Baltic Dry Index. 1224 -08 Brent Crude
48.98
Eurasian Snow cover. (How bad will winter
be?)
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.
Robert Burns. The Selkirk Grace.
For Americans the great feast day has
arrived. Swamp draining can await next week. For today it’s all about loading
up on turkey and trimmings, to prepare for all out retail war tomorrow. To all
celebrating Thanksgiving, have a wonderful day.
Below, more on Trumpmania. Hot air lifts all,
but will an early cold winter crash Trumpmania?
The charts say hot air, and little else, is pushing these markets higher
By Sven Henrich Published: Nov
23, 2016 1:21 p.m. ET
On Nov. 4 I outlined the performance issues in
the broader indexes and questioned whether we were actually in a
bull market. On Monday, many indices made new all-time highs and I find myself
raising the same question again. Before you question my sanity, let me outline
the evidence.
First, note what actually happened. On the night of the election,
S&P 500 SPX, +0.08% futures actually dropped below
November 2014 highs. Futures were lock limit down, and circuit breakers stopped
the descent. Yet, as with Brexit, overnight magic happened and all damage was
erased by the open. The markets then proceeded onto a vertical up tear, pushing
small-cap futures 18% off the lows in a mere nine days. An impressive feat by
any standard, but if you think these are signs of stable markets, consider my
thesis: Markets have been rising on hot air, and technical charts retain
heavily bearish structures despite new highs.
The most common explanation
for the rally was attributed to the conciliatory tone of Donald Trump's
acceptance speech. But the real driver of the rally has been based on the same
element that every single major rally since the 2009 lows has been based on:
Government stimulus and/or central-bank intervention.
Consider: In 2009, president Obama came into office
and immediately authorized a giant stimulus package. It was labeled the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and ended up costing over $800
billion. Fast forward eight years later with $10 trillion in additional debt
and a $4.5 trillion FOMC balance sheet and here comes president-elect Donald
Trump proposing measures (tax cuts, stimulus spending and expanding the
military) that would exceed even the 2009 program. As a point of highlighting
the magnitude of these programs: The 2009 stimulus package alone was larger
than the 50-year running budget of NASA.
More
Black Friday Merchants Expect Americans to Exhale After Election
Lindsey Rupp and Sarah Very November 24, 2016 — 12:01 AM EST Now that Election Tuesday is over, retailers are counting on Americans turning their attention to Black Friday.The National Retail Federation projects that about 137.4 million consumers will make purchases in stores or online over the four-day weekend that starts on Thanksgiving, marking the kickoff to the holiday shopping season. The amount Americans have spent has declined in the last three years, slipping 26 percent from 2013 to an average of $299.60 per person last year, according to the trade group.
By most accounts, this holiday season is expected be a boon for retailers. Unemployment, gasoline prices and inflation are low, while wages, home values and the stock market continue to rise. Shoppers have the wherewithal to spend, and now retailers are hoping the holiday season will give them a reason to. Companies such as Kohl’s Corp., Gap Inc. and Barnes & Noble Inc. have said the U.S. presidential election was a major cause of consumers’ recent reluctance to open their wallets. With the outcome settled, they’re expecting the dollars to finally flow.
“We’ve had some, we believe, pent up demand -- just based on the economics of our consumer,” J.C. Penney Co. Chief Executive Officer Marvin Ellison said in an interview this month. “We’re anticipating we’ll see pent-up demand released, and it being post-election will only help that.”
U.S. retail spending is expected to rise 3.6 percent to $655.8 billion in November and December, the Washington-based NRF estimates. Retailers are poised to take full advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday period, now known by some as Black Week, which accounts for about 15 percent of holiday spending, according to the trade group.
Thanksgiving Openings
J.C. Penney will open its doors at 3 p.m. on Thursday to reach shoppers before they tuck into their Thanksgiving feasts. EBay Inc. is trying to push the selling even earlier: It rebranded the day before Thanksgiving as Mobile Wednesday, using discounts to target traveling Americans. The sales will stretch through the weekend, with online and brick-and-mortar companies offering deals for Cyber Monday.
More
Siberian Snow Theory Points to an Early and Cold Winter in U.S.
November 23, 2016 — 10:01 AM GMT
For those cursing the unseasonable November chill, there’s an ominous sign
up north. It suggests this winter will be long and cold, according to one
eminent scientist.He’s the father of the “Siberian Snow Theory.” In a nutshell, he argues that the more snow covering the ground in northern Eurasia, the colder we can expect it down below. Sadly, Siberia is looking pretty white already.
Judah Cohen, a renowned MIT climatologist, has been working on this theory for 17 years, despite skepticism from some U.S. government weather experts. Cohen, who figures his theory has been right 75 percent of the time, spies all the makings of an early, cold winter.
