Baltic Dry Index. 889 +01 Brent Crude 48.45
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
"There is nothing in the business situation to justify any nervousness."
Eugene M. Stevens, President Continental Illinois Bank, October 1929.
We open today with the EUSSR. We are about to find out later this week if the rule of law still applies in Euroland, or if the ECB is a “special case” far above the rule of law. If the Luxembourg based court decides one way, it will give a tremendous push in favour of parties promoting leaving the EUSSR. If it decides that the ECB is not a special case and must abide by freely entered into contracts, Draghi’s “whatever it takes” will get its wings clipped.
European Central Bank sued by 200 investors over Greek debt deal
Central bank accused of violating its creditor status in case which opens door to host of legal action
The European Central Bank is being sued by more than 200 investors over its role in Greece's debt restructuring, in a case which could pave the way for a raft of legal action from the private sector.A group of Italian retail investors are claiming damages in excess of €12m from the ECB for an alleged violation of its "equal" creditor status during the biggest private sector debt restructuring in history in 2012.
During the episode, the ECB was able to "swap" its holdings of Greek government debt for protected bonds with no repayment date. The move ensured the ECB did not suffer losses from the deal to stave off a Greek bankruptcy in March 2012.
Private sector creditors, however, were forced into accepting a 53.5pc "haircut" on their holdings.
In total, the restructuring wiped off more than €100bn from the
country's debt pile and ensured Greece received its second international
bail-out.
The ECB also later allowed national central banks to repurchase Greek
government debt at a discounted rate.
----The claimants in the case - Accorinti and Others - argue these actions gave the ECB unfair preferential treatment and imposed heavier losses on non-official debt holders.
A judgement is expected at the EU's general court in Luxembourg on
Wednesday.
If granted, the action could pave the way for a number investors to
launch similar claims for damages against the central bank.
A French bank is poised to mount its own case against the ECB, and has
strong chance of gaining recompense, according to legal sources.
Private sector creditors will have to “establish the ECB’s liability for
the negative impact on their bond holdings and central bank’s transactions,
which kept it out of the partial write-down of Greece’s privately-held debt,”
said Hubert De Vauplane at Kramer Levin Naftalis law firm.
Morehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11907490/European-Central-Bank-sued-by-200-investors-over-Greek-debt-deal.html
Elsewhere in Europe, currency devaluation is starting to get tricky. Beggar thy neighbour policies are beginning to turn counterproductive. Fiat currency isn’t working like it used to.
Norway's PM Warns Currency Instability Is a Threat to Economy
October 3, 2015 — 2:05 PM BST Updated on October 4, 2015 — 11:00 PM BST
As the currency of one of the world’s richest nations becomes
increasingly difficult to trade, the government is starting to worry about the
economic fallout.
Prime Minister Erna Solberg says the rapid weakening of Norway’s krone
will only provide short-term relief to western Europe’s biggest oil producer.
In the longer term, the loss of liquidity and increased volatility pose a
threat to businesses struggling to plan investments.
“It helps some of those industries that have been suffering a bit on
competitiveness,” Solberg told Bloomberg on Saturday while attending a Nordic
Council meeting outside Copenhagen. “But it’s not good for a country in the
long run to have an unstable currency because you also need to be able to
long-term plan when you are doing investments.”
Norway’s krone has plunged more than 20 percent against the dollar over
the past year. It’s the worst of the 10 major currencies tracked in the
Bloomberg Correlation Weighted Index in the period. Over the past three months,
it’s displayed the biggest increase in volatility against the euro of the major
currencies monitored by Bloomberg.
But Solberg’s warning that the trend may pose a threat to the economy is
at odds with the message coming from the central bank. Governor Oeystein Olsen
says he welcomes the decline in his nation’s currency because it helps
exporters. He delivered a surprise rate cut on Sept. 24, driving the krone down
more then 3 percent against the euro at one point during the day.
More
"I wasn't worth two cents two years ago, and now I owe $2 million dollars."
Mark Twain
Oops! Chinese Billionaire Behind New Nicaraguan Canal Drops 90% in 3 Months
by Bloomberg Business • October 2, 2015
The Chinese billionaire using his personal fortune to help fund a $50
billion Nicaraguan challenger to the Panama Canal has crashed into the bitter
reality of equity markets in the world’s second-largest economy.
Telecommunications entrepreneur Wang Jing, 42, was one of the world’s
200 richest people with $10.2 billion at the peak of the Chinese markets in
June, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His net worth has since
fallen to $1.1 billion.
His 84 percent drop so far in 2015 is the worst recorded by the index, which
provides a daily ranking of the world’s 400 richest people. Ivan Glasenberg,
chief executive officer of Baar, Switzerland-based Glencore Plc, had the
second-biggest percentage decline, falling 66 percent to $1.8 billion.Wang owns 35 percent of publicly traded Beijing Xinwei Telecom Technology Group Co., which has tumbled along with China’s equity markets. The end of a lockup on 51 percent of its shares on Sept. 10 triggered a further decline that’s pushed Xinwei to a 57 percent drop this year. He pledged Xinwei shares valued at $2.4 billion in July that were removed from his net worth calculation.
