"Hatching a Conspiracy: A BIG Investigation into Egg Prices"

 From Matt Stoller's BIG substack, March 7:

'More hens, less income!' So said the United Egg Producers' economist Donald Bell in 1994. The industry has gotten more consolidated ever since. And avian flu is just the latest excuse to hike prices

This issue is part one of a three-part series on the egg industry. It is written by antitrust lawyer Basel Musharbash, based in part on a report he authored for Farm Action. 

Over the past two months, egg prices have become a political football. Journalists are reporting in depth on the industry, egg consolidation has come up in Congressional antitrust hearing, and Donald Trump mentioned a plan to tackle egg prices in the State of the Union speech, putting his Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins on notice that she has to get the price down. Most notably, earlier this week, the Capitol Forum reported the Department of Justice Antitrust Division is now investigating egg markets.

The reason is simple. For most Americans, eggs have always been cheap, and thus a key food staple. And now eggs are expensive, and sometimes in shortage. Over the past year egg prices have increased by 53%— jumping 15% in January alone. As of the beginning of February, egg producers were charging wholesale buyers an average of $5.95 for a dozen eggs, and retailers were charging consumers anywhere between $4 and $9 a dozen — and sometimes even more.

The high prices, and sometimes shortages, are a problem in and of themselves, but they also represent that the American system has gone askew. If we can’t even get a cheap omelet or egg sandwich anymore, what can America do right?

The stated reason for the high price of eggs is something that happens periodically: an avian flu epidemic. Since 2022, outbreaks of bird flu on poultry farms have led to the culling of over 115 million egg-laying hens. This epidemic, according to the prevailing narrative, has driven egg prices up to record highs all on its own. As one industry executive put it, it’s all just “supply disruption, ‘act of God’ type stuff.” The popular response to this story has been what you’d expect: Scientists are discussing flu vaccines for chickens, politicians are blaming each other about bird culls, and many are concerned about how the massive scale of today’s egg farms enables—and exacerbates—avian flu epidemics. And none of that is necessarily wrong.

But something doesn’t add up about this “avian flu is the sole and natural cause of high egg prices” story. Despite the “act of God” going on — and the skyrocketing prices accompanying it — egg production is actually . . . not down by all that much. 115 million hens is a lot of birds to cull, but it’s important to put the loss of those hens in context: They weren’t lost all at once. They were lost over three years. And there have always been around 300 million other hens alive and kicking to lay eggs for America—not to mention a continuous pipeline of 120-130 million female chicks (called “pullets”) in the process of being raised into adult hens to replace the ones dying or aging out.

As a result of this pipeline, the effect of avian flu outbreaks on egg production, while not insignificant, has been relatively small. Monthly egg production during each of the last three years has averaged only 3-5% lower than it was in 2021, the year before the epidemic started. Meanwhile, demand for eggs has actually declined. According to a private report by the Egg Industry Center, Americans went from consuming an average of 210 eggs each in 2021 to less than 190 in 2024 — a ~10-percent nosedive. As many countries have closed their markets to American eggs since 2021 on account of the avian flu, egg exports have also fallen off a cliff — going down by nearly half between 2021 and 2022 and staying there ever since. That dynamic, according to my analysis of USDA data, has shaved another ~2.5% off aggregate demand on U.S. egg production.

So, reports of an unprecedented egg “shortage” are exaggerated. Nonetheless, egg prices — and egg company profits — have gone through the roof. Cal-Maine Foods — the largest egg producer and the only one that publishes its financial data as a publicly traded company — has been making more money than ever. It’s annual gross profits in the past three years have floated between 3 and 6 times what it used to earn before the avian flu epidemic started — breaking $1 billion for the first time in the company’s history. All of this extra profit is coming from higher selling prices, which have been earning Cal-Maine unprecedented 50-170 percent margins over farm production costs per dozen. Taking Cal-Maine as the “bellwether” for the industry’s largest firms — as people in the egg business do — we can be pretty confident that the other large egg producers are also raking in profits off the relatively small dip in egg production.

High persistent profits are an anomaly for the industry. Historically, egg producers have responded to avian flu epidemics—and the temporary rise in egg prices that often accompanies them—by quickly rebuilding and expanding their flocks of egg-laying hens. “Fowl plagues”—as these epidemics used to be called—have been with us since at least the 19^th century. Most recently, large-scale avian flu epidemics hit egg farms in 2015 and 1983-1984. The egg industry responded to both of these destructive events by sprinting to rebuild and expand the egg-laying hen flock — something which checked price increases and ultimately made sure prices went back to pre-epidemic levels within a reasonable time....

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So it's not the cull, which is now up to 150 million birds but instead Big Egg that is to blame? 

Credit: Luxuo

"Driverless trucking – ‘On the cusp’ of a revolution" (AUR)

Except for a bump and dump when Nvidia's Jensen Huang pitched autonomous vehicles at CES in January* and the larger jump in February the stock has been pretty much range-bound this year:

TradingView 

From FreightWaves, March 7:

Morgan Stanley initiates coverage of Aurora Innovation ahead of commercial driverless operations launch

Autonomous trucking is gaining the attention of Wall Street with Morgan Stanley initiating coverage of autonomous truck technology company Aurora Innovation on Monday. Ravi Shanker, equity analyst at Morgan Stanley, writes that despite taking years longer than expected, “Trucking finally appears to be on the cusp of an autonomous future.” 

Morgan Stanley believes that Aurora is the most sophisticated on-highway, Class 8 autonomous solution among peers, with the April rollout of its commercial driverless operating being a key milestone for both Aurora and the industry. However, equity analysts are more bullish than industry executives, believing that the development of autonomous trucking “has achieved enough escape velocity to be considered a real and credible commercial option for many commercial fleets.”