“This year, we have had this very textbook situation,” Cohen said.
The first blast of Siberian-spurred cold could come in December this year, instead of the usual January, according to Cohen, director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research,a unit of Verisk Analytics, which works with governments and financial-services and insurance companies.
While it isn’t certain where the frigid air will land -- North America, Asia or Europe -- Cohen is predicting cold will envelop more of the U.S. than government forecasters expect. Cold, rain and snow could extend from the upper Great Plains to Florida.
Holiday travelers will hope he is wrong, as will retailers who rely on
last-minute shoppers who could be deterred by snow and slush. But those
who make money from natural gas, whose price dropped because of warm weather,
may be in for a treat.
“If he is right that would be terrific,” said Teri Viswanath, managing
director for natural gas at Pira Energy Group in New York. “I hope he’s
right."
More
Deficits don't matter until one day they do, but we are still far from
that day. Since August 1971, when Nixon ended the dollar-gold link, we've all
been operating on fiat money, communist money, and there's plenty more where
that comes from. One day sometime ahead, we will hit fiat money revulsion, but
there's little sign of that right now, especially since we just hit Trumpmania
in the US stock markets. On fiat, all decisions are political. One day it fails
but not now. The Great Pretence goes on.
Just keep on repeating "every day in every way I'm getting better
and better." You’re sure to feel much better, more thankful.
This Thanksgiving Day, some food for thought.
A glimpse of the future perhaps.
Solar-Panel Roads to Be Built Across Four Continents Next Year
November 24, 2016 — 4:00 AM GMT
Electric avenues that can transmit the sun’s energy onto power grids may be
coming to a city near you.A subsidiary of Bouygues SA has designed rugged solar panels, capable of withstand the weight of an 18-wheeler truck, that they’re now building into road surfaces. After nearly five years of research and laboratory tests, they’re constructing 100 outdoor test sites and plan to commercialize the technology in early 2018.
“We wanted to find a second life for a road,” said Philippe Harelle, the chief technology officer at Colas SA’s Wattway unit, owned by the French engineering group Bouygues. “Solar farms use land that could otherwise be for agriculture, while the roads are free.”
As solar costs plummet, panels are being increasingly integrated into everyday materials. Last month Tesla Motors Inc. surprised investors by unveiling roof shingles that double as solar panels. Other companies are integrating photovoltaics into building facades. Wattway joins groups including Sweden’s Scania and Solar Roadways in the U.S. seeking to integrate panels onto pavement.
A kilometer-sized testing site began construction last month in the
French village of Tourouvre in Normandy. The 2,800 square meters of solar
panels are expected to generate 280 kilowatt-hours at peak, enough to power all
the public lighting in a town of 5,000 for a year, according to the company.
The electricity generated by this stretch of solar road will feed directly
into the grid. Another test site is being used to charge electric vehicles. A
third will power a small hydrogen production plant. Wattway has also installed
its panels to light electronic billboards and is working on links to street
lights.
The next two sites will be in Calgary in Canada and in the U.S. state of
Georgia. Wattway also plans to build them in Africa, Japan and throughout the
European Union.
“We need to test for all kinds of different traffic and climate
conditions,” Harelle said. “I want to find the limits of it. We think that
maybe it will not be able to withstand a snow plow.”
The potential fragility joins cost as a potential hurdle.
More
Ye hypocrites! are these your pranks?
To murder men and give God thanks!
Desist, for shame!-proceed no further;
God won't accept your thanks for Murther!
To murder men and give God thanks!
Desist, for shame!-proceed no further;
God won't accept your thanks for Murther!
Robert Burns 1793.
At the Comex silver depositories
Wednesday final figures were: Registered 30.90 Moz, Eligible 147.43 Moz,
Total 178.33 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, is it all over for old Banca Three Card
Monte di Siena? The world’s oldest bank is going once, going twice,…. If it does
fail, watch for the Berlin Broadcasting Corporation’s Fake 24 Hour News to
blame it on Brexit. On CNN in America, blame it on Putin.
Italy's Third-Biggest Bank Is Running Out of Time
Edward Robinson Sonia Sirletti and Tom Beardsworth
November 22, 2016 — 7:01 PM EST November 23, 2016 — 5:01 AM
EST
The end game may have finally arrived for Banca Monte dei Paschi di
Siena SpA.
For seven years, Italy’s third-biggest bank has repeatedly skidded to
the edge of collapse, only to be bailed out by investors or the government. Now
Chief Executive Officer Marco Morelli has until year-end to raise 5 billion
euros ($5.3 billion) of capital -- seven times its current market value -- and
offload almost 28 billion euros in soured loans to save the world’s oldest lender.
