent equity market movements was the sharp underperformance of US indices, and more particularly growth stocks. These were hit hard by the sharp rise in long-term bond yields. Despite a reasonably favourable start to the earnings season (in terms of both earnings and sales), the S&P 500 index lost 8.8% over the month, while the NASDAQ index fell by 13.3%.
European and Japanese indices held up markedly better (-2.6% for the EURO STOXX 50 and -2.4% for the Topix). This was no doubt helped both by their composition – with large tech stocks having a lower weight than in the US – and by the depreciation of the euro and the yen against the US dollar.
A lively month in forex markets
The Fed’s more hawkish tone, the differential between the Fed’s policy stance and that of its peers, and risk aversion all helped to boost the dollar. Against a basket of currencies, the DXY index gained 4.7%.
Currencies of countries whose central banks raised interest rates in April, or that clearly stated they would do so soon, however, appreciated against the US dollar (Australian, New Zealand and Canadian dollars, Swedish krona and Norwegian krone).
The yen fell further in April (-6.2% against the US dollar, -3.7% for the real effective exchange rate). The decline was fuelled by the Bank of Japan (BoJ) reaffirming that it was maintaining a highly dovish stance.
A clear message in troubled times
The message from central banks to investors and economic agents is that they are worried about inflation and – more importantly – that they will fight to restore price stability.
While the uncertainties over the outlook arising from the Ukraine conflict have led to significant downward revisions of growth for 2022, the real concern is inflation, and its effect on consumer purchasing power and company margins. Here, central banks’ commitment could be reassuring, but for investors, the earnings outlook and rising interest rates will set the tone in coming months.
We believe that growth will slow and that inflation will fall (probably not immediately, but base effects will eventually reverse upward price trends). Moreover, despite the normalisation of monetary policies and the rise in long-term bond yields, financial conditions remain loose overall.
Poor visibility on factors such as the conflict in eastern Europe and the pandemic, especially in China, call for slightly more caution in the short term.
Disclaimer
Any views expressed here are those of the author as of the date of publication, are based on available information, and are subject to change without notice. Individual portfolio management teams may hold different views and may take different investment decisions for different clients. The views expressed in this podcast do not in any way constitute investment advice.
The value of investments and the income they generate may go down as well as up and it is possible that investors will not recover their initial outlay. Past performance is no guarantee for future returns.
Investing in emerging markets, or specialised or restricted sectors is likely to be subject to a higher-than-average volatility due to a high degree of concentration, greater uncertainty because less information is available, there is less liquidity or due to greater sensitivity to changes in market conditions (social, political and economic conditions).
Some emerging markets offer less security than the majority of international developed markets. For this reason, services for portfolio transactions, liquidation and conservation on behalf of funds invested in emerging markets may carry greater risk.
Writen by Investment Insights Centre. The post Equity turmoil in the wake of rising bond yields appeared first on Investors' Corner - The official blog of BNP Paribas Asset Management, the sustainable investor for a changing world.
sp 500 nasdaq emerging markets equities stocks pandemic fed federal reserve currencies us dollar euro testing gdp interest rates japan european europe russia ukraine chinaSpread & Containment
Coronavirus may be linked to cases of severe hepatitis in children
A chain of events possibly triggered by unrecognized infection with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus could be causing the mysterious cases of severe hepatitis…

Coronavirus may be linked to cases of severe hepatitis in children
May 16, 2022; 4:04 PM EDT
Spread & Containment
The Battle For Control Of Your Mind
The Battle For Control Of Your Mind
Authored by Aaron Kheriaty via The Brownstone Institute
In his classic dystopian novel 1984, George…

Authored by Aaron Kheriaty via The Brownstone Institute
In his classic dystopian novel 1984, George Orwell famously wrote, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.” This striking image served as a potent symbol for totalitarianism in the 20th Century. But as Caylan Ford recently observed, with the advent of digital health passports in the emerging biomedical security state, the new symbol of totalitarian repression is “not a boot, but an algorithm in the cloud: emotionless, impervious to appeal, silently shaping the biomass.”
These new digital surveillance and control mechanisms will be no less oppressive for being virtual rather than physical. Contact tracing apps, for example, have proliferated with at least 120 different apps in used in 71 different states, and 60 other digital contact-tracing measures have been used across 38 countries. There is currently no evidence that contact tracing apps or other methods of digital surveillance have helped to slow the spread of covid; but as with so many of our pandemic policies, this does not seem to have deterred their use.
Other advanced technologies were deployed in what one writer has called, with a nod to Orwell, “the stomp reflex,” to describe governments’ propensity to abuse emergency powers. Twenty-two countries used surveillance drones to monitor their populations for covid rule-breakers, others deployed facial recognition technologies, twenty-eight countries used internet censorship and thirteen countries resorted to internet shutdowns to manage populations during covid. A total of thirty-two countries have used militaries or military ordnances to enforce rules, which has included casualties. In Angola, for example, police shot and killed several citizens while imposing a lockdown.
