Baltic Dry Index. 1296 Thurs. Brent Crude 55.39
Every
generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before
it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
George
Orwell.
With Asian geopolitics’ and Sunday’s French election well covered in mainstream media, this morning we turn to today’s alarming red flag and klaxons blaring from China. To this old dinosaur trader, it seems like a summer of storms lies ahead. This adds to global tightening at a time when the Fed is tightening, inflation is starting to reappear, and Europe looks set to be forced away from negative interest rates. If an anti-Euro candidate wins next month’s French run-off presidential election, promising to take France out of the eurozone, the euro will enter into terminal decline.
If the euro is history rather than the future, all fiat currencies will come under severe test, for all fiat currencies are deeply flawed, and drinking in the last chance saloon. Stay long fully paid up physical gold and silver. 2017 may just be the start of a long period of stress.
China foreign-direct investment falls 48.8%
Published: Apr 18, 2017 12:52 a.m. ET
BEIJING--China's overseas direct investment outside the financial sector
dropped sharply in the first quarter as authorities stepped up scrutiny of
capital flowing out of the country.
The country's nonfinancial outbound direct investment stood at $20.54
billion in the three months through March, down 48.8% from a year earlier, the
Commerce Ministry said.
Outbound investment for March alone fell 30.1% at $7.11 billion, the
ministry said.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-foreign-direct-investment-falls-488-2017-04-18Up next, is the euro now the most dangerous fiat currency on the planet?
French Race Up for Grabs Days Before Voters Cast First Ballots
Geraldine Amiel and Vidya Root“Everyone is petrified,” said Edouard Lecerf, head of the political department at polling firm Kantar Sofres. “The challenge for each of the four candidates is to seek new votes without alienating their base. French voters are like fish, like eels -- very slippery.”
With almost a third of the electorate still undecided, and the front-runners clustered around 20 percent in the polls for the first round on April 23, the race is the most unpredictable the country has seen in recent history. With two of the four candidates also hostile to the institutions of the European Union, the result of the runoff two weeks later will have far-reaching implications not just for France but for the region as a whole.
----According to Elabe’s latest poll, released Monday, support for Macron stands at 24 percent, while Le Pen is at 23 percent. Fillon holds 21 percent, followed by Melenchon at 18 percent. Le Pen has threatened to take France out of the EU, while Melenchon wants to renegotiate the bloc’s treaties, including the one that keeps the country in the euro. Macron would defeat any of his rivals in the runoff, the survey showed, so long as he can get there.
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-04-17/french-race-up-for-grabs-days-before-voters-cast-first-ballots
Below, what were Merkel, Juncker, Schultz, Tusk, Hollande and all the rest smoking when they scuppered Dodgy Dave Cameron’s EU reform, farewell tour last year, and sent him home with an empty envelope to sell to UK voters? And let’s not get started on cars. Imposing tit-for-tat tariffs after Brexit hits continental Europe far harder than it does the UK which could import detergent from anywhere in the world it likes. But why impose tariffs at all? Why ship European jobs to Brazil, Mexico, India and Africa? Get back to the EU’s original purpose, free trade, job creation, wealth creation, and wider prosperity for all. End the wealth and jobs destroying, dying EUSSR, bankster cartel. Brexit now and a reformed rump-EU, as Turkey declares war on the EUSSR.
Brexit ‘Alarm Bells’ Set to Ring as Chemical Makers See Disorder
by Jonathan Stearns and Viktoria Dendrinou
17 April 2017, 00:00 BST
----For clues to the complexity of separating the U.K. from the rest of the
EU chemicals market, take an everyday consumer good like soap.One popular detergent sold in U.K. supermarkets is made from chemicals that cross the Channel several times during the manufacturing and distribution processes, according to Mensink, who said the raw material is produced in France, reworked in the U.K., shipped to Germany and returned for packaging to Britain.
The finished product is then distributed throughout the EU.
