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US

Trump, briefed on violence Jan 6, sought to stoke it

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The probably final public hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is expected to highlight newly obtained Secret Service records showing how President Donald Trump was repeatedly alerted to brewing violence that day, and he still sought to stoke the conflict, according to three people briefed on the records.

The committee plans to share in Thursday’s hearing new video footage and internal Secret Service emails that appear to corroborate parts of the most startling inside accounts of that day, said the people briefed, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal records. Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified in June that Trump was briefed on Jan. 6 that some of his supporters were armed for battle, demanded they be allowed into his rally and insisted he wanted to lead them on their march to the Capitol.

Surveillance footage the committee plans to share was taken near the Ellipse that morning before Trump’s speech and shows throngs of his supporters clustered just outside the corralled area for his “Stop the Steal” rally. Secret Service officers screened those entering who sought to get closer to the stage. Law enforcement officials who were monitoring video that morning spotted Trump supporters with plastic shields, bulletproof vests and other paramilitary gear, and some in the Secret Service concluded they stayed outside the rally area to avoid having their weapons confiscated, according to people familiar with the new records.

Other internal emails likely to be revealed at the hearing further buttress accounts about staff members warning Trump about the risk and then the reality of violence that day, as he continued to press nervous Secret Service agents to take him to the Capitol to join his supporters marching there, the three people said. After being alerted to violence erupting at the Capitol when he returned to the White House, Trump tweeted criticism of Vice President Mike Pence for not blocking the certification of the election, whipping up supporters who had already trampled over security barricades and were battling police to break into the halls of Congress.

The newly obtained Secret Service records are just part of a larger hearing in which the committee hopes to summarize and remind the American public of all the ways Trump is said to have played a central role in fomenting a violent insurrection at the Capitol, one of the most brutal attacks on democracy in U.S. history, according to multiple people briefed on the evidence and committee plan. While the committee’s previous hearings took center stage over several weeks this summer, the committee is trying to revive interest in its probe and deliver what it has privately called its “closing arguments” about past and ongoing threats to democracy as voters prepare to cast ballots next month in the midterm elections.

The hearing aims to highlight new evidence gathered by investigators that corroborates the committee’s key findings about Trump and the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to the people briefed: that he sought to rile up his supporters to help block the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory; used his bully pulpit to encourage a fiery showdown at the Capitol; and then refused to budge to help rescue thousands of lawmakers, staff members and police officers on Capitol Hill who were either fleeing or fighting for their lives that afternoon.

It’s unclear, however, if the new material will shed any light on a particularly dramatic part of Hutchinson’s testimony, in which she recounted a senior Secret Service official telling her that Trump had erupted in anger and lunged at the lead security agent in his motorcade when told he could not go to the Capitol.

Email shows question over Trump’s plans

One email the committee has obtained highlights the level of alarm inside Secret Service headquarters on Jan. 6 about the possibility that Trump would get his wish to head to the Capitol — and join a melee in progress.

By 1 p.m. Eastern time that day, according to police testimony, hand-to-hand combat between protesters and officers was breaking out on the steps and platforms immediately outside the Capitol. The Secret Service had just then offered to send reinforcements to help an overwhelmed U.S. Capitol Police force, according to texts and testimony from then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund.

The new correspondence obtained by the committee shows that while Trump was still speaking to his supporters and announcing he was going to the Capitol, Secret Service personnel in charge of transportation and field operations scrambled to try to secure a safe motorcade route for the president and his entourage, two people briefed on the records said. The Secret Service staff members sought D.C. police help to block intersections. But with tens of thousands of protesters in downtown Washington, and D.C. police being dispatched to help Capitol Police with protesters breaking through barricades, D.C. police declined the Secret Service’s request.

About 1:10 p.m., Trump had left the Ellipse in his motorcade after finishing his speech, and demanded to go to the Capitol. Trump’s detail leader, Bobby Engel, riding with Trump in his sport utility vehicle, told an enraged Trump that they were heading back to the White House and it was not safe to take him to the Capitol, The Washington Post previously reported.

