Monday Watch

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:   

• China Credit Shrinks for First Time, Loan Growth Disappoints.
• China to Nurture Stock Rally by Masking Live Foreign Flows Data.
• Tech Giants Start to Treat Southeast Asia Like Next Big Thing.
• BlackRock Warns Weak Yen Deters Foreigners From Japanese Stocks.
• Global Chips Battle Intensifies With $81 Billion Subsidy Surge.
• Ukraine Is Now a World War. And Putin Is Gaining Friends.
• Asian Stocks Eye Sluggish Start After China Data.
• World’s Top Coffee, Soy and Sugar Supplier Wants to Rule Cocoa, Too. 
• Iraq Says It Won’t Agree to More OPEC+ Oil Output Cuts. 
• Biden’s Solar Factory Boom Slows as Cheap Imports Flood Market.
• Dividend Payouts Are Latest Sign of Big Tech’s Financial Muscle.
• A Doomsday Recession Mentality is Keeping the S&P 500 Strong. 
• Fast Casual Dining Hurt by Consumer Struggles. 
• Stubborn Inflation Poses Risk to Recently Upgraded US Forecasts for Economic Growth.
• Billionaire Stephen Ross Believes in South Florida—and Is Spending Big to Transform It.
• Five Key Charts to Watch in Global Commodity Markets This Week.

Zero Hedge:

• Putin Unveils Dramatic Reshuffling Of Closest Advisors: Shoigu Out As Defense Minister.
• US Is Offering Israel A Strange Incentive To Hold Off Rafah Offensive.
• Kansas Democrat Governor Vetoes Bill Restricting Foreign Ownership Of Land Near Military Bases.
• Ukraine Warns Against Questioning Zelensky's Legitimacy Due To Wartime Suspension Of Elections.
• Blame Canada? Justin Trudeau Creates Blueprint For Dystopia In Horrific Speech Bill.
• Weekend News Round Up - Newsquawk Asia-Pac Market Open.
• Despite Overall Hedge Fund Buying, Single Stock Shorting Was The Highest In 4 Months: Goldman Prime.
• Climate "Reparations" Numbers Are Rigged.
• Citadel Ken Griffin Rises Up Against Left's "Cultural Revolution," Says Time To Embrace "Western Values".
• What's worse than being a non-AI stock?
• Goldman Asks: "Might This Be A Monetary Juncture Akin To 1995 Or 2011" .
• How To Play Europe.
• The Davos Class Is Desperate.
• Big Oil Has Flourished, Despite Biden's Best Efforts, And Will Back Trump In 2024.
• Every Four Years, Overeager Young Journalists Attempt To Trap Powell In A Jack Nicholson Moment.
• Nebraska Ends Income Taxes On Gold And Silver, Declares CBDC’s Are Not Lawful Money.
• Goldman Warns Consumers Are Cracking As Stagflation Threats Emerge.
• GOP Senators Want IRS To Yank Tax-Exempt Status For Organizations Involved In Campus Protests.
• The Latent Fascism Of Today’s Anti-Fascists.
• Chicago Mayor Wants $1 Billion More For Schools Even Though 43% Of Teachers Are Chronically Absent.
• Your Tax Dollars At Work: In Two Years, $7.5 Billion Has Produced Just 7 EV Charging Stations.
• The Proof Of Censorship Is…Censored.
• The Land Of The Setting Sun: The Currency Crisis Of Japan Has Just Started.
• Watch: Northern Israel Is Literally On Fire After Hezbollah Attacks.
• "It Simply Does Not Make Any Sense": Judge Trashes Election Lawsuit By The Elias Law Firm.
• Average Credit Card Debt In US Now Soaring Past $6,500.
• They Went Woke: Oscars Facing Liquidity Crisis, Launch $500 Million Fundraising Drive As Viewers Flee.
• James Carville Rages At Trump’s Success: "It's Going The Wrong Way, It's Not Working!".
• Hedge fund net leverage highest since late 2021.
• McDonald's Admits Consumers Are Broke With Planned Reintroduction Of $5 Meal Deal.
• Over 124 Pounds Of Cocaine And Fentanyl Seized In El Paso In 1 Week.
• Watch: Bill Maher Upends Stormy Daniels' Testimony With 2018 Footage.
• Ackman Badgered By Rich Wokes At Closed-Door Milken Session.
• Watch: The Insane Flip-Flops Over Vaccines, Masks And Ivermectin.
• Embracing Communist China Was Washington's Greatest Strategic Failure.
• The Vacuum Bull.
• World’s Largest Floating Solar Farm Wrecked By A Storm Just Before Launch.
• World's Oldest Central Bank Keeps Sounding Alarm On Fragility Of Cashless Economies.
• The Escalating Threat Of Avian Influenza H5N1 And The Ethical Quandary Of Gain-of-Function Research.
• Asia Embraces Coal As The U.S. Rejects It.
• Common Laxatives Linked To Serious Behavioral Issues In Children, Warn Experts. 
• Hospitals Turn To Pay In Advance, In Full.
• Bidenomics At Work: Ford Slashing Battery Orders As Losses Per EV Approach $100,000.
• The Top 10% Are The Main Beneficiaries Of Globalization, Says Study. 
• "The Jobs Market Is Weakening, Inflation Has Picked Up And Growth Unexpectedly Slowed".
• Hedge Funds That Sold In May Might Now Push Stocks To New Highs. 
• Stocks End Week On Muted Note As Stagflation Fears Mount.