Shanker writes that if all goes according to plan, the next 12 months will see the industry logging thousands of miles of driverless operations from trucking fleets, placing autonomous trucking in the same “real” category as passenger robotaxi fleets.

Compared to the approximately half-dozen other autonomous trucking companies about to launch driverless commercial operations, Shanker notes that Aurora’s plans for its April driverless commercial launch give it a head start. Morgan Stanley also sees on-highway operations as the most complex task for autonomous trucking compared to peers like Kodiak and Gatik, which are revenue-generating today with adjacent applications like off-highway or last-mile....

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Previously, July 21, 2023

"Autonomous vehicle company Aurora sells $820M worth of stock"
Ships, trucks and mining machines are where the autonomous action is. Mr. Musk may be on to a $10 trillion opportunity in passenger vehicles but that is still some ways away....

*Barron's, January 8: "Nvidia Follow’s Tesla on Autonomous Vehicles as Jensen Huang Echoes Elon Musk":

...While Musk was ahead of the curve, others are following Tesla’s and Nvidia’s lead. Huang’s CES speech helped lift shares of Aurora Innovation , an autonomous-truck technology company, by almost 30% on Tuesday.

Aurora is working with Nvidia and the auto parts supplier Continental to bring updated self-driving semi trucks to roads by 2027. Nvidia brings its AI hardware and software expertise, Aurora has self-driving software, and Continental integrates both into automotive-grade products for truck makers.

“The lustrous sheen of Jensen’s crocodile (?) leather attire was only to be outshined by his positive commentary on the autonomous vehicle (AV) market [Monday] and the robotics market broadly,” wrote Canaccord analyst George Gianarikas in a Tuesday evening report.

Following the remarks, he raised his target for Aurora’s stock price to $10 from $7. Gianarikas rates the stock Buy.

Aurora stock gave back some of Tuesday’s big gains, closing down 4% at $8.06 on Wednesday while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average gained about 0.2% and 0.3%, respectively....

It's been a while in coming.

In May 2015 we were posting " Nvidia Wants to Be the Brains Of Your Autonomous Car (NVDA)" and seven months later the more declarative "Class Act: Nvidia Will Be The Brains Of Your Autonomous Car (NVDA)" 

 

However, by late 2016 it was becoming clear where Nvidia's nearer-term prospects were brightest, AI/Machine Learning:

NVIDIA: Don't Buy the Stock For The Autonomous Car Stuff (or virtual reality) NVDA; TSLA; IBM

"Thousands of Cat-Eared Robots Are Waiting Tables in Japan’s Restaurants"

Hello Kitty meets demographic decline.

Or something.

From Bloomberg, March 6:

As Japan copes with a labor shortage, the service robot market is expected to triple in the next five years.

A cat-themed robot with big blue eyes glances from side to side as it purrs across a Tokyo restaurant, searching for the customers who ordered strawberry parfaits covered in cream to go with a large, piping hot pizza.

“Your order’s here,” the robot says, arriving with a crisp 90-degree turn that lights up the faces of the patrons at the table. “Meow!”

Yasuko Tagawa, 71, and her coworker from Nepal, Ranjit Dhami Khawas, are the only humans working the floor of the packed restaurant in the Mita neighborhood, a short walk from Tokyo Tower in the center of the city.

This isn’t a scene from Studio Ghibli’s latest animated fantasy. Rather it’s an increasingly common sight at more than 2,000 restaurants operated across the country by Skylark Holdings Co., the nation’s largest table service restaurant chain.

Faced with a severe labor shortage and one of the world’s most rapidly aging populations, service-sector businesses in Japan are increasingly investing in robots that don’t need expert supervision and can work alongside people instead of replacing them. So-called service robots are also making it easier for firms to employ older or foreign workers — crucial to plugging the shortfall — by helping them cope with language barriers or the physical demands of a role.

“My job’s no trouble at all when I’m working with robots,” said Tagawa in between wiping down tables. She works up to 20 hours a week at Skylark’s Gusto restaurant in Mita, including helping train new human recruits. Tagawa started working there six years ago, and says about half her job now draws on the assistance of machines. “At my age it does get harder to move around,” she said.

The restaurant’s digital interface, with orders taken via tablets and delivered to customers by robots, also makes life easier for foreign staff such as Khawas, who started working there in January.

“Seeing all these cat robots was a surprise at first,” said the 20-year-old language school student, who is still polishing his skills in Japanese. “But they sure come in handy.”

Japan has been grappling with demographic difficulties for years and there’s no prospect of respite for labor-hungry businesses. The nation has the lowest unemployment rate among OECD countries and by 2040 will face a labor shortfall of 11 million, according to Recruit Works Institute. Almost 40% of Japan’s population will be aged 65 or older by 2065, a government-backed institute estimates.

Shortages are particularly acute in sectors such as hospitality and caregiving. As of January, there were around three restaurant server openings available for each job seeker, while the ratio was about four to one for caregivers, according to the labor ministry....

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 Opportunity is where you find it.

"Mark Carney, crisis-fighting central banker, hopes to lead Canada through trade war"

Man, he gets all the best titles.

Before "crises-fighting central baker" we saw "Mark Carney, man of destiny, arises to revolutionize society. It won't be pleasant" in 2021 and "Mark Carney Was the World’s Rock-Star Banker. Now He’s Ready for His Encore" earlier that year.

Of course, in their March 1932 issue the folks at the Atlantic magazine referred to another guy as a man of destiny: "Hitler and Hitlerism: A Man of Destiny". That was a year before the Reichstag Fire Decree and the subsequent Enabling Act., so maybe I shouldn't be envious of that one. "The world's rock-star blogger" might work though.