A guide to the biggest moments in the Jan. 6 hearings so far

“We don’t have the assets,” Engel told Trump of the inability to secure safe passage for his motorcade, according to a Secret Service official briefed on Engel’s account. By about 1:20 p.m., Trump was back at the White House.

One of the committee’s newly obtained documents shows that sometime between 1:30 and 2 p.m., a senior Secret Service supervisor for protective operations emailed Engel with an urgent update and seeking to know if Trump’s plan to go to the Capitol was successfully quashed. It came after a tumultuous hour for the Secret Service detail, which had effectively ignored a command from the president.

Even with Trump back at the White House, Secret Service headquarters wanted to be sure the president was staying put. The supervisor, Ron Rowe, warned Engel that the situation was rapidly devolving at the Capitol and sought Engel’s confirmation he was not considering taking Trump there, according to a senior law enforcement official familiar with the records turned over to the committee. Rowe urged Engel to call him.

Rowe declined to comment, but Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Rowe’s email reflected the larger agency’s position: Trump’s idea of going to the Capitol was a non-starter.

In other internal emails, agents relayed reports that Trump was angry about being told he couldn’t go to the Capitol.

Some of the information, the people briefed said, calls into question the previous testimony of Engel and Anthony Ornato, then a Secret Service leader who was serving in an unprecedented political role of White House deputy chief of staff. Both men told the committee in closed-door depositions that they could not recall certain events relayed by other witnesses, including Trump’s demand that the Secret Service let armed people into his rally.

After Hutchinson testified that Ornato told her that Trump had lunged at Engel inside the sport utility vehicle they were traveling in, anonymous Secret Service sources said that Engel and Ornato disputed any altercation occurred and were prepared to say so under oath. The committee has not yet re-interviewed the two men, as lawmakers sifted through the additional trove of Secret Service records. Ornato and Engel, through a Secret Service spokesman, declined to comment.

How the committee got the documents

The vast trove of records turned over to the Jan. 6 committee is the result of an ironic twist of events, according to the people briefed on the documents. The same Secret Service that permanently deleted agents’ texts from Jan. 6 and the surrounding days amid congressional requests last year has now provided to the committee this large volume of internal communications from the same time period. Voluntarily, the agency has turned over every record it kept of logistical planning, security concerns, and private discussions related to the scheduled protests and president’s movements.

This extensive sharing of records — more than 1 million pages’ worth and many which the committee did not specifically request — followed a period when the Secret Service came under fire for executing an agencywide destruction of all texts exchanged from agents phones in that key period. Federal regulations mandate the preservation of government records, and the Secret Service’s deletion of these records prompted a federal investigation into the failure to do so. The texts were wiped from agents’ phones as part of a Secret Service-wide update of employees phones that began in January 2021. Secret Service officials have said the mass deletion of reams of potential evidence was unintentional, and the agency’s telephone provider has concluded those texts are now impossible to recover.

Secret Service cannot recover Jan. 6-related texts

The committee had considered sharing a portion of its videotaped interview with Ornato at a previous hearing and it’s unclear if lawmakers will do so Thursday. In one portion of his interview, according to two people briefed on his account, Ornato described briefing White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows the afternoon of Jan. 6 about detailed reports of violence breaking out at the Capitol, as well as police officers being transported to a hospital. The committee learned from other witnesses that Meadows then briefed Trump.

The hearing could build out the evidence that Trump took steps to ratchet up the conflict at the Capitol, despite being warned of escalating violence. Lawmakers on the committee have grown particularly suspicious about the agency’s transparency with congressional investigators as they’ve struggled to obtain some information they requested over a year ago.

The committee’s hearing Thursday, probably its final one before the release of its report, will also illuminate how associates of Trump — including chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and Roger Stone, a longtime friend and onetime adviser — planned on declaring victory regardless of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, The Post previously reported. The House select committee intends to show video footage of Stone recorded by Danish filmmakers during the weeks before the Jan. 6 violence.

