Month: January 2022

Given the tough last week for the markets, which saw the Nasdaq 100 do something it hasn’t done since the aftermath of the internet bubble, when it fell more than 1% in every session of a week, this week brings a fascinating double header. Not only do we have the FOMC on Wednesday but we have some notable tech earnings in the form of Apple (Thursday), Tesla (Wednesday) and Microsoft (Tuesday). As DB’s Jim Reid notes, “plenty of scope for market moving info.”

Digging into this week’s details, we’ll get a first look at how the global economy has fared into the new year (and with Omicron) with the release of the January flash PMIs today. Japan’s Jibun Bank manufacturing PMI edged up to +54.6 overnight, the highest in at least three years from +54.3 in December. However, the survey also showed that the nation’s service sector activity contracted in January for the first time in four months, from +46.6 versus +52.1 in December, as Omicron hit. Returning to the week ahead we’ll also look back a bit with the Q4 GDP releases from the US (Thursday), France and Germany (both Friday) as well. Keep an eye out for the initial jobless claims from the US as well, since they’ve deteriorated in recent weeks and that’s one of the most timely indicators we get on the state of the labour market there. The weakness is likely Omicron related and given its on the retreat again this may be temporary. There’ll also be plenty of political developments to look out for as well, including the Italian Presidential election. Geopolitics doesn’t always impact markets even if they feel very tense and fraught. However the current Russia/Ukraine situation does seem to be adding to the risk off at the moment and merits close attention.

As discussed at the top, the main market highlight this week will be the Federal Reserve’s first monetary policy decision of the year on Wednesday, along with Fed Chair Powell’s subsequent press conference. According to our economists, this January meeting is set to be the last before they kick off that hiking cycle, with lift-off set to commence in March as part of the first of 4 hikes this year. However, they’ve also argued (link here) that there’s a tail risk of an even bigger hawkish surprise over the months ahead, with the possibility that the Fed raises rates in March and then goes onto raise rates 6 or 7 times this year. So maybe the calm before the storm. Also watch out to see if the committee want to outline more of their current QT plans. The Q&A could be a popcorn moment for the markets with plenty of questions likely on inflation, the Fed’s hiking path, financial conditions and QT amongst other things.

On the earnings side, the season really ramps up this week, with a number of US Tech companies reporting in particular. In total, we’ve got 106 companies in the S&P 500, along with a further 46 in the STOXX 600 so there’s plenty to look out for. Among the highlights are IBM today. Then tomorrow we’ll hear from Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon Communications, NextEra Energy, Texas Instruments, American Express, General Electric and Moderna. On Wednesday, releases will include Tesla, Abbott Laboratories, Intel, AT&T and Boeing. Thursday then sees reports from Apple, Visa, LVMH, Mastercard, Comcast, Danaher, McDonald’s, SAP, UniCredit and Samsung Electronics. Finally on Friday, we’ll hear from Chevron and Caterpillar.

Turning to the political scene, there are a number of events expected this week. First, there’s the Italian Presidential election, with the Italian parliament and regional delegates set to start voting today. If a president is not elected in the first round of voting, another vote will take place tomorrow, with a vote normally taking place each day until a President has been selected. Since the approval of the Constitution in 1948, it’s taken 9 votes on average over 6 days to elect the President. In the first three rounds, a two-thirds majority is required, but from the fourth round only an absolute majority is needed.

Otherwise, there’ll be a lot of attention on the UK this week, where it’s expected that the long-awaited report by the civil servant Sue Gray will be released looking at allegations of parties having taken place in Downing Street during the pandemic. There isn’t a confirmed date for this yet, but it’s expected to arrive some time this week. Against this backdrop, there has been growing speculation that a vote of no confidence could be called in Prime Minister Johnson’s leadership of the Conservative Party, which will take place if 15% of Conservative MPs submit a letter of no confidence. Some Conservative MPs have already said publicly that they have submitted a letter, and if a vote then took place, it would be a secret ballot among Conservative MPs where a simple majority would then be required to remove Johnson as leader. Brexit will also remain in the headlines, as EU Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič will be meeting again with UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Monday regarding the Northern Ireland Protocol. Finally in the UK, there’ll be a further easing of Covid-19 restrictions in England, as from Thursday there will be an end to the requirement for Covid passes at large events, and face coverings will no longer be legally required in any setting.

