Tabloid 24

The diplomatic saga that is the Iran nuclear deal may finally be  entering  its closing chapter with expectations of an imminent breakthrough growing as Washington and Tehran responded to a “final” European Union proposal that would ease sanctions on Iran’s economy, including oil exports, in return for scaling back its advancing atomic program. Thought's of President: Much rests on what Tehran’s leaders will be willing to accept and forgo. However, President Ebrahim Raisi  insisted  on Monday that any deal would be meaningless before resolving an  onerous  investigation into the Islamic Republic’s past nuclear work. Iran’s political establishment is used to parrying economic uncertainty and spiraling inflation but the recent surge in food prices has pressured the country’s middle and working classes. The clerics in Tehran are acutely aware of the huge impact US sanctions relief can have on their tattered economy and popularity. Effects: Before this agreement, Iran's breakout

  Jerome Powell made it clear the Fed is willing to let the economy suffer as it fights inflation.  Powell referenced previous attempts by the Fed to bring down inflation and said history has taught the central bank that not acting quickly on prices will likely only mean a bigger hit to the labour market in the long run.   MOM of the Jackson Hole - Powel and his colleagues at the Fed are destined to drive the Inflaton down as much as they can, with acc. to Powel, symbolizes a "little" hurt to the economy, housing market and the rest of the world. Fed's restrictive monetary policy is expected to remain until the rest of the quarter with a slight increase in the interest rates.   Effects -  Treasury yields rose, with the 10-year rate hovering around 3.11%. The two-year yield had climbed to its highest level since 2007 earlier in the day before paring the advance, also both S&P500  and Nasdaq fell by almost 3.9 and 3.4% respectively.  The Dow dropped more than 1,000 poin

Though Saudi Arabia’s dominance of global energy has long been a drag, at least we could always hope it would end someday. For a while we thought the oil supply would peak soon, breaking the Saudis’ grip, though also reverting us to a donkey-based civilization. Today we think oil  demand  will peak soon, still relegating Saudi Arabia to the minor leagues, but with electric vehicles instead of donkeys. Meanwhile, Indonesia is making it easier to tap its rich nickel  resources and turn itself into an EV hub.   Causes:   The latest push sees Indonesia tapping into its rich nickel ore reserves to meet the rising demand for metal from electric battery producers. Alongside feeding its stainless steel industry, Indonesia now wants to reserve a portion of its nickel ore for the production of lithium-ion batteries used to power electric vehicles (EVs). The country is the second-largest car producer in Southeast Asia after Thailand and aims to position itself as a global hub for low-carbon vehic

 In colonial times, it was well said that Europe's problems were the world's problems, but it might be the case right now. Droughts in Europe and China, along with huge rainstorms in the Americas are the aggravating results of the ongoing Climate CRISIS. The US is getting once-every-thousand-year  rainstorms weekly now, but the water is coming from places like the Rhine and the Yangtze, which are drier than they’ve been in centuries. Adding to it,  the sudden absence of water will make it harder for China, the world’s biggest CO2 polluter, to de-carbonize. The Yangtze is the fuel source for a lot of hydroelectric stations. The Yangtze river produces enough electricity daily to power up entire Poland. Effects -  Daily hydro generation has fallen 51% amid the worst drought on the Yangtze since the early 1960s. That’s led to factory shutdowns as soaring demand from air conditioners collides with the constraints of a provincial grid that depends on dams for four-fifths of its elect

Causes :  Since the low in the middle of June, the S&P 500 is up nearly 18%. And it's down just over 10% since the high made on January 4. Effects :  Every time the market falls and unexpectedly starts to rally, people start talking about all the reasons the rally is hated. In other words, as the market goes down, people sell or go short, and they concoct a fully formed story in their head about how it deserves to go down more, and that the pain has really just begun. So bounces are painful on the PNL and psychologically difficult for people who have internalized the narrative shift. This rally seems particularly hated and painful. For example, in the latest BofAML Fund Manager Survey, investor sentiment is characterized as "bearish, but no longer apocalyptically bearish ." Managers are still holding cash levels well above their long-term average, implying conservative, under-exposed positioning. What's in it for you :  With this rally, we've seen a significan

