Baltic Dry Index. 903 Brent Crude 52.70
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
When the operations of capitalism come to resemble
those of the casino, ill fortune will be the lot of the many.
John Maynard Keynes.
August – stocks down, industrial commodities down, emerging markets
crashed, dollar up, oil up. That last, oil up, might be very short lived. The
American EIA just rigged US production figures lower. Welcome to the 21st
century world of market rigging, phony statistics, and dodgy central banksters
watching their crashing fiat currency casino economy get ever further out of
control. Like dodgy King Canute before them, the sea before them doesn’t seem
to be listening. Thanks to our deluded central banksters and bent politicians,
we seem to have arrived via the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money, at the
promised land of Peak Instability. I suspect a stock market reversion to mean
comes next.
Each
success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.
Henry
Kissinger.
Dow posts worst August decline in 17 years
Published: Aug 31, 2015 5:37 p.m. ET
The month of August can be pretty rough for stock investors. But this August
has earned its place in the record books, as stocks were unsettled by
uncertainty over the state of affairs in the world’s second largest economy,
China. As far as Augusts go, this has been the worst in nearly two decades for the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.69%
The Dow posted a roughly 6.4% decline in August, which marked the worst month in more than five years for the market gauge, which tracks the performance of 30 stocks. Comparing the month with other Augusts, the blue-chip index registered its worst August since 1998, based on data from Dow Jones.
Overall it was the sixth worst monthly performance for the Dow and the worst since May 2010, when the Dow dropped 7.9%, according to FactSet data.
Meanwhile, the broader U.S. stock benchmark, the S&P 500 SPX, -0.84% posted a 6.3% fall in August, its worst monthly tumble in more than three years. Stacked up against other August returns, the S&P 500 marked its worst fall since 2001, when it tumbled 6.41%, according to Dow Jones research.
The Nasdaq’s August performance—off 6.9% on the month—was similarly steep, with the tech-heavy index marking its worst performance on the month in 14 years, as well as ringing up its worst monthly return overall in three years, according to Dow Jones and FactSet data.
More
Oil's Three Big Days Wipe Out a Month of Losses
August 31, 2015 — 10:14 PM BST Updated on September 1, 2015 — 5:01 AM
BST
OPEC signaled that it might cut production in the future and the U.S.
lowered output estimates, propelling oil back into a bull market less than a
week after hitting a six-year low.
Prices surged 8.8 percent Monday in New York, capping the biggest
three-day gain in 25 years.
The Energy Information Administration changed the way it calculates how
much oil comes out of the ground, using a survey of producers in key states
instead of relying on data from state agencies and computer models. As a
result, 13.2 million barrels of oil production vanished with a government blog
post.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, producer of about 40
percent of the world’s oil, renewed its commitment to talk to other crude
exporters to achieve “fair and reasonable prices,” according to the group’s
monthly magazine. OPEC won’t prop up oil prices by cutting supply unless
non-member nations agree to share the burden, according to the bulletin.
So is the glut over? Depends on who you ask.
Phil Verleger, president of the economic consulting company PKVerleger
LLC, said the global market could be rebalanced as soon as early next year
after the U.S. revisions.
The bullish headlines, combined with money managers holding bearish bets
that are nearly triple the average over the past 10 years, led to what could be
a short-lived rally, warned Ed Morse, the head of global commodity research at
Citigroup Inc.
It’s too early to fully trust the EIA’s new data, he said in a research
note, and there’s no reason to believe any non-OPEC countries will work with
the group to cut production. Russian production has remained high because the
weak ruble has lowered costs there, while Mexico is trying to increase output
amid a historic energy reform.
More
Oil prices drop 3 percent as investors retreat from overnight gains
Oil prices fell nearly 3 percent in Asian trade on Tuesday, with
investors covering short positions and taking profits after Brent and U.S.
crude soared more than 8 percent in the previous session.
Both Brent and U.S. crude prices dropped nearly $2 a barrel shortly
after trading in Brent started on Tuesday before partly recovering later in the
session.
"A lot of the fall was due to short covering," said Ben Le
Brun, market analyst at Sydney's OptionsXpress.
"There could be a bit of profit-taking for people who have gone
long."
U.S. crude, also known as West Texas Intermediate, had climbed 27.5
percent by the end of three days of gains in the previous session, the largest
three-day increase in dollar terms since February 2011 and the biggest
percentage increase over three days since August 1990.
More
Asian shares slip as downbeat China PMIs revive growth fears
Asian shares fell on Tuesday and the dollar struggled after twin surveys
showed China's manufacturing sector in the grip of its worst slump in several
years, raising fresh fears about the health of its economy.
