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Futures Hit New All Time High As Santa Rally Drags Everything Higher

Futures Hit New All Time High As Santa Rally Drags Everything Higher

The Santa rally, which made an expected appearance during yesterday thinly-traded session now that most desks have closed their books for the year pushing stocks to their…

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2 years ago

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Futures Hit New All Time High As Santa Rally Drags Everything Higher

The Santa rally, which made an expected appearance during yesterday thinly-traded session now that most desks have closed their books for the year pushing stocks to their 69th all-time high for 2021, is back (as discussed in "Goldman: There Has Been No FOMO In Late 2021, This Changes In 5 Trading Sessions") amid a combination of low volume, delta-chasing, dealer gamma and a plain old short squeeze (as predicted correctly by Marko Kolanovic), and has pushed e-minis just shy of 4,800 this morning, and a little over 200 points away from the 2022 year-end targets by both JPM and Goldman. Stocks in Europe advanced along with US equity futures as traders evaluated the resilience of the global recovery to a record spike in coronavirus cases. 10-year Treasury yields and the dollar were little changed. Oil surged to a five-week peak, while iron ore futures extended a decline after data showed softening Chinese steel output. Bitcoin tumbled following fresh selling out of Asia, where the PBOC seems to have a death wish against the cryptocurrency.

As Bloomberg notes, global stocks are on course for a third year of double-digit returns, powered by trillions in liquidity from the Fed and other central banks. The climb has overcome coronavirus waves and a late-year shift by some key central banks toward tighter monetary policy to fight high inflation (it also explains why most of the gains were achieved early in the year). Concerns remain that those variables could spur heightened volatility.

“The remedies that we put in place to counter the Covid recessions, they were so substantial, we had massive stimulus,” Sandip Bhagat, chief investment officer of Whittier Trust, said on Bloomberg Television. “We’ll be left with a legacy of those policy responses well into the future” and stocks can continue advancing, he said.

Here are some of the biggest U.S. movers today:

  • Apple (AAPL US) shares are up 0.3%, with the stock now just about 1% shy of hitting a historic $3 trillion market valuation for the iPhone maker. The shares are on track for a fifth straight gain.
  • ADDvantage Technologies Group (AEY) shares jump 9% after the communications infrastructure company reported a 61% increase in revenue during the fourth quarter.
  • Arrival SA (ARVL) gains 2.4% after the electric-vehicle company announced that it has started trials of the Arrival Bus at a testing facility in the U.K.
  • Bit Digital (BTBT) falls 3%, down with other crypto stocks as Bitcoin tumbles back below the $50,000 level.
  • Clear Secure (YOU) rises 3% after Grasso Global CEO Steve Grasso said last night on CNBC’s “Fast Money” that shares “should be up another 30% from current levels.”
  • Flotek Industries (FTK) rallies 46% after the company said it received an unsolicited indication of interest for all or part of the environmental solutions company.
  • JinkoSolar Holding Co. (JKS), controlling shareholder of Jinko Solar, shares are up 3% after the China Securities Regulatory Commission allows Jinko Solar to list on the Star board in Shanghai.
  • Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals (KNSA) shares plunge 16% after the company said its phase 3 trial of mavrilimumab in COVID-19-related acute respiratory syndrome did not meet the primary efficacy endpoint.
  • LiveOne  (LVO) shares rises 21% after the company entered into a binding letter of intent for an exclusive option to purchase Trader2b’s business or its assets and operations.
  • Tesla (TSLA) shares rise 1.6% as Wedbush says the company is in a strong position heading into 2022. China demand is key for bull thesis on Tesla, analyst Daniel Ives writes.

Elsewhere, cryptocurrency-linked stocks fell in premarket trading as Bitcoin tumbled back below the $50,000 level as the now traditional selling pressure out of Asia emerged right on schedule (see "The Crypto Trading Cycle: Asian Weak Hands Selling To US Whales"). Bitcoin fell as much as 4.5% and trades at $49,167 as of 6:35 a.m. in New York. o    Other digital currencies are also lower this morning, with Ether falling 3.5%, while Litecoin slips 4% and Monero drops 3.8%.

Overnight, a flood of omicron infections took global Covid-19 cases to a daily all-time high on Monday. The surge has disrupted global reopening and could squeeze hospitals. At the same time, investors are taking comfort that while highly contagious, Omicron is a far less severe illness. Meanwhile, France announced it would force its citizens to work from home for most of next month to contain the spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant. Meanwhile, an outbreak in the western Chinese city of Xi’an continued to fester, with new cases hitting a record high days after its 13 million residents were locked down. The U.K. government won’t introduce stricter restrictions in England before the end of the year, despite the rapid spread of the omicron variant.