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-04-16/brexit-alarm-bells-set-to-ring-as-chemical-makers-see-disorder
France's Macron Says German Trade Surplus Harmful to EU Economy
by Elisabeth Behrmann
17 April 2017, 00:00 BST
France’s independent presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, tied with
far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in polls before the election, said Germany’s
large trade surplus is harmful to the euro-zone economy and called for more
balance.“Germany benefits from the imbalances within the euro zone and achieves very high trade surpluses,” centrist candidate Macron said in an interview published Monday with Germany’s Funke Mediengruppe and France’s Ouest-France newspaper. “Those aren’t a good thing either for Germany or for the economy of the euro zone. There should be a rebalancing.”
Germany’s growing export surplus has raised concerns for the global economy as well as the European Union after reaching a record in 2016. U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade adviser accused the nation of exploiting a “grossly undervalued” euro. Critics say that Germany’s dominance is undermining EU nations’ economies and urge its government to take steps to boost domestic demand and imports.
Macron, 39, is tied with Le Pen, an anti-immigration, EU-skeptic candidate, with 22 percent support for the first round of France’s election on April 23, according to an Ipsos/Sopra Steria poll for Le Monde. The most unpredictable presidential vote in a generation has become a four-way race with far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon surging alongside Republican Francois Fillon.
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-16/france-s-macron-says-german-trade-surplus-harmful-to-eu-economy
Erdogan Says He Doesn't Care What Europe Thinks About Turkey's Vote
by Isobel FinkelErdogan belittled both domestic and foreign critics of the voting process, which culminated in a slim majority of Turks approving changes to 18 articles of the constitution that concentrate more power in his hands. A monitoring group from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe -- which said the referendum took place on an "unlevel playing field" -- "should know its place," he said.
"We don’t care about the opinions of ‘Hans’ or ‘George,’" Erdogan said, using the names as stand-ins for his European critics. "All debates about the constitutional referendum are now over."
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-04-17/erdogan-says-he-doesn-t-care-what-hans-thinks-in-rebuke-to-eu
Brexit
Joke of the Day.
Pythagoras's theorem - 24 words.
The Lord's Prayer - 66 words.
Archimedes's Principle - 67 words.
The 10 Commandments - 179 words.
The Gettysburg address - 286 words.
U.S. Declaration of Independence - 1,300 words.
U.S. Constitution with all 27 Amendments - 7,818 words.
The Lord's Prayer - 66 words.
Archimedes's Principle - 67 words.
The 10 Commandments - 179 words.
The Gettysburg address - 286 words.
U.S. Declaration of Independence - 1,300 words.
U.S. Constitution with all 27 Amendments - 7,818 words.
EU regulations on the sale of cabbage - 26,911
words.
In American War Party news, President U-turn seems to have played himself into very a dangerous corner.
Pence stresses 'era of strategic patience' over as he visits Korean DMZ
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence stared
across the demilitarized border between North and South Korea on Monday, a day
after North Korea's failed missile launch, reiterating that the U.S. "era
of strategic patience" with Pyongyang was over.
Pence is on the first stop of a four-nation Asia tour intended to show
America's allies, and remind its adversaries, that the Trump administration is
not turning its back on the increasingly volatile region.
The demilitarized zone (DMZ) is a heavily mined, four-km-wide
(2.5-mile-wide) strip of land lined with barbed wire running across the Korean
peninsula, with soldiers on both sides in a continual eyeball-to-eyeball
standoff.
Pence, whose father served in the 1950-53 Korean War, said the United
States would stand by its "iron-clad alliance" with South Korea and
was seeking peace through strength.
"All options are on the table to achieve the objectives and ensure
the stability of the people of this country," he told reporters as tinny
propaganda music floated across from the North Korean side.
He said U.S. President Donald Trump has made clear he won't talk about
specific military tactics.
"There was a period of strategic patience but the era of strategic
patience is over," Pence said.
Morehttp://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-missile-idUSKBN17H0NL
China, Russia send ships after U.S. aircraft carrier
The Japan News/Yomiuri First Published Apr 16 2017 01:15PM
China and Russia have dispatched intelligence-gathering
vessels from their navies to chase the USS Carl Vinson nuclear-powered aircraft
carrier, which is heading toward waters near the Korean Peninsula, multiple
sources of the Japanese government revealed to The Yomiuri Shimbun.
