Baltic Dry Index. 402 -13 Brent Crude 31.23
LIR Gold Target in 2019: $30,000. Revised due to QE programs.
A
politician is a man who understands government and it takes a politician to run
a government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead for fifteen years.
Harry
S. Truman
Today, the case for stock promoters whistling past the graveyard. This
time it’s different, really it is. Ebenezer Squid, “please buy more, my book is
sinking fast.” The Baltic Dry Index, and crude oil, and industrial commodities
all suggest a major hurricane has started to hit. A V-shaped rebound or an
I-shaped decline?
Strategist bets stock market poised for a V-shaped rebound
Published: Jan 12, 2016 3:55 p.m. ET
This is a ‘growth scare,’ not a recession
The bears are rampaging through the stock market as pessimism spreads. But at least one strategist is taking the carnage in stride and going as far as to predict a fairly robust recovery in the market.“We believe downside pressure has been magnified by a ‘buyers strike’ as investors wait for a decisive data point in either direction,” said Tom Lee, managing partner and head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, in a Tuesday note.
“While investors wait, we believe the case is increasingly tilting towards ‘growth scare’—and as a consequence, with each passing day, we see the probability of a V-shaped recovery rising,” he said, adding that things have been so dismal that most of the bad news has been “baked in.”
Among the key reasons for the strategist’s optimistic call is his belief that the U.S. dollar’s strength, which he blames for hurting 2015 earnings by as much as $93 billion, will ease given the currency’s horizontal moves since the third quarter.
“Barring a sudden surge in the dollar in the next three months, the
headwinds from the dollar should start fading,” he said.
Lee also noted that the long-term yield curve has steepened to 79 basis
points from 70 basis points since the December interest-rate hike.
“The long-term yield curve has a great long-term track record predicting
recessions—thus, a steepening curve argues the market turmoil is growth
jitters, rather than presaging a recession,” he said.
Furthermore, the U.S. market generally sets the tone for global markets, rather than the other way around. As a result, even though 52% of global markets are in bear market territory, the U.S. is not expected to follow suit.
Not only are U.S. stocks safe from foreign bear markets, the number of stocks trading above their 200-day moving average has fallen below 17% which is a traditional pivot point for a strong bounce back, he said. Since 1990, when the rate is below that level, equities are higher 87% of the time but jumps to 100% in the absence of a recession. Also see: Half of the S&P 500 is in a bear market.
More
And in Asian news, a scripted
result from China, just in the nick of time.
Asia stocks cheered by China trade surprise
Asian shares made their first real rally of the year on Wednesday after
Chinese data trade data beat expectations, offering a rare shaft of light for
the global economy.
Japan's Nikkei jumped 2.6 percent from a near-one-year trough, while
battered Australian stocks gained 1.3 percent. MSCI's broadest index of
Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan sped ahead by 1.6 percent and away from its
lowest since late 2011.
Even China's mercurial markets found some relief with the Shanghai
Composite Index up 0.8 percent and the CSI300 index 0.9 percent.
The good cheer spread to E-mini futures contracts for the S&P 500
which climbed 0.8 percent.
The gains came after China reported its exports had risen 2.3 percent in
yuan-denominated terms in December, from a year earlier while imports dipped
4.0 percent.
In U.S. dollar terms, China's December exports exceeded analyst
expectations, falling 1.4 pct from a year earlier, while imports fell by 7.6
percent. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected exports to fall 8.0 percent
and imports to fall 11.5 percent.
While investors harbor suspicions about the reliability of the data, on
the surface they offered hope that world trade flows were at least stabilizing
after a dismal 2015.
More
But, on the one hand…
Give
me a one-handed economist! All my economics say, ''On the one hand? On the
other.''
Harry S. Truman
Stocks still aren’t even close to being cheap
Published: Jan 12, 2016 5:08 a.m. ET
Recent weakness has simply worked off an extreme overvaluation
Even with the recent plunge, the stock market has a long way to fall
before stocks are even fairly valued, much less undervalued.
That is the depressing, but nevertheless undeniable, conclusion to
emerge from a review of where six well-known valuation indicators currently
stand. Each shows that recent weakness has done little more than work off some
of the extreme overvaluation that previously existed.
To be sure, valuation indicators’ track records do a far better job
forecasting the market’s direction over the intermediate and longer terms than
they do as short-term market-timing tools. So the market is entirely capable of
rising this year in the face of the current overvaluation.
But you may recall that it was precisely one year ago that I last reported on the stock market’s valuation, and since then the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.72% has fallen 7%.
Consider the same six valuation indicators that I focused on in my year-ago column. As I did then, the list below contrasts their current readings to where they stood at all of the bull-market tops since 1900 (using the bull-and-bear-market calendar employed by Ned Davis Research).
