Jay Bhattacharya Emerges As Top Contender For NIH Chief

Authored by Josph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy at Stanford University, is a top contender to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the next Trump administration, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy at Stanford University, at his home in California on April 17, 2021. Tal Atzmon/The Epoch Times

Bhattacharya was a key figure who spoke out against COVID-19 lockdowns and mandates during the pandemic.

The consideration, first reported by The Washington Post, comes after President-elect Donald Trump named Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH.

If Bhattacharya is ultimately nominated and confirmed to lead the agency, he would be responsible for 27 institutes and centers on issues ranging from cancer and aging to drug abuse. Those include the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was formerly chaired by Dr. Anthony Fauci.

The agency’s $48 billion budget funds medical research on cancers, vaccines, and other diseases through competitive grants to researchers at institutions across the nation. The agency also conducts its own research with thousands of scientists working at NIH labs in Bethesda, Maryland.

In October 2020, Bhattacharya was a lead author of the Great Barrington Declaration alongside Harvard University’s Martin Kulldorff and Oxford University’s Sunetra Gupta. That document, which garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures, called for an end to the COVID-19 lockdowns, which had been in effect for most of 2020.

“As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies,” the letter reads.

In the letter, Bhattacharya and his co-authors described the COVID-19 vaccines as merely one aspect of public health policy, which they said should also focus on immunity through natural infection because of the low risks the disease posed to the young and healthy.

Bhattacharya and his co-authors were opposed to both lockdowns and mask mandates.

In emails obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, former NIH Director Francis Collins—who left the post in December 2021 but continued to work as a science adviser to President Joe Biden—expressed concern that the declaration was “getting a lot of attention.”

“There needs to be a quick and devastating public takedown of its premises,” the October 2020 email from Collins to Fauci reads.

Bhattacharya said during an April 2022 appearance on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” that COVID-19 policy was “the biggest public health mistake in history,” citing both the direct harms it caused to the economy and the indirect harms it caused to children.

Research by the University of California–Riverside released in March 2023 found that lockdowns alone contributed to a more than 5 percent dip in U.S. gross domestic product and caused a 7.5 percent dip in consumer spending.

NIH research into the effect of COVID-19 policies on children has also found that these policies caused children to miss important opportunities for crucial early socialization in the first five years of life. Since then, the NIH has found a marked increase in developmental delays, learning disabilities, and behavioral disorders in children.

Bhattacharya told The Epoch Times that these and other costs were ignored. He blamed senior health officials for this, who he said imposed a narrative of medical unanimity on how to respond to COVID-19 that didn’t truly exist.

If Bhattacharya is chosen and confirmed, he would be subordinate to Kennedy if the latter is also confirmed. Trump’s HHS secretary pick has said he would fire about 600 NIH employees on his first day.

“We need to act fast, and we want to have those people in place on Jan. 20, so that on Jan. 21, 600 people are going to walk into offices at NIH and 600 people are going to leave,” Kennedy said on Nov. 9 at the Genius Network Annual Event in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Kennedy told The Epoch Times in September that he would order the NIH to focus on the sharp increase in autism, autoimmune diseases, and neurodevelopment disorders in recent decades.

The Associated Press and Jeff Louderback contributed to this report. 

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/18/2024 - 15:05

Five Reasons Why The 2024 Election Has Been Devastating For Leftists

The political left's whole world has been turned upside down and just like 2016, millions of people are sitting back and enjoying the show on social media with a big tub of popcorn.  However, some may have noticed that the behavior of the woke mob is even more unhinged than eight years ago.  The defeat of Hillary Clinton hit Democrats hard because polling had been so drastically weighted in Clinton's favor.  Trump's win in 2016 shook their faith in the mainstream media, election statistics and their belief that progressive ideology was the dominant force in American society.  

Their response to the loss was tears and rage.  They acted as if they had been betrayed by the system; that ever present cradle rocking them to sleep with a sense of false security.  Nanny government was no longer there to protect them from scary words and contrary ideas.  Unfortunately this led to years of false Russian collusion conspiracies and race riots. 

This year's election, though, seems to have broken progressive brains.  They aren't just lashing out, they've gone completely insane.  Liberal women have been shaving their heads in protest of men (as if men care), Kamala Harris supporters have taken to social media to scream incoherent gibberish about misogyny and racism, and many are threatening to divorce their spouses, cut off ties to their families and even kill Trump voters using poisons, guns, knives, etc.

The WORST Election Day Meltdowns – @CarolineDowney_ reacts to the worst and most extreme meltdowns from progressive TikTokers over the re-election of Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/LupSgV0dg3

— National Review (@NRO) November 13, 2024

The corporate media has been actively endorsing and encouraging this behavior.  It's a good thing their ratings are plunging and their influence continues to wane.

Yale psychiatrist tells people not to spend the holidays with their family members if they voted for Trump. pic.twitter.com/HX5gejOfDV

— Insurrection Barbie (@DefiyantlyFree) November 9, 2024

The amped up media rhetoric might explain the hysterical fears of fascism, but there's more to it than the forked tongues of CNN and MSNBC.  Why does it seem like leftists have gone far more insane during the latest election cycle?  What's different this time?

Losing The Popular Vote

Democrats often fall back on the argument that "something is wrong" with American voting methodology when they lose an election.  They blame the electoral college because they don't understand how it works or why it's important.  Needless to say, the Founding Fathers were highly suspicious of pure Democracy and sought to prevent tyranny by the majority.  The EC helps to stop the major population centers of the nation (people that lean towards exploitation of rural producers) from ruling over all the people in the "flyover states".   

Because the protections of the 10th Amendment and state's rights have been diluted over the past century, the Electoral College is usually the only thing standing in the way of fully centralized government under the control of blue population centers holding a few million more votes more than the rest of the country. 

In 2024, though, Trump won the popular vote on top of the EC.  The Democrats have no excuses to hide behind and they can no longer claim they're the majority.  They realize the popular vote, which they hold in reverence, is against them.  The "democracy" they claim to protect did not work in their favor and now they're confused.

Desperation For A Token Female President

The establishment media initially argued that Kamala Harris lost because of her race.  But when it became clear that more black men and a large percentage of Hispanics voted against her compared to Barack Obama, the MSM shifted their narrative and blamed "misogyny" instead. 

The same people who refuse to accept the scientific definition of a woman are mad that we still don't have a woman president.  Trump has defeated Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, and this has driven third-wave feminists into a spiraling breakdown.  The problem is not that Democrats ran two women against Trump, the problem is that they ran two corrupt and reprehensible women against Trump.  The character of the individual matters far more than identity politics.  

Kamala Harris' massive loss heralds the death of the social justice crusade and feminism in general, and this is very difficult for leftists to handle.

Get Woke, Go Broke Confirmed

When asked why they voted for Trump Americans often mention the economy, but in the same breath they cite woke ideology as the reason why they no longer support the Democrats.  For years the political left built up their power using woke taboos as a basis for social control.  People don't forget.  Even when Dems tried to go more centrist towards the end of the election cycle the public wasn't buying it.

The last straw was undoubtedly the targeting of children with trans propaganda.  Voters will only tolerate drag queen story hour, sexualized dances in front of kids (or involving kids), men in women's bathrooms or tampons in boys bathrooms for so long.  The public finally snapped and sent leftists a clear message:  Your ideology is cancer and we're cutting it out.

For a long time progressives have denied that "Get Woke, Go Broke" is a reality.  Now it's undeniable.  Kamala Harris, the ultimate DEI candidate who once argued that all of America needs to "go more woke" has been rejected by the masses. 

The Fall Of The Mainstream Media

If it wasn't obvious before it's clear now; the mainstream media is done.  Their viewership is dwindling to nothing.  Certain outlets (like MSNBC) are about to be parceled out in a fire sale.  Only a tiny percentage of the population watches or listens to corporate journalists anymore.  They're about to be jobless.

The era of the Fourth Estate is over and the alternative media has won.  The political left clings to the false legitimacy of the academic elite, the end of the establishment controlled media leaves them in a whirlwind of doubt.  The "experts" have been exposed as impotent but the left refuses to move on with the rest of Americans.  Their beloved gatekeepers have been crushed.

Brainwashing And Irrational Fears Of "Fascism"

For the past four years Democrats have been drowning in a sea of anti-conservative propaganda telling them that anyone who disagrees with them is a fascist, an insurrectionist and an enemy of democracy.  The corporate media has been conjuring endless images of Nazi marches, genocidal purges and book burnings.  Even though Trump was already President for four years and none of these things happened under his direction, leftists are convinced that he intends to resurrect the Third Reich in his final term.

Nationalism by itself is not a precursor to fascism and the system has nothing to do with conservative principles.  In fact, fascism is a creation of the far-left.  Both Hitler and Mussolini held up Karl Marx as the inspiration for the development of National Socialism.  Hitler's efforts to expand control over the means of production was rooted in Marxist ideology and most industries were run behind the scenes by the fascist leadership.  They also instituted price controls, wage controls and inflated the money supply to expand their power, just as Marxists do. 

Leftists have spent decades trying to plant the association of conservatives as fascists into the collective consciousness, but as Adolph Hitler noted in 1934:

“National Socialism derives from each of the two camps the pure idea that characterizes it, national resolution from bourgeois tradition; vital, creative socialism from the teaching of Marxism.”

Socialists and communists go to war with each other all the time.  Leftists turn on each other all the time.  It's not surprising that they turned against each other during WWII, and it's not surprising that leftists today have no understanding that they have more in common with Nazis than conservatives do.  The defeat of the progressives in 2024 is forcing them to question if they're on the right side of history.  Some of them are starting to wonder if they might be the baddies, and that revelation is devastating.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/18/2024 - 14:45

The US Has Been In Recession For Years...

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

Many commentators cannot understand why Trump won the elections despite a robust economy. The reality is far more complex. I have repeatedly stated in my articles and TV appearances on Making Money (Fox News) and CNBC’s Squawkbox Europe that the U.S. economy was significantly weaker than the official headlines suggested. I called it a “private sector recession”.

Anyone who has delved into the supposedly solid headline figures can clearly see the real weakness of the U.S. economy. An unsustainable increase in government spending and federal debt bloated the official GDP, making gross domestic income significantly weaker than headline GDP. Additionally, the Conference Board and University of Michigan consumer confidence readings, well below 2019 and 2021 levels, indicated a stagnant economy. Significant negative revisions and concerning elements were evident in the job reports. The entire improvement of the labor force since 2021 came from foreign workers, and the employment-to-population and labor force participation ratios remained significantly below 2019 levels. Real wages were stagnant in the past four years using official figures. Investment was weak, and the Russell 2000 index, which includes the top small-cap companies generating most of their business in the US, reflected an insignificant 1.8% sales growth and no real earnings growth between 2021 and November 2024.

