30Mar2021 Market Close: Oil Prices Fall As Bearish Sentiment Returns, WTI Crude Settles At 60.43, US Dollar Continues To Rise 93.28, Silver Slips 23.94, DOW Closes Down 104 Points, Nasdaq Down -0.1%

Blocking The Sun: A Crazy Idea To Stop Climate Change?

The Arctic Blast has exposed the U.S. energy grid as being ill-prepared for climate change, with electric grid regulators now saying the U.S. needs to rapidly develop vast supplies of power storageincluding giant batteries and hydrogen storage. But we probably saw it coming. Six years ago, 196 Parties at COP 21 in Paris agreed to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels in a bid to prevent catastrophic and irreversible warming of the planet. The 2015 Paris

Chinas Coal Power Generation Jumps As Electricity Demand Soars

Chinas coal-fired power generation increased last year as growing electricity demand outpaced the installations of new clean power capacity, making China the only G-20 country with rising coal generation, climate and energy think tank Ember said in its new Global Electricity Review 2021. While wind and solar power generation led to a record fall of coal-fired generation in all other G-20 countries amid flat overall power demand due to the pandemic, Chinas electricity demand increased in 2020 and had to be met by both renewable and

Oil Prices Fall As Bearish Sentiment Returns

Oil prices fell on Tuesday as the Suez Canal was cleared and concerns about global bottlenecks eased. Traders are now focused on the upcoming OPEC+ meeting, which most observers believe will result in an extension of cuts, and the impact of Covid-19 on oil demand in Europe. Chart of the Week – Annual spending by U.S. utilities on transmission has increased from $9.1 billion in 2000 to $40 billion in 2019.- The increase includes both new investment and an increase in opex costs.- One example:

VWs Secret Plan To Change To EV-Friendly Name

Volkswagen has accidentally revealed its plans to change the name of its business in the United States from Volkswagen to Voltswagen, CNBC reported, in a bid to win more EV-friendly buyers to its electric vehicle lineup. The name change is scheduled to take effect in May. The German company accidentally published a press release yesterday that announced the pending name change. The press release was dated a month from now. According to the CNBC report, the company said that the rebranding will include placing the new name as a badge on the body

Novatek Looks To Start Hydrogen Production In Russias Arctic

Russian energy behemoth Gazprom has dominated the countrys gas sector for decades. Other companies, such as Rosneft, have tried (and failed) convincing the Kremlin to provide a leveled playing field under equal conditions. Especially, Gazproms control of the gas infrastructure and monopoly concerning exports through pipelines has maintained the giants domestic position. Novateks success, however, in developing the massive Yamal LNG project has created much-needed diversification for the Russian energy industry. Although

Wind Power Industry Set To Install 1 TW New Capacity This Decade

The worlds wind energy industry could be on track to install nearly 1 terawatt (TW) of new capacity between 2021 and 2030, driven by surging installations in China, Europe, and the United States, energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie said in new research. Chinas targets of wind and solar energy installations this decade, the European Unions decarbonization plans, and the extension of the production tax credit (PTC) in the United States are all set to incentivize high volumes of wind power capacity installations this decade, according

American Dream megamall’s owners defaulted. Now lenders reportedly will take a stake in its other properties

Lenders that back the American Dream megamall are nearing taking a 49% stake in two other malls that are owned by Triple Five Group, according to a report.

Universal Studios Hollywood will reopen April 16 with new ‘Secret Life of Pets’ ride

Universal Studios Hollywood will reopen its gates to the public on April 16, more than a year after shuttering due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Head of busiest U.S. port urges companies to pick up their cargo more quickly to ease Covid congestion

“We’re asking our importers to pick up the cargo as quickly as they can,” Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka told CNBC.

U.S. joins 13 other nations in criticizing WHO for a lack of transparency in China Covid report

The WHO’s 120-paged report was published Tuesday and produced by a team of international scientists.

Amazon launches ‘AWS Space Accelerator’ with UK venture firm to help space startups grow

Amazon Web Services announced the launch of a new space startup assistance program on Tuesday.

