Hey Musk and Ellison, are you two dudes moving out of Texas and back to California where the weather is nice and the lights are on? Perhaps paying a bit in taxes to keep the lights on – not such a bad idea.

 Today's front page of the NY Daily News

 By kaltoons

 Quick Overview  is up to date.

 Trump acquitted  .. Sad! Tragic!

" The President was guilty of everything he was accused of...which is why I voted to acquit" Jon Stewart

 Persistent 50-year decline in wages. Share of GDP.

 Notes Today: 

• It seems that the attempted Silver short squeeze by the Reddit crowd has at least temporarily failed. Yet, rising demand as the economy picks up steam may drive prices higher in the long run.

 

• QuickOverview is up to date. 

• Guardian: The volume of exports going through British ports to the EU fell by a staggering 68% last month compared with January last year, mostly as a result of problems caused by Brexit.

•  Bloomberg: Commodities have been on a tear since March and have surged to the highest level in more than six years, with rallies in everything from iron ore to soybeans, copper, and corn. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Ospraie Management LLC are among institutions that have endorsed raw materials as investment plays and predict they have more room to climb.

Notes Today: 

• Adjusting for the people that have dropped out of the labor force, by choice or obligation, the unemployment rate is around 9.5%,” estimated lead U.S. economist Lydia Boussour of Oxford Economics. 

• Consumer credit in the United States increased by $9.73 billion in December of 2020 after rising by a downwardly revised $13.93 billion in the previous month, 

• Bloomberg: By the end of last year, more than 30% of U.S. homeowners were considered equity-rich -- meaning their property was worth twice as much as the underlying mortgage, a report showed. 

• Exxon Mobil posted its first annual loss in at least 40 years. 

• South Korea returned to first place in the latest Bloomberg Innovation Index, while the U.S. dropped out of a top 10 that features a cluster of European countries
  
  
  

 

 

• Guardian: The Texas Republican party has endorsed legislation that would allow state residents to vote whether to secede from the United States.

• President Biden is supposedly on pace to save the U.S.  $124m this year by just not golfing. 

Fox has canceled “Lou Dobbs Tonight” one day after the host was named in a multibillion dollar defamation lawsuit against the network and its parent company.👍😂

Silver is starting the week higher as the reddit crowd piles in. Dealers said they were unable to process orders until Asian markets open because of unprecedented consumption.

 How much you'll need to earn before you purchase a home.

 US Corn sales (via Thomas Elder Markets)

USDA: Global orange production for 2020/21 is forecast to rise 3.6 million metric tons (tons) from the previous year to 49.4 million as favorable weather leads to larger crops in Brazil and Mexico, offsetting declines in Turkey and the United States. Consequently, consumption, fruit for processing, and fresh exports are also forecast higher.

The ICE and cotton:

Effective with the start of trading for trade date Friday, January 29, 2021, the Daily Price Limit for all Cotton No. 2 futures contract delivery months will revert to 3 cents per pound (300 points) above and below the prior day Settlement Price for the respective delivery month. 

Effective with the start of trading for Monday, February 1, 2021, the Daily Price Limit for all Cotton No. 2 futures contract delivery months per pound (400 points) above and below the prior day Settlement Price for the respective delivery month.

 

Compensation in private industry and state and local government, 3-month percent change:

It's maybe only a matter of time before the WallStreetBets crowd come after the soybean and corn market. The thing is: corn and soybeans may have a bullish story backing things up.  
For solid fundamental analysis listen to Steve Freed of ADM.

 Notes Today: 

• The Fed left interest rate unchanged and stuck with the current pace of bond-buying. 

• Gold is having its worst January performance since 2011. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Fed's Powell: Don't blame us for GameStop frenzy.

  

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• Bloomberg: WallStreetBets, fueling a frenzy of retail trading, briefly turned itself off to new users Wednesday after a deluge of new participants raised concerns about its ability to moderate content, a notice on the website said. 

• Bloomberg: The world’s first exchange-traded fund solely for psychedelic-drug companies will debut this week in Toronto, a reflection of the investment industry’s desire to capitalize on rising interest in prospective mental health treatments using the drugs. The Horizons Psychedelic Stock Index ETF, listed as PSYK, is expected to start trading Wednesday on the NEO Exchange. 

• Australia says “inevitable” that Google will have to pay for news. 

• Oklahoma wants to return its $2 Million Stockpile of Hydroxychloroquine. The state bought over a million pills last year after Trump pushed, with 0 evidence, the use of the drug as a COVID-19 treatment. 

• Remarkably busy with alternate history - Deborah Birx saw the president presenting graphs she never made.

• New Zealand said it would likely keep its borders closed to the world through most of 2021.

• Robert Reich: Spare me the Republican party’s fake outrage about the deficit. The GOP’s tax cut for the rich added $1,900,000,000,000 to the debt. When billionaires and corporations are getting a payout, the GOP couldn’t care less about the national debt.

• Unilever (UL):The uses of this unique technology are almost limitless,” says Unilever’s Vice President for Science & Technology, Unilever Homecare, Dr Jon Hague, including tackling some of the biggest societal and environmental challenges of the 21st century where microbial biofilms are commonplace.

 

 

Quick Overview is up to date 

Notes Today: 

• Market Watch: China overtook the U.S. as the world’s top destination for new foreign direct investment last year, as the COVID-19 pandemic amplifies an eastward shift in the center of gravity of the global economy.
• New investments by overseas businesses into the U.S., which for decades held the No. 1 spot, fell 49% in 2020, according to U.N. figures released Sunday, as the country struggled to curb the spread of the new coronavirus and economic output slumped.
• China, long ranked No. 2, saw direct investments by foreign companies climb 4%, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development said. Beijing used strict lockdowns to largely contain COVID-19 after the disease first emerged in a central Chinese city, and China’s gross domestic product grew even as most other major economies contracted last year.

• The notable drop-off in Chinese iron ore demand may be behind AUD’s recent bit of weakness.
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• The IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI for the US jumped to 59.1 in January of 2021 from 58.3 in December and well above market forecasts of 56.5.

• Sales of previously owned houses in the US rose 0.7% MoM to 6.76 million units in December of 2020, beating market forecasts of 6.55 million. The median existing-home price was $309,800, up 12.9% YoY

• Bloomberg: “I have received calls from every building with Trump on it in the city trying to get it removed,” Bailey said. “Over time in New York, Donald Trump has not been very popular and New York is about money, so having Trump’s name on the building reduces its value.” 

• Bloomberg: Trump’s campaign paid more than $2.7million over two years to individuals and firms that organized the Jan. 6 rally that led to rioters storming the U.S. Capitol, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. 

• AT&T gains on report of talks to sell minority DirecTV stake to TPG. T is reporting Wednesday morning. (I enjoyed HBO Max the Flight Attendant)
  
  
  

• A hacker hacked sensitive information from Intel’s website, prompting the company to report the numbers earlier than planned. Hopefully Pat Gelsinger can get INTC’s act together – I’m expecting the answer to be yes. 
  
  
  

•  MoM Retail sales in Australia fell 4.2% 

• Japan Manufacturing PMI fell to 49.7 In December. 

• New Zealand inflation running at 1.4% currently. 

• (MW) Biden’s plan to make community college free and four-year public college tuition-free for students from households earning $125,000 or less would increase Americans’ disposable income by $61 billion, according to an analysis published this week by the Campaign for Free College Tuition and Rise, an advocacy organization focused on college affordability and other youth and student issues. 

The best first-day reaction to an elected president’s inauguration since Jan. 20 became the official start in 1937. (Bloomberg)