US Consumer confidence falls to the lowest level on record

Inflation (40 year high)12 month % changes selected categories

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Lumber  month-to-date is down 12.% and year-to-date it's down 38.%

Yen approaching millennium low

OR

Notes today:

 

• The U.S. Dept. of HomelandSecurity warned on Tuesday that people in online forums known for hosting violent extremist content are lauding the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas—and are pushing others to commit further attacks. 

• Russia Destroys Second Largest Grain Terminal In Ukraine. 

• The World Bank cut its forecast for global economic expansion in 2022 further, warning that several years of above-average inflation and below-average growth lie ahead, with the pain of stagflation potentially lasting for several years. 

• Economist: Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor from 2005 to 2021, defended her record of dealing with Vladimir Putin. Mrs Merkel has been criticised for pressing ahead with the now-mothballed Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline meant to link Germany and Russia—but trade with Russia “could not be ignored”, she said. She defended her opposition to a plan from 2008 to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, which, she said, would have been tantamount to a “declaration of war”.
• There are countries we are waiting for delivery from and countries we are tired of waiting for,”Germany belongs to the second group.” - Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba 

• WhatsApp has until July to show that a privacy policy update introduced in January complies with EU consumer law, the European Commission said on Wednesday, in a case prompted by complaints from consumer bodies across Europe.

• Southern has now become the third-largest greenhouse gas polluter in the US due to its fleet of coal and gas-burning power plants, and until relatively recently was still denying the science behind global temperature rise.

 

 

 

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Real Estate: National Payment to Income Ratio

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What Are Financial Market Stress Indexes Showing?

This divergence could be signaling an elevated level of financial market risk—and thus higher levels of financial market stress—that normally accompanies periods of Fed tightening.

 

When Crypto's Tulipmania Meets The Real Economy

They often involve complex financial structures stringing together several Delaware-based LLCs with little legal recourse and high counterparty risk. 

see Taleb below

or check out Molly White

 Latest Fed Model

Current Fear

Notes today:

 

• Canadian dollar rallies as current account surplus hits 14-year high 

• At this point, any presentation of bitcoin as an inflation hedge, crisis protection, transactional currency, or repository of value is purely hallucinatory & deserves locking up the perpetrator to prevent further self-harm.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb (author of Black Swan) BitCoin to 0

Speculators have plowed more than 40 Billion into crypto start ups since 2021

• Vietnam Tourist Arrivals Climb 1,274% YoY in May 

• Europe’s unity ‘crumbling’ on Russia sanctions, Germany warns. 

• India has decided to restrict the sale of sugar on international markets, just days after it banned wheat exports. 

Realtor .com Reports Weekly Inventory Up 9% YoY  (real estate)

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Notes today:

• A $5 Trillion ‘Wealth Shock’ Is Cracking Americans’ Nest Eggs

• Economist: Almost 40% of African-Americans under 40 own cryptocurrency, compared with 29% of whites. 

• Lagarde reiterated her concerns over cryptocurrencies & desire for regulation: "My very humble assessment is that it is worth nothing, it is based on nothing, there is no underlying asset to act as an anchor of safety," Lagarde said in an interview on Dutch TV. 

• Russia bans 963 Americans, including Biden and Harris — but not Trump!
• “Russia also named former senators John McCain, Harry M. Reid, and Orrin G. Hatch as among the current or ex-lawmakers barred from entering the country, even though they are all dead.” 

• Crashing Crypto: Is This Time Different? (Krugman)  

Well, maybe the crypto skeptics are wrong. But on the question of folly and gullibility, the answer is yes, we can.

For as long as the price of an offset remains below $20, cattle farming in the Amazon will remain attractive.

 

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‘Forever chemicals’ may have polluted 20m acres of US cropland, study says

PFAS-tainted sewage sludge is used as fertilizer in fields and report finds that about 20m acres of cropland could be contaminated

Our Dow Theory Opinion:

On 2/22/2022 our view of Dow Theory turned to bearish . Currently our view will return to bullish when the DJI closes above 35342, and the DJT close above 16577.