As you will see in the listing below, the indicator that judges the stock market to be least overvalued is still showing that equities are more overvalued than at 71% of past bull-market peaks.
The other five of the six indicators show today’s market to be more overvalued than at between 82% and 89% of those peaks:
More
Market downturn forces Arch Coal to file for bankruptcy 11th January 2016
By: Henry Lazenby Creamer
Media Deputy Editor: North America
Toronto (miningweekly.com) – The US's second largest coal producer Arch Coal has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, finally buckling under a heavy debt load and a falling coal price after it failed to turn a quarterly profit since 2013. As the company’s operational success is closely linked to global demand for coal-fuelled electricity and steel, its average sales price fell 19% from the third quarter of 2013 to the third quarter last year, as coal came under increasing pressure from stricter pollution controls, falling demand from China and increasing competition from natural gas.
Toronto (miningweekly.com) – The US's second largest coal producer Arch Coal has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, finally buckling under a heavy debt load and a falling coal price after it failed to turn a quarterly profit since 2013. As the company’s operational success is closely linked to global demand for coal-fuelled electricity and steel, its average sales price fell 19% from the third quarter of 2013 to the third quarter last year, as coal came under increasing pressure from stricter pollution controls, falling demand from China and increasing competition from natural gas.
The NYSE-listed company took
on significant debt when it acquired International Coal Group (ICG) in June
2011, in a deal valued at $3.4-billion, excluding costs associated with the
redemption of ICG's outstanding debt and fees related to the transaction.
“Despite the many proactive
steps the debtors have taken over the last several years to enhance the
efficiency of their operations and to focus on high-return opportunities, the
debtors’ highly leveraged capital structure, consisting of more than $5-billion
in outstanding indebtedness and about $360-million in annual debt service,
cannot be sustained in the current depressed coal market," said Arch CFO
John Drexler in a filing with the US Bankruptcy Court in St Louis on Monday.
Drexler added that, over the past several years, a confluence of economic
challenges and regulatory hurdles had hobbled the coal industry.
Arch stated that it had
reached an agreement with senior lenders to swap debt for equity that would
eliminate more than $4.5-billion in debt from Arch's balance sheet. The company
believes it has enough cash to continue its normal mining activities and to
meet its ordinary obligations. Arch also expects that its mining operations and
customer shipments will continue uninterrupted throughout the reorganisation
process.
more
more
BP Plans to Cut 4,000 More Jobs as Crude-Oil Slump Deepens
January 12, 2016 — 11:59 AM GMT Updated on January 12, 2016 — 1:55 PM
GMT
BP Plc plans to cut 4,000 jobs in its crude-oil production division this
year as prices trade near a 12-year low.The company will reduce its worldwide upstream workforce to less than 20,000, London-based spokesman David Nicholas said by phone. The cuts include 600 people working at North Sea projects: they’ll lose their positions over the next two years “with the majority in the first year,” he said.
BP, one of the first producers to predict a prolonged oil price slump, is cutting staff after dismissing 4,000 employees last year. The oil industry has cut more than 250,000 jobs in the past 18 months as companies reduce spending on exploration and defer new projects amid declining profit and revenue.
“It’s a reflection of how oil companies have been forced to react to the downturn,” Jason Gammel, a London-based analyst with Jefferies International Ltd., said by phone. “It could have a negative impact on oil production levels in the future but protecting the balance sheet is the primary concern at this time.”
BP shares climbed 2.4 percent as of 1:54 p.m. in London, paring this year’s decline to 5 percent after a 14 percent drop in 2015.
The company’s adjusted net income has dropped for five consecutive quarters compared with year-earlier periods. On Monday, BP said it has started a consultation process to reduce jobs at its fuel retail business in Germany, after Welt am Sonntag reported that it was planning to cut as many as 800 jobs.
BP currently employs about 3,000 people at North Sea projects. The company had 84,500 employees worldwide at the end of 2014, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
More
Saudi Debt Risk on Par With Junk-Rated Portugal as Oil Slides
January 11, 2016 — 8:01 PM GMT Updated on January 12, 2016 — 1:29 PM GMT
Investors wanting to take out insurance on Saudi Arabia’s debt have to
pay as much as they would for Portugal, a nation still saddled with a junk
credit-rating five years after an international bailout.
The cost of insuring the kingdom’s debt more than doubled in the past 12
months to a 190 basis points, or $190,000 annually to insure $10 million of the
country’s debt for five years, as of 4:14 p.m. in Riyadh, the highest since
April 2009, according to CMA prices compiled by Bloomberg. That’s almost
identical to contracts linked to debt from Portugal, whose rating is seven
levels below Saudi Arabia’s Aa3 investment grade at Moody’s Investors Service.
