Baltic Dry Index. 911 +41 Brent Crude
44.94
Eurasian Snow cover. (How bad will
winter be?)
Bah Humbug!
Hillary Clinton, with apologies to
Ebenezer Squid.
First Brexit, now it seems likely we
have President Trump. Frexit and I-exit next?
As I
write it seems that American voter held their nose and voted for
the “loose cannon” over the “crook.” Wall Street, Hollywood, and the massed
media’s man crashed like Icarus to a stunning defeat. America has finally had
enough of Bush’s and Clintons. 2016 has brought in two Black Swans, will Italy’s
referendum bring in a third.
Below, when smug complacency dies. But
will the losing side now try to steal the election?
Dow futures plunge 750 points as Trump takes key battleground states
By Joseph Adinolfi Published: Nov 8, 2016 11:42 p.m. ET
Asian shares plunge and Mexican peso falls to record low
Stock markets are not handling Election Night well.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.40% plunged as Republican
presidential nominee Donald Trump’s lead widened in the presidential race
against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Trump racked up victories
in several key battleground states, namely Florida and Ohio. The focus turned
to Wisconsin and Michigan, where Trump is threatening to break Clinton’s
so-called Wall of Blue.
Dow futures YMZ6, -4.06% fell 750 points before
modestly paring gains. They were down 728 points, or 4%, at 17,554 in recent
trade. S&P 500 futures ESZ6, -4.68% were down 97.25 points, or
4.6%, at 2,038. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq-100 futures were off 220 points, or 4.5%,
at 4,584.
The U.S. dollar USDJPY, -3.44% slumped 3% to ¥101.79.
The ICE U.S. Dollar index, a measure of the dollar’s strength against a basket
of six rivals, was off 1.7% at 96.16.
Futures for the CBOE Volatility Index VIXZ6, +23.38% rose 40%, reflecting the
precipitous drop in U.S. stocks.
Asian stocks fell sharply, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index HSI, -3.67% down 646 points, or 2.8%, at
22,262. The Nikkei 225 NIK, -5.93% slid 697 points, or 4.1%, to
16,477. Australia’s all-ordinaries index XAO, -1.94% was off 126 points, or 2.4%, at
5,216.
Meanwhile, the Mexican peso USDMXN, +12.8918% plunged more than 11% to a
record low at 20.30 pesos to the dollar. It was the currency’s largest daily
drop since the so-called Tequila Crisis, according to the
Financial Times.
Investors were clearly
unprepared for Trump to perform so strongly, making it the second time this
year that markets have mispriced the odds of a major vote in one of the world’s
largest economies. The first was the U.K.’s vote to leave the European Union on
June 23.
“Back in June, the markets had all but priced in a U.K. vote to remain
in the EU, this time it was a similarly favorable market outcome that traders
were banking on—a Clinton victory—and it seems that once again, they may have
got it wildly wrong,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda.
Gold futures GCZ6, +4.21% jumped 3.5% at $1,318,
while Treasury yields TMUBMUSD10Y, -6.08% skidded 10 basis
points at 1.755%.
West Texas Intermediate
crude oil WTCLF7, -2.87% was down 3.3% at $43.51 a
barrel.
Global Markets Rocked as Traders See Likelihood of Trump Victory
November 8, 2016 — 10:06 PM GMT Updated on November 9, 2016 — 5:29 AM
GMT
Global markets were thrown into disarray as early results from the
U.S. election indicated that Donald Trump is likely to prevail over Hillary
Clinton in the race for the presidency, shocking traders who had focused on
polls in recent days showing the opposite.
Panicked investors rushed to unwind bets they’d piled on amid
predictions Clinton would sweep to victory, fueling demand for haven assets.
Futures on the S&P 500 Index plunged by a 5 percent limit that triggers
trading curbs and Asian shares sank by the most since the aftermath of
Britain’s shock vote to leave the European Union. Mexico’s peso had its
steepest plunge in two decades on concern a Trump win would lead to more
protectionist U.S. trade policies. Gold jumped by the most since 2009, surging
with the yen and U.S. Treasuries.
Based
on the states that have been called, Trump had 244 of the 270 Electoral College
votes needed to claim the White House and Clinton had collected 209, while the
Republicans were also on track to
have control of Congress. A Trump victory, buttressed by electoral gains from
Florida to Ohio, had been portrayed by analysts as having the potential to
unhinge markets that were banking on a continuation of policies that coincided
with the second-longest bull market in S&P 500 history. Brexit was the last
major political shock and led to the S&P 500 sliding 5.3 percent in two
days.
More
Business
News |
Investors see no let up in market bloodbath if Trump wins presidency
Investors should brace for a further slump in global stock markets, the
U.S. dollar and most commodities if Republican candidate Donald Trump becomes
the next U.S. president, as appeared increasingly likely on Wednesday.
