Week in Review

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Week in Review

10/29/2022

For the week 10/24-10/28

[Posted 7:00 PM ET, Friday]

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Edition 1,228

As I led off last time, this week’s story in Ukraine was about Kherson and Bakhmut, the looming winter weather, and the need to gain ground, if you’re Ukraine, before the autumn rains and mud set in.  If you’re Russia, set up defensive lines.  And that’s exactly what we saw, as talk turned to stalemate and stagnant battle lines.

As the New York Times’ Marc Santora wrote today: “Both armies are now dealing with the challenges posed by the thick clay sludge that hindered Napoleon’s army in 1812, slowed Hitler’s advance on the eastern front in 1941 and wreaked havoc on Russia’s plans for a lightning advance into Ukraine in the spring of this year.”

Ukraine’s military chief, Oleksii Reznikov, told reporters this week: “This is the rainy season, and it’s very difficult to use fighting carrier vehicles with wheels.”

The looming battle for Kherson at the mouth of the Dnipro River, is expected to be one of the most consequential of the war, determining whether Kyiv can loosen Moscow’s grip on southern Ukraine.  As detailed below, Russia is flooding the area with freshly mobilized recruits…cannon fodder.

And all week we also heard talk of the preparation for a Russian “false flag” operation, a dirty bomb exploded by Russia but blamed on Ukraine, at which point Russia could demand Ukraine surrender or face nuclear retaliation.  That’s one theory.

Meanwhile, in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping consolidated power for another five years and there is little doubt he wants Taiwan.  He’s a very bad guy…and this is going to be a horrible period not just for his own people but potentially for the West.

Speaking at Saudi Arabia’s flagship investment conference in Riyadh, JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon said the geopolitical situation was more concerning than a possible recession in the United States.

“There’s a lot of stuff on the horizon which is bad and could, not necessarily, but could put the U.S. in recession,” he said.  “But that’s not the most important thing for what we think about. We’ll manage right through that. I would worry much more about the geopolitics in the world today.”

Which is what I do weekly, sports fans.

As for the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, at their home in San Francisco, I’m the ‘wait 24 hours’ guy, and I try to wait for all the facts.

But I’ll just say this.  I grow weary of this country.  When school board members and election workers have to fear for their safety, there is something very wrong. 

This isn’t the country I grew up in.  It’s a nation filled with hate and tens of millions of people who have the brain of a turnip, and I think all the time about what these parents are teaching their children at the dinner table.

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And so as the week in Ukraine evolved….

Saturday, Russia launched a massive new strike targeting Ukraine’s energy grid, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.  He added that the attacks were on a “very wide” scale, hitting regions in Ukraine’s west, center, south and east.

In an evening address, Zelensky said power had been restored in multiple areas where it had been cut off.

Zelenksy added that most of the Russian missiles and drones were being shot down, and such strikes would not stop a Ukrainian military advance.

But almost 40% of Ukraine’s power station and other energy-generating facilities have reportedly been destroyed in a wave of air strikes since Monday, Oct. 10.  Governors urged residents to stock up on water.

The Institute for the Study of War think tank said Sunday that Russia’s military leadership had withdrawn its officers in the city of Kherson.

But to delay the Ukrainian counteroffensive as the Russians complete their retreat, Moscow has left newly mobilized, inexperienced forces on the other side of the Dnipro River, the ISW added.

On Saturday, Russian-installed authorities in Ukraine told all the residents of Kherson to leave immediately.

“Due to the tense situation at the front, the increased danger of massive shelling of the city and the threat of terrorist attacks, all civilians must immediately leave the city and cross the left (east) bank of the Dnipro!” Russian officials said in a statement posted on Telegram.  Ukraine’s military was moving into areas being abandoned by Russian forces.

Kherson has been in Russian hands since the early days of the war, the city being the capital of the region of the same name, one of four regions that Vladimir Putin annexed last month and then put under Russian martial law last week.

The ISW think tank also said Sunday that Russia’s latest war strategy of targeting power plants appears to be aimed at diminishing Ukrainians’ will to fight and forcing Ukraine’s government to spend additional resources to protect civilians and energy infrastructure.  Ukraine’s morale might not be damaged, but the strikes are indeed having a significant economic impact.

Sunday then saw increased talk of a dirty bomb attack, Moscow alleging Ukraine would launch one.  Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu called his western counterparts and suggested Ukraine might be preparing to use a “dirty bomb”.

“If anyone can use nuclear weapons in this part of Europe – it can be only one source – and that source is the one that has ordered comrade Shoigu to telephone here or there,” Zelensky said in his Sunday night message.  He said that Shoigu’s “telephone carousel” made matters clear: “Everyone understands full well. They understand who is the source of all the dirty things imaginable in this war.”

France, Britain and the U.S. in a rare joint statement said the allegations were “transparently false” and Washington warned Russia there would be “severe consequences” for any nuclear use.

On Tuesday, Russia took its case to the UN Security Council, saying Ukraine is preparing to use a “dirty bomb” on its own territory, an assertion dismissed again by Western and Ukrainian officials as misinformation and a pretext for escalating the war.

Russia’s Deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told reporters: “I don’t mind people saying that Russia is crying wolf if this doesn’t happen because this is a terrible, terrible disaster that threatens potentially the whole of the Earth.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday repeated Russia’s allegations and said the West was foolish to dismiss them.  They follow hints from Moscow that it might be forced to use a tactical nuclear weapon against Ukraine, with President Zelensky saying the dirty bomb allegation showed Moscow was planning such an attack and seeking to blame Kyiv.

With Ukrainian forces advancing into Russian-occupied Kherson province, and the city of Kherson, which would be a disastrous defeat for Putin, Russian officials phoned their Western counterparts on Sunday and Monday to air their suspicions, with Russia alleging Kyiv had ordered two organizations to create a dirty bomb, without giving any evidence.

President Biden told reporters on Tuesday that when it comes to dirty bomb allegations: “Let me just say: Russia would be making an incredibly serious mistake for it to use a tactical nuclear weapon.  I’m not guaranteeing that it’s a false-flag operation yet; I don’t know.  But it would be a serious, serious mistake.”

Britain’s Deputy UN Ambassador James Kariuki told reporters on Tuesday, “We’ve seen and heard no new evidence.”  He added: “This is pure Russian misinformation of the kind we’ve seen many times before and it should stop.”

Russia’s defense ministry said the aim of a dirty bomb attack by Ukraine would be to blame Moscow for the radioactive contamination, which it said Russia had begun preparing for.

Russia’s state news agency RIA then identified what it said were the two sites involved, one of which was the Institute for Nuclear Research in Kyiv.

President Putin did not speak publicly about the dirty bomb allegations, but instead said Russia needed to streamline decision-making in relation to its “special military operation” to rid its neighbor of extremists.

Wednesday, Russia rehearsed its response to a nuclear attack in an exercise involving nuclear submarines, strategic bombers and ballistic missiles, after the dirty bomb accusation against Ukraine.

The exercise known as Grom (or “thunder”) 2022, features ballistic and cruise missile tests, according to state-run TASS.  The U.S. is not concerned as the Pentagon said it was notified and it’s a routine annual exercise by Russia.

Putin observed the exercises by Russia’s strategic nuclear forces and told intelligence chiefs of several former Soviet countries that the risk of conflict in the region and the world was high.

But Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces in the Kherson region is proving more difficult than it was in the northeast because of wet weather and the nature of the terrain, Ukraine’s defense minister said.  Ukraine also said there was no sign Russian forces were preparing to withdraw from Kherson, despite some of the stories earlier in the week.  And in fact, Russia appeared to be reinforcing after days in which it seemed possible that Moscow might withdraw.

Thursday, President Putin showed no regrets over his war, insisting that the “special military operation” was still achieving its goals and the West’s dominance over world affairs was coming to an end.

Putin railed against the West for more than three-and-a-half hours in a question-and-answer session at an annual conference.  He seemed confident and relaxed, according to observers, compared with his recent stiff and uneasy public appearances.

Asked if there had been any disappointments in the past year, Putin answered simply: “No,” though he also said he always thinks about Russia’s losses in Ukraine.

Putin gave a 45-minute opening statement in which he barely mentioned Ukraine, turning instead to a familiar litany of grievances against “our Western opponents,” who he said faced the inevitable crumbling of their “hegemony.” 

Liberal Western leaders had undermined “traditional values” around the world, foisting a culture with “dozens of genders, gay parades” on other countries.  “The historical period of the West’s undivided dominance over world affairs is coming to an end,” Putin said.  “We are standing at a historical frontier.  Ahead is probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and, at the same time, important decade since the end of World War Two.”

But later, when drawn more directly into the war, he made no mention of Russia’s battlefield setbacks of recent months, or of the escalatory steps he has ordered in response, including the callup of hundreds of thousands of reservists, which has led to thousands of men fleeing abroad.

When asked by the event’s host whether the operation was still “going according to plan” as Russian officials have maintained, Putin said its aims had not changed.  Russia was fighting to protect the people of the Donbas, he said.

Putin said economic sanctions had already had their worst impact and would ultimately make Russia stronger by making its industry more independent.

