Baltic Dry Index. 1588 -31 Brent Crude 63.57
"You can't cheat an honest man.”
W. C.
Fields.
For the answer to why
W. C. Fields got it so wrong, scroll down to Crooks Corner. For trivia fans,
the BDI just settled at the Spanish Armada. Lets hope it fares better than
those ill fated 130 ships.
Up first, that US tax
reform that’s been fuelling the great American stock bubble since President
Trump was elected. But is it buy the rumour, sell the fact?
Stocks close at records in broad tax-driven rally; Dow posts 70th record close of 2017
Published: Dec 18, 2017 4:33 p.m. ET
Dow posts highest number of record closes in a year ever
U.S. stocks closed higher on Monday, with major indexes ending at records on growing confidence congressional Republicans will succeed in passing tax-cut legislation as early as this week.The day’s gains were broad, with eight of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors ending higher on the day. Financials, which are seen as the biggest beneficiaries of the tax legislation, were among the biggest gainers of the day, up 0.7%. Separately, energy shares rose 0.8% while material stocks were up 1.5%.
Where did indexes close?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.57% rose 140.46 points, or 0.6%, to close at 24,792.20. The blue-chip average posted its seventh positive session of the past eight, as well as its 70th record close of the year, which is the highest number of record closes in a single calendar year.
The S&P 500 SPX, +0.54% gained 14.35 points, or 0.5%, to end at 2,690.16. The Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.84% rose 0.8%, or 58.18 points, to 6,994.76. All three hit intraday records, while the Nasdaq topped 7,000 for the first time.
More
Here are the winners and losers of the final version of the Republican tax bill
Published: Dec 18, 2017 5:19 p.m. ET
The final version of the Republican tax bill benefits most American taxpayers,
at least until key provisions sunset. Those gains, however, still fall mostly
to the wealthy.
That’s the conclusion of a look at the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act by the Tax
Policy Center.
The good news is that there aren’t many who will pay higher taxes next year — about 8.5 million, compared to the some 143 million who will get lower taxes.
For the most popular bracket of what the Tax Policy Center calls expanded cash income level, the $50,000 to $75,000 range, will see an average tax change of $870.
Millionaires on average will get an extra $69,660 boost. Those with less
than $10,000 will get an extra $10 to play with.
The percentage change also skews upward, with the best benefits accruing
to the $500,000 to $1 million bracket. The $50,000-to-$75,000 bracket sees a
1.6% benefit.
Things change however once 2025 rolls around. If no change is made, what
were tax cuts will become tax hikes, even relative to current law.
A majority of Americans in a decade’s time will then pay higher taxes,
including 69.7% of the middle quintile.
Republicans insist that they will not let the individual tax cuts
sunset. However, that could take the total cost of the bill to over $2 trillion
over a decade, according to separate estimates from the Committee for a
Responsible Federal Budget. The bill as currently written has a headline cost
of $1.5 trillion, with the final cost shaved by over $400 billion if faster
economic growth is spurred.
More
In economic news, on
the one hand.
Economics is
extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
John
Kenneth Galbraith
One economist says bitcoin could hit $0—or $1 million
Published: Dec 18, 2017 4:52 p.m. ET
The most bullish call for the digital currency bitcoin so far has been at about
$1 million, while the most bearish call from those who dismiss it as a fraud
or a bubble think it will crash to zero.Covering his bases, Teunis Brosens, a senior economist at ING, sees both extreme targets as possible. Although the most probable outcome, in his view, is for bitcoin to survive in a less high-profile way than it currently has.
“The ‘true’ value of Bitcoin depends on its future use case,” wrote Brosens. “If users would, en masse, lose interest, then it could end at zero. On the other hand, in the unlikely scenario that Bitcoin takes over all worldwide payments, its value could rise beyond $1 million.”
Related: Why bitcoin is now the biggest bubble in history, in one chart
Also: Here’s what bitcoin’s monster 2017 gain looks like in one humongous chart
Brosens didn’t give a specific target, but suggested that over the long term, the digital currency “has little to offer a wider audience, and will likely return to being a niche product for a select group of enthusiasts.”
Bitcoin BTCUSD, +0.09% last traded at $18,664.41, down 2.3% on the day. At current levels, it has a market value of about $315 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. Only a handful of components of the S&P 500 SPX, +0.54% have a larger market capitalization.
More
“Give
me a one-handed Economist. All my economists say 'on one hand...', then 'but on
the other...”
Harry
Truman.
Next not quite in the Crooks category,
today, we present their long overdue for serious regulation, global
scoundrel cousins.
