Month: July 2024

Authored by Dmytro ‘Henry’ Aleksandrov via HeadlineUSA.com,

A leftist nonprofit that once claimed to fund “voter rights” initiatives to “restor[e] … and activat[e] all voices in the United States” was behind a deceptive anti-Trump ad campaign that tried to discourage his supporters from voting by mail.

Federal Election Commission records revealed that Global Impact Social Welfare Fund, a little-known dark money group, gave $50,000 to PA Values on June 14, 2024. Two days after the group donated the money, PA Values paid $48,000 for an ad that urged “MAGA PATRIOTS” to “stand strong WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP” against mail-in voting.

Even though Trump was skeptical of mail-in and absentee voting during the 2020 election, he started encouraging his supporters to vote by using those methods to “beat the Democrats,” the Washington Free Beacon reported.

The ad was criticized, and people started speculating about the origin of the cash behind it. Several years ago, PA Values received contributions from labor unions and the law firm of Sen. Bob Casey’s, D-Pa., brother. However, the organization had an empty bank account during this election cycle until the donation from the Global Impact Social Welfare Fund.

The Trump campaign accused the organization of election interference over the advertisement and called for law enforcement to investigate the matter.

A left-wing election law professor also called the ad “borderline criminal” and castigated PA Values for its “trickery and voter suppression.”

The Global Impact Social Welfare Fund previously released a mission statement to “empower social impact” in areas such as the environment, justice reform, racial and “gender” equity and “voter rights.”

The organization is a subsidiary of Global Impact, a “philanthropy adviser” that operates Charity.org.

Global Impact Social Welfare Fund operates as a dark money group, which means it masks its donors’ identity.

The company’s parent organization made the only traceable contribution: $8.9 million in 2023 out of a total of $22.4 million in donations that year.

 According to its most recent tax filing, the Global Impact Social Welfare Fund spent $3.3 million to support “voter rights and education programs.”

The Kremlin has again warned against a build-up of NATO warships in the Black Sea, while saying it is monitoring a noticeable increase in Western military vessels.

“Of course, the concentrated presence of NATO ships – we are paying attention to Bulgaria and Romania, the coastal states that are members of the (NATO) alliance – of course this represents, especially in the current situation, an additional threat to Russia,” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a press briefing Thursday.

“Of course, Russia will take all necessary measures to ensure its own security,” he added. Throughout the course of the war, Ukraine forces have used both aerial missiles as well as sea drones to attack Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

Ukraine’s President Zelensky has meanwhile vowed to not let Russia dominate the Black Sea. This week he unveiled a new ‘maritime security strategy’ in cooperation with the West.

The strategy seeks to ensure “readiness, comprehensive and effective prevention and response to threats to the maritime security of Ukraine arising in coastal areas, in its maritime spaces, as well as other areas of the World Ocean to which the economic and other interests of Ukraine extend.”

A key measure is that it proposes “ensuring the permanent presence of NATO forces in the Black Sea.”

Ukraine military officials have lately claimed that Russia is pulling much of its naval assets from the Crimean coast amid recent successful drone strikes there:

Dmitry Pletenchuk, a spokesperson for the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, made the statement in a Facebook post on Monday.

“The last patrol ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet is leaving our Crimea right now. Remember this day,” he said, per a translation by the state-affiliated Ukrainian news outlet Militarnyi.

Ukraine previously claimed it has destroyed up to one-third of Russia’s Black Fleet, likely also using Western-supplied missile and drone systems.

While the extent to which this is accurate remains unclear, Russia has long been seeking to protect its docked and deployed naval forces with extra precautions.

For example, military observers have confirmed Russian ships are increasingly using the more protected Sea of Azov to fire missiles at Ukraine, to prevent additional losses.

Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

Nevada is now hosting the largest solar plus battery energy storage system project in the United States after Primergy Solar and Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners announced that the Gemini Solar + Storage project in Clark County is now fully operational.

Gemini is one of the latest such sites in the U.S. amid a rapid expansion of solar plus storage projects in the country.

