Baltic Dry Index. 1186 -19
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
The English have no exalted sentiments. They can all be bought.
Napoleon
For more on
God and Englishmen, scroll down to Crooks Corner. My thanks to LIR reader and
long standing friend Dennis in Connecticut for the link.
Below, from
east to west, the Great Global Wobble intensifies. Today we take a break from
America’s War Party and their botched Coup in Kiev. Besides, they now seem to
want a fight with China as well. Today more on our new lawless and thoughtless
age.
England: a good land and a bad
people.
French saying.
Asian Stocks Fall Second Day as Health-Care Shares Drop
Apr 8, 2014 5:30 AM GMT
Asian stocks
fell for a second day, following the biggest three-day rout in U.S. shares in
more than two months, as health-care to technology companies retreated in Japan. Chinese
equities rose.
----The MSCI Asia Pacific Index declined 0.4 percent to 138.02 as of 12:28 p.m. in Hong Kong as eight of the 10 industry groups on the gauge retreated. Investors are selling technology and telecommunication firms across the region, paring holdings in Internet companies that have led gains in global equities during the past 12 months.
“Equity valuations have peaked and markets will trade nervously going forward,” said John Vail, Tokyo-based chief global strategist at Nikko Asset Management Co., which manages about $157 billion.
There is “accelerating deterioration of China’s economy and financial system and subpar U.S. and Japanese economic growth.”
The MSCI World Index of developed-market stocks reached 15.4 times estimated earnings this month, compared with its average multiple of 13.8 over the past five years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
More
U.S. Treasury Warns Against China Reviving Yuan Controls
Apr
7, 2014 10:27 PM GMT
A backtracking by China in its commitment to move toward a market-determined
exchange
rate for the yuan
would provoke serious concern in the Obama administration, a U.S. Treasury
official said. China allowed the yuan to depreciate before widening the exchange-rate band on March 17. The changes occurred as China continued to build current-account surpluses, accumulate excessive foreign reserves and attract significant net foreign-direct investment, the official said today on condition of anonymity.
Since the start of this year, the People’s Bank of China has guided a 2.5 percent loss on the yuan to help curb speculative bets on appreciation of the currency, according to Nomura Holdings Inc.
The U.S. will continue to work with other countries to impose additional costs on Russia if President Vladimir Putin’s government takes further action in violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, the official said, speaking before meetings in Washington this weekend of global finance officials.
The U.S. is advocating a diplomatic solution and de-escalation of the crisis in Ukraine, the official said, warning that further escalation could be disruptive to the global economy.
More
7 April 2014, 10:05
China warns US not to 'interfere in
Hong Kong affairs' over democratic reform
China has cautioned the United States not to meddle in Hong Kong affairs after Vice President Joseph Biden met two prominent pro-democracy advocates who have warned of Beijing's tightening control of the territory, state news agency Xinhua said, as reported by Reuters news agency.
China has cautioned the United States not to meddle in Hong Kong affairs after Vice President Joseph Biden met two prominent pro-democracy advocates who have warned of Beijing's tightening control of the territory, state news agency Xinhua said, as reported by Reuters news agency.
A former British colony that reverted to Chinese rule in 1997, Hong Kong enjoys considerable autonomy and broad freedoms as a capitalist hub.
But it has been locked in a lengthy battle with Beijing's leaders
to push through reforms that could culminate in a direct election of its leader
in 2017.
Tension has grown over China's meddling in Hong Kong affairs as
well as a proposal that all candidates in the 2017 poll be vetted by a panel
stacked with Beijing loyalists, which would essentially keep opposition
candidates out of the running.
Anson Chan, a respected former senior Hong Kong official, and
Martin Lee, one of the founders of the main opposition Democratic Party, met
Biden at the White House last Friday, in one of the most high-profile attempts
to flag such concerns internationally.
But the United States must "refrain from interfering",
Xinhua quoted an official of the Foreign Commissioner's office in Hong Kong as
saying.
more
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_07/China-warns-US-not-to-interfere-in-Hong-Kong-affairs-over-democratic-reform-3850/more
Below, presented
with no need for a comment from me on the silliest statement of the year so
far.
Tencent Rallies as Buyback Spurs Bets $32 Billion Rout Overdone
Apr 8,
2014 4:03 AM GMT
Tencent
Holdings Ltd. (700) rallied for the first time in five days after the
company bought its own shares in the open market, spurring speculation that a
$32 billion rout in the stock during the past month is overdone. Tencent climbed 3.2 percent to HK$517 at 10:44 a.m. in Hong Kong, after a 21 percent tumble from its March 6 record sent the shares to a two-month low yesterday. Asia’s largest Internet company purchased HK$76.7 million ($9.9 million) of shares yesterday, according to an exchange filing today.
“The share buyback is definitely a positive signal for investors as this means the company is optimistic about the future, else it wouldn’t have bought them now,” Hu Jiaming, an analyst at Capital Securities Corp. in Shanghai, said by phone.
More
Below, the
banksters are gun shy of lawsuits and start to pay out and pay off. And why
not? It’s only fiat money and there’s plenty more going free at the central
banks, if you know the right guys and gals.
FAY: The British police force used to
be run by men of integrity.
TRUSCOTT: That is a mistake which has
been rectified.
Joe Orton, playwright, Loot, 1966.
Barclays Settles U.K. Libor Case Weeks Before Trial to Start
Apr 8,
2014 1:01 AM GMT
Barclays
Plc (BARC) settled the first U.K. lawsuit filed over allegations the bank
manipulated Libor, weeks before the trial was scheduled to start. Barclays agreed to restructure the debt of Graiseley Properties Ltd., which filed the lawsuit, as part of the settlement, Barclays said in a statement yesterday. The company, part of the Guardian elderly care homes group, was seeking to rescind interest-rate hedging contracts linked to Libor.
The settlement spares the bank a trial that would have featured testimony from former Barclays officials, including ex-Chief Executive Officer Bob Diamond. Banks including Barclays, UBS AG (UBSN) and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc have been fined a total of about $6 billion for manipulating the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, and related benchmarks that underpinned about $300 trillion worth of transactions worldwide.
“In order to support the ongoing viability of Graiseley’s care home business, the parties have agreed to a commercial restructuring of Graiseley’s debt, which reflects the impact of changes in conditions in this sector over the last few years,” London-based Barclays said in a statement. “Graiseley has withdrawn the litigation.”
More
Citigroup Reaches $1.13 Billion Pact Over Mortgage Bonds
Apr 8, 2014 5:00 AM GMT
Citigroup
Inc. (C) agreed to pay $1.13 billion to settle claims from mortgage-bond
investors as it seeks to curb liabilities tied to the financial crisis. It took
a $100 million first-quarter charge. The 68 securitization trusts covered by the settlement issued a combined $59.4 billion in mortgage-backed securities from 2005 to 2008, the New York-based bank said yesterday in a statement. The agreement covers 18 investors represented by Gibbs & Bruns LLP and trustees have until June 30 to accept the deal, the law firm said in a separate statement. The accord must be approved by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Citigroup, the third-biggest U.S. bank, is resolving a portion of liabilities tied to mortgages it packaged and sold to investors in the run-up to the 2008 crisis. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC), the two largest U.S. lenders, previously agreed to multibillion-dollar settlements with Gibbs & Bruns clients.
“This settlement resolves a significant legacy issue from the financial crisis and we are pleased to put it behind us,” Citigroup said in its statement.
---- The agreement
would release Citigroup’s obligation to repurchase loans sold to the trusts,
according to the bank’s statement. It doesn’t prevent investors from claiming
misrepresentations on offering documents or other potential regulatory actions.
More
In more on
our new lawless age, the SEC says the Great Vampire Squids steal, rape and
pillage. Welcome to Wall Street 21st century style. Is anyone really
surprised? But has the SEC heard of disgorgement, or Obama’s DOJ heard of the
RICO laws? How about sending Bernie Madoff’s JPM enablers, inside as well. With
about another 148 years to go, Bernie could probably do with some company. How
about sending along an Alan, Ben and Janet, the Bernie’s of this world real
enablers.
Old Ebenezer Squid had one-way pockets. He would
walk ten miles in the snow to chisel an orphan out of tuppence.
With
apologies to P.G. Wodehouse and the Duke of Dunstable
Bogus Private-Equity Fees Said Found at 200 Firms by SEC
Apr 7, 2014 10:03 PM GMT
A majority of private-equity firms inflate fees and expenses charged to
companies in which they hold stakes, according to an internal review by the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, raising the prospect of a wave of
sanctions by the agency. More than half of about 400 private-equity firms that SEC staff have examined have charged unjustified fees and expenses without notifying investors, according to a person with knowledge of the SEC’s findings who asked not to be named because the results aren’t public. While some of the problems appear to have resulted from error, some may have been deliberate, the person said.
The SEC’s review of the $3.5 trillion private-equity industry began after the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act authorized greater oversight of money managers, putting many firms under the agency’s scrutiny for the first time. By December 2012, examiners had found that some advisers were miscalculating fees, improperly collecting money from companies in their portfolio and using the fund’s assets to cover their own expenses.
“A lot of the practices, in the eyes of the SEC, raise conflicts,” said Barry Barbash, co-head of the asset-management group at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP in Washington. “The SEC wants those conflicts aired out and wants certain practices ultimately changed, and I’m sure we’re going to see it.”
More
Up next,
Bloomberg reports that average US onshore wind power, now costs the same as the
natural gas worldwide price and without subsidies. Whither Old King Coal?
U.S. Wind Power Blows New Records. Again. And Again.
Apr 7, 2014 1:58 PM GMT
Wind was responsible for 4.8 percent
of America’s electricity used in January. That’s the highest January total
ever, breaking the record from last January, which broke the record for the
January before that, and so on. The chart below shows the latest data from the
U.S. Energy Information Association.
America’s rising wind power feels
unstoppable. That’s because in many areas of the country wind has reached an
important tipping point: becoming cheaper than coal and natural gas. In fact,
states getting the most electricity from wind include gas-rich Texas, Oklahoma
and Colorado.
Onshore wind power has come of
age, and not just in the U.S. This next chart shows the levelized cost of
energy worldwide, using data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). Average
onshore wind power now costs the same as gas worldwide, at about $84 per
megawatt hour. That’s without subsidies.
More
While Uncle
Sam asks Germany and eastern EU Europe to commit national suicide, and freeze
out purchases of Russian natural gas in favour of LNG at twice the price, not
that the existing infrastructure can handle the switch, America flares off
unwanted natural gas, polluting the planet in the process. It’s a funny old
world on the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money and the increasingly unfit for
purpose dollar reserve standard.
A Landscape of Fire Rises Over North Dakota’s Gas Fields
Apr 7, 2014 9:39 PM GMT
Towering flames atop oil wells break the
inky darkness in the badlands on North Dakota’s Fort Berthold Indian
Reservation. The flares of natural gas set grass fires on the prairie where
Theodora Bird Bear’s ancestors hunted buffalo and create a driving hazard on
rural roads.
“At nighttime, clouds of gravel dust from semis are lit up with flaring lights,” said Bird Bear, 62, who can see flames shooting from a well behind land where she grows red beans, corn and squash. “It’s a hellish scene.”
Twice as much natural gas is wasted through flaring than in 2012 amid an energy boom that’s propelled North Dakota’s torrid economic growth. The state’s employment expansion has been the fastest in the U.S. for four years. In the rush to exploit the Bakken shale formation, which holds the nation’s second-largest oil supply, companies from Statoil ASA (STL) to Whiting Petroleum Co. are stepping in to try to capture more of what’s lost.
Natural gas burned in flaring is a byproduct of crude oil. Without enough pipelines to transport the gas, or the refinery capacity to process it, about a third of what’s released each day, worth $1.4 million, goes up in smoke. Tribal members say as much as 70 percent of gas from wells on the reservation is flared.
“We’re confessing that we are flaring a tremendous amount of gas right now,” Governor Jack Dalrymple, a Republican, said at a Bloomberg Link Conference, Energy 2020, in Washington on Feb. 24. “Everybody feels it’s a huge waste, to say nothing of the environmental impact.”
---- As a polar
vortex weather pattern caused a nationwide propane shortage this winter, energy
companies in the Bakken flared gas rich in propane. On a percentage basis, more
gas was flared in the state than in any other domestic oil field and at a level
equal to Russia and twice
that in Nigeria.
More
We end for
the day staying with energy, and with bad news for fracking everywhere.
Oklahoma just got a bad case of the fracking shakes. Gazprom and Qatar will be now
funding anti-frackers everywhere, and not just in the UK and Europe.
Englishmen never will be slaves; they
are free to do whatever the government and public opinion allow them.
George Bernard Shaw, Man and
Superman, 1903
Oklahoma Swamped by Surge in Earthquakes Near Fracking
Apr 8,
2014 12:31 AM GMT
There have been more earthquakes strong enough to be felt in Oklahoma this
year than in all of 2013, overwhelming state officials who are trying to
determine if the temblors are linked to oil and natural gas production. The state on April 6 experienced its 109th earthquake of a magnitude 3 or higher, matching the total for all of 2013, according to Austin Holland, a research seismologist with the Oklahoma Geological Survey. More quakes followed, including a magnitude 4 near Langston about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of Oklahoma City.
A surge in U.S. oil and gas production by fracturing, or fracking, in which drillers use a mix of water and chemicals to coax liquids from rock formations, has generated large volumes of wastewater. As fracking expanded to more fields, reports have become more frequent from Texas to Ohio of earthquakes linked to wells that drillers use to pump wastewater underground.
“We certainly likely have cases of earthquakes being caused by different oil and gas activity,” Holland said in an interview. “Evaluating those carefully can take significant amounts of time, especially when we’re swamped.”
Within the past year, earthquakes thought to be tied to wastewater disposal wells were recorded in Azle, Texas; Jones, Oklahoma; and northeastern Ohio, according to Art McGarr, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California.
Pumping fracking wastewater underground has been linked to a sixfold jump in quakes in the central U.S. from 2000 to 2011, according to the science agency, part of the Interior Department.
State regulators last year
curtailed operations at one Love County injection well and shut down a second
after a series of earthquakes in the area, according to Matt Skinner, a
spokesman with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. State officials are analyzing
a swarm of earthquakes in the past 10 days near Langston, he said.
“This is the area we’re most
concerned about,” Skinner said in an interview “We do have injection wells in
the area.”
Chad Warmington, president of the
Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association of Oklahoma, an industry group, did not
respond to a request for comment.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-07/oklahoma-swamped-by-surge-in-earthquakes-near-fracking.html
We know of no spectacle so ridiculous
as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, British
historian. 1831.
At the Comex
silver depositories Tuesday
final figures were: Registered 53.44 Moz, Eligible 124.91 Moz, Total 178.35 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, the end of the world is nigh! Our world is turned upside down! A New York Yankee who thinks he’s an Englishman, aims to become a Scotchman in the Cotswolds, after Scotland becomes a Greek Iceland, after independence this coming September! Proof God must be an Englishman after all.
By means of
glasses, hotbeds, and hotwalls, very good grapes can be raised in Scotland, and
very good wine too can be made of them at about thirty times the expense for
which at least equally good can be brought from foreign countries. Would it be
a reasonable law to prohibit the importation of all foreign wines, merely to
encourage the making of claret and burgundy in Scotland?
Adam Smith. The
Wealth Of Nations, Book IV
Whisky business! Englishman is distilling ultra-premium single malt in COTSWOLDS farm house
- Daniel Szor will distil Cotswolds Single Malt in Stourton, Warwickshire
- Has imported a master distiller from Scotland and a wood consultant to help
- Was looking at the barley in his garden and thought 'I could distill that'
- Spring water from Oxfordshire will be used to add a local touch
- Hopes to produce 120,000 bottles a year with £44.95 pricetag
- 'To us Scotland is not intimidating, it is a road to follow,' he says
A
British man is now claiming Scotland's proudest creation: Whisky.
Entrepreneur Daniel Szor, 51, plans to produce ultra-premium, small batch single malt whisky from his plant in the Cotswolds.
By 2017, visitors to the area could be enjoying a glass of Cotswolds Single Malt - for the price of £44.95 per bottle.
By then, Mr Szor aims to have his first run of 5,000 'single estate' bottles ready. Yet three years before the launch, he is already taking orders of the whisky.
Mr Szor is renovating two Cotswolds stone buildings at Stourton, near Shipston, in Warkwickshire to equip as the distillery, tasting rooms and offices.
He has also imported a Scotsman to help him with the job - master distiller Harry Cockburn and a wood and ageing consultant, Jim Swan, has also been brought on board.
As well as whisky, the distillery will also make dry gin and a range of brandies and liqueurs made from local fruits and berries.
By September this year, Mr Szor hopes to begin producing his first bottles and in the summer of 2015 gin from the distillery will go on sale.
The distillery will also create a rye whisky called Traitor's Ford Rye after a local landmark associated with the English Civil war.
Mr Szor said:'We are excited to be creating an adventurous new landmark for the region and for English whisky.'
The idea was born out of a passion for single malt. 'I was very much charmed by the Scottish and their production.
'I really didn't want to sit behind a desk any more so I thought to myself 'what else can I do?'
'I just happened to be looking out of the window at our Cotswolds house and I saw a beautiful field full of barley and thought I could distil that,' he said.
And all of the ingredients used in the distillery will be from the Cotswolds.
The businessman bought his first cast of the spirit in 2002, at the newly reopened Bruichladdich distillery on Islay.
Over time, Daniel, who is originally from New York, watched a number of whisky distilleries open, and grow from strength to strength, inspiring him to start his own operation.
He plans to use locally sourced ingredients in his production, and has already pre-purchased 20 tonnes of barely from a nearby farm.
Cotswolds water will also feature as one of the main ingredients, and bottles of both single-malt and gin will be finished off with speciality water bought in from Blenheim, Oxfordshire.
But although Scotland is the country behind whisky, Mr Szor said he does not find its reputation for the drink intimidating, instead, he plans to follow the Scottish lead.
From
the Warwickshire site, he hopes to produce around 120,000 bottles of whisky a
year.
----Hundreds of miles away in Fife, another unlikely entrepreneur has had a bright idea: to create the first bottle of Scottish wine.
In September, in Upper Largo, some 40 miles from Edinburgh, weather dependant, Scotland's first grapes will be harvested.
By summer 2015, Christopher Trotter, the man behind the Scottish wine, will be enjoying a bottle of Chateau Largo - created off the A197.
Chateau Largo will be a medium dry white wine - with a similar taste to Chardonnay or Riesling.
The project of bringing wine to Scotland began with a throwaway comment when a friend of Mr Trotter's said that if climate change continued, Fife would be the same temperature as the Loire valley within 20 years.
Thanks to another friend who supported the project financially, Mr Trotter was able to bring 100 vines from Ryedale in North Yorkshire to Scotland.
He is growing three grape varieties: Solaris, Siegerrebe and Rondo - all of which originate from Germany.
The grapes were chosen because they can all be harvested in September before temperatures drop
More
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
What profit hath a man
of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
King James Bible.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished March
DJIA: +197 Down. NASDAQ: +357 Up. SP500: +254 Down.
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