Another portion of this week’s hearing is expected to focus on the continuing threat of domestic extremism and political violence spawned by efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The committee has continued interviewing witnesses in the lead-up to the final hearing, and it interviewed Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, last month. It’s unclear whether the committee will use any of Thomas’s interview, which was only transcribed and not videotaped or recorded, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said recently in an interview on MSNBC.

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Science

Stoke Space aims to build rapidly reusable rocket with a completely novel design

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Enlarge / Stoke Space tests 15 thrusters that will fly on the upper stage of a fully reusable rocket.

Stoke Space

Andy Lapsa went to the best aerospace engineering schools. He then worked very hard to help advance the development of some of the most advanced rocket engines in the world at Blue Origin. But in 2019, after a decade in the industry, he felt like the spaceflight future he was striving toward—rapidly reusable rockets—had not gotten much closer.

“It is the inevitable end state,” he said of low-cost rockets that can launch, land, and fly again the next day. “It’s gonna happen. It’s just a matter of who does it and when they do it.”

His vision for the future is not unique. It happens to be shared by two of the richest people in the world, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. Lapsa worked for one of them, first helping Bezos develop the powerful BE-4 engine and then as director of Blue Origin’s BE-3 program.

“I love Jeff’s vision for space,” Lapsa said in an interview with Ars. “I worked closely with him for a while on different projects, and I’m basically 100 percent on board with the vision. Beyond that, I think I would just say that I will let their history of execution speak for itself, and I thought we could move faster.”

This is a polite way of saying that more than two decades after Bezos founded Blue Origin, the company has yet to reach orbit. So three years ago, Lapsa, who is in his late 30s, and Tom Feldman, another rocket scientist there who had just turned 30, began to look around for a place to make a difference faster. They were animated not so much by a midlife crisis but by a desire to bring forward the era of low-cost, regular access to space and the future that might unlock for humanity.

Looking around

The pair of propulsion engineers looked around the US industry, which consisted of dozens of rocket companies. One of their friends, a former Blue Origin engineer named Tim Ellis, co-founded a Los Angeles-based company called Relativity Space in 2016. They looked closely at Relativity, but at the time, the company had not fully committed to the Terran-R rocket, a fully reusable, medium-lift rocket. Lapsa and Feldman also weren’t as bullish on additive manufacturing or pushing the limits on 3D-printing an entire rocket.

“I think the additive manufacturing of a full rocket is novel, but you want to choose the tools for production that make sense, and you want to let the best answer win,” Lapsa said. “And I think their approach was a little bit too single-minded.”

Stoke Space

Finally, they considered SpaceX. Lapsa said he and Feldman were looking for three key ingredients in a company: rapid, reusable rockets; the right engineering team; and a history of “habitual execution.” SpaceX pretty much had it all, as the company’s primary focus was on the revolutionary, reusable Starship rocket. It possessed arguably the largest and most talented team of rocket engineers in the world, and no one flew more often or more dazzlingly.

And yet it wasn’t for them.

“They unquestionably have an amazing history of execution, of awe-inspiring stuff that has absolutely transformed our industry,” Lapsa said. “But I do think there’s room for a different style of company. We talk a lot with people who come out of SpaceX after three, five, 10, or 15 years, and they’re shells of their old selves. They’re burned out.”

So at the end of 2019, Lapsa and Feldman decided to found their own company, Stoke Space. Neither had experience raising money or running a business. They had no plan and no specific design for their rocket in mind. Rather, they had a strong conviction that the future they wanted wasn’t happening—but it was there for the taking.

“We took a leap of faith and jumped off a cliff,” Lapsa said.

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Business

Central Banks May Stoke Risks by Raising Interest Rates Together

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Central banks around the world are raising their key interest rates in the most widespread tightening of monetary policy on record. Some economists fear they may go too far if they don’t take into account their collective impact on global demand.

According to the World Bank, the number of rate increases announced by central banks around the world was the highest in July since records began in the early 1970s. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve delivered its third 0.75 percentage-point increase in as many meetings. This past week its counterparts in Indonesia, Norway, the Philippines, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and the U.K. also upped rates.

Moreover, the size of those rate rises is larger than usual. On Sept. 20, Sweden’s Riksbank increased its reference rate by a full percentage point. It hadn’t previously raised or lowered rates by more than half a point since adopting its current framework in July 2002.

Those central banks are almost universally responding to high inflation. Inflation across the Group of 20 leading economies was 9.2% in July, double the rate a year earlier, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Higher rates cool demand for goods and services and reassure households and businesses that inflation will be brought down over the coming year.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said he anticipates that interest-rate increases will continue as the Fed fights high inflation. Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

But some worry that central banks are effectively pursuing national responses to what is a global problem of excess demand and high prices. They warn that central banks as a group will thus go too far—and push the world economy into a downturn that is deeper than necessary.

“The present danger…is not so much that current and planned moves will fail eventually to quell inflation,”

Maurice Obstfeld,

formerly chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, wrote earlier this month in a note for the Peterson Institute for International Economics, where he is a senior fellow. “It is that they collectively go too far and drive the world economy into an unnecessarily harsh contraction.”

There are few signs that central banks are going to pause and take stock of the impact of their rate increases to date. The Fed indicated Wednesday it would likely raise rates 1 percentage point to 1.25 percentage points over its next two meetings. Economists at JPMorgan expect central bankers from Canada, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, the eurozone, Hungary, Israel, Poland, Romania, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, India, Malaysia and Thailand to raise rates in policy meetings scheduled through the end of October.

That is an array of central-bank firepower with few precedents. But do they all need to be doing so much if they are all doing the same thing?

Most economists accept that inflation in any one country isn’t solely due to forces within that country. Global demand also affects the prices of easily traded goods and services. This has long been apparent with commodities such as oil; a boom in China drove up prices in 2008 even as the U.S. slid into recession. It has also been true in recent years of manufactured goods, whose prices were boosted worldwide by disruptions to supply chains, such as at Asian ports, and elevated demand from government stimulus. One Fed study found that U.S. fiscal stimulus raised inflation in Canada and the U.K.

Sweden’s Riksbank, led by Gov. Stefan Ingves, raised its reference rate by a full percentage point this week.



Photo:

Mikael Sjoberg/Bloomberg News

But an individual central bank’s focusing on matching supply and demand at a national level could go too far, because other central banks are already weakening the global demand that is one of the drivers of national inflation. If each central bank does so, the excess tightening globally may be significant.

The World Bank shares Mr. Obstfeld’s worries, warning in a report that “the cumulative effects of international spillovers from the highly synchronous tightening of monetary and fiscal policies could cause more damage to growth than would be expected from a simple summing of the effects of the policy actions of individual countries.”

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That risk could be reduced through coordination between central banks—for example, when they cut key interest rates together during the global financial crisis. Likewise, in 1985 when advanced economies acted together to bring down the dollar and then again in 1987, when they acted together to support it.

Fed Chairman

Jerome Powell

noted Wednesday that central banks have coordinated interest-rate actions in the past, but that it wasn’t appropriate now when “we’re in very different situations.” He added that contact among global central banks is more or less ongoing. “And it’s not coordination, but there is a lot of information-sharing,” he said.

If coordination isn’t feasible, a more attainable goal may be, as the World Bank advised, for national policy makers to “take into account the potential spillovers of globally synchronous domestic policies.”

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said it wasn’t appropriate for central banks to coordinate interest-rate actions at the moment.



Photo:

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Mr. Powell suggested that already happens. The Fed’s forecasts always take account of “policy decisions—monetary policy and otherwise [and] the economic developments that are taking place in major economies that can have an effect on the U.S. economy,” he told reporters.

Many central banks are worried about raising rates too little in the face of stiff inflation. “In this environment, central banks need to act forcefully,” said

Isabel Schnabel,

a policy maker at the European Central Bank, in a late August speech. “Regaining and preserving trust requires us to bring inflation back to target quickly.”

“Informal coordination would be beneficial,” said

Philipp Heimberger,

an economist at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies. “Systematic thinking on the impact of interest-rate hikes would need to take into account what other central banks are doing simultaneously. This would be a game changer.”

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Mr. Heimberger said that the Fed has a key role as the prime mover behind the rise in global interest rates and that it should “seriously consider the implications of its interest-rate hiking cycle for other parts of the world.”

Gilles Moëc,

chief economist at insurer

AXA SA,

is doubtful that effective coordination is achievable and argues that in its absence, central banks should tread more carefully as they contemplate further rate rises.

“Once monetary policy is in restrictive territory, I think it becomes dangerous to hike mechanically at every policy meeting without taking the time to assess how the economy is responding,” Mr. Moëc said. “The quantity of new info between two meetings can be too small and the risk of overreaction rises.”

Write to Paul Hannon at paul.hannon@wsj.com

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Business

S&P 500, Nasdaq slide as weak economic data, dire outlooks stoke recession fears

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  • Snap Inc tumbles, profit fears hit rival social media cos
  • Abercrombie & Fitch slumps after lowering revenue outlook
  • Indexes: Dow up 0.15%, S&P down 0.81%, Nasdaq slides 2.35%

NEW YORK, May 24 (Reuters) – The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq finished in the red on Tuesday as worries that aggressive moves to curb decades-high inflation might tip the U.S. economy into recession dampened investors’ risk appetite.

All three major U.S. stock indexes pared their losses in afternoon trading, with the blue-chip Dow turning positive. Even so, the S&P 500 ended just 2.2 percentage points above confirming it has been in a bear market since reaching its all-time high on Jan. 3.

“As we step back and acknowledge the primary market catalysts, it’s really been about the Fed pivot and the change in interest rates, which have influenced prices across the capital markets,” said Bill Northey, senior investment director at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Helena, Montana.

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“In the last two weeks, we’ve seen some degree of macroeconomic deterioration starting to be manifested in corporate earnings and economic releases.”

Much of the sell-off was driven by a profit warning from Snap Inc , which sent the company’s shares plummeting 43.1%, sparking contagion throughout the social media segment.

Meta Platforms Inc (FB.O), Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), Twitter Inc and Pinterest Inc were down between 5% and 24%, and the broader S&P 500 Communications Services sector (.SPLRCL) slid 3.7%.

Global supply chain disruptions have been exacerbated by Russia’s war with Ukraine and restrictive measures in China to control its latest COVID-19 outbreak, sending inflation to multi-decade highs.

The U.S. Federal Reserve has vowed to aggressively tackle persistent price growth by hiking the cost of borrowing, and minutes from its most recent monetary policy meeting, expected on Wednesday, will be parsed by market participants for clues regarding the speed and extent of those actions.

Investors currently expect a series of 50-basis-point rate hikes over the next several months, fueling fears that the central bank could push the economy into recession, a scenario that is increasingly being baked into analyst projections.

A trader works on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., May 20, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

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“Tomorrow we look to the FOMC minutes for any signs that the approach to monetary policy may lean further hawkish or dovish than was laid out at the last meeting,” U.S. Bank Wealth Management’s Northey said.

Data released on Tuesday painted a picture of waning economic momentum, with new home sales plunging and business activity decelerating.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s counterpart in Frankfurt, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, said she expects the ECB deposit rate to be raised at least 50 basis points by the end of September, read more

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) rose 48.38 points, or 0.15%, to 31,928.62; the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost 32.27 points, or 0.81%, to 3,941.48; and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) dropped 270.83 points, or 2.35%, to 11,264.45.

Six of the 11 major sectors of the S&P 500 ended the session in negative territory, with communication services and consumer discretionary (.SPLRCD) suffering the biggest percentage losses.

Apparel retailer Abercrombie & Fitch Co (ANF.N) tumbled 28.6% after posting a surprise quarterly loss and cutting its annual sales and margins outlook. read more

Work-from-home darling Zoom Video Communications Inc (ZM.O) jumped 5.6% following its full-year profit hike due to solid enterprise demand. read more

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.28-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.37-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted three new 52-week highs and 40 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 17 new highs and 443 new lows.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 11.78 billion shares, compared with the 13.33 billion average over the last 20 trading days.

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Reporting by Stephen Culp; additional reporting by Devik Jain and Anisha Sircar in Bengaluru; editing by Jonathan Oatis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Oil dives 6% as Shanghai lockdowns stoke demand fears

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Pump jacks operate at sunset in Midland, Texas U.S. February 11, 2019. Picture taken February 11, 2019. REUTERS/Nick Oxford/File Photo

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  • Shanghai fences up COVID-hit areas, fuelling fresh outcry
  • EU considers ‘smart sanctions’ on Russian oil -media
  • U.S. dollar hits two-year high

NEW YORK, April 25 (Reuters) – Oil slumped about 6% on Monday to its lowest in two weeks on growing worries about the global energy demand outlook due to prolonged COVID-19 lockdowns in Shanghai and potential increases in U.S. interest rates.

In Shanghai, authorities have erected fences outside residential buildings. In Beijing, many people have begun stockpiling food, fearing a similar lockdown after the emergence of a few cases of COVID-19. read more

“It seems that China is the elephant in the room,” said Jeffrey Halley, analyst at brokerage OANDA. “The tightening COVID-zero restrictions in Shanghai, and fears Omicron has spread in Beijing, torpedoed sentiment today.”

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Brent futures fell $6.17, or 5.8%, to $100.48 a barrel by 11:12 a.m. EDT (1512 GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell $5.91, or 5.8%, to $96.16.

“Shanghai shows no signs of letting up its strict zero-COVID policy; instead vowing to step up the enforcement of COVID restrictions, which could hurt oil demand further,” said City Index analyst Fiona Cincotta.

Both benchmarks were on track for their lowest closes since April 11. Both lost nearly 5% last week and Brent has retreated sharply after hitting $139 a barrel last month, its highest level since 2008.

Also pressuring oil, the U.S. dollar

The Chinese yuan was set for its biggest three-day losing streak in nearly four years on worries of an economic slowdown in the world’s biggest oil importer. read more

Oil gained support earlier in the year from tight supplies after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine caused customers to avoid buying Russian oil due to Western sanctions. But, the market could tighten further with a European Union (EU) ban on Russian crude.

The EU is preparing “smart sanctions” against Russian oil imports, according to a report in The Times of London that cited the European Commission’s executive vice president, Valdis Dombrovskis. read more

Russia’s NK Rosneft PAO (ROSN.MM) failed to sell oil in a jumbo tender after demanding prepayment in roubles, five traders said, meaning the country’s top oil company must find ways to divert more crude to Asian buyers via private deals. read more

A shipping unit of France’s TotalEnergies SE (TTEF.PA) has provisionally chartered a tanker to load Abu Dhabi crude in early May for Europe, the first such shipment in two years, according to traders and a shipping report. read more

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Additional reporting by Yuka Obayashi in Tokyo and Alex Lawler in London; Editing by David Goodman, Susan Fenton and David Gregorio

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Commodity Funds Draw Bets Ukraine Invasion, Russia Sanctions Will Stoke Rally

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Investors are raising bets that the invasion of Ukraine and sanctions on Russia will further fuel an already-hot commodities rally.

War has gripped global markets, lifting prices for a number of raw materials. Wheat has surged to its highest level since 2008. Corn prices have jumped around 25% so far this year, earlier this week touching their highest levels since March 2013 before paring gains. Aluminum and nickel have jumped to their highest levels in over a decade. 

Federal Reserve Chairman

Jerome Powell

said Wednesday he would propose a rate increase of a quarter-percentage point at the central bank’s meeting in mid-March, spurring wagers that the Fed won’t react too aggressively to curb inflation. 

These developments have helped general commodity mutual funds and exchange-traded funds report net inflows for the eighth consecutive week through Wednesday, according to data from Refinitiv Lipper. That marks the longest streak since a 23-week run that ended in June 2021. Inflows for the week ended March 2, at $867 million, were at a record high, according to data going back to 2011.

The surge extends gains in commodities, many of which reached multiyear highs in 2021. Analysts said global supply of several commodities, already tight because of supply-chain obstacles, unfavorable weather and strong demand, could be strained further. 

“People are looking for a way to get out of inflation’s impact, and commodities really look like a good hedge,” said

Hakan Kaya,

senior portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman, whose firm has increased exposure across commodities from energy to livestock and agriculture in 2022.

Commodity prices tend to rise alongside inflation, and investors often use them to hedge portfolios. Commodity funds invest in both commodity-linked derivatives and the underlying commodities themselves.

The S&P GSCI index, a benchmark for commodities, has added about 30% so far this year, while the broad-based S&P 500 has retreated around 10%. The Bloomberg Commodity Index has gained around 30% during that period.

“This is the type of environment where commodities have proven their worth in terms of why they are in the portfolio in the first place,” said

Matt Stucky,

senior portfolio manager at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co.

Seven-year highs in energy prices are contributing to the boost in commodities. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, has risen around 50% so far this year, recently trading above $118 a barrel. Higher energy prices have spillover effects: Smelters could cut back on the production of metals, for example, while farmers could pay more to transport grains.

While investors can benefit from rising commodities prices, they pose broader economic concerns. Analysts said higher inflation alongside lower economic growth could increase the risk of recession. Meanwhile, investors are watching the events in Ukraine and the effect of sanctions on Russia. 

“Broad-based commodity exposures have performed strongly and continue to make sense as the conflict continues; ongoing and further escalation can and would likely lead to higher index levels still,” RBC analysts wrote in a Tuesday note.

While Ukraine endures military assaults by Russian forces, analysts are warning that the world’s wheat supply could be severely threatened. WSJ’s Shelby Holliday explains. Photo: Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

Write to Hardika Singh at hardika.singh@wsj.com

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US

Omicron Breakthrough Infections Stoke NYC Shutdown Fears – NBC New York

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Almost exactly one month after Mayor Bill de Blasio triumphantly announced tens of thousands of fully vaccinated people could return to Times Square to celebrate New Year’s Eve in person this year, the state saw it’s highest single-day reporting of new COVID infections.

The previous record, set 11 months ago on Jan. 14, crumbled when Gov. Kathy Hochul announced 21,027 new positive cases statewide Friday. The old record for most cases in a single day was 19,942. New York reported close to the same number of tests taken last Friday, but of that batch (over 260,000), there were 10,000 less positive cases one week ago.

In an effort to combat rising cases of either variant, the state is rushing to acquire millions of at-home tests for New Yorkers living in communities with lower vaccine rates. On CNN Friday, the governor confirmed 1 million cases were already in hand with another 2 million on the way.

The unprecedented omicron-fueled COVID surge enveloping the former epicenter of the pandemic now has the mayor willing to reconsider the end of year festivities. However the mayor decides to handle the event, Hochul said it’s a decision best left up to the localities and that de Blasio will “make the right decision.”

Asked about the planned end-of-year bash Thursday night on CNN, de Blasio said the party is on for now but that could change at some point if the data warrants it.

“We made the decision a few weeks back when things were much better. But we said vaccinated people only,” the Democrat said. “Everyone’s been told for weeks and weeks, don’t even show up in Times Square unless you’re vaccinated.”

“Now we’re going to reassess constantly with the new information. We’re going to follow the data and the science,” he added. “Right now, it’s on. You know, we’ll make a decision as we go, get closer as to what should finally happen.”

While that full vaccination requirement is what fueled de Blasio’s confidence in a safe, jam-packed Crossroads of the World to close out 2021, a growing number of people who planned to go may be wondering if it is still enough.

The omicron COVID variant is a growing cause of concern during the holiday season as New Yorkers anticipate travel and group events, but should we cancel plans? Here’s what several experts suggest. News 4’s Linda Gaudino reports.

A day ago, the mayor’s top health adviser, Dr. Jay Varma, tweeted, “Um, we’ve never seen this before in #NYC” regarding COVID positivity rates. The share of people testing positive doubled in three days this week, and Varma said it was an indication of omicron evading immunity in a way no other variant had before.

The city’s rolling daily case average is up almost 57% over the rolling averages for the previous four weeks and COVID hospitalizations are up nearly 31%. Delta is the variant believed to be fueling the spike in more severe cases, while omicron is thought to be behind the surge in infections. Both are called “variants of concern.”

The latter accounts for only 1% of tested COVID samples in New York City currently, though its prevalence is likely far higher. Delta remains dominant (97%), but experts expect omicron to overtake it as the dominant U.S. strain in a matter of weeks.

The city does not report how many of the new cases are breakthrough infections. They are still believed to be a very small fraction of new COVID cases, and a minute fraction of new hospitalizations, but both of those fractions have been steadily rising since the emergence of omicron in November, state data shows.

New Daily Cases Over Time by Vaccination Status

New Daily Hospital Admissions Over Time by Vaccination Status


The anecdotal evidence is there, too. Breakthrough infections have rattled New York City’s entertainment industry resurgence to its core, with the Rockettes becoming the latest casualty Friday.

A range of Broadway shows, from “Hamilton,” to “Moulin Rouge” to “Mrs. Doubtfire” and others, are canceling performances for the same reason. In some cases, the breakthrough cases in the companies are discovered so late and unexpectedly that audiences are in their seats when they learn the show will not go on.

While the first U.S. omicron case was only confirmed 16 days ago, health officials believe it was in America — and New York, which is detecting it at four times the rate of the rest of the country, the CDC said this week — well before that.

About 75% of the first 40 U.S. confirmed omicron cases were breakthrough infections, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky has said.

Still, she and other leading health experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, say the vast majority of those cases are mild and the existing vaccines are still overwhelmingly effective at preventing severe COVID-related illness and death. De Blasio agrees.

“If someone’s vaccinated, particularly if they have gotten that booster, they’re a hell a lot safer,” de Blasio said on CNN. “They still might get COVID. I might get COVID. You might get COVID. But we’re going to live through it. We probably don’t end up in a hospital, which is not only good for you and me, it’s good for the whole society.”

“COVID has taught us a lesson. It changes all the time. So, the reason you want to be extra careful is because you don’t know what the next curve ball’s going to be,” he added — and of omicron said, “This is a whole new animal and we got to be honest about the fact that it’s moving very fast and we have to move faster.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday that new data show booster shots of COVID-19 vaccines offer protection against the omicron variant and there is no current need to reformulate shots for variant-specific boosters.

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Business

Rising Rents Stoke Inflation Data, a Concern for Washington

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The recovery in the New York area as a whole has been uneven as some families have moved to the city, bidding up prices, while others are struggling to pay, said Jay Martin, executive director of the Community Housing Improvement Program, which represents landlords of mostly rent-stabilized housing.

“You have bidding wars for one unit, and then a renter who can’t pay,” he said. “A tale of two cities is happening within the same building.”

Drew Hamrick, the senior vice president of the Colorado Apartment Association, a landlord group, said the rise in rents is not driven by landlords but by market factors.

“Landlords don’t really set the price, consumers set the price,” he said. “It’s musical chairs.”

Even if there is a pullback in rents next year, today’s suddenly higher housing costs could make for a painful adjustment period. Higher rent costs can reverberate through people’s lives and force tough decisions.

Luke Martinez, a 27-year-old in Greenville, a town in East Texas, is contemplating buying a trailer and setting his family up on an R.V. lot after learning that he is losing the three-bedroom house he has been renting for about $1,000 per month since 2016.

“It’s insane the amount of rent, even in this little podunk town,” Mr. Martinez said.

He’s looking at paying up to $1,500 per month for a new place, which will be tough. After getting laid off at the start of the pandemic, he had been living partly on savings — padded by an insurance payout after his car was stolen and totaled. He returned to working in automotive repair only this week. His wife had been working the front desk at a hotel until two months ago, but she is now home-schooling their 8-year-old.

If they end up renting at the higher price, they will most likely afford it by forgoing a new car.

“It’s pretty much just scraping by,” he said of his lifestyle.

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