Gemini, located just 30 minutes outside of Las Vegas, generates enough reliable clean energy to power around 10% of Nevada’s peak power demand, Primergy Solar says.

The 1.8 million solar panels at the Gemini site can generate up to 690 megawatts (MW) of electricity. The solar arrays are co-located with 380 MW of 4-hour battery storage to provide Nevadans with 1,400 MWh of clean, reliable power after sundown.  

The project’s unique DC-coupled storage configuration enables the battery energy storage system to charge directly from the solar panels, resulting in increased efficiency and maximizing the capture and storage of solar energy directly on-site, according to Primergy Solar and Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners.

Energy storage use continues to grow across the United States.

Last year, for example, solar + storage accounted for 13% of residential installations and 5% of non-residential installations, said the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) in its review of the first full year of the Inflation Reduction Act. [if !supportLineBreakNewLine] [endif]

This year, 25% of new residential installations and 10% of non-residential installations will have storage, according to SEIA.

Nevada is among the top 10 U.S. states with the most installed battery capacity, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

This year, U.S. battery storage capacity could jump by 89% by the end of 2024 if developers bring all of the energy storage systems they have planned online by their intended commercial operation dates, the EIA noted.

Separately, the EIA expects solar and battery storage to account for 81% of new U.S. electric-generating capacity in 2024. Solar is set to account for the largest share of new capacity, at 58%, followed by battery storage, at 23%.

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

Within minutes of the July 13 attempted assassination of Donald Trump, observers were asking how the assassin managed to gain a clear shot of Donald Trump at the Butler Farm Show Grounds near Butler, Pennsylvania. Since then, the question remains unanswered, but many allegations about the shooting have emerged. For example, multiple sources plausibly contend that both local police and the Secret Service had spotted the armed shooter—on a nearby roof with a rangefinder and a gun—several minutes before the shooting occurred. Law enforcement officers and agents chose to do nothing. 

Videos of the event show bystanders vocally warning both police and federal agents of the shooter’s presence. Again, law enforcement did nothing. The New York Post reports that a “counter sniper team” staffed by local law enforcement were actually inside the building below the shooter himself. Again, law enforcement officials couldn’t be bothered with controlling access to this roof which offered an ideal position for a potential assassin. 

Meanwhile, a variety of former snipers and those with anti-sniper training—i.e., former Navy SEALS and Green Berets—noted repeatedly in both social media and mainstream media outlets that it would be impossible for any competent law enforcement agents to so blatantly botch security in this way. 

New information continues to flow in but virtually all of it forces us to one of two conclusions: the police officers and federal agents at the Butler rally were either (1) disastrously incompetent or (2) complicit in the assassination attempt. 

Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine the truth of the matter given how little information we have right now. Certainly, the Secret Service (USSS) will not be providing any honest assessment of the situation. Local police will close ranks to protect themselves and their jobs—as is standard practice. We can expect investigations to go on for years with law enforcement officials stonewalling Congress every step of the way. Moreover, FBI agents will likely be called into conduct much of the investigation, and we know how that will go. As Thomas Massie wrote a few hours after the shooting, the FBI is “The same bureau that investigated the Las Vegas shooting and the January 6th pipe bombs is now investigating the attempted assassination of Trump. …This is also the same bureau that raided Mar-a-Lago. … I’m sure they’ll get to the bottom of this soon.”

Option 1: Law Enforcement Was Complicit in the Assassination Attempt

Local law enforcement—namely, the Pennsylvania State Police—and the USSS partnered up to screen the area for weapons and for potential areas from which an assassin might operate. Clearly, neither of these agencies performed these tasks properly. The Secret Service’s failure is especially damning given that the agency’s primary mission—apart from investigating counterfeiters—is to protect their assigned subjects from assassination.