"There's a sucker born every minute"
P. T. Barnum.
IG, Plus500 Plunge as EU Watchdog Signals Derivatives Crackdown
By Sofia Horta E Costa, Edward Robinson, and Donal Griffin
18 December 2017, 08:57 GMT Updated
on 18 December 2017, 10:57 GMT
Shares of stock derivative brokers including IG Group Holdings
Plc, Plus500 Ltd. and CMC Markets Plc sank 14 percent or more in London
after European regulators laid out harsher-than-expected potential rules on
some speculative financial products.The companies operate some of the largest platforms for retail investors to trade contracts for difference, which are derivatives that allow investors to speculate on the price of stocks, currencies, and commodities without owning them. The European Securities and Markets Authority, using powers set out in the overhaul of financial rules known as MiFID II, outlined late Friday how it may curb leverage, limit how much clients can lose on the contracts and ban the sale of binary options.
Read more: Why contracts for difference are under scrutiny
“ESMA has been concerned about the provision of speculative products such as CFDs, including rolling spot forex, and binary options to retail clients for a considerable period of time and has conducted ongoing monitoring and supervisory convergence work in this area,” the agency said.
Many investors were expecting ESMA’s action to be in line with a move made by the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority in 2016, said Numis Securities Ltd.’s Jonathan Goslin. The agency proposed capping leverage, the amount of borrowed funds investors could use, at 50 to 1 with a 25 to 1 for traders with less than 12 months experience. But ESMA took a harder line, Goslin said: “It’s pan-Europe,” said the analyst, who recommends investors sell CMC shares.
The authority also said it was weighing whether to "restrict the marketing, distribution or sale to retail clients of CFDs." Regulators have criticized CFD advertising for being too aggressive and aimed at retail investors who don’t understand the products’ complexity.
Brokerages such as Plus500 market their offerings to retail investors through sponsorship deals with professional soccer clubs such as Atletico Madrid and Liverpool. Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo, who has a partnership with Exness Ltd. in London, touts the brokerage to his 66 million Twitter followers.
----The leverage limits “will be a concern, especially when some instruments from some providers offer 250:1 to 500:1 leverage,” Portia Patel, an analyst at Liberum Capital Ltd. wrote in a note.
ESMA’s actions may also cloud the picture for one of the fastest growing
businesses for CFDs -- cryptocurrencies. London-based brokerages such as
Plus500 and eToro Ltd. offer investors the ability to go long or short bitcoin
and other digital coins, and advertise for customers on the London subway and
YouTube.
Morehttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-18/stock-derivative-brokers-plunge-as-europe-eyes-cfd-crackdown
Binary option
A binary option is a financial option in which the payoff is either some fixed monetary amount or nothing at all.[1][2] The two main types of binary options are the cash-or-nothing binary option and the asset-or-nothing binary option. The cash-or-nothing binary option pays some fixed amount of cash if the option expires in-the-money while the asset-or-nothing pays the value of the underlying security. They are also called all-or-nothing options, digital options (more common in forex/interest rate markets), and fixed return options (FROs) (on the American Stock Exchange).[3]While binary options theoretically play a role in asset pricing, they are prone to fraud and banned by regulators in many jurisdictions as a form of gambling.[4] Many binary option outlets have been exposed as fraudulent.[5] The U.S. FBI is investigating binary option scams throughout the world, and the Israeli police has tied the industry to criminal syndicates.[6][7][8] The FBI estimates that the scammers steal US$10 billion annually worldwide.[9] The use of the names of famous and respectable people such as Richard Branson to encourage people to buy fake "investments" is frequent and increasing.[10] Articles published in the Times of Israel newspaper explain the fraud in detail, using the experience of former insiders such as a job-seeker recruited by a fake binary options broker, who was told to "leave [his] conscience at the door".[11][12] Following the articles published by the Times of Israel, Israel's cabinet approved a ban on sale of binary options in June 2017,[13] and a law banning the products was approved by the Knesset in October 2017.[14][15]
---- Investopedia described the binary options trading process in the U.S. thusly:
[A] binary may be trading at $42.50 (bid) and $44.50 (offer) at 1 p.m. If you buy the binary option right then you will pay $44.50, if you decide to sell right then you'll sell at $42.50.
Let's assume you decide to buy at $44.50. If at 1:30 p.m. the price of gold is above $1,250, your option expires and it becomes worth $100. You make a profit of $100 - $44.50 = $55.50 (less fees). This is called being "in the money."
But if the price of gold is below $1,250 at 1:30 p.m., the option expires at $0. Therefore you lose the $44.50 invested. This is called being "out of the money."