In the speech, Putin played down a nuclear standoff with the West, insisting Russia had not threatened to use nuclear weapons and had only responded to nuclear “blackmail” from Western leaders, singling out former British Prime Minister Liz Truss.  Which is a crock, as it’s been Putin, and other Russian officials who have repeatedly said in recent weeks that Russia could use nuclear weapons to protect its territorial integrity, remarks interpreted in the West as implicit threats to use them to defend annexed parts of Ukraine.  Putin then repeated Russia’s latest allegation that Ukraine was planning to use a dirty bomb.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said in response: “Any Putin speech can be described as ‘for Freud.’  The one who invaded foreign country, annexed its land and committed genocide accuses others of international law/sovereignty of other countries violation?”

British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said: “Putin’s message today to the Russia people is unclear, untrue and unedifying.  What is crystal clear, is our message to the world: Aggressors must not be able to invade their neighbors with impunity.”

In remarks to Pentagon leaders on Wednesday, President Biden said: “As we made clear in the National Security Strategy, this is a decisive decade, not because of any one of us; [but] because the world is changing. 

“We’re going to continue to lead with our diplomacy and build coalitions and tackle global challenges backed by the unquestionable strength of – and this is not hyperbole – the finest fighting force in the history of the world.”

As for what lies ahead, the president said: “We’re going to continue to support Ukraine, together with our Allies and partners around the world, as it defends itself against Russia’s brutal aggression… We’re going to continue to deepen our core alliances in the Indo-Pacific and build new coalitions committed to a world that is free, open, prosperous, and secure.”

Biden also said the U.S. must “responsibly manage the increasingly intense competition with China” while the U.S. works to “maintain our military advantage by making clear that we do not seek conflict.”

In his Thursday night address, President Zelensky accused Russian commanders of “craziness” in their efforts to take the eastern town of Bakhmut.

The town – which sits in the Donetsk region and had a pre-war population of 70,000 – has been the center of Russian attacks for months.  Taking the town would be a symbolic victory for Russia.

“This is where the craziness of the Russian command is most evident,” Zelensky said. “Day after day, for months, they are driving people to their deaths there, concentrating the highest level of artillery strikes.”

Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelensky, said that on one day, Russian forces launched eight separate attacks on Bakhmut before lunchtime and had been pushed back on each occasion.

The city sits on a main road to the Ukrainian-held cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, and while its forces struggle elsewhere in Ukraine, Russia has made progress around Bakhmut.  If it fell, it would bring other cities back within range of Russian artillery and help change the narrative.

Regular Russian troops in the region are being supported by Wagner paramilitary mercenaries. The group’s founder, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, is said to want to capture the town as a political prize.

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--The British military said Monday that while Russia is still heavily reliant upon alleged Iranian-sourced “kamikaze” drones across Ukraine, “Ukrainian efforts to defeat the Shahed-136 UAVs are increasingly successful,” citing Zelensky’s claim that up to 85% of the drones are being shot down before they hit their target (though Zelensky’s military chief puts the figure at closer to 66%).  Moscow is “likely using them as a substitute for Russian-manufactured long-range precision weapons which are becoming increasingly scarce,” the Brits say.

--A Russian court upheld WNBA star Britney Griner’s nine-year prison sentence on drug smuggling charges during an appeal hearing Tuesday.  With the sentence upheld (a few months were taken off), Griner can be sent to a penal colony, unless the U.S. and Russian governments negotiate a deal for her release.

--Next month’s G20 summit in Indonesia could be rather explosive and strategists believe Putin will use the possible extension of the UN-brokered Black Sea grain deal as a way to gain leverage and dominate the discussions.

--New Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told parliament Wednesday that the only way to facilitate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine is helping Kyiv to defend itself militarily.

“Peace can be achieved by supporting Ukraine…it is the only chance we have for the two sides to negotiate,” Meloni told the Senate ahead of a confidence vote on her newly appointed, rightist government.

Meloni has repeatedly pledged support to Kyiv, while her coalition allies Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini have been much more ambivalent on the issue due to their historic ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Meloni said that while the arms Italy supplies to Ukraine are not decisive for the outcome of the war, they are vital for Italy to maintain its international credibility.

Berlusconi, who sparked a political firestorm last week by reiterating his sympathy for Putin and accusing Ukrainian President Zelensky of triggering the war, came into line with Meloni during the Senate confidence debate.

Opinion….

Editorial / Washington Post

“It’s no surprise that the Kremlin would try to divert attention from its failures in Ukraine toward a new story about Kyiv’s purported plans to detonate a radioactive ‘dirty bomb.’  Transparent disinformation, Moscow’s tale might be intended to serve as a pretext for its own first strike with unconventional weaponry.  More likely, it is another attempt to play on the West’s fears of nuclear war, the goal of which, according to the Institute for the Study of War, is ‘to slow or suspend Western military aid to Ukraine and possibly weaken the NATO alliance.’

“Russian President Vladimir Putin guessed right that Western solidarity with Ukraine would be crucial; he has consistently guessed wrong about the willingness of Kyiv’s friends to stay the course, despite the costs of doing so.  As Mr. Putin has no doubt noticed, however, there are incipient fissures in that united front, including – ominously – signs of a split within the Republican Party over U.S. aid to Ukraine, which has totaled $54 billion since the war began in February.  Rank-and-file GOP voters, possibly influenced by messaging from former president Donald Trump and Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, are warming to the idea that U.S. aid is a waste of money better spent on domestic problems.  A September Pew Research poll found that a significant minority of Republicans – 32 percent – say the United States is providing ‘too much’ aid, up from 9 percent in March.  Small wonder 57 GOP members of the House and 11 GOP senators voted no on a $40 billion package in May.  Trump-endorsed Republican candidates for Senate in Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire and Ohio have disparaged aid for Ukraine, as have several House candidates.  Republican Joe Kent, running for Congress in a historically red district in Washington state, has tweeted: ‘No aid to Ukraine unless they are at the [negotiating] table.’

“If indeed the Republicans take one or both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections, it will be up to their leadership to contain isolationist sentiment and work with President Biden and other Democrats on aid for Ukraine….

“The GOP’s mixed signals are music to Mr. Putin’s ears.  Also unhelpful, in its own way, was Monday’s letter from a group of 30 progressive House Democrats to Mr. Biden, urging the president to open direct cease-fire negotiations with Moscow.  The Democrats, unlike Mr. Biden’s critics in the GOP, said they want to ‘pair’ this new diplomatic push with continued aid; there is no moral equivalence between the two parties in that regard.  Still, Russia is all too likely to advertise the progressives’ letter, which includes the suggestion that ending the war would help ease high gas prices, as evidence of flagging U.S. resolve. The White House politely but firmly rebuffed the idea, as it should have.  This is no time to go wobbly – and that goes for lawmakers in both parties.”

Tom Nichols / The Atlantic…on the “dirty bomb” angle.

“Let’s hope that (the Kremlin) is trying to engage in scare tactics. If, however, Putin and his circle are really considering a dirty-bomb provocation, it is likely because they would see such a plot as solving multiple problems at once. Russia would probably try to flip the script, and go from an aggressor likely guilty of multiple war crimes to the victim of a nuclear ‘event.’  It might then issue an ultimatum to the Ukrainians that elevates to war to a nuclear crisis (which is probably the only way Moscow thinks it can win, now that the Russian army lies in pieces on the battlefield).

“The Russians, in such a gambit, would likely be betting that a faked dirty bomb would alleviate the ‘first use’ stain from any Russian decision to attack – or as they would almost certainly say in this scenario, ‘retaliate’ – with a nuclear weapon.  With nuclear weapons now in play, the West would have to decide just how much to commit to nuclear deterrence on behalf of Ukraine.

“Why are the Russians now pushing this plot? I suspect the attempt to put nuclear issues back in play is rooted in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s realization that he has, yet again, humiliated himself in his harebrained scheming to prosecute a war he’s been losing since its first days.  In particular, his attempt to conscript 300,000 Russian males has been a political disaster; some reports suggest that twice that number of Russians have already fled their country, and even Putin has admitted to ‘mistakes’ and is winding back at least some of the mindless dragooning of his young men.

“Thus, threatening this dirty-bomb ruse and risking subsequent escalation makes sense if you’re in a bunker under the Kremlin (which is why I think it’s Putin’s reasoning), but in reality, it is utterly unhinged and reckless….

“Putin, once again, is gambling with the lives of his own people and the world, and we can only hope that Moscow now understands – through warnings from Washington, London, Paris, and (ideally) Istanbul – that we see through this attempted fraud, and that such escalation will only hasten Russia’s defeat and endanger the stability of the Russian nation itself.”

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Wall Street and the Economy

It’s all about the Federal Reserve’s upcoming Open Market Committee meeting next week, Nov. 1-2, and the messaging after in terms of the December meeting and beyond.  Another 75-basis point hike in the benchmark funds rate is baked in, but the markets have grown optimistic that December might not see another feared 75 bp increase, but rather 50 and a clear signal the Fed will then pause.  At least that is what the rally in equities as well as the Treasury market is telling you.

But none of the data this week, or the last few, would warrant the Fed coming out next week and saying, yes, after December we’re going to pause.  At least that’s my thinking.  No doubt Chair Jerome Powell will continue to say it’s all about the data and we’ll have more of it before Dec. 13-14.

