Baltic Dry Index. 1344 -11 Brent Crude 54.14
"We finished the
year, and we reported that we had $17 billion of cash sitting at the bank's
parent company as a liquidity cushion. As the year has gone on, that liquidity
cushion has been virtually unchanged."
Alan Schwartz, CEO Bear Stearns,
March 12, 2008. Bust March 16, 2008.
Hurricanes over,
North Korea tamed, it was bubble time everywhere yesterday. What could possibly
go wrong? This is easier than shooting fish in a barrel.
Below this morning’s
update from Asia. Did Apple just under perform. Is Asia getting wobbly on our
bubble? Was that just an infamous suckers’ double top?
September 13, 2017 / 2:00 AM
Asian shares touch 10-year peak as Wall St. hits records
TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian stocks wobbled on Wednesday but still marked a
10-year high, cheered by record highs on Wall Street, while shares of Apple
Inc’s suppliers dipped following the release of the latest iPhone.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was slightly
lower, after earlier poking up to its highest level since October 2007.
Australian shares added 0.2 percent, while Korean shares were 0.1 percent
higher.
On Tuesday, the S&P 500, Dow Jones industrials and Nasdaq Composite
all marked record finishes as investors’ concerns faded about North Korean
tensions as well as the impact of Hurricane Irma.[.N]
“In the U.S. we had a bit of unwinding of the fear trade that it’s been
going through and that’s flowing through to us as well,” said Mathan
Somasundaram, a market portfolio strategist with Blue Ocean Equities in Sydney.
U.S. gains were kept in check, however, by a decline in shares of Apple
Inc after it unveiled its newest line of iPhones. Apple fell 0.6 percent but
pared some losses in afterhours trade.
The new iPhone’s sales will have repercussions beyond Apple for many
suppliers as well as its rivals.
Taiwan’s benchmark dropped 0.5 percent, as shares of Apple supplier
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the world’s biggest contract chip maker,
dipped 0.5 percent, while Hon Hai Precision Industry was 0.4 percent lower.
Japan’s Nikkei stock index added 0.5 percent to a one-month high,
getting a tailwind as the yen stayed far away for its recent peaks.
More
Stocks Rally Eases in Asia; Dollar Resumes Slide: Markets Wrap
Adam Haigh and Andreea PapucIndexes advanced in Tokyo and Sydney, while Hong Kong stocks fell, after U.S. benchmarks closed at all-time highs on Tuesday. The MSCI All-Country World Index rose to the highest ever. Apple Inc. suppliers in Asia dropped amid speculation traders were underwhelmed by the company’s new products. New York-traded oil maintained gains as OPEC and its allies discuss an extension of output curbs. The pound advanced to its strongest level since September 2016 after inflation jumped more than forecast and ahead of a central bank meeting.
Record stock prices are provoking concern in some corners of the market. The number of investors seeking protection from a possible plunge has surged and Leon Cooperman, the billionaire founder of hedge fund Omega Advisors, says a correction could start “very soon.” A batch of Chinese economic indicators due Thursday, is expected to signal improving consumption and factory output along with some softening in investment, while U.S. prices data could impact the timing of the next Federal Reserve interest-rate hike.
Meanwhile,
geopolitical concerns keep waxing and waning. North Korea said it will
accelerate its plans to acquire a nuclear weapon that can strike the U.S.
homeland in its first response to fresh United Nations sanctions. Earlier,
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin warned the U.S. may impose additional
sanctions on China -- potentially cutting off access to the U.S. financial
system -- if it doesn’t follow through on the new UN restrictions.
More
In other news.
September 12, 2017 / 7:16 AM
Returning Florida evacuees stunned by Irma's wreckage as death toll climbs
ISLAMORADA, Fla. (Reuters) - Hurricane Irma evacuees began returning to
the storm-ravaged Florida Keys on Tuesday to find homes ripped apart and
businesses coated in seaweed amid a debris-strewn landscape where an estimated
25 percent of all dwellings were destroyed.
The death toll from Irma, previously ranked as one of the most powerful
Atlantic storms on record and the second major hurricane to strike the U.S.
mainland this season, climbed to more than five dozen. Of those, 43 were killed
in the Caribbean and at least 18 in the Southeastern United States.
Twelve Irma-related fatalities were confirmed by Florida emergency
management officials on Tuesday, while authorities in Georgia and South
Carolina each reported three deaths from the storm and its immediate aftermath.
Destruction was widespread in the Keys, a resort island chain stretching
southwest from the tip of the Florida Peninsula into the Gulf of Mexico and
connected by a single, narrow highway and a series of bridges and causeways
along a route of nearly 100 miles (160 km).
“I don’t have a house. I don’t have a job. I have nothing,” said
Mercedes Lopez, 50, whose family fled north from the Florida Keys town of
Marathon last Friday and rode out the storm at an Orlando hotel, only to learn
their home was destroyed, along with the gasoline station where he worked.
