Baltic
Dry Index. 1662
+36
Brent Crude 62.42
Are
the bubbly global stock markets already fully priced? I would argue,
long over priced, and largely rigged by the free money central
banksters. But if the all news is good news era is ending, as we
approach the dying days of 2017, what comes next?
In
buy the rumor sell the fact, the US over hyped tax cuts are already
priced in. What’s not priced in are higher interest rates, or bad
news starting to act as bad news again. Much of the Great 2017 Stock
Bubble was led by a handful of technology stocks, aided and abetted
by debt driven stock buybacks rigging stock prices. What happens now
if that turns into so last year in 2018. Lookout below, in all
probability. Are there any more Greater Fools left to buy into
Everest level technology stocks? Haven’t
they all moved on into Bitcoin?
We
open today with technology taking a wobble, and no Microsoft support
totally failed yesterday at getting my Office 365 suite to install. Now
they can’t even link remotely to my computer, having inadvertently
turned off something that’s preventing the connection. After
the Big Bull Run, will technology lead the rout in 2018?
Tech-stock selloff weighs on Asian markets
Published:
Dec 4, 2017 11:21 p.m. ET
A
global decline in technology stocks continued Tuesday in Asia,
weighing on indexes in Japan and Taiwan.
“Technology shares are suffering
heavy selling pressure as investors are rotating out from the
valuation-rich sector in an attempt to lock in profits” amid
continuing U.S. tax-reform efforts, said Margaret Yang, a market
analyst at CMC Markets.
Worries about Brexit talks have also
added to pessimism in global markets.
After the Nasdaq fell 1.1% Monday,
the Nikkei NIK,
-0.18% ended its morning session down 0.4%.
The Taiex Y9999,
-0.94% shed 0.6% as index heavyweight Taiwan Semiconductor
Manufacturing Co. 2330,
-2.14% fell 1.9%. Samsung Electronics 005930,
-0.51% fell 0.9% in Seoul, though the Kospi SEU,
+0.24% was essentially flat due to strength from steel
stocks.
Hong
Kong’s benchmark was also weighed by tech, with the market’s
biggest company, Tencent Holdings 0700,
-1.96% , down 1.4%. The Hang Seng HSI,
-0.48% was recently 0.5% lower, with new component Sunny
Optical 2382,
-4.17% skidding 5%.
In China, the startup-heavy ChiNext
slid 1.2% and the Shenzhen Composite 399106,
-1.19% fell 0.8%. But the CSI 300, made up of the biggest
companies in Shenzhen and Shanghai SHCOMP,
-0.17% , rose 0.2%.
Meanwhile, Australia’s S&P/ASX
200 XJO,
-0.23% was down 0.2% as the local currency hit session
highs following the release of better-than-expected retail sales
growth data for October. As expected, the Reserve Bank of Australia
did not make a change in interest rates.
Elsewhere in currencies, a modest
overnight increase in yen strength added to pressure on Japan stocks.
The U.S. dollar JPYUSD,
-0.180262% was recently near ¥112.50, versus ¥112.80
when local equities trading ended Monday.
In other markets, bitcoin BTCUSD,
+0.91% has been relatively steady over the past 24 hours
and was recently at around $11,600, according to CoinDesk. Oil was
slightly higher in Asia after falling more than 1% Monday.
Asia Stocks Mixed, Dollar Falls as Tax Boost Fades: Markets Wrap
By Adam Haigh
December
4, 2017, 10:07 PM GMT Updated on December 5, 2017, 4:53 AM GMT
Stocks
in Asia traded mixed after gains spurred by the passage of the U.S.
tax cuts in the Senate lifted equities to fresh highs. The Australian
dollar jumped on stronger-than-expected retail sales data and
comments on inflation from the central bank.
Benchmark
indexes fluctuated in Tokyo and were lower in Hong Kong and Sydney as
investors assessed a rally that’s propelled stocks to numerous
records this year. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index erased earlier losses
as S&P 500 Index futures advanced, though tech shares on the
Asian gauge declined after the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell. The dollar
pulled back as optimism about tax reform died down and Treasury
yields were steady in Asia after handing back part of their advance
on Monday.
The Australian dollar advanced to the
strongest in more than three weeks after October retail sales beat
estimates and the Reserve Bank of Australia said it sees inflation
quickening as it left its cash rate at a record-low 1.5 percent for a
15th straight meeting on Tuesday.