Saudi Arabia’s finances are under
pressure as it fights a war in Yemen at a time when crude prices are
languishing at the lowest level in almost 12 years. The country, which counts
on energy exports for 70 percent of government revenue, sold domestic bonds for
the first time since 2007 last year to help fund a budget deficit that may have
been the widest since 1991. Net foreign assets dropped for 10 straight
months through November, the longest streak since at least 2006, to $627 billion.
More
In
European news, lying, cheating, polluting Volkswagen, suffered a double hit in
America yesterday.
California regulators reject Volkswagen recall plan
Published: Jan 12, 2016 2:51 p.m. ET
California Air Resources Board says car maker’s proposal for vehicles is too vague
DETROIT—California environmental regulators on Tuesday rejected Volkswagen AG’s proposals for recalling nearly 500,000 two-liter diesel-powered cars, raising the tension ahead of a crucial meeting this week between the company and government regulators.The California Air Resources Board, known as CARB, said Volkswagen VOW, +2.05% VLKAY, +0.11% violated 13 specific state environmental regulations. Explaining its decision in a letter to the company, CARB said Volkswagen’s planned technical fix for its two-liter engines was too vague to allow a technical evaluation. The proposals also failed to address how the fix would affect the engine’s performance, emissions and vehicle safety.
The rejection of Volkswagen’s recall plan comes a day before the company’s chief executive, Matthias Müller, is scheduled to meet Gina McCarthy, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, for talks in Washington.
Volkswagen said in a statement that the rejection affects proposals that it presented to CARB officials in December.
VW CEO Flubs Interview With Apology Tour Off to Rocky Start
January 12, 2016 — 2:04 PM GMT Updated on January 12, 2016 — 8:01 PM GMT
Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Officer Matthias Mueller is struggling
to find the right tone on his first official U.S. visit, where he’s under pressure to
placate lawmakers and regulators to emerge from the emissions-cheating scandal.In an interview with National Public Radio at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Mueller said the German carmaker “didn’t lie” to regulators when first asked about irregularities between test and real-life emissions in its diesel cars.
The issue, related to rigging engines to cheat on emissions tests, was instead caused by “a technical problem” and stemmed from a misinterpretation of U.S. law, the CEO said, appearing to downplay the company’s role in actively deceiving regulators. He then questioned the reporter’s assertion that Americans believe there are ethical issues within the company: “I cannot understand why you say that.”
The German carmaker asked for a second chance after the public radio network aired the comments, which were made at a VW event Sunday evening, on its “Morning Edition” program, a staple of the commute for many U.S. professionals. Mueller apologized in the follow-up interview on Monday, citing noisy surroundings in the first conversation.
“We fully accept the violation,” he said. “There is no doubt about it,” and the company is doing its “utmost” to resolve the issue.
More
If that's art, I'm a Hottentot!
Harry S. Truman
At the Comex silver depositories
Tuesday final figures were: Registered 35.76 Moz, Eligible 127.41 Moz, Total
163.17 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, so you really want to own euros? With
Germany inviting in a million economic migrants a year, will the EU be around
in 2025?
Catalonia’s new president is even more secessionist than the last
Enter Carles Puigdemont, who has called the Spanish authorities “the invaders”
Jan 11th 2016 | MADRID | Europe
ARTUR MAS, who over five years as president of Catalonia led the region’s drive for independence, stepped down over the weekend after failing to form a government. His successor, Carles Puigdemont, is an even more fervent secessionist. In a speech in 2013 he vowed, quoting a Catalan journalist executed under the dictator Francisco Franco, that “the invaders will be expelled from Catalonia”—referring to the Spanish government. Indeed, it was Mr Puigdemont’s longstanding commitment to independence, which much of his centre-right Catalan Democratic Convergence (CDC) party has only embraced in recent years, that enabled him to form a government where Mr Mas had failed. It won him the trust of the far-left Popular Unity Candidacies (CUP) party, whose members had blocked the re-election of the pro-business Mr Mas but apparently consider Mr Puigdemont a more trustworthy radical.
Three
months after elections were held, Catalonia’s independence movement now has
control of the region’s government. But that control has come at a cost to the
secessionists’ image. For years, the separatist movement has successfully sold
itself as cool, kind and progressive. Backers of continued union with Spain
were scorned as reactionaries, or even the inheritors of Franco’s legacy. Now,
senior members of the independence movement worry that it will be identified
with the CUP, whose raised fists and chaotic assemblies frighten conservative,
middle-class Catalans. Mr Puigdemont’s CDC has traditionally represented a
reassuring sense of order. The small but newly powerful CUP represents radical
change on all fronts.
