Baltic Dry Index. 682
-21 Brent Crude 44.90
Brexit odds checker.
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/eu-referendum/referendum-on-eu-membership-result
Brexit Quote of the Day.
Dodgy
Dave on Brexit is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his
mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd
lie just to keep his hand in.
With
apologies to Harry Truman and Richard Nixon. Go on Harry, tell
us how you really feel.
Did
the Great Recession ever really end? By the official numbers it did. Yet it never
seemed to end in the real economy, where most people make a living, far from
the financialised world of the central banksters, and Wall Street’s Great
Vampire Squids. Today, more of life on our version of the RMS Titanic “car
crash,” to mangle metaphors. The band is still playing in the lounge, drinks are still being
served, there is an air of unreality about any crisis. And yet, nothing seems
right all the same.
In central banking as in diplomacy,
style, conservative tailoring, and an easy association with the affluent count
greatly and results far much less.
John Kenneth Galbraith.
Asian stocks down on oil woes, slow growth
Published: May 4, 2016 12:03 a.m. ET
Australian energy stocks hit hard
Most shares in Asia were back in the red Wednesday with Australia slipping below breaking even for the year amid a renewed fall in oil prices and a nearly 10% plunge in shares of Anglo-Australian BHP Billiton Ltd.The S&P/ASX 200 XJO, -1.05% was down 1.2%, giving back some of its gains from yesterday when Australia’s central bank cut interest rates. The benchmark, heavy on energy shares, is now close to flat for the year, after breaking into positive territory for the first time this year yesterday.
Heavy decliners Wednesday included BHP Billiton BHP, -7.96% , which tumbled 9.6% in Sydney. That followed Brazilian federal prosecutors filing a civil lawsuit Tuesday that demands mining companies — BHP Billiton, Brazil’s Vale SA, and their joint-venture Samarco Mineração — shell out up to $43.55 billion for cleanup and remediation related to a catastrophic dam failure last year.
Losses elsewhere in Asia included a 1.3% decline in the Hang Seng Index HSI, -1.00% , also weighed down by the energy sector. South Korea’s Kospi SEU, -0.62% was down 0.6%. The Shanghai Composite Index SHCOMP, -0.22% slipped 0.4%.
“The street is back again to focusing on low global growth and looking at the crude price as a barometer here,” said Gavin Parry, managing director at Parry International Trading Ltd.
The weakness reflects how shaky the region’s rally has been since mid-February, as global growth fears simmer in the background. Meanwhile, Japan’s stock market, which tumbled for two sessions before closing for a three-day holiday, reopens Friday. That market has been especially volatile, as investors try to gauge the Bank of Japan, which last Thursday left monetary policy unchanged.
More
Business and household loan quality deteriorating in oil patch, Fed survey finds
Published: May 2, 2016 2:29 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Economic woes from weak commodity prices are
spreading in the oil patch from energy firms to other businesses and consumers,
according to a Federal Reserve survey of senior bank loan officers released on
Monday.Bank officers reported that credit quality deteriorated in the first quarter on loans to businesses and consumers in energy dependent areas of the country, the Fed said.
In particular, credit quality on auto loans had suffered, with 23% of banks reporting a deterioration, according to the survey of 70 domestic and 22 branches of foreign banks operating in the U.S.
Low energy prices have led to declining activity in regions of the country where oil and natural gas extraction is a key driver of economic activity.
According to the survey 58% of the banks reported that loan quality is going to continue to deteriorate assuming energy prices evolve as expected.
About 15% of banks reported that credit quality had worsened on consumer credit card loans and 14% on loans outside of credit card and autos. Commercial real estate loans were a concern for 16% of the banks.
Banks do not seem overly reliant on loans to the energy sector.
According to the survey, only 11% of banks reported that loans to firms in the oil and natural gas drilling sector accounted for between 10%-20% of their total loans. Only 1% of banks have more than 20% of their loans to the sector.
Banks reported that they were actively taking steps to shore up existing loans to the sector.
Almost half of the banks surveyed said they were tightening lending policies on firms in the energy sector.
More than 75% of the banks said they were restructuring loans to make them more robust given the outlook for energy prices, while more than 80% were requiring additional collateral.
U.S. oil industry bankruptcy wave nears size of telecom bust
The rout in crude prices is snowballing into one of the biggest
avalanches in the history of corporate America, with 59 oil and gas companies
now bankrupt after this week's filings for creditor protection by Midstates
Petroleum MPOY.PK and Ultra Petroleum UPL.NL.