Professors EJ Antony and Peter St Onge recently published an excellent study, “Recession Since 2022: US Economic Income and Output Have Fallen Overall for Four Years,” through the Brownstone Institute. It perfectly summarizes why Americans have not responded favorably to Bidenomics and his assessment of his economic legacy as the “best economy in the world” or “the best economy ever.” The study concludes that adjustments reflecting a more realistic measure of average price increases in the period have understated cumulative inflation by nearly half since 2019. An enormous divergence between reported CPI and adjusted inflation led to an overstatement of cumulative GDP growth by roughly 15%. Furthermore, these adjustments indicate that the American economy has been in recession since 2022.

As the authors rightly say, “Our results are consistent with the perceptions of the American public, of whom a majority believe we are in recession.”.

The study reveals that understating the CPI and GDP deflator measures of inflation has boosted GDP and real disposable income, resulting in figures that no American who pays bills and receives a wage can relate to. Once adjusted, the harsh reality arrives. The U.S. economy has been in recession for years. Interestingly, Keynesian economists spent these past two years trying to explain why the disaggregated macroeconomic figures I mentioned before did not match the strong headline GDP and disposable income. Despite their numerous justifications, the underlying issue was the government’s overstatement of the growth in disposable income and real GDP.

Americans are not stupid. You cannot tell them that the economy is marvelous and stronger than ever when they do not see it in their daily finances. Such ludicrous propaganda may work in France or Spain, but not in America. Thus, the optimism, publicity, and complacency of a government that constantly repeats that the economy is great backfires. Normal.

Governments create inflation, a hidden tax that erodes the purchasing power of the currency through increased spending and money printing. People often mistakenly report inflation and CPI as identical. CPI is just a measure of the loss of purchasing power of the currency.

Economists often criticize the CPI and GDP deflator measures of inflation for their inadequate reflection of real inflationary pressures. Indeed, there have been numerous studies that show how CPI calculation understates real inflation. “Underweighting of rising food prices and overweighting of falling transport prices are the main causes of the underestimation of inflation,” according to the IMF’s Marshall Reinsdorf (COVID-19 and the CPI: Is Inflation Underestimated?). Peter Schiff also explains it perfectly: “If you run today’s price data through the old formula, you will find that the CPI is nearly double the number the government reports. So, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 9.2% CPI in June 2021, it was closer to 18% when calculated using the 1970s formula.” Why Do You Say the Consumer Price Index (CPI) Understates Inflation?). Vahan P. Roth also comments that, “One of the most important effects that an inaccurate and possibly biased measure of inflation has on the consumer and taxpayer is that it directly influences and justifies monetary and fiscal policy decisions”

(How CPI calculations misrepresent real inflation, GIS).

Indeed, “the CPI is a government statistic, and since the government’s expansionary monetary policy creates the inflation, officials have an incentive to underestimate it” (Mark Brandly at Mises). According to Professor Joseph Salerno, author of the excellent book “Money, Sound Unsound” (Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2015), the current method of calculating the annual inflation rate is backward-looking, as the previous eleven months’ rates significantly outweigh the most recent monthly rate. In contrast, calculating the annual inflation rate by compounding and annualizing the most recent monthly or quarterly rate of change in the CPI gives a better idea of what inflation currently is and how it may be trending.” Thus, after the recent figures, no one would declare victory over inflation, and the Federal Reserve’s policy would be completely altered.

Bloated government spending has disguised a private sector recession and the real decline in real disposable income, real wages, and margins of SMEs (small and medium enterprises). We can now see that real GDP has been in contraction for the past two years, even after accounting for real inflationary pressures. Furthermore, the temporary and exogenous factor of widespread weaker commodities boosted the external contribution of gross domestic product.

The issue is that attempts to lessen the impact of currency destruction have repeatedly compromised the reliability of official data. As the government’s influence in the economy increases, technical recessions may not show up in official data, but they still affect citizens. Furthermore, deficit spending and money printing now result in both higher taxes and lower real wages in the future. Therefore, the unintended consequence of an official recession is an increase in government debt, an increase in taxes, and a decrease in the purchasing power of the currency.

Biden and Harris believed that strong official headline figures would reward them, leading them to implement an ultra-Keynesian approach: the most aggressive government expenditure and debt increase plan in decades. They also thought that citizens would fall for the trick of blaming corporations and shops for inflation. They were wrong. They engineered a recession, and families and businesses suffered as a result. However, many people mistakenly believe that Bidenomics was a miscalculation that ultimately backfired. The objective was to advance the stealth nationalization of the economy by increasing the public sector size and dissolving the wealth of the private sector, making it impossible for the next administration to undo the damage. That is what all socialist parties do. They leave a mess that is difficult to unravel, then return in the next election to continue raising taxes and expanding the role of government in the economy.

The United States should steer clear of these impoverishing Keynesian policies and instead adopt a private sector-driven pro-growth strategy, coupled with a sound money policy, to stabilize public sector finances and restore prosperity to America. It has successfully achieved this in the past and can continue to do so in the present.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/18/2024 - 14:25

Boeing Lays Off 438 Union Workers As Drastic Cuts Begin

Boeing, still grappling with financial setbacks, regulatory scrutiny, and the aftershocks of an eight-week machinists’ strike, has begun delivering layoff notices to more than 400 members of its unionized workers as part of a broader plan to cut approximately 10% of its workforce, or 17,000 jobs.

Boeing employees work on the 737 MAX on the final assembly line at Boeing's Renton plant in Renton, Wash., on June 15, 2022. Ellen M. Banner/The Seattle Times via AP, Pool

The layoffs target members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), a union representing thousands of Boeing employees. According to the union, 438 members received pink slips last week, with affected employees remaining on the payroll through mid-January.

According to an October statement by Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, the layoffs are the result of 'overstaffing,' adding that the company must "reset its workforce levels to align with our financial reality."

Of the 438 SPEEA members impacted:

• 218 are engineers and scientists from the union’s professional unit.
• 220 are from the technical unit, which includes roles such as planners, technicians, and skilled tradespeople.

SPEEA, which represents 17,000 Boeing workers, noted that most of its members are based in Washington State, though the layoffs also affect employees in Oregon, California, and Utah.

For those losing their jobs, Boeing is offering limited support, including career transition services, subsidized healthcare benefits for up to three months, and severance packages typically amounting to one week of pay per year of service.

A Company Under Pressure

Boeing’s challenges have been mounting for years, exacerbated by a series of missteps and external pressures.

Boeing, based in Arlington, Virginia, has been in financial and regulatory trouble since a panel blew off the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines plane in January. Production rates slowed to a crawl, and the Federal Aviation Administration capped production of the 737 MAX at 38 planes per month, a threshold Boeing has yet to reach. -AP

The company’s troubles worsened in September when its machinists went on strike for eight weeks, further disrupting operations. Although unionized machinists began returning to work earlier this month, the strike strained Boeing’s already fragile finances.

Ortberg has insisted that the layoffs are unrelated to the strike and are instead part of broader efforts to address overstaffing. However, the timing has raised questions among labor advocates and analysts, who point to the compounding financial pressures Boeing faces.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/18/2024 - 14:05

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: 3rd Look at Local Housing Markets in October

A brief excerpt:

NOTE: The tables for active listings, new listings and closed sales all include a comparison to October 2019 for each local market (some 2019 data is not available).

This is the third look at local markets in October. I’m tracking over 40 local housing markets in the US. Some of the 40 markets are states, and some are metropolitan areas. I’ll update these tables throughout the month as additional data is released.

Closed sales in October were mostly for contracts signed in August and September when 30-year mortgage rates averaged 6.50% and 6.18%, respectively (Freddie Mac PMMS). These were the lowest mortgage rate in 2 years!
...
Here is a look at months-of-supply using NSA sales. Note the regional differences, especially in Florida and Texas (although October statistics in Florida were impacted by Hurricane Milton). This pickup in inventory is impacting prices in Florida.
...
Many more local markets to come!

There is much more in the article.

"Voters Did Not Reject Our Economic Policies" Says Delusional Progressive Leader

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

My hoot of the day is the disregard by Democrats of the key election message.

The lead image is from the Washington Post. That’s a free link. Enjoy!

Most of the nation’s 3,000-plus counties swung rightward compared with 2020. The Republican shift appeared across rural border communities in Texas, the wealthy suburbs of Washington, D.C., and even reliably Democratic counties in New York City.

Trump widened his margins in rural areas, while Harris underperformed compared with Biden in safely blue cities. This combination, and a rightward lurch in major suburbs and midsize metros, amounted to a Trump victory in every battleground state.

Progressive Infighting Underway

As expected in this corner, Democrats, Reeling from Election Losses, Cast Blame on Each Other.

Two weeks removed from a set of losses that sent Democratic leaders into a tailspin, the years-long ideological battle between the progressive left and centrists has once again come to a head as both sides fight to shift blame and take the reins of the future direction of the party.

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sanders wrote. “While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”

DNC Chair Jaime Harrison described that analysis as “straight up BS,” arguing that the Biden-Harris administration had brought about a slew of pro-worker reforms, including creating new jobs through major legislation, such as the Inflation Reduction Act.

For nearly a decade, progressives trying to get to the top of their party’s tickets have been stymied in favor of more centrist choices. [That is outright bullsheet. Biden promised to be a moderate and morphed into a senile, Progressive’s wet dream candidate. ]

Progressives have complained that Harris made a broad play for the political center, campaigning with billionaire Mark Cuban and former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, rather than trying to generate more enthusiasm for Harris among some left-leaning voter blocs. [Had Harris tilted further to the Left, Democrats may have lost Virginia.]

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California), who supported Sanders’s presidential bid in 2020 and campaigned for President Joe Biden and then Harris this year, and other progressive Democrats said they had no conversations with Harris about her efforts to appeal to voters who might be interested in progressive policies.

“We didn’t emphasize the economy,” Khanna said. “We didn’t emphasize the renewal of the American Dream. We didn’t emphasize manufacturing and higher wages and corporations not having excessive CEO pay. Instead, we spent a billion dollars having concerts all over America. I mean, it was ridiculous.”

A campaign official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to openly discuss strategy, said that Harris’s policy ideas about ending corporate price gouging and reducing housing costs were taken from long-standing progressive proposals. One of Harris’s final campaign stops included an appearance by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York). Meanwhile, Sanders, Khanna and other progressives were surrogates for the campaign.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, pointed to the pandemic-era relief pushed by Democrats during the Trump administration. Getting those checks during Trump’s presidency might have led some to feel they had more money then than during Biden’s term once the aid ended. [Excuse me for pointing out that 2 of the 3 checks were delivered by Biden although 2 of them passed under Trump. But it was the massive third round of stimulus, totally unwarranted, that set off the big inflation wave. The absurdly named Inflation Reduction Act piled on even more inflation].