From Reuters, March 7:

• Carney's crisis management skills highlighted in leadership debate
• He is the first person to ever have headed two G7 central banks
• Carney's international experience contrasts with Conservative leader Poilievre
• Carney's political inexperience scrutinized by Conservatives over Brookfield move

OTTAWA, March 7 (Reuters) - Mark Carney, the front-runner to become Canada's new prime minister, is a two-time central banker and crisis fighter who may soon face his biggest challenge of all: steering Canada through Donald Trump's tariffs.

 

The Liberals will announce Justin Trudeau's successor on Sunday after party members vote in a nominating contest. Trudeau resigned in January, facing low approval ratings after nearly a decade in office.

 

The 59-year-old Carney is a political outsider who has never held office, which would in normal times have killed his candidacy in Canada. But distance from Trudeau and a high-profile banking career played to his advantage, and Carney argues he is the only person prepared to handle Trump.

 

"I know how to manage crises ... in a situation like this, you need experience in terms of crisis management, you need negotiating skills," Carney said during a leadership debate late last month.

Carney was born in Fort Smith in the remote Northwest Territories. He attended Harvard where he played college level ice hockey, starring as a goalkeeper.

 

Carney, who has the most party endorsements and the most money raised among the four Liberal candidates, would be the first person to become Canadian prime minister without being a legislator and also having had no cabinet experience.

 

He argues Canada must fight Trump's tariffs with dollar for dollar retaliation and diversify trading relations in the medium term.

 

In the next election, which must be held by October 20, the Liberals will face off against the official opposition Conservatives, whose leader Pierre Poilievre is a career politician with little international exposure.

 

By contrast, Carney is a globetrotter who spent 13 years at Goldman Sachs before being named deputy governor of the Bank of Canada in 2003. He left in November 2004 for a top finance ministry job and returned to become governor of the central bank in 2008 at the age of just 42.

POACHED BY THE BANK OF ENGLAND
Carney won praise for his handling of the financial crisis, when he created new emergency loan facilities and gave unusually explicit guidance on keeping rates at record low levels for a specific period of time.
Even at that stage, rumors swirled that he would seek a career in politics with the Liberals, prompting him to respond with a prickliness that is still sometimes evident.

 

"Why don't I become a circus clown?" he told a reporter in 2012 when asked about possible political ambitions.

 

The Bank of England was impressed enough though to poach him in 2013, making him the first non-British governor in the central bank's three-century history, and the first person to ever head two G7 central banks. Britain's finance minister at the time, George Osborne, called Carney the "outstanding central bank governor of his generation".

 

Carney, though, had a challenging time, forced to face zero inflation and the political chaos of Brexit.

He struggled to deploy his trademark policy of signaling the likely path of interest rates. The bank said its guidance came with caveats but media often interpreted it as more of a guarantee, with Labour legislator Pat McFadden dubbing the bank under Carney as an "unreliable boyfriend."....

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 Hmmm, on second thought, maybe not all the best titles.

"Sex, Drinking and Dementia: 25 Lawmakers Spill on What Congress Is Really Like"

From Politico Magazine, March 7:

We interviewed Democrats and Republicans — on the record and anonymously — about life on Capitol Hill, what broke Congress and a whole lot more. 

This article was compiled from interviews conducted by Ben Jacobs, Jasper Goodman, Jordain Carney, Jennifer Scholtes, Hailey Fuchs, Emma Dumain, Lisa Kashinsky, Connor O’Brien, Holly Otterbein, Adam Wren, Daniella Diaz and Nicholas Wu. Juan Benn Jr. contributed to this report.

It’s hard to find an institution the public loathes more than Congress. But guess what? A lot of the people in Congress aren’t so happy with it either.

To get an inside look at what it’s like to serve on Capitol Hill — after years of gridlock, government shutdowns and now another Donald Trump stampede through Washington — we sat down with 25 lawmakers who were ready to dish.

We talked about what they hate and love about Congress, why it’s broken and how to fix it (one suggestion: bring back the powdered wigs). They also told us what would really shock the public if they knew the truth about life as a lawmaker (it’s what’s for dinner).

We had delicate conversations about aging lawmakers’ increasingly public deterioration (one member said he has up to a dozen colleagues who aren’t up to the job) and whether people are actually showing up drunk on the floor (it’s not a “no”), as well as the survival mechanisms that get them through a grueling day. And we talked politics, including whether Democrats have learned any lessons at all from their 2024 defeat and whether Mike Johnson would still be hanging on as speaker at the end of the year (maybe!).

We spoke with Democrats and Republicans, men and women, members of the House and Senate. And to get as candid a view of the truth as possible, we allowed lawmakers to withhold their names from attribution on any comment they’d like, though only a couple people took us up on the offer. Most were eager to let loose on the record.

Here’s what they said, edited for length and clarity.

JUMP TO

Daily Life

Politics

The Institution

Sex, Drinking and Dementia

Daily Life

To be a member of Congress is to be in an exclusive club. But it’s not always all it’s cracked up to be. We asked lawmakers what aspect of congressional life would really shock people if they knew the truth.

“How absolutely lame it is. You honestly think that life is full of House of Cards or snappy dialogue out of The West Wing. And it’s sad. You’re constantly living out of a suitcase.” — Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.)

“It is an endless grind that is far less romantic than people might think.” — Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.)

“Everybody thinks that we fly around on Air Force One and dine at the French embassy every night. But the reality is, I’m eating burritos and McDonald’s more often than I’m dining in any embassies. It’s also a lonely life. It’s really hard to establish friendships, just because the pace is so breakneck.” — Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.)

