Baltic
Dry Index. 1666
+04
Brent Crude 62.62
For
more on the latest madness in cryptocurrencies, scroll down to Crooks
Corner.
Up
first Asia’s tech wobble continues. Are bitcoin and the lookalikes,
draining the stock markets of “greater fools?” Has fear suddenly
replaced greed?
To
this old dinosaur market follower, over priced stocks have been
travelling on hopium and hype all year. I
think we are deep into yet another chapter in “Extraordinary
Popular
Delusions
and the Madness
of Crowds.”
Asian Stocks Tumble Amid Broad Selloff; Yen Gains: Markets Wrap
By Adam Haigh
5 December
2017, 22:04 GMT Updated on 6 December 2017, 06:07 GMT
Asian
stocks are poised for the longest losing streak in two years as the
technology, mining, consumer and industrial sectors led declines.
Japan equities fell sharply, as did Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index.
The Australian dollar and bond yields tumbled as traders dialed back
expectations for higher interest rates after growth missed estimates.
The
MSCI Asia Pacific Index is set to fall for eight days, making it the
longest run of losses since 2015. American shares fell, with an
afternoon swoon wiping out early gains for a second straight day, as
investors assessed the impact of proposed tax cuts. Ten-year Treasury
yields maintained a slide to 2.34 percent, while the dollar held onto
gains. The pound extended declines amid stalled Brexit negotiations,
and the yen jumped.
“The adjustment mode is deepening
lately in the Japanese stock market,” said Shunichi Otsuka, general
manager in the research department at Ichiyoshi Securities in Tokyo.
“It’s difficult to buy unless U.S. equities show firmness, even
as some high-tech shares are becoming cheap.”
Australia’s third-quarter GDP
climbed 2.8 percent from a year earlier versus a forecast of 3
percent, reinforcing expectations for the central bank to stand pat
on rates for much of next year. The Reserve Bank of Australia has
signaled no near-term policy change as household spending slows amid
lofty debt levels and stagnant wage growth.
A surge in global equities that drove
indexes to record highs has stalled as investors lock in profits and
await catalysts that would provide reason to add to risk assets
before the year draws to a close. Friday’s U.S. jobs report is the
next big data release on the calendar. House and Senate lawmakers are
poised to begin working on compromise tax-overhaul legislation -- a
key step in their drive to send a bill with tax cuts for corporations
and individuals to President Donald Trump by the end of the year.
More
Hong KongStock Selloff Accelerates as Top Performers Stumble
6 December
2017, 03:17 GMT Updated on 6 December 2017, 06:13 GMT
Hong
Kong’s benchmark index fell for the seventh time in eight days amid
steepening losses in some of the year’s top performers, including
Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. and AAC Technologies Holdings Inc.
The Hang
Seng Index was down 1.7 percent at 1:53 p.m., poised for its lowest
close since Oct. 31. The gauge has slumped more than 5 percent from a
decade high reached on Nov. 22 amid concern inflows from mainland
China will slow and as global equity markets retreated. Geely, AAC
and Sunny Optical Technology Group Co., which have led gains on the
index this year, plunged more than 7 percent on Wednesday.
Stocks in Hong Kong have turned into
some of the world’s worst performers since the Hang Seng Index’s
peak last month as investors cut holdings in shares that saw extreme
rallies this year. Tencent Holdings Ltd., which accounts for almost a
third of the benchmark’s 2017 gain, has tumbled 14 percent from its
record high last month to wipe out $75.5 billion in value.
Investors are “locking in profits
earlier than usual for the year and not opening any new positions
until the new year,” said Andrew Clarke, director of trading at
Mirabaud (Asia) Ltd.
Clarke
said the profit-taking could last a while, though some investors may
look at stocks like Tencent after the correction and decide to go
long for next year. “Eventually, as profit taking subsides, buying
for the new year will appear as people look towards 2018,” he said.
The H-share index in Hong Kong slid
2.3 percent Wednesday, while the Shanghai Composite Index dropped 1
percent, falling below the 3,300 level for the first time since
August. The Hang Seng Index dropped below a key moving average.
More
Opinion: There’s overwhelming evidence that the U.S. stock market is heading for disaster
Published:
Dec 5, 2017 10:40 a.m. ET
Bonfires are fun to watch, but they eventually burn out.
Human folly apparently doesn’t, so
we just keep adding to the absurdities. The volume of daily economic
lunacy that lights up my various devices is truly stunning, and it
seems to be increasing. (You can find a previous series of charts in
my free newsletter, Thoughts
from the Frontline.)
Let’s take a look at a series of
charts I received from my “kitchen cabinet” of friends.
The economy is more leveraged than ever
First up is Grant Williams, who sent
me a monumental slide deck. Here’s an example of craziness:
more
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The
bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today
more on the Bitcoin Bubble madness. America’s CFTC regulator
approves futures on Bitcoin. The equivalent of futures on unicorns.
How bad will the eventual bust be? A Massive Madoff Moment, but
globally.
December
6, 2017 / 3:32 AM / Updated 2 hours ago
Bitcoin surges above $12,000 to record high on relentless demand
TOKYO
(Reuters) - Bitcoin extended its eye-popping rally on Wednesday,
breaking above $12,000 to a record high despite questions about the
cryptocurrency’s real value and worries about a dangerous bubble.
Bitcoin
received a boost after Friday’s announcement by the main U.S.
derivatives regulator that it would allow CME Group Inc and CBOE
Global Markets to list bitcoin futures contracts.
The
move opens the door to added regulation but also more mainstream
adoption, as bitcoin futures and other derivatives would make it
easier to trade the new asset class.