Voters preferred the progressive policies but they didn’t realize who was behind them, Jayapal said. “I don’t think we’ve ever really articulated that,” she said. “Voters did not reject our economic policies.”

“Voters Preferred Progressive Policies”

That statement is my top hoot of the day. And it’s from a totally brain-dead Progressive clown.

And my second hoot of the day is from another Progressive clown.

“We didn’t emphasize the economy,” said Rep. Ro Khanna.

The fact is, Harris purposely avoided the economy because Biden made a total inflationary mess of it.

Mish Flashback October 15: Is the Harris Media Blitz Backfiring or Is Her Slippage Due to the Something Else?

When asked by The View what she would have done differently than Biden, Harris replied with her only believable comment “There is not a thing that comes to mind.” 

That truthful statement immediately confirmed the entire rest of her campaign was a big misinformation lie.

And now, Progressive say she should have talked more on the economy.

Mish Flashback August 24: Vote for Harris if You Want Radical Racial Indoctrination of Your Kids

What starts in California and Minnesota is guaranteed to not stay in California and Minnesota if you vote for Harris.

Q: Would Harris have changed that?
A: Hell no.

And the Progressive clowns wanted Harris to openly admit that.

Allan Lichtman Blames Elon Musk “Director of Misinformation” for Huge Democrat Loss

On November 11, I noted Allan Lichtman Blames Elon Musk “Director of Misinformation” for Huge Democrat Loss

This is my Hoot of the Day, candidate for Hoot of the Year.

This is difficult, but I will be very polite: Allan Lichtman, @AllanLichtman, is a first class politically arrogant moron.

The directors of misinformation are MSNBC, CNN, ABC, the View, CBS, Biden, Harris, the Washington Post, and alleged gurus like Lichtman.

Democrats sought to silence everyone who even slightly disagreed with any of the above.

The inimitable @AllanLichtman a.k.a. “Election Nostradamus” insists his forecasting techniques would have worked perfectly if only Elon Musk, Fox News and all other conservative media had not spread so much “disinformation.” Pure comedy gold! pic.twitter.com/O0BRiTlb5y

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) November 14, 2024

Yes, that’s quite the hoot. But this may be a close call.

So we need a vote: Who is more delusional, Allan Lichtman, Pramila Jayapal , Ro Khanna, or AOC?

Those who have already voted, anyone care to change their vote.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/18/2024 - 11:05

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reported the housing market index (HMI) was at 46, up from 43 last month. Any number below 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as poor than good.

From the NAHB: Builder Confidence Moves Higher as Election Uncertainty is Lifted

Builder sentiment improved for the third straight month and builders expect market conditions will continue to improve with Republicans winning control of the White House and Congress.

Builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes was 46 in November, up three points from October, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) released today.

“With the elections now in the rearview mirror, builders are expressing increasing confidence that Republicans gaining all the levers of power in Washington will result in significant regulatory relief for the industry that will lead to the construction of more homes and apartments,” said NAHB Chairman Carl Harris, a custom home builder from Wichita, Kan. “This is reflected in a huge jump in builder sales expectations over the next six months.”

“While builder confidence is improving, the industry still faces many headwinds such as an ongoing shortage of labor and buildable lots along with elevated building material prices,” said NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz. “Moreover, while the stock market cheered the election result, the bond market has concerns, as indicated by a rise for long-term interest rates. There is also policy uncertainty in front of the business sector and housing market as the executive branch changes hands.”

The latest HMI survey also revealed that 31% of builders cut home prices in November. This share has remained essentially unchanged since July, hovering between 31% and 33%. Meanwhile, the average price reduction was 5%, slightly below the 6% rate posted in October. The use of sales incentives was 60% in November, slightly down from 62% in October.
...
All three HMI sub-indices were up in November. The index charting current sales conditions rose two points to 49, the component measuring sales expectations in the next six months increased seven points to 64 and the gauge charting traffic of prospective buyers posted a three-point gain to 32.

Looking at the three-month moving averages for regional HMI scores, the Northeast increased four points to 55, the Midwest moved three points higher to 44, the South edged up one point to 42 and the West held steady at 41.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the NAHB index since Jan 1985.

This was above the consensus forecast.

Well, that was a lot more fun than I expected!

I submitted the final manuscript for my new book, How Not to Invest, last week. The final edit will involve some back-and-forth, but the writing is finished.

I recall “Bailout Nation” as more of a slog, in part because so much of it happened in real-time. I constantly rewrote entire chapters as various companies blew up. There was always this time pressure, and since it was my first book, I had little idea what I was doing other than expanding various blog posts into full-length chapters.

HNTI was a very different experience. This book was joyous to write for a few reasons:

First, it was a giant puzzle that I had to figure out how to put together. It’s not easy to distill your entire investing philosophy into a single work. What do you include? What do you leave out? How do you best bring three decades of your prior writings into the 2020s? My trick was to sneak in the investing lesson by showing some really bad outcomes—not only in finance but in many other fields. Figuring that out was, surprisingly, a lot of fun.

Second, we all put ideas out into the world and hope for the best. It was fun to revisit some prior concepts to see what has stood the test of time and then to flesh those ideas out more fully. Seeing these examples of bad behavior from a historical perspective was really eye-opening. I cherry-picked the worst outcomes because they were both instructive and amusing. (This is a target-rich area.)

Third, Morgan Housel (Psychology of Money) and Craig Pearce of Harriman House had been encouraging me to write this book for a few years, but I didn’t initially see either a useful or new & different approach. The reality is after more than a century of books instructing people how to invest, most of us remain mediocre at the task at best. My insight was avoiding all of the usual errors was a better approach than laying out all of the “How to’s.” Channeling Charley Ellis and Charlie Munger was the key to coming up with this line of attack.

I am really proud of this.

Sure, you always want another six months to massage, edit, and polish it, but at a certain point, you have to let it go.

The book will have its own website at hownottoinvestbook.com.* (You’ll be able to order the book from all of the major book retailers there.) If you want to learn more about how the book was made, any related media appearances, background, ask questions, get special bonus material, etc., you can sign up here: HNTI -at- RitholtzWealth.com

And please, pre-order a copy today!

 

 

__________

* Until that site goes live in January, the redirect will be to the posts at HNTI category at the blog: https://ritholtz.com/category/how-not-to-invest/

 

The post Coming March 18: “How Not To Invest” appeared first on The Big Picture.

Futures Flat As Tesla Lifts Tech; Yields, Dollar Resume Push Higher

US futures are higher even as European and Asian markets fail to stay positive, as traders waited for fresh pointers on growth and the future of interest rates. As of 8:00am ET, S&P 500 futures rose 0.1%, while Nasdaq 100 futures added 0.3% as Tesla shares surged 8% in premarket trading on speculation Trump’s team will ease self-driving car rules; the boost was enough to offset the 2% drop in NVDA ahead of its earnings Wednesday. Bond yields resume their trek higher (10y 4.47%, +3bp this morning) after sliding on Friday, while the USD is trading near session highs erasing an earlier drop. Commodities are mostly higher led by oil (+0.9%), aluminum (+5.3%) and precious metals (gold +1.1%, silver +1.5%). Gold rose more than 1% after Goldman analysts predicted the precious metal would hit a record by the end of next year. Bitcoin recovered from its biggest two-day retreat since the US vote to trade past the $90,000 mark.  This week, the key focus will be earnings (NVDA, WMT, TGT) and global PMIs.

In premarket trading, Tesla gained 7% after Bloomberg reported that members of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team have told advisers they plan to make a federal framework for fully self-driving vehicles one of the Transportation Department’s priorities. Nvidia falls 2% after the Information reported that the chip giant has asked its suppliers to change the design of the server racks for its new Blackwell graphics processing unit due to an overheating problem. Here are some other notable premarket movers:

• Astera Labs (ALAB) gains 3% as Citi initiates coverage of the semiconductor stock with a buy rating, saying the shares provide artificial intelligence investors with a unique opportunity.
• CVS Health (CVS) gains 1.5% after naming Glenview Capital Management founder Larry Robbins to its board as part of an agreement with the activist firm that’s been pressuring the company for change.
• Liberty Energy (LBRT) climbs 5% after President-elect Donald Trump nominated Chris Wright, who runs the Colorado-based oil and natural gas fracking services company, to lead the Energy Department.
• Newmont (NEM) rises 2% after agreeing to sell Musselwhite for up to $850 million.
• Shift4 Payments (FOUR) rises 5% after S&P Dow Jones Indices said the company will replace R1 RCM in the S&P MidCap 400 prior to the opening on Nov. 20.
• Super Micro Computer (SMCI) climbs 12% as the server maker approaches a deadline to either file a delayed 10-K annual report or submit a plan to file the form to Nasdaq in order to remain listed on the exchange.
• Syndax Pharmaceuticals (SNDX) rises 7% after the FDA approved its drug Revuforj (revumenib) for the treatment of certain leukemia patients.

While the S&P 500 has given up more than half its rally since Trump’s election win, Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson - best known for being bearish and wrong for much of 2023 and 2024 - is now predicting gains will resume over the longer term.  Wilson, once considered a prominent bear on Wall Street, sees the S&P 500 ending next year up around 11% from Friday’s close amid improving economic growth and further Fed interest-rate cuts. Goldman Sachs analysts, meanwhile, said gold will reach a record $3,000 an ounce by December 2025 due to central-bank buying and US interest rate cuts.

“It should be a quieter week as the recent relentless wave of US macro and political news flow in theory slows down,” said Jim Reid, Deutsche Bank’s global head of macro and thematic research. “The main story on this front being on potential political appointments for the new Trump administration with Treasury secretary the one creating most interest.”

