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A default wave is building, says Deutsche Bank. Here’s how bad it may get.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-default-wave-is-building-says-deutsche-bank-heres-how-bad-it-may-get-efe4a4d5
Deutsche Bank strategists Jim Reid and Steve Caprio just wrote the bank’s annual default study, now in its 25th year. Last year’s, correctly, called for the end of the ultra-low default era, though the current numbers are certainly not terrible. The U.S. high-yield bond default rate through April rose to 2.1% from 1.1%, and U.S. loan default rates rose to 3.1% from 1.4%. Over in Europe, speculative-grade default rates rose to 2.7% from 1.7%. According to Fitch, the average U.S. high-yield default rate is 3.6%.
But, the Deutsche Bank team say, “a default wave is imminent.” By the fourth quarter of 2024, they say the U.S. high-yield default rate will peak at 9%, and the U.S. loan default rate will reach 11.3%. The European speculative-default rate will rise too, though to a less steep 5.8%.
Why? “The tightest Fed and [European Central Bank] policy in 15 years is running into elevated corporate leverage built upon stretched profit margins. This is especially true in the leveraged loan market, where LBO leverage was juiced higher year after year (after year) by zero rates and central bank QE,” they say. LBO means leveraged buyouts, performed by the $5 trillion or so private-equity industry.
And don’t expect the Fed to run the rescue either, as the central bank continues to fight inflation. (Unmentioned by the analysts, but the debt-ceiling deal effectively kills any potential for U.S. fiscal support through the next election, barring an unusually nasty recession.)
Granted, Deutsche Bank is far from the only outfit calling for a recession. Isn’t a downturn, and ensuing defaults, built into prices? Maybe not. The Deutsche Bank strategists say investors might not be ready, given that high-yield bond index quality has improved this cycle, and global loan default rates have been tame for the past 15 years.
They quantify this by looking at the percentage of speculative-grade markets trading at distressed levels. Historically, distressed ratios lead default cycles by about 12 to 16 months. Regressing defaults by distressed ratios, they find the current U.S. high-yield market implying a 3.6% rate of defaults in the third quarter of next year, and European high-yield bonds projecting just over 2.2%.
More Money Will Flow Into Solar Than Oil For The First Time
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/More-Money-Will-Flow-Into-Solar-Than-Oil-For-The-First-Time.html
According to Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, solar investments are expected to attract over $1 billion a day in 2023 with over $1.7 trillion slated to flow clean energy technologies such as EVs, renewables and storage. Overall, global investment in energy is projected to hit ~$2.8 trillion in the current year.
Speaking to CNBC’s Arabile Gumede on Thursday, Birol said there was a “growing gap between the investment in fossil energy and investment [in] clean energy. Clean energy is moving fast--faster than many people realize. This is clear in the investment trends, where clean technologies are pulling away from fossil fuels. For every dollar invested in fossil fuels, about 1.7 dollars are now going into clean energy.”
I found another company with plans to extract lithium in Akansas... Standard Lithium (NYSE: SLI)...
https://www.standardlithium.com/projects/arkansas-smackover
By applying proprietary modern processing technologies and strategic partnerships Standard Lithium (TSXV.SLI) (NYSE.A:SLI) (FRA: S5L) is poised to bring the first new U.S. based lithium project in over 50+ years into production. The company’s flagship south Arkansas project is the largest and most advanced lithium brine project in the U.S. The 3.94 million tonne lithium carbonate equivalent resource, 175,000-acre project is located in a region of southern Arkansas that is home to North America’s largest brine production and processing facilities.
Standard Lithium is partnered with global specialty chemical company Lanxess AG on the project. The partnership is in the demonstration stage of testing the commercial viability of lithium extraction on a mass scale from brine that is a byproduct of existing bromine production facilities run by Lanxess in southern Arkansas.
A $1.5 Trillion Wall of Debt Is Looming for US Commercial Properties
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-5-trillion-wall-debt-200000766.html
Almost $1.5 trillion of US commercial real estate debt comes due for repayment before the end of 2025. The big question facing those borrowers is who’s going to lend to them?
