"I just think his ability to get anything done -
particularly the bigger things, like the wall, the bigger, broader things that
we fought for, it's just gonna be that much harder"
Stephen Bannon, President Trump’s ex-chief strategist.
First a treat for our Spanish readers, well all actually. Boccherini as rarely heard these days. In solidarity with the victims of another moslem atrocity in Spain and Barcelona.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLOmwmwPMxY
Will
Monday’s total solar eclipse in America lead to a stock market crash? Sounds
crazy, but statistically it might. I would argue that the stock market bubble’s
sentiment has already turned, and that recent geopolitical events, together
with the Trump turmoil, North Korean defeat, and central banks slowly shifting
from Quantitative Easing to Quantitative Tightening, had already called time on
the bull’s massive irrational stock bubble. But will Monday’s solar eclipse
pull crash season from autumn into summer?
Below
something more than a statistical oddity? Is the Trump effect over?
Superstitious Stock Traders: Beware of an Eclipse Crash
By Lily KatzFed up with political dramas that can be tough to trade on, some have turned their attention to an obscure theory that says market reversals tend to begin around the time of a lunar eclipse and end around the time of a solar eclipse.
In emails with colleagues and friends, traders are sharing links about the superstitious hypothesis, joking -- possibly -- that Monday’s total eclipse of the sun could help make sense of the market’s recent slip.
Some blogs refer to the idea as the “Puetz Crash Window,” though the researcher often credited with coining the concept, Steve Puetz, said he became interested after reading about it following “Black Monday” in 1987.
"Not every eclipse turns into a crash," said Puetz, who is retired in Hawaii and spends his time studying cycles. "You need a bubble to have a crash, but when a bubble forms, they tend to crash near the time of a lunar eclipse."
Puetz, who has no idea why this may occur, pointed out that the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a record high on Aug. 7, the same day there was a lunar eclipse. Seasonality and consumer sentiment may also come into play, he said. One factor he doesn’t pay attention to, though, is headlines.
"I sort of discount the news," he said Friday in a phone interview. "Even when there is like positive or negative news, a day or two later, the market would rebound, depending on whether it’s in a bullish or bearish trend."
Sometimes, Puetz gets emails from traders who want to learn more about the theory, especially when an eclipse is about to happen, he said.
In an Amazon review of a book Puetz wrote, one person said they bought it to use for trading. “I wanted to see how well these theoretical cycles could hold up to actual stock market behavior; the result: surprisingly well,” they wrote.
Another reviewer recommended avoiding the book, and said much of it was “based on generalities” and not objective science.
“It may not make a lot of sense to a lot of people, but I’m more a statistician,” Puetz said about the eclipse phenomenon. “It just happens an unusually large amount of times, and I can’t explain it. But it seems to be significant.”
Trump Vertigo Lands on Stocks
By Elena Popina,Lu Wang, and Oliver RenickWith headlines on Donald Trump’s dramas going off like firecrackers, volatility has surged. The S&P 500 has spent days flip-flopping before ending the week 0.7 percent lower as stress indexes hover near the highest levels of the year.
The drop over the five days brings the two-week decline in the benchmark gauge to 2.1 percent, the biggest back-to-back loss since just before the U.S. election. Pain was pronounced in small-cap shares, with the Russell 2000 Index down 1.2 percent for the third straight weekly slide.
“It’s not wise to trade this,” said Ian Winer, director of equities at Wedbush Securities Inc. “The second investors become experts in politics, they get the market wrong.”
Just Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reversed losses and surged 150 points on news Stephen Bannon is exiting his role as chief strategist. Then it went back down. For investors accustomed to welcoming Trump’s every utterance, lately it’s been a matter of getting out of their way.
“Unlike the central banks which have a set calendar events, these political events can happen at any time,” Stewart Warther, an equity derivatives strategist at BNP Paribas in New York. “The timing is unknown.”
Picking a direction and staying with it, a strategy that worked almost perfectly since Election Day with the S&P 500 up in eight of the nine months, has been less of a sure bet. In the past two weeks, traders watched as Trump warned North Korea against nuclear aggression, disbanded two advisory councils, and saw Bannon ousted.
Speculation Thursday that Gary Cohn would quit as economic adviser -- later refuted -- contributed to a 274-point Dow plunge.
“Just as fast as this thing goes up on the rumor, it goes down when that rumor is not delivered. That’s not type of investing we want to do,” said Adam Calamar, portfolio manager who helps oversee $7.6 billion at Jensen Investment Management Inc. in Lake Oswego, Oregon. “Things can change so rapidly in Washington.”
More
August 18, 2017 / 7:39 PM
Summer rumblings could herald a stormy fall for U.S. stocks
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Trump-fed rally in stocks, lately showing signs of faltering as the long Wall Street summer nears its end, faces a key test in the weeks ahead with the approach of a historically unkind season for equities and a clutch of issues - such as raising the debt ceiling - awaiting the return of lawmakers to Washington.
With September, typically the worst month in the year for
stocks, on the doorstep, investors are likely to be nervous that cracks seen in
the more than-eight year bull run in equities will turn into a steeper selloff.
"September is historically one of the most volatile
months of the year," said Michael Purves, chief global strategist at
Weeden & Co in New York. "Why do you want to chase the S&P right
now if there's a good shot that September can be an ugly, volatile month."
On Thursday, the S&P 500 .SPX
recorded its biggest daily percentage drop in three months, hurt by speculation
about White House Economic Adviser Gary Cohn's possible departure, and failed
to reverse course even after the White House said he was not leaving. Stocks
edged higher on Friday.
The weakness came just as stocks were recovering from last
week's swoon on worries linked to escalating tensions between North Korea and
the United States.