So, was the USSS intentionally “forgetful” when it came to securing the area? Was the slowness of the USSS’s agents in confronting the shooter part of a conspiracy to “allow” the assassin access to Trump? At this point, one can only guess, but we do know there are many reasons to suspect the idea. After all, the Secret Service is your typical federal agency, and its members are your typical federal bureaucrats who do quite well for themselves under the status quo. They have every reason to oppose any political figure who is seen—rightly or wrongly—as one who threatens the current establishment in any way. After all, it became abundantly clear during the Trump years that FBI agents had no qualms about illegally spying on Trump. FBI agents also cooked up the narrative of “Russian collusion” in an effort to cripple the Trump administration. 

It’s easy to see why federal agents would be opposed to a Trump presidency. Federal agents enjoy large salaries, high levels of prestige, and the promise of a long, cushy, well-funded retirement—all paid for by taxpayers. There’s good reason for USSS agents to actively oppose any candidate seen as a significant threat to the status quo. Moreover, federal agents handling presidential security are part of the Washington, DC culture. They are, to use modern parlance, “swamp creatures.” 

Yet, one might question the “complicity” charge on the grounds that it would be exceptionally difficult to keep an assassination conspiracy quiet among any sizable number of law enforcement agents. That’s true enough, but in this case, it would only be necessary for those in positions of leadership to be part of the conspiracy. 

The conspirators would only need to ensure complacency and a reluctance to speak up among the rank and file.

This is not hard to achieve. The conspirators—assuming they are in positions of leadership—could simply ensure that the event is understaffed or staffed with less-experienced agents who rely on more direction from above. Then, the conspirators need only issue orders to stand down at critical times, and to hem and haw long enough to allow “the plan” to play out. 

Moreover, experience has shown that law enforcement officials are not ones to speak up against the powers that be. Federal agents in this case would be shielded from prosecution by a friendly Justice Department. Meanwhile, local police are largely bought and paid for by the Department of Homeland Security which funnels billions to state and municipal police departments. 

We should not expert much at all in the way of whistleblowing or critical thinking from any state law enforcement personnel or from any lower-ranking USSS agents. Recent years have made it abundantly clear that state and local police are far more concerned with keeping their jobs and pensions than with opposing even the most blatantly immoral or unconstitutional assaults on the people. 

After all, how many police officers resigned in protest during the covid lockdowns? During that period, police were tasked with closing churches, arresting churchgoers, and closing down private businesses for the “offense” or peacefully assembling or engaging in commerce. Police arrested mothers who visited playgrounds closed for fear of a virus. Police beat up ordinary people who didn’t wear masks. 

Through it all, we heard only a tiny number of police voices protesting these assaults on the Bill of Rights. It is apparent that most police officers were willing to carry out virtually any order from their government masters. 

So, it would be pure naivete to think that any local law enforcement officers would oppose any of the USSS’s questionable orders that might have come down on July 13. In other words, USSS officials were free to do whatever they wanted. 

Option 2: Law Enforcement Officers Were Incompetent 

The other option is that the USSS and local police really are just incompetent. Laziness, of course, is a type of incompetence, and it is entirely possible that the unguarded roofs, the lack of concern about the assassin’s rangefinder, and the general slowness of response were all motivated by mere laziness. Of course, it is also possible that law enforcement was not lazy so much as it was simply too ignorant to even know the correct way to control access to the president during the rally. 

The “incompetence” narrative rose to near-comical levels on Tuesday when USSS director Kimberly Cheatle claimed that the rooftop on which the shooter perched was left unguarded because the roof was too dangerous for agents. As Cheatle put it, “That building in particular has a sloped roof … so, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. And so, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside.” (According to the New York Post, it was local police who were responsible for securing the building.)

Clearly, the building was not secured from “inside” or anywhere else, and it is laughable that the USSS would think this explanation about a dangerously sloped roof would deflect criticism of the agency. 

But, what if Cheatle is telling the truth? What if the decision to leave the roof unguarded was simply a byproduct of incompetence on the part of the USSS and local police? This would certainly jibe with the dogma of “officer safety” that is so prevalent among law enforcement agencies nowadays. After all, we saw this philosophy at work at the school shootings at Uvalde and Parkland. In both cases, police elected to run away and hide rather than confront a shooter who was slaughtering children. Police looked to their own safety first. 

