Baltic Dry Index. 923 -55 Brent Crude 48.73
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
“But it [the boom] could not last forever
even if inflation and credit expansion were to go on endlessly. It would then
encounter the barriers which prevent the boundless expansion of circulation
credit. It would lead to the crack-up boom and the breakdown of the whole
monetary system.”
Ludwig
von Mises.
Mayday, mayday, mayday. The global economy is now sinking from hitting the malinvestment man made rocks of overwhelming excess capacity, built on, the Great Nixonian error of fiat money, serial stock market bubbles, QE forever, ZIRP, and NIRP. Our ludicrous central banksters have not only lost control of the Great Final Bubble Casino they created, just look at the farce of the Shanghai so called stock market, they collectively haven’t a clue how to save the ship. Ex-Goldmanites almost to a man, there’s nothing in the Goldman “God’s work” Bible about how to save a world on fiat currency after a “crack up” boom.
And a crack up boom is what we have gone through after Greenspan panicked after his bond debacle of 1994. Who remembers Orange County CA, and Procter & Gamble now? Hell, who remembers LTCM, and such geniuses as Meriwhether, Scholes, and Merton. Like Volkswagen, our central banksters have run out of road and talent. 2007-2009 was just for kicks. Our now unravelling crack up boom bubble is only advancing at a gentle walk, in its final phase, there’s a stampede for the casino exits, as everyone left tries desperately to salvage whatever real cash is still on the table. Money substitute casino chips, communist fiat currency, returns to intrinsic value. Everyone, rich or poor, now needs a physical precious metals hedge.
"Gold was not selected arbitrarily by governments to be the monetary standard. Gold had developed for many centuries on the free market as the best money; as the commodity providing the most stable and desirable monetary medium."
Murray N. Rothbard
Asian stocks extend losses on weak China PMI survey; dollar strong
Asian stocks fell on Wednesday as fears of an entrenched global economic
slowdown gripped investors, underlined by a weak factory survey from China,
while the greenback firmed as investors fled to relatively safe-haven assets.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slipped 2
percent, with Australia down 1.8 percent and South Korea falling 1 percent.
S&P mini futures fell 1 percent after the weak China PMI.
"The industrial sector in China remains a concern indicating that
the economy is not out of the woods yet while the Fed's comments last week
indicate a glass half-empty view of the global economy," said Tai Hui,
chief Asia market strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management in Hong Kong.
More evidence of an entrenched slowdown was evident as activity in
China's factory sector shrank at a faster pace than expected in September,
falling to its weakest level in 6-1/2 years as domestic and export demand
continued to slump, a private survey showed.
China's stock markets took the weak data on the chin with main indices
down between 2-3 percent in opening trades.Japanese markets are shut through
Wednesday.
Fresh cracks in the commodities complex, amplified by drops in copper,
raised concerns that a China-led slowdown may pose significant headwinds for
riskier assets, particularly global equities. On Tuesday, the Asian Development
Bank
lowered its growth forecast for China to 6.8 percent for 2015.
More
lowered its growth forecast for China to 6.8 percent for 2015.http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/23/us-global-markets-idUSKCN0RN01520150923
Global Equities Sell Off With Commodities While Treasuries Climb
September 22, 2015 — 12:14 AM BST Updated on September 22, 2015 — 10:31
PM BST
The trepidation that characterized last month’s turmoil is seeping back
into global financial markets.
U.S. stocks joined a decline in equities worldwide as a selloff in
commodities resumed. The widening Volkswagen AG emissions scandal did
little to calm nerves, dragging down car shares on speculation it may lead to
tougher regulations. Brazil’s real fell to a record as emerging-market assets
sank, while demand for haven investments bolstered the yen and Treasuries.
Equity volatility spiked from Europe to America as renewed concern over
China’s slowing economy sent raw-material prices tumbling to an almost 10-year
low. Volkswagen is torpedoing industrial shares and the world’s biggest mining
companies are coming under pressure just days after the Federal Reserve muddied
the waters on its policy plans. While citing market turmoil as a reason to
stand pat on interest rates last week, central bankers have since been claiming
the U.S. economy is strong enough for a hike this year.