A looooooooong term look at U.S. Real Estate  

Euro Area Consumer Confidence

FED Funds biggest lag "ever" !

Soybean Oil

Investor Intelligence Bullish View

Libor & Fed Funds Spread

 NASDAQ Advance  Decline Line 

20 years of Euro Dollar Rates (P&F)

Munger and Buffett (some) Nuggets today via Bloomberg:

• A question about oil production, and whether the U.S. should be doing something differently.
• Munger takes this one. He says he likes having big reserves of oil -- he’d prefer to pay for oil from the Middle East and conserve domestic supplies. He concedes it’s a rare view. “It doesn’t bother me, I just think they’re all wrong.”

• Buffett: “I essentially believe people are now behaving somewhat more tribal than they have for a long time. People are always going to be partisan, they’re going to have religious beliefs... but it gets pretty tribal.”
• “I’ve been tribal. We’re confessing today,” he said. “It’s fun to participate in, but it can get very dangerous when one group of people say 2+2 is five, and another group says 2+2 is three.”

• “It’s stupid because its likely to go to zero, it’s evil because it undermines the Federal Reserve system,” Munger says. “It makes us look foolish compared to the communist leader in China,” who banned Bitcoin.
• Munger says he has a slightly different way of looking at it.  “In my life I try and avoid things that are stupid, evil and make me look bad in comparison with somebody else. And Bitcoin does all three.”

Notes today: 

• Pakistan scorching temps up to 120.2F or 49C today "IN APRIL"

• NASDAQ Composite ending Friday down by 4% and the whole of April by 13%: its worst monthly performance since 2008. 

• Bloomberg: Lin argues China should aim for GDP per capita in 2050 to be 50% that of the U.S.—up from around 16% today. 

• Seems to me that figuring out how to build and sell a car is a lot easier than figuring out free speech – so good luck with that Elon. Btw, Mobileye seems to be ahead of you with the car part..

• (San Diego Union Tribune) In the service territory of San Diego Gas & Electric, more than 356,000 residential customers have missed payment deadlines through March. Applying SDG&E’s figure to its overall residential base of about 1.33 million, that means 26.7 percent of SDG&E residential customers are behind on their bills. 

• Tesla’s biggest competitor, Mobileye, is ramping up its robotaxi business this year already (in 2022). Tesla is at least two years behind.

Indonesia will ban Palm Oil exports from April 28 until further notice to control soaring domestic prices.  Indonesia accounts for 56% of palm oil exports.Further, Indonesian palm oil accounts for 36% of all major vegoil exports, combined. (Karen Braun https://twitter.com/kannbwx)

Quick Overview is up to date

% of 40  World Stock Markets with 5 Week Avearge above 20 Week Average. If that # ever gets back to zero it could / maybe / perhaps/ conceivably be a good time to buy. (Just perchance)  Unless of course - see below

Now this: Buffett meeting today -  Buffett says that there is a risk every day -- a very, very tiny risk. And the world’s flipping a coin everyday as to whether people who can ruin the world will do it, he says.

The major problem is for people who have large stocks of nuclear weapons. It is a very, very dangerous world, Buffett says.

Munger chimes in saying that there’s no way to protect against a nuclear attack, joking that some guy has said that he’ll crawl under his desk if there’s an attack and kiss his rear goodbye.

Buffett says that there is a risk every day -- a very, very tiny risk. And the world’s flipping a coin everyday as to whether people who can ruin the world will do it, he says.

The major problem is for people who have large stocks of nuclear weapons. It is a very, very dangerous world, Buffett says.

Munger chimes in saying that there’s no way to protect against a nuclear attack, joking that some guy has said that he’ll crawl under his desk if there’s an attack and kiss his rear goodbye.

 Latest from Florida..

Credit: @tedlittleford)

 Stahler

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 Where have all the bulls gone?

 

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 Three great forces..

 Later..

 June Gold 5 above 20

Shipping rates cooling.