Month: October 2024

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Bitter presidential loser Hillary Clinton has claimed that Donald Trump is purposefully reenacting a 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden.

Appearing on CNN, Hillary stated “One other thing that you‘ll see next week is Trump actually re-enacting the Madison Square Garden rally in 1939.”

“I write about this in my book,” she added, hawking her turgid scribe.

“President Franklin Roosevelt was appalled that neo-Nazi fascists in America were lining up to essentially pledge their support for the kind of government that they were seeing in Germany,” Hillary declared.

JUST IN: Hillary Clinton claims Donald Trump is going to Madison Square Garden in NYC this weekend to re-enact the 1939 N*zi rally at MSG.

Clinton thinks you are a N*zi if you support Trump.

“One other thing that you‘ll see next week is Trump actually re-enacting the Madison… pic.twitter.com/7x74vFAF27

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 25, 2024

So basically she’s saying that everyone who goes to Trump rallies is a nazi because she disagrees with their politics.

Can this witch leave us alone? Trump retired you, grandma. Go to a beach or something.

— George (@BehizyTweets) October 25, 2024

This stuff doesn’t work on anyone anymore. It actually just helps Trump now.

The more they pump this rhetoric the more stronger Trump gets. Keep it up!

— Woke Societies (@wokesocieties) October 25, 2024

Every time they say this, it exposes them.

“America needs to come together.”

“Anyone who disagrees with me is a literal N*zi.”

They don’t want unity. They want you to submit to them.

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 25, 2024

As we previously highlighted, a New York State Senator attempted to get the event at Madison Square Garden shut down, also equating it to the infamous Nazi rally.

Democrats bravely defending democracy again by attempting to shut down the free speech of a major political party’s presidential nominee.

The Senator claimed that the Trump event will “incite violence” and demanded (his actual words) that the venue cancel it to “keep our city safe.”

The Garden just ignored him.

*  *  *

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US equity futures are higher for the second day in a row, trimming their weekly drop to less than 1.0%, and led by small caps as investors looked past a jump in borrowing costs that cooled market sentiment earlier in the week. As of 8:00am ET, S&P futures are up 0.3% with Nasdaq futures up 0.2%. Megacap tech are mostly mixed: META +1.0% and AMZN +0.7%, while TSLA -1.7% after its second biggest one day gain in history following blowout earnings, and AAPL is down 1% after China Q3 smartphone sales decline. Treasury yields drop for a second day, down 1-2bps, and leaving the rate on the 10-year note up about one tenth of a percentage point in the week at 4.18%; the USD is flat. Commodities are mixed with oil higher, base metals mixed, and precious metals lower. Today, the macro focus will be Durable/Cap Goods Orders, as well as the final revision to Mich. Sentiment.

In premarket trading, Capri crashed 46%, the most ever, after a federal judge blocked a planned takeover by Tapestry due to handbag-market competition concerns. New York Community Bancorp fell 6% after reporting a provision for credit losses for the 3Q  that missed the average analyst estimate. Western Digital gains 11% after the computer hardware firm posted 1Q profit that beat, with some analysts noting that the NAND flash memory segment is holding up better than feared. Here are some other notable premarket movers:

• Boston Beer (SAM) falls 4% on light trading after the company cut its profit forecast for the full year.
• Centene (CNC) gains 11% after the health insurer boosted its revenue guidance for the full year.
• Coursera (COUR) plummets 20% after the online-education company cut its year revenue guidance. Management plans to cut about 10% of the company’s global workforce.
• Deckers Outdoor (DECK) jumps 14% after the maker of Hoka running shoes and UGG boots boosted its sales forecast for the full year.
• Denny’s (DENN) rises 5% as Citi turned bullish on the company, citing greater cost discipline and accelerated store closures.
• Newell Brands (NWL) climbs 11% after management increased its year forecast.
• Olin Corp. (OLN) slips 8% after the company posted a 3Q loss as Hurricane Beryl hurt results worse than the company initially anticipated.
• Skechers U.S.A. (SKX) climbs 7.5% after the footwear company reported third-quarter sales and profit that topped Wall Street expectations and boosted its projections for the full year.

Traders’ attention is turning to US economic data next week, including a monthly payrolls report, for fresh clues on the scope for Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts. With the Nov. 5 presidential vote approaching, some analysts are predicting a stock market boost should Donald Trump win, while others warn it may reignite inflation and slow the pace of Fed easing.

“The markets at least are sniffing out a Republican sweep, and perhaps an electoral/Senate landslide,” Stephen Auth, chief investment officer for equities at Federated Hermes, wrote in a note. “Should this occur, and we think it very well might, we’d expect the modest rally we’ve experienced since July to pick up steam. A Trump win would likely favor the old economy financial, industrial, energy and small cap stocks.”

BofA strategist Michael Hartnett highlighted other pre-election trades. Investors are continuing to load up on gold as a hedge against inflation and populism, while other popular themes — like selling bonds and buying artificial intelligence stocks, are holding up. More in a follow up article later.  Gold hit a record high on Wednesday and gold funds recorded their biggest weekly inflow since July 2020, according to the BofA strategists. The yield on US 10-year government bonds briefly breached 4.2% this week, the highest level since July, while shares of US chip company Nvidia Corp. touched an all-time high.

Meanwhile, Europe’s Stoxx 600 index retreated on Friday after lackluster results from companies including French Cognac maker Remy Cointreau SA and Mercedes-Benz Group AG. Gains in banks and energy shares offset losses in travel and personal care. The regional stocks measure is headed for a more than 1% drop in the week. Here are the biggest European movers:

• Sanofi shares climb as much as 2.9%, best performer in the Stoxx 600 Health Care Index, after the drugmaker reported better-than-expected sales and earnings for the third quarter.
• NatWest shares rise as much as 4.7% on Friday, their biggest intraday gain in three months, after earnings beat estimates and the British lender raised its outlook for the year.
• Schibsted shares soar as much as 9.4% to the highest since May as the Norwegian classifieds company reported quarterly profits that blew past analyst estimates.
• Holcim shares rise as much as 2% as the Swiss cement giant posts another quarter of margin expansion while sales slightly missed in North America.
• Eni shares gain as much as 1.4% after the Italian oil company posts “decent” 3Q results, according to RBC, which adds that the share buyback is marginally ahead of market expectations.
• Yara shares jump as much as 7.6%, the most since February, after the Norwegian agricultural chemicals firm’s third-quarter results showed what analysts called a strong Ebitda beat.
• Remy Cointreau shares drop as much as 3.7% to a nine-year low after the French cognac maker cut its guidance amid weak demand in the US and China.
• Mercedes shares fall as much as 3.9%, the most in just more than a month, after the German carmaker reported what RBC called “severely depressed” third-quarter results due to China weakness.
• Electrolux shares slide as much as 15% after the Swedish home appliances firm reported a disappointing set of 3Q numbers, driven by underperformance in North America.
• Valeo shares drop as much as 13%, the most since Feb. 2022, after trimming its revenue forecast for 2024 to reflect challenges across the auto industry, and withdrawing guidance for 2025.
• Hexatronic shares fall as much as 17% after the Swedish fiber-optics firm missed expectations on most earnings metrics, including a 13% shortfall on net income.
• Better Collective shares slump as much as 37%, the most on record, after the digital sports media marketing company reported what Nordea says is its first ever profit warning.