Behind Wang and Glasenberg are Hong Kong casino operator Lui Che-Woo and Mexican retailer Ricardo Salinas, who’ve both fallen almost 47 percent. To date, the year’s biggest dollar decliners are the world’s third- and fourth-richest people. Carlos Slim, No. 4, has lost $14.2 billion, or 20 percent of his net worth.Warren Buffett is down $12.5 billion, a 17 percent fall. The 400 billionaires on the index have lost 4.2 percent of their combined net worth this year.
----“The turn of fortune in Mr. Wang’s financial resources will impact how and whether the canal can and will be built,” said Daniel Wagner, CEO of Country Risk Solutions and a former country risk manager at General Electric Co. “I would expect, given this year’s financial gyrations in China, that the government is also asking itself whether the canal is a viable proposition.”
The company said that despite the economic setbacks and local protests
against the canal’s construction, the project is moving forward. “I have
no doubt that appropriate financial arrangements will be in place before
construction commences,” Bill Wild, HKND’s chief adviser for the canal, said in
an e-mailed response to questions. Company representatives for Xinwei declined
to comment on Wang’s personal investments and declined a request for an
interview with Wang.
More
Hedge fund moguls Einhorn, Loeb, Rosenstein lose money in September
Billionaire stock pickers David Einhorn, Daniel Loeb and Barry
Rosenstein on Wednesday told their wealthy investors they lost money in
September as market turmoil inflicted more pain on some of America's most
prominent hedge funds.
The three men were among the first to tabulate their monthly performance
numbers and their losses suggest that even bigger declines will be reported by
other hedge funds in the days ahead, after global markets tumbled this month
amid persistent fears that China's economy is slowing.
Einhorn's Greenlight Capital fund fell 3.6 percent in September, leaving
the $11 billion firm off 17 percent for the year to date, two people familiar
with the figures said on Wednesday.
Loeb's $17.5 billion Third Point fell 4.8 percent in September. It is
down 3.7 percent for the year while his more aggressively positioned Third
Point Ultra fund lost 6.7 percent, putting it off 7.5 percent for the year, a
person familiar with the numbers said.
Rosenstein's $11 billion Jana Partners lost 3.8 percent in September and
is now off 6.6 percent, a person familiar with the numbers said.
Their losses largely mirrored the 3.52 percent decline in the Standard
& Poor's 500 index in September, but that is certain to raise questions
about the funds' hefty fees and promises to protect investors, including
pension funds, in down markets.
At Greenlight, Einhorn is delivering some of the industry's worst
numbers, thanks largely to soured bets on renewable energy company SunEdison
and Consol Energy, and a losing gamble on Micron Technology.
Einhorn is now on track to post his first down year since the financial
crisis in 2008 - a big blow for a manager who had been delivering average annual
returns of about 20 percent.
Rosenstein's biggest bets on Qualcomm, Walgreens Boots Alliance and
Hertz all saw losses, and he was also hurt by a 24 percent sell-off in
pharmaceutical company Valeant.
At Third Point, declines in Amgen and Allergan weighed on performance.
As most managers are still finalizing their monthly numbers, preliminary
data from industry tracking firm Hedge Fund Research, however, show that the
average fund lost 2.5 percent in September, leaving it off 3.5 percent for the
first nine months of the year, versus the Standard & Poor's 500 index's
7.27 percent drop.
More
"Wall Street lays an egg."
Headline
Variety newspaper, October 1929.
At the Comex silver depositories Friday
final figures were: Registered 43.56 Moz, Eligible 120.34 Moz, Total 163.90
Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Week four of the Great Volkswagen fraud. Chancellor
Merkel still doesn’t get it. Someone needs to explain to her exactly what “malice
aforethought” means in Anglo-American jurisprudence.
VW Chief Warns Cheating Scandal May Threaten Company's Existence
October 4, 2015 — 3:51 PM BST Updated on October 4, 2015 — 5:39 PM BST
Volkswagen AG’s designated Chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch warned managers that
the diesel-emissions scandal could pose “an existence-threatening crisis for
the company,” as it pleaded for public trust with full-page ads in national
newspapers.The German carmaker faces a Wednesday deadline to present a plan to fix some 2.8 million vehicles in its home market. Poetsch told managers last week he was certain the Wolfsburg, Germany-based carmaker will overcome the crisis with enough effort, according to Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
----After mostly remaining silent on the cheating scandal, Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday called the disclosure by Germany’s largest carmaker “a dramatic event” and said Volkswagen must clarify the affair swiftly. She ruled out a longer-term impact on the country’s industry.
“I believe that the reputation of German industry, the trust in Germany as a business location, hasn’t been so shaken that we won’t continue to be seen as a good business location,” Merkel told Deutschlandfunk radio in an interview.