“When you see a rise in volatility it leads to investor uncertainty and
any bad news has the opportunity to shake things up,” Joseph Betlej, who helps
oversee $33 billion as vice president of Advantus Capital Management, said by
phone. “People are questioning the strength of growth in the domestic economy
and second guessing that the Fed must see something.”
Morehttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-21/asian-futures-pace-u-s-stock-rally-on-fed-outlook-as-bonds-sink?module=TopNews&position=0_headline
Don’t Ignore the Big, Fat Transportation Warning Sign
By Tony Sagami September
22, 2015
----Not all is well in the transportation
sector; the Dow Jones Transportation Average (DJT) started the year at 9,139
and closed at 8,163 on September 15, a 10.6% loss for the year.
By comparison, the S&P 500 is down 3.8% during the same time, so the
DJT has dropped almost 3 times as much.
That weak relative performance is your first clue, but there are plenty
of other clues (dots) that explain why transportation stocks are doing so
poorly.
Dot #1: China Freight Rates Plunge. The China Containerized
Freight Index (CCFI) tracks the rates for shipping containers from Chinese
ports to major ports around the world. The CCFI dropped to 820.9 last week, is
22% below where it was in February, and 18% below where it was in 1998 when the
index was created.
Rates to the US have dropped the most. Rates from Shanghai to the US West
Coast ports are down 33%, and the rates to East Coast ports are down 41%.
Dot #2: Air Cargo Volume Shrinks. Container ships are just one
transportation option. What about trucks, rails, and airplanes?
According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), global
air freight was down 0.7% in July from a year ago.
"The disappointing July freight performance is symptomatic of a
broader slowdown in economic growth," IATA Director General Tony Tyler
said.
Dot #3: Asian Air Freight Is Even Worse. The
Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) echoed that slowdown by reporting a
year-over-year drop of 1.8% in international air cargo across the region in
July.
“Air cargo demand began the year quite strongly but has lost momentum as
a result of a slowdown in global trade and weaker demand for Asian exports,”
said Andrew Herdman of AAPA.
Dot #4: Less Freight, Less Demand for Airplanes. Nippon Cargo
Airlines, Japan's biggest cargo carrier, canceled a $1.5 billion order for four
747-8F freighters from Boeing. Not passenger planes—cargo planes.
Morehttp://www.mauldineconomics.com/connecting-the-dots/dont-ignore-the-big-fat-transportation-warning-sign
We end with the death of “clean diesel.” Other than for trucks and busses, although even there diesel is already losing out to clean diesel-electric motors, who will now want to buy a diesel powered auto, that not only pollutes the atmosphere, but probably is damaging your health and that of your family.
Below day three of “Destroyed in Seconds.”
VW is now in mortal danger, but it’s not the only one
There is little doubt that the repercussions from the Volkswagen scandal will spread beyond the German giant
----Some of the numbers that have been generated by this scandal are scarcely believable. Volkswagen’s shares have slumped 35pc in the two days since news broke that the company falsified emissions data in the US to make its diesel engines look cleaner than they actually are. This is a more precipitous fall in value than BP suffered in the days after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.About €25bn (£18bn) has been wiped off the market capitalisation of the German company, which has fessed up to the fact that 11m of its cars have probably been fitted with the pollution cheating software. VW has already set aside a cool €6.5bn to pay all the fines that are surely heading its way; some believe the figure could end up being fined closer to $18bn (£12bn).
This is a corporate catastrophe. It is no exaggeration to say that VW, the largest car manufacturer in the world, is now in mortal danger. It may well survive as it can almost certainly manage the immediate financial hit; whether it can recover from the reputational damage it has suffered remains to be seen.
There’s certainly plenty more mileage left in this scandal. VW claimed it was trying to help save the planet by developing greener diesel engines while deliberately swerving rules so that its engines could pump out 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxides. It is now facing a criminal probe in the US and investigations all around the world that could, in turn, open the door to civil cases.
