A blistering rout in US stocks, which saw US markets drop on 8 of the past 9 days and when the S&P 500 lost about $1.3 trillion in market capitalization in the past five days on fears of a staunchly hawkish Federal Reserve amid signs of a resilient economy, was set to pause on Thursday. Contracts on the S&P 500 were up 0.3% by 7:45 a.m. ET following the longest daily losing streak for the index in nearly two months. Nasdaq 100 futures were up 0.2%. Treasuries halted a rally that had sent the 10-year yield to an almost three-month low as investors braced for an economic downturn. The benchmark added three basis points to yield 3.44%, while a gauge of the dollar was little changed.

Among notable movers in premarket trading, Carvana was set to rebound after yesterday’s record 43% plunge as the online car dealer consults with lawyers and bankers regarding options for managing its debt load. Relmada Therapeutics shares are in focus after the failure of its study of an experimental antidepressant. Exxon rose 1.4% premarket after the US E&P giant and cash(flow) cow announced it would expand its stock buyback program by $20BN to $50BN by the end of 2024. Here are some other other notable premarket movers:

• Rent the Runway rises 16% after reporting third- quarter results that beat estimates as its number of active subscribers rose 15% year-on-year. The fashion retailer increased its annual revenue outlook and forecast a positive adjusted Ebitda margin for the year.
• Shares of US-listed Chinese internet firms and casinos that operate in Macau gain in premarket trading on more signs that China is accelerating the pivot away from its zero-tolerance stance on Covid.
• Alibaba +3.7%, Baidu +4%, Bilibili +11%, Li Auto +5.4%, Las Vegas Sands +4.3%, Melco Resorts +8.5%
• Carvana shares jump 7.6% in premarket trading, set to rebound after yesterday’s record 43% plunge as the online car dealer consults with lawyers and bankers regarding options for managing its debt load.
• Relmada’s shares tumbled 40% in US after-hours trading on Wednesday. The failure of the company’s study of an experimental antidepressant was disappointing, though not surprising, analysts said, with some reassessing the possibility of success in upcoming studies.
• Watch Principal Financial stock after it was downgraded to underperform from neutral at Credit Suisse on valuation grounds, with the broker preferring the investment manager’s peer Voya.
• Keep an eye on JPMorgan as Piper Sandler begins coverage on the stock at overweight, saying that the “big four” banks have a unique position leading the industry, with a critical presence in basically all areas of the financial system.
• Watch defense stocks after Citigroup said it is “locked in” on the sector for the next decade, with a more “nuanced” view on the outlook for commercial aerospace. It reinstates General Dynamics, Leidos, Lockheed Martin and Science Applications with buy ratings.

The rally in US stocks since mid-October which propelled the S&P to 4,100 as of Dec 1 and above the 200DMA, has stalled recently as stronger-than-expected economic data suggested the Fed could keep tightening its policy at an aggressive pace (spoiler alert: it won’t). Investors are now looking for clues from the latest inflation data on Tuesday and the Fed’s policy decision on Wednesday.

“The risk-off sentiment more widely on stock markets this week remains hard to kick into touch,” said Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. The outlook for next year also remains uncertain, with Citigroup Inc. strategists becoming the latest to warn of weakness in equity markets amid a risk to corporate earnings. The MSCI USA index is now implying 4% earnings-per-share growth next year, close to the analyst consensus but far from Citi’s expectation of a 3% contraction, strategists led by Robert Buckland wrote in a note.

“The recent rally means US equities no longer price an EPS contraction, which seems too optimistic,” the Citi strategists wrote. Technical indicators, meanwhile, suggest stock volatility could rise next week. Measures of 30-day implied and realized volatility in the S&P 500 Index started to move closer together in recent sessions, a sign of rising anxiety after the benchmark failed to break through its 2022 downtrend and the key 200-day moving average.

Strategists from Morgan Stanley to JPMorgan have warned investors against piling back into risk on hopes the Fed is getting close to pivoting to easier policy. Translation: buy, buy, buy.

“Presumably if the Fed is pivoting this time around, it’s not for a good reason. It’s a deteriorating fundamental picture,” Joyce Chang, chair of global research at JPMorgan, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV Thursday, forgetting that that “not good reason” could very well be the ongoing devastation in risk assets. “I mean, is that really a reason to be buying risk? I think it’s premature to say that there is a Fed pivot.” No, it’s not.

Traders now await Friday’s US producer price report and the Consumer Price Index print to get a read on how effective Fed policy has been to quell inflation, and whether the central bank will be able to notch down its aggressive campaign.

Back to markets, where European stocks extended a four-day slide, with property and telecommunications firms pacing declines even as energy companies and miners gained. That said, stocks have almost erased all initial losses. Euro Stoxx 50 is little changed. CAC 40 outperforms peers, adding 0.1%, IBEX lags, dropping 0.5%. Here are some other notable European movers:

• Derichebourg rises as much as 14%, biggest intraday gain since February 2021, after the French waste-management company reported revenue for the year that beat the average analyst estimate
• IAG rises as much as 2.1% and Wizz Air as much as 7.4% after Bank of America upgraded both stocks to buy. Lufthansa climbs as much as 1.4% after BofA upgraded to neutral, while EasyJet falls as much as 3.8% after being double-downgraded to underperform
• Vertu Motors rises as much as 6.6% after announcing the acquisition of Helston Garages Group for a total of £117m
• Balfour Beatty gains as much as 3.9%, touching the highest since Sept. 16, with analysts flagging another buyback announcement and a solid outlook from the construction and infrastructure group
• Frasers Group falls as much as 8.1%, the most since Nov. 14, after the Sports Direct and House of Fraser owner reported sales around 4% below RBC expectations after a softer performance in international retail.
• Stadler Rail drops as much as 5.6% as Credit Suisse trims its price target on the train manufacturer, anticipating pressure on profitability.
• Volkswagen falls as much as 1.7% and is among the worst performers on the SXAP autos index after Exane cut its rating on the company’s preference shares to underperform from neutral, citing margin pressures.
• ASML declines as much as 1.6% after Bloomberg News reported that the Netherlands is planning new controls on exports of chipmaking equipment, potentially barring companies from selling gear capable of manufacturing 14- nanometer or more advanced chips

Asian stocks rose, led by a jump in Chinese equities on increasing expectations for reopening, helping investors dispel worries about a possible global economic recession.  The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose as much as 0.6%, driven by gains in Chinese tech names including Tencent and Alibaba. The gauge erased an earlier drop of as much as 0.5% in another day of volatile trading amid thin volumes. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index surged more than 3%, rebounding from Wednesday’s selloff, after a report that the city is seeking to further ease Covid-related rules. Investors have been bullish on Chinese equities of late, with JPMorgan saying that earnings downgrades are “very close to the bottom”.

The positive views have helped lift sentiment on Asia broadly, with Nomura upgrading its outlook for Hong Kong and South Korea stocks. Still, even with Thursday’s gain, the MSCI Asia equity measure is on track for its first weekly loss since the end of October as investors lock in profits after a five-week surge. “Asian investors should use this volatility as an opportunity to raise exposure,” Nomura strategists including Chetan Seth wrote in a report. “Recessions in the US/Europe in 2023 mean that a growing Asia will likely be the outperformer, with softer USD/Asia the additional kicker.”

Markets with heavy dependence on global demand for their manufactured goods, such as Taiwan and South Korea, posted notable losses while the key benchmark in Indonesia, a raw materials exporter sank as much as 2%. Japan’s stock gauge also dropped led lower by its tech and auto exporters, following US shares lower as Treasuries signaled growing concern about a recession next year.  The Topix dropped 0.3% to 1,941.50 as of market close Tokyo time, while the Nikkei 225 declined 0.4% to 27,574.43. Sony Group contributed the most to the Topix’s decline, decreasing 1.9%. Out of 2,164 stocks in the index, 728 rose and 1,292 fell, while 144 were unchanged. “There’s a gradual increase in the view that the economy will probably deteriorate considerably next year,” said Takeru Ogihara, chief strategist at Asset Management One

Australian stocks also extended their losing streak as banks and miners drag: the S&P/ASX 200 index fell 0.8% to close at 7,175.50, marking three consecutive sessions of losses. Bank and materials shares contributed the most to the benchmark’s retreat. Downer EDI was the biggest decliner after cutting its earnings guidance and flagging accounting irregularities. In New Zealand, the S&P/NZX 50 index was little changed at 11,617.14.

