>>50523, >>50524 pb
GRIMM31 and 32 USAF B-52 Stratofortress' over Athens, Greece heading sse
Another run to the Middle east after topping off last night off Halifax
09-0015 USAF C-32A departed south from JBA with 09-0016 C-32A out a few minutes later sw
16 over Charlottesville, VA and 15 over Spooktown, VA at altitude
16 certainly on a cert. and/or maintenance flight with 15 heading further south
U.S. trade deficit hits a record high amid pent-up demand
The U.S. trade deficit jumped to a record high in March amid roaring domestic demand, which is drawing in imports, and the gap could widen further as the nation's economic activity rebounds faster than its global rivals.
The White House's $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package and the expansion of the COVID-19 vaccination program to all adult Americans have led to a boom in demand, which is pushing against supply constraints. Economic activity is also being boosted by the Federal Reserve's ultra-easy monetary policy stance. Manufacturers lack the capacity to satisfy the surge in demand and inventories are very lean, forcing businesses to import more goods. Demand during the pandemic also shifted to goods from services, with Americans cooped up at home. The trade deficit increased 5.6% to an all-time high of $74.4 billion in March, the Commerce Department said on Tuesday. The trade gap was in line with economists' expectations. Imports soared 6.3% to record high $274.5 billion in March. Goods imports shot up 7.0% to $234.4 billion, also a record high. Imports of consumer goods were the highest on record, as were those for food and capital goods. The nation imported a range of goods including apparel, furniture, toys, semiconductors, motor vehicles, petroleum products and telecommunications equipment. But imports of civilian aircraft and cellphones fell.
Exports surged 6.6% to $200.0 billion. Exports of goods vaulted 8.9% to $142.9 billion. They were led by industrial supplies and materials, capital and consumer goods. The pandemic remained a drag on services exports, especially travel. At $17.1 billion in March, the services surplus was the smallest since August 2012.
When adjusted for inflation, the goods trade deficit surged $4.2 billion to a record $103.1 billion in March. The deterioration in the trade deficit was flagged in an advance report published last week. U.S. stocks opened lower. The dollar was trading higher against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices rose. Despite the wider trade deficit, the economy grew at a 6.4% annualized rate in the first quarter, the second-fastest gross domestic product growth pace since the third quarter of 2003, fueled by pent-up domestic demand. That followed a 4.3% growth pace in the fourth quarter.
Most economists expect double-digit GDP growth this quarter, which would position the economy to achieve growth of at least 7%, which would be the fastest since 1984. The economy contracted 3.5% in 2020, its worst performance in 74 years.
https://www.reuters.com/business/us-trade-deficit-rises-record-high-march-2021-05-04/
when they did not show Jimmah on friday at all until these pics came out...He next
Corn tops US$7 a bushel for first time since 2013
Corn futures surged above US$7 a bushel for the first time in more than eight years as lack of rainfall in Brazil added to supply concerns.
Corn climbed as much as 3.5 per cent to US$7.0325 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, the highest since March 2013. Soybeans and wheat also both rose.
The rally across grain markets prompted major crop trader Bunge Ltd. on Tuesday to raise its earnings outlook for 2021 by as much as 25 per cent above its previous forecast. The St. Louis-based company, which posted first-quarter earnings that were double analyst projections, is betting on strong demand for crops as the world emerges from the pandemic, China scoops up American supplies and the renewable diesel industry expands.
China has been buying massive amounts of American soybeans and corn to rebuild the world’s largest hog herd. That’s helping lift prices just as dry weather hits crop yields in South America and Europe. The tailwinds have also lifted Bunge’s rival Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., which last week reported its best-ever earnings for its traditional crop-trading business. Dryness is hampering Brazil’s key second-crop corn, and rain in the coming week will fail to reach some key growing areas, according to Somar. That could further hurt yields, and analysts including Safras and StoneX Brazil have cut estimates for the coming harvest. A production shortfall there would compound stretched global grain supplies and risk further stoking food inflation.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/corn-tops-us-7-a-bushel-for-first-time-since-2013-1.1598958
Dogecoin Spikes 50% Intraday, Cripples Robinhood's Crypto Trading
Once the momentum of Robinhood traders was removed, Doge has dumped. While most eyes were on the surge in Ethereum this morning, the real animal spirits are in Dogecoin, which is up 50% today, topping 60c for the first time ever...Doge has now surged above Ripple to become the 4th largest cryptocurrency...