For now, the Fed’s interest rate hikes have had an impact on the housing market, with this week’s reading from Freddie Mac on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage up to 7.08%, the highest since 2002 and vs. 3.14% a year ago, a massive difference in one’s mortgage payment.  [But with the rally in Treasuries, if it sticks, next week’s figure could be back below 7.00%; small comfort, yes, but perhaps hopeful.]

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price index for August saw the 20-city barometer falling 1.3% month-over-month, and up 13.1% year-over-year, but this latter figure is down from 16.0% prior.

A separate reading on September new-home sales fell 11.1% M/M, and was down 17.6% Y/Y.

We had our first look at third-quarter GDP and it was up…2.6%...after consecutive negative figures of -1.6% in Q1 and -0.6% in Q2…which had given Republicans lots of election fodder, so the Democrats got a late gift, kind of.  [The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow last look for the third quarter was 3.1%.]

And then we had key data today on September personal income, up 0.4%, and consumption, up 0.6%, the latter a few ticks above expectations.

This report, in terms of the Fed, though, has the key personal consumption expenditure data, the Fed’s preferred inflation benchmark, and on core, ex-food and energy, it was 5.1% vs. 4.9% prior and an expected 5.2%.  As in, nothing great, to say the least.

Meanwhile, the national price of gas at the pump edged down to $3.76, but diesel is still $5.30.

The pump down the street from moi is at $3.99.  It’s gone from a high of $5.45, down to $3.69, but then back up.

Lastly, on Wednesday, a second union voted against ratifying a national tentative agreement reached in mid-September, much ballyhooed by the White House at the time, as prospects for a rail shutdown later in the year have reemerged.

More than 300 groups including the National Retail Federation and National Association of Manufacturers on Thursday urged President Biden’s involvement to help avoid “a strike that would shut down the entire freight rail system,” the groups wrote.

Europe and Asia

We had the flash October PMIs for the eurozone this week, courtesy of S&P Global, with the EA19 composite index at a poor 47.1 (50 the dividing line between growth and contraction), a 23-month low.

Manufacturing was at 46.6, a 29-month low, and services at 48.2, 20-month low.

Germany’s flash manufacturing figure was 45.7, services 44.9.
France’s manufacturing reading was 47.4, services 51.3.

The UK’s flash manufacturing number for October was 45.8, services 47.5.

So crappy numbers all around and it will be the same next week when we get the final figures for the month.

Chris Williamson / S&P Global

“The eurozone economy looks set to contract in the fourth quarter given the steepening loss of output and deteriorating demand picture seen in October, adding to speculation that a recession is looking increasingly inevitable.

“While October’s headline flash PMI is consistent with GDP falling at a modest rate of around 0.2%, demand is falling sharply and companies are increasingly growing worried over high inventories and weaker than expected sales, especially as winter approaches.  The risks are therefore tilted towards the downturn accelerating towards the year-end.

“While the rising cost of living remains the predominant cause of the economic slowdown, the region’s energy crisis remains a major concern and a drag on activity, especially in energy intensive sectors.

“Price pressures meanwhile remain stubbornly elevated, as rising energy and staff costs, and the weakened euro, offset any lowering of commodity prices linked to improving supply conditions.  As such, the elevated survey price gauges will likely aid the ECB’s resolve to tighten policy further in the coming months despite the growing recession risk.  But there will likely also be some growing discomfort among some policymakers regarding the economic impact of tightening policy too aggressively in the face of other economic headwinds.”

--Thursday, the European Central Bank raised its policy rate by 75 basis points, as expected, and ECB chief Christine Lagarde said that speculation about where the eurozone’s neutral rate might be was “not necessarily helpful.”

Asked at a news conference if future rate hikes would be more gradual, Lagarde reiterated that the ECB had made significant progress in withdrawing monetary accommodation but had more ground to cover.

“We have acknowledged more rate hikes are in the pipeline but at which pace and to which level I cannot tell you,” she said.

Lagarde has long said that the ECB’s first job is to normalize policy and reach a point where it is no longer stimulating the economy.  But a growing number of policymakers now argue for a more restrictive policy to cool inflationary pressures. The neutral rate, which neither boosts nor slows growth, is undefined, but policymakers tend to see it at 1.5% to 2%, and the deposit rate is now around the lower end of this range following Thursday’s rate hike.

And the ECB repeated plans to keep reinvesting proceeds from the 3.3 billion euro pile of bonds it bought under its Asset Purchase Program in the last eight years, when it thought inflation was going to stay low.

So on the week, yields in the euro bond market fell steeply, even after today’s swoon on poor inflation data, because traders chose to focus on the dovish side of Christine Lagarde’s remarks and the possibility the ECB will not be hiking rates much further.  I don’t agree with that, but I’m not trading euro bonds.  It also didn’t hurt that the change in leadership in the UK was smooth.

For example, by Thursday, the yield on the German 10-year was down to 1.95% from last Friday’s close of 2.41%...a massive move, but today the yield went back up to 2.09%, as Germany reported inflation was running at 11.6%.  But the decline of 32 basis points was its biggest weekly fall in a decade.

Italy’s inflation rate was reported at 12.8% - their highest inflation rate since the series began in 1996.

Britain:  Rishi Sunak is the new prime minister, picking up a vast majority of the support of Conservative Party MPs, and thus not needing to go to party membership writ large to secure the office.  Boris Johnson and Penny Mordaunt were unable to secure sufficient support to keep the process going.

Sunak was chancellor under Johnson and at 42, is the youngest prime minister in British history.

Wednesday, Sunak faced his first political cage match, better known as prime minister’s questions, and Labour party leader Keir Starmer ripped into Sunak, his cabinet appointments and a tax loophole used by Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, to avoid paying British taxes on her global income.  Earlier this year, Ms. Murty, the daughter of an Indian tech billionaire (the founder of Infosys), agreed to pay those taxes in the future.

Starmer, whose party has a 30-point lead in the polls, described Sunak’s Conservatives as a party out of control, bereft of ideas, with a standard-bearer who could not relate to the anxieties of ordinary people.

Sunak, thanks in part to his wife, is worth an estimated $800 million.  He is Stanford educated (after graduating from Oxford), the couple has a home in Santa Monica, he worked at Goldman Sachs as an investment banker…you get the picture.

But his technocratic style is needed in today’s Britain and he has a policy record that stands in contrast to that of the failed Liz Truss.

Sunak was unruffled by Starmer’s attack.  “My record is clear. When times are difficult in this country, I will always protect the most vulnerable.”

As chancellor, Sunak doled out billions in aid to people who had lost their jobs in the early days of the pandemic.  During the Conservative Party’s leadership contest last summer, he warned presciently that cutting taxes at a time of double-digit inflation, as Liz Truss promised, was a “fairy tale” that would hurt Britain’s reputation and leave people worse off.

Within days, Sunak created the impression of stability* and the new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, said he would delay publication of a new budget to Nov. 17 to gather better projections of growth and public finances.

Hunt scrapped virtually all of Truss’s unfunded tax cuts that caused the chaos in the financial markets and, together with Sunak, are exploring tax increases and public spending cuts worth up to $57.8 billion a year to fill a hole in the budget, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.  If so, this will be part of the Nov. 17 statement.

*The yield on the British 10-year bond fell from 4.04% to 3.47%.

But the big issue is Sunak has no election mandate, let alone he has a deeply divided Conservative party that is 30 points behind in the polls.  For good reason, the political opposition is calling for an early election.

Nonetheless, it was pretty remarkable.  Rishi Sunak’s ascension to the top job in national politics revived the British dream for immigrants and people of color.  He’s the son of African-born parents of Indian descent and he comes to power at a time when intolerance towards minorities and anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise globally, including in India.

And as a Hindu, Sunak came to power on the day of Diwali, the largest Hindu festival, which was rather ironic, and symbolic.

[I’ve told you how my perch here in Summit looks down on a bunch of single-family homes and I noticed an Indian couple recently moved into one of them. So having gone to bed myself at 10:30 p.m. Monday night, after 11:00, I was awakened by a bunch of fireworks.  I knew immediately what it was for, but I’m guessing none of my neighbors knew.  I then grew increasingly irritated as they lit fireworks three more freakin’ times, the editor typed with a smile.]

Turning to Asia…China finally reported its economic data after the Chinese Communist Party congress ended.  And it wasn’t great.

GDP for the third quarter was 3.9% (ann.) vs. 0.4% in the prior quarter and a consensus of 3.4%.  But the 3.9% is well below the government’s target of 5.5% for the year.

September industrial production rose 6.3% year-over-year, a little better than forecast.

September retail sales at 2.5% Y/Y were below consensus.

Fixed asset investment (roads, railroads, airports) were up 5.9% year to date.

And the September unemployment rate was 5.5%.

[All the above courtesy of the National Bureau of Statistics.]

We also finally got the much-delayed trade figures for September, with exports increasing 5.7%, a little better than forecast, while imports were just up 0.3%.

Exports to the EU grew 5.6%, but declined -11.6% to the U.S., per the General Administration of Customs.

But even though the GDP figure was better than expected, Hong Kong’s market tanked by almost 7% on Monday as Xi’s consolidation of the top leadership caught some off guard as all market reformers were ousted, though why this was a surprise is, err, surprising.

In the past one year+, Xi has directed China’s economy back toward state-dominance over the private sector, and now he will have total control, as I write further below, with no one to push back on his economic policies.

And thus far he shows no signs of easing on the Covid front. I saw the case numbers Thursday, released nightly, for Shanghai and Beijing; zero and 6 symptomatic, respectively.  Zero and Six!

Yet cities this week from Wuhan in central China to Xining in the northwest are doubling down on Covid curbs. Freakin’ idiots.

The International Monetary Fund said this week that China’s “sharp and uncharacteristic” economic slowdown could spell trouble for its Asian neighbors with whom it has strong trade and financial ties.

The IMF shaved its growth forecast for Asia to 4 percent this year, down 0.9 percentage points from an earlier projection.

Krishna Srinivasan, director of the IMF’s Asia-Pacific department, warned that growth could be lower if various headwinds intensified.  Specifically, Srinivasan said China’s economy has been hurt by the hardline zero-Covid policy, though he was optimistic that there could be some relief soon.

In Japan, the flash manufacturing PMI for October was 50.7, with services at 53.0.

The Bank of Japan maintained its key short-term interest rate at -0.1% and that for 10-year bond yields around 0% during its meeting Thursday, while lifting its 2022 inflation forecast to 2.9% from 2.3% in July.  For fiscal 2023, the bank cut its GDP outlook a tick to 1.9% from 2.0%.  The BoJ also reiterated it will take extra easing measures if needed while continuing to buy unlimited amounts of bonds to guard an implicit 0.25% cap on the 10-year every market day, as it has been doing since April.  Yes, the BoJ is in a world of its own.

Street Bytes

--Stocks staged a powerful rally despite some dreadful earnings reports from leading tech companies, as hopes the Fed might be nearing the end of its rate-hike cycle predominated.  Personally, I think this is nuts, but, whatever.

The Dow Jones rose a fourth straight week, its best streak since Nov. 2021, and with one session left in the month, could be headed for its best monthly gain since the 1970s, if not, 1987.

The S&P 500 rose 4% and Nasdaq 2.2%, its gain limited by the tech bombs, as discussed below.

--U.S. Treasury Yields

6-mo. 4.48%  2-yr. 4.41%  10-yr. 4.01%  30-yr. 4.14%

The yield on the 10-year fell for the first time in 12 weeks.

--Exxon Mobil and Chevron beat top and bottom-line estimates for the third quarter, benefiting from the elevated crude and gas prices.

Exxon’s adjusted per share earnings jumped to $4.45 from $1.58 a year earlier, well ahead of consensus for $3.80.  Total revenue and other income increased to $112.07 billion from $73.79 billion, above the Street’s $103 billion view.

“In the third quarter, crude prices moved back within the upper end of the 10-year range as higher supply slightly exceeded demand,” CEO Darren Woods said on an earnings call.  “Natural gas prices rose to record levels in the third quarter, reflecting concerns in Europe about the withdrawal of Russian supply as well as efforts to build inventory ahead of winter.”

Chevron’s adjusted EPS jumped to $5.56 from $2.96 a year ago, versus market expectations for $4.92.  Total revenue and other income advanced to $66.64 billion from $44.71 billion, higher than the $61.44 billion Street estimate.

Chevron’s net income was $11.2 billion; Exxon’s a record $19.7 billion.

Good for them both.

--London-based Shell reported adjusted earnings of $9.45 billion for the third quarter, its second-highest profit on record.  Paris-based TotalEnergies reported a profit of $9.9 billion.

For both, the profits were more than double what they earned in the same period a year ago.

For Shell, the profit was a step down from the record-breaking $11.5 billion it reported for the second quarter, when it received an average of just over $100 a barrel for oil, compared with $93 in the third quarter.

--Meta Platforms shares cratered following the company’s disappointing third-quarter earnings announcement, as a weak advertising environment took a toll on the social media giant.

The shares fell over 24%, wiping out nearly $85 billion of the company’s market value and returning to levels not seen since 2016.  The stock is down 70% for the year, as investors have run out of patience with Meta’s strategy and they are dismayed by the company’s plans to aggressively boost spending on the metaverse and other projects in 2023.

For the quarter, Meta posted revenue of $27.7 billion for its third quarter, down 4% from a year ago, and essentially in line with Street forecasts.  Meta earned $1.64 a share in the quarter ($4.4 billion), falling well shy of Street consensus of $1.90 a share, and down 52% from $9.19 billion, or $3.22 per share, in the same period a year earlier.

“While we face near-term challenges on revenue, the fundamentals are there for a return to stronger revenue growth,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. “We’re approaching 2023 with a focus on prioritization and efficiency that will help us navigate the current environment and emerge an even stronger company.”

But the conference call after the earnings release provided little comfort to investors about the outlook.

Meta is facing stiff competition from TikTok and others.  There are also ongoing ad-targeting issues tied to Apple’s renewed focus on privacy protections for iPhone users as well as disappointing monetization for Reels – all amid the softening global economy.  And many remain highly skeptical about prospects for the metaverse.  Frankly, you know where I’ve stood. It’s a crock of shit.  Good for touring an art museum or the Swiss Alps, but not worth spending $34 to $39 billion on, as Facebook is going to do next year alone!

The Reality Labs unit responsible for the metaverse investments lost $3.7 billion.

Meta’s outlook for the December quarter calls for revenue of $30 billion to $32.5 billion, short of Street consensus of $32.4 billion.

The company said it plans to hold some ‘teams’ flat in 2023 in terms of head count, while shrinking others, and that it expects 2023 year-end head count to be about flat with Q3 2022 levels.

The disappointing results from the parent of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp makes three straight weak earnings reports from the tech megacaps, following disappointing results from both Microsoft and Alphabet.

--Speaking of which, Google reported its fifth consecutive quarter of slowing sales growth, with its YouTube video platform posting a drop in advertising revenue for the first time since the company began reporting the unit’s performance.

Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, reported revenue of $69.1 billion in Q3, an increase of 6.1% from the same period last year but less than analysts expected.

The results point to continued fragility for the digital-advertising industry, which has been clobbered in recent months.  Some of Google’s core properties, including YouTube and search, which have long been drivers of the company’s overall performance, showed surprising weakness.

The search business reported revenue of $39.5 billion in the third quarter, an increase of 4.3%.

Advertising revenue on Google’s YouTube video platform fell 1.9% to $7.1 billion.

Google’s cloud-computing division, one of the biggest areas of spending, increased by 37.6% to $6.9 billion, growing slightly faster than in the second quarter this year.

Alphabet reported $13.9 billion in net income during the third quarter, a decrease of 26.5% compared with the same period last year.

But while Alphabet has talked of becoming more disciplined in hiring, Alphabet’s full-time employee base increased by almost 12,800 workers in the quarter, the biggest change on record.

Alphabet shares fell 6%.

“Times like this are clarifying,” said CEO Sundar Pichai, in a call with analysts.  He said Google has begun a push to become more efficient “by realigning resources to invest in our biggest growth opportunities” and that employee growth will be “significantly lower” in the fourth quarter.

--Microsoft shares tumbled after it reported its worst quarterly earnings in more than two years, and slowest sales growth in five years amid a strong dollar and weakening personal computer sales.

The tech giant posted an 11% increase in revenue to $50.1 billion for the three months that ended in September, as profit fell 14% to $17.6 billion from a year earlier. The last time revenue growth was this slow was the quarter that ended in March 2017; the company’s revenue typically growing 12% to 22% each quarter.

The war in Ukraine and the economic turmoil in Britain have strengthened the U.S. dollar, depressing Microsoft’s revenue by $2.3 billion.  Removing the currency fluctuation, the company’s business grew 16 percent.

Microsoft suggested that the difficult conditions might continue as it gave a financial forecast that fell short of current consensus and the shares cratered, sales of $53.35 billion for Q4 vs. the Street consensus of $56.2 billion.

In the most recent quarter, softness in the global market for new computers, which affects Microsoft’s lucrative Windows business, offset the strength of the company’s cloud computing service and its suite of productivity software like Word, Excel and security offerings.

Sales of the Windows operating system installed on new computers declined 15%, as employers and consumers who had raced to upgrade laptops and other devices during the pandemic’s work-from-home boom returned to more regular buying patterns.  The company said the slowdown in consumer PC sales that started in September would continue through June, with Windows sales to PC makers expected to drop more than 30% in the quarter.

Revenue from Azure, the company’s flagship cloud computing product, increased 35%, slightly below expectations.

The company is also seeing the pandemic-fueled boom in gaming slowly deflate, as sales from Xbox games fell 3%.

Microsoft earlier in the month said it was laying off employees to adjust to evolving business prospects, but it didn’t say this week how many people it was cutting.

--Amazon.com shares then cratered after the close Thursday following the company’s weaker-than-expected results from its AWS cloud unit and lousy guidance for the fourth quarter.

Amazon’s third quarter sales and earnings were roughly in line with expectations.

For the third quarter, Amazon posted sales of $127.1 billion, up 15% from a year ago.  North American sales were up 20%; international sales were down 5%, but up 12% adjusted for foreign exchange rates. 

One major issue: Amazon Web Services revenues were up 27%, well below the 32% growth rate Wall Street had anticipated.  AWS grew 28% adjusted for currency.

Operating income was $2.5 billion, down from $4.9 billion a year earlier, but in the middle of the company’s forecast range of zero to $3.5 billion. Profit was $2.9 billion, but inclusive of a $1.1 billion gain on the company’s Rivian Automotive stake.