“The members’ salary [$174,000] has not been adjusted for inflation in 15 years. Some would argue that if you have a body that only the very wealthy and the very poor can be part of, you’re locking out the great American middle class.”

— Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.)

“If people knew the truth about the compensation of a congressman, they would be shocked. I have people who land in the airport here and call me and ask, can I send my car for them. I mean, my first term up here I didn’t even own a car.” — Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.)

“I got elected in 2018, and one of the first things I had to do was to go sit in a classified briefing. I’m sitting there and I’m furiously taking notes. And I look at Elissa Slotkin and raise my eyebrows to her, and she raises her eyebrows back at me. In my head, I’m thinking, ‘Man, I’m swimming with the big fish now. I’m vibing with the CIA officers.’ And we walk out and she goes, ‘The fuck are you doing taking notes in a classified briefing?’ You effectively get a security clearance without a background check.” — Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.)

“It’s common to book out members’ time in 15-minute increments. I can just be getting into a conversation with people that are sitting down with me, and then there’s the knock at my office door: ‘Congressman, we need to be wrapping up.’ It’s alien to me.” — Rep. Jefferson Shreve (R-Ind.)

“How good of friends some of us are, whose political ideologies are totally separate from each other. Some of my best friends up here are members of the progressive caucus. We go out, have dinner and a beer, and we can even tell jokes with each other, as long as nobody’s listening.” — Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.)....

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"As NVIDIA’s Quantum Day Nears, Analysts Suggest Event is More Than a Gesture" (NVDA)

You know what looks cheap? Nvidia looks cheap.

That's not to say it can't get cheaper but to quote some of the old-time traders: "Well bought is half sold."

$111.29 last, up $0.72 (+0.65%) in late pre-market trading.

Insider Brief

• NVIDIA’s Quantum Day at GTC 2025 is bringing together industry leaders to discuss the technology’s current capabilities and future potential.
• CEO Jensen Huang’s earlier skepticism about quantum computing’s timeline caused stock declines for several quantum companies, prompting NVIDIA to engage more directly with the quantum industry, analysts suggest.
• The event will feature discussions on quantum computing’s role in AI, commercialization challenges, and potential breakthroughs, with executives from leading quantum firms participating.
• Image: Google Quantum AI

NVIDIA’s inaugural Quantum Day at GTC 2025 — scheduled for March 20 — is closing in and anticipation is growing for the event, which will bring together industry leaders and researchers to discuss quantum computing’s present advances and future potential.

Initially, some in the quantum industry — and perhaps in the larger tech industry — viewed NVIDIA’s decision to host its first Quantum Day as more of an apology and slightly an apology. However, the event is now seen as more than a simple industry gathering and more than a gesture to the quantum computing community — it’s a statement, according to Investor’s Business Daily, who asked analysts and key figures to break down the events that led to the Quantum Day announcement.

After CEO Jensen Huang’s remarks — that quantum computing would not be “very useful” for 15 to 30 years — in January sent quantum computing stocks plummeting, the tech giant is now bringing industry leaders together to discuss the technology’s future. The move suggests NVIDIA is recalibrating its stance and recognizing quantum computing’s potential sooner rather than later, according to IBD.

“If NVIDIA really thought that quantum was 15 to 30 years out, would they have an event today? Probably not,” Gil Luria, an analyst at D.A. Davidson and head of the firm’s technology research, told IBD.

The GTC event in Silicon Valley — a highlight on the tech conference calendar — will feature quantum executives, including D-Wave CEO Alan Baratz, who was personally invited by Huang shortly after the controversy erupted.

The Fallout From Huang’s Comments

Huang’s comments at CES had an immediate impact. Investors panicked, causing shares of Rigetti Computing, IonQ, D-Wave, and Quantum Computing Inc. to drop sharply.

Luria, who had just given a quantum company a buy rating, knew the quote would have impact.

“When I heard that, I rolled my eyes a little bit,” Luria told IBD. “But I realized that that was going to have an impact.”

Baratz was among the most vocal in pushing back.

“The quantum computing industry is still young, and the investor market is still maturing,” Baratz said, according to IBD. “Everybody’s looking for any information that they can use to make decisions. Sometimes misinformation can get out there and drive decisions.”

Quantum computing companies argue that real-world applications already exist, with businesses exploring the technology for supply chain optimization, drug discovery and financial modeling. Others, including veteran Silicon Valley investors, argue that large-scale commercial viability is still years away.....

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Although we see no rush to own the current batch of publicly traded names, we do pay attention to what the chatter is. Some of our previous links and more recent comments were wrapped in January 8's "Quantum Stocks Drop as Nvidia CEO Sees Use Years Away":

Ditto and double ditto for the quantum computing stocks. There will be at least one and possibly three bear markets before they are even close to earning money.

However, for the diehard next-big-thing wannabes we did link to Barron's "...How to Pretend You Understand Quantum Computing." on Dec 14.

Here's Nvidia:

NVIDIA GTC 2025: Quantum Day to Illuminate the Future of Quantum Computing

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Industry Visionaries to Unveil What’s Next in AI at GTC 2025

Quantum Day Conference Sessions

"A New AI Weather Model Is Already Changing How Energy Is Traded"

From Bloomberg via Energy Connects, March 7:

At midnight every day in Bologna, Italy, rows of supercomputers inside a former tobacco factory start churning through millions of measurements to predict how the Earth’s weather will change.  

Six hours later, energy traders all over Europe rise and refresh their browsers to get the most updated outlook. Those mainframe-generated forecasts are often the biggest factor helping them make money by knowing where and when to move energy around the power grid — but a new model that runs on artificial intelligence is threatening to make them obsolete.

