Written by Gary
Big-Tech, bonds, & bitcoin slide after Senate passes $1 trillion infrastructure bill(SPY +0.1%). Productivity rate of growth slows relative to last quarter.
The Market in Perspective
Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
Saudi Arabias Oil Industry Is Staging An Impressive ComebackAramco sees profits up nearly 300 percent as Sadia Arabia experiences a dramatic rebound from last years pandemic-hit oil demand. Thanks to prices that have increased by 30 percent since the beginning of the year, as well as steadily increasing demand, Saudi Arabias oil industry is going from strength to strength in 2021. The oil and gas industry is finally seeing some growth after stagnation in 2020 due to ongoing vaccination efforts, the easing of Covid-19 restrictions worldwide, and the return of economic activity. | |
Oil Prices Bounce Back As Market Demand RecoversPresident Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill did a lot to counter fears of Covid sweeping through China, with oil prices beginning to bounce back. Chart of the Week- July fuel demand in India rebounded to its highest since April as New Delhi cleared restrictions and lockdowns, netting a 3% month-on-month increase to a total of 16.83 million tons.- The rebound might have been even more pronounced, were it not for fuel prices rising to all-time highs, triggered by a chaotic taxation regime.- In India, petroleum | |
Baghdad Says Iran Halted Electricity Exports To IraqReduced hydropower output in Iran amid a water scarcity has prompted Tehran to suspend electricity exports to neighboring Iraq, which relies on Iranian power and gas supply, Iraqs Electricity Minister Adil Kareem was quoted as saying by Iranian Mehr News Agency on Tuesday. Major Iraqi power plants are dependent on Iranian natural gas supply, and Iraq also imports electricity from Iran, as Baghdads power generation is not enough to ensure domestic supply, especially with crumbling infrastructure and 110-plus degrees Fahrenheit in the | |
Chinas Biggest Refiner To Refine Less Crude This MonthChina Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, or Sinopec, is expected to reduce refinery run rates by up to 10 percent at some of its facilities amid renewed travel restrictions in China to fight a COVID wave, a commodity research analyst told Bloomberg in an interview on Tuesday. According to Jean Zou, an analyst at Shanghai-based commodities researcher ICIS-China, Sinopec is likely to reduce run rates at some refineries by between 5 percent and 10 percent in August, compared to previous plans for this months throughput. China imposed in | |
India Consider Tax Cuts For Imported EVsIndia is considering tax cuts for imported electric vehicles following lobbying from Tesla, Reuters has reported, citing two senior government officials. According to the sources who wished to remain anonymous, one of the tax cuts being considered is of 20 percentage points, from 60 percent to 40 percent, on imported electric vehicles that cost less than $40,000, including the vehicles cost, freight, and insurance. For electric cars that cost over $40,000, the cut being considered is even more sizeable, from 100 percent to 60 percent, the | |
Peak Oil: Is This Top U.S. Refiner Ditching Oil For Batteries?Refiner Phillips 66 is betting on EV batteries for the future because it thinks we have already reached peak oil demand. The company has announced a strategic investment in an Australian lithium-ion battery materials supplier, saying, This strategic investment enables Phillips 66 to directly support the development of the U.S. battery supply chain. It advances our commitment to pursue lower-carbon solutions while leveraging our leadership position and expertise in the specialty coke market and supporting NOVONIXs emerging | |
The 5 most expensive cars selling at Pebble Beach this weekThe Super Bowl of super-rich car collecting kicks off in Monterey, California. this week as more than $300 million of rolling trophies comes up for auction. | |
Deloitte U.S. CEO says hybrid model should ‘bring best of both worlds’ to meet employees halfwayDeloitte U.S. CEO Joe Ucuzoglu told CNBC that companies should balance remote work and safe in-person collaboration as they prepare return-to-office plans. | |
Audi unveils the Skysphere: A futuristic, sinister-looking EV roadster concept car in new direction for automakerThe roadster concept can change sizes based on driving modes and boasts a digital cockpit with a retractable steering wheel that can stow away. | |
Spirit Airlines stabilizes after more than a week of travel chaosSpirit Airlines has canceled more than 2,000 flights since late July after staffing shortages, storms and other issues disrupted its operation. | |
Elon Musk offers for SpaceX to make NASA spacesuits, after watchdog says program to cost $1 billionElon Musk offered SpaceX’s services to help NASA make its next-generation spacesuits. | |
An auto rental shortage sparked a boom in peer-to-peer car-sharing. Entrepreneurs are hopping on the trendEntrepreneurs are finding success by providing customers with a personal touch that isn’t possible for Hertz, Enterprise and other big chains. | |
Main Street overconfidence: America’s small businesses aren’t worried about hackingAmerica’s small business owners think they can handle a hack. Most aren’t prepared, and are overly confident when it comes to cybersecurity. | |
PepsiCo and Boston Beer to create alcoholic Mountain Dew drinkPepsiCo and Sam Adams brewer Boston Beer are teaming up to create an alcoholic version of Mountain Dew. | |
Moderna reaches deal with Canada to build ‘state-of-the-art’ Covid vaccine manufacturing plant after shortagesCanada was plagued by Covid shot supply shortages earlier this year after it struggled to obtain doses manufactured in other countries. | |
AMC CEO says theater chain is going ‘on offense’ with its $2 billion in liquidityAfter enduring the pandemic disruptions of 2020, AMC Entertainment has staved off bankruptcy and now the company’s CEO Adam Aron is going on the offensive. | |
Pizza Hut to offer Beyond Meat’s meatless pepperoni in five marketsPizza Hut is now offering Beyond Meat’s meat-free pepperoni as a topping in five U.S. cities. | |
The rise of Marriott and what’s next for the hotel giant post-pandemicThe rollout of Covid-19 vaccines and signs of pent-up travel demand among consumers has given Marriott International a renewed sense of optimism.  | |
