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Ahead of tomorrow's CPI, traders are eyeing this morning's Producer Prices for any hints that the disinflation trend will return...or not.

The answer is "not!"

April Producer Prices rose 0.5% MoM (vs +0.3% exp), with March's +0.2% MoM revised down to -0.1% MoM. The downward revision did not stop the YoY read rising to 2.2% (from +2.1% in March)...

Source: Bloomberg

This is the highest YoY read since April 2023 and is the fourth hotter than expected headline PPI print...

Source: Bloomberg

Producer Prices have been aggressively downwardly revised for 4 of the last 7 months...

Source: Bloomberg

Services costs soared, dominating April's PPI gains with Energy the second most important factor. Food prices actually declined on a MoM basis.

Source: Bloomberg

On a YoY basis, headline PPI's rise was dominated by Services (rising at their hottest since July 2023). For the first time since Feb 2023, none of the underlying factors were negative on a YoY basis...

Source: Bloomberg

On a 6-month annualized rate, Final Demand Core Services PPI is rising at its highest since Q3 2021...

Source: Goldman Sachs

After last month's farcical 'seasonally adjusted' gasoline price, April saw the PPI Gasoline index rise (with actual prices at the pump) but still has a long way to go...

Source: Bloomberg

Core PPI was worse - rising 0.5% MoM (more than double the +0.2% MoM expected) - which pushed the Core PPI YoY up to +2.4%...

Source: Bloomberg

And finally US PPI Final Demand Less Foods Energy and Trade Services rose by 0.4% MoM and 3.1% YoY (the highest in 12 months).

Worse still the pipeline for primary PPI is not good as intermediate demand is starting to accelerate...

Source: Bloomberg

Here are Wall Street’s reactions to PPI:

Chris Larkin at E*Trade from Morgan Stanley:

Sticky inflation looked downright stuck this morning after a much hotter-than-expected inflation reading. But with last month’s numbers revised lower, this report may not have been as much of an upside shock as it first appeared to be.
Right or wrong, the CPI tends to have a bigger short-term impact on the markets, so the picture could look much different 24 hours from now. But if the CPI also comes in above expectations, the interest rate picture may be thrown into doubt.

Bespoke Investment Group:

The results of April’s PPI showed a hotter-than-expected m/m reading. That’s the bad news. On a y/y basis, though, the readings were much closer to expectations as March’s report was revised down to negative 0.1% on both a headline and core basis.”

Chris Zaccarelli at Independent Advisor Alliance:

This week is important for markets because they are worried about inflation and this morning’s producer price index hasn’t done anything to assuage those fears.
The most important data release is tomorrow’s CPI print because the Fed’s dual mandate is based on CPI and unemployment, with the former being what the Fed is solely focused on right now.
We believe that the stock market will move higher throughout the year on strong corporate profits and consumer spending, but volatility is likely to spike in the meantime, because the inflation data is going to keep the Fed on edge.

Quincy Krosby at LPL Financial:

Moreover, this report underscores Fed concerns that the path of disinflation has stalled, requiring a higher-for-longer policy stance to combat seemingly entrenched inflation.
An overriding question — and potential dilemma — hovering over markets is whether the broader economic landscape is softening at the same time inflation inches higher, making the Fed’s job increasingly difficult.

Bill Adams at Comerica Bank:

Between an upside surprise and downward revisions to prior data, the trend in total PPI was slightly higher than expected in April.
The PPI report suggests upside risk to the April CPI report, which will come out tomorrow.
At the margin the Fed will see the PPI report as another reason to slow-roll interest rate cuts.

Paul Ashworth at Capital Economics:

These days we mostly care about what the PPI means for the Fed’s preferred PCE deflator measure of core consumer price inflation.
In that respect, April’s news was mixed but, on balance, encouraging. The bad news is that PPI portfolio management prices increased by 3.9% m/m. But that was more than outweighed by the good news. We’ll know more after the release of April’s CPI tomorrow.

Scott Helfstein at Global X:

Inflation and the Fed are less important than growth, and companies have adjusted to the new reality of higher prices and continue to look for technology solutions to manage for profit.
 The last mile on inflation was always going to be the hardest, but we should be comfortable with these numbers.

Over the past month, 'higher prices' have dominated 'lower prices' in recent survey data...

Higher producer prices:

• New York Empire manufacturing price paid advanced to 33.7 from 28.7.
• Philadelphia Fed manufacturing reported prices paid gained to 23.0 from 3.7 in March.
• Philadelphia Fed non-manufacturing prices paid rose to 31.0 from 26.6 in the prior month.
• Richmond Fed services prices paid rose to 6.11 from 5.43 in March.
• Kansas City Fed manufacturing prices paid advanced to 18 from 17.
• Kansas City Fed services input price growth continued to outpace selling prices.
• S&P Global manufacturing input cost inflation quickened to hint at sustained near-term upward pressure on selling prices.
• ISM Manufacturing prices paid gained to 60.9, the highest since June 2022, from 55.8 in March.
• ISM Services prices paid notched up to 59.2, the highest since January, from 53.4 in March.

Lower producer prices:

• New York Fed Services prices paid fell to 53.4 from 55.1 in March.
• Richmond Fed manufacturing growth rates of prices paid dipped to 2.79 from 3.22 in March
• Dallas Fed Manufacturing outlook reported prices paid for raw materials dropped to 11.2 from 21.1 in the prior month.
• Dallas service sector input prices index nudged down to 28.8 from 30.4 in the prior month.
• S&P Global Service saw input costs slowed from six-month highs in March.

Do you see the 'flation' now, Jay?

