Author: BlackMask Financial

Powell throws US economy under the bus to get reappointed Fed Chair…… Biden is clueless and his band of liberal lefties have never seen a giveaway program they did not love

Opec+, the oil exporters bloc behind historic production cuts, agreed to increase output by 400,000 barrels per day in December and will not meet demands from the US to bring on additional supply. The group, headed by Saudi Arabia and Russia, stuck to its earlier agreement to bring a total supply of 2 million bpd back to markets by the end of the year. The group said it was reconfirming “the production adjustment plan and the monthly production adjustment mechanism approved at the 19th Opec and non-Opec ministerial meeting and the decision to adjust upwards the monthly overall production by 400,000 bpd for the month of December 2021″. NN: Canada is adding barrels from their tar sands fields, US is adding barrels from the Oklahoma, Dakotas and Permium basin  fracking wells. And off shore is gearing  up. 500,000 BPD here and  400,000 BPD their and a million BPD everwhere and you end up with a oversupplied market by spring

LONDON (Reuters) -Oil prices rose more than $2 on Thursday, lifted by expectations that OPEC and its allies will stick to slow output increases despite calls from the United States and large importers for additional supply to cool the market. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies including Russia, a group known as OPEC+, meets later on Thursday and is expected to reconfirm plans to keep monthly supply increases at 400,000 barrels per day (bpd). “Oil prices have traded in a narrow range thus far this week, with investors assessing the likelihood of OPEC+ succumbing to pressure to add more crude to global oil markets as well as deliberations from the Federal Reserve policy meeting,” said Ehsan Khoman, head of emerging markets research at MUFG.   Citi analysts said that OPEC+ is likely to stick to current policy despite pressure from oil importers. “The majority of OPEC+ members cannot raise production from current levels,” the bank said in a note, adding that even Saudi Arabia has emphasised the need to exercise caution given continuing uncertainty over the COVID-19 pandemic. Top producers Saudi Arabia and Russia are also more confident that higher oil prices will not elicit a fast response from the U.S. shale industry, OPEC+ sources said, reflecting a desire to rebuild revenue and supporting the case against raising OPEC+ output more quickly.

However, several large oil companies plan to increase output or shale spending next year, which could undercut OPEC+ efforts to control supply and support price

Oil prices had earlier been in negative territory after Iran and six global powers agreed to resume talks on Nov. 29 to revive the 2015 deal on Iran’s nuclear programme. Iran has demanded that the United States drops sanctions that have limited its oil exports. On Wednesday both benchmarks posted their biggest daily percentage declines since early August after weekly inventory data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed a larger than expected rise in crude stocks last week. NN: this is the kind of volatility we tend to see at markets tops…. I hope not.. I would love to stick some oil up their asss’s at $100 a barrel….

UK companies will be required to set out plans by 2023 for a transition to a low-carbon economy, as part of steps to make Britain the world’s first net-zero financial centre

A potentially faster-spreading “sub-lineage” of the coronavirus Delta variant named AY.4.2 has been spotted by labs in at least 8 states, and health authorities in the United Kingdom say they are investigating a growing share of cases from this strain of the virus.

Labs in California, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Washington state, plus the District of Columbia, have so far spotted at least one case of AY.4.2.

While it may spread somewhat faster, health authorities have not found evidence of more severe illness caused by the variant, and they say current vaccines remain effective against it.

A faster-spreading sub-variant of the Delta variant known as AY.4.2, or the Delta Plus strain, has been detected in at least eight states across the U.S. At least one case of the new AY.4.2 variant has been found in California, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia, CBS News reported. According to the World Health Organization, the AY.4.2 variant has also been detected in at least 42 countries. While the AY.4.2 mutant, which was first detected in the U.K. in July, has been found to be faster spreading than the Delta variant, it is not thought to be a strain of concern, according to health officials. The variant has not been shown to cause more severe illness, and current COVID vaccines have shown to be effective against the strain, health officials have said, according to CBS News. However, some data indicated that it can cause more severe illness in unvaccinated people, although this has not been confirmed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

When it comes to the AY.4.2 variant, Dr. Summer Galloway, executive secretary of the U.S. government’s SARS-CoV-2 Interagency Group, told CBS News that little is known about the variant. However, it appears to pose a low risk to Americans.