 As we all know, the "Inflation Reduction Act" has been passed in the US senate which is a boon facilitating  a $437 billion behemoth of healthcare, energy and climate initiatives, which is also the largest US climate bill ever. which targets almost 4 billion emissions and tax reductions on energy-efficient devices such as electric cars, solar panels etc. But we don't know who has worked behind the scenes for getting this bill a successful vote in the senate of Joe Biden. It was Bill Gates and Joe Manchin. How money and authority help - As we all know, Bill Gates has been actively involved in climate change talks and ways to save the world from various harms. Well, he played an important role in this part too. He played his cards well with the Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin. He was responsible for giving the "pep talk" to these leaders and businessmen to make the efforts for clean energy transitions.  Collin O’Mara, chief executive officer

  China's Golden Era of Smartphones Is Ending : The world’s largest smartphone market is in deep trouble. China saw a 14.7%  decline  in phone shipments in the second quarter, according to research firm IDC. And multibillion-dollar pillars of the industry like Xiaomi Corp., Vivo, and Oppo all reported steep sales declines. Many factors drove the fall, including a strict Covid Zero policy that torpedoed demand, but the more significant issue is one that’s long been feared by the country’s smartphone makers. China’s 10-year-plus smartphone boom, fueled by new buyers and ceaseless upgrades, is likely coming to an end. Causes : More recently, smartphone makers saw an opportunity as China pushed toward advanced 5G networks. But few saw the trouble already brewing. A key problem is that China’s massive smartphone market has become highly saturated. The country had  more than 1.6 billion  active mobile phone accounts by the end of last year compared to its 1.4 billion population. The pene

Recently China has been in a lot of trouble, so analysts started to call this slowdown of China's economy "The end of CCP" or "China's Economic breakdown" etc.  Problems in China:    1) The Zero-Covid Policy  -  CCP initiated the policy to slow the spread of Covid-19, but even too strict actions for the whole world have been a bit too harsh on the humongous economy. The factories shut down and global exports stopped. Add to it the global shortage of chips, adding fuel to the fire. 2) The Banking Crisis - The banks in China work on the Fractional Reserve Banking methods. For this system to work, trust between the banker and the customer should be maximum. But this trust would soon break apart as the Banks in Henan, China, invested the depositors' cash in riskier schemes before covid and lost their money subsequently. Now as the banks stopped people from taking their money out by closing down their branches/ATMs and online services, the people in frenzy s

     Elon Musk sold 583,611 shares in Tesla Inc. for $528 million, meaning he’s now more than three-quarters of the way to making good on his pledge to sell 10% of his stake in the electric carmaker.  Musk has been offloading Tesla stock since asking his Twitter followers in November whether he should sell some of his stakes. He said he would exercise options toward the end of the year and set up a share-trading plan prior to the poll.  The billionaire has now sold around 13.5 million shares for about $14.1 billion, regulatory filings show. He’ll need to dispose of some 17 million shares all up to offload 10% of his interest in the U.S.-based EV pioneer, assuming his pledge excludes exercisable options. Tesla shares have fallen 24% since a peak on Nov. 4, just prior to Musk’s Twitter poll, to which the majority of answered “yes." Musk, 50, is the world’s richest man, at top of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a fortune of $244.9 billion. He said in a Tweet late Sunday that he

The Oil and gas from Russia are exceptionally essential for serving the winter in Europe. After all, even Hitler succumbed to it.  Causes -  The diesel which is used for generating electricity is now available in historically low amounts in North-Western Europe, so much so that by this November, an energy crisis, including blackouts and lack of fuel and electricity for large-scale industries is extremely essential. Adding to his discussion is the large-scale drying up of the Rhine (river in Germany), which supplies and transports all the diesel in Europe. The forecast of this news is so gloomy, that this river which controls trades over 80 billion USD will stop. Effects - Adding to this the already food shortages in Europe due to the war, the survival of the poorest will be challenging in the coming months. The signs of relief from the Western Superpower are low because they are themselves dealing with extreme inflation (CPI peaked at 0.2% in June).  What is in it for you - Well in mac