“It’s been volatile,” said Vidya Anant, senior portfolio manager and head of sustainable equity funds Europe at DWS Asset Management. “We’re seeing a little bit of a risk-off behaviour, nobody’s willing to take the move into equities at this point especially just before the elections.”

Earlier in the session, a key gauge of Asian equities was little changed, set to cap a fourth-straight week of losses, as selling in Japan was countered by gains in China and Taiwan. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index swung in a narrow range, heading for a weekly loss of 2.4%. Japanese stocks were the biggest drags on the Asian gauge, slumping amid speculation the nation’s ruling coalition may lose its majority in the election this weekend. Stocks rose in mainland China and Hong Kong in early trading, as traders look for further stimulus to help restart a recently stalled market rally. Benchmarks also advanced in Taiwan and South Korea.A lack of details or a smaller-than-expected fiscal package could slow the positive momentum in Chinese stocks, May Yan, an analyst at UBS Global Asset Management, told Bloomberg Television. But “as we get more details on the policy side, the rally can continue into next year,” she said. Asian stocks more broadly have tailed off this month as well on concerns over Beijing’s measures will be enough to rescue the property sector and boost consumer spending. China’s central bank kept its one-year policy rate unchanged, after slashing funding costs by the most on record a month ago, suggesting authorities are cautiously pacing monetary stimulus to support the economy.

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index steadied, while Treasury yields ticked 1-2bp lower across the curve. The New Zealand dollar and Swedish krona led Group-of-10 losses against the greenback, while the Canadian dollar and British pound led gains. EUR/USD steadied at 1.0825, after data showed Germany’s business outlook improved in October. The yen was stuck in a range against the dollar, trading unchanged around 151.90 ahead of the weekend election that may see Japan’s ruling coalition lose its majority in the lower house of parliament for the first time since 2009. Such an outcome would weaken the yen and Japanese stocks, according to strategists.

Treasuries are marginally richer with gains led by the front-end, re-steepening curve spreads following Thursday’s sharp flattening move. US front-end yields are richer by 1bp-2bp with curve spreads slightly steeper. 10-year is 2bps lower on the day near 4.19% and 3bp richer vs bunds in the sector. German government bonds fall on a combination of better-than-expected data and slightly hawkish ECB speak. The expectations gauge of the German IFO survey rose to the highest since June while the business climate and current assessment readings topped even the highest estimates. Soon after, ECB’s Simkus said he couldn’t justify a 50-bp interest-rate cut at present. Shorter-dated bonds have bore the brunt of the selling with German two-year yields rising 3 bps to 2.10%.

In commodities, oil resumed its advance after a two-day drop, with traders keeping their focus on geopolitical developments in the Middle East and the supply outlook.WTI rose 0.5% to $70.50. Spot gold falls $17 to around $2,719/oz.

Today’s US economic data calendar includes September preliminary durable goods orders (8:30am), October final University of Michigan sentiment (10am) and October Kansas City Fed services activity (11am). Fed speaker slate includes Collins at 11am

Market Snapshot

• S&P 500 futures up 0.1% to 5,857.75
• STOXX Europe 600 down 0.1% to 518.26
• MXAP down 0.2% to 186.43
• MXAPJ little changed at 599.02
• Nikkei down 0.6% to 37,913.92
• Topix down 0.7% to 2,618.32
• Hang Seng Index up 0.5% to 20,590.15
• Shanghai Composite up 0.6% to 3,299.70
• Sensex down 1.0% to 79,240.57
• Australia S&P/ASX 200 little changed at 8,211.29
• Kospi little changed at 2,583.27
• German 10Y yield up 1 bp at 2.28%
• Euro little changed at $1.0829
• Brent Futures little changed at $74.36/bbl
• Gold spot down 0.5% to $2,721.23
• US Dollar Index little changed at 104.04

Top Overnight News

• Japan’s Tokyo CPI for Oct came in at +1.8% headline (inline w/the Street and down from +2.1%, sliding below the 2% BOJ target for the first time in 5 months) but core ran a bit hot at +1.8% (up from +1.6% in Sept and ahead of the Street’s +1.6% forecast). RTRS   
• Apple’s iPhone sales in China slipped 0.3% while rival Huawei (HWT.UL) posted a 42% surge in the third quarter of 2024, as competition intensifies in the world’s largest smartphone market. RTRS
• China’s top legislature will meet Nov 4-8 and investors expect additional fiscal stimulus developments at this event. SCMP   
• Eurozone inflation expectations tumble to +2.4% over 12 months (down from +2.7%) and +2.1% over 36 months (down from +2.3%). Eurozone M3 money supply for Sept came in at +3.2% Y/Y (vs. the Street +2.9% and up from +2.9% in Aug). BBG
• Mercedes shares slide in European trading after the company reported weak Q3 results (sales -7% and adjusted EBIT -48%) w/mgmt. calling out challenging market conditions and “fierce competition” (especially in China). RTRS
• Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a linchpin of U.S. space efforts, has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022. The discussions, confirmed by several current and former U.S., European and Russian officials, touch on personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions. WSJ
• The U.S. Justice Department’s Antitrust Division and the Transportation Department said on Thursday they are launching a broad public inquiry into the state of competition in air travel. RTRS
• Kamala Harris and Donald J. Trump are locked in a dead heat for the popular vote, 48 percent to 48 percent, the final national poll by The New York Times and Siena College has found, as Ms. Harris struggles for an edge over Mr. Trump with an electorate that seems impossibly and immovably divided. NYT
• The White House said it was encouraging Boeing and the union representing about 33,000 striking machinists to continue working to reach a deal, a day after workers rejected the planemaker’s latest contract offer. President Biden “directed his team … to encourage parties to continue working to achieve an agreement that works, certainly for all parties,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. “We’re going to continue to monitor those negotiations and continue to make sure that we encourage that.” RTRS

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks were mostly higher following a similar handover from Wall St albeit with upside capped in a somewhat cautious session amid ongoing geopolitical concerns and heading into next month’s key events. ASX 200 marginally gained and was led by notable strength in tech after WiseTech’s CEO and founder stepped down due to a secret affairs and payments scandal, although the upside in the index was limited by weakness in consumer stocks. Nikkei 225 underperformed following recent yen strength and amid uncertainty ahead of Sunday’s election. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp rebounded from yesterday’s selling with the help of strength in tech and automakers, while the PBoC conducted an MLF operation and kept the 1-year MLF rate unchanged at 2.00%, as expected.