Wall Street Journal:

• What You Aren’t Hearing About Marijuana’s Health Effects. Bertha Madras, a leading expert on weed, outlines the science linking it to psychiatric disorders, permanent brain damage, and other serious harms.
• Stubbornly High Rents Prevent Fed From Finishing Inflation Fight.
• There’s Not Enough Power for America’s High-Tech Ambitions.
• As Silicon Valley Pivots to Patriotic Capital, China Ties Linger.
• In Rafah, Israel Reaches for a Knockout Punch That’s Proved Elusive.
• Streaming Was Supposed to Rescue the TV Ad Business. It Hasn’t..
• Looming TikTok Ban Gives Young Voters Another Beef With Biden.
• Wall Street Turns Up the Heat on Companies to Perform.
• How Television Advertising Lost Its Relevance.

Barron's:

• Had bullish commentary on (MMM), (SG), (CAVA) and (SHAK).

CNBC:

• From Tyson-Paul fight to NFL, Netflix interest in live sports is rising.
• Inflation is slowing. Here’s why prices still aren’t going down.
• Consumer sentiment tumbles as inflation fears surge.
• Apple’s Maryland store workers vote to authorize strike.
• Fewer homeowners are remodeling, but demand is still ‘solid’.
• Here’s the No. 1 AI skill to start learning today to stay competitive at work. 

MarketWatch.com:

• Inflation trap? Stock market’s near-record run faces the most crucial CPI reading of 2024.
• Big retailers report as Q1 earnings wind down. This company has been the biggest drag on the S&P 500’s results. 
• Arm aims to launch AI chips in 2025: report.

NewsMax:  

• Report: Russia Plotting Terror Attacks in US, NATO Countries.
• Israel Pushes Back Into Northern Gaza, Ups Pressure on Rafah.
• Blinken: Israel Forces Should 'Get Out of Gaza'.

Fox News:

• Antisemitic Duke students exit during Jerry Seinfeld's commencement speech.
• Trump team fires back at Biden campaign's 'disgusting' Mother's Day video. 
• Biden White House warned after Trump rallies as many as 100k in deep-blue state.
  

TheGatewayPundit.com:

• Dr. Peter McCullough Reveals How Much Doctors were Bribed to Push COVID Vaccines – And Leaked Insurance Documents Back Him Up (VIDEO).
• Bill Gates Wants a Vaccine to Stop Cow Farts, Save Planet From So-Called Climate Change.
• Ashley Biden Officially Confirms Her Diary, Where She Talks About “Showers w/my Dad” Joe Biden, is REAL in Emotional Letter to Judge. 
• KARI LAKE Drops a BOMB on Sunday Morning Futures – Exposes How Democrats Are ALREADY Stealing Votes in the 2024 Election (VIDEO).
• Biden Administration Admits They Are Withholding Information from Israel on the Location of Hamas Leaders in Hidden Tunnels – Maria Bartiromo Goes Off! (VIDEO).
• Part 2: Georgia SOS General Counsel Doesn’t Know if Duplicate Ballot Images Were Included in Fulton County Results.
• BREAKING: NFL Great Lawrence Taylor Endorses President Donald Trump at Wildwood Rally – “I Grew Up a Democrat and Always Was a Democrat Until I Met This Man Right Here” (VIDEO).
• HAARP or Solar Storm? Public Speculates Northern Lights Were “Man-Made” Following Experiment on Earth’s Upper Atmosphere May 8-10.
• IRS Threatens to Target Biden’s Critics, Those Who Question Washington’s ‘Ability to Govern’
• Maria Bartiromo GOES OFF on Spineless and Silent GOP Lawmakers: ‘Let Me be Clear Viewers are Sick and Tired of Hearings, Letters… They Want Action’ While Trump Sits in Trial All Day Long (VIDEO).
• Pro-Life Activist and Mother of 15 Suffers Stroke in Prison – After Biden Regime Places Her in Solitary Confinement for 22 Days.
• Whistleblower Exposes Internal Email Suggesting Pfizer Offered “Separate and Distinct” COVID-19 Vaccines to Employees.
• WATCH LIVE: President Trump Speaks to MASSIVE Crowd of Estimated 80,000 in Wildwood, NJ – “LARGEST POLITICAL RALLY IN THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY HISTORY”.
• HAARP or Solar Storm? Public Speculates Northern Lights Were Man-Made Following Experiment on Earth’s Upper Atmosphere Last May 8-10.
• Biden Admin Planning to Roll Out ID Cards for Illegal Immigrants This Summer: 10,000 Cards in First-Round Issue Across US
• CONFIRMED: JACK SMITH AND ALVIN BRAGG Caught Violating the Same Law Used to Send J6 Defendants to Prison.
• Chief Medical Board of The Wellness Company Adds Tamiflu to Contagion Kit to Combat Bird Flu.
• SHOCKING: Wisconsin Speaker Robin Vos’s Team Is Surveilling, Intimidating Legal Recall Workers.
• WATCH: Youtuber Busts Alleged Drug-Carrying Illegal Alien in Predator Sting Involving Underage Boys and Proceeds to Humiliate Him – Cops then Let Suspect Go.
• San Diego Sector of Southern Border Reaches Top Spot for Illegal Crossings Since 1990s.
• Biden Regime Accuses Israel of Violating International Law in Their Attacks on Hamas in Gaza.
• JUST IN: Trump Shuts Down Rumor from Fake News Media Claiming He is Considering Nikki Haley for VP.
• Entrepreneurs Face Major Headwinds Due to Big Government Policies.
• Former MLB Star Sean Burroughs Dies Suddenly Aged 43, Had Heart Attack at Son’s Little League Game.
• Hillary Clinton Slams Anti-Israel Protesters, Says They ‘Don’t Know Very Much’ About The Middle East or America.
• The UN Should Not Reward the Palestinians for Oct. 7th.
• RNC and Arizona GOP Challenge Court Decision Allowing Non-Citizens to Vote in Arizona.
• WATCH: “This Guy’s So Damn Bad, it Could Be All of Them” – President Trump Says “We Are Going to Officially Play” in New Jersey, Minnesota, and Virginia and “WIN THEM ALL”.

The Epoch Times:

• What If China’s Xi Could Attempt Formal Conflict Against Taiwan in 2024?
• China’s Land Grab.
• Amplifying China’s Real Estate Woes: Beijing’s Bad Loan Securitization.

X:

• @BGatesIsaPsycho

• Warsaw Poland Today Tens of Thousands turn out to protest against the Polish Government, their Globalism & crippling Green Policies. The more people realise, the worse conditions get, the more this will happen. (video)

• @kylenabecker
  

• BREAKING. The Biden administration is now under investigation for ELECTION INTERFERENCE based on new evidence of illegal coordination between the Dept. of Justice and political prosecutors bringing charges against former President Donald Trump. The DOJ has been instructed to hand over "activity and/or communications between Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Special Prosecutor Jack Smith or Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis related to the investigation or prosecution" of the former president in FOIA demands from @AGAndrewBailey. "I am demanding the DOJ turn over communications relating to the illicit prosecutions of President Trump," AG Bailey announced.. 
• Donald Trump has 80,000 Americans show up for HOURS ahead of a rally in deep blue New Jersey. Joe Biden cannot get 8 people to show up for an event without the crowd yelling "EFF Joe Biden." Yet Biden says he got 80 million votes last election. Sure! (video)

• @TuckerCarlson
  

• In the late 1960’s, government bioweapons labs started injecting ticks with exotic diseases. Soon, people nearby began to get those diseases. Now, tick-borne Lyme is endemic. Naturally the government has admitted nothing. (video)
  

• @LevineJonathan
  

• 57% of Muslims in the United States believe Hamas' Oct 7 attack in Israel was "justified".

• @WarClandestine
  

• It’s starting to look like H5N1 Bird Flu may be “Disease X”. The MSM have been subtly planting the idea in our heads, and now our health agencies are admitting they are preparing for the H5N1 pandemic. They are going to try it again… Mail-in ballots are their objective.. (pic)

• @LeadingReport

• BREAKING: Pfizer whistleblower has raised the alarm that Pfizer workers were offered a “separate and distinct” COVID vaccine. “I am pleased to inform you that we will begin offering COVID-19 vaccinations to eligible on-site essential colleagues and contractors over the next several weeks.
  

