Written by Gary
Existing Home Sales: Rate Of Growth Continues To Slow (SPY -0.1%). ECRI’s wli growth rate marginally declines. Cryptos crushed, commodities crumbled, but ‘crappy’ stocks soared this week.
The Market in Perspective
Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
Gasoline Shortages Still Lingering Post-Colonial Pipeline HackThe gasoline shortages in Americas Southeast are shrinking, but two weeks after the Colonial Pipeline went offline due to a hack, some drivers are still finding it hard to locate gasoline. According to GasBuddy, roughly 30% of all retail gas stations in North Carolina, South Caroline, and George were out of gasoline. Virginia and Tennessee were also experiencing significant outages. Colonial Pipelines main line that carries gasoline and diesel to the U.S. East Coast shut down after a ransomware attack earlier this month. More | |
Oil Stabilizes After Volatile WeekOil prices are on course for the largest weekly drop since March, although prices began to bounce back on Friday morning as optimism slowly returned to markets.For more great energy content, make sure you subscribe to the Oilprice youtube channel for breaking news and analysis.Friday, May 21st, 2021Oil is heading for the biggest weekly drop since March, following three consecutive days of huge losses. Still, oil recouped some losses on Friday, edging up after getting sucked down with a broader selloff in commodities.IEA says no new fossil | |
Barclays: Reopening Economies Drive Oil Demand HigherGlobal oil demand is recovering with major economies reopening amid a cautious supply approach from OPEC+ and restraint in U.S. shale, Barclays said on Friday. Despite the possibility of a return of Iranian oil supply and the resurgence of COVID in parts of Asia, global oil demand is healing and oil inventories are set to normalize over the next two to three months, the UK bank said in a note on Friday carried by Reuters. Barclays expects the global market to be in a deficit of around 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in the second | |
California Requires Most Uber And Lyft Trips To Be Electric By 2030California adopted on Thursday a new regulation that requires rideshare companies such as Uber and Lyft to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions and ensure 90 percent of their vehicle miles are fully electric by 2030, in a first such regulation to reduce emissions in the United States. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) adopted on Thursday the so-called Clean Miles Standard, which requires rideshare firms to start electrifying their car fleets as of 2023 and gradually raise the share of fully electric vehicles until reaching at least 90 | |
Rig Additions In U.S. Top 100 For 2021Baker Hughes reported on Friday that the number of oil and gas rigs in the United States increased by 2 this week, bringing the total rig count to 455a more than 100-rig gain since the start of the year. In the week prior, the U.S. oil and gas rig count increased by 5. But the longer trend in rig count additions bodes well for the U.S. oil industry, as drillers pick up the pace, adding 104 rigs so far this year, more than half of which were added in Texas. The total number of active oil and gas drilling rigs in the U.S. is now 137 more than | |
Oil Prices: Few Tailwinds Until Driving Season BeginsCrude oil prices are likely to remain sensitive to bearish news such as progress on the Iran nuclear deal with the United States and the latest on Covid-19 in Asia until at least the start of summer driving season in the United States and the opening up of Europe. Prices are “in a holding pattern until we get to June, because that’s when Europe’s going to start to reopen and the U.S. driving season will have officially kicked off,”Bloomberg quoted the CEO of Infrastructure Capital Management, Jay Hatfield, as saying earlier this week. On | |
White House partners with popular dating apps like Tinder and Bumble to raise vaccine awarenessThe White House is partnering with popular dating apps in an effort to reach young adults. | |
NBA play-in games are a success ” here’s why the league should keep the formatThe NBA attracted an audience of 5.6 million on Wednesday night for the play-in game feature two of its biggest stars in LeBron James and Steph Curry. | |
From anti-Tesla design to huge frunk: 5 things to know about the electric Ford F-150 LightningFord’s F-150 Lightning isn’t a “science experiment” or vehicle that looks like a “doorstop.” It’s an electric pickup designed to function like a truck. | |
WNBA, PointsBet strike sports betting partnershipThe licensing deal with WNBA is the first pro women’s sports agreement for PointsBet. | |
Databricks is on track for $1 billion in revenue in 2022, investor saysCrunching data in the cloud became more appealing during the pandemic. That’s been good for Databricks, which has won backing from Amazon, Microsoft and Google. | |
Breeze Airways debuts in travel rebound, the second new U.S. airline in a monthBreeze Airways adds to competition as the airline industry is trying to recover from a pandemic slump. | |
Discount retailers TJX, Ross stage a comeback as shoppers crave ‘treasure hunting’ for clothes againSo-called treasure hunting in stores could be something that many consumers end up craving more than they did before the Covid health crisis. | |
Tesla Superchargers to be used at new UK electric vehicle hubThe Oxford Superhub will be based at a park-and-ride site to the south of the English city. | |
U.S. is recording fewer than 30,000 daily new Covid cases for the first time in nearly a yearThe U.S. is reporting an average of fewer than 30,000 new Covid cases per day for the first time in nearly a year. | |
Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop threatened with shutdown in the UKGwyneth Paltrow’s wellness company Goop has been warned that its U.K. operations could be shut down after failing to file its accounts.A | |
Medical cannabis firm backed by Snoop Dogg begins trading in LondonOxford Cannabinoid Technologies, which enjoys backing from rapper Snoop Dogg, launched on the London Stock Exchange on Friday. | |
Cryptos Crushed, Commodities Crumbled, But ‘Crappy’ Stocks Soared This WeekCryptos Crushed, Commodities Crumbled, But ‘Crappy’ Stocks Soared This Week Some notable headlines catalyzed weakness in stocks during today’s US session but Small Caps (Russell) and Big Caps (Dow) outperformed as Big-Tech (Nasdaq) lagged and the S&P went nowhere (weak close as post-opex week looms)…
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Arizona’s Top Elections Official Claims Machines Being Audited May Have Been “Compromised”… By AuditorsArizona’s Top Elections Official Claims Machines Being Audited May Have Been “Compromised”… By Auditors Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Arizona’s secretary of state on Thursday warned the state’s largest county not to try to use election machines that are being audited or she would decertify the equipment.