Markets fear a Trump victory could trigger global economic and political
mayhem, creating massive uncertainty for investors who had been counting on a
win by Democrat Hillary Clinton, whose policies were seen as more staid but
predictable.
“If current market moves hold or go further, there is likely to be quite
a bit of de-leveraging and forced selling tomorrow,” Mohamed El-Erian, chief
economic adviser at Allianz, said as global markets skidded.
Trump has threatened to rip up major trade agreements and impose
barriers in the United States on imports from countries such as Mexico and
China, which could reduce trade flows and harm already sluggish global growth.
Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank in Chicago,
forecast U.S. stocks could drop as much as 10 percent over the next 10 sessions
if Trump is elected to the most powerful office in the world.
More
It turns out that The Donald was right all along. The Democrats campaign was full of fertiliser after all.
We end with poor Canada. What did Canada ever do to deserve a fate like this.
Celebs who said they’d leave country if Trump won
November
09, 2016, 02:35 am
Dozens of celebrities vowed to leave the
country if Donald Trump won the White
House, saying they’d flee to everywhere from Canada to Jupiter.
The threat is a common one after any
election outcome: Canada’s immigration website crashed
from heavy traffic as it looked increasingly likely that Trump would win.
But
after the real estate mogul clinched the presidency in a stunning victory
early Wednesday morning, some of those stars will face questions
about making good on their promise.
Here
is a list of some of the celebs who claimed they would move out of the U.S.
under a Trump administration.
Bryan Cranston said
he hopes he doesn’t have to pack his bags, but would “definitely move” if Trump
won. “Absolutely, I would definitely move,” the “Breaking Bad” star said on
“The Bestseller Experiment” podcast. “It’s not real to me that that would
happen. I hope to God it won’t.”
Samuel
L. Jackson slammed Trump
for running a “hate”-filled campaign and said he would move to South Africa if
he wins. “If that motherf---er becomes president, I’m moving my black ass to
South Africa,” the movie star quipped to Jimmy Kimmel.
Lena
Dunham told Andy Cohen at the Matrix Awards that “I know a lot of people have
been threatening to do this, but I really will. I know a lovely place in
Vancouver.” The star and creator of HBO’s “Girls” has been a vocal advocate for
Hillary Clinton,
the Democratic nominee.
Neve
Campbell, an actress on the political drama “House of Cards,” vowed
to move back home to Canada, while “Orange is the New Black” actress Natasha
Lyonne said she would hightail it to a mental hospital.
Singers
Cher
tweeted this summer that if Trump gets elected, “I’m moving to Jupiter.”
Miley
Cyrus wrote
in an emotional Instagram post in March that tears were running down her cheek
and she was unbelievably scared and sad. “I am moving if he is president,” the
young pop star said. “I don’t say things I don’t mean!”
Barbara
Streisand, a vocal Clinton supporter, told “60 Minutes” that “I’m either coming
to your country if you’ll let me in, or Canada.”
More
At the Comex silver depositories Monday
final figures were: Registered 29.84 Moz, Eligible 143.97 Moz,
Total 173.81 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, Brexit reality. In what is painfully obvious to all, Dodgy
Dave Cameron and team Remainiacs, were so convinced that John Bull would never
vote to leave the EUSSR asylum, they never bothered with developing a Brexit
contingency plan. By now it’s also painfully obvious that the EUSSR
complacently didn’t bother either. Now everyone’s flying by the seat of their
pants. How well that works out, remains to be seen, but sending in the massed
ranks of lawyers and Europhile London judges, suggest not too well.
Below, Ireland
states a long overdue reality. Problem identified, solutions please to London
and Brussels.
Ireland Inc. Says U.K. Government Has No Clue on Brexit Strategy
November 8,
2016 — 5:00 AM GMT
Ireland Inc. has this message for U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s
government: When it comes to Brexit, you don’t know what you’re doing.
Irish executives lashed the U.K. over its preparations for talks on
leaving the European Union, after Enterprise Minister Mary Mitchell O’Connor
told lawmakers in Dublin that British negotiators have no clear road map.
“What
worries me about Brexit is the U.K. government clearly has no idea what it is
doing,” Ryanair Holdings Plc Chief Executive Officer Michael O’Leary said in an
interview with Bloomberg Television on Monday. “It has no agenda in terms of
negotiations.”
More
than four months after British voters opted to exit the EU, European leaders
are becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of clarity around what May
meant when she declared “Brexit means Brexit.” Ireland has more at stake than
any other country in Europe, because of close trade ties with the U.K.
Depending on the terms of exit, Brexit could cost Ireland as much as 3.8
percent of economic output, a government report said.
