Wednesday 19 October 2016

Black Monday Plus 29.



Baltic Dry Index. 890 -04   Brent Crude 52.13

LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000.  Revised due to QE programs.

Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.

Henry Kissinger.

It is Black Monday plus 29 years. We are 29 years into central banks directly rigging markets since the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money so spectacularly blew up global stock markets, Monday October 19, 1987. Fallen former guru Greenspan and his team of insiders on Wall Street rigged the Major Market Index opening in Chicago next morning, at a time that the NYSE was still closed in New York, while the NY City Fed team of riggers and fix-its flooded the pre-opening with buy orders and call option orders, trapping the NYSE behind an ongoing Chicago stock rally, triggering panic short covering from those on the wrong side of the Fedster’s great rig. We have had nothing but rigged and fixed markets ever since, as the Fed’s pet favourite cronies now have the Fed trapped in their corner ever since.

Today the Great Rig now largely depends on events in Asia, where the Giant Chinese Ponzi Scheme is starting to unwind, generating massive capital flight, and in Japan, where in the land of the aging setting Sun, the whole nation has embarked on a never ending slow motion currency suicide plan. That it all ends in another 1987 or 2008 is certain, what isn’t known is when China, Japan, the EU, or America blows up, or why. It largely doesn’t matter which is first. The next systemic failure takes out the increasingly destructive Great Nixonian Error of fiat money. Stay long fully paid up physical gold and silver, held outside of the fragile, bankster houses.

Below, the latest news from Asia. To no one’s great surprise, China hit the number yet again! Japan just poked China and South Korea in the eye with a sharp stick.

China third quarter GDP grows 6.7 percent as expected as construction booms, debt rises

Wed Oct 19, 2016 | 1:34am EDT
China's economy expanded at a steady 6.7 percent in the third quarter and looks set to hit Beijing's full-year target, fueled by stronger government spending, record bank lending and a red-hot property market that are adding to its growing pile of debt.

Wednesday's data painted a picture of an economy that is slowly stabilizing but increasingly dependent on government spending and a housing boom for growth, as private investment and exports remain stubbornly weak.

Some economists believe Beijing has had to "double down" on stimulus this year to meet its official growth range of 6.5 to 7 percent, and say the government's obsession with meeting hard targets may hurt both planned reforms and the long-term health of the world's second-largest economy.

"So far this year they have clearly chosen to do everything they can to meet the growth targets, and now there is a little bit of an upward surprise from the housing market which actually will help them with GDP growth this year," said Louis Kuijs, head Of Asia economics at Oxford Economics in Hong Kong.

"The question really is, is the leadership willing to move to somewhat lower growth targets in order to put growth on a more sustainable footing, or will it feel obliged to continue to hang on to those very high growth targets."

The economy grew at the same clip in the third quarter year-on-year as in the first and second quarters, as analysts polled by Reuters had expected. Government infrastructure projects and the property boom have spurred prices and demand for raw materials and goods from cement and steel to furniture.

On a quarterly basis, it grew 1.8 percent, again in line with expectations but easing slightly from the previous period.

Economists believe the greatest near-term risk for China is a possible correction in the high-flying property market, which accounts for about 15 percent of GDP.
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Asian markets rise as China reports healthy growth

Published: Oct 18, 2016 11:19 p.m. ET

Investors remain cautious of ECB meeting Thursday

Asian shares were broadly higher early Wednesday, tracking overnight gains on Wall Street, while key data out of China met market expectations.

The world’s second-biggest economy expanded 6.7% in the third quarter from a year earlier, matching growth in the previous quarter, official data showed Wednesday. The figure was also in line with a forecast by economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, September retail sales data jumped 10.7% from a year earlier, matching expectations, though industrial output, which gained 6.1% from a year earlier, was below the 6.4% forecast.

The numbers show that the Chinese government’s capacity control measures are working, helping boost prices charged by manufacturers, said Alex Wong, director of asset management at Ample Capital in Hong Kong.

“In terms of pricing power, China manufacturers are in a better position now,” he said.

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China housing sales up whopping 43% year to date

Published: Oct 18, 2016 11:48 p.m. ET
BEIJING--China's housing sales gained steam in the first three quarters of the year, just before a slew of cities tightened home-buying rules to ease worries about property bubbles.

Housing sales rose 43.2% in the first nine months of the year from the same period a year earlier, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday. In the year through August, sales rose 25.6% from a year earlier.

In September alone, housing sales rose 61.2% from the same month a year earlier, according to calculations by The Wall Street Journal. That was up from August's 33% gain from the same month a year ago.

Investment in real-estate development expanded 6.8% to 1.2 trillion yuan in the January-September period, from 5.4% growth in the first eight months of the year.

Construction starts across residential and commercial real estate rose 6.8% in the year through September to 1.2 billion square meters, down from a 12.2% gain in the year through August.

Chinese authorities have recently imposed a slate of property-buying restrictions due to concerns about bubbly markets fueled by rising household leverage. Over China's week-long national holiday known as Golden Week in early October, at least 21 cities--including first-tier, second-tier and a handful of third-tier cities--rolled out home purchasing limits, including higher down-payment requirements and caps on buying second homes.

China's banking regulator said on Oct. 13 that surging real estate-related loans posed "new challenges" to the government. Property loans made up 40% of new loans issued by Chinese banks in the year through August, with mortgages comprising roughly two-thirds of those loans, the regulator said.

Meanwhile Japan pokes China and Korea in the eye. Will China retaliate by fixing North Korea’s wonky missile? Japan it seems from far away autumnal London, has learnt nothing since 1945. Would we stand for German Parliamentarians visiting a Nazi shrine.

Japan lawmakers' group visits Yasukuni shrine for war dead

Tue Oct 18, 2016 | 3:51am EDT
Dozens of Japanese members of parliament visited the Yasukuni Shrine for war dead on Tuesday to mark an autumn festival at the shrine, seen in China and the two Koreas as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.

Kyodo news agency said about 80 lawmakers visited the shrine. Health, Labour and Welfare Minister Yasuhisa Shiozaki sent an aide to represent him, an official at Shiozaki's office said. Earlier, Kyodo had said Shiozaki himself went.

The group visit came a day after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering to the shrine, prompting a sharp rejoinder from China and a reminder from Tokyo's close ally Washington of the importance of reconciliation over the past.

Visits by Japanese leaders to Yasukuni have outraged China and South Korea because the shrine honors 14 Japanese leaders convicted by an Allied tribunal as war criminals, along with other war dead.

South Korea expressed "deep concern and disappointment" over the shrine visit and offering by Japanese political leaders.

"(We) urge Japanese politicians to gain trust from neighboring countries and the international community by showing an act of humble introspection and sincere self-reflection on the foundation of the correct perception of history," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

In Beijing, China's foreign ministry also expressed concern.

"We hope Japanese political figures can adhere to correct historical views and do more to realize reconciliation and increase mutual trust with neighboring Asian countries," spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing.

Abe has visited the shrine in person only once, in December 2013, since becoming premier the previous year. Eager to improve ties with China and South Korea, strained by territorial and other disputes, he has instead opted to send ritual offerings on several occasions.
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We close for the day with America, where UK media, all card carrying Team Clinton campaign members if not fanatics, have stopped covering Trump except negatively. In UK media land at least, The Crooked Clinton is Cruising to Her Coronation. Below, it’s an ill wind and all that.

This Las Vegas Gun Store Is Banking on a Clinton Victory

A ‘Pre-Hillary’ assault rifle sale may be a preview of things to come.

October 17, 2016 — 9:08 PM BST
A Las Vegas gun store, having resigned itself to a Democratic presidential victory on Nov. 8, has launched a “Pre-Hillary Sale,” sparking a modest media sensation reaching as far away as New York and Washington, D.C.

The store, Westside Armory, bought an ad last weekend in the sports section of the Las Vegas Review-Journal saying, “Don't wait! Prices will skyrocket after Crooked Hillary gets in.” The ad—for a Smith & Wesson AR-15 military-style rifle priced at $699.99—echoes a favorite put-down by Republican nominee Donald Trump of his rival Hillary Clinton. It also picks up on a theme that we’ve reported on in the past: that the gun industry has counted on fear of a Clinton victory to drive firearm sales. The conventional wisdom—proven repeatedly during the Obama administration, especially following gun massacres in Newtown, Conn., and Orlando—is that gun owners who fear Democratic politicians will tighten firearm laws are prone to run out and buy another weapon.

Westside Armory owner Cameron Hopkins said via e-mail: “I was acutely aware the ad would be controversial, so I had to be very careful to imply we are not in favor of Hillary winning, even though we acknowledge the certainty of it.” He also noted the influence of the National Rifle Association: “As a retail business, we are apolitical except for the ‘gun issue’ and for that we must follow the candidate(s) and positions supported by the NRA,” which has endorsed Trump.

Trump has falsely accused Clinton of seeking to “get rid of all guns” and abolish the Second Amendment (which only Congress and three-quarters of the states could do). What she has proposed, among other measures, is reestablishing a ban on “assault weapons” that could include the type of large-capacity rifle that Westside Armory put on sale. The Smith & Wesson advertised by the Las Vegas shop accommodates ammunition magazines containing 30 rounds.  
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At each step of the transition from commodity to paper to credit, money became more unreal, and detached from the real goods and services that money can be exchanged for. Money transformed itself from a mechanism for trade into an object in its own right. Modern technology—digital money—further stripped money of corporeality. Money exists as pure information, with no intrinsic value. It is nothing and everything.

Satyajit Das. Extreme Money. Masters of the Universe and
the Cult of Risk

At the Comex silver depositories Tuesday final figures were: Registered 29.28 Moz, Eligible 144.44 Moz, Total 173.72 Moz. 

Crooks and Scoundrels Corner

The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
No crooks today. Today an early autumnal look at the possible Pacific developing La Nina and an early look at the Siberian snow cover winter signal. Too early for both I know, but both have the potential to signal a colder snowier winter for Europe and North America.

Surprise! La Nina might be back after all

Monday, October 17th 2016
Buried in the news late last week amid the feverish coverage of Saturday's upcoming Disappointment Day Storm was word from NOAA that La Nina might be back.

Their Climate Prediction Center reissued a La Nina Watch on Thursday, just a month after killing it off.
Quick recap on what La Nina is: A cooling of the tropical waters in the Central Pacific Ocean. It's part of a 3-7 year cycle where the waters cool, then warm (El Nino) with "neutral" periods in between when the water is near average temperatures.

La Nina was actually the popular choice for this fall and winter when forecasts came out in the summer -- it's a typical progression after El Nino, and especially strong El Ninos like we had last winter.
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Winter 2016-2017 Siberian Snow Cover Begins To Grow

Snow Cover in SIberia growing this time of year is not exactly news however it is October so it is time we look at the Siberian snow cover indicator. Now there are a few things I want to say about this. First off the indicator’s proponent Dr Judah Cohen states that the rate of growth of snow cover in Siberia is tied to cold winters in the east. The faster the rate of growth, the higher the probability of a cold and snowy winter. This indicator worked well until last year when it was a major fail given the super strong El Nino that dominated the pattern all winter long. Also I am not a fan of using one indicator or for that matter any indicators since there are other factors that will play into what kind of winter we will have. That said lets look at the snow cover in Siberia over the past 3 years (including this one) and see what we have if anything so far. What is important is the rate of growth in areas south of 60 degrees North.

---- Now we look at October 2016. The growth in the southern flank has been substantial but this is bit misleading. Take a look at the two maps below. From October 1st through October 10th there actually has been very little snow cover growth in the southern flank. In fact there has been very little snowfall at all in the last 10 days in areas south of 60 degrees north.

---- But it is not where we start the month but where we finish. The GFS model over the next 10 days for what it is worth shows substantial snow cover growth south of 60 degrees north through October 20th.

If the GFS is correct the rate of growth would be rather impressive. Obviously it has to happen first before snow lovers go leaping for joy. And remember all the snow cover indicators could point to a cold and snowy winter. But if the trough is in the wrong position, or if the Greenland Block is non existent, or if any one of a number of other things are right, the outcome could be much different than you expect. So far we can come to no conclusions of what we are seeing so far. Remember it is where we finish the month and not where we are now.
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Solar  & Related Update.

With events happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section. Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC or DC energy mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards? DC? A quantum computer next?

Abundant silicon at the heart of cheaper renewable energy storage system

Lynda Delacey  18 October 2016
A team of researchers from Madrid is developing a thermal energy storage system that uses molten silicon to store up to 10 times more energy than existing thermal storage options. The hope is to develop the technology into a new generation of low-cost solar thermal stations to store solar energy in urban centers.
Storage is the current major challenge faced by renewable energy sources like wind and solar – so if these are to become viable alternatives, drastic improvements to our ability to store surplus energy are required so that cities can draw on that energy at night, and at other times when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing.

Current battery technology just isn't developed enough yet, so researchers across the industry have been exploring a range of new ideas to improve energy storage, including a commercialized solar thermal energy system that stores concentrated heat from the sun in the form of molten salts (potassium/calcium/sodium nitrates etc.), and converts the heat back to electricity via a thermal generator.

Salt-based systems work quite well, but they require complex pumps, pipelines and heat transfer fluids to generate electricity, making them expensive and vulnerable to safety issues. They're also not based on particularly abundant materials – if we scale up the use of these plants, we could find ourselves running low on the elements needed to make these salts within a few decades. That's why researchers worldwide are looking for safer alternatives that use cheaper and more abundant materials.

The silicon-based solution proposed by the team from the Universidad Polytechnic de Madrid (UPM) could be a winner because silicon is one of the world's cheapest and most abundant elements – second only to oxygen.

The proposed new thermal energy storage system involves heating the silicon in a container using either concentrated sunlight on surplus electricity generated by renewable power. The molten silicon – which can reach temperatures of around 1,400° C (2,552° F) – can be isolated from its environment until energy is needed, at which point the heat is converted to electricity. Silicon's unique properties allow it to store more than 1 MWh of energy in a cubic meter – ten times more energy than salts.

The key to making the new system work, according to research leader Alejandro Datas, is the use of thermophotovoltaic cells – a fairly new technology that sees solar panels generating electricity from heat as well as light.

"At such high temperatures, silicon intensely shines in the same way that the Sun does," says Datas. "Thus thermophotovoltaics can be used to convert this incandescent radiation into electricity."

Thermophotovoltaic cells can reach conversion efficiencies of over 50 percent and can produce 100 times more electrical power per unit area than conventional solar cells. Datas says they are key to the system – not least because they can work at extreme temperatures, unlike other generators.

The system certainly sounds like it ticks a lot of boxes: it uses abundant, inexpensive materials, is able to store up to 10 times more energy than existing solutions and is extremely compact and quiet, with no moving parts.
The researchers believe their invention could dramatically reduce the cost of storing and producing energy in the thermal energy sector. It could also offer a safe, cost-effective answer to the renewable sector's energy storage woes, and could be used for heating as well is electricity.
The UPM team is now looking to commercialize the system. Towards that end, they have founded a business project called SILSTORE and have started building a laboratory-scale prototype.
You can read a paper about the system in the journal Energy.
http://newatlas.com/cheap-solar-energy-molten-silicon/45833/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=267422f4d5-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-267422f4d5-90625829

The monthly Coppock Indicators finished September

DJIA: 18308  +28 Up NASDAQ:  5312 +21 Up. SP500: 2168 +32 Up.

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