Unlike standard weather simulations, which only crunch information from satellites, sensors and the like, the AI model from Europe’s intergovernmental forecasting center also feasts on historical data. Before its release late last month, the center tested the new method against its conventional model produced in Bologna and found the AI more accurately predicted temperature, precipitation, wind and tropical cyclones, all with less computing energy.

The model is poised to help traders in Europe and around the world make quicker moves in power and natural gas markets convulsed by extreme weather, geopolitics and fluctuations in renewable sources. It’s a technology that could help minimize energy gluts and shortfalls in the world’s fastest-warming continent, as well as provide information key to deciding where wind and solar farms should be built. 

“We can update our information set more often than we are used to” because of the European center’s AI model, said Daniel Borup, chief executive officer of Danish trading firm InCommodities A/S. “That obviously leads to improvements in our predictions. It allows us to improve our job and distribute energy better.”

Like its traditional outlook, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts’ new system — the first AI model released by a major prediction center — estimates temperatures, wind speeds and solar power two weeks in advance. But its improved accuracy means companies and policymakers can move faster on critical weather-related decisions, from canceling rail service to routing ships around storms and dispatching trucks to spread sand on icy roads, according to the center.

That degree of forecasting prowess will could prove essential to managing market volatility. Earlier this month, robust generation from solar parks in Germany pushed power prices in several countries below zero. That was a reversal from earlier in the year, when a stretch of cloudy and windless weather known as a Dunkelflaute curbed renewable output and sent German electricity prices soaring.

The upgrade is a radical shift away from the standard approach of using supercomputers to crunch millions of measurements to recreate a snapshot of the atmosphere’s physics, and then fast-forwarding the model to predict how the weather will change.

Climate and weather datasets were already structured perfectly for AI and could use machine learning techniques developed for other scientific research approaches, Florian Pappenberger, the European center’s deputy director-general and lead forecaster.

 “Weather and climate is a Big Data problem,” he said. “We have huge amounts of data —  humongous amounts — so it’s a perfect match” for the center’s new model, he added....

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 As we said introducing December's ""Weather Derivatives Are Booming in an Unpredictable Climate"":

For when you're jonesin' for some complex/chaotic action but just can't seem to scratch that itch, superimpose one complex/chaotic system, markets, on top of another complex/chaotic system, weather, and away you go. 

And in 2018:

"Machine Learning’s ‘Amazing’ Ability to Predict Chaos"

Researchers have used machine learning to predict the chaotic evolution of a model flame front. 

When you have one complex-chaotic system, say an ag or energy derivatives market overlaid on another complex-chaotic system, say, for example, weather; the ability to foretell the progression from the initial condition of one, or better yet both, systems would have some pecuniary advantage*

***

Hey, I've made that bet! It's called "The ol' just light large-denomination banknotes on fire to avoid the hassle of feigning any type of skill or expertise in  weird instruments you don't understand trade."**

And 2016:

IBM's Watson Gets A Real Job: Big Blue Closes Purchase of The Weather Company

Complex-chaotic requires big horsepower to figure out. It'll probably take the quantum machines coming down the pike but this is a start and more worthy of Watson than Jeopardy!

And 2009

A milder hurricane season could still juice energy. And: Knowing your ENSO from a Hole in the Sea

I disagree with the premise of the first piece, it appears the author is practicing "pop hurricanology" but thought I should post it to show the practical [profitable? -ed] advantage of understanding this stuff. Right now, the expectations are for not just fewer hurricanes but for those that do form to have a slight tendency toward a more northerly track i.e. east coast vs. gulf coast landfalls.

With the caveat, of course, that these are some of the most complex systems that humans try to predict and being chaotic, it is probably a Fool's [trader's? -ed] game anyway....

And dozens and dozens more, it's sort of where we live.

Capital Markets: "Pressure on the Greenback Remains Ahead of the Jobs Report and Powell, while European bonds Stabilize"

From Marc to Market:

Overview: The greenback's drop has been extended today against most of the G10 currencies, but not the growth-sensitive dollar bloc, which is underperforming today. Still, ahead of the US jobs report and Fed Chair Powell's speech on the economic outlook, all the G10 currencies have appreciated by at least 1% this week. The Swedish krona's 6.7% rise tops the board, but the euro's 4.7% rally is its best weekly performance since 2009. The Turkish lira has the dubious honor of being the only emerging market currencies to have fallen today, though most of Latam markets have yet to open. The JP Morgan Emerging Market Currency Index is up 1.85% this week. It has risen in seven of this year's first ten weeks. The on-again off-again US tariffs is a bit like Woody Allen's complaint about a restaurant: the food was poor, and the servings were small. Most economists regard the tariffs as risk to prices and growth and the uncertainty, and dare one say, whimsical nature of the announcements, seems to compound the worst elements, and in short run exacerbating the trade imbalances.

European 10-year bond yields have steadied today but are up around 35 bp this week. The 10-year US Treasury yield is softer near 4.27% and is up 11 bp this week, which is the same for the 10-year Japanese government bond yield, which is now near 1.51%, the highest since 2009. Equities in Asia Pacific and Europe are weaker, but the US index futures are posting a small gain. Gold is trading quietly but firmly and remains within the range set on Tuesday (~$2882-$2927). April WTI fell to six-month lows (~$65.20) in the middle of the and is now near $67.25, which still leaves it down about 3.6% this week, which is the seventh consecutive weekly decline....

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Opportunity: "Looming EU mining pollution surge increases pressure to recycle critical minerals"

 From Euractiv, March 7:

Europe’s high environment standards are not enough to hold down pollution from minerals mining. 