In
China, a private report on services indicated that the sector
expanded more firmly last month than in October. Caixin’s China
composite and services PMIs came in at 51.6 and 51.9, respectively,
in November. It’s the latest data point for a world economy that’s
chugging along enough for some central banks to be raising rates and
winding down stimulus programs.
More
In
good Brexit news, the cheaper British Pound has made London boom
again. Who needs crazed, rent-seeking, highly leveraged, derivatives
gambling banksters, looking for bailouts, when there’s real
commerce about. As of yesterday, still no London banksters have
slithered off to dangerous, high tax Paris, dull, dour Frankfurt, or
tiny Dublin, Amsterdam or the tax Siberia of Luxembourg.
December
5, 2017 / 12:07 AM / Updated 6 hours ago
Pound's fall boosts London's appeal to tourists - study
LONDON
(Reuters) - London was the number one destination for European
tourists in 2017, a study showed on Tuesday, as the cheaper pound
made it attractive to both domestic and foreign visitors despite a
spate of militant attacks on the British capital this year.
London
saw a 24 percent increase in bookings from Europe and retained its
position as the top visitor destination for the second year running.
“The fall in the value of the pound
since the Brexit referendum in 2016 appears to have been a key driver
of growth, as visitors to the UK can now get more for their money,”
the eDreams ODIGEO “European Traveller Insights 2017 Report”
said.
Sterling
GBP=D4
is down around 10 percent since Britain voted to leave the European
Union in June 2016, due to uncertainty over how the split from its
biggest trading partner could affect growth prospects.
The
fall in the value of the pound boosted the city’s appeal to British
tourists too, with a rising appetite for staycations making it the
number one destination for UK travellers. Last year, it ranked fourth
among British tourists.
More
Car production rises as exports make up for falling UK demand
Just over 157,000 cars produced in
October, 3.5% more than same time last year, as exports rise by 5%
and domestic demand falls 2.9%
Car
production increased last month as rising exports made up for falling
demand in the UK, new figures reveal.
Just over 157,000 cars rolled off
production lines in October, 3.5% more than the same month last year,
according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).
Exports were up by 5%, with more than
1.1m cars built for overseas markets so far this year, compared with
a 2.9% fall in domestic demand.
Production for the UK car market has
now fallen for nine months in a row, to 28,178 in October. The SMMT
blamed lower business and consumer confidence and confusion over
government policies towards diesel vehicles.
UK car sales have been declining
since April and fell another 12% in October, with diesel transactions
down nearly 30%.
More than four out of five UK-built
cars were shipped abroad last month, the highest proportion this
year, with most going to other European countries.
More
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The
bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Yes,
Bitcoin again. Super bubble or super fraud? How about both. How long
did it take Holland to recover from tulipmania? Can a Bitcoin bust
evaporate stocks? Commodities? Fiat currencies? Central banksters?
Bitcoin Is Now Bigger Than Buffett, Boeing and New Zealand
By Colin Simpson
December
4, 2017, 6:57 AM GMT
Bitcoin’s
extraordinary price surge means its market capitalization now exceeds
the annual output of whole economies, and the estimated worth of
some of the world’s top billionaires.
With the debate over its bubble
status still raging, the flagship cryptocurrency continued its march
higher on Monday, solidifying above $11,000 and bringing its climb
this year to more than 1,000 percent. With market tracker
Coinmarketcap.com
putting the total value of all bitcoins in circulation at $190
billion, it’s come a long way from August, when one coin could buy
you a hefty supply of avocados.
Here are five things that have been
eclipsed by bitcoin in terms of market capitalization:
New Zealand’s GDP
The South Pacific nation’s
farm-and-tourism-led economy is valued at $185 billion, according to
World
Bank data as of July, putting it some $5 billion below bitcoin.
The cryptocurrency’s market cap is also bigger than the likes of
Qatar, Kuwait and Hungary.
Bitcoin’s run-up has even seen it
valued more highly than two of the world’s most influential banks.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s market cap was $97 billion as of Friday,
while Zurich-based UBS Group AG came in at about $67 billion. Add
those numbers together and it still falls short of bitcoin.
Both financial heavyweights have
taken a hands-off approach to the digital currency, with Goldman CEO
Lloyd
Blankfein saying it’s too early to draft a bitcoin strategy and
UBS -- the world’s biggest wealth manager -- saying it won’t
allocate it in portfolios because of the threat of a government
crackdown.
More
Hedge Funds Prepare to Trade Against Bitcoin
By Rob Urban and Sonali Basak
December
4, 2017, 12:00 PM GMT Updated on December 4, 2017, 6:10 PM GMT
A bitcoin big short is building.
