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Europe’s first cold spell of the heating season has arrived, pressuring power prices higher as freezing temperatures ushers in increased power demand to heat building structures across the central-west region. 

German day-ahead power prices jumped to the second-highest level ever, 273.89 euros per megawatt-hour. Day-ahead power prices are also higher in France and Netherlands. 

The Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), the German Meteorological Service, released a weather note on Tuesday warning of frigid and snowy weather. 

“Right on time for the first weekend in Advent and shortly before the start of the meteorological winter on Dec. 1, there is the first significant snow in Germany, at least in the middle and higher altitudes,” DWD said. 

Eine #Wetterumstellung zum Ende der Woche sorgt für einen #winterlichen ersten #Advent. Welche Regionen betroffen sein werden, können Sie hier nachlasen: https://t.co/V45WKAnTmp. /V pic.twitter.com/4mHt9JsRKA

— DWD (@DWD_presse) November 23, 2021

Weather models for Germany show between Nov. 24 – Dec. 4. — the average temperature will hover well below the 30-year norm or around 30-35 degrees. Low temps will dip into the mid 20 degrees Fahrenheit. 

The cold blast has boosted the heating degree day forecast well above the 30-year norm through Dec. 4. This means power demand will surge as people turn up their thermostats. 

The cold snap will test Germany and the other parts of Europe’s energy systems already under stress due to the lowest natural gas stockpiles since 2013. There appears to be no relief in dwindling gas flows into the continent as German energy regulators decided to suspend the Nord Stream 2 pipeline certification process last week. With every hiccup the Russian to German pipeline faces, natural gas prices increase, forcing power prices higher. There’s also the issue that more power generation has to be diverted from alternative energy sources to fossil fuels due to unreliability: 

“Wind generation and temperatures below the seasonal norm are increasing gas-for-power and heating demand; this provides bullish pressure to day-ahead contract,” Inspired Energy said in a report.

Europe is staring into a perfect storm of forces that could spark a winter of discontent and continue socio-economic chaos on the continent. EU politicians won’t publicly say, but they need Putin’s gas to avert an energy crisis this coming winter that could sweep many politicians out of power due to uncontrollable energy inflation. 

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

Most traders have a tendency to pay little attention to the market, put themselves on autopilot and hope for the best heading from Thanksgiving into the end of the year. This year, I’m getting a feeling that this strategy might not work well for what could be looming in December.

The short-lived rally yesterday on news of Jerome Powell being re-nominated as Fed Chair was a nice reminder that the market doesn’t like surprises, changes, or volatility of any kind. After all, the market rallied on the selection of the “hawkish” choice, between Powell and Lael Brainerd.

While Brainerd was widely seen as the more dovish of the two potential Fed chairs, the market still celebrated the fact that there would be no change at the position by rallying early in the session, as soon as the news broke, yesterday. Then, reality kicked in and the market swung sharply lower during mid-day session, before doing the same at the cash close.

All three indexes finished the day far off their highs. Tech stocks got the worst of it, with the Nasdaq Composite dropping more than 1%.

I have already detailed several reasons why I believe the NASDAQ could be on the verge of a collapse without warning here: Why We Could Be Staring Down The Barrel of A Catastrophic NASDAQ Crash And Not Even Know It

Now, I want to add to those reasons.

I got this feeling yesterday, while it was taking place, that the sharp intraday reversal needed to be paid attention to.

The signs that I think do not bode well for the market heading into the holidays are:

1. The market’s realization that a taper is now definitely on its way.

2. A rotation from shitty tech names into value.

The Taper Is Definitely On Its Way

The jitters yesterday, in my opinion, were catalyzed by the realization that even though there will be no change at the Fed chair position, Jerome Powell is going to try to see through his plan of tapering and, upon re-nomination, has very little holding him back from going rogue. By that I mean there will be little stopping Powell from taking extraordinary measures to try to curb inflation if he wants and/or needs to.

This man is officially in the driver’s seat now:

“Why worry about the taper,” you’ll ask. “It’ll never last!”

You might be right – but that isn’t going to change the market’s expectation of it working over the next couple months.

I’ll be the first person to joke that continued QE isn’t going to work. Me and my kind often argue that any taper will be short-lived before it stirs up market volatility and elected officials eventually give in and resort back to more quantitative easing. However, this won’t matter in the short term. That next leg up for the market from another round of insane stimulus is a long, long, long while away. Hell, look at how far we have come since just March of 2020.

Reality is going to have to rear its head at some point.

Whether we follow through or not, with Powell at the helm we now have to at least attempt the taper, which I believe is going to wind up moving the market lower over the next couple of months.