In FX, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was flat after temporarily swinging to a loss in early European hours and then modest gains. The dollar strengthened against most of its Group-of-10 peers, though trading was largely confined to narrow ranges.

• The euro was steady around $1.05. Bunds twist- flattened as the 2-year yield rose by 2bps and the 30-year yield fell by 1bp. Money-market wagers on ECB tightening increase very slightly ahead of a slew of speeches, including President Lagarde
• The pound was the worst G-10 performer, while the gilt curve bull-steepened as money markets eased BOE tightening wagers, pricing less than one-point of rate hikes by February for the first time since Nov. 11 ahead of next week’s policy meeting. Thursday marks the Bank of England’s final active QT bond sales of this year, though sales of gilts purchased as part of its recent emergency support measures will continue
• The yen traded heavy after Japan unexpectedly reported a current-account deficit

In rates, Treasuries fell across the curve, apart from the 30-year tenor, which inched up. Declines were most pronounced in the belly, where yields rose about 4bps. The belly of the curve underperformed, with 5- to 7-year yields are cheaper by as much as 3.5bp on outright basis. Long-end outperforms, with yields slightly richer on the day, leaving 5s30s spread flattest since Oct. 20. Few events scheduled during US session. Treasury 10-year yields around 3.45%, cheaper by 2bps on the day and lagging bunds, gilts by 2bp and 1bp; 2s10s spread around -83bp and steeper by 1.5bp on the session after reaching new cycle low -85.2bp Wednesday. Gilts 10-year yield reverses earlier moves as money markets pare BOE rate-hike bets, seeing less than 100bps by Feb. Bunds 10-year yield edges lower while within Wednesday’s range.

In commodities, oil rises after a four-day drop; WTI jumped more than 3% to rise above $74 following news there was an outage at the Keystone pipeline. Spot gold falls roughly $3 to trade near $1,784/oz. Most base metals trade in the green.

To the day ahead now, and central bank speakers include ECB President Lagarde, and the ECB’s de Cos and Villeroy. Data releases include the weekly initial jobless claims from the US. Finally, earnings releases include Costco and Broadcom.

Market Snapshot

• S&P 500 futures up 0.1% to 3,941.25
• STOXX Europe 600 down 0.1% to 435.59
• MXAP up 0.4% to 156.61
• MXAPJ up 0.9% to 511.06
• Nikkei down 0.4% to 27,574.43
• Topix down 0.3% to 1,941.50
• Hang Seng Index up 3.4% to 19,450.23
• Shanghai Composite little changed at 3,197.35
• Sensex up 0.2% to 62,517.40
• Australia S&P/ASX 200 down 0.7% to 7,175.55
• Kospi down 0.5% to 2,371.08
• German 10Y yield down 0.2% to 1.79%
• Euro down 0.1% to $1.0495
• Brent Futures up 1.0% to $77.94/bbl
• Gold spot down 0.2% to $1,783.29
• U.S. Dollar Index up 0.20% to 105.31

Top Overnight News from Bloomberg

• Europe’s governments are expected to sell more new debt in the bond market next year — upwards of €500 billion on a net basis — than anytime this century. And bond investors, scarred by the same inflation surge that the ECB is trying to squelch, aren’t in the mood to tolerate fiscal largesse right now
• The term structures in the major currencies are now in full inversion mode as the one-week tenor captures the last round of risk events for the year. They now envelope the monetary policy meetings by the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Swiss National Bank and Norges Bank, as well as the US CPI report for November
• The UK’s pace of hiring and pay growth slowed in November as companies concerned about the UK economy tipping into recession became more reluctant to take on permanent staff, according to a survey
• Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers said an independent review of the Reserve Bank will help guide his decision next year on whether to reappoint Governor Philip Lowe, whose term expires in September
• Chinese authorities may further soften their stance on property policies at its key economic meeting next week after the Communist Party’s top decision-making body said it will seek a turnaround in the economy for 2023, according to people familiar with the matter
• With China’s Covid Zero policy rapidly dismantled, the threat of economic disruption remains high. Infections are likely to surge, forcing workers to stay home, businesses may run out of supplies, restaurants could be emptied of customers and hospitals will fill up
• Japanese life insurers sold a record amount of foreign bonds last month, preliminary portfolio flow data from the nation’s Ministry of Finance show

A more detailed summary of overnight news courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks traded cautiously after the lacklustre handover from Wall St where the major indices were subdued as participants digested deflationary data and Russian President Putin’s nuclear rhetoric. ASX 200 was led lower by underperformance in the energy sector after oil prices recently slipped to a YTD low and with sentiment not helped by a monthly contraction in both export and imports, as well as the failure of takeover talks between Link Administration and suitor Dye & Durham. Nikkei 225 traded negatively amid reports that the government is to propose a JPY 1tln tax income increase to fund national defence, while data releases were uninspiring as it surprisingly showed the first Current Account deficit since June and although Q3 GDP was revised higher, it remained in negative territory. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp were mixed with the Hong Kong benchmark buoyed by strength in casino names on the reopening play as Hong Kong is said to be considering easing COVID testing rules for arrivals and may repeal the outdoor mask rule, while the mainland is indecisive amid trade-related headwinds with the Netherlands planning curbs on tech exports to China under an agreement with the US.

Top Asian News

• China is said to be mulling further property market easing measures at next week’s economic meeting, according to Bloomberg sources.
• Macau to relax COVID test rules for Chinese visitors, according to Bloomberg.
• Hong Kong reports 14.4k COVID cases (prev. 11.9k); Hong Kong government says social distancing measures are set to remain in place.
• Japanese PM Kishida said no planning to increase income tax for defense spending.
• Hong Kong Shortens Covid Isolation, Eases Testing for Travelers
• China Car Sales Drop as Covid Lockdowns Kept Buyers at Home
• GoTo Assures Investors It Has Enough Cash to Reach Profitability

European bourses and US futures reside in narrow ranges are essentially pivoting the unchanged mark; Euro Stoxx 50 +0.1, ES +0.1. In Europe, the sectoral breakdown is mixed/lower with no overarching bias emerging. Chinese November Retail Passenger Vehicle Sales -9.5% Y/Y (prev. +6.9% Y/Y in Oct), according to PCA; Tesla (TSLA) exports 37.8k China-made vehicles in November (54.5k in October). Elon Musk’s bankers are reportedly considering providing new margin loans backed by Tesla (TSLA) shares to replace some high-interest debt to acquire Twitter, via Bloomberg citing sources.

Top European News

• UK PM Sunak refused to rule out a ban on strikes by emergency services and said he will do what is needed to keep the public safe during ongoing industrial action as he threatens tougher laws, according to Sky News.
• UK’s Unite union said around 146 members will begin strike action at Petrofac’s (PFC LN) Repsol (REP) installation on December 8th and 9th over pay and working terms, while 76 members at BP (BP/ LN) installations are to strike over working rotation, according to Reuters.
• European Natural Gas Prices Surge as Winter Blast Stokes Demand
• ASML Analysts See Limited Impact From Potential Dutch Curbs
• BAT Says US Consumers Are Switching to Cheaper Cigarettes

FX

• DXY has managed to regroup amid a initial retreat in USTs; though, the index remains around the mid-point of 105.04-105.42 ranges.
• Action which has modestly dented peers across the board, particularly GBP and JPY below and above 1.22 and 137.00 respectively.
• Antipodeans and the EUR are the relative ‘outperformer’, though they are essentially unchanged vs USD
• PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 6.9606 vs exp. 6.9603 (prev. 6.9975)

Fixed Income

• EGBs & their UK counterpart have, despite initial pressure, staged a firm rally to a test/eclipse of Wednesdays peaks amid the latest rhetoric from Russia.
• However, USTs have been unable to keep up with this and are still softer to the tune of 10 ticks, with yields firmer across the curve as such; currently, action is most pronounced in the belly.
• German Federal Constitutional Court has rejected the request for temporary injunction on 2021 supplementary budget; decision related to govt credit authorisation of EUR 60bln for climate funds.