“Right now, I think there’s not a lot that we know. But in terms of the risk that it poses to public health, the prevalence is very low in the U.S. and we don’t really anticipate that the substitutions [of AY.4.2] are going to have a significant impact on either the effectiveness of our vaccines or its susceptibility to monoclonal antibody treatments,” Galloway said. The CDC estimates that the AY.4.2 variant accounts for less than 0.05% of cases of COVID in the U.S. for the last several weeks, an agency spokesperson told the news outlet. Together, the Delta variant and sub-lineage variants make up virtually 100% of the COVID cases in the U.S. and they  have for several months, the CDC said.While the AY.4.2 Delta Plus variant is being watched closely, health authorities say they are already on the lookout for new variants on the horizon. NN: The published data on the AY.4.2 mutation show a much grimmer picture then the blow blue sky up your ass CDC. You have read the part about record numbers of infections we have been publishing….. Obviously something very very bad is happening. To poo poo this is a deadly mistake we are not going to make…… AY.4.2 is of a highly mutated virus that is much muck more infectious and deadlier.  Their are significant changes to the spike proteins that our vaccines target. And unless your anybodies are topped up it may get through. The antidotal preliminary data suggest this could be the next wave to sweep the planet…. And it has started  in China, Russia and now Europe……. As long as they allow come fly with me we will all have this new strain around us,  It Ain’t over…. The honest answer is we need more data. To blow this off like the CDC wants is nothing short of criminal…….

The Federal Reserve will start easing its vast support for financial markets this month, marking a highly anticipated policy change as central bank leaders grapple with major price increases in some parts of the economy but plenty of room to grow in the labor market. The Fed’s announcement, made after its two-day policy meeting Wednesday, comes as the economy continues to shift more than 18 months after the pandemic first hammered U.S. labor and financial markets. The S&P 500 and other stock indexes closed at record highs Wednesday amid fresh optimism about the economy’s direction, but other concerns persist, including inflation, supply chain issues and a disconnect between many unfilled jobs and unemployed workers. The coronavirus’s delta variant appears to be finally easing, leading to a pickup in hiring. But inflation concerns that the Fed has long labeled as “transitory,” or temporary, haven’t yet receded. Fed leaders Wednesday pointed to the persistence of “sizable price increases in some sectors,” and Chair Jerome H. Powell said at a news conference that inflation and related supply chain issues “will persist well into next year.” The Fed had provided extraordinary support to the economy since the height of the pandemic to help money flow through the economy, limit bankruptcies and try to stopgap the wave of layoffs that washed across the United States last year.  For months, the Fed had set the stage to start winding down this sprawling bond-buying program — which includes $120 billion a month in asset purchases — in November. Those purchases have helped stimulate the economy and made borrowing easier by holding down long-term rates, and the expectation was that the purchases will be fully drawn down before the Fed raises interest rates. On Wednesday, the Fed announced it would be cutting purchases by $15 billion each month. That decision reflected optimism within the Fed that the economy is on the right track. But tremendous uncertainty still hangs over the economy, especially when it comes to how long prices will keep rising faster than wages, a phenomenon many Washington policy makers did not expect to last so long. Following the Fed’s policy meeting, officials released a statement saying that the mismatch of supply and demand, plus the reopening of the economy, has contributed to high prices.

Powell said he didn’t expect that inflation will have a permanent imprint on the economy, and added that the central bank will use its tools “to make sure that doesn’t become a permanent feature of life,” especially for households most sensitive to higher prices for groceries, rent, gas and more.