But then Amazon said it expects fourth-quarter revenue of $140 billion to $148 billion.  Analysts had been projecting $155 billion in revenue for the quarter.  Not a good sign for the holiday shopping season.

The slowing growth from AWS – which followed a similar story from Microsoft’s Azure cloud unit – raises fresh questions about how well cloud computing demand will hold up in a slowing enterprise spending environment.

Amazon has frozen hiring in parts of its web services division – an apparent escalation of the company’s cost-cutting efforts.

Amazon Web Services has started telling some job candidates that roles they were seeking have been frozen, according to reports, via prospective candidates.

The poor earnings report came just days after founder Jeff Bezos warned of a looming recession, saying that “the probabilities in this economy tell you to batten down the hatches.’

Amazon shares fell 12%.

--So then the last of the Big Five megacap tech stocks reported after Amazon, and Apple Inc. emerged as the only winner.  Revenue and profit topped Wall Street targets, though iPhone sales were not as strong as some had targeted.  Apple’s saving grace was Mac sales of $11.5 billion, far ahead of analyst estimates of $9.36 billion.

Apple’s results showed some resilience in the face of a weak economy and strong U.S. dollar that has led to disastrous reports from the likes of those above.

Overall, Apple said quarterly revenue rose 8% to a record $90.1 billion, above estimates of $88.9 billion, and net profit was $1.29 per share, topping consensus of $1.27.  Net income was $20.7 billion.

Phone sales for the quarter rose to $42.6 billion, below the Street’s forecast of $43.21 billion.  By contrast, the overall global smartphone market dropped 9% for the just-ended quarter, according to Canalys data.

Apple CFO Luca Maestri said iPhone sales set a record for the September quarter, but there was lackluster demand for base models of the newly introduced iPhone 14s, though robust consumer appetite for the high-end devices.

The company reported sales of iPads were $7.2 billion, compared with estimates of $7.9 billion.  Apple wearables such as AirPods notched sales of $9.7 billion, slightly ahead of the Street’s forecasts.

In China, which has experienced a sharp economic slowdown, Apple reported fiscal fourth-quarter sales of $15.5 billion, a gain from the prior quarter, when Apple logged sales of $14.6 billion.

--Boeing reported a surprising $3.3 billion loss for the third quarter Wednesday, as revenue fell short of expectations and it took huge losses for fixed-cost government programs including new Air Force One presidential jets.

The company blamed higher manufacturing and supply-chain costs for driving the losses in government programs.

CEO David Calhoun said Boeing remains in a “challenging environment” and has “more work ahead to drive stability.”

The same story year after year at this point from Boeing.

The adjusted loss amounted to $6.18 per share on revenue of $15.96 billion, well above forecasts.

The stock fell nearly 9% in response.

Revenue in Boeing’s normally consistent defense and space business tumbled by 20%, and it suffered $2.8 billion in losses on a military refueling tanker, Air Force One, a NASA program to build a spacecraft that can ferry astronauts to the International Space Station, and other programs.

Boeing has previously posted big losses on those projects, including about $1 billion in charges related to building two new Air Force One aircraft, a deal it struck with then-president Trump.

Boeing’s commercial airplane business has shown improvement as air travel rises and airlines seek new planes.  On Wednesday, Alaska Airlines announced it would exercise options to buy 52 more 737 MAX jets.

The airline side of Boeing operations saw revenue soar by 40% from a year earlier as it delivered more planes, but it still lost $643 million, only slightly less than a year ago.

--Southwest Airlines Co. posted record operating revenue in its third quarter as travelers returned in force over the summer.

Operating revenue totaled $6.22 billion, up 10% from the prior year’s $5.64 billion, the company said Thursday.  However, this was shy of consensus of $6.23 billion.

Fuel costs were $3.34 per gallon.

CEO Bob Jordan said that revenue trends stayed strong in September, even as the busy summer travel season wrapped up with business travel picking up after Labor Day.

Jordan said the company anticipates revenue trends to improve from the third to fourth quarters as leisure and business travel remain strong in an environment of lower capacity.

Southwest expects first-quarter capacity to rise about 10% and second-quarter capacity to increase approximately 14% year over year.  The airline also expects to be able to offer more flight options to travelers next year.

Southwest earned $277 million, or 44 cents per share in the quarter, adjusted eps of 50 cents, topping the Street’s 41 cents per share.

This week, Southwest reached a tentative agreement with the union representing about 8,000 customer-service workers that includes raises of up to 25% over four years. The same workers voted down smaller raises in May.  Pilots are also negotiating a new contract.

--TSA checkpoint numbers vs. 2019

10/27…112 percent of 2019 levels…legit
10/26…99
10/25…103…low overall number
10/24…99
10/23…100
10/22…104…low overall number
10/21…94
10/20…95

--Ford Motor Co. on Wednesday reported a third-quarter net loss driven by its decision to shift spending from the Argo AI self-driving business.

Ford’s move, a sharp contrast with rival General Motors Co.’s decision to double down on investments in its Cruise robotaxi unit, highlights the pressure on automakers to make hard choices as the financial demands of shifting to electric vehicles continue to rise.

Both U.S. automakers continue to post heavy losses on automated-vehicle development. Ford posted a net loss in the quarter of $827 million, after taking a $2.7 billion noncash pretax impairment on its investment in Argo AI.  The company said Argo will be “wound down” and that “talented engineers” will be offered positions with Ford.

Ford and VW each hold around 39% of Argo, with Volkswagen AG saying it would hire some personnel from Argo.

Ford CEO Jim Farley said the company will shift its development focus away from fully self-driving systems developed by Argo to advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) created internally at Ford.

“Profitable, fully autonomous vehicles at scale are a long way off and we won’t necessarily have to create that technology ourselves,” Farley said in a statement.

Ford said third-quarter revenue jumped to $39.4 billion, up 10% from a year ago, while adjusted operating profit fell to $1.8 billion from $3.0 billion last year. Ford warned in mid-September that inflation-related supplier costs were running about $1 billion higher than expected.

In a call with analysts, Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler said: “We see the probability that we could move into a mild or moderate recession in the U.S. next year. We could potentially have a more substantial decline in Europe.”

--General Motors third-quarter results advanced from last year as strong demand and an improving supply situation propelled the automaker’s revenue to record levels, while it maintained the full-year guidance.

Adjusted per-share earnings rose to $2.25 from $1.52 a year earlier, topping the consensus for $1.88. Revenue surged to $41.89 billion from $26.78 billion, but this was short of consensus of $42.05 billion.

“Overall, parts availability and supply chain issues continue to slowly trend in the right direction,” CFO Paul Jacobson said on an earnings call.  “We also continue to see strong demand for our products, and we’ll remain thoughtful in our approach to pricing.”

The company shipped nearly 75% of unfinished vehicles held in inventory at the end of June, though logistical challenges, particularly from Mexico, still impacted its ability to recognize revenue on ‘certain in-transit vehicles,” he told analysts.

Revenue in North America jumped to $34.69 billion from $20.55 billion a year ago, while international sales rose to $3.98 billion from $2.84 billion.

GM reaffirmed guidance for 2022, “despite a challenging environment” while the company “actively” manages the headwinds it is facing, CEO Mary Barra said in a letter to shareholders.

--Hyundai Motor Co. broke ground on a $5.54 billion electric vehicle battery plant in Bryan county, Georgia, about 30 miles west of Savannah.  The investment is the largest in the state’s history and the latest in a string of EV and battery announcements in the state.  The investment will add 8,100 jobs.

The Inflation Reduction Act signed by President Biden in August requires EVs to be assembled in North America in order to qualify for U.S. tax credits.

Hyundai and its affiliate Kia Corp., as well as major European automakers were excluded from the EV subsidies as they do not yet make the vehicles here.  The law made about 70% of EVs immediately ineligible for the tax credits of up to $7,500 per vehicle; vehicles such as the Hyundai Ioniq 5 crossover SUV.

--The European Union struck a deal on Thursday on a law to effectively ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035, aiming to speed up the switch to electric vehicles and combat climate change.

--Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. reported a 31% drop in third-quarter profit on Thursday and said geopolitical uncertainties are likely to dampen demand until early 2023, as the global economic downturn slashed the appetite for electronic devices.

The world’s top maker of memory chips and smartphone said operating profit fell to $7.7 billion for the quarter, down from $11.2 billion a year earlier, the first year-on-year decline in nearly three years.

--Intel plans significant cost cuts, including a “meaningful number” of layoffs, its CFO said as part of its third-quarter earnings report, with revenue at $15.3 billion, which was in line with estimates, but Intel also predicted Q4 revenue will be between $14 billion and $15 billion, below consensus of $16.32 billion.

But the shares rose over the cost reduction plan that will reduce expenses by $3 billion next year, a total that will grow to $8 billion to $10 billion in annualized expense reductions by the end of 2025.

The chip maker now expects the PC market to decline by a mid-to-high teens percentage this year, and the company expects the PC market to be flat to down next year.

--Caterpillar shares surged over 7% Thursday as the company posted better-than-expected Q3 results, with higher volume driving top-line growth, a trend that the construction and mining equipment maker expects to continue in the December quarter.

Adjusted profit for the three months through Sept. 30 rose to $3.95 per share from $2.66 last year, while revenue increased to $14.99 billion from $12.4 billion, both figures above forecasts.