Commodities

• Crude benchmarks are consolidating after yesterday’s mid-week pressure, though the rebound this morning is limited and rangebound.
• Spot gold is, once again, sideways around the USD 1775/oz mark while base metals glean some support from the latest touting of Chinese economic measures.
• Former Peruvian President Castillo was detained and is accused of rebellion.
• Commodities trader Trafigura more than doubled net profits in 2022 vs 2021.

Crypto

• US federal prosecutors are investigating whether Sam Bankman-Fried and his hedge fund orchestrated trades that led to the collapse of two cryptocurrencies in May, according to NYT.
• It was initially reported that US House Finance Services Chair Waters doesn’t plan to subpoena Sam Bankman-Fried to testify at the hearing on FTX’s collapse, although Waters later denied the report.
• US SEC has investigations under way focusing on exchanges including Coinbase (COIN) and the U.S. businesses of Binance and FTX, according to WSJ sources.

Geopolitics

• German Chancellor Scholz said the risk of Russia using nuclear weapons has decreased, according to Funke Media.
• Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov says if the US deploys medium-range missiles in Asia/Europe then Russia’s approach to the moratorium will changed, via Reuters; adds, Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces are on full alert, according to Al Jazeera.
• Taiwan Defence Ministry said 9 Chinese air force planes crossed the Taiwan Strait median line during the past 24 hours, according to Reuters.
• US, Japan, and South Korea nuclear representatives meeting in Indonesia on the 12th and 13th December over North Korea, Via Yonhap.

US Event Calendar

• 08:30: Nov. Continuing Claims, est. 1.62m, prior 1.61m
• 08:30: Dec. Initial Jobless Claims, est. 230,000, prior 225,000

DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

Markets have continued to trade with a risk-off bias over the last 24 hours as the S&P (-0.19%) saw its 8th loss in the last 9 days, albeit a small one which actually only aggregates up to -2.32% down over those 9 days given that the one up day (last Wednesday) was the second best day for the index in the last 2 years. Sovereign bonds saw the bigger moves though, rallying amidst growing concern about the state of the economy alongside several dovish signals. That prompted another sharp decline in Treasury yields, with the 10yr yield down -11.5bps to 3.42%, which is its lowest level in nearly 3 months and more than -90bps beneath the intraday high of 4.34% in late-October. Ironically terminal at that point was pretty much exactly where we are today so there’s been a massive inversion of terminal-10s, which seems like the bond market is coming around to the idea of a harder and harder landing. Overnight, the 10yr yield seen a partial rebound of +4.5bps as we go to print, taking it back up to 3.46%.

Several factors were behind these moves, but the biggest shift of the day bizarrely coincided with the release of the revised Q3 data on US productivity. So not only a backward-looking indicator, but also a revised estimate as well. The release showed that labour productivity had risen by +0.8% in Q3 (vs. +0.3% previous estimate), whilst the growth in unit labour costs was revised down to +2.4% (vs. +3.5% previous estimate). Clearly that’s good news from the Fed’s perspective, but given the data series is a noisy one that’s often heavily revised (as with yesterday) it’s hard to justify the sizeable reaction that occurred directly as the release came out.

To be fair to investors, there were plenty of other developments yesterday to help justify the moves we saw in yields. In particular, the jitters about the global economy saw oil prices decline for a 4th day running, with Brent crude down -2.75% to $77.17/bbl. In fact, Brent crude fell back into negative YTD territory for the first time since January, closing -0.8% below its levels at the start of the year. And even though the moves have been driven by negative sentiment, it’s clearly good news for policymakers from an inflation standpoint, and it was inflation breakevens that drove the moves lower in Treasury yields, with 10yr breakevens coming down -6.2bps on the day to 2.27%. In turn, the impact is being increasingly felt in the real economy, with US gasoline prices down to a fresh post-January low of $3.355/gallon. Furthermore, data from the Mortgage Bankers Association showed that 30yr mortgage rates fell for a 4th week running to 6.41%, marking their longest run of declines since May 2019.

Another potentially dovish signal (if you squint hard enough) came from the Bank of Canada, which is acting as something of a prelude ahead of the Fed, ECB and BoE decisions next week. In terms of the decision, they hiked rates by 50bps despite plenty of speculation they’d downshift the pace to 25bps. That took the overnight rate up to 4.25%, but there were signs of a future pause in their statement, which said the “Governing Council will be considering whether the policy interest rate needs to rise further”. That’s the first time since the tightening cycle began that they haven’t explicitly said they expect further rate hikes, instead using softer language like “considering”. Nevertheless, the decision to proceed with 50bps dominated the market reaction, with Canadian government bonds underperforming yesterday as the 10yr yield ‘only’ fell -2.2bps. The big question now is whether any of the other central banks follow up with a similarly dovish signal next week.

When it came to equities the mood remained slightly downbeat yesterday, with the S&P 500 (-0.19%) losing ground for a 5th day running, and closing at its lowest level in 4 weeks. Once again, the losses were driven by the more cyclical sectors, with the NASDAQ (-0.51%) and the FANG+ Index (-0.93%) seeing even larger declines, despite the rate rally which would typically support big tech valuations. Meanwhile, bellwether defensives health care (+0.85%), staples (+0.38%), and real estate (+0.26%) led the way. And it was much the same story in Europe too, with the STOXX 600 (-0.62%), the DAX (-0.57%) and the CAC 40 (-0.41%) all losing ground on the day.

Staying on Europe, we’re now exactly a week away from the ECB’s next decision, and there were signs in their latest monthly survey that inflation expectations were continuing to rise. For instance, 1yr expected inflation was up by three-tenths to 5.4%. To be fair, 3yr expectations were unchanged at 3.0%, but that’s still a full point above the ECB’s target. In the meantime, sovereign bond yields continued to fall across the continent, with those on 10yr bunds down -1.5bps at their lowest level in nearly 3 months, whilst yields on 10yr OATs (-1.4bps) and BTPs (-4.4bps) were down as well.

Overnight in Asia, the equity weakness from the US and Europe has continued, with losses for the Kospi (-0.99%), the Nikkei (-0.52%), the CSI 300 (-0.07%0 and the Shanghai Comp (-0.10%). The main exception is the Hang Seng (+2.67%), which has surged following reports that Hong Kong could end their outdoor mask mandate and reduce the isolation period from 7 days to 5 for Covid patients and close contacts. The Hang Seng Tech index has seen even larger gains, advancing +4.79% against this backdrop. More broadly however, futures are still pointing to weakness in US and European equity markets later, with those on the S&P 500 currently down -0.15%.

Elsewhere on the data front, Euro Area growth was revised up in Q3, with the latest data showing a +0.3% expansion (vs. +0.2% previous estimate). That fits in with some recent newsflow suggesting the economic situation may not be as bad as had been feared, even if a recession still remains the consensus expectation. Otherwise, German industrial production also performed better than expected in October, with a -0.1% contraction (vs. -0.6% expected), whilst the previous month’s expansion was also revised up half a point.

To the day ahead now, and central bank speakers include ECB President Lagarde, and the ECB’s de Cos and Villeroy. Data releases include the weekly initial jobless claims from the US. Finally, earnings releases include Costco and Broadcom.

TC Energy Corp said in a statement this morning that it shut the Keystone oil pipeline system after a leak into a creek near Steele City, Nebraska

We have shut down the Keystone Pipeline System and mobilized people and equipment in response to a confirmed release of oil into a creek, approximately 20 miles (approx. 32 kilometres) south of Steele City, NE.

Pursuant to our incident protocols, an emergency shutdown and response was initiated at approximately 8 p.m. CT, on Dec. 7, 2022, after alarms and a detected pressure drop in the system.

The affected segment has been isolated, and booms deployed to control downstream migration of the release. The system remains shutdown as our crews actively respond and work to contain and recover the oil.