Brussels' growing pledges to expand Europe's domestic extraction of critical raw materials will be followed by increased pollution, experts say, which means a need to increase the amount that is recycled and reused.

In May 2024, the European Commission opened a call to fast-track a selected list of projects on extracting, processing and recycling critical raw materials (CRM) like lithium, nickel and cobalt.

While the final list is yet to be revealed, the new Automotive Action Plan announced another push to the domestic CRM supply chain, by stating that "streamlined permitting" should be "expanded beyond identified strategic projects".

Procedures dictated by EU law, such as environment impact assessments, are usually seen as hurdles by project developers.

But in this context  "the environmental assessments and authorisations required under EU law" remain "an integral part of the permit-granting procedures" a Commission spokesperson told Euractiv.

But this might not be enough.

"By its very nature, mining is highly disruptive to the environment", even if the EU enforces "some of the world's highest environmental standards", Joseph Dellatte from the Institut Montaigne think thank told Euractiv.

Pollution levels are expected to increase with the announced boost to domestic mineral extraction, a new report from the European Environment Agency (EEA) finds.

"Increased mining activities has, of course, the potential to result in increased levels of pollution from this sector," EEA chief Leena Ylä-Mononen told Euractiv. Thus "minimising pollution through multiple measures," such as increased circularity, is key,

The EU now recycles less than 1%  of the critical raw materials used by industries....

....MORE

French Shipping Giant CMA CGM Passes Maersk To Become #2 Line; Pledges To Invest $20 Billion In U.S. Infrastructure

First up, from Splash 24/7, March 6:

CMA CGM overtakes Maersk in the liner rankings 

CMA CGM, the year’s most aggressive acquirer of ships to date, has made history.

As of this week, Marseille-headquartered CMA CGM has surpassed rival Maersk to the second spot on the liner rankings when including its huge orderbook.

The latest data from Alphaliner shows CMA CGM’s fleet – including ships on order – stands at 5.42m slots, some 140,000 teu more than its Danish rival. Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC) remains far out in the lead, however, its fleet – including ships on order – is now at 8.47m slots, larger than the extant fleets of CMA CGM and Maersk combined....

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And from the Wall Street Journal, March 6:

French Shipping Giant CMA CGM Pledges $20 Billion Investment in U.S.
The world’s [No. 3 2] container line’s pledge comes as Trump pushes to revive the U.S. shipbuilding and maritime industry

French shipping giant CMA CGM pledged Thursday to invest $20 billion in U.S. logistics over the next four years. 

Marseille’s CMA CGM intends to triple the size of the container line’s U.S.-flagged fleet, upgrade its U.S. port facilities and create a new airfreight hub in Chicago, among other moves, the company said.

A CMA CGM official said its $20 billion pledge represents the group’s U.S. investment plans. It wasn’t clear how much of the spending had been planned previously.

Rodolphe Saadé, the billionaire chairman and chief executive of CMA CGM visited President Trump at the White House on Thursday. The company’s pledge comes as Trump pushes to resurrect commercial and military shipbuilding in America and to challenge China’s dominance of the global maritime industry in ways that threaten profits at the world’s largest ocean carriers.

Trump told Congress this week he would create a new Office of Shipbuilding in the White House. To raise revenue for the maritime sector, administration officials are considering an executive order that would include measures such as charging fees on Chinese-built ships calling at U.S. ports, according to a draft summary of the order reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

That idea, which is subject to change, draws on recent proposals under consideration by the U.S. Trade Representative’s office. The fees of up to $1.5 million per port call are opposed by U.S. trade and agriculture groups as well as by the container line industry.

CMA CGM’s chief financial officer in February said the fees would significantly hurt ocean carriers because China so dominates shipbuilding, according to news reports at the time. Almost 36% of CMA CGM’s container fleet, measured by capacity, is made in China, according to data firm Linerlytica. More than 64% of the company’s new order capacity is being built at Chinese shipyards.

The company operates a U.S.-flagged fleet of 10 containerships under its APL subsidiary. Because the ships are U.S.-flagged, they are crewed by U.S. sailors and are a preferred carrier for U.S. government and military cargo.

A CMA CGM official said the company will triple that fleet to 30 vessels using orders at South Korean shipyards. The official said CMA CGM wants to place new orders at U.S. shipyards but that will depend on the yards’ capacity.

CMA CGM routinely orders vessels from South Korea and China capable of carrying the equivalent of 18,000 containers.

U.S. shipyards build smaller containerships. APL’s U.S.-flagged fleet ranges in size from ships capable of carrying the equivalent of between 1,600 and 6,000 containers.

Saadé joins a growing line of executives who have visited Trump to pledge big U.S. investments over the next four years....

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AI: AGI To Arrive During Trump's Presidency; Superintelligence and Singularity Also Possible

From James Pethokoukis at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, March 5:

Is Transformative Artificial Intelligence Just Around the Corner? 

Guessing when radically transformative artificial intelligence (TAI) will arrive has become something of a parlor game in Silicon Valley, with predictions ranging from imminent revolution to distant dream. Yet it’s important to identify, if possible, any signs suggesting that TAI is imminent. Such signals could encourage the government to prepare by bolstering welfare systems, retooling education to prize uniquely human skills, crafting sensible guardrails for AI deployment, and—crucially—smoothing the path for workers whose livelihoods may be upended. These efforts, though fiendishly difficult given the inherently murky timeline, might spell the difference between a jarring disruption and a more orderly transition as machines grow ever smarter.

But what are we talking about, exactly? What is meant by “transformative artificial intelligence?”

