Intel and Japan are teaming up.

In fact, the Japanese national research institute is going to be teaming up with Intel to “build a research and development center in Japan for cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing technology”, according to a new report from Nikkei Asia.

Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), under the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, will establish a new facility in three to five years equipped with extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) technology.

Intel will contribute its expertise in chip manufacturing using EUV. The center, the first of its kind in Japan, will allow equipment and materials manufacturers to pay a fee for prototyping and testing.

Nikkei reports that the initiative aims to strengthen Japan’s capabilities in the chip manufacturing sector, with total investment expected to reach hundreds of millions of dollars.

EUV (extreme ultraviolet lithography) is crucial for semiconductor manufacturing at scales of 5 nanometers and smaller, allowing more transistors to fit on a chip and increasing computing power.

And EUV equipment is expensive, costing over 40 billion yen ($273 million) per unit, making it a significant investment for suppliers of materials and equipment.

The U.S. has tightened restrictions on EUV-related exports to China amid growing strategic competition with China, slowing the return of research data to Japan. Having EUV equipment available at a domestic research facility will reduce this barrier, according to the report. 

ASML Holding, based in the Netherlands, is the leading manufacturer of EUV lithography equipment. However, semiconductor production involves over 600 steps, requiring a broad range of specialized equipment and materials.

Japanese companies like Lasertec dominate the EUV inspection equipment market, and firms like JSR specialize in photosensitive materials for silicon wafer circuits.

Intel aims to strengthen ties with these Japanese suppliers through the new research center.

Authored by Jeffrey D. Sachs via Common Dreams,

Two former leaders of major South Asian countries have reportedly accused the United States of covert regime change operations to topple their governments. One of the leaders, former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, languishes in prison, on a perverse conviction that proves Khan’s assertion. The other leader, former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheik Hasina, fled to India following a violent coup in her country. Their grave accusations against the U.S., as reported in the world media, should be investigated by the UN, since if true, the U.S. actions would constitute a fundamental threat to world peace and to regional stability in South Asia. The two cases seem to be very similar. The very strong evidence of the U.S. role in toppling the government of Imran Khan raises the likelihood that something similar may have occurred in Bangladesh.

In the case of Pakistan, Donald Lu, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia and Central Asia, met with Asad Majeed Khan, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S., on March 7, 2022. Ambassador Khan immediately wrote back to his capital, conveying Lu’s warning that PM Khan threatened U.S.-Pakistan relations because of Khan’s “aggressively neutral position” regarding Russia and Ukraine.

The Ambassador’s March 7 note (technically a diplomatic cypher) quoted Assistant Secretary Lu as follows: “I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister. Otherwise, I think it will be tough going ahead.” The very next day, members of the parliament took procedural steps to oust PM Khan.

On March 27, PM Khan brandished the cypher, and told his followers and the public that the U.S. was out to bring him down. On April 10, PM Khan was thrown out of office as the parliament acceded to the U.S. threat.

We know this in detail because of Ambassador Khan’s cypher, exposed by PM Khan and brilliantly documented by Ryan Grim of The Intercept, including the text of the cypher. Absurdly and tragically, PM Khan languishes in prison in part over espionage charges, linked to his revealing the cypher.

The U.S. appears to have played a similar role in the recent violent coup in Bangladesh. PM Hasina was ostensibly toppled by student unrest, and fled to India when the Bangladeshi military refused to prevent the protestors from storming the government offices. Yet there may well be much more to the story than meets the eye.

According to press reports in India, PM Hasina is claiming that the U.S. brought her down. Specifically, she says that the U.S. removed her from power because she refused to grant the U.S. military facilities in a region that is considered strategic for the U.S. in its “Indo-Pacific Strategy” to contain China. While these are second-hand accounts by the Indian media, they track closely several speeches and statements that Hasina has made over the past two years.

On May 17, 2024, the same Assistant Secretary Liu who played a lead role in toppling PM Khan, visited Dhaka to discuss the US Indo-Pacific Strategy among other topics. Days later, Sheikh Hasina reportedly summoned the leaders of the 14 parties of her alliance to make the startling claim that a “country of white-skinned people” was trying to bring her down, ostensibly telling the leaders that she refused to compromise her nation’s sovereignty. Like Imran Khan, PM Hasina had been pursuing a foreign policy of neutrality, including constructive relations not only with the U.S. but also with China and Russia, much to the deep consternation of the U.S. government.

To add credence to Hasina’s charges, Bangladesh had delayed signing two military agreements that the U.S. had pushed very hard since 2022, indeed by none other than the former Under-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, the neocon hardliner with her own storied history of U.S. regime-change operations. One of the draft agreements, the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), would bind Bangladesh to closer military-to-military cooperation with Washington. The Government of PM Hasina was clearly not enthusiastic to sign it.

