Baltic Dry Index. 604
-04 Brent Crude 48.52
Brexit odds checker.
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/eu-referendum/referendum-on-eu-membership-result
Brexit Quote of the Day.
“I'm
not lost for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost.”
Dodgy
Dave Cameron, with apologies to A.A. Milne, and Winnie-the-Pooh
With Dodgy Dave Cameron’s Project Fear, Remainiac
surrender campaign, getting sillier with each passing day, for the first time
since 1940 the world really is watching events in GB, and pondering deeply on
the Brexit vote outcome and the sanity of the GB government. Her Majesty’s
Government has led one of the most inept, incompetent, bumbling, campaign to
persuade GB voters to remain in the wealth and jobs destroying EUSSR, since
Lord North’s government failed to persuade the American colonists to remain in
the British Empire. A Remainiac surrender campaign so incompetent, a visitor from
Mars might genuinely ask if Dodgy Dave isn’t a Brexit double agent.
Below this morning’s take on Brexit.
"Our genius ain't appreciated around
here... let's scram!"
Boris Johnson. With apologies to Curly,
Moe and Larry.
Brexit fears lead Bank of Japan to leave rates unchanged
Published: June 15, 2016 11:32 p.m.
ET
Wait-and-see approach, despite disappointment in Abenomics
TOKYO — The Bank of Japan stood pat on monetary policy Thursday despite a surging yen and faltering inflation, opting to wait until after the results of a British referendum next week that could roil global markets.The central bank’s decision to maintain its negative interest rate comes amid growing skepticism about the effectiveness of its policies in ending Japan’s long cycle of lackluster growth and sporadic deflation.
Read: Brexit would leave Japan with an intractable problem
Abenomics, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s signature program is known, hasn’t produced sustained, robust growth since being launched more than three years ago. Japan’s economy has swung between modest expansions and contractions in recent quarters, while the BOJ’s hard-won gains in the battle against falling prices are starting to slip away.
BOJ Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda has repeatedly vowed to take action “without hesitation” if the central bank’s 2% inflation target is in danger.
Some BOJ policy board members, though, signaled ahead of the policy meeting that they preferred to wait until after the U.K. votes next week on whether to leave the European Union, according to people familiar with the central bank’s thinking.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/brexit-fears-lead-bank-of-japan-to-leave-rates-unchanged-2016-06-15
Asian markets down after Bank of Japan stays pat
Published: June 15, 2016 11:50 p.m. ET
Shares in Asia were broadly down Thursday after Japan’s central bank kept
its monetary-easing policies unchanged.Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average NIK, -1.89% was down 1.1%, Korea’s Kospi SEU, -0.64% fell 0.5% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index HSI, -1.92% dropped 2%. The Shanghai Composite Index SHCOMP, +0.00% slipped 0.5%, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 XJO, +0.29% bucked the region with a 0.4% gain.
Traders in Asia were focusing on the Bank of Japan’s decision to hold its asset-purchasing program and deposit interest rate, as widely expected by markets. Analysts said the central bank may have held off from additional easing policies to avoid rattling markets ahead of a June 23 U.K. referendum on whether to stay in the European Union.
“There’s
too many risks coming up, with the BOJ [policy meeting], and Brexit coming up
next week,” said Tareck Horchani, a senior sales trader at Saxo Capital
Markets. “The market is a bit nervous to be long equities ahead of these
events. The rest of Asia is moving lower on the back of Nikkei.”
-----General anxiety about the strength
of the U.S. economic recovery and the chance of a British exit, or “Brexit,”
have driven investors into the yen, seen as a safe-haven asset. Federal Reserve
officials overnight lowered projections of how much they will raise interest
rates this year.
In other markets, gold, a safe-haven asset, rose in early Asian trade
and was recently at $1,301.50.
The price of Brent crude oil was down 0.6% at $48.66 a barrel.
EU referendum: TNS poll gives leave campaign seven-point lead - as it happened
15 June 2016
- A TNS poll has given Leave a 7-point lead. (See 3.48pm.)
- Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, has called for restrictions on the EU’s freedom of movement rules, saying David Cameron should start pushing for this during the UK’s presidency of the EU next year. (See 4.38pm.) The Labour MP John Mann, who is backing Brexit, said this was pointless.
While it is welcome that they are finally admitting that uncontrolled migration is a problem, the truth is that they still have no solutions. If Cameron’s “renegotiation” told us one thing, it is that the EU will not move on this founding principle.
The only way to take back control of our borders and introduce an Australian style points based immigration system is to Vote Leave on 23 June.
‘We’ve Got One Shot’: Warnings Unheeded in Brexit’s Northern Heartland
June 16, 2016 — 12:00 AM BST
When Nissan Motor Co. threw England’s northeast an
economic lifeline and started producing cars in Sunderland in 1986,
the Japanese carmaker was drawn by a pool of cheap, skilled
and available workers with access to European Union markets.