CEO Jim Umpleby said on an earnings call, “Our top-line would have been higher if not for ongoing supply chain constraints.”

Caterpillar attributed volume growth in part to a $700 million jump in dealer inventories, compared with a $300 million decline a year earlier.

Sales in the company’s resource industries segment grew 30%, while energy and transportation and construction industries logged gains of 22% and 19%, respectively. 

Caterpillar issued a positive forecast for Q4.

--United Parcel Service’s third-quarter revenue missed analysts’ expectations following a decline in the supply chain solutions segment, but the package delivery company reiterated its full-year sales outlook as it adjusts to a slowing economy.

Revenue came in at $24.16 billion for the quarter ended Sept. 30, higher than the $23.18 billion recorded last year, the company said Tuesday.  The result was just shy of consensus of $24.32 billion.  Adjusted earnings jumped 10% to $2.99 per share, beating the Steet’s $2.85 mean estimate.

“Internationally, the macro environment weakened more than we expected due to high inflation, volatile energy prices, lockdowns in Asia and the war in Eastern Europe,” CFO Brian Newman said in an earnings call. “We responded quickly to the changing market conditions by leveraging the agility of our global integrated network to provide excellent service to our customers and deliver our bottom-line commitments to shareowners.”

U.S. domestic sales advanced 8.2% to $15.37 billion as a 9.8% increase in revenue per piece helped offset a 1.5% drop in average volume.  Revenue in the international segment edged up 1.7% to nearly $4.8 billion despite challenging conditions.

For the fourth quarter, the company anticipates revenue growth of 4.5%.  Shipments are expected to “peak” later in December versus the previous year, assuming that more customers will return to “pre-pandemic shopping behaviors,” CEO Carol Tome told analysts on the call.

--McDonald’s third-quarter results declined on a strengthening U.S. dollar, but more customers and price hikes in the U.S. helped the fast-food chain exceed market estimates.

Adjusted earnings fell to $2.68 a share from $2.76 a year earlier, which topped expectations of $2.58.  Revenue for the September quarter slipped 5% to $5.87 billion, but also topped the Street.

Comparable sales on a global basis were up 9.5%, compared with the Street’s 5.9% forecast.  U.S. same-store sales rose 6.1%, driven by price increases, more customer visits and marketing promotions, according to the company.

CEO Chris Kempczinski said in a statement: “As the macroeconomic landscape continues to evolve and uncertainties persist, we are operating from a position of competitive strength.”

On an earnings call, Kempczinski added: “Our base case scenario going forward is that we expect to experience a mild to moderate recession in the U.S. and one that will be potentially a little deeper and longer in Europe.”

--It’s really happening…Elon Musk is taking over Twitter and at $54.20 a share, way over what the company is worth, by his own admission. 

But Musk was going to lose a lawsuit, he gave in, and told employees on Wednesday that he doesn’t plan to cut 75% of the staff, denying a previous report, but no doubt big staff cuts are coming, furthering anxiety among workers. 

Musk posted a video clip of himself walking into the offices carrying a kitchen sink.  He changed his Twitter profile description to read “Chief Twit.”

In his first formal post, Musk said in part:

“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence. There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.

“In the relentless pursuit of clicks, much of traditional media has fueled and catered to those polarized extremes, as they believe that is what brings in the money, but, in doing so, the opportunity for dialogue is lost.

“That is why I bought Twitter. I didn’t do it because it would be easy. I didn’t do it to make more money.  I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love.  And I do so with humility, recognizing that failure in pursuing this goal, despite our best efforts, is a very real possibility.

“That said, Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!  In addition to adhering to the laws of the land, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all, where you can choose your desired experience according to your preferences, just as you can choose, for example, to see movies or play video games ranging from all ages to mature.”

And then Musk ousted several senior figures Thursday night, including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal policy, trust and safety.

Agrawal and Segal were in Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters when the deal closed and were escorted out, as reported.

Musk is assuming the role of chief executive officer.  He also intends to do away with permanent bans on users because he doesn’t believe in lifelong prohibitions, which would impact Donald Trump, though it’s unclear if Trump would be allowed back in the near term.

Separately, the White House said on Monday that reports the U.S. was discussing launching a national security review of some of Musk’s ventures were “not true.”

--With a major Bristol Myers Squibb location directly across the street from my place, I do have a casual interest…as in there is nonstop construction at the location, at least five days a week.  They’ve been knocking down old buildings, putting up new ones, endless backup ‘beeps’ on the tractors…it’s a royal pain in the ass (though I have long gotten used to it).

Anyway, the company reported mixed earnings news Wednesday for the quarter as overall sales of its Revlimid cancer drug fell 28% over low demand, while the pharmaceutical company maintained its full-year outlook.

Revenue slipped 3% to $11.22 billion, just above the Street’s view, with adjusted earnings of $1.99 a share from $1.93 a year earlier, also ahead of consensus.

Sales of blood thinner Eliquis rose 10%, and cancer immunotherapy Opdivo 7%.

--Credit Suisse Group AG is cutting thousands of jobs and raising $4 billion in fresh capital as it funds a retreat from Wall Street deal making and trading and attempts to recover from a period of scandals, hefty losses and executive turnover that threatened its existence.  Fellow Swiss bank UBS Group AG and Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG have also in recent years scaled back in investment banking.

The result will be a leaner bank with around 9,000 fewer staff in three years, with the first wave of 2,700 cuts taking place now. Credit Suisse stock fell 19%, suffering its steepest one-day percentage decline going back to 1985.  Shareholders are being severely diluted.

The Swiss bank said it would sharpen the focus of its markets trading businesses and rebrand its capital markets and advisory business as an independent unit called CS First Boston, reviving a storied banking brand.

Michael Klein, a veteran banker and board member, will become the new unit’s CEO, which could eventually be spun off.

--Warner Bros. Discovery reported it will incur up to $1.5 billion in costs to shrink the company, cancel programming and provide severance packages to laid-off workers, among other expenses.

Executives, including CEO David Zaslav, have long signaled that they will pursue an aggressive cost-savings effort to achieve previously announced financial goals.

Zaslav, as part of Discovery’s consolidation of WarnerMedia, had promised Wall Street that he and his lieutenants will find $3 billion in annual cost savings after the merger.

Telecom giant AT&T decided to make a hasty exit from Hollywood, turning over its entertainment portfolio, including HBO, the Warner Bros. film and TV studio, CNN, TBS and Turner Classic Movies, among other properties, to Discovery in April.

CNN also is reportedly undergoing a major cost-cutting program.  Recent programming changes, including giving Jake Tapper a prime-time slot, have failed thus far.

--Adidas, the most important partner in Kanye West’s fashion empire, ended its partnership with ‘Ye’ at a considerable cost, after West made a series of antisemitic remarks and embraced a slogan associated with white supremacists.

Adidas was holding out, as other companies abandoned Kanye, and finally cut ties, with the company saying the move would cost it $250 million this year..

The end of the nearly decade-long partnership reportedly was worth $100 million annually to Ye

“Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech,” the company said in a statement.  “Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and they violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness.”

Among the many despicable comments and posts on social media of Kanye’s in recent weeks was a Twitter post that said he would go “death con 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE.”

Instagram and Twitter suspended Ye’s accounts.  Ari Emanuel called on entertainment companies to stop working with Ye.  Gap had ended its partnership with Ye last month.  Sports stars, including Aaron Donald and the Celtics’ Jaylen Brown said they were cutting ties with Donda Sports, Ye’s marketing agency.

Editorial / New York Daily News

“Count us pleased that Kanye West, or Ye, is locked out of Twitter and Instagram and is no longer represented by the Creative Artists Agency. He may be creative and he may be an artist, but one of the world’s most powerful talent firms has no obligation to advance the career of a man who, tormented by who knows what psychological problems, has lately and unapologetically spouted anti-Semitic bile to millions.  We were further pleased Tuesday when West’s corporate partner Adidas followed suit. A now-enlightened German shoemaker that once played footsie with Nazis should be especially sensitive to having one of its promoters promote Jew hatred….

“(But, when it comes to) apps like Twitter and Instagram, private entities free to make their own speech rules, a music platform featuring the songs of unsavory characters is roughly akin to a museum or bookstore or library including the work of artists known as racist or abusive.  We don’t want a world in which Roman Polanski’s oeuvre is purged by every streaming service with sensitive shareholders.

“Kanye West should pay a price for trafficking in anti-Semitic invective.  That price shouldn’t include banishing his work.”

--Anheuser-Busch InBev NV reported that its sales volume rose by 3.7% in the three months ended Sept. 30, as the company’s revenue climbed 12.1% to $15.1 billion, buoyed by double-digit percentage growth of high-end beers such as Michelob Ultra in the U.S. and Corona elsewhere.

“If you want to upgrade your house, [it can cost] millions of dollars,” CEO Michael Doukeris said in an interview.  “If you want to change your car, thousands of dollars. If you want to go premium in beer, tens of dollars. So during recessions, inflation, consumers tend to trade up.”

Foreign Affairs, Part II

China: President Xi Jinping cemented his position in the Chinese Communist Party, securing an unprecedented third five-year term, bolstering his personality cult and eliminating rivals.