The bid and offer fluctuate until the option expires. You
can close your position at any time before expiry to lock in a profit or a
reduce a loss (compared to letting it expire out of the money).[17]
Every option settles at $100 or $0, $100 if the bet is correct, 0 if it is
not.[17]
More
“Never
give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump."
W. C.
Fields.
Finally, yet more of the wonders that Brexit and President Trump have
brought.
21st century’s longest lunar month starts December 18
On December 18, 2017, the moon will be new, or most nearly between the Earth and sun for this month. Astronomers mark the beginning of each lunar month, a period of approximately 29.5 days, at new moon. Lunar months are slightly different lengths, however, and this particular new moon ushers in the longest lunar month of the 21st century (2001 to 2100).A lunar month (also called a lunation or synodic month) is defined as the period of time between successive new moons. Although the mean length of the lunar month lasts 29.53059 days (29d 12h 44m 03s), this upcoming lunar month will be more than 7 hours longer than the mean, having a duration of 29 days 19 hours 47 minutes.
By the way, it’s no coincidence that the new moon on December 18, 2017, and the following new moon on January 17, 2018, coincide quite closely with lunar apogee – the moon’s most distant point from Earth in its monthly orbit.
Also, the December 2017 apogee (406,603 km) is the farthest of 2017’s 13 apogees; and the January 2018 apogee (406,464 km) gives us the most distant of 2018’s 13 apogees. What’s more, the Earth will reach perihelion – its closest point to the sun in its yearly orbit – on January 3, 2018.
All these events – successive new moons near apogee and Earth at perihelion – add up to give us the longest lunar month of the 21st century. Click here for an explanation.
The century’s shortest lunar month will take place in between the new
moons of June and July 2053, a period of 29 days 6 hours and 35 minutes. That’s
6 hours and 9 minutes shorter than the mean, or 13 hours and 12 minutes shorter
than the century’s longest lunar month of 29 days 19 hours 47 minutes.
Again, it’s no coincidence that these new moons in June and July 2053
coincide quite closely with lunar perigee – the moon’s closest point to
Earth in its monthly orbit. And, again, it’s no coincidence Earth swings out to
aphelion – its most distant point from the sun – on July 3, 2053.
Bottom line: The longest lunar month of the 21st century (2001 to 2100)
happens between the new moons of December 18, 2017, and January 17, 2018.
http://earthsky.org/tonight/longest-lunar-month-of-21st-century?mc_cid=87043203d7&mc_eid=78738f178The President is always abused. If he isn't, he isn't doing anything.
Harry Truman
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
No crooks today, well we are approaching Christmas and they wouldn’t
dare show their faces would they? Of
course they would! Today we are spoiled for choice. What is it with December and Ponzi Schemes.
A large Bank is exactly the place where a vain and shallow person
in authority, if he be a man of gravity and method, as such men often are, may
do infinite evil in no long time, and before he is detected. If he is lucky
enough to begin at a time of expansion in trade, he is nearly sure not to be
found out till the time of contraction has arrived, and then very large figures
will be required to reckon the evil he has done.
Walter Bagehot. Lombard Street. 1873
Walter Bagehot. Lombard Street. 1873
He Stole $100 Million From His Clients. Now He’s Living in Luxury on the Côte d’Azur
Rogue banker confessed to running a Ponzi scheme. But was he
hiding a bigger crime?
By
Liam Vaughan
18
December 2017, 05:01 GMT
Fabien
Gaglio confessed to running a $100 million Ponzi scheme on his own terms. At 9
a.m. on a Wednesday in Paris, dressed elegantly in a dark sweater and crisp
white shirt, the 39-year-old banker from the French Riviera walked into a
police precinct and took a seat in an interrogation room, armed with a folder
of notes.
“To summarize the facts,” Gaglio told the police commander seated across
from him, “my job was to make my clients’ money grow.” Gaglio was one of two
principals at a Swiss wealth manager called Hottinger & Partners. His
affluent clientele came from all over the world: businessmen in Singapore,
artists in Italy, tech entrepreneurs in America, lured by the promise of low
taxes, high returns, or Swiss discretion. When some investments started to go
bad, Gaglio explained, he “took money from one client to pay another” and soon
graduated to fabricating statements and forging signatures. The charade, he
said, had lasted 15 years. “Je n’ai plus rien,” Gaglio said. “I have
nothing left.”
The commander, Franck Royet, didn’t understand why Gaglio was telling
him any of this. None of Gaglio’s victims appeared to be French. “Why did you come
forward in France when the company is located in Switzerland and you live in
Spain?” Royet asked. Gaglio sidestepped, saying that he'd handed over some of
the forgeries in France. Neither man mentioned that France rarely allows
extradition of its citizens. At 4:20 p.m., Gaglio signed a statement,
collected a wristwatch he’d surrendered, and walked back onto the streets of
Paris.
