Market Commentary
The buck erased most of last week’s losses [+0.66%], with the bulk of the gains coming on Friday, following a surprisingly strong Nonfarm Payrolls report [headline +943k +0.65%]. Might this be due to some of the Red states deciding to cease paying people to remain unemployed? The rise in payrolls doesn’t look all that spectacular given the pandemic-sized plunge – but the move in the markets definitely happened at the time the payrolls number was released. Friday was the big day, and Payrolls was the driver.
Wolf has a thorough breakdown of the whole employment puzzle here: it’s complicated. Read his full take here.
By contrast, Autos & Light Truck sales did poorly this month [headline -4.33% -638k]. This is the second month in a row of poor auto sales. Whatever consumers are buying, it isn’t autos. Auto sales have retreated substantially from their post-pandemic highs.
Friday’s payrolls report (which hit at 08:30 Eastern) triggered the strong rally in the buck [+0.59%], as well as an even stronger plunge in gold [-2.36%], silver [-3.33%], the miners [-2.17%], platinum [-2.51%], and copper [-0.23%]. Lumber was the only holdout [+5.81%]. Much of the “inflation” play seemed to reverse – just about all of the buck’s decline from last week has been erased – and in just one day, too. Buck is back in a mild uptrend.
As you can see in the charts, both gold and silver remain in downtrends, and those downtrends have accelerated – although my code thinks gold’s weekly candle print looks surprisingly bullish. I’m not so sure. It probably depends on where the buck goes next. Gold below the 50 and 200 MA lines doesn’t look great. We could see a drop down to the previous low at 1700.
Crude also plunged this week [-7.81%], but the move wasn’t associated with payrolls; most of the damage happened on Monday & Wednesday. Crude is in a downtrend right now, ending the week well below the 50 MA.
Something I’ve been keeping an eye on is US crude production. So far, we have not seen a collapse. Either EIA is lying to us or – things aren’t as bad as we feared. Production appears to be inching slowly higher.
Alongside gold, the 10-year dropped [+8.8 BP to 1.30%], as did the 30-year [+9 BP to 1.95%] on Friday also. When viewed alongside the dollar rally, this was an odd move; normally when money moves into the buck, at least some of it ends up in the bond markets. This time, money fled bonds, so it looks like money is flowing into “cash.” Remember DGS10 (interest rates) rising = bond prices falling.
My read: the market seems worried about higher interest rates (that’s what falling long bonds mean) – at the same time the metals are selling off. This adds up to: the market is projecting a Fed rate increase in the near future.
Equities continued moving higher [SPX +0.95%]. Looking at the sector map – it was a mixed bag, but overall it leaned bullish. The banksters seem particularly happy about what’s going on right now, but so do the interest-rate sensitive sectors. Real stuff did poorly. Banksters net interest margins move higher if the Fed raises rates, so that lines up with my “Fed rate raise coming soon” thesis. I’m still puzzled why utilities and REITs did so well. Maybe that’s just payrolls? I’m less sure about that.
News Items That Caught My Eye This Week
Pfizer and Moderna Will Raise the Price of Their Vaccines After Adaptation to New Variants
Well you knew this was going to happen. In the New Normal, obsolescence is built-in to our “modern” vaccines. Forget lifetime protection from polio from a single shot – that’s the Old Normal. In The New Normal, vaccinated protection lasts for about six months. And the next shot will be even more expensive! How long will it last? Who knows!
“It’s good to be da king!”
Two senior Biden officials familiar with the matter said the administration is still trying to balance messaging in a way that underscores the severity of the Delta variant while simultaneously reiterating that vaccinated individuals are overwhelmingly not at risk.
Tough messaging job for this team. MASKS! LOCKDOWNS! But if you take the shot, you’re fine. DELTA!! N95 MASKS!! HOSPITAL OVERFLOWS! The shot works perfectly. VARIANTS!! BOOSTERS! The shot is awesome. But don’t wait – get the new shot! Its even more awesome! Save grandma! Whoops. I mean, save yourself! Science!!
Assembly Speaker Says Governor Can No Longer Remain in Office
Biden calls on Cuomo to resign in the wake of A.G. report.
A bit of a black eye for the Cuomo-sexuals and the “believe all women” group. Right now the NY Assembly is slow-walking the impeachment. Apparently it will take a month. Or two. Of course if Cuomo were Bad, and Orange, they’d do it in a weekend. Maybe they’re all hoping that something more dramatic is queued up that will drive this story off the headlines and it will all blow over?
New York City to Require Proof of Vaccination for Indoor Dining and Gyms
Of course you know about NYC’s vaccine mandates, which I call Jim Crow 2.0. We know this isn’t about “public health” because prior infection doesn’t get you squat, even though its vastly more protective of both yourself, and others, than the failing vaccines.