I’m often one of the first people to joke about how nonsensical the idea of a Santa Claus rally is, but it puts the idea of a rising market over the holidays into everybody’s head, every year. Obviously, it’s just made up bullshit-lingo used to provide an excuse for people to buy overvalued money losing crap in the market, but it seems like a good year to remind market participants that a rally doesn’t always have to happen.

For example, remember in 2018 when Steve Mnuchin had to “call the banks” after the market slid heading into Christmas Eve?

I think we could be on the precipice of repeating that type of holiday plunge. In other words, Santa Claus may not be around for the rally this year. Instead, he might drink too much bourbon and pass out drunk on the pool table at his local watering hole.

Jerome Powell has been under pressure – and will continue to be under pressure – during his second term the likes of which he hasn’t seen yet. Not only will he face angry politicians from the right who want to drum up fear about a very real inflation problem, he’s going to have to face sharp criticism from those on the left that wanted him out of his position for not being dovish enough. Either way, I think he commits to try and stick the landing on the taper, which could result in some serious shit for equity markets.

Finally, while I am talking about a potential pullback in anticipation of the taper, I am also expecting a pullback once the taper begins. There’s no doubt about it: tapering crashes markets. It has pretty much always happened and there’s no reason not to expect it won’t happen going forward, especially as we reside in the biggest bubble in market history.

Tech Selling Off Suggests A Rotation From Growth To Value

Another thing I noticed in yesterday’s trading was that several of my value stocks were rising while the overall market seemed to be plunging. I saw green in names like Lockheed Martin, Disney, Walmart and Johnson and Johnson, while the tech index sold off hard.

To me, this looks like the rotation from growth to value that I have been talking about over the last couple weeks could finally be getting started.

Further evidencing a potential rotation was a move out of non-profitable tech companies yesterday, as my kind friends at Zerohedge pointed out late in the day yesterday.

Finally, everyone’s favorite collection of dogshit-placed-into-a-paper-bag-and-lit-on-fire-then-called-an-ETF (AKA the Ark “Innovation Fund”), has also experienced a tough last week, plunging 7.76% in just 5 trading days.

Make no mistake about it, a “rotation” into Dow components and profitable companies from tech garbage would catalyze a sharp move lower for the overall markets. Most of the leverage, unsophisticated investors and super-speculative (read: fraud and bilge) companies in the market reside in tech. There are still huge bubbles in meme favorites like AMC and GMC, among others, that need to have the air let out of them. Crypto remains a multi-trillion dollar air pocket. If the market decides to start valuing 15x PE names like Lockheed Martin – as I suggested it might, days ago – in favor of buying AMC at a $30 billion market cap while the CEO dumps all of his holdings , look out below.

And so what’s the moral of the story today?

The rotation trade from growth to value could very much be on and we may experience a market that decides to pull back with some significance now that the smoke has cleared and everyone realizes Jerome Powell – at least for now – is a guaranteed attempt at a taper.

—

Read more from QTR:

1. Covid Is Over (If You Want It)

2. Two Reasons The Market Could Collapse Heading Into The Holidays

3. When The Global Monetary Reset Happens, Don’t Forget Who To Blame

4. Pride Goeth Before The Bitcoin Fall

This was a free preview of paid content from QTR’s Fringe Finance. Zerohedge readers always get 10% off a subscription to my blog for life by using this link.

DISCLAIMER: I am long JNJ, DIS, LMT, WMT and short ARKK, IWM, SPY. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. 

The rise in counterfeit vaccine certificates has enranged one Russian lawmaker who proposed that anyone who buys or sells certificates be executed by firing squad. He even said he would pull the trigger himself. 

Vladimir Sidorov, a Russian lawmaker from the ruling United Russia party serving in the region of Duma in Ryazan, told fellow legislators on Tuesday the need for harsher punishments for people who buy and sell the documents illegally. “It is necessary to shoot them,” he shouted.

Sidorov said he “would participate in the shootings.” “Be sure to do it! You and I have no other choice,” he urged fellow lawmakers. 

The emotionally charged lawmaker immediately walked back his speech after it went viral on social media and sparked criticism among netizens. He said he was emotionally overwhelmed during his rant after the loss of his wife to COVID. He did emphasize that anyone who buys or sells fake vaccination certificates should face “tough punishment.” He added that “no one likes restrictions, but vaccination is the key to surviving a pandemic.”

As Russians flock to the black market for fake vaccine certificates, provincial lawmaker Vladimir Sidorov offers a solution: Shoot them all.