NFL approves 17-game schedule and drops a preseason contest

The schedule change is the first since 1978 when the NFL added two games to its regular season.Â

Ark Invest’s space exploration ETF ARKX begins trading today, slips 1%

Trading in the new space exploration ETF from Ark Invest began on Tuesday, as Cathie Wood’s firm looks to tap the growing space industry.

Essence CEO Caroline Wanga calls diversity efforts the ‘lifeblood of the future’ for companies

Essence CEO Caroline Wanga says executives should pursue diversity efforts just as aggressively as they chase competitors.

George R.R. Martin to do ‘Game of Thrones’ Broadway show about the Great Tourney at Harrenhal

The author behind the mega-hit “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series is now doing a script for a play based in the fantasy world of Westeros.

SpaceX Starship prototype crashes during landing attempt after another clean, uncrewed launch

The latest SpaceX prototype of its Starship rocket appears to have been destroyed during a landing attempt after a clean launch on Tuesday.

Watch SpaceX’s launch and attempted landing of Starship prototype rocket SN11

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is preparing to launch the latest prototype of its next-generation Starship rocket on Tuesday.

Here’s what post-pandemic travel might look like

As vaccination rates increase and people venture out of quarantine, here’s how travel has changed and what to expect for vacationing.

Stocks Sink As Fed’s Kaplan Admits “Challenges” Due To “Excess Risk-Taking”

Stocks Sink As Fed’s Kaplan Admits “Challenges” Due To “Excess Risk-Taking”

œI’m concerned about excess risk-taking and if that excess risk-taking goes too far, whether it creates excesses and imbalances, that could ultimately create challenges, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Robert Kaplan says in an interview with Nikkei posted on its website.

œEquity market cap, divided by gross domestic product, that’s at a historically elevated level. Credit spreads, in the corporate bond markets, are at, relatively speaking, historically tight levels. There’s no question that financial assets, broadly, are at elevated valuation levels.

Long-Awaited WHO Report On COVID Origins Doesn’t Rule Out Lab Leak, Tedros Says

Long-Awaited WHO Report On COVID Origins Doesn’t Rule Out Lab Leak, Tedros Says

After abruptly delaying the release of a long-waited report on the origins of the coronavirus, a version of the report was leaked over the weekend (following reports that Chinese officials had interfered in the review process).

On Sunday night, 60 Minutes raised some serious questions about the WHO’s investigation of the pandemic’s origins in the city of Wuhan. When interviewer Lesley Stahl accused a member of the WHO team of simply taking Beijing’s word for it. He replied, incredulously, “what else can we do?”

Well, it appears the WHO leadership in Geneva has accepted the fact that their “report” on the virus’s origins, which essentially confirmed speculation that first surfaced more than a year ago (that the virus entered the human population from bats via an intermediary, possibly a civet or another such creature) has failed to dissuade the public of the notion that the virus likely leaked from a nearby lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“The Money Has Left My Account!”: Tesla Customers Report Being Charged Twice For Vehicles

“The Money Has Left My Account!”: Tesla Customers Report Being Charged Twice For Vehicles

In addition to the ongoing controversy about Tesla’s Full Self Driving, which, ironically has clearly turned out to not be full self driving, and yet another Tesla wreck into a white tractor trailer in New Jersey just hours ago, Elon Musk’s automaker has found itself embroiled in another controversy.

The company is reportedly double charging some customers for new cars. And even better, the customers are struggling to try and get refunded from the company.

Three Southern California customers said they were charged twice for their cars, resulting in “tens of thousands” of dollars being withdrawn from their bank accounts that shouldn’t have been, CNBC revealed in a new report. They said they were given a “frustrating runaround” when seeking refunds.Â

One customer, Tom Slattery, said he “woke up to find his bank account depleted by nearly $53,000 more than he expected ” the sum he agreed to pay for a long-range, all-wheel-drive, 2021 Tesla Model Y”. Five days later, he is still waiting for a refund. œThey told me to call my bank and have my bank reverse the charge. That was not acceptable. When you debit more than $50,000 and tell a customer to solve it on their own? I kept pushing.

