Baltic Dry Index. 1262 +32 Brent Crude 68.17
For more on the
scantily clad, US waitress burger chain, going cryptocurrency in an effort to
revive its burgers, scroll down to Crooks Corner, where it’s in good company
and fits right in. What more could the budding Harvey Weinsteiner
diners want. No replies please.
Up first, buy more!
All news is good news again. Never mind that real good news is yet more reason
for the Fed to really start on quantitative tightening, and the ECB to reduce
its support for Europe’s, Germany excepted, dodgy bonds.
January 4, 2018 / 12:56 AM
Asian shares scale 10-year peak, oil
elevated on Iran unrest
TOKYO
(Reuters) - Asian shares flirted with 10-year highs on Thursday as solid
economic data from the United States and Germany reinforced investors’
optimism, while oil prices hovered at a 2-1/2-year high with unrest in Iran
stoking supply disruption concerns.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was
almost flat as profit-taking in South Korean shares
.KS11
ahead of major earnings next week offset gains in other markets.
Japan's Nikkei
.N225
jumped 2.5 percent on its first trading day of the year while the broader Topix
.TOPX
hit its highest level since 1991.
“The economic data published over the holiday period has been pretty good.
So for those who were worried about new year profit-taking, the market would
look pretty strong,” said Hirokazu Kabeya, chief global strategist at Daiwa
Securities.
The economic data published on Wednesday on both sides of the Atlantic
reinforced investors’ expectations that solid global growth will boost demand
of goods, including oil, and lift corporate earnings.
U.S. factory activity increased more than expected in December, boosted by a
surge in new orders growth, in a further sign of strong economic momentum at
the end of 2017.
In Germany, Europe’s economic power house, the unemployment rate hit a
record low of 5.5 percent in December, underpinning a broad-based economic upswing.
The world’s stock markets .MIWD00000PUS, which had their best year since
2009 last year, hit a record high on Thursday, extending gains so far this week
to 1.4 percent.
More
In USA news, a new
uncivil war has broken out among Trumpian Republicans. Since a house divided
cannot stand, this has all the makings of a President Nixon v Allcomers, 1974 repeat. Remind me again of how
good 1974 was for stocks.
“I
think we agree, the past is over.”
President
George W. Bush.
Trump
Says Bannon ‘Lost His Mind’ After Leaving White House
By Alex Wayne and Jennifer Jacobs
3
January 2018, 18:24 GMT Updated on 4 January 2018, 04:35 GMT
President Donald Trump denounced his former top strategist, Steve
Bannon, on Wednesday in a dramatic break from the man considered an architect
of Trump’s populist campaign.
“When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind,” Trump
said in a statement issued after the publication of excerpts of a new book in
which Bannon criticizes the president and his family.
“Now that he is on his
own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look.”
Bannon has lost the access to the president that he’s enjoyed since leaving
the White House in August, one person familiar with the matter said. Trump’s
lawyers sent Bannon a cease-and-desist letter, threatening legal action and
accusing him of violating a non-disclosure agreement, ABC News reported.
Earlier on Wednesday, The Guardian published
excerpts
of a forthcoming book by author Michael Wolff in which Bannon predicts that
Special Counsel Robert Mueller will “crack Don Junior like an egg on national
TV” over the president’s son’s meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in
June 2016. Bannon also called Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with the lawyer, in
which he expected to receive damaging information on Trump’s election opponent
Hillary Clinton, “treasonous” and “unpatriotic,” according to the Guardian.
Bloomberg News later obtained a copy of the book.
More
Trump Tower meeting with Russians
'treasonous', Bannon says in explosive book
Wed 3 Jan ‘18 16.32 GMT
Donald Trump’s former chief strategist
Steve Bannon
has described the Trump Tower meeting between the president’s son and a group
of Russians during the 2016 election campaign as “treasonous” and
“unpatriotic”, according to an explosive new book seen by the Guardian.
Bannon,
speaking to author Michael Wolff, warned that the investigation into alleged
collusion with the Kremlin will focus on money laundering and predicted:
“They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV.”
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, reportedly based on more than
200 interviews with the president, his inner circle and players in and around
the administration, is one of the most eagerly awaited political books of the
year. In it, Wolff lifts the lid on a White House lurching from crisis to
crisis amid internecine warfare, with even some of Trump’s closest allies
expressing contempt for him.
Bannon, who was chief executive of the Trump campaign in its final three
months, then White House chief strategist for seven months before returning to
the rightwing Breitbart News, is a central figure in the nasty, cutthroat
drama, quoted extensively, often in salty language.
Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in New
York. A trusted intermediary had promised documents that would “incriminate”
rival Hillary Clinton but instead of alerting the FBI to a potential assault on
American democracy by a foreign power, Trump Jr replied in an email: “I love
it.”revealed by the New York Times in July last
year, prompting Trump Jr to say no consequential material was produced. Soon
after, Wolff writes, Bannon remarked mockingly: “The three senior guys in the
campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside
Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor – with no lawyers. They
didn’t have any lawyers.a Holiday Inn in Manchester, New Hampshire,
with your lawyers who meet with these people”. Any information, he said, could
then be “dump[ed] … down to Breitbart or something like that, or maybe some
other more legitimate publication”.