“Time is running out,” said
Stefano Girola, who helps manage about 40 billion euros at Syz Asset Management
in Lugano, Switzerland. “It’s like a huge puzzle, and one missing piece will
doom the whole project."
As part of the plan, Monte Paschi is proposing a voluntary swap of 4.3
billion euros of subordinated bonds to reduce the amount of stock it would
need to sell. The bank expects holders of junior bonds to swap about a quarter
of the available notes for equity in the first stage of its rescue plan. It may
also announce an offer for deeply subordinated securities known as Fresh bonds
at 23.2 percent of face value, subject to review by authorities, the bank said
in a report Wednesday.
The offer and the wider plan need to be approved by shareholders on
Thursday in a meeting at the lender’s headquarters in the Tuscan city of Siena.
Investors are so frustrated with Monte Paschi’s recurrent crises that there’s
concern that the bank may not muster the quorum of 20 percent of its
stockholders required to call a vote.
"Given the terms of the swap -- or rather the fact the the terms
are not really known -- I would consider 1 billion of turnout a quite
successful result," said Jacopo Ceccatelli, CEO of Marzotto SIM SpA,
a Milan-based broker-dealer. “At this point it’s really difficult to say
whether this would be sufficient to successfully go through with the capital
increase."
Once past that hurdle, Morelli will face the bigger challenge:
persuading new investors to commit money to an institution that’s seen its
stock fall by 99 percent since 2009, recorded 15 billion euros in losses and
been branded Europe’s shakiest major bank by regulators. He can’t count on the
state to come to the rescue should he fail, because new European Union rules
require bondholders and stockholders to absorb losses in the event of a
bailout, an outcome that could cause a political firestorm.
An official at Monte Paschi declined to comment on the capital raising
plans.
If the bank fails to right itself, the shock would be felt through the
Italian financial system and possibly beyond. The euro zone’s third-biggest
economy is straining under some 360 billion euros in soured loans, the
equivalent of a fifth of gross domestic product. In July, even the U.S. Federal
Reserve signaled concern
about Italian banks’ declining share prices, shrinking margins and deteriorating
loan books.Overhanging Monte Paschi’s deal is the Dec. 4 referendum backed by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to streamline the nation’s sclerotic government. Renzi’s pledge to step down if the vote fails -- as polls suggest it might -- has heightened the atmosphere of uncertainty.
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?
Graphene Solar Absorber Could Enable Cheap Thermal Desalination
Posted 21 Nov 2016 | 20:00 GMT
To those uninitiated to the costs of thermal
desalination of water, the idea of simply vaporizing water to take out the
impurities seems like it would offer a limitless supply of fresh water just by
using it on the world’s oceans. However, the energy costs for thermal
desalination has been estimated at around 80 megawatt-hours per megaliter of
water produced, rendering it too costly for just about everyone except Gulf
States rich in oil and desperate for fresh water.One way around these high-energy costs has been thought to be solar-powered thermal desalination, which can help produce clean water in remote areas and developing countries. However, the solar approach to water desalination is rather limited in the amount of fresh water it can produce and is further hampered by the need for optical concentrators and for thermal insulation, both of which have limited the large-scale use of this approach.
Now researchers at Nanjing University in China have developed a solar absorber material made from graphene oxide that enables a solar approach to desalinating water without the need for solar concentrators and thermal insulation. The result could be a low-cost, portable water desalination solution ideally suited for developing countries and remote areas.
“It is the first time that high solar steam efficiency under one sun has been achieved without any external thermal insulation,” explains Jia Zhu, a researcher at Nanjing University, in an e-mail interview with IEEE Spectrum. “Plus it is highly foldable and low cost, feasible for large-scale deployment.”
Previous solar thermal desalination suffered from an almost paradoxical phenomenon: You want to have a solar absorber in direct contact with the water to ensure the most efficient transfer of energy between the two. However, in practice all that unheated water next to the water in contact with the absorber leads to a huge amount of thermal loss, requiring a lot of thermal insulation.
In research described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the Nanjing researchers overcame this problem by not placing their graphene-oxide solar absorber in direct contact with the bulk of the water. Instead a thermal insulator made from polystyrene foam separates the water and solar absorber. A two-dimensional channel made from cellulose is wrapped around the thermal insulator with the bottom side of the cellulose in contact with the water and the solar absorber on the top. The water circulates around this 2D channel through capillary action and gets heated by the absorber without the rest of the water dissipating the heat.
More
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished October
DJIA: 18142
+32 Up NASDAQ: 5189 +31 Up. SP500: 2126 +46 Up.
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