Gone Fishing

Notes Today:

• Toyota has no plans to leave the Russian market and close its plant.

• Owners Fear Planes ‘Are Gone Forever’ After Russia Shields Them From Seizure

• Amazon intends to boost its outstanding shares by a 20-to-1 ratio, under a plan disclosed late Wednesday. (makes selling covered puts more accessible – about time)

• Providers of virtual private networks, or VPNs, are recording a surge in usage from Russia after the Kremlin cracked down on Facebook and other services as part of a broader effort to silence dissent and limit information about its invasion of Ukraine.

• Germany's benchmark index Dax gains more than 1,000 points for 1st time ever in historic move on hopes for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine war.

• Fitch downgrades Russia’s credit rating and says default is ‘imminent’

• WP: Chernobyl nuclear plant disconnected from power grid, creating an ‘extremely dangerous situation’

 

AT&T breaks pledge, directly donates to Republican objectors Almost immediately, AT&T began creating loopholes to this commitment and started funneling money indirectly to Republican objectors. A little more than a year later, according to new FEC filings, the company has dropped all pretenses.

Autocracy Is a Bad Investment

Russia, China highlight the need to consider 'regime risk.'

Investors were quite undeterred by the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi or Chinas treatment of the Uyghurs etc. -  Russia however  is quite the wake-up call.

 And Palm Oil is marching along

 

Quick Overview is up to date

 Nickel Price

Notes Today:

• Putin’s propaganda master arrested in NY: Dual U.S. / Russian National Charged With Acting Illegally As A Russian Agent In The United States | USAO-SDNY | Department of Justice justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/d…

• Putin banning commodities exports to the US and its allies. The list of commodities & countries is to be published within 2 days. 
• Wheat bouncing all over the place..

• Poland to supply MiG planes to Ukraine

• The president of the European Parliament: "Putin does not equal Russia. For us, Russia is that of Navalny, Nemtsov and Magnitsky."

• 10 degrees F above normal is Siberia this past month.

• Ferrari and Lamborghini suspend production of cars for Russia – now that will really hurt.

• 800 McDonalds closing in Russia

• L'Oreal will temporarily close its offline and online stores in Russia

Russian joke of the day: Every time our Pinocchio lies, his table gets longer

The U.S. considers banning imports of Russian oil.

Given the atrocities being committed against Ukraine it is hard to see such actions not being imposed.

 Price Of Coal

Narcissism in a Nuclear World

Evolution has programmed narcissists to go only so far.

As destructive as narcissism is in almost all cases, there are some upsides to its existence. Indeed, the field of evolutionary psychology dictates that if narcissism had not produced some survival and reproduction advantages to our ancestors, it would have been weeded out by natural selection long ago. While not excusing or diminishing the abomination of bloodshed caused by narcissists, in our nuclear era one comfort we can take is that their traits may at least prevent an all-out world war from erupting.

Notes Today:

 

• 
  

• Wheat is up 7% and Crude is up 6%

• Hacking group Anonymous interrupts Russian state TV programs with footage of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and an anti-war message.
• It claims to have accessed TV channels “Russia 24”, “Channel 1”, “Moscow 24”, & streaming services Wink and Ivi

• Antony Blinken: The U.S. has given the “green light” to NATO countries if they choose to provide fighter jets to #Ukraine️.

• American Express suspends all operations in Russia

• TikTok: In light of Russia's new ‘fake news’ law, we have no choice but to suspend livestreaming and new content to our video service while we review the safety implications of this law. Our in-app messaging service will not be affected. 

• The Danish Prime Minister and a coalition of parties just announced that... The country will make itself independent from Russian gas. Defense spendings will be increased to 2 % of GDP. 

• Rosneft failed to make its $2 billion bond repayment today, while Gazprom is due to make similar payments tomorrow in the amount of $1.3 billion

Definition of Tyranny...(KAL)

Artist: @adamzyglis

Notes Today:

•  When reason prevails in Russia, Putin is lost.

• Visa and Mastercard will both suspend operations in Russia (Guardian) 

• It’s sickening to see how one deranged man can cause so much pain and suffering—and to think how many Americans empowered him with their adoration. @StevenBeschloss

•            The Kyiv Independent  @KyivIndependent⚡️Mariupol Mayor: Russia blockades city, denies humanitarian corridor. According to Mayor Vadym Boychenko, the city has been left without water and electricity, while 400,000 city residents are held hostage by the Russians.