Indeed, Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary is in focus this week along with Nvidia earnings on Wednesday that are set to test the sustainability of AI-led stock gains. US financial leadership under incoming Trump administration remains unclear, with Robert Lighthizer, Senator William Hagerty, Apollo Global Chief Executive Officer Marc Rowan and Kevin Warsh now among the candidates for Treasury secretary.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 was down 0.3% amid continued worries about potential US tariffs under the new administration and weakness in China. Real estate and technology stocks declined the most, while miners outperformed after iron ore rebounded on signs of robust Chinese steel output in the short term. Here are some of the biggest movers on Monday:

• Melrose Industries shares rise as much as 9.3% after the aerospace technology provider reiterated its profit guidance for this year and next.
• Bavarian Nordic gains as much as 11%, the most since August, after the Danish vaccines maker was upgraded to buy from hold at Carnegie.
• Ence Energia y Celulosa gains as much as 5.1% following an upgrade to buy at Jefferies, which sees pulp prices reaching a bottom in 1Q next year and scope for strong Ebitda growth in renewable biomass energy.
• ASR Nederland rises as much as 3.2% after UBS upgrades the stock to buy from neutral, preferring the Dutch insurer to peer NN Group due to the likelihood of more share buybacks ahead.
• Judges Scientific plummets as much as 19% after the scientific instrument developer says not all the orders it expected to be crystallized and delivered in the second half of the year will be achieved in time.
• UK homebuilders are underperforming on Monday after asking prices for residential properties fell more than usual in November as the budget disappointed prospective buyers and affordability remained stretched, according to Rightmove.

Earlier, Asian equities gave up gains, as initial advances in China disappeared as traders weigh the outlook for more stimulus measures. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index declined 0.1%, with TSMC and SK Hynix among key losers. China’s CSI 300 Index fell 0.5%, while the Japanese benchmark slipped to a near two-week low. Stocks in Taiwan also declined, while Korean equities rose the most in about two months as Samsung shares rose more than 5% on Monday in response to a $7.2bn share buyback plan - the first since 2017 - aimed at boosting its stock, which had fallen to four-year lows last week. Investors are waiting to see if Chinese authorities are inclined to issue more stimulus measures while President-elect Donald Trump’s threat of tariffs looms over the region’s sentiment. Chinese state-owned companies’ stocks received a boost Monday after the country’s securities regulator issued a supportive guideline, urging them to come up with clear and executable plans to boost their valuation.  

In FX, the Dollar Spot Index erases a 0.2% drop and traded near session highs while 10-year US Treasury yields edge two basis points higher to 4.46%. The Japanese yen weakened as much as 0.5% to 155.14 against the greenback after Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda avoided giving a clear hint that he will raise interest rates at a December meeting. EUR/USD +0.1% at 1.0548.

In rates, Treasury futures were near lows of the day in early US trading following similar losses in bunds ahead of several speeches by ECB policymakers this week. US curve steepens as long-end leads losses, pushing 2s10s and 5s30s spreads beyond Friday’s highs. US session has little economic data and no scripted Fed speeches slated. Yields were cheaper by 1bp-4bp across the steeper curve, with 2s10s and 5s30s spreads both ~2.5bp wider on the day; 10-year around 4.465% is ~3bp higher with bunds underperforming by around 0.5bp in the sector.  German bonds fall, led by the short-end, as traders remove some ECB interest-rate cut premium ahead of a number of speeches from policymakers this week. German two-year yield climbs 6bps to 2.18%, sector underperforms Treasuries and gilts

In commodities, oil rebounded, with Brent crude trading near $72 per barrel. Bitcoin fell almost 3% over Saturday and Sunday before rising back to $92,000 on Monday morning. Trump has made various pro-crypto pledges, but there are open questions about the timetable for implementation and whether all are feasible — such as setting up a US Bitcoin stockpile.

Today's US economic data calendar includes November New York Fed services business activity (8:30am), NAHB housing market index (10am) and September TIC flows (4pm). Fed speaker slate includes Goolsbee at 10am. Schmid, Cook, Bowman, Hammack and Barr are scheduled to appear later this week. Eurozone and UK inflation readings due on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, will help investors gauge the outlook for Bank of England and European Central Bank policy. A swathe of officials from the respective institutions are also due to speak.

Market Snapshot

• S&P 500 futures little changed at 5,897.50
• STOXX Europe 600 down 0.3% to 501.48
• MXAP little changed at 182.06
• MXAPJ up 0.2% to 576.58
• Nikkei down 1.1% to 38,220.85
• Topix down 0.7% to 2,691.76
• Hang Seng Index up 0.8% to 19,576.61
• Shanghai Composite down 0.2% to 3,323.85
• Sensex down 0.3% to 77,322.56
• Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 0.2% to 8,300.17
• Kospi up 2.2% to 2,469.07
• German 10Y yield little changed at 2.39%
• Euro up 0.2% to $1.0566
• Brent Futures up 0.5% to $71.39/bbl
• Gold spot up 1.1% to $2,591.11
• US Dollar Index down 0.13% to 106.55

Top Overnight news

• Chinese leader Xi Jinping told President Biden that Beijing remains committed to stable relations with the U.S., an expression of hope for continuity in ties before Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office in the midst of promises to squeeze Beijing over trade. WSJ
• China’s population is expected to shrink by ~51M over the next 10 years as the country continues to grapple within enormous demographic headwinds. BBG
• BOJ’s Kazuo Ueda avoided giving a clear hint that the BOJ will raise rates at its December meeting, saying the timing of its next adjustment will depend on the economy and prices. The yen weakened. BBG
• US pump prices are set to dip below $3 a gallon, a three-year low, just in time for Thanksgiving travel, which is expected to reach pre-pandemic levels. BBG
• As western leaders look to talks with Putin, Russia hit Ukraine over the weekend with one of the largest missile and drone barrages of the entire war. WSJ
• Nvidia asked suppliers to redesign server racks for its new Blackwell GPU, leading to worries about delays, the Information reported. BBG
• Trump is broadening his search for a Treasury Sec and rather than Bessent or Lutnick, could decide to select Kevin Warsh, Sen. Bill Hagerty, or Apollo’s Marc Rowan. WSJ
• Trump seeks assurances from Treasury Sec candidates that they will execute a plan to implement sweeping tariffs. FT
• US President-elect Trump picked Chris Wright to be Energy Secretary and named Commissioner Brendan Carr as the Chairman of the FCC. It was also reported that Trump is considering Kevin Warsh and Marc Rowan for US Treasury Secretary, according to NYT, while Trump was reportedly seeking a pledge that his Treasury Secretary will enact tough tariffs, according to FT.
• Tesla +7.7% in the premarket after people familiar said Trump’s team is seeking to encourage the development of fully self-driving vehicles. BBG
• Fed's Barkin (2024 voter) said on Friday that he always expected core PCE would stay in the ‘high twos’ in H2 and is still seeing progress on inflation, while he added that pricing power is getting more limited, according to a Yahoo Finance interview. Furthermore, Barkin said he hopes and expects that inflation numbers will come down in Q1, as well as noted that they are a long way from knowing what will happen with tariffs and it is hard to know the impact.
• Fed’s Collins (2025 voter) said on Friday that there is not a moment where policy forward guidance is a good idea and Fed policy is well positioned for what lies ahead in the economy, while she added it is too soon to say the impact of the election on the economic policy and the Fed needs to see data before deciding on the December FOMC. Furthermore, Collins said they do not need the labour market to soften further and they are not seeing signs of fresh inflation pressures, while she added the data suggests more room to run on the balance sheet rundown, as well as noted that monetary policy is restrictive and will need to ease over time.
• Fed's Goolsbee (2025 voter) said on Friday that he does not like tying the Fed's hands and there is still more data to come when asked about a December rate cut or pause, while he added that markets react immediately and in most extreme terms. Goolsbee also said the Fed needs to focus on longer trends and he will be looking at rate cuts along the lines of the September Fed policymaker projections.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks began the week with a mildly positive following last Friday's tech-led declines on Wall St which were triggered by hot US data and with quiet newsflow from over the weekend aside from Russian geopolitical-related headlines. ASX 200 was contained as losses in tech, healthcare and financials offset gains in utilities, commodities and consumer stocks. Nikkei 225 declined at the open after last Friday's currency strength and with a surprise contraction in Machinery Orders, although was off today's worst level with some mild support seen as the yen weakened following BoJ Governor Ueda's comments. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp traded higher amid a focus on recent earnings releases and after the PBoC continued its liquidity efforts, while Chinese President Xi said that China is 'ready to work' with Trump during a meeting with US President Biden.

Top Asian News

• RBA's Kent says most borrowers have buffers to help manage higher interest rates; Worth reviewing the RBA's approach to forward guidance from time to time; forward guidance in Australia might be less useful than in the US
• US President Biden told Chinese President Xi that keeping open lines of leader-to-leader communication is vital through transition and beyond, while they agreed that AI will not ever take control of nuclear weapons and Biden raised concerns about unfair, non-market economic practices by China and issues in the South China Sea.
• Chinese President Xi told US President Biden that China’s commitment to a stable, healthy and sustainable development of China-US relations remains unchanged and China is willing to maintain dialogue, expand cooperation and manage differences with the US government in an effort to realise a smooth transition period in China-US relations. Xi also told Biden that common interests between their countries are expanding rather than shrinking and that containing China is unwise, unacceptable and bound to fail. Furthermore, Xi said the China-US relationship would make considerable progress when the two countries treat each other as a partner and a friend and that he is ready to work with Donald Trump to manage ties.
• Chinese President Xi told US President Biden the Taiwan question, democracy and human rights, the system, and rights to development are China’s four red lines which allow no challenge, while Xi said the US should refrain from making any moves that have a chilling effect and told Biden to deal with the Taiwan issue with “extreme caution”, according to state media.
• China’s Commerce Minister met with the Canadian Minister for International Trade in Peru and discussed the tariff situation.
• China's securities regulator said it is to improve the coordination mechanism for overseas listing supervision and regulation, while it will expand the scope of eligible stocks under the stock connect.
• China and the EU are said to have reached a “technical consensus” in talks regarding tariffs the bloc applied to Chinese electrical vehicles, according to a Weibo account affiliated with the state-run China Central Television cited by Automotive News.
• BoJ Governor Ueda said they will continue to raise the policy rate and adjust the degree of monetary support if the economy and prices move in line with their forecasts, while he also stated there is no change to BoJ's stance to underpin economic activity and the timing of rate hike will depend on economic, price, and financial outlook. Ueda said they will make a policy decision by updating the economic and price outlook with data and information available at the time, while he noted that gradually adjusting the degree of monetary support will contribute to durably achieving the price target through sustained economic growth and they must be vigilant to various risks including overseas and market developments. Furthermore, Ueda said there are numerous factors they want to check including on US economy but won't necessarily wait until there is clarity for all of them and if they don't adjust the degree of monetary support appropriately, they could be forced to hike rates rapidly.