Orwell explored the power of language to shape our thinking, including the power of sloppy or degraded language to distort thought. He articulated these concerns not only in his novels Animal Farm and 1984 but in his classic essay, “Politics and the English Language,” where he argues that “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
The totalitarian regime depicted in 1984 requires citizens to communicate in Newspeak, a carefully controlled language of simplified grammar and restricted vocabulary designed to limit the individual’s ability to think or articulate subversive concepts such as personal identity, self-expression, and free will. With this bastardization of language, complete thoughts are reduced to simple terms conveying only simplistic meaning.
Newspeak eliminates the possibility of nuance, rendering impossible consideration and communication of shades of meaning. The Party also intends with Newspeak’s short words to make speech physically automatic and thereby make speech largely unconscious, which further diminishes the possibility of genuinely critical thought.
In the novel, character Syme discusses his editorial work on the latest edition of the Newspeak Dictionary:
By 2050—earlier, probably—all real knowledge of Oldspeak [standard English] will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron—they’ll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of The Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like Freedom is Slavery when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.
Several terms of disparagement were repeatedly deployed during the pandemic, phrases whose only function was to halt the possibility of critical thought. These included, among others, ‘covid denier,’ ‘anti-vax,’ and ‘conspiracy theorist’. Some commentators will doubtless mischaracterize this book, and particularly this chapter, using these and similar terms—ready-made shortcuts that save critics the trouble of reading the book or critically engaging my evidence or arguments.
A brief comment on each of these may be helpful in illustrating how they function.
The first term, ‘covid denier,’ requires little attention. Those who sling this charge at any critic of our pandemic response recklessly equate covid with the Holocaust, which suggests that antisemitism continues to infect discourse on both the right and the left. We need not detain ourselves with more commentary on this phrase.
The epithet ‘anti-vax,’ deployed to characterize anyone who raises questions about the mass vaccination campaign or the safety and efficacy of covid vaccines, functions similarly as a conversation stopper rather than an accurately descriptive label. When people ask me whether I am anti-vax for challenging vaccine mandates I can only respond that the question makes about as much sense to me as the question, “Dr. Kheriaty, are you ‘pro-medication’ or ‘anti-medication’?” The answer is obviously contingent and nuanced: which medication, for which patient or patient population, under what circumstances, and for what indications? There is clearly no such thing as a medication, or a vaccine for that matter, that’s always good for everyone in every circumstance and all the time.
Regarding the term “conspiracy theorist,” Agamben notes that its indiscriminate deployment “demonstrates a surprising historical ignorance.” For anyone familiar with history knows that the stories historians recount retrace and reconstruct the actions of individuals, groups, and factions working in common purpose to achieve their goals using all available means. He mentions three examples from among thousands in the historical record.
In 415 B.C. Alcibiades deployed his influence and money to convince the Athenians to embark on an expedition to Sicily, a venture that turned out disastrously and marked the end of Athenian supremacy. In retaliation, Alcibiades enemies hired false witnesses and conspired against him to condemn him to death. In 1799 Napoleon Bonaparte violated his oath of fidelity to the Republic’s Constitution, overthrowing the directory in a coup, assumed full powers, and ending the Revolution. Days prior, he had met with co-conspirators to fine-tune their strategy against the anticipated opposition of the Council of Five Hundred.
Closer to our own day, he mentions the March on Rome by 25,000 Italian fascists in October 1922. Leading up to this even, Mussolini prepared the march with three collaborators, initiated contacts with the Prime Minister and powerful figures from the business world (some even maintain that Mussolini secretly met with the King to explore possible allegiances). The fascists rehearsed their occupation of Rome by a military occupation of Ancona two months prior.
Countless other examples, from the murder of Julius Caesar to the Bolshevik revolution, will occur to any student of history. In all these cases, individuals gathering in groups or parties to strategize goals and tactics, anticipate obstacles, then act resolutely to achieve their aims. Agamben acknowledges that this does not mean it is always necessary to aver to ‘conspiracies’ to explain historical events. “But anyone who labelled a historical who tried to reconstruct in detail the plots that triggered such events as a ‘conspiracy theorist’ would most definitely be demonstrating their own ignorance, if not idiocy.”
Anyone who mentioned “The Great Reset” in 2019 was accused of buying into a conspiracy theory—that is, until World Economic Forum founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab published a book in 2020 laying out the WEF agenda with the helpful title,Covid-19: The Great Reset. Following new revelations about the lab leak hypothesis, U.S. funding of gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, vaccine safety issues willfully suppressed, and coordinated media censorship and government smear campaigns against dissident voices, it seems the only difference between a conspiracy theory and credible news was about six months.
