Month: September 2023

U.S. stock index futures rebounded on Wednesday as easing Treasury yields boosted megacaps, while investors awaited developments on a U.S. funding bill and inflation data this week to gauge the outlook for the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy.

A pullback in the 10-year Treasury yields provided some relief to megacap growth stocks including Apple (AAPL.O), Microsoft (MSFT.O), Tesla (TSLA.O) and Alphabet (GOOGL.O), up between 0.4% and 0.6%, in premarket trading.

Amazon.com (AMZN.O) edged 0.2% higher after Tuesday’s sell-off following the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against the online retailer.

At 7:10 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 92 points, or 0.27%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 15.75 points, or 0.37%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 51.75 points, or 0.35%.

All the three major stock indexes closed over 1% lower on Tuesday as 10-year Treasury yields held their multi-year highs, with investors wrestling with prospects for a long period of high interest rates and an economic fallout.

“Despite the possibilities of a market recovery as window dressing in the last days of the quarter is likely to occur, the near-term outlook remains weak,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.

However, markets are bracing for some more volatility, with policymakers projecting elevated rates until the end of 2024, boosting Treasury yields, which are sensitive to interest rate expectations and seen as risk-free due to government backing.

The S&P 500 (.SPX) and the Nasdaq (.IXIC) are set for their worst monthly showing so far this year, while all the three indexes including the Dow (.DJI) are eyeing their first quarterly decline in 2023.

Meanwhile, data also showed declines in China’s industrial profits were easing on the back of policy support, while the central bank also vowed to bolster economic recovery.

Investors also looked forward to durable good data for August, due at 8:30 a.m. ET, and second-quarter GDP and monthly personal consumption expenditures price index later in the week, with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s remarks also on tap.

Traders’ bets on the benchmark rate remaining unchanged in November and December stood around 80% and 64%, respectively, according to CME’s FedWatch tool. Meanwhile, a 25-basis-point rate cut is being priced in as early as March, growing to over 34% in June and July.

On the political front, the U.S. Senate on Tuesday took a step forward on a bipartisan bill to stop a government shutdown on Sunday, while the House sought to push ahead with a Republican-backed measure. The current partisan gridlock has begun to darken Wall Street’s view of U.S. government credit.

Among single stocks, Rivian Automotive (RIVN.O) gained 1.1% on plans to use subscription models for monetizing various features in cars.

Costco (COST.O) dipped 2% even though the wholesale retailer reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter results, with analysts pinning the fall on broader market concerns.

The strike by Hollywood screenwriters ended after their union said its members could return to work on Wednesday while guild members vote to ratify the agreement.

Is the strike over?

Yes, the Writers Guild of America leadership voted to end the strike on Wednesday after nearly five months on picket lines. Guild members will have until Oct. 9 to cast votes for the proposed agreement.

What caused the strike and what were the demands?

Writers began the strike on May 2, demanding higher royalties, mandatory staffing of TV writing rooms and safeguards to their jobs from the use of artificial intelligence.

Another demand was for residual payments when a show becomes a hit. Writers said they have suffered financially during the streaming TV boom in part due to shorter seasons and smaller residual payments.

Details on the new three-year contract suggest that studios have given in to several demands, including pay raises, increased health and pension benefits and AI safeguards.

When will TV shows and movies return?

The strike’s end means daytime and late-night talk shows can return to the air.

Late-night talk shows such as “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” could be among the first to be back.

But for everything else, it could take longer as the actors and performers’ union is still on strike. Their demands are similar to that of writers, including higher wages and protection against AI use.

The Screen Actors’ Guild (SAG) is considerably larger than the WGA with 160,000 film and television actors, stunt performers and other media professionals.

Analysts said studios will try to move negotiations quickly with the SAG-AFTRA, but it could still take more than a month for an agreement to be ratified.

That means viewers will have wait more for the latest seasons of top shows like Billions, Stranger Things and Abbott Elementary.

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Britain’s first official supervised drug consumption room was approved on Wednesday, seeking to reduce infectious diseases and overdoses in Scotland which suffers from the highest level of drug-related deaths in Europe.

Following similar projects in Europe, Canada and Australia, Glasgow City Council, which runs the largest city in Scotland, approved plans for the facility that will allow people to legally take illicit drugs under the supervision of trained professionals and will provide them with clean equipment.

While opponents of these facilities say they end up as a magnet for drug abuse, supporters say they reduce overdose deaths caused by increasingly potent street drugs, decrease public injecting and connect people to treatment services.