In Europe, the Stoxx Europe 600 index nudged closer to last month’s record high, with utilities leading the advance as all industry sectors gained while French travel and catering stocks dropped on the country's new work-from-home order. Pierre & Vacances, an operator of holiday villages and residences, drops 1.8% in Paris trading, while tour operator Voyageurs du Monde falls 1% after the French government announced new measures amid efforts to contain the spread of the omicron variant.

Earlier in the session, Asian stocks climbed, following a rise in U.S. peers to fresh record highs, as investors’ risk appetite improved.  The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose as much as 0.8%, driven by an advance in hardware technology firms. Japan led gains around the region, while Hong Kong underperformed. Australia and New Zealand remained shut for holidays. The key Asian stock gauge is on course for a monthly advance of about 1.9%, which would be its best since August. Positive economic data and easing worries over the omicron coronavirus variant have helped of late, although the measure is still down 3.3% on the year amid the selloff in Chinese tech giants. “U.S. equities are so strong that investors here can’t help but pick up stocks and chase the rally amid fear of being left behind,” said Ayako Sera, a market strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank in Tokyo. “But it’s not as if there are loads of new reasons to buy stocks now, so some caution is needed.” The S&P 500 Index posted its 69th record close for 2021 on optimism stocks can withstand risks from the coronavirus and tighter policy. TSMC and Tokyo Electron were among the top contributors to the Asian benchmark’s rise Tuesday after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rallied 2.7% to an all-time high.  “U.S. yields are strangely stable,” Sera added. “It may be that some are looking way ahead and thinking that not too many hikes will be required down the road” thanks to the swift rate increases expected from the New Year, she said. 

The latest escalation in Beijing’s wider regulatory clampdown on private industry casts more doubt over the prospects for overseas initial public offerings, which had proceeded virtually unchecked for two decades.

Meanwhile, the People’s Bank of China -- which on the weekend vowed more economic support -- boosted a short-term liquidity injection.  

India’s benchmark stock gauge advanced for a second day, tracking regional peers after the S&P 500 climbed to a record high. The S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.8% to 57,897.48 in Mumbai, while the NSE Nifty 50 Index increased 0.9%. All 19 sectoral sub-gauges compiled by BSE Ltd. gained, led by a measure of capital goods companies. Asian Paints Ltd. contributed the most to the Sensex’s gain, increasing as much as 2.9%. Out of 30 shares in the Sensex index, 28 rose and two fell. Most regional markets advanced as investors’ risk appetite improved. India’s economy expanded at a steady pace in November, a month that also saw the omicron virus variant raising fresh concerns about risks to the recovery, according to data tracked by Bloomberg News.

In FX, the yen steadied close to the 115 level against the dollar while Japanese stocks climbed. Turkey’s lira declined after the central bank introduced new measures to discourage lenders from holding foreign-exchange savings accounts, while two former governors of the monetary authority were subjected to criminal complaints over comments.

Bitcoin slid below $50,000, a level some analysts view as a key pivot for assessing the largest cryptocurrency’s outlook heading into 2022

In rates, bonds were little changed after low liquidity resulted in no trading of the benchmark 10-year issue yesterday. Treasury yields were slightly higher on the day amid gains for European stocks and U.S. futures, and $57BN 5-year note auction ahead at 1pm ET. Yields are higher by as much as 1bp across the curve after declining slightly during Asia session; U.K. bond market is closed.  Monday’s 2-year sale tailed slightly, and last month’s 5-year drew weak demand following a spate of extreme volatility in the sector that continued through mid-December as Fed policy evolved.

The yield on China’s 10-year sovereign bonds declined to the lowest level since June 2020, as interbank borrowing costs fell after the central bank boosted short-term liquidity. China is seen adding stimulus to stabilize growth next year, with various ministries vowing more proactive measures to reverse the slowdown caused by a worsening property slump, weak consumption and the coronavirus.

On today's calendar, expected data includes October FHFA house price index and S&P CoreLogic CS home prices at 9am, and December Richmond Fed manufacturing index at 10am; no Fed speakers slated this week. Poultry producer Cal-Maine Foods is scheduled to report earnings.

