28Jul2021 Market Close: SP 500 Index Ends Flat -0.02%, DOW Closes Down 128 Points, Nasdaq +0.7%, WTI Fractionally Higher 72.24, Bitcoin Steady At 40100

Written by Gary

Powell pumps stocks, dumps dollar in dovish doublespeak (SPY -0.04%). US economic recovery ‘making progress’, says Fed. Housing market cools.

The Market in Perspective

Here are the headlines moving the markets.
	Controlling The Weather Could Have Serious Global Implications As the world gets warmer, regions around the world are experiencing sweltering heat waves and setting records for high temperatures almost every passing year. This week the Middle East has been suffering from soaring temperatures reaching a truly hellish 125 degrees. These dangerously high temperatures come as the Arabian Gulf countries continue to experience the longest recorded meteorological drought, clocking in at a whopping twenty years. The general pattern of the climate in the region is warming. There is warming over the seas
	The Tech Boom Is Sending Tin Prices Into The Stratosphere Tin prices have soared to a record high on the LME, closing last week at $34,177 per metric ton. The closing price marked an increase of 12.56% month over month. As weve noted in previous reports, increasing consumer demand for electronics has supported the tin price. Tin is also used as solder for joining pipes and electric circuits. Balanced market as tin prices rise Prices have surged amid a balanced global tin market. According to the World Bureau of Metal Statistics (WBMS), the global tin market posted a minuscule deficit of 1,400 tons
	Renewables Will Play A Vital Role In Energy Security For The U.S. The United States energy independence is under threat. For decades, the gush of cheap and abundant shale oil and gas out of the West Texas Permian Basin has allowed the U.S. a large degree of energy security and sovereignty, as well as giving the nation a great deal of sway in global energy markets. But U.S. energy titans and politicians have gotten complacent. As the country has doggedly stuck to the status quo, the rest of the world has been investing heavily in clean energy infrastructure, research, and development. And the United States
	Top Investors Back $5.4 Billion TPG Rise Climate Fund Alternative asset firm TPG announced this week the first close of $5.4 billion in subscriptions to its TPG Rise Climate fund, which attracted some of the world’s largest institutional investors and multinational corporations. TPG Rise Climate, the climate investing strategy of TPG’s global impact investing platform TPG Rise, has set a hard cap of $7 billion in total capital commitments and expects to hold a final close in the fourth quarter of 2021. The fund’s first close received subscriptions from some of the world’s largest institutional
	Heres Why Analysts Expect Record-High Earnings For ExxonMobil Surging prices for plastics are likely to help Exxon’s petrochemicals division post record-high earnings this week when the company reports its earnings. Items like flooring, roofing and packaging all saw demand remain firm throughout the pandemic. This helped keep a bid under the price of the commodity while the “lockdown trade” pulled the rug out from under the bid of other items, like vacations and corporate real estate. Chemical ingredients like polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride used to make plastics have seen record-high prices this year.
	Top Three U.S. Refiners Set For First Profits Since Pandemic Started The largest U.S. oil refiners are expected to report in the coming days profits for the second quartertheir first earnings since the pandemic crushed demand in early 2020, according to estimates from Reuters. Since the first quarter of 2020, refiners have struggled with low fuel demand amid lockdowns and mobility restrictions, which led to low capacity utilization rates and very low refining margins. The second quarter of this year, however, will likely see decent earnings results from all three largest refiners in the U.S.Valero
	Ford earnings are out – here are the numbers Ford Motor reported earnings after the bell. Here are the results.
	Pfizer’s CEO says Covid vaccine effectiveness drops to 84% after six months Pfizer’s vaccine initially protects people 100% of the time against hospitalization, but that falls to low 90% and mid-to-high 80% after 6 months, Bourla said.
	Should you be wearing a mask again? Here’s a map of the Covid hot spots subject to the CDC’s new guidance The CDC recommended that fully vaccinated Americans in Covid hot spots start wearing masks again. This map shows where those hot spots are.