We are proceeding to make appropriate notifications, including to our customers and regulators and will work cooperatively with third parties to effectively respond to this incident.

Our primary focus right now is the health and safety of onsite staff and personnel, the surrounding community, and mitigating risk to the environment through the deployment of booms downstream as we work to contain and prevent further migration of the release.

We will provide more information as soon as it becomes available.

The response was swift in WTI, jumping over 3%…

The system can carry more than 600,000 barrels of crude per day.

The nearest time spread for the US benchmark surged over 50 cents into a bullish backwardation structure…

A prolonged outage would significantly tighten markets in Cushing, the delivery point of benchmark US crude futures as well as in the Gulf Coast. 

By Michael Msika, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and analyst

If you’re wagering on a big recovery for European stocks after what’s set to be their worst year since 2018, you may be in for a disappointment.

The Stoxx Europe 600 Index will end 2023 at 449 points, according to a Bloomberg survey of 14 strategists, indicating gains of less than 2% versus Monday close. The poll shows that market watchers aren’t convinced about the longevity of a rally that has put the benchmark on track for its best quarter since 2015, with a gain of 13% being fueled by optimism of lower interest-rate hikes and China’s reopening.

That follows this year’s 10% decline, which was spurred by stubbornly-high inflation, an energy crisis and ongoing monetary tightening. More recently, several benchmarks including the euro-area Stoxx 50, Germany’s DAX and Italy’s FTSE MIB have entered bull markets. While the Stoxx 600 isn’t quite there yet, it’s back above where it was prior to the start of the war in Ukraine, after adjusting for dividends.

For Bank of America strategist Milla Savova, central banks’ aggressive monetary policy will lead to a weakening of global growth momentum in the first half of 2023, though the impact on equities will be partly offset by a decline in real bond yields. She sees more than 15% downside for the Stoxx 600 by the end of the second quarter, before a rebound from 365 points to 430 points by year-end as economies start to recover.

Goldman Sachs shares a similar view. “We expect 2023 to prove tougher after the resilience in earnings this year,” says strategist Sharon Bell, citing margin pressure due to higher costs that will be harder to pass on in a recession.

The range of forecasts for the Stoxx 600 is relatively wide. Deutsche Bank strategists are the most optimistic at 495, representing a 12% increase from current levels, while TFS Derivatives is the most bearish at 355, implying nearly 20% downside.

Deutsche Bank has an overweight on the old continent for 2023, citing a heavy valuation discount to US peers, a peaking dollar and very low positioning on the region’s stocks. The Stoxx 600 trades near a record 30% discount to the S&P 500 in terms of forward price-to-earnings multiples, due to the plethora of European value and cyclical shares such as banks, energy and autos that still trade at depressed valuations.

For BNP Paribas’s Ankit Gheedia, such low valuations aren’t enough to justify the recent rally. Adjusted for higher rates and the 10% earnings downgrade he expects next year, stocks still look expensive, according to Gheedia, who forecasts a 19% drop in the Euro Stoxx 50 in 2023.

TFS’s Stephane Ekolo, who correctly predicted the market drop earlier this year, is on a similar page. Slowing economic growth, falling earnings estimates, and geopolitical and trade tensions are likely to be detrimental for stocks, he says.

According to Bloomberg’s survey, it won’t be any better for the region’s other major indexes, with the UK’s FTSE 100 seen mostly flat, while the German DAX is expected to rise only 2.2%.

Over two-dozen people were arrested in Germany on Wednesday for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government, the NY Times reports.

Around 3,000 German police and Special Forces officers were involved in the operation to detain individuals believed to be members of a domestic terrorist organization formed in late 2021, Reichsbürger [Citizens of the Reich] movement, with planned to overthrow the government and form their own state.

According to prosecutors, the group believes that “Germany is currently ruled by members of a so-called deep state” which needs to be overthrown.

Breaking News: Germany arrested dozens of people suspected of supporting a domestic terror organization that was planning to overthrow the government. https://t.co/qTyRh4dRHn

— The New York Times (@nytimes) December 7, 2022

Two other individuals were arrested outside the country – one in Austria and the other in Italy. In total, 52 suspects are reportedly under investigation.

Among those detained were a member of the far-right Alternative for Germany party who had served in the German Parliament, a member of the German nobility and a Russian citizen accused of supporting the group’s plans. Federal prosecutors said that they were investigating a total of 52 suspects. -NYT

One of the members from an old aristocratic family, Heinrich XIII, is alleged to have been central to their plans.

The group’s plans included an armed attack on the Reichstag parliament building. Members had been conducting organized arms training and attempted to recruit German security services personnel. They are also accused of forming a sort of shadow government which they would install if their plans were successful. 

The Times notes that officials have no idea how close the group was to acting on their plans.

According to the report, the group wanted “to overcome the existing state order in Germany and to establish its own form of state, the outlines of which have already been worked out.”

“The members of the organization were aware that this goal can only be achieved through the use of military means and violence against state representatives. This also included commissioning killings.”

Authored by John Cody via Remix News,

Following Morocco’s shock World Cup penalty shoot-out victory over the Spanish national team on Tuesday, Moroccan fans have once again rioted across multiple countries, including Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

The scenes of chaos mark the third time Moroccan fans have rioted following a World Cup victory, with the first two times last month already drawing condemnation.

Video of last night’s riots have been spread across social media, including from the account of Italian Transportation Minister Matteo Salvini, who wrote, “Morocco eliminates Spain, so they ‘celebrate’ in Milan… I hope that those responsible are identified and pay all damages.”

Il Marocco elimina la Spagna, così “festeggiano” a Milano…
Mi auguro che i responsabili vengano identificati e ripaghino tutti i danni. #MaroccoSpagna pic.twitter.com/K5n0MxTtEn

— Matteo Salvini (@matteosalvinimi) December 6, 2022

Critics are pointing at the now weekly scenes of mass unrest from Moroccan fans as a case in point for the failure of multiculturalism, with these fans not only rooting for a rival national team but also actively destroying their own cities.

Moroccan fans celebrating in a number of Spanish cities turned to violence, such as in Bilbao, where multiple videos show fans rampaging through the streets.

Celebración de los aficionados de Marruecos en Bilbao #Qatar2022 #WorldcupQatar2022 #WorldCup #WorldCup2022 #espanamarruecos #espanavsmarruecos #ESPvsMAR #ESPvMOR pic.twitter.com/vYiXgucAie

— Radio Sports (@RadioBa1oncesto) December 6, 2022

Hinchas marroquíes incendian las calles de Bilbao #espanamarruecos #Qatar2022 #FIFAWorldCup2022 #Morocco #Marruecos #seleccionEspanola #MarruecosVsEspana #espanavsmarruecos #Espana pic.twitter.com/ncYwTRCRRu

— ÍdoloMadridista97 (@IMadridista97) December 6, 2022

Fans also set cars on fire in the Spanish city of Reus, according to reports from BNN Spain.

WATCH: #BNNSpain Reports

Moroccan celebrations set fire to a car in #Reus, #Tarragona, Spain, as a result of #Morocco‘s victory over #Spain in today’s #WorldCup2022 match.#Qatar #FIFAWorldCup pic.twitter.com/3L0NVf6R1d

— Gurbaksh Singh Chahal (@gchahal) December 6, 2022

Before the match, Moroccan fans and Spanish fans were already clashing in Huelva, a city in Andalusia, prior to kick-off.

Pelea entre aficionados de España y de Marruecos en la previa del partido del mundial

📹 Huelva pic.twitter.com/N6eFYb6eTz

— SocialDrive (@SocialDrive_es) December 6, 2022

The widespread nature of the riots, including outside of Spain, underlines the level of animosity some Moroccans feel for the European nations they live in. The Dutch national team has not even faced off against Morocco yet, but fans in the country battle with riot police in Amsterdam, just as they did after Morocco’s victory over Belgium.

Apart from Belgium and France, young Moroccan fans also rioted in Netherlands tonight.