----There is little doubt that the repercussions from this scandal will spread beyond the German giant. The obvious question is whether other car makers were up to the same dirty (air) tricks. There is no evidence of that yet. But all will now face tougher scrutiny. The share prices of many of VW’s European peers have taken a hit – BMW’s was down 5pc on Tuesday.
It will be those companies with the biggest exposure to diesel that
suffer the most damage. That side of the business is now, in the succinct
appraisal of Bernstein analyst Max Warburton, “dead”.
Morehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/11883829/VW-is-now-in-mortal-danger-but-its-not-the-only-one.html
VW Seen Losing Trust Among Chinese Consumers With U.S. Scandal
September
22, 2015 — 11:01 AM BST
Volkswagen AG may face a loss of trust among consumers in China after
the German automaker admitted to cheating on U.S air pollution tests, adding
another hurdle to its attempts to revive sales in its largest market and hurting
its global race with Toyota Motor Corp.
The scandal has widened since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
revealed on Friday that Volkswagen admitted that it had rigged diesel vehicles
to pass emissions tests in the lab. While China has yet to say whether it will
initiate a probe into VW, neighboring South Korea will start testing VW
vehicles next month, while regulators in Taiwan and Australia are seeking
clarification from the German automaker.
VW has underperformed in the Chinese market this year, with deliveries
dropping 5.8 percent in the eight months through August even as industrywide
passenger-vehicle sales climbed 6.3 percent. The company has attributed its
poor showing to a mismatch of its products and the growing consumer preference for
budget sport utility vehicles.
“If you have a leaky roof, the last thing you want is to meet a storm,”
said Yale Zhang, a managing director at Autoforesight Shanghai Co. “Any damage
to VW’s reputation and brand image could be a game-changer for its competition
with Toyota both in and outside the Chinese market. It’s anyone’s guess how bad
things can get.”
The U.S. revelation comes after VW initiated two high-profile recalls in
China in as many years.
The company recalled almost 600,000 New Sagitar and Beetle vehicles last
year after initially resisting consumer demands to fix broken rear suspension
axles. Volkswagen only called back the vehicles after China’s quality inspector
started an investigation into mounting complaints from owners.
In 2013, Volkswagen recalled 384,181 vehicles in China to replace
defective gearboxes after state broadcaster China Central Television featured
owner complaints about cars equipped with the company’s proprietary gearbox
technology.
More
Volkswagen Owners Want Payback
September
22, 2015 — 2:57 AM BST
John Decker bought his 2013 Volkswagen Jetta diesel thinking he was
doing his part to improve the environment and reduce his carbon footprint.
Now that the German automaker has admitted its claims about the model’s
performance were false, he just wants the company to buy it back from him.
“I feel completely deceived by Volkswagen,” Decker, of Sacramento,
California, said in an interview. “I’m extremely upset about it. I feel
defrauded.”
Decker is in good company: 482,000 Audi and Volkswagen cars
sold in recent years came with software that turns on full pollution
controls only when the car is undergoing emissions testing. At other
times, the cars pollute 10 times to 40 times the legal limits.
The U.S. Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and
regulators in California are all investigating. Eventually, the cars may be
recalled and cash settlements -- or a buyback like Decker wants -- may be
negotiated. Volkswagen has suspended sales of the affected models in the
meantime.
Edmunds.com, which operates an online car-buying guide, is advising
Volkswagen owners to hold onto theirs for now -- if for no other reason than
they’re likely to get lower prices in a sale or a trade-in at a dealer. Owners
who bought diesels for their environmental benefits may feel a moral objection
to driving them until there’s an emission fix, said Jessica Caldwell, the
website’s director of industry analysis.
More
We
end for today with more on rising global deflation. No not the collapse in
Volkswagen auto prices new or second hand, or its dodgy stock, nor the crashing
deflation of Germany’s always iffy reputation, today it’s the collapse of Old
King Coal. Commodities have fallen and can’t get back up. Dodgy new financing
deals don’t help either. Mines just keep on producing for a demand that simply
isn’t there anymore.
European Coal Prices Slump to a Record Low
September
22, 2015 — 8:57 AM BST
European coal for 2016 dropped below $50 a metric ton for the first time
amid slumping demand from China, the biggest consumer.