So, no, The Fed does not have inflation under control.

However, there is some hope for tomorrow's CPI as many of the drivers for the consumer prices that are echoed in the producer prices are not accelerating...

No reason to be alarmed by PPI... Strong stock market performance drove part of the gains, but airfares down sharply, auto insurance flat, and general consumer goods markups down... https://t.co/8478c7rykF

A big surprise miss tomorrow, of course, would send stocks to the moon (GME-style) and give Powell what he needs to start cutting.

Authored by Peter Reagan via Birch Gold Group,

The total debt owed by the United States federal government has reached incredible levels. Today, the total is $34,541,727,970,599.17 – but by the time you read this article, it’ll probably be higher.

I say “probably” because the debt is growing exponentially that by the time you read this, it’s quite possible that another few hundred billion have taken the total over $35 trillion.

Look at the official chart and attention to how fast total debt has risen since the turn of the century:

In the year 2000, total government debt was $5.7 trillion.

Ah, the good old days…

The nation’s debt has grown more than $5.7 trillion since President Biden took office!

Let me put it another way:

• It took the federal government 224 years, the Louisiana Purchase, the Civil War and two World Wars to rack up the first $5.7 trillion in red ink

• And then it took the Biden administration just three years to rack up the last $5.7 trillion!

I apologize for going on and on about this but I honestly cannot believe it.

It’s hard to call this an apples-to-apples comparison, though, because for the majority of those first two centuries, the dollar’s value was based on a defined quantity of gold or silver.

Well, obviously that cannot be the case any more! Based on my back-of-the-envelope estimate, there’s only $16.1 trillion in gold in the world (based on current prices). The ONLY way to create such an astonishing mountain of debt was to divorce the currency from any intrinsic value.

It’s almost a magic trick.

Think about it…

Once, a dollar was 3/4 oz of silver, or 1/2 oz for a $10 coin. People had to go and dig that precious metal out of the ground, refine it and stamp it. That’s a lot of work.

Then, the dollar became a paper certificate exchangeable for the equivalent weight of gold or silver. That’s just more convenient.

Finally, the dollar became just the paper itself.

It’s like money from nothing!

And to be clear, this “money from nothing” magic trick has been working since Nixon ended the last vestiges of the gold standard just over 50 years ago.

But you know how sleight-of-hand works, right?

It depends on deception.

And every time you do the same trick, the audience is one step closer to figuring out that it’s not really magic after all…

This exact same magic trick that’s been supporting both the federal government and the U.S. dollar for five decades just isn’t working as well as it used to.

The end of magical debt thinking

Writing for Project Syndicate, economist and author Kenneth Rogoff recently summarized the insane mentality that drives the current debt situation:

For over a decade, numerous economists – primarily but not exclusively on the left – have argued that the potential benefits of using debt to finance government spending far outweigh any associated costs. The notion that advanced economies could suffer from debt overhang was widely dismissed, and dissenting voices were often ridiculed.

Just so we’re clear, “debt overhang” is defined as a “debt burden so large that an entity cannot take on additional debt to finance future projects, dissuading current investment.”

Via Investopedia

A debt overhang makes it impossible to do anything other than pay back the debt.

That’s what makes it dangerous.

The people who “widely dismissed” the very idea that a whole nation could suffer from a debt overhang are a lot quieter now.

Rogoff explains why:

The tide has turned over the past two years, as this type of magical thinking collided with the harsh realities of high inflation and the return to normal long-term real interest rates. A recent reassessment by three senior IMF economists underscores this remarkable shift. The authors project that the advanced economies’ average debt-to-income ratio will rise to 120% of GDP by 2028, owing to their declining long-term growth prospects. They also note that with elevated borrowing costs becoming the “new normal,” developed countries must “gradually and credibly rebuild fiscal buffers and ensure the sustainability of their sovereign debt.”

That’s another way of saying, “What got us here won’t get us there.”

The federal government printed its way into this debt mountain – it cannot print its way out. See, they’ve done the magic trick too many times.

The audience caught on.

Now we ALL know there’s no magic. Nothing but a rapidly-growing pile of IOUs.

The question becomes, does the government have time to learn a new magic trick?

“The United States has about 20 years left”

Cole Walmsley of Gaiter Capital wrote an entire essay on X to summarize the conundrum facing the U.S. right now. The whole thing’s worth a read, but here are the highlights:

The U.S. Treasury, which is part of the U.S. Federal Government, has to sell new debt to new investors to pay off the old debt from old investors. This is because of 1) the constant budgetary deficits and 2) the debt from years past coming due.

Remember, the debt is made up of two big chunks: This year’s deficit, and all the other deficits racked up over the decades.

The U.S. Federal Government has been in a budgetary deficit in 49 of the last 53 years, with the last surplus year being in 2001.

But yet, even in that 2001 “budgetary surplus” year, the total debt amount increased.

Why?

Because a whole bunch of debt from years past came due.

He does a good job of putting the concept of “a trillion” into perspective, too:

Trillion is just a word. Let’s make sure we note the significance.

A *billion* seconds ago was 1993 (31 years ago).
A *trillion* seconds ago was 30,000 B.C.
And then multiply that trillion by 34.7.

That’s the scale of the United States debt bill.

Finally, Walmsley exposes the shell game at the heart of the federal government’s balance sheet:

The U.S. Treasury always has to have buyers of its debt, because if they don’t, they won’t be able to pay off 1) their deficit spending and 2) the old debt coming due (and the interest on the debt). If they fail to pay those off, the Government would default and collapse.

Well, then, who buys all the U.S. Government debt?