The U.S. is by far the world’s leading practitioner of regime-change operations, yet the U.S. flatly denies its role in covert regime change operations even when caught red-handed, as with Nuland’s infamous intercepted phone call in late January 2014 planning the U.S.-led regime change operation in Ukraine. It is useless to appeal to the U.S. Congress, and still less the executive branch, to investigate the claims by PM Khan and PM Hasina. Whatever the truth of the matter, they will deny and lie as necessary.

This is where the UN should step in. Covert regime change operations are blatantly illegal under international law (notably the Doctrine of Non-Intervention, as expressed for example in UN General Assembly Resolution 2625, 1970), and constitute perhaps the greatest threat to world peace, as they profoundly destabilize nations, and often lead to wars and other civil disorders. The UN should investigate and expose covert regime change operations, both in the interests of reversing them, and preventing them in the future.

The UN Security Council is of course specifically charged under Article 24 of the UN Charter with “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.” When evidence arises that a government has been toppled through the intervention or complicity of a foreign government, the UN Security Council should investigate the claims.

In the cases of Pakistan and Bangladesh, the UN Security Council should seek the direct testimony of PM Khan and PM Hasina in order to evaluate the evidence that the U.S. played a role in the overthrow of the governments of these two leaders. Each, of course, should be protected by the UN for giving their testimony, so as to protect them from any retribution that could follow their honest presentation of the facts. Their testimony can be taken by video conference, if necessary, given the tragic ongoing incarceration of PM Khan.

The U.S. might well exercise its veto in the UN Security Council to prevent such a investigation. In that case, the UN General Assembly can take up the matter, under UN Resolution A/RES/76/, which allows the UN General Assembly to consider an issue blocked by veto in the UN Security Council. The issues at stake could then be assessed by the entire membership of the UN. The veracity of the U.S. involvement in the recent regime changes in Pakistan and Bangladesh could then be objectively analyzed and judged on the evidence, rather than on mere assertions and denials.

The U.S. engaged in at least 64 covert regime change operations during 1947-1989, according to documented research by Lindsey O’Rourke, political science professor at Boston Collage, and several more that were overt (e.g. by U.S.-led war). It continues to engage in regime-change operations with shocking frequency to this day, toppling governments in all parts of the world. It is wishful thinking that the U.S. will abide by international law on its own, but it is not wishful thinking for the world community, long suffering from U.S. regime change operations, to demand their end at the United Nations.

By Michael Every of Rabobank

Final Destination

Yesterday, stocks were mostly down, but Nividia was up after refuting its DOJ subpoena story; oil lower after an aborted rally; Treasury yields down as the US curve disinverted; and JPY up.

The Fed’s Beige Book noted consumer spending ticked lower in most Districts, activity “grew slightly” in three, and was flat or declined in nine, with isolated reports of firms only filling necessary positions, reducing hours and shifts, or lowering employment levels via attrition, even if layoffs were rare, wage growth modest, and input costs and selling price rises slight to moderate.

More focus was placed on JOLTS job openings at 7,673K vs 8,100K consensus, with the last print revised from 8,184K to 7,910K. However, as Zerohedge underlined, this survey represents just 0.8% of all US establishments, with only one in three of the small number of firms in the survey replying. Moreover, JOLTS relative to those unemployed is now back to where it was pre Covid, which was considered high at the time.

The BOC cut rates 25bp again to take the base rate to 4.25%, while promising more to come, but as Christian Lawrence and Molly Schwartz note, the Bank was keen to highlight decisions will be made meeting by meeting and are data dependent, with two opposing forces likely to impact the policy path: on the upside, shelter inflation and some services; on the downside, excess supply and labour market slack. The same is true in many locations. We expect two more BOC 25bp rate cuts this year to 3.75% by year end, and four 25bp cuts in 2025 to a terminal rate of 2.75%.

In short, the direction of travel is perhaps clear, but the final destination isn’t, at least relative to what the market is pricing for.

Meanwhile, in Canada, expect political turbulence. A federal election looms in 2025, and PM Trudeau just saw the New Democratic Party which helps keep his minority Liberal government in power withdraw its support. Trudeau will now have to find new alliances to govern.

Incredulously for those in every other democracy, tomorrow marks the start of early voting ahead of the US 5 November election ‘day’. Presumably, some voters don’t need to wait for the Harris-Trump debate, because it’s not like these can ever provide fresh angles(!); nor do they need to wait to see if key policy pledges change over time. Yet Harris is now lowering her proposed capital gains tax to 28%. Could there be electoral implications from President Biden saying he will block the proposed Nippon Steel takeover of Pennsylvania-based US Steel (on national security grounds) if, as US Steel says, without it jobs in this key swing state are “at risk”?