“I’d join the firing squad myself,” he says, apparently not joking. Obviously the United Russia member never did anything to skirt rules. pic.twitter.com/4CyYvMPzpw

— Matthew Luxmoore (@mjluxmoore) November 24, 2021

Shindorov’s call for harsher punishments coincided with the Russian Ministry of Health’s proposal to slap anyone who sells fake vaccination cards with fines up to $67,150. The severity of the penalty depends on if the person acted alone or as part of an organized crime gang. 

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova announced plans earlier this month to make QR codes on smartphones a form of health passport for entry into restaurants and retail shops across the country to combat counterfeit vaccines certificates. 

Russia is battling the fourth wave of the virus pandemic as the death toll continues to climb to near all-time highs, but the number of new infections has waned. The surge in deaths comes amid low vaccination rates. 

Governments worldwide are cracking down on fake COVID certificates. No politician (besides one in Russia) has dared to mention they would execute someone for selling fake vaxx cards but rather slap them with hefty fines. 

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

Since the very beginning of the covid panic, the narrative has been this: implement severe lockdowns or your population will experience a bloodbath.

Morgues will be overwhelmed, the death total toll will be astounding. On the other hand, we were assured those jurisdictions that do lock down would see only a fraction of the death toll.

Then, once vaccines became available, the narrative was modified to:

“Get shots in arms and then covid will stop spreading. Those countries without vaccines, on the other hand, will continue to face mass casualties.”

The lockdown narrative, of course, has already been thoroughly overturned.

Jurisdictions that did not lock down or adopted only weak and short lockdowns ended up with covid death tolls that were either similar to—or even better than—death tolls in countries that adopted draconian lockdowns. Lockdown advocates said locked-down countries would be overwhelmingly better off. These people were clearly wrong. 

Undaunted by the increasing implausibility of the lockdown narrative, the global health bureaucrats are nonetheless doubling down on forced vaccines—as we now see in Austria—and we continue to be assured that only countries with high vaccination rates can hope to avoid disastrous covid outcomes. 

Yet, the experience in sub-Saharan Africa calls both these narratives into question: Africa’s numbers have been far, far lower than the experts warned would be the case. 

For example, the AP reported this week that in spite of low vaccination rates, Africa has fared better than most of the world:

[T]here is something “mysterious” going on in Africa that is puzzling scientists, said Wafaa El-Sadr, chair of global health at Columbia University.

“Africa doesn’t have the vaccines and the resources to fight COVID-19 that they have in Europe and the U.S., but somehow they seem to be doing better,” she said….

Fewer than 6% of people in Africa are vaccinated. For months, the WHO has described Africa as “one of the least affected regions in the world” in its weekly pandemic reports.

Yet disaster for Africa has long been predicted for several reasons even beyond the availability of vaccines. For instance, it is known that lockdowns are especially impractical in the poorest parts of the world. This is because populations in places with undeveloped economies can’t simply sit at home and live off savings or debt. Rather, these people must go out into the world and earn a living on a day-to-day basis. Starvation is the alternative. Moreover, much of this work is done in the informal economy, so enforcing lockdowns becomes especially difficult.

Source: Our World in Data (Confirmed Deaths per Million, November 19, 2021;  Share of People Vaccinated against Covid-19, November 19, 2021).

It was also assumed covid would be especially deadly in Africa due to the fact many large households live in small housing units.

But that “conventional wisdom” flies in the face of the reality of covid in Africa, which is that there have been fewer deaths.

The “experts” have groped around, looking for possible explanations.

Some sources, for example, insist that the low death totals are only an artifact of incomplete reporting on covid infections and that “a lack of good qualitative data was the issue.”

But Richard Wamai at Northeastern University rejects the claim it’s all about case reporting, and says that “local systems for reporting deaths in Africa make it difficult to hide COVID-19 casualties.” In a paper for the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Wamai and his coauthors conclude, “[T]here is no evidence that COVID-19 mortality data is less accurately reported in Africa than elsewhere” and “While the true picture of infections and mortality in the continent has yet to fully emerge, the quality of data for other diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, indicates that Africa has the capacity to collect and report valid disease surveillance data.”

In any case, the World Health Organization reports that covid deaths in Africa make up only 2.9 percent of covid deaths, while Africa’s population is 16 percent of the global total. Africa’s covid total could double or triple, and Africa would still be faring far better than Europe and the Americas.

Wamai et al. also note that at this point “[i]t is likely that SARS-CoV-2 has already been widely disseminated through Africa…. If so, widespread infection is likely to also result in widespread natural immunity.”

