Tabloid 24

 The ever-increasing inflation has had a terrible impact on Latin American countries. The fuel prices have skyrocketed along with the daily essentials such as food and electricity. Blackouts have now become a common scenario for most of Ecuador. The country-wide protests in Ecuador have resulted in country-wide protests with strict governmental lashes of police and military to the common.  In contrast to Ecuador, in Mexico, the government is trying its best to control the fuel prices. The government is taking up to 35% of the fuel prices blow to save widespread discontent.  Truckers have blocked the nation's highways in Argentina and hobbled all the grains to critical ports. Argentina seems a bit too much in trouble after it spent 11 billion in subsidies in 2021. Thus, it has to take several measures to cut back its cost and comply with the IMF loan agreement, which seems quite hard for the coalition government ruling in Buenos Aires today.  Causes:   The m...

  Nineteen of the world's 20 fastest-growing chip industry firms over the past four quarters, come from China according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That compared with just 8 at the same point last year.  That supercharged growth underscores how tensions between Washington and Beijing are transforming the global US$550 billion (S$760 billion) semiconductor industry. This sector plays a crucial role in everything from defence to the advent of future technologies like AI and autonomous cars. Causes:  In 2020, the US began restricting sales of American technology  to companies like Semiconductor Manufacturing International and Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, successfully containing their growth - but also fuelling a boom in Chinese chip-making and supply.  Beijing is expected to raise billions of dollars of investment in the sector under ambitious programmes such as its "Little Giants" blueprint to endorse and bankroll national tech champions, and encourag...

 7th June 2022 A nation is soon to overtake a dozen countries in terms of 'richness' as the President of Uganda said that huge gold deposits worth 12 trillion USD have been discovered in  Alupe in Busia and Karamoja, both in eastern Uganda; Kameleng, Kisita, and Ngugo in Kassanda District in the central region; and, Bushenyi’s Tiira area in western Uganda. The total gold extracted in the world is around 244,000 metric tons, but this gold discovery is about 320,000 metric tons, meaning it is more gold than was ever discovered. The extraction process is set to begin soon with refining reaching stages of 5,000 kilograms of gold a day. Effects: This is set to bring down the prices of gold rapidly. This might increase crypto as the inflationary hedge (gold) against money during inflation might get a hit due to a loss in value. What this means for you:   As soon as the gold prices decrease, we may start to sell the excess gold we have, and then once the prices stabilize, w...

 The Japanese Yen is currently experiencing its worst depreciation in 21 years. Currently trading at 0.0074 USD, the future of the Japanese yen does not look safe. In spite of rapid inflation in the world surrounding it, the Bank of Japan is still printing more and more money and also resolving its 10-year bond yield at 0.25% indifinitely. The fear of investments in Japanese firms is increasing as depicted by the weak performance of Nikkie. Last year (2021), Japan ran a deficit of 1.2 billion USD as compared to its normal 400 million profits. Still, the Japanese economy is in profit, but this profit isn't largely associated with its trades.  Japan needs oil, and will not reduce its oil imports even as the yen depreciates. A weaker exchange rate and higher oil prices place a burden on oil-importing countries such as Japan. Food imports tended to fall when the yen depreciated. The yen began depreciating in November 2012 after Shinzo Abe said that the Bank of Japan shou...

 Who knew that the Russia-Ukraine war could have such devastating effects on the supply chains of a country that isn't related to both of them. This war has put millions of Pakistans residents in a severe lack of electricity. Causes:   About a decade ago, Pakistan changed its suppliers of Natural gas from their previous suppliers to spot market suppliers such as Eni SpA and Gunvor Group Ltd.  As Europe begs for petroleum and gas, these suppliers have started supplying gas to the lucrative European market. Effects: This step of Pakistan was taken to reduce the price volatalites in the market in the longer run. This step is now proving fatal as Pakistan no longer has supplies to mitigate the power shortage. What this means for you:   This means an unstable newly formed regime after the recent impeachment got even more unstable. Also, the Russian oil could have a potential buyer on the list as China and India continue to buy Russian oil in large quantities. Su...

 13th June 2022 The federal reserve and the European Central Bank raised their interest rates by 50 bp over the weekend.  This resulted in a total bear market and a bloodbath on the 13th. The tech shares bore the frontline brunt including the freshly public companies as well as the giants. Nasdaq slumped about 4.5% and S&P500 about 2.9%. Treasuries 10-year bond yields climbed up to their highest since 2011, but the difference between 10-year bonds and 2-year bonds inverted (-0.02%) signalling a beginning of a recession.  Bitcoin took a huge plunge which resulted in its slumping up to its lowest point since January 2021.  The markets all over the world responded to these signs and crumpled too. The dollar delivered some respite which has gone up by 22% along with the Yen and 15% along with Euro since its last uptrend began in April. Support Links Nasdaq Fall Bitcoin Slumping USD gain For any complaint/request/suggestions: thetabloid24@gmail.com Twitter

