Written by Gary
May 2021 Leading Economic Index Increased Again (SPY -0.03%). Tropical storm likely to hit US this week as hurricane season gets off to an active start.
The Market in Perspective
| Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
 | Big Oil Used Instagram And Gen Z Lost ItTo say that Big Oil has had some reputation management problems would be the understatement of the decade. Pressure from environmentalist organizations, regulatorsand most recently, investorshas combined to make life quite difficult for the industry that is being singled out as virtually the only culprit behind anthropogenic climate change. But now its fighting back. A recent article published in Gizmodo details the Instagram foray of Shell and Phillips 66 as sponsors of influencers on the social network. Some of these |
| Musk: Tesla May Accept Bitcoin As Payment If Crypto Goes GreenElon Musk has long been Bitcoins most high-profile advocate. His avid support for the crypto-currency has gone a long way toward shifting public perception in favor of Bitcoin and has boosted the assets legitimacy in global marketplaces. Bitcoin owes much to Musk for its recent boom and soaring prices as the cryptocurrency enters the mainstream in no small part thanks to the Tesla CEOs decision to buy $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin through the electric car company and begin accepting the currency as a valid method of payment. |
| Bottleneck At Crucial Chinese Port Could Cause Trouble For Oil ShippingA major bottleneck at a Chinese port is creating additional disruption to supply chains and global trade, two months after the Suez Canal blockage disrupted global shipping, including oil cargo routes. The current situation at the Chinese port of Yantian Port is a worrying trend, the worlds largest container shipping company, Denmark-based A.P. Moller Maersk, said on Thursday. The ports operations were disrupted several weeks ago because of a COVID-19 outbreak, creating considerable congestion of container ships |
| Can Ecuadors Oil Industry Finally Begin To Recover?Former banker Guillermo Lassos surprise victory over favored candidate leftist Andres Arauz in Ecuadors presidential election last month established a more optimistic outlook for Ecuadors beaten-down petroleum industry. President Lasso is Ecuadors first center-right president in almost two decades with the Andean countrys top office being dominated by left leaning administrations.Lasso is considered a business-friendly alternative to Arauz, the protg of former leftist President Rafael Correa who |
| Oilfield Services Receive A Major Boost As Oil Prices RallyThe steady and substantial climb in oil prices has led to more business for oilfield service providers and higher prices, Reuters has reported, citing data from the industry. We are already beginning to see a positive increase in activity and an upturn in service pricing will hopefully be reflected in the coming months, the report quoted Packers Plus Energy Services chief executive Stuart Wilson as saying. The revival of the oilfield service industry comes despite continuing financial discipline on the part of exploration and |
| Biden, Putin Did Not Discuss Oil Prices Or OPEC+ DealThe leaders of the United States and Russia did not discuss oil prices or the OPEC+ deal at their summit in Geneva on Wednesday, Vladimir Putins Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday. Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden did not discuss Venezuela, the OPEC member under U.S. sanctions exempted from the OPEC+ alliances cuts, either, Peskov told Russian reporters in Moscow on Thursday, as carried by the TASS news agency. The two leaders, however, did discuss Iran and the ongoing talks about the U.S. and the Islamic Republic returning |
| 5 things L Brands is doing to try to accelerate Victoria’s Secret’s turnaroundBig changes are happening at Victoria’s Secret to reshape its image as its parent company L Brands prepares to separate it from Bath and Body Works. |
| Travel app offers skittish vacationers 60-day freeze on hotel ratesHopper rolled out its “Price Freeze for Hotels” feature. The app now lets users lock in the best rate at a specific hotel for up to 60 days. |
| FAA defends SpaceX in front of Congress despite unauthorized Starship launchThe leader of the FAA’s space office defended Elon Musk’s SpaceX in front of Congress on Wednesday, despite an unauthorized Starship launch in December. |
| Covid outbreak forces lockdown at U.S. Embassy in Kabul as cases surge in AfghanistanThe U.S. Embassy in Kabul was placed on lockdown Thursday as Covid cases surge in Afghanistan. |
| U.S. officials keep pushing for Covid vaccinations as more transmissible delta variant gains groundFederal health officials keep pushing for more Americans to get vaccinated as the delta variant accounts for a bigger share of new cases in the United States. |
| Tropical storm likely to hit U.S. this week as hurricane season gets off to an active startThe first tropical system of the Atlantic hurricane season is forecast to make landfall in the U.S. this week, according to the National Hurricane Center. |
| Biden is on track to fall short of vaccinating 70% of American adults by the Fourth of JulyAbout 65% of U.S. adults are at least partially vaccinated. Roughly 13.6 million would have to get their first shot over the next 18 days to meet Biden’s goal. |
| Biden administration to spend $3.2 billion on antiviral pills for CovidThe U.S. is investing $3.2 billion to advance the development of antiviral pills to treat Covid-19 and other viruses that have pandemic potential. |
| Genetic testing company 23andMe rises in first trade after Richard Branson SPAC merger23andMe, a genetic testing start-up that pioneered personalized medicine as a consumer business, trades under ticker “ME” in a deal with Richard Branson’s SPAC. |
| ‘Luca’ is ‘sweet’ and joyful, even if it doesn’t quite live up to Pixar’s greatest hits, critics sayPixar’s “Luca” arrives on Disney+ on Friday. Here’s what critics had to say about the animation studio’s latest film. |
| How we chose America’s Top States for Business in 2021To rank America’s Top States for Business, an annual CNBC report in its 14th year, we score all 50 states on 82 metrics across 10 categories of competitiveness. |
