Baltic Dry Index. 1296 +46 Brent Crude 54.77
Elgin Groseclose
We open this morning
with a developing story. A severe earthquake has just struck off the coast of
Mexico. This development might be a
large enough release of energy, to spawn other later earthquakes in related
parts of the same and nearby tectonic systems.
September 8, 2017 / 6:08 AM
Quake of magnitude 8 hits off south Mexico - USGS
MEXICO (Reuters) - An
earthquake of magnitude 8 struck off the southern coast of Mexico late on
Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said, shaking buildings in the
capital city.
People in Mexico City ran out into the streets after the quake struck, a
Reuters witness said.
Its epicentre was 123 km (76 miles) southwest of the town of Pijijiapan,
at a depth of 33 km (21 miles).
Widespread, hazardous tsunami waves were
possible, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said.
In hurricane news,
slightly better news for south Florida and the Florida Keys.
September 7, 2017 / 10:28 AM
Hurricane Irma likely to drop to Category 4 upon landfall in Florida - NHC
(Reuters) - Hurricane Irma is likely to be downgraded to a
Category 4 storm by the time it makes landfall in Florida, the U.S. National
Hurricane Center said on Thursday.
Irma, at present a Category 5 storm packing maximum
sustained winds of 180 miles (285 km) per hour, is moving off the northern
coast of the Dominican Republic, the NHC said.
It has become a little less organised over the past few
hours but the threat of direct hurricane impacts in Florida over the weekend
and early next week continues to increase, it said.
In business and other
news, another red flag from East Asia. But at least Japan’s economy is still
expanding. North Korea is expected to fire another ICBM tomorrow. Is the dollar’s
slide the start on something more? The Trump trade war? The return of inflation
next year?
Japan GDP Growth Revised Down on Softer Capital Expenditure
By Yuko Takeo and Yoshiaki NoharaHighlights of the GDP report |
|
More
Dollar Tumbles as Yen, Euro Rally on Irma, ECB: Markets Wrap
By Andreea Papuc
The
dollar tumbled to its weakest level since the start of 2015 as fading
expectations of U.S. interest-rate increases, North Korea tensions and a
historically powerful hurricane unsettled investors. The euro was near the
highest since January 2015 after the European Central Bank stopped short of
attempting to jawbone it lower. Stocks in Asia were mixed.
The
dollar’s decline deepened during Asian trading on Friday as the yen extended
gains after hitting its strongest since November on Thursday and investors
girded for potential economic damage to Florida from the historically powerful
Hurricane Irma. The Australian dollar surged to the highest in more than two
years. Asian equities from Tokyo to Sydney fluctuated. Ten-year Treasury yields
fell toward 2 percent. Gold headed for a third week of gains ahead of a
potential North Korean missile launch.
ECB President Mario Draghi cautioned on the common currency’s strength
though didn’t expand on any action to address it. He said he’s watching the
euro’s gains as policy makers edge toward settling the future of their
bond-buying program. The euro’s surge -- more than 14 percent against the
dollar this year -- was reflected in a downgrade to the ECB’s inflation
outlook, though Draghi said economic growth remains solid.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley was the latest
U.S. central banker to lay out his views ahead of a policy-setting meeting
later this month as expectations for an interest-rate increase have been scaled
back. Dudley reiterated the need to continue raising rates while conceding that
the Fed may have to rethink its inflation model.
Meanwhile, the threat from North Korea lingers. U.S. President Donald
Trump said it’s not “inevitable” that the U.S. will wind up in a war with North
Korea over its continued development of nuclear weapons, though military action
remains an option. Pyongyang may test a missile this weekend to coincide with
its “founding day” on Sept. 9.
More
Up next, the
EUSSR’s worst nightmare. Will Catalonia split from Spain? Will Spain try
repression, if they try? Would the EUSSSR allow Spanish repression? But how
could they stop it, if Spain sends in troops? Is this the beginning of the end
for the Bilderberger EU and euro?
September 7, 2017 / 1:52 PM
Spain to bring criminal charges against Catalan parliament members
MADRID (Reuters) - The Spanish government on Thursday took steps to
prevent a referendum on independence for Catalonia from going ahead on Oct.1
and to prepare criminal charges against regional lawmakers who had voted to
hold the ballot.