• @PeterSweden7

• The TRUTH about the WHO. The leader, Dr. Tedros actually has a COMMUNIST background. He worked for a Communist junta under a Marxist dictator in Ethiopia. The now WHO leader also joined the TPLF party which began as a Communist party. Turns out that Bill Gates is behind 88% of philantrophic donations to the WHO. Do you want Bill Gates and someone with a Communist background to decide how you should live your life. Did you vote for any of this? It's called Global Communism.
• WOAH. A Pfizer WHISTLEBLOWER just released this video. She is warning that if anything happens to her "it is Big Pharma". SHARE - Everyone needs to see this. (videio)

• @ChiefNerd
  

• Sen. Ron Johnson on the NYT & Deborah Birx Admitting There May Be a Large Number of COVID Vaccine Injuries: 'There's a Crack in the Dam'. "What we're seeing here is what the intelligence community calls a 'limited hangout'. They simply can't deny the reality of the vaccine injuries anymore so they're starting to admit to them but they'll still say they're 'very rare'...There have been thousands of them? No there have been millions of them!" (video)

• @wideawake_media

• "As soon as someone tells you it's warming, the reply you give is: Since when?" Geologist, Prof. Ian Plimer: "We have been cooling down for the last 4000 years. It's all about when you start the measurements." "If you take measurements from the Medieval Warming, we've cooled about five degrees since then. (video)
• "We want them off our streets. Politicians aren't listening, so citizens are out taking direct action." Another two of Sadiq Khan's ULEZ cameras have been "retired" by the ULEZ Blade Runners. (video)
  

• @newstart_2024
  

• The WEF-controlled nation of Australia is forcing the public to switch to a Central Bank Digital Currency system (CBDC) and has warned citizens that they risk losing all of their money if they refuse. One of Australia’s biggest banks, Macquarie Bank, told customers last week that it will completely eliminate cash this year – and if customers refuse to use CBDC’s they will own nothing: (pic)
  

• @LaraLogan  

• A former Navy seal speaks out. Are you paying attention? (video)

• @PierreKory

• COVID was a historic disaster—yet there's never been a professional exposé on it until now. This independent documentary brilliantly shows how "the science" hid each effective COVID treatment and the media, in lockstep kept repeating their talking points. (video)

• @WallStreetApes

• Pay Attention To This, This Is Serious REPORT. “43% of all small business owners in this country either could not pay their rent in full or could not pay their rent at all in the month of April 2024”. Small businesses make up 44% of this country's GDP This is REAL Bidenomics, America is barely hanging on. (video)
• Moms Across America Findings/ Follow Up After Meeting With The FDA. This is going to blow your mind. - US Congress is holding up the FDA from regulating heavy metals in baby food. (video)
• Major US Cities Are Updating Street Lights & Traffic Lights With Cameras. Guess What’s Coming? Here’s what these Traffic Camera’s are used for in China: (video)
• Nationally Recognized American Lawyer Testimony: If The World Health Organization Pandemic Treaty Is Approved The Constitution Will Mean Nothing. During Declared Emergencies. The WHO Assumes Control. “This WHO treaty, we would effectively be ceding all such discretion to international bodies.”
• This Hasn’t Been Shared Enough Until EVERY Voter In America Sees It. “The federal government spent over $66 billion on illegal immigrants in 2023, according to the Federation for American Immigration”. “Does anyone wanna guess how much we've spent on homeless veterans? 3 billion”. (video)
• America Is Ready To Collapse. The Head of The IMF (International Monetary Fund), Kristalina Georgieva Says United States debt “Is Just Mind Boggling”. “Someone please tell me what is it going to take for people to wake up and realize just how bad things are.” (video)
• This Is An Illegal Migrant Camp Built On Floyd Benefield Outside Of New York City At Taxpayer Expense. They are now allowing illegals to come and go from the camp. . Video shows illegals “going door to door in American neighborhoods close by, begging for money, food, & clothes”. “Democrats. Is this the America you voted for and will vote for again? Is it?” (video)

• @WallStreetSilv

• All of the fake refugees in Europe and the USA are laughing at how stupid we are to give away our wealth, our land and our culture. (video)