European bourses began the session on a mixed/flat footing, and initially lacked any firm direction. Soon after the cash open, sentiment improved, however, this upside quickly dissipated to show a mostly negative picture across Europe. European sectors hold a strong negative bias, with only a couple of sectors in positive territory. Basic Resources tops the pile, benefiting from strength in underlying metals prices. Real Estate & Tech are found at the foot of the pile, hampered by the relatively high yield environment. US Equity Futures are mixed, with slight outperformance in the tech-heavy NQ, attempting to pare back some of the hefty losses in the prior session. Barclays cuts Europoean Healthcare to underweight, Utilities to Market weight, Luxury, Insurance to Overweight

Top European News

• ECB's Nagel says global integration would have to decline substantially to prompt a notable increase in inflationary pressures. Proposed tariffs by US President-elect Trump would upend international trade but only have a "minor impact" on inflation.
• ECB's de Guindos says balance of risks have shifted to growth from inflation.
• ECB's Makhlouf does not think the job is done on taming inflation; services inflation is higher than he wants. Adds that he does not feel the need to rush, at the moment. Says ECB must think like a long-distance runner. Says prudence and caution have a premium to them, ECB should continue in that manner
• UK government confirmed the spread of bird flu in commercial poultry at premises near Rosudgeon, St. Ives, Cornwall, according to Reuters.

FX

• DXY has kicked the week off on a contained footing with not much to shift the macro dial over the weekend. DXY is currently caged within Friday's 106.33-96 range. If upside resumes, last week's YTD peak sits at 107.06.
• EUR/USD currently sits towards the upper end of Friday's 1.0516-93 range as the USD gives back some of its recent gains. EZ-specific newsflow has been light, but ECB's Lagarde and Lane are due later.
• JPY is the marginal laggard vs. the USD across the majors after BoJ Governor Ueda continued to signal a lack of urgency to hike rates but reiterated the BoJ will continue to adjust monetary support if the economy and prices move in line with their forecasts. He later warned they could be forced to hike rapidly if they don't adjust the degree of monetary support appropriately. USD/JPY currently sits towards the bottom end of Friday's 153.85-156.74 range.
• GBP is steady vs. the USD but in close proximity to Friday's multi-month low at 1.2597 that was triggered by a soft outturn for Q3 UK GDP. Docket for today is light, but inflation/PMI data is due later in the week.
• Antipodeans are both marginally softer vs. the USD with not much in the way of fresh drivers to instigate price action. Both currencies remain sensitive to the fallout from the US election and the tone that Trump will strike towards China.

Fixed Income

• Minor losses for the Dec'24 UST with prices currently in consolidation mode after the election. The Dec'24 UST contract is currently within Friday's 108.30-109.23+ range; the lower bound of which was a contract low. The US yield curve is marginally bull-steepening with the 2s10s wider by around 14bps.
• Bunds are lower in a slight unwind of some of last week's upside. Macro focus around the Eurozone remains on the growth outlook with ECB's de Guindos this morning remarking that this is where the Bank is currently focusing. The Dec'24 Bund contract is currently lingering below the 132 mark, having breached the low on Friday to a current trough of 131.62. ECB President Lagarde & Lane are due to speak later.
• Gilts are marginally softer, in-fitting with price action in global peers. The macro narrative towards the back-end of last week was characterised by the soft outturn for Q3 UK GDP. The Dec'24 Gilt contract is currently capped by resistance at 94.00 which coincides with Friday's peak. The UK 10yr yield currently lingers just above Friday's trough at 4.46%.

Commodities

• WTI and Brent are firmer in what has been a choppy session for the complex thus far, having initially swung between gains and losses since the cash open. Brent’Jan 25 resides towards the upper end of a USD 70.70-71.80/bbl range.
• Precious metals are on a firmer footing, having rallied overnight alongside strength in silver, but without a clear catalyst driving the upside. XAU currently holds towards the upper end of a USD 2,566-597/oz range.
• Base metals hold a positive bias, continuing the price action seen overnight, where the complex benefited from a generally positive risk sentiment in APAC trade overnight.
• US President Biden’s administration plans on releasing a study on LNG environmental impacts and hopes to finalise a clean fuel bill before the January 20th Inauguration Day, according to the White House.
• Goldman Sachs sees Brent crude trading USD 70-85/bbl but could climb on harsher Trump sanctions on Iran, while it reiterated its gold target of USD 3,000/oz by December 2025.
• Russia's Ilsky oil refinery (300k bpd) has asked government for help, mainly over facility modernization and high interest rates.

Geopolitics: Middle East

• A Lebanese official says "We are open to the content of the draft US proposal and deal with it positively", via Al Jazeera.
• Israel conducted a strike on Beirut which killed Hezbollah’s media relations chief Mohammad Afif, according to security sources cited by Reuters.
• Tens were killed in an Israeli strike on a residential building in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya, according to Reuters.
• Iranian Foreign Minister Araqchi said he strongly denies the reported meeting between Iran’s envoy and Elon Musk, while he added if the IAEA Board of Governors passes a resolution against Iran, Tehran will take reciprocal action and implement new measures in its nuclear program.
• Iran reportedly keeps the door open to talks with US President-elect Trump and its Deputy Foreign Minister noted that Tehran favours negotiations but will not yield to maximum pressure strategy, according to FT.

Geopolitics: Ukraine

• US President Biden’s administration lifted restrictions on Ukraine using US-made weapons to strike deep inside Russia, according to sources familiar with the decision cited by Reuters. NYT also reported that President Biden allowed Ukraine to strike Russia with long-range US missiles, while Ukrainian President Zelensky said missiles speak for themselves and such things are not announced regarding long-range strikes.
• Russia's Kremlin on reported decision by Biden Administration to allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russia says these reports did not have official sources; if such a decision has been made by the US, this will usher in a new round of tensions. It would mean a new situation with the involvement of the US in the Ukraine conflict. If Western weapons are fired deep into Russia, this will not be Ukraine doing the targeting, but those countries which gave permission.
• US President Biden's decision to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles to hit the Russian depth was communicated to Kyiv about 3 days ago, while the motive behind the decision is to deter North Korea from sending more troops to Russia, according to a source cited by Axios.
• Russian upper house’s international affairs committee deputy head Dzhabarov said the decision to allow Ukraine to strike inside of Russia with US missiles is an unprecedented step that could lead to World War Three and will receive a swift response, according to TASS. Furthermore, it was also reported that a senior Russian senator said the US decision to allow Kyiv to strike Russia with long-range weapons represents escalation and could result in the Ukrainian statehood being in complete ruins by the morning.
• Ukrainian President Zelensky said Russia launched around 120 missiles and 90 drones in a massive combined air strike on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure early on Sunday morning, while Ukraine’s largest private power company said the Russian air strike damaged thermal power stations, according to Reuters. Furthermore, Russia’s Defence Ministry said Russian forces launched a massive strike on Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure facilities that support the defence industry and military enterprises, according to RIA.
• Russian forces struck critical infrastructure in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region and western Ukraine’s Rivne region, while Russia’s missile attack damaged energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s north-western Volyn region.
• Poland activated aircraft to ensure airspace security after Russia launched a missile attack on Ukraine.
• French President Macron said the massive Russian attack on Ukraine shows Russian President Putin does not want peace and they must continue helping Ukraine defend itself.
• Australia’s Defence Minister Marles said Japanese troops are to have regular deployment in Australia and focus on cooperation between Australian and US Marines.
• North Korean leader Kim urged the military to improve capabilities for fighting an actual war, while he added that threats by the US and allies brought tensions and calls for war preparations, according to KCNA.
• North Korea said Russia’s delegation led by the national resources minister arrived in North Korea, according to KCNA. It was separately reported that North Korea may end up sending 100k troops to Russian President Putin to support Russia’s war in Ukraine although it was also stated that the move is not imminent and troops could rotate in batches, according to Bloomberg.

US Event Calendar

• 08:30: Nov. New York Fed Services Business, prior -2.2
• 10:00: Nov. NAHB Housing Market Index, est. 42, prior 43
• 16:00: Sept. Total Net TIC Flows, prior $79.2b

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

I went to bed at 7:30pm last night as a bout of suspected food poisoning has left me drained. I had a fever in the night which probably explains why I had the most peculiar dream where I was flying on a magic carpet. So please read the rest of the daily below this morning in that context.

At least it should be a quieter week as the recent relentless wave of US macro and political news flow in theory slows down with the main story on this front being on potential political appointments for the new Trump administration with Treasury secretary the one creating most interest with a huge amount of jockeying for position over the weekend between what are perceived to be the front runners, namely Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick. Elon Musk endorsed the latter over the weekend suggesting he would be a disruptor. Indeed one of his recent quotes is that "When was America great? 125 years ago. We had no income tax, and all we had was tariffs." So this will be a fascinating race.

Although the macro world will be much quieter this week just when you thought it was a good point to have a lie down after a busy few weeks, the biggest global earnings event happens after the bell on Wednesday with $3.48 trillion of market cap at stake. Yes you guessed it Nvidia reports after the bell. For context, the entire FTSE, DAX and CAC have a market cap of £2.08tn, €1.71tn and €2.31tn, respectively. So it's like a whole G7 country's stock markets reporting at exactly the same time.

The next most important event might be the global flash PMIs on Friday. The reason being that they may capture some of the initial sentiment impact from around the world regarding Trump's victory. Europe will be especially interesting on this front as the continent awaits their trade fate.

Outside of that there will be a focus on inflation with final Eurozone CPI (tomorrow), Canadian CPI (tomorrow), UK CPI (Wednesday), German PPI (Wednesday), and Japan CPI (Thursday) being the key ones. For the UK, our economist sees a mixed bag of inflation data, with headline CPI (DB forecast 2.07% YoY) and RPI (DB forecast 3.29%) picking up amid higher energy prices but core CPI is seen declining to 3.07% YoY and services CPI slowing to 4.78% YoY. His full preview is here. In Japan, our Chief Japan economist sees the nationwide CPI printing 2.1% YoY for core inflation ex. fresh food (2.4% in September) and core-core inflation ex. fresh food and energy at 2.2% (+2.1%).

There are also plenty of central bank speakers which you can see in the day-by-day week ahead at the end as usual which includes all the other data highlights this coming week.

Over the weekend, the war in Ukraine made headlines as President Biden authorised Ukraine to use US long-range missiles to strike targets hundreds of miles inside Russia for the first time, according to reports. That followed Russia embarking on its largest missile/drone attack on Ukraine in months on Saturday night. It seems ahead of Trump taking office both sides want to be in as strong a position as they can as any possible deal will be negotiated from their current position in the war.