In other words, continued claims by health officials—both in Africa and elsewhere—that mass death is right around the corner with the “next wave” look increasingly implausible. 

It looks increasingly likely that the lack of covid mortality in Africa is not due to a data issue nor a situation in which covid has been “contained” up until now. So then why is Africa doing so much better than the wealthy West?

Naturally, the advocates of forced lockdowns and coerced vaccines would prefer to ignore this issue altogether, but the undeniable reality of Africa’s experience has forced mainstream researchers to publicly admit the many ways that many factors can explain covid’s prevalence beyond vaccination rates and mask mandates.

For instance, mentioning that obesity is an important factor in covid mortality has in the past been likely to get one savaged in the media for “fat shaming.” Yet the Africa situation has forced the well informed to admit that yes, obese populations clearly suffer more from covid. In Africa, not surprisingly, we find that obesity rates are far below those found in North America and Europe.

Other possible explanations forwarded as reasons for Africa’s situation include past exposure to other coronaviruses, youthful populations, fewer patients lacking zinc and vitamin D, past use of the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccination, climate, genetic background, and parasite load. 

In addressing the African “enigma” one group of researchers in the journal Colombia medica dared even suggest it’s possible—although not conclusively shown at this point—that “a mass public health preventive campaign against COVID-19 may have taken place, inadvertently, in some African countries with massive community ivermectin use.”

Source: “Global Obesity Levels,” ProCon.org, last modified March 27, 2020; Our World in Data (Share of People Vaccinated against Covid-19, November 19, 2021).

In the West, however, the media drumbeat around covid has consistently been “Shut up, stay home, get jabbed, and stop doubting the experts on forced vaccines.” Fortunately, however, the African situation has forced many researchers to ask inconvenient questions.

In fact, it’s amazing Africa has not been overcome by mass death considering that covid lockdowns and covid “mitigation” measures have contributed to the impoverishment and mass starvation on the continent. Or as Germany’s DW News puts it, “Measures put in place to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus are pushing millions of people in Africa into severe hunger.” And as Wamai notes, “[S]ome of the excess deaths in Africa “can be attributed not to the disease, but to lockdown measures that cut off access to medical care for other illnesses.”

But Africa hasn’t gotten the bloodbath that was promised, and as one Nigerian put it, “They said there will be dead bodies on the streets and all that, but nothing like that happened.”

Billionaire author JK Rowling has slammed transgender activists after a comedian, an actor, and a drag queen doxxed her home in Edinburgh, Scotland on the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Rowling has come under fire for her mainstream views on transgenderism, including a June 2020 joke that “‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”

‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?

Opinion: Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate https://t.co/cVpZxG7gaA

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 6, 2020

The author caused further seething after tweeting: “If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.”

The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women – ie, to male violence – ‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences – is a nonsense.

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 6, 2020

I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so.

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 6, 2020

Rowling’s opinions have made her a bitter enemy of the transgender community, and says she’s received “so many death threats I could paper the house with them.”

She laid out the current situation in a Monday Twitter thread:

I want to say a massive thank you to everybody who reported the image to @TwitterSupport. Your kindness and decency made all the difference to my family and me. I’d also like to thank @PoliceScotland for their support and assistance in this matter. 2/8

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) November 22, 2021

More via Twitter: 

I implore those people who retweeted the image with the address still visible, even if they did so in condemnation of these people’s actions, to delete it. Over the last few years I’ve watched, appalled, as women like Allison Bailey, Raquel Sanchez, Marion Miller, Rosie Duffield, Joanna Cherry, Julie Bindel, Rosa Freedman, Kathleen Stock and many, many others, including women who have no public profile but who’ve contacted me to relate their experiences, have been subject to campaigns of intimidation which range from being hounded on social media, the targeting of their employers, all the way up to doxing and direct threats of violence, including rape.

None of these women are protected in the way I am. They and their families have been put into a state of fear and distress for no other reason than that they refuse to uncritically accept that the socio-political concept of gender identity should replace that of sex.

I have to assume that @IAmGeorgiaFrost, @hollywstars and @Richard_Energy_ thought doxxing me would intimidate me out of speaking up for women’s sex-based rights. They should have reflected on the fact that I’ve now received so many death threats I could paper the house with them, and I haven’t stopped speaking out. Perhaps – and I’m just throwing this out there – the best way to prove your movement isn’t a threat to women, is to stop stalking, harassing and threatening us.

Rowling’s opinions have also resulted in backlash from Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, who owes his career to her – saying in an essay that “transgender women are women.”

“Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations, who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I,” he wrote.