Friday Watch

Evening Headlines

Bloomberg:

• UK Likely to Dodge Recession With ‘Anemic’ Growth, BCC Says.
• Chip Titan TSMC's First Factory in Japan Has to Contend With Horrible Traffic.
• Asia Stocks Advance on Heels of S&P 500’s Bull Run: Markets Wrap.
• Oil Set for Second Weekly Drop as Demand Concerns Return to Fore.
• Google Union Pushes Back on Three-Day Return-to-Office Mandate.
• US Homeowners Saw First Equity Loss Since 2012 Last Quarter.
• ‘Old Economy’ Stocks Poised to Pick Up Slack When AI Mania Eases.
• Fed Pause Hopes Put Beaten-Down Dividend-Paying Stocks Back in Play. 
• US Jobless Claims Surge to 261,000, Highest Since October 2021.
• Lithium Shortages Could Hand Salt a Starring Role in EV Shift.
• World’s Biggest Banks Pull Back From Odey After New Allegations.
• Carvana Short Sellers Lose $1 Billion After Record Rally.
• Leaving New York for Miami Can Save Nearly $200,000.
• Humans Are Biased. Generative AI Is Even Worse.
• How Buybacks Came to Drive the Stock Market.

Zero Hedge:

• Trump: "I Have Been Indicted".
• Tucker Talks Taboos After MSM Ignores Instagram Kiddie-Porn Bombshell.
• Jaw Dropping Stats - Reports Of Bud Light Memorial Day Sales Dropping -60% As Brand Boycott Continues.
• Revealed: Bombshell FBI Document Alleges $5 Million Bribe Paid To Joe Biden By Burisma Exec.
• Rickards: The Coming Shock To The Global Monetary System.
• Inflation & Biden Regulations Are Making Life Hard; Small Business Owners Say.
• "Chaos": McCarthy Throws Tantrum, Cancels Votes For Rest Of Week After Freedom Caucus Fracas.
• CEO: "I Talked To 48 Lenders About Debt For A New Apartment Project. Zero Came Back With A Bid".
• China's Persistent Gold Accumulation: A Seven-Month Surge In Holdings.
• Happy days.
• Goldman: Everyone Is Looking At The Most Shorted Consumer Discretionary Stocks.
• "Worse Than Yesterday": Dense Wildfire Smoke Moving Over Nation's Capital.
• S&P 500 entered a bull market and tech outperformed as yields declined due to a spike in initial jobless claims - Newsquawk Asia-Pac Market Open.
• Japan Begins Secretly Releasing Irradiated Water From Fukushima Disaster Into The Ocean.
• West Coast Dockworkers Making $200K Demand Higher Pay.
• Fed Emergency Bank Bailout Facility Usage Tops $100 Billion For First Time As Money-Market Inflows Soared Again.
• Tech leads SPX into bull market as yields and Dollar tumble on spike in jobless claims - Newsquawk US Market Wrap.
• Is AI The Beginning Of The End, Or Just A Beginning?
• VIX Dumps, Gold Pumps, Jobless Jump As Trillion-Dollar Bill-Bomb Looms.

Wall Street Journal:

• White House Prepares Plan B on Student Loans.
• S&P Enters Bull Market as Big Tech Lifts Indexes
• Smoky Conditions to Last for Days as Wildfires Persist
• Ukraine Targets Russian Lines as Counteroffensive Gathers Pace
• Home Insurers Curb New Policies in Risky Areas Nationally.
• As U.S. Shifts Focus to Russia and China, Islamic State Continues Killing.

CNBC.com:

• GM to use Tesla charging network, joining Ford in leveraging the EV leader’s tech.
• Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg touts to employees ‘incredible breakthroughs’ the company has seen in A.I.
• Carvana shares surge after the company boosts second-quarter guidance.
• Stocks making the biggest moves after hours: DocuSign, General Motors, Vail Resorts and more.
• FDA advisors recommend AstraZeneca, Sanofi antibody to protect babies from RSV.

MarketWatch:

• Here’s the Air-Quality Index of cities in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest as Canadian wildfires put many under air quality advisories.
• ‘Like unfiltered cigarettes’: Why is wildfire smoke so dangerous for the lungs?
• Odds of U.S. ‘hard landing’ rising after Fed’s refusal to pause rate hikes earlier this year, warns Cam Harvey.
• The curious case of a regional bank’s insider stock sales.

 Newsmax:

• FBI Doc: Burisma Exec Paid Biden $5M in Alleged Bribe Scheme.
• Dershowitz: Trump Indictment Worrying.
• Alina Habba: Trump Indictment Would Be DOJ Abuse.

Fox News:

• Specific criminal allegations against President Biden in FBI document revealed.
• Garth Brooks makes his new bar's stance on Bud Light crystal clear.
• Woman goes viral for saying it's hard to find 'masculine' man who's not conservative.