Last Saturday, as the party congress wrapped up, Xi’s “core” status was enshrined in the Communist Party charter, his former political rival retired and his predecessor escorted off the stage in a surprising departure from protocol.

About 2,300 delegates at the closing ceremony rubber-stamped Xi’s political vision, amendments to the party’s constitution and a new Central Committee of some 200 full-time members who will lead China for the next five years.  All were passed unanimously through a show of hands confirming no objections.

Xi, 69, had set the stage to be formally anointed as the unrivaled leader, and revisions to the party charter added new Xi-era slogans, which in essence say that Xi and his ideology are the “core” of the party and that their authority must be protected.

Li Keqiang, formally ranked the No. 2 leader for the past decade and a man who was long seen as somewhat of a check on Xi’s power, was sidelined, a year before the party’s informal retirement age of 68.  Li had a deserved reputation as a competent technocrat who was sympathetic to private businesses. I know I respected his thoughts on the economy, which he nominally was in control of.  There were at least kernels of real truth when Li spoke.

Another key official, Wang Yang, was not on the 205-member Central Committee list after being considered a potential premier candidate to replace Li. He too was below the retirement age.

But in the end, the makeup of the 24-member Politburo and its seven-member Standing Committee, the apex of decision-making power, was filled with loyalists and sycophants, or what commentators are calling “Maximum Xi,” valuing loyalty over ability.

The No. 2 leader is Li Qiang, 63, the Shanghai party secretary, which puts him in line to become premier.  Zhao Leji, 65, already a member of the Standing Committee, was promoted to No. 3, likely to head the legislature. Those posts are to be assigned when the legislature meets next year.  The other four on the Standing Committee are in their 60s.  Unlike in the past, there is no one tapped as successor to Xi.  Xi, when he was promoted to the Standing Committee in 2007, was widely expected to be the one to succeed Hu Jintao five years later.

For the first time, there are no women in the Politburo.  The Central Committee has 11 women.

Under a revived 1950s propaganda slogan, “common prosperity,” Xi is pressing entrepreneurs to help narrow China’s wealth gap by raising wages and paying for rural job creation and other initiatives.

Xi, in his report to the congress last week, called for “regulating the mechanism of wealth accumulation,” suggesting entrepreneurs might face still more political pressure, but gave no details.

“I would worry if I were a very wealthy individual in China,” said economist Alicia Garcia Herrero of Natixis.

The drama concerned former leader Hu Jintao, who was arguing about official papers moments before he was escorted off the stage, new footage showed.

Hu’s apparently reluctant departure from the stage was a rare moment of unscripted drama at what was otherwise a carefully choreographed week of political theater.

The new footage, shot by Channel News Asia but only released two days after the incident, captures about a minute of discreet, high-level maneuvering before an official arrives to escort Hu away.  The former leader, 79, stepped down as head of the party 10 years ago after ruling from 2002-2012.

Initially, the official Xinhua news agency reported that Hu’s unexpected exit was due to ill health but gave no further details and the first video seemed to confirm this.

The name of Hu’s son, Hu Haifeng, was blocked by Chinese censors, sparking questions about whether there had been some kind of high-level dispute over his position within the CCP, which makes total sense to me.

As Hu left, escorted offstage, he tried to pick up the notes of Xi Jinping, and Xi reached out with his hand to hold the papers down.

North Korea: Pyongyang fired two short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea on Friday, its first ballistic weapons launches in two weeks, as the U.S. military warned the North that the use of nuclear weapons “will result in the end of that regime.”

South Korea’s military said the missiles flew about 230 km (140 miles) at a maximum altitude of 15 miles.  The Joint Chiefs of Staff called the launches “a grave provocation.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency said it is concerned over a potential nuclear test, which would be the first since 2017 and one we’ve been waiting for now that the Chinese Communist Party congress has ended.

Next week, South Korea and the U.S. are conducting joint massive air exercises involving 100 or more jets on each side.

Iran: Iranian security forces opened fire at mourners who gathered in Mahsa Amini’s Kurdish hometown of Saqez to mark 40 days since she died in police custody, witnesses said on Wednesday, while state media said people at the cemetery clashed with riot police.

Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency said about 10,000 people had gathered at the cemetery, adding that the internet was cut off after clashes between security forces and people there.

Rights groups said at least 250 protesters have been killed, including teenage girls, and thousands have been arrested since the protests started.

The protests have posed one of the boldest challenges to Iran’s clerical leadership since the 1979 revolution, though they are far from toppling the government with its powerful security apparatus.  Ayatollah Khamenei has warned nobody should dare think they can uproot the Islamic Republic, accusing its adversaries of fomenting the unrest.  State TV has reported the deaths of at least 26 members of the security forces.

An estimated 80,000 marched in Berlin last Saturday in support of the Iranian protesters.

Separately, at least 15 people were killed and 40 others were injured Wednesday in a “terrorist attack” at the Shahcheragh Shrine in the city of Shiraz, southern Iran.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, releasing a statement through its affiliated news agency, but now the Iranian government is blaming the attack on the protesters.

Iraq: After more than a year of deadlock, Iraqi politicians approved a new government on Thursday.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, 52, who previously served as Iraq’s human rights minister as well as minister of labor and social affairs, will head the new government.

Sudani’s picks for 21 ministers passed during a parliament vote on the cabinet.  He vowed to reform the economy, fight corruption, improve deteriorating public services, combat poverty and unemployment among other things.  He also promised to hold early parliamentary elections within a year.

Thursday’s parliament vote comes a year after an election in which populist Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr was the biggest winner but failed to rally support to form a government.

Sadr withdrew his 73 politicians in August and said he would quit politics, prompting the worst violence in Baghdad in years when his loyalists stormed government buildings and fought rival Shiite groups, most of them backed by Iran and with armed wings.

Sadr has not declared his next move, and appears to oppose Sudani because he is an ally of former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The year-long political paralysis has left Iraq without a budget for 2022, holding up spending on much-needed infrastructure projects and economic reform, though it is earning record oil income.

Random Musing

--Presidential approval ratings….

Gallup: New figures…40% approve of President Biden’s job performance, 56% disapprove; 39% of independents approve (Oct. 3-20).

Rasmussen: 45% approve of Biden’s performance, 53% disapprove (Oct. 28).

A new USA TODAY/Suffolk University national poll has Biden’s approval rating at 44%, 53% disapprove.  In July, it was 39%-56%.  [In the same poll in October 2018, Donald Trump’s rating stood at 43%-54%.]

--A new national NBC News poll released last Sunday put Biden’s approval rating at 45%, 52% disapprove.

--The USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds Republicans are resurgent as the midterm campaign hits the final stretch, and voters overwhelmingly view the election as a way to send a message to the White House.

On a generic ballot, one naming parties but not individual candidates, those surveyed now support the Republican congressional candidate over the Democratic one by 49%-45%, a turnaround since the USA TODAY poll taken in July, when Democrats led 44%-40%.  Most of the 16% of voters who were undecided then have now made up their minds and shifted to the GOP.

Two-thirds of those surveyed, 66%, say the nation is already in a recession or a depression.  Just 10% say it’s in a recovery.

Sixty-one percent report that they are eating out less often; 50% have postponed or canceled vacations, 47% have cut back on groceries, 45% are driving less.

And when it comes to traditional Democrat voters, Hispanics and Blacks, 40% of Hispanics and 21% of Blacks are backing the Republican candidate.

To compare, Donald Trump carried 12% of Blacks and 32% of Hispanics in 2020, according to network exit polls.

And while Democrats back in June, with the reversal of Roe v. Wade, thought opposition to the ruling would disrupt other factors that typically determine midterms, including views of the economy and of the sitting president…the new poll shows much of midterm politics going back to basics.  On a list of seven issues, 37% chose the economy/inflation as the most important issue determining their vote.

But the abortion issue still resonates, as independent women favor the Democratic candidate by 11 points, 51%-40%.  Independent men support the Republican candidate by 22 points, 57%-35%.

On the above-mentioned NBC News survey, on the issue of the generic ballot, 47% of registered voters prefer Democrats to control Congress, 46% prefer Republicans.

The NBC poll found voter interest has reached an all-time high for a midterm election, with a majority of registered voters saying this election is “more important” to them than past midterms.

What’s more, 80% of Democrats and Republicans believe the political opposition poses a threat that, if not stopped, will destroy America as we know it.

--Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“Commentary on Tuesday night’s Pennsylvania Senate debate is mostly about Democrat John Fetterman’s unfortunate struggles communicating in the wake of his May stroke. But for our money the most telling moment was Mr. Fetterman’s response to a question about his previous opposition to fracking for natural gas. It sums up why the election tide is moving against Democrats and may cost them the House and Senate.

“ ‘I’ve always supported fracking,’ Mr. Fetterman said when pressed by a moderator. He later added that, ‘I do support fracking and I don’t, I don’t – I support fracking, and I stand, and I do support fracking.’

“His stumbles over his real position is understandable because his pro-fracking conversion, if that’s what it is, is recent.  ‘I don’t support fracking at all and I never have,’ Mr. Fetterman told a YouTube channel in 2018 when running for lieutenant governor.  ‘And I’ve, I’ve signed the no fossil fuels money pledge.  I have never received a dime from any natural gas or oil company whatsoever.’….

[Ed. Fetterman made similar quotes in 2016 and Republican Mehmet Oz hammered Fetterman on the old quotes in Tuesday’s debate.]

