Written by Gary
Meme stocks AMC, GameStop poised to end strong week on a high (SPY +0.5%). Final May 2021 Michigan Consumer Sentiment Little Changed.
Here is the current market situation from CNN Money | |
North and South American markets finished mixed as of the most recent closing prices. The Bovespa gained 1.21%, while the IPC led the S&P 500 lower. They fell 1.14% and 0.06% respectively. |
What Is Moving the Markets
Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
Germany Pumps $10 Billion In Hydrogen In Bid To Become Global LeaderGermany will fund 62 large-scale hydrogen projects with as much as US$10 billion in federal and state funds as it aims to become the worlds leader in hydrogen technologies, the German ministries of economy and transport said on Friday. Germany will provide US$9.72 billion (8 billion euro) to the 62 projects it has selected to reduce emissions in the transportation, steelmaking, and chemicals sectors. Germany wants to become a global leader in hydrogen technology, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said, noting that the investment announced | |
Energy Companies Are Scrambling For Cyber InsuranceU.S. energy companies are urgently building their cyberattack insurance coverage following the Colonial Pipeline network attack earlier this month, Reuters has reported, adding that premiums were likely to rise on this increased demand. A ransomware attack shut down the largest fuel pipeline in the United States two weeks ago, causing panic buying of gasoline and diesel along the East Coast and a consequent shortage of fuels that shut down hundreds of filling stations. The pipeline was restarted after its operator paid the hackers some $4 million. | |
Moodys: Credit Risk Is Growing For Big OilThis weeks climate-related actions in boardrooms and courtrooms involving some of the largest international oil companies signal rising threat to the sector, Moodys Investor Service said in a comment on the industry. A new court ruling against Royal Dutch Shell and shareholder votes at ExxonMobil and Chevron highlights the increasing credit risk for major oil producers over concerns about climate change, Moodys said. This week, shareholders at the two largest U.S. oil corporations, Exxon and Chevron, | |
Chinas Tech Emissions Are Set To Double By 2035Carbon emissions from Chinas booming digital infrastructure will jump more than twofold by 2035, Greenpeace has estimated, calling on businesses in the country to commit to clean energy. Reuters reports that, according to Greenpeace, Chinas electricity consumption for data centers and 5G base stations is set for a fourfold increase by 2035. Bloomberg quotes Greenpeace as saying this would push related emissions up twofold during the period. The problem appears to be that despite its leadership in renewable power, China still relies | |
Oil Rises After Cataclysmic Boardroom ShowdownOil prices rose early on Friday for a sixth consecutive day and were on track for weekly and monthly gains after the defeats on climate policies that major oil firms suffered at the hands of shareholders and judges. As of 9:22 a.m. EDT on Friday, WTI Crude prices were up by 0.82 percent at $67.40, after settling on Thursday at their highest level since the end of October 2018. Brent Crude was also up and nearing the $70 markat $69.86, up by 0.66 percent on the day. Expectations that reopening economies and higher travel numbers in the United | |
3 Chinese Energy Stocks To Buy And 3 To AvoidWhen it comes to investing in the Middle Kingdom, tech companies such as Alibaba Group (NASDAQ:BABA), Baidu Inc.(NASDAQBIDU), Tencent Holdings (OTCPK:TCEHY), and NetEase Inc. (NASDAQ:NTES) tend to hog the limelight (and investor dollars). However, bargain hunters may want to think twice before piling into China’s beaten-down technology stocks. Despite the recent selloff, China’s tech giants are still trading at valuations pretty much in line with their three-year averages and well above levels that marked the bottoms of the last two big downturns. | |
Facebook, Twitter and a future of social that’s increasingly audioAudio is the hottest trend in social media, and start-ups like Clubhouse and Discord have the attention of tech giants from Facebook to Twitter and Microsoft. | |
Nearly half of Americans have at least one vaccine shot as Covid case counts fall furtherCDC data shows 49.9% of the U.S. population has received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine. | |
Memorial Day weekend box office could be first to top $100 million since the pandemic beganThis Memorial Day weekend could break the $100 million mark at the box office. | |
To-go cocktails will stick around in at least 20 states after the pandemicLawmakers in 14 states and the District of Columbia, have approved allowing restaurants to sell cocktails to go permanently. | |
Dr. Scott Gottlieb: Covid risk should be low in the U.S. this summer but will rise in the fall“I don’t think we should declare mission accomplished. I think that we should declare a near-term victory,” the former FDA chief told CNBC. | |
Unruly behavior from plane passengers has never been this bad, says flight attendant union chiefSara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, told CNBC that passenger behavior is “complete nuts.” | |
UK approves Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid vaccine for useThe British government has secured 20 million doses of the vaccine to be rolled out nationwide. | |
In the UK, cases of the Covid variant identified in India double in one weekEngland had almost 7,000 cases of the strain by Wednesday, the country’s health authority said. | |
Europe’s ports will need $7.9 billion of investment to support offshore wind expansion, report saysThe importance of ports to the sector was illustrated by a number of announcements this week. | |
Nike says it split with soccer superstar Neymar after he refused to cooperate with sexual assault investigationThe company announced last summer it had parted ways with Neymar, but had not given a reason for the sudden move. | |
John Cena’s apology after Taiwan comment feels like a ‘forced confession,’ free speech advocate saysSuzanne Nossel explains why she finds John Cena’s apology to China œtroubling after he called Taiwan a country during an interview for his upcoming film. | |
Women could add $260 billion to Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market by 2030, says gender expertWomen entrepreneurs could add more than $260 billion to Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market by 2030, according to a new report from the IFC. | |
