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LASE 1.87 low floater
FNGR nice run last week still has a little juice left..
https://www.accesswire.com/846314/litigation-update-fingermotion-announces-settlement-agreement-with-benzinga-in-action-against-short-selling-research-firm-capybara-research
The higher oil prices go the more disinflation it causes as consumers spend more on energy and less on anything else discretionary. So the closer oil gets to $90 it actually causes less inflation as retailers get hammered
…The percentage yield between London spot and three-month forwards – which tends to track interest rates because of the cost of storing, financing and insuring gold – has made a rare dip below Fed rates in recent weeks, as spot prices soared. Historically, that only happens on a sustained basis when rates are either low or about to move sharply lower. …….
Seasoned executives and analysts offer very different answers to who or what has driven gold to its unprecedented heights: Is it a central bank worried about the dollar’s role as an economic weapon? Funds betting that the Federal Reserve’s pivot to lower interest rates is imminent? An army of algorithmic traders drawn to gold simply because it’s going up? Stubborn inflation and worries about a hard landing? Weakening currencies? Upcoming elections? All of the above?
The mystery has sent industry insiders poking through the plumbing of a massive global trade that stretches across futures and exchange-traded funds from New York to Shanghai to a huge over-the-counter hub in London and world-spanning web of dealers selling bars, coins and jewelry to everyone, everywhere.
It’s an opaque and complex world that’s historically been hard to crack open. Still, the market and regulators have been on a years-long drive to boost transparency, increasing access to data that helps shine a little more light on the gravity-defying rally in one of the world’s oldest stores of wealth.
Who’s buying?
First, the easy answer: Central banks, in particular, as well as big institutions and traders preparing for a shift to looser rates. Chinese consumers are worried about wilting returns in other assets and a depreciating currency. On Reddit Inc.’s platform, self-proclaimed “stackers” boast of hoarding bars and coins.
But those groups have been a consistent bullish force for months — or years in the case of central banks — and it’s not clear why any one of them might be buying with a much greater sense of fear, greed, or exuberance. Analysts are armed with better market data than they’ve ever had before, and yet the cumulative answer is frustratingly vague: It’s everyone all at once, and no one in particular.
What are they buying?
One thing that’s clear is also a head-scratcher: Investors haven’t been buying exchange-traded funds, one of the easiest ways to acquire gold. A steady stream of outflows from gold-backed ETFs suggests that a major cohort is missing out — or cashing out.
“This is one of the more bizarre phenomena that I’ve ever seen in the ETF space,” said Nate Geraci, president of the ETF Store. “What’s particularly interesting is that gold demand has been very strong in other channels such as central bank purchases and direct purchases by individual and private investors.”
Profit-taking by long-term investors who bought in years ago is how Citigroup Inc. explains why net ETF inflows have been notably weak. The fact that the steady and sizable outflows haven’t had a greater impact on prices also hints at strong demand for the bars they’ve been selling — and central banks would be a natural buyer, according to Joe Cavatoni, who oversees the World Gold Council’s ETF platform.
“There are other investors who are buying the physical gold, so it is not having an impact in any way,” he said in an interview. “Guess where it goes: into the OTC market, picked up by central banks.”
Where are they buying?
In the larger futures and over-the-counter markets, trading activity is rising sharply, signaling that the usual institutional buyers — central banks, investment banks, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds — are involved. Options activity is picking up, too, and there are expectations bullion prices may vault higher still as options dealers rush to cover their exposure.
The number of outstanding contracts in New York futures has been rising, a sign that longer-term bets by money managers are on the upswing. But overall trading volume has outpaced the number of open contracts — hinting at a surge in the kind of frenetic day trading algorithmic funds excel at.
When are they buying?
Mainly on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The gold market is famously sensitive to shifts in US economic data, and that’s become even more true since prices took off at the start of March. Key economic releases on those days offer readings on the strength of manufacturing, jobs, GDP and inflation, and a concentrated spurt of buying seen after the data provides a strong clue to the identities of the most influential actors.
But that in itself has been confounding analysts, because recent data has been coming in hot, and investors in currency and bond markets have been responding with bets that the Fed’s pivot will come later and be shallower than expected a few months ago.
In theory, that would be negative for gold because high interest rates dent bullion’s appeal relative to yield-bearing assets such as bonds. Investors also are pushing up the dollar, which has made gold much more expensive for buyers in the top consumer markets: China and India.