It’s not beyond belief that USSS brass might decide that it would be overkill to put personnel on every roof, especially when it’s hot and uncomfortable and potentially dangerous up there. It wouldn’t be the first time law enforcement officials substituted safety and ease—for themselves—in place of public service. 

“Mistakes Were Made”

For obvious reasons, the USSS itself has decided that the “incompetence” narrative is preferable to the “complicity” narrative. We can expect law enforcement officials to die on the “incompetence” sword since to admit complicity would rock the foundations of the regime’s legitimacy. Thus, claims about the “slopey roof,” although humiliating, will be offered as evidence that the USSS and local police “did their best” but failed. In other words, we will hear that “mistakes were made,” but it won’t happen again. 

This is complicated by the fact that law enforcement officials can’t even claim that no one was seriously hurt in the assassination attempt. Spectator Corey Comperatore was killed, and two others were critically injured. Federal and Pennsylvania law enforcement officers are to blame for allowing that to happen. 

But don’t expect any heads to roll. Indeed, if this story follows the usual narrative that accompanies federal screw-ups, we can expect higher budgets for the agencies that fell down on the job. After 9/11, for example, the CIA and FBI, who utterly failed in their jobs that day, received more taxpayer money as a result. No one lost their jobs, and there was no accountability. With the possible exception of Cheatle herself, it’s extremely unlikely that anyone at the USSS or the Pennsylvania state police will face so much as an official reprimand. 

If any further proof of streaming’s leading role in today’s television landscape was needed, then here it is…

As Statista’s Felx Richter reports, according to Nielsen’s The Gauge – a monthly report on TV viewing behavior in the United States, streaming services reached a record share of 40.3 percent of TV usage in the United States last month, leaving cable and broadcast far behind at 27.2 and 20.5 percent, respectively.

You will find more infographics at Statista

It’s been two years since streaming first surpassed cable TV in July 2022 and, aside for some seasonal fluctuations, its share of TV viewing has continued growing steadily since then.

According to Nielsen, it’s typical for linear TV to see a lull in viewership during the summer months, which partly explains the 1.5 percentage point increase in streaming’s viewing share last month. Moreover, the start of the summer break for kids and teenagers has also contributed to the absolute and relative increase in streaming consumption, as streaming makes up a larger share of young viewers’ television time, giving the category a disproportionate bump compared to broadcast and cable. Looking ahead, the Paris Olympics could throw linear TV a lifeline in July and August, as live sports remain one of the last strongholds of broadcast and cable networks.

Beginning with the success of Netflix‘s all-you-can stream model, there has been a dramatic shift in TV consumption over the past decade. Consumers quickly came to appreciate the flexibility, ease-of-use and affordability of Netflix and other streaming services that inevitably followed, making life increasingly hard for broadcast TV networks, cable TV providers and traditional pay-TV channels such as HBO. As more and more media companies jumped on the streaming bandwagon, consumers now have a plethora of choices, no matter if they prefer movies and series (Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, etc.), documentaries (Discovery+ and others) or sports (ESPN+, DAZN).

Via Political Calculations blog,

The affordability of new homes sold in the United States was little changed in May 2024.

With the mortgage payment for the typical new home sold consuming 43% of the income earned by a household in the exact middle of the distribution of income in the U.S., new homes remain out of affordable reach for the majority of American households.

How unaffordable is that? 

According to real estate analytics firm ATTOM, in more than one-third of the markets they examined, “homeowners were spending at least 43% of their wages on housing, a level the firm defines as “‘seriously unaffordable.'”

We should point out here that ATTOM’s analysis applies to both new and existing homes in the local markets they reviewed.

That figure is coincidentally the one that applies nationally for the median new home sold and the nation’s estimated median household income.

The following chart shows how the relative affordability of the typical new home sold in the U.S. has developed from January 2000 through May 2024.

While that percentage applies nationally, in truth, all real estate markets are local.

