Interesting Margin Debt  Change from yardeni

This week, the Bloomberg Agriculture Spot Index — which tracks key farm products — surged the most in almost nine years, driven by a rally in crop futures. 

 However if CPI  adjusted things look a bit different.

 Quick Overview is up to date

Gone fishing

Notes today:

• China's exports climbing more than 30% YoY adding to signs that the global economic recovery is progressing well. 

• In March, the CPI for All Urban Consumers rose 0.6 % on a seasonally adjusted basis, rising 2.6 % over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. The index for all items less food and energy increased 0.3 % in March (SA); up 1.6 % over the year (NSA). 
  
  
  

• Real average hourly earnings for all employees decreased 0.8 % over the month in March 

• Amazon supports a hike in the U.S. corporate tax rate as part of an infrastructure overhaul, CEO Jeff Bezos said, after facing withering criticism from the White House, Congress and on social media.

• 6.8m+ doses of the J&J vaccine have been administered in the U.S. CDC & FDA are reviewing data involving 6 reported U.S. blood clot cases. So the  risk from the J&J vaccine is 1 in 1,000,000.

• “If you're wondering why people are still receiving Christmas cards in April, the answer is Louis DeJoy.”

 

Looking at the parabolic rise of lumber I suppose the market thinks that  there are not enough houses for sale. 

Btw, Invitation Homes (INVH a Blackstone offshoot REIT) owns a little over 80,000 single-family rentals. (weekly chart below)

 US trade deficit at record.

 Saturday Night Music

 

Quick Overview is up to date

 Latest Buffett Indicator. Could  GDP catch up?

 Guess which one gets a TRILLION

The CME plans to launch a futures contract for lithium, seeking to capitalize on growing demand for a metal that helps to power electric vehicles.

The contract will be for lithium hydroxide delivered to China, South Korea and Japan, where most batteries globally are produced, CME said Thursday. If the futures contract is approved by regulators, it will begin trading on May 3.

Google Quad Campus sits atop one such site; for several months in 2012 and 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found employees of the company were inhaling unsafe levels of TCE in the form of toxic vapor rising up from the ground beneath their offices.

While 10 Year Notes have gone up the Dow Jones is still undervalued by some $21,000. Explanation here.

 

Notes today:

• World finance chiefs agree on Wednesday to boost reserves at the International Monetary Fund by $650 billion and extend a freeze on developing countries’ debt servicing to help them deal with the coronavirus. 

• Germany and France welcomed a promise by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to work on a global corporate minimum tax rate as a step towards making a landmark deal achievable, but low-tax Ireland voiced reservations. 

• Bloomberg: Expanding on the tax proposals released last week in President Joe Biden’s $2.25 trillion economic package, the Treasury said the changes, over a decade, would bring back about $2trillion in corporate profits into the U.S. tax net, with about $700 billion in federal revenue streaming in from ending incentives to shift profits overseas.

The electricity usage of bitcoin is now above that of Sweden. 

China is pinned to generate 130.5 million metric tons of carbon emissions by 2024 from mining bitcoin

(One more Tulip that's  not sustainable!)

Notes today: 

• The people of Greenland have voted to oust a government that was planning to welcome foreign companies eager to tap the island’s rare-earth metals.

• New York approves online sports betting.

• McConnell warns corporate America to stay out of politics but adds that he is not talking about political contributions. 

• Coronavirus latest: California targets full reopening of economy by mid-June. 

• The International Monetary Fund raised its 2021 growth forecast from 5.5% to 6%, a rate unseen since the 1970s. 

• German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz welcomed a pledge by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to work on a global corporate minimum tax rate, adding that a deal among more than 140 countries could be possible by summer.

• Alexei Navalny jokes TB would be a relief as he is moved to sick ward.
• 
  
  Meanwhile, Ruble not doing so hot. Moving trains with 240 mm mortars and tanks etc. to either Crimea or Donbass may not help much either. 
  
  
  

Notes today: 

• Bill Browder  @Billbrowder
• BREAKING: Alexei Navalny moved to prison hospital with severe respiratory infection. This is the next step in Putin’s slow motion assassination of him. Now that Navalny’s in their custody they can continue this  without anyone ever knowing what’s happening.

• 
  The total market value of cryptocurrencies pushed past $2 trillion for the first time, after doubling in about two months. Come get your Tulips! Tulips, fresh beautiful tulips here! -- To the MOON. 
  

• Bloomberg: Because of swaps, people learned that Bill Hwang exists and was worth $20 billion at the exact moment they learned he lost it al. (Very funny - Bloomberg humor - I suppose) 

• FT: The same identity politics that Boris Johnson used so effectively in the 2016 Brexit referendum is now fuelling calls for Scottish independence: a desire for self-determination, a distrust of a distant ruling elite, and a clamour for 'control'. 

• The Texas Rangers are playing in front of a sold-out crowd of 40,000 today for its home opener. If sold-out this will be the largest attended event in the country since the COVID pandemic began. So, I suppose no need to worry about covid in Texas. Fourth wave? what’s that? 

 

Soybean Oil has been above its 50-day exponential moving average for over 150 days. See chart below. The fat  yellow line is the 50 day EAV, the other two are 5 and 20.

On the long term chart below the red line is a 200 day exponential average