Why are they buying now?
That’s the big question. The glaring hole in the narrative of the past five weeks is that while the Fed is still expected to start cutting rates this year – which should benefit gold — many investors have actually become less convinced about the timing than they were a few months ago.
One possibility is that some gold investors are instead zeroing in on the prospect of a hard landing in the US economy based on the recent data, and rushing to buy bullion for its role as a haven.
That idea could also provide an explanation for another curious movement in the gold market in recent weeks – the relationship between a closely watched gold price spread and US Fed interest rates.
The percentage yield between London spot and three-month forwards – which tends to track interest rates because of the cost of storing, financing and insuring gold – has made a rare dip below Fed rates in recent weeks, as spot prices soared. Historically, that only happens on a sustained basis when rates are either low or about to move sharply lower.
The inversion of the spread may signal that nervous investors are clamoring to get hold of spot gold now, as protection against potential turmoil.
“The rally is defying a lot of normal thinking, especially when it comes to still-elevated rates,” said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank AS. “I think the narrative is changing towards sticky inflation and perhaps a hard landing, spiced with a lot of geopolitical uncertainty and de-globalization driving central bank demand.”
—With assistance from Eddie Spence, Sybilla Gross and Jack Farchy.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gold-market-hunts-answers-behind-150000718.html
Why rates going lower…Gold.. (Bloomberg) — Gold’s scorching run to an all-time high may seem easy to explain from a distance, given the fractious geopolitical climate and murky outlook for the global economy. The precious metal is famously seen as a “safe haven,” and the general view is that bullion prices should rise when interest rates fall — which many investors expect will happen later this year.
And yet. Take a closer look, and it’s far from clear: why is gold suddenly rising right now?
After trading in a fairly steady range for months, bullion started spiking in early March. It’s risen 14% since then and left a string of daily records in its wake. But geopolitical tensions have been high for months, even years, and if anything the outlook for the timing on rate cuts by the Federal Reserve has become muddier in recent weeks. So what’s changed?
It is Japanese and shitty low floaters make the most cash with patience but get out if support doesn’t hold may be wise
Looks good ..watch $6.48 and $7.44 next. Another nice low floater
bottom watch $4.63.
AGRX MRT STI CXAI some other runners
BENF a little push up lol
Disquisition if you follow his lead (he is on VHAI board ) once he stops posting about incessant dumping on a stock usually the bottom is in. His price targets usually ok.
Earnings season starts again .but luckily was in SMFL LIFW AUUD so going mostly cash as some of these low floaters make there quick pumps exiting.
Adding VHAI down here .30s and this is one a prime example as to why a lot of scalping has to be done. Dilution dilution
That is precisely why I stay away from the moderation side..lol …to many gray areas
Car dealers will decide the future and many not happy going out of business ..
“Auto dealers are one of the five most common professions among the top 0.1%”; they (along with other gentry professions like gas station owners and building contractors) make up “a majority of the country’s 140,000 Americans who earn more than $1.58 million per year”; members of the industry association donate to Republicans “at a rate of 6-to-1”, through which they have worked “to write and rewrite laws to protect dealers and sponsor sympathetic politicians in all 50 states”. Such figures help to make sense of Moreno’s and his fellow car dealers’ status as the cream of the crop among America’s local elites.
Coverage of the gentry more generally diverges along partisan lines: Right-wing commentators usually praise their innate cultural conservatism and strong attachment to place, while Left-wing and libertarian critics decry what they see as the reactionary and racket-like nature of their enterprise, built as it is on intensive lobbying efforts to ensure their entrenched positions as middlemen standing between manufacturers and consumers. Given their political weight, it is surprising to see the dearth of analysis on the future trajectory of this class (other than prophecies that anticipate their extinction) in the context of debates about the fate of the US auto industry, not to mention the role this gentry should play as the Republican coalition lurches away from the Reaganite consensus.
Indeed, a case can be made that the central question for the future of conservatism revolves around this class. It is not whether they will embrace a populist-nationalist political outlook — this much should already be clear to any observer of American politics in the last eight years — but whether they will become populist-nationalist in their economic preferences as well? For beneath their reputation as regressive opponents of change, it should be remembered that it was this unheralded elite of small-town millionaires who came out early and overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016, rejecting free-market orthodoxy and legitimising previously heretical stances on trade and the need to re-industrialise. It was to their ears as local elites spread out across the country that Trump’s incessant calls for rebuilding America’s “bridges, tunnels, freeways, and airports … our great plants and factories” were most resonant.