The number of U.S. energy bankruptcies is closing in on the staggering
68 filings seen during the depths of the telecom bust of 2002 and 2003,
according to Reuters data, the law firm Haynes & Boone and
bankruptcydata.com.
Charles Gibbs, a restructuring partner at Akin Gump in Texas, said the
U.S. oil industry is not even halfway through its wave of bankruptcies.
"I think we'll see more filings in the second quarter than in the
first quarter," he said. Fifteen oil and gas companies filed for
bankruptcy in the first quarter.
Some oil producers appear to be holding on, hoping the price of crude
stabilizes at a higher level. In February, oil slumped as low as $27 a barrel
from peaks above $100 a barrel nearly two years ago. U.S. crude has recovered
somewhat, and on Tuesday was trading a little below $44 a barrel. [O/R]
Until recently, banks had been willing to offer leeway to borrowers in
the shale sector, but lately some lenders have tightened their purse strings.
A widely predicted wave of mergers in the shale space has yet to
materialize as oil price volatility makes valuations difficult, and buyers balk
at taking on debt loads until target companies exit bankruptcy.
The telecom and energy boom-and-bust cycles have notable parallels.
Pioneering technology brought an influx of investment to each industry, a
plethora of new, small companies issued high levels of debt, and a subsequent
supply glut sapped pricing just as demand fell sharply.
Neither this crash nor the telecom crack-up in the early 2000s rival the
housing and financial bust in 2007-2009 in terms of magnitude and economic
impact. But losses for energy investors in the stock and bond markets in the
last two years are significant. It remains unclear how long it will take to get
through the worst of the declines, and who will be left standing when it is
over.
A 60 percent slide in oil prices since mid-2014 erased as much as $1.02
trillion from the valuations of U.S. energy companies, according to the Dow
Jones U.S. Oil and Gas Index .DJUSEN, which tracks about 80 stocks. This has
already surpassed the $882.5 billion peak-to-trough loss in market
capitalization from the Dow Jones U.S. Telecommunications Sector Index in the
early 2000s.
More
We
end with an unfolding story from Canada. So far no oil production has been
affected but we will keep a close watch on developments ahead. Meanwhile up to
60,000 people are being asked to evacuate to the north. Which makes me wonder
about the availability of fuel if they do.
Wildfire in Alberta's energy heartland forces thousands to flee
Alberta appealed for help from other provinces and Ottawa to help fight the fire and airlift people from the city. Authorities issued a mandatory evacuation order for all of Fort McMurray, which affects the city's 80,000 residents.
The 2,650-hectare (6,540-acre) fire, which was discovered on May 1, shifted aggressively with the wind on Tuesday afternoon to breach city limits. The blaze closed off the main southern exit from the city, prompting residents to head north towards the oil sands camps.
"This is the biggest evacuation we have seen in the history of the province," Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said at a news conference, adding that there were no casualties in the fire.
"We need to find more camps, we have secured spaces for about 6,000 people, we know we need to find more and that work is underway," Notley said.
Alberta is much drier than normal for this time of year, strengthening prospects for a long and expensive wildfire season, in the wake of a mild winter with lower-than-average snowfall and a warm spring.
Suncor Energy (SU.TO), whose oil sands operations are closest to the city, said its main plant, 25 km (16 miles) north of Fort McMurray, was safe, but it was reducing crude production in the region to allow employees and families to get to safety.
Suncor said evacuees were welcome at its Firebag oil sands facility, while Canadian Natural Resources Ltd (CNQ.TO) said it was working to ensure any affected CNRL workers and their families could use its camps.
Shell Canada (RDSa.L) also said it would open its oil sands camp to evacuees and was looking to use its airstrip to fly out non-essential staff and accommodate displaced residents.
A number of flights from Fort McMurray airport were canceled and the airport advised passengers to check with their airlines for updates.
The blaze started southwest of Fort McMurray and spread rapidly to the outskirts of the city. Radio stations were forced off the air as staff left the downtown core.
"There's lots of smoke, it's quite bad and hanging over the city," one resident, Nick Sanders, told Reuters as he packed up to leave downtown. "Where there are trees in the distance you can see the fire."
Television footage and photographs on Twitter earlier showed flames and smoke billowing over the city and traffic heading north on the highway to safety, while CTV News reported a trailer park had been destroyed.
More
The
Sinking of the Titanic.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3545243/Re-live-sinking-Titanic-real-time-Visually-stunning-emotionally-heartbreaking-video-captures-moment-doomed-ship-s-hours.html
At
the Comex silver depositories Tuesday final figures were: Registered 27.98 Moz, Eligible 124.09 Moz, Total 152.07 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Below, the first in, first out, life of the one percenters.
