Baltic Dry Index. 592 -14 Brent Crude 66.36
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
Every
generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before
it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
George
Orwell.
It is the Friday before Whitsun. The Friday before the US Memorial Day holiday. The Friday before the Monaco Grand Prix. The Friday before the Indy 500. Will Greece still be in the dying, wealth destroying euro come Tuesday? The long weekend beckons. Time to poke Germany in the eye? Das boot?
"When it becomes serious, you have to lie"
Jean-Claude Juncker. Failed Luxembourg Prime Minister and ex-president of the Euro Group of Finance Ministers. Confessed liar. EC President.
Jean-Claude Juncker. Failed Luxembourg Prime Minister and ex-president of the Euro Group of Finance Ministers. Confessed liar. EC President.
The Only Three People Worth Listening to on Greece
12:01 AM BST May 22, 2015As Greece hurtles toward another denouement, figuring out who to listen to can be a challenge.
One minute Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is moving Greek bond yields by saying a deal is imminent. The next, his claims are being shot down by Germany’s Wolfgang Schaeuble. The result has pushed securities this way and that while giving few clues as to how the crisis will eventually play out.
The trick, say economists from ING Diba in Frankfurt to Berenberg Bank in London, is to focus on the people who exercise true power over the euro region’s bond and currency markets right now: Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi.
“You’ll have to take your guidance from these three,” ING Diba’s chief economist, Carsten Brzeski, said in a telephone interview. “While Merkel is keeping a low profile with her comments, she plays a crucial role.”
In charge of Europe’s economic powerhouse for a decade, Merkel has been around since the opening act of the Greek crisis and will be critical in deciding how it ends, juggling voter saturation at subsidizing Greece with the desire to avoid a breakup of the euro. Leading the opposite camp is Tsipras, playing hardball to end the austerity, humiliation and suffering of the Greeks. In the middle, the Italian-born central banker is doing whatever it takes to preserve the euro.
While finance ministers, ECB officials and even rank-and-file lawmakers keep investors on their toes with their prognostications of where the talks between Greece and its creditors are heading, it’s this trio making the weather.
----The Tsipras effect on the markets has been tangible since Dec. 8, when then-Prime Minister Antonis Samaras called a key vote in parliament that went on to trigger a snap election. The Athens stock market tumbled 13 percent the day after that decision, the most in 27 years. Greek stocks and bonds have both accumulated losses of 18 percent in total since then.
Since Tsipras’s emergence, Draghi has encouraged investors to tune out more radical voices while maintaining the pressure on Greece by rationing the emergency liquidity sustaining the country’s banking system. While the goal of his quantitative-easing program was to boost inflation across the euro area, it has also cushioned all non-Greek bond markets against the turmoil in Greece.
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-21/the-only-three-people-worth-listening-to-on-greece
Will it make much difference if they remain in the euro?
U.S., euro zone business growth slower, China contracts
LONDON/NEW YORK |
U.S. and euro zone business
growth slowed in May while China's factory sector contracted again, reinforcing
the need for major central banks to continue supporting economic growth.
The U.S. Federal Reserve is seen
unlikely to tighten monetary policy in June since the world's biggest economy
barely grew at the start of the year.
Growth in euro zone business
activity also weakened in May, just two months after the European Central Bank
launched a 1-trillion-euro stimulus program, and an absence of inflation
pressures suggested Asian authorities could inject more stimulus if needed.
"The May (Purchasing
Managers' Index) surveys were broadly disappointing although nothing terribly
bad," said Richard Kelly, head of global strategy at TD Securities.
"There is no question the
ECB is going to continue with quantitative easing up until September 2016.
China is just starting the amount of additional liquidity and stimulus that
will be needed to safely rebalance the economy," he said.
U.S. FACTORY GROWTH SLOWS FOR
SECOND MONTH
Growth in the U.S. manufacturing
sector slowed for a second straight month during May, with new orders rising at
their slowest pace since January 2014, private data vendor Markit said on
Thursday.
The preliminary U.S.
Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index fell to 53.8 in May from the final
April reading of 54.1, although the sector's jobs growth picked up this month
from April.
Economists polled by Reuters had
forecast the May reading would be 54.5. A figure above 50 indicates expansion in
the sector.
The index's flash output
component fell to 55 from the final April reading of 55.3, and was the lowest
since December 2014. The flash reading of the index measuring new orders also
weakened in May, to 54.2 from April's final 55.3.
Morehttp://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/21/us-global-economy-idUSKBN0O60H020150521
China, India likely to be largest shareholders of AIIB: sources
China will likely take a 25-30
percent stake in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and India is
likely to be the second-largest shareholder, delegates attending a meeting of
the bank's founding members said on Friday.
China's share in the $100 billion
lender will be less than 30 percent, an Asian delegate attending the meeting in
Singapore told Reuters.
A second delegate said India's
share will be between 10 to 15 percent. Both spoke on condition of anonymity.
In all, Asian countries will own
between 72-75 percent of the bank, while European and other nations will own
the rest.
The three-day meeting of the
China-backed AIIB is aimed at finalizing the draft of articles of agreement
that would decide the share of member countries and the bank's initial capital.
A third delegate said the talks
have ended and now each country representative would take the proposals back to
their governments for a final decision.
There was no immediate comment
from the AIIB or Chinese officials on the discussions in Singapore.
A total of 57 countries have
joined AIIB as its prospective founding members, throwing together countries as
diverse as Iran, Israel, Britain and Laos.
The United States and Japan have
stayed out of the China-led institution, seen as a rival to the U.S.-dominated
World Bank and Japan-led Asian Development Bank, citing concerns about
transparency and governance - although Tokyo for one is keeping its options
open.