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In other words, by anointing a brash New York City businessman as their tribune, it was the gentry that arguably did the most to light the spark of the populist-nationalist revolution, though a combination of inertia and diversion prevented a fully-fledged nationalist programme from taking shape when Trump was in office. However, in the years ahead, a more forceful break with laissez-faire policy on their part along with an embrace of state-guided industrial policy would bring them into much closer convergence with the material interests of the working class, and should actually enable Republicans to follow through on the promise that launched Trump’s insurgency: to restore America’s strength and prosperity by bringing industry back to the heartlands. But it remains to be seen how a conservative class of provincial entrepreneurs can be made to support a nationally-directed interventionist agenda.
Turning to history will reveal that it isn’t as much of a long-shot as it seems: after all, it was small business elites — not unlike today’s gentry — who fuelled American industrialisation in the late-18th to 19th centuries under the banners of the Federalist, Whig, and early Republican parties, when the term “nationalist” meant precisely support for the federal government’s role in directing modernising investments toward the country’s developing regions and frontiers. Henry Clay’s “American System” was the most ambitious expression of this philosophy, and later served as the inspiration for Abraham Lincoln’s programme for reshaping of the American economic order during the Civil War. But what would be the equivalent programme for revitalising today’s moribund post-industrial economy?
The answer may have to do with Trump’s unexpected and ingenious proposal, made during a speech at a Moreno rally in Dayton, of letting Chinese firms build car factories in America as the only way around a new 100% tariff wall he’d place for Chinese cars made elsewhere. This would seem to contradict his image as the ultimate China hawk. But as David P. Goldman points out, Trump is a dealmaker first and foremost, and his idea (coverage of which was lost amid furor over Trump’s “bloodbath” comments from the same day) would not only diffuse Sino-American tensions but deliver benefits to US workers, consumers, the auto industry (in the long-term), and yes, the car dealer gentry. The Chinese themselves are in need of new markets, and as Politico reports, for them, “the United States market is the holy grail”.
Trump has claimed, under this proposal, US workers would get to work in the car factories, though the scale of automation involved and the advanced skill set required could mean that most of the existing American workforce may not be qualified enough to man such factories. In any event, manufacturing would still create lots of “spillover” jobs in the communities that receive the factories. Just as American consumers would, of course, benefit from access to the latest Chinese EV models — such as the BYD Seagull.
The auto industry, meanwhile, despite having to deal with fierce new Chinese competition initially, would nonetheless be able to, as Goldman put it “appropriate their IP the way they appropriated ours”. This may sound like a flippant statement, but historically this is how catch-up industrialisation worked, through subtle processes of IP transfer from the more advanced to the less advanced economies, in which case a new cycle would just be repeating itself — this time, to America’s advantage. Or as Goldman wrote: “It’s easier to let [China] bring industrial automation to the United States than to try to catch up after the fact. That’s the path of least resistance, and one that Trump has opened up.” (Though as a means of cushioning the effect of China’s market entry, its factories could be brought in at a controlled pace and assigned to limited geographic areas so as not to overwhelm domestic competition totally.)
“The American gentry started the Trumpian populist-nationalist revolution: they may yet be the ones to finish it.”
But the greatest beneficiaries may be the car dealers, who, in this scheme, would be the ones to sell Chinese cars to consumers. In theory, car dealers should be able to sell EVs such as the Seagull the same way they sell gasoline-powered cars, but in practice, it hasn’t worked out that way because of a number of factors, namely the more expensive costs of servicing EVs and lack of available technical expertise. This is why Moreno and the gentry have been consistently hostile to EVs; and it also doesn’t help that Tesla has sought to market its models directly to buyers through online sales.
But there is another instructive example from the annals of American economic history, namely the state-sponsored mechanisation of agriculture in the New Deal South, where an ultra-conservative local oligarchy profited from state subsidies that allowed them to pay for modern farm equipment, thereby reducing the cost of innovation and helping the semi-feudal South of the Thirties to develop and industrialise. A similar effort to subsidise costs for any EV transition, in which the US government transfers funds and capital assets directly to the dealers, would both accelerate the adoption of new technologies and preserve the civic leadership of the gentry. Such a programme would smooth the economic transition for them–— if not the cultural one, which may prove more difficult, given their engrained suspicion of EVs. In any event, electric would still be far off from becoming the mainstream of the US auto industry and will likely co-exist with traditional models for some time: but this endangered class would nonetheless be given a chance to not just survive but thrive amid an otherwise disruptive paradigm shift.