Clashes took place with the riot police in Amsterdam after Morocco defeated against Spain and advanced to the next stage of the World Cup.

pic.twitter.com/CHduIZ2xq6

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) December 6, 2022

WATCH: #BNNNetherlands Reports

Riots have broken out in #Amsterdam as a result of the celebration of #Morocco‘s victory over #Spain in today’s #WorldCup2022 match.#FIFAWorldCup #Qatar pic.twitter.com/106M3puRII

— Gurbaksh Singh Chahal (@gchahal) December 6, 2022

The Hague also saw chaos on the streets, with fans attacking police vehicles in the Schilderswijk neighborhood.

Law enforcement is called in to secure the Schilderswijk neighbourhood in The Hague as Moroccan rioters cause trouble in the streets.

🌍 @European_Insider | pic.twitter.com/02Rcxc8Ux5

— 🍁En el barrio de Cortes viven residentes (@VecBarrioCortes) December 6, 2022

In France, the city of Lille saw Moroccan fans starting fires and attacking police with fireworks. Riot police responded by charging the revelers in an attempt to disperse them and restore calm.

La police charge, les Marocains répliquent avec des mortiers. pic.twitter.com/DFy2NJPOmo

— Pierre Sautarel (@FrDesouche) December 6, 2022

Fans in the French city of Nice also fired pistols into the air, blocked streets, and terrorized residents.

“Are we still in France? Tram blocked and rocked, police attacked and cars burned. This is the result of Morocco’s victory in the streets of Nice! Zero tolerance against these criminals who defy our laws!” wrote Les Republicans politician and former presidential candidate Eric Cotti on Twitter.

Sommes-nous encore en France ?

Tramway bloqué et caillassé, policiers attaqués et voitures brûlées, voilà le résultat de la victoire du Maroc dans les rues de Nice !

Tolérance zéro face à ces délinquants qui défient nos lois ! pic.twitter.com/HMeGM6kIeB

— Eric Ciotti (@ECiotti) December 6, 2022

Brussels, the capital of Belgium, was also hit with mass riots following Morocco’s victory over Spain, with fans attacking police vehicles. Belgium has one of the largest Moroccan populations in Europe, numbering over 500,000 in a country of 11.5 million.

#Update: just in – Video showing you Maroccon rioters attacking Belgian police in #Antwerp in #Belgium, after #Morocco advanced further to the quarter finals. pic.twitter.com/dX8dN5elYH

— Sotiri Dimpinoudis (@sotiridi) December 6, 2022

As Remix News previously reported, Belgium and the Netherlands were hit by widespread riots following Morocco’s victory last month. Video footage of these previous incidents can be seen here.

The police raid on Deutsche Bank AG and its asset management arm, DWS Group, in Frankfurt, Germany, earlier this year was a wake-up call for the entire asset management industry because the days of exaggerating green investments in environmental, social and governance (ESG) products has come to an end. 

In October, a German consumer group sued DWS for allegedly misrepresenting its green credentials in marketing materials — this is a practice known as “greenwashing.” 

Now Bloomberg reports CEO Stefan Hoops, who took office in June amid a greenwashing scandal, said the firm will dial back hype in ESG sales pitches. 

Speaking Wednesday, Hoops said green marketing had been “exuberant” and now would be an appropriate time to “tone down” ESG investing opportunities.  

Whistleblower and former DWS sustainability chief Desiree Fixler first raised questions about the legitimacy of the firm’s ESG investment products in August 2021. Investigations into DWS followed shortly after that. 

Hoops said he “stands by” the firm’s previous ESG disclosures while authorities in the US and Germany investigate greenwashing claims. 

Hoops said he’s carefully reviewed how DWS arrived at previous ESG disclosures, including those made in the firm’s 2020 and 2021 annual reports, which were singled out by Fixler for criticism. That review gave him “confidence” that the information contained in them was accurate at the time, though he said evolving regulation meant DWS subsequently changed how it handles ESG disclosures. -Bloomberg 

The German consumer group alleges DWS told investors in marketing material that it allocates zero funds to controversial sectors such as fossil fuels, though material from the fund outlined it could include companies with up to 15% of revenue from that industry. 

DWS is the highest-profile case of greenwashing in Europe. Other funds have also backed away from green hype in advertising ESG funds amid an aggressive regulatory environment. 

Money managers have been waking up this year to ESG nonsense. Matt Lawton, T. Rowe Price Group Inc.’s sector portfolio manager in the Fixed Income Division, recently concluded: “It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find credible sustainability-linked bonds.” 

Authored by Owen Evans via The Epoch Times,

In an emergency press conference, the National Farmers Union (NFU) said the government needed to step in to assist farmers who are under severe strain.

The British farming industry is facing major issues across almost all sectors, with the price of animal feed and nitrogen fertiliser, and fuel skyrocketing. The union warned that yields of crops will likely slump to record lows this year with farmers also considering reducing the size of their herds.

Under Threat

In the emergency press conference, NFU president Minette Batters said that “shoppers up and down the country have for decades had a guaranteed supply of high-quality affordable food produced to some of the highest animal welfare, environmental, and food safety standards in the world.”

“That food, produced with care by British farmers, is critical to our nation’s security and success. But British food is under threat,” she added.

“We have already seen the egg supply chain crippled under the pressure caused by these issues and I fear the country is sleepwalking into further food supply crises, with the future of British fruit and vegetable supplies in trouble. We need government and the wider supply chain to act now—tomorrow could well be too late.”

According to the NFU, since 2019 the price of wholesale gas has increased by 650 percent, with nitrogen fertiliser up by 240 percent and agricultural diesel up 73 percent. Furthermore, animal feed raw material has increased by 75 percent.

Nearly 1 in 10 NFU members who produce beef said they were considering reducing the size of their herd in the next 12 months.

Production of tomatoes and cucumbers is expected to fall to the lowest levels since records began in 1985. In terms of dairy, the NFU said that rising costs may force farmers to reduce cow numbers to survive in response to short-term market signals.

Some UK supermarkets are also rationing eggs, with over a third of egg farmers considering quitting the industry because they say it is no longer economically viable to farm hens.

‘Deaf Ears’

Steve Evans, a dairy farmer based in Pembrokeshire, West Wales, told The Epoch Times by email that the issues “lie firmly at the government’s door.”

“We have warned and warned about this since the turn of the year, both Gareth Wyn Jones and myself have been on TV several times and yet our views fell on deaf ears in both the government and with the retailers,” he said.

Gareth Wyn Jones, is a sheep and cow farmer, and well-known TV presenter who lives in Ty’n Llwyfan, North Wales. Jones has also said that the country is “sleepwalking into food shortages” and has criticised how farmers around the world are being accused of being “peak polluters” in net zero measures, warning that “state-sponsored famine for billions of people is on the horizon.”

“When you have on-farm inflation hitting 30 percent plus then it was always going to happen, farmers (myself included) have cut back since the start of spring due to cash flow management decisions that had to be made,” said Evans.

“This coupled with the dry summer which came off the back of a relatively dry year last year and a dryish winter then these issues were looming large and yet the government seems to have parked the issue with the retailers and let them sort it,” he said.

“Passing the buck and now the issues lie firmly at the government’s door,” said Evans.

Last month, Batters told the committee that the UK was in “an extraordinary situation.”

“Time is not on our side to do that; there is a real level of urgency,” she said.

“Many farmers are producing food at a lower cost of production, which is unsustainable in the long term,” she added.

Highly Resilient

A government spokesperson told The Epoch Times by email that the UK “has a large and highly resilient food supply chain.”

“Our high degree of food security is built on supply from diverse sources; strong domestic production as well as imports through stable trade routes,” he said.

“The government is in regular contact with the food and farming industries to ensure they are well prepared for a range of scenarios, and we continue to take all the necessary steps to ensure people across the country have the food they need,” he added.

Andrew Opie, director of Food & Sustainability at the British Retail Consortium, told The Epoch Times by email that: “Retailers are adept at managing pressures across their supply chain; they have long-standing, established relationships with farmers and know how important maintaining these are for their customers and suppliers.”

“Supermarkets source, and will continue to source, the vast majority of their food from the UK and know they need to pay a sustainable price to farmers.