“The
U.K. government has a clear and measured plan for exiting the EU, ” Northern
Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire said in a speech Monday in Dublin. “We’re
not seeking an off-the-shelf deal, but rather a solution that provides the best
outcome for the U.K. and EU.”
From Dublin’s perspective, however, it’s not clear what Brokenshire and the U.K. government have in mind.
“I was in the U.K. yesterday and met a number of people that are negotiating the Brexit deal for the U.K.,” O’Connor said last week. “May I tell you that they do not know what they are doing and they do not know when they are invoking Article 50,” which would formally start the Brexit process.
That sense is shared inside and outside the U.K. While May said last month that she would prioritize immigration controls over safeguards for trade and banking, some European officials view that declaration as aimed at a domestic political audience and insist all options remain open.
In Berlin, Angela Merkel’s chancellery is under the impression that the U.K. government has no clear concept of what it wants out of the coming talks nor how to go about it, according to an official.
“The U.K. government’s ongoing lack of any kind of plan for Brexit is nothing short of staggering, and shows just how ill-prepared the Tories are for EU withdrawal, ” Joan McAlpine, a Scottish National Party lawmaker, said Sunday.
While the European economy as a whole may suffer from Brexit, Ireland is particularly exposed. About 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) of goods and services a week is traded between the two countries. The U.K. is Ireland’s biggest European trading partner, and the Dublin government last month trimmed its economic growth forecasts on the back of Brexit concerns.
The pound has fallen 14 percent against the euro since the referendum, making it more expensive to sell Irish goods into the U.K. O’Connor’s comments came as she rejected opposition demands for a government fund to cushion exporters, on the grounds that detailing such a fund would be “irresponsible” given that Brexit details remain undecided.
More
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?
Researchers use graphene templates to make new metal-oxide nanostructures
November 7, 2016 by Kevin Stacey
Researchers from Brown University have found a new method for making ultrathin metal-oxide sheets containing intricate wrinkle and crumple patterns. In a study published in the journal ACS Nano, the researchers show that the textured metal-oxide films have better performance when used as photocatalysts and as battery electrodes.The new findings build on previous work done by the same research group in which they developed a method for introducing finely tuned wrinkle and crumple textures into sheets of the nanomaterial graphene oxide. The study showed that the process enhanced some of graphene's properties. The textures made the graphene better able to repel water, which would be useful in making water-resistant coatings, and enhanced graphene's ability to conduct electricity.
The researchers thought that similar structures might enhance the properties of other materials—specifically metal oxides—but there's a problem. To introduce wrinkle and crumple structures in graphene, the team compressed the sheets multiple times in multiple orientations. That process won't work for metal oxides.
"Metal oxides are too stiff," said Po-Yen Chen, a Hibbitt Postdoctoral Researcher in Brown's School of Engineering who led the work. "If you try to compress them, they crack."
So Chen, working with the labs of Robert Hurt and Ian Y. Wong, both engineering professors at Brown, developed a method of using the crumpled graphene sheets as templates for making crumpled metal-oxide films.
"We showed that we can transfer those surface features from the graphene onto the metal oxides," Chen said.
The team started by making stacks of crumpled graphene sheets using the method they had developed previously. They deposited the graphene on a polymer substrate that shrinks when heated. As the substrate shrinks, it compresses the graphene sitting on top, creating wrinkle or crumple structures. The substrate is then removed, leaving free-standing sheets of crumpled graphene behind. The compression process can be done multiple times, creating ever more complex structures. The process also allows control of what types of textures are formed. Clamping shrink film on opposite sides and shrinking it in only one direction creates periodic wrinkles. Shrinking in all directions creates crumples. These shrinks can be performed multiple times in multiple configurations to create a wide variety of textures.
To transfer those patterns onto metal oxides, Chen placed the stacks of wrinkled graphene sheets in a water-based solution containing positively charged metal ions. The negatively charged graphene pulled those ions into the spaces between the sheets. The particles bonded together within the interlayer space, creating thin sheets of metal that followed the wrinkle patterns of the graphene. The graphene was then oxidized away, leaving the wrinkled metal-oxide sheets. Chen showed that the process works with a variety of metal oxides—zinc, aluminum, manganese and copper oxides.
----In addition to improving the properties of the metals, Chen points out that the process also represents a way of making thin films out of materials that don't normally lend themselves to ultrathin configurations.
"Using graphene confinement, we can guide the assembly and synthesis of materials in two dimensions," he said. "Based on what we learned from making the metal-oxide films, we can start to think about using this method to make new 2D materials that are otherwise unstable in bulk solution. But with our confinement method, we think it's possible."
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished October
DJIA: 18142
+32 Up NASDAQ: 5189 +31 Up. SP500: 2126 +46 Up.
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