Prices have declined 25 percent so far in 2015, heading for a fifth
straight year of drops in the benchmark year-ahead contract, according to
broker data compiled by Bloomberg. The slump came as lackluster global demand
with diminished prospects for growth, including a 35 percent drop in Chinese
coal imports from January to July, combined with plenty of available low-cost
supply, according to Societe Generale SA.
“Until now the only support for coal has been the psychological barrier
at $50, after this there is a no-man’s land from a technical perspective,”
Danny Graefe, an energy trader at AVU AG fuer Versorgungs-Unternehmen,
said by e-mail from Gevelsberg, Germany. “Fundamentally, coal should have
bottomed out, but even still all news points downward.”
Coal for delivery next year to Rotterdam, Amsterdam or Antwerp, fell as
much as 0.6 percent to $49.95 a metric ton before trading at $50.05 by 8:53
a.m. London time, according to broker data compiled by Bloomberg. The contract
for 2016 has slumped 57 percent from $116.75 when it first traded in October
2012.
The drop has hurt exporters including the U.S., where producers are
facing mounting environmental and mining regulations as well as a strong dollar
that has marooned the fuel to the domestic market. Miners producing 80 percent
of the best-quality U.S. coal are either for sale or in bankruptcy, George
Dethlefsen, chief executive officer of Corsa Coal Corp., said on Sept. 18.
Miners turn to alternative finance to cut debt as downturn grinds on
21st September 2015
Denver. A niche form of mining industry finance is emerging as the new go-to funding for miners bowed by debt, another sign of the sector's distress as it plods through the fourth year of a commodities' downturn.
Denver. A niche form of mining industry finance is emerging as the new go-to funding for miners bowed by debt, another sign of the sector's distress as it plods through the fourth year of a commodities' downturn.
Glencore, the world's third-biggest
miner, is in talks to raise more than $1-billion in so-called
"streaming" deals, coming on the heels of transactions by No 1 gold
producer Barrick Gold and diversified miner Teck Resources.
More such deals are expected
as shareholders, ratings agencies and lenders pressure miners to slash debt
amid a gloomy commodity price outlook and as other debt-cutting tools such as
asset sales, dividend cuts and share issues are not enough.
Until now so-called
"streaming" finance - upfront funds for miners in exchange for a
portion of a mine's future output - has most commonly been used by mid-sized
miners with limited access to capital to fund mine builds.
That the world's biggest
miners are now prepared to do deals that see them giving up a portion of their
future production, earnings and cashnflow to cut debt is a reflection of their
limited options.
"It is a sign of the
times," said Andrew Kaip, an analyst at BMO Capital markets. "Equity
markets are to a large degree closed... Miners are looking for alternatives.
Unfortunately this is an alternative of last resort," he said.
more
more
Glencore Falls to Record as Mining Shares Lead Stock Losses
September 22, 2015 — 10:05 AM BST
Updated on September 22, 2015 — 11:17 AM BST
Mining shares including Glencore Plc led a slump in European equities as
metals prices tumbled on fears that an economic slowdown in China, the world’s
biggest consumer of raw materials, is deepening.Glencore fell as much as 10 percent to a record 107 pence in London trading. Anglo American Plc, Antofagasta Plc and ArcelorMittal dropped more than 6 percent, dragging the regional benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 Index lower. KAZ Minerals Plc plunged almost 18 percent, the most since January, to a record low.
"Until China demand and emerging-market currencies find a floor, it will remain challenging to put an absolute floor on commodity prices," Credit Suisse Group AG analysts led by Liam Fitzpatrick wrote in a note Tuesday.
The bank cut its price estimates for large diversified miners including Glencore and BHP Billiton Ltd., which said on Tuesday it’s planning to sell hybrid securities to help refinance near-term liabilities. Stainless steel producer Outokumpu Oyj sank as much as 16 percent after saying third-quarter delivery volumes may be 10 percent lower than the previous quarter.
The Asian Development Bank reduced its growth forecasts for China and said the country’s declining appetite for energy, metals and other raw materials would hurt commodity-focused export economies like Mongolia and Indonesia. China is set to grow at its slowest pace in a quarter century this year even after five central bank interest-rate cuts and fiscal stimulus.