Top Asian News

• China’s NPC standing committee meeting to start from Nov 4th running until Nov 8th
• PBoC conducted a CNY 700bln (CNY 789bln maturing) 1-year MLF operation with the rate kept at 2.00%.

European bourses, Stoxx 600 (-0.2%) began the session very modestly in negative territory, but have clambered off worst levels in recent trade and now generally reside near session highs. European sectors hold a strong negative bias, with only a handful of sectors managing to hold afloat; Banks is lifted by post-earning strength in NatWest (+4.7%). Travel & Leisure is at the foot of the pile, hampered by losses in Accor. Autos are not quiet underperforming, but remain subdued after Mercedes-Benz (-2.6%) cut guidance. US Equity Futures (ES +0.2%, NQ +0.3%, RTY +0.5%) are entirely, albeit modestly so, in the green; continuing the upside seen in the prior session.

Top European News

• UK PM Starmer said Britons who receive additional income from stock holdings don’t count as ‘working people,’ which suggests he is willing to raise taxes on investors, according to Bloomberg.
• The EU Commission says the EU and China have agreed to further technical negotiations on EVs
• ECB’s Kazaks says “I don’t see case for rates to fall below neutral: it would require a weaker baseline substantial undershooting of target”.
• ECB’s Simkus doesn’t see case for 50bps cut, says “the destination for rates is more important”. “We are on a disinflationary path”. “Need to reduce still-restrictive rates”. “Economy quite sluggish but not doing that badly”.
• ECB’s Vujcic says he is open on the December rate decision, via Bloomberg.

FX

• USD is net flat vs. peers. Fresh macro drivers for the US have been on the lighter side this week with yesterday’s PMI and IJC metrics doing little to sway Fed pricing. Attention going forward is on next week’s NFP and upcoming US Presidential election.
• EUR is steady vs. the USD and relatively resilient given soft PMI data yesterday, ECB speak which has increased the odds of a 50bps December rate and looming US election risk in the event of a Trump victory. EUR/USD currently sitting around 1.0825.
• GBP is flat vs. the USD at the end of what was a week that was expected to see BoE speak help guide expectations over future easing. However, interjections by MPC officials have proved relatively non-incremental. Cable is currently trading towards the top end of last Friday’s 1.2908-87.
• JPY is steady vs. the USD in the run-up to two crucial Japanese risk events; Japan’s general election on Sunday and then the BoJ. USD/JPY is currently holding below the 152 mark but above its 200DMA at 151.41.
• Antipodeans are both softer vs. the USD as attempted recoveries vs. the USD continue to falter amid looming US election risk. AUD/USD is currently lingering around its 200DMA at 0.6628. NZD/USD has continued its drift lower and slipped onto a 0.59 handle.
• Barclays month-end rebalancing model: weak USD buying against most majors, neutral against EUR and weak USD selling against JPY.

Fixed Income

• USTs are flat with specifics light so far and while USTs have been dragged to a 111-06 low by EGBs they are yet to convincingly slip into the red. Docket ahead has durables in addition to potential remarks from Fed’s Collins.
• Bunds are in the red, initial action was somewhat contained with a slight positive bias following JGBs after Tokyo CPI. However, another set of relatively strong German metrics placed pressure on EGBs, sending Bunds to a 133.14 trough in the 20-minutes after the data, where they currently reside.
• Gilts opened lower by just two ticks, specifics have been light since yesterday’s Reeves-induced downside. Gilts have followed EGBs lower though only by a few ticks. To a 96.18 base which remains some way clear of Thursday’s 95.68 trough.
• Italy sells EUR 2.5bln vs exp. EUR 2-2.5bln 2026 BTP Short term and EUR 2.5bln vs. exp. EUR 2-2.5bln 1.80% 2036 and 0.40% 2030 I/L BTP

Commodities

• WTI and Brent are contained, having attempted to recoup some of the prior day’s losses but ultimately failing to materially break out of overnight ranges. Brent’Dec currently sits at around USD 74.70/bbl.
• Precious metals are under modest pressure, though XAU remains comfortably above the USD 2700/oz mark.
• Base metals are pressured, in-fitting with the European risk tone this morning and soft performance in auto names which is weighing on the demand-side for the complex.

Geopolitics: Middle East

• Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei ordered plans to respond to a possible Israeli attack but stressed that Iran will not act if the Israeli attack is limited, according to The New York Times. Iranian officials said Khamenei ordered the military to devise multiple military plans for responding to an Israeli attack in which the scope of any Iranian retaliation will largely depend on the severity of Israel’s attacks with Iran to retaliate if Israeli strikes inflict widespread damage and high casualties, but if Israel limits its attack to a few military bases and warehouses storing missiles and drones, Iran may do nothing. Furthermore, Khamenei directed that a response would be certain if Israel strikes oil and energy infrastructure or nuclear facilities, or if it assassinates senior officials.. “The officials, including two members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said that if Israel inflicted major harm, the responses under consideration included a barrage of up to 1,000 ballistic missiles; escalated attacks by Iranian proxy militant groups in the region; and disrupting the flow of global energy supplies and shipping moving through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.”
• Israel conducted raids on the area of Choueifat Amrousiya, Haret Hreik and the Hadath area in the southern suburbs of Beirut, according to Sky News Arabia. Israel also conducted a raid on the Masnaa border crossing between Lebanon and Syria, as well as on the residence of press teams in the southern town of Hasbaya, Lebanon.
• Israel said its spy chief will attend Gaza ceasefire talks, while Hamas vows to stop fighting if a truce is reached, as long-stalled efforts to end the war appeared to gain momentum, according to Arab News via X.
• Egyptian media reported that an Egyptian security and military delegation met with the head of the Mossad and a delegation from the Shin Bet. It was separately reported that a Hamas delegation went to Cairo to listen to proposed ceasefire deal ideas but there is no change in the group’s position, according to a Hamas senior official.
• Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council said their recent meetings with Iran focused on the future of relations and ensuring calm, while their main goal is to end military operations in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

Geopolitics: Other

• Russian President Putin said the cross-border payments issue is important and will develop cooperation within BRICS, while he added that BRICS does not pursue a separate common payment system and if the US is open to normal relations with Russia, they will do the same. Putin earlier said they will discuss peaceful settlements of conflict in the Middle East and that Ukraine is being used to create strategic threats to Russia.
• Elon Musk has reportedly been in regular contact with Russian President Putin since late 2022 and at one point, Putin asked him to avoid activating his Starlink internet service over Taiwan as a favour to Chinese President Xi, according to WSJ.