America’s small businesses still can’t find workers, but that’s not their biggest problemThe job market is making things tough for small businesses, but even more entrepreneurs are struggling with inflation in raw materials and the supply chain. | |
Big-Tech, Bonds, & Bitcoin Slide As Dollar Hits 5-Month HighsBig-Tech, Bonds, & Bitcoin Slide As Dollar Hits 5-Month Highs Stocks were mixed today with The Dow leading and Nasdaq lagging (S&P managed to cling to the green on the day). Notice overnight – around 2145ET, futures took a brief battering. There were no obvious headline-based catalysts for that move. The cash open was chaos with Nasdaq bid and Small Caps slammed… but that reversed very rapidly soon after with nasdaq hammered as yields rose and Small Caps rallying to the highs of the day… (makes you wonder if we reverse all this tomorrow?) | |
Even In A Best Case, The Job Market Won’t Be Back In Balance For 10 Months: “What Happens To Wages Until Then?”Even In A Best Case, The Job Market Won’t Be Back In Balance For 10 Months: “What Happens To Wages Until Then?” Friday’s blockbuster jobs which revealed that 943K jobs were added in July, and Monday’s job openings data according to which there were 1.4 million job openings than unemployed workers, confirmed several themes on the US labor market: In the near term, supply-side constraints remain strong and are holding back even bigger gains in jobs and GDP. The economy is on course to hit full employment early next year, causing a more sustained second period of supply constraints. These data do not yet reflect the escalation of COVID cases, so some slowing seems likely in the August and September data. As BofA’s chief economist Ethan Harris notes, Friday’s employment report checked all the boxes: faster-than-expected job growth, upward revisions to prior months, a much bigger-than-expected drop in the unemployment rate, a strong increase in average hourly earnings, and an uptick in the participation rate. To be sure, there were some big picture concerns, most notably that the entire growth was due to seasonal adjustments (unadjusted payrolls actually declined by 133K, with UBS chief economist Paul Donovan making the following caveat: “employment data is full of cautions. People are not spending in a seasonal pattern, so firms are not hiring in a seasonal pattern, so data is adjusting for a seasonality that does not exist.” But setting this major caveat aside, the labor market rem … | |
Liberal Hypocrisy: Private Jets Clogged Martha’s Vineyard Airport Ahead Of Obama’s Maskless PartyÂLiberal Hypocrisy: Private Jets Clogged Martha’s Vineyard Airport Ahead Of Obama’s Maskless Party The blatant hypocrisy of the liberal elites who attended former President Obama’s Martha’s Vineyard “scaled-down” maskless birthday party over the weekend continues as many guests flew in on their private jets, clogging up a tiny regional airport. Local newspaper Vineyard Gazette reports a “major jam-up of private jet traffic” was observed at Martha’s Vineyard Airport over the weekend ahead of Obama’s birthday bash.Â
Airport manager Geoffrey Freeman said private jets packed the tiny airport and drained fuel supplies.Â
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“Transitory” Price Increases Are Forever“Transitory” Price Increases Are Forever Authored by Michael Maharrey via SchiffGold.com, Prices are rising throughout the US economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell keeps telling us this inflationary surge is œtransitory. But transitory doesn’t mean what you think it means. The truth is higher prices are forever. Here’s just a sampling of the price increases we’ve seen over the past few months. Chipotle raised menu prices in June. Polaris, the company that makes Indian Chief motorcycles, snowmobiles and offroad vehicles, raised prices in May and is contemplating additional price hikes. Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Kimberly-Clark, General Mills, Unilever, and other big companies have all raised prices. Auto manufacture … | |
David Cameron personally promoted Greensill to investorsBBC Panorama finds Mr Cameron appeared alongside the controversial company’s founder at a 2019 event. | |
Odeon owner AMC to accept payment in BitcoinCinemagoers will be able to buy tickets and popcorn using the cryptocurrency, says the US chain. | |
JetBlue to launch NY-UK flights despite pandemicThe airline says there is “strong demand” for the route as the global travel industry recovers. | |
Piramal stock doubled in 6 months. Analysts say it has more steam leftAnalysts said the company’s financial segment performance was on the expected lines, with a drop in loan book, but asset quality was largely stable. | |
Reliance Retail eclipses parent RIL’s market value amid grey market frenzyThe market for dealing in unlisted shares now gives the company a market capitalisation that dwarfs its parent firm Reliance Industries (RIL), which holds about 99.95 per cent stake in the retail firm. | |
Market Movers: What triggered bloodbath in smallcap and midcap stocks?Nearly one out of five stocks traded on the National Stock Exchange ended in the red today while over 300 stocks closed at the lower circuit limit. The intensity of the selling took most of the market by surprise even as the benchmark indices managed to keep a poker face amid the mayhem. | |
2Q2021 Preliminary Headline Productivity Rate Of Growth Slows Relative To Last QuarterWritten by Steven Hansen A simple summary of the headlines for this release is that labor costs growth grew on a quarter-over-quarter basis whilst productivity improved more. | |
The Ratings Game: Yeti, like Nike, experienced a shutdown in a Vietnam manufacturing facility due to COVIDYeti stock has soared 49% in 2021. | |
: Mountain Dew with alcohol is coming to shelves, thanks to Boston Beer and Pepsi partnershipBoston Beer Co. Inc. announced a partnership with PepsiCo Inc. on Tuesday that will bring Hard Mtn Dew, an alcoholic version of the popular soda, to shelves. | |
Bond Report: Treasury yields end higher as Senate passes $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure billU.S. Treasury yields edged up on Tuesday as the U.S. Senate voted to approve an infrastructure bill. |
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