Moving onto Asia, it's a mostly bright start to the week with the KOSPI (+1.90%) leading the way, driven by a rally in Samsung Electronics (a recent big laggard) after the company announced a surprise stock buyback plan. Chinese stocks are also higher, with the Shanghai Composite (+1.24%), the Hang Seng (+1.18%), and the CSI (+1.08%) all in positive territory following a call from China's securities regulator for listed companies to boost stock returns through share buybacks and other methods. Conversely, the Nikkei (-1.03%) is bucking the regional trend after BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda indicated that the central bank would continue raising rates if the economy and prices evolve as expected. S&P 500 (+0.28%) and NASDAQ 100 (+0.73%) futures are strong for this time of day after a sizeable -2.24% slump for the latter on Friday.

Early morning data showed that Japanese core machine orders unexpectedly contracted -4.8% y/y in September (v/s +1.8% expected) as against a -3.4% drop in the previous month.

Recapping last week now, markets lost ground from their post-election surge as the week progressed, as concerns about inflation and a potential trade war dampened risk appetite. In particular, US core CPI came in at +0.3% for a third month running in October, whilst core PPI was also at +0.3%, raising fears that inflation was becoming stuck above the Fed’s target. Then on top of that, Fed Chair Powell himself said that the economy was “not sending any signals that we need to be in a hurry to lower rates”. So that led to growing doubts about a December rate cut, and futures dialled back the probability of a cut to 58%, down from 65% the previous week and a high of 82% last Wednesday.

With investors pricing in more hawkish policy, 2yr Treasury yields rose +5.0bps on the week, though they retreated -4.2bps amid a risk-off mood on Friday. The rise in yields was larger at the long-end, with the 10yr yield up +13.5bps (+0.3bps Friday) to 4.44%, its highest weekly closing level since May. That rise was led by real yields, with the 10yr real yield +15.9bps higher (+0.7bps Friday) to 2.11%. In turn, that meant the dollar index strengthened for a 7th consecutive week to a one-year high, having risen by +1.61% (+0.01% Friday). That dollar strength was partly as the rise in yields was not matched in Europe, with investors pricing a widening rate differential between the Fed and the ECB with the 10yr bund yield actually falling -1.1bps over the week (+0.3bps Friday) to 2.35%.

In the equity space, the S&P 500 fell -2.08% (-1.32% Friday), its worst performance in ten weeks, and erasing 60% of its post-election jump. The retreat was fairly broad, with weakness among chipmarkers and pushing the Philadelphia Semiconductor index -8.64% (-3.42% Friday), while the small-cap Russell 2000 was down -3.99% (-1.42% Friday). European equities saw a relative outperformance, with the STOXX 600 only down -0.69% (-0.77% Friday), but this still marked a 4th consecutive weekly decline for the index.

Finally, it was another strong week for Bitcoin, which was up by another +17.08% in the week ending Friday, with a closing value of $89,511. Moreover, at its intraday peak on the Wednesday, Bitcoin had risen as high as $93,462. However, for commodities it was a pretty poor performance, with Brent crude down -3.83% to $71.04/bbl, whilst gold suffered its worst weekly performance since June 2021, with a -4.53% decline last week to $2,563/oz.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/18/2024 - 08:19

Altos reports that active single-family inventory was up 0.1% week-over-week.  Inventory is now 2.4% below the peak for the year (4 weeks ago).
Inventory will now decline seasonally until early next year.
The first graph shows the seasonal pattern for active single-family inventory since 2015.
Click on graph for larger image.

The red line is for 2024.  The black line is for 2019.  
Inventory was up 26.7% compared to the same week in 2023 (last week it was up 27.3%), and down 18.5% compared to the same week in 2019 (last week it was down 19.2%). 
Back in June 2023, inventory was down almost 54% compared to 2019, so the gap to more normal inventory levels is about two-thirds closed.
This second inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research.
As of Nov 15th, inventory was at 722 thousand (7-day average), compared to 722 thousand the prior week. 
Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube.

Trump Appoints FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr As Agency Chair

Authored by Melanie Sun via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday night made another appointment for his incoming administration, this time naming Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Brendan Carr as agency chair.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr in Washington on March 11, 2024. Jack Hsu/The Epoch Times

As one of the agency’s five Senate-confirmed commissioners who serve staggered five-year terms, Carr is currently the senior Republican at the FCC.

The position of FCC chair is designated by the president from among the pool of confirmed commissioners, and does not require another Senate confirmation.

Carr was nominated as FCC commissioner by both Trump and President Joe Biden, serving across both administrations.

“I first nominated Commissioner Carr to the FCC in 2017, and he has been confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate three times,” Trump said in a statement posted on his Truth Social platform. “His current term runs through 2029 and, because of his great work, I will now be designating him as permanent Chairman.”

“Commissioner Carr is a warrior for Free Speech, and has fought against the regulatory Lawfare that has stifled Americans’ Freedoms, and held back our Economy,” the president-elect said. “He will end the regulatory onslaught that has been crippling America’s Job Creators and Innovators, and ensure that the FCC delivers for rural America.

[ZH] Most recently, Carr has set his sights on the relationship between 'news health rating' organization NewsGuard and Big Tech.

Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft & others have played central roles in the censorship cartel.

The Orwellian named NewsGuard along with “fact checking” groups & ad agencies helped enforce one-sided narratives.

The censorship cartel must be dismantled. pic.twitter.com/Xf0sEYOUfv

— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) November 15, 2024

You can’t make it up. NewsGuard says it provides apolitical guidance on "misinformation.”

Yet one of its own Advisory Board members signed the infamous Oct 2020 former intel officials letter falsely suggesting that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation.

— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) November 16, 2024

“Congratulations to Chairman Brendan Carr on a job well done. Lead us into a great future, Brendan!”

According to the FCC’s website, Carr led the agency’s efforts to update its infrastructure rules to “cut billions of dollars in red tape” and “accelerate the buildout of high-speed [5G] networks“ through private sector participation. He is also the champion of the FCC’s ”Connected Care Pilot Program“ telehealth initiative for low-income Americans and veterans, as well as a jobs initiative through community colleges that promotes apprenticeships ”as a pipeline for good-paying 5G jobs.”

Before he was confirmed and ascended to FCC commissioner, Carr served as the FCC’s general counsel and adviser to then-FCC chairman Ajit Pai.

Carr thanked Trump for the appointment.

“I am humbled and honored to serve as Chairman of the FCC,” he wrote on the X social media platform. “Now we get to work.”

Days before the Nov. 5 election, Carr said that Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris may have violated an FCC rule against licensed broadcasters using public airwaves to influence an election in favor of a candidate unless the other candidate is offered equal time by the same broadcasters. This led to the NBC network airing a message from Trump on Nov. 4.

Carr will be replacing Biden’s FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel.

The Senate confirmation of Biden’s nominee for FCC commissioner, Anna Gomez, in September 2023 established a Democratic majority (3–2) on the five-member commission.

During her time as chair, Rosenworcel proposed to reinstall the Obama-era net neutrality rules from 2015 and re-establish the FCC’s authority over broadband providers, which were removed by the agency during the first Trump administration.

Carr pushed back against the 2023 proposal, which he warned would give the federal government extensive authority to micromanage various aspects of internet service provision.

“The Biden administration has pressed the FCC to break hard left, and it has. The administration has put ideology over smart policy,” he said of the sweeping digital equity plan, urging for prioritizing important bipartisan priorities like allocating use of the radio frequency spectrum.

Savannah Hulsey Pointer contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/18/2024 - 08:05

Hedge Fund CIO: "China's Xi Watches In Cold Sweat As Trump Is Announcing His New Team"

By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

“This is quite a blue town,” said the CIO in DC. I had asked him about the post-election vibe. “Most of the city is kind of mourning, and a narrower group is euphoric.” We were discussing the profound change that has already begun to unfold post-election. The range of unorthodox and anti-establishment presidential appointments, the many possible consequences, economic, military, geopolitical. DOGE. “So, I worked in government for quite a few years,” he said. “And let me tell you, 30% of the people do 100% of the work.”

* * *

“China is ready to work with the new US administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation and manage differences, so as to strive for a steady transition of the China-US relationship for the benefit of the two peoples,” said Xi Jinping yesterday, meeting with Biden in Peru.

China’s stock market had fallen 1.2% priced in dollars since November 4th,the day before America’s election. The S&P 500 had gained 2.8% in that time. The Euro Stoxx 50 index was -4.3% when priced in dollars, the economic chasm widening, inexorably. The UK stock market and the MSCI Emerging index both fell 4%.

“If we treat each other as an adversary or an enemy, viciously compete with and harm each other, the Sino-US relations will encounter twists and turns or even regression,” warned Xi, his economy struggling, its real estate crisis and debt burden suffocating the kind of growth he needs to maintain social cohesion. And beneath it all, China’s inescapable demographic collapse ground onward, such things are mathematically impossible to reverse.

Xi had watched in a cold sweat as America’s president-elect announced his new team, China hawks, trade hawks, anti-establishment players, people committed to challenging orthodoxy in every area of government; appointments unlike anything seen in modern American history.

And the policy platform for the world’s largest economy appeared to be designed to fuel a domestic boom, which if achieved would put further distance between the US, China, Europe, in fact every serious nation. This increasingly evident contrast would spark further unrest amongst the citizens in these same nations whose leaders were failing them in so many ways.

“China’s goal of a stable, healthy and sustainable China-US relationship remains unchanged,” declared Xi, outwardly calm, statesmanlike, but inside praying that somehow, someway, this would be the time that America’s remarkable and chaotic propensity for producing prosperity, revolution within, reinvention, would finally fail.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/18/2024 - 07:45

My back-to-work morning train WFH reads:

• Are U.S. Stocks Overvalued? When stocks go up presidents get too much credit and when they go down they get too much blame. It’s mostly circumstantial depending on the timing of cycles and such. But the markets move faster than ever these days. Investors are constantly pricing in the future, sometimes right, sometimes wrong, yet never in doubt. The stock market was already up big heading into the election but things took off in the days following the outcome. Many investors are positioning for a boom under a Trump presidency. The biggest pushback I’ve seen is that valuations have been stretched after the big run-up since the 2022 bear market. (Wealth of Common Sense)

• Many retailers offer ‘returnless refunds.’ Just don’t expect them to say for which products: It’s one of the most under-publicized policies of some of the biggest U.S. retailers: sometimes they give customers full refunds and let them keep unwanted items too. Returnless refunds are a tool that more retailers are using to keep online shoppers happy and to reduce shipping fees, processing time and other ballooning costs from returned products. (AP News) see also Returns Are a Headache. More Retailers Are Saying, Just ‘Keep It.’ In a survey, nearly 60 percent of retailers said they had policies that refund customers for items that aren’t financially viable to send back. (New York Times)