China Ready To Deter “US Warmongering” By Expanding Nuclear ArsenalChina Ready To Deter “US Warmongering” By Expanding Nuclear Arsenal At a moment that President Biden’s defense budget, the largest in history, is seeking to spend heavily on ‘China deterrence’ as well as nuclear funding to modernize America’s ageing Cold War era arsenal and systems – which many critics lambasted as a classic case of threat inflation in order to fatten the already bloated DoD budget (a yearly exercise) – Beijing has responded by warning it stands ready to in turn expand its own defenses and nuclear arsenal accordingly. This apparent game of threat inflation begetting threat inflation, however, is about to have serious real world consequences in terms of dangerously beefed up nuke capabilities among the superpowers, with Chinese state-run English language mouthpiece Global Times issuing these alarming words on Friday:
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Stop Trusting The Experts!Stop Trusting The Experts! Authored by Bruce Abramson via RealClear Politics (emphasis ours), Every now and then, I’m lucky enough to meet someone who œfollows the science. I count on such folks to teach me some science that I do not yet know. Being scientifically literate, I like to start by asking them some basic questions: How are key data terms defined? How are data collected and reported? What theories guided the design of the models that process the raw data? What studies validated the models? How sensitive are the models to variations in inputs? How well do the models perform using historical data? Do the models have a track record at prediction ” and if so, how well have they done? What alternative hypotheses were considered? How were the hypotheses tested? Anyone surprised by such questions can’t plausibly claim to understand the science, much less to follow it. Most likely, they’ve confused œthe science with a sel … | |
Biden’s Bombastic Budget: So Much Less Than Meets The EyeBiden’s Bombastic Budget: So Much Less Than Meets The Eye There was much excitement in the markets yesterday when the NYT leaked that Biden will propose a $6 trillion budget on Friday. Only… as Goldman’s Alec Phillips explains, the recent headlines around US infrastructure spending and the overall federal budget are vastly overblown and do not represent nearly as much incremental spending as they appear. For one thing, here is the $6 trillion number in its proper context: according to Goldman, even if Congress makes no further policy changes this year, the federal government is on track to spend $5.6 trillion in fiscal 2022. Or consider that the latest Senate Republican “compromise” offer of a “1 trillion (really $928BN) infrastructure proposal counts already-projected spending (i.e., over the next 8 years, the Congressional Budget Office projects highway spending of $400bn and transit spending of $95bn. Senate Republicans propose $506bn and $98bn respectively, an increase of $109bn in those two categories combined) leaving new spending in the proposal at a fraction of what the White House proposes: in total, the Senate Republican proposal amounts to less than $300bn in new spending. By contrast, all of Biden’s $1.7 trillion proposal is new spending, which leaves the two proposals well over $1 trillion apart. Here are the full details behind all those big numbers being thrown about, courtesy of Goldman: Bipartisan infrastructure talks haven’t come very far. The latest Republican proposal on infrastructure has been reported as œ$1 trillion , which at first glance would put i … | |
Bear Markets Matter More Than You Think, Part 2Bear Markets Matter More Than You Think, Part 2 Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, Bear markets matter, and they matter much more than you think. (Read Part 1 Here) In part-1, we discussed the differences between a œcorrection  and a œbear market.  But what is often missed by mainstream analysis is the long-term damage done to investor’s financial outcomes. Now and then, you will see a version of the following chart floating around suggesting that over the long-term, œbear markets  don’t matter. If you only do a cursory analysis of the chart, such would undoubtedly seem to be the case. The problem is the analysis is exceptionally … | |
Hospitality ‘struggling to fill thousands of jobs’Restaurants, cafes and pubs are particularly short of waiting staff and chefs, UK Hospitality says. | |
HS2 leg to Leeds will go ahead, says ShappsThe eastern branch of the planned high speed rail network will be completed, the transport secretary says. | |
British exports worth billions have faced EU tariffs since BrexitDespite the tariff-free deal agreed with the EU, a study finds up to £3.5bn of exports have had taxes applied. | |
Dubaicoin surges 1,000% on fake claims of being city’s official cryptocurrencyThe coin made by cryptocurrency startup Arabianchain Technology on May 24 falsely claimed that it was the official cryptocurrency of the West Asian city, leading to a sharp rally in its price. | |
Money managers see good days ahead as Street looks forward to unlockingœThe market is cheering the downward trajectory of the Covid-19 curve as the recovery rate since the last few days has been faster compared to the new cases. With the improvement in the Covid-19 curve, India is playing catch-up with the global market, said Naveen Kulkarni, chief investment officer at Axis Securities. | |
Meme stocks AMC, GameStop poised to end strong week on a highGameStop, which was at the heart of the so-called “stonks” retail trading mania this year, is set for its best weekly gain since mid-March, up more than 43% so far | |
Final May 2021 Michigan Consumer Sentiment Little ChangedWritten by Steven Hansen The final University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment for May came in at 82.9, up from the preliminary’s 82.8, down from April’s 88.3, down from March’s 84.9, but up from February’s 76.8. | |
Buy This, Not That: You can now get an annual Sam’s Club membership for under $25This popular warehouse club usually costs $45 a year to join. | |
Metals Stocks: Gold futures hover around $1,900, as metal looks to end the month over 7% higherGold futures edge higher on Friday, heading for a weekly and monthly advance, with prices hovering around the psychologically important level at $1,900 an ounce. | |
: Lordstown Motors may grow fast, but for now stock is a hold, Deutsche Bank saysAnalysts at Deutsche Bank started covering Lordstown Motors Corp. stock with a hold rating, saying that uncertainties around the company’s electric pickup are just too great to justify a higher rating. |
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