* * *
Spread & Containment
World-first study reveals why people with COPD are more susceptible to COVID-19
Researchers from the Centenary Institute and the University of Technology Sydney have published the first study showing why people with chronic obstructive…

Researchers from the Centenary Institute and the University of Technology Sydney have published the first study showing why people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are at higher risk of developing severe COVID-19.
Credit: Centenary Institute
Researchers from the Centenary Institute and the University of Technology Sydney have published the first study showing why people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are at higher risk of developing severe COVID-19.
The findings, reported in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, could lead to the development of new therapeutic interventions that reduce COVID-19 infection in COPD patients.
An inflammatory lung condition, COPD causes airway blockage and makes it difficult to breathe. It affects around 400 million people globally. The increased susceptibility to COVID-19 of COPD patients is still to be fully understood.
In the study, the researchers infected differentiated airway cells from COPD patients and healthy people with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19).
The researchers found that the COPD airway cells had 24-fold greater infection with SARS-CoV-2 than the healthy cells.
“We examined the genetic information of infected cells through advanced single cell RNA-sequencing analysis,” said lead author of the study, Dr Matt Johansen, from the Centenary UTS Centre for Inflammation.
“Seven days after SARS-CoV-2 infection, there was a 24-fold increase of viral load in the COPD patient airway cells compared to the cells taken from healthy individuals.”
Significantly, the team found that the infected COPD cells had increased levels of transmembrane protease serine 2 (TMPRSS2) and cathepsin B (CTSB). Both are enzymes that SARS-CoV-2 uses to enter into the host cell.
“These two enzymes are increased in COPD patients and favour greater SARS-CoV-2 infection compared to healthy people. Simply put, easier and increased cell infection makes it far more likely that individuals with COPD will have more severe disease outcomes,” said Dr Johansen.
Other results from the study showed additional reasons for COPD patient susceptibility to severe COVID-19.
Key anti-viral proteins (interferons) that protect against infection were largely blunted in the COPD patient airway cells. This was a likely trigger in causing increased viral production in COPD patients.
Dr Johansen said that infected COPD patient airway cells also had higher levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, which are linked to more severe COVID-19 and COPD outcomes.
“COPD is an inflammatory disease with patients having increased inflammation at baseline compared to healthy people. It’s highly likely that SARS-CoV-2 exacerbates this existing high inflammation level which leads to even poorer outcomes,” he said.
Initial laboratory drug testing by the researchers, to inhibit the enzymes TMPRSS2 and CTSB, and to target the high inflammation levels, successfully and substantially reduced SARS-CoV-2 viral levels in COPD patient cells, ultimately confirming the study’s results.
“Collectively, these findings have allowed us to understand the mechanisms of increased COVID-19 susceptibility in COPD patients,” said Professor Phil Hansbro, the study’s senior author and Director of the Centenary UTS Centre for Inflammation.
“We believe that new drug treatments targeting relevant enzymes and pro-inflammatory responses in SARS-CoV-2 infection could have excellent therapeutic potential in reducing the severity of COVID-19 in patients with COPD.”
Professor Hansbro said the research was critical with hundreds of millions of people affected by COPD globally and with COVID-19 likely to be around for many years to come.
[ENDS]
Publication:
Increased SARS-CoV-2 Infection, Protease and Inflammatory Responses in COPD Primary Bronchial Epithelial Cells Defined with Single Cell RNA-Sequencing.
https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/10.1164/rccm.202108-1901OC
Images:
Dr Matt Johansen: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Wc5WxHcS1fSWE68Q7xu8jT53Dki2ZBo4/
Professor Phil Hansbro:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GaHOyCjXfSb3hsE_bS-g2Cxs81dEhL4G/
For all media and interview enquiries, please contact
Tony Crawshaw, Media and Communications Manager, Centenary Institute on 0402 770 403 or email: t.crawshaw@centenary.org.au
About the Centenary Institute
The Centenary Institute is a world-leading independent medical research institute, closely affiliated to the University of Sydney and the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Our research focuses on three key areas: cancer, inflammation and cardiovascular disease. Our strength lies in uncovering disease mechanisms and applying this knowledge to improve diagnostics and treatments for patients.
For more information about the Centenary Institute, visit centenary.org.au
About the University of Technology Sydney (UTS)
The University of Technology Sydney (UTS), located in central Sydney, is one of
Australia’s leading universities of technology. It is known for fusing innovation, creativity
and technology in its teaching and research and for being an industry-focused university.
For more information go to uts.edu.au
Journal
American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine
DOI
10.1164/rccm.202108-1901OC
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
Cells
Article Title
Increased SARS-CoV-2 infection, protease and inflammatory responses in COPD primary bronchial epithelial cells defined with single cell RNA-sequencing
Article Publication Date
12-May-2022
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