“Refinancing risks are front and center” for owners of properties from office buildings to stores and warehouses, Morgan Stanley analysts including James Egan wrote in a note this past week. “The maturity wall here is front-loaded. So are the associated risks.”
The investment bank estimates office and retail property valuations could fall as much as 40% from peak to trough, increasing the risk of defaults.
The wall of debt is set to get worse before it gets better. Maturities climb for the coming four years, peaking at $550 billion in 2027, according to the MS note. Banks also own more than half of the agency commercial mortgage-backed securities — bonds supported by property loans and issued by US government-sponsored entities such as Fannie Mae — increasing their exposure to the sector.
“The role that banks have played in this ecosystem, not only as lenders but also as buyers,” will compound the wave of refinancing coming due, the analysts wrote.
Rising interest rates and worries about defaults have already hurt CMBS deals. Sales of the securities without government backing fell about 80% in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News.
Robert Kiyosaki warns 3rd U.S. bank to crash, Peter Schiff says ‘bigger collapse’ ahead
https://finbold.com/robert-kiyosaki-warns-3rd-u-s-bank-to-crash-peter-schiff-says-bigger-collapse-ahead/
Kiyosaki’s warning about a third bank collapse comes as speculation around the future of another investment bank, Credit Suisse, continues to mount.
This is after the bank announced a delay in the annual report after the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) call regarding the lender’s cash flow statements for 2019 and 2020. As a result, the bank’s shares hit a new all-time low on March 10, 2023.
Additionally, back in October 2022, Finbold reported that Graham Stephan, a real estate investor, suggested that Credit Suisse could be in a ‘critical moment’ after the bank’s credit default swaps (CDS), which is essentially insurance purchased against a potential default, costs have hit the highest level since 2008. Notably, Credit Suisse’s CDS kept growing in 2023.
Five-year credit default swaps for the Zurich-based lender jumped as much as 36 basis points on Monday to 453 basis points, according to pricing source CMAQ. They widened the most in a Bloomberg index that tracks the CDS of 125 European high-grade companies.
Shares of European banks and insurers slumped on Monday and Credit Suisse’s stock tumbled as much as 15% to a fresh record low. Even before the turbulence caused by SVB’s demise, investors were worried about Credit Suisse’s ability to put in a place a restructuring plan that will pivot it further to private lending, hive off large parts of the investment banking business, and reduce costs by cutting 9,000 jobs.
Earlier this month, Credit Suisse said it was delaying publication of its annual report following a last-minute query by US regulators over previous financial statements.
The bank is also grappling with departures across departments. At least a dozen private bankers at the managing director-level and above have left in Singapore and Hong Kong since September, or are planning to leave. That has further complicated efforts to win back assets and raised pressure on wealth head Francesco De Ferrari, who joined just over a year ago.
20 banks that are sitting on huge potential securities losses—as was SVB
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/20-banks-that-are-sitting-on-huge-potential-securities-lossesas-was-svb-c4bbcafa
Silicon Valley Bank's demise began with downgrade threat
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/silicon-valley-banks-demise-began-with-downgrade-threat-sources-2023-03-11/
THE UNRAVELING
As SVB executives debated when to proceed with the fundraising, they heard from Moody's that the downgrade was coming this week, the sources said.
SVB sprang into action in the hopes of softening the blow.
The bank lined up private equity firm General Atlantic, which agreed to buy $500 million of the $2.25 billion stock sale, while another investor said it could not reach a deal on SVB's timeline, the sources said.
By Wednesday, SVB had sold the bond portfolio for a $1.8 billion loss.
Moody's downgraded the bank, but only by a notch because of SVB's bond portfolio sale and plan to raise capital.
Ideally, the stock sale would have been completed by before the market opened on Thursday, to avoid the sale being jeopardized by any declines in SVB's shares once news of the sale got out. But the sources said that was not an option given the tight schedule.
SVB had not done the preparatory work needed to sign confidentiality agreements with investors who would commit to a deal of such a size. Its lawyers advised the bank that investors would need at least 24 hours to digest new downbeat financial projections and complete the sale, the sources said.