Showing this is going to be a looong two months: a prominent New York Democrat and several conservative media figures were accused of being influenced by China or Russia – they forgot Iran, which has influence elsewhere; Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk platformed an historian who says Churchill was a greater WW2 villain than Hitler, and the Holocaust was a catering error; and student protesters at Columbia demanded the “total collapse of the university structure and the American empire itself”; “to undermine and eradicate America as we know it”; and “unrest and violence in America.” We aren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto.

Although it isn’t a benchmark, the betting site Polymarket this morning in Asia had the odds of a Trump win at 53%.

With those kinds of headlines, it’s no coincidence the Financial Times has a long read today on ‘How national security has transformed economic policy’. One should read it; but let me add two things:

First, we made this call in January 2016. We flagged the US-China trade war a year before it started. We talked of Great Power struggles in 2018. We projected a ‘World of 2030’ in 2020. We warned Russia wasn’t joking about invading Ukraine in January 2022. And we flagged that the Suez Canal could be a victim of October 7 days after that attack. In short, we don’t just say “geopolitics.”

Second, this has vastly further to run. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have been transformative there. On Ukraine, obviously; yet Russia is now running a war economy, as some talk of a thanatopathic “Deathocracy” cultural shift to jihadi-style see-you-in-heaven mentality and staggering financial rewards for a soldier’s death; and Israel’s finance minister states its war vs. Hamas could cost 13% of GDP – before a potential escalation vs. Hezbollah and/or Iran.

Yet the US is still seeing real terms declines in its defence budget despite constant warnings of the looming dangers of this approach. The Wall Street Journal now bewails ‘The US Navy’s Chief Supplier Is in Peril’, and that a lack of crew mothballing of 17 sealift support ships will “embolden America’s foes.” Supply chains are not just about getting goods to shoppers, but to choppers. The ‘geopolitical’ bill to do so is going to be enormous.

Worse, Süddeutsche Zeitung reports Germany argues bridge and highway repairs are defence spending as public roads are used to transport tanks. In July, it declared €91bn in NATO spending, over the 2% target for the first time since the early 1990s. However, only €52bn was assigned to defence in its domestic budget, which included weapons for Ukraine, while much of the rest went on paperwork and pensions. Yes, good infrastructure is vital in war: the US interstate highway network was a Cold War response to ensure its troops could reach either coast in an emergency, while early European railways had military as much as commercial goals. However, these both went hand in hand with a military – having nice roads and no army just makes you easier to invade! In short, Germany, and most of Europe, aren’t taking things seriously yet. The EU needs to spend at least 3% of GDP, and much more of it on procurement, for decades. We already estimated the enormous annual cost of a “strategic autonomy” push: up to 6% of GDP, for years.

History is clear on how much more extreme geopolitics can get vis-à-vis markets even before we see war economies or war.

What starts off as trying to limit access to one kind of “strategic” good can widen into limiting access to all of them as whatever helps a civilian economy helps a military one directly or indirectly; tariffs can go much higher; subsidies can rise much further; full trade embargos can appear; and neutral countries can be dragged in, even to the extent of physical blockades on their ports, or at sea.

On the capital side, sanctions can be tightened against one party; but, as we flagged early, have to also be applied to third parties vigorously to be effective; capital controls can be introduced; and assets seized.

Commodities can be stockpiled by states; or stockpiles confiscated; and their trading ranges can be restricted, price- and geography-wise.

Moreover, fiscal and monetary policy can join at the hip, and markets can be told what to do, or to do nothing.

If any of the above were to be our final destination, then the market volatility we have seen so far from “geopolitics” is just the beginning. That remains true even if the near-term focus remains whether we see Fed rate cuts, RATE CUTS, or RATE CUTS!

Via Remix News,

Although the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party secured a first-place finish in the Saxony elections on Sunday, the party is still launching an investigation into an alleged computer error that cost them a seat in parliament and is also calling for an end to mail-in votes, citing security concerns and shady practices.

The first issue is the alleged software glitch that resulted in the AfD and the Christian Democrats (CDU) both losing a seat, while the Greens and Social Democrats (SPD) both gained one seat. The party says that it is launching an investigation into this.

“We want to know exactly what went wrong,” said the AfD’s state and parliamentary group leader Jörg Urban in a statement. He is demanding an exact error analysis. “If there are any irregularities, we will take legal action.”

Notably, the loss of one seat resulted in the AfD losing its blocking majority, which would have allowed the party, for example, to block the appointment of certain judges in the state.

🇩🇪 NEW: Alleged software error in Germany means the AfD and CDU both lose one seat in Saxony.