---- Initial damage assessments found 25 percent of homes in the Keys were destroyed and 65 percent with major damage, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Brock Long.
“Basically every house in the Keys was impacted,” he told reporters.
The islands were largely evacuated by the time Irma barrelled ashore on
Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of up to 130 mph (215
km/hour).
Authorities began allowing re-entry to the islands of Key Largo, Tavernier
and Islamorada two days later for residents and business owners only. The
extent of the devastation took many by surprise.
More
Irma's wrath: more than half of Florida still in the dark
Tuesday,
September 12, 2017 5:53am
---- More than 13 million Floridians — 62 percent of the state — remained without power as of late Monday, state officials said. In Tampa Bay, some of the county numbers were even more jarring: 78 percent of Pinellas households were affected; 71 percent of Pasco; 62 percent of Hernando; 61 percent of Polk and 42 percent of Hillsborough.
Add it up and 1.15 million bay area households, or 61 percent, are
grappling without power — outages that may stretch on more than a week for some
even though thousands of technicians are pouring in from around the country to
help.
----
While outages are typically reported in terms of a number of customers, a
graphic displayed at the state Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee at
6:30 p.m. tallied the individual count of 13 million to underscore the scope of
the problem, with the worst outages centered in southwest Florida.
---- Harry Sideris, president of Duke Energy Florida, said 9,000 extra utility workers have been dispatched to the company's service area of 35 counties. Of those, 3,000 are dedicated to Pinellas County.
"We have an army of people coming here," Sideris promised.
Still, Sideris cautioned during a Monday afternoon briefing, thousands
of Pinellas County residents are facing "maybe a week or a little
longer" without power.
Florida Power & Light, which provides electricity to metro areas in
South Florida and elsewhere in the state, reported 3.6 million customers
without power.
Many Texas residents are still without power weeks after Hurricane
Harvey devastated the Houston and coastal areas of the state, Hyland said, as a
reminder of just how long it can take to get back up and running.
After Hurricane Charley — which pummelled Charlotte County in 2004 as a
Category 4 storm — some Floridians went without electricity for weeks. After
Hurricane Andrew in 1992, it took months.
More
September 13, 2017 / 6:11 AM
Harvey storm-water releases were unlawful government takings - lawsuits
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Owners of homes flooded during Hurricane Harvey are
claiming billions of dollars in damages by federal and state water releases
from storm-swollen reservoirs, using a legal tack pursued without success in
Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.
Several lawsuits filed in federal and state courts in Texas claim
properties were taken for public use without compensation. The lawsuits name
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a state agency responsible for water
releases. The potential damages could run as high as $3 billion (2.3 billion
pounds), according to attorneys involved.
“No one expects your government is going to deliberately do something
that is going to flood your home,” said Rhonda Pearce, 56. Her west Houston
home was damaged by flooding from reservoir dam releases and she is considering
legal action, she said.
“Homes were literally being swept away,” said Derek Potts, a
Houston-based lawyer representing plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in Harris
County court against the San Jacinto River Authority (SJRA) in a Texas court.
His lawsuits are seeking class action status and could involve thousands of
homes and businesses.
Water released from a lake into the San Jacinto River was lawful and
area flooding “was neither caused by or made worse” by those releases, the SJRA
said in a statement. Similar claims from an earlier storm were dismissed in
court, it said.
The Army Corps of Engineers referred questions to the U.S. Department of
Justice, which declined to comment.
More
Jamie Dimon Slams Bitcoin as a ‘Fraud’
By Hugh Son, Hannah Levitt, and Brian LouisThe cryptocurrency “won’t end well,” he told an investor conference in New York on Tuesday, predicting it will eventually blow up. “It’s a fraud” and “worse than tulip bulbs.”
If a JPMorgan trader began trading in bitcoin, he said, “I’d fire them
in a second. For two reasons: It’s against our rules, and they’re stupid. And
both are dangerous.”
Bitcoin has soared in recent months, spurred by greater acceptance of
the blockchain technology that underpins the exchange method and optimism that
faster transaction times will encourage broader use of the cryptocurrency.
Prices have climbed more than four-fold this year -- a run that has drawn
debate over whether that’s a bubble.
Bitcoin
initially slipped after Dimon’s remarks. It was down as much as 2.7 percent
before recovering. Last week, it slumped after reports that China plans to ban
trading of virtual currencies on domestic exchanges, dealing another blow to the
$150 billion cryptocurrency market.
More
Pandit Says 30% of Bank Jobs May Disappear in Next Five Years
Chanyaporn ChanjaroenArtificial intelligence and robotics reduce the need for staff in roles such as back-office functions, Pandit, 60, said Wednesday in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Haslinda Amin in Singapore. He’s now chief executive officer of Orogen Group, an investment firm that he co-founded last year.