AIIB's expected launch next year
is coming at a time when the space for infrastructure lending is already
crowded due to the presence of major multilateral lenders and Japan's latest
move to provide $110 billion for Asian infrastructure projects.
Morehttp://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/22/us-asia-aiib-idUSKBN0O709420150522
In a
time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George
Orwell.
At the Comex silver
depositories Thursday final figures were: Registered 60.70 Moz, Eligible 118.06
Moz, Total 178.76 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, the Chinese daisy chain. How many more to
come, if any?
Company that saw £7bn wiped off shares linked to firm that shrank by £12bn
Second Hong Kong-listed company sees its shares plummet, as it emerges it had links with Hanergy Thin Film Power Group, whose stock dropped on Wednesday
By Telegraph staff 7:12PM BST 21
May 2015
A
Hong Kong-listed company with links to a firm that saw its shares collapse on
Wednesday has now seen its own stock plummet.
Shares in Goldin Financial Holdings fell 43pc on Thursday, wiping $12bn (£7.7bn) off the value of the company, which provides finance to small businesses secured against their sales.
Sister company Goldin Properties dropped 41pc, wiping off $4.6bn.
The two firms, owned by Hong Kong billionaire Pan Sutong, said they were not aware of any reason for the collapse.
In March, Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission warned investors against trading in Goldin Financial shares, noting that just 20 investors, including Mr Pan, owned 98pc of the stock.
It has emerged that Goldin Financial was an adviser to China-based Hanergy Thin Film Power Group, which saw £12bn wiped off its value on Wednesday.
The drop in the solar panel
maker’s stock came after Li Hejun, its founder, chief executive and chairman,
failed to show up to the annual general meeting.
Mr Li attended the opening of a
new clean energy centre in Beijing instead.
Hong Kong bourse filings show
that Hanergy appointed Goldin Financial in February to advise it on a deal to
supply solar panels to its parent company, effectively making Hanergy Holding
Group its main source of revenue.
The regulatory filings show the
links between Hanergy Thin Film and Goldin Financial date back over at least
three years and cover multiple transactions.
In January 2014, Goldin Financial
advised on Hanergy’s acquisition of technology from Global Solar, another
subsidiary controlled by Hanergy Holding. In an earlier filing, Goldin
Financial advised a solar company supplied by Hanergy, Reuters reported.
Hanergy’s stock price had risen
by 550pc over the past year, giving the firm a market cap of more than £27bn at
its peak last month, a higher valuation than Sony, Panasonic, Dell, LG
Electronics and Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturer of components for Apple.
In a statement, Hanergy Holding
Group said its financials were sound and it had not sold any of the 30.6bn
shares it holds in its Hong Kong-listed unit.
More
"When paper money systems begin to crack at the seams, the run to gold could be explosive."
Harry Browne
Solar & Related Update.
With events
happening fast in the development of solar power, I’ve added this new section.
Updates as they get reported.
Here comes the sun: Saudi Arabia looks to export solar energy as fossil fuel starts to run out
By
Joe
Millis May 22, 2015 02:46 BST
Saudi Arabia, the desert kingdom
which was built on exporting crude oil, is predicting that fossil fuels will
become a thing of the past by 2050.
And the world's largest crude
exporter believes that in the not-too-distant future it will be exporting solar
energy instead.
Speaking at a climate change
conference in Paris on 21 May, oil minister Ali Al-Naimi said: "In Saudi
Arabia we recognise that eventually, one of these days, we're not going to need
fossil fuels.
"I don't know when - 2040,
2050 or thereafter. So we have embarked on a programme to develop solar
energy."
Al-Naimi added that
"hopefully, one of these days, instead of exporting fossil fuels, we will
be exporting gigawatts of electric power. He noted that oil prices as low as
$30 or $40 a barrel wouldn't make solar power uneconomic.
Bloomberg's new energy finance's database of renewable energy projects says that Saudi Arabia's solar energy production is minuscule compared with other countries. It has less than 50 megawatts of solar power capacity that's just 0.1% of Germany's 38 gigawatts, the database reveals.
Professor Paul Stevens, of the London-based Chatham House think tank, told Bloomberg: "Al-Naimi is being realistic and looking to the future in the knowledge they can't keep burning fossil fuels and the age of oil is disappearing at a rate of knots.
"The beauty of crude is that you can just stick it into a container and export it anywhere in the world, but with power there are limits. He may talk of solar power, but there are a few technological hitches to overcome before it's realistic."
Solar energy to be cheapest power source in 10 years
By
Jayalakshmi
K February 24, 2015 09:09 GMT
Solar energy is set to become the cheapest source of electricity in many
parts of the world within the next 10 years, with the cost of photovoltaics
(solar panels) continuing to decline.In fact, in some parts of the world, solar energy would become cheaper than the heavily subsidised fossil fuel energy, says a report.
The report released by German think tank, Agora Energiewende, was commissioned to steer Germany towards its 80% renewable energy target.
"The technology still has further improvements so we expect that within the next 10 years photovoltaics will become, in many regions of the world, the cheapest source of electricity," said CEO Dr Patrick Graichen.
"The finding is there's no end to the cost decline in photovoltaics."
Solar photovoltaic prices have fallen by 80% since 2008.
In 2013, commercial solar power cost the same to produce as other sources of electricity in Italy, Germany and Spain, and is expected to do so soon in Mexico and France.
According to the report titled The Current and Future Cost of Photovoltaics, the price drop is set to occur even in conservative scenarios, without any major technological breakthroughs.
More
"Those entrapped by the herd instinct are drowned in the deluges of history. But there are always the few who observe, reason, and take precautions, and thus escape the flood. For these few gold has been the asset of last resort."
Antony C. Sutton
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished April
DJIA: +112 Down. NASDAQ: +198 Down. SP500: +150 Down.
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