That seat was important for the AfD, as it provided the party with a “blocking minority” during crucial votes that require a two-thirds majority. pic.twitter.com/kqmCw3nLdR

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) September 2, 2024

The error initially gave the AfD and CDU an incorrect number of seats. After a review, “the state election management corrected the allocation of seats,” according to the German news outlet Leipziger Volkzeitung.

Urban said that nobody is being accused of manipulating the vote, but, “in this case, it is about the AfD’s political options in the Saxon state parliament. Any doubt about the final election result must therefore be ruled out,” he said.

Regardless of why the error came about, Saxony’s election commission suffered a serious black eye, casting doubt on the election results during an already polarized election.

🇩🇪 NEW: “Uncontrolled immigration” fueled the AfD’s “shock” victory in the east.

In fact, immigration is now the TOP issue for Germans, according to political analysts. pic.twitter.com/JBunVsP7Yl

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) September 3, 2024

Mail-in ballots

Following the results in Thuringia and Saxony, AfD co-leader, Tino Chrupalla, is calling for an end to mail-in ballots. He discussed his concerns about this form of voting during a conference with top AfD officials.

“It is also the task of the opposition to always doubt what a government is doing or what happened in an election. That is also a legitimate right and that is a good thing. And I just really want to point out, and we will also question this, for example, the entire security for the legal storage of ballot boxes, some of which are not stored in a legally secure manner, where in some cases only one person or two have access to these ballot boxes,” he said.

🇩🇪 JUST IN: “I would ban postal voting.”

Germany’s AfD party is calling for an end to mass mail-in ballots for elections.

Party co-leader @Tino_Chrupalla points out suspicious activity in the elections in Saxony and Thuringia in this new @RMXnews video. pic.twitter.com/tKydzaqaVj

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) September 4, 2024

He went on to say that postal voting has been a concern in other elections and that these issues keep coming up. However, he also pointed to a problem plaguing other countries like the United States, which instituted mass mail-in ballots in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, which involves activists entering retirement homes and potentially manipulating vulnerable elderly voters.

In the case of Germany, Chrupalla stated, “We have also seen this in old and other election campaigns, such as the current campaigning in retirement and nursing homes, especially when the CDU and SPD campaign in these old people’s homes, which are run by Diakonie or Caritas, or go in and out there, and the Afd does not even get access to present their programs to the elderly. These are also things of influence that are not democratic in my opinion.”

Nortably, both Diakonie and Caritas are run by the Protestant and Catholic churches, both of which have come out against the AfD, including expelling members of the party from the Church and calling for Germans to vote against them.

Chrupalla is calling for an end to postal voting, saying: “Personally, I would ban postal voting again. It has only been introduced as an exception or initiated in the Federal Republic of Germany. It is not the rule, it should not become the rule and it is not regulated by law in such a way that it is made the rule.”

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal appeals court has granted X Corp.’s request to block part of a California state law that requires social media platforms to disclose their content moderation and anti-hate speech policies.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an order on Sept. 4 that grants X Corp.’s request for a preliminary injunction and reverses a district court’s ruling against the Elon Musk-owned social media company in a legal challenge to California’s Assembly Bill (AB) 587.

The court said the bill’s content-moderation provisions are not narrowly tailored to serve California’s purported goal of requiring social media companies to be transparent about their content-related practices, and may amount to unconstitutionally compelled speech.

“The panel held that X Corp. was likely to succeed on the merits of its claim that the Content Category Report provisions facially violate the First Amendment,” the appeals court judges wrote in their opinion.

AB 587 requires large social media companies to post their terms of service and to submit periodic reports to the California Attorney General’s office about their content-moderation practices and policies.

A key provision of the bill requires a semiannual report detailing how the platforms define six categories of content: hate speech or racism; extremism or radicalization; disinformation and misinformation; harassment; foreign political interference; and controlled substance distribution.

X Corp. argued in its lawsuit, which named California Attorney General Robert Bonta as defendant, that the law intends to pressure social media companies to censor content that the government deems objectionable and improperly compels speech in violation of the First Amendment.

“The legislative record is crystal clear that one of the main purposes of AB 587—if not the main purpose—is to pressure social media companies to eliminate or minimize content that the government has deemed objectionable,” X Corp. attorneys argued in their complaint.

In December 2023, a district court handed X Corp. a loss, denying the company’s request for a preliminary injunction. U.S. District Judge William Shubb found that the Content Category Report provisions aren’t “unjustified or unduly burdensome within the context of First Amendment law.”

Shubb acknowledged in his order that compliance with the provisions may carry a significant burden on social media companies, but he concluded that the periodic reports that include the mandated content policy and practice disclosures are merely factual and “uncontroversial.”