Market Snapshot

  • S&P 500 futures up 0.3% to 4,796.75
  • STOXX Europe 600 up 0.5%
  • MXAP up 0.8% to 193.35
  • MXAPJ up 0.5% to 627.48
  • Nikkei up 1.4% to 29,069.16
  • Topix up 1.4% to 2,005.02
  • Hang Seng Index up 0.2% to 23,280.56
  • Shanghai Composite up 0.4% to 3,630.11
  • Sensex up 0.8% to 57,904.60
  • Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 0.4% to 7,420.30
  • Kospi up 0.7% to 3,020.24
  • Brent futures up 0.8% to $79.19/bbl
  • Gold spot up 0.1% to $1,814.36
  • U.S. Dollar Index little changed at 96.05
  • German 10Y yield up 1bp to -0.23%
  • Euro little changed at $1.133

Top Overnight News from Bloomberg

  • Global Covid-19 cases hit a daily record on Monday, disrupting the holiday season a year after vaccines first started rolling out and two years after the emergence of the virus
  • Russia will start talks first with the U.S. on its demands for guarantees of an end to NATO’s eastward expansion before a proposed Jan. 12 meeting between the military alliance and Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said
  • The vast majority of Libor benchmarks are about to be consigned to the history books, with final settings taking place at the end of this week

US Event Calendar

  • 9am: Oct. FHFA House Price Index MoM, est. 0.9%, prior 0.9%
  • 10am: Dec. Richmond Fed Index, est. 11, prior 11
Tyler Durden Tue, 12/28/2021 - 08:12

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate…

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4 hours ago

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March 9, 2024

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate iron levels in their blood due to a COVID-19 infection could be at greater risk of long COVID.

(Shutterstock)

A new study indicates that problems with iron levels in the bloodstream likely trigger chronic inflammation and other conditions associated with the post-COVID phenomenon. The findings, published on March 1 in Nature Immunology, could offer new ways to treat or prevent the condition.

Long COVID Patients Have Low Iron Levels

Researchers at the University of Cambridge pinpointed low iron as a potential link to long-COVID symptoms thanks to a study they initiated shortly after the start of the pandemic. They recruited people who tested positive for the virus to provide blood samples for analysis over a year, which allowed the researchers to look for post-infection changes in the blood. The researchers looked at 214 samples and found that 45 percent of patients reported symptoms of long COVID that lasted between three and 10 months.

In analyzing the blood samples, the research team noticed that people experiencing long COVID had low iron levels, contributing to anemia and low red blood cell production, just two weeks after they were diagnosed with COVID-19. This was true for patients regardless of age, sex, or the initial severity of their infection.

According to one of the study co-authors, the removal of iron from the bloodstream is a natural process and defense mechanism of the body.

But it can jeopardize a person’s recovery.

“When the body has an infection, it responds by removing iron from the bloodstream. This protects us from potentially lethal bacteria that capture the iron in the bloodstream and grow rapidly. It’s an evolutionary response that redistributes iron in the body, and the blood plasma becomes an iron desert,” University of Oxford professor Hal Drakesmith said in a press release. “However, if this goes on for a long time, there is less iron for red blood cells, so oxygen is transported less efficiently affecting metabolism and energy production, and for white blood cells, which need iron to work properly. The protective mechanism ends up becoming a problem.”

The research team believes that consistently low iron levels could explain why individuals with long COVID continue to experience fatigue and difficulty exercising. As such, the researchers suggested iron supplementation to help regulate and prevent the often debilitating symptoms associated with long COVID.

“It isn’t necessarily the case that individuals don’t have enough iron in their body, it’s just that it’s trapped in the wrong place,” Aimee Hanson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge who worked on the study, said in the press release. “What we need is a way to remobilize the iron and pull it back into the bloodstream, where it becomes more useful to the red blood cells.”

The research team pointed out that iron supplementation isn’t always straightforward. Achieving the right level of iron varies from person to person. Too much iron can cause stomach issues, ranging from constipation, nausea, and abdominal pain to gastritis and gastric lesions.

1 in 5 Still Affected by Long COVID

COVID-19 has affected nearly 40 percent of Americans, with one in five of those still suffering from symptoms of long COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Long COVID is marked by health issues that continue at least four weeks after an individual was initially diagnosed with COVID-19. Symptoms can last for days, weeks, months, or years and may include fatigue, cough or chest pain, headache, brain fog, depression or anxiety, digestive issues, and joint or muscle pain.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 12:50

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February Employment Situation

By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000…

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5 hours ago

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March 9, 2024

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By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert

The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000 average over the previous 12 months. The payroll data for January and December were revised down by a total of 167,000. The private sector added 223,000 new jobs, the largest gain since May of last year.

Temporary help services employment continues a steep decline after a sharp post-pandemic rise.

Average hours of work increased from 34.2 to 34.3. The increase, along with the 223,000 private employment increase led to a hefty increase in total hours of 5.6% at an annualized rate, also the largest increase since May of last year.

The establishment report, once again, beat “expectations;” the WSJ survey of economists was 198,000. Other than the downward revisions, mentioned above, another bit of negative news was a smallish increase in wage growth, from $34.52 to $34.57.

