Baltic Dry Index. 1415 +17 Brent Crude 55.32
The big news this morning is the devastating earthquake
that just hit Mexico’s capital. The second large earthquake to hit Mexico in a
month. Both large earthquakes hit near the full moon and the new moon.
By the end of the day, we may also be
reckoning the damage to Puerto Rico from hurricane Maria.
Later we get the Gospel according to Yellen.
Not to worry, say our stock marketeers, none of this matters, buy more, buy
more! Time will tell if we can get through crash season, without a crash.
Scores Die as Mexico Rocked by Month's Second Major Quake
By Carlos M Rodriguez, Nacha Cattan, and Michelle DavisThe quake ravaged the far-flung region of more than 20 million people, and images showed structures burning and exploding, some suddenly losing integrity and collapsing into billowing dust clouds. At least 149 people were confirmed dead, including 55 in Morelos, 49 in Mexico City and 32 in Puebla, National Civil Protection Coordinator Luis Felipe Puente said on Twitter.
Tuesday’s quake struck 32 years to the day
after a temblor with an 8.0 magnitude killed 5,000 people -- and hours after
annual safety drills were held on the anniversary. The disaster temporarily
closed the airport, stopped the metro and ended trading on the Mexican Stock
Exchange. The exchange planned to open as normal Wednesday.
Hours later, as the shock wore off, rescue
workers and volunteers worked frantically to save their neighbors. Military
personnel and paramedics worked on the rooftop of a partially collapsed
building in the Roma Norte district as a crowd of hundreds gathered in the
street below. They burst into applause and cheers when an apparent survivor was
pulled from the rooftop on the third floor.
---- Mexico is one of the world’s most
quake-prone nations, sitting at the intersection of four major crustal plates,
according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
---- The epicenter of Tuesday’s temblor
was in Puebla, about 115 kilometers southeast of the capital, Dutton said. On
Sept. 7, a temblor hit offshore near Chiapas state with
a magnitude of 8.2, according to the Geological Survey and Mexico’s National
Seismological Service. Tuesday’s quake was much nearer to the capital.
Scientists Discover Connection Between Full Moon and Earthquakes
Kate Samuelson Sep 13, 2016
Large earthquakes are more likely to occur when there is a full or new moon because of the gravitational pull on
tides, a new study suggests.
Researchers led by Satoshi Ide, Suguru Yabe
and Yoshiyuki Tanaka, all from the University of Tokyo, found that tides—which
arise from the gravitational interaction between the Earth and the Moon—can
cause chan ges that may trig g er ear thq uakes.
More
September 17, 2017 / 9:07 PM /
Updated an hour ago
Hurricane Maria bears down on St. Croix, Puerto Rico after trashing Dominica
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) - Hurricane Maria, the second
maximum-strength storm to hit the Caribbean this month, killed at least one
person in Guadeloupe and menacingly neared the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico
on Tuesday after devastating the tiny island nation of Dominica.
Maria, a rare Category 5 storm at the top end of the five-step
Saffir-Simpson scale, churned in the eastern Caribbean about 30 miles (45 km)
southeast of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands with maximum sustained winds
of 175 mph (280 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
Maria, a “potentially catastrophic” storm, was expected to bring lashing
winds, torrential rains and storm surges that will cause flooding when the eye
of the storm passes near St. Croix on Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, the
NHC said.
The region was punched just days ago by Hurricane Irma, which ranked as
one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record. Irma devastated several
small islands, including Barbuda and the U.S. Virgin Islands of St. Thomas and
St. John, and caused heavy damage in Cuba and Florida, killing at least 84
people in the Caribbean and the U.S. mainland.
St. Croix, which escaped the brunt of Irma on Sept. 6., is home to about
55,000 year-round residents, roughly half of the entire U.S. Virgin Islands’
population.
Maria will cross Puerto Rico on Wednesday and pass just north of the
northeast coast of the Dominican Republic on Wednesday night and Thursday, the
NHC said.
More
In markets news, it’s the Fed’s talking chair’s
big day. Chairwoman Yellen is about to let us all in on the Fed’s big secret,
how it intends to switch from quantitative easing to quantitative tightening,
and do it by still keeping the multi-decade long, bond bull market bubble
intact.
How much longer this stock-market bull lasts may depend on Fed’s next move
Published: Sept 19, 2017 4:08 p.m. ET
Wall Street investors have shrugged off recent worries to propel stocks to
fresh all-time highs, but this week’s meeting of Federal Reserve policy makers
might provide investors the clearest sign yet about the health of the U.S.
economy and how the central bank is construing stubbornly low inflation.The Fed gathering set for Tuesday and Wednesday comes against the backdrop of a host of recent events that market participants are anticipating will factor in policy maker’s decision making: The economic impact of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey, sluggish inflation, the outlook for fiscal stimulus out of Washington, may be a just a few of the topics that are broached. (That is not even to mention the incalculable risks out of the Korean Peninsula).