Furthermore, the accompanying new infrastructure of such a programme would be incredibly costly, to say the least, and neither the Chinese nor the US government should be expected to foot the entire bill. This is where the state can step in to channel private capital into the underdeveloped regions where the gentry live by setting up such things as infrastructure banks, guidance funds, and shared manufacturing facilities as the pillars of a modern-day equivalent to Henry Clay’s “American System”. Best of all, through such a programme, Washington — under Trump or any future Republican president — could pressure the financial sector to disgorge its hordes of stagnant capital into these new developmental institutions and stimulate re-investment into the heartland. This would, in effect, create a massive wealth transfer from Wall Street to Main Street, reversing the logic of the Reaganite coalition in which Wall Street called all the shots.
Of course, many things would have to go right for this scenario to take place. The Republicans could fumble their chance at leadership and go back to more Paul Ryan-style tax cuts, which would do nothing but enrich increasingly Democratic-aligned corporate America; or they could actually base their policies on the interests of their primary elite constituency, the gentry, along with the working class. Realising this possibility would require a future Senator Moreno to imbibe the heterodox ideology of his colleague J.D. Vance, as he employs his entrepreneurial skills to convince his fellow Republicans to entertain a programme radically different from the free market dogmas of the past. After all, it was the American gentry that started the Trumpian populist-nationalist revolution: they may yet be the ones to finish it.
https://unherd.com/2024/03/car-dealers-will-decide-americas-future/
Good to have your own board can’t control there agenda
We shall see car repossessions just getting ridiculous now 10 million in past few months refer to thisisjohnwilliams on you tube or lucky lopez for data..
LIFW still going
China PBOC Buys Gold for 17th Month as Prices Hit Record - Bloomberg
20 hours ago - China’s central bank purchased gold for its reserves for a 17th straight month in March, extending a long buying spree that has helped the precious metal’s surge to a record. Bullion held by the People’s Bank of China rose to 72.74 million fine troy ounces last month, according to official ...
Switzerland gets a surprise rate cut. Will other central banks move before the Fed?
The Fed kept its key interest rate steady but continued to signal three cuts later this year. Unlike its European peer, it has the dual mandate of keeping inflation around 2% and aiming for full employment — an objective that can be aided by cutting rates to stimulate hiring.
How is this not the biggest political talking point right now: since October 2019, native-born US workers have lost 1.4 million jobs; over the same period illegal workers have gained 3 million jobs.
How is this not the biggest political talking point right now: since October 2019, native-born US workers have lost 1.4 million jobs; over the same period foreign-born workers have gained 3 million jobs. pic.twitter.com/Z5HVWmQ24C
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 15, 2024
Behind Today's Stellar Jobs Print: It Was Literally ALL Part-Time Jobs (And Illegals)
Tyler Durden's Photo
BY TYLER DURDEN
FRIDAY, APR 05, 2024 - 12:05 PM
First things first: unlike the last two months when both the January and February jobs prints were beyond ridiculously manipulated and goalseeked to pass a terrible number as a strong one, the March print was not a complete disaster.
To be sure, superficially the March report was another artificially goalseeked blowout that guaranteed it would have zero credibility: with 303K payrolls added which was a 4 sigma beat to the median estimate of 214K and above the highest Wall Street forecast. There is just one problem: the number of multiple-sigma beats in recent months has been so high, the entire concept of "beats" has become laughable.
Consider this: January was a 5-sigma beat to expectations; February was a 3-sigma beat and March, we just learned, beat the median estimate by 4-sigma. Not only that, but in every of the last 3 months, the actual payrolls number (at least before it was revised lower the next month), has come in higher than the highest Wall Street estimate! We kinda feel bad for Biden trying so hard to manipulate the economy and population into liking Bidenomics and approving of his disastrous economic policies. Maybe he should just report one month that jobs rose by 10,000,000 and sit back and wait for his approval rating to hit 100... or something
silver lining, is that unlike previous months when the Household Survey reported sharp drops in the number of actually employed workers, in March, employment finally rose by 498K to 161.466 million, the first monthly increase in the past 4 months.