“The mere fact that the reports may be ‘tied in some way to a controversial issue’ does not make the reports themselves controversial,” the judge wrote in his eight-page opinion.

The district court judge determined that X Corp. was unlikely to succeed on the merits of its First Amendment claim and that the bill’s provisions are reasonably related to the state’s interest in transparency.

X Corp. appealed, leading to the Sept. 4 ruling, holding that the Content Category Report provisions likely compel noncommercial speech and probably fail the strict scrutiny standard because they are not narrowly tailored to serve the state’s transparency interest.

In reversing the lower court’s decision to deny X Corp.’s request for a preliminary injunction, the 9th Circuit instructed the district court to issue one in line with the panel’s opinion. In addition, the lower court must determine if the Content Category Report provisions can be separated from the rest of AB 587 and, if so, to determine whether any other challenged provisions should also be blocked.

A spokesperson for the California Attorney General’s office told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement that it’s reviewing the opinion and “will respond appropriately in court.”

The legal battle between X Corp. and the state of California over AB 587 is part of a broader trend where social media platforms and industry groups have pushed back against laws around content moderation on First Amendment grounds.

Recently, the 9th Circuit appeals court issued a ruling that upheld the data privacy-related provisions of California’s online child safety laws, while striking down those that required social media platforms to assess and mitigate risks of harmful content. The appeals court found that the blocked provisions likely violate free speech rights.

Update (1433ET):

Shares of US Steel in New York crashed around 1343 ET after a Washington Post report, citing three people familiar with the matter, revealed that President Biden intends to formally block Nippon Steel’s proposed $14.9 billion deal with the Pittsburgh-based steelmaker. 

Shares crashed 21% to the $27 handle, erasing all gains made in late 2023 after Japan’s largest steelmaker said it would buy US Steel for $55 per share in an all-cash transaction.

If losses hold through the end of the cash session, this would be the largest daily loss since -26.8% on April 26, 2017. 

Financial Times said Biden’s formal decision could come in just a few days. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris revealed on Monday that she opposed the deal, and President Trump has also vowed to block it. 

Earlier, WSJ cited US Steel CEO David Burritt as warning that a blocked deal with Japan’s Nippon would result in plant closures. 

*     *    *

Just days after Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris publicly opposed Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion bid for US Steel, the CEO of the Pittsburgh-based steel giant told the Wall Street Journal that the company would be forced to relocate its headquarters and shut down steel mills if the deal falls through.

CEO David Burritt told WSJ that Japan’s Nippon plans to invest $3 billion in the company’s older mills, ensuring the plants remain competitive in domestic and global markets. The investment will also secure the jobs of thousands of steelworkers.

“We wouldn’t do that [upgrade plants] if the deal falls through,” Burritt said in an interview, adding that US Steel doesn’t have the money to afford upgrades.

The timing of Burritt’s comments comes days after VP Harris said in a speech on Monday that she opposes Nippon’s deal to purchase US steel, arguing that the Pittsburgh steelmaker “should remain American-owned and American-operated.”

Since the deal was first announced in December following a multi-month bidding process, CEO Burritt has mostly refrained from making public statements. In the interview, he said Nippon would bring much-needed investment and the latest steelmaking technology to older mills in Gary, Ind., and its Mon Valley Works near Pittsburgh. He called the mounting opposition to the deal highly “puzzling and confusing.”

Spending on mill maintenance and equipment upgrades was deferred over the last decade because US Steel was losing money as it struggled with elevated costs and low steel prices. Higher steel prices in recent years have helped restore profits despite some Wall Street analysts forecasting dismal demand in the quarters ahead amid recession threats.

US Steel owns two modern steel mills in Arkansas near Osceola in Mississippi County. Without investment from Nippon, the company could shutter Mon Valley, the company’s last steelmaking operation in Pittsburgh. 

“If that mill won’t make it to the next decade, why would we stay there?” Burritt said, adding more of its steelmaking capacity is shifting to the southern part of the US, and with that, so could the headquarters. 

Besides VP Harris and President Biden, former President Trump has also vowed to block the deal if re-elected. Both candidates are fighting for the votes of Pennsylvania steelworkers and blue-collar folks in this crucial battleground state. 

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Since the end of the “Yen Carry Trade” correction in August, bullish positioning has returned with a vengeance, yet two key risks face investors as September begins. While bullish positioning and optimism are ingredients for a rising market, there is more to this story.

It is true that “a rising tide lifts all boats,” meaning that as the market rises, investors begin to chase higher stock prices, leading to a virtual buying spiral. Such leads to an improvement in market breadth and participation, which supports further price increases. Following the August decline, the chart below shows the improvement in the NYSE advance-decline line and the number of stocks trading above their respective 50-day moving averages (DMA).

