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bluewater's JournalUkraine to Halt Key Russian Gas Transit to Europe, Use Alternative
Source: USNews/Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) -Ukraine said on Tuesday it would suspend the flow of gas through a transit point which it said delivers almost a third of the fuel piped from Russia to Europe through Ukraine, blaming Moscow for the move and saying it would move the flows elsewhere.
GTSOU, which operates Ukraine's gas system, said it would suspend flows via the Sokhranivka route from Wednesday, declaring "force majeure", a clause invoked when a business is hit by something beyond its control.
The company said in a statement that it could not operate at the Novopskov gas compressor station due to "the interference of the occupying forces in technical processes", adding that it could temporarily shift the affected flow elsewhere, to the 'Sudzha' physical interconnection point located in territory controlled by Ukraine.
But Gazprom, which has a monopoly on Russian gas exports by pipeline, said it was "technologically impossible" to shift all volumes to the Sudzha interconnection point, as GTSOU proposed.
Read more: https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2022-05-10/ukraine-operator-to-suspend-russian-gas-flow-via-sokhranivka-entry-point?msclkid=ad830abdd09311ecbb607eb911ae2025
This impacts "almost a third of the fuel piped from Russia to Europe through Ukraine".
Good lord.
"The Russian company added that Ukraine proposed switching all gas transit to Sudzha, adding that it saw no proof of force majeure or obstacles to continuing as before."
Why is Ukraine doing this?
This damages all the EU countries that have been backing Ukraine with weapons and financial support.
Thomas Friedman bashes Ukraine: "Ukraine was, and still is, a country marbled with corruption."
Alas, we have to be alive to the fact that it’s not only the Russians who would like to involve us more deeply. Have no illusions, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has been trying to do the same thing from the start — to make Ukraine an immediate member of NATO or get Washington to forge a bilateral security pact with Kyiv. I am in awe of Zelensky’s heroism and leadership. If I were him, I’d be trying to get the U.S. as enmeshed on my side as he is.
But I’m an American citizen, and I want us to be careful. Ukraine was, and still is, a country marbled with corruption. That doesn’t mean we should not be helping it. I am glad we are. I insist we do. But my sense is that the Biden team is walking much more of a tightrope with Zelensky than it would appear to the eye — wanting to do everything possible to make sure he wins this war but doing so in a way that still keeps some distance between us and Ukraine’s leadership. That’s so Kyiv is not calling the shots and so we’ll not be embarrassed by messy Ukrainian politics in the war’s aftermath.
The view of Biden and his team, according to my reporting, is that America needs to help Ukraine restore its sovereignty and beat the Russians back — but not let Ukraine turn itself into an American protectorate on the border of Russia. We need to stay laser-focused on what is our national interest and not stray in ways that lead to exposures and risks we don’t want.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/06/opinion/biden-ukraine-leaks.html
Fed: Inflation, Ukraine Biggest Threats to Financial System
Source: NBC News
The Federal Reserve said Monday that Russia's war in Ukraine and surging inflation are now the greatest threats facing the global financial system, supplanting the coronavirus pandemic.
...
The Fed said economic uncertainty has increased since the bank's previous report, with the Ukraine war being a big part of the deterioration. The bank also highlighted the large fluctuations in asset prices — from Treasuries to stocks — as investors reevaluate risk in a high-inflation environment.
“Inflation has been higher and more persistent than expected, even before the invasion of Ukraine, and uncertainty over the inflation outlook poses risks to financial conditions and economic activity," the Fed said in its report.
The Fed said persistently high inflation may require central bankers to quickly raise interest rates, which could also be a potential risk for financial instability in the form of lower economic output as well as higher borrowing costs for individuals and businesses. It could cause debt levels, which the Fed says are elevated but not yet a major concern, to become unsustainable for some businesses.
Read more: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/fed-inflation-ukraine-biggest-threats-to-financial-system/3679103/?msclkid=33d57769cfe111ec8242a66a021c9587
I posted two articles on the this topic today. In the first, experts said that interest rates must be lowered at once to ensure a soft landing for the stock market and to avoid further economic instability. In this article, the Federal Reserve says persistently high inflation might require raising interest rates sharply, while hedging that doing so could result in financial instability.
Wonderful. Just wonderful.
The fear is that we might get the worst of both outcomes, persistent inflation and a recession leading to further significant stock declines.
Dow falls more than 600 points, S&P 500 tumbles below 4,000 to the lowest level in a year
Source: CNBC
Stocks fell sharply Monday, pushing the S&P 500 to breach the 4,000 level for the first time in more than a year as the market sell-off continued.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 653.67 points to 32,245.70, or 1.99%. The S&P 500 fell 3.2% to settle at 3,991.24, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 4.29% to 11,623.25.
The S&P 500 traded as low as 3,975.48 on the day, dipping below the 4,000 mark to its lowest level since March 2021 and pulling back 17% from a 52-week high as traders struggled to bounce back from last week’s big market swings. All sectors except for consumer staples dipped into the red.
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“This is significant repricing, this is significant dislocation and this is all being spurred and driven by Federal Reserve policy,” said Jeff Kilburg of Sanctuary Wealth. “The only way I see us finding the bottom in equities short-term, the only way I see markets healing is if the Fed has the ability with the tools in their toolbox to calm down interest rates. The 10-year note needs to go back under 3%.”
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/08/stock-futures-fall-as-wall-street-looks-to-stabilize-after-rollercoaster-week.html
Dow tumbles 1,000 points, Nasdaq loses 5 percent in worst day since 2020
Source: NBC News
Stocks suffered their worst day of the year on Thursday, pulling back sharply and completely erasing a rally from the prior session in a stunning reversal that deepened the market’s losses for 2022.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1,120 points, or 3.3 percent. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite fell 3.7 percent and 5.2 percent, respectively.
The moves come after a major rally for stocks on Wednesday. The Dow surged 932 points, or 2.81 percent, and the S&P 500 gained 2.99 percent for their biggest gains since 2020. The Nasdaq Composite jumped 3.19 percent.
Those gains had all been erased before noon in New York on Thursday.
“If you go up 3 percent and then you give up half a percent the next day, that’s pretty normal stuff. ... But having the kind of day we had yesterday and then seeing it 100 percent reversed within half a day is just truly extraordinary,” said Randy Frederick, managing director of trading and derivatives at the Schwab Center for Financial Research.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/markets/markets-tumble-day-after-federal-reserve-interest-rate-hike-rcna27513?share=facebook
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