Still, despite the modest rebound in employment, it still lags payrolls by almost 9 million jobs since the covid trough.
However, that's where the mitigating factors end, because while there was some improvement in the quantitative aspect of the March report, when it comes to the qualitative aspect, it was another disaster for one simple reason: all the job gains were part time jobs!
Here is exhibit A: in March, the number of part-time jobs soared by 691K to 28.632 million, up from 27.941 million while full-time jobs dropped by 6,000, to 132.940 million from 132.946 million.
This number only gets scarier when we extend the period to the past year: as shown in the next chart, since March 2023, the number of full-time workers has collapsed by 1.347 million while the number of part-time workers exploded by 1.888 million!
There's more.
Regular readers are aware that all the job gains since 2018 have gone to immigrants, mostly illegal immigrants, something we spent last month's jobs post discussing in detail.
So what happened in March? It will come as no surprise that there was more of the same, and after the collapse in native-born workers in the last three months when nearly 2.5 million native-born workers lost their jobs, March saw some pick up, and 929K native-born workers were added. Meanwhile, after last month's record increase in foreign-born workers, in March illegal immigrants added another 112K jobs, pushing the total number of foreign-born workers to a new record high of 31.114 million.
Said otherwise, not only has all job creation in the past 6 years has been exclusively for foreign-born workers...
... but there has been zero job-creation for native born workers since July 2018!
This, as we have been saying for months now, is a huge issue - especially at a time of an illegal alien flood at the southwest border...
... and is about to become a huge political scandal, because once the inevitable recession finally hits, there will be millions of furious unemployed Americans demanding a more accurate explanation for what happened - i.e., the illegal immigration floodgates that were opened by the Biden admin.
To this point, we are delighted to observe that after everyone had been ignoring what we have been saying for months, namely that all job growth has gone to illegals...
... overnight none other than Goldman admitted that not only has all job growth in recent years gone to illegal immigrants, but that America is now being invaded. Below we excerpt from the note from Goldman economist Elsie Peng, who amusingly calls illegal aliens "unauthorized immigrants" in her note (available to pro subs in the usual place):
Net US immigration surged in 2023. Recent reports from the Congressional Budget Office and border encounter data from the Office of Homeland Security suggest that net US immigration was running above the estimate implied by the change in the foreign-born population in the household survey over the last couple of years. We estimate that net US immigration surged to roughly 2.5 million in 2023, the highest level in the last two decades (Exhibit 1). In today’s note, we look at where recent immigrants are coming from, what parts of the US they are heading to, and how they compare to the rest of the US labor force.
Unauthorized immigrants from South America, Central America, and Mexico have accounted for most of the recent surge in immigration. Using immigration court case data, we estimate that the number of unauthorized immigrants from these three regions likely tripled in 2023 from its pre-pandemic average (left side of Exhibit 2). We note that these estimates of unauthorized immigration inflow carry some degree of uncertainty because some immigration court cases also reflect visa overstays. In contrast, the overall level and origin composition of authorized immigrants is similar to pre-pandemic trends (right side of Exhibit 2).
Where are they going? According to Goldman, the most popular destination states for new immigrants are Florida, California, Texas, and New York, which together have received over 50% of recent immigrants.
And the punchline, or how the establishment is trying to spin the flood of illegals into a positive feature for the US economy: apparently all these illegals are little gifts from god, keeping wages low and taking jobs that nobody else would ever want.
Data from the 2023 Current Population Survey suggest that recent adult immigrants are more likely to be young or prime age (90%) than the native-born adult population (62%) or adult immigrants who arrived earlier (64%). Recent immigrants have a higher labor force participation rate than the native-born population but a lower rate than immigrants who have been in the US for longer, have a higher unemployment rate than either group, are more likely to work in construction and food services and accommodations, and earn significantly lower wages on average.
This is hardly a surprise: none other than Fed Chair Powell fired the starting gun one month ago when in his 60 Minutes interview he effectively said Americans are lazy and that it was the illegals that have been critical in keep wages lower even as jobs have grown substantially in the past year (at least according to the Establishment survey). Recall this exchange from the interview:
PELLEY: Why was immigration important?