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GOP Midterm Enthusiasm Outpaces Democrats By Double Digits As Trump Support Remains Strong: PollGOP Midterm Enthusiasm Outpaces Democrats By Double Digits As Trump Support Remains Strong: Poll Enthusiasm for GOP candidates in the 2022 midterm elections outpaces Democrats by double digits, while most GOP voters remain loyal to former President Donald Trump, according to a new poll reported by the Washington Examiner. According to a left-wing Democracy Corps survey, 68% of Republicans remain engaged ahead of 2022, while Democratic engagement dropped to 57%, giving the GOP an 11-point lead. Never Trumpers, meanwhile with 16% of Republicans identifying as “non-Trump conservatives,” – a figure which drops to 9% in battleground states. Democracy Corps The poll comes after Republicans recently booted ‘Never-Trump … | |
White House Proposes Reduced $1.7 Trillion Infrastructure Plan; Republicans Still BalkWhite House Proposes Reduced $1.7 Trillion Infrastructure Plan; Republicans Still Balk Earlier today we pointed out that with the total amount on today’s overnight reverse repo soaring to a fresh 4-year high of $369 billion, up $18BN on the day, and set to hit a record high in just a few days, Wall Street is now screaming at the Fed for doing more QE… and is why a taper would actually be viewed as a bullish development. After all, banks no longer have a place to stuff all those trillions in reserves, let alone another $1 trillion that the Fed would inject should it taper QE by the end of 2022. So maybe Jerome Powell called Biden to tell him that the Fed can no longer monetize every Democratic debt-funded whim, which is why on Friday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that the White House made a counterproposal to Senate Republicans to lower the overall price tag of Biden’s infrastructure plan to $1.7 trillion, down from the original $2.3 trillion cost. | |
Heathrow Airport to open terminal for ‘red list’ arrivalsThe airport faced criticism after arrivals from countries with a high Covid risk were made to queue with other passengers. | |
Amazon shuts US construction site as nooses foundThe online retail giant shut down construction of a factory in Connecticut after seven nooses were found. | |
Apple v Epic: Tim Cook takes the stand in Epic legal rowApple’s boss Tim Cook is on the witness stand in the high-profile legal row with Epic Games. | |
Bond sales nosedive as Covid 2.0 cripples India Inc’s capex plansCompanies have cumulatively sold Rs 36,720 crore worth of bonds in FY22, JM Financial data showed. That compares with about Rs 1.65 lakh crore in the same period last year, when borrowers rushed to refinance at debt costs plunged in the aftermath of the unprecedented lockdown. | |
RBI fixes sovereign gold bond issue price at Rs 4,842 per gram; subscription opens on May 24The government has decided to issue the bonds in six tranches from May 2021 to September 2021. The RBI will issue the bonds on behalf of the Government of India. | |
SAT allows NSE to withdraw co-location revenue from escrow accountIn an order uploaded on its website on Friday, SAT has directed the closure of the escrow account and permitted the NSE to utilise the amount for the business purposes. | |
14 May 2021 ECRI’s WLI Growth Rate Marginally DeclinesWritten by Steven Hansen ECRI’s WLI Growth Index which forecasts economic growth six months forward was little changed and remains well into expansion. | |
April 2021 Headline Existing Home Sales: Rate Of Growth Continues To SlowWritten by Steven Hansen The headline existing home sales declined relative to last month with the NAR stating “Despite the decline, housing demand is still strong compared to one year ago, evidenced by home sales from this January to April, which are up 20% compared to 2020”. | |
: Spam parent Hormel soars as food-service rebound, pizza topping growth drive salesHormel Foods stock jumped 8.3% in Thursday trading after fiscal second-quarter results beat expectations and the food company raised its outlook. | |
: Elon Musk leaves Europeans guessing on location of future Tesla plantMusk said on Friday that he is considering Russia as a possible location. | |
: Booster dose of COVID vaccines to be given to U.K. volunteers in new trialThousands of volunteers will be given a third dose of COVID-19 vaccines as part of a clinical trial to examine whether a booster � shot can protect against COVID-19 and new coronavirus disease variants. |
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