The Super Rich Were the First to Bail During the Financial Crisis
May 3, 2016
— 5:00 AM BST
When the going gets rough, the 1 percent start selling.
That’s the finding of a new paper that says people with the highest
income bailed from stocks disproportionately on the worst days of the financial
crisis. The share of selling by the biggest earners rose “sharply” in days
following spikes in volatility, according to data on millions of sales reported
to the government in 2008 and 2009.
Mapping selling patterns in periods of tumult is of interest to
researchers trying to get at the psychological underpinnings of events such as
the financial crisis, when more than $10 trillion was erased from U.S. share
values. Their main conclusion, that different people react with varying urgency
to signs of trouble, could help identify behavioral biases that feed market
meltdowns.
“Very, very high income people are disproportionately likely to sell a bunch
of stock during a financial crisis,” said Daniel Reck, a doctoral candidate in
the economics department at the University of Michigan and one of the paper’s authors, said by phone. “It’s
difficult to say exactly how much high-income people are responsible relative
to everyone else, but they’re certainly contributing more to volatility.”One explanation for the divergence is that rich people have more at stake per person and are more sensitive to shocks, though it’s only speculation, Reck said. Another is they believe they’re better market timers. A third possibility is that investors who earn less are reluctant to sell at a loss, a cognitive tendency known as the disposition effect.
For the study, researchers from Ohio State University and the University of Michigan examined about 273 million Internal Revenue Service 1099-B forms that record sales in stocks and mutual funds, comparing them with levels of gross income and plotting them against fluctuation in the CBOE Volatility Index. To control for the fact that rich people own more stock, the study focused on changes in the typical selling levels among income groups versus the years before the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
“We find that, starting in September 2008, the share of sales volume attributed to the top 0.1 percent of income recipients and other top income groups rises sharply until the beginning of 2009, and in 2008 and 2009 the sales of these groups are relatively more associated with stock market tumult as measured by the VIX,” they wrote.
Specifically, according to the paper, a roughly 10 percent increase in volatility correlated with a 3.3 percent increase in sales volume for the top 0.1 percent of earners, relative to less-affluent investors. When the VIX went up 25 percent, proportionate selling by the ultra-rich rose almost 8 percent.
More
Brexit
Quote of the week.
Dodgy Dave Cameron: leader of the nattering
nabobs of Brexit negativism.
With apologies to Spiro Agnew
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?
China Creates World's First Graphene Electronic Paper: What This Means For The Future
By Deepthi
B, Tech Times | May 1, 8:42 AM
In a groundbreaking achievement, China has developed the world's first
graphene electronic paper that can possibly revolutionize the screen displays
on electronic gadgets such as wearable devices and e-readers.The material, touted as the world's first graphene electronic paper, is also the world's lightest and strongest material in prevalence today.
It has been developed by Guangzhou OED Technologies in partnership with another company in the Chongqing Province.
The hype is real! At just 0.335 nanometers thick, the new material can be used to create hard or flexible graphene displays. Graphene e-paper comes with the capability to conduct both heat and electricity, and it can supposedly enhance optical displays to a brighter level, owing to its high-light transmittance properties.
Graphene-based e-papers can be easily produced cost-effectively given that it is derived from carbon. Traditional e-papers, on the other hand, use indium metal for their display, which is very expensive and rare to source.
Discovered in 2004, graphene can be described as an extremely thin layer of pure carbon - a single, tightly packed layer of carbon atoms bonded together in a hexagonal honeycomb lattice.
Although the material is extremely light and thin, it is apparently 150 times stronger than the equivalent weight of steel. Further, similar to the rubber material, graphene is extremely stretchable and holds the capacity to stretch up to 120 percent of its own length.
Tech Times earlier reported on graphene's usage in electronic displays, in terms of high-end unbreakable smartphone touchscreens being produced using this flexible and strong material.
Touchscreens that use graphene as conductors, if incorporated with
plastic instead of glass, can make smartphones so thin they could be folded and
then slipped into a pocket. With the material's super strength, touchscreens
can be shatter-proofed too.
The wait is still long, however, as the newly developed graphene e-paper
will be put into production in a span of one year.
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/155169/20160501/china-creates-worlds-first-graphene-electronic-paper-what-this-means-for-the-future.htm
"In
economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension."
John
Kenneth Galbraith.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished April
DJIA: 17773.64-19 Down. NASDAQ: 4775.36 +11 Down. SP500: 2065.30 -21 Down.
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