Oct 2
As a precondition to peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, Ukraine must become a full standing member of NATO. Only membership in NATO will keep Putin from coming back for more territory after any negotiated settlement is reached. Only NATO membership keeps the Baltic Republics from being Putin’s next target for aggression.
Any military action between Iran and Israel will be contained.
Closer to home, approximately 50,000 ILA union longshoremen were walking off the job at East Coast and Gulf Coast ports, the union’s first strike since 1977.
Between 43%-49% of all U.S. imports and billions of dollars in trade monthly move through the U.S East Coast and Gulf ports.
The ILA rejected an offer that included a wage hike over six years near 50%.
I shrug my shoulders. November 5 is fast approaching. Politics will force a settlement.
Markets and Stocks
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the US central bank will lower interest rates “over time,” while re-emphasizing that the overall economy remains on solid footing.
That is correct. The economy is growing. Inflation is falling. Earnings are accelerating and the Fed will continue to lower rates. That is the backdrop for a rising share prices.
Low oil prices are good for consumption and ameliorate inflation.
But the manufacturing sector remains in the doldrums.
Economic activity in the manufacturing sector contracted in September for the sixth consecutive month and the 22nd time in the last 23 months.
Tesla announced third quarter deliveries today totaling 462,000 units, up 6% vs. Q3 2023. I like Tesla as a long term investment because of its autonomous driving technology and because of its automation capabilities.
Nvidia’s chips are being used in China for autonomous driving
Nvidia Drive Orin serves as the AI brain of Onvo's smart-driving system," Nvidia, which has long partnered with Nio on chips to automate driving tasks, said in a Sept. 27 press release. The latest Drive Orin system-on-a-chip can perform 254 trillion operations per second, processing sensor data from the L60's high-definition cameras and four-dimensional radar. The automotive-grade AI chip enables "highly automated driver assistance and autonomous driving systems," according to the release.
"With the integration of Nvidia Drive, the Onvo L60 is poised to deliver an advanced driving experience at an affordable price," the chipmaker said.
https://www.investors.com/news/nio-stock-soaring-tesla-rival-model-y-nvidia-ai-chip-brain/
The nuclear power renaissance has arrived.
Flowserve is an excellent investment for exposure to renewed demand for nuclear power, with the pump and valve maker well positioned to serve the growing need to maintain and retrofit existing plants, according to TD Cowen.
Its shares have already gained more than 25% this year, better than the S&P 500 advance of 20.3%.
Nuclear power is emerging as a source of clean, reliable electricity for artificial intelligence data centers. Restarting mothballed plants “seems like a logical way to meet demand,” analysts led by Joe Giordano told clients in a Monday note.
Flowserve has an installed base of 5,000 pumps and 15,000 valves in more than 200 nuclear plants across the world, which “provides a significant opportunity as operators look to revive older plants and extend life of current plants in operation,” Giordano said.
Nuclear plants with the equivalent of 85 gigawatts of capacity are in various stages of shutdown across the U.S. and Europe, according to TD Cowen. Bringing 50% of mothballed sites around the world back online would provide Flowserve with a total addressable market of $4 billion, Giordano wrote.
The Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan has closed a $1.5 billion loan to support the first reactor restart in U.S. history, the Department of Energy announced Monday.
Palisades’ owner, Holtec International, hopes to restart the plant in the fourth quarter of 2025, subject to approval by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Holtec is a privately held nuclear technology company headquartered in Jupiter, Florida.
“All necessary funding has now been secured,” said Nick Culp, a Holtec spokesperson. The company will use the funds for inspections, testing, restoration, rebuilding, and replacement of equipment at the plant, according to the Department of Energy.
Holtec has completed all major licensing submittals to the NRC, Culp said. Company executives expect to receive a response from the NRC sometime in 2025, he said.
The restart of the reactor at Palisades would mark a milestone for the nuclear industry after a decadelong wave of reactor shutdowns in the U.S. Palisades ceased operations in 2022 after a period in which nuclear efforts struggled to compete with cheap and abundant natural gas.
More than 1,400 feet below an Arizona pine forest, miners are blasting tunnels in search of a radioactive element that can be used to make electricity.
Two states north, in central Wyoming, drillers have been digging well after well in the desert, where that element — uranium — is buried in layers of sandstone.
Uranium mines are ramping up across the West, spurred by rising demand for electricity and federal efforts to cut Russia out of the supply chain for U.S. nuclear fuel.
Those twin pressures have helped lift uranium prices to their highest levels in more than 15 years, according to the consulting firm TradeTech, helping to resuscitate mining regions that entered a steep decline toward the end of the Cold War.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/30/business/energy-environment/uranium-russia-united-states.html
China remains uninvestable. Communism is the well worn path to poverty.
Economics
France is trapped in big government economic stagnation.
@MichaelAArouet: Believe it, or not, but till 1980 France used to be a reasonable country