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Wednesday 23rd of February 2022
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14-FEB-2022 :: Its a Wizard of Oz moment World Of Finance |
This is ‘’Voodoo Economics’’ and we have reached the point when the curtain was lifted in the Wizard of Oz and the Wizard revealed to be ‘’an ordinary conman from Omaha who has been using elaborate magic tricks and props to make himself seem “great and powerful”’’
The Curtain has been lifted and Mr. Powell has now arrived at his Volcker moment
Friday's action and next immediate sessions might afford us the greatest macro trading opportunity to reset shorts in the US 10 and Ultra Bond.
We can look across all G7 Bonds because this is a Super Bubble that is going to burst big. There is no way out now.
There is no training – classroom or otherwise.. that can prepare for trading the last third of a move, whether it's the end of a bull market or the end of a bear market.
There's typically no logic to it; irrationality reigns supreme, and no class can teach what to do during that brief, volatile reign. Paul Tudor-Jones
It's the End of the Bull market obviously.
The Music has been playing for Eternity and its about to stop
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My Struggle: Book 6 Karl Ove Knausgård Misc. |
It felt like we were in the depths of summer. As if we were a part of some Impressionist painting, for no one had captured that feeling better than the Impressionists, and the question was whether it had actually been they who created it.
Whether such a feeling had even existed in the world before they came upon it, with all their conceptions of color, light, and shade, their endeavors to reproduce the exact moment.
A writer such as Marcel Proust would be unthinkable without Impressionism, since his entire work is built around the relationship between recollection and oblivion, light and shade, visible and invisible, and the compelling feeling the world, especially the sunken world, yet also the prevailing world of the present, awakens in him, is shaped, if not brought into being, by the eye of the Impressionist.
With Cézanne, the question is: what does it mean to see? With the Impressionists, the question is: what does it mean to experience seeing?
It was interesting too that they should both protect themelves by lowering their gaze, bowing their heads, turning away. Shyness was directly linked with the eyes, it was always their eyes they hid from view.
They could respond if someone asked them something, but with their eyes cast down. So what were they protecting themselves against, what was it about being seen by another person?
It wasn’t being seen as such, since there they were, in plain sight, their physical selves present in the space, rather it was being seen to be who they were, and that was contained in the eyes.
They were protecting themselves against someone looking into their eyes and seeing who they were, what was inside them, and the eyes were the entrance to that, for which reason they had to be concealed.
Death is what the human sphere borders, the absence of language is what our human world borders, and it is against its darkness that we and the world shine.
We’d bought a baby alarm, the transmitter was in the children’s room, the receiver on the table between us. Whenever they stirred, whenever they made a sound, the receiver came on and we could hear it.
One evening it crackled with the sound of a child crying. I went into their room, but whoever it was, Vanja or Heidi, must have settled again right away, because when I came in they were fast asleep. I went back outside, only for it to start again.
This time Linda went in. The same thing happened: they were asleep. It was creepy, the sound of a child crying, coming to us through the hiss and crackle of the receiver, a small, distant voice.
I found myself thinking it was like a dead child crying from the afterlife, its sound waves picked up by the transmitter.
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But at the end of the day...Ukraine will fight alone @DalrympleWill Misc. |
The Charge of the Light Brigade BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!” he said. Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!” Was there a man dismayed? Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered. Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
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Extracts from Putin's speech on Ukraine @Reuters Misc. |
At the same time, we are receiving a signal from some European capitals, saying what are you worried about, this will not happen literally tomorrow. Yes, in fact, our American partners are also talking about this. Well, we answer, if not tomorrow, so the day after tomorrow. What does this change in a historical perspective?
At the same time, they try to convince us over and over again that NATO is a peace-loving and purely defensive alliance, saying that there are no threats to Russia. Again they propose that we take them at their word. But we know the real value of such words.
Let me explain that U.S. strategic planning documents contain the possibility of a so-called preemptive strike against enemy missile systems.
And who is the main enemy for the U.S. and NATO? We know that too. It's Russia.
In NATO documents, our country is officially and directly declared the main threat to North Atlantic security. And Ukraine will serve as a forward springboard for the strike.