Allan Casey, a local politician in Glasgow who is responsible for addiction services, said research shows that no one has ever died from an overdose in a supervised drug consumption room, while it will reduce the problem of public drug use that often means that used syringes are left on the streets or in parks.

“What we have been doing clearly has not been working thus far,” he told Reuters. “We need to move to an approach where this is a public health issue and not a criminal justice one.”

This follows years of disagreement about whether a facility would be legal. The British government, which sets national drug policy in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, does not support the plans, but the idea was approved after Scotland’s senior law officer said users would not be prosecuted for possessing drugs while at the facility.

Scotland’s drug deaths remain three times higher on a per capita basis than anywhere else in Europe, despite the country recording its largest fall in fatalities in 2022.

Last year, Scotland had 248 drug deaths per million people aged between 15 and 65, compared with 79 in Finland, the second-worst country in Europe, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

Scotland has been dealing with a drug crisis for decades and its government wants to take a new approach to helping its residents with drug-addiction issues. However, officials say it has been hindered by Britain’s drug laws.

Scotland announced in July plans to decriminalise the possession of all drugs for personal use but said the British government in London is opposed to those plans.

As long as your Chabad rabbis (your money changers) claim that ziz iz NOT – NOT!!! what happened to the Jews, you can sleep soundly.

 

The chairman of China Evergrande Group (3333.HK) has been placed under police surveillance, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, raising more doubts about the embattled developer’s future as it grapples with mounting prospects of liquidation.

Citing people with knowledge of the matter, the report said Hui Ka Yan, who founded Evergrande in 1996 in the southern city of Guangzhou, was taken away by police earlier this month and is being monitored at a designated location.

Evergrande is the world’s most indebted property developer and has been at the centre of an unprecedented liquidity crisis in China’s property sector, which accounts for roughly a quarter of the world’s second-largest economy.

It was not clear why Hui was placed under residential surveillance, Bloomberg News said, adding the move was a type of police action that falls short of formal detention or arrest and does not mean Hui will be charged with a crime.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Evergrande, the police department in Guangdong province, whose capital is Guangzhou, and the public security ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A person close to Evergrande said Hui had stopped contacting staff over the past few days, while an industry source said he had become totally inaccessible. Both of them declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

The reported action against Hui comes after police in southern China said earlier this month that they have detained some staff at Evergrande’s wealth management unit, which raised funds from individual investors by selling investment products.

Once China’s top-selling developer, Evergrande’s financial crisis became public in 2021 and since then it and a string of its peers have defaulted on their offshore debt obligations amid slowing home sales and fewer new avenues for fundraising.

Adding to its woes, Evergrande’s offshore debt restructuring plan, the key to its survival amid a stifling cash crunch, looks set to falter and the prospects of the firm being liquidated are gathering momentum.

The company is “very likely to fail on debt restructuring, and with negative equity Evergrande may go into bankruptcy, which includes bankruptcy reorganisation and bankruptcy liquidation,” UOB Kay Hian wrote in a research note on Wednesday.

As the developer’s already sold but unfinished apartments will pose a risk to “social stability”, there is a good chance that Evergrande will likely seek bankruptcy reorganisation, said the brokerage.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that a major Evergrande offshore creditor group was planning to join a liquidation court petition filed against the developer if it does not submit a new debt revamp plan by the end of October.

That plan comes after the company rattled markets on Sunday with its announcement that it could not issue new bonds as part of its debt restructuring plan because of a regulatory investigation into its main Chinese unit, Hengda Real Estate.

Hengda, in a separate filing on Monday, said that it had failed to pay the principal and interest on a 4 billion yuan ($547 million) bond due by a Sept. 25 deadline.

Shares in Evergrande sank as much as 18% in afternoon trading in Hong Kong on Wednesday, while an index tracking Hong Kong-listed mainland developers (.HSMPI) 0.3% lower.

Evergrande grew rapidly through a land-buying spree backed by loans and by selling apartments quickly at low margins. But with its overall liabilities ballooning to more than $300 billion it came under pressure as the property market weakened.

The structure of Evergrande and the way the business operated under Hui came under scrutiny as the property empire began to unravel amid growing pressure to meet repayment obligations and finish apartment construction.

Investors are also focused on problems at another major Chinese developer, Country Garden (2007.HK), which is facing a new bond coupon repayment deadline on Wednesday.

The $40 million coupon, with a 30-day grace period, is tied to an 8%, $1 billion dollar bond that matures in January and is the latest payment challenge facing Country Garden, as the developer strives to avoid default.