POWELL: Because, you know, immigrants come in, and they tend to work at a rate that is at or above that for non-immigrants. Immigrants who come to the country tend to be in the workforce at a slightly higher level than native Americans do. But that's largely because of the age difference. They tend to skew younger.
PELLEY: Why is immigration so important to the economy?
POWELL: Well, first of all, immigration policy is not the Fed's job. The immigration policy of the United States is really important and really much under discussion right now, and that's none of our business. We don't set immigration policy. We don't comment on it.
I will say, over time, though, the U.S. economy has benefited from immigration. And, frankly, just in the last, year a big part of the story of the labor market coming back into better balance is immigration returning to levels that were more typical of the pre-pandemic era.
PELLEY: The country needed the workers.
POWELL: It did. And so, that's what's been happening.
But that's not all: just in case praising illegal immigration wasn't enough to keeping wage growth low (completely ignoring that all these millions in illegals will require trillions in additional welfare spending, and are the primary beneficiaries of the latest explosion in US debt), there has been a second angle this time courtesy of the CBO which recently hilarious "calculated" that illegal immigrants will boost US GDP by $7 trillion in the next decade.
This is how CBO Director Phill Swagel summarized it: "as a result of those changes in the labor force, we estimate that from 2023 to 2034, GDP will be greater by about $7 trillion and revenue will be greater by about $1 trillion than they would have been otherwise."
And there you have it: yes, the US hasn't added any jobs to native-born Americans in six years, as instead all jobs have gone to immigrants, mostly the illegal variety, but that's good news you see, because if it wasn't for these lovely creatures flooding into the US, wages would be higher (that's a bad thing according to the Fed), and the US economy would not grow by $9 trillion. Just please ignore that that $9 trillion in "growth" will come only thanks to $20 trillion in debt, almost all of it soaked up by these same illegals, and of course, a handful of corrupt, embezzling politicians.
And so the scene has been set: if and when Trump or Republicans finally get their act together and halt the flood of illegals, then and only then, will the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Analysis admit just how ugly the US economy, the labor market and inflation truly are... and then they will blame Trump for pushing the US into a stagflationary recession because he halted the record inflow of immigrants without which the US is - drumroll - doomed.
If you believe the Fed but fake employment numbers are abundant by BLS there is no hot economy it’s all a mirage.
Hey maybe a twin top secret project in ew Jersey you never know ..lol..
As part of preliminary testing, billions of protons are already flowing through the LHC’s complex web of superconducting magnets. This enormous project, which spans a 17-mile tunnel, aims to reconstruct the universe’s initial circumstances a few seconds after the Big Bang.
They trying bro open up a portal for time travel..
Appolyon the Destroyer a Greek God. Those nutty scientists
CERN project is pretty crazy and kept kind of quiet by mainstream media.. Maybe they want to blow up Europe
TNX coming down by May. Yes it’s been going up but why?
Refer to “we need to talk about the Bond market” 2 days ago Eurodollar on you tube for more info.
NASA Wallops to Launch Three Sounding Rockets During Solar Eclipse
Three Black Brant IX sounding rockets for the Atmospheric Perturbations around Eclipse Path (APEP) mission are scheduled to launch from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility launch range in Virginia. The launch window opens April 8, 2024, at 2:40 p.m. EDT.
Launching approximately 45 minutes before, during, and after the peak local eclipse, the APEP sounding rockets will study how Earth’s upper atmosphere is affected when sunlight momentarily dims over a portion of the planet. Targeted launch times for the three rockets are 2:40 p.m., 3:20 p.m., and 4:05 p.m. but may be subject to change.
The launches will be livestreamed on Wallops’ YouTube beginning at 2:30 p.m.
Weather permitting, the launches may be visible in the mid-Atlantic region. Remember to always wear solar safety or “eclipse” glasses when looking at the Sun to protect your eyes. For the Wallops area, the eclipse will begin around 2:06 p.m. The Moon will block 81.4% of the Sun’s light at peak local eclipse at 3:23 p.m. and conclude at 4:34 p.m.