Elsewhere tomorrow, the IMF will be releasing their latest forecasts for economic growth around the world, with their World Economic Outlook update. These normally generate a few headlines.

Courtesy of DB, here is a day-by-day calendar of events

Monday January 24

• Data: January flash manufacturing, services and composite PMIs from Japan, France, Germany, Euro Area, UK and US, US December Chicago Fed national activity index
• Earnings: IBM

Tuesday January 25

• Data: Germany January Ifo business climate indicator, US November FHFA house price index, January Conference Board consumer confidence, Richmond Fed manufacturing index
• Central Banks: Bank of Japan release Summary of Opinions from January meeting (23:50 UK time)
• Earnings: Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon Communications, NextEra Energy, Texas Instruments, American Express, General Electric, Moderna
• Other: IMF release World Economic Outlook Update

Wednesday January 26

• Data: US preliminary December wholesale inventories
• Central Banks: Monetary policy decisions from the Federal Reserve and Bank of Canada
• Earnings: Tesla, Abbott Laboratories, Intel, AT&T, Boeing

Thursday January 27

• Data: China December industrial profits, Germany February GfK consumer confidence, US weekly initial jobless claims, preliminary December durable goods orders, core capital goods orders, Q4 GDP, December pending home sales, January Kansas City Fed manufacturing activity
• Central Banks: Monetary policy decision form the South African Reserve Bank, ECB’s Scicluna speaks
• Earnings: Apple, Visa, LVMH, Mastercard, Comcast, Danaher, McDonald’s, SAP, UniCredit, Samsung Electronics

Friday January 28

• Data: France preliminary Q4 GDP, December PPI, Germany preliminary Q4 GDP, Euro Area December M3 money supply, final January consumer confidence, Italy January consumer confidence, US December personal income, personal spending, final January University of Michigan consumer sentiment index
• Earnings: Chevron, Caterpillar

* * *

Finally, looking at just the US, Goldman writes that the key economic data releases this week are the Q4 GDP release, durable goods report, and jobless claims on Thursday, as well as the core PCE inflation report and employment cost index release on Friday. The January FOMC meeting is this week, with the release of the statement at 2:00 PM ET on Wednesday, followed by Chair Powell’s press conference at 2:30 PM. There are no other scheduled speaking engagements by Fed officials this week.

Monday, January 24

• 09:45 AM Markit Flash US manufacturing PMI, January preliminary (Bloomberg consensus 56.7, last 57.7)
• Markit Flash US services PMI, January preliminary (consensus 54.8, last 57.6)

Tuesday, January 25

• 09:00 AM FHFA house price index, November (consensus 1.1%, last 1.1%)
• 09:00 AM S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index, November (GS +0.9%, consensus +0.97%, last +0.92%); We estimate the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index rose by 0.9% in November, following a 0.92% increase in October.
• 10:00 AM Conference Board consumer confidence, January (GS 112.5, consensus 111.8, last 115.8); We estimate that the Conference Board consumer confidence index decreased by 3.3pt to 112.5 in January, reflecting negative signals from other confidence measures.
• 10:00 AM Richmond Fed manufacturing index, January (consensus 14, last 16)

Wednesday, January 26

• 08:30 AM Advance goods trade balance, December (GS -$96.0bn, consensus -$96.0bn, last -$98.0bn): We estimate that the goods trade deficit decreased by $2.0bn to $96.0 in December compared to the final November report, reflecting an increase in imports.
• 08:30 AM Wholesale inventories, December preliminary (consensus 1.4%, last 1.4%): Retail inventories, December (consensus 1.5%, last 2.0%)
• 10:00 AM New home sales, December (GS +2.0%, consensus +2.8%, last +12.4%): We estimate that new home sales increased by 2.0% in December, reflecting softer housing permits, starts, and mortgage applications relative to November.
• 02:00 PM FOMC statement, January 25-26 meeting: As discussed in our FOMC preview, we expect that the FOMC will use this meeting to hint at a March liftoff and begin formulating a plan for balance sheet reduction. We expect the FOMC to raise interest rates four times this year starting in March and to announce the start of balance sheet reduction in July.