To that end, we thought it would be interesting to present Wealthvieu’s Patrick Ross’ map of how much monthly income a household in any of the 50 states would need to afford the median home sold within it, which gives a good indication of which states offer the most and least affordable housing.

The data in the chart applies for both new and existing homes sold in each state in April 2024.

Finally, if you really want to drill down into really local real estate markets, here’s ATTOM’s interactive chart with their analytical results

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Over the last few years, a handful of “Mega-Capitalization” (mega-market capitalization) stocks have dominated market returns. The question is whether that dominance will continue and if the same companies remain the leaders. It is an interesting question. The number of publicly traded companies continues to decline, as shown in the following chart from Apollo.

This decline has many reasons, including mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcy, leveraged buyouts, and private equity. For example, Twitter (now X) was once a publicly traded company before Elon Musk acquired it and took it private. Unsurprisingly, with fewer publicly traded companies, there are fewer opportunities as market capital increases. Such is particularly the case for large institutions that must deploy large amounts of capital over short periods. With nearly 40% of the companies in the Russell 2000 index currently non-profitable, the choices are limited even further.

However, this period’s concentration of market capitalization into a few names is not unique. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was the “Nifty 50.” Then, in the late 90s, it was the “Dot.com” darlings like Cisco Systems. Today, it is anything related to “artificial Intelligence.”

As shown, the leaders of the past are not today’s leaders. Notably, Nvidia (NVDA) will get added to the list of the largest “mega-cap” companies for the first time in 2024.

However, investors must decide whether Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Amazon will remain the leaders over the coming decade. Just as AT&T and GM were once the darlings of Wall Street, today’s Technology shares may become relics of the past.

Earnings Growth

One primary determinant in answering that question is earnings growth. As should be obvious, investors are willing to pay higher prices when corporate earnings are growing.

The problem is that in 2023, all the earnings growth came from the index’s top-7 “mega-capitalization” stocks. The S&P 500 would have had negative earnings growth excluding those seven stocks. Such would have likely resulted in a more disappointing market outcome. Notably, while analysts are optimistic that earnings growth for the bottom 493 stocks will accelerate into the end of 2024, with economic data slowing, those hopes will likely be disappointed.

Over the next decade, companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Alphabet will face the challenge of growing revenues fast enough to keep earnings growth rates elevated. Given that Nvidia is a relatively young company in a fast-growing industry, it has been able to increase revenues sharply to support higher valuation multiples.

However, Apple, a very mature company, cannot grow revenues at such a high rate. Such is simply because of the law of large numbers. I have included a 5-year annualized growth rate of revenues to illustrate the issue better.

That is where the Wall Street axiom “Trees don’t grow to the sky” comes from.  

In investing, it describes the danger of maturing companies with a high growth rate. In some cases, a company with an exponential growth rate will achieve a high valuation based on the unrealistic expectation that growth will continue at the same pace as the company becomes larger. For example, if a company has $10 billion in revenue and a 200% growth rate, it’s easy to think it will achieve 100s of billions in revenue within a few short years.

However, the larger a company becomes, the more difficult it becomes to achieve a high growth rate. For example, a firm with a 1% market share might quickly achieve 2%. However, when a firm has an 80% market share, doubling sales requires growing the market or entering new markets where it isn’t as strong. Firms also tend to become less efficient and innovative as they grow due to diseconomies of scale.

For this reason, many of today’s top market capitalization-weighted stocks may not be the same in a decade. Just as AT&T is a relic of yesterday’s “new technology,” such may be true with Apple a few years from now when no one needs a “smartphone” anymore.

Passive Investing’s Impact

Over the last two decades, the rise of passive investing has been another interesting change in the financial markets. As discussed previously, the top-10 “mega-capitalization” stocks in the S&P 500 index comprise more than 1/3rd of the index. In other words, a 1% gain in the top 10 stocks is the same as a 1% gain in the bottom 90%. As investors buy shares of a passive ETF, the ETF must purchase the shares of all the underlying companies. Given the massive inflows into ETFs over the last year and subsequent inflows into the top 10 stocks, the mirage of market stability is not surprising.