Given that “for every buyer, there must be a seller,” this data confirms that buyers are increasingly willing to pay higher prices to bring sellers to market. That cycle continues until buyers willing to pay higher prices decline. While prices are rising, we are seeing a dwindling of buyers at current prices, as shown in the chart of trading volume at various price levels. As shown, buyers currently “live lower” between 5440-5480 and the recent correctional lows.

However, despite the diminishing pool of buyers at current levels, investors are becoming increasingly bullish as prices rise. As shown in our composite fear/greed gauge, based on “how investors are positioned” in the market, we are back to more “greed” based levels. While not at extreme levels, investors are becoming increasingly optimistic about higher future prices. Of course, such readings only confirm what market prices are already telling us.

However, two primary risks to the bullish advance are developing as we enter September.

Share Buyback Window Begins To Close

Over the next two months, a primary risk to bullish investors is removing a critical buyer in the market – corporations. For more on the importance of corporate share purchases on the financial markets, read the following:

Those articles support that corporations have comprised roughly 100% of net equity purchases since 2000. In other words, the market would be trading closer to 3000 rather than 5600 without corporate share buybacks.

However, these share buybacks also pose risks to the market in the short-term as well. As Michael Lebowitz noted this morning:

“Like the meteorological seasons, share buybacks also follow predictable patterns. Accordingly, as shown below, we are past the peak share buyback season. Following the peak, share buybacks will decline rapidly until early November. Declining share buybacks is not a bearish indicator per se. However, as the number of buybacks declines, the market, specifically the stocks conducting buybacks, will have less demand for their stock. Think of share buybacks as a tailwind.

The pattern is predictable because it directly relates to corporate earnings reports. For three reasons, most companies ban share buybacks about a month before their quarterly earnings report.

• Insider Trading Concerns—Employees have access to non-public information regarding their earnings. Therefore, the ban helps eliminate the perception that the company might be trading its stock on such information.

• Investor Perception– Similarly, investors might be suspicious if the company was actively buying its stock right before the earnings announcements. If the investors were mimicking the company’s purchases, this could create heightened volatility in the stock.

• Regulatory Concerns—While the SEC does not regulate share buybacks before earnings, most companies want to avoid an investigation if the SEC suspects those buying back the shares have inside information.

As shown on Thursday, September 5th, the window for buybacks will begin to close. Corporate buying support will be non-existent by the beginning of October and through the end of the month. In other words, the primary buyer of equities will not be available to bid prices.

If you don’t believe that share buybacks are as crucial as we state, the following chart should answer any questions.

Unfortunately, removing that primary buyer will coincide with a secondary market risk.

Presidential Election Concerns

As we enter September and October, a secondary risk increases. Historically, these months have seen stock market declines, especially in years with a Presidential election. There are three primary reasons for this trend.

1. Uncertainty Surrounding Election Outcomes

Markets dislike uncertainty, and the outcome of a Presidential election is a significant unknown. Investors become cautious during election years, especially when the race is tight. They worry about potential policy changes impacting taxes, regulations, and government spending. That heightened uncertainty increases market volatility and often results in stock market declines as investors move to safer assets.

2. Policy Change Concerns

Depending on the election outcome, significant policy changes can occur. For instance, Harris and Trump have very different approaches to fiscal policy, regulation, and international trade this year. With the polls very tight, Wall Street may look to lock in gains before the election, fearing that new policies might negatively affect corporate profits via higher tax rates and, potentially, changes to capital gains rates.

3. Economic Data Releases

September and October are critical months for economic data releases, particularly since the Federal Reserve expects to cut rates in September. Key indicators from employment, inflation, and housing will potentially move markets over the next two months. Given the approaching election, the markets will scrutinize those releases closely as candidates try to leverage the data. Any negative surprises could result in a sharp pickup in volatility.

Conclusion

As we head into September, which already has a weak performance record, understanding these two risks can help investors navigate a potential pickup in volatility, particularly during election years.

However, the timing of such a consolidation or correction is always tricky. 

We suggest maintaining risk controls, taking profits as needed, rebalancing portfolios, and holding slightly higher cash levels.

While these actions won’t entirely shield portfolios from a near-term decline, they will buffer increased volatility, allowing for more rational and controlled portfolio management decisions.

Authored by J.B.Shurk via AmericanThinker.com,

Imagine life in the near future. ..

A man resides alone in a tiny apartment.  He would prefer to be married, but the State considers that antiquated institution “patriarchal” and “white supremacist.”  He would prefer to have children, but he can’t afford them.  Besides, his yearly carbon allowance is insufficient to cover another resource-wasting human being.  