A visibility map showing the mid-Atlantic region. The map shows how many seconds after that people in the area may be able to see the Black Brant IX sounding rocket in the sky. The land is green and the ocean is dark blue. Visibility of 30-42 seconds is represented by a bright pink semi-circile reaching up to eastern Massachusetts, through most of Pennsylvania, through eastern West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina. Visibility area for viewers with a line-of-sight 10-30 seconds after launch is a blue semi-circle reaching from middle of New Jersey down to north North Carolina and inland to Virginia. Visibility from 0-10 seconds is indicated by a bright green semi-circle mostly covering to the edge of the southern border of Delaware and down into the Eastern Shore of Virginia. City labels starting north at Trenton, Philadelphia, Dover, Baltimore, Washington, Pittsburgh, Charlottesville, Richmond, and Raleigh. On the right is a black box with white words: "Colors indicate when viewers will have line-of-sight access to the vehicle, with 3° elevation or more. Measured in seconds after takeoff.
Launch viewing map forAtmospheric Perturbations around Eclipse Path mission are scheduled to launch from NASA’s launch range at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on April 8, 2024.
Credit: NASA
Members of the public are invited to the NASA Wallops Visitor Center on Monday, April 8, to view the sounding rocket launches and the partial eclipse. Gates to the visitor center will open from 1-5 p.m. and will close once parking lot capacity is reached. For those traveling to our visitor center, all vehicles MUST fit within a standard parking spot for this event; no large, oversized vehicles or buses will be allowed for entry.
The visitor center will offer solar-related activities, have NASA sounding rocket experts onsite to answer questions, and host Globe Program expert Brian Campbell, who will be showing people how to collect data during the eclipse using the Observer app. Eclipse glasses and pinhole viewers will be available during this event while supplies last. Food trucks will be onsite serving food and drinks, including empanadas, crab cakes, hamburgers, hot dogs, barbecue, water ice, and more.
While this combined viewing event is exciting for some, it may not be ideal for all. A designated sensory-friendly quiet area will be available at the Wallops Visitor Center for guests. This supervised quiet area will include dimmed lighting, seating, a reflection area, and touch items for guests to explore.
Prepare for safe solar viewing during this year’s eclipse by checking out NASA’s Eclipse Safety page.
CERN Is Going To Test World’s Most Powerful Particle Accelerator During April’s Solar Eclipse
As the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) prepares to unleash the power of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on April 8, be ready for a historic moment.
At the underground LHC, close to the French-Swiss border, scientists will be able to tackle the enigmatic dark matter phenomenon. Dark matter makes up an astounding 28% of the universe but is difficult to detect directly.
As part of preliminary testing, billions of protons are already flowing through the LHC’s complex web of superconducting magnets. This enormous project, which spans a 17-mile tunnel, aims to reconstruct the universe’s initial circumstances a few seconds after the Big Bang.
God project..TNX coming down disagree ..see the Proton collider underground 17 mile scheduled for April 8th..
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle collider.[1][2] It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008 in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and hundreds of universities and laboratories across more than 100 countries. It lies in a tunnel 27 kilometres (17 mi) in circumference and as deep as 175 metres (574 ft) beneath the France–Switzerland border near Geneva.
https://home.cern/news/news/accelerators/large-hadron-collider-reaches-its-first-stable-beams-2024
Smart ..and TNX 10 year going to naturally come down sooner as now it’s in a last phase of an uptrend. Rates can only stay high so long as purchasing power declines.
Auto loan repossessions going bonkers again. People behind on auto loans 90-120 days crazy numbers . Banks losing tons of money as used car sales have dropped have plummeted with higher interest rates and more proof and higher credit scores required for purchase.
Loanbridge.AI is tracking repossessions. Too many to handle as repo companies can’t keep up with demand from Banks. Bank lots filling up with repo cars. It’s happening now…2008.
Want a job repo companies are hiring left and right..
NVDA held support well yesterday and as usual green Friday and like you said 401k suckers day.
MDIA $6.86 + 300%
MDIA $4s + 200% still another low floater going wild and it’s a radio station lol…
Probably should sell your house before the next crash lol. But where you going to live?. If you watched Sachs Realty the Banks are leveraged 70% in real estate at a 10 to 1 ratio. When the deck of cards starts falling going to be incredible to watch for sure. When? who knows ?because Bank Bailouts will continue for now..
Talking more about Commercial Real Estate as Residential follows the path later but watch Sachs Realty episode from today on US Banking Crisis 2024. A lot more bank failures on the way as regulators and Fed will be doing a lot more bailouts ..
