TRENDS ON THE ECONOMIC AND MARKET FRONT
U.S. BANKING CRISIS: NOT OVER YET?
Regulators’ seizure of First Republic Bank on 1 May and its quick sale to JPMorgan Chase for $10.6 billion marked a new chapter in the U.S. banking crisis, not its end.
ECONOMIC UPDATE—MARKET OVERVIEW
It’s a numbers game. And of course like most games, those dealing the cards can rig the game. Oh what wonderful news last week. With more jobs created than The Street anticipated, equity markets soared on the “news” that despite the Bankster Bandits raising interest rates for the 10th time in a row, nonfarm payrolls increased 253,000 for April.
GOLD PRICE HOVERS NEAR ALL-TIME HIGH
Last September when gold prices were sinking, The Trends Journal forecast that prices had bottomed. As we go to press, spot gold is selling at $2035 per ounce.
CORPORATE PROFITS EDGE UP
With about 70 percent of S&P-listed companies having reported their first quarter’s earnings, net profit margins of those companies have ticked up to 11.5 percent from 11.3 percent the quarter before, according to The Wall Street Journal.
CHINA OUTPACES U.S. IN INITIAL PUBLIC STOCK OFFERINGS
Initial public stock offerings (IPOs) in China raised five times as much money as U.S. IPOs in this year’s first quarter, the Financial Times reported.
JOBS, WAGES BOTH RISE AGAIN IN APRIL
The U.S. economy sprouted 253,000 new nonfarm jobs last month, galloping past analysts’ consensus expectation of 180,000.
FED HIKES RATE A QUARTER POINT, HINTS IT MIGHT STOP NOW
As expected, the U.S. Federal Reserve raised its key interest rates a quarter point on 3 May, setting them at 5 percent on deposits and 5.25 percent on loans, their highest levels since 2007 as the Great Recession set in.
SALES OF NEWLY BUILT HOMES SURGE
Newly built homes made up about a third of homes listed for sale in March, according to the U.S. commerce department and the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
TOP TREND 2023, OFFICE BUILDING BUST: PRICE OF HEDGING INTEREST RATES WALLOPS OFFICE LANDLORDS
The cost of hedging interest rates has become another blade slashing office landlords’ operating margins. For many, it may be the factor that forces them to sell or declare bankruptcy.
TRENDS ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC FRONT
WHEN THE ECONOMY FALLS JOBS GO WITH IT
This is week 38 of our reporting the long trend-line of layoffs that signal recession in a country near you. Inflation and interest rate hikes are causing companies in many sectors to lay off employees.
GLOBAL FOOD PRICES RISE IN APRIL, ENDING 12-MONTH DECLINE
The overall global price of foods rose 0.6 percent in April, the first time in a year that the price failed to decline, according to the U.N. World Food Price Index.
ECB RAISES RATE A HALF POINT, SIGNALS MORE HIKES AHEAD
The European Central Bank (ECB) raised its base interest rate a quarter point on 4 May after making six consecutive half-point increases since embarking on its current campaign of tightening in July last year.
DEMAND FOR DIESEL FUEL FALLS, GASOLINE MAY BE NEXT
In this year’s first quarter, demand for diesel fuel and other petroleum distillates was about 6 percent lower than a year earlier, the Financial Times reported.
EUROPE’S NATURAL GAS PRICES FALL TO LOWEST SINCE UKRAINE INVASION
Europe’s benchmark price of natural gas sank to €35.20 per megawatt-hour on 5 May, its lowest since July 2021 when Russia first began cutting back its gas exports to the continent.
CHINA’S HOLIDAY SPENDING HINTS AT FUTURE ECONOMIC STRENGTH
Chinese consumers spent lavishly through the Labor Day holidays during the first week of this month, a traditional barometer of the consumer economy’s future strength.
RUSSIA HAS BILLIONS OF INDIAN RUPEES IT IS UNABLE TO SPEND
Shut out of key parts of the world’s currency interchange by Western sanctions, Russia began accepting India’s rupees directly as payment for oil and other exports.
DEALS BETWEEN EUROPE’S PRIVATE EQUITY FIRMS STALL ON PRICE SQUABBLES
Deals involving Europe’s private equity firms transferring assets among themselves have fallen by more than 50 percent to €16.8 billion, year on year, as rising interest rates and a gloomy economic outlook have dimmed what the Financial Times called “buyout game of pass-the-parcel.”
MAERSK PROFITS SINK ON GLOBAL SLOWDOWN
Ocean shipping giant AP Moller-Maersk reported first-quarter profits of $2.3 billion, two-thirds less than the same quarter in 2022. Revenue fell by 25 percent to $14.2 billion.
AUSTRALIA’S CENTRAL BANK SURPRISES WITH QUARTER-POINT RATE HIKE
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) raised its base interest rate a quarter point last week, only a month after it announced a pause in rate increases so it could assess the economic impact of its higher rates.
SPOTLIGHT: BIG BANKSTER BUST
First Republic Bank, which has teetered on the edge of failure since Signature and Silicon Valley banks collapsed in mid-March, was seized by regulators on 1 May.
SPOTLIGHT: BIGS GETTING BIGGER
As forecast, the higher central banks raise interest rates, the lower the Merger and Acquisition trend... which hit record highs during the COVID war when interest rates sank and governments pumped in countless trillions to artificially prop up sinking economies.
UKRAINE WAR TREND UPDATE
RUSSIA BLAMES U.S. FOR DRONE ATTACK ON KREMLIN AIMING TO KILL PUTIN
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, blamed the U.S. for the drone attack on the Kremlin last week because he said Kyiv does not make any operational decisions without first getting approval by the U.S.
FU*K PEACE SAYS IMF: AS CITIZENS GO BROKE, EU ROBS THEM TO BUILD UP WAR MACHINE
The rush for European countries to increase their military spending means hundreds of billions of dollars will go to missile systems and tanks that would have otherwise gone to infrastructure, health care, and education.
EU RAMPS UP WAR WITH RUSSIA. €1 BILLION MORE IN AMMUNITION TO FIGHT THE UKRAINE WAR
The European Union announced Friday that it approved a plan to provide €1 billion in ammunition to Ukraine that will include 155-mm-caliber artillery rounds and the potential for missile shipments.
AS MIDDLE CLASS SHRINKS, U.S. PUMPS UKRAINE WITH ANOTHER $300 MILLION TO FIGHT THE UKRAINE WAR
The U.S. announced last week that it will provide Ukraine with another $300 million in weapons as Kyiv says it’s just about ready to wage its counteroffensive.
UKRAINE SPRING COUNTEROFFENSIVE NOT SPRINGING
Oleksii Reznikov, the Ukrainian defense Minister, tried to downplay expectations for his country’s upcoming counteroffensive and said expectations seem to be “overestimated in the world.”
FEATURED TRENDS GUEST ARTICLE by Dr. Joseph Mercola
MORE THAN 200 PRESCRIPTIONS ARE KNOWN TO CAUSE DEPRESSION
Depression can stem from a wide variety of biological, psychological and environmental factors, including other medications. More than 200 drugs have depression as a listed side effect.
FEATURED TRENDS GUEST ARTICLE By John & Nisha Whitehead
DISARM THE IRS, DE-MILITARIZE THE BUREAUCRACY AND DISMANTLE THE STANDING ARMY
“There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot but in well-defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army.”
—Thomas Jefferson, 1789
PRESIDENTIAL REALITY SHOW® 2024
RFK JR. AGREES WITH CELENTE: U.S. PUSHED RUSSIA INTO UKRAINE WAR
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the democrat challenging President Joe Biden for president, gave an extensive interview last week and spoke about the errors made by the U.S. in its dealings with Russia since the end of the Cold War.
CELENTE: KENNEDY TO WIN RACE TO WHITE HOUSE
A newly released poll showed clear vulnerabilities for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign as his job approval numbers hit new lows and more Americans than ever question his mental sharpness.
TRENDS IN THE MARKETS by Gregory Mannarino
GAP BETWEEN THE STOCK MARKET, REALITY AND EVERYTHING ELSE IS NEAR INSANITY
For YEARS we have been witnessing an ever-increasing gap between any kind of reality, the stock market, and just about everything else. It’s always the same story, which also without exception always ends the same way- very badly.
TRENDS IN TECHNOCRACY by Joe Doran
INSIGHTS ON THE TECHNOCRATIC ASCENDANCE, AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR HUMANITY
A few overarching themes can explain and connect a lot of the core aims of technocrats. Technocrats are driven by a quest to comprehensively apply science in order to engineer progress.
TRENDS IN CRYPTOS
USING CRYPTO TECHNOLOGY TO DISTRIBUTE BENEFITS AND OVERSEE DEVELOPMENT OF AI
A just-published Magazine by Cointelegraph article, “How to control the AIs and incentivize the humans with crypto,” is positing crypto frameworks for developing and more fairly distributing the benefits of AI.
BLOCKCHAIN BATTLES
Beware of scams asking to connect to your browser extension crypto wallet.
They can drain your crypto before you realize what’s going on. And the scams can build whole authentic looking Twitter feeds (and / or other social media feeds) and websites around their ploys.
TRENDS IN THE COVID WAR
COVID WAR CDC DIRECTOR ROCHELLE WALENSKY RESIGNS
She told the world in March 2021, as controversial gene level mRNA medical treatments were being aggressively pushed on the public, that people who received the vaccines “don’t carry the virus and don’t get sick.”
WHO ANNOUNCES 3-YEAR ‘EMERGENCY’ FOR COVID-19 HAS COME TO AN END
The World Health Organization announced last week that the COVID-19 global health emergency has ended as fewer people around the world are becoming seriously ill or dying from the virus.
CDC CLOWNS THROW CONFERENCE THAT TURNS OUT TO BE A SUPER-SPREADER EVENT
So much for being quadruple vaccinated!
Dozens of participants in a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conference came down with COVID-19 despite being vaccinated, in the latest embarrassment for the agency.
TRENDS IN GEOPOLITICS
BIDEN PROMISES MANILLA THAT U.S. MILITARY SUPPORT IS ‘IRONCLAD’
President Joe Biden met with his Filipino counterpart, Ferdinand Marcos, at the White House last week and assured him that the U.S. military support is “ironclad” as tensions between Washington and Beijing continue to increase.
“PAYBACK’S A BITCH”: IRANIAN FORCES SEIZE SECOND OIL TANKER IN GULF OF OMAN AMID INCREASED TENSIONS WITH THE U.S.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy seized another oil tanker last week in the Gulf of Oman just a week after it took over another tanker in what was seen as retaliation after the U.S. seized an Iranian oil ship.
HUNGER STRIKER DEATH SPARKS ROCKET EXCHANGE BETWEEN PALESTINE AND ISRAEL
The recent death of a hunger-striking Palestinian prisoner inside an Israeli jail last week sparked new tensions between Israel and Palestine and raised fresh questions about the treatment of incarcerated prisoners in Israel.
TRENDS-EYE VIEW
CARBON WAR DEGROWTH: DUTCH GOVERNMENT TRIES TO SWEETEN THE POT FOR FARM BUYOUTS
The EU authorized a €1.5 billion fund to buyout Dutch farmers this past week, for the purported goal of cutting nitrogen emissions, according to Euronews.
MORE SIGNS AI WILL DRIVE WEALTH TO BIG TECH WHILE OUTMODING WORKERS
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told Bloomberg in an interview this week: “I could easily see 30 percent of jobs getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period.”
JENNY CRAIG TO CLOSE ITS DOORS, CAN’T COMPETE WITH NEW WEIGHT-LOSS DRUGS
Jenny Craig, the famed company known for helping women lose weight by modifying their diets, will reportedly close its doors after failing to secure new financing.
WHO NEEDS NATURAL GRASS WHEN YOU CAN HAVE A FRONT YARD WITH BLOOMING ‘FOREVER CHEMICALS’?
You’ve seen the homes with artificial turf.
They’re generally the ones with the well-manicured “grass” that looks just a little unnatural.
HAPPY DAYS ARE NOT HERE AGAIN: AMERICANS THINK THEIR BEST DAYS ARE BEHIND THEM
A new Pew Research Center Survey suggests that The Trends Journal has its finger on the pulse of the American public that sees economic storm clouds on the horizon and the country’s best days in the rearview mirror.
TOP TREND 2023, AI WE OWN YOU: CHATGPT GOUGES EDUCATION STOCKS
Education stocks sold off last week after Chegg Inc., which publishes textbooks, study guides, and other learning materials, warned that the surge of students’ interest in the ChatGPT artificial intelligence (AI) was hurting sales and “having an impact on our customer growth rate,” CEO Dan Rosensweig said in a call with analysts.
TRENDS IN HI-TECH SCIENCE by Ben Daviss
ANOTHER STEP TOWARD A “FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH” PILL
A research team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences injected an extract from grape seed into elderly mice and found that the treatment increased their longevity by 9 percent, the equivalent of almost 7 extra years for a human.
DR. CHATBOT BETTER THAN HUMAN PHYSICIANS – ACCORDING TO HUMAN HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS
A study from the University of California San Diego (UCSD) asked physicians to write responses to actual human health questions, then compared their answers to those given by a ChatGPT artificial intelligence (AI) to the same queries.
A BATTERY TO FLY AN AIRPLANE
China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL), the world leading manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries for vehicles, says it will soon begin mass-producing an “ultra-high density condensed battery” that can store twice as much energy by weight as Tesla’s state-of-the art 4680 battery.