Baltic Dry Index. 1162 -35 Brent Crude 49.03
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
We don’t know a millionth of one percent about
anything.
The Talking Chair, with apologies to Thomas Alva
Edison.
Anything Draghi can do, we can do too, says China, unleashing its own
version of a “whatever it takes,”
policy. Right after Google reinvented itself with a meaningless, non added
value, reorganisation, intended to bamboozle the punters in the casino, right
after Berkshire Hathaway overpaid for Precision Castparts on the dubious
assumption that it might be worth a lot more in 10 or 15 years time, and right
after copper started trading on a weather market in Chile, and oil on the news
of China taking advantage of falling crude oil prices, China stunned nearly
everyone with its crash, bang, wallop, currency devaluation. Just how bad have
the real economic figures in China got?
Of course, some element of the surprise devaluation, was payback to
America and Japan for blocking the Yuan’s entry into the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights basket at the end of the year.
Crash, bang, wallop, went America’s stock markets, with the Dow 50 day moving
average ominously crossing below its 200 day moving average. “Fix that one, talking
chair, before it triggers a real stock market selloff!” Commodities promptly
resumed their slump on the basis that China will be more price selective in
purchasing its future commodity needs, and will probably need a lot less of
them anyway.
It wasn’t a complete surprise to anyone following non mainstream
financial media, where several had called a Chinese devaluation for quite some
time, but especially after last weekend’s poor economic figures out of China.
Below, with China and America wobbling, the dying EUSSR off
contemplating its navel, and the BRICs facing a commodity depression, it’s
starting to look like a reconnect is about to hit the central bankster’s
gambling dens. Does America’s Fed feel lucky enough to still want to
raise its key interest rate next month?
Global stock markets jolted by China's historic renminbi devaluation
Beijing's shock devaluation of the yuan has sparked concerns across the globe that China's growth prospects are even worse than feared
China's authorities took the shock decision to devalue the yuan for the first time in modern history on Tuesday, as Beijing attempts to fend off lower growth.The yuan, which is also known as the renminbi, saw its largest one-day fall in more than two decades as the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) decided to weaken the currency by almost 2pc against the US dollar.
Analysts took the surprise move as a signal that China’s policy-makers had become afraid of slower growth. Data released over the weekend showed that exports crumbled in July – falling by 3.8pc compared with the same month a year earlier.
With the move to devalue the yuan, China has entered the so-called “currency wars” arena with the aim of making its exporters more competitive.
But fears that the country still does not have the situation in hand unnerved investors across the world.
In the UK, the FTSE 100 dropped by close to 1.1pc, while across the Atlantic worries that global growth could be hamstrung contributed to a fall of more than 0.9pc in US stocks.
Commodities were also hit by concerns that China’s appetite for raw materials could be affected by lower growth. The same was true of luxury goods and car makers – both sectors which have benefited from the growth of China’s middle class.
The PBoC has also lowered interest rates four times since November to support the economy, which is expected to grow at around 7pc this year – the slowest expansion since 1990.
Amy Yuan Zhang, an economist at Nordea, said: “Beijing has adopted a ‘whatever it takes’ approach to prevent growth falling too much.”
More
China pushes yuan down further amid fears of currency war
Spot yuan fell to 6.43 per dollar, its weakest since August 2011, after the central bank set its daily midpoint reference at 6.3306, even weaker than Tuesday's devaluation. The currency fared worse in offshore trade, touching 6.57.
The central bank, which had described the devaluation as a one-off step to make the yuan CNY=CFXS more responsive to market forces, sought to reassure financial markets on Wednesday that it was not embarking on a steady depreciation.
"Looking at the international and domestic economic situation, currently there is no basis for a sustained depreciation trend for the yuan," the People's Bank of China said in a statement.
Nevertheless, a senior trader at a European bank in Shanghai said the unexpected devaluation had caused "some panic" in the markets.
"Although the central bank made explanations again today, stressing the yuan would not show sustained depreciation, the market is very jittery," he said.
The yuan has now lost 3.5 percent in China in the last two days, and around 4.8 percent in global markets.
More
Yuan Cut Blunts Commodity Rebound as China Faces Pricier Imports
August 11,
2015 — 5:43 AM BST Updated on August 11, 2015 — 12:46 PM BST
Commodity investors betting on a sustained recovery in prices probably
didn’t count on China devaluing its currency by the most in two decades.The world’s biggest user of energy, metals and grains surprised markets by cutting the daily reference rate for the yuan on Tuesday by a record in an attempt to bolster its economy. Prices of oil and industrial metals fell amid speculation the weaker currency will make dollar-denominated imports more expensive and slow demand.