The date was Jan. 23, 2013. In the days that followed, Gaglio’s partner, a French count with luxuriant black hair named Jean-François de Clermont-Tonnerre, began tearfully to relay the news to Hottinger & Partners' clients. Eleven of them filed civil and criminal complaints against Gaglio in Switzerland, as did the firm itself. The parent institution from which Hottinger & Partners had sprung—Swiss bank Hottinger & Cie, with roots stretching back to the 18th century—suffered losses that pushed it into bankruptcy. As victims and investigators in various jurisdictions took stock of the globe-spanning scheme, prosecutors in Luxembourg were quickest to act, charging him that spring with making and using forged bank documents, fraud, and laundering stolen funds.
Gaglio pleaded guilty. “Having lived a lie for years, I answer your questions today with the utmost transparency,” he said in a hearing. “I have nothing to hide.” He reiterated that his clients’ money, and his own, was gone. “Caught in a madness that is hard to explain,” he said, he had spent everything on lavish holidays, paintings by Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, and private jets. A colleague described his consumption as “Pharaonic.” Gaglio’s artwork might have been auctioned off to compensate his victims, but the collection, he told authorities, had been burgled from his property a few weeks before his confession.
More, so much more.
It Took Five Decades to Build Steinhoff. It Cratered in Two Days
By Franz Wild, Janice Kew, and Ruth David
18
December 2017, 03:00 GMT
It
looked like Steinhoff
International Holdings NV had reached escape velocity from South Africa’s
deepening economic gloom: A furniture retailer emulating Ikea’s model and
global ambitions, built by men with their own compelling rags-to-riches
stories.
Then
the debt-fueled rocket stalled and came crashing down. From her office
overlooking Cape Town’s waterfront, Sygnia Investment Management Ltd. Chief
Executive Officer Magda Wierzycka watched on her computer screen on
Dec. 6 as Steinhoff’s shares began a two-day plunge that cut the price by
80 percent and lopped some 10 billion euros ($11.8 billion) from its market
value.
Steinhoff said it couldn’t release its financial results; it was trying
to figure out if there was a 6 billion-euro hole in the balance sheet; and CEO
Markus Jooste had quit. All of a sudden, investors who’d bet on Jooste and his
billionaire Chairman Christo Wiese were rushing to the exits. By the end of
last week, Wiese had quit too.
“People were expecting an explanation from Steinhoff,” said Wierzycka,
whose company oversees about $14 billion, mostly in pension funds. “Instead we
got nothing. In the absence of any real information, you tend to assume the
worst."
On Tuesday, its banks will meet with the company to consider whether to
keep the retailer afloat or dismantle it and sell it off to get their money
back.
Wiese’s stellar reputation is in tatters, his $5 billion fortune down to $2 billion. Surrounded by lawyers and advisers, he sounded exhausted when he answered a call on Dec. 11. “Well, I’m alive,” is all he would say. Jooste didn’t respond to calls or text messages. A Steinhoff spokeswoman didn’t take calls or reply to messages.
Read here for more on billionaire Wiese’s weakening hold on Steinhoff
Wiese stepped down after Steinhoff said its accounting errors stretch back into 2016. His hold over the company eroded further on Friday when creditors forced the sale of part of his stake. To create breathing space, the embattled retailer will look to raise cash by selling assets and try to persuade banks to refinance its debt. Still, with regulators from South Africa to Germany probing the company and class-action lawyers circling, its struggles are only beginning.
Banks are already unlikely to retrieve some of the 1.5 billion euros they lent Wiese’s own investment firm against Steinhoff shares last year.
Bruno Steinhoff started the company in 1964 in Germany, buying cheap East German furniture and selling it in the West. In 1997, he bought a similar South African company and listed in Johannesburg the following year. Jooste, 56, the gruff son of a postal worker who’d qualified as an accountant and then worked his way up in the world of business, became CEO.
Jooste expanded by buying other companies, the largest deal coming in 2014, when his friend Wiese exchanged his budget clothing brand, Pepkor Ltd., for stock worth $5.7 billion in Steinhoff. He became the largest shareholder and chairman. Wiese, 76, was from a humble background in Upington, a desert outpost eight hours drive from both Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Stellenbosch Mafia
Wiese and Jooste are the face of what South Africans call the Stellenbosch Mafia, the close-knit group of wealthy businessmen who have owned vineyards in the exclusive hills around Cape Town. In an interview with biznews.com last year, Jooste said 10 of the other executives at Steinhoff were his best friends.He’s also said Swedish giant Ikea, founded by Ingvar Kamprad, was his model.