Key point: The largest buyer and owner of the U.S. Federal Government debt is THE U.S. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT THEMSELVES.

Approximately one third of all U.S. government debt is “owed” to another government department!

You know, this would be hilarious if it wasn’t our Social Security he’s talking about…

So how long can this farce last?

We have a couple of answers.

First, the Wharton School of Business explained why the United States is running out of time to recover from the teetering mountain of debt:

We estimate that the U.S. debt held by the public cannot exceed about 200 percent of GDP…

Larger [debt-to-GDP] ratios in countries like Japan, for example, are not relevant for the United States, because Japan has a much larger household saving rate, which more-than absorbs the larger government debt.

Under current policy, the United States has about 20 years for corrective action after which no amount of future tax increases or spending cuts could avoid the government defaulting on its debt whether explicitly or implicitly (i.e., debt monetization producing significant inflation). Unlike technical defaults where payments are merely delayed, this default would be much larger and would reverberate across the U.S. and world economies.

Japan has a debt-to-GDP ratio of about 260% made possible by the savings habits of Japanese households!

Here in the U.S. we save about 3.2% of our income right now – while in Japan, the savings rate averages 13.2% (and has been as high as 62%!)

Obviously, American households aren’t saving anywhere near enough money to support federal government deficits, even if they wanted to.

(We already pay taxes! Why should we give the White House even more of our money?)

In fact, the “end” could truly be drawing near… In his book This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, coauthored with Carmen Reinhart, Rogoff identified dozens of sovereign debt crises.

Every one unfolded the same way, at about the same time – all for the same reason.

The government’s irresistible urge to keep spending until it becomes obvious to everyone, even elected officials, that IOU is another way of saying, “You’re screwed.”

Now you know how much a trillion really is and why the U.S. won’t take Japan’s path to managing its debt.

Now you know the magic trick supporting the global financial system is just an accounting con.

So let’s talk about how we can move past the magical thinking, into the clear light of reality…

Real assets, real value

If you want to secure your retirement in the face of insane debt spending on the part of the Biden Administration, then it’s time to consider alternative options.

Unlike the vague promise of the dollar, physical precious metals like gold and silver are tangible physical assets you can hold in your hand. They can’t be replaced, canceled or inflated away.

The Founding Fathers knew this – and that’s why they tried to make certain our nation would never fall into the same trap that destroyed so many proud nations in the past. But they couldn’t save the nation.

That doesn’t mean we can’t save ourselves.

Make sure you’ve sheltered at least some portion of your savings with real safe-haven assets that you can hold in your hand. No amount of economic or government insanity can destroy gold and silver.

Empires rise and fall like tides on the beach of history. Gold and silver simply endure.

*  *  *

With global instability increasing and election uncertainties on the horizon, protecting your retirement savings is more important than ever. And this is why you should consider diversifying into a physical gold IRA. Because they offer an easy and tax-deferred way to safeguard your savings using tangible assets. To learn more, click here to get your FREE info kit on Gold IRAs from Birch Gold Group.

Ever since the release of ChatGPT in late 2022 and other AI tools that have followed in its wake, people have been pondering the potential of artificial intelligence to replace certain occupations, trying to figure out if and how the nascent technology will change the way people work. And while the focus of discussions like this is often on the risk of certain jobs being replaced by emerging technologies; as Statista's Felix Richter reports, these shifts, as well as societal changes, usually offer new employment opportunities as well.

Think of the rise of e-commerce for example: while it has led to a decline in retail jobs, it has supported strong job growth in transportation and warehousing and still does.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment Projections, transportation and warehousing is going to be among the fastest growing sectors over the next decade, with wage and salary employment in the sector projected to grow 8.6 percent between 2022 and 2032.

At 9.7 percent, the biggest increase in employment is expected for the healthcare and social assistance sector, which is driven less by technological changes and more by demographic shifts. Due to the ageing population and the growing prevalence of chronic conditions, the healthcare and social assistance sector is projected to account for 2.1 million new jobs by 2032, making up almost half of all new jobs expected by the end of the projection period.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Looking at individual occupations, this trend is also evident, with home health and personal care aids projected to be by far the fastest-growing occupation over the next decade, adding more than 800,000 jobs by 2032.

With registered nurses and medical and health service managers also in the top 10, it’s clear that the health sector as a whole is going to be a major driver of employment growth in the near future.

US equity futures are flat into tomorrow's CPI/Retail Sales print with PPI the major macro data point today, while Fed Chair Powell also speaks. Futures are flat after also closing unchanged yesterday when the return of the meme stonk mania sent GME and AMC soaring, and hammered L/S hedge funds, whose short books exploded, leading to P&L carnage across the board and widespread degrossing which however did not impact index prices.  As of 6:30am, S&P and Nasdaq futures were unchanged. Bond yields are down 1-2bps as the yield curve bull steepens. The USD is flat and commodities are mixed with Ags lagging. Meme Stock Mania returned yesterday with GME +74% and AMC +78%, though Bitcoin was only +3%; As JPM's Andrew Tyler asks this morning "has the Retail investor reactivated and do they support Mag7?"

“Markets this morning are in extremely quiet mood ahead of tomorrow’s US consumer price index data that’s going to come out and shake things up or not,” said Kit Juckes, chief FX strategist at Societe Generale SA. “Sentiment about what the Fed’s going to do, sentiment about a lot of markets, will be determined by core CPI.”