The country’s No.1 private developer, whose financial woes worsened the property sector outlook and prompted Beijing to unveil a raft of support measures in the last few weeks, scrambled to successfully dodge defaults this month.

Offshore creditors widely expect Country Garden to delay the coupon payment due by Wednesday, while making use of the grace period to come up with plans to restructure all of its offshore debt.

A Country Garden spokesperson declined to comment.

“The fall of industry stalwarts in China’s property space has been alarming, to say the least,” said Fiona Kwok, Asian Fixed Income portfolio manager, First Sentier Investors.

“Until Chinese regulators come through with stimulus significant enough to inject optimism into the property market and increase property sales, default risk remains high among private and mixed ownership developers.”

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HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asia stocks traded mixed on Wednesday and benchmark U.S. Treasury yields were near multi-year highs, as investors sour on both stocks and bonds amid worries about the impact of higher-for-longer interest rates.

The dollar index hit a fresh 10-month high, while the Japanese yen came closer to a key level where Japanese officials are seen as potentially intervening to shore up the currency.

In early European trade, pan-region Euro Stoxx 50 futures edged up 0.05% while German DAX futures were down 0.07% and FTSE futures were down 0.14%.

In Asia, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was little changed in afternoon trade. The index is down 3.7% so far this month. U.S. stock futures, the S&P 500 e-minis, were up 0.27%.

Chinese corporate profits were a focal data point of the day. Profits at China’s industrial firms fell 11.7% in the first eight months from a year, a smaller decline than the 15.5% drop for the first seven months.

China’s blue-chip CSI300 index was 0.3% higher in afternoon trade while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 0.58% having lost some earlier gains.

“The stabilising industrial profits are simply not significant enough to override concerns about risks, especially in real estate,” said Gary Ng, Asia Pacific senior economist at Natixis.

“With a lack of positive catalysts and the still high sensitivity to risks, investors have turned cautious ahead of the long holiday in mainland China,” he added, referring to the weeklong National Day holiday.

Stock markets in mainland China will be closed from Sept. 29 to Oct. 6.

Australian shares were down 0.28%, while Japan’s Nikkei stock index lost 0.15%.

On Tuesday, the Dow posted its biggest one-day percentage drop since March, while all three major averages ended at their lowest closing levels in well over three months. Risk sentiment has been hit after the Federal Reserve indicated it would keep rates higher for longer than investors had previously expected.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.14%, the S&P 500 lost 1.47% and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.57%.

In currencies, the dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of currencies of other major trading partners, was up at 106.24 – after climbing as high as 106.32, its highest since Nov. 30. The European single currency was down 0.1% on the day at $1.0562, having lost 2.56% in a month.

The Japanese yen remained weak versus the greenback at 149 per dollar. The dollar’s strength against the yen in particular has kept traders on alert for an intervention to prop up the Japanese currency, especially after Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said no options were off the table.

The 150 yen per dollar level is seen by financial markets as a red line that would spur Japanese authorities to act, as they did last year.

“We see a high risk the BoJ intervenes soon to prop up the JPY,” CBA analysts said in a note.

In treasuries, benchmark 10-year yields have climbed to 16-year highs in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s hawkish longer-term rate outlook last week. The yield reached 4.5255%, compared with its U.S. close of 4.558% on Tuesday.

The two-year yield, which rises with traders’ expectations of higher Fed fund rates, touched 5.0623% compared with a U.S. close of 5.077%.

U.S. crude ticked 1.05% higher to $91.34 a barrel. Brent crude rose to $94.89 per barrel.

Gold was slightly lower. Spot gold was traded at $1897.5736 per ounce. [GOL/]

Tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians rushed on Wednesday to flee the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh for Armenia after a lightening military operation by Azerbaijan that has recast the contours of the post-Soviet South Caucasus.

So far more than 28,000 of the 120,000 Armenians of Karabakh, a region internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, have crossed in the border into Armenia, a country of about 2.8 million.

A military victory by Azerbaijan over the enclave, which was previously beyond Baku’s control, a week ago has triggered one of the biggest movements of people in the South Caucasus since the fall of the Soviet Union.

The hairpin mountain road snaking out of Karabakh towards Armenia was choked with people. Many slept in cars or searched for firewood to warm themselves by the side of the road.

“I left everything behind. I don’t know what is in store for me. I have nothing. I don’t want anything,” Vera Petrosyan, a 70-year-old retired teacher, told Reuters on Tuesday at the large Soviet-era hotel on the Armenian side of the border with Azerbaijan that is now her home.