US Event Calendar

• 08:30: Sept. Durable Goods Orders, est. -1.0%, prior 0%
  • Sept. -Less Transportation, est. -0.1%, prior 0.5%
  • Sept. Cap Goods Ship Nondef Ex Air, est. 0%, prior -0.1%
  • Sept. Cap Goods Orders Nondef Ex Air, est. 0.1%, prior 0.3%
• 10:00: Oct. U. of Mich. Sentiment, est. 69.1, prior 68.9
  • U. of Mich. Current Conditions, prior 62.7
  • U. of Mich. Expectations, prior 72.9
  • U. of Mich. 1 Yr Inflation, est. 2.9%, prior 2.9%
  • Oct. U. of Mich. 5-10 Yr Inflation, est. 3.0%, prior 3.0%
• 11:00: Oct. Kansas City Fed Services Activ, prior -2

DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

Risk assets began to stabilise over the last 24 hours, with the S&P 500 up +0.21% after 3 consecutive declines. Multiple factors helped to lift sentiment, including some decent earnings reports, upside US data surprises, as well as mounting speculation about faster rate cuts. But even with the modest gain, investors are still very cautious as we approach a pivotal couple of weeks, which will include a raft of earnings reports, the US jobs report next Friday, and then the US election in just 11 days’ time. So there’s been a reluctance to push the rally much further before we get some clarity on those, all of which will play a crucial role in shaping the outlook as we move into next year.

Several stories were driving markets yesterday, but one of the biggest moves was a significant bond rally across the Euro Area. That followed some weak data in the latest flash PMIs for October, which showed that business activity was still subdued at the start of Q4. The Euro Area composite PMI was little changed at 49.7 (vs. 49.6 previous), so still beneath the 50 mark that separates expansion from contraction. And the details leant on the dovish side with Euro Area composite output prices down to their lowest since early 2021, while Germany’s composite employment PMI fell further into contractionary territory at 45.8 (vs 46.3 prev.).

All that meant investors continued to speculate that the ECB might speed up their rate cuts, not least as both the Fed and the Bank of Canada have now done so. Indeed, a larger 50bp cut at the ECB’s next meeting in December was priced in as a 42% probability by last night’s close. Moreover, comments from several officials seemed to leave that open as an option, with Latvia’s Kazaks saying that “everything should be on the table”. From the dovish side of the Governing Council, Portugal’s Centeno said that “we need to consider the possibility of moving in bigger steps”, while from the hawkish side the Austria’s Holzmann said that a 50bp cut is “unlikely though not impossible”. In turn, that led yields to fall across all maturities, including those on 10yr bunds (-3.8bps), OATs (-4.3bps) and BTPs (-4.7bps).

In the meantime, investors have remained closely focused on the US election, which is continuing to influence markets. There weren’t a great deal of new political headlines over the last 24 hours, but the polls in the battleground states have remained very tight and within the margin of error. For instance, an Emerson poll of several swing states yesterday had Trump very marginally ahead, including a 1pt lead in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and a 2pt lead in North Carolina. But given the margin of error is just over three points for those polls, this remains a very tight race, as reflected in various prediction markets and forecast models. For instance, the RealClearPolitics average of betting markets gives Trump a 59.5% chance of victory this morning, whilst FiveThirtyEight’s model sees Trump as a 51% chance to win.

Ahead of that, US Treasuries rallied yesterday alongside their European counterparts, which unwound a notable move higher for yields over recent sessions. In fact by the close, the 10yr yield was down -3.4bps on the day to 4.21%, and overnight they’ve seen a further -2.4bps decline to 4.19%. Lower yields also received support from the latest decline in oil prices, with Brent crude down –0.59% on the day to $74.52/bbl.

Here in the UK however, gilts underperformed yesterday, with the 10yr yield up +3.6bps on the day to 4.24%. It also meant that the UK-German 10yr yield spread widened to 197bps, which is the widest it’s been since August 2023. The moves come ahead of the new government’s first Budget next week, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirming yesterday that the government would change the way it measures debt, in order to fund extra investment.

For equities, it was a fairly subdued day on both sides of the Atlantic, but the major indices did manage to post modest gains for the most part. That included the S&P 500 (+0.21%), which came back from a run of three consecutive declines, with Tesla (+21.92%) seeing the biggest gain in the entire index following its earnings results after the previous day’s close. This marked Tesla’s largest daily rise since 2013, back when the company was worth only around 2% of its current $836bn market cap. So the move left the Magnificent 7 group up +3.26%, closing at its highest level since mid-July, and less than -4% beneath its all-time closing high. Nevertheless, some areas posted a weaker performance, with around half of the S&P 500’s constituents lower on the day as materials (-1.42%) and industrials (-0.71%) sectors led on the downside. Meanwhile in Europe, the main indices only just managed to eke out some gains, with the STOXX 600 up +0.03%.

One factor supporting US equities was upbeat economic data, which continued a run of positive data surprises out of the US. For instance, the weekly initial jobless claims fell back to 227k (vs. 242k expected) over the week ending October 19, moving back down to their levels before the recent hurricanes impacted the figures. In addition, the flash PMIs from the US were also decent, with the services PMI at 55.3 (vs. 55.0 expected), while the manufacturing PMI was also on the upside of expectations at 47.8 (vs. 47.5 expected). Also supporting a soft landing narrative, the composite PMI output price series fell to its lowest since 2020. Finally, the new home sales data for September came in at an annualised rate of 738k (vs. 720k expected), the highest in over a year.

Overnight in Asia, there’s been a divergent performance across the region this morning. In Japan, the Nikkei is down -0.98%, which comes ahead of the country’s general election on Sunday. Moreover, the Tokyo CPI data for October overnight was marginally stronger than expected, with core-core CPI picking up to +1.8% (vs. +1.6% expected). But elsewhere there’ve been stronger gains, and the Hang Seng (+1.13%), CSI 300 (+1.06%), Shanghai Comp (+0.82%) and the KOSPI (+0.33%) have all risen this morning. Otherwise, US equity futures are struggling to gain traction, with those on the S&P 500 (-0.04%) and the NASDAQ 100 (-0.03%) both pointing very slightly lower.

To the day ahead now, and data releases from the US include preliminary durable goods orders for September, along with the University of Michigan’s final consumer sentiment index for October. Elsewhere, we’ll get the ECB’s Consumer Expectations Survey for September, and in Germany there’s also the Ifo’s business climate indicator for October. Central bank speakers include the Fed’s Collins and the ECB’s Villeroy.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Grand juries in Ohio have indicted six people for allegedly casting illegal votes as noncitizens in past elections.

Ahmed Aden, 35, a Columbus resident, and five others are accused of illegally voting in multiple elections despite lacking U.S. citizenship at the time, according to indictments made public on Oct. 22.