“Given the pressure on British farmers at the moment, retailers are paying more for their produce. However, retailers are also facing additional costs and are working incredibly hard to limit price increases for consumers during a cost-of-living crisis where many people are struggling to afford the essentials”

Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

World Domination in An Age for Lucifer

“This book explores a strange new spirituality about to enter into competition with other established religions. My purpose here is to convince you that its emergence is probable, if not inevitable.

I begin this exploration with an unproven assumption based on Darwinian evolutionary principles: a new predator will appear on our planet, an evolutionary prototype designed to prey on humans. Another assumption then follows: this predator will evolve gradually and incrementally from humanity, just as we apparently evolved from lower forms to prey on them.

A further assumption suggests that these predators have already appeared as evolutionary prototypes, as new humans with advanced methods of survival and new forms of spiritual expression and religious organization designed to support and advance their predation.“

— Robert C Tucker, An Age For Lucifer: Predatory Spirituality & The Quest for Godhood

Robert C. Tucker was a Canadian psychologist who worked with an organization called COMA – Council On Mind Abuse (not to be confused with his namesake, an American political scientist who covered the Soviet Union and wrote a biography of Stalin).

Our Tucker worked with “adult survivors and child victims of ritual abuse“ and spent time interviewing self-described “Satanists”. His book was more of a thought experiment, which tried to identify an impelling idea behind the ideology of a cult:

“with destructive cultism, however, I sensed something else animating these stories of Satanic activity and ritual abuse, something familiar yet unspoken. Satanism was a puzzle behind which it hid, or a myth beneath which it lived. Like cultism, Satanism seemed to point at something beyond itself“.

Tucker’s book is not about Satanism: it’s about a theorized class of spiritual predators he called Luciferians. In later chapters, Satanists are almost dismissed as cartoonish, lower order predators. They would be shunned by truly elite Luciferians. “Distant cousins”, at best.

Where Satanists pursue unrestrained ego and impulse gratification, Luciferians play the longest game of them all, and seek to attain Godhood itself. Pure power.

Tucker posits that this type of impulse would emerge out of evolutionary imperatives and that it would begin to form its own psycho-spiritual framework among participants – possibly on a subconscious level.

COMA spent much of its existence waging legal battles with the cults they sought to protect the public from. However, after a protracted lawsuit from the Church of Scientology, Tucker announced COMA’s dissolution in 1992.

But there is something in Tucker’s book, particularly how he ‘described the merging goals of cults and corporations:

“We have to recognize that cults are successful organizations with techniques now being borrowed by other successful organizations”’

Arguably one of the most successful organizations in existence today, is the World Economic Forum. World leaders are known to emerge from annual conclaves chanting the same mantra, nation states actively fund them, the WEF boasts of having penetrated the world’s governments and even the UN seems to take its cues from Davos.

In past articles, I’ve been looked at the thin scab of elites that sits atop the global cap table.

Class structure, now and future

And the story so far is:

• John Maynard Keynes, from whose work the modern economic system is derived, was a Marxist.

• The super-wealthy 0.1% of the 1%  who coagulate into supra-national policy organizations are Malthusians.

• The core premise driving their ideology is a radical reductionist materialism.

While many view the Davos elites as a global, all-encompassing cabal, which Controls Everything™, I could never quite bring myself to accept that description. The fact is, the world is inherently uncontrollable.

We can stipulate that people and groups can acquire outsized influence, then use it to do morally bankrupt things in order to further their own aims. We can further agree that the higher up the sociopolitical hierarchy from where these agendas originate, the more likely it is that the consequences  are borne most heavily by the plebes. Most of the time, those whose machinations were responsible for catastrophic outcomes, escape being held to account for it.

I said most of the time

But the world we live in today is proof positive of one thing: nobody is in control of anything.

However, like Tucker, I look at agendas like Stakeholder Capitalism, The Great Reset or The Great Narrative (or whatever it’s being called these days), and sense something behind it. “Something that points beyond itself”.

Years ago, in what feels like another life-line (a.k.a “Before Covid”), I was supposed to be writing  a book about the dangers of techno-utopianism. In it, I was already recognizing transhumanism as a kind of religion, and deemed it one of the four ideological pillars of techno-utopianism (the other three being: AI, technocracy and fully automated luxury communism).

Very early in my work on that, I concluded that techno-utopianism was ultimately a Luciferian construct. Not necessarily literally Lucifer, but that the aspiration to “usurp God” was Luciferian in character (the plan was for the final section of the book to propose a counter-framework called “techno-realism”, based on humanity’s hyper-adaptability as a superior approach to central planning).

When we seek to shape the world through technocracy – not to mention reality itself through transhumanism and AI – we are pursuing a uniquely eschatological event known as “The Singularity”: a point in time when our technology becomes the base layer of reality.

It is probably not the first time we thought we were capable of leveraging our gizmos into Godhood. The legend of Babel hints at a prior iteration, one that didn’t end well. We don’t know for sure where mythology borders pre-history, but whatever happened most certainly left deep grooves in our collective psyche.

When you consider the positioning and branding of the WEF, with their certitude and paternalism, it all makes a lot more sense when viewed  as a cult instead of a cabal. Cultists know all, they have the inside track – and most importantly, they claim moral authority over us all by Divine Right.

The stated objectives of the World Economic Forum:

From their institutional report “to stakeholders”, the WEF pursues  three Phases of Interaction:

Our activities drive communities through three phases of interaction, each resulting in increased impact:

1) stimulating dialogues and generating insights;

2) shaping agendas and developing influence; and

3) catalysing initiatives and generating impact.

…which in that characteristically banal WEF-speak, is a dog whistle for world domination.

They feel no compunction about it.  An Age for Lucifer posits the emergence of a type of human whose beliefs hold the adherents to be higher up the spiritual food chain than everybody else. Literally a breed above.

The key component of Luciferian metaphysics is predation.

“reality is layered from the physical to the spiritual. Pure power thrums only in the higher reaches of the spiritual domains. The higher dominates the lower. Spirit determines matter, not the reverse… Elitism is of the essence here; only powerful spiritual adepts and Luciferian masters deserve to occupy the higher realms and to enjoy the the benefits found only there.”

If we replace all instances of “spiritual” in the above passage with “intellectual”, then we have an accurate model for the ideological framework of “Davos Man”, because the entire elite ontology (or what passes for it) rests upon radical material reductionism.

And materialism, at its core, is pure nihilism.

There is no spirit. We have no souls. There is only matter, and lower humans are merely “hackable animals”.

Everyone has likely seen this montage, but it does capture “The Essential Harari”, who I personally think talks about all this in more of a descriptive than prescriptive timbre. But he is undeniably a Davos darling and when you get him going, he has that pronounced Dr. Strangelove-style glee.

Through the utter domination of what is intellectually permissible – and with expert technocratic oversight – matter can be subjugated to models …and elites can ascend to Godhood. All in a metaverse of their own making.

Cabals are self-serving and mundane. And while Davos Man is certainly that, a cabal is missing that essential element that makes for full-throated commitment – that thing that “points beyond itself”. Participants in a cabal will abandon it the moment it ceases to serve their interests… but cultists will double-down. They will burn themselves alive and eat their children. They are ideological berserkers.

What is this thing “that points beyond itself?”

I frequently say that the reason I think Bitcoin ultimately prevails, and industrial-era central planning fails, is because the former has sprung forth from a higher order of intellectual abstraction than the hierarchical, centrally-planned one.

This is all part of an inexorable progression, an unfolding, if you will. It distinguishes itself from a techno-utopian singularity, in that it is not something we’ve seized control of and are expertly managing, it’s something coursing through us. Impelling us, in fact all living things, forward.

I’ve never found a great word to describe this “thing beyond itself” that runs through everything; obviously it’s the inspiration for spiritual movements throughout the ages, for mythological constructs.  I’ve always just called it “The Great Externality”. It’s the indescribable (“the Tao which can be explained is not The Tao”), and ineffable. It can be experienced as “I am”, but if you try to put that into a Ted Talk it’ll probably stiff.