It appears that both countries aim to probe the movements
of the United States, which is showing a stance of not excluding military
action against North Korea. The Self-Defense Forces are strengthening warning
and surveillance activities in the waters and airspace around the area,
according to the sources.
The aircraft carrier strike group, composed of the Carl
Vinson at its core with guided-missile destroyers and other vessels, is
understood to be around the East China Sea and heading north toward waters near
the Korean Peninsula.
China and Russia, which prioritize stability in the Korean
Peninsula, showed concern over the tough U.S. stance, with Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov saying the issue should be resolved peacefully through
political and diplomatic efforts.
The dispatch of the intelligence-gathering vessels appears
to be partly aimed at sending a warning signal to the United States.
Morehttp://www.sltrib.com/home/5183435-155/china-russia-send-ships-after-us
In ordinary news, the global wobble seems to be picking up speed again. From London the Trump honeymoon looks to be ending, though a seasonal uplift should mitigate against a hard landing for now.
Boeing to Dismiss Hundreds of Engineers Amid Sales Slowdown
by Julie JohnssonThe manufacturer plans to hand out pink slips on Friday, the same day that 305 engineers and technical workers will leave voluntarily under an earlier buyout offer. Boeing has pared 1,332 of the jobs from its Seattle-area manufacturing center since the start of 2016, according to SPEEA, the union representing the workers.
Boeing may make additional engineering cuts depending on “our business environment and the amount of voluntary attrition,” John Hamilton, vice president of engineering for the commercial airplanes unit, said in a letter to employees Monday. The dismissals are needed to “meet our operating plan and additional challenges in the marketplace.”
The Chicago-based company, which emerged as the face of U.S. manufacturing under President Donald Trump, has been winnowing employment for more than a year as a record jetliner sales spree fades. Boeing trimmed the Washington workforce by 9 percent to 70,640 employees over the past year. The company’s total headcount has shrunk 7.6 percent to 146,962 since March 2016.
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-17/boeing-to-lay-off-hundreds-of-engineers-in-cost-cutting-push
At the Comex silver depositories Monday
final figures were: Registered 30.29 Moz, Eligible 161.28 Moz,
Total 191.57 Moz.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally
doubled over.
In fake news, China’s economy beat the official
number. Yes of course it did. No really! Now back to that bridge I have for
sale in Brooklyn.
China’s Economy Accelerates as Retail, Investment Pick Up
Bloomberg News
17 April 2017, 03:00 BST 17 April 2017, 06:28 BST
China’s economy accelerated for a second-straight quarter as investment
picked up, retail sales rebounded and factory output strengthened amid robust
credit growth and further strength in property markets.Gross domestic product increased 6.9 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, compared with a 6.8 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. It was the first back-to-back acceleration in seven years.
Other indicators released Monday by the National Bureau of
Statistics showed:
- Fixed-asset investment excluding rural areas expanded 9.2 percent for the first three months, accelerating from 8.1 percent growth last year
- Retail sales increased 10.9 percent from a year earlier in March, compared with a median estimate of 9.7 percent in a Bloomberg survey
- Industrial output rose 7.6 percent last month from a year earlier, compared with an estimated 6.3 percent rise
"For the first time in the recent years, China starts a year with a
strong headline GDP," said Raymond Yeung, chief greater China
economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Hong Kong,
who correctly forecast the growth pace. "Thanks to strong investment and
property, the economy is performing well."
The expansion further cements a rebound as producer prices surge,
industrial output picks up and soaring credit fuels investment. Policy
makers have shifted to a more neutral monetary stance as they seek to ease
financial risk and reduce excess industrial capacity.
"The first quarter growth is mainly driven by reflation and very
strong property sales and investment," said Larry Hu, head of China
economics at Macquarie Securities Ltd. in Hong Kong. "This strong data
would give more confidence to maintain a tightening stance."
More
Technology 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?
No update today. Normal service tomorrow.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished March
DJIA: 20,663
+131 Up. NASDAQ: 5,912 +165 Up. SP500: 2,363 +135 Up.
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