A majority of Catalonia’s parliament voted on Wednesday to hold the
referendum in an acrimonious session in which mainstream political parties left
the chamber during the vote and pro-independence lawmakers sung the Catalan
anthem.
The government says any referendum on regional secession from Spain is
illegal as the constitution states that the country is indivisible.
Spain’s state prosecutor’s office said on Thursday it would present
criminal charges against leading members of the Catalan parliament for allowing
Wednesday’s parliamentary vote to go ahead.
The state prosecutor-general, Jose Manuel Maza, told reporters he had
also asked the security forces to investigate any preparations by the Catalan
government to hold the referendum. This could involve printing leaflets or
preparing polling stations.
Teachers, police and administrative workers are among civil servants
that could risk fines or potentially the loss of their jobs by manning polling
stations or taking part in other activities deemed as helping the vote.
---- Catalan’s regional head, Carles Puigdemont, has said the results of the referendum will be binding no matter what the turn-out is. Analsyts have said a low turn-out would harm the legitimacy of the result.
Catalonia will declare independence within 48 hours of a “yes” vote, the
referendum law states.
A non-binding ballot on independence in 2014, for which Catalan
politicians have already been punished for preparing, gave a “yes” vote with a
turn-out of just over 30 percent.
More
We close with more on
the aftermath of hurricane Harvey. There’s a whole lot of pollution in south
Texas.
Hurricane Harvey Left Massive Amounts of Industrial Pollution in its Wake
September 6, 2017
Hurricane Harvey left parts of the south flooded, ravaged and without power.
It also left behind millions of pounds of industrial pollution.According to cnn.com, since the storm made landfall August 25, “more than 5 million pounds of air pollutants have been released beyond the normally permitted emissions.” Unfortunately, the amount of pollution continues to increase as the oil and gas industries restart operations, a process that is pollution-intensive. Experts are warning that the true amount of pollutants could be significantly larger than what has been reported.
The site also reported that air quality has diminished significantly as a result of the Hurricane. Toxicologists in the area are seeing concentrations of pollutants higher than anything recorded in more than a decade.
Water and waste management also remains a mess in southeast Texas. As of Sunday, more than 800 wastewater treatment facilities in southeast Texas were still not fully operational as a result of the effects of Hurricane Harvey. Additionally, officials have become aware of the release of wastewater from sanitary sewers, according to the Washington Post.
At least 13 toxic waste sites were flooded or damaged by Hurricane Harvey, according to the EPA. The agency assessed 41 Superfund sites using aerial images, but EPA workers have not yet been able to safely access the sites directly, according to CNN. The affected sites have industrial waste from acid compounds, solvents, pesticides and petrochemical companies.
Wastewater treatment plants are facing “unprecedented challenges,” experts say. In addition to sewer overflows, system failure and private septic tank failure, the water infrastructure also faces potential contamination from spilled fuel, waste site runoff, lawn pesticides and pollutants from refineries, writes the Minneapolis Star Tribune. When wastewater utilities that remove contaminants from drinking water are inundated with floodwaters, they can become unstable. Additionally, power outages can keep them from running their pumps, said Kevin Morley, a federal relations manager with the American Water Works Association.
As the Financial Times reported earlier this week, the Houston area is the largest city in the US with no zoning laws restricting the siting of industrial and residential development, meaning that there are homes close to some plants. US regulations on the chemicals industry are less demanding than in the EU, and moves by the Obama administration to tighten them have been delayed under President Donald Trump.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Presented without need for comment.
Facebook accused of fake audience numbers
Published: Sept 6, 2017 6:36 p.m. ET
Social-media company tells advertisers it can reach more than 100 million U.S. adults younger than 35, but census only counts 76 million
Facebook Inc. claims its ads have the potential to reach more people than recent U.S. census data shows exist, and that’s troublesome for one analyst, who thinks third-party measurement services stand to benefit.Recently, Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser was intrigued by a trade publication study in Australia that said Facebook FB, +0.80% was claiming to reach 1.7 million more 16- to 39-year olds than actually existed in the country, according to Australian census data.
In reproducing the study for the U.S., Wieser said Facebook’s Ads Manager claims it can potentially reach 41 million 18- to 24-year-olds, 60 million 25- to 34-year-olds, and 61 million 35- to 49-year-olds. The problem arises when Wieser pulls up U.S. Census data from a year ago, showing 31 million 18- to 24-year-olds, 45 million 25- to 34-year-olds, and 61 million 35- to 49-year-olds.