You will recognize its arrival by its socioeconomic fruits, not any technical specifications or computational benchmark achievements. Just as the steam engine’s worth was measured not, ultimately, in horsepower but in how it revolutionized manufacturing, or how electricity’s value emerged not from voltage but from its illumination of modern life, transformative AI will announce itself through its pervasive effects on society.

What might the world of TAI look like? The bosses of leading AI companies offer intriguing visions.

Historical parallels are instructive. When electrification became widespread in retooled American factories in the early 20th century, few questioned whether it marked a genuine revolution. The evidence was written in soaring productivity figures and reorganized factory floors. The internal combustion engine’s transformative nature revealed itself not in mechanical specifications but in the reshaping of cities and the death of distance. Synthetic materials like plastics demonstrated their importance not through chemical formulas but by infiltrating every corner of modern life. So it will be with TAI. The impacts across all aspects of life will be so profound as to make unnecessary any debate about the significance of this technological advance.

What might the world of TAI look like?

The bosses of leading AI companies offer intriguing visions. In a February blog post, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sees “the beginning of something for which it’s hard not to say ‘this time it’s different,’” predicting extraordinary economic growth and human advancement. He envisions a near future where “anyone in 2035 should be able to marshal the intellectual capacity equivalent to everyone in 2025.” While acknowledging massive changes ahead, Altman emphasizes that “life will go on mostly the same in the short run”—we’ll still fall in love, create families, and hike in nature. The key focus, as he sees it, is on the broad distribution of TAI’s benefits, with particular attention to preventing stark imbalances between the people who own the brilliant machines and the workers who don’t. The ultimate goal is to give everyone “access to unlimited genius to direct however they can imagine.”

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei sketches an even more expansive scenario in his late 2024 essay, “Machines of Loving Grace.” He envisions what he calls a “compressed 21st century,” where super intelligent systems deliver a century’s worth of scientific and social progress in under a decade. The transformation would begin in medicine, eliminating most cancers and mental illness while doubling human lifespans. Economic development would accelerate dramatically, with TAI potentially driving 20 percent annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth in poor countries. Even thornier challenges like strengthening democratic institutions could yield to AI’s capabilities through “uncensored” information flows and improved government services.

Utopian? Perhaps. But Amodei argues this represents not sci-fi fantasy but the natural culmination of existing trends. He sees the trajectory as “overdetermined,” in that multiple paths of human progress—from disease eradication to economic development to democratic advancement—all point toward similar outcomes, which AI would simply accelerate by building “a country of geniuses in a datacenter.”

The great leap forward in AI that both CEOs are talking about is often called artificial general intelligence (AGI). AGI typically refers to an AI system that can match or exceed human-level performance across most intellectual tasks and fields, working autonomously like a human would. But the term “artificial general intelligence” isn’t without controversy. Critics object that it suggests a binary state—either an AI system is “general” or it isn’t—when intelligence actually exists on a spectrum. Today’s AI systems already exceed human performance in specific domains while lacking capabilities in others, making the boundary between “narrow” and “general” AI increasingly blurry. Thinking about a clear boundary that marks when human-level AI begins also carries problematic cultural baggage thanks to science fiction, which often evokes unrealistic (so far, at least) images of sentient robots or sudden breakthroughs when AI “becomes aware” and decides to eliminate its carbon-based creators.

Anthropic’s Amodei prefers less evocative terms, like “powerful AI,” that avoid these connotations. But other technologists like OpenAI’s Altman are more comfortable with the term. While acknowledging AGI as “weakly defined,” Altman uses it to mean systems that can “tackle increasingly complex problems, at human level, in many fields.” He frames AGI as “just another tool in this ever-taller scaffolding” we’re building.

And there are lots of ways of determining if that tool, in fact, now exists—whatever term you want to use to describe it. The Metaculus prediction platform captures the notion that AGI isn’t any one thing by creating separate metrics for weak and strong AGI. For the former, the four basic criteria are passing the Loebner Silver Prize’s Turing test (fooling judges through five minutes of unrestricted conversation), achieving 90 percent accuracy on Winograd Schema challenges (resolving ambiguous sentences), scoring in the 75th percentile on SAT mathematics, and efficiently conquering the notoriously difficult Atari video game Montezuma’s Revenge. Crucially, this must emerge from an integrated intelligence tool rather than a collection of narrow specialist AI systems. At the moment, the consensus community forecast is weak AGI will arrive by late October 2026.

The bar is set even higher for strong AGI and includes robotics: mastering a two-hour adversarial Turing test (in which judges actively attempt to unmask the AI through text, images, and audio), demonstrating physical dexterity (by assembling intricate scale models from written instructions), exhibiting broad expertise (achieving 75 percent minimum and 90 percent mean accuracy across specialized knowledge domains), and conquering interview-level programming challenges with 90 percent accuracy. Gone are those simpler benchmarks of earlier frameworks. The current Metaculus forecast: early May 2030.

But AGI may prove just a way station on the path to something far more profound. The next frontier, according to some researchers, is ASI: artificial superintelligence. Such systems would not merely equal human cognitive abilities but vastly exceed them, much as Homo sapiens’ mental capabilities outstrip those of its simian cousins. The gap between AGI and ASI—although both qualify as transformative AI—would be more chasm than step. These hypothetical systems would process information at breathtaking speeds, spot patterns invisible to human minds, and learn at rates that would make today’s machine learning look positively glacial. Most intriguing, they might achieve what computer scientists call recursive self-improvement—essentially, the ability to upgrade their own intelligence.