Thirty years later, this city originally built on shipbuilding and coal
mining is a bellwether for how much people want to leave the world’s
largest trading bloc rather than embrace it. Alienated by politics five hours
drive south in London, Sunderland and places like it will determine the outcome
of June 23 Brexit referendum.
“There
have been two campaigns: there’s a media bubble around Westminster and there’s
the campaign being fought on the streets,” said Dennis McDonald, 70, a retired
Royal Air Force telegrapher leading a group of “Vote
Leave” volunteers in the Sunderland district of Southwick. “We are only
going to get one shot,” he said, as the theme tune from the World War II movie
“The Great Escape” blared out from a black Volkswagen Golf in the background.
About as far away from traditionally pro-European London as you can get
in England, the concerns over immigration and housing in downtrodden parts
of the north make voters there a potential wildcard for Prime
Minister David Cameron. To the many locals who feel cut off from the
economic mainstream, while the EU might have been an asset to Sunderland
when Nissan arrived, it’s is now a liability.How the Remain and Leave sides fare in Sunderland may set the tone for the rest of the country. The Electoral Commission expects the city to be among the first to declare results. Of the 31 people asked by Bloomberg this month in Southwick, 18 said they would vote to leave the EU and just 6 opted for Remain. Others were undecided or said they won't vote. It's backed up by University of East Anglia academic Chris Hanretty, whose study of local polling data and recent opinion surveys identified a six percentage-point lead for the “Leave” campaign in Sunderland.
More
Watch gold jump to $1,400 if U.K. votes to Brexit
Published: June 15, 2016 3:25 a.m. ET
Gold set for 8.5% rally if Brits vote to leave the EU
So-called Brexit concerns already have significantly jolted financial markets, but more could be in store if the fears become reality and the U.K. votes to exit the European Union.One of the biggest beneficiaries of disquiet that Briton’s could opt to leave the EU at its June 23 referendum, is gold.
Gold futures GCQ6, -0.31% are set to rise as much as 8.5% from current levels, according to James Butterfill, head of research and investment strategy at ETF Securities.
“Brexit would be very beneficial for shorting sterling and we will probably see a big pick up in gold. In that scenario we think gold could hit $1,400 [an ounce],” he said on the sidelines of the Inside ETFs Europe conference in Amsterdam.
“We’ve looked at previous risk events and for instance when Greece nearly left the Eurozone [in the summer of 2015] we saw really elevated futures positioning. We are making the assumption that we would see net longs for quite an extended period of time in gold in a Brexit scenario,” he said. He stressed, however, that a U.K. exit from the EU, or Brexit, isn't what he thinks will mostly likely occur.
Early polling suggests that the vote next week will be close. Recent surveys show an increase in support for the “leave” campaign. Meanwhile, the bookmakers are still pointing to a narrow win for the “stay” camp. That uncertainty is fueling jitters in the financial markets. The pound GBPUSD, +0.5030% for example, has shaved off 2.5% against the dollar in June so far, while the U.K. blue-chip benchmark, the FTSE 100 index UKX, +0.75% is down 4.4%.
Gold, on the other hand has been one of the best performing assets with a 5.9% rise this month. Since the beginning of 2016, the metal has rallied a whopping 22%. That compares with a lackluster 1.6% gain for the S&P 500 SPX, -0.18% and 12% drop in the Stoxx Europe 600 index SXXP, +0.96%
Butterfill said ETF Securities has seen an inflow of $2.6 billion into gold this year, boosting the metal’s share of the company’s asset under management to 14%.
More
In the dying EUSSR itself, more and more “Indians”
are going off the German run reservation.
Budgets Erode in EU’s East as Thirst for Growth Propels Spending
June 15, 2016 — 11:00 PM BST
After seven lean years, governments in the European Union’s east are
ready for the fat ones.
Following almost a decade of tightening budgets in the wake of the
global economic crisis, governments from Warsaw to Bucharest are raising
spending and cutting taxes as they seek to offset flagging foreign demand by
ramping up consumption. The threat of widening deficits has sparked warnings
from international partners and driven up bond yields across the region.
As the threat of Brexit underscores deepening divisions within the EU,
the former communist countries that joined more than a decade ago are also
bucking the bloc’s rigor. They revolted against German-led refugee policies,
while Poland and Hungary have drawn criticism for an erosion of their
democracies. Faced with slowing growth, nations including Romania and Slovakia
are increasingly relaxing budget discipline after years of scolding and the
threats of monitoring by the bloc’s executive in Brussels.
“Compared to couple of years ago, there is much less pressure on
governments in the region to keep cutting their budget deficits,” said Otilia
Dhand, an analyst at Teneo in Brussels. “Populism seems to be the political
order of the day, mostly as a result of protracted austerity and economic
uncertainty.”