“Everything that happens with artificial intelligence, robotics and natural language -- all of that is going to make processes easier,” said Pandit, who was Citigroup’s chief executive officer from 2007 to 2012. “It’s going to change the back office.”
While Pandit’s forecast for job losses is in step with one made by Citigroup last year, his timeline is more aggressive. In a March 2016 report, the lender estimated a 30 percent reduction between 2015 and 2025, mainly due to automation in retail banking. That would see full-time jobs drop by 770,000 in the U.S. and by about 1 million in Europe, Citigroup said.
More
In a
time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George
Orwell.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Alarmed by the prospect of a reckless US President Trump in Washington,
goaded on by the American War Party, might attempt a decapitation limited nuclear
strike on Pyongyang, the South China Morning Post spells out in some detail
just why it would fail and lead to disaster. For all of President Trump’s
huffing and puffing at North Korea, Pyongyang’s house isn’t about to fall down
any time soon.
“If
you're not gonna pull the trigger, don't point the gun.”
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.
Why a US military strike against North Korea would be disastrous
Will Saetren says the call for pre-emptive action is reckless and would only lead to a massive loss of life. Washington, locked in a deterrence relationship with Pyongyang, must stick to it while trying to find a diplomatic resolution
PUBLISHED
: Wednesday, 30 August, 2017, 5:19pm UPDATED : Thursday, 31 August, 2017,
9:26am
Using
nuclear weapons against North
Korea is a terrible idea. More than 70 years after the first and only use
of nuclear weapons in combat, it seems odd to have to put this in writing, but
the past several weeks of heightened tensions with North Korea have made it a
necessity.
As the crisis on the Korean peninsula
deepens, voices calling for military action to halt North Korea’s nuclear
programme have grown stronger and bolder. Last week, Kevin James, a research
fellow from the London School of Economics, went a step further, writing
that the administration should “nuke North Korea now: it’s the only
option”. His argument is based on the assumption that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is an irrational
actor, and that nuclear deterrence is a not an option.
This ignores a fundamental reality. The United States has been in a
deterrence relationship with North Korea for decades.
Since the suspension of the Korean war in 1953, North Korea has held
Seoul, the world’s fourth-largest metropolis, and home to roughly 25 million
people, hostage. Pyongyang has thousands of artillery pieces trained on the
South Korean capital, a mere 40km south of the border with North Korea. Shells
fired from those batteries can reach their targets in roughly 45 seconds. That
puts close to 35,000 US troops and 100,000 American civilians directly in
harm’s way should a major conflict break out on the Korean peninsula.
To make matters worse, North Korea possesses one of the largest
stockpiles of chemical weapons in the world, and can deploy these toxins on an
array of artillery shells and missiles. All of South Korea, Japan, and the vast
majority of US military assets in the region are well within the range of these
weapons. Within minutes of a US military strike, hundreds of these weapons
would be launched at both civilian and military targets, inflicting devastating
casualties, and causing significant delays in the arrival of American
reinforcements to the Korean peninsula.
This grim reality does not take into account that North Korea has up to
60 nuclear weapons, and can deploy them on its short-, medium- and
intermediate-range missiles. It is less clear if North Korea can target the
American mainland with a nuclear warhead using one of its newly tested
intercontinental ballistic missiles, but this is somewhat of a moot point. If
Pyongyang hasn’t perfected this capability, it will sooner or later; it is only
a matter of time.
To think that the US can preemptively strike Pyongyang and decapitate
its ability to retaliate is a fantasy.
According to Siegfried Hecker, the emeritus director of
the Los Alamos National Laboratory, who spent decades building nuclear weapons
for the US, “there
is no conceivable way the United States could destroy all North Korean
nuclear weapons. It is not possible to know where they all are. Even if a few
could be located, it would be difficult to destroy them without causing them to
detonate and create a mushroom cloud over the Korean peninsula”. That same
logic applies to North Korea’s conventional and chemical weapons.
Any way you look at it, the end result is the same.
Attempting to denuclearise the Korean peninsula by force would result in a
level of carnage that the world has not seen since the second world war.
More
September 13, 2017 / 4:03 AM
South Korea confirms traces of radioactive gas from North Korea's nuclear test
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea said on Wednesday traces of radioactive
xenon gas were confirmed to be from a North Korean nuclear test earlier this
month, but it was unable to conclude whether the test had been for a hydrogen
bomb as Pyongyang claimed.
North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test on Sept. 3, prompting the
U.N. Security Council to step up sanctions with a ban on the reclusive regime’s
textile exports and a cap on fuel supplies.
The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission said its land-based xenon
detector in the northeastern part of the country found traces of xenon-133
isotope on nine occasions, while its mobile equipment off the country’s east
coast detected traces of the isotope four times.