Yesterday,  Marko Kolanovic, a strategist at JP Morgan, widely regarded as a "bull" on Wall Street for being an investor, said, "It's time to trim Stocks, and buy commodities". With the world's national banks and the Federal Reserve increasing interest rates, it is hard to contradict his words. Past History - With the gas and oil prices rising in the early months of 2022, the demand for oil dropped, which in turn lowered the current price of oil and gas. This leads to the prices of almost every commodity such as gold, copper, etc to drop significantly. Also, the US President, Joe Biden visited UAE and talked about pumping more and more oil. As the cheap oil is produced, logistics for other commodities eased out.  Today even Iran-USA nuclear deals went ahead, which could potentially reduce oil prices further by pushing Iran's Crude exports.  Effects - With the winter approaching, and Russia still not supplying oil to Europe amidst its heatwaves and harsh

  The Bank of England unleashed its biggest interest-rate hike in 27 years as it warned the UK is heading for more than a year of recession under the weight of soaring inflation. The half-point increase to 1.75%, predicted by most economists, was backed by eight of the central bank’s nine policymakers, who also kept up a pledge to act forcefully again in the future if needed. “The committee will be particularly alert to indications of more persistent inflationary pressures and will if necessary act forcefully in response,” Governor Andrew Bailey told reporters in London. “All options are on the table for our September meeting, and beyond that.” The BOE also boosted its forecast for the peak of inflation to 13.3% in October amid a surge in gas prices and warned that price gains will remain elevated throughout 2023. That will sharpen a cost-of-living crisis that will see real disposable incomes fall more than at any time in around 60 years. Even after billions of pounds of government sup

       China seems to be pissed off a lot due to the White House speaker's visit to Taiwan, so much so that President Xi Ping announced military and economic retaliations against the USA.   History: Nancy Pelosi  has her reputation at stake for not backing down. She has for decades been a strong critic of China over human rights, most famously raising a banner in Tiananmen Square in 1991.  And with the US midterm elections coming and Democrats sliding in polls, she is at a high risk of losing her role. Why does this visit affect China: The Taiwanese trade route has been one of the busiest trade routes in the entire world. Control over this trade route guarantees maximum profits and control over the "Semiconductor Chips" market as TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) dominates the market alone. Both the USA and China have been trying to take control of whatever area possible. This visit means Nancy shows the good side of the USA to the Taiwanese people, wherea

 With the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi set to visit Taiwan today, China is feeling a bit intimidated by the visit. Add to this the 350 billion USD mortgage crisis in China, and Hong Kong futures are reflecting this slowdown. China's factory output  suddenly contracted a lot in July creating an economic slowdown in the Chinese as well as World markets. Add to this the mortgage crisis due to the boycott of over 90 cities by hundreds of thousands of home buyers due to stalled projects, and the US interference, the world stocks are looking to take a dip after a 3-day rally. Oil prices have been plunging due this the fears of this economic slowdown.  Futures pointed to muted starts in Japan and Australia and were more than 1% lower for Hong Kong after US equities snapped a three-day rally. What this means for you: If you have been an intra-day trader, going short on Chinese stocks and oil would be a better option. Long-time investing at this point doesn't seem wise as there might

Russia's vast 37,650 km (23,400 miles) coastline, which stretches from the Sea of Japan to the White Sea, also includes the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. For strengthening that magnitude,   President Vladimir Putin on Sunday signed a new naval doctrine which cast the United States as Russia's main rival and set out Russia's global maritime ambitions for crucial areas such as the Arctic and the Black Sea. After inspecting the navy, Putin made a short speech in which he promised what he touted as Russia's unique Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles, cautioning that Russia had the military clout to defeat any potential aggressors. Hypersonic weapons can travel at nine times the speed of sound, and Russia has conducted previous test launches of the Zircon from warships and submarines over the past year. Shortly before the speech, he signed a new 55-page naval doctrine, which sets out the broad strategic aims of Russia's navy, including its ambitions as a "great marit