China's official Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell to 49.7 in August
from the previous month's reading of 50.0, the weakest showing in three years.
Separately, the private Caixin/Markit China Manufacturing Purchasing
Managers' Index (PMI) showed a final reading of 47.3 in August, the lowest
since March 2009.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slipped 0.3
percent, erasing its early gains. The index shed more than 10 percent in the
month of August, its worst monthly performance since 2012, on fears of global
fallout from slowing momentum in China.
"The broad based decline in almost all components of the PMI hints
the central bank was right in introducing further easing measures on 25
August," said Chester Liaw, an economist at Forecast Pte Ltd in Singapore.
"It is clear that the interest rates and RRR cuts were not only
aimed at containing further falls in the SSEC, but to boost activity in the
real economy."
China's cooling demand is already taking a toll on the economies of its
trade-reliant Asian neighbors. South Korea reported on Tuesday its exports fell
14.7 percent in August from a year earlier, worse than expected and the biggest
drop in six years.
----
Chinese shares opened lower, with the Shanghai Composite Index down 1.8 percent
and the CSI300 index down 2.2 percent. Both indexes skidded around 12 percent
in August, their third straight monthly decline. China's stock markets have now
lost nearly 40 percent of their value since mid-June despite unprecedented
government support steps.
More
European shares suffer worst month in four years
Chinese turmoil has spread to Europe, sending shares down in the worst month since 2011
European shares endured their worst August since the height of the sovereign debt crisis in 2011, as the ramifications of China’s stock market crunch continued to spread across the world.The FTSE Eurofirst 300 index slid by another 0.5pc yesterday (Tuesday), pulling the index of 300 leading European down by 9pc over the month.
French stocks on the CAC 40 index dropped by 1.1pc while the German DAX slid by 0.9pc. American markets followed suit with the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 immediately down by 0.8pc.
It came after the Shanghai Composite Index fell another 0.8pc, after dropping almost 40pc since its peak in June.
British markets were closed for the bank holiday.
Another contributing factor is the possibility of an interest rate increase in the US in the coming months.
Federal Reserve official Stanley Fischer hinted at the weekend that the
market turbulence may not have pushed back the rate hike, despite market
expectations that it would not be possible to increase the cost of borrowing at
a time of financial disturbance.
“We should not wait until inflation is back to 2pc to begin tightening,”
he said. But he also noted that policymakers should “consider the overall state
of the US economy, as well as the influence of foreign economies on the US
economy, as we reach our judgment on whether and how to change monetary
policy”.
More
Next month, October, traditional crash season.
What is needed for a sound expansion of production is additional
capital goods, not money or fiduciary media. The credit expansion is built on
the sands of banknotes and deposits. It must collapse.
Ludwig
von Mises.
At the Comex silver depositories Monday
final figures were: Registered 53.63 Moz, Eligible 116.93 Moz, Total 170.56
Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today China. Don’t even think about saying “sell.”
But why would anyone want to buy Chinese stocks? Below, the Communist Party of
China finds its scapegoat. Do we really want the Chinese Yuan in the IMF’s
basket of currencies in Special Drawing Rights?
Chinese journalist 'confesses' to market chaos: state media
China's main state broadcaster on Monday paraded a financial journalist "confessing" to causing the stock market "great losses" as authorities seek to rein in a rout on the exchanges.Wang Xiaolu, a journalist with the respected business magazine Caijing, was held after writing a story in July saying the securities regulator was studying plans for government funds to exit the market.
Beijing has launched interventions on a grand scale to try -- with
little success -- to shore up plunging share prices after a debt-fuelled bubble
burst in June.
Britain's Financial Times reported at the weekend that China had decided
to stop buying shares in favour of intensifying a crackdown on those
"destabilising" the market, although there was speculation as
recently as last Thursday that government funds were acquiring stock.
The ministry of public security also said at the weekend that 197 people
had been punished for "spreading online rumours" on several issues,
including the markets and giant deadly blasts in the port of Tianjin on August
12. It gave scant details.
China
has unleashed an unprecedented package of support measures, including using
state-backed entities to buy stocks and cracking down on "malicious"
short-selling -- when investors sell shares they do not own in anticipation of
a fall in their price.
But the moves have done little to calm investors and concerns about the
health of China's economy and its ability to manage its finances has infected
world markets, sparking one of the worst global sell-offs since the financial
crisis on August 24.