Thursday, January 27

• 08:30 AM Initial jobless claims, week ended January 22 (GS 295k, consensus 260k, last 286k); Continuing jobless claims, week ended January 15 (consensus 1,650k, last 1,635k): We estimate initial jobless claims increased to 295k in the week ended January 22.
• 08:30 AM GDP, Q4 advance (GS +6.5%, consensus, +5.3%, last +2.3%); Personal consumption, Q4 advance (GS +3.2%, consensus +2.9%, last +2.0%): We estimate GDP growth picked up to +6½% annualized in the advance reading for Q4, following +2.3% in Q3. Our forecast reflects firming consumption growth (to +3.2%), with Omicron reducing activity only very late in the quarter. We expect lackluster growth in business structures and equipment investment—but expect a strong gain in the intellectual property category (+7%). We estimate a boost to GDP growth from inventories (+3.2pp qoq ar) but a drag from net trade (-1.4pp).
• 08:30 AM Durable goods orders, December preliminary (GS -1.0%, consensus -0.5%, last +2.6%); Durables goods orders ex-transportation, December preliminary (GS +0.4%, consensus +0.3%, last +0.9%); Core capital goods orders, December preliminary (GS +0.4%, consensus +0.3%, last flat); Core capital goods shipments, December preliminary (GS +0.5%, consensus +0.4%, last +0.3%): We estimate durable goods retrenched 1.0% in the preliminary December report, reflecting a pullback in commercial aircraft and defense orders. We expect firm gains in core capital goods orders (+0.4%) and core capital goods shipments (+0.5%), reflecting strong goods demand and higher prices.
• 10:00 AM Pending home sales, December (GS -1.5%, consensus +0.5%, last -2.2%): We estimate that pending home sales decreased by 1.5% in December. Existing home sales are an input into the brokers’ commissions component of residential investment in the GDP report.
• 11:00 AM Kansas City Fed manufacturing index, January (consensus 19, last 24)

Friday, January 28

• 08:30 AM Employment cost index, Q4 (GS +1.1%, consensus +1.2%, prior +1.3%): We estimate that the employment cost index rose 1.1% in Q4 (qoq sa), which would boost the year-on-year rate by four tenths to +4.1%. Labor shortages continued to exert upward pressure on wage growth in the fourth quarter, though we expect a sequentially slower pace of ECI benefit growth after a jump in Q3.
• 08:30 AM Personal income, December (GS +0.6%, consensus +0.5%, last +0.4%); Personal spending, December (GS -0.7%, consensus -0.6%, last +0.6%); PCE price index, December (GS +0.37%, consensus +0.4%, last +0.61%); Core PCE price index, December (GS +0.40%, consensus +0.5%, last +0.46%); PCE price index (yoy), December (GS +5.72%, consensus +5.8%, last +5.73%); Core PCE price index (yoy), December (GS +4.77%, consensus +4.8%, last +4.68%): Based on details in the PPI, CPI, and import price reports, we forecast that the core PCE price index rose by 0.40% month-over-month in December, corresponding to a 4.77% increase from a year earlier. Additionally, we expect that the headline PCE price index increased by 0.37% in December, corresponding to a +5.72% increase from a year earlier. We expect that personal income increased by 0.6% and personal spending decreased by 0.7% In December.
• 10:00 AM University of Michigan consumer sentiment, January final (GS 70.0, consensus 68.8, last 68.8): We expect the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index increased by 0.2pt to 70.0 in the final January reading.

Source: Deutsche Bank, Goldman, BofA.

Peloton Interactive, Inc. stock has been mired by bad luck lately, but shares were on the rebound, gaining as much as 3.5% premarket following a report that an activist investor wants the exercise-equipment maker (known for slapping an iPad on a stationary bike and charging thousands of dollars) to fire the chief executive officer and explore a sale. 

Blackwells Capital LLC sent a letter Monday to the company’s board to fire CEO John Foley and “put the company up for sale.” 

The investment firm has less than a 5% stake in Peloton and believes the company is an attractive acquisition target for big tech. 