Although Janet Yellen’s Fed isn’t expected to make any change to interest rates, it is anticipated that it will lay the groundwork for unwinding its $4.5 trillion balance sheet, if not announce its start. The coming asset-portfolio reduction has been an important focus for markets because of the unprecedented nature of unraveling a nearly decadeslong initiative of monetary stimulus, which could further tighten borrowing costs for individuals and corporations.
Yellen is likely to emphasize that normalizing the balance sheet is
going to be gradual so as to avoid disrupting markets, said Paul Ashworth,
chief North American economist for Capital Economics.
The plan is to shrink by only $10 billion a month, with the pace
increasing by $10 billion every quarter, up to a maximum of $50 billion a
month.
More
September 20, 2017 / 1:56 AM /
Updated 2 hours ago
Asia steady after Wall St. sets record highs, dollar treads water
TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian stocks were mostly steady on Wednesday after Wall Street again rose to record highs, although movements were limited as a wait-and-see mood prevailed before the Federal Reserve reveals its monetary policy stance later in the day.
The caution in financial markets ahead of the Fed has kept
investors from making sharper adjustments to their positions despite heightened
tensions over the Korean peninsula following hawkish statements from U.S.
President Donald Trump overnight.
The Fed is due to announce its decision at 1800 GMT on
Wednesday and is widely expected to keep rates unchanged after a two-day
meeting but could begin paring its bond holdings, with reductions likely to
start in coming months.
The financial markets will also sift through the “dot plot”
representing Fed policymakers’ rate projections for any hints of a rate hike in
December.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan
.MIAPJ0000PUS stood little changed.
Japan's Nikkei .N225
was flat. Shanghai .SSEC
lost 0.2 percent while Hong Kong's Hang Seng .HSI
added 0.2 percent.
The three major U.S. stock indexes edged higher on Tuesday,
logging record closes, with financial stocks providing the biggest boost. [.N]
“A benign outcome for equities would be the Fed going
somewhere in between being too passive on reducing its bond holdings and too
aggressive in hiking interest rates,” said Soichiro Monji, chief strategist at
Daiwa SB Investments in Tokyo.
More
In UN vanity news, President Trump, played
President Trump in spades. Not everyone was impressed by his bluster and
threats.
Trump Bluntly Threatens to Wipe Out North Korea in UN Debut
By Margaret Talev and Nick WadhamsIn his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Trump at times cast aside conventions of political and diplomatic dialogue in favor of the aggressive dialect of social media. He vowed to crush “the loser terrorists” in the Mideast and pinned a belittling nickname on North Korean regime leader Kim Jong Un.
“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” Trump said on Tuesday. “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.”
The other main targets of Trump’s rhetorical fire were Iran and Venezuela.
He said the trappings of democracy in the Islamic Republic mask a “corrupt dictatorship” that supports terrorism. The international deal designed to curb Iran’s nuclear program is “an embarrassment to the United States” that should be revisited, he said. While he applauded other leaders for pressuring the regime in Venezuela, Trump said the U.S. is “prepared to take further action” to halt the imposition of authoritarian rule there.
Trump’s 42-minute speech amounted to a challenge to the United Nations, founded almost 72 years ago to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” and “reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights.” The address offered a window on how the themes and ideas of his “America First” political campaign will shape U.S. engagement in the world. In Trump’s view, the sovereignty of individual nations is paramount, and the nation-state -- not cooperative organizations like the UN -- is “the best vehicle for elevating the human condition.”
More
Macron Uses UN Pedestal to Rebut Trump on Iran, Climate Deals
By Gregory ViscusiMacron insisted the world’s challenges were best met by working together, not alone, and he ruled out any renegotiation of the Paris climate accord, saying the rest of the world will go ahead with or without the U.S. He warned that Trump’s threats to exit the Iran nuclear accord would make the world more dangerous, and said brandishing military threats against North Korea was “impetuous” and counter-productive.
“Our challenges are global, and more than ever we need multilateralism,” Macron said during his 35-minute address to the assembly. “Walls don’t protect us; what protects us is our joint willingness to change history. We are all linked.”
---- The dueling speeches -- aides to Macron said he retouched his speech at the last moment to respond to Trump’s -- were the latest episode in a complicated relationship between the two men.
The two leaders have clashed on issues such as climate but seem to have developed a close working relationship, sealed during a friendly visit by Trump to France’s Bastille Day parade July 14 that so pleased Trump that he’s said he wants to replicate it in the U.S.
At a later news conference, Macron said that Trump respects leaders who make their differences clear. He said he shares many views with Trump, and that their countries work closely on security and terrorism, but won’t hold back on areas where he thinks the U.S. president was wrong.
---- On North Korea, Macron said “you only need to look at the map” to see why there isn’t a military solution to North Korea’s nuclear tests. “We are in a geography where a military intervention would be very complex, an area that is densely populated,” he said at his news conference.