Unsurprisingly, the forced feeding of dollars into the largest weighted stocks makes market performance appear more robust than it is. That is also why the S&P 500 market-capitalization weighted index has outperformed the equal-weighted index over the last few years.

Investors often overlook this double-edged sword. For example, let’s assume that Tesla was 5% in the S&P 500 index before Nvidia entered the top 10. As Nivida’s rapid share price increased its market capitalization, Tesla’s was reduced as its stock price fell. Therefore, all index funds, passive fund managers, portfolio managers, etc., had to increase their weightings in Nvidia and reduce their ownership in Tesla.

In the future, whatever the next generation of companies garners Wall Street’s favor, the current leaders could fall out of the top 10 as the “passive” flows require additional selling of today’s leaders to buy more of tomorrow’s.

Share Buybacks

Lastly, corporate share buybacks, expected to approach $1 trillion and exceed that in 2024, could weigh on current leadership. That is because the largest companies with the cash to execute large multi-billion dollar programs, like Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Nvidia, dominate buybacks. For example, Apple alone will account for over 10% of 2024 buybacks.

If you don’t understand the importance of share buybacks in maintaining the largest companies’ current market dominance, here is some basic math.

• Pensions and MF = (-$2.7 Trillion)

• Households and Foreign = +$2.4 Trillion

  • Sub Total = (-$0.3 Trillion)

• Corporations (Buybacks) = $5.5 Trillion

  • Net Total = $5.2 Trillion

In other words, since 2000, corporations have provided 100% of all the net equity buying.

Therefore, it should be unsurprising that there is a high correlation between the ebbs and flows of corporate share buybacks and market performance.

Therefore, as long as corporations remain the top buyers of their shares, the current dominance of the “Mega-caps” will continue. Of course, there are reasons the current rate of corporate share repurchases will end.

• Changes to the tax code

• A ban on share repurchases (they were previously illegal due to their ability to manipulate markets)

• A reversal of profitability, making share repurchases onerous.

• Economic recession/credit event where corporations go on the defensive (i.e., 2000, 2008, 2022)

Whatever the reason, the eventual reversal of buyback programs could severely limit the current leader’s market dominance.

I have no clue what event causes such a reversal or when. However, a reversal could undo mega-cap dominance since corporate share buybacks have provided all the net equity buying for the largest stocks.

Conclusion

The current dominance of the largest “Mega-capitalization” companies is unsurprising. As noted, they make up the bulk of earnings growth and revenues of the S&P 500 index, the largest purchasers of their shares. These are also the same companies in the middle of the current “Artificial Intelligence” revolution, as has been the case for the last decade.

However, given the speed at which technology and the economy rapidly change, such suggests that leaders of the last decade may not be the leaders of the next.

As investors, it is vital to understand the dynamics of each market cycle and invest accordingly. However, those buying stocks today at some of the most extreme valuations we have seen over the last century and expecting those shares to dominate over the next decade could be disappointed.

Many variables support the current secular bull market cycle. However, as has been the case throughout history, a myopic approach to investing has led to poor outcomes.

Invest accordingly.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo took a swim in the Seine River on Wednesday this week in an effort to prove the “long-polluted” river was now clean enough to host swimming during this year’s Olympic Games.

Earlier this year the water showed unsafe levels of E. coli bacteria, AP reported. 

During her swim she was joined by swimmers from local clubs, Paris 2024 chief Tony Estanguet and the top government official for the Paris region, Marc Guillaume, the report says. 

Hidalgo said during the swim: “The Seine is exquisite. The water is very, very good. A little cool, but not so bad.’’

She called the day “a dream” and a “testimony that we have achieved a lot of work”. 

Estanguet added: “After twenty years of doing sports in the river, I find it admirable that we are trying to clean it up.”

In preparation for the Summer Games starting on July 26 with a grand open-air ceremony featuring an athletes’ parade on boats on the Seine, efforts are underway to highlight the river’s improved cleanliness.