“Undoubtedly, Peloton and its customer base would be extremely attractive to any number of technology, streaming, metaverse and sportswear companies (e.g. Apple, Disney, Sony, Nike), who could extend their presence in the home, in health and wellness and on the screen through Peloton. Given the mess that Peloton has become as an independent company, we are convinced that one or more of these strategic acquirors could provide significantly more value, with substantially less risk, than Peloton is likely to generate for its shareholders on its own,” the letter said. 

The letter comes as Peloton shares have crashed more than 80% from their highs. It was once a pandemic darling as people canceled their gym members and ordered bikes and treadmills during the early days of the pandemic. Now the stock trades well below its September 2019 IPO price of $29 as people return to the gym. 

“With the stock now trading below the IPO price, and down more than 80% from its high, it is clear that the Company, the executives and the Board have squandered this opportunity,” the letter continued. 

Earlier last week, Peloton said it would begin charging customers hundreds of dollars in fees for delivery and setup (something it has never done before). Later in the week, CNBC reported that it was temporarily halting production of its products because of declining demand. Foley released a letter after the report, calling it “incomplete, out of context, and not reflective of Peloton’s strategy.”

Blackwells warned the company “is on worse footing today than it was prior to the pandemic, with high fixed costs, excessive inventory, a listless strategy, dispirited employees and thousands of disgruntled shareholders.” 

Meanwhile, Peloton bikes have been viewed unfavorably in two television shows, the first on “Sex And The City” in December and hedge-fund drama “Billions” on Friday. In both shows, the main characters suffered heart attacks during or after workouts on the bike. 

Peloton tweeted Sunday, “we did *not* agree for our brand or IP to be used on Billions or provide any equipment.” 

What happens to Peloton here remains a mystery as it has fallen into hard times as pandemic demand growth has plunged. We noted that the company could engineer a short squeeze by releasing headlines about diving into the metaverse with VR cycling rides. Or perhaps, as we find out today, shareholders are attempting to squeeze prices higher by pushing the company to change management and push for a sale. 

US Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is holding a panel discussion, COVID 19: A Second Opinion, this morning.

The invited speakers – a star-studded group of world renowned doctors and medical experts – will provide a different perspective on the global pandemic response, the current state of knowledge of early and hospital treatment, vaccine efficacy and safety, what went right, what went wrong, what should be done now, and what needs to be addressed long term.

Medical experts and doctors

Four Pillars of Pandemic Response

• Dr. Peter McCullough

Pillar 1: Limit the spread

• Dr. Bret Weinstein
• Dr. Jay Bhattacharya

Pillar 2: Early at Home Treatment

• Dr. Ryan Cole
• Dr. Harvey Risch
• Dr. George Fareed
• Dr. Pierre Kory
• Dr. Richard Urso

Pillar 3: Hospital Treatment

• Dr. Paul Marik
• Dr. Aaron Kheriaty 

Pillar 4: Vaccines

• Dr. Robert Malone
• Dr. David Wiseman

Watch the hearing live here (9amET-12pmET):

Taiwan’s airspace was once again buzzing with activity this weekend as Beijing decided to add to the general feeling of worsening geopolitical tension by staging the largest incursion into the rogue island’s airspace since October.

Sunday’s incursion included 39 warplanes, mostly advanced fighter jets, the largest number in a single day since China dispatched 56 bombers and fighters and spay planes into the ADIZ on Oct. 4.

And it happened amid reports (and complaints from the Taiwanese) about an expansion in the PLA-Navy’s presence in the Pacific. Apparently, their naval perimeter has expanded even further toward southern Japan and eastern Taiwan.

According to the FT, for at least six months, the Chinese have rotated destroyers and other warships and transport ships through the waters east and south of the southermost tip of the Ryuku chain (which are referred to as the Nansei islands by Tokyo). The FT cited officials from “Taiwan, Japan and the US” in its report.

One US defense official who spoke to the FT said that the increase in the PLA’s waterborne presence between the Nansei and Taiwan has happened mostly over the past year. He said it now had a consistent presence of one warship in the area that was often accompanied by a second warship.

Beijing views the ability to operate freely in the waters as key to its naval strength. Military analysts see the western Pacific as the main location for a potential clash between the US and China if Beijing attacked Taiwan.

Both Taiwanese and Japanese defense analysts insisted that the PLA’s movements make one thing clear: China is planning for a potential future war over Taiwan as President Xi prepares to make his dreams of Chinese “reunification” a reality perhaps before the end of his current five-year term.