"They are trying to blackmail us again. They are threatening us again with sanctions, which, by the way, I think they will introduce anyway as Russia's sovereignty strengthens and the power of our armed forces grows.
And a pretext for another sanctions attack will always be found or fabricated. Regardless of the situation in Ukraine. There is only one goal - to restrain the development of Russia. And they will do it, as they did before.
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Bitcoin dropped for a sixth straight day, touching a low of $36,372 @business #BTC 38,000 Last World Currencies |
Bitcoin dropped to a more than two-week low as fears of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine prompted some analysts to predict the largest cryptocurrency could slide toward the key $30,000 level.
Bitcoin dropped for a sixth straight day, touching a low of $36,372 on Tuesday after Russian President Vladimir Putin said he’s recognizing two self-proclaimed separatist republics in eastern Ukraine and ordering troops there.
Other cryptocurrencies also declined, with Ether off as much as 2.9% and XRP down as much as 6.7%.
Bitcoin dipped below $40,000 level over the weekend and kept weakening as the Ukraine crisis deepened, undermining the argument that cryptocurrencies are a haven in times of geopolitical turmoil.
At the same time, gold has reached its highest level since June.
“In the globe’s latest maelstrom -- U.S./Russia/Ukraine -- Bitcoin, the asset purported to be the answer to every question, has quietly weakened and is notably underperforming its arch-enemy, gold,” said John Roque of 22V Research in a note on Monday.
Roque predicted Bitcoin may fall below $30,000 -- a level it hasn’t seen since July -- as traders increasingly favor gold, potentially pushing bullion to an all-time high.
The Bitcoin-to-gold ratio is closing in on the lowest since mid-2021
“Bitcoin’s inability to hold $40,000 amid heightened Ukraine tensions means $30,000 is back in play,” Nexo co-founder and managing partner Antoni Trenchev said in an email.
“Geopolitics has, for now, replaced inflation as the primary driver of both traditional and crypto markets.”
Trenchev sees last summer’s lows of around $29,000 as a “last line in the sand” but expects Bitcoin to hold at $30,000, with significant buying interest at that level.
Katie Stockton, founder of Fairlead Strategies, said technical analysis isn’t in Bitcoin’s favor either.
The token, which is already trading below a long-term support level of around $37,400, would face its next key technical test at $27,200, she said.
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I AM HODLING' #BTC World Currencies |
GameKyuubi posted "I AM HODLING," a drunk, semi-coherent, typo-laden rant about his poor trading skills and determination to simply hold his bitcoin from that point on.
"I type d that tyitle twice because I knew it was wrong the first time. Still wrong. w/e," he wrote in reference to the now-famous misspelling of "holding."
"WHY AM I HOLDING? I'LL TELL YOU WHY," he continued.
"It's because I'm a bad trader and I KNOW I'M A BAD TRADER. Yeah you good traders can spot the highs and the lows pit pat piffy wing wong wang just like that and make a millino bucks sure no problem bro."
He concluded that the best course was to hold, since "You only sell in a bear market if you are a good day trader or an illusioned noob. The people inbetween hold. In a zero-sum game such as this, traders can only take your money if you sell."
He then confessed he'd had some whiskey and briefly mused about the spelling of whisk(e)y. [HODL Definition | Investopedia] |
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Ethiopia’s government is open to talks with the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front to end a 15-month conflict in the country, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said @bpolitics Africa |
Ethiopia’s government is open to talks with the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front to end a 15-month conflict in the country, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said.
While the government has yet to negotiate with the TPLF, “this does not rule out the possibility of discussions,” Abiy’s office said in a statement on Twitter on Tuesday.
Abiy’s comments come days after United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said there was progress in efforts to end a civil war that’s left thousands of people dead, displaced millions and damaged investor confidence.
The African Union and neighboring Kenya have been encouraging both sides to negotiate.
On Monday, Ethiopia’s parliament announced the formation of an 11-member National Dialogue Commission.
The panel has been tasked with presenting proposals aimed at ending simmering tensions between the nation’s ethnic and political groups and conflict that has destabilized one of Africa’s most-populous nations.
