Baltic Dry Index. 1122 +05 Brent Crude 70.35
Oh, The
grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down
In a trade war no one wins,
though not everyone loses at the same time or to the same degree. After huffing
and puffing up a great trade war storm with Europe, China, Canada, Mexico and
Brazil, by Sunday, President Trump had backtracked in the face of
threatened targeted revenge tariffs,
with temporary tariff exemptions with all except China. But did President Trump’s
team just blink on Sunday? Is the Trump trade war with China also now off the
table, at least temporarily?
Below, where Uncle Sam
stands or doesn’t stand, heading in to what could all too easily become another
stock market Black Monday. However, if President Trump and his team really have
backed down, and the trade war with China is already over, a massive short
covering rally is likely this week, before stocks resume a downward trajectory again,
under the pressure of normalising global interest rates. The Grand Old Duke of
York comes to mind.
U.S. Seeks Deal With China in Bid to Avert Trade War
By William Selway and Ben Brody
Updated on 26 March 2018, 01:43 GMT+1
Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he’s optimistic the U.S. can reach an agreement
with China that will avert the need for President Donald Trump to impose
tariffs on at least $50 billion of goods from the country.
“We’re having very productive conversations with them,” Mnuchin said on “Fox News Sunday,” when discussing talks with China. “I’m cautiously hopeful we reach an agreement.”
Trump on Thursday also directed Mnuchin to propose new investment restrictions on Chinese companies within 60 days to safeguard technologies the U.S. views as strategic. He has said he also wants a $100 billion decrease in the U.S. trade deficit with China.
A day after Trump’s announcement, which led to a selloff in global markets, China unveiled tariffs on $3 billion of U.S. imports in response to steel and aluminum duties ordered by Trump earlier this month. The White House then declared a temporary exemption for the European Union and other nations on those levies, making the focus on China clear.
Though Beijing’s actions so far are seen by analysts as measured, there may be more to come. China is conducting research on further lists of U.S. imports subject to tariffs, which are likely to cover airplanes, computer chips and the tourism industry, China Daily reported on Saturday, citing Wei Jianguo, a former vice commerce minister.
Automobiles, Semiconductors
Mnuchin said the two countries agree on reducing the deficit to some degree and are trying to “to see if we can reach an agreement as to what fair trade is for them to open up their markets, reduce their tariffs, stop forced technology transfer.”
More
JPMorgan Sees Market Overcoming Stock Rout, But Beware Trade War
By Joanna Ossinger
25 March 2018, 05:01 GMT+1
Despite a harrowing
week for U.S. stocks, market conditions are looking favorable heading into
the second quarter, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.Conditions for stability will probably come together in the second quarter, and asset allocations should remain oriented toward growth, JPMorgan strategists led by John Normand wrote in a note Friday after the S&P 500 closed down 6 percent for the week. They also suggested, however, that a potential trade war is a threat to economic growth.
"Two of four conditions for market stability have been met (tamer
inflation, not-so-hawkish Federal Reserve), and the two others could align in
the second quarter (stable activity data, de-escalation of trade conflict),”
the strategists wrote.
Their recommended asset allocation includes being overweight equities
versus bonds; long financials, industrials and oil; and selectively long on
emerging markets.
While there’s now a risk premium for worse growth through bad policies,
the strategists said that U.S. sanctions this year "equate to less than
0.5 percent of U.S. gross domestic product," and China’s retaliation this
week has been “disproportionately mild.”
More
Echo of Run-Up to '87 Market Meltdown Seen in U.S.-China Tension
By Eric Lam
History redux? The surging tension over trade between the U.S. and China
has prompted comparisons to American combativeness toward Japan that preceded
the 1987 equity meltdown -- at least, in the mind of veteran market analyst Hao
Hong.
While Hong, head of research with Bocom International Holdings Co.,
acknowledges that it’s possible to craw up many a technical chart of a
“startling nature,” he showcased one in a note circulated Monday that induces
some stomach churning.
“The
similarities between historical precedents and stock market movements are
intriguing,” Hong said. “It is worth taking a note.”
President Donald Trump’s move to rein in Chinese imports parallels U.S. legislators’ outrage over Japan decades ago, according to Hong. In July 1987, U.S. congressmen smashed a Toshiba radio with sledgehammers after the company sold machine tools to the then-Soviet Union, and legislation was sent to the White House restricting trade.
Those tensions were a “seldom-discussed catalyst of the historic stock market crash in October 1987,” Hong said. Equity benchmarks such as Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index are now mirroring the Dow Jones Industrial Average just before that collapse, he added.