Separatism’s squeaky-clean image has found its greatest expression in
pro-independence demonstrations on Catalan national day, September 11th. For
each of the past four years, at least 600,000 people, or around 10% of the
population, have turned out to demonstrate. The good-natured protests pull in
entire families, with small children holding grandparents’ hands, banners in
the red, gold and blue colours of the independence
movement flying—“and not a single piece of litter on the street”, claims
Jordi Sánchez, president of the Catalan National Assembly, the group that organises
the festivities.
----The regional elections on September 27th left CUP holding the
balance of power. The price of its support was the replacement of Mr Mas, seen
by CUP as embracing austerity and tolerating corruption. According to the
coalition accord, Mr Puigdemont will now lead the Catalan government on an
18-month “road map” to prepare for independence.
More
I
never gave anybody hell! I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.
Harry
S. Truman
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 or DC energy mankind’s future from the 21st century
onwards? DC? A quantum computer next?
Concentrating dawn-to-dusk solar energy
MOSAIC award spurs MIT research into concentrator solar cells that can run in shade and full sun with power control and wavelength separation.
Denis Paiste | Materials Processing Center January 11, 2016
Lighter, more efficient flat-plate solar cells are the goal of MIT
researchers who kicked off a collaborative research effort Dec. 15 with a
three-year, $3.5 million award under the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program.
Their aim is to bring the technology to the marketplace.“We are early on looking for companies to collaborate with us who are interested in finding a way to bring that technology into the marketplace after the three-year project funding,” says principal investigator Jurgen Michel, senior research scientist at the MIT Microphotonics Center and senior lecturer in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. “The best outcome is a solar cell and companies that will actually make those or take that into further development to make a product.”
ARPA-E’s Micro-Scale Optimized Solar-Cell Arrays with Integrated Concentration (MOSAIC) program has challenging specifications, Michel says. The goal is to reach overall efficiency of greater than 30 percent, which is about 5 percentage points higher than the best efficiency achieved with crystalline silicon solar cells.
Technical challenges
The MIT-led project, “Integrated Micro-Optical Concentrator Photovoltaics with Lateral Multijunction Cells,” aims to develop a three-junction concentrator cell in a flat-plate system just under 1 inch thick. It includes a partnership with Arizona State University. Besides Michel, collaborators include:
Juejun (JJ) Hu, the Merton C. Flemings Assistant Professor in Materials Science and Engineering, who will design and prototype a special microlens to split sunlight into wavelengths from visible to near infrared and concentrate sunlight up to 300 times;
Eugene A. Fitzgerald, the Merton C. Flemings-SMA Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, who will work on solar cells made from indium gallium arsenide;
David J. Perreault, professor of electrical engineering and associate department head, who will work on power management of the solar cells; and
Cun-Zheng Ning, professor of electrical engineering at Arizona State University, who will work on nanopillar semiconductor material with a bandgap gradient that is grown in a single step.
Ning developed a single-growth process for varying the bandgap in nanopillars by varying the temperature in the reactor. “That would be very low cost, but the challenge there is efficiency. For our approach, we have to get our substrate to low enough threading dislocation densities in order to get low-cost, high-efficiency solar cells,” Michel says.
Multiple benefits
The proposed solar system with a mix of cells to maximize collection of light a varying times of day addresses one of the key issues with solar energy, which is its intermittent nature. As more solar systems are deployed, they will have to be integrated with energy storage systems to achieve maximum benefit, according to The MIT Energy Initiative report, “The Future of Solar Energy,” released in May 2015. Without storage, solar systems can provide power only during the day.
Solar has enormous potential over the long-term. According the MITEI report, installing solar on less than one-half of 1 percent of the continental United States could produce all the electricity the country needs today. Solar also can reduce the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions, the report noted.
----The work builds on an earlier theoretical paper that showed that under realistic operating conditions over the course of a year, parallel cells coupled with wavelength separation, or spectrum splitting, outperformed a stacked array, or tandem, solar cell. “We found that if you split your spectrum in the way you spread it out onto separate solar cells, you have an overall gain in power output compared to the other solar cell,” Michel explains.
In the new project design, Michel says, “We can optimize the power point for each of the cells individually, because we have now CMOS control. That means we can respond very quickly to shading, for instance, [as] a cloud moves across a panel.” Under cloudy skies, light absorbed by silicon cells in the structure will maintain power output at about 20 percent power efficiency.
More
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished December
DJIA: +18 Down. NASDAQ:
+110 Down. SP500: +36 Down.
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