Reuters could not determine why SVB did not start those preparations earlier.
SVB's stock plunged on news of the share sale, ending Thursday down 60% at $106.04. Goldman Sachs bankers still hoped they could close the sale at $95, the sources said.
Then news came of venture capital firms advising startups they had invested in to pull money out of Silicon Valley Bank for fear of an imminent bank run.
This quickly became a self-fulfilling prophecy: General Atlantic and other investors walked away and the stock sale collapsed.
General Atlantic did not respond to a request for comment.
SVB Chief Pressed Lawmakers To Weaken Bank Risk Regs
Collapsed bank’s president told Congress “enhanced prudential standards” should be lifted “given the low risk profile of our activities.”
https://www.levernews.com/svb-chief-pressed-lawmakers-to-weaken-bank-risk-regs/
In 2015, SVB President Greg Becker appeared before a Senate panel to push legislators to exempt more banks — including his own — from new regulations passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Despite warnings from some senators, Becker’s lobbying effort was ultimately successful.
Touting “SVB’s deep understanding of the markets it serves, our strong risk management practices,” Becker argued that his bank would soon reach $50 billion in assets, which under the law would trigger “enhanced prudential standards,” including more stringent regulations, stress tests, and capital requirements for his and other similarly sized banks.
The bank reportedly did not have a chief risk officer in the months leading up to the collapse, while more than 90 percent of its deposits were not insured.
Bad link.
New website?
https://daxxify.com/
Instagram...
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Facebook...
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Thanks, I have an account with Schwab...I'll check it out.
Nice...what app/software is that if you don't mind me asking?
297 deaths since 2013 involving Tesla autos...19 by autopilot...
https://www.tesladeaths.com/
In your opinion how much financial liability from lawsuits would it take to materially damage Tesla's ability to continue as a business?
It's also "vegan"...never thought of that angle.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission certifies modular nuclear reactor...
1st small modular nuclear reactor certified for use in US
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has certified the design for what will be the United States’ first small modular nuclear reactor.
The rule that certifies the design was published Thursday in the Federal Register. It means that companies seeking to build and operate a nuclear power plant can pick the design for a 50-megawatt, advanced light-water small modular nuclear reactor by Oregon-based NuScale Power and apply to the NRC for a license.
It’s the final determination that the design is acceptable for use, so it can’t be legally challenged during the licensing process when someone applies to build and operate a nuclear power plant, NRC spokesperson Scott Burnell said Friday.
It’s the seventh nuclear reactor design cleared for use in the United States. The rest are for traditional, large, light-water reactors.
The first small modular reactor design application package included over 2 million pages of supporting materials, Hughes added.
NuScale has signed 19 agreements in the U.S. and internationally to deploy its small reactor technology. Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Kathryn Huff said small modular reactors are no longer an abstract concept.
However, David Schlissel at the Ohio-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis expressed concerns about the costs. Schlissel, who has studied the history of the nuclear power industry and the finances of the NuScale project, expects they will continue to go up, which could limit how many NuScale reactors are built. He said he thinks they’re not competitive in price with renewables and battery storage.
Thanks.
Thanks. How concerning is the possibility of protease mutations that would diminish EDP-235 efficacy?
Impact of SARS-CoV-2 3CL Protease Mutations on Nirmatrelvir Inhibitory Efficiency. Computational Insights into Potential Resistance Mechanisms
BQ.1.1 has been around since Sept and the slide deck was posted on Nov 21 and now we're almost into 2023 with no update. Why is it taking so long for ENTA to run a test and update their slide deck or make an announcement?
Since Omicron variant BQ.1.1 is resistant to all treatments and is now >57% of all cases in the U.S. and there's no assay listed on slide 19 for BQ.1.1 is that something to be concerned about?
New COVID Subvariant Resistant to All Therapeutic Antibodies
Omicron variant BQ.1.1 found to be resistant to all monoclonal antibody treatments
Some more sodium-sulfur battery details. So an EV with 300 mile range would have a 1200 mile range with this battery...plus cheaper to manufacture and less toxic. No mention of how long to charge though...
