The Dow Divisor Changes. Crypto Currency Arrives.

Baltic Dry Index. 1184 +03    Brent Crude 52.65

"There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down."

 David Ricardo, 19th century economist.

Today we get a change to the Dow Jones Industrial Average divisor, “the Dow.” Ever since it fell below 1.0, it ceased being a divisor and became a multiplier. Talk about market rigging, but unlike Libor, this market rigging happens on Wall Street in America, so there’s no risk of anyone going to jail or getting fined. Welcome to the financialised banksterism that replaced capitalism, in the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money, communist money, August 15, 1971, when America itself went bankrupt.

Below, we enter the start of the traditional stock market “crash season.” Asia gets nervous. Not to worry, America, minus south Texas, is off to celebrate Labor Day, and the unofficial end to summer 2017. Any crash will have to wait over a long holiday weekend.

You are the pits of the world! Vultures! Trash!

John McEnroe, US Tennis Player, to an umpire at Wimbledon 1984.

Now applied to global central banksters, 2008 onwards.

September gets off to a slow start for Asian markets

Published: Aug 31, 2017 10:50 p.m. ET

Kospi in the negative after early gains, Nikkei retreats from morning highs

Asia-Pacific stocks pared initial gains on Friday as the end of summer dried out trading volume and
Southeast Asian markets were closed for a holiday.

A solid earnings season has also come to an end in the region, removing a potential market catalyst.

“There are a lot of moving parts in the news flow at the moment, but no one is really making the connection between these and the markets,” said Chris Weston, a strategist at IG Markets. At the same time, markets aren’t concerned about geopolitics, Tuesday’s selloff notwithstanding, he added.

After gains on Wall Street to end August, moves were widely muted in Asia.

South Korea’s Kospi SEU, -0.19%   was an exception. After trading little changed the first hour, it slid as much as 0.5% before quickly erasing much of that move. Despite index heavyweight Samsung Electronics’ 005930, +0.35%   slight rise, the broader market was widely lower as the U.S. dollar has been pulling back; it was down 0.4% in Asian trading versus the Korean won.

The greenback’s weakness also capped stock gains in Japan. The Nikkei NIK, +0.28%   started up as much as 0.5% but was recently just 0.2% higher.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 XJO, +0.03%   fully reversed its early advance to trade down 0.1% after notching a fourth-straight down month in August, its longest such streak in two years.

But Chinese stocks SHCOMP, +0.14%   started modestly higher, adding to Thursday gains.

With September’s arrival, the market is in what has historically been a selloff market, noted Tim Kelleher, head of foreign-exchange institutional training at ASB Bank in New Zealand. That might make investors somewhat wary of taking large positions near term.

An additional reason not to do so is Friday’s forthcoming release of the monthly U.S. jobs report. A better-than-expected number could see the dollar undo the past day’s reversal, Kelleher said.

Meanwhile, markets in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines are closed Friday for a holiday.

More

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/september-gets-off-to-a-slow-start-for-asian-markets-2017-08-31

Dow faces an important change to how it’s calculated

Published: Aug 31, 2017 10:18 p.m. ET

The Dow divisor is likely to be changed on Friday on the back of the merger between Dow Chemical and DuPont

The owner of the 121-year-old Dow Jones Industrial Average is set to tweak an important component of the blue-chip gauge on Friday: its divisor.

The so-called divisor, or in this case multiplier, is the figure used to determine the influence of any of the 30 components that make up the price-weighted Dow industrials DJIA, +0.25% The Dow isn’t exactly an average of its components, as its name might imply; instead, the value of the Dow is determined by calculating the sum of the prices of its components using a divisor that factors when a company splits its shares. Stock splits can swing the balance of influence for any one blue-chip component.

At present, the divisor is 0.146021281 and because that figure is below 1 it is a multiplier. In other words, a $1 price move in any Dow component translates to a price swing of 6.8483 points.

On Friday, that divisor is likely to change for the first time in about two years because of the consummation of a “merger of equals” between Dow Chemical Co. DOW, +2.70%  and DuPont & Co. DD, +0.89% which is a Dow component. That combination wraps up Thursday, with shares of the new entity, DowDuPont, trading on the New York Stock Exchange Friday under the ticker symbol “DWDP.”