More
“Sometimes
you move publicly, sometimes privately. Sometimes quietly, sometimes at the top
of your voice.”
James
Baker. United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Ronald
Reagan, and U.S. Secretary of State and White House Chief of Staff under
President George H. W. Bush.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today a personal plea from your editor to Switzerland, see below. Please
stop, you’re creating great ecological damage to the Geneva sewers. Send all of
your unwanted 500-euro notes over to me, here in southern England, and I will
dispose of them in a way that doesn’t harm the ecology or sewers, and boosts
the UK and global economy.
Who in the world is flushing 500-euro notes in Geneva?
Published: Sept 18, 2017 7:52 p.m. ET
Tens of thousands in cut-up cash found clogging at least four toilets near UBS branch
These potties are flush with cash.Swiss investigators are trying to figure out why tens of thousands of euro bills keep turning up in toilet bowls in and around a Geneva branch of the UBS Group AG UBS, +0.83% , according to a Bloomberg report.
Some 500-euro notes — worth just under $600 each — were found floating in a commode near one of the bank’s vaults several months ago, and since then more dough has been found bobbing in latrines in three nearby restaurants, Bloomberg reported, citing local media and investigators.
The stashed cash — much of it apparently cut with scissors before being flushed — caused thousands of francs in damage to the pipes.
Investigators are scratching their heads but have pledged to get to the bottom of the rank riddle.
“There must be something behind this story,” Henri Della Casa, a spokesman for the Geneva Prosecutor’s Office, told Bloomberg. “That’s why we started an investigation.”
Switzerland uses the Swiss franc, and the Euro is considered foreign currency in the country, which is known for shielding foreigners’ money. UBS declined to comment to Bloomberg.
I thought it would be a good idea to go into
Politics, maybe I am a little old... but you know... I'd love to be Chancellor
of the Exchequer - That way I'll be reunited with my money!
Ken Dodd.
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?
Proterra’s Electric Bus Breaks a World Record for Range—1,100 Miles on a Single Charge
September 19, 2017
If you think Tesla’s 300-plus-mile battery range for its electric cars is a
big deal, here’s a new world record that triples that figure.On Tuesday, electric-bus startup Proterra announced a world record by test driving an electric bus for a whopping 1,100 miles on a single charge. The previous world record for electric vehicle range was 632 miles for an electric bus and 1,013 for an electric car.
The milestone shows how battery-powered autos are quickly developing into a competitive form of transportation, even compared to gasoline vehicles.
Researchers at Bloomberg New Energy Finance predict that electric cars will be cheaper to buy than gasoline cars in the U.S. and Europe by 2025. The analyst team at Wood Mackenzie predicts sales will hit 100 million by 2035. That number could be conservative, given how quickly vehicles are improving.
More
Proterra.
New quantum phenomena in graphene superlattices
Date:
September 18, 2017
Source:
Graphene Flagship
Summary:
Researchers have just shown the first new type of quantum oscillation to be
reported for thirty years. It is the first of its kind to be present at high
temperature and on the mesoscale and sheds light on the Hofstadter butterfly
phenomenon.
A team of Graphene Flagship researchers led by the University of
Manchester reported in the journal Science showing the first new type of
quantum oscillation to be reported for thirty years. This occurs by applying a
magnetic field and it is the first of its kind to be present at high
temperature and on the mesoscale. This research also sheds light on the
Hofstadter butterfly phenomenon.
Quantum theory is the study of physics at the atomic and sub atomic
level. It quantises energy and momentum and shows how objects are characterised
as both particles and waves. Quantum oscillations can be used to map the
properties of new materials in the presence of a magnetic field. This paper
shows how it is possible to tune the magnetic field applied to a
heterostructure comprising of graphene and boron nitride to create a whole host
of different electronic materials.
The superlattice, created in graphene by its exact placement with
regards to a periodically arranged boron nitride layer, interacts with the
magnetic field in such a way that it is possible to tune its oscillation to
manufacture bands and gaps in its electronics structure -- meaning that the
magnetic field can be used to tune the materials to be metallic, semiconducting
or conducting.
Andre Geim, a leading member of the team and the 2010 Nobel Laureate,
says "Oscillatory quantum effects always present milestones in our
understanding of materials properties. They are exceedingly rare. It is more
than 30 years since a new type of quantum oscillation was reported." He
added "Our oscillations stand out by their extreme robustness, happening
under ambient conditions in easily accessible magnetic fields."
----
Professor Bart van Wees, Head of the Physics of Nanodevices group at the
Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, Groningen, The Netherlands added
"We have always considered quantum oscillations as very brittle, easily
destroyed at higher temperatures but the authors have shown that these can now
be observed at room temperature, or even higher. This is good news for possible
new applications of these and other systems which are based on Van der Waals
stacking of two-dimensional materials."
The difference
between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Comrade Corbyn fell into the
Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that
would be a calamity.
With apologies to Benjamin Disraeli.
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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