The United States World Order may be coming to an end, according to Marcello’s analysis in today’s Recap. More and more countries are analyzing the idea of trading directly among them, using their own currencies and leaving the dollar out of the negotiation. January’s rapid job creation dents concerns about a coming recession, reducing the likelihood that the Federal Reserve will be forced to cut interest rates soon. U.S. Traesury Department will make more Tesla vehicles elegible for tax credits.
On Friday the U.S. Treasury Department said it will make more Tesla, Ford Motor, General Motors & Volkswagen electric vehicles eligible for up to $7,500 tax credits, after it revised its vehicle classification definitions in a win for automakers which had pressed the Biden administration to change the vehicle definitions. Under the $430B climate bill approved in August, SUVs can be priced at up to $80K to qualify for EV tax credits, while cars, sedans & wagons can only be priced at up to $55K.
Indian tycoon Gautam Adani lost his title of Asia’s richest person on Wednesday, as the rout in his conglomerate’s 7 listed companies deepened to $84B in the wake of a short-seller report. Wednesday’s stock losses saw Gautam slip to 10th on Forbes rich list with an estimated net worth of $84.1B, just below rival Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd who has an estimated $84.4B.
U.S. officials said on Thursday, that a Chinese spy balloon has been flying over the United States for a couple of days, just days ahead of a planned trip to Beijing by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Fighter jets were mobilized, but military leaders have advised President Biden against shooting the balloon down for fear the debris could pose a safety threat, advice that Biden has accepted at this point.
The fastest growing social media firm is ChatGPT, a learning artificial intelligence tool chatbot, launched by OpenAI (a private company) in November 2022. It has acquired 100M users in the last 2 months. OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, will soon roll out a paid version of the service in a pilot project, where people willing to spend $20 a month will get a premium version.
South Korea’s export numbers in January fell -16.6% on an annualized basis. For the month exports fell -$46.3B & imports fell -$59B or -2.6%, resulting in a deficit of -$12.7B. South Korea saw a trade deficit of -$47.5B for the year of 2022. It marks the worst trade deficit since the customs agency started compiling data in 1956, far more than the -$20.6B trade deficit seen in 1996.
Layers upon layers of ice, sleet & freezing rain over the course of days made driving conditions life-threatening & snapped tree branches that eventually knocked down power lines for 100’s of 1000’s in the U.S. south. In the Northeast temperatures broke record lows with wind chill warnings in effect into Saturday, as readings dip as cold as -30 to -50 below zero in some spots.
U.S. based Ford Motors shares fell -7.61%; Shares of Amazon fell -8.43% on Friday at $103.39; The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits dropped to a 9-month low last week; U.S. job creation in the private sector plunged in January.
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