• @VigilantFox

• NEW: Joe Rogan says, “Fauci is the worst” and that everyone should read “The Real Anthony Fauci.”. “If ‘The Real Anthony Fauci,’ the book by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is not accurate, he would be sued.” Rogan said Fauci is different from those who simply got things wrong because he is “deceptive,” referencing Fauci’s handling of both the COVID and AIDS crises. “This same game plan was played out during the AIDS crisis. And it’s a game plan where they’re in cahoots with the pharmaceutical drug companies, and they push this thing as being the only remedy, and they make tremendous amounts of money.” (video)
• NEW: As Bill Gates experiments with mosquitos, author Kris Newby tells Tucker Carlson that weaponized fleas, ticks, and mosquitos have historically been “the perfect stealth weapon.” Military reports in the 60s suggest, “We can kill 10,000 people at $1.33 a life” without destroying infrastructure. 
• 22 State Attorney Generals Oppose WHO Pandemic Treaty, Citing Threats to Sovereignty and Civil Liberties. This is HUGE! Americans are sick and tired of being lied to. @ChildrensHD reported:
  

• @ImMeme0

• Claire Woodall-Vogg, the Milwaukee elections director was replaced just 6 months before presidential election. The reason? Mainstream media says it’s nothing to see here but some reports say otherwise. Claire printed 64,000 ballots in a back room at City Hall in Milwaukee and had random employees fill them out for the 2020 presidential elections. Biden won Wisconsin over Trump by a margin of 20,649 votes. (video)

• @EndWokeness

• Over 80 churches in Canada were burned or vandalized since 2021 as revenge for "mass graves" of Indigenous children. Trudeau spent 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 to excavate those Indigenous bodies buried by the church. Turns out, not a single body was found. It was all an anti-Christian blood libel.

• @KobeissiLetter
  

• Young Americans have more debt than ever: Gen Z consumers, aged 22 to 24, have 44% MORE mortgage debt than Millennials in 2013. They also have 26% more credit card debt and 14% more in auto loans than Millennials in 2013, even after adjusting for inflation. The average credit card balance of Gen Z $2,800 in 2023, 27% higher than Millennials in 2013 after adjusting for inflation. At the same time, the average Gen Z mortgage was $215,150 versus Millennials' $149,130 in 2013. The worst part? Americans in their early 20s earn an average of $45,493 annually, ~$6350 lower than the $51,852 that Millennials earned a decade ago. This is a crisis. (table)
• This is unusual: The US BLS has announced that coffee prices will no longer be factored into CPI inflation data. In fact, the April 2024 CPI inflation report this week will be the first to NOT include coffee price inflation. Well, the obvious next step is to see what happened to coffee prices over the last few months. Since September 2023, coffee prices are up a MASSIVE 78%. (table)

• @robbystarbuck

• Biden won GA by 11,749 votes largely due to results in Fulton County where he had 242,965 more votes than Trump. He had 380,212 votes in the county overall. Now GA admits 380,761 ballots were not available from the machine count and 3,000 were scanned twice. Absolute corruption. (video)

• @unusual_whales

• "We need 70% less coders from third parties to code as the AI handles most of the coding," per the BP earnings call this week.

• @JunkScience

• A few points: 1. Climate hoaxers always knew that carbon offsets were fraud. 2. Now after luring corporations into buying offsets, the hoaxers are pulling out the rug from under corporations to create legal and PR problems and to otherwise cause chaos.

• @CartlandDavid

• BREAKING: #ITVGate has uncovered a massive pyramid of payments from Astrazeneca and Pfizer to doctors in the UK. The same doctors that told you the vaccines were safe and effective and we were all in this together. Oh and don't forget to clap, every Thursday, while we rehearse our TikToks. Oh and that Dave Cartland dude speaking up - we're going to destroy him so that no doctor will ever speak up again.

OpenVAERS: 

• VAERS US COVID Vaccine Adverse Event Reports. 1,010,545 Reports(+992 from prior report) Through April 26th, 2024.

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 indices are -.5% to +.25% on average.
• Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 99.75 -3.0 basis points.
  
• China Sovereign CDS 64.75 -.5 basis point.
• China Iron Ore Spot 115.2 USD/Metric Tonne -.71%.
  
• Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 39.6 -.03%.
• Bloomberg Global Risk-On/Risk Off Index 67.7 +3.0%.
• Volatility Index(VIX) futures 14.4 -.2%. 
• Euro Stoxx 50 futures n/a.
• S&P 500 futures -.06%.
• NASDAQ 100 futures -.04%.

Morning Preview Links

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly lower, weighed down by commodity and consumer shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open mixed and to rally into the afternoon, finishing modestly higher.  The Portfolio is 100% net long heading into the week.