Baltic Dry Index. 1052 -17 Brent Crude 55.12
Eurasian Snow cover. (How bad will
winter be?)
The professors who taught Efficient Market
Theory said that someone throwing darts at the stock tables could select stock
portfolio having prospects just as good as one selected by the brightest, most
hard-working securities analyst. Observing correctly that the market was
frequently efficient, they went on to conclude incorrectly that it was always efficient.
Warren Buffett.
In
better news for the US economy, Qatar, backer of the losing side in Syria’s
civil war, is attempting to curry favour with President-elect Trump. It remains
unclear if this is just a re-announcement of their earlier 35 billion
investment package, or a genuine new bribe to the incoming new administration.
Qatar sovereign fund tells Washington will invest $10 billion in U.S. infrastructure: sources
The head of Qatar's sovereign wealth fund has told U.S. officials it
will invest $10 billion in infrastructure projects inside the United States,
sources said, in an apparent boost to the economic plans of president-elect
Donald Trump.
Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohamed bin Saud al-Thani, chief executive of the
Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), delivered the message to officials including
Charles Rivkin, U.S. assistant secretary of state for economic and business
affairs, in Doha on Monday, a Qatari official and another source close to the
QIA told Reuters.
No time frame was given for the investment. Both the QIA, one of the
world's largest sovereign funds, and a spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Qatar
declined to comment.
The QIA had previously said it intended to invest $35 billion in
unspecified projects in the United States between 2016 and 2021, and it was not
clear if the $10 billion would form part of that larger amount, the official
said.
Trump has said his economic plans include a major boost to
infrastructure investment. In one of the presidential debates against Hillary
Clinton, Trump contrasted the gleaming airports of Qatar and Dubai with more
shabby U.S. facilities such as LaGuardia and Newark.
The investment by Qatar, which hosts the largest U.S. air base in the
Middle East, could help to cement ties with the Trump administration at a time
of uncertainty in the Gulf, where Arab states fear any retreat of U.S. power
could benefit regional foe Iran.
More
Next, after President-elect Trump rattled the bars
of China’s cage on Sunday, threatening to set off a trade war or worse, US
companies that are vulnerable to China’s retaliation, rattled the bars of the
President-elects cage via Reuters, though anonymously lest the President-elect
rattle their cage bars back. With some 5 weeks still to go till a President
Trump, it’s shaping up to be an interesting next 4 years.
Trump's tough trade talk makes U.S. firms fear China retribution
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's challenges to China on trade and
Taiwan are rattling American companies who have long benefited from stable
relations between the two countries but now fear retaliation by Beijing if
Trump were to act.
Trump jarred Chinese officials on Sunday by saying the United States did
not necessarily have to stick to its long-standing position that Taiwan is part
of "one China." Beijing expressed "serious concern" about
Trump’s remarks.
Four U.S. industry sources who follow China policy closely said they
were unsettled by any suggestion of abandoning the "one China"
policy, which they said had served the business community well for several
decades.
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the
sensitivity of the issue, stressed the importance of stability for businesses.
They said Beijing could retaliate against U.S. companies that do business in
China if Trump takes his tougher line too far.
"The Chinese are deeply concerned and we hear now from reliable
sources in Beijing who suggest the Chinese government, the Communist Party, are
developing lists of U.S. interests against which they could retaliate,
commercial interests, and obviously one merely has to look at top U.S. exports
to China to get a quick sense of whose heads may be on the chopping
block," said one China trade policy expert who interacts closely with U.S.
business.
The expert pointed out that more than 30 states have over $1 billion in
exports to China and that there is over $500 billion in commercial engagements
by U.S. companies in China. All of that would be at risk if China retaliated.
"That commercial engagement supports American jobs, many American
jobs here in the United States," the expert said.
Another source said there had been "quiet outreach" by the
U.S. business community to Trump's advisers but companies were wary of
discussing their concerns about the China policy publicly for fear of becoming
a target for the president-elect, who has singled out companies such as Carrier
and Boeing.
From Detroit's car makers to Silicon Valley's technology champions,
China is both a critical source of revenue and profits, and a vital link in
global supply chains.
More than four decades after President Richard Nixon upset the status
quo of his time with a surprise visit to Beijing, what's good for U.S.-China
relations is good for General Motors and Starbucks and Apple and Wal-Mart
Stores Inc.
China has hit U.S. goods with retaliatory tariffs in the past when
disputes flared. China in 2011 slapped duties on U.S.-made large cars and sport
utilities as part of a trade dispute.
The stakes are higher now.
More
Nothing is so admirable in
politics as a short memory.John Kenneth Galbraith.
At the Comex silver depositories
Tuesday final figures were: Registered 37.92 Moz, Eligible 141.84 Moz,
Total 179.76 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
Today, nothing is solved in Italy, where Italy’s
new unelected Prime Minister is viewed as a placeman for Italy’s last unelected
Prime Minister. I suspect that Italy’s voters will remain unimpressed. Premier
Gentiloni is expected to take the fall for the coming bail-in of Italy’s
bankrupt bank Three Card Monte di Siena, and quickly move on, possibly as early
as the week between Christmas and New Year.