“I would not want anybody to see what I have seen,” she added, reflecting on the shootings, the hunger, turmoil and suffering she witnessed before escaping to Armenia.

Azerbaijan’s 24-hour offensive in Karabakh came amid a blockade imposed on the enclave last December. It is not clear exactly what happened before the Karabakh leadership agreed to a ceasefire. Azerbaijan says civilians were not harmed.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars over the enclave in 30 years — with Azerbaijan gaining back swathes of territory in and around Nagorno-Karabakh in a six-week conflict in 2020.

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev said that the rights of Armenians will be respected but said his “iron fist” had consigned the idea of an independent ethnic Armenian Karabakh to history and that the region would be turned into a “paradise.”

The Armenians of Karabakh told Reuters they did not want to live as part of Azerbaijan and feared ethnic cleansing at the hands of Azerbaijan, which has repeatedly dismissed such claims as nonsense.

Some took down statues to their heroes

FIRE AND DIPLOMACY

As thousands rushed to leave, there was a major explosion at a fuel depot in the Askeran district of Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday, according to the local authorities. It was unclear what caused it.

There were conflicting details about the toll of the blast but the ethnic Armenian authorities said at least 68 had been killed, 105 were missing and nearly 300 were injured.

The badly injured were evacuated by helicopter to Armenia as the roads out were so jammed with traffic that a journey of just 77 km (48 miles) to the border was taking at least 30 hours.

The Karabakh crisis has shifted alliances in the South Caucasus region, a patchwork of ethnicities wedged between the Caspian and the Black seas where Russia, the United States, Turkey and Iran vie for influence.

Armenia, which was aligned with Russia, has rowed in public with Moscow which in turn has warned Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who is facing calls to resign, to stop flirting with the West.

The United States, home to the second largest Armenian diaspora in the world after Russia, sent senior officials to Armenia to show their support.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken asked Azerbaijan’s Aliyev on Tuesday “to emphasize the need for Azerbaijan to refrain from further hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh and provide unhindered humanitarian access,” State Spokesperson Matthew Miller said.

“The Secretary urged President Aliyev to commit to broad amnesty and allow an international observer mission into Nagorno-Karabakh,” Miller said.

Aliyev told Blinken “that military facilities only had been targeted during the anti-terror measures, which lasted less than 24 hours, and civilians had not been harmed,” according to statement by Azerbaijan’s presidential office.

“President Ilham Aliyev underlined that respective activities are underway to ensure the rights of Armenian residents living in the Karabakh region,” it said.

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Data lineage is the visualization and tracking of data as it moves through various stages of its lifecycle.

In an age where data drives decisions and fuels innovation, understanding the journey of data from its inception to its final destination is paramount. Data lineage provides this understanding. Data lineage is the visualization and tracking of data as it moves through various stages of its lifecycle, and it offers a host of benefits in solving critical data management challenges. This article will explore the top five problems solved by data lineage.

Data Quality Assurance

Data is the lifeblood of modern organizations, and its quality is a primary concern. Poor data quality can lead to inaccurate insights, flawed decision-making, and damaged reputations. Data lineage helps address this issue by providing a transparent view of how data is collected, transformed, and integrated across systems.

Data lineage allows organizations to:

• Identify Data Anomalies: By tracing data back to its source, organizations can spot discrepancies and errors, enabling them to rectify issues at the root.
• Enhance Data Governance: Data lineage provides visibility into data ownership and responsibility. This accountability encourages data stewards to maintain data quality standards.
• Data Cleansing: By understanding the transformations data undergoes, organizations can implement data cleansing processes at the proper stages of data pipelines.

By solving these issues, data lineage ensures that the data used for analysis and decision-making is accurate and trustworthy.

Compliance and Regulatory Challenges

Organizations today must adhere to many data privacy and security regulations. The consequences of non-compliance can be severe, including hefty fines and reputational damage. Data lineage can help organizations meet compliance requirements in several ways:

• Audit Trail: Data lineage provides an audit trail of how data is collected, stored, and used, making it easier to demonstrate compliance with data protection regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, or CCPA.
• Data Flow Mapping: This helps map personal or sensitive data flow, allowing organizations to ensure that it is handled according to regulatory requirements.
• Data Retention Policies: By visualizing data flow, organizations can implement data retention and deletion policies more effectively, which is crucial for complying with data protection regulations.