“It was difficult to find out how powerful the nuclear test was with the
amount of xenon detected, but we can say the xenon was from North Korea,” Choi
Jongbae, executive commissioner, told a news conference in Seoul.
The commission could not confirm what kind of nuclear test the North
conducted, he added.
Xenon is a naturally occurring, colourless gas that is used in
manufacturing of some sorts of lights. But the detected xenon-133 is a
radioactive isotope that does not occur naturally and which has been linked to
North Korea’s nuclear tests in the past.
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?
Water-based lithium-ion batteries that don't explode now created
Date:
September 6, 2017
Source:
U.S. Army Research Laboratory
Summary:
For the first time a lithium-ion battery has been developed that uses a
water-salt solution as its electrolyte and reaches the 4.0 volt mark desired
for household electronics, such as laptop computers, without the fire and
explosive risks associated with some commercially available non-aqueous
lithium-ion batteries.
Researchers at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the University of
Maryland have developed for the first time a lithium-ion battery that uses a
water-salt solution as its electrolyte and reaches the 4.0 volt mark desired
for household electronics, such as laptop computers, without the fire and
explosive risks associated with some commercially available non-aqueous
lithium-ion batteries.
Their work appears Sept. 6, 2017, in Joule, Cell Press's new
interdisciplinary energy journal.
This technology will bring the Soldiers a "completely safe and
flexible Li-ion battery that provides identical energy density as the SOA
Li-ion batteries. The batteries will remain safe -- without fire and explosion
-- even under severe mechanical abuses," said co-senior author Dr. Kang
Xu, ARL fellow who specializes in electrochemistry and materials science.
"In the past, if you wanted high energy, you would choose a
non-aqueous lithium-ion battery, but you would have to compromise on safety. If
you preferred safety, you could use an aqueous battery such as nickel/metal
hydride, but you would have to settle for lower energy," Xu said.
"Now, we are showing that you can simultaneously have access to both high
energy and high safety."
The research follows a 2015 study in Science that produced a
similar 3.0 volt battery with an aqueous electrolyte but was stymied from
achieving higher voltages by the so-called "cathodic challenge," in
which one end of the battery, made from either graphite or lithium metal, is
degraded by the aqueous electrolyte. To solve this problem and make the leap
from three volts to four, the first author, University of Maryland assistant
research scientist Chongyin Yang, designed a new gel polymer electrolyte
coating that can be applied to the graphite or lithium anode.
This hydrophobic coating expels water molecules from the vicinity of the
electrode surface and then, upon charging for the first time, decomposes and
forms a stable interphase -- a thin mixture of breakdown products that
separates the solid anode from the liquid electrolyte. This interphase,
inspired by a layer generated within non-aqueous batteries, protects the anode
from debilitating side reactions, allowing the battery to use desirable anode
materials, such as graphite or lithium metal, and achieve better energy density
and cycling ability.
"The key innovation here is making the right gel that can block
water contact with the anode so that the water doesn't decompose and can also
form the right interphase to support high battery performance," said
co-senior author Chunsheng Wang, Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular
Engineering at the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of
Engineering. The addition of the gel coating also boosts the safety advantages
of the new battery when compared to standard non-aqueous lithium-ion batteries
and boosts the energy density when compared to any other proposed aqueous
lithium-ion batteries. All aqueous lithium-ion batteries benefit from the
inflammability of water-based electrolytes as opposed to the highly flammable
organic solvents used in their non-aqueous counterparts. Unique to this one,
however, is that even when the interphase layer is damaged (if the battery
casing were punctured, for instance), it reacts slowly with the lithium or lithiated
graphite anode, preventing the smoking, fire, or explosion that could otherwise
occur if a damaged battery brought the metal into direct contact with the
electrolyte.
Though the power and energy density of the new battery are suitable for
commercial applications currently served by more hazardous non-aqueous
batteries, certain improvements would make it even more competitive. In
particular, the researchers would like to increase the number of
full-performance cycles that the battery can complete and to reduce material
expenses where possible. "Right now, we are talking about 50-100 cycles,
but to compare with organic electrolyte batteries, we want to get to 500 or
more," Wang said.
The researchers also note that the electrochemical manipulations behind
the jump to four volts have importance within battery technology and beyond.
"This is the first time that we are able to stabilize really reactive
anodes like graphite and lithium in aqueous media," says Xu. "This
opens a broad window into many different topics in electrochemistry, including
sodium-ion batteries, lithium-sulfur batteries, multiple ion chemistries
involving zinc and magnesium, or even electroplating and electrochemical
synthesis; we just have not fully explored them yet."
Xu said the interphase chemistry needs to be perfected before it can be
commercialized. He also said more work needs to be done on scaling up the
technology in big cells for testing. With enough funding, the 4-volt chemistry
could be ready for commercializing in about five years, he said.
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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