And it wants to make sure that when it decides to invade the island, that it has a large enough buffer in the Pacific to stop any foreign interference, which probably isn’t a terrible idea given America’s treaty obligation to intervene in such circumstances.

As another analyst pointed out, a few years ago, reports about Beijing’s aggressive naval posture in the Pacific focused on the Senkaku islands in the East China Sea, once the most strategically-contested piece of barren rock in the Pacific. Now that Beijing has transformed Senkaku into what Steve Bannon once described as a “immovable aircraft carriers”.

“In the past, one narrow interpretation of Chinese naval movements in this area was that they were mainly a concern regarding the Senkaku,” said one person briefed on talks between the US and Japan, referring to the islands China also claims and calls Diaoyu. “But it is becoming much clearer that the risk is to the Nansei Islands and to Taiwan.”

The expansion on the part of the Chinese has reportedly already gotten the US and Japan talking about preparing a force of US marines armed with “advanced mobile rocket launchers” to counter any further expansion by Beijing – using force, if necessary.

As Taiwan continues to prepare for what seems like an increasingly inevitable Chinese invasion, one senior defense official told the FT that they had worked out an efficient strategy of “battlespace management”.

The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System would put Chinese ships operating near the Nansei islands at risk. “This plan is one of several components of our discussions around joint operational planning for such a contingency,” said another person briefed on the matter. “Chinese forces would want a quick, decisive victory,” said a former senior Taiwanese military official. “For that they need to destroy our fighters and warships in the east which we would evacuate there.”

Taiwan’s war plans envision sailing its fleet to the western Pacific once it expects a Chinese attack, which was traditionally believed would come from the west.

They include sheltering fighter aircraft in tunnels in a mountain range at a base in Hualien on the remote east coast. “We talk a lot about the PLA’s activity to the south-west and increasingly to the south-east of Taiwan. But what they are really doing is practising battle-space management in our eastern waters,” said Hsu Yen-chi, a researcher at the Council on Strategic and Wargaming Studies in Taipei.

In November, while a Taiwanese minister participated in the US-hosted virtual democracy summit, Taiwan spotted two Type 071 amphibious transport docks between its east coast and Yonaguni, the westernmost Japanese island, which is just 150km away. Such warships can carry troops, helicopters and beach landing craft — the kind of equipment likely to be used in an attack on Hualien air base

Although whether this would be enough to fight off the Chinese, of course, remains to be seen. Given the obvious disparity in size and equipment (the second of which the US has done its best to help Taiwan bridge), there’s reason for the Taiwanese to be concerned.

In what might be some foreshadowing, market strategists blamed selling in Europe and in the US premarket on the increasingly tense geopolitical tone, blaming most of this on the situation in Ukraine (although the latest headlines out of China were cited by some as contributing to the dour mood for risk).

Authored by Bill Blain via MorningPorridge.com,

“The more you explain it, the more I don’t understand it.”

Tech stocks have taken a thumping this year – a well-timed reality check or a threat to bring down the whole market? Probably time for a clean out of all the speculative, improbable and fantastical perpetual motion machines that beguiled IPO and SPAC investors during the easy money era. Reality bites and it’s time to get real..

Let’s start the week with a statement of the downright bleeding obvious:

The Nasdaq has given up all its gains since June 2021. The Dow and S&P 500 haven’t declined quite so dramatically (where they were 4 months ago), but if squint your eyes tightly enough and draw some randomesque chartist lines it looks as if both have been range bound over the last quarter. These “facts” maybe tell us two things: Tech stocks have declined more because they were overvalued relative to everything else, and the stock market has found its top. Has it passed it? And, has it further to fall? That rather depends how the voting mechanism called the market reacts to sentiment as determined by relative value, monetary tightening, and news-flow.

With further rises in bond yields widely expected across the market, the underlying tone is looking fraxious. Hey ho – but there are few signals of a chaotic market collapse…

This time last year the WSJ published a note recording 90% of 627 market professionals polled by the paper agreed the stock market was a bubble set to pop. Unsurprisingly, a year later an increasing number of market big dogs are calling the current correction as the curtain raiser to a more chaotic market collapse. Pop?