And this brings us to what futurists have dubbed the Technological Singularity. The term, borrowed from physics, is apt: Just as the laws of physics break down at the event horizon of a black hole, human predictive powers fail at the threshold where machines begin rapidly bootstrapping themselves to ever-greater intelligence. Beyond this point, tech progress would follow trajectories that human minds, with their merely human capabilities, might find impossible to fathom.

For now, at least, both bond markets and economic data offer a useful corrective to breathless predictions of imminent machine supremacy.

How do economists, rather than science fiction writers, think about the Singularity?

A new economics paper, “Transformative AI, Existential Risk, and Real Interest Rates,” defines TAI as AI systems that generate an impact comparable to the Industrial or Agricultural Revolutions. This classification embraces two divergent scenarios: “aligned” systems triggering unprecedented economic acceleration—global GDP growth surpassing 30 percent annually—or their unaligned counterparts causing human extinction. In either scenario, researchers Trevor Chow and Basil Halperin of Stanford, along with J. Zachary Mazlish of Oxford and the Global Priorities Institute, suggest watching long-term interest rates for clues. The logic is compelling: Whether AI proves beneficial or dangerous, real interest rates would rise. If markets expect AI to create unprecedented abundance, future consumption becomes less valuable; if they fear existential risks, future consumption holds little worth. Either scenario requires higher rates to incentivize lending....

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Also from Pethokoukis, March 3:

American Economy Seems Booked for a Long Stay In Uncertainty City

"Is the White House trying to engineer a recession? This Wall Street pro explains the vision."

From Dow Jones Newswires via Morningstar, March 5:

Traders are starting to price in the possibility that the U.S. economy might fall into a recession - and one Wall Street veteran says that might actually be the Trump administration's plan.

Charlie McElligott, a strategist at Nomura dubbed Wall Street's most wired analyst by the Financial Times for his manic missives focused on the options market, laid out the argument in a note to clients.

He said President Donald Trump and his administration need an engineered recession to cause a growth slowdown and disinflation that will translate into Fed rate cuts and a meaningfully weaker U.S. dollar for the next phase of his economic agenda.

In another note to clients on Wednesday morning, McElligott cited remarks made by Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent on a focus on small business and consumers that will require a "rebalance," as Trump in front of Congress on Tuesday night spoke of being "okay" with a little disturbance from tariffs.

The idea is that Fed rate cuts and supply-side stimulus from tax cuts and deregulation will then be able to build up the economy without the need for government spending.

On the betting market Polymarket, a 37% chance of a U.S. recession this year is now priced in.

Rate-cut expectations are increasing, and the U.S. dollar index DXY has dropped 4% from its highs of early January, while Democrat Joe Biden remained in the White House....

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"Palantir Technologies is targeting the global financial services industry..."

From Semafor, March 5:

New Palantir venture targets finance industry’s AI spending  

The Scoop
Palantir Technologies is targeting the global financial services industry as the next big market for its artificial intelligence tools, joining the CEO of Guggenheim Partners and the former owner of Legendary Entertainment to persuade banks and asset managers to take a new, “holistic” approach to AI spending.

The data analytics group founded by Peter Thiel announced a joint venture on Wednesday with TWG Global, which invests the fortunes of billionaires Mark Walter and Thomas Tull. The new initiative will “redefine AI deployment” across the industry, the partners said in a statement.

Their pitch is that financial institutions can tap Palantir’s technical expertise and TWG’s operational knowledge to take a more comprehensive approach to their use of AI, rather than buying separate products from multiple vendors.

Walter’s interests range from Guggenheim Securities to Chelsea Football Club and the Los Angeles Dodgers, while Tull, whose productions at Legendary included Jurassic Park and Batman Begins, has invested in the New York Yankees and Cadillac’s F1 team. The two men have been working together for the past couple of years, Tull told Semafor, and recently hired Drew Cukor, who led the Pentagon’s Project Maven AI program before joining JPMorgan Chase as the bank’s head of AI transformation....

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Mark Zuckerberg’s Money Manager Discusses DeepSeek and Investing in A.I. Startups

From Observer, March 5:

Iconiq Capital, which manages wealth for tech billionaires, is extremely picky when investing in A.I. startups. 

Like the rest of Silicon Valley, Iconiq Capital’s founding partner Michael Anders was caught off guard by the sudden arrival of the Chinese A.I. company DeepSeek earlier this year. “I think everybody was surprised,” said Anders at the Bloomberg Invest conference in New York today (March 5). Iconiq Capital is a multi-family office managing wealth for prominent tech founders including Meta (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

DeepSeek’s advanced models, which Anders described as “a very real deal,” showcased that scrappy startups are rapidly catching up to established A.I. developers like OpenAI. “The key takeaway was they can make this technology for cheaper,” said Anders, who described DeepSeek’s efficiency as a “big wake-up call.”

The firm’s progress also shined a light on the increasingly global nature of A.I. innovation—something Anders has embraced over at Iconiq Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm that has more than $80 billion worth of assets under management. About a quarter of its native A.I. investments are in international businesses, Anders revealed.

Co-founded by Anders in 2011, Iconiq Capital has a made a name for itself through an impressively elite client roster. In addition to Zuckerberg, who was one of its first customers, the firm reportedly serves major tech players like Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Its clientele has expanded in recent years to include “as many non-tech founders and CEOs as tech founders,” Anders said.

What A.I. companies does Iconiq invest in?

When it comes to investments, Iconiq Capital isn’t so interested in A.I. language model developers like DeepSeek but is instead focused on application layer opportunities. “We’re looking at businesses that are actually creating product that’s going to allow business to be more efficient, to optimize, to create revenue, to enhance the customer experience,” said Anders....

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Also at Observer, March 5:

A.I. Pioneers Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton Win the Turing Award