And that utter chaos has sparked trouble at Robinhood, as its crypto trading app "experiencing issues"...
We’re currently experiencing issues with crypto trading. We're working to resolve this as soon as possible. For the latest updates, check https://t.co/ZS733G6N1J
— Robinhood Help (@AskRobinhood) May 4, 2021
Robinhood users are rightly pissed off...
@AskRobinhood for God’s sake, Robinhood. I understand technical issues. But every damn time? Every single time something is running? #dogecoin hits .60 and suddenly crypto is getting error messages. Come on. pic.twitter.com/8x0q1hHAMn
— SteampunkFerret (@MelanieMcCull) May 4, 2021
Somewhere, Mark Cuban and Elon Musk are laughing... but not so much Charlie Munger.
As long as more companies take doge for products/services, then Doge can be a usable currency because it MAY hold its purchasing value better than a $ in your bank. If interest rates skyrocket or the amount spent falls or stagnates, so will Doge. Yes, a joke is now legit— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) May 2, 2021
https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/dogecoin-spikes-50-intraday-cripples-robinhoods-crypto-trading
Minneapolis Target Store That Was Ransacked By Rioters Now Features Mural Celebrating Rioters
The Minneapolis Target store that was infamously ransacked by looters last year now proudly displays a mural celebrating those same rioters. Yes, really.
As we highlighted last year, the store was reopened with the goal of catering more to black shoppers and being less “racist.” After a newly formed “racial justice committee” sought to tackle Target’s reputation of appealing primarily to white suburban shoppers, efforts were made to make the store more welcoming for black people while also stocking more products made by black-owned brands.
Part of this facelift included a new mural at the front of the store meant to represent the new ethos of the brand. Now we know what that looks like – the mural features the words ‘Together We Build’ as well as a depiction of two BLM protesters holding an “I can’t breathe” sign. The mural also depicts protesters with their fists raised triumphantly in the air while buildings around them are on fire. “The figures in the piece symbolize protesters, who could be any of us,” according to one of the artists who worked on the display.
“The piece was created by Minneapolis-based nonprofit Juxtaposition Arts, which goes by JXTA,” reports Alpha News. “The multi-million dollar organization seeks to empower black youth to create activist art. This apparently includes teaching kids how to write graffiti during a three week summer camp, printing Black Lives Matter T-shirts and more.”
“JXTA also flies a flag that mimics the color scheme of the ones often carried by the New Black Panthers and other paramilitary black nationalist groups like the Not Fucking Around Coalition.”
Apparently, the mural was only supposed to be a “temporary” addition, but it is still there today.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/minneapolis-target-store-was-ransacked-rioters-now-features-mural-celebrating-rioters
Frech AF CTM1016 Airbus A330 arriving at JBA from Paris CDG Airport
SLICK99 USAF E-4B Nightwatch over Wright-Patterson AFB
AF2 USAF C-32A continues nw to Milwaukee
SAM207 USAF C-40B State Dept likely heading across the pond after it's Bragg overnight
OHBEE01 USAF E-4B Nightwatch departed Dyess AFB nw
CHAOS43 BUFF out of Barksdale AFB west
can't eben help anyone in dere.
pathetic
$17.5 Million In Revenue And $5.4 Billion In Losses: Archegos Was A 300x-Levered Time Bomb For Credit Suisse
A bank's prime brokerage unit is supposed to be a safe, reliable and predictable generator of revenue, resulting from modest-margin transactions with a bank's hedge fund client base. It's safe because the bank's risk managers scour the bank's exposure to various hedge funds, and immediately flag any clients that become too big and a potential source of loss (it's also "safe" because the bank's prime brokerage management tends to make far less than the frontline Sales and Trading staff).
