Wednesday, 11 March 2015

Grate Britain.



Baltic Dry Index. 568 Unch.    Brent Crude 56.83

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

You can't keep blaming yourself. Just blame yourself once, and move on.

The Fedsters. With apologies to a real worker Homer Simpson.

For more on modern Grate Britain, scroll down to Crooks Corner and an update on Lincolnshire’s Police.

We open today with the Great Global Economic Wobble intensifying. Is the Great Reconnect between the new central bankster stock market bubbles and reality, now underway? A spectacular stock market crash lies ahead if it is, followed by an oil and commodities crash. Expect the Baltic Dry Index to make new lows. Expect retail sales to plunge in Europe and America.

Below, the global economy at the precipice.  Print more! Print more!

If they think I'm going to stop at that stop sign, they're sadly mistaken!

The Washington talking chair. With apologies.

The blistering pace of dollar’s rally is rattling markets

Published: Mar 10, 2015 2:07 p.m. ET

White House fretting about ‘headwinds’

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — It’s probably not the dollar’s unrelenting march higher that is unsettling U.S. stock investors, but it might be the speed of the rally.

“I think what people are concerned about is the pace of the dollar strength,” Douglas Borthwick, managing director at Chapdelaine Foreign Exchange, in a phone interview, on Tuesday.

“Countries can always adapt to currencies strengthening or weakening, but certainly as the dollar strengthens very, very quickly it leaves very little chance for others to adapt,” he said.

On a trade-weighted basis, the dollar remains far from its highs in the mid-1980s and early 2000s, but the pace of the rise over the past half year is the second fastest in the last 40 years, noted David Woo, forex strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, in a note (see chart below).

The ICE dollar index DXY, +0.03%  , a measure of the U.S. unit against a basket of six major rivals, is up 9% since the end of last year alone to trade at its highest level since late 2003. U.S. stocks dipped significantly, leaving the S&P 500 SPX, -1.70%   down 0.9% and within a whisker of erasing its 2015 gain after clawing back some of its earlier decline.

The long-term correlation between the direction of the dollar and the S&P 500 is near zero, analysts note. But there have been periods when the dollar and stocks marched either in lock step or in opposite directions for significant periods.

In the end, it all seems to come down to context. If the dollar rises because investors are confident about the future of the economy, then stocks can rise, too, as was the case in the late 1990s.

If the dollar is rising because investors are frightened and scrambling for safety, then it is no surprise that stocks and other assets perceived as risky tend to suffer, such as during the 2008 financial crisis. See: The reason a strong dollar is hurting stocks right now.
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Asian Stocks Track U.S. Drop After Dollar Gains on Rate Concerns

12:11 AM GMT March 11, 2015
(Bloomberg) -- Asian stocks fell, following a slump in U.S. equities, after the dollar gained amid speculation the Federal Reserve is moving closer to raising interest rates.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index retreated 0.4 percent to 142.17 as of 9:02 a.m. in Tokyo, with materials companies leading declines as all 10 industry groups fell. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slipped 1.7 percent on Tuesday, the biggest drop in two months, as the dollar surged to near a 12-year high versus the euro. China releases data from retail sales to factory output today.

“Rates are moving soon,” said Evan Lucas, Melbourne-based market strategist at IG Ltd., a provider of trading services in equities, currencies and commodities. “The jobs report on Friday has awoken the currency markets to this fact and the equity market is now feeling the early effects of what to come.”

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said the central bank should begin to raise rates as the labor market improves. While policy makers from Sydney to Frankfurt are moving toward looser monetary policy, the Fed stands out in accepting a higher exchange rate as a sign of economic strength.
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Chinese Factory Data Shows Weakest Start in Six Years

5:41 AM GMT  March 11, 2015
(Bloomberg) -- China’s industrial output, investment and retail sales growth missed analysts’ estimates in January and February, suggesting more stimulus may be needed to boost the world’s second-largest economy.

Factory production rose 6.8 percent in the two-month period from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said in Beijing Wednesday, compared with the median projection for 7.7 percent in a Bloomberg survey. Retail sales advanced 10.7 percent, while fixed-asset investment increased 13.9 percent.

Premier Li Keqiang last week set the nation’s 2015 expansion target at about 7 percent, the slowest in more than 15 years, as China’s leaders grapple with the debt, pollution and corruption spurred in a three-decade-long economic boom. The central bank has sought to cushion the slowdown with two interest rate cuts and one reduction to banks’ reserve requirements in the past four months.

“With January-February data revealing weakening economic momentum and mounting deflationary pressure, policy easing has been hastened,” Wang Tao, chief China economist at UBS Group AG in Hong Kong, wrote in a research note before the data release.

China combines data for industrial output, retail sales and fixed-asset investment for January and February due to distortions from the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday, which has different timings. This year, the holiday started Feb. 18.
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Global markets sell-off as the world drowns in oil

An upgrade to US oil production and Opec holding firm on output sends the oil price and global markets tumbling

Global financial markets have taken fright at yet more signs that the hammered oil price will not make a swift recovery.