More
Donald Trump Didn’t Want to Be President
One year ago: the plan to lose, and the
administration’s shocked first days.
In the EUSSR, a last-second
reprieve from death row. Some EU clearing houses got a two year stay of
execution. It’s what passes for grown up planning in the ever more
dysfunctional EUSSR.
January 3, 2018 / 7:47 AM
EU clearing houses given last-gasp MiFID
reprieve
LONDON
(Reuters) - Regulators have granted a last-minute reprieve to three clearing
houses in Germany and Britain from having to give customers more choice under
new European Union market rules that come into effect on Wednesday.
One
of the aims of the rules, known as the Markets in Financial Instruments
Directive, or MiFID II, is to make it easier for people to choose where to
clear the listed derivatives contracts they buy and sell.
This
would be done through the “open access” rule, which stops any requirement to
clear a derivative contract within the same exchange group that traded the
contract.
ICE.N )
and from the London Metal Exchange (0388.HK ).
DB1Gn.DE )
Eurex Clearing arm.
Next, more European
fallout from the American War Party’s botched coup in Kiev, Ukraine 2014. After
the legitimate but corrupt, elected pro-Russian Ukraine President was
overthrown, in a Washington financed and inspired coup, Russia responded by
taking back the Crimea via a referendum, and supported the rebellion in Russian
speaking eastern Ukraine. Having little trade with Russian and thus little to
lose, the USA imposed sanctions on Russia and coerced the EUSSR, which did have
a lot to lose, into going along. Russia imposed sanctions on the EUSSR of its
own and shifted its focus further east to China.
We end with yet
another Russian brick falling on the EUSSR. Russia’s newly opened second crude
pipeline to China is about to take away some of Europe’s Russian supplied oil.
The EUSSR has only itself to blame. Whatever happened to “Europe First?”
Russia's
Oil Friendship With China Makes Crude Costly for Europe
By Serene Cheong
2 January 2018, 21:00 GMT
Europe’s set to be stuck with a higher oil bill as Russia shifts more of its
supply to the Chinese oil market.200,000
barrels a day in 2018 from a year earlier, FGE said.starved
Russia of oil revenues, the nation sought to boost market share in the world’s
top importer. It’s now supplanted
Saudi Arabia as the top
exporter to China, even as the two producers lead efforts to shrink the global
oversupply by curbing output. A pipeline that transports crude from the East
Siberia-Pacific Ocean system has helped its mission to increase volumes.
Pipeline Flows
China imports the bulk of Russian oil via inland pipes and seaborne
shipments from the eastern ports of Kozmino, De-Kastri and Prigorodnoye. A
second conduit between
the two countries began operations on New Year’s Day, doubling China’s ESPO
crude import capacity to 30 million tons annually, or about 600,000 barrels a
day. The two lines run parallel to each other between Mohe at the border and
Daqing in northeast Heilongjiang Province.
More
By Ben Sharples and Heesu Lee
3 January 2018,
23:37 GMT Updated on 4 January 2018, 05:53 GMT
Oil extended gains
from the highest close in three years as U.S. industry data showed crude
stockpiles continued to decline and as OPEC production held steady last month.
Futures rose 0.8
percent to above $62 a barrel in New York after adding 2.1 percent on
Wednesday. Inventories slid by 4.99 million barrels last week, the American
Petroleum Institute was said to report. Government data Thursday is forecast to
show supplies fell by 4.7 million barrels, which will be a seventh weekly
decrease. OPEC’s output was unchanged in December as the group approached a
fresh year of curbs, a Bloomberg survey shows.
Oil is extending gains after
climbing more than 12 percent last year as the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries and its allies cut output to trim a global glut. However,
the recent surge in New York crude may lead to growth in U.S. drilling and
supply. The rig count will “substantially increase”
with crude prices between $61 and $65 a barrel, according to 42 percent of
industry executives surveyed by the Dallas Federal Reserve last month. “We may soon see an end to the
rally because prices at this level will only make U.S. drillers boost
production,” said Will Yun, a commodities analyst at Hyundai Futures Corp.
“Supply disruptions in the North Sea and Libya, falling U.S. stockpiles, and
conflict in Iran have underpinned the momentum.”
More
He may look like an idiot and talk
like an idiot but don't let that fool you. Juncker really is an idiot.
With apologies to Groucho Marx .
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
More on cryptocurrency mania. “So you really, really, want to flag
yourself up as a crook.” Hooters surges on crypto mania.