S&P Dow Jones Indices said the change “won’t cause any disruption in the level of the index.” But it said “the divisor used to calculate the index from the component’s prices on their respective home exchanges will be changed before the opening” on Friday. S&P Dow Jones Indices is a joint venture of S&P Global and CME Group CME, -0.21%

Officials at S&P DJ Indices declined to tell MarketWatch what the precise divisor will be until Friday.

The last time the divisor was changed was in December 2015, when Dow component Nike Inc NKE, +0.82%  completed a 2-for-1 stock split.

On Thursday, the Dow closed modestly higher, up 0.3% at 21,948. The S&P 500 SPX, +0.57%  ended 0.6% higher at 2,471, and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.95%   finished at a record at 6,428.66, its first since July 26, in part on upbeat economic data.

Here’s when some past divisor changes have occurred:

More

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-the-dow-faces-an-important-change-to-how-its-calculated-2017-08-31

THE DOW DIVISOR

"Rarely have so many people been so wrong about so much."

Richard M. Nixon, 37th President of the USA.

The Dow Jones industrial average, "the Dow" is the measure by which most people are familiar with the health of the stock market. News media commonly report that "the Dow Jones is up 11 this hour at 3850.19" or something like that. The industrial average is made up of 30 stocks intended to be representative of American industry. The average is price weighted, making for price changes in one component to be equal to an identical price change in another component. For example, if Exxon moves up a point from 60 to 61, it will have the same effect on the average as if Merck goes from 35 to 36.

When the present Dow 30 stock average was started back in 1928 the divisor was 16.67. If all Dow components advanced by a combined 16.67, then the index would advance by 16.67 divided by 16.67, or 1 full point. By the end of 1994 thanks to modifications to the components to account for, stock splits, take-overs, spin-offs, etc. the Dow divisor had declined to stand at 0.37153418. Of course once it broke 1.00 it effectively became a multiplier. So if the Dow components advance by a collective 10.00 points, the Dow average will advance by 10 divided by 0.37153418 or 26.92 points.

The component stocks of the Dow average trade with a bid asked spread. Depending on circumstances and market volatility, the spreads may be large or small, but if, for example, the spreads were to collectively equal plus 5 points on the opening, then the average would advance 13.45 points. On days where a buy program is executed at the close, there is an additional upward effect on the average since buys will be made at the offered price. Similarly, if a sell program is executed at the close a additional downward effect will be present. If programs are executed in times of high volatility where the collective spread was wide, eg. 10 points, then the "divisor effect" can be large. The multiplier effect of the Dow divisor can have a masking effect upon the real health of the underlying market.

"I know but one sure tip from a broker.... your margin call.

Jesse Livermore, stock manipulator.

In other news, forget about sanctions bringing Russia to its knees. Europe perhaps or probably, but not Russia. The corrupt Ukraine certainly.  Below, Putin’s Russia in the right place at the right time.

Russia Expands Grip on Wheat Exports as Asia Forced to Buy More

By Manisha Jha and Anatoly Medetsky

31 August 2017, 00:01 GMT+1

Russia, the world’s biggest wheat exporter, is about to grab even more customers in the fast-growing economies of Asia -- a region that normally gets most of its imported grain from somewhere else.

A farm industry that emerged from the former Soviet Union to become a wheat-trade powerhouse is poised to expand its market share in countries like China, Indonesia and Japan. That’s because droughts are eroding production in Australia, the U.S. and Canada. Those are the dominant suppliers of wheat to Asia, which accounts for about a third of global imports.

While shipments of wheat from Russia already were expected to exceed those of any other country, very little usually ends up in Asia, where imports have almost doubled in a decade as rising incomes boosted demand for noodles, cakes and breads. But this season, Australian production will plunge the most in a decade, American farmers will have their smallest harvest since 2002, and Canada’s crop will shrink for the third time in four years.

“Russia will be a big winner,” said Benjamin Bodart, a director at adviser CRM Agri-Commodities in Newmarket, England. “Russia’s crop is expected to be a record. They will need to find markets to supply that wheat to.”