| Christian Eriksen: Denmark midfielder to be fitted with heart-starting device following cardiac arrestThe 29-year-old was given CPR on the pitch at the Parken Stadium in Copenhagen after collapsing during the first half of his side’s 1-0 Group B defeat by Finland on Saturday evening. |
| Sen. Warren presses major pharma trade group on efforts to block Covid vaccine patent waiversSen. Elizabeth Warren pressed a major pharma trade group on its lobbying efforts against a proposal to waive intellectual property rights for Covid vaccines. |
| Market Mayhem As ‘Gamma Hammer’ Sparks Post-Powell-PukeMarket Mayhem As ‘Gamma Hammer’ Sparks Post-Powell-Puke We warned earlier in the week that Friday’s $2 trillion gamma expiration would spark chaos…
…and combined with Powell’s panic-inducing statement/comments/walkback… |
| BofA’s New Inflation Meter Shows Transitory HyperinflationBofA’s New Inflation Meter Shows Transitory Hyperinflation A little over a month ago, BofA spooked even the most dovish elements on Wall Street and in the Marriner Eccles building, when the bank said that judging by the explosion of references to surging prices in Q1 earnings calls, the bank concluded that this “pointing to at the very least, œtransitory hyper-inflation ahead.” Yes… really:
Fast forward to today when BofA’s economist Alex Lin quantified what his bank qualified to so many shocked gasps one month ago. As Lin writes, with core CPI inflation at 3.8% yoy in May, “we must assess how much of the acceleration in inflation is due to transitory factors, and how much will be sustained over the medium term”, a task which virtually everyone is obsessing over (and which can be resolved rather simply). So to contribute to the … |
| The Damage Done By Probability BlindnessThe Damage Done By Probability Blindness Authored by Ron Ross via AmericanThinker.com, As Bishop Joseph Butler said in 1736, “probability is the very guide of life.” The coronavirus has generated more blind fear than perhaps any other event in recorded history.  That fear is blind because it ignores easily calculated probabilities. The reported coronavirus deaths in the U.S. now stand at six hundred thousand.  The population of the U.S. is approximately 330 million.  When you divide deaths by the population, the number is less than two tenths of one percent.  As catastrophes go, that is a relatively small number. There is a wide disparity of coronavirus deaths among age groups. Â
That fact has been deliberately ignored by the authorities and the media. Eighty percent of all deaths have occurred in the over 65 population even though that age group const … |
| Like “Maria All Over Again” – Major Power Outages Strikes Puerto RicoLike “Maria All Over Again” – Major Power Outages Strikes Puerto Rico Puerto Rico’s troubled power utility is attempting to overhaul its grid and is already off to a terrible start. More than 337,000 customers were plunged into darkness across the Caribbean island and unincorporated U.S. territory late Wednesday. Infuriating many customers after a cyberattack and major fire resulted in a massive outage last week. According to AP News, Luma Energy, a private company that is now managing the island’s power transmission and distribution system, had “three units were knocked offline for reasons not immediately known.” Perhaps local news NotiCentro’s “V. Torres Montalvo” has uncovered the source of the power outage:Â
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| Meat sector warns of Brexit production squeezeUK faces shortage of home-reared chickens as EU workers stay away, says trade group. |
| Brewdog boss sorry for staff ‘pain’ as pledges reviewJames Watt has promised an independent review of the beer company after fierce criticism from ex-staff. |
| Victoria’s Secret hires footballer Megan Rapinoe in rebrandLingerie firm hopes partnerships with the likes of football star Megan Rapinoe will revamp the brand. |
| Fed is about to shift gears, but this time it may be differentGetting two rate hikes in by the end of 2023, as the forecasts showed on Tuesday, would substantially shorten the runway for the handoff from the taper to a rates liftoff, and the rate increases also are projected to come more quickly. |
| Gold futures plummet, hover near Rs 47,000/10 gm; silver slides below Rs 68,000/kg. Time to take positions now?The August 5 contract of the yellow metal on MCX fell as much as 3.38 per cent or Rs 1,639 to Rs 46,867 during the evening session. |
| DMart, Info Edge in the running for Nifty inclusion, says EdelweissEdelweiss said supermarket chain operator Avenue Supermarts meets most of the criteria for inclusion, the absent factor being that it is not a part of the derivatives segment. |
| May 2021 Leading Economic Index Increased AgainWritten by Steven Hansen The Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) for the U.S increased by 1.3 percent in May to 114.5 (2016 = 100), following a 1.3 percent increase in April and a 1.4 percent increase in March – and the authors say “After another large improvement in May, the U.S. LEI now stands above its previous peak reached in January 2020 (112.0), suggesting that strong economic growth will continue in the near term”.
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| Capitol Report: When does the Juneteenth holiday go into effect? Right nowAs Washington policymakers establish June 19, known as Juneteenth, most federal employees will get Friday off, said the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the government agency in charge of such matters. |
| Key Words: Stock market ‘still fine for now,’ says billionaire David Tepper after Fed’s hawkish shiftHedge-fund titan David Tepper says the stock market œis still fine for now after the Federal Reserve struck a more hawkish tone at its June policy meeting. |
| : Barclays moves up expectations for Fed tapering after FOMC meetingBarclays economists are anticipating the Federal Reserve will begin tapering its asset purchases as soon as this year, moving up their previous forecast after the Federal Open Market Committee meeting concluded Wednesday. |
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