Baltic
Dry Index. 637
+03
Brent Crude 66.73
LIR
Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
Due
to continuing problems with MS Office, hopefully to be sorted out
later today by Microsoft's “level two” team, this is a test
update using Apache's Open Office program. Who said that the Dunkirk
spirit is dead in Great Britain. Many thanks to George in Canada for
pointing me to Open Office. Have a great weekend everyone. Mine is
likely to be busy.
Apache Open Office https://www.openoffice.org/why/index.html
China’s Yuan May Draw $1 Trillion on Getting IMF Reserve Status
5:23
AM BST May 15, 2015
At
least $1 trillion of global reserves will switch into Chinese assets
if the International Monetary Fund endorses the yuan as a reserve
currency this year, according to Standard Chartered Plc and AXA
Investment Managers.
People’s Bank of China officials
have called for the IMF to include the yuan in its reserve basket --
which consists of the dollar, euro, pound and yen -- in a review
later this year. An inclusion could spur as much as 6.2 trillion yuan
($999 billion) of net purchases of China’s onshore bonds by
end-2020, Standard Chartered estimates. AXA Investment Managers says
about 10 percent of the $11.6 trillion of global reserves will flow
into yuan assets. It didn’t give a timeframe.
“What is significant is the seal of
approval by the IMF that the yuan has internationalized as a reserve
currency,” Aidan Yao, senior emerging-market economist at AXA
Investment, said in a briefing in Hong Kong on Thursday. “It could
trigger a reallocation of global reserves portfolios.”
China is making the yuan more freely
usable in order to be included in the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights
basket, PBOC Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said in Washington on April 18.
The currency failed to qualify in a 2010 review.
The yuan reclaimed
fifth place in global payments this March, according to the Society
for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. Standard
Chartered said the Chinese currency has a 60 percent chance of
getting reserve status this year.
More
Germans pile into gold amid G7 Greek eurozone default fears
Economic uncertainty in Europe and fear of a Greek default are turning people to buy gold bars and coins
By
Andrew
Critchlow, Commodities editor 9:59AM BST 14 May 2015
German
investors have piled into gold bars and coins in the first quarter of
the year as a hedge against European Central Bank policy and the
threat of a Greek
default
bringing down the eurozone.
Latest figures from the World Gold
Council show that Germans increased their buying of gold coins and
bars of bullion by 20pc to 32.2 tonnes in the last quarter, the
highest rate of purchases seen in a year.
The strong
buying of gold - which is traditionally seen by
investors as a safe-haven asset - was seen across Europe amid growing
uncertainty over central bank policy and the standoff between Athens
and its creditors.
"This was the strongest start in
Europe for gold coins and bars that we have seen since 2011,"
Alistair Hewitt, head of market intelligence at the World Gold
Council told The Telegraph. "German investors are fretting over
the ECB, Greece and Ukraine."
On the wider market, the World Gold
Council revealed that total demand in the first quarter fell 1pc to
1,079 tonnes compared with the same period last year.
More
At
the Comex silver
depositories Thursday final figures were: Registered 60.14 Moz,
Eligible 117.44 Moz, Total 177.58 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The
bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Not the usual suspects today. Today how a UK Bed & Breakfast outfit looks like taking over a speculative, Belize, oil exploration company. Personally when I stay away from home, from experience I try to stay away from “traditional English cooking.”
B&B owner may be forced to buy Belize oil company after her son accidentally purchased almost half of its shares
Wednesday 13 May 2015
As the long standing owner of the
Wyche Keep Country House, a three-room lodging nestling in the
majestic Malvern Hills, Judith Williams is unlikely to have spent
much time considering the pros and cons of oil exploration in Belize.
But the B&B proprietor may
soon be adding New World Oil and Gas to her suddenly expanding
business portfolio, after her son accidentally purchased almost half
of the company’s shares in her name.
When he bought just over 342
million shares in the Jersey-based energy company through a broker
last month, Christopher Williams apparently believed he was taking
only a 10 per cent stake in the firm. But as its proposed £1.5
million share placing had not yet concluded, his mother’s stake now
stands at 48.7 per cent.
Unfortunately for Mrs Williams,
the City watchdog that supervises takeovers and mergers has now ruled
that she may have to make a mandatory bid for the rest of the company
– which may cost her hundreds of thousands of pounds.
“In the event that Mrs Williams
receives delivery of shares…she will then have an obligation to
extend an offer to the shareholders of New World Oil Group,” the
Takeover Panel said in a statement.
New World, which is listed on the
London Stock Exchange’s international market for smaller growing
companies, is currently exploring the viability of three oil and gas
projects in Belize and western Denmark. It is also “actively
identifying exploitation opportunities” in Africa, South America
and South East Asia.
While the firm may have looked an
attractive investment for Mrs Williams’ son, its work is rather
remote from her own expertise, which according to her B&B’s
website lies in serving up “traditional English cooking” for her
guests as they enjoy candlelit dinners with views of the Malvern
Hills and the Cotswolds.
