Baltic Dry Index. 603 +05 Brent Crude 62.17
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
"For more than two thousand years gold's natural qualities made it man's universal medium of exchange. In contrast to political money, gold is honest money that survived the ages and will live on long after the political fiats of today have gone the way of all paper."
Hans F. Sennholz
Did Greece just light the blue touch paper yesterday? From London this
morning it looks like they have. Yesterday Greece informed the IMF that it’s
going to miss paying them 300 million euro today, but not to worry we’ll make
it all good on June 30th. Well maybe they will and maybe they won’t.
Who knows? But Greece just gave the IMF the financial equivalent of a “Glasgow
Kiss,” and looked at Germany and the ECB and asked if they wanted one too. Things
get very unpredictable from here. Stay long fully paid up gold and silver held
outside of banks and the MF Global type thieves.
Will paymaster Germany now cave in and give the poor Greeks, German
cash? That doesn’t seem likely to me. Will the ECB break yet more of their own “rules,”
and step in with “whatever it takes,” when Germany cuts off the Greeks? That
doesn’t seem very likely either. How likely is the IMF to advance more funds to
its leading deadbeat? They’re presently
occupied staggering up from the floor following the Glasgow Kiss. We’re in for
a most interesting bunker weekend.
Below, the wobble on the verge of an almighty crash.
Greece misses IMF payment in warning shot as showdown with Europe escalates
No developed country has ever skipped a payment to the IMF - but Greek sources say they were provoked
Greece is to take the drastic step of skipping a €300m payment to the International Monetary Fund on Friday, invoking an obscure mechanism in abeyance since the 1970s to bundle all debts due in June and pay them at the end of the month.It is the first time that a developed country has ever missed a payment to the IMF since the creation of the Bretton Woods institutions at the end of the Second World War.
The news broke after the Athens stock exchange had closed but a bloodbath is feared when the bourse opens on Friday. Yields on two-year Greek bonds spiked 63 basis points to 21.8pc amid mounting fears of a deposit run on Greek banks and the imposition of capital controls as soon as this weekend.
The IMF said it had been notified by the Greek authorities that they would pay the entire €1.6bn due this month on June 30, dusting down a procedure last used by Zambia in the 1980s.
The shock move came as leaders of the ruling Syriza movement were locked in a series of emergency meetings to vent their fury over the latest austerity demands by the European creditor powers
----The skipped payment is the clearest sign to date that the crisis is escalating to a dangerous level as Syriza refuses to buckle. It will not be resolved without European statesmanship of a high order, so far lacking. While the authorities sought to play down the Greek decision, it was clearly intended as a warning shot. Syriza had the money at hand. It chose not to pay as a conscious political choice.
The Greeks accuse the IMF of
violating its own rules by colluding in an EMU-led policy that leaves the
country with unsustainable debts. Athens is implicity threatening to escalate
the situation all the way to a full default to the IMF, setting off a grave
institutional and political crisis within the Fund itself.
Syriza leaders say they are
unwilling to burn any more of the country’s dwindling cash reserves to pay
creditors until there is a credible offer on the table, insisting that their
priority is to pay pensions and salaries and avoid default to their own people.
More
Greece Defers IMF Payment as Merkel Says Resolution Far Away
June 4, 2015 — 7:07 PM BST Updated
on June 5, 2015 — 12:45 AM BST
Greece became the first country
to defer a payment to the International Monetary Fund since the 1980s as its
game of brinkmanship with creditors goes down to the wire.
With Prime Minister Alexis
Tsipras getting ready to address parliament on Friday after receiving a list of
creditors’ demands, the step underscores the state of the country’s shriveling
finances. While international officials have reported some progress in recent
days, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said “we’re still far from reaching a
conclusion.”
The current phase of Greece’s
crisis is nearing its conclusion as the country runs out of money after four
months of deadlock. Stocks and bonds have whipsawed this week amid a flurry of
political activity starting with a late-night meeting in Berlin between
European leaders and the IMF on Monday.
“The delay in the payment to the
IMF is an escalation of the confrontation,” Nicholas Economides, an economics
professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. “It increases the
risk of bankruptcy and Grexit.”
More
Bond Rout Wipes Out 2015 Gains as Traders Stay Glued to Screens
June 3, 2015 — 11:45 PM BST Updated
on June 4, 2015
The global bond market selloff
has erased all of this year’s gains as historic market moves from Germany to
the U.S. and Japan whipsaw traders.