Now that the Fed has started its long-awaited “taper,” the markets are hungry for signals about when the central bank will raise interest rates for the first time since the pandemic. But Powell emphasized patience, arguing that the Fed would wait to cool the economy down until as many people as possible have gotten back into jobs. He said that it is “certainly within the realm of possibility” that the economy could reach full employment by the second half of next year. But reflecting on the recent surge of the delta variant, which had a harsher toll on the economy than the Fed expected, Powell reiterated that “we have to be humble about what we know about this economy.”  “There’s still ground to cover to get to maximum employment, and we don’t want to stop that when there’s good reason to think — although it’s been delayed — that the economy will reopen if we do get past significant outbreaks of covid,” Powell said. NN: Stock market indices closed at new record highs. Celebrating the start of their destruction….. Their was nothing good in what the FED reserve announced……. In essence Quantum Easing  is over…. And it will be sooner they the markets think. Although the Fed refused to fess up publicly to the reality. They have no choice, begging for mercy along the way,  they will Will WILL raise interest rates 300 to 500 bases points. And when the markets gets a sniff of this it will devastating…

China is suffering its most widespread Covid-19 outbreak since the virus first emerged at the beginning of the pandemic in Wuhan in 2019.  The country’s new locally transmitted Covid cases have spiked to a near three-month high amid what the Chinese government called a ‘serious’ new outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant. Now, more than 600 locally-transmitted cases have been found in 19 of the country’s 31 provinces, reports Bloomberg.  The National Health Commission confirmed on Wednesday 93 new local symptomatic cases for Tuesday, up from 54 a day earlier and the highest daily count since August 9 at the peak of China’s last major outbreak. Most of the local cases were found in Heihe, a city in the northern province of Heilongjiang, where 35 infections were recorded on Tuesday. Three new provinces detected cases: central Chongqing, Jiangsu and Henan, reported Bloomberg. The spread and rise in Covid infections comes despite the Chinese government enforcing tighter curbs to contain the cases.

Officials have backed the government’s with officials still sticking to their Covid zero approach, with one expert insisting the current outbreak will be contained ‘within a month’. Zhong Nanshan, a leading expert in China’s respiratory disease research, told China Global Television Network that China will continue with its zero-transmission policy against Covid, because the global Covid fatality rate of 2% is too high. ‘I think the zero-transmission policy will remain in place for a long time,’ Nanshan said. ‘Exactly how long depends on the global and regional Covid-19 control situations in coming months.’  Strict restrictions are expected in the capital Beijing in the run-up to a key gathering of the highest-ranking members of the Communist Party next week. On Tuesday, China’s government urged citizens to stock up on daily necessities and for authorities to take steps to ensure adequate food supplies as the country adopts increasingly tight measures to contain the latest outbreak. A notice posted on the website of the Ministry of Commerce late on Monday urged ‘families to store a certain amount of daily necessities as needed to meet daily life and emergencies’. The directive made no mention of a food shortage or of whether the instructions were motivated by fears that Covid measures could disrupt supply chains or leave locked-down citizens in need of food. But China, which has kept its infection numbers relatively low through a Covid-zero strategy of border closures, targeted lockdowns and long quarantine periods, is increasingly adopting tough measures to contain the latest outbreak, especially ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics beginning on February 4. On Tuesday, Beijing reported four cases of Covid-19 among one family – a couple, their daughter, and the daughter’s grandmother.   The cases triggered an instant response, with a major primary school and a secondary schools conducting Covid tests for all teachers and students. Another 16 schools suspending in-person classes on Tuesday.     By Tuesday morning, 596 people from the primary school and 1,329 people from the middle school had tested negative. The remaining people were waiting for results. The Commerce Ministry notice also told authorities to take measures to facilitate agricultural production, keep supply chains smooth, ensure that regional food reserves were adequate and maintain stable prices. The government has restricted some inter-provincial travel, ramped up testing, and urged people to postpone social gatherings like weddings and banquets. In an example of the extreme measures taken, the Shanghai Disneyland theme park closed temporarily from Sunday night and prevented visitors and park personnel from leaving until they underwent Covid testing, all due to a single coronavirus case. More than 38,000 people were tested as a result. NN: When you got a billion people packed asshole to elbow you better take extreme measures… A versus the European and US model where you close your eyeys and hope it will go away….. It won’t!!!