“The central bank’s efforts to devalue the yuan will impact imports more than China’s exports, leading to shrinking demand on higher prices of some commodities in the short term,” Hong Sung Ki, a commodities analyst at Samsung Futures Inc., said by phone from Seoul. “For exports of some other commodities like steel, depreciation of the yuan will add to the existing oversupply.”
More
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-11/yuan-cut-blunts-commodity-rebound-as-china-faces-pricier-imports
Dow death cross is a bearish omen for the stock market
Published: Aug 11, 2015 4:24 p.m. ET
A rare “death cross” appeared Tuesday in the chart of the Dow Jones
Industrial Average, suggesting the stock market may have already begun a new
long-term downtrend.Although chart watchers have seen the bearish technical pattern coming for some time, it can still send a chill down bulls’ spines when it is finally confirmed.
The fact that the Dow industrials’ DJIA, -1.21% death cross follows the appearance of one in its sister index, the Dow Jones Transportation Average DJT, -0.66% , warns that this one is more than a one-off event.
A death cross is said to have occurred when the 50-day simple moving
average, which many use to track the short-term trend, crosses below the
200-day moving average, which is widely used to gauge the health of the
longer-term trend. For the Dow industrials, it marked the first time the 50-day
moving average, which ended Tuesday at 17,806.99, was below the 200-day moving
average, at 17,813.42, since Dec. 30, 2011, according to FactSet.
Therefore, many technicians see the death cross as marking the spot that
a shorter-term pullback morphs into a longer-term downtrend.
MoreOil got bad news from OPEC yesterday too. Despite falling crude prices, and an over supply versus demand, no one it seems, is yet ready or able to cut back production. A massive oil bust is about to descend on the oil sector.
OPEC Supply Reaches 3-Year High as Iran Pumps Most Since ’12
August 11,
2015 — 11:30 AM BST Updated on August 11, 2015 — 1:21 PM BST
OPEC pumped the most crude last month in more than three years as Iran
restored output to the highest level since international sanctions were
strengthened in 2012.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, responsible for 40
percent of world oil supplies, raised output by 100,700 barrels a day to 31.5
million last month, the group said in its monthly market report, citing external
sources. This increase came even as Saudi Arabia, which often curbs output
toward the end of peak summer demand, told OPEC it cut production by the most
in almost a year.
Oil prices slumped to a six-month low below $50 a barrel in London last
week as rising OPEC supplies, resilient U.S. production and concerns over
Chinese demand prolong a global glut. Iran may further expand output after
reaching an accord with world powers on July 14 that will ease sanctions on oil
exports later this year in return for curbs on its nuclear activity.
“Iran has been rising slowly but surely for a while now,” Abhishek
Deshpande, an analyst at Natixis SA in London, said by e-mail. “It doesn’t need
foreign investment to revamp existing infrastructure and prepare fields, resulting
in the small increases you can see now. But the bulk of the increase is
expected once it becomes clear sanctions will definitely be lifted.”
More
Time to head down to the bunker and await how Chairwoman Yellen’s New
York City team of riggers and fix-its attempt to take on a long term fight
against China. At the new slammed down lower prices, this is probably a good
historic time to add to fully paid up physical gold. My guess is that gold will
do better in the next 10 to 15 years than Berkshire’s iffy, overpriced bet of
Precision Castparts.
“The problem with fiat money is that it rewards the minority that can handle money, but fools the generation that has worked and saved money.”
“Adam Smith” aka George Goodman.
At the Comex silver depositories
Tuesday final figures were: Registered 55.84 Moz, Eligible 115.68 Moz, Total
171.52 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Yes it’s the EUSSR
once again. No not the news that Greece has been fixed once again, by yet
another massive dollop of unrepayable debt.
Below, the wealth and jobs destroying monetary union, just can’t get out
from under its own doings. And with China joining in the currency wars by
devaluing the Yuan, things in the EUSSR are going to get worse before they get
better, if ever.
"Until government administrators can so identify the interests of government with those of the people and refrain from defrauding the masses through the device of currency depreciation for the sake of remaining in office, the wiser ones will prefer to keep as much of their wealth in the most stable and marketable forms possible - forms which only the precious metals provide."
Elgin Groseclose
Deflation Stalks the Euro Zone
Aug
11, 2015 2:00 AM EDT By Mark Gilbert
The
euro zone is poised to record its ninth quarter of economic growth, with
economists predicting that gross domestic product figures scheduled for release
Friday will show the economy expanded by 0.4 percent in the second three months
of the year. Unfortunately for the European Central
Bank,
that revival isn't dispelling the risk that disinflation will worsen into
deflation.