When I talk about how the architecture of intellectual abstraction has shifted from centralized to networked, that’s just a surface attribute. I’ve never really done an adequate job of explaining the fundamental change in the level of intellectual abstraction and how important that is. Jean Gebser called it the aperspectival world in “Ever Present Origin”, his exhaustive study of the evolution of consciousness itself.

“The condition of today’s world cannot be transformed by technocratic rationality, since both technocracy and rationality are apparently nearing their apex; nor can it be transcended by preaching or admonishing a return to ethics and morality, or in fact, by any form of return to the past.

We have only one option: in examining the manifestations of our age, we must penetrate them with sufficient breadth and depth that we do not come under their demonic and destructive spell.

We must not focus our view merely on these phenomenon, but rather on the the humus of the decaying world beneath, where the seedlings of the future are growing, immeasurable in their potential and vigor”

Gebser wrote Ever Present Origin in 1949; it wasn’t translated into English until 1985. He understood that crises of modernity were brought about not by differing political views or even economic incentives, but in collisions between successive iterations of consciousness itself. Humanity, according to Gebser, arced over three broad phases of Unperspectival (we could barely differentiate our own minds from the wider experience of the world), Perspectival (linearity and rationality) and into Aperspectival (what comes next – a level that integrates those which came before).

Perhaps one way to make the analogy is to frame it as the layering of dimensional orders:

In the Unperspectival world, our minds basically merged with reality; we were largely undifferentiated as self-aware creatures. It was a zero-to-one dimensional existence:

‘The initial, archaic structure is zero-dimensional; it is thus spatial and temporal, although our present mentality, if it grasps this at all, will see this in a paradox. It is origin; only in a terminological sense is it a “first” structure emanating from that perfect identity existing “before” (or behind) all oneness or unity which it initially might have represented. It is akin, if not identical, to the original state of biblical paradise: a time where the soul is yet dormant, a time of complete non-differentiation of man and the universe.’

Over the Perspectival Era, we became self-aware and to underwent individuation, straddling two-to-three dimensional constructs. I’ve mentioned before W R Clement’s “Quantum Jump”, which described the Enlightenment as a leveling up in mental abstraction. The discovery of perspective in art both impelled and signified this jump.

The fiat, technocratic era, is essentially the tail end of this Perspectival mindset – and what comes next contains yet another higher-order dimension, an axis into an Aperspectival construct… like a hypercube.

How high does the dimensional ladder go?

String theory posits a universe existing in ten dimensions.

A ten dimensional hypercube? Who in their right mind comes up with this stuff.

Anyway, this thing that points beyond itself isn’t arising from within the 3D construct that materialists assume forms the edges of existence. It comes from one level beyond.

There are phenomena that exist in this larger, super-reality that when experienced here, from within the perspective of our limited awareness, we struggle to contain within our senses. We may experience them as egregores or morphic fields, even a zeitgeist.  The Russian mystic Vedim Zeland’s concept of “The Pendulum” has aspects of both absorbing and channelling thought energy:

An energy pendulum is created when a group of people begin to think in a certain way and then:

“their thought energy finally unites into a single current. When this happens, as if in the middle of an entire ocean of energy, a separate, independent energy-information structure is created which is referred to as an energy pendulum. Eventually this structure begins to live its own life and subjugate to its laws the very people who created it.

The structure is referred to as a pendulum because the more people-adherents that feed it with their energy, the more powerfully it sways”
— from Vadim Zeland’s ‘Transurfing’

A pendulum is self-perpetuating with a single imperative: to draw as much energy into itself as possible. More importantly, it is agnostic about the energy charge – it doesn’t matter if people are in harmony with the pendulum or opposed to it. Both poles create the energy that the pendulum craves.

This is why the New Thought philosopher Neville Goddard’s advice about the need to renounce evil rather than resist it, is so important.

There is a great difference between resisting evil and renouncing it. When you resist evil, you give it your attention; you continue to make it real.

When you renounce evil, you take your attention away from it and give your attention to what you want.

Now is the time to control your imagination and give your energy to what you want.”

— Neville Goddard, The Power of Awareness

Pendulums can be benign or malevolent – the conditions that bring them forth make it so.

The world’s great religions can be seen as super-pendulums. Movements and cults could be minor ones.  In any case, once the pendulum has formed, active opposition to it only has one effect: to give it more energy and amplify it.

Techno-communism as typified by the WEF, and crypto-anarchism as embodied by Bitcoin, are both pendulums.

This is why taking up arms against the WEF doesn’t hurt the WEF – it strengthens it. And this is also why Bitcoin is an anti-fragile honey badger.

Pendulums feed on the energy of both their adherents and opponents, but their centre of gravity forms an axis through our experiential world and anchors them into The Great Externality.

The WEF pendulum is distinctly Ahrimanic. 

Ahriman is traditionally an evil spirit of chaos from Zoroastrianism, however I’m drawing on the work of the Austrian mystic Rudolf Steiner, who had been trying to warn us of the coming Age of Ahriman almost exactly a century ago.

From lecture GA 191 delivered on 1 November 1919, Dornach (excuse the length):

Whenever preparation is being made for incarnations of this character, we must be alert to certain indicative trends in evolution. A Being like Ahriman, who will incarnate in the West in time to come, prepares for this incarnation in advance. With a view to his incarnation on the earth, Ahriman guides certain forces in evolution in such a way that they may be of the greatest possible advantage to him….

The right stand can be taken only by recognising in one or another series of events the preparation that is being made by Ahriman for his earthly existence. And the time has now come for individual men to know which tendencies and events around them are machinations of Ahriman, helping him to prepare for his approaching incarnation.

It would undoubtedly be of the greatest benefit to Ahriman… if the vast majority of men were to regard these preparations for the Ahriman-incarnation as progressive and good for evolution. If Ahriman were able to slink into a humanity unaware of his coming, that would gladden him most of all. 

Here’s the punch line:

One of the developments in which Ahriman’s impulse is clearly evident is the spread of the belief that the mechanistic, mathematical conceptions inaugurated by Galileo, Copernicus and others, explain what is happening in the cosmos.

Pure materialism. Pure reductionism. Pure Harari.

Steiner warns that:

“The consciousness of those human beings whom I have called devourers of soul and spirit is in a condition of dimness…; for by not accepting the spiritual into their human nature, they drive straight into the Luciferic stream everything they introduce … What men eat and drink without spirituality goes straight to Lucifer!”

Here Steiner is talking about spiritual predation and warning those who think they’re the predators, are actually the prey for the egregores they serve. (Ahriman and Lucifer were two separate incarnations in Steiner’s cosmology, yet they worked in concert across the three thousand years that separate their physical incarnations in earthly terms).

This materialist undercurrent that forms the basis of our conventional paradigm is anchored in this, and it cleaves our earthly existence away from our souls. Is it any wonder why reductive, technocratic impulses and hyper-normality increasingly permeate our elite institutions?

“Too little attention has been paid to the fact that politics lures disordered, Messianic personalities into positions of power”.
— Rees-Mogg & Davidson, The Sovereign Individual 

It isn’t so much  cognitive incoherence afflicting the psyches of those both attracted to and ensnared within the corridors of power, as aperspectival madness – a term coined by Ken Wilber, the integral theory philosopher who has picked up the baton from Gebser here in the West.

Wilber used the phrase in his 2017 ‘Trump in a Post-Truth World’, which is arguably a book from the left about excessive wokery and Trump Derangement Syndrome. We’re seeing these types of infections of the psyche play out in escalating waves, going under different names:

Hyper-normality; TDS; …apersepectival madness.

“Mass Formation Psychosis” being most recent.

Of course, our expert overlords are having none of it…

Some day they will inform us that “Experts say there is no higher-order reality” (string theory having been stricken down by MSM fact checkers).

But this soul sickness that threatens to overrun the world is the result of ignoring these higher order constructs, and of attempting to pack reality into a 3-dimensional, materialist box. Everything has to warp just to attempt to fit it all in there.

Pick Your Pendulum

The Party at Davos is increasingly being regarded as a malevolent and controlling force on society, and with ample justification.

Yet they seemingly wield so much power and wealth; how can one hope to counter their influence?

By actively going out there and resisting the WEF, you are giving your energy to it.