More
"As fewer and fewer people have confidence in paper as a store of value, the price of gold will continue to rise. The history of fiat money is little more than a register of monetary follies and inflations. Our present age merely affords another entry in this dismal register."
Hans F. Sennholz
At the Comex silver depositories
Tuesday final figures were: Registered 46.31 Moz, Eligible 120.56 Moz, Total 165.87
Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Below, what guilty VW execs may face
if extradited to America. Time for” Let’s make a deal.” Getting in early beats
getting let out of jail last.
Former peanut exec sentenced to 28 years for covering up deadly salmonella outbreak
Published: Sept 21, 2015 7:09 p.m. ET
A former Georgia peanut executive was sentenced to 28 years in prison
Monday for presiding over a cover-up that led to a deadly salmonella outbreak,
marking what legal experts believe to be the most severe punishment yet in a
U.S. food-safety case.
A U.S. district judge in Albany, Ga., sentenced Stewart Parnell, the
61-year-old former owner of Peanut Corp. of America, after a jury found him
guilty last year on dozens of felony counts, including conspiracy to conceal
that many of the company’s products were contaminated with salmonella.
----
In the Peanut Corp. case, prosecutors introduced internal emails they said
showed Parnell and his company had for years hidden the fact that many of the
firm’s products were contaminated with salmonella. In some cases, company
officials falsified lab results, stating peanut products were safe to eat when
tests showed otherwise, or when products had never been tested at all,
according to court papers.
More
Solar & Related Update.
With events happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, 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?Engineers invent transparent coating that cools solar cells to boost efficiency
The quandary: The hotter solar cells get, the less efficiently they convert sunlight to electricity; The fix: A new transparent overlay allows light to hit the cells while shunting heat away
Date:
September 21, 2015
Source:Stanford
School of Engineering
Summary:
The hotter solar cells become, the less efficient they are at converting
sunlight to electricity, a problem that has long vexed the solar industry. Now
engineers have developed a transparent overlay that increases efficiency by
cooling the cells even in full sunlight.
Every time you stroll outside you emit energy into the universe: Heat
from the top of your head radiates into space as infrared light.
Now three Stanford engineers have developed a technology that improves
on solar panel performance by exploiting this basic phenomenon. Their invention
shunts away the heat generated by a solar cell under sunlight and cools it in a
way that allows it to convert more photons into electricity.
The work by Shanhui Fan, a professor of electrical engineering at
Stanford, research associate Aaswath P. Raman and doctoral candidate Linxiao
Zhu is described in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences.
The group's discovery, tested on a Stanford rooftop, addresses a problem
that has long bedeviled the solar industry: The hotter solar cells get, the
less efficient they become at converting the photons in light into useful
electricity.
The Stanford solution is based on a thin, patterned silica material laid
on top of a traditional solar cell. The material is transparent to the visible
sunlight that powers solar cells, but captures and emits thermal radiation, or
heat, from infrared rays.
"Solar arrays must face the sun to function, even though that heat
is detrimental to efficiency," Fan said. "Our thermal overlay allows
sunlight to pass through, preserving or even enhancing sunlight absorption, but
it also cools the cell by radiating the heat out and improving the cell
efficiency."
A cool way to improve solar efficiency
In 2014, the same trio of inventors developed an ultrathin material that
radiated infrared heat directly back toward space without warming the
atmosphere. They presented that work in Nature, describing it as
"radiative cooling" because it shunted thermal energy directly into
the deep, cold void of space.
In their new paper, the researchers applied that work to improve solar
array performance when the sun is beating down.
The Stanford team tested their technology on a custom-made solar
absorber -- a device that mimics the properties of a solar cell without
producing electricity -- covered with a micron-scale pattern designed to
maximize the capability to dump heat, in the form of infrared light, into
space. Their experiments showed that the overlay allowed visible light to pass
through to the solar cells, but that it also cooled the underlying absorber by
as much as 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
More
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished August
DJIA: +65 Down. NASDAQ:
+168 Down. SP500: +92 Down.
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