He has never owned anything.  He rents his bedroom, his furnishings, and his meager entertainments.  Each month, a digital account associated with his digital ID receives a number of central bank digital currency units.  How much he receives depends upon the number of hours he works at his government job, how much the government values his work, how much the government taxes him for the privilege of using public infrastructure, and how much of his income the government decides should be redistributed to other citizens in need.  After taxes, rents, utilities, and other assorted municipal, state, federal, and international fees are deducted from his earnings, he has little — if any — discretionary income.  

If he chooses to save that income to invest in his future, the government informs him that his central bank digital currency units disappear within ninety days.  If he tries to purchase something that the government has banned, he forfeits what he currently has.  If he does something that the government deems contrary to his well-being, his social credit score decreases, and a fraction of his discretionary income disappears.  Every few weeks, a digital doctor (running on artificial intelligence) appears on the video screen in his apartment with a detailed list of all the “unhealthy” things he has done since their last interaction.  He is informed that a portion of his temporary savings will be redistributed to citizens with healthier habits.  His A.I. health monitor tells him that he must immediately report to the closest pharmaceutical distribution center so that he can be injected with the latest “vaccines.”  Failure to do so will result in the deactivation of all electronic entertainment devices and a permanent mark on his social credit record.

He is unhappy, and because the State’s A.I. supervisor has detected his unhappiness, the display monitor in his apartment encourages him to find personal meaning by “joining the fight against global warming.”  For a while, he does just that.  He attends community meetings in his apartment building where government officials talk about the importance of “saving the planet” by “owning nothing.”  He chats with anonymous strangers (bots?) on the State’s social media platform, and they all agree that the sacrifices they’re making to save the world are definitely worth it.  He wakes up one morning to discover that his social credit score has risen and that he has been rewarded with a few extra central bank digital currency units.  Still, our future man remains unhappy.

Then one day sirens blare, and his apartment monitor flashes with breaking news: the country is at war.  He listens intently but can’t figure out which foreign nations are attacking.  The trusted news anchors tell him that peace, prosperity, and freedom are all at risk.  He steps outside his tiny apartment to find other solitary renters fired up and talking excitedly about the battles to come.  He walks back inside to find his A.I. supervisor informing him that he has been personally selected to protect the homeland from its enemies.  For the first time in many years, our future man feels alive.  

He soon finds himself in boot camp, where he enjoys regular exercise, discipline, and camaraderie.  Six months later, he and his new friends are shipped overseas.  Strangely, in all this time, nobody has explained whom they will actually be fighting.  All he knows is that they’re at war with “the authoritarians” who wish to “take our democracy.”  There is anticipation in his camp and endless talk of adventure.  Then, when everyone least expects it, a thunderous swarm of drones attacks from overhead.  Nobody has time to react.  Explosions seem to come from out of nowhere.  He sees the bodies of his friends torn to pieces.  Then everything goes dark.

He awakes in a hospital severely injured, is called a hero, and is later sent home.  When he arrives, he notices breadlines outside the government’s genetically engineered food distribution centers.  He hears a beggar on the street joke that they should call them “insect-lines,” since that’s all there is to eat.  He learns that someone else has moved into his old apartment, but he is offered a new one because of his military service.  It is smaller and has even fewer furnishings than the one he lost.  He realizes that most of his former neighbors never returned from war and that many of the newcomers now living in their apartments look and sound like those people he was told to fight overseas.  Nothing makes sense.  His injuries torment him.  He feels even more lost and lonely than before he went to war.  His A.I. supervisor informs him that he has been added to a list of people considered “potential domestic terrorists.”  Remaining on this list will make it hard for him to work and live.

Then, one day, his digital doctor asks if he would like some assistance in ending his life peacefully.  “You can save others,” he is told, “by permanently reducing your carbon footprint.”  In agony, he wonders, “How did we get here?”

The shortest answer to our future friend is this: governments abandoned sound money.  They replaced gold coins with paper currencies.  They made it illegal for ordinary citizens to conduct business freely and demanded that government-issued bills be used in economic transactions.  Then they gave private central banks the authority to print these paper bills whenever they determined that doing so would be good for the economy.  

Whose economy do wealthy central bankers protect — Wall Street’s or that of the working class?  Although putatively charged with financial duties to maximize employment and minimize inflation, central banks function as market manipulators and money printers for overspending governments.  By increasing the supply of paper currency, the price of consumer goods rises.  However, the numerical price of stock market shares also goes up.  These capital assets do not gain any real value, but their rising prices give the illusion of economic growth.  Many bad companies that would never survive in a free market become lucrative investment opportunities in fake markets.  Easy money sustains companies that produce no market value.  Who loses most in this artificial arrangement?  The poorest people who have no stocks and only limited cash savings.  They have watched the hundred-dollar bill hidden under their mattresses lose most of its value over the last fifty years.

