Baltic Dry Index. 1086 -11
LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
"In politics stupidity is not a handicap."
Napoleon Bonaparte, European Dictator.
It is a new Monday, and yet another U-Turn by
Germany? Well maybe. German rescue policy now changes almost daily. Letting
modern women run countries is a far cry from England’s Queen Elizabeth I, and
Margaret Thatcher. Chancellor Merkel’s policy now changes faster than her
choice of frock. Shame about destroying Greece and Spain before this latest
policy switch. But will it last into 2013?
Merkel Signals Debt Write-Off Possible as Buyback Begins
By Patrick Donahue - Dec 2, 2012 11:01 PM GMT
Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the possibility that Germany may ultimately
accept a write-off of Greek debt, as policy makers this week attempt to
engineer a buyback that’s crucial for Greece to receive more funding. With Greece preparing to open bids today to repurchase bonds issued earlier this year, Merkel told Bild newspaper yesterday that euro leaders might consider writing off debt once the country has a budget surplus. Germany has until now ruled out such a scenario as violating European Union treaties.
“If Greece one day can rely once again on its own revenue, without having to borrow, then we’ll have to look at this situation and make an evaluation,” Merkel told Bild am Sonntag in an interview when asked about the prospect of debt forgiveness. It wouldn’t happen before 2014 or 2015, “if everything goes according to plan,” the chancellor said.
The shift on Greece’s mounting indebtedness, which triggered Europe’s debt crisis three years ago, signals a growing consensus that a Greek exit could doom the 17-member single currency. German lawmakers approved the latest package to alleviate Greece’s burden after Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said a default could foreshadow the euro’s collapse.
Merkel’s signal of openness to eventual debt forgiveness
marks “the end of denial,” Carsten Brzeski, an economist for ING Groep in
Brussels who, said in a phone interview. “It’s definitely a shift, but on the
other hand, it’s obvious,” said Brzeski, who called an eventual debt writedown
inevitable.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-02/merkel-softens-on-write-off-as-greece-prepares-buyback.html
In America, is a port strike about to derail the US
economy, never mind about the fiscal cliff? In bad economic times, our world
seems to be turning suicidal.
"One
half the nation is mad and the other half not very sound."
Tobais
Smollert.
Los Angeles port strike triggers fears, lobbying by businesses
(Reuters) - A national coalition of U.S. business groups is urging an end to a strike at the twin California ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach amid fears that a prolonged stand-off will cost the American economy many billions of dollars, and could even spread to the east coast.
Trade groups led by the National Retail Federation have sent letters to U.S. President Barack Obama and leading members of Congress asking them to intervene and help end the strike at America's two busiest container harbor facilities. Those industry groups say the strike, which entered its sixth day on Sunday, is already costing $1 billion a day.
The labor dispute has been triggered by 500 clerical workers at the ports, members of the relatively small Office of Clerical Union Workers. Their industrial action and clout has been significantly strengthened because some 10,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union have supported them, refusing to cross the clerical workers' picket lines.
Their action has effectively shut down 10 of the two ports' combined 14 container terminals. Four other container terminals have remained opened, along with facilities for handling break-bulk cargo such as raw steel and tanker traffic.
----Groups are also warily monitoring an ongoing labor dispute between the International Longshoremen's Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance which could affect ports from Maine to Texas.
The employment contract between the two groups
expired at the end of September without a new agreement. The contract was
temporarily extended for 90 days, until the end of this year. A federal
mediator has stepped in to oversee negotiations to try an avert a strike that
would hit at least 14 ports along the East and Gulf coasts.
More
Next, it all depends on China. Has China bottomed,
and if it has, is China’s locomotive strong enough to pull all trains? My guess
is that the answer is no and no, but we can always hope.
Factory surveys show China reviving, global rebound fragile
BEIJING |(Reuters) - China's economy picked up in November but a broader global recovery remains fragile and patchy, a clutch of factory surveys suggested on Monday, with activity elsewhere in Asia remaining subdued amid depressed demand from the developed world.
The euro zone, where factory surveys are due later, is on course for its worst quarter since the depths of the global financial crisis in early 2009. The U.S. picture is brighter, but manufacturing growth is still seen slowing in the fourth quarter.
The big emerging economies that have contributed most to global growth in recent years have been sputtering of late, with India expected to post its weakest full-year GDP expansion in a decade and Brazil logging an unexpectedly weak third quarter.
That has left investors once again hoping China will take up the slack, and evidence has been accumulating since late September that the Chinese economy is regaining its vigor after seven straight quarters of slowing growth.
"There
is growing confidence that China's economy bottomed in July-September, with
signs of firmer external demand," said Hirokazu Yuihama, a senior strategist
at Daiwa Securities.
Monday's
final reading of HSBC's China manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Survey (PMI)
rose to 50.5 in November from 49.5 in October, the first time since October
2011 the headline number has topped the 50-point line that demarcates growth
and contraction from the previous month.
"This
confirms that the Chinese economy continues to recover gradually," HSBC's
chief China economist Hongbin Qu wrote.
It followed
a similar survey from the National Bureau of Statistics, released on Saturday,
that showed the pace of growth in the manufacturing sector quickening. The
official PMI rose to a seven-month high of 50.6 for November, from 50.2 in
October.
But
contained within the official data were potentially worrying signs that the
Chinese economy has failed to shed its heavy reliance on state-led investment.
Growth
accelerated for large firms for the third month in a row, but medium and
smaller companies saw a retrenchment, with the decline more pronounced for the
smaller firms, the National Bureau of Statistics said in an accompanying note.
"The
improving numbers are mostly because of government investment," said Dong
Xian'an, economist with Peking First Advisory, referring to the official PMI.
"From
the second quarter the government has unleashed a lot of projects, and that has
started to be felt in the economy, but it's not a very healthy recovery
yet."
More
We end for this Monday with a horror story from
Russia. The UK’s notorious Department for Transport now seems to be running
Russia’s roads!
"British
Rail blames the wrong type of snow"
BR Director
of Operations Terry Worrall, 11 February 1991.
Snow traps drivers for days in giant Russia traffic jam
MOSCOW | Sun
Dec 2, 2012 1:18pm EST
(Reuters)
- Thousands of trucks and cars have been stuck on a major highway, some for
more than two days, in a traffic jam dozens of kilometers (miles) long caused
by heavy snow northwest of Moscow, Russian media reported on Sunday.
Police in
the Tver region said field kitchens were operating on the road, but many
drivers complained supplies never reached them and they were running out of
gasoline to keep their engines running and heating on in subzero temperatures.
"Drivers
help one another and that's it, the problems are on the side of the
authorities, there are no gasoline tankers, no water, nothing, we are just
stuck here," a truck driver who identified himself as Sergei told Rossiya
24 TV channel.
Prime
Minister Dmitry Medvedev dispatched Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov to Tver on
Sunday for a meeting on the situation, and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin
was ordered to report to Medvedev on Monday on measures to end the jam and help
stranded motorists, Medvedev's spokeswoman said.
Reports
put the length of the traffic jam at between 40 km and 200 km (120 miles) at
different times on Sunday. One man told the state broadcaster he had advanced
one kilometer over the previous 24 hours.
"The
reach of the traffic jam at present is no longer than 55 km and is gradually
falling," Interfax news agency quoted a police official as saying on
Sunday evening.
----The
M-10 highway links Moscow with Russia's second largest city St Petersburg, some
700 km northwest of the capital, and stretches on to the border with Finland.
Russia's
roads have been the butt of criticism since Tsarist times and its
infrastructure has been plagued with problems since the Soviet era, when
defense spending was high at the expense of roads, housing, healthcare and
other civilian needs.
More
The fairness of taxing more lightly income from wages, salaries or from investments is beyond question. In the first case, the income is uncertain and limited in duration; sickness or death destroys it and old age diminishes it; in the other, the source of income continues; the income may be disposed of during a man’s life and it descends to his heirs. Surely we can afford to make a distinction between the people whose only capital is their mettle and physical energy and the people whose income is derived from investments. Such a distinction would mean much to millions of American workers and would be an added inspiration to the man who must provide a competence during his few productive years to care for himself and his family when his earnings capacity is at an end.
Andrew Mellon.
At the Comex silver depositories Friday final figures were: Registered 36.70
Moz, Eligible 105.92 Moz, Total 142.62 Moz.
Crooks and
Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, if
China sneezes, does the rest of the world get pneumonia? No one knows unfortunately. You only get to
bet on black or red, but only one will be right. Below, The Telegraph’s
international business editor bets on red, China’s commodity super cycle
continuing. I think that long term he will probably be right, but that there
may be one enormous train wreck first in 2013. America, China and Euroland are
all in danger of simultaneously going off the rails in 2013. Not that
Australia, Canada and the UK wouldn’t all crash with them. In America two
warring tribes show every sign of wanting to wage a 4 year war. In China, the
incoming newbies will likely face a clash with a right wing, hard line, incoming
new government in Japan. In Europe, Europe’s serially incompetent politicians
are being herded by the Eurocrats into a massive, undemocratic, uncompetitive bureaucratic
super state. An EUSSR.
The world's commodity supercycle is far from dead
Great resource booms usually end abruptly, catching almost everybody by surprise.
----Studies
by the World Bank covering two centuries of data sketch a pattern of 10-year
supercycles, followed by a slide for the next 20 years or so as excess
investment leads to a flood of supply. The long bear market can be cruel for
those hanging onto to resource stocks, convinced that the rebound must be nigh.
Mark Ryder,
Australian investment chief for UBS, says we are reaching just such an
inflexion point as China’s manic construction phase gives way to more sedate
growth, and Europe, America, and Japan take their fiscal medicine. "The
commodity super cycle’s end is at hand. The scene is set for a momentum
shift," he said.
This view
is daily dinner talk in Australia, a country that lives off iron ore and coal
sales to China - and described contentiously by Dylan Grice from Societe
Generale as "a credit bubble built on a commodity market built on an even
bigger Chinese credit bubble".
It is
starting to take hold as the new consensus in the City where funds are keeping
a close eye on the mining trio of BHP Biliton, Rio Tinto, and Brazil’s Vale.
All three are battening down the hatches as hopes fade that this year’s 23pc
fall in iron ore prices will soon reverse. Rio is cutting $5bn in spending by
2014. Vale is expected to pare back its $40bn investment plans next week.
But it is
a report by Citigroup’s Edward Morse that has most rattled resource. He claims
that America’s shale gas revolution -- which has cut US natural gas prices by
70pc -- is a taste of what will happen across the gamut of commodities as vast
investment comes on stream. The inference is that parking money in
"long-only" resource index funds -- worth $250bn -- has become a
mug’s game.
It is the
classic pincer movement of supply and demand, with Chinese imports of iron,
copper, coal, and oil cooling at just the wrong moment. "It is now clear
the commodity super-cycle is over. The overall slowing and the restructuring of
the Chinese growth model should mark a watershed in global commodity markets.
For many industrial metals, China, in fact, was responsible for all of net
global demand growth after 1995," he said.
To be
precise, China’s share of total world demand in 2011 was: soya (27pc) cotton
(38pc), aluminium (40pc) iron ore (40pc), coal (42pc), zinc (42pc), lead
(43pc), copper (43pc), and lean-hogs (50pc).
Mr Morse
says China’s growth will slow from 10.5pc to 5.5pc by 2020 - Credit Suisse
thinks it could be as low as 4pc, and the US Conference Board 3.7pc - but the
crucial twist is that appetite for resources will wane as the Politburo calls
time on history’s greatest building boom in history and opts instead for a
modern, sleek, consumer and service-driven economy.
This then
is the argument of the bears, one that many of us will have to grapple with
over coming months. If they are right, it will churn up the global investment
landscape, rippling through the currency markets. Much of the London Stock
Exchange is a resource play, either directly or through Russian and Kazakh
companies and such-like that feed off commodity economies. But are they right?
It is not
entirely clear to me why a such a China would be energy frugal. The country is
to add 125m cars over the next five years, half the entire US fleet, which will
have to be parked in multi-story blocks or below ground. Petrol at the pump
costs 66p a litre, so it is not exactly rationed. (Saudi Arabia is worse of
course: it costs 5p for diesel).
In any
case, the Reserve Bank of Australia -- keenly alert to the China’s story --
disputes the basic premise. It argues in a report that construction will not
peak in absolute terms for another five years as 20m rural migrants pour into
the cities each year. The pace will not slow much until the urbanisation rate
reaches 70pc in 2030.
Hedge Funds Increase Bullish Bets Most Since August: Commodities
By Elizabeth Campbell - Dec 3, 2012 4:15 AM GMT
Hedge funds increased bullish bets on commodities by the most since August
as evidence that China is accelerating outweighed concern that U.S. lawmakers
have yet to resolve an impasse over automatic spending cuts and tax rises. Speculators and money manager increased net-long positions across 18 U.S. futures and options by 9.8 percent to 929,588 contracts in the week ended Nov. 27, the biggest gain since Aug. 21, U.S. Commodity
Futures Trading Commission data show. Gold holdings reached a six-week high, and wagers on a wheat rally jumped the most since June. Cattle bets more than doubled. The Standard & Poor’s GSCI Spot Index of 24 raw materials rose 1.9 percent in November, the first monthly gain since August.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-02/hedge-funds-increase-bullish-bets-most-since-august-commodities.html
"liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate… it will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people."
Andrew Mellon.
The monthly
Coppock Indicators finished November:
DJIA: +103 Up. NASDAQ: +123 Up. SP500: +125 Up. Still time for the
Santa Clause rally?
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