Data Security

Data breaches are a constant threat, and organizations must take every precaution to protect their data. Data lineage can be a powerful tool in strengthening data security:

• Access Control: By understanding who accesses data and where it moves, organizations can implement robust access control mechanisms, ensuring that only authorized personnel can access sensitive information.
• Data Encryption: Data lineage helps identify data at rest and in transit, allowing organizations to encrypt data as needed to protect it from unauthorized access.
• Anomaly Detection: By monitoring data flow and comparing it to established patterns, organizations can quickly identify unusual data movements or access, potentially indicating a security breach.

Efficiency and Performance Optimization

Inefficient data processes can lead to wasted resources, slow response times, and frustrated users. Data lineage can be a valuable tool in optimizing data workflows:

• Bottleneck Identification: By tracing data flow, organizations can identify bottlenecks in data pipelines and take steps to optimize them, improving overall system performance.
• Resource Allocation: Understanding how data is used and where it is most critical allows organizations to allocate resources effectively, ensuring that high-priority data processes receive the necessary attention and investment.
• Root Cause Analysis: When performance issues arise, data lineage can help pinpoint the root causes, allowing organizations to resolve them quickly and minimize downtime.

Organizations can optimize data workflows and performance to ensure that data-driven processes are as efficient and effective as possible.

Data Transparency and Collaboration

Effective collaboration is critical to modern business success, and data is often a collaborative effort. Data lineage can promote transparency and cooperation in several ways:

• Shared Understanding: Data lineage visually represents data flows that all stakeholders can understand, fostering a shared understanding of data processes across teams.
• Collaborative Problem-Solving: When data issues arise, teams can use data lineage to investigate and resolve them collaboratively, reducing downtime and improving data quality.
• Documentation: Data lineage is a valuable documentation tool, helping teams understand how data processes work and facilitating knowledge transfer.

Data lineage is not just a fancy visualization tool; it’s a critical solution to many data management challenges. From ensuring data quality and compliance to enhancing security and efficiency and promoting collaboration, data lineage is an indispensable tool for organizations seeking to harness the full potential of their data. By implementing robust data lineage solutions, organizations can solve these top five problems and position themselves for success in the data-driven future.

About the Author: Josh is a Content writer at Bora. He graduated with a degree in Journalism in 2021 and has a background in cybersecurity PR. He’s written on a wide range of topics, from AI to Zero Trust, and is particularly interested in the impacts of cybersecurity on the wider economy.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Data lineage)

The post Top 5 Problems Solved by Data Lineage appeared first on Security Affairs.

New Zealand researchers will investigate how climate change could increase the risk of damage triggered by earthquakes and landslides, two of the country’s deadliest and most costly natural disasters.

The team from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand said a warming climate and frequent storms will have a profound impact on lives and property.

The study will investigate the impact of climate change on natural disasters such as landslides, cliff collapse and flooding that are triggered by earthquakes.

Researchers report that landslides have caused more deaths in New Zealand than any other natural hazard and result in US$178 million in insurance claims each year.

Timothy Stahl, a senior lecturer at the University of Canterbury’s School of Earth and Environment, said global warming and earthquakes can combine to cause significant destruction.

“The more saturated a hill slope is, the more likely it is to fail in a landslide, and if you have earthquakes occurring, shaking those saturated hill slopes then you can much more easily cause earthquake-induced landslides,” Stahl said.

He said a good example was what happened in Hokkaido in Japan in 2018.

“You had a typhoon come through saturating hill slopes there, and then a magnitude six-something earthquake the next day, which caused thousands of landslides to fall off the hill slopes, causing all sorts of chaos,”  he said.

Both Japan and New Zealand lie on the so-called Ring of Fire, a horseshoe-shaped band of seismically active fault lines around the Pacific Basin.

Stahl said the study aims to help earthquake-prone countries be better prepared and resilient and will include improved guidance for building near active fault lines.

“No matter where you are, if it is tectonically active, then you are going to have this interaction between earthquakes and climate change and it is just really important to have a more accurate picture of what that interaction is going to look like,” Stahl said.

In February, New Zealand was hit by Cyclone Gabrielle, the worst storm so far this century. The earthquake-prone South Pacific nation of about 5 million people is known as the Shaky Isles. About 14,000 earthquakes occur in and around New Zealand each year. Most are too small to be noticed, but between 150 and 200 are powerful enough to be felt. 

Last week, a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck the country’s South Island.

The epicenter was about 120 kilometers west of Christchurch and was the strongest quake to hit New Zealand this year.

The University of Canterbury natural disasters research should be completed by 2027.