Notes this week: 

• IRIMO (Iran Meteorological Organization) just verified and officialized the 53.6C recorded at Shush on 9 August. This would be the highest temperature ever recorded in Asia in August and one of the highest worldwide in history.
• THIS IS 128.48 Fahrenheit
• 
  
• With interest rates now hovering around 5%, existing-home sales are down more than 14% from last year. (Booomberg)

• The Inflation Reduction Act has PASSED! Every Democrat voted for the bill. Every Republican voted against it. 

• The University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey showed that inflation expectations for the year-ahead cooled in July and morale among US consumers rose to a 3-month high. 

 

• Trump, first president to take the Fifth.
• Trump, first president to have his home searched by the FBI.
• Trump, first president to be investigated for violating the Espionage Act.  
• 
  
  
  

• Turkey’s bonds are downgraded by Moody’s to B3 from B2. (Junk)

• Putin is offering $1,900 per month for any Russian willing to fight in Ukraine.

• US Crop production:
• Soybeans & corn ended higher. Wheat ended mixed today.

 

Quick Overview is up to date

Notes today: 

• The US jobless rate is at 3.5%. The last time unemployment was this low, the Apollo moon landings was in progress. 

• The Senate parliamentarian determined that the lion's share of the healthcare provisions in the $430 billion bill could be passed with only a simple majority.. 
• Democrats added in an excise tax on stock buybacks that will bring in $74 billion.
• For years, Democrats and  Republicans  have called for closing the so-called carried interest loophole that allows wealthy hedge fund managers and private equity executives to pay lower tax rates than entry-level employees. OUT because of Sinema.

• Eli Lilly and Co.—among Indiana’s largest employers—on the state’s new near-total abortion ban: “Given this new law, we will be forced to plan for more employment growth outside our home state.”
• 
  
  
  

• UK enacts ownership register for property held by foreign companies and to identify their true owners. It will seek to ensure criminals cannot hide behind secretive chains of shell companies. May help corner the US into doing likewise. 

• China continued its most provocative military drills in decades. Distraction is needed - see below.
• Consumer Confidence in China 

• Millions of households across the south of England could be hit with hosepipe bans within days.
• The French government has activated a crisis task force to coordinate efforts to alleviate the effects of an “historic” drought exacerbated by an extreme summer heatwave.
• 
  
  The drying up of the Great Salt Lake, which is not only affecting local ecosystems but exposing millions of people to the toxic metals from mining that have accumulated in the lake bed over decades & now blow across the city
• Wildfires in the  Amazon increased by 8% in July 2022 compared to the same month last year, according to official data.

• 
  @MichaelEMann while it stops short of 50 percent emissions drop we need, the climate deal now poised to pass Senate will be “the most progress we will have made in addressing the climate crisis — ever — from the standpoint of Congressional action.”

 

Quick Overview is up to date

Solar stocks rose last week after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Sen. Joe Manchin, said they’ve reached a deal on climate spending. The package earmarks a record $369 billion for climate and clean energy provisions.

Invesco Solar ETF added 9.6%

 Soybeans weather problems..

Silver increased to a 4-week high of 20.247 

 Yen - interesting..

A reshuffle in the Board of the Bank of Japan resulted in two new policymakers, former private economist Takata and former banker Tamura, they spared little time before voicing the need to think of an exit strategy from the BoJ’s ultra-easy monetary policy stance.

 

Quick Overview is up to date

30 year low China Consumer Confidence

With consumer confidence this low, may it be necessary to direct attention somewhere else?

 Quick Overview is up to date

Notes today:

 

• A day after Ukraine and Russia had signed a deal to resume grain exports from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, Russian missiles hit Odessa, the biggest of those ports. 

• (Economist) Xinjiang, a region in the far west of China, was warned that it faced flash floods, mudslides, and risks to agriculture amid forecasts of more unusually high temperatures in the coming days. Some 20% of the world’s cotton is produced in the area. Since mid-June much of China has baked under brutal heatwaves, which are attributed to climate change. 