He also says he was told by an employee at the Burbank store than “hundreds of cu …

IPO Market Starts To Show Cracks As Tech Deals Falter

IPO Market Starts To Show Cracks As Tech Deals Falter

Caught between the rock of Xi JInping tracking down on local tech companies (see “China Considers Creating State-Backed Company to Oversee Tech Data”)Â and the hard place of the continued dumping by Archegos of various Chinese tech blocks, Bloomberg’s Julia Fioretti notes that “the cracks are appearing in Asia’s tech listings boom.”

The latest to disappoint was US-traded Chinese video-streaming service Bilibili in Hong Kong, which closed 1% lower on Monday after raising $2.6 billion in a secondary listing in the city. Bilibili’s coming-out party in Hong Kong was hurt by a revived delisting threat of Chinese companies over stricter U.S. audit inspections, as well as regulatory clouds out of China.

Meanwhile, Chinese fintech firm Linklogis is due to price its IPO of as much as $1.1 billion in Hong Kong on Wednesday, providing further clues on investor appetite.

These deals come as debuts lose their shine. Companies that have raised at least $200 million from listings on Asian exchanges this year have posted an average first-day rise of 70% but a month after going public, they were just up 43% from their offer price, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Compare this to the second half of 2020, when market debutantes were up 60% in their first month, with an average first-day gain of 51%.

As Fioretti notes, it could be argued that some of the muted performances isn’t a bad thing: eye-popping gains by IPOs by Kuaishou Technology and Yidu Tech earlier thi …

VW rebrands as ‘Voltswagen’ in the US

The carmaker confirms the name change as some mistake it for an early April Fool’s joke.

Retailers call for ‘Shop Out to Help Out’ scheme when stores reopen

Retail veterans say the government must do more to help independent shops survive as lockdown is eased.

Liberty Steel nationalisation ‘an option’ to save jobs

Business secretary concerned about “opaque” nature of ownership but won’t rule out public purchase.

Rising Covid cases to help in pushing accomodative policy

A prospect of a lockdown adds to the growth concerns even as there risks of inflation from rising global crude and commodities prices.

Comeback kid! Value quants take Wall Street by storm with best run since 2000

œThere’s still a huge opportunity for upside in value, said the chief investment officer at QMA, PGIM’s systematic unit. œIf we really extrapolate the trends of who the winners were in the middle of 2020, we’d basically all be working for Amazon. The economy is broader than that.

Archegos-linked stocks advance as volatility comes down

ViacomCBS Inc. rose 2.1% as of 9:33 a.m. in New York following its weeklong plunge, with Discovery Inc. and Tencent Music Entertainment Group both climbing more than 4%.

March 2021 Conference Board Consumer Confidence Surges To Highest Level In A Year

Written by Steven Hansen

The latest Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index’s headline number improved again in March. The Index now stands at 109.7 (1985=100), up from 90.4 in February. A quote from the Conference Board: “… The percentage of consumers claiming business conditions are “good” increased from 16.1 percent to 18.5 percent, while the proportion claiming business conditions are “bad” fell from 39.7 percent to 30.5 percent”.

: World leaders call for global pandemic treaty

The coronavirus experience has shown the need for a global treaty on the coordinated management of pandemics, writes a group of 23 world leaders.

Market Extra: ‘This has to be one of the single greatest losses of personal wealth in history,’ says stock-market pro of Archegos margin call

Wall Street on Tuesday may be seeing muted action but investors were still buzzing about the highly leveraged wrongway bet reportedly employed by Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management, which may have saddled many banks with multibillion-dollar losses.

The Tell: The stock market could double by 2030 because COVID has ‘utterly changed’ the policy environment: analyst

A prominent stock-market analyst throws in the towel as the S&P 500 index nears his end-of-decade target with œeight-and-a-half years to go, writing that he now agrees with colleagues that the U.S. benchmark could hit 8,000 by 2030.