The International Monetary Fund warned Poland that its budget deficit
may widen “significantly” if the government doesn’t find new revenue or scale
back plans to boost benefits. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has cut
taxes and introduced handouts to home buyers, raised health care worker’s wages
and expanded a rebate to families in an effort to propel growth.
Romania
has cut its value-added tax and raised public wages 10 percent over the past
year, tripling its 2017 budget deficit target to just below the EU’s ceiling.
Slovakia last year narrowly escaped breaching the EU’s limit despite the
fastest economic growth since 2010 and the new coalition government has deferred
reaching a balanced budget by a year until 2019.
Investors
and rating companies are beginning to notice. The yield premium on Romania’s
benchmark 2025 euro-denominated bonds compared with corresponding German Bunds
rose to a four-month high, and Hungary’s borrowing costs are the highest since
February. Moody’s Investors Service cut the outlook on Polish debt to negative
last month, pulling up short of investors’ expectations that it would follow
S&P Global Ratings and downgrade the EU’s largest eastern member.
More
Spain's Podemos sees a clear path to power
By Sarah Morris Madrid,
15. Jun, 09:19
Spain’s anti-austerity leader Pablo Iglesias has started courting
left-wing rivals as he manoeuvres for a serious shot at becoming prime minister
after the general election on 26 June.
Opinion polls show Spaniards are likely to deliver a similarly
fragmented parliament to the last election in December, with the conservative
Popular Party (PP) taking the largest share of the seats but falling short of
an absolute majority.
Iglesias' Podemos party leads a left-wing coalition that may overtake
the Socialists to grab second place, which would mean he could demand the
Socialists back him to remove PP leader Mariano Rajoy from power.
At a debate between the leaders of the four largest political parties on
Monday night (13 June), Iglesias moderated attacks on Socialist leader Pedro
Sanchez, focusing fire on Rajoy. He repeatedly offered to govern with the
Socialists after the election.
More
EU to open new Turkish accession chapter
15. Jun, 17:50
EU ambassadors agreed on Wednesday to open a new chapter in
Turkey's EU accession talks, EU sources told this website. The opening of
chapter 33, on budgetary issues, before the end of June was agreed in March as
part of the EU-Turkey agreement to reduce the flow of migrants to Europe. It is
the 16th chapter to be opened. One has been closed so far.
In other news, the American War Party lines up
allies to isolate and eventually take out China. Stay long fully paid up physical
gold and silver. After losing the American colonies, John Bull heavily relied on
the colonial troops of India to share its policing burden. In the 21st
century it looks as if Uncle Sam is angling to try the same policy.
With eye on China, naval ties between U.S., India, Japan tighten
Published: June 15, 2016 10:48 p.m. ET
Manoeuvres in Philippine Sea symbolize ‘an important strategic shift’
NEW DELHI — From the waters of the Philippine Sea this week emerged a partial outline of Washington’s vision for a new Asian maritime-security order that unites democratic powers to contend with a more-assertive and well-armed China.A U.S. Navy aircraft-carrier strike group along with warships from India and Japan jointly practiced anti-submarine warfare and air-defense and search-and-rescue drills in one of the largest and most complex exercises held by the three countries.
Read: Asean members scold China, then quickly retract statement
The maneuvers were being tracked by a Chinese surveillance vessel, a U.S. Navy officer aboard the carrier USS John C. Stennis said on Wednesday. Last week, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Beijing hoped the training “will be conducive to regional peace, security and stability.”
Washington and Tokyo have long cooperated closely on defense. And the U.S. has been working to deepen strategic ties with India and to encourage New Delhi to play a more active role, not just in the Indian Ocean but also in the Pacific, as China’s rise shifts the regional balance of power.
“Americans
are looking for those who can share the burden,” said C. Raja Mohan, director
of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s India center. A
strengthened three-way partnership among the U.S., Japan and India is “an
important strategic shift.”
India sent two stealth frigates, a guided-missile corvette and a
fleet-support ship to join the multiday Malabar exercises, part of an annual
series of U.S.-India maneuvers that have grown increasingly sophisticated and
wide-ranging. Japan has been a regular participant since 2014.
"With the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people."
F. A. von Hayek
At
the Comex silver depositories Wednesday final figures were: Registered 22.48 Moz, Eligible 127.93 Moz, Total 150.41 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Three strikes and you’re still in the MSCI game
apparently. Below, China strikes out again.
MSCI rejects adding China A-shares to leading indices for third year in a row
Setback for the internationalisation of RMB but may lead to more
reforms, analysts say
PUBLISHED :
Wednesday, 15 June, 2016, 5:21am UPDATED : Wednesday, 15 June, 2016, 11:31am
Global share index compiler MSCI said it would not
include China’s yuan-denominated A-shares in its emerging market indices,
dealing a blow to hopes huge flows of money which could give the poorly
performing index in the main Shanghai equity market a lift.