Stop loss $90 next target $110
Office CRE (Commercial Real Estate) Mess Keeps Getting Worse, Massive Repricing Underway
by Wolf Richter • Apr 1, 2024 •
It’ll take years to get this mess cleaned up, at the expense of investors, landlords, and banks.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
Availability rates in the office sector of Commercial Real Estate (CRE) are not getting any better, and in many markets, they’re getting still worse and are hitting new records, as landlords and lenders grapple with waves of massive repricing, with office tower values, those towers that have sold, plunging by 40%, 50%, 60%, 70% and more. Numerous landlords, from Blackstone on down, have let buildings go back to lenders to let them deal with the mess.
Here is a chart of the 13 markets for which Savills released the Q1 data today, showing the availability rates of office space, so that’s the space that has been put on the market for lease either by the landlord directly or by a tenant as a sublease. Red shows the availability rates for Q1 2024; gray for Q1 2021, and blue for Q1 2019, which were the Good Times.
While San Francisco’s availability rate edged down from a record 36.7% in Q4 2023, to 36.3% in Q1 2024, it remained the worst office market in the US, followed by Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta, both at or near 30%. Houston was for years the worst office market in the US, with availability rates of 30%-plus. With the oil boom over the past couple of years, it edged away from 30%.
New worsts. Availability rates in nine of the 13 office markets in the chart rose to new records:
Atlanta: 29.6%
Chicago Downtown: 28.6%
Silicon Valley: 27.6%
Los Angeles: 27.6%
Seattle: 26.9%
Philadelphia: 25.3%
Boston: 23.0%
Washington D.C.: 22.6%
Manhattan: 20.1%
The Good Times for office CRE was 2019 (blue in the chart) and before. In 2019, for example, San Francisco was still the hottest office market in the US, with an availability rate of 7.9%, amid a super-hyped “office shortage” that caused every square foot of office space to be instantly “nabbed,” as the media liked to say at the time to promote the CRE promo-hype further, such as in, “Sony PlayStation nabs big chunk of S.F. building,” or infamously “Facebook nabs first urban office in downtown San Francisco,” 436,000 square feet of office space spread over 33 floors of a high-end tower, the “181 Freemont,” for up to 3,000 Facebook employees someday, God willing, the biggest office lease signed in three years at the time. A year ago, Meta put it on the market as sublease. Now TikTok is talking to Meta about leasing three of the 33 floors.
Obviously, asking rents are not coming down, or are coming down only slowly, or still going up in some markets (LOL?), because the last thing that landlords can afford to do right now, when they have to refinance a maturing mortgage, is to show that asking rents, if they can actually fill the space at those rents, will not support the new mortgage payments at the new interest rates.
Instead of lowering asking rents, landlords throw in massive concessions, from long periods of free rent, to fancy buildouts. And actual rents signed into the lease may also be lower than asking rents. And when landlords get tired of messing with it, they throw in the towel, give up on their investment, and walk away to let the lenders mess with it.
Massive repricing underway. So for example, the plot thickens in Los Angeles, where the availability rate rose to a record 27.6%. Last year, Canadian real-estate giant Brookfield defaulted on $1.1 billion in mortgages backed by office towers, and it is now getting rid of those towers.
In late March, it was reported that Brookfield made a deal to sell the 1-million-square-foot tower at 777 S. Figueroa for about $145 million to Consus Asset Management in South Korea. The debt on the building amounts to $319 million, composed of a $269-million mortgage and a $50-million mezzanine loan. The sale price would amount to less than half the value of the debt. We would assume that Consus Asset Management will make some kind of deal with the lenders.
Brookfield’s Gas Company Tower, which is collateral for a $350-million mortgage and a $65 million mezzanine loan, and its EY Plaza, which backs a $275-million loan, are in court-appointed receiverships and face foreclosure sales.
Who is on the hook? For some office mortgages, banks are on the hook, including foreign banks. But lots of the loans that have spectacularly blown up were held by investors not banks, by holders of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS), mortgage REITs, PE firms, life insurers, holders of collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), etc.
So the delinquency rate of office mortgages that have been securitized into CMBS rose to 6.6% in February, according to Trepp, which tracks CMBS. And we’re just one year into it, so this is just the beginning because it will take years to get this mess cleaned up. And at this point, it’s still getting worse
Probably should have held NVDA as it held held support into close but better to be safe then sorry
As long as NVDA $861 holds $852-$857 which is likely good to go next level is $822