- 'Panics and disorder' -
State broadcaster CCTV showed Wang as saying that he had sought to
create a stir and catch the eyes of readers with his articles.
"I should not have published a report that heavily and negatively
affected the market at such a sensitive time... (I) caused such great losses to
the country and to stock investors. I am deeply sorry," he said.
Xinhua said Wang was held for fabricating and spreading fake information
which had "caused panics and disorder at (the) stock market, seriously
undermined the market confidence, and inflicted huge losses on the country and
investors".
In China high-profile criminal suspects are regularly paraded on
television apparently confessing to their actions, in what rights lawyers say
is a violation of criminal procedure.
Once prosecutors post charges, conviction is all but guaranteed in
courts which are tightly controlled by the ruling Communist Party.
Journalists' rights group Reporters Without Borders last week said it
was "absurd" to blame China's stock market crash on a reporter and
called for Wang's immediate release.
"The accusations against Wang are symptomatic of the Chinese government's
desire to control media coverage of share price movements," the group's
secretary-general Christophe Deloire said in a statement.
"Suggesting that a business journalist was responsible for the
spectacular fall in share prices is a denial of reality. Blaming the stock
market crisis on a lone reporter is beyond absurd."
More
"The history of paper money is an account of abuse, mismanagement, and financial disaster."
Richard M. Ebeling
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?
The Solar Sunflower: Harnessing the power of 5,000 suns
The Sunflower has a massive total efficiency of around 80%, thanks to very clever tech.
by Sebastian
Anthony (UK) - Aug 30, 2015 1:10pm BST
High on a
hill was a lonely sunflower. Not a normal sunflower, mind you; that would
hardly be very notable. This sunflower is a solar sunflower that
combines both photovoltaic solar power and concentrated solar thermal power in
one neat, aesthetic package that has a massive total efficiency of around 80
percent.
The Solar Sunflower, a Swiss invention developed by Airlight Energy,
Dsolar (a subsidiary of Airlight), and IBM Research in Zurich, uses something
called HCPVT to generate electricity and hot water from solar power. HCPVT is a
clumsy acronym that stands for "highly efficient concentrated
photovoltaic/thermal." In short, it has reflectors that concentrate the
sun—"to about 5,000 suns," Gianluca Ambrosetti, Airlight's head of
research told me—and then some highly efficient photovoltaic cells that are
capable of converting that concentrated solar energy into electricity, without
melting in the process. Airlight/Dsolar are behind the Sunflower's
reflectors and superstructure, and the photovoltaics are provided by IBM.
The two constituent technologies of the Solar
Sunflower—concentrated solar thermal power and photovoltaic solar power—are
both very well known and understood at this point, and not at all exciting.
What's special about the Sunflower, however, is that it combines both of the
technologies together in a novel fashion to attain much higher total
efficiency. Bear with me, as this will take a little bit of explaining.
The reflectors are simply slightly curved, mirrored panels. Airlight
has tried a variety of different reflector materials, from glass to
mylar, but it looks like they have finally settled on aluminium foil, which
isn't prohibitively expensive and has very high reflectance. Aluminium foil
does need additional material to protect it from the elements, though, as it's
very flimsy. The Sunflower has six "petals," each consisting of six
reflectors. At the focal point of the 36 reflectors there are six collectors,
one for each block of six reflectors.
The collectors are where most of the magic occurs. To begin with, each
collector has an array of gallium-arsenide (GaAs) photovoltaic cells. GaAs is
much more efficient at converting sunlight into electricity (38 percent in this
case, versus about 20 percent for silicon), but it's much, much more
expensive. With the Sunflower, though, space is at a premium: the sunlight
is only focused on a very small region, so you need to use the absolute best
cells available. The GaAs array in each collector only measures a few square
centimetres, and yet it can produce about 2 kilowatts of electricity (so, one
Sunflower generates about 12kW of electricity in total).
Photovoltaic cells, like most semiconductors, become less efficient as
they get hotter. The GaAs cells used by the Sunflower have a max operating
temperature of around 105°C. The problem is, when you focus the power of 5,000
suns on a single point, things get a lot hotter than 105°C. During one test,
Airlight told me that they used the reflectors to melt a hole in a lump of
iron (which has a melting point of 1538°C); during another test, the
reflectors were misaligned and "we had molten aluminium dripping
everywhere."
----Airlight Energy is
planning to sell some Solar Sunflowers to early adopters in
2016, and then ramp up to full commercial manufacturing capacity in
2017. The Sunflower that we saw in Switzerland was a full-size, fully working
prototype, but the final version will look a lot more polished and
aesthetically pleasing.
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