Aden allegedly cast ballots in 2008 and 2020, according to an indictment.

Nicholas Fontaine, 32, of Kent; Van Thuy Cooper, 53, of Hilliard; Maria Dearaujo, 62, of Columbus; Ramesh Patel, 68, of North Royalton; and Lorinda Miller, 78, of Hudson, have also been indicted for allegedly voting in various elections between 2014 and 2020 despite not having citizenship.

The defendants could not be reached for comment.

“If you’re not a citizen, it is illegal to vote whether you thought you were allowed to or not, and you will be held accountable in the state of Ohio,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said at a news conference.

Yost’s office steps in when local prosecutors decline to pursue cases against alleged criminals.

Five of the people were charged with one count of illegal voting. Miller was charged with two counts.

The law against illegal voting states that no person shall “vote or attempt to vote in any primary, special, or general election in a precinct in which that person is not a legally qualified elector.”

The law also prohibits voting more than once in one election.

Illegal voting is a fourth-degree felony that carries a potential sentence of up to 18 months in prison, but Yost said he expects that none of the defendants, if convicted, will be sentenced to prison time.

Yost’s office acted after Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose in August referred 138 cases of alleged illegal voting to the office.

Special state prosecutors started looking at the cases and prioritized those involving noncitizens, according to Yost.

Prosecutors are still working through the cases, including other referrals made in September. Some of the cases involve voting more than once.

“We’re not done,” Yost told reporters. “There’s more investigation to do, and I anticipate there will be at least some additional cases filed.”

In some cases, local prosecutors are being presented with evidence of illegal voting. If they do not pursue cases “within a reasonable time,” Yost’s office will consider bringing charges under Ohio law.

LaRose has also been referring cases involving improper voter registration, but Yost said that his office does not have the authority to prosecute registration cases, even if prosecutors think charges are warranted.

Ohio’s Constitution states that voters must be citizens of the United States. It was updated in 2022 to make clear that the requirement also applies to local elections.

Authored by Jeff Carlson & Hans Mahncke via Truth Over News,

Georgia, the site of massive election misinformation, questionable results, incomplete audits and a mysterious come-from-behind razor-thin win by Joe Biden in 2020, appears to be at it again. Or perhaps we should say Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is at it again.

Kylie Jane Kremer brought the matter to our attention through a series of posts on X. As Kremer notes, “Raffensperger sent an email, in a private capacity, that went to a list of trial lawyers across Georgia soliciting $5 million by November 1st to help in his effort for a 501(c)4 called “Election Defense Fund”, asking lawyers to donate or contact him via his private gmail account & personal cell phone number.”

In the email, Raffensperger claimed that “Election deniers and conspiracy theorists have taken their anger to new levels, employing a variety of tactics including intimidation, legal challenges, and rule changes. In Georgia they have threatened, harassed, and sued election officials. And as you know, most recently the Georgia State Election Board was taken over by three individuals who have pledged to put partisanship over sworn duty.”

Raffensperger appears to be referring to (and trying to intimidate) the three Republican members of Georgia’s five -person State Election Board, Dr. Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares and Janelle King.

Raffensperger also appears to be attempting to intimidate and silence anyone who might challenge the outcome of Georgia’s 2024 presidential election.

On September 20th, Johnston, Jeffares and King voted in favor of requiring a hand count of all ballots to ensure that the number of physical ballots equaled the machine count total at the precinct level. This new rule was opposed by Georgia state elections officials, including Raffensperger, who said it could create chaos and confusion on Election Day.

In advance of the vote by the State Election Board, Raffensperger issued a formal statement, claiming that “Activists seeking to impose last-minute changes in election procedures outside of the legislative process undermine voter confidence and burden election workers… misguided attempts by the State Election Board will delay election results and undermine chain of custody safeguards. Georgia voters reject this 11th hour chaos, and so should the unelected members of the State Election Board.”

If you find it odd that Raffensperger would refer to his three fellow Republicans as “activists” while he worked to thwart common-sense changes that would dramatically increase the security of Georgia’s 2024 election, you’re not alone.

Raffensperger was apparently so concerned that he rushed to CNN-affiliate WSB, breathlessly claiming that “the State Election Board wants to take us back in time. I guess what they want is to see elections take until 3 a.m. like in Detroit, Michigan. We don’t want to do that in Georgia. Not on my watch.”

Although the move by the three Georgia Republicans had the support of President Trump, lawsuits were immediately filed – and on October 16th a Georgia court blocked the rule changes, inexplicably declaring that they were “illegal, unconstitutional and void.”

We don’t have a copy of the email (Kremer doesn’t have the full email either) but Georgia’s GOP Chairman Josh McKoon appeared to confirm the email was real in a post on X.

McKoon stated that “This email communication by Mr. Raffensperger is a dangerous and unwarranted attack on sworn elections officials doing their duty which threatens to interfere in the conduct of the election and undermine confidence in the outcome.”

McKoon went on to write that Raffensperger “spitefully harasses and undermines the public servants who have stepped up to do the job that he so spectacularly failed to do in 2020 and solicits $5 million for a secret, dark money fund “not subject to public disclosure” to dox and threaten election officials.” 

As we mentioned earlier, Kremer included screenshots of the email in her post. In those screenshots was a snapshot of the address of the website, Elections Defense Fund, that Raffensperger purportedly established for the purposes of raising donations.

We looked the Elections Defense Fund up and found the site to be sparse but the language matches what is said in the email:

“Election Defense Fund, Inc. is a 501(c) (4) dedicated to protecting this year’s election results, and standing up against those who attempt to delay certification.”

“Election Defense Fund, Inc will identify local election officials who are most likely to not certify or otherwise attempt to interfere with results; educate the public to remind election officials of their duty to follow the law and the potential consequences of not doing so;  support lawsuits that seek to force election officials to uphold their legal duties, and defend election officials who are harassed, targeted, or sued for doing their lawful duties.”

The site notes that “Contributions to Election Defense Fund, Inc. are confidential and not disclosed to the public and are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.” The site, which claims to be a “a non-profit 501 c(4) organization” also states that it’s “Not endorsed by any candidate or candidate committee.”

Kremer also obtained what appears to be official registration paperwork from Raffensperger’s Secretary of State office for the 501(c)4 Election Defense Fund. Included in the paperwork is a reference to Ryan Germany, general counsel for Georgia’s secretary of state’s office. Germany, who was an integral part of the Georgia election fiasco, appears to be listed as both the secretary (p.1) and the incorporator (p.3) of the Election Defense Fund.

If, as it appears to us, Raffensperger is involved in his official capacity as Secretary of State, it seems likely to us that everything surrounding the Election Defense Fund should be a matter of public record – or at least subject to FOIA requests. How Georgia’s Secretary of State could be directing a private effort to raise funds to silence other public election officials is beyond our comprehension.