Described as a “historic
hilltop hideaway”, Wyche Keep was built by the family of Sir
Stanley Baldwin, the Conservative Prime Minister. Dinner guests can
enjoy its “large luxurious lounge” which has a beamed ceiling and
open fireplace, or go for a stroll in its Edwardian garden.
More
Squeezing New World Oil & Gas, after a reminder from the LSE
May
08 08:57
Top of
Form
Bottom
of Form
A market notice
from the London Stock Exchange on Thursday reminded member firms of
their settlement obligations under its rules, prompted by what it
describes as “settlement delays in relation to transactions in New
World Oil & Gas.”
The tiny Aim listed oil
exploration group, you may remember,
is the possible subject of a failure to read the small print short
squeeze. Details on the strange situation below, but two things to
conclude from the LSE’s statement: regulators are keeping a close
eye on this one, but aren’t likely to step in and stop any squeeze.
The debacle began last week when
New World announced a £1.5m placing, via a four for one stock
placing. Heavy trading followed — multiples of the 0.7bn shares in
issue — and some of those transactions are thought to have been
sales on extended settlement terms due to be satisfied with new stock
issued in the placing.
The problem? A group of
shareholders intend to block the placing, which would leave sellers
scrambling for shares from the 0.7bn in existence, not the 3.6bn
they had anticipated. As an alternative, the company has said
it is seeking advice on the allotment of shares “via a rights
offering or otherwise”, which would bail out anyone at risk of a
squeeze if the new shares could be put into shareholder
hands before the end of the month when T+20 trades are expected to
settle.
----If
the shareholder, described as “Mrs Judith Williams”, has acquired
342,328,669 shares already, well that is very nearly half of the
shares outstanding and could require an offer to be made for all the
shares outstanding, under Takeover Panel rules. Ooops.
More
Wyche Keep Country House.
New World Oil and Gas.
Solar & Related Update.
With
events happening fast in the development of solar power, I’ve added
this new section. Updates as they get reported.
Could this be the world's most efficient solar electricity system?
Wednesday
13 May 2015 07.00 BST
Using
military technology and a zero-emission engine invented by a
19th-century Scot, Swedish firm seeks to revolutionise solar energy
production.
A new solar electricity
generation system that developers claim is the most efficient in the
world, is being tested in South Africa’s Kalahari desert.
The Swedish company behind the
project - which combines military technology with an idea developed
by a 19th-century Scottish engineer and clergyman - says it is on the
verge of building its first commercial installation.
In the remote Northern Cape
province, huge mirrors reflect the sun across the brown Kalahari
sand. This is the test site for Swedish company Ripasso, which is
using the intense South African sun and local manufacturing know-how
to develop their cutting-edge kit.
“Our whole team in South Africa
has been hired locally, and our new systems have all been built with
local South African labour. It works great,” says CEO Gunnar
Larsson.
This
is the only working small-scale concentrated solar energy system of
its kind in the world. 34% of the sun’s energy hitting the mirrors
is converted directly to grid-available electric power, compared to
roughly half that for standard solar panels. Traditional photovoltaic
panels are able to turn about 23% of the solar energy that strikes
them into electricity, but this is cut to around 15% before it is
usable by the grid.
---- The technology works by
using the mirrors as giant lenses that focus the sun’s energy to a
tiny hot point, which in turn drives a zero-emission Stirling engine.
The Stirling engine was developed
by Reverend Robert Stirling in Edinburgh in 1816 as an alternative to
the steam engine. It uses alternate heating and cooling of an
enclosed gas to drive pistons, which turn a flywheel. Because of the
material limitations at the time, the engine was not commercially
developed until 1988, when Swedish defence contractor Kokums started
making them for submarines.
More
Stirling engine
A Stirling engine is a
heat engine
that operates by cyclic compression and expansion of air or other gas
(the working
fluid) at different temperatures, such that there is a net
conversion of heat
energy to mechanical work.[1][2]
More specifically, the Stirling engine is a closed-cycle regenerative
heat engine with a permanently gaseous
working fluid. Closed-cycle, in this context, means a
thermodynamic
system in which the working fluid is permanently contained within
the system, and regenerative describes the use of a specific
type of internal heat
exchanger and thermal store, known as the regenerator.
The inclusion of a regenerator differentiates the Stirling engine
from other closed cycle hot
air engines.
Originally conceived in 1816 as
an industrial prime mover to rival the steam
engine, its practical use was largely confined to low-power
domestic applications for over a century.[3]
The Stirling engine is noted for
high efficiency compared to steam engines,[4]
quiet operation, and its ability to use almost any heat source. The
heat energy source is generated external to the Stirling engine
rather than by internal combustion as with the otto
cycle or diesel
cycle engines. Because the Stirling engine is compatible with
alternative and renewable energy sources it could become increasingly
significant as the price of conventional fuels rises, and also in
light of concerns such as peak
oil and climate
change. This engine is currently exciting interest as the core
component of micro
combined heat and power (CHP) units, in which it is more
efficient and safer than a comparable steam engine
More
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.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished April
DJIA:
+112 Down.
NASDAQ:
+198 Down.
SP500:
+150 Down.
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