The household survey shows that the labor force increased 150,000, a drop in employment of 184,000 and an increase in the number of unemployed persons of 334,000. The labor force participation rate held steady at 62.5, the employment to population ratio decreased from 60.2 to 60.1 and the unemployment rate increased from 3.66 to 3.86. Remember that the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed relative to the labor force (the number employed plus the number unemployed). Consequently, the unemployment rate can go up if the number of unemployed rises holding fixed the labor force, or if the labor force shrinks holding the number unemployed unchanged. An increase in the unemployment rate is not necessarily a bad thing: it may reflect a strong labor market drawing “marginally attached” individuals from outside the labor force. Indeed, there was a 96,000 decline in those workers.

Earlier in the week, the BLS announced JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) data for January. There isn’t much to report here as the job openings changed little at 8.9 million, the number of hires and total separations were little changed at 5.7 million and 5.3 million, respectively.

As has been the case for the last couple of years, the number of job openings remains higher than the number of unemployed persons.

Also earlier in the week the BLS announced that productivity increased 3.2% in the 4th quarter with output rising 3.5% and hours of work rising 0.3%.

The bottom line is that the labor market continues its surprisingly (to some) strong performance, once again proving stronger than many had expected. This strength makes it difficult to justify any interest rate cuts soon, particularly given the recent inflation spike.

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Spread & Containment

Another beloved brewery files Chapter 11 bankruptcy

The beer industry has been devastated by covid, changing tastes, and maybe fallout from the Bud Light scandal.

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6 hours ago

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March 9, 2024

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Before the covid pandemic, craft beer was having a moment. Most cities had multiple breweries and taprooms with some having so many that people put together the brewery version of a pub crawl.

It was a period where beer snobbery ruled the day and it was not uncommon to hear bar patrons discuss the makeup of the beer the beer they were drinking. This boom period always seemed destined for failure, or at least a retraction as many markets seemed to have more craft breweries than they could support.

Related: Fast-food chain closes more stores after Chapter 11 bankruptcy

The pandemic, however, hastened that downfall. Many of these local and regional craft breweries counted on in-person sales to drive their business. 

And while many had local and regional distribution, selling through a third party comes with much lower margins. Direct sales drove their business and the pandemic forced many breweries to shut down their taprooms during the period where social distancing rules were in effect.

During those months the breweries still had rent and employees to pay while little money was coming in. That led to a number of popular beermakers including San Francisco's nationally-known Anchor Brewing as well as many regional favorites including Chicago’s Metropolitan Brewing, New Jersey’s Flying Fish, Denver’s Joyride Brewing, Tampa’s Zydeco Brew Werks, and Cleveland’s Terrestrial Brewing filing bankruptcy.

Some of these brands hope to survive, but others, including Anchor Brewing, fell into Chapter 7 liquidation. Now, another domino has fallen as a popular regional brewery has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Overall beer sales have fallen.

Image source: Shutterstock

Covid is not the only reason for brewery bankruptcies

While covid deserves some of the blame for brewery failures, it's not the only reason why so many have filed for bankruptcy protection. Overall beer sales have fallen driven by younger people embracing non-alcoholic cocktails, and the rise in popularity of non-beer alcoholic offerings,

Beer sales have fallen to their lowest levels since 1999 and some industry analysts

"Sales declined by more than 5% in the first nine months of the year, dragged down not only by the backlash and boycotts against Anheuser-Busch-owned Bud Light but the changing habits of younger drinkers," according to data from Beer Marketer’s Insights published by the New York Post.

Bud Light parent Anheuser Busch InBev (BUD) faced massive boycotts after it partnered with transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney. It was a very small partnership but it led to a right-wing backlash spurred on by Kid Rock, who posted a video on social media where he chastised the company before shooting up cases of Bud Light with an automatic weapon.

Another brewery files Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Gizmo Brew Works, which does business under the name Roth Brewing Company LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 8. In its filing, the company checked the box that indicates that its debts are less than $7.5 million and it chooses to proceed under Subchapter V of Chapter 11. 

"Both small business and subchapter V cases are treated differently than a traditional chapter 11 case primarily due to accelerated deadlines and the speed with which the plan is confirmed," USCourts.gov explained. 

Roth Brewing/Gizmo Brew Works shared that it has 50-99 creditors and assets $100,000 and $500,000. The filing noted that the company does expect to have funds available for unsecured creditors. 

The popular brewery operates three taprooms and sells its beer to go at those locations.

"Join us at Gizmo Brew Works Craft Brewery and Taprooms located in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Find us for entertainment, live music, food trucks, beer specials, and most importantly, great-tasting craft beer by Gizmo Brew Works," the company shared on its website.

The company estimates that it has between $1 and $10 million in liabilities (a broad range as the bankruptcy form does not provide a space to be more specific).

Gizmo Brew Works/Roth Brewing did not share a reorganization or funding plan in its bankruptcy filing. An email request for comment sent through the company's contact page was not immediately returned.

 

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