Green and Low-cost Sodium-Sulfur Battery Could Replace Lithium-Ion
The article in which this research is detailed has been published by the journal “Advanced Materials”. There, the manufacturing process of this kind of battery is explained, which basically falls into the category of so-called molten salt batteries, which have existed with various chemical variants for about 50 years.
Most of these batteries being researched are based on sodium-sulfur (Na-S) chemistry. They have always been considered a lower performance alternative to lithium, so their widespread use has been limited by their low energy capacity and short life cycle. In addition, another difficulty for its widespread use is that its electrodes need to be kept at high temperatures in order to ensure that the electrolyte remains in a molten liquid state.
Now a team of Chinese and Australian scientists are collaborating to develop a new version that performs better at room temperature. By using a simple pyrolysis process and carbon-based electrodes, the reactivity of sulfur and the reversibility of reactions between sulfur and sodium are improved. In this way, the new battery exhibits high energy capacity and long service life at room temperature.
The result is a battery with a power capacity of 1,017 mAh/g at room temperature, which is around four times that of a lithium-ion battery. The battery demonstrated great stability, retaining around half of this capacity after 1,000 charge and discharge cycles.
This "could" be a breakthrough but the devil is in the details which this article is seriously lacking...
‘Significant breakthrough’: This new sea salt battery has 4 times the capacity of lithium
https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/12/13/significant-breakthrough-this-new-sea-salt-battery-has-4-times-the-capacity-of-lithium
Researchers have built a new cheap battery with four times the energy storage capacity of lithium.
Constructed from sodium-sulphur - a type of molten salt that can be processed from sea water - the battery is low-cost and more environmentally friendly than existing options.
It could be a ‘breakthrough’ for renewable energy, according to lead researcher Dr Shenlong Zhao, from the University of Sydney.
“Our sodium battery has the potential to dramatically reduce costs while providing four times as much storage capacity [as Lithium],” he said.
Molten salt batteries aren’t a new concept. They’ve been around for 50 years, but they’ve been an ‘inferior alternative’ with a short energy life cycle.
But this new battery is different. Scientists altered the electrodes to improve the reactivity of the sulphur - a key element determining storage capacity.
The resulting product showed “super-high capacity and ultra-long life at room temperature,” the University of Sydney researchers advise.
Because sea salt is everywhere, it could provide a scalable alternative to lithium ion batteries.
“When the sun isn’t shining and the breeze isn’t blowing, we need high-quality storage solutions that don’t cost the Earth and are easily accessible on a local or regional level,” Dr Zhao said.
“Storage solutions that are manufactured using plentiful resources like sodium – which can be processed from sea water – also have the potential to guarantee greater energy security more broadly and allow more countries to join the shift towards decarbonisation.”
The researchers now plan to improve and commercialise the new cells.
Some bold predictions from a few of Group14 (Porsche) competitors working on Silicon anode tech...
OneD (GM)
Silicon Forging Ahead for Higher-Performance Battery Anodes
OneD’s Pluvinage said the company expects its silicon nanowire-infused graphite anode technology to provide significant gains over current Li-ion batteries. “If you look at the mobility of electrons along nanowires,” he said, “it's even faster than in graphite. The lithium ions [the battery’s electricity carrier] can get in and out very easily, because there is nothing in their way and the radius is so thin and so small that they get in and out of the silicone very quickly.” The 20 percent silicon and its presence in the unique structure of nanowires allows a tripling of the anode’s energy density, Pluvinage said. Increases in charging speeds and driving range — or reduction in size of an EV’s battery pack — will depend on an individual battery manufacturer or automaker’s deployment of the technology, but for recharging times, StoreDot claims its battery technologies “will deliver 100 miles in 5 minutes by 2024, 100 miles in 3 [minutes] by 2028 and 100 [miles] in 2 [minutes] within a decade.”
“If you look at the total market between now and 2030, we need to reach for example 40 percent, 50 percent [EV] market penetration. That means that the vast majority of the market cannot afford an EV today,” Pluvinage said. “What the world needs is an EV that can sell for less than $30,000, has a range of more than 300 miles, and can charge from 10 percent to 80 percent in less than 30 minutes. Nobody makes that. That’s why we like GM. Because as [GM CEO] Mary Barra said, ‘Our goal is to make EVs affordable, and we want to produce millions of them.’ So that’s a perfect match between their goals and our goal.”