After being up as much as 2.3
percent as of mid-April, the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Broad Market
Index of bonds with a total face value of $41 trillion is now down 0.4 percent
for the year.
Bond traders have been caught off
guard by signs the worldwide economy is likely to avoid mass deflation and by
improvement in the euro zone’s economy, leaving little incentive to own debt
securities with yields that in some cases are below zero. Fixed income
continued its slide on Thursday, a day after European Central Bank President
Mario Draghi said investors should get used to the heightened volatility they’ve
seen in recent weeks.
“This is sheer panic in the
market from the standpoint of what’s been happening in Europe,” said Thomas di
Galoma, head of fixed-income rates and credit at ED&F Man Capital Markets
in New York. “Most of Wall Street is guarded here as far as taking on new
positions.”
Like many of his peers around the
world, di Galoma said he has had to cancel meetings as yields rose ever higher
through key levels that many thought would attract demand, but didn’t.
More
Germany’s bond rout is a taste of things to come
Published: June 4, 2015 2:00 p.m. ET
German government bonds got
wrecked this week and the resulting spike in yields is causing all kinds of
havoc across financial markets, including U.S. Treasurys, which more typically
march to their own drummer.
It might be a taste of things to
come when it comes to market volatility.
The
yield on the 10-year German government bond, or bund TMBMKDE-10Y, -5.86% had traded within a
whisker of 0% in April before a wave of selling pressure pushed it back up
sharply. (bond yields rise as prices drop). That rout was extended Wednesday,
contributing to the largest two-day spike in yields since 1998. Treasurys TMUBMUSD10Y, +0.70% sold off as well,
while Asian bonds fell victim to selling early Thursday morning (see chart
above).
Things subsequently calmed down
Thursday, but investors are on tenterhooks. So what gives?
Well, market watchers seem to be
at a loss to come up with a fully convincing catalyst for the bond rout.
It was European Central Bank
President Mario Draghi who perhaps encapsulated it best—and possibly gave a
tacit green light to further selling—when he told reporters Wednesday that the
reversal in bund yields appeared to be a function of extremely low interest
rates and that investors just need to get used to heightened volatility.
More
Stocks close sharply lower; Dow off about 171 points
Published: June 4, 2015 4:07 p.m. ET
NEW
YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S.
stocks finished with sizable losses Thursday, weighed down in part by fresh
Greek drama and U.S. economic reports that helped make an interest-rate hike
this year look more likely. The S&P 500 SPX, -0.86%
dropped 18.21 points, or 0.9%, to close at 2,095.89, according to early data.
Materials and energy stocks fared worst in the S&P 500 as oil and metals
slumped. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.94%
shed 170.69 points, or 0.9%, to end at 17,905.58. The U.S. stock market also
tracked a selloff in Europe, where stocks finished lower as bond-market
choppiness lured investors out of riskier assets. U.S. stocks briefly erased
losses and turned roughly flat after the International Monetary Fund called for
the Federal Reserve to delay any rate hike until 2016, but the recovery didn't last.
In the latest twist in Greece's ongoing crisis, the debt-laden country told the
IMF that it plans on bundling four loan repayments due in June, with the first
due Friday, into one payment for June 30.
"Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money."
Daniel Webster
At the Comex silver
depositories Thursday final figures were: Registered 57.77 Moz, Eligible 122.03
Moz, Total 179.80 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today the usual suspects. America’s NSA pot, calls
China’s hackers black. “Whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also
reap” comes to mind.
Massive cyber attack hits U.S. federal workers, probe focuses on China
Hackers broke into U.S.
government computers, possibly compromising the personal data of 4 million
current and former federal employees, and investigators were probing whether
the culprits were based in China, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
In the latest in a string of
intrusions into U.S. agencies' high-tech systems, the Office of Personnel
Management suffered what appeared to be one of the largest breaches of
information ever on government workers. The office handles employee records and
security clearances.
A U.S. law enforcement source
told Reuters a "foreign entity or government" was believed to be
behind the cyber attack. Authorities were looking into a possible Chinese
connection, a source close to the matter said.
The FBI said it had launched a
probe and aimed to bring to account those responsible.
OPM detected new malicious
activity affecting its information systems in April and the Department of
Homeland Security said it concluded at the beginning of May that the agency's
data had been compromised and about 4 million workers may have been affected.
The agencies involved did not
specify exactly what kind of information was accessed.