“The point isn’t about catching a politician in a flip-flop.  The Fetterman contradiction shows how Democrats are in trouble because they nominated too many candidates whose views on crime, immigration, climate and the economy are all but impossible to defend in competitive races this year.

“Democrats are finally paying for their sharp left turn during the Trump Presidency.  That turn began in earnest with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 primary victory in New York over party war horse Joe Crowley.  That scared Democrats nationwide, and it caused many to adopt positions well to the left-of-center to avoid Mr. Crowley’s fate.

“The left turn didn’t matter in 2018 as voters came out to put a check on Mr. Trump’s chaotic governance.  It mattered more in 2020, especially after the ‘summer of love’ riots following George Floyd’s murder.  ‘Defund the police’ cost the party House seats.  But Mr. Trump was still the main election issue, and Democrats played down their left turn by nominating the reassuring Joe Biden, who promised to work with Republicans and unite the country.

“Democrats have tried mightily to drag Mr. Trump back into the 2022 campaign, and Mr. Trump has often obliged by meddling in GOP primaries on behalf of weak candidates. But he isn’t on any ballot next month.  Voters have thus had the chance to focus on the record of the Biden Democrats in office, and the policy views of Democratic challengers.

“If Democrats lose the Senate, they’ll regret in particular that they nominated far-left candidates like Mr. Fetterman and Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin….

“Crime is another issue where Democratic excess has left candidates asking voters to deny what they see with their own eyes. In Tuesday’s New York gubernatorial debate, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul declared that anyone who commits a crime in the state faces ‘consequences.’  But voters know that simply isn’t true, and Ms. Hochul couldn’t defend the state bail law that gives judges too little discretion to jail repeat offenders….

“(Republican Lee) Zeldin has a chance because Ms. Hochul refused to move to the center as she worked to prevent a primary challenge from Attorney General Letitia James.

“The Trump Presidency caused many people to lose their minds, Democrats and the media most of all. The normal party checks on radical policies vanished as opposition to Trump became the party’s self-defining political mission.  Perhaps a drubbing on Nov. 8 will jolt the party back to reality.”

John Podhoretz / New York Post

“Eleven years ago, Texas Gov. Rick Perry destroyed his bid for the presidency when he said in a debate that he had three examples of something and then could only remember two.

“That’s all it took – and rightly so. Debates afford voters a rare chance to see politicians under pressure having to think on their feet and respond to unexpected events.

“I’ve never seen anything like the Pennsylvania Senate debate between John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz on Tuesday night, and I hope never to have to see anything like it ever again. It was horrible….

“The stroke that Fetterman himself said ‘knocked’ him down at the debate’s outset has impaired him.  Full stop.  Don’t believe anyone who even tries to tell you different, and you should probably not trust any such person to tell you whether you need an umbrella because you don’t know whether it’s raining.

“Seeing Fetterman struggle to answer simple questions and form simple sentences was nothing less than an agony. There’s no sense even in trying to characterize how he did in expressing himself on issues, or how Mehmet Oz did talking about matters ranging from abortion to fracking to Social Security.

“Only one thing mattered, and that was watching Fetterman try to make a showing of himself despite his painful impairment.  I don’t want to quote what he said or make specific note of his speech patterns or answers because it would be unnecessarily cruel.

“Could Fetterman improve?  Yes. Will he improve?  We do not know. During the debate he refused to say he would release actual medical records rather than a clearly ginned-up letter from a doctor who is one of his donors.

“What this debate made entirely clear is this: It is an act of personal, political, and ideological malpractice that Fetterman is still contesting for the Senate.

“A month ago Fetterman could have dropped out and the Pennsylvania Democratic party could have put up a different candidate for his office – like Rep. Conor Lamb, who lost to Fetterman in the primary. It’s an act of political and ideological malpractice because he and his team have left Democratic voters with no option other than to close their eyes to what they saw and vote for someone who should not be in the Senate – or to vote for his rival.  Or not to vote at all.

“It’s an act of political malpractice on the part of those who encouraged him to continue because this singularly upsetting performance is not the way any person on this earth – and particularly not someone who suffered a calamitous brain shock – should become famous or notorious or be remembered.”

Biden Agenda

--Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“President Biden didn’t mention this at his media event on Friday [Oct. 21], but his Administration can take credit for a new record: More than 2.7 million enforcement actions against illegal crossers at the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal 2022, which ended Sept. 30.

“Customs and Border Protection released the news Friday without fanfare, and no wonder.  The agency tallied 227,547 encounters along the border in September, up 12% from August and 18.5% from a year earlier.

“The September surge pushed enforcement actions for all of fiscal 2022 to 2.77 million, more than a million more than the 1.72 million in fiscal 2021, which was the previous record. The border state mayors and Governors aren’t making it up when they say they are overwhelmed by the illegal crossers.

“There wasn’t much media coverage of this milestone on the weekend, but some of the details are illuminating about the monumental failure of U.S. immigration policy.  About 19% of migrants apprehended in September were repeat offenders, meaning they had been encountered at least once in the previous 12 months. This reflects that the border is so porous that migrants will keep coming even if they are arrested once or more.  They know they’ll get through sooner or later.

“A second theme is the rise of migrants from the tyrannies in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.  In September, 77,302 individual migrants encountered were from the three socialist failures compared with 58,068 from Mexico and northern Central America.

“This reflects the incentives set by U.S. asylum policy, which allows even economic migrants claiming asylum to remain in the U.S. until their claims are heard by immigration judges.  That can take months or years.  The message is that migrants from these countries have a decent chance of making it into the U.S. and staying when they do.

“The U.S. needs to tighten its rules on asylum to send the message that not everyone in the Western hemisphere can come to the U.S., but the Biden Administration and Democratic leaders in Congress won’t act….

“All of this represents an American political failure, of which there are many these days.  It is also doing great harm to the cause of legal immigration.  The perception of an essentially open border is building a political backlash in favor of more restrictionist immigration policies.  The bitter truth, which the left won’t admit, is that Mr. Biden’s border failure has done more damage to the immigration cause than Donald Trump’s policies ever did.”

--In one of his 78 gaffes this week, speaking at a campaign event in Syracuse, N.Y., Thursday, President Biden misled his audience on gas prices at the pump, saying: “The most common price of gas in America is $3.39, down from over $5 when I took office.”

Wrong.  The price of gas was about $2.39 when Biden took office, soared above $5.00 in June, and as noted above, is $3.76 today.

Nothing drives me up the wall more than lying about simple facts…in case you haven’t noticed from this column of the past 23+ years, which is about facts and figures.

The Pandemic

--Respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, which is fairly common and can cause breathing difficulties in young children, is indeed surging early across the country and some local hospitals are finding it hard to keep pace.

So we’ll see what happens…as the flu and a probable winter wave of Covid hit in the coming months.

RSV can hit adults, too, and I realized that I probably have it, as my post-Covid head cold persists (though it’s not like a normal head cold).  Turns out my neighbors have it, and we’re of similar age, so I’m just self-diagnosing…it will run its course and I’m not about to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro so like no biggie.

But on the Covid front, hospitalizations in my state of New Jersey are steadily rising, in fact to our state’s highest level since mid-February, when the Omicron surge was waning.

I have a cousin in the Pittsburgh area I recently saw and she’s battling Covid a second time (after the boosters), but is fine.  Marilyn said, “Cuz, think of all the antibodies we have!”

---

--The nation’s schools recorded the largest drop in math scores ever this year, with fourth- and eighth-grade students in nearly every state showing significant declines, according to Education Department data released Monday.

In the most sweeping analysis of test scores since the start of the pandemic, the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the Nation’s Report Card, also revealed a nationwide plunge in reading that wiped out three decades of gains.

Prepandemic declines in academic achievement intensified nationwide, and many longstanding gaps in student achievement grew.

Low-performing fourth-grade students saw larger declines in both math and reading scores compared with high-performing ones.  Black and Hispanic students in the fourth grade saw larger score drops in math than white students.

The federal test results released in September revealed the largest drop in fourth-grade reading scores since 1990 and the first-ever decline in math.

Scores in math and reading for both fourth- and eighth-grade students have fallen sharply since 2019, the last time the assessments were given, according to results form 50 states and the District of Columbia.  A separate analysis of 26 large-city school districts also showed declines.

No state or jurisdiction posted gains in math in either grade, nor did any of the 26 large districts included in the analysis.

State-by-state comparisons of public school scores show Massachusetts remained the top performer in most categories while New Mexico earned the lowest scores in every category.

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Pray for the men and women of our armed forces…and all the fallen.

Pray for Ukraine.

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Gold $1648
Oil $88.37

Regular Gas: $3.76, nationally; Diesel: $5.30 [$3.39 / $3.62 yr. ago]

Returns for the week 10/24-10/28

Dow Jones  +5.7%  [32861]
S&P 500  +4.0%  [3901]
S&P MidCap  +5.3%
Russell 2000  +6.0%
Nasdaq  +2.2%  [11102]

Returns for the period 1/1/22-10/28/22

Dow Jones  -9.6%
S&P 500  -18.2%
S&P MidCap  -14.3%
Russell 2000  -17.7%
Nasdaq  -29.0%

Bulls 36.9
Bears 38.5

Hang in there. 

Brian Trumbore

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