In the next 5 to 10 years, we’ll see a $50 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) lithium ion (Li-ion) battery cell that’s capable of fast charging, 10,000+ cycles, 1 million+ miles, a 30 year calendar life, and produced with abundant raw materials found all around the world and recycled.
This is real and mfg plants are being built...Group14's silicon anodes increase lithium battery performance by 50% with 80% charging in 10 min with zero capex required to integrate into current lithium battery manufacturing...
Microsoft Invests in Silicon-Battery Material Upstart
Microsoft Corp.’s $1 billion climate innovation fund is betting on a battery startup valued at more than $3 billion that is trying to dramatically improve power and charging time of electric vehicles.
Founded in 2015, Group14 plans to use the new funding to accelerate development of a larger manufacturing facility in central Washington that will produce material for batteries capable of powering at least 100,000 electric cars.
White paper...
https://group14.technology/en/whitepapers/transition-to-lithium-silicon-batteries
A long-standing goal for anode innovation with lithium batteries has been to leverage silicon as an active material inside of the anode, creating a lithium-silicon battery. Lithium-silicon batteries have the potential to hold huge amounts of lithium ions due to silicon’s 10x higher capacity than graphite. This quickly translates in cost parity for EVs and creates smaller, better lithium batteries for all electronics and energy storage. The idea is that a silicon-based replacement for graphite not only gives a massive boost to lithium’s performance and energy density within the battery but it also seamlessly fits into existing manufacturing processes.
By simply swapping out existing graphite anode material, drop-in-ready silicon-based technologies help minimize switching costs for manufacturing. They also eliminate the need for what could potentially be multi-billion-dollar manufacturing changes across different industries, and/or net new battery designs.
These new and improved silicon-based anode materials can immediately integrate into existing battery cell manufacturing lines to create better-performing batteries today, with no additional requirements for implementation at the cell level. True drop-in power provides three important characteristics:
1. Reduced reformulation work required during the initial validation and product development phases
2. Zero CapEx needed for retrofitting on the manufacturing line
3. Significant reduction in time to market for new products
Drop-in technology is a critical step to prove to the industry at large, customers, and financial markets, that a technology is easily manufacturable at scale and at a digestible cost from the first factory to all subsequent production facilities. The exciting potential of silicon-based battery anode materials, like our SCC55™, that are drop-in ready and manufactured at industrial scale, is that they create a step-change in what’s possible with energy storage. Lithium-silicon batteries move the world toward the electrification of everything because they are significantly more highly performing than li-ion batteries using graphite across all performance metrics. Lithium-silicon batteries have:
1. Higher energy density,
2. are faster charging than li-ion batteries using graphite, while
2. having comparable stability to graphite over 1000 deep-discharge cycles, allowing us to innovate things that we haven't been able to imagine before.
In the past 12 months, Group14 has launched a commercial-scale Battery Active Materials factory in the U.S. and broken ground on a joint venture factory with SK Group in South Korea – both to continue its mission to deliver on the electrification of everything from EVs and aviation to consumer electronics and more. To meet rising energy storage demand globally, Group14 is poised to accelerate delivery of its mass-market, drop-in ready technology, SCC55™, which is capable of turning any gigafactory into a 1.5GW facility overnight. Already validated in EV-scale batteries and for extreme fast charging applications, Group14’s technology helps leapfrog significant barriers to high-performing battery applications.
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Why Lithium Americas, Livent, and Albemarle Stocks Fell Sharply on Tuesday
https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/11/15/why-lithium-americas-livent-and-albemarle-stocks-f/
KEY POINTS
Goldman Sachs released a new forecast for lithium supply and demand this week.
For the past couple years, the world has demanded more lithium than producers could supply -- but this is about to change, say analysts.
As early as 2023, lithium prices could begin to fall, and by 2025, the world may be in a state of chronic lithium oversupply.