	Here’s why businessman Ken Langone thinks the Fed is wrong and inflation is here to stay “I think you’re going to take a white-hot fire and throw a five-gallon gas can on top of it,” billionaire Ken Langone told CNBC on Wednesday
	NYC to Offer $100 Incentive for Vaccination Starting Friday Starting Friday, New York City will pay $100 to anyone who goes to a city-run vaccination site for their first Covid vaccine dose, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
	Ford reinstates mask mandates at facilities in Missouri and Florida Ford’s move follow General Motors last week reinstating a mask mandate at a plant in Missouri due to an increase in cases in the area.
	CDC needs to start tracking all Covid breakthrough infections, Gottlieb says The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn’t have enough resources to properly track Covid-19 “breakthrough cases,” Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC.
	Sen. Elizabeth Warren shoots down a key reason investors buy bitcoin, calls for tighter regulation “The idea that they’re somehow a protection or a hedge, I don’t think that’s going to be borne out over time,” Sen.Â Elizabeth Warren told CNBC.
	Get vaccinated or fired ” Ken Langone says his businesses will mandate it after full FDA approval œYou have an obligation to your fellow man to protect him as well as yourself, billionaire businessman Ken Langone told CNBC on Wednesday.
	WHO doesn’t recommend Covid booster doses right now, citing lack of data If the WHO endorsed a booster shot, it would likely only be for select groups of recipients, like the elderly or other vulnerable people.
	The ‘world’s most powerful tidal turbine’ starts to export power to the gridÂ The O2 turbine weighs 680 metric tons and has a length of 74 meters.
	Powell Pumps Stocks, Dumps Dollar In Dovish Doublespeak Powell Pumps Stocks, Dumps Dollar In Dovish Doublespeak At the start of the day, Chinese stocks roared back after Beijing called in The National Team to save the day. After 3 straight days of carnage, Beijing’s PPT plugged the holes and China Futures soared almost 10% off their lows… Source: Bloomberg And The National Team stomped on the throat of Chinese equity vol… Source: Bloomberg Stocks soared after Powell raised questions about “Delta”s impact on the economy and mentioned …
	5 Takeaways From Powell’s Conference 5 Takeaways From Powell’s Conference Courtesy of Curvature Securities’ Scott Skyrm, here are four key takeaways from the Powell presser: 1. Inflation – The FOMC statement mentioned the word “inflation” or “price stability” a total of 10 times. It’s clearly on their mind, even though they continue to call it “transitory.” 2. Tapering – “Last December, the Committee indicated that it would continue to increase its holdings ¦ until substantial further progress has been made ¦ since then, the economy has made progress ¦ and the Committee will continue to assess progress in coming meetings.” I read that as ‘we will announce tapering at a meeting in the near future.’ 3. Standing RP Facility – The FOMC discussed the details of this facility at the last meeting and pulled the trigger today. The facility will be the mirror image of the RRP facility. The Fed will provide cash to approved Primary Dealers at a rate of .25% (upper end of the fed funds target range) with a program limit of $500 billion. Though .25% is currently well above market rates, there will be in time in the future when this facility will be used regularly. But that’s a few years away. Between now and then, the Fed officially created a corridor systemÂ for Repo rates with the RP facility as the ceiling rate at .25% and the RRP facility rate as the floor at .05%. 4. Goodbye IOER. The terms IORR and IOER will be replaced with IORB (Interest On Reserve Balances). To this will will add one more observation: 5. Powell defined “substantial further progress” as maximum employment with little/n …
	California Counties See COVID Cases Rising In Most Heavily Vaccinated Counties California Counties See COVID Cases Rising In Most Heavily Vaccinated Counties Some might have been surprised to see California on Dr. Anthony Fauci’s map of high-risk areas where the new federal indoor mask mandates must be obeyed. The Golden State was deemed more high risk than Texas. Indeed, scientists are finding that despite its high vaccination rates, California is seeing more COVID cases than it should. California and its big coastal cities have embraced vaccines in their effort to beat back the COVID pandemic. But a Bay Area News Group analysis shows that not only are cases rising fast, they are rising in areas where there are more fully vaccinated people. Some of these counties have both among the highest vaccination rates, and the highest new-case rates. Notice that five of these counties have both a higher percentage of their eligible residents fully vaccinated and a higher average daily case rate than the statewide average. They include: LA, San Diego, Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco. The five counties with falling ca …