"The great merit of gold
is precisely that it is scarce; that its quantity is limited by nature; that it
is costly to discover, to mine, and to process; and that it cannot be created
by political fiat or caprice." Henry Hazlitt
Italy’s Next PM Might Not Keep the Job Very Long
by John Follain
11 December 2016, 23:00 GMT 12 December 2016, 07:37 GMT
Italy’s premier-designate Paolo Gentiloni may end up just keeping the
seat warm for his former boss, Matteo Renzi.
Gentiloni, 62, was given a mandate to lead a new government by President
Sergio Mattarella after Renzi formally resigned following his defeat in a Dec. 4
referendum. Gentiloni, who was foreign minister in the Renzi government, is
expected to report back to Mattarella as soon as Monday. None of this has
stopped Renzi from planning a comeback.
While Renzi is Gentiloni’s chief sponsor, the newcomer is likely to face
pressure to step aside in the first half of next year because Renzi wants early
elections. The two-edged relationship prompted Luigi Di Maio, a leader of the
anti-establishment Five Star Movement, to call Gentiloni a Renzi “avatar.”
“A Gentiloni government would be an
ambiguous one,” Giovanni Orsina, a professor of government at Rome’s
Luiss-Guido Carli University, said in a phone interview. “It’s born as a
caretaker government because Renzi wants early elections next year. Gentiloni
is very close to Renzi but who knows what power could do -- Gentiloni might
stay on until 2018.” The next scheduled elections are due in early 2018.
If he succeeds in drawing up a list of ministers, Gentiloni will be Italy’s
fourth unelected premier -- after Mario Monti, Enrico Letta and Renzi himself.
As leader of the country’s 64th government since World War II, he would make
his international debut at the European Union summit in Brussels on Thursday.Top priorities
Gentiloni’s priorities will be to change the electoral law, seek to boost weak economic growth, and tackle the troubled banking sector, Orsina said. “Gentiloni will be a competent premier, he is not flamboyant like Renzi but he has a lot of political experience,” Orsina said.Gentiloni is expected to keep several ministers at their posts including Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan, whose priority now is Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA after the European Central Bank decided on Friday not to allow the lender to extend a deadline on a 5 billion-euro capital increase, triggering fears that the government crisis could hurt the troubled banking sector.
More
The market, like the Lord, helps those who
help themselves. But, unlike the Lord, the market does not forgive those who know not what they do.
Warren Buffett.
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?
Uganda and UK sign solar power access agreement, 10 MW solar farm brought online
12. December 2016
The Energy Africa Compact signed by the
U.K.'s Department for International Development with the Ugandan government
aims to improve access to, and innovation in, solar energy in the country.
The U.K.’s Department for International Development (DFID) in Uganda has signed an Energy Africa Compact agreement with Ugandan officials that will work towards improving access to solar energy to the estimated 30 million people in the country without access to electricity.
According to the DFID, four out of every five Ugandans do not have access to a reliable source of power, and so the agreement’s chief aim will be to reduce this number by documenting strategic areas where the adoption of solar home power and lighting systems can be installed quickly and cheaply.
The aim of the Compact is to electrify the entire country by 2030, and the Ugandan Ministry for Energy and Mineral Development has created a conducive environment to enable solar to thrive, including a VAT exemption on major solar components, financial support for private sector companies, provision of solar end-user subsidies, capacity building through the training of technicians, as well as the establishment of innovative solar financing models.
The U.K.’s involvement will be largely as a facilitator, removing market barriers and enabling companies and Uganda’s government to come together and see through their aims. According to Jennie Barugh, head of the DFID Uganda office, the aim is to expedite Uganda’s path towards becoming a more modern and inclusive economy, with a particular focus on eradicating poverty.
"Energy poverty undermines productivity, job creation and livelihoods, reduces the ability of the state to provide basic services, and directly affects health and education outcomes – with disproportionate impacts on women and girls," said Barugh. “"This Compact will improve access and innovation in the solar energy market, increasing energy access for all. Access to solar power will save people and businesses money on expensive forms of energy and reduce the time women and girls spend gathering fuel to burn."
The DFID’s calculations reveal that Uganda’s lack of energy access limits annual GDP by around 1-2%, while 50% of businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa view a lack of reliable electricity access as a major constraint to doing business.
More.
There can be few
fields of human endeavour in which history counts for so little as in the world
of finance. Past experience, to the extent that it is part of memory at all, is
dismissed as the primitive refuge of those who do not have the insight to
appreciate the incredible wonders of the present.
John Kenneth Galbraith
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished November
DJIA: 19124
+53 Up NASDAQ: 5324 +41 Up. SP500: 2198 +58 Up
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