EconCurrents

Headlines:

Middle Eastern Oil Nations Hike Prices As Production Falters.
What’s Next For Egypt’s Burgeoning Oil Industry?
The Chip Shortage Is So Bad GM Dropped Heated Seats In Winter.
Moscow Says US Embassy “Out Of Touch With Reality” After Dire “Terror Alert.”

Wall Street markets closed for the holiday and will reopen tomorrow morning. However, the World around us still turns as Russian/Ukraine tensions negatively influence investors.

Some investors seeking safe investment shelters are beginning to shift portfolios by buying precious metals. Silver briefly touched 24.00 today, settling at 23.90. Bitcoin has fallen sharply to 38200, while Dogecoin also slipped, marking $0.1346, and looking to trend lower.

Du Jun, co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange Huobi: “Bitcoin may not see a bull market until late 2024 or the beginning of 2025 if past price cycles are any indication.” The next halving event occurs in 2024 when Du thinks there could be another bull market on bitcoin.

Halving was coded into bitcoin’s underlying programming and cuts in half the reward that so-called miners get for validating transactions on the cryptocurrency’s network. It occurs roughly every four years.

As usual, we have included below the headlines and news summaries moving the markets today.

Headlines:

Stocks end lower ahead of a 3-day holiday weekend amid continued Ukraine jitters.
The Oil And Gas Rig Count Continues To Soar.
Walt Disney World Increases Prices For Multiday And Park Hopper Tickets.
Gold Soars, Credit Cracks, Stocks Sink As Putin, Powell, & The President Pontificate.
Draftkings CEO California Sports Betting Revenue Could Help Address ‘Homelessness And Mental Health.’

Wall Street equities sea-sawed downward until 1320 EST, when markets reversed their downward spiral with help from the BTFD crowd. The DOW and oil prices mark the second losing week over the Russia-Ukraine tensions. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is becoming larger than life to some wary investors, even though quarterly financial reporting isn’t all that bad.

The primary force moving markets has been the distinct possibility of Russia invading Ukraine and creating a global problem not easily solved. The White House says Russia has deployed 190,000 troops, doubling its presents at the Ukrain border, while Russian sources claim a pullback.

WTI crude is trending downward, but support at the 90 mark is getting closer. Falling through the 89/90 support will certainly signal further depreciation to at least the 84 level. Gold started the session falling steeply from yesterday’s high of 1905 to eventually rebounding at noon from 1885 to settle at 1896. On the other hand, Silver rose from 23.66 at noon to 24.08 before sliding to 23.94 at 4 o’clock.

Bitcoin is drifting lower, falling through its SMA only to rise above the session low of 39500 to 40100. Dogecoin has been trading at the $0.1392 level and trending down over the last week.

Some analysts are betting choppy markets are here to stay. However, the red volume has been fractionally lower, suggesting that market swings are not conclusive of total investor sentiments. It also presents a ‘hold-and-see’ approach to the Fed’s approach to controlling inflation through interest rate manipulation.

A Fed Policy Mistake Would Be To Stay Loose Relative To Markets. Since April last year, the Fed has watched inflation rise higher. Front-end yields were patient, too, then, given the monetary authority’s inflation-targeting framework. But, as the price footprints began getting stronger and stronger, the Fed kept dismissing it as transitory. The reasoning was inflation failed to uncork above 2% in the longest post-war expansion before the pandemic struck, with the implicit suggestion being there is no reason to suspect this time would be different.

As usual, we have included below the headlines and news summaries moving the markets today.

Headlines:

Russia Is Ready To Send More Gas To Italy
Rising Lithium Prices Could Derail The EV Boom
Ford’s Mustang Mach-E beats Tesla’s Model 3
Bonds & Bullion Bid As Bullard & Blinken Bloviation Batters Big-Tech & Bitcoin
Rising Sex Costs As Durex Raises Prices

Wall Street opened by gaping downward for the second session with investors attempting to cut their losses. The DOW slid over 400 points in the first thirty minutes. Many analysts are predicting a continued weak market influenced by a growing inflation spiral and the imminent invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces.

For most of today’s session, the market moved sideways, marked by a notable absence of BTFDers. Everyone, it seems, is waiting for the second shoe to fall, believing the Wall Street elite are trying to sell Hopium spiked KoolAid to the sheeples. Others have said that the markets are at the top of a dead cat bounce and suggest tightening seatbelts for the roller-coaster ride down.

During the final hour, equity losses gained traction and negatively impacted market sentiment. With more than 500 explosions in Ukraine last night, Russian “shelling” hit a kindergarten and injured two teachers, further exacerbating Russia/Ukraine tensions.

