TGIF – Europe’s Stocks Plunge as Nuclear Catastrophe is Inches Away

Missed it by that much.

The Russian Liberators (may as well start calling them that as the history books will be re-written that way) either have excellent aim or terrible aim and we hope it’s excellent for our future safety as their bombing caused a fire at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Enerhodar, Ukraine.  The fire erupted at the Zaporizhzhia power plant’s training facility that is adjacent to its six nuclear reactors and has been put out this morning, narrowly missing a disaster that would have made Chernobyl look like a minor mishap.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told journalists on Friday that the attack was an act of terror that put all of Europe at risk.

“We survived the night that could have put an end to history,” he said, adding that an explosion of the plant would have caused six times the damage of the 1986 meltdown at Ukraine’s Chernobyl power plant, which sent radioactive clouds across Europe.

“Russian tankmen knew what they were shelling. Directly shooting at the power plant is unprecedented terror,” he said, reiterating his call on the West to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

Putin addressed the nation yesterday and said all this is going according to plan and now we get to see what, if anything, NATO and the UN do about a guy who is on the verge of causing either a nuclear war or a nuclear catastrophe.  More sanctions?   European investors are not too convinced that’s going to work and their stocks are down 3.7% this morning and the VIX is flying higher so our indexes may follow suit:

If the Russell (/RTY) falls below the 2,000 line, you can use that for a short with very tight stops above.  

We checked our hedges in the Short-Term Portfolio yesterday and we thought we had enough protection into the weekend but that may be put to the test early if Russia doesn’t at least agree not to bomb the nuclear power plants.  This is all fantastic for Gold and Silver, of course and wheat got tired of just moving higher during the day, so now it’s gapping up 6% overnight.  That’s because over 10% of the World’s wheat almost got irradiated yesterday – and that’s not something you can make up for next harvest!  

This is the move that hasn’t shown up in any inflation reports yet and the ones coming out only cover February and March is already so much worse – we won’t get those reports until April.  The Fed has no choice but to raise rates at the same time the war is going to be hampering liquidity – this can all turn very ugly very quickly – be very careful!  

8:30 Update:  678,000 new jobs in February, not bad for a short month!  That is way over the 400,000 jobs generally expected and, even better (for our Corporate Masters), average hourly earnings were flat for a change – even as overall Unemployment dropped from 4% to 3.8% and the average workweek moved up to 34.7 hours from 34.6.  So all positives for Corporations and all negatives for Workers but we invest in the corporations, not the workers, right?  

Keep that in mind, when you are in the investing class, workers are a commodity and you want to reduce the cost of labor which is why we should be firmly against worker’s rights, birth control and abortion – because nothing is better for us than cheap labor so forcing poor people to have more children and then denying them the opportunity to properly educate those children (less they become a threat to our own) is right in the Capitalist’s sweet spot.  

That’s why we’re not doing what needs to be done to fight Putin – it might hurt the economy and what’s morally right takes a firm back seat to what makes money in this World, doesn’t it?  Some would say our economy is obviously strong enough to withstand a little pain and we should get serious and mobilize our forces and kick Putin out of Ukraine but no – we’re just going to impose sanctions – because we now believe that hurting someone’s economy is the worst thing we can do to them. 

What have we become?  

Have a great weekend, 

- Phil

Provided courtesy of Phil’s Stock World.