As lithium miners ramp up production to capitalize on strong demand, the gap between supply and demand is narrowing, and quickly. As soon as early next year, Goldman Sachs predicts that lithium supply and demand will be back in balance. And as 2023 progresses, analysts see production of lithium rocketing past levels that even growing demand can support. Indeed, by 2025, Goldman sees a completely different sort of gap arriving -- one in which lithium miners are producing approximately 400,000 tons more lithium than demand can support.
Meta is laying off more than 11,000 employees
https://www.engadget.com/meta-mass-layoffs-facebook-111406126.html
META has lost almost $800B in mc since it's ATH in Aug 21.
10Y-3MO yield curve now inverted...
https://ycharts.com/indicators/10_year_3_month_treasury_spread
10 Year-3 Month Treasury Yield Spread is at -0.03%, compared to 0.05% the previous market day and 1.53% last year. This is lower than the long term average of 1.20%.
China’s real estate sector goes south
https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2022/10/18/chinas-real-estate-sector-goes-south/
Housing prices are falling in more than half of China’s cities. New home sales are also plummeting, dropping 23 per cent year-on-year as of August. A drop in pre-sales is important because they account for 86 per cent of Chinese developers’ funding.
Chinese developers are excessively dependent on household financing by international standards. That is a direct consequence of the ‘three red lines’ enforced by Chinese regulators in 2020, prohibiting banks from extending additional lending to developers.
As housing units are left unsold, developers prefer not to invest in new projects. This has a chain effect on related sectors such as construction materials, household appliances and furniture. Fixed asset investment in the real estate sector accounts for one-third of China’s total fixed asset investment, directly affecting growth. The weaker demand for other related sectors also adds to the impact of the real estate demise on GDP growth.
The situation is bad news for financial stability, particularly for banks. Banks are less exposed to developers than mortgages, as banks are not allowed to be heavily exposed to developers. Mortgages account for 11 per cent of banks’ assets, well above their 4.5 per cent of direct exposure to real estate developers. That is why mortgage boycotts — especially if they are extended — are a bigger problem for the asset quality and solvency of banks.
Why hasn’t supply chain easing helped inflation?
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/if-supply-chain-crunch-is-finally-easing-why-is-inflation-so-high
If the supply chain crunch was such a major driver of inflation, why are so many indicators pointing to an easing of supply chain pressures at the same time inflation remains exceptionally high?
One theory is that the supply chain was at least something of a red herring. Another is that supply chain pressures are indeed easing, but they’re still way above pre-COVID levels. In other words, the supply chain crunch is not over yet, so the positive payoff for inflation is yet to come.
The GSCPI, while down sharply from its peak, is still almost six times higher than it was in 2017-19. Flexport’s OTI is still more than double its pre-COVID level.
The Drewry World Container Index is currently three times higher than it was at this time of year in 2019. The FreightWaves SONAR Container Atlas Ocean TEU index for US-bound cargoes is currently 35% higher than it was at this time in 2019.
Meanwhile, U.S. imports remain near all-time highs and have yet to materially fall. According to Descartes, U.S. imports in August were flat versus July and up 18% versus August 2019, pre-COVID. Customs data on FreightWaves SONAR shows that September imports were very close to September 2021 levels.
Ship-position data and queuing lists showed 109 container vessels waiting off U.S. ports as of Sunday. That’s down from a high of over 150, but still far above the pre-COVID normal in the single digits.
How John Deere plans to build a world of fully autonomous farming by 2030
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/02/how-deere-plans-to-build-a-world-of-fully-autonomous-farming-by-2030.html
EDP-235 as possible treatment for long COVID?
A Key to Long Covid Is Virus Lingering in the Body, Scientists Say
Virus remaining in some people’s bodies for a long time may be causing longer-term complications, recent research suggests
Sept. 8, 2022 12:01 am ET
The virus that causes Covid-19 can remain in some people’s bodies for a long time. A growing number of scientists think that lingering virus is a root cause of long Covid.