The market is up more than 8 percent so far this year,
fueled by hopes of bumper corporate earnings and expectations that the Trump
administration’s policies will spur growth. Yet the catalysts could be over.
More
And
so while we await Monday’s total eclipse of the sun in the USA, some
intellectual diversion for the weekend reading. Enjoy.
A Roman walks
into a bar and asks for a martinus.
"You mean a martini?" the bartender asks.
The Roman replies, "If I wanted a double, I would have asked for it!"
"You mean a martini?" the bartender asks.
The Roman replies, "If I wanted a double, I would have asked for it!"
The Schoyen Collection: 20,000 Ancient Manuscripts from 134 Countries in 120 Languages
14 August, 2016 - 00:44 Kerry Sullivan
The largest private collection of manuscripts is remarkable not just for the
number of items it possesses (over 20,000) but for the breadth and depth of
human history it encompasses. The Schøyen Collection, which is stored in both
Oslo and London, contains documents dating as far back as 5,300 years ago;
items in the collection represent 134 different countries and are written in
120 different languages. Specimens in the collection include “the Dead Sea
Scrolls, The Cairo Genizah of Hebrew MSS, The Oxyrhynchus hoard of classical
papyri, the Dishna Biblical papyri, The Nag Hammadi Gnostic papyri, the
Dunhuang hoard of Buddhist MSS, and many others” (The Schøyen Collection,
2016). The Schøyen Collection started accumulating around 1920 at a time when
Westerner colonizers thought nothing of taking the best artifacts home to
Europe. Today, the Schøyen Collection faces controversy, as the manuscripts
rightful owners demand their repatriation.Norwegian engineer M.O. Schøyen (1896-1962) had always been fascinated by world literature and ancient antiquities. Starting in his mid-20s, he began to collect manuscripts of Norwegian legends and soon began to gather other volumes of ancient literature, history, science, and philosophy. By the time the collection was passed on to his son, Martin Schøyen, it contained roughly 1000 items. Martin was an even more avid collector than his father and set about acquiring important manuscripts from antiquity as well as coins and other artifacts. Always looking for items that spoke to mankind’s cultural heritage, today the collection also seeks out important movie scripts and sheet music.
Throughout its history, a priority of the Schøyen
Collection has been to gather manuscripts of bibles and biblical writings,
citing that “the Bible is the most influential and important book ever written”
(The Schøyen Collection, 2016). The collections first truly remarkable addition
was acquired in June 1986: volume 3 of the monumental Romanesque Lectern Bible
from Geraardsbergen Abbey. In 1988, Schøyen bought several items of the Dead
Sea Scroll collection, religious scripts believed to have been written during
the lifetime of Christ and the Apostles. Since then, the organization has
acquired “the St. Cecilia Bible, the only Carolingian Bible in private hands;
further by Codex Sinaiticus Zosimi Rescriptus, the 6th century palimpsest
Aramaic Gospels from St. Catherine's Monastery; and The Liesborn Gospels of the
10th century” (The Schøyen Collection, 2016).
The Schøyen Collection also features remarkable
testaments to the history of world literature. It possesses the oldest
manuscript of the ancient Babylonian tale, the Epic of Gilgamesh, as well as
early manuscripts of the legendary writings of Homer and Hesiod.
According to the Schøyen Collection’s website, “The
uniqueness and importance of the materials in The Schøyen Collection go far
beyond the scope of a private collection, or even a national public collection.
These MSS are the world's heritage, the memory of the world. They are felt not
really to belong to The Schøyen Collection and its owner, who is the privileged
keeper, neither do they belong to a particular nation, people, religion,
culture, but to mankind, being the property of the entire world” (The Schøyen
Collection, 2016). However, many countries do not feel the same way.
-----In the face of several similar challenges, Schøyen has responded in what some consider negative and condescending language, even if it holds a grain of truth. The collector has argued that countries persistently embroiled in conflict and subject to terrorist vandalism are not a safe place for precious manuscripts. “I’ve put together a collection that represents all the world’s religions and cultures precisely to create understanding across borders. In the long term one can never know what will happen in the Muslim states” (Prescott and Omland, 2004).
Today, Schøyen is no longer acquiring non-Western artifacts or manuscripts. The Norwegian government is looking into the claims of wrongful appropriation of valuables from foreign lands, particularly Afghanistan.
More
An academic & educational resource from the private collection of Martin Schøyen
21. Pre-Gutenberg Printing
Introduction : Pre-Gutenberg Printing
Blockprinting on paper started in China in the 7th c., but no examples survive. The oldest surviving printing was found in 1966 in a stupa in the Buddhist temple Pulguk-sa, Kyongju, Korea. It is a small dharani scroll printed 704-751. Until then the dharani scrolls contained in small wooden pagodas printed in Japan 764-770 were considered the oldest printing in the world. 14 examples (81 volumes) of blockprinting and movable type printing from the period 770 to 1442 are selected here, from a collection of 152 items.These precious prints represents 680 years of printing history until Gutenberg re-invented movable type printing in Europe around 1450.
All this refers to printing on paper using ink, or without ink on soft paper (blind printing), applying blocks or movable types of wood, stone or metals. It should be noted that about 3000 years earlier, royal inscriptions were printed in blind on clay bricks, using blocks of wood, clay or marble. The bricks were printed in thousands of copies for use in palace or temple buildings in Sumer and Babylonia. If the definition of blind printing also includes soft materials as wet clay or gold in addition to dry or wet (soft) paper, these royal texts will be the world's earliest printing. 5 examples are listed here, as well as an European example.
Another Roman walks into the bar, holds up two fingers, and
says, “Five beers, please.”
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