The Stoxx Europe 600 index was little changed, hovering near a record high, as gains in auto and consumer product shares offset losses in travel and insurance names.  Shares in Anglo American Plc fell after the London-based miner outlined a major shake-up to fend of a takeover approach from BHP Group, with analysts citing execution risks. Delivery Hero SE soared as much as 22% after selling its Taiwan business. A revenue beat by Tencent Holdings Ltd. pushed the stock of its largest shareholder, Prosus NV, higher. Here are the most notable European movers:

• Delivery Hero shares soar as much as 22% after the food delivery firm agreed to sell its Taiwanese operations to Uber for $950 million. The deal is attractively priced as it allows Delivery Hero to reduce debt, although regulatory approval could be a potential concern, according to analysts.
• Vodafone shares rise as much as 3.9% after the telecom operator set full-year profit and cash flow guidance ahead of estimates. The German market, which now accounts for more than 45% of Vodafone’s Ebitda, saw service revenue growth ahead of expectations.
• Nagarro shares jump as much as 23%, the most on record, after the German IT service firm’s results beat expectations. Analysts noted the contrast between its reiterated guidance and US peer Epam’s profit warning.
• Nordex shares jump as much as 8.6%, hitting the highest in two years, after the wind turbine maker beat expectations and delivered a “blowout quarter,” according to Jefferies. Analysts at Oddo upgraded the stock.
• Sonova shares jump as much as 6.6% with Morgan Stanley saying the hearing system firm’s outlook implies upgrades to sales and earnings consensus.
• Societe Generale shares gain as much as 4.1% after French President Emmanuel Macron said he’d be open to seeing a major French bank being taken over by an EU rival to spur deeper integration.
• On The Beach shares drop as much as 12% after its first-half earnings showed ongoing pressures on consumers. However, the group’s reinstated dividend and strong demand remain points of confidence, according to analysts.
• Brenntag shares fall as much as 9.6%, the most since November 2022, after the German chemicals distribution firm’s first quarter missed estimates due to pricing pressures. The company reduced its guidance for the full year to the lower end of its range.
• Rheinmetall shares decline as much as 6% after the German defense company reported a backlog for the first quarter that was €40.2 billion compared with €28.2 billion at the same time last year. Oddo calls it a slow start to 2024, with earnings below consensus.
• DCC shares drop as much as 5.3% after its results came in below expectations, bringing an end to a strong run for the international sales and support service group that took its stock to a two-year high yesterday.
• Lonza shares fall as much as 3.3% after the Swiss maker of drug ingredients reported a subdued start to the year and confirmed a flat sales growth outlook for 2024.

Earlier in the session, Asian stocks traded in a narrow range as investors awaited crucial US inflation data. A rally in Hong Kong stocks stalled ahead of key technology sector earnings due later Tuesday. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index swung between gains and losses of as much as 0.2%. TSMC and Alibaba rose, while AIA and Tokyo Marine fell. Shares in Hong Kong and mainland China closed lower ahead of major earnings. A gauge of Chinese tech companies jumped as much as 2.3% before paring much of the gains. Tech is “expected to be a bright spot amid this earnings season that has been lackluster thus far,” said Marvin Chen, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence in Hong Kong.

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index inched up for the third straight day, supported ahead of US producer price data due later Tuesday. Investors also awaited speeches by Federal Reserve President Jerome Powell and Board of Governors member Lisa Cook to see if they offer any additional hints into when US interest rate cuts will start. Markets are bracing for US CPI data due on Wednesday for more steer into whether the Fed will begin easing in September, in line with market pricing.

In rates, Treasuries edge up ahead of US inflation data, with US 10-year yields falling 1bps to 4.48%. UK government bonds have pulled back from session highs having rallied after Bank of England Chief Economist Huw Pill suggested a summer interest-rate cut is in play. UK 10-year yields fall 1bp to 4.16%. His comments also weighed on the pound which is among the weakest of the G-10 currencies, falling 0.2% against the greenback after showing little reaction to UK jobs figures released earlier.

In commodities, oil prices gained before the release of OPEC’s market outlook, with WTI trading near $79.10. Industrial metals including nickel and copper climbed, while gold was steady after Monday’s decline of more than 1%. Spot gold rises 0.5% to around $2,347/oz.

To the day ahead, and central bank speakers include Fed Chair Powell, the Fed’s Cook, the ECB’s Knot and BoE chief economist Pill. US data releases include PPI inflation for April, along with the NFIB’s small business optimism index. Otherwise, we’ll get UK unemployment for March and the German ZEW survey for May.

Market Snapshot

• S&P 500 futures little changed at 5,247.50
• Brent Futures down 0.3% to $83.10/bbl
• Gold spot up 0.1% to $2,338.66
• US Dollar Index up 0.14% to 105.36
• STOXX Europe 600 little changed at 521.06
• MXAP up 0.1% to 178.43
• MXAPJ up 0.2% to 558.88
• Nikkei up 0.5% to 38,356.06
• Topix up 0.3% to 2,730.95
• Hang Seng Index down 0.2% to 19,073.71
• Shanghai Composite little changed at 3,145.77
• Sensex up 0.7% to 73,274.89
• Australia S&P/ASX 200 down 0.3% to 7,726.76
• Kospi up 0.1% to 2,730.34
• German 10Y yield little changed at 2.49%
• Euro down 0.1% to $1.0778
• Brent Futures down 0.3% to $83.10/bbl

Top Overnight News

• European stocks and US equity futures kept to small ranges for a second day, with traders waiting for US inflation reports to give markets fresh direction. US Treasuries and the dollar remained steady.
• US President Joe Biden is hiking tariffs on a wide range of Chinese imports — including semiconductors, batteries, solar cells, and critical minerals — in an election-year bid to bolster domestic manufacturing in critical industries.
• Japanese sovereign bond yields are surging to the highest levels in more than a decade amid signs the central bank is ready to reduce debt purchases to ease pressure on the ailing yen.
• From JPMorgan Chase & Co. to Citigroup Inc., Wall Street’s most prominent trading desks are warning that investors should gear up for a potential break in the calm that’s come over the stock market.

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks lacked firm conviction after the indecisive performance in the US ahead of key events. ASX 200 was dragged lower by weakness in real estate and consumer staples ahead of the federal budget announcement, while Australian Treasurer Chalmers had previously cautioned against expectations for a welfare 'cash splash'. Nikkei 225 was choppy amid a weaker currency, mixed earnings releases and relatively in-line PPI data. Hang Seng & Shanghai Comp were initially boosted at the open with strength in tech and real estate although the Hong Kong benchmark eventually faded most of the gains, while sentiment was dampened in the mainland amid the threat of looming US tariffs which are expected to be unveiled today, while developer default concerns also lingered after Agile Group missed a coupon payment and flagged an inability to fulfil all payment obligations.

Top Asian News

• China's embassy said China remains open to cooperating with the US on repatriation of illegal immigrants but the US side should also demonstrate sincerity and address China's concerns, creating a suitable atmosphere for such cooperation, according to Global Times.
• Japanese Finance Minister Suzuki said it is important for the government and BoJ to coordinate policy and it is important for currencies to move in a stable manner reflecting fundamentals, while he added they will take a thorough response for forex and are closely watching FX moves, according to Reuters.
• Former BoJ executive says the BoJ may decide to reduce the size of scheduled bond purchases next month amid largely dysfunctional bond market, adding that the BoJ is likely to hold off on raising rates until September, according to Reuters.
• Australian Budget: sees 2023/24 budget surplus at AUD 9.3bln (vs. Exp. AUD 9bln) and deficits in 2024/25 - 2026/27 (as expected). 2024/25 deficit AUD 28.3bln vs. Exp. AUD 13.9bln. 2023/24 CPI seen at 3.5%, 2024/25 at 2.75% 2025/26 at 2.75%. 2023/24 unemployment seen at 4.0%, 2024/25 4.5% and 2025/26 4.5%. 2023/24 GDP growth at 1.75%, 2024/25 at 2% and 2025/26 at 2.25%. Sees iron ore price falling to USD 60/tonne, thermal coal USD 70/tonne for Q1 2025.

European bourses, Stoxx600 (+0.1%) are mixed and lack any firm direction, continuing the indecisive performance in APAC trade overnight. European sectors hold little bias with the breadth of the market fairly narrow. Autos is found at the top of the pile, building on the prior day’s gains, whilst Travel & Leisure is weighed on by Flutter (-2.5%) post-earnings. US Equity Futures (ES U/C, NQ +0.1%, RTY +0.1%) are mostly and modestly firmer, with trade tentative ahead of today’s PPI. Elsewhere, the White House says US President Biden is directing US Trade Representative to increase tariffs on USD 18bln of imports from China (in-fitting with recent reports).

Top European News

• BoE Chief Economist Pill says there is still some work to do on the persistence of inflation; not unreasonable to believe that over the summer, the BoE will see enough confidence to consider rate cuts. Not unreasonable to believe that over the summer, the BoE will see enough confidence to consider rate cuts; could cut and keep the stance restrictive. Question of when and how restriction is eased.
• Even a very poor EZ inflation reading this month would not necessarily dissuade the ECB's Governing Council from going through with the 25bp rate cut that has been amply signalled for its June meeting, according to a Eurosystem insider cited by Econostream.

FX

• Dollar is a touch firmer vs. most peers and briefly popping above yesterday's 105.36 high in quiet trade, though with traders mindful of today's PPI, and CPI on Wednesday, in addition to Chair Powell at 15:00BST/10:00ET.
• EUR is steady vs the USD after the pair failed to hold above the 1.08 mark. EUR/USD is currently contained within yesterday's 1.0765-1.0806 bounds with newsflow light, ZEW data failed to move the markets.
• GBP is the laggard across the majors. GBP was choppy following mixed jobs data, though commentary from BoE's Pill sent Sterling lower. The Chief Economist continued to talk up the possibility of rate cuts. Cable down as low as 1.2510 with eyes on a test of 1.25; not breached since May 9th.
• JPY is once again losing ground to the USD with markets bracing for upcoming US inflation prints, which could be the next inflection point for the pair. USD/JPY has been as high as 156.56 with not much in the way of resistance until 157.
• Mildly diverging fortunes for the antipodes with NZD edging out moderate gains vs. the USD. AUD/USD is holding above the 0.66 mark and respecting yesterday's 0.6587-0.6628 range in quiet trade.
• PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 7.1053 vs exp. 7.2307 (prev. 7.1030).

Fixed Income

• USTs are incrementally firmer but with magnitudes much more contained than EGBs as we await US PPI ahead of Wednesday's CPI print. USTs at the top-end of 108-24 to 108-29 bounds which are contained by Monday's 108-23 to 109-00 parameters.
• Gilts initially gapped lower by just 11 ticks to 97.52 following the morning's data which was hawkish on the wage components, though upticks in unemployment and another sizeable negative employment change provided some dovish reprieve. Speak from BoE's Pill thereafter lifted Gilts to a 97.89 peak just shy of Monday's 97.93 best.
• Bunds are flat after initially being supported in tandem with Gilt price action; the ZEW data once again came in stronger than expected and prompted Bunds to pullback to the 131.00 mark. Bunds to a 131.13 peak post-Pill matching Monday's best.

Commodities

• Subdued trade across the crude complex following yesterday's gains, which saw the contract settle higher but off best levels in a day with light oil newsflow. Brent Jul'24 sits within a USD 82.98-83.62/bbl parameter.
• Precious metals hold an upward bias despite the stronger Dollar, with outperformance in spot palladium this morning whilst spot gold remains caged ahead of the aforementioned risk events including US PPI and Fed Chair Powell later; XAU sits within a tight USD 2,334.89-2,345.99/oz intraday range thus far.
• Mixed trade across base metals with 3M LME copper futures flat but holding onto a USD 10k+ status, while aluminium prices are subdued following another large warehouse stock metric (+131k/T).
• OPEC OMR due at 11:00BST/06:00ET today
• LME Stocks: Aluminium +131k/T.
• Peru copper production dipped slightly in March and was down 0.1% Y/Y, according to government data.

Geopolitics

• "Israeli tanks began to penetrate into the center of Rafah for the first time amid fierce clashes ", according to Al Arabiya
• "Lebanese agency: Israel used 'seismic missiles' in the town of Kafr Kila in southern Lebanon", according to Al Arabiya
• Member of the Hamas Political Bureau told Al Arabiya they are committed to the path of the exchange deal negotiations.
• Heavy Israeli artillery shelling and heavy gunfire reported in the centre and east of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, according to Al Jazeera.
• US officials said Israel has mobilised enough forces to launch a large-scale operation in Rafah but they are not sure if We are not sure if Israel has made a final decision to launch a large-scale operation in Rafah, according to CNN.
• US Deputy Secretary of State said we do not believe that the complete victory that Israel seeks to achieve is likely or possible, according to CNN.
• Hezbollah said it targeted two buildings used by enemy soldiers in the settlement of Metulla and achieved a direct hit, according to Al Jazeera.
• EU decided to broaden the scope of its sanctions framework to include not only provision of drones from Iran to Russia but also missiles. It also expands the sanctions regime geographically to cover the Middle East, according to a press release. 
• US Secretary of State Blinken arrived in Ukraine on a previously undisclosed trip and intends to send the signal of reassurance to Ukraine at a 'very difficult moment', while US-supplied artillery, ATACMS long-range missiles and air defence interceptors are already reaching Ukraine's front lines from the new US aid package approved on April 24th, according to a US official cited by Reuters. 
• US and Taiwan navies quietly held Pacific drills in April, while the exercises involved about a half-dozen ships from both sides but officially didn't take place, according to a Reuters source. Furthermore, a source added that exercises were dubbed 'unplanned sea encounters' and gave the navies a chance to practice 'basic' operations.

US Event Calendar

• 06:00: April SMALL BUSINESS OPTIMISM 89.2, est. 88.2, prior 88.5
• 08:30: April PPI Ex Food, Energy, Trade MoM, est. 0.2%, prior 0.2%
• April PPI Ex Food, Energy, Trade YoY, prior 2.8%
• April PPI Final Demand MoM, est. 0.3%, prior 0.2%
• April PPI Final Demand YoY, est. 2.2%, prior 2.1%

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight news

The start of this week has seen a holding pattern ahead of potentially more exciting times to come over the next couple of days. The S&P 500 (-0.02%) and 10yr Treasury yields (-1.0bps) didn't move much. Unless you've been living on Mars, you'll know that we have the US PPI release today, followed by the CPI tomorrow. You'll also likely be fully aware that the first three months of the year all had fairly strong inflation, and all beating expectations, so this is an important week.

If you're looking for a little bit of excitement then Japanese yields are edging to decade plus yield highs overnight on concerns the BoJ will cut bond purchases again at its next regular operation on Friday. Yields on 10yr JGBs increased +2.5bps to 0.965%, its highest in more than a decade while yields on 20yr JGBs touched a high of 1.77%, the most since 2013 before settling at 1.759% as we go to print. 30yr yields hit their highest since 2011, trading at 2.038% as I type. The speculation being that smaller purchases are being planned to help the ailing Yen which has been drifting back down over the last week or so post what is thought to have been two bouts of intervention. So one to watch.

Back to those upcoming US inflation prints and the mood music ahead of them has been a little worrying, as data on inflation expectations showed a further uptick. That came via the New York Fed’s latest Survey of Consumer Expectations, where 1yr inflation expectations were up from 3.0% to 3.3% in April, marking its highest level in 5 months. Moreover, that follows on the heels of the University of Michigan’s survey last Friday, where inflation expectations also surprised on the upside, so there’ve been several pieces of news pointing in that direction. To be fair, the 3yr NY measure did fall a tenth to 2.8%, but the 5yr measure ticked up two-tenths to 2.8%, so it was a mixed bag at the longer time horizons. Separately, there were some labour market indicators that pointed in a weaker direction, with the mean probability of finding a job in the next 3 months (if one’s job was lost today) falling to a 3-year low of 50.9%.

For the April PPI release today, our economists expect headline PPI to come in at a monthly +0.4% pace. That would be an uptick from the +0.2% pace in March, but the focus for our economists will be on those components that feed into the core PCE deflator, which are health care services, portfolio management and domestic airfares. So those are the categories to keep an eye on, since they feed into the PCE measure that the Fed officially targets.

Ahead of that, we did hear from Fed Vice Chair Jefferson, who reflected the cautious tone of the FOMC about future rate cuts. For instance, he said that they “continue to look for additional evidence that inflation is going to return to our 2% target. And until we have that, I think it is appropriate to keep the policy rate in restrictive territory.” So there wasn’t much to move the dial on market expectations, with the number of cuts priced in by the December meeting little changed at 41bps yesterday. Later today, we’ll hear from Fed Chair Powell as well, who’s speaking at an event with the ECB’s Knot.