Bitcoin’s
meteoric ascent of over 10-fold from below $1,000 at the start of the
year has drawn regulatory scrutiny around the world.
Some high profile individuals such as
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz have said the
cryptocurrency should be outlawed.
“It took a long time to establish
the methodology and the way bitcoin was traded. The original appeal
came from the fact they were unregulated. However it’s clearly
moved out of those shadows and into center stage,” said Mick
McCarthy, CMC Markets’ chief market strategist in Sydney.
“We are in the throes of a bubble
market, and one of the characteristics of a bubble market is that
there is no way to know when the bubble will burst.”
The current craze for bitcoin, and
cryptocurrencies in general, have been likened by some to the 17th
century Dutch tulip mania and more recently the dotcom bubble.
More
There’s an $814 Million Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange
By Matthew Leising
5 December
2017, 10:00 GMT
Among
the many mysteries at the heart of the cryptocurrency market are
these: Does $814 million of a digital token known as tether
really exist? And what is tether’s connection to Bitfinex,
the world’s biggest bitcoin exchange?
This is the state of crypto in late
2017, where questions about the companies behind the currencies are
multiplying with the profits. While cryptocurrencies appeal to people
who lack faith in governments and banks, the digital assets often
require a blind trust in companies about which few facts are
available.
Take
tether. The currency, which started trading in 2015, is described as
a stable alternative to bitcoin’s wild price swings. A restaurant
owner who accepts bitcoin but fears its volatility could shift
bitcoin into tether, which can be easier to do than exchanging
bitcoin for dollars. Its price has stayed near $1 for most of its
life because Tether, the company behind the digital token, says that
every tether is backed by one U.S. dollar held in reserve. Since
there’s $814 million of tether circulating, there should be $814
million parked in bank accounts somewhere.
Not everyone believes there is.
“Is there anything backing this?”
said Tim Swanson, who does risk analysis for blockchain and
cryptocurrency startups. Swanson, also director of research at Post
Oaks Labs, said he fears problems with tether could hobble exchanges
that trade it. “If these aren’t backed 1-to-1, then what is the
contagion risk if one of these exchanges goes down?”
more
Bitcoin Only Has One Way To Go If This Is True
Dec. 4.17
Summary
I believe that Tether's surging
supply is the major driver behind Bitcoin's explosive appreciation.
Tether Limited is likely issuing
bogus Tethers, which is equivalent to 1 USD, which can then be used
to buy Bitcoin.
Confidence in Tether Limited and
active arbitrage between Tether/Bitcoin/USD allows Bitcoin to go in
one way only.
The scheme will unravel if confidence
in Tether Limited evaporates, or if Bitcoin rises to a point such
that there is a sudden wave of selling pressure such that there can
be no liquidity to complete the arbitrage.
Despite numerous indications of
fraud, Tether's peg to the dollar is holding. Which begs the
question, if enough people believe a lie, does it become the truth?
I remain a Bitcoin (OTCQX:GBTC,
COIN, RIOT,
OTC:BITCF,
OTCPK:BTSC,
OTCQB:BTCS,
OTCQB:MGTI)
skeptic as I believe that the fundamental value of the
cryptocurrency is zero (read Why
Bitcoin Is Worthless). However, I cannot deny that it has market
value. That value has been increasing, which means that some people
somewhere are buying. But who? I believe that question can be
answered by Tether. Through a very clever scheme, the people behind
Tether can continue to send Bitcoin into the stratosphere until it
reaches a not-yet-known breaking point.
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? DC? A quantum computer next?
New nanowires are just a few atoms thick
Subnanometer-scale channels in 2-D materials could point toward future electronics, solar cells
- Date: December 4, 2017
- Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Summary: Subnanometer-scale channels in 2-D materials could point toward future electronics and solar cells, report investigators.
"Two-dimensional
materials" -- materials deposited in layers that are only a few
atoms thick -- are promising for both high-performance electronics
and flexible, transparent electronics that could be layered onto
physical surfaces to make computing ubiquitous.
The best-known
2-D material is graphene, which is a form of carbon, but recently
researchers have been investigating other 2-D materials, such as
molybdenum disulfide, which have their own, distinct advantages.
Producing useful electronics,
however, requires integrating multiple 2-D materials in the same
plane, which is a tough challenge. In 2015, researchers at King
Abdullah University in Saudi Arabia developed a technique for
depositing molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) next to tungsten diselenide
(WSe2), with a very clean junction between the two materials. With a
variation of the technique, researchers at Cornell University then
found that they could induce long, straight wires of MoS2 -- only a
few atoms in diameter -- to extend into the WSe2, while preserving
the clean junction.
The researchers contacted Markus
Buehler, the McAfee Professor of Engineering in MIT's Department of
Civil and Environmental Engineering, who specializes in atomic-level
models of crack propagation, to see if his group could help explain
this strange phenomenon.
In the latest issue of Nature
Materials, the King Abdullah, Cornell, and MIT researchers team
with colleagues at Academia Sinica, the Taiwanese national research
academy, and Texas Tech University to describe both the material
deposition method and the mechanism underlying the formation of the
MoS2 nanowires, which the MIT researchers were able to model
computationally.
"The manufacturing of new 2-D
materials still remains a challenge," Buehler says. "The
discovery of mechanisms by which certain desired material structures
can be created is key to moving these materials toward applications.
In this process, the joint work of simulation and experiment is
critical to make progress, especially using molecular-level models
of materials that enable new design directions."
More
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished November
DJIA:
24,272
+243
Up.
NASDAQ:
6,874
+289
Up.
SP500:
2,648
+189
Up.
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