• Australia now gets an amazing 35.8% of its electricity from renewables, up from 8% in 2009. 1 in 4 Australian homes have solar. 

• Mario Draghi’s, the man credited with saving the euro, departs. Italy has had 69 govts since the end of WWII – on average one every 13mths. 

• (FT) China’s Belt and Road spending in Russia drops to zero... 

• (FT) Palestinian villagers lose 20-year legal fight to hang on to homes... 

• Recently BMW announced plans to charge a subscription for heated seats – Hackers are having a field day. 

• Amazon stock has gotten crushed. There’s a case It could double, or even triple, from here. So says Barron's. 

• Stocks in Argentina hit all-time High. 

• “No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot” Mark Twain

 

 

 

Quick Overview is up to date

Sock indices looking a bit better

 

Quick Overview is up to date

Copper and Gold - decline continues..

Notes today: 

• Abortion Bans Are Playing a Role in Where Companies Locate. Jobs Could Be Lost.

• Italy’s public debt currently stands at €2.8tn in May, near record. The debt-to-GDP ratio is over 150% making Italy the “proud” home of almost a quarter of all Eurozone debt. 
• In addition, northern Italy has the worst drought in 70 years.

• Fitch downgraded Turkey’s sovereign debt rating into junk. 

• California Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday signed one of two bills passed by the Legislature allowing private rights of action against gun dealers andmanufacturers — strengthening the Golden State’s already strict gun laws while taking a swipe at a similar law in Texas that goes after abortion.

• After drawing foreign capital into China’s markets for years, President Xi Jinping is now facing the risk of a nasty period of financial de-globalization. 

Wall Street Set for New ETF Gold Rush as Single-Stock Era Begins

Cholera Found in Turtles at Wet Market in Covid Epicenter Wuhan

 Later

 

Quick Overview is up to date

Notes today: 

• Pregnant woman says fetus should count as a passenger in the HOV lane. Says Texas can’t have it both ways. 

• Great News: Musk said he’s ending his $44 billion arrangement to acquire Twitter  and take it private. 

• The US economy added 372K jobs last month, well above market expectations of a 268K rise, while the jobless rate held steady as expected. 

• Consumer credit in the US increased by USD 22.35 billion in May - slowing significantly. Market expected 31.9 billion. 

• Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe died after being shot on the campaign trail for Sunday’s upper house elections. 

• Narcissistic, dishonest Brexiteer Boris Johnson is soon-to-be former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. 

• Claims of the largest cyberattack (1 billion Chinese) in Chinese history have sparked an open debate about the extent to which Beijing hoovers up personal data and uses private firms to “safeguard” that trove. 

• Mexico’s had its debt rating cut by Moody’s to Baa2, putting it two steps above junk and on par with Uruguay and the Philippines. (7/7/2022 U.S. State Department issues new travel advisory impacting Tijuana, Rosarito and Baja California)

Nice drop in mortgage rates:

S&P 500 Average Weekly Performance from 1900

Week 27 (this one ) is generally second best..

Notes today: 

• The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said the EU needs to make emergency plans to prepare for a complete cut-off of Russian Gas.

• Boris Johnson was clinging to power wounded by the resignation of ministers who said he was not fit to govern. 

• US Job openings decreased to 11.3 million on the last business day of May. Hires and total separations changed little at 6.5 million and 6.0 million, respectively. 

• Guardian analysis of water samples taken in nine US locations shows test agency uses is likely missing significant levels of PFAS pollutants.

• Economists at Bloomberg calculate a 38% chance of a US recession in the next year... 

• The alleged theft of some 23 terabytes of personal information on about a billion Chinese citizens from a Shanghai police database would rank as the world’s largest ever known data breach.

• (FT) Martin Wolf: The crypto crash (and preceding bubble) shows that cryptocurrencies are objects of speculation rather than stores of value. That also makes them unusable as units of account. 