We’ll have to see what happens today, but for now at least, the S&P 500 (-0.02%) barely budged, which still leaves the index just 0.6% beneath its all-time high from the end of March. It was a similar story in Europe as well, where the STOXX 600 (+0.02%) narrowly eked out another all-time high. Tech outperformance saw modest gains for the NASDAQ (+0.29%) and the Magnificent 7 (+0.28%), with the latter ending a run of four consecutive declines. But the mood was slightly negative otherwise, with 9 of the 11 S&P 500 sector groups down on the day.

Perhaps the most notable equity story of the day was a + 74.4% rise for Gamestop . This followed a post on X (after a long dormant period) by Keith Hill, who gained notoriety during the 2021 meme-stock frenzy under the moniker “Roaring Kitty”. Some of the other heavily shorted stocks also saw sizeable gains, with the high short interest basket within the Russell 3000 up as much as +6.7% intra-day (+4.55% by the close). To refresh your memory GameStop went above 10 in January 2021. Two weeks later at the height of the frenzy it was trading at nearly 90. Since then it's steadily and consistently fallen back to a low of 10 three weeks ago. Last night it closed above 30 again. Let's see if that speculative craze is going to be reignited.

For sovereign bonds, there was also a subdued performance yesterday, with little major movements in either direction yesterday. Indeed, US Treasuries saw one of the larger moves of the day, with the 10yr yield down -1.0bps to 4.49%. The 10yr yield had traded nearly -4bps down on the day early in the US session but then saw a gradual increase, helped along by the NY Fed inflation expectations release. The bond moves were even smaller moves in Europe, where yields on 10yr bunds (-0.7bps), OATs (-0.5bps) and BTPs (+0.7bps) all moved by less than a basis point.

In the commodity space, oil prices recovered, with Brent up +0.77% to $83.43/bbl after falling to an 8-week low on Friday. Meanwhile, copper posted another 2-year high, up +2.36% on the day and extending its year-to-date gain to +23.5%.

In Asia, Chinese stocks are trading slightly lower with the CSI (-0.15%), Hang Sang (-0.05%) and Shanghai Composite (-0.08%) all seeing minor losses. However, the Hang Seng Tech index (+1.10%) is bucking the trend powered by a rally in Chinese tech stocks with Alibaba and Tencent Holdings reporting earnings later today. Elsewhere, the KOSPI (-0.09%) is also struggling to gain traction whilst the Nikkei (+0.05%) is trading just above flat. US equity futures are very slightly lower.

To the day ahead, and central bank speakers include Fed Chair Powell, the Fed’s Cook, the ECB’s Knot and BoE chief economist Pill. US data releases include PPI inflation for April, along with the NFIB’s small business optimism index. Otherwise, we’ll get UK unemployment for March and the German ZEW survey for May.

Authored by Joe Wang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

When COVID-19 took the world by storm in early 2020, I mostly relied on reading Nature Medicine, The Lancet, and a few other medical journals to learn the latest on this new disease.

A health care worker fills a syringe with COVID-19 vaccine in a file image. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

In March 2020, I read an article published in Nature Medicine titled “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” with great interest. Written by California-based Scripps Institute’s Kristian Andersen and four other well-known professors, it said SARS-CoV-2 binds to human cells much better than any computer programs predicted, and concluded that “SARS-CoV-2 is not the product of purposeful manipulation.”

Having been a scientist with the world’s largest vaccine company for more than 10 years, I took issue with this claim.

In a May 2022 commentary titled “Pandemic Lessons Learned: Scientific Debate Silenced, With Deadly Consequences” I wrote: “If SARS-CoV-2 infects people better than your computer predicts, then the only conclusion you can draw is that your computer sucks. How did these world-renowned scientists get the basic logic so wrong? And how did the prestigious publication Nature Medicine not catch that? Did anyone even read the paper before publishing it, not to mention peer review it?”

The Andersen article’s conclusion, as it turned out, was a complete flip-flop on Andersen’s Jan. 31, 2020, email to Dr. Anthony Fauci, then the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in which he wrote that “some of the features (potentially) look engineered,” referring to the coronavirus.

The Fauci emails were made public in June 2021 via Freedom of Information Act requests.

Nevertheless, the Nature Medicine paper became the authority on the origin of COVID. It essentially excluded the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Dr. Fauci from any responsibility for the emergence of the virus. Any attempts to investigate or explore other possibilities were labelled conspiracy theories.

Andersen, and the article itself, were the subject of a U.S. Congressional Hearing by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in June 2023. The debate on how COVID originated is still ongoing today.

The Lancet and the Daszak Statement

Andersen and Nature Medicine weren’t the only ones trying to please the CCP and Fauci.

On Feb. 18, 2020, The Lancet, another top medical journal, published a political statement with no science in it. It was organized by Peter Daszak from EcoHealth Alliance, which was the middleman for channeling Fauci’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to a U.S. Congress report released on May 1 of this year.

The Daszak et al. statement dismissed as a conspiracy theory any suggestion that COVID was not of natural origin.

“We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin,” they wrote. “Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardize our global collaboration in the fight against this virus.”

The Tune Is Set

The Daszak statement, along with the Andersen article, set the tune for the officially accepted narrative. The narrative then expanded from “a natural origin of the virus” to “a COVID vaccine will flatten the curve and save the world.” Scientists, doctors, and journal editors who dared to challenge the narrative were cancelled and/or labelled conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers.