The key is to put your energy into what you want, not what you don’t want.

The counterbalancing pendulum to the Luciferian-inspired fully automated luxury communism of the WEF  is a distinctly Promethean construct – an impulse that had been building for decades, perhaps longer, and then revealed itself during the Global Financial Crisis.

Via TheBitcoinTimes

That emergent impulse manifested in Bitcoin. I’ve described elsewhere the seemingly preternatural circumstances behind its emergence and the mind-boggling synchronicities I’ve personally experienced around it.

That trend has continued.

We’ve already had certain warnings  of the similarities between CBDCs and Revelations-style “number of the Beast” prophecies even before the freakishly numbered WIPO Patent 2020/060606 which described implantable digital-currency systems:

(Owned by Microsoft, btw.)

That previous article put me in touch with someone who made me aware of Revelations 2:17:

“Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious I will give some of the manna that has been hidden away in heaven. And I will give to each one a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.”

You mean everybody gets their own private key? Kinda sounds like it.

So on one side, we have an implant or a mark on the hand or head “without which one cannot buy or sell or conduct business of any kind” – while on the other there’s this group of the victorious who have possession of their own private keys.

As I said in the other article, I don’t subscribe to Biblical prophesy in the literal sense that it predicts the future. What I do believe is that we exist in a multi-faceted reality that transcends the material, 3-D reduction, which conventional thought insists upon. These mythologies attempt to describe something glimpsed in hyper-dimensional constructs from beyond linear time.

Sidebar: Life is but a dream

(Here’s an analogy for how I look at these concepts: think of a dream. My guess is whatever is happening in them, is happening at light-speed. The reason why is because you can experience a dream in which you seemingly pass hours, or even a lifetime – and then your snooze goes off, again. Turns out it’s been 10 minutes.

Then in that dream, something starts to happen, usually a sound but maybe it manifests in other ways, and when you wake up and you realize that your dream was reacting to something external to it, something happening in your waking world, like the doorbell ringing or a loud truck driving by.

When we wake up we have a hard time parsing what we experienced in the dream state – my theory there is because we dream in at least one additional dimensional axis – so of course it would be near impossible to unpack what happened in the hypercube back into 3D experience.)

I went on that tangent because I often suspect something like that is happening with synchronicities. Even prophesies or premonitions may be akin to this: an incursion into our waking world from some stimulus originating from a higher dimensional order outside of our conventional state. It would be exceptionally hard to make any sense of it because we’re missing a dimensional axis when we even try to think about it.

Our collective thought energies are responding to higher-order impulses, and we create or join pendulums. Those pendulums are further shaped by larger, underlying morphic fields and act as filters or bridges to The Great Externality. We gravitate into benign, healthy pendulums or malevolent self-defeating ones.

If we persistently engage in contemplative or spiritual practices, we may garner enough self-awareness to recognize these larger currents and make conscious decisions about which ones to put our energy into.

Conventional material reductionism would have it that our minds are just something our brains are gassing off, and there’s nothing more to it. But there is more to it than that, a lot more – and we aren’t consciously choosing what to think or how to steer our own evolution, as much as we’re akin to iron filings arranging ourselves in line with one magnetic field or another.

If we’re really aware, we can make a conscious decision around which one to align with. The majority of people just go with whatever ones they get swept up in.

Digesting it all

There will never be path function where the WEF either loses their power or reforms their ideals. The only option is irrelevance (which is why I’ve always told the cancel-culture and deplatforming crazies that the one, true magic bullet for killing a truly indefensible idea, is indifference).

The Party at Davos is under the impression that they are the vanguard of neo-Darwinist evolution – when it’s looking instead like they are functionaries of a larger morphic field that is distinctly Luciferian or Ahrimanic in character. This field encapsulates transhumanism, techno-Marxism, technocracy and social credit.

The antidote in our age is to choose a life path of radical sovereign individuality, and to embrace the Promethean impulse that gave rise to Bitcoin, public cryptography, and decentralization. This field is expressed through crypto-anarchy and network societies, yet with a grounding in spiritual expression, contemplative practices, family, community and tribes.

So when the next Davos meeting comes around, don’t bother picking up a placard and demonstrating in the streets; stack some sats and orange-pill your friends, family, neighbours and colleagues. That’s how we win.

I cover macro tensions between the globalists and sovereign-individual extensively in The Bitcoin Capitalist Letter, along with a tactical focus on CBDCs, pending legislation, digital assets and crypto stocks. Get the overall investment / macro thesis free when you join the Bombthrower mafia. Follow on Twitter here,  Gettr, or join the Bombthrower Telegram

You know the old saying: when bribery doesn’t work…just bribe using more money…

Such is the unfolding case in Vietnam, where G-7 nations have made a $15 billion offer to the country to try and wean it off of its reliance on coal, according to a report by Reuters. The country is among the top 20 coal users in the world and had previously turned down or ignored prior offers, the report notes.

Vietnam had already agreed to sign up for an “energy transition partnership with G7 nations” at a global climate summer this November, but high-level talks “broke off” before the meeting, the report says.

To bring the country back to the bargaining table, the EU and Britain are leading negotiations on behalf of the West, who have offered a financial package that includes $7.5 billion in loans from the public sector and loans totaling about the same amount from the private sector. 

Sources told Reuters this was the West’s “final offer” from the G7 before a December 14 deadline, when a summit of EU and Asian nations will take place. As Reuters notes, this $15 billion offer has grown from an “initial pledge” that was just $2 billion in public funds. 

Despite the bigger offer, it “remains unclear whether Vietnam would be prepared to accept the increased offer”, Reuters wrote. 

Vietnam had previously asked for more grants instead of loans, because the country is “traditionally opposed” to taking on loans. Sources indicated the chance of a deal getting done was at “50/50”, while others said talks are ongoing. 

After Vietnam walked from talks in November, its authorities cancelled a planned meeting with US and EU climate ambassadors and instead drafted a new long-term power plan that actually increased the country’s use of coal. 

The country is left to consider how much of its energy security could be put at risk during a switch to renewables, the report says. A transition “may result in power shortages in the booming nation without a credible backup in the event of low power output from wind farms or solar panels”. 

Personally, if we’re Vietnam, we hold out for $100 billion. At the pace with which the G-7 keeps upping its offer, it should only take a couple of weeks…

It’s no secret Philadelphia is a dangerous city.

In 2019, the murder rate was 22.47 per 100,000 residents according to FBI data, with 331 homicides that year. Fast forward three years, and there have been 480 murders year-to-date.

 Most affected are black males between the age of 18 and 45.

According to city statistics released in September, overall shootings have increased by 3% over last year, while violent crime is up 7%. Robberies involving guns are up 60%, while rapes are down more than 25%. Property crimes are up over 30%. Businesses getting hit particularly hard – with commercial burglaries up a staggering 50%, according to Axios Philadelphia. What’s more, the city’s drug crisis is spiraling further out of control with a new drug called “Tranq” – an anesthetic and pain reliever used to treat horses and cattle, and which turns people into zombies.

Crime is so out of control that the Philadelphia City Council recently approved a 10 p.m. curfew for anyone under the age of 18 – making a temporary summertime law permanent.

To combat the crime wave, Philadelphia gas station owners have turned to hiring heavily armed guards.

“They are forcing us to hire the security, high-level security, state level,” said Karco gas station owner, Neil Patel, who has recruited Kevlar-clad S.I.T.E. agents packing AR-15s or shotguns. “We are tired of this nonsense; robbery, drug trafficking, hanging around, gangs,” Fox5 reports.

The final straw for Patel after his business was reportedly vandalized by young people who stole an ATM machine. His car has also been a casualty of crime, according to the report.

“We wear Kevlar, we are trained, my guards go to training every other week, they’re proficient with [their guns] and with their taser, they know the law,” said police chief Andre Boyer.

A realtime online poll on Fox5‘s website reveals that 93% say they feel safer with guards who have AR-15s at gas stations:

When asked about residents who are concerned over the gun-toting guards, Patel said: “I listen to them, but according to some people, violent people, they carry the guns, they’re not afraid of them? This is the protection for the neighborhood and the customers.”