Heating Oil

 NYSE Volume Advance Decline Line

 NYSE Advace  Decline Line

Copper Point & Figure Chart

Wheat in 3 charts: Ukraine War continues to add risk premium to World wheat prices. There remains concern that 12-14 mmt of Russia wheat and 5 mmt of EU wheat may not get shipped. Reuters: 

• Reuters: China's ag minister says winter wheat condition could be worst in history.

Wheat long term 

Wheat CPI adjusted

 

Quick Overview is up to date

Notes Today:

 

• Reuters: China's ag minister says winter wheat condition could be worst in history

• Bellingcat investigator Christo Grozev says that Russia has resources left for the war until Sunday, after which they will collapse. 

• Microsoft suspends all new sales of Microsoft products and services in Russia. 

• Samsung suspends shipments of phones, chips to Russia. Samsung has more of Russia’s smartphone market than Apple (also suspended) 

• How about Coca Cola, McDonalds, Pepsi, Estee Lauder, Mondelez, Kimberly-Clark   etc., etc.! 

• Russia has banned Facebook / restrictions on Twitter.
• PayPal stops working in Russia

• The Metropolitan Opera, soprano Anna Netrebko will not be performing this year due to her support for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Met made several attempts to convince Netrebko, who has made statements critical of the war, to rebuke Putin but failed to persuade the singer.

And Putin's Ruble crashing right along

The end of the Putin delusion

 "A picture is worth a thousand words" 

"huddling" with officials..

 The Ruble crash continues

Notes Today: 

 

• Bank of Russia raises key rate to 20% from 9.5% in emergency measure.
• Russia bans foreign clients from selling their securities, effective immediately - TASS 
• Moscow  Stock Exchange won't open as scheduled..

• Reuters reports that the Bank of China's Singapore division has 'stopped financing deals involving Russian oil and Russian companies

• Rapid change in Germany! Decades of security policy changed in a day, and now seriously considering extension of nuclear power plants. 

• Swiss President Ignazio Cassis says it's "very probable" that Switzerland will follow the European Union on Monday in sanctioning Russia and freezing Russian assets.  

• EU shuts down airspace to Russia 

• BP to offload 20% stake in Rosneft 

• EU  imposes sanctions on Belarus, bans petroleum imports, sharing technologies. 

• Brazil’s Bolsonaro won’t condemn Putin.

• Russian Forex Reserves (Probably quite useless because of sanctions)

Where is Russia's Money?

Russia, like the US, has safeguards for nuclear

deployment. Every nation has contingencies for

when a madman is in charge. 

Hoping they’ll work.

Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

– Carl Sagan 

 Miss Ukraine Anastasiia Lenna

 Cartoon Of The Day

Notes Today:

 

• Ukrainian President Zelensky was asked to evacuate Kyiv at behest of US, Zelensky replied “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride,” according to a senior American intelligence official with direct knowledge of the conversation- AP 

• American’s views of Russia are tanking. 85% now view it unfavorably -- the highest since the end of the Cold War. 

• At least two of China’s largest state-owned banks are restricting financing for purchases of Russian commodities. 

• “I believe the war must be immediately halted” - Communist Party State Duma deputy Mikhail Matveev becomes first Russian federal level lawmaker to oppose the Ukraine invasion. 

• The sums involved are mind-boggling. Novokmet et al. estimate that in 2015 the hidden foreign wealth of rich Russians amounted to around 85 percent of Russia’s G.D.P. To give you some perspective, this is as if a U.S. president’s cronies had managed to hide $20 trillion in overseas accounts. 

 

 

Notes Today:

 

• There is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell,’ Ukraine's U.N. Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said as he addressed his Russian counterpart, Vassily Nebenzia, during an emergency meeting held by the U.N. Security Council 

• Russia blocs all shipping movements of commercial vessels in the Azov Sea – this will affect grain cargoes.

• Ukraine has asked Nato member Turkey to close the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits to Russian ships.

• Wheat is up 50 (5.65% limit).
• Corn up limit
• Beans are up 75 (4.5%)
• Crude up 5 (6%)
• Gold up 34 (1.8%)
• Bitcoin is down 2985 (7.88%)  Please note DOWN!
• S&P holding together remarkably well, down only 1.5% - so far…
• Ruble tanking
• 
  
  
  

• Russian markets are crashing 1.3 million  shares  to sell Gazprom  and 0 buyers..
• Russia's RTS Index plunges by almost 50%

 Ruble

PUTIN Invades

 Ruble

 

Quick Overview is up to date

Soybeans

 

Dow Theory

 HUI Gold Bug Index

 XAU Gold and Silver Index

 

Quick Overview is up to date

 Russia Index