• What Does a Once-in-a-Generation Investment Opportunity Look Like? We are at a major inflection point in macro fundamentals and market leadership, offering investors a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reposition portfolios. To put the magnitude of this opportunity into perspective, we have identified what we believe are the best trades of the past 50 years — those asset class, regional and sector allocation decisions that would have netted the greatest long-term outperformance. Each of these trades would have generated excess returns averaging 7-19% per year spanning periods of 8-22 years: (CAIA)

• Just Because You Inherit a Co-op Doesn’t Mean You Can Live in It: Some instances allow for automatic approval, while others require you to be OK’d by the board (WSJ)

• The Rapid Adoption of Generative AI: Aalmost 40% of the U.S. population ages 18 to 64 used generative AI to some degree, and almost 1 in 3 respondents said they used it daily or at least once but not every day during the week prior to the survey. (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) see also OpenAI just scored a huge victory in a copyright case … or did it? McMahon’s ruling may also undermine what has been a growing trend toward the licensing of copyrighted content by AI developers — in part to forestall copyright infringement claims. OpenAI reached a $250 million  licensing deal with Dow Jones, the parent of WSJ; OpenAI also cut deals with Axel Springer, the owner of Business Insider and Politico; the Financial Times; and the Associated Press. (Los Angeles Times)

• The New York Times is a right-wing newsletter, with recipes: Trash newspaper does trash thing. (Finding Gravity)

• The 25 Most Influential Cookbooks From the Last 100 Years: Chefs, writers, editors and a bookseller gathered to debate — and decide — which titles have most changed the way we cook and eat. (New York Times)

• How a breakthrough gene-editing tool will help the world cope with climate change: Jennifer Doudna, the co-developer of CRISPR, says there’s a “coming revolution” in climate-adapted crops and animals. (MIT Technology Review)

• Most “humane” farms are lying to you — and the government isn’t stopping them: A new investigation finds false advertising continues to dupe consumers. (Vox)

• The Clint Squint: “If I lost my squint, I think my whole career would go down the tubes.” — Clint Eastwood. (New York Times)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Colin Camerer, the pioneering neuroeconomist at California Institute of Technology. His field of study looks at the interface between cognitive psychology and economics. Professor Camerer was became a MacArthur Fellow (Genius grant) in 2013 for his work on risk, self-control, and strategic choice. His book “Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction” is credited with creating a new the field within strategic theory. He is also a Distinguished Senior Fellow with the Wharton Neuroscience.

 

Fed Expectations Are Usually Wrong

Source: Apollo

 

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The post 10 Monday AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

In "Major Policy Shift" Biden Authorizes Ukraine's Use Of US Missiles To Hit Targets Inside Russia

In a move straight out of Louis "After me, the flood" XV, the outgoing BIden admin, in a seemingly desperate move to destabilize the global geopolitical picture, has authorized the lifting of some restrictions on Ukraine’s use of western-made weapons to strike military targets inside Russia, according to reports from Bloomberg and the AP. The decision was reportedly shaped by North Korea ramping up support for President Vladimir Putin’s army and an increase in Russian missile and drone attacks on its neighbor. 

The approval represents a major U.S. policy shift and comes as the deep state-supported, dementia-ridden puppet Joe Biden is about to leave office and incoming President-elect Donald Trump has said he would bring about a swift end to the war and has expressed skepticism over continued support by the United States.

If approved, the capability would likely be used first in the Kursk region of Russia, where Ukraine is fighting against North Korean troops as well as Moscow’s forces, the people said. Still, any permission, if granted, is unlikely to go as far as Ukraine has requested, one of the people said.

As the war in Ukraine heads into its third full winter, the US and its allies "have grown extremely concerned" about Pyongyang’s decision to deploy its forces in combat and assessments by some Group of 20 nations suggest North Korea could eventually send as many as 100,000 troops to Russia. The allies believe the deepening cooperation between Putin and Kim Jong Un could have consequences for the security balance in the Indo-Pacific region, Bloomberg has reported previously.

Discussions between the allies over missile strikes have intensified since Donald Trump won US elections earlier this month, another Bloomberg source said. Trump has said he will seek a quick deal between Ukraine and Russia to end the war, without specifying how.

In other words, Biden's puppet masters are urgently seeking to escalate the war in Ukraine to make the quick ceasefire sought by Trump impossible (after all, war is how the Deep State earns its income), and in doing so risking World War 3 as just two months ago, Putin warned that If Ukraine uses U.S. long-range missiles to strike Russia, the "United States is at war with Russia."

And just to underscore that mushroom clouds are coming, Putin since said that Russia "will use nuclear weapons if a mass enemy missile or UAV is launched towards Russia, or when these weapons cross into Russian territory."

"We will use NUCLEAR weapons if a mass enemy missile or UAV is launched towards Russia, or when these weapons cross into Russian territory"

-Vladimir Putin pic.twitter.com/H46vDkwAR1

— Richard (@ricwe123) November 17, 2024

Until now, Biden had remained opposed to such an escalation, determined to hold the line against any escalation that he felt could draw the U.S. and other NATO members into direct conflict with Russia. But what supposedly triggered the shift is not Trump's desire to end the war, at least not according to Bloomberg's deep state sources, but North Korea's decision to deploy deployed thousands of troops to Russia to help Moscow reclaim land in the Kursk border region that Ukraine seized this year, and which Russia has already mostly regained even as Ukraine continues to cede territory in the Donetsk region. The introduction of North Korean troops to the conflict comes as Moscow has seen a favorable shift in momentum.

As many as 12,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia, according to U.S., South Korean and Ukrainian assessments. U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials say North Korea also has provided Russia with significant amounts of munitions to replenish its weapons stockpiles.

Trump, who takes office in January, spoke for months as a candidate about wanting Russia’s war in Ukraine to be over. He also repeatedly slammed the Biden administration for giving Kyiv tens of billions of dollars in aid. His resounding election victory has Ukraine’s international backers worrying that any rushed settlement would mostly benefit Putin.

Which is where the deep state's World War 3 Hail Mary comes in, especially since the outgoing Biden administration has said it will send as much aid as possible to Kyiv before Trump takes office in January.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/18/2024 - 06:25

419 Million People Still $hit Outdoors

3.5 billion people still live without access to safe toilets, including 419 million who practice open defecation.

November 19 is the UN’s World Toilet Day and this year the theme is ‘Toilets: A Place for Peace’, highlighting how for billions of people, sanitation is under threat from conflict, climate change, disasters and neglect.

As Statista's Anna Fleck reports, according to UNICEF, children who live in extremely fragile contexts are three times more likely to practice open defecation, four times more likely to lack basic sanitation services and eight times more likely to lack basic drinking water services.

You will find more infographics at Statista

In 2022, 419 million people were still practicing open defecation, the most severe level of lack of sanitation service. Nineteen percent around the world did not have access to at least basic sanitation, defined as a private toilet connected to sewage piping, a septic or composting tank or a pit. Forty three percent of the global population did not live with safely-managed sanitation, meaning that their sewage was not treated properly, posing severe health risks to them as it enables pathogens to re-enter water supplies.

As recently as the year 2000, 1.3 billion people were still defecating outdoors, with grave health consequences. The UN has been working to eradicate the practice and has made some progress. In 2017, the number of those without access to any bathroom had sunk to 673 million and finally to 419 million in 2022.

Gains remain to be made in Sub-Saharan Africa, where steady population growth continues to put pressure on sanitation services. Cambodia, Ethiopia, Nepal and India saw the largest fall in outdoor defecation since the year 2000, reducing it from affecting around 70 to 85 percent of the population to seven to 20 percent.

The latter country has been particularly ambitious in installing proper toilets. Before Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, more than 60 percent of India's population didn't have access to a household toilet. Since then, billions of dollars have been invested under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan ("Clean India") campaign. According to UN numbers, open defecation was reduced to affecting 11 percent of the Indian population in 2022.

Tyler Durden Mon, 11/18/2024 - 02:45

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of November 17, 2024

Monday:
• At 10:00 AM ET, The November NAHB homebuilder survey. The consensus is for a reading of 42, down from 44. Any number below 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as poor than good.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures S&P 500 are down 5 and DOW futures are down 39 (fair value).

Oil prices were down over the last week with WTI futures at $66.78 per barrel and Brent at $70.91 per barrel. A year ago, WTI was at $76, and Brent was at $81 - so WTI oil prices are down about 12% year-over-year.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $3.03 per gallon. A year ago, prices were at $3.29 per gallon, so gasoline prices are down $0.26 year-over-year.

US Obesity Levels Are Particularly Severe

In most OECD countries that collect self-reported weight data, more than half of adults are overweight or obese (2023 or latest available data).

However, as Statista's Anna Fleck reports, obesity prevalence was particularly high in the United States, with just over a third of respondents saying that they are obese in 2023.

You will find more infographics at Statista

In Chile and the United Kingdom rates were just above one in four, while Korea had the lowest share of people with obesity of the countries studied at just 4.9 percent.

According to the World Health Organization, a body mass index (BMI) of over 25 is considered overweight, and over 30 obese.

Obesity is linked to a range of health issues such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and several common cancers. Although awareness is increasing around the topic, obesity is still often misunderstood due to misconceptions of it being solely due to poor lifestyle choices, whereas factors such as genetic predisposition and environmental influences are also important.

Tyler Durden Sun, 11/17/2024 - 18:05

3D Chess Or 52-Card Pickup

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

3D Chess or 52-Card Pickup?

3D Chess always makes me think of Star Trek and wonder who the heck thinks that we need a game more complex than chess? 52-Card Pickup is a game most frequently played by siblings, and even then, only once or twice. Typically, the older sibling asks the younger one if they want to play 52-card pickup. Without knowing the game, but excited that their older sibling wants to do anything with them, the younger one instantly agrees. At which point the older sibling throws a deck of cards across the room and yells – there you go, 52-card pickup!

Depending on who you listen to, talk to, or follow, in its first full week, the Trump team is either playing an incredible game of 3D Chess, or is playing the equivalent of 52-Card Pickup with the nation.

It is far too early to say which side is right, and the final answer will likely fall somewhere in the middle. Having said that, there are a few things that have come up consistently in meetings, calls, and interactions with clients.

• There are various processes in place to effectively protect the system. Could they be bypassed by using Recess Appointments? I have to admit that Congress getting recess, like schoolchildren, has always amused me, but recess appointments would be a very aggressive tactic. They allow Trump to bypass the confirmation process (for up to a year) for some positions, presumably the most difficult/contentious ones. For some reason, this is also “part of the system and process,” so someone must have thought that there was a need for this. To me, this, like many things (including the 2+ month timeframe between the election and the inauguration) is likely a function of how difficult it was to travel across the country back in the day. It will be interesting to see how the appointments go, to say the least.