New research has found the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the blood of long Covid patients up to a year after infection but not in people who have fully recovered from Covid. Virus has also been found in tissues including the brain, lungs, and lining of the gut, according to scientists and studies
The findings suggest that leftover reservoirs of virus could be provoking the immune system in some people, causing complications such as blood clots and inflammation, which may fuel certain long Covid symptoms, scientists say.
A group of scientists and doctors are joining forces to focus research on viral persistence and aim to raise $100 million to further the search for treatments. Called the Long Covid Research Initiative, the group is run by the PolyBio Research Foundation, a Mercer Island, Wash., based nonprofit focused on complex chronic inflammatory diseases.
“We really want to understand what’s at the root of [long Covid] and we want to focus on that,” says Amy Proal, a microbiologist at PolyBio and the initiative’s chief scientific officer. Dr. Proal has devoted her career to researching chronic infections after developing myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, an illness that shares similar symptoms with long Covid, in her 20s.
Three long Covid patients, frustrated at the lack of answers and treatments, have helped connect researchers.
“Long Covid is this really incredible emergency,” says Henry Scott-Green, one of the patients, a 28-year-old in London who says brain fog, extreme fatigue and other debilitating long Covid symptoms prevented him from resuming full-time work as a product manager, though he plans to return soon. “We’re really trying to run really efficiently and cut out as many layers of bureaucracy as possible.”
So far, the group says it has received a pledge of $15 million from Balvi, an investment and direct giving fund established by Vitalik Buterin, the co-creator of the cryptocurrency platform Ethereum.
Among the strongest evidence of viral persistence in long Covid patients is a new study by Harvard researchers published Friday in the journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases. Researchers detected the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a large majority of 37 long Covid patients in the study and found it in none of 26 patients in a control group.
Patients’ blood was analyzed up to a year after initial infection, says David R. Walt, a professor of pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School and lead researcher of the study. Dr. Walt isn’t currently involved with the long Covid initiative.
A year after infection, some patients had levels of viral spike protein that were as high as they did earlier in their illness, Dr. Walt says. Such levels long after initial infection suggest that a reservoir of active virus is continuing to produce the spike protein because the spike protein typically doesn’t have a long lifetime, he adds.
Dr. Walt plans to test antivirals such as Paxlovid or remdesivir to see if the drugs help clear the virus and eliminate spike protein from the blood. He says it’s possible that for some people, the normal course of medication isn’t enough to clear the virus. Such cases may require “a much longer exposure to these antivirals to fully clear,” says Dr. Walt.
One of the research group’s goals is to find a way for people to identify whether they continue to have the virus in their bodies. There is no easy way to determine this now.
New studies offer clues about who may be more susceptible to long Covid, a term for lingering Covid-19 symptoms. WSJ breaks down the science of long Covid and the state of treatment. Illustration: Jacob Reynolds for The Wall Street Journal
Long Covid patients experience such a wide range of long-term symptoms that scientists think there is likely more than one cause, however. Some cases may be fueled by organ damage, for instance.
Yet consensus is growing around the idea that lingering virus plays a significant role in long Covid. Preliminary research from immunologist Akiko Iwasaki’s laboratory at Yale University documented T or B cell activity in long Covid patients’ blood, suggesting that patients’ immune systems are continuing to react to virus in their bodies. Dr. Iwasaki is a member of the new initiative.
In a 58-person study published in the Annals of Neurology in March, University of California, San Francisco researchers also found SARS-CoV-2 proteins circulating in particles in long Covid patients’ blood, especially in those with symptoms such as fatigue and trouble concentrating.
Now, the group is completing a study using imaging techniques and tissue biopsies to detect persistent virus or reactivation of other viruses in tissue. It also is looking at T-cell immune responses in tissues and whether they correlate with symptoms.
Some people may harbor the virus and don’t have long-term symptoms, says Timothy Henrich, an associate professor of medicine at UCSF involved with the study and a member of the long Covid initiative. For others, lingering virus may produce problems.
“I think there’s a real amount of mounting evidence that really suggests that there is persistent virus in some people,” says Dr. Henrich.