Neither fiat currencies nor central banks have any functional place in free societies.  Governments that manipulate the value of money rig markets and steal from the working poor.  The wealthiest end up owning everything, while everyone else tries to balance life precariously on a tightrope of consumer debts, mortgages, long-term loans, and the growing prospect of insolvency.  This world that financial and political elites have built is unsustainable.  It is also a kind of economic slavery.

Because it is unsustainable, those who have benefited most from its creation will do anything they must to survive its collapse.  A crashing dollar does not matter if those who control the financial system today control the central bank digital currencies of tomorrow.  Gross inequality and rampant poverty do not matter if governments can convince unhappy citizens that climate change, disease, and war require them to own less and sacrifice more.  Growing public anger does not matter if those with armies can censor speech, throttle food supplies, foment wars, and imprison dissidents.  

Ponder this: how much of the story above seems foreign, and how much of it seems painfully familiar?  Your answer tells us just how much time we have left.

By Liz Heflin of Rmxnews.com

From April to June, the European Union bought more than 12.7 billion cubic meters from Russia and 12.3 billion cubic meters from the United States.

Director of the Russian Department of Economic Cooperation of the Foreign Ministry, Dmitri Birichevski, says Russia now supplies 15 percent of the total volume of natural gas imported by the European Union. This despite the EU’s REPowerEU instituted back in May 2022 to shift away from Russia and cut it off from its flow of energy profits.

Birichevski noted, in particular, the fact that France imported 4.4 billion cubic meters of liquid natural gas (LNG) in the first quarter of 2024, more than double the circa 2 billion it imported in 2023.

Norway is still in first place, having supplied the EU with 23.9 billion cubic meters in Q2. Prior to its invasion of Ukraine, Russia held the top spot.

The German government maintains it no longer imports any gas from Moscow. However, many member states clearly do.

In the face of renewed demands to end Russian imports and defund Putin’s war chest, the energy policy spokesman for the Free Democratic Party (FDP) suggested that the EU “pay a fixed amount of aid and arms supplies to Ukraine for every cubic meter of imported Russian gas.“

After Hungarian FM Szijjártó’s meeting with Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller, Hungary doubles down on Russian gas, saying it is not a matter of ideology but physics.

The government has repeatedly put families and households first when it comes to securing energy supply, and with the… pic.twitter.com/iBL0Rl6J3p

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) August 30, 2024

The matter of Russian gas imports has been an ongoing saga, with reports of shipments from Russia being essentially laundered through other countries and pipelines to avoid being stamped as “Russian.”

This new data comes in the face of no less than 14 sanctions packages, including the latest one adopted in June, which specifically prohibits the transit of Russian LNG.

Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,

The Tennessee Star released on Tuesday the purported manifesto of Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale, who killed three 9-year-old children and three adult staff members at the Covenant School on March 27, 2023.

Much of the material in Hale’s 90 pages of writings has already been reported, including her rantings about her gender.

“So now in America, it makes one a criminal to have a gun or, be transgender, or non-binary,” Hale wrote in one journal entry. “God I hate those s***head politicians.”

Michael Patrick Leahy, editor-in-chief of The Star, said on Tuesday that he’s releasing the entire document for the public to see.

Nashville shooter Audrey Hale’s full ‘manifesto’ was released today. I didn’t see much new when I scanned it briefly. Hale did view Columbine as an inspiration, hated her dad, and had fantasies of anal sex w/ a ‘young brown girl w/ a big ass’ pic.twitter.com/bfHczmydoz

— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) September 3, 2024

“We legally obtained this handwritten journal – which we refer to as The Covenant Killer’s 2023 Journal to distinguish it from the many journals written by Hale prior to 2023 – in early June of 2024 from a source familiar with the MNPD investigation,” Leahy said.

“We have had a First Amendment right to publish these unredacted documents from the moment we legally obtained them.”

Leahy did say that he hesitated to publish the documents after he was threatened with contempt proceedings by NashvilleJudge I’Ashea Myles, who has ruled that the materials should be kept secret.

“This ‘Sword of Damocles’ has been held over my head by Judge Myles since June 17, 2024, and we have held off on publishing The Covenant Killer’s 2023 Journal, in part, until our legal defense financial resources have reached a sufficient level such that I can hire counsel to represent me in the event Judge Myles seeks to resurrect this false claim against me,” he said.

The Star has an appeal pending against Myles’ ruling.

According to Myles’s July ruling, the evidence held by law enforcement includes more than 100 gigabytes of data—far more evidence than her 90-page manifesto.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.