• If you are going to try to radically change D.C., often described as “draining the swamp,” it does make sense that non-traditional candidates would be selected. Yes, there are people with more experience than some of the nominees, but are they too close to the system to try and change it?

• D.O.G.E (the Department of Government Efficiency) has generated a lot of buzz. It seems to be the one thing that everyone is curious about and wants to see how it all plays out (even with a tinge of optimism that some spending can be cut without reducing or hurting services). It is also quite clear that Musk, one of the richest people on the planet, will play a major role in this administration, as a key advisor to President-Elect Trump.

Thinking about this dovetails well with last weekend’s Learning to Speak Trump Again. For better or worse, we should expect D.C. headlines to continue to create volatility for the markets.

Having said that:

• The 10-year Treasury is back to 4.44%, basically where it closed on November 7th. We’ve had some pretty big swings on a daily and even intraday basis, but wound up unchanged. I remain firmly in the camp that the deficit fears (and concerns about inflation from tariffs) are more than priced in right now.

• The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 are both below where they closed on November 7th (for all the “growth” hype, that certainly grabs your attention). Maybe even more surprising, given the attention, is that the Russell 2000 is back to below its November 7th close, having dropped over 5% since it hit a high on Monday (maybe a good reminder that equity markets should shut down along with the bond market on Veterans Day).

• Gold was strong into the election, but has faded hard since then. Copper, which should benefit from growth if the “Dr. Copper” people are correct, is down over 12% since the start of the month. Oil has struggled, but energy stocks have done well, with XLE holding onto its gains. This makes some sense (see “Drill Baby Drill” from Fox Business this summer) as energy production should increase, helping to keep energy prices at bay, but creating some potentially strong profit growth.

• Bitcoin. Bitcoin has been incredibly strong. Yes, some volatility, but it has clung to the idea that a Trump administration will be very positive for crypto in general and Bitcoin (and Dogecoin) in particular. Given how many of the people in Trump’s inner circle are very positive on Bitcoin, it makes sense. On the other hand, Trump doesn’t control Bitcoin at all, and he does seem to like to control things, which may tarnish his current love affair over time. Also, for all the chatter about the U.S. government building up a “Bitcoin reserve” (it is hard to miss it, if you spend any time at all on X), I have not heard from anyone that this is really feasible. Most, which includes me, think that there will be an immense amount of resistance to government adoption (yes on clearer and helpful rules and regulations, but no on adoption by the government). You cannot fight this rally right now and maybe it is 3D Chess being played out, but it has the smell of 52-Card Pickup to me.

• Many of the Commercial Real Estate ETFs have done poorly. In some cases, they are much closer to their annual lows than highs, even as stocks in general perform well. I think that this is actually a very interesting opportunity as yield fears are overdone, and Work From Home is really going to struggle next year. More and more companies are limiting work from home as they push for a return to the office. That momentum feeds on itself. Many who were afraid to push for work from office will be emboldened. I cannot see a world where the Department of Government Efficiency (I’m not sure it is an actual department, but that doesn’t really matter given the attention that it’s getting) won’t be looking at getting more government workers back into the office. Everyone has focused on the potential for layoffs dragging down D.C.-focused real estate valuations, but I think that net/net over time, it will turn out to be good for D.C. commercial real estate. I see CRE as where I have the biggest difference of opinion with consensus views right now.

One Chart That I Cannot Stop Thinking About

We included this chart in our NFP reaction, but I feel a sense of urgency to highlight it again. Maybe this is our attempt to play 3D Chess, or maybe we are getting ourselves overly wound up about a non-event. Since we often discuss how dubious the Jobs Available calculation is for the JOLTS report, it may seem weird that the QUIT rate, from that same report, has grabbed our attention. My take on the QUIT rate is that it is “crowd sourced” data. Every individual has a pretty good idea about their own job prospects and that gets reflected in the QUIT rate.

During the financial crisis, the QUIT rate didn’t get this low until May 2008. If I remember correctly, we technically were not in a recession at the time, and only later did the powers that be declare that we actually were in a recession. That fits with my view that this rate is important and may have a predictive element to it.

I certainly think that when anyone and everyone felt like they could quit and get a better job, it was extremely difficult for management to take away work from home. I suspect that plans to offer severance packages to reduce the workforce voluntarily (one idea floated around by DOGE) won’t be that effective when workers don’t see outside opportunities readily available (that is my interpretation of the QUIT rate).

If we see a lot of progress made on the “Make America Great” front, this could change abruptly. There might be plenty of new jobs created. There might be jobs that were being done by undocumented workers becoming available. A lot could happen, but so far, I think the outlook on jobs is following the same path as stocks – initial jubilation has turned into a wariness about what might actually be achievable, let alone accomplished.

Bottom Line

Expect more volatility. We are going to get headlines and announcements that are difficult to interpret. What do they really mean? How likely is it to get accomplished? We know this administration is looking for CHANGE, but exactly what type of change they want is still a bit unclear in many areas. What they can achieve is even more unclear.

There is a clear sense of “urgency” as I cannot recollect any other election winner coming out so quickly with so many announcements!

I think we want to “fade” growth. We can buy dips in Treasuries and sell rips in stocks.

Maybe we will get a clearer picture, but I suspect in the coming days and weeks, the market will have more questions than answers. The fact that the original reaction to the election was so strong (with so many shorts being taken out, and so many newly minted bulls emerging) leaves us with potentially treacherous positioning. While legend has it that Wall Street likes to Climb a Wall of Worry, I don’t think it likes the current level of uncertainty. Maybe it is all 3D Chess, and we are just too naïve to see the master plan, or maybe we are all seeing enough things to question how effective this master plan will be?

While I like being overweight duration and underweight equities, I would not be a very aggressive overweight or underweight. It is more of an attempt to trade the volatility that is likely to continue.

On Bitcoin, if I hear one more $1 million price target, my head might explode, but for now, I can’t think of what will slow this down given the team around Trump, but then again, Trump himself might say something showing that he has had a change of heart (which is what I suspect will happen, but it seems too early for that to occur).

I did not focus on inflation, jobs, or other economic data (except to highlight the QUIT rate). I think that the data of the past few months will likely be irrelevant early next year as policies become clear and we can focus on what those policies will do to the economic data, and not worry about economic data that probably reflects a set of policies that will no longer be relevant.

We do get the most important earnings report for the AI story this week. Everything seems rosy in the space, but it is increasingly difficult to guess what has already been priced in.

Good luck and don’t stray too far from the desk, because you never know what headline might come out next! If you missed our Around the World Podcast from earlier in the week, it is a good listen.

Tyler Durden Sun, 11/17/2024 - 17:30

Cars, Meds, Oil, & Tech: America's Main Imports

Economic history has shown that, as an economy develops, so does its service sector. This is certainly true for the United States, one of the most highly developed countries in the world and certainly a service economy.

As Statista's Felix Richter details below, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, service-providing jobs account for more than 70 percent of nonfarm payrolls in the country, while goods-producing jobs account for less than 15 percent of jobs. In the 1940s, both sectors were tied at little above 40 percent, with government jobs accounting for the remainder of jobs.

There are two main reasons for this shift: productivity gains and globalization. As capital and goods began flowing freely across borders, it became cheaper to produce goods in parts of the world with lower labor costs and import them. This is how the United States gradually moved away from producing goods and how China became the world’s manufacturing hub, making anything from smartphones to television sets.

Last year, the United States imported around $3.1 trillion worth of goods, with Mexico, China and Canada accounting for more than 40 percent of that total. Among the top imported goods are cars, pharmaceuticals and all kinds of technology, be it smartphones, computers or semiconductors.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Experts have warned that all of these products would likely become significantly more expensive if president-elect Donald Trump went through with his proposed tariff plans.

Tyler Durden Sun, 11/17/2024 - 16:55

In Their Final Meeting, Xi Tells Biden China Is "Ready to Work" With Trump Administration

By Ryan Morgan and Emel Akan of The Epoch Times

President Joe Biden met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Saturday for their final in-person meeting of Biden’s presidency. During their discussion, which lasted one hour and 40 minutes, Xi expressed China’s readiness to work with the incoming U.S. administration.

The meeting took place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima, Peru, at the hotel where Xi was staying.

During his opening remarks, Xi told Biden, “The United States has recently concluded its elections. China’s goal of a stable, healthy, and sustainable China–U.S. relationship remains unchanged.”

“China is ready to work with the new U.S. administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation, and manage differences, so as to strive for a steady transition of the China–U.S. relationship for the benefit of the two peoples.”

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters after the meeting that Biden and Xi covered a wide range of issues, describing their discussion as “candid” and “constructive.”

Biden told Xi that “he has worked hard to responsibly manage the competition” with China for the past four years to prevent it from spiraling into conflict, Sullivan said.

Both leaders are committed to responsibly managing this relationship during the critical transition period, he added.

WATCH: Biden takes a back seat to other world leaders during an international trip, relegated to a corner spot in the traditional family photo of the world's most powerful figures, while China's president takes the prominent front-and-center position. pic.twitter.com/dyOkaPwqNW

— Fox News (@FoxNews) November 17, 2024

The two leaders also spoke about “areas of friction,” Sullivan said, citing China’s support for Russia’s defense industrial base, military activity around Taiwan, unfair trade policies, and increasing aggression in the South China Sea.

Biden and Xi also touched on China’s relationship with North Korea, particularly as U.S. and Western intelligence assessments indicate North Korea has deployed troops to assist Russian forces in their ongoing war with Ukraine.

During the meeting, Biden expressed “grave concern” about North Korea’s involvement, Sullivan said.

The White House earlier indicated that the United States and its allies—South Korea and Japan—believed “China has a role to play” in dissuading the growing Russia-North Korea partnership.

Trump’s Return

President-elect Donald Trump’s impending return to the White House also loomed large over the Biden–Xi meeting.

Trump has repeatedly signaled he will employ tariffs of up to 60 percent on made-in-China products arriving in the United States.

Trump is also set to staff his incoming administration with several China hawks. He has already named Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.)—two staunch China critics—as his picks for secretary of state and national security adviser, respectively.

Beijing sanctioned Rubio twice in 2020 and banned him from entering China.

Sullivan declined to comment about Beijing’s reaction to Trump’s tariff plan.

“Look, I’m not going to comment on a future administration’s policies that have neither been formulated nor articulated,” he told reporters. “What I will say is that we have laid out in clear terms our concerns about non-market economic practices that the PRC has undertaken.”

Sullivan defended U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, stating that many countries have taken measures to address China’s overcapacity problem in critical sectors.

Continue reading at Epoch Times

Tyler Durden Sun, 11/17/2024 - 16:20