Not so sure.. maybe, but maybe not.

This week is going to stay focused on Tech.. Tesla, Apple and Microsoft are headlining a clutch of reporting stocks – and the big names are likely to post stunning successes. Apple is 8% down this year, but could post a record $31 bln on Thursday. Microsoft is down 13% yet is expected to post $17 bln… and Tesla?

Hey… numbers don’t really matter… but Tesla is expected to post a record $2.3 bln profit, while the stock is down 21% this year. Tesla’s success has a quality all of its own.. largely of it being so massively overvalued by every single metric ever invented by stock analysts! I reckon it’s now a decent car company with leadership in EVs, but facing a future of major battery cost inflation and competition – and perhaps a $85 bln market cap might be more appropriate than its current $950 bln! Its more than 10x overvalued!

Paradoxically the reporting successes of the big tech names could cause the market to further diverge: widening the reality gap between successful, profitable firms with clear market dominance, against those who’ve traded profits for size, yet still face overwhelming competitive pressures. Buy companies that took time to build a competitive moat as well as scale. The bubble pops when a collapse in weak stocks spreads as contagion to strong stocks… which seems to be happening when the single most profitable firms in the history of capitalism are tumbling at the same rate as no hopers… (Discount Tesla from that statement…)

Reality crushed Peleton and Netflix last week. Both suffer from being stocks seen to benefit from pandemic – as it ends, their advantage withers. Both are in highly competitive sectors which are evolving at speed. Both will struggle to add new subscribers as the pandemic ends, inflation eats into discretionary spending and new ways of doing what they did better and cheaper emerge.. The are stuck in evolutionary dead-ends.

Peleton… one of its activist investors is in the WSJ this morning wanting to sack the CEO and sell the company. The stock crashed after reports its stopped production as post pandemic orders dried up. It is taking “significant actions to improve our profitability outlook and optimise our costs” which is the corporate equivalent of telling your loved ones it’s a terminal diagnosis. What’s going to cause the tech bubble to burst, like the 2000 dot.com bubble, is similar reality bites moments across all the improbable fantastical tech company aspirations we’ve seen in IPOs and SPACs.

For recent Morning Porridges on Dot.Com and ARK see:

• Theranos – little new under the sun (this note looks at comparisons to the dot.com bubble)
• Will ARK prove to be 2022’s first financial trainwreck

A moment of terror swept my thinking this morning as I read in the FT: Turks flock to cryptocurrencies in search of stability. That sounds like a catastrophe in the making – a chance for the crypto whales to beggar a whole nation of greater fools sucked into their blandishments that cryptos are better and more secure that fiat currency. What it shows is how currencies are dependent on sovereign credibility – not that crypto is better, but I am sure my in-box will be full of arguments as to why Bitcon is more credible than the Fed….. (there are massive downsides to writing the porridge.)

The Turkey story comes at a critical time as the speculative froth that drove crypto and meme stocks appears to have been blown off the market top. The louder bitcoin barkers shout HODL into a crashing bitcoin market, the less believable all the “reasons” and “justifications” for cryptos to thrive and the “truths” about mass adoption sound. There is a new narrative emerging in cryptoland: “Bitcoin was flawed, but new coins and blockchain infrastructures are being innovated that will be the New New Next Thing.” Yep.. I confidently predict new ways to lose money in Coin scams will be hitting a computer screen near you,…

Curiously, I believe blockchains will finally find a use this year. We’re working on basing a carbon credit market on blockchain to enable discrete qualifying carbon mitigation projects to be traded in a fungible manner. The proble is reconciling tangible real concrete and forest assets with a digitally based trade ledger – which I suspect underlies the failure of every other attempt to innovate blockchain into anything buy imaginary digital currencies. The real world and crypto world don’t conjoin particularly well.

As for meme stocks? Well… the coming reality bites moment is going to hurt.

Finally this morning… There are patterns of behaviours that enable us to make conclusions about people.