An internal investigation has already yielded several engineers who admitted to installing the fraudulent software in 2008 for EA 189 diesel-motor models, Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported Sunday. The decision for the regulatory work-around came as project engineers determined there was no way to meet both emissions standards and cost controls, a jam that threatened to bring the marquee project to a halt, Bild said.
More
VW Tsunami: Falsified Emissions Push Company to Limits
October 02, 2015 – 05:59 PM
Tuesday saw the first piece of good news in quite some time for
Volkswagen. The company's board of directors was meeting, under the leadership
of freshly installed CEO Matthias Müller, and developers were reporting on how
they planned to equip 11 million vehicles with law-abiding emissions filtering
systems.
That task is
VW's most pressing as it seeks to confront the vast emissions scandal of its
own making. Germany's Federal Motor Transport Authority has given Volkswagen a
deadline of Oct. 7 for submitting plans as to how it proposes to solve its
emissions problem. If it doesn't, the vehicles in question could be declared
un-roadworthy -- meaning their owners could no longer drive them. That would be
the greatest possible disaster for the automobile company.
But on Tuesday, VW engineers were optimistic that more than half of the
vehicles in question needed nothing more than a software update, which would
cost a mere €60 per automobile. Other models would require a greater effort,
with retrofitting costing several hundred euros per vehicle. In total, though,
fixing the problem might not be quite as expensive as originally feared, the VW
developers said, to the great relief of the board members.
Since Sept. 20, when then-CEO Martin Winterkorn admitted that VW had
cheated for years on emissions tests with the help of illegal software,
Europe's largest automobile company has been in crisis mode. Company managers
don't know what tasks to handle first. "It's like we have been hit by a
tsunami," says one VW manager.
Company attorneys have been overwhelmed by inquiries from national
authorities on both sides of the Atlantic and by lawyers who have been
notifying the company with threats of lawsuits. Beyond that, financial experts
have to develop plans in case the company's ratings fall, which would increase
borrowing costs. And sales managers have to come up with promotions to help
dealerships sell cars. Diesel models are currently extremely difficult to move
off the lot without significant rebates.
And then there is the company investigation that hopes to quickly
discover how the scandal could have happened in the first place and who was
responsible. Because development of the diesel engine in question began back in
2005, documents, records and emails from the last 10 years have to be examined.
----Nobody knows what the ultimate bill
might be, once affected vehicles are modified, the lawsuits from customers and
shareholders are settled and fines paid. It could be €10 billion, €20 billion
or even €30 billion, not to mention the potential loss of sales as customers
take their business elsewhere.
Hardly a day goes by without the appearance of yet another risk. In
Germany, for example, the emissions manipulations could result in a large,
retroactive tax bill. "It wasn't just the customers who were intentionally
deceived about the exhaust emissions," says Thomas Kutschaty, justice
minister in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. "The state was
also deceived when it comes to determining vehicle registration fees." In
Germany's criminal code, Kutschaty notes, there is such a thing as
"criminal agency," which refers to the commission of a crime by way
of a third party -- such as the owners of VW diesel automobiles, who were
unknowingly violating Germany's emissions laws.
Owners of vehicles that were registered between late-2008 and mid-2009
and given an emissions rating of Euro 5 didn't owe any taxes at all for a time.
If it turns out that this rating was incorrect, it could mean that millions in
potential tax revenue were lost.
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?Graphene as a front contact for silicon-perovskite tandem solar cells
Team develops elegant process for coating fragile perovskite layers with graphene for the first time
Date: October 2, 2015
Source: Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie
Summary: A team of researchers has developed an elegant
process for coating fragile perovskite layers with graphene for the first time.
Subsequent measurements show that the graphene layer is an ideal front contact
in several respects.
Silicon absorbers primarily convert the red portion of the solar
spectrum very effectively into electrical energy, whereas the blue portions are
partially lost as heat. To reduce this loss, the silicon cell can be combined
with an additional solar cell that primarily converts the blue portions.
Teams at HZB have already acquired extensive experience with these kinds
of tandem cells. A particularly effective complement to conventional silicon is
the hybrid material called perovskite. It has a band gap of 1.6 electron volts
with organic as well as inorganic components. However, it is very difficult to
provide the perovskite layer with a transparent front contact. While sputter
deposition of indium tin oxide (ITO) is common practice for inorganic silicon
solar cells, this technique destroys the organic components of a perovskite
cell.
Graphene as transparent front contact:
Now a group headed by Prof. Norbert Nickel has introduced a new
solution. Dr. Marc Gluba and PhD student Felix Lang have developed a process to
cover the perovskite layer evenly with graphene. Graphene consists of carbon
atoms that have arranged themselves into a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice
forming an extremely thin film that is highly conductive and highly
transparent.
More
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished September
DJIA: +41 Down. NASDAQ:
+138 Down. SP500: +65 Down.
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