For a second straight season, growers from the Black Sea to southern Siberia are collecting Russia’s largest wheat crop ever. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates production will rise to 77.5 million metric tons, exceeding domestic consumption by the widest margin on record.

The U.S. had been the world’s top exporter for decades, but was supplanted by Russia in 2015-16 before regaining the title last season. The USDA forecasts Russia will be back on top in the 12-month marketing season that began July 1, with exports jumping 13 percent from a year earlier to 31.5 million tons, almost three times what they were in 2012-13.

Russian wheat hasn’t been much of a player in Asia, partly because it’s such a long journey for grain cargoes. Exports must travel from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean, then through the Suez Canal and around India to reach countries like Indonesia, which has almost doubled imports in the past decade to become the world’s largest buyer after Egypt. Demand growth has been rapid in southeast Asia, which vies with the Middle East and North Africa as the largest buying region, USDA data show.

More

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-30/russia-expands-grip-on-wheat-exports-as-asia-forced-to-buy-more-j6zml2eg

"Get a good night's sleep and don't bug anybody without asking me.

Richard M. Nixon, 37th President of the USA.

Crooks and Scoundrels Corner

The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.

Today, crypto currencies. A crypto bubble, or a 21^st century innovation, whose time has come, like AC electric current replacing DC. Money is too important to be left to bent central banksters and corrupt politicians.

When the crypto bubble pops, remember the day Burger King launched WhopperCoin

Published: Aug 29, 2017 12:29 p.m. ET

‘Eating Whoppers now is a strategy for financial prosperity tomorrow’

If you’re looking for signs of a bubble in digital currencies — and you need more than bitcoin’s 700%-plus rally over the past year — you might want to check out what’s happening over at Burger King in Russia.

The fast food giant just made its foray into the burgeoning crypto world by offering “WhopperCoin,” billed as a “blockchain loyalty program” that earns customers one coin for every ruble they spend on a Whopper.
Once they gather 1,700 whoppercoins, a free burger awaits.

Crypto-cash startup Waves, Burger King’s partner, recently said in a press release that it would make Apple AAPL, +0.27%  and Android apps available next month so whoppercoins can be freely transferred and traded online.

Here’s the money quote from Burger King Russia’s head of communications:

“Now Whopper is not only burger that people in 90 different countries love — it’s an investment tool as well. According to the forecasts, cryptocurrency will increase exponentially in value. Eating Whoppers now is a strategy for financial prosperity tomorrow.”

Clearly (hopefully), he’s just being a funny Russian, but Burger King citing forecasts of “exponential” returns is the stuff bubbles are built on.

Go ahead and laugh, but Cornell professor Emin Gün Sirer says the move actually makes sense:

Is it really all that different than a digital version of your loyalty stamp card from the local frozen yogurt shop?
What’s next? Starbuckscoin and Victoriassecretcoin?

Financial Times blogger Kadhim Shudder isn’t buying it.

“There’s a very good criticism of blockchain that goes something like this: it’s a solution in search of a problem,” he wrote. “We can modify that slightly and discover another truth: it’s an easy bit of marketing for companies in search of cheap headlines.”

Meanwhile, the broader crypto market just keeps moving higher, with the value of all digital currencies hitting a record $160 billion.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/when-the-crypto-bubble-pops-remember-the-day-burger-king-launched-whoppercoin-2017-08-29

It's About to Become Even Easier to Issue Blockchain-Based Coins

By Camila Russo

30 August 2017, 16:46 GMT+1

Startups have been ditching venture capitalists and raising millions of dollars in minutes by issuing digital tokens in what have become known as initial coin offerings. One company says that process is about to become even easier.

A Toronto-based firm called Polymath Inc. wants to be a one-stop shop for issuers of tokens that have similar properties as financial securities. The platform, which the proprietors say doesn’t require advanced technological knowledge, guides users through every step -- from creation, to fundraising, to secondary-market trading -- while complying with ever stricter regulations, according to a beta version seen by Bloomberg.

