NEWSNEWS

Very slow to remove Nadhim from Toxic Government  © Reuters. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Monday he had acted "pretty decisively" by sacking Conservative Party chair Nadhim Zahawi over his personal tax affairs, moving to quell criticism that he had acted too slowly. In the latest scandal to involve one of his ministers and just months after he entered Downing Street promising to lead with "integrity, professionalism and accountability", Sunak has protested his innocence about Zahawi's tax affairs.

  Corporate Buybacks Slowing to a Crawl in 2023 Buybacks had already started to slow in 2022 before the law went into place.  According to S&P Dow Jones Indices, buybacks reached $981.6 billion over the 12 months through September 2022. By comparison, buybacks had reached a record $1.005 trillion posted for the 12 months through the June 2022 period. Source: Yardeni Research Buybacks started to slow in Q2 of last year when interest rates started to rise. With rates poised to increase three more times this year, it’s hard to see how and why companies would ramp up buybacks in this environment.   Analysts continue to expect aggressive buybacks to reduce exposure to declining earnings in the year ahead. Come March, they anticipate that Apple will INCREASE its buyback program. That’s a huge bet, and something that I think could surprise the downside. This year's focus is heavily on the Fed’s balance sheet reductions and rate hikes. But one of the stories remains the ...

The danger of China taking over Taiwan  Major market disruption around August 2023 forecast. Take a look at this picture -  What you're looking at is the most dangerous waterway on earth.

  At that rate, inflation will be back to “normal” by April! In response, the market soared. The  S&P 500  rose more than 0.5%, while the  Nasdaq  popped over 1.2%.  The rallies continue what has been a red-hot start to the year. Year-to-date, the S&P 500 is already up more than 6%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq is up more than 10% – and it’s not even February yet. 

  Today is Data Privacy Day, an ideal opportunity to consider the value of personal data you want to protect. With increasing data breaches, hacking and phishing events, and data collection by big tech companies that rely on ad revenue, people are increasingly aware of this critical issue.

The King is Dead  No one in Washington will admit it — not publicly, anyway — but the weaponized dollar has misfired badly. Some of the developments that have taken place in the last 11 months… Russia has all but made the Chinese yuan a de facto reserve currency — with 17% of its foreign exchange reserves now denominated in yuan The United Arab Emirates (a tight Washington ally) began issuing bonds in its own currency, the dirham, in addition to U.S. dollars Egypt (another tight Washington ally) announced plans to issue more than $500 million worth of bonds denominated  in Chinese yuan The central bank in Israel (the tightest Washington ally of all) has diversified its foreign currency reserves beyond dollars, euros and British pounds — adding Japanese yen, Canadian dollars, Australian dollars and, yes, the yuan. China and India now pay for Russian oil and other commodities in yuan, rupees and UAE dirhams Iran and Russia have started conducting trade in rials and rubles. A rec...

Chips with everything The bigger picture:  Bargaining chips. ASML has a $45 billion gold mine of backlogged orders, so that sales outlook doesn’t seem too far-fetched. But every gold mine comes with a few hazards: in this case, there’s the US’s ban on sending cutting-edge chip machines to China. But luckily for ASML, the equipment it ships to Chinese firms is generally less advanced technology that isn’t under embargo, which explains why the firm believes the restrictions will only dent its backlog by 5%. For markets:  Shape up or chip out. The chip industry isn’t out of the woods yet, but it looks like it might be heading in the right direction: now that China’s re-opening and artificial intelligence is on everyone’s lips, some analysts  think  the sector will avoid hitting the lows of a few months ago. And the forward-looking stock market’s cottoned on to that too, with an index that tracks chip colossuses jumping 15% this year.