This is the third straight year that MSCI has rejected
A-shares, after reviews in 2014 and 2015 had cited limited foreign access and a
lack of transparency in the market. The next review will be in 2017.
“There have been significant steps toward the eventual
inclusion of China A shares in the MSCI
Emerging Markets Index,” said Remy Briand, MSCI Managing
Director and Global Head of Research.
“International institutional investors clearly indicated
that they would like to see further improvements in the accessibility of the
China A shares market before its inclusion in the MSCI
Emerging Markets Index. In keeping with its standard
practice, MSCI will monitor the implementation of the recently announced policy
changes and will seek feedback from market participants,” he added.
Joseph Tong, chairman of Morton Securities, said
rejection was not surprising, noting that stock markets in Hong Kong and
Shanghai had fallen sharply in the first two days of this week, indicating that
investors did not expect an inclusion. He said the Hong Kong and mainland stock
markets may fall further on Wednesday after the news.
“Foreign investors still face a lot of restrictions in
the A-share market. Many fund managers found it hard to sell stocks during the
market rout last summer. In addition, the Shenzhen and Hong Kong stock connect
scheme does not yet have a launch timetable,” Tong said.
“An MSCI rejection may help to encourage Beijing to
continue its reform plans to open up its capital market further, to seek
inclusion in the next review,” he said.
----HSBC had estimated in a report that inclusion would
bring at least US$30 billion into the A-share market, while others had expected
the inflow to reach US$400 billion in the long term. That would have been a
boost for a market that has lost 20 per cent so far this year and is down 45
per cent from a seven-year peak a year ago.
The MSCI Emerging Markets Index is tracked by roughly
US$1.7 trillion of assets from fund managers, pension funds and major investors
worldwide. The rejection would be seen as a signal that China, despite being
the world’s second-largest economy, has yet to meet the standards required by
international investors.
MSCI said the 20 per cent monthly repatriation limit
remains “a significant hurdle for investors that may be faced with redemptions
such as mutual funds and must be satisfactorily addressed.”
Also, “the local exchanges’ pre-approval restrictions on
launching financial products remain unaddressed,” it added.
MSCI said it will retain the China A shares inclusion proposal
as part of the 2017 Market Classification Review. MSCI does not rule out a
potential off-cycle announcement should further significant positive
developments occur ahead of June 2017.
More
Brexit The Animated Movie.
Brexit
Quote of the week.
We hold these
truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness outside of the EUSSR.”
With grateful
thanks to the writers of the US Declaration of Independence.
Solar & Related Update.
With events
happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this
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?
Today, another
advance in 21st century medicine. In medicine, this century promises
to be like no other.
Engineers develop a new biosensor chip for detecting DNA mutations
Date:
June 14, 2016
Source:
University of California - San Diego
Summary:
An electrical graphene chip capable of detecting mutations in DNA has been
developed by engineers. The researchers say the technology could one day be
used in various medical applications such as blood-based tests for early cancer
screening, monitoring disease biomarkers and real-time detection of viral and
microbial sequences.
Bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego have developed
an electrical graphene chip capable of detecting mutations in DNA. Researchers
say the technology could one day be used in various medical applications such
as blood-based tests for early cancer screening, monitoring disease biomarkers
and real-time detection of viral and microbial sequences. The advance was
published June 13 in the online early edition of Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences.
"We are at the forefront of developing a fast and inexpensive
digital method to detect gene mutations at high resolution--on the scale of a
single nucleotide change in a nucleic acid sequence," said Ratnesh Lal,
professor of bioengineering, mechanical engineering and materials science in
the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego.
The technology, which is at a proof-of-concept stage, is a first step
toward a biosensor chip that can be implanted in the body to detect a specific
DNA mutation--in real time--and transmit the information wirelessly to a mobile
device such as a smartphone or laptop.
The team led by Lal, who serves as co-director for the Center of
Excellence for Nano-Medicine and Engineering, a subcenter of the Institute of
Engineering in Medicine (IEM) at UC San Diego, and Gennadi Glinsky, a research
scientist at IEM, developed a new technique to detect the most common genetic
mutation called a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), which is a variation of
a single nucleotide base (A, C, G or T) in the DNA sequence. While most SNPs
have no discernable effect on health, some are associated with pathological
conditions such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, neurodegenerative
disorders, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
Current SNP detection methods are relatively slow, expensive and require
the use of cumbersome equipment. "We're developing a fast, easy,
inexpensive and portable way to detect SNPs using a small chip that can work
with your cell phone," said Preston Landon, a research scientist in Lal's
research group and co-first author on the PNAS paper.
MoreThe monthly Coppock Indicators finished May
DJIA: 17787
-20 Up NASDAQ: 4946 +04 Down. SP500: 2097 -18 Up.
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