The upshot: Where is Facebook getting the extra 25 million 18- to 34-year-olds that the U.S. census did not count?
“Conversations with agency executives on this topic indicate to us that the gap between Facebook and census figures is not widely known,” Wieser said. “While Facebook’s measurement issues won’t necessarily deter advertisers from spending money with Facebook, they will help traditional TV sellers justify existing budget shares and could restrain Facebook’s growth in video ad sales on the margins.”
In August, Facebook launched Watch, a service aimed at featuring original video content in hopes of tapping into TV advertising revenue.
One beneficiary from the numbers confusion could be Nielsen Holdings PLC NLSN, +0.44% whose potential audience numbers are much more aligned with U.S. census data.
“We think that awareness of general measurement issues causes larger advertisers to require the use of third-party measurement services, including Nielsen’s DAR and comScore’s vCE, to provide the basis against which Facebook is paid,” Wieser said.
Wieser is one of the very few Facebook bears among analysts. Of 44
analysts with ratings on Facebook, only Wieser and Société Générale’s Simon
Baker have sell ratings on the stock, according to FactSet data. Wieser has a
hold rating on Nielsen.
In a statement, a Facebook spokeswoman said that its estimates “are
based on a number of factors, including Facebook user behaviors, user
demographics, location data from devices, and other factors.”
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?
Supercharging silicon batteries
Date:
September 6, 2017
Source:
Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) Graduate University
Summary:
Scientists have designed a novel silicon-based anode to provide lithium
batteries with increased power and better stability.
As the world shifts towards renewable energy, moving on from fossil
fuels, but at the same time relying on ever more energy-gobbling devices, there
is a fast-growing need for larger high-performance batteries. Lithium-ion
batteries (LIBs) power most of our portable electronics, but they are flammable
and can even explode, as it happened to a recent model of smartphone. To
prevent such accidents, the current solution is to encapsulate the anode --
which is the negative (-) electrode of the battery, opposite to the cathode (+)
-- into a graphite frame, thus insulating the lithium ions. However, such
casing is limited to a small scale to avoid physical collapse, therefore
restraining the capacity -- the amount of energy you can store -- of the
battery.
Looking for better materials, silicon offers great advantages over
carbon graphite for lithium batteries in terms of capacity. Six atoms of carbon
are required to bind a single atom of lithium, but an atom of silicon can bind
four atoms of lithium at the same time, multiplying the battery capacity by
more than 10-fold. However, being able to capture that many lithium ions means
that the volume of the anode swells by 300% to 400%, leading to fracturing and
loss of structural integrity. To overcome this issue, OIST researchers have now
reported in Advanced Science the design of an anode built on
nanostructured layers of silicon -- not unlike a multi-layered cake -- to
preserve the advantages of silicon while preventing physical collapse.
This new battery is also aiming to improve power, which is the ability
to charge and deliver energy over time.
"The goal in battery technology right now is to increase charging
speed and power output," explained Dr. Marta Haro Remon, first author of
the study. "While it is fine to charge your phone or your laptop over a
long period of time, you would not wait by your electric car for three hours at
the charging station."
And when it comes to providing energy, you would want your car to start
off quickly at a traffic light or a stop sign, requiring a high spike in power,
rather than slowly creeping forward. A well-thought design of a silicone-based
anode might be a solution and answer these expectations.
The idea behind the new anode in the Nanoparticles by Design Unit at the
Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University is the ability
to precisely control the synthesis and the corresponding physical structure of
the nanoparticles. Layers of unstructured silicon films are deposited
alternatively with tantalum metal nanoparticle scaffolds, resulting in the
silicon being sandwiched in a tantalum frame.
"We used a technique called Cluster Beam Deposition,"
continued Dr. Haro. "The required materials are directly deposited on the
surface with great control. This is a purely physical method, there are no need
for chemicals, catalysts or other binders."
More
Another weekend, and a
weekend to stay tuned to the news. A risk off weekend, if ever there was
one. Have a great weekend everyone.
"For more than two thousand years gold's natural qualities made it man's universal medium of exchange. In contrast to political money, gold is honest money that survived the ages and will live on long after the political fiats of today have gone the way of all paper."
Hans F. Sennholz
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished August
DJIA: 21,948 +215 Up. NASDAQ: 6,429 +266 Up. SP500: 2,472 +174 Up.
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