More, so much more.
A bank
is a confidence trick. If you put up the right signs, the wizards of finance
themselves will come in and ask you to take their money.
Jules
Bertillon. House of All Nations. 1938.
House of All Nations
The novel portrays
the inner workings of the financial world of a bank in Paris in the early
1930s. The bank is populated by a cast of shady characters who are
manipulative, unsavory schemers. The owner of the Bertillon Brothers bank,
Jules Bertillon, exemplifies all that is bad about the bank and will stop at nothing
to achieve his sole aim of making as much money as he can.
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?
New insight into battery charging supports development of improved electric vehicles
First technique capable of determining lithium metal plating during lithium ion battery charging reported in Materials Today
Date:
December 14, 2017
Source:
Elsevier
Summary:
A new technique provides a unique insight into how the charging rate of lithium
ion batteries can be a factor limiting their lifetime and safety.
A new technique developed by researchers at Technische Universität
München, Forschungszentrum Jülich, and RWTH Aachen University, published in
Elsevier's Materials Today, provides a unique insight into how the
charging rate of lithium ion batteries can be a factor limiting their lifetime
and safety.
State-of-the-art lithium ion batteries are powering a revolution in
clean transport and high-end consumer electronics, but there is still plenty of
scope for improving charging time. Currently, reducing charging time by
increasing the charging current compromises battery lifetime and safety.
"The rate at which lithium ions can be reversibly intercalated into
the graphite anode, just before lithium plating sets in, limits the charging
current," explains Johannes Wandt, PhD, of Technische Universität München
(TUM).
Lithium ion batteries consist of a positively charged transition metal
oxide cathode and a negatively charged graphite anode in a liquid electrolyte.
During charging, lithium ions move from the cathode (deintercalate) to the
anode (intercalate). However if the charging rate is too high, lithium ions deposit
as a metallic layer on the surface of the anode rather than inserting
themselves into the graphite. "This undesired lithium plating side
reaction causes rapid cell degradation and poses a safety hazard," Dr.
Wandt added.
----Dr. Wandt highlights that fast charging for electric vehicles could be a key application to benefit from further analysis of the work.
Until now, there has been no analytical technique available that can
directly determine the maximum charging rate, which is a function of the state
of charge, temperature, electrode geometry, and other factors, before lithium
metal plating starts. The new technique could provide a much-needed
experimental validation of frequently used computational models, as well as a
means of investigating the effect of new battery materials and additives on
lithium metal plating.
The researchers are now working with other collaborators to benchmark
their experimental results against numerical simulations of the plating process
in simple model systems.
More
December 18, 2017 / 11:07 AM /
Updated 2 hours ago
Solid Power, BMW partner to develop next-generation EV batteries
(Reuters) - U.S. EV battery company Solid Power said on Monday it had
partnered with Germany’s BMW AG (BMWG.DE)
to develop the next-generation solid-state battery technology for use in
electric vehicles (EVs).
BMW will assist in advancing Solid Power’s technology to achieve
performance levels required for high-performance EVs, Louisville,
Colorado-based Solid Power said in a statement.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
All solid-state battery technology is a high-capacity energy storage
device that improves on today’s lithium-ion batteries, replacing the liquid or
gel-form electrolyte with a solid, conductive material. Among other benefits,
the new technology offers more capacity and better safety.
Carmakers are trying to lower the cost of electric vehicles by investing in the development of affordable but powerful batteries.
Established in 2012, Solid Power says its solid-state rechargeable batteries could lower costs because of the potential for eliminating many of the costly safety features associated with lithium-ion systems.
Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T), which has called the technology a “game changer” for EVs, plans to commercialize solid-state batteries and roll out an electric vehicle in the early 2020s powered by them.
German automotive supplier Continental AG (CONG.DE) is considering investing in the technology, Chief Executive Elmar Degenhart told trade weekly Automobilwoche in an interview in November.
Once again another year draws
to a close. If you are one of the regular readers of this six days a week
update that helps support my efforts with the occasional donation via the
Paypal button, once again I sincerely thank you. If you are a regular reader
who finds the LIR informative, interesting, occasionally amusing or
entertaining, please consider making a small donation via the Paypal button on
the LIR website. For obvious reasons in our new age of almost rampant fake
news, I want to keep the LIR advertising free. But in any event thank you for
reading and sending in helpful suggestions.
Always be sincere, even if you
don't mean it.
Harry
TrumanThe monthly Coppock Indicators finished November
DJIA: 24,272 +243 Up. NASDAQ: 6,874 +289 Up. SP500: 2,648 +189 Up.
No comments:
Post a Comment