The
Criminal Underworld Is Dropping Bitcoin for Another Currency
By Olga Kharif
2 January 2018, 10:00 GMT Updated
on 2 January 2018, 20:20 GMT
Bitcoin is losing its luster with some of its earliest and most avid fans --
criminals -- giving rise to a new breed of virtual currency.linked to
crime or money laundering, alerting exchanges and preventing conversion
into traditional cash.attacked up to 190,000 WordPress
sites per hour to get them to produce monero, according to security company
Wordfence.7 percent so far this year, according
to coinmarketcap.com.Read more: Ripple’s surge makes it
the second-biggest cryptocurrency vulnerability for monero. Developers of the coin
have made progress in reducing it, though.developed a tool that helps them analyze Zcash
transactions at least to some extent -- but they haven’t been able to crack
monero. And Zcash high-security features can’t be used on disposable burner
phones, a favorite of criminals eager to stay anonymous.
More
Hooters
Franchisee Surges 41% on Cryptocurrency Rewards Program
By Eric Lam
3
January 2018, 08:50 GMT
Add
Chanticleer
Holdings Inc.
to the list of companies racking up big stock-market gains by jumping on the
cryptocurrency bandwagon.
Shares
of Chanticleer, a Charlotte-based Hooters franchisee and owner of burger joints
across the U.S., surged 41 percent on Tuesday after announcing plans with Mobivity
Holdings Corp.
to start a blockchain-based customer loyalty program with digital “Mobivity
Merit” tokens. Chanticleer, whose stock is still down more than 75 percent over
the past three years, was valued at $11.3 million after Tuesday’s rally.
soar
after announcing cryptocurrency ventures -- sometimes powered by little more
than buzzwords and a name change. Skeptics have drawn parallels to the 1990s
dot-com craze, saying the gains are evidence of a bubble fueled by bitcoin’s
1,400 percent advance over the past year.jumped
as much as 289 percent on Dec. 21 after the Hicksville, New York company
rebranded itself Long Blockchain Corp. Diagnostic equipment maker Bioptix Inc.
nearly doubled ahead of
its announcement to rebrand as Riot Blockchain Inc. And Israel’s Natural
Resources Holdings Ltd. jumped 159 percent after disclosing
plans to acquire a majority stake in a Canadian cryptocurrency mining
operation.
More
“What
me worry?”
Mad
Magazine.
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?
Tweaking quantum dots powers-up double-pane
solar windows
Engineered quantum dots could bring down the cost of solar electricity
Date:
January 2, 2018
Source:
DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory
Summary:
Researchers are creating double-pane solar windows that generate electricity
with greater efficiency and also create shading and insulation. It's all made
possible by a new window architecture which utilizes two different layers of
low-cost quantum dots tuned to absorb different parts of the solar spectrum.
The approach complements existing photovoltaic technology by adding
high-efficiency sunlight collectors to existing solar panels or integrating
them as semitransparent windows into a building's architecture.
Using two types of "designer" quantum dots, researchers are
creating double-pane solar windows that generate electricity with greater
efficiency and create shading and insulation for good measure. It's all made
possible by a new window architecture which utilizes two different layers of
low-cost quantum dots tuned to absorb different parts of the solar spectrum.
"Because of the the strong performance we can achieve with
low-cost, solution-processable materials, these quantum-dot-based double-pane
windows and even more complex luminescent solar concentrators offer a new way
to bring down the cost of solar electricity," said lead researcher Victor
Klimov. "The approach complements existing photovoltaic technology by
adding high-efficiency sunlight collectors to existing solar panels or
integrating them as semitransparent windows into a building's
architecture."
The key to this advance is "solar-spectrum splitting," which
allows one to process separately higher- and lower-energy solar photons. The
higher-energy photons can generate a higher photovoltage, which could boost the
overall power output. This approach also improves the photocurrent as the dots
used in the front layer are virtually "reabsorption free."
To achieve this, the Los Alamos team incorporates into quantum dots ions
of manganese that serve as highly emissive impurities. Light absorbed by the
quantum dots activates these impurities. Following activation, the manganese
ions emit light at energies below the quantum-dot absorption onset. This trick
allows for almost complete elimination of losses due to self-absorption by the
quantum dots.
To transform a window into a tandem luminescent sunlight collector, the
Los Alamos team deposits a layer of highly emissive manganese-doped quantum
dots onto the surface of the front glass pane and a layer of copper indium
selenide quantum dots onto the surface of the back pane. The front layer
absorbs the blue and ultraviolet portions of the solar spectrum, while the rest
of the spectrum is picked up by the bottom layer.
Following absorption, the dot re-emits a photon at a longer wavelength,
and then the re-emitted light is guided by total internal reflection to the
glass edges of the window. There, solar cells integrated into the window frame
collect the light and convert it to electricty.
I am not a crook.
President Nixon. 1974
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished December
DJIA: 24,719 +265 Up. NASDAQ: 6,903 +297 Up. SP5 00: 2,674 +199 Up.
No comments:
Post a Comment