The breach hit OPM's IT systems
and its data stored at the Department of the Interior's data center, a shared
service center for federal agencies, a DHS official said on condition of
anonymity. The official would not comment on whether other agencies' data had
been affected.
OPM had previously been the
victim of another cyber attack, as have various federal government computer
systems at the State Department, the U.S. Postal Service and the White House.
Chinese hackers were blamed for
penetrating OPM's computer networks last year, and hackers appeared to have
targeted files on tens of thousands of employees who had applied for top-secret
security clearances, the New York Times reported last July, citing unnamed U.S.
officials.
Chinese Embassy says accusations over U.S. data breach 'not responsible'
The Chinese Embassy in
Washington, responding to reports that China was behind a massive cyberattack
on U.S. government computers, said on Thursday that jumping to conclusions was
"not responsible, and counterproductive."
Embassy spokesman Zhu Haiquan
said China had made great efforts to combat cyberattacks and that tracking such
events conducted across borders was difficult.
"Jumping to conclusions and
making hypothetical accusation is not responsible, and counterproductive,"
Zhu said in emailed comments to Reuters.
Solar & Related Update.
With events
happening fast in the development of solar power, I’ve added this new section.
Updates as they get reported.
Another advance in PVs
June
4, 2015
Solar cell sets world record with a stabilized efficiency of 13.6%
(Phys.org)—In a new study, scientists have reported a world record stabilized efficiency of 13.6% for a triple-junction thin-film silicon solar cell, which is a newer version of the single-junction thin-film silicon solar cell that has been used in commercial products since the 1970s. This value edges out the previous record of 13.44%, and the researchers expect that a few reasonable improvements will push it above 14%.The research team, Hitoshi Sai, et al., consists of a collaboration from several of Japan's largest research centers: the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), the Photovoltaic Power Generation Technology Research Association (PVTEC), Sharp, Panasonic, and Mitsubishi.
----Because there are many different types of efficiencies when it comes to solar cells, it is often difficult for non-specialists to do direct comparisons. As the researchers explain in their paper published in Applied Physics Letters, stabilized efficiency is power conversion efficiency (PCE) that accounts for light-induced degradation. The difference can be significant, with stabilized efficiencies of around 13% having PCEs as high as 16%—a difference of about 20%.
"Sometimes solar cell efficiency causes confusion, as there are several definitions," Sai explained. "In general, any kind of solar cell shows varying degrees of degradation against prolonged exposure to light, humidity, temperature, and so on. Nevertheless, most solar cells are evaluated by their 'initial' efficiency. If the solar cell is relatively stable, such as crystalline silicon solar cells are, it's okay.
However, it is well-known that amorphous silicon shows a significant degradation against prolonged light exposure, called the Steabler-Wronski effect, as described in our paper. To make a fair comparison, in this field, we compare solar cell performance after a common light-soaking procedure."
Numerous factors likely contribute to light-induced degradation in silicon solar cells, although the exact mechanisms are not fully understood. One design method for reducing light-induced degradation involves fabricating the solar cells on honeycomb-textured substrates. So far, the honeycomb textures have mostly been used for single-junction solar cells, which are made of just one semiconductor material and so can absorb light of only one wavelength.
In the new paper, the scientists verified recent research showing that the honeycomb texture can also be used to grow multijunction solar cells. Because multijunction solar cells consist of more than one semiconductor material, they can absorb multiple wavelengths of light. As with single-junction solar cells, the triple-junction solar cells fabricated here exhibit a superior light-trapping effect due to the honeycomb texture.
To further improve the efficiency, the researchers also carefully controlled the period of the honeycomb texture, incorporated an antireflection film based on a moth-eye structure, and positioned the three layers so as to maximize efficiency, among other strategies.
When testing the solar cell in their own lab, the researchers obtained initial and stabilized efficiencies of approximately 14.5% and 13.8%, respectively, indicating a light-induced efficiency degradation of less than 5%. The solar cell was also independently characterized by the AIST, which obtained a slightly lower official stabilized efficiency of 13.6%.
more
Another weekend, and all eyes will be on Greece and Germany this weekend. Will Merkel warm up the Panzers? Will Greece really go nuclear at the end of June? Keep an eye on China v America too. America seems to be flirting with arming Vietnam in South East Asia. Presumably to have Vietnam take out China’s artificial island military base in the South China Sea, if it becomes necessary. Have a great weekend everyone.
"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 May
DJIA: +107 Down. NASDAQ: +195 Down. SP500: +139 Down.
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