Gold prices jumped to an eight-month high (1900), and other precious metals continued to rise. On the other hand, WTI crude is sharply down from its 96 dollar high three sessions ago.

New residential construction permits grew 0.7% month-over-month but year-over-year growth was a modest 0.8%. Construction completions declined 5.2% month-over-month and are down 6.2% year-over-year.

Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims was was 248,000 – an increase of 23,000 from the previous week. The 4-week moving average was 243,250, a decrease of 10,500 from the previous week

As usual, we have included below the headlines and news summaries moving the markets today.

Headlines:

The U.S. And Nato Aren’t Buying Russia’s Claims It’s Pulling Troops Away From Ukraine.
Forecasters Have No Clue Where Oil Demand Is Going.
Stocks, Bonds, & Bitcoin Dump’n’Pump As ‘Meh’-Minutes Reverse Russia-Rout.
S&P 500 Ends Higher For 2nd Day After Fed Minutes Affirms Plan For Faster Rate Hikes, Balance-Sheet Cuts

Wall Street began today’s session lower, briefly touching green, but failed to close up. Retail sales surge 3.8% in January, more than expected amid inflation rise. Minutes show Fed ready to raise rates, shrink balance sheet soon.

China looks to run coal-fired power plants at full capacity. China will help run its coal-fired power plants at full capacity to ensure energy security, despite the climate goals of the world’s largest polluter.

The Federal Reserve meeting minutes for their January 25-26 meeting shows little new insight on the schedule or size of increases for the federal funds rate which remained at 0 to 1/4 percent. The meeting minutes included the following opaque statement:

… most participants suggested that a faster pace of increases in the target range for the federal funds rate than in the post-2015 period would likely be warranted, should the economy evolve generally in line with the Committee’s expectation. Even so, participants emphasized that the appropriate path of policy would depend on economic and financial developments and their implications for the outlook and the risks around the outlook, and they will be updating their assessments of the appropriate setting for the policy stance at each meeting.

January 2022 retail sales increased 3.8% month-over-month and 13.0% year-over-year (numbers not adjusted for inflation). This is a sizeable increase considering COVID ran wild in January. The US Census also released export-import data for January 2022 which showed prices rose 10.8% year-over-year.

As usual, we have included below the headlines and news summaries moving the markets today.

Headlines:

Elon Musk unloaded $22 billion of Tesla stock — and still owns more now than a year ago.

Super Bowl 2022 attracted more than 112 million viewers, but failed to top record.

Virgin Galactic stock jumps 32% as spaceflight ticket sales open with $150,000 deposit.

Crude Crushed, Stocks Surge, Bitcoin Bid As US-Russia Tensions ‘Ease’

New York City Fires Nearly 1,500 Workers For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine: Mayor .

Oil Refining Industry Can’t Keep Up With Demand. The price of global refined products are soaring even more so than crude oil itself, as demand for those refined products is proving too much for refiners to keep up with, according to a new analysis by Vortexa.

Oil Prices Fall Back But Bullish Sentiment Remains. Oilprice Alert: InnerCircle members will receive the next private placement intelligence letter on Wednesday next week. Tap into a secret world of wealth and receive our 50-page whitepaper on Private Placements for free by signing up today.

As usual, we have included below the headlines and news summaries moving the markets today.

Headlines:

Ukraine Sparks Market Mayhem As Traders See Fed Panic Ahead, Price-In Rate-Cuts Next Year.
How Valentine’s Day Became A Lucrative Holiday.
Wall Street’s Biggest Bear Warns Stocks Are About To Be Hammered By A “Polar Vortex” Of Collapsing Growth.
Semiconductor Sales Top Half A Trillion Dollars or The First Time And Will Keep Growing.

A new inflation reading shows the small business tipping point has been reached as business owners say they need to raise prices. Also, they don’t expect inflation to decline, a signal that higher prices have overtaken Main Street.

Share prices fall sharply across Europe as Ukraine’s invasion fears rattle investors, but losses are lower in the U.S. amid hopes of a deal with Russia. Unfortunately, there is more bad news for Europe’s consumers and policymakers everywhere you look. Russia’s ongoing threats of an invasion of Ukraine have only served to compound insult upon Europe’s self-inflicted energy-related injuries.
The U.S. closes its embassy in Kyiv, citing the ‘dramatic acceleration’ of Russian troops.

Mark Hulbert: Gold isn’t likely to be a safe haven for your money if Russia invades Ukraine! Gold is rallying (1873) now, but prices typically decline in the wake of geopolitical crises. WTI has also settled higher at 94.88, sending gas pump prices higher.

Has anyone mentioned the “I” word today? FYI – “it” is going higher – much higher!

As usual, we have included below the headlines and news summaries moving the markets today.