That is, at least, the theory. The practice, as the recent Archegos fiasco demonstrated, is anything but.
Case in point, the now infamous Credit Suisse disaster in its dealing with Archegos, which as of this moment have resulted in more than $5.4 billion in losses for the Swiss bank, and which as the FT reported today, resulted in a paltry CHF16 million (US$17.5 million) in revenue last year. In simplistic terms, this means that somehow the funding chain and the leverage Credit Suisse afforded to Archegos resulted in over 300x leverage in the wrong direction!
As the FT notes this morning, the paltry fees Credit Suisse received from Archegos "raises further questions about the risks the lender was prepared to shoulder in pursuit of relationships with ultra-wealthy clients" and adds that "the low level of fees and high risk exposure have caused concern among the board and senior executives, who are investigating the arrangement, according to two people with knowledge of the process." It has also caused a flood of layoffs and terminations as the bank belatedly looked at its books - the infamous scene from Margin Call comes to mind here...... and realized just how massive its exposure had been all along, and how nobody had any idea how big the loss would end up being until it was finally booked following the now infamous late-March liquidation frenzy.
As the FT reports, the bank’s management was "particularly alarmed" after it was told that Hwang was not a private banking client of the group, suggesting there was little incentive to pursue his prime brokerage business, which is bizarre considering how much leverage via TRS and CFDs the bank had afforded the relatively obscure family office.
As Risk.net first reported, Credit Suisse demanded a margin of only 10% for the equity swaps it traded with Archegos and allowed the family office 10-times leverage on some transactions. That was about double the leverage offered by fellow prime broker Goldman Sachs, which took minimal losses when unwinding its positions.
And with the horse having long ago fled the barn, on Friday, António Horta-Osório was confirmed as the chair of Credit Suisse and promised an urgent review of the bank’s risk management, strategy and culture. Which is great, the question is i) why this wasn't done years ago, and ii) what kind of risk controls - if any - does Credit Suisse actually have on a client by client basis. “Current and potential risks of Credit Suisse need to be a matter of immediate and close scrutiny,” said the former Lloyds Banking Group chief executive. “I firmly believe that any banker should be at heart a risk manager.”
To be sure, "action was taken" (even if confidence has yet to be restored) and Credit Suisse’s board already removed several senior executives, including chief risk and compliance officer, Lara Warner, and investment bank head, Brian Chin. Andreas Gottschling, who led the board’s risk committee, was forced to step down last week in expectation of a shareholder backlash. The two heads of the prime division have also stepped down. CEO Thomas Gottstein also announced it will cut a third of its exposure in its prime services business, leading to even less revenue at a time when the bank just raised $1.9BN from shareholder to close the Archegos inflicted funding gap.
And while Credit Suisse does not disclose the amount of money it makes from its prime services division, JPMorgan analyst Kian Abouhossein estimated the unit made $900MM of revenues last year, just over a third of the total from its equities business. It means that the Archegos fiasco not only led to a total wipeout on a 300x levered position, but it will lead to a revenue plunge of more than half a billion dollars going forward as the bank finally purges other risky PB exposure.
Abouhossein said the prime brokerage generated bigger profit margins than other parts of the investment bank. “We see shrinkage as a material setback for the overall long-term viability of Credit Suisse’s investment bank,” he added.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/175-million-revenue-and-54-billion-losses-archegos-was-300x-levered-time-bomb-credit-suisse
AF2 USAF C-32A on approach at Milwaukee, WI-Mitchell Airport
SLICK99 USAF E-4B Nightwatch with a low alt pass of Grissom ARB (north of Kokomo, IN) and lining up for another pass
SAM397 USAF G5 west from JBA depart
OHBEE01 USAF E-4B Nightwatch continues ne from Dyess AFB