The markets reacted to the US revising its crude oil production upwards for 2015 and signs that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will maintain production at current levels.

The commodity–heavy FTSE 100 dropped 173.63 points – or 2.5pc – to 6,702.84, wiping almost £47bn off the value of the country's biggest companies.

It meant the UK's bluechip index, dragged down by oil producers and mining companies, recorded its worst falls of the year.

Brent crude, the benchmark made of oil from 15 North Sea fields against which almost half the world's petroleum is priced, was down by $1.86 (£1.23) per barrel, or 3.3pc, to $56.7.

West Texas Intermediate, another major benchmark for the US oil market, also slumped back below $50 per barrel, to $48.7 per barrel.

The US Energy Information Agency said on Tuesday it expects total oil production in 2015 to be 9.35m barrels per day, slightly higher than the 9.3 million bpd in last month's short-term energy outlook.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is now expected to hold firm on oil production policy at its next meeting in June unless non-OPEC members agree to reduce output, according to Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, Qatar's former minister of energy and industry, said at the Doha Energy Forum.
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If you really want something in this life you have to work for it. Now quiet, they're about to announce the lottery numbers.

Mario Draghi, with apologies.

At the Comex silver depositories Tuesday final figures were: Registered 68.86 Moz, Eligible 108.58 Moz, Total 177.33 Moz.  

Crooks and Scoundrels Corner

The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.

Today, welcome to modern dumbed down, police state, formerly Great, now the Nanny state, Grate Britain. President Putin must be rolling in the aisles. Still the peonage of Grate Britain can take little comfort from the fact that UK cops are still willing to bravely go one on one, unarmed, with the UK’s four year olds. Money laundering banksters, out of the question. Should this moron really be a policeman in Lincolnshire? Anywhere?

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Sophie remarked.
"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Lincolnshire policeman: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said 4 year old Sophie.
"You must be," said the dumb policeman, "or you wouldn’t have come to Lincolnshire.”

With apologies to Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Police warn four-year-old girl for riding on the pavement

'Daft' officer made her get off and threatened to confiscate her bike

A police officer threatened to confiscate a four-year-old's bike because she was riding on the pavement.

Sophie Lindley, who uses stabilisers, was cycling with her father, Dale, when an officer pulled up and told her she had to get off as she was breaking the law.

She was left in floods of tears and had to be carried to school.

Mr Lindley, 35, said he was astonished, branding the policeman "daft"

He told the BBC: "We stopped to look at some ducks when the officer pulled over and said she had to get off.

"He said 'The law is the law' and she was not allowed to ride on the path.

"He said 'If I catch you put her on her bike further up the road I will turn around and confiscate the bike'.

"I couldn't believe it."

Sophie's mother, Emma Stephenson, 34, said she understood it was illegal to ride on the pavement.
But she added: "You can’t expect a four-year-old to ride in the road, it’s not exactly safe. And she has the lead and wears a helmet.

"The most unbelievable thing is they were going to confiscate the bike."

The family does not have a car and regularly let Sophie cycle the two mile journey from their home to school in Grantham, Lincs.

Although cycling on pavements is illegal, officers are expected to use discretion with young children.
Lincolnshire Police apologised and said: "Safety is our priority and cycling on the pavement is illegal.

"However, common sense obviously prevails and in the case of young children officers should use their discretion and offer the most appropriate advice for the circumstances."

Roger Geffen, of national charity Cyclists' Touring Club, said the officer was "wrong".

"The police officer has forgotten that children under the age of 10 are below the criminal age of responsibility so they can't break laws and can technically ride on the pavement," he said.

"Everyone lets their children ride on the pavement. It is perfectly normal and not criminal."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/11460844/Police-warn-four-year-old-girl-for-riding-on-the-pavement.html

Below, Lincolnshire Police. Putting the Grate into Great Britain. Less PRIDE more common sense needed.

Lincolnshire Police. “policing with PRIDE.”

Chief Constable

Neil Rhodes took up his role as Chief Constable of Lincolnshire, marking the culmination of his police career which began when he joined Lincolnshire in 1986. Neil was born and brought up in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, in a family with a mining and steel working background. He left school aged 16, with a handful of ‘O’ levels and worked for South Yorkshire County Council in an office based job. He spent a year travelling and working abroad before joining Lincolnshire.

During 15 years with Lincolnshire Police he progressed from Constable to Superintendent, working across the county as a patrol officer, a detective and in roads policing before joining Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary at superintendent rank.

---- During the course of his police career he has improved his educational qualifications.  In addition to the normal police examinations, he has a law degree (University of London) and a Masters degree in criminology (University of Cambridge).

Nationally, he holds the performance and courts portfolios in the ACPO Criminal Justice Business Area and the Crime Information portfolio in the Performance Management Business Area, being the ACPO lead for the countrywide adoption of Crime Mapper.
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“My dear, here  in Lincolnshire we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.”

Chief Constable Neil Rhodes. With apologies to Lewis Carroll.

The monthly Coppock Indicators finished February

DJIA: +120 Down. NASDAQ: +213 Down. SP500: +169 Down.  

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