Once ready, the commission’s proposals will be put to the Ethiopian people, Abiy said.
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Ethiopia's Abiy tells banking sector to get ready for foreign competitors @Reuters Africa |
Ethiopia plans to open up its banking industry to foreign competition as soon as parliament passes policies permitting it, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said, flagging reforms of one of the last major sectors of the economy still to be liberalised. When Abiy took office in 2018, he pledged to overhaul sectors like telecoms and financial services. Measures to open up the telecoms sector are underway, with a consortium comprising Kenya's Safaricom ( SCOM.NR), South Africa's Vodacom, Britain's Vodafone and Japan's Sumitomo building a network after obtaining an operating licence last year. The fact that Ethiopia has closed its doors to foreign banks has benefited the sector until now, Abiy told lawmakers.
"But after this, banks need to prepare themselves with modern ways and information technologies," he added.
"Regarding this, the government is now preparing... a policy amendment. Once preconditions are met and banks are prepared, we will (implement) that."
At present Ethiopia has 18 commercial lenders, two of which are state-owned, according to the central bank.
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Botswana’s state-run diamond trader reported record revenue last year with sales surging almost five fold after U.S. imports recovered from a Covid-19 induced slowdown. @markets Africa |
Okavango Diamond Company sold $963 million of rough diamonds last year, said Dennis Tlaang, a company spokesman. The revenue was the most since the company began operations in 2012, he said.
“The demand for natural rough diamonds remained strong throughout 2021 driven primarily by positive market sentiment in key markets such as the United States,” Tlaang said.
Sales may rise further this year after De Beers, the world’s biggest producer of the stones, pushed through one of its most aggressive diamond price increases in recent years.
Okavango also got higher than normal prices in the sole auction it held this year, Tlaang said.
“We believe this is a good indicator of the market dynamics of 2022, at least for the first half of the year,” he said.
“The company will continue to drive customer participation by marketing its rough diamond assortment in key markets such as Antwerp and Dubai.”
Under a 2011 agreement between De Beers and the government of Botswana, Okavango purchases 25% of the nation’s annual production for independent marketing, while the balance is sold through the De Beers’ trading network.
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Horticulture earnings rise to record Sh158bn @BD_Africa Kenyan Economy |
Earnings from horticulture exports hit a historic high last year at Sh158 billion to remain the leading foreign exchanger earner in the last two years by staying ahead of tea and tourism.
Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics indicate that earnings from fresh produce grew seven percent from Sh150 billion that it recorded a year earlier.
Whereas tea and tourism were impacted negatively since the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020, horticulture has been recording impressive earnings in the last two years. Tourism recorded Sh146 billion last year with tea earning the country Sh136 billion.
“The good results were boosted by high demand of the Kenyan produce in the world market last year,” said the Directorate of Horticulture in an interview with the Business Daily on Monday.
The horticulture sector has been enjoying good earnings during the Covid-19 period.
For instance, in 2019, income from the export of fresh produce declined to Sh144 but picked up during the first year of the coronavirus outbreak to Sh150 billion.
The demand for fruits and vegetables, which forms a key part of dietary needs for many families in the overseas market has been in high demand since 2020, helping to boost the earnings.
Vegetable export volumes in kilos increased to 78 million last year from 62 million the year before, lifting earnings to Sh28 billion from Sh24 billion.
The volume of fruits exported in kilos increased to 117 million from 105 million but the earnings from the commodities declined marginally to Sh18.3 billion from Sh18.4 billion.
The volume of flower exports in kilos increased to 210 million from 146 million while the earnings increased to Sh110 billion from Sh107 billion.
The European Union still accounts for the largest portion of Kenyan horticultural exports, taking in 45 percent of the commodities mainly comprising cut flowers, French beans, snow peas and Asian vegetables.
The leading export destinations for all the horticultural produce are the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Belgium, Middle East and the Far East.
Agriculture and Food Authority -the crops regulator is working at diversifying the market as it seeks to cut reliance on European market which it says could have a negative impact on Kenya’s produce in the event that market becomes volatile.
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