In the same way that China is now pursuing a leading role in the global technology industry, Japan in the 1980s emerged from the shadow of the U.S. by advancing in high-value-added fields from machine tools to automobiles, threatening American competitors, the analyst said.
More
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today, Facebook again. Is Facebook the new Equifax?
What does it mean for the FAANGs?
March 25, 2018 / 9:52 AM
Americans less likely to trust Facebook than rivals on personal data
SAN
FRANCISCO/LONDON (Reuters) - Opinion polls published on Sunday in the United
States and Germany cast doubt over the level of trust people have in Facebook
over privacy, as the firm ran advertisements in British and U.S. newspapers
apologising to users.
Fewer than half of Americans trust Facebook to obey U.S.
privacy laws, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Sunday, while a
survey published by Bild am Sonntag, Germany’s largest-selling Sunday paper,
found 60 percent of Germans fear that Facebook and other social networks are having
a negative impact on democracy.
Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg apologised for “a
breach of trust” in advertisements placed in papers including the Observer in
Britain and the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.
“We have a responsibility to protect your information. If we can’t, we
don’t deserve it,” said the advertisement, which appeared in plain text on a
white background with a tiny Facebook logo.
The world’s largest social media network is coming under growing
government scrutiny in Europe and the United States, and is trying to repair
its reputation among users, advertisers, lawmakers and investors.
This follows allegations that the British consultancy Cambridge
Analytica improperly gained access to users’ information to build profiles of
American voters that were later used to help elect U.S. President Donald Trump
in 2016.
Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg apologised for “a
breach of trust” in advertisements placed in papers including the Observer in
Britain and the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.
“We have a responsibility to protect your information. If we can’t, we
don’t deserve it,” said the advertisement, which appeared in plain text on a
white background with a tiny Facebook logo.
The world’s largest social media network is coming under growing
government scrutiny in Europe and the United States, and is trying to repair
its reputation among users, advertisers, lawmakers and investors.
This follows allegations that the British consultancy Cambridge
Analytica improperly gained access to users’ information to build profiles of
American voters that were later used to help elect U.S. President Donald Trump
in 2016.
More
Facebook saves extensive call, text data made by Android users: Ars Technica
- Facebook has been scraping years worth of Android call and text data, according to a report.
- A company representative told Ars Technica that the practice is "widely used," but users are able to opt-out.
March 26 2018
Android cellphone users have noticed that Facebook has saved a virtual trove of their
personal call data that extends back years, according to a report in Ars
Technica.Amid an outcry over the social network's handling of a controversy involving a third-party application's misuse of personal data, the publication reported that several Android users who pulled down archive data from Facebook found very detailed personal metadata. That information included call logs containing names, phone numbers, and the length of each call made.
In a statement given to Ars Technica, Facebook pointed out that the call log was "a widely used practice to begin by uploading your phone contacts." The person added that users give their consent by uploading their contacts, a function that's optional. People can also delete contact data from their profiles by using a tool available on Web browsers, Facebook stated.
In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, more Facebook users have become increasingly educated aboutthe data they're sharingwith the platform, and how that information is being used.
Facebook has come under mounting pressure from privacy advocates, advertisers and people who use the platform. On Sunday, the network was forced to take out ads in major publications to apologize for the data scandal.
Some users have even begun opting out of using the site altogether, although Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last week that people weren't ditching the site in large numbers.
Ars Technica's full story can be found on its website.
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?
Revolutionary new filter can improve drinking water quality
Date:
March 19, 2018
Source:
University of New South Wales
Summary:
Scientists have developed a world-first, graphene-based, laboratory-scale
filter that can remove more than 99 percent of the natural organic matter left
behind during conventional treatment of drinking water. The filter is being
scaled up for possible use in conventional plants.
UNSW Sydney scientists have developed a world-first, graphene-based,
laboratory-scale filter that can remove more than 99% of the ubiquitous natural
organic matter left behind during conventional treatment of drinking water.
In a research collaboration with Sydney Water, the team has demonstrated
the success of the approach in laboratory tests on filtered water from the
Nepean Water Filtration Plant in western Sydney, and is working to scale up the
new technology.
The results of some of the ground-breaking research are published in the
journal Carbon. The project is led by Dr Rakesh Joshi of the UNSW School
of Materials Science and Engineering, in collaboration with Professor Veena
Sahajwalla and Professor Vicki Chen of UNSW, and Dr Heriberto Bustamante of
Sydney Water.
"Our advance is to use filters based on graphene -- an extremely
thin form of carbon. No other filtration method has come close to removing 99%
of natural organic matter from water at low pressure," Dr Joshi said.
"Our results indicate that graphene-based membranes could be
converted into an alternative new option that could in the future be
retrofitted in conventional water treatