Baltic Dry Index. 905 +35
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
I think the USA
picked me because of my motivational skills. Everyone says they have to work a
lot harder when I'm around.
President Obama,
with apologies to Homer Simpson.
We are at the Greatest Disconnect in history
between global stock markets, fuelled by free money from our delusional central
banksters, still busy blowing their final bubble that will lead to financial catastrophe
when it bursts, stay long fully paid up physical gold and silver for survival, and
an ever growing ugly reality in the real world, all except blinkered central
banksters and their ilk, inhabit. Super material graphene will eventually bail
all of us out, in a new carbon age. But
that’s next decade not this. The biggest bust of all time is about to happen
this decade, as the Fed’s final bubble bursts, and central banksters everywhere
have run out of bullets and clothes.
I
want to share something with you: The three little sentences that will get you
through life. Number 1: Cover for me. Number 2: Oh, good idea, Boss! Number 3:
It was like that when I got here.
Janet
Yellen, with apologies to Homer Simpson.
China Property Failures Seen as $33 Billion in Trusts Due
Jun 19, 2014 5:01 PM GMT
Chinese property trusts face record repayments next year as the real-estate
market cools, fueling speculation among bond funds that more developers will
collapse. The trusts, which channel money from wealthy individuals to smaller builders that have trouble obtaining financing elsewhere, must repay 203.5 billion yuan ($32.7 billion) in 2015, according to Use Trust, a Chinese research firm. That’s almost double the 109 billion yuan due this year. New issuance of the products slumped to 40.7 billion yuan this quarter, the least in more than two years, Use Trust data show.
“Trust loan defaults will rise substantially,” said Fiona Cheung, head of Asia credit at Manulife Asset Management’s fixed-income team which oversees $44 billion globally. “It won’t be surprising if there are more collapses of China’s property companies. Those companies that suffer from weak sales, that bought land too aggressively last year funded by debt and that have poor access to capital markets will potentially experience cash flow pressure.”
JPMorgan Chase & Co. says the real-estate industry poses the biggest near-term risk to growth in the world’s second-largest economy after new home prices dropped in the most cities in two years last month.
More
China Miners’ Loss Is BHP’s Gain as Iron Prices Slump 44%
Jun 20, 2014 3:05 AM GMT
Rio Tinto Group and BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), two of the world’s
biggest iron ore producers, are benefiting as falling iron ore prices pressure smaller rivals in China to
shut down. The price of iron ore has plunged 44 percent from its February 2013 peak on the back of record output. That’s hurting mining companies in China where 20 percent to 30 percent of mines have closed, according to the China Metallurgical Mining Enterprise Association.
The closures are helping Rio Tinto and BHP which, along with Vale SA (VALE5), already control about two thirds of global seaborne supply from their low-cost mines. About $40 billion a year of iron ore is mined in China, the country that’s also the world’s biggest buyer of the steelmaking component.
“Many smaller mines in China have stopped production due to the falling prices,” said Sarah Wang, a Shanghai-based analyst with Masterlink Securities Corp. “It’s the right time for BHP and Rio to seize the opportunity to boost their market share.”
----Iron ore, which entered a bear market in March, this week hit a 21-month low of $89 a dry ton, down from a February 2013 peak of $158.90. Morgan Stanley expects prices to drop as low as $80 in the second half, and will average about $90 next year, according to a June 12 report.
More
Caterpillar Asia Sales Drop Accelerates Amid Mining Cuts
Jun 19, 2014 9:56 PM GMT
Caterpillar
Inc. (CAT), the biggest maker of construction and mining equipment,
reported a steepening decline in retail machine sales in Asia as miners
continue to reduce spending. Dealer sales in the Asia-Pacific region fell 30 percent in the three months through May compared with the same period a year earlier, the Peoria, Illinois-based company said today in a filing. Sales slid 25 percent in the three months through April.
Caterpillar dealers’ global sales slid 12 percent in three months through May, after falling 13 percent in the period through April.
“We believe global numbers will need to show some improvement shortly in order to support the positive move in Caterpillar’s stock year-to-date,” Stephen Volkmann, a New York-based analyst at Jefferies Group LLC who has a hold rating on the shares, said in a report.
There was also bad news for construction machinery in Caterpillar’s latest dealer sales report. For that segment, Asia-Pacific sales were down 8 percent, compared with the 2 percent increase in the three months through April. Construction sales slowed in Latin America and were flat in North America. In Africa, Europe and the Middle East they fell at a slower pace.
Mining companies have slashed spending in the face of lower commodity prices. Caterpillar said in April that large mining-truck sales in the first quarter were down about 80 percent from their 2012 peak. The company has fired workers and shut factories after sales and earnings dropped last year, the first time they’ve declined since 2009.
More
Indonesia Leads Defaults as Bakries Face a Third: Asean Credit
Jun 20,
2014 3:24 AM GMT
Indonesia’s Bakrie
family is seeking to avoid a third default on its companies’ debt in 16 months
as the nation accounts for 74 percent of dollar bond delinquencies in Southeast Asia
since 2008. Coal miner PT Bumi Resources (BUMI) needs at least three quarters of votes at a noon bondholder meeting in Singapore today to approve extending the maturity of $375 million of convertible bonds due in August by seven years, according to a memorandum sent to investors. The company, which was part of a failed venture between the Bakries and U.K. financier Nathaniel Rothschild, missed a June 5 coupon payment and said it probably can’t redeem the notes without the delay.
“The case with Bumi is not reassuring to investors and doesn’t help the image of the country,” Tobias Bettkober, an investment adviser at Holinger Asset Management AG in Zurich, which previously owned the convertibles, said in a June 18 phone interview.
Businesses of the family, which in March completed a $501 million deal to sever ties with Rothschild, have been knocked by falling coal prices and rising interest rates just as its patriarch Aburizal Bakrie was forced to abandon his presidential bid. A failure to repay will see Bumi join seven local companies, including PT Bakrie Telecom and PT Bakrieland Development (ELTY), that missed payments on $1.53 billion of dollar bonds since 2008, compared with the $2.06 billion total in Southeast Asia, Bloomberg-compiled data show.
“The Bumi issue is linked to weak sector sentiment, low coal prices, rising fuel prices and shrinking margins,” Dileep Srivastava, a Bumi Resources director based in Jakarta, said in an e-mailed response to questions yesterday.
More
In the fall of Iraq news, while President Obama
dithers over which side to back, it’s time to rush in 300 US military advisers
to Baghdad, aka Spartans. Now all President Obama needs is 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebans and presumably we are to
witness the restaging of the Battle of Thermopylae.
With dithering like this, how much longer before we
get pictures of hundreds of desperate refugees lined up on the roof of the US
embassy in Baghdad, as US helicopters lift the lucky ones off to waiting
warships in the Persian Gulf. In 1975, a hapless President Ford hadn’t asked or
sought to become President of the USA mired in Vietnam. In 2014, President
Obama has no such excuse. As former Secretary of State, General Colin Powell
stated before the reckless Bush-Blair team rushed into invading Iraq, “you
break it, you own it.” President Obama doesn’t seem familiar with the rules of
ownership. We continue to slide towards
another 1970s type of oil shock.
Operator!
Give me the number for 911!
President
Obama. With apologies to Homer Simpson.
Obama sends U.S. military advisers to Iraq as battle rages over refinery
By Matt Spetalnick and Ghazwan Hassan
WASHINGTON/TIKRIT Iraq (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Thursday he was sending up to 300 U.S. military advisers to Iraq but stressed the need for a political solution to the Iraqi crisis as government forces battled Sunni rebels for control of the country's biggest refinery.
Speaking after a meeting with his national security team, Obama said he was prepared to take "targeted" military action later if deemed necessary, thus delaying but still keeping open the prospect of airstrikes to fend off a militant insurgency. But he insisted that U.S. troops would not return to combat in Iraq.
Obama also delivered a stern message to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on the need to take urgent steps to heal Iraq's sectarian rift, something U.S. officials say the Shi'ite leader has failed to do and which an al Qaeda splinter group leading the Sunni revolt has exploited.
"We do not have the ability to simply solve this problem by sending in tens of thousands of troops and committing the kinds of blood and treasure that has already been expended in Iraq," Obama told reporters. "Ultimately, this is something that is going to have to be solved by the Iraqis."
Obama, who withdrew U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of 2011, said the United States would increase support for Iraq's beleaguered security forces. But he stopped short of acceding to Baghdad's request for the immediate use of U.S. air power against Islamist insurgents who have overrun northern Iraq.
More
Elsewhere, it is almost final act time in eastern
Ukraine. The Penny Packet revolt looks finally to be on its last legs. It is
put up or shut up time for President Putin. My guess from faraway London, is
that Mr. Putin is prepared to play a long game. Once Kiev retakes a sullen,
disaffected eastern Ukraine, somehow bankrupt Kiev must refinance it, and hold
it, as it sucks all the remaining financial aid out of Western Ukraine.
But I’m no
expert. With the USA about to have to return to Mesopotamia or lose it, and
China taking over the South China Sea, Mr Putin and friends, might see this as
the perfect time to advance on America’s puppet “Chocolate King” in Kiev.
Sending a few hundred thousand destitute refugees into Poland, forcing a
Ukraine debt default, wrecking the Ukraine grain crop, and causing food and oil
prices to soar, might seem an attractive way of paying back US sanctions, and America’s
War Party for their botched coup in Kiev. I wonder what the Fed’s talking chair
has to say? Anyone willing to buy Kiev’s bonds outside of the Fed?
'To Start Press Any Key'. Where's the ANY key?
Secretary
of State John Kerry, with apologies to Homer Simpson.
Ukraine rebels speak of heavy losses in battle against government troops
By Aleksandar Vasovic SIVERSK
(Reuters) - Ukrainian troops and
pro-Russian separatists were locked in fierce fighting in the east of Ukraine
on Thursday and a rebel commander acknowledged big losses among separatists
heavily outgunned by government forces.
Even as President Petro
Poroshenko and his team prepared to unveil their blueprint for ending more than
two months of rebellion, government forces, using artillery and heavy armor,
said they were tightening the noose on separatists near Krasny Liman, north of
the main regional hub of Donetsk.
Government forces said the
fighting erupted in the early hours after rebels refused to lay down their arms
as part of Poroshenko's peace plan.
Both Ukrainian government and
rebel accounts of the fighting suggested a major battle involving armored
vehicles including tanks.
One military source said 4,000
separatists were involved, while rebel sources in Donetsk said Ukrainian
infantry supported by 20 tanks and many other armored vehicles were storming
the village of Yampil, about 12 km (7 miles) east of Krasny Liman.
A top rebel commander, Igor
Strelkov, reported "heavy losses" in equipment and arms among the
separatists, faced with a huge superiority in heavy armor on the government
side at Yampil.
"We beat off the first
attack and destroyed one tank. But it is difficult to take on 20 tanks. The
battle is going on. Our people are holding but we can't rule out that they
(government forces) will break through," Strelkov, who is also known as
Girkin, said in a videoed statement. He urged Moscow to "take some
measures".
----Separatist rebellions erupted in eastern Ukraine in early April after street protests in Kiev toppled the Moscow-backed leader Viktor Yanukovich and Russia in turn annexed the Crimean peninsula. Eastern rebels have called for union with Russia.
The violence has cost the lives
of 147 Ukrainian soldiers and wounded 267 up to now, the defense ministry said
on Wednesday. Many scores of separatist militia, civilians and members of other
military bodies such as the national guard have also been killed and the
overall death toll is much higher.
More
Ukraine in talks with creditors on possible debt restructure- IIF
WASHINGTON, June 19(Reuters) - Ukraine is holding talks with creditors on restructuring its foreign currency debts, an official from an international finance association said on Thursday following recent meetings with Ukrainian officials.
Lubomir Mitov, an economist with the Institute of International Finance, said that while Ukraine's finances were precarious, it was too soon to say whether it would need to change the terms of its debt.
Mitov said Ukrainian officials stressed they would avoid forcing any so-called haircuts on bondholders in a restructuring.
"The Ukrainians authorities made very clear to us that they would consider this only as a really, truly voluntary operation agreed by the bondholders," Mitov told journalists by phone. "A voluntary exchange or maturity extension could be one of the sources for financing."
----Mitov said Ukraine is already in a deep recession that could shrink gross domestic product, a measure of total economic output, by 8-10 percent.
Still, he said Ukraine's public
finances will not be poor enough to necessitate a debt restructuring deal until
at least next year. And even then, Kiev might not need a restructuring if it is
able to return to capital markets to raise money, Mitov said.
More
June 19, 2014, 3:18 p.m. EDT Brent oil tops $115 a barrel on Iraq worries
Gasoline futures close at highest level in 11 months
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Brent crude, the global oil benchmark,
on Thursday pushed above $115 a barrel for the first time since September,
boosted by continued worries over Iraq and extended gains after President
Barack Obama said U.S. troops won’t return to combat in the country but that
targeted military strikes are an option.
ICE
August Brent futures UK:LCOQ4
-0.11% rose
to $115.71 a barrel, its highest level since September after Obama’s comments.
Brent ended up 80 cents, or 0.7%, at $115.06 a barrel.
Nymex
July WTI crude CLN4
+0.13% ,
the U.S. benchmark, rose 46 cents to close at $106.43 a barrel, pushing back
toward last week’s high above $107. In energy-product markets, July gasoline RBN4
-0.23% rose
2.73 cents, or 0.9%, to close at $3.1255 a gallon, its highest close since July
16, 2013.
Obama
on Thursday said the U.S. is prepared to take targeted military action in Iraq
if warranted and that the U.S. would send up to 300 military advisers to the country. He insisted,
however, that U.S. troops won’t be returning to combat in the country.
The
U.S. footprint “in that area is getting bigger and bigger,” said Robert Yawger,
director for energy futures at Mizuho Securities, in a phone interview. That
adds to uncertainty over the situation, which in turn feeds the building of a
risk premium in oil prices
More
Never
believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.
Count
Otto von Bismarck.
At the Comex silver depositories Thursday final figures were: Registered 57.06
Moz, Eligible 118.27 Moz, Total 175.33 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, so you really think that nuclear power is a good idea? To err is human as they say. How much longer before China or India follows Japan (Fukishima,) Russia (Chernobyl,) the UK (Sellafield,) or the USA (Three Mile Island,) into a nuclear “accident.” Below, how not to weaponise anthrax. Where does Homer Simpson work, again? Don’t tell Dr. Meechan, but his people just were put “at risk.”
Today, so you really think that nuclear power is a good idea? To err is human as they say. How much longer before China or India follows Japan (Fukishima,) Russia (Chernobyl,) the UK (Sellafield,) or the USA (Three Mile Island,) into a nuclear “accident.” Below, how not to weaponise anthrax. Where does Homer Simpson work, again? Don’t tell Dr. Meechan, but his people just were put “at risk.”
“We will not let
our people be at risk."
Dr. Paul Meechan, director of the environmental
health and safety compliance office at the CDC.
Exclusive: U.S. says government lab workers possibly exposed to anthrax
By Julie Steenhuysen
As many as 75 scientists and
staff in U.S. government laboratories in Atlanta may have been exposed to live
anthrax bacteria after researchers failed to follow safety procedures,
prompting an investigation by federal authorities.
Researchers working in a
high-security bioterror response lab at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention were preparing inactivated samples of the deadly organism, the
CDC said on Thursday. But the bacteria may still have been infectious when the
samples were transferred to lower-security CDC labs not equipped to handle live
anthrax.
Two of the three labs conducted
research that may have aerosolized the spores, the CDC said. The agency first
detected the exposure on June 13, when live bacteria were found on the original
slides used by scientists. Environmental sampling was done and the lab areas
remain closed for decontamination.
"No employee has shown any
symptoms of anthrax illness," Dr. Paul Meechan, director of the
environmental health and safety compliance office at the CDC, told Reuters.
"This should not have happened," he said. For those exposed,
"we're taking care of it. We will not let our people be at risk."
More
Uruguay 2 - 1 England
Embarrassed,
error-strewn and slain by a player who was in a wheelchair a month ago, England
are deservedly on the brink of eviction from this epic World
Cup. Chastened, crushed and ultimately devoid of ideas and hopes, Roy Hodgson still argued he was the man to
lead England to Euro 2016. “I don’t have any intention of resigning,’’ he said
at the end of a desperate evening.
More
I'm
normally not a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me Superman.
Roy
Hodgson, with apologies to Homer Simpson.
Have a great weekend everyone.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished May
DJIA: +181 Down. NASDAQ: +340 Down. SP500: +246 Down. Crisis? What crisis?
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