This preemptive attempt to silence anyone questioning Georgia’s election results seems particularly relevant after Raffensperger recently appeared on Face the Nation and stated that voting results could be delayed for three additional days after the November 5th election. 

Raffensperger said that Georgia “would be waiting for the overseas ballots that come in no later than Friday, and so those will then be the final numbers.” Raffensperger may have also unintentionally foreshadowed events when he added “And we’ll just see if that makes the difference in the total vote totals.”

Given the extraordinarily slim margin in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election, these overseas votes could prove critical. According to Raffensperger, 21,075 military and overseas Georgia ballots had been requested as of October 21st. By way of comparison, Biden’s margin of “victory” in Georgia was less than 12,000 votes.

As you may recall, Raffensperger featured prominently in the chaos and controversy surrounding the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. An election that was ultimately decided in favor of Biden – who “won” by a razor-thin margin after an unexplained delay in vote counting in the middle of the night. 

And, of course, Biden’s narrow margin of victory was dwarfed by more than 350,000 ballots in Georgia that lacked any chain of custody documentation – along with another nearly 107,000 ballots that had improper chain-of-custody documentation.

But there’s also something larger at play as well. It seems that the coordination extends beyond Raffensperger and Georgia to include other Secretaries of State in crucial battleground states. Michigan’s SoS Jocelyn Benson gave up this information during an appearance on the MeidasTouch podcast that was uncovered by Kylie Kremer.

Benson was asked about her work as a “part of a group of Secretaries of State” that are coordinating across state lines. Benson’s response was eye-opening:

One of the things we saw in 2020 was that particularly in battleground states, we are all battling a common adversary, a really nationally coordinated effort to undermine the will of the people, both before, during and after election day. 

We learned to semi-coordinate with each other in 2020… We would talk regularly, but there was really no way for us – the six of us in those six battleground states, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia – to constantly both compare notes and also say, OK, how are we going to respond to this nationally coordinated effort with a coordinated response?

Now we have that. We actually spent 2022 working to build that team in these six states. You’ve got strong voices now in Arizona and Nevada and Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and in Michigan. And we’re all talking. We’re all working together. We’re all very clear-eyed about what we’re up against.

Because the battle over the future of our democracy isn’t going to be in the post-election process only. It starts now and it starts with how various court battles are playing out and we’ll see all of us getting hit with the same types of sham lawsuits that are PR campaigns masquerading as lawsuits.

So as we work together, as we talk to each other, we can develop common strategies and be much more powerful and united as a team – even across party lines – then we would be if we were just fighting these battles in our respective states by ourselves.

There we have it. A group of powerful Secretaries of State are coordinating (across state lines) in battleground states to work together in coordinated fashion. Working to push back on challenges to election certification.

Making matters worse, Benson is the same SoS who famously proclaimed “if someone were to violate the law and not certify the election at the local level, we will come for you! So any local certifier who’s thinking of skirting the law and not certifying the vote, don’t even think about it, because we’ll get you.”

Benson’s declaration is actually extraordinarily similar to the language in Raffensperger’s email and the description listed on Raffensperger’s donation website:

“Election Defense Fund, Inc will identify local election officials who are most likely to not certify or otherwise attempt to interfere with results; educate the public to remind election officials of their duty to follow the law and the potential consequences of not doing so;  support lawsuits that seek to force election officials to uphold their legal duties, and defend election officials who are harassed, targeted, or sued for doing their lawful duties.”

We were fairly involved in reporting during the aftermath of Georgia’s 2020 election (articles here, here, here, here & here) and can state decisively that we don’t trust Raffensperger for a single second. As we’ve said many times, we’ve long believed that something is rotten in Georgia.

But we didn’t realize the rot was being coordinated across state lines.

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It’s an outcome that alternative economists have long predicted as inevitable – The dumping of the US dollar as the world reserve currency and the petro currency by the BRICS nations in favor of a new multi-currency system or “basket system.”  For decades the dollar has reigned supreme as the most favored currency for international trade, replacing the British Pound Sterling (officially) after the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944. 

This status (along with the end of the gold standard) gave the Federal Reserve Bank the power to print cash with wild abandon without facing immediate inflationary consequences.  As long as dollars are held overseas by foreign governments, banks and corporations, inflation in the US can be mitigated despite quantitative easing.  If the dollar loses reserve status and the trillions of dollars stored in foreign markets flood back into the US economy, an inflationary disaster would result well beyond what America is already dealing with today.

Given this fact, it’s not surprising that Vladimir Putin avidly discussed the potential of a new BRICS currency system during the trade coalition’s summit this week in Kazan, Russia.  He knows that the dollar’s reserve status is America’s strength, but also America’s greatest weakness. 

Putin unveiled a “symbolic” BRICS bank note at the summit, suggesting that the plan to dump the dollar may be much closer to fruition than many economists expect. 

JUST IN: Russian President Putin has been gifted a mock-up of a “BRICS bill” at BRICS summit in Kazan. pic.twitter.com/gP08KKkRUy

— BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) October 23, 2024

Another central topic of the conference was the development of an alternative to the SWIFT payment system controlled by the US and Europe.  The SWIFT system is the most efficient mechanism for governments and international banks to transfer large sums of money from one country to another.  Russia was banned from using SWIFT after their invasion of Ukraine which many western analysts claimed would destroy Russia’s economy.  This did not happen.

NATO sanctions ended up pushing the BRICS closer together, with China and India greatly increasing trade with Russia and China forming more defined military ties with the Kremlin.  

Every plan to replace the dollar has revolved around the concept of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) as a means to circumvent the dollar’s reserve advantage while also defeating the monopoly of the SWIFT network.  The BRICS are also not the only entity working on such a plan.  

Globalist bankers at both the IMF and the BIS have been developing digital alternative to the dollar system for years, with the BIS already testing CBDCs in multiple countries including Australia, Saudi Arabia and China with the intent to introduce a cashless economy in the next two years.  The BIS calls this ‘Project mBridge’.

In other words, the naysayers that claim the dollar will not be replaced as the world reserve for many decades to come are delusional.  The process is already well underway. 

By Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute

The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office has opened 51,000 cases of desertion through the first nine months of 2024. The number of soldiers abandoning their posts is likely to double last year’s total. 

The Times of London reported data from the Ukrainian government showing that “51,000 criminal cases were initiated for desertion and abandonment of a military unit between January and September of this year.”

El Pais previously noted that 45,000 Ukrainians were being prosecuted for desertion from the start of the year through August. Al-Jazeera says the number is at least 30,000 desertions. 

At the start of the year, Kiev was estimated to have between 500,000 and 800,000 active-duty soldiers and an additional 300,000 reservists.

The Ukrainians have also sustained casualties fighting to defend from Russian advances and amid Kiev’s Kursk invasion. 