In 2006 a businessman bought land on Scotland’s North-East coast for $12 million and developed it into a golf resort – his second in my fine country. Five years later he valued it at $161 million. In 2014 the resort was valued on his financial statements at $436mm, and allegedly that number was used to secure significant amounts of borrowing. $436 million is an impressive valuation for a development that posted a £1.1 mm pre-covid loss in 2019 followed by a £1.3 mm loss in 2020. Turnover fell from £3.3 mm in pre-Covid 2019 to £1.1mm. The chap’s group of Scottish resorts received over £4mm in furlough scheme and grant payments from the UK government – despite it being illegal under US law, and is set to receive a further £1 million in tax rebates from HRMC.

The Scottish government is under pressure to use an “unexplained wealth order” to investigate the source of funds used to purchase the land in 2006.

No prizes for guessing who…

Pessimism in America has gone mainstream, according to a new NBC News poll.

Between a senile teleprompter president who recently admitted he can’t in fact ‘shut down’ Covid as promised, rampant inflation causing real wages to stagnate, and ongoing division over everything from election integrity to pandemic mandates to what’s being taught in schools, Americans have become extremely sour on the future – less than 10 months before midterm elections.

It’s so obviously bad that even legacy media mouthpieces aren’t carrying water for Biden anymore, and all White House spox Jen Psaki can do is offer mean-girl quips to honest questions.

Jen Psaki snaps at a reporter for asking who from the Administration attended meetings on distributing tests to Americans before Christmas to prevent a winter surge and if Biden was aware.

“How can President Biden shut down the virus if he’s not being briefed on these ideas?” pic.twitter.com/dU4ez08hyo

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) January 18, 2022

Jen Psaki: “My advice to everyone out there who’s frustrated, sad, angry, pissed off, feel those emotions, go to a kickboxing class, have a margarita…”

UNREAL. How is this the “advice” that is now coming from the White House?pic.twitter.com/ENphGJCryZ

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 21, 2022

“Downhill, divided, doubting democracy, falling behind, and tuning out — this is how Americans are feeling as they’re heading into 2022,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the survey with conservative pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.

The poll has “President Joe Biden’s approval ratings remaining in the low 40s, Republicans holding a double-digit edge in enthusiasm and key Democratic groups losing interest in the upcoming election.”

On the economy, while job creation is up and the unemployment rate is down, 61 percent of respondents in the poll say their family’s income is falling behind the cost of living.

That’s compared with 30 percent who say they’re staying about even and 7 percent who say their income is going up faster than the cost of living. –NBC News

When it comes to national policies – 70% say America is so polarized that it can no longer solve major issues – and that the division will only continue to grow. 27% on the other hand feel that America always overcomes its differences to solve the greatest challenges. In 2010, 50% of those polled said America ‘always comes together,’ and 45% said political differences would continue to grow.

“In the three instances when this sustained dark outlook coincided with an election year, it foreshadowed bad news for the party in power — 1992, 2008 and 2016,” said Horwitt.

Midterms, Dead Ahead

The timing couldn’t be worse for Democrats – who have fewer than 300 days until the November midterm elections. While 47% of those polled by NBC say they prefer a Democratic-controlled congress, one should keep in mind that 47% of those polled voted also voted for Biden, while 44% voted for Trump.

Republicans enjoy a double-digit advance on enthusiasm ahead of November’s elections, with 61 percent of Republicans saying they are very interested in the upcoming midterms — registering their interest either as a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale — compared with 47 percent of Democrats who say the same.

In previous midterm cycles — whether 2006, 2010, 2014 or 2018 — the party that held a double-digit advantage in enthusiasm ended up making substantial gains.

Additionally, overall enthusiasm for the upcoming midterms is down from 59 percent who indicated a high level of interest in October, to 51 percent in this most recent poll.

And some of the biggest drops have come from key segments of the Democratic base, including Black voters, young voters and urban voters. -NBC News

Meanwhile, a January Gallup poll found a major swing in the GOP’s favor that occurred throughout 2021.

“There is nothing but flashing red flights and warning signs for Democrats,” said McInturff, the conservative pollster.

What are the top issues facing the country? ” jobs and the economy (a combined 42 percent), the coronavirus (29 percent), voting rights and election integrity (25 percent), the cost of living (23 percent) and border security and immigration (22 percent).”

Democrats cared most about Covid, voting rights / election integrity, social and racial justice, jobs/economy, and climate change. Republican top issues were jobs/economy, border security/immigration, taxes and spending, and the cost of living.