F.D.A. Aims to Give Final Approval to Pfizer Vaccine by Early Next Month
The failing vaccine will be approved in early September by the captured regulators, even though there was no visible mortality benefit in the trial. (MASKS!! DELTA!! HOSPITALS OVERFLOWING!!) The shot is so perfect – the virus so dangerous – it must be mandated! Always at war with Eastasia. Or was that Oceania? Science again!!
Fourth police officer dies by suicide after Capitol riot, family confirms
This struck me as odd. So I ran the numbers, framed as a “retrospective analysis.” Capitol Police (CP) group: n=1,879. Total US law enforcement (TLE) group: n=697,195. TLE group suicides in 2020: 173 (annual rate=0.024%). CP suicides since 1/6/2021 (7 months): 4 (annual rate=0.212% x 12/7 = 0.363%). 0.363 / 0.024 = 15. There was a factor of 15 “suicide risk reduction” observed by NOT being a member of the CP group in the 7 months following Insurrection Day. The observed protective effect increases to a factor of 19 if you add in the CP officer who died from “natural causes” the day after the Insurrection.
Two thoughts:
- If “3 times is enemy action”, what’s 4 times? And 5 times?
- “Jeffrey Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself”
Obama reportedly scales back 60th birthday party due to Delta surge
Oligarchy: It’s good to be da king! Oh wait. That’s still a year away. My bad.
Plebes: DELTA! HOSPITALS OVERFLOWING! N95s! VAX MANDATES!
British holidaymakers are likely to need to prove they are fully jabbed “for evermore”,
the Transport Secretary has said. “So I mean I think double vaccination, full vaccination, is going to be a feature for evermore and most countries, probably all countries will require full vaccination for you to enter.”
The guy’s name is Grant Shapps. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps. Clearly this is an Oligarchy aspirational goal – for a failing vaccine that neither protects Grandma, nor (at this point) you.
So Grant. Mister Transport Secretary. Have you heard about natural immunity?
Apple Will Scan U.S. iPhones For Images Of Child Sexual Abuse
AAPL will now automatically examine all the pictures on your phone. “For the children!” Implementation: a list of picture checksums – a “dirty pictures” summary list – AAPL’s new code will search your phone for images, compare their checksums against the “dirty pictures list”, and then report any pictures found to “the authorities.” It is a fantastically useful bit of new infrastructure if you – say – wanted to extend your axis of control to a large new group of individuals (h/t ao).
Scenario: hackers at your favorite three-letter-agency (or – using Israeli Company software) breaks into the target’s phone, uploads a whole collection of “dirty” pictures on the list to the target phone, then AAPL automatically reports in the next day! “For the Children!” Another ally of the Bad Orange Man – or maybe Bernie – or maybe just an irritating “Insurrectionist/Anti-vaxxer”, or a dissident, or an Environmentalist – if they don’t agree to work for Oligarchy on the sly, gets whisked off to prison. “We’re shocked, simply shocked to find out that <whomever> likes kiddie porn!” Rinse, repeat.
Where can I get me one of those new phones? Or maybe just an update for my own phone? I mean, if its to protect the children, I’m all for it.
“Every gram of extra greenhouse gas in the atmosphere will increase to the probability of an AMOC collapse in the future, so emitting as little as possible, both on individual but of course also on collective and international level, is the key.”
From the same group that has been telling us: “No Treatments For You”, the answer to literally every problem is: Humans Must Not Use Fossil Fuels (*)
(*) Special exemption granted to Oligarchy flying private. Commercial is just so tedious! Plus, did you hear that Obama is throwing a birthday party! Everyone’s gonna be there!
Here are the 17 Republican senators who voted to advance the $1 trillion “infrastructure” bill:
- Roy Blunt of Missouri
- Richard Burr of North Carolina
- Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia
- Bill Cassidy of Louisiana
- Susan Collins of Maine
- Kevin Cramer of North Dakota
- Mike Crapo of Idaho
- Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
- Chuck Grassley of Iowa
- John Hoeven of North Dakota
- Mitch McConnell of Kentucky
- Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
- Rob Portman of Ohio
- Jim Risch of Idaho
- Mitt Romney of Utah
- Thom Tillis of North Carolina
- Todd Young of Indiana
My sense: this bill is part of a larger plan to sneak federalized voting rules changes, supreme court packing, and amnesty for ten million illegal aliens, as well as an additional 3 trillion (T) in spending through the Senate using a legislative trick. The above senators who are supporting step 1 of this two-step trick are most likely captured by the Oligarchy in some way, shape, or form. They are going along with this scam because it provides them plausible deniability. Just a guess.
Hagerty Delivers Floor Remarks on Senate Infrastructure Bill
Vax approval coming in early September. Once FDA approves the shot, Fauci is saying that mandates are going to be everywhere, for everything – even though you taking the shot doesn’t protect Grandma, and it doesn’t even convey any mortality benefit for you. But Fauci did leave us with this gem:
“This is a dystopian world we’re living in,” he said. The public is awash in lies and misinformation about COVID-19 and the vaccines, “they are being misled.”
Indeed they are.
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