	“Follow The Money” – Striking Coal Miners Rally Outside BlackRock’s NYC Offices “Follow The Money” – Striking Coal Miners Rally Outside BlackRock’s NYC Offices Hundreds of coal miners from Alabama and West Virginia who are embroiled in a labor dispute with their employer gathered outside BlackRock’s headquarters in NYC on Wednesday to gave Larry Fink a piece of their mind. About 120 supporters descended on BlackRock’s midtown offices carrying signs that read “we are one” and chanting together. They spoke out against their treatment by their employer, Warrior Met Coal. Union members are striking for better wages and benefits. During the rally, they were joined by other union workers, including truckers and garbagemen. BlackRock is listed as Warrior Met’s biggest shareholder as of March 31. More than 1,000 miners represented by the United Mine Workers of America have been on strike for almost five months as they battle management for a new collective-bargaining agreement. Now, they’re arguing that BlackRock has benefited from their exploitation, so it should step in to help.Â Footage of the rally went viral on twitter:
	International cruises to restart from UK Quarantine for fully vaccinated arrivals from US and EU to UK ports also waived.
	US economic recovery ‘making progress’, says Fed Widespread vaccinations have helped boost the economy and employment, the US central bank says.
	Housing market cools as stamp duty break withdrawn UK house prices still rose by 10.5% compared with a year ago, Nationwide building society says.
	Fed says progress made toward conditions for tapering bond buys Fed kept the target range for its benchmark policy rate unchanged at zero to 0.25 per cent and adjusted language to say that it had pledged in December to continue asset purchases at a $120 billion monthly pace until œsubstantial further progress had been made on employment and inflation.
	14 midcaps where fund managers upped stakes by over 100 bps in Q1 The biggest MF bet of the quarter was media firm Zee Entertainment that saw the institutional investor category hike stake by 443 basis points to 8.1 per cent from 3.67 per cent in the March quarter.
	JM Financial initiates coverage on Zomato with ‘buy’, sees 28% upside The brokerage opines that Zomato can churn out positive cash operating profit from 2024-25 provided its annual order volumes hit 1 billion and contribution margin rises to Rs 21 per order.
	Rail Week Ending 24 July 2021 – Year-over-Year Growth Continues to Slow As It Is Being Compared To The Improving Conditions One Year Ago Written by Steven Hansen Week 29 of 2021 shows the same week total rail traffic (from the same week one year ago) improved according to the Association of American Railroads (AAR) traffic data.
	28 July 2021 FOMC Meeting Statement: Seems Like Securities Purchasing Is Under Review Written by Steven Hansen The Federal Reserve’s meeting statement included no rate change (as it is already at zero), and the meeting statement was mostly unchanged except for a wording change that seems to indicate that a change to the monthly levels of security purchases is under review.
	: Biden says he’s ‘confident’ on infrastructure deal as he touts manufacturing in Pennsylvania visit President Joe Biden on Wednesday touted American manufacturing in a visit to a truck plant in Pennsylvania, as Senate Republicans in Washington said they had reached agreement on major issues in infrastructure talks with Democrats.
	Earnings Outlook: Amazon earnings preview: As shoppers increasingly head out of their homes, e-commerce sales could slow A COVID-19 resurgence could be a tailwind for Amazon, say Benchmark analysts.
	Bond Report: Treasury yields remain higher as investors assess comments by Fed’s Powell U.S. Treasury yields remained modestly higher on Wednesday as investors assessed Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s press conference and policy makers’ most recent statement.