• German factory orders unexpectedly rose 0.1% in May.

New report that all (or nearly all) ancient bristlecone pines growing in Panamint Range, Death Valley have died in 2022 

Victims of record drought & invading bark beetles. 

Add these irreplaceable 1000+ year-old trees to the list of losses due to escalating climate change.

Evan Frost @EFrost_Wildwood 

 

Quick Overview is up to date

• Copper new low
• Gold new low
• Dollar new high

 What's moving this week is up to date

ETF's(Exchange traded funds)

Commodity Futures

S&P 500(50 strongest stocks)

NASDAQ composit (50 strongest stocks)

 

Notes today: 

• The Bank of Japan is likely to keep its current monetary easing program “for many quarters to come," according to a former BOJ official.

Is that so ? 

• The number of foreign tourist arrivals in Spain surged by 411.1% YoY 

• Germany’s trade surplus narrowed sharply in May of 2022, the lowest since December 1992. 

• Turkey’s CPI rose an annual 78.62% through last month, up from 73.5% in May. 

• Inflation in Switzerland accelerated to the fastest pace in nearly three decades, hitting 3.4% in June. That’s up from 2.9% in May. 

• General Motors reported that nearly 100,000 vehicles sat uncompleted due to supply chain issues.

• Chinas government has embarked on a campaign to rein in the market for pork, just as higher costs of its staple meat threaten to breach inflation targets and complicate efforts to stimulate growth. Hog futures in Dalian have risen to their strongest in a year, while wholesale meat prices are at a six-month high.

Where have all the Gold Bugs departed to? Crypto? really?

 

Quick Overview is up to date

For the first time in history, the USA supplied more gas to the EU than Russia did.

The personhood moment

(Credit: @Patbagley)

Performance year to date and month to date

Notes today:

• The FedSoc 6 “extreme ” Supremes harshly curtailed the authority of the EPA to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change. In its 6-3 ruling, the "head in sand 6" sided with Republican states and fossil-fuel companies in gutting of the Clean Air Act. And so the right to a livable planet,” goes farther and farther out the window.
• Ah, but her emails.
  
  Meanwhile..
• The highest temperature recorded in Europe north of 70°N in June. The heat is unprecedented in this part of Norway in June.
• Unprecedented heat in Central Asia right now.

• The personal consumption expenditures price index, which the Federal Reserve uses for its inflation target, rose 0.6% MoM and was up 6.3% since May 2021. The core PCE price index increased 0.3%, less than expected. It was up 4.7% YoY, the smallest gain since November. 

• Analysts forecast that US auto sales will be down more than 20% in the second quarter from a year ago as car buyers find it harder to stomach the sticker shock

• Wheat / Corn /Beans / ended  lower. Most commodities were lower on concern World Central Bank leaders will continue to fight Inflation. 

• Global business cycle starts to turn down

Intercepted Call: Russian generals duping mothers:

Russian generals enjoy a new business in the army – they’re taking money from parents to transfer soldiers to safer locations, then dumping them. 

 

Quick Overview is up to date

Notes today:

• Finland and Sweden took a major step on their way to NATO membership after Turkey dropped its opposition to their bids, all but ensuring the military alliance’s expansion on Russia’s doorstep. 

• Cassidy Hutchinson gave the most damning January 6 testimony yet in a House committee’s hearings on how the United States of America was attacked by its own president. 

• The Bank of Japan is under growing pressure to stabilize the yen as it sinks to a 24-year low and ought to abandon its 0.25% cap on benchmark bond yields. 

• Investors are on a real estate bargain hunt in Japan, fueled by the historic weakness of the yen. 

• Industrial production in Japan declined by 7.2 percent month-over-month in May. 
• Germany's Consumer price inflation unexpectedly eased to 7.6% in June from 7.9 % in May
• Germany's import prices have eased to 30.6% YoY in May from 31.7% in April  in a sign that inflation may have peaked.

• Brexit is making it harder for UK suppliers to get good caviar 😢

 

Later