Kiev has struggled to fill its ranks with fresh soldiers, leading Ukraine to drop its conscription age from 27 to 25. As Kiev is still facing manpower shortages, American politicians are pushing Ukraine to drop draft age to 18. Responsible Statecraft has reported:

Despite no evidence of victory on the horizon, the Republican senator is urging Ukrainian lawmakers to pass a mobilization bill that would force more Ukrainian citizens to be drafted into the military. Currently, men under 27 are exempted from the draft. Graham has a problem with that.

…Graham told reporters, “I would hope that those eligible to serve in the Ukrainian military would join. I can’t believe it’s at 27. You’re in a fight for your life, so you should be serving — not at 25 or 27.”

“We need more people in the line,” he said.

Ukraine has also resorted to allowing prisoners to leave jail if they join the military.

One Ukrainian who deserted told the Times that prison was a better option than the military because “at least in prison, you know when you will be able to leave.”

It’s not just critics who say that US policy in Ukraine is to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.

Here’s @LindseyGrahamSC saying that as long as the US arms Ukraine, “they will fight to the last person.” And four months in, he says, “I like the structural path we’re on here.” pic.twitter.com/1fntZG7cjQ

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) August 2, 2022

The number of Ukrainians that Kiev is prosecuting for desertion has significantly increased throughout the war. In 2022, the number was 9,000, and it had more than doubled to 24,000 last year. 

According to estimates from New World Wealth, there are 29,350 individuals worldwide with fortunes exceeding $100 million.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, highlights the top 10 cities ranked by their number of centi-millionaires, based on data compiled by Henley & Partners as of December 2023.

New World Wealth monitored the wealth of over 150,000 high-net-worth individuals, using sources like LinkedIn and other business platforms to verify city locations. Some of the cities in this graphic represent urban areas that include the major city and its surrounding regions.

Where Centi-Millionaires Live

In the last decade, the threshold for “super-wealthy” status has skyrocketed, rising from $30 million in the late 1990s to $100 million today. The number of centi-millionaires has surged by over 50% in the past decade.

New York leads with 744 individuals holding wealth of $100 million or more. Following closely is the Bay Area (including San Francisco and Silicon Valley) with 675. Both cities are projected to see continued growth of over 50% in their ultra-wealthy populations over the next 10 years.

The U.S. dominates the list with four cities featured. Additionally, the ranking includes Paris and London in Europe, and Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Beijing in Asia.

If you liked this graphic, be sure to check out Ranked: Countries With the Highest GDP Per Capita in 2024, which compares countries and regions with the highest nominal GDP per capita in 2024 to those in 2014.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Africa is increasingly figuring into major countries’ and organizations’ discussions due to its growing importance in global affairs. The UN expects that more than half of the world’s population growth by the 2050 will occur on that continent, with the number of people in sub-Saharan Africa doubling by then. This will open up new market and labor opportunities alongside the existing resource ones that have already attracted international interest, but it’ll also lead to developmental and humanitarian challenges.  

The Kazan Declaration that was just agreed to during the last BRICS Summit speaks highly about helping and empowering Africa during this transformational period, but these countries – whether as a whole, through minilaterals, or bilaterally – will inevitably have to compete with the US there. The latter’s grand strategy takes several forms that’ll be briefly described in this analysis, but it altogether aims to impede others’ efforts to mutually benefit from these processes while exploiting Africa as much as possible.

The most visible manifestation of this strategy is the continued provisioning of humanitarian aid, which sounds noble at first glance but is actually driven by ulterior motives. This form of support has been weaponized over the decades to cultivate and co-opt corrupt elites in order to institutionalize relationships of dependence that are difficult for recipient countries to liberate themselves from. The purpose is to create levers of influence that can be wielded to legitimize lopsided deals with the West.

BRICS – which from here on out refers to either the group as a whole, minilaterals therein, or individual members – can counteract this by assisting their African partners with agricultural development so that they eventually become less reliant on American aid. Major grain producers like Russia can also provide more of their own no-strings-attached aid during the interim. A balance must be struck between meeting immediate needs and moving countries closer to self-sufficiency over the long term.

The next way in which US strategy towards Africa manifests itself is through the “Africa Growth and Opportunity Act” (AGOA) that allows for duty-free trade between them. The downside to this arrangement is that the US has removed countries like Ethiopia and Mali from it as punishment for them refusing to comply with its political demands. In other words, while there are certainly some economic benefits to be had from this arrangement, they can be cut off if countries don’t do what the US wants.

BRICS’ response has been to liberalize trade and investment with Africa as a whole, which is easier than ever due to the creation of the “Africa Continental Free Trade Area” (AfCFTA). China leads the way in this respect due to its much larger and more developed economy relative to other BRICS members, but Russia, India, and the UAE are also making important strides in this direction too. The goal is to diversify these countries’ trade partnerships so that they’re not destabilized if the US kicks them out of AGOA.

Building upon the trade dimension of this strategy is the financial one wherein the US takes advantage of the West’s leading role in global financial institutions like the IMF and World Bank to offer strings-attached loans to desperate countries. These are then weaponized to further entrench their lopsided trade and investment ties while also coercing their leaders into making certain political concessions. The end result is that recipient countries lose more of their sovereignty and risk socio-political unrest.

China has taken the lead among BRICS countries in providing no-strings-attached loans through its Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) to finance mutually beneficial megaprojects and help struggling countries avoid Western debt traps of the sort described above. BRICS’ rising role as a financial actor in its own right, particularly with regard to the New Development Bank that it created, could complement these efforts to counteract claims that African states are just trading Western dependence for Chinese dependence.

Moving along, the US wants to guide Africa’s journey through the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”/“Great Reset” (4IR/GR) by bringing the entire continent online through December 2022’s “Digital Transformation with Africa” (DTA) initiative. The Carnegie Endowment’s report from March 2024 noted that not much had been done with its promised $800 million by then, but if any progress is made and this isn’t just a slush fund or PR stunt, then it would likely lead to continental-wide digital surveillance.

African countries could take a page out of Russia’s and some other BRICS members’ playbooks by passing laws about data localization, which prohibits sending users’ data abroad. That’s not a silver-bullet solution to digital surveillance but it provides the best balance possible between much-needed foreign digital investment into (in this case developing) economies and national security.  In parallel, Africa countries should court such investment from BRICS states, with China already being a prime partner.

Resource extraction is another element of the US’ grand strategy towards Africa, which is being prioritized through the Lobito Corridor that was unveiled by the US and the EU in September 2023 for facilitating the export of Southern African minerals to the Western market. This region is rich in copper, lithium, and other resources that are indispensable for the 4IR/GR in which the US and China are fiercely competing to shape the contours of the future global economy.