Write to Sumathi Reddy at Sumathi.Reddy@wsj.com
Durability of Booster mRNA Vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 BA.2.12.1, BA.4, and BA.5 Subvariants
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2210546?query=TOC
Cleveland-Cliffs: We Simply Can't Remember A Stock Like This
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4535940-cleveland-cliffs-we-cant-remember-stock-like-this
Raising prices...
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. has increased current spot market base prices for all carbon steel hot rolled, cold rolled and coated steel products.
The Cleveland -based company said Wednesday that prices would increase by a minimum of $75 per ton, effective immediately with new orders in North America .
Cleveland-Cliffs is a flat-rolled steel producer and is a supplier of steel to the North American automotive industry.
Write to Kathryn Hardison at kathryn.hardison@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
08-24-22 1513ET
Copyright (c) 2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Here’s the incredibly strong signal for stocks that is coming from the corporate bond market
hmmmmmm...
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-the-incredibly-strong-signal-for-stocks-that-is-coming-from-the-corporate-bond-market-11658401317
By Steve Goldstein
Critical information for the U.S. trading day
Is it a false dawn in the stock market or is there something real? The S&P 500 has never lost ground over the following year when advancing volume was at least 85% of volume for two out of three days coming off a 52-week low, according to Jason Goepfert, the founder of Sundial Capital Research. That has happened 13 times.
Here’s another: The S&P 500 (SPX) closed higher on Wednesday for the first time since March after a day in which it gained at least 2%. You can now buy the dip without automatically and instantly getting punished.
But our call of the day studies the link between the corporate bond and stock markets. Spreads in both investment grade and riskier high-yield bonds have narrowed rapidly over the last three weeks.
Analysts at Bespoke Investment Group studied the history of such spread compression, though it isn’t a long series since the popular credit-default swap indexes were only invented this century.
The signal is incredibly strong on the junk-bond side. In the nine previous times when the CDX HY spreads fell at least 75 basis points in three weeks, the S&P 500 rose over the next week, six months, and year, with 22% average returns over the next year. “It’s awfully hard to come up with a market signal that looks much better than that long-term,” said the Bespoke analysts.
On investment-grade bonds, it is less strong but still positive. When the CDX IG spread has fallen at least 15 basis points over three weeks, and that has happened 14 times since 2005, the S&P 500 rose in a year’s time in 12 of those occasions, with an average gain of 13%.
A word of warning, however. At current pricing, junk bonds (JNK) aren’t pricing in a recession, according to BCA Research. The index is pricing in a default rate of 6.65%. “Given that default rates typically surpass 8% during recessions, there is scope for spreads to widen further if recessionary risks intensify,” said the BCA analysts.
Ocean Shipping Rates Begin to Decline
https://www.ttnews.com/articles/ocean-shipping-rates-begin-decline
Transpacific shipping costs have fallen by 53% in the past three months, and on July 8 it cost $7,409 to transport a 40-foot container from China to the nation’s largest gateways for trade on the West Coast on a long-term contract.
According to the Freightos Baltic Index, that same container cost $15,764 to transport April 15. The drop in shipping prices comes as the Ocean Shipping Reform Act has been in effect for about a month. The law gives the Federal Maritime Commission more tools to regulate the shipping industry, and the relatively small federal agency is now in the process of hiring more investigators to oversee and monitor ocean carriers.
On the East Coast, shipping rates from China to the Atlantic Ocean are down 43%. On April 15, it cost $17,150 to move a 40-foot container, and in early July the price was $9,882.
Bentzel said the soaring price of shipping imported items from China to the U.S. is a key factor in the increasing inflation, and he’s encouraged that shipping costs are declining. But that doesn’t mean the soon-to-be larger FMC will be backing off of its newly expanded mission. In fact, he said the new law will provide just the opposite.
The data is a month old. Many key components of core CPI have been tanking...lumber, gasoline, copper which are back to April levels. The spread between headline CPI and core CPI is over 300 basis points which is the most since the 70's.
Advanced E.V. Batteries Move From Labs to Mass Production
Makers of batteries that could charge in a few minutes are setting up assembly lines, bringing the technology a big step closer to auto showrooms.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/12/business/electric-vehicle-batteries.html