If a platform like Polymath gains steam, it could magnify the consequences of the booming world of token sales, which has spurred the rise of more than 800 coins. The digital fundraisers have given entrepreneurs greater access to capital and opened the tech-startup scene to a broader investor base, while also providing plenty of opportunities for fraud. The ease at which companies could issue tokens has the potential to raise the already high levels of skepticism surrounding the offerings.

In less than two years, companies have raised almost $2 billion in ICOs, with token prices doubling in a week, and often falling just as fast. Companies have been able to rake in millions with little more than a white paper and a website. Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency, has more than tripled in value this year, raising concern of a bubble.

“The reason most securities aren’t on the blockchain is because it’s a daunting task; it’s opaque, expensive and hard to do, so we’re trying to break all that down to bite-size steps,” Polymath Chief Executive Officer Trevor Koverko said in an interview. Koverko said he had tried to tokenize his private equity fund and realized how hard it was, so decided to build a platform to do that instead. “We’re aiming to be the interface between financial securities and the blockchain.”

Most tokens issued in ICOs are application tokens, or tokens made to be used inside an application. They’re largely based on the Ethereum network, as that blockchain-based platform facilitates building these types of tokens.

More

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-30/it-s-about-to-become-even-easier-to-issue-blockchain-based-coins 

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 21^st century onwards?

Silicon solves problems for next-generation battery technology

Date: August 30, 2017

Source: University of Eastern Finland

Summary: Silicon -- the second most abundant element in the earth's crust -- shows great promise in Li-ion batteries, according to new research. By replacing graphite anodes with silicon, it is possible to quadruple anode capacity.

Silicon -- the second most abundant element in the earth's crust -- shows great promise in Li-ion batteries, according to new research from the University of Eastern Finland. By replacing graphite anodes with silicon, it is possible to quadruple anode capacity.

In a climate-neutral society, renewable and emission-free sources of energy, such as wind and solar power, will become increasingly widespread. The supply of energy from these sources, however, is intermittent, and technological solutions are needed to safeguard the availability of energy also when it's not sunny or windy. 

Furthermore, the transition to emission-free energy forms in transportation requires specific solutions for energy storage, and lithium-ion batteries are considered to have the best potential.

Researchers from the University of Eastern Finland introduced new technology to Li-ion batteries by replacing graphite used in anodes by silicon. The study analysed the suitability of electrochemically produced nanoporous silicon for Li-ion batteries. It is generally understood that in order for silicon to work in batteries, nanoparticles are required, and this brings its own challenges to the production, price and safety of the material. However, one of the main findings of the study was that particles sized between 10 and 20 micrometres and with the right porosity were in fact the most suitable ones to be used in batteries. The discovery is significant, as micrometre-sized particles are easier and safer to process than nanoparticles. This is also important from the viewpoint of battery material recyclability, among other things. The findings were published in Scientific Reports.

More

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170830114817.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmatter_energy%2Fgraphene+%28Graphene+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

Another weekend, and Elderberry season commencing in my part of the sleepy Thames Valley. Very few people make Elderberry wine or Elderberry jelly anymore, so most just go to waste, along with the last of the season’s free Blackberries. Soon, sweet edible chestnut season. Have a great weekend everyone.

Since for the moment on the Great Nixonian Error of Fiat Money, communist money, we are headed for the quadrillions and collapse, the following table is provided as a service to those unable to master the scientific notation that will rapidly be needed in handling fiat currency. Below, the absurdity of fiat money. Bring on the crypto currencies.

In the U.S system (the British number system is even worse) we work as follows:

Million - 1,000,000
Billion - 1,000,000,000
Trillion - 1,000,000,000,000
Quadrillion - 1,000,000,000,000,000
Quintillion - 1,000,000,000,000,000,000
Sextillion - 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 for comparison,

in seconds

Million - 11.5 days
Billion - 31.7 years
Trillion - 31,700 years
Quadrillion - 31,700,000 years
Quintillion - 31,700,000,000 years
Sextillion - 31,700,000,000,000 years

Unsound at any Price. 1995.

The monthly Coppock Indicators finished August

DJIA: 21,948 +215 Up. NASDAQ:  6,429 +266 Up. SP500: 2,472 +174 Up.