TheGatewayPundit.com:

• Satellite Imagery from College of DuPage Meteorology Department Shows Over a Dozen Fires in Quebec Start Up at Almost the Exact Same Time.
• Reporter Asks Joe Biden About “Evidence in an FBI File” Showing He “Sold Out the Country” – Biden Blurts Out Damning Response! (VIDEO).
• Weaponization Committee Uncovers New Information Suggesting FTC is Targeting Elon Musk’s Twitter.
• Breaking: Tucker Carlson Releases Episode 2 of His Twitter Series – Questions Obama’s “Highly Creepy Personal Life” and the Epidemic of Child Sex Abuse.
• Here We Go… NASA Warns of Internet Apocalypse that Will Disable Internet for Months.
• Marine Vet Daniel Penny Shares Why He Stepped In to Subdue Jordan Neely-“He Would Have Killed Somebody”.
• Unbelievable! Salute to the LBGTQ?? San Francisco Police Record Viral Video Saluting the Pride Flag (Video).
• Georgia’s WEF Puppet Governor Brian Kemp Rolls Out Digital IDs for All Citizens.
• Poll: Large Percentage Of Republicans Turning Away From Target – Where Else Can We Shop?
• NEW BOMBSHELL: OKI Ballot Printer Company Sends DAMNING “Response to Factual Errors in Maricopa County Elections Report” Debunking Maricopa County’s Lies About Ballot Printer Failures – LEFTWING MEDIA SILENT.
  

 The Epoch Times:

• Chinese Navy Cuts Off US Ship, Intending to Test US Bottom Line in Taiwan Strait: Military Expert.
• Lawmakers Warn of New Cold War as China Reportedly Seeks Spy Base in Cuba.
• IN-DEPTH: War in South China Sea Would Devastate Global Economy, Especially China’s: Experts.

Twitter: 

• @songpinganq - It's happening in China now. Once you are blacklisted by social credit system, you can no longer use China's CBDC digital wallet-Alipay or Wechat pay. Which means you can't order food, book hotel room, buy train/plane tickets...etc online. (video) Total Control: Chinese citizens' every move is being watched, scored, and sanctioned by the Social Credit System. China's SKYNET is spying on all of its 1.4 billion citizens in real-time, to give them a personal social credit score, based how they behave. (video)
• @The_Real_Fly - Instagram Promotes Disturbing Network of Pedophiles. The Meta-owned platform hosts underage-sex content and builds a network of pedophiles with similar interests in illegal content, suggesting them to sellers of child-sex material. SALUTE THE FLAG — POSTED ON OFFICIAL US AIRFORCE ACCOUNT. Feelings towards the FBI (poll).
  
• @MattWalshBlog - 1/ BREAKING: The largest “trans healthcare” providers in the U.S. are rubber-stamping letters approving gruesome, life-altering surgeries. It’s such a racket that my producer was approved for testicle removal in #22minutes. The tape is disturbing.
• @AsiansLiberty - Imagine a society where everything you do, everything you say, and everything you buy is 'controlled and evaluated' by the authorities... this is a reality known as China's Communist Party's social credit system. Resist this pressure-filled draconian system from becoming a norm. (video)
• @EthicalSkeptic - More kids dying NOW than died during DELTA. 26.4% to the excess. (graph)
• @wesyang - Martine Rothblatt, the transhumanist trans-ID male centi-millionaire who wrote a book on how transgenderism is a bridge to transhumanism, was recently added to the board of the Mayo Clinic.
• @carolmswain - Why do we have a shortage of cancer drugs? Why would intelligent leaders trust hostile nations to supply unpolluted medical and food supplies? How about drugs to their troops.
• @scarlett4kids - Wisconsin Dept of Instruction PROMOTES GENDER IDEOLOGY and benefits of early experimentation with a myriad of new "gender identities" to 3-4 YEAR OLDS! "Call me Tree" is a book recommended to pre-k children as young as 3 years old.
• @DrLoupis -  BILL GATES - This is Bill’s mosquito factory in Colombia. It’s the largest in the world. 30 million genetically modified mosquitoes are released every week into 11 countries. (video)

OpenVAERS:

• VAERS US COVID Vaccine Adverse Event Reports. 963,283 Reports(+1,415 from prior week) Through May 26th, 2023.

SKirsch.com:

• Using the MGH numbers with our own VAERS queries, we have 247 cases per million doses from the MGH study divided by 5.97 cases per million doses from VAERS. 247/5.97 = 41. This suggests that the VAERS under-reporting factor (URF) is 41X.

Night Trading 

• Asian equity indices are +.25% to +1.0% on average.

• Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 115.0 -3.25 basis points. 

• China Sovereign CDS 62.0 -1.0 basis point.
  
• China Iron Ore Spot 110.4 USD/Metric Tonne +.1%.

• Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 45.1 -.5%.
• Bloomberg Global Risk-On/Risk Off Index 61.8 +1.8%. 
• Bloomberg US Financial Conditions Index .06 -4.0 basis points.
  
• Volatility Index(VIX) futures 17.1 +.12%.
• Euro Stoxx 50 futures +.09%.

• S&P 500 futures -.10%.

• NASDAQ 100 futures -.09%.  

Morning Preview Links

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly higher, boosted by tech and industrial shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open mixed and to rally into the afternoon, finishing modestly higher.  The Portfolio is 75% net long heading into the day.