The planned introduction of bitcoin
futures contracts at CME Group Inc., Cboe Global Markets Inc. and
Nasdaq Inc. will make it much easier to bet on a decline. Hedge
funds, which have largely stayed on the sidelines, are waiting for
the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s futures market to open for a
fresh opportunity to bet against the cryptocurrency, according to
more than a half dozen people trading the assets.
“The futures reduce the frictions
of going short more than they do of going long, so it’s
probably net bearish,” said Craig Pirrong, a business professor at
the University of Houston. “Having this instrument that makes it
easier to short might keep the bitcoin price a little closer to
reality.”
Bitcoin has gained millions of
percent since it started trading in 2010. An investment of $1 at the
beginning would now be valued at more than $1.4 million. A dollar
invested in the S&P 500 stock index for the same period would now
be worth less than $4 including reinvested dividends.
Some see the bitcoin market as “one
of the greatest shorting opportunities ever,” said Lou Kerner, a
partner at Flight VC who invests in the cryptocurrency. “You have a
lot of zealotry, and a lot of people, including me, who think it’s
the greatest thing to ever happen in the history of mankind. You have
a lot of people who think it’s a bubble and a Ponzi scheme. It
turns out both of them can’t be right.”
Bitcoin has been especially volatile
recently, plunging nearly 20 percent in less than 90 minutes on Nov.
29, to $9,009 after briefly topping $11,000. The price has since
recovered, and was trading at more than $11,332.01 at 11:42 a.m. in
New York on Monday, a 3.9 percent jump since Friday.
Cboe said Monday it will start
trading bitcoin futures on Dec. 10, while CME’s contracts are set
to debut on Dec. 18. Nasdaq is planning to offer futures in
2018, according to a person familiar with the matter. Cantor
Fitzgerald LP’s Cantor Exchange is creating a bitcoin derivative,
and startup LedgerX already offers options.
More
Solar & Related 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?
Highly efficient photocatalyst capable of carbon dioxide recycling
- Date: December 1, 2017
- Source: DGIST (Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology)
- Summary: A research team from Korea has developed titanium dioxide-based photocatalyst with the highest efficiency in the world that converts carbon dioxide into methane. The result is expected to be applied to technologies to reduce and reuse carbon dioxide.
A
research team of Energy Science and Engineering at DGIST has
succeeded in developing a titanium dioxide (TiO2)-based
high efficiency photocatalyst that converts carbon dioxide to methane
using a simple reduction method.
The photocatalysts developed by the
research team can be used to convert carbon dioxide to fuels like
methane. Therefore, it is expected to be applied to technologies for
carbon dioxide abatement and resource reclamation.
As is now well known, anthropogenic
emission of greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, is a
significant factor driving global climate change; sustainable, low
carbon, readily portable fuels are one of the most pressing needs of
modern society. To that end, there has been a worldwide effort
underway to find ways to convert carbon dioxide, a major contributor
to global warming, into a usable fuel, such as hydrogen, methane,
ethanol, methanol, and butanol.
In order to utilize carbon dioxide
as a resource, it is essential to increase the conversion efficiency
and light absorption efficiency when converting carbon dioxide into
fuel, and to make photocatalyst help to prevent secondary harmful
substances.
High-efficiency photocatalyst
development technology that synthesizes materials such as titanium
dioxide, copper oxide, and reduced graphene oxide, or controls the
structure and surface of photocatalyst material is regarded as the
core of carbon dioxide recycling technology.
Surprisingly, DGIST's research team
has discovered a synthesis method which rapidly reduces titanium
dioxide (TiO2) at low temperatures using a strong
reducing agent, sodium borohydride (NaBH4).
In the study, titanium dioxide-based
photocatalysts using this synthesis method showed 12.49% conversion
of methane to photochemical carbon dioxide on the gas phase, which
represents the highest conversion rate among the introduced
photocatalysts so far.
In addition, the photocatalyst
developed by the research team has the controlled band gap through
the conversion of the oxidation number from 4 to 3 by breaking the
oxygen atoms on the surface of titanium dioxide. This change
increases the amount of light absorption and efficiently separates
the charge, resulting in higher carbon conversion of carbon dioxide.
Moreover, the experiment has also proved that the efficiency of
methane conversion of carbon dioxide can be increased up to 29 times
using platinum nanoparticles.
More
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished November
DJIA:
24272
+243
Up
NASDAQ:
6874
+299
Up.
SP500:
2648
+189
Up.
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