The most surefire way to ensure that mineral-rich African countries aren’t exploited is to emulate Tanzania’s 2017 “National Wealth And Resources (Permanent Sovereignty) Act” that forbade the export of raw materials for processing. This is meant to encourage the construction of a domestic processing industry to add value to these exports and provide jobs for its burgeoning population. Global costs will rise if enough countries copy this policy, but it would be for the betterment of their own people.

Segueing into the more nefarious forms of US grand strategy towards Africa, observers can’t forget about the numerous information warfare campaigns that it’s waging across the continent. These are aimed at discrediting its rivals like Russia, stoking inter-state discord such as between BRICS members Ethiopia and Egypt for instance, and exacerbating preexisting internal (usually identity-centric) differences in order to destabilize fragile states through Hybrid Warfare as punishment for not capitulating to the US’ demands.

Better “Pre-Bunking, Media Literacy, & Democratic Security” policies are the only way to enhance the defenses of targeted states and societies, but they’ll take time to be applied even in the best-case scenario so some trouble is bound to follow these campaigns. Reputational damage to BRICS countries can be mitigated through counteroperations, inter-state discord can be managed through BRICS mediation, while internal conflicts might require security assistance from some BRICS states.

The last point directly leads to the next form in which the US’ grand strategy towards Africa manifests itself, namely through the waging of proxy wars like what’s happening in the Sahel. Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger expelled French and US forces over the past few years, formed an alliance prior to exploring a confederation, and were then targeted by more foreign-backed terrorist and separatist attacks. France and the US are working hand-in-hand together with Ukraine to punish those three countries for this.

Russia has taken the lead in helping its new regional partners through the deployment of military advisors and PMCs via a strategy that was elaborated on here for those who’d like to learn about it. Other BRICS countries can help with arms exports and intelligence support if they have the capabilities and will to do so, though most don’t and are instead expected to sit on the sidelines of these proxy wars. If they intensify, then it can’t be ruled out that some formal Western military intervention might follow.

Therein lies the final form of US grand strategy, direct military action against African countries, which is employed on a case-by-case basis whose motives widely vary from Somalia to Libya. The infamous AFRICOM organizes such activities that are greatly facilitated by the archipelago of American bases, including unofficial ones, that spread across the continent since 2001. The current focus on the Sahel might lead to new drone bases in the Ivory Coast from which to “surgically strike” targets in the north.

Once again, Russia is the only BRICS state that has the capabilities and will to counteract these threats, which it could do by empowering its partners (including non-state ones) to retaliate against those states that host US bases and/or target those facilities directly. The NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine could also be intensified as an asymmetrical response to throw the West off balance, but the West could do the same to Russia as revenge for foiling its plans in Africa, thus linking these two New Cold War fronts.

The takeaway from this analysis is that BRICS has a key role to play in helping Africa defend itself from the US’ hegemonic plots, but only Russia will do so in a security sense while China’s economic support will remain unmatched. Accordingly, this emerging front of the New Cold War will likely see the Sino–Russo Entente more closely coordinate against the US-led West there, which’ll provide opportunities for other BRICS states like India to present themselves to African countries as reliable balancers.

The European Union’s Critical Raw Material Act sets out several ambitious goals to enhance the resilience of its critical mineral supply chains.

As Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti details below, the Act includes non-binding targets for the EU to build sufficient mining capacity so that mines within the bloc can meet 10% of its critical mineral demand.

Additionally, the Act establishes a goal for 40% of demand to be met by processing within the bloc, and 25% through recycling.

Several months after the Act’s passage in May 2024, this graphic highlights the scale of the challenge the EU aims to overcome. This data comes exclusively from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, as of July 2024. The graphic excludes synthetic graphite.

Securing Europe’s Supply of Critical Materials

With the exception of nickel mining, none of the battery minerals deemed strategic by the EU are on track to meet these goals.

Graphite, the largest mineral component used in batteries, is of particular concern. There is no EU-mined supply of manganese ore or coke, the precursor to synthetic graphite.

By 2030, the European Union is expected to supply 16,000 tonnes of flake graphite locally, compared to a domestic mining target of 45,000 tonnes.

The bloc is projected to produce 29,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), compared to a 46,000 tonnes target.

In terms of mineral processing, the bloc is expected to process 25% of its lithium requirements, 76% of nickel, 51% of cobalt, 36% of manganese, and 20% of flake graphite.

The EU is expected to recycle only 22% of its lithium needs, 25% of nickel, 26% of cobalt, and 14% of manganese. Graphite, meanwhile, is not widely recycled on a commercial scale.

If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out this graphic, which visualizes the total cobalt supply from the top 10 producers in 2030.

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

Sweden is witnessing an alarming rise in the use of hand grenades by criminal gangs, with the number of explosions more than doubling in 2024 compared to last year. By mid-October, there had been 22 recorded grenade attacks, up from nine in 2023, according to figures from the Police National Bomb Data Centre.

The Swedish Customs Administration has also reported a spike in the number of hand grenades seized at the border — 30 so far this year, compared to zero last year.

Officials say gangs have turned to grenades as an alternative to stolen commercial explosives, which have become harder to obtain.

“A hand grenade is already ready in its construction. It does not need to be manufactured but comes complete,” explained Malin Nygren, head of the National Bomb Data Centre, highlighting the ease of use for criminals seeking to cause explosions.

Customs authorities are seeing hand grenades become a significant contraband item, a shift from previous years. “In the past, hand grenades have been a completely non-existent contraband item from our perspective,” said Stefan Granath, deputy head of control at the Swedish Customs Administration.

This uptick in grenade use reflects broader concerns about rising gang violence across Sweden. Violence involving explosives, once rare, has become an increasing threat, with attacks regularly targeting residential areas and public spaces as migrant gangs conduct turf wars in the suburbs of the Scandinavian country’s major cities.

Hand grenades have been used by criminal networks to settle disputes, intimidate rivals, or retaliate against authorities. Earlier this year, in one of the most notable incidents, a hand grenade exploded outside a residential building in Uppsala, damaging cars and windows. Fortunately, no one was injured, but the incident raised concerns about public safety.

Authorities are now focused on preventing these weapons from entering the country.

While efforts to crack down on explosive materials like dynamite have been effective, criminals have turned to simpler and more accessible weapons like hand grenades, often smuggled in from the Balkans, where they are more readily available.

Last year, Ardavan Khoshnood, a guest lecturer at Malmö University and senior fellow at Lund University, warned that Sweden had become the bombing capital of Europe and was second only to Mexico as the top country in the world not currently at war to experience the most bombings on its territory.

Earlier this month, a teenager was arrested in Sweden accused of shooting dead a man in his 50s in Malmö in what police believed to be a case of mistaken identity amid escalating gang warfare.

Several hand grenades were also found at the scene and the suspect’s residence.

Read more here…