For
reasons that future historians of economic policy may struggle to unravel,
modern central bankers have decided that the Goldilocks rate of acceleration
for consumer prices to run not too hot, not too cold, is 2 percent. And while
forecasts compiled by Bloomberg suggest that economists expect the U.S. to
achieve that state of inflationary nirvana in the first three months of next
year, prices in the euro region are seen languishing at 1.5 percent in the
first quarter of 2016 and then decelerating:
That
outlook helps to explain why almost a quarter of the market for euro-zone
government bonds has negative yields, meaning investors are paying for the
privilege of keeping their money in $1.5 trillion of securities, according to data compiled
by Bloomberg reporters Lukanyo Mnyanda and David Goodman. It has been almost a
year, for example, since German two-year notes paid more than zero:
The disparity in the inflation outlooks for the euro region and the U.S.
is also driving a divergence in borrowing costs. As Bloomberg strategist Simon
Ballard points out, investment-grade borrowers are paying more to borrow
dollars than euros, and the gap has reached its widest level since at least
December 2009:
All
of this is terrible news if you're Mario Draghi and your job as head of the ECB
is to reinforce the improvement in the growth outlook by pointing to consumer
price inflation heading back to your 2 percent target. What's worse is that
Draghi's favorite measure of future inflation expectations -- the five-year
rate on inflation swaps in five years' time -- has been ticking lower in the
past few weeks, after seeming to have reached a bottom at the start of the
year:
Consumer
price gains have averaged just 0.1 percent so far this year in the euro bloc,
and July saw a gain of just 0.2 percent after the first three months of the
year all posted price declines. So while Friday's growth figures will show the
euro region has successfully dragged itself out of recession, the inflation
backdrop suggests there's still work to be done to dispel the threat of
deflation.
More
Only
two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure
about the former.
Albert
Einstein.
Solar & Related Update.
With events
happening fast in the development of solar power, I’ve added this new section.
Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC energy
mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards? DC? A quantum
computer next?
Graphene knowledge
just keeps advancing. We are just at the start of the New Carbon Age.
Narrowing the gap between synthetic and natural graphene
Date: August
10, 2015
Source:
Graphene Flagship
Summary:
Producing graphene in bulk is critical when it comes to the industrial
exploitation of this exceptional two-dimensional material. To that end,
researchers have developed a novel variant on the chemical vapor deposition process
which yields high quality material in a scalable manner. This advance should
significantly narrow the performance gap between synthetic and natural
graphene.
Media-friendly Nobel laureates peeling layers of graphene from bulk
graphite with sticky tape may capture the public imagination, but as a
manufacturing process the technique is somewhat lacking. Mechanical exfoliation
may give us pristine graphene, but industry requires scalable and
cost-effective production processes with much higher yields.
Synthesis of graphene via chemical vapour deposition (CVD) of methane
gas onto a copper substrate is the most common way of producing the quantity
and quality of material required for electronic applications. CVD is an
industrially scalable process, but graphene produced in this way is prone to
contamination from chemical agents used to remove the growth substrate. It is
also a complex and expensive technique, wasteful of the copper and other
materials used.
Instead of removing the growth substrate by wet-chemical etching,
another approach is to peel away the graphene, and preserve the copper foil for
future re-use. Electrochemical and dry delamination of CVD-grown graphene has
previously been demonstrated, but the material still suffers from some processing-related
contamination.
CVD graphene with help from intermolecular forces
Flagship-affiliated physicists from RWTH Aachen University and
Forschungszentrum Jülich have together with colleagues in Japan devised a
method for peeling graphene flakes from a CVD substrate with the help of
intermolecular forces. Details of the process can be found in a paper published
recently in the open-access journal Science Advances, the first author of which
is research student Luca Banszerus.
----"Chemical vapour deposition is a highly scalable and cost-efficient
technology," says Christoph Stampfer, head of the 2nd Institute
of Physics A in Aachen, and co-author of the technical article. "Until
now, graphene synthesised this way has been significantly lower in quality than
that obtained with the scotch-tape method, especially when it comes to the
material's electronic properties. But no longer. We demonstrate a novel
fabrication process based on CVD that yields ultra-high quality synthetic
graphene samples. The process is in principle suitable for industrial-scale
production, and narrows the gap between graphene research and its technological
applications."
With their dry-transfer process, Banszerus and his colleagues have shown
that the electronic properties of CVD-grown graphene can in principle match
those of ultrahigh-mobility exfoliated graphene. The key is to transfer CVD
graphene from its growth substrate in such a way that chemical contamination is
avoided. The high mobility of pristine graphene is thus preserved, and the
approach allows for the substrate material to be recycled without degradation.
More
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished July
DJIA: +88 Down. NASDAQ:
+189 Down. SP500: +116 Down.
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