As AP notes, swimming in the Seine has been banned for over a century and since 2015, organizers have invested $1.5 billion to prepare the river for the Olympics and ensure a cleaner Seine for Parisians post-Games.

This plan included building a massive underground water storage basin in central Paris, renovating sewer infrastructure, and upgrading wastewater treatment plants.

Originally planned for June, Hidalgo’s swim was delayed due to snap parliamentary elections. During that time, the hashtag “jechiedanslaSeine” (“I’m pooping in the Seine”) trended on social media as a protest against the Olympics.

Previous attempts to clean the Seine, including a pledge by former French president Jacques Chirac in 1988, were unsuccessful. Hidalgo followed French Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, who swam in the Seine on Saturday wearing a full-body suit.

Concerns about the Seine’s flow and pollution levels continue, leading to daily water quality tests by Eau de Paris. Early June tests showed unsafe E. coli levels, but recent results have improved.

The Seine will host several open-water swimming events during the Games, including marathon swimming and the swimming legs of the Olympic and Paralympic triathlons.

Readers have been well-informed about the collapse of the green energy bubble over the last several quarters, with solar, hydrogen, and wind stocks imploding. The primary driver of this downturn has been high inflation and elevated interest rates, which have decimated demand for solar and wind projects in the US and across Europe. The much-hyped green transition ushered in by the Biden administration is unraveling as quickly as Biden’s presidential election odds. 

The latest mess in the green space comes from a research note on Thursday supplied to clients by Roth MKM. Analyst Philip Shen cited a letter from SunPower to dealers that explained as of Sept. 17, it “will no longer be supporting new leases and PPA sales, nor new project installations.” 

The letter continued, “We continue to dedicate our attention to addressing our financial position and are actively working to navigate our current challenges.” 

Bloomberg said SunPower confirmed the letter in Shen’s. However, there are lingering questions about how long the suspension of installations will last. 

“They are essentially saying that they’re not able to continue operations,” said Pol Lezcano, an analyst with BloombergNEF.

JPMorgan Chase analyst Mark Strouse said the suspension will not be resolved quickly: “We do not believe this is a temporary halt, but rather an indefinite suspension of SPWR’s future dealings.” 

Bloomberg pointed out, “The notice comes after the company said in April it needs to restate almost two years of financial results. It also replaced its chief executive officer and chief operating officer, defaulted on a credit agreement in late 2023 after an earlier earnings revision, and is grappling with an installation slump in California — its home state and the country’s biggest solar market.” 

In markets, shares of SunPower crashed as much as 40% on Thursday, with shares tumbling 12% lower in premarket trading to around $1.33 a share. 

Over the last three years, iShares Global Clean Energy ETF (ICLN) has plunged 37%, while Goldman’s MAG7 index has surged 47%. 

In November, a Bloomberg MLIV Pulse survey of over 600 professional and retail investors revealed that more than half anticipate the downturn in green energy stocks will persist into 2024. Certainly, this has been the case, as there have been no notable analysts we follow calling for dip buying in solar, wind, and hydrogen stocks (yet).

Earlier this year, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Sheldon Whitehouse, both climate alarmist Democrats, penned a letter to Fed Chair Jerome Powell requesting an immediate halt to the interest rate hiking cycle to avert further collapse of the renewable infrastructure space. 

In the letter, first obtained by Bloomberg in mid-March, Warren and Whitehouse warned that interest rate hikes have “completely tanked major renewable infrastructure projects across the country.” Or perhaps, ‘tanked’ their stock accounts… 

Powell’s interest rate hikes have derailed the Democrats’ dream of renewable power to save the planet. Even JPMorgan has acknowledged this, calling for a “reality check.”

Much of the solar and wind is unreliable and unstable for supplying power to AI data centers, and that’s why we’ve informed readers in recent years, as well as several months ago in the ‘powering up America’ theme, that nuclear is the best bet for clean, reliable energy to power the rapid electrification of the economy.