 The Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi was in Kazakhstan this week, with meetings scheduled with the other four regional neighbours (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan).  Why this special meetup was necessary: 1) China's western region has a minority of Muslim Uyghurs, the same ethnic majority in Central Asia. We have known the existence of concentration camps for Uyghurs for a long time via satellite images while china still doesn't acknowledge its existence. hence this special meeting could have an impact on the ethnicity. 2) Apple will soon ban all the work in factories in the western Chinese provinces of Xianjing, because of unhealthy factory laws and discriminatory and harsh behaviour towards Uyghurs. Hence Xi's diplomatic visit could mean a crackdown on this situation, in the wrong way. 3) Central Asia has had low growth and poor GDP since the breakdown of the USSR. Since then, the people have been migrating to Russia for work. Ever since covid and the...

  In March 2022, Nickel prices experienced a sudden hike of more than 200%. The reason for this was thought to be the Russian invasion in Ukraine due to which various sanctions were imposed on Russia and many countries boycotted imports from Russia. But the nickel price hike was also related to some activities of the London Metal Exchange (LME). On March 7, 2022, LME suspended its trading after nickel prices hiked by 250%.  Along with suspending trading, it decided to cancel  $3.9 billion in trades. Effectively, it rewound the market to the closing price on March 7 of $48,078 per metric ton, down from a high of over $100,000 in the early hours of March 8. The chief executive officer of the LME defended the decision  as necessary to protect market stability, saying the prices were “becoming disconnected” from “physical reality.”   Causes:  The seeds of the crisis had been planted by a Chinese Tycoon ,  Xiang Guanda  and his closely-held enterprise ...

6th June 2022 Bloomberg and economics times reported the lowering of the prices of the 3 key indicators of the economy i.e. shipping containers (26%), semiconductors (14%)  and fertilizers (14%) in their latest report. The last boom in their prices caused inflation to soar to big heights. But this decrease in prices may offer some resort to the people in hard times.  Causes:   Worsened  by ongoing supply chain disruptions, port congestion along the East and West Coasts is driving the price of shipping containers downward, a trend that is expected to last for the next few weeks, according to research from Germany-based technology firm Container XChange. Moreover, the stockpiling of wheat, without any export from Ukraine has driven the demand for shipping containers down, pulling their prices along with it. The boom in the semiconductor industry and the shortage attached to it are being relived as people around the world have started to now work offline. This cause the...

 As Chinese companies give quarterly reports, a startling 0 growth result has popped up. Most of the tech giants such as Tencent and Alibaba have seen a major plummet in their earnings and investor charts. The value of venture deals has fallen by 44%. Beijing officials are failing to meet their own GDP target this year. There have been a few Chinese companies such as iQiyi Inc. which performed very well, but their growth was shadowed by a big downfall. Causes: The Chinese policy of total restrictions during the recent covid wave is to blame according to various sources such as Bloomberg. Also, the internet crackdown by the ruling communist party has led to a significant decrease in logistics across the country. Effects: They include a severe loss in the investors in the Chinese stocks. The recent Asian stocks rallying could mean nothing if these results affect the coming weeks. The startups are expected to reduce severely due to the loss of foreign institutional investors. For...

 To  cut the imports from Russia, EU is planning to import gases from a gas field in Algeria in North Africa. Algeria provides around 8% of the Europe’s gas imports currently which is expected to increase in further times. Data and statistics tell us that Algeria has been leaking methane for four decades. Most emissions occur through the compressor station at Hassi R’Mel.However, Sonatrech, a  Algerian state oil and gas company that operates the Hassi R’Mel gas field claims that it has reduced gas emission from  billion to 3 billion cubic metres per year. As per geoanalytics company kayrro SAS. Causes: Methane is a  very harmful Greenhouse gas.  Methane has 84 times more wearming power than CO2. Algeria is one of the biggest Methane gas producers.    Around 46 billion cubic meters of the gas a year is lost to unnecessary venting or flaring. Also, clouds of methane were observed by a satellite above Algeria. Apart from these, Algeria didn’t jo...

Today we saw a major selloff in Crude oil (link below for charts).  In a matter of a few hours, the oil prices dipped from $120/barrel to $115/barrel in a matter of 5 hours. This has been the biggest single-day dip since the inflation grew due to the covid and the Russia-Ukraine war. Causes: The likely causes of this effect are that the EU couldn't agree on stopping Russian oil from being transported to the European countries via the sea, hence leading to the delay in sanctions. Another more likely cause could be that OPEC has started pumping more oil. And Russia is likely out of the OPEC. This speculation is based on the Bloomberg post that OPEC is considering Russia's removal from OPEC as it hasn't met the demands of the monthly quota. This means that the other OPEC countries such as Saudi Arabia get a bigger chance to pump more oil, leading to a decrease in the price which topped $120/barrel. Effects: The removal  of Russia could mean that the buyers of Russian oil no l...