It has been four years and six months since the world first encountered SARS-CoV-2. Despite the claims by famous scientists like Fauci and Andersen, and despite the countless efforts by top virologists and public health professionals, evidence that the virus originated naturally has not been found.

More and more people now believe that the virus was leaked or escaped from a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has been doing gain-of-function research on coronaviruses, and published such research in Nature Medicine in 2015, with NIH funding acknowledged.

The lab origin is no longer a conspiracy theory. The U.S. Energy Department and the FBI both now believe that the virus was more likely leaked from a lab than having developed naturally.

Encouraging Developments

Since the pandemic, The Epoch Times and NTD have been publishing documentary films on COVID origin and vaccine injuries. The first such documentary, Joshua Philipp’s “Tracking Down the Origin of the Wuhan Coronavirus,” was viewed over 100 million times on different platforms combined. However, such reports are rarely seen in other legacy media.

It has also been a taboo subject for scientific research and publication, but that may be starting to change.

Recently, I wrote a commentary about a new paper by five Japanese scientists that was published on Cureus, a peer-reviewed medical journal owned by the Springer Nature Group, the same company that owns Nature and Nature Medicine.

The scientists analyzed data collected from the entire 123 million Japanese population and concluded that the majority of the 115,799 excess deaths in 2022 was not due to COVID infection but rather vaccination, in particular the third COVID shot.

I was pleasantly surprised that a once-taboo subject was now published in a peer-reviewed medical journal, especially a member journal of the Springer Nature Group.

In another positive development, this month the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules (IJBM) published a paper titled “Review: N1-methyl-pseudouridine: Friend or foe of cancer?” linking a key ingredient in the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine with cancer development.

IJBM is owned by the Dutch academic publishing company Elsevier, which also owns renowned publications like The Lancet, Cell, and ScienceDirect.

May the Force Be With the Editors-in-Chief

In the spring of 2022, when more scientists started to challenge the accepted narratives and seek the truth, I co-wrote the commentary “May the Force Be With Them: Scientists Fight Back.”

At that time, these brave scientists needed all the help they could get. For example, when a journal published a well-researched, well-written, and fact-based scientific paper on the safety concerns of the mRNA vaccines, the editor-in-chief of that journal was ousted.

The journal was Food and Chemical Toxicology, another Elsevier publication, and the editor-in-chief was Dr. José Luis Domingo.

Two years later, I’m optimistic that the IJBM editors-in-chief won’t face the same treatment as Dr. Domingo.

Why? I believe the tide has turned.

A recent New York Times article on COVID vaccine injuries is also an encouraging sign. It cites the Food and Drug Administration’s former acting commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock as saying the injuries are “serious” and “life-changing,” and “should be taken seriously.”

“I’m disappointed in myself,” she added. “I did a lot of things I feel very good about, but this is one of the few things I feel I just didn’t bring it home.”

Among the reported injured is the editor-in-chief of the journal Vaccine, Dr. Gregory Poland. He has been suffering from tinnitus since his first shot. The Centers for Disease Control didn’t take his report on his personal experience seriously. He told the NY Times that he did not “get any sense of movement (from the CDC).”

“If they have done studies (on vaccine injury), those studies should be published,” Dr. Poland added.

The journal Vaccine is also an Elsevier publication, and as the editor-in-chief, Dr. Poland is well positioned to offer his encouragement on vaccine injury studies.

Yes, I believe the tide has turned.

However, as of today, the Daszak statement is still on The Lancet website and the Andersen paper is still on Nature Medicine.

I wonder when the Lancet and Nature Medicine will have the courage to retract them? And when will these two eminent journals start publishing research on COVID vaccine injuries?

References:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/pandemic-lessons-learned-scientifi…

https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/new-email-reveals-what-fauci-knew…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/tony-fauci-ema…

https://www.scripps.edu/news-and-events/press-room/2023/20230404-anders…

https://oversight.house.gov/release/wenstrup-to-hold-hearing-with-proxi…

https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2820%2930418-9

https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2024.05.01-SSCP-…

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/expert-on-aluminum-toxicity-forced…

https://www.theepochtimes.com/author/aaron-kheriaty

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/editor-in-chief-of-renowned-scienc…

https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-origin-china-lab-leak-807b7b0a

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/28/politics/wray-fbi-covid-origins-lab-chin…

https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv?utm_source=epochtv

https://www.ntd.com/

https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/the-unseen-crisis-vaccine-stories…

https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/documentary-tracking-down-the-ori…

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/joe-wang-japans-excess-deaths-hit-…

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9012513/

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

In 2024, Germany became the third European Union country to legalize cannabis for personal use, following Malta and Luxembourg.

Here, Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti maps the countries where recreational cannabis use is allowed as of April 2024, based on data from Wikipedia.

Limited to Few Countries

In total, only nine countries have legalized recreational cannabis use nationwide. However, just a few of them have licensed sales.

At the federal level, cannabis is still considered an illegal substance in the United States. That said, individual states do have the right to determine their laws around cannabis sales and usage. Currently, cannabis is allowed in 24 states, 3 territories, and the District of Columbia.

Interestingly, the oldest legal text concerning cannabis dates back to the 1600s—when the colony of Virginia required every farm to grow and produce hemp.

Since then, cannabis use was fairly widespread until the 1930s when the Marihuana Tax Act was enforced, prohibiting marijuana federally but still technically allowing for medical use.

Today, the U.S. cannabis market is a $30 billion business. By the end of the decade, that number is expected to be anywhere from $58 billion to as much as $72 billion.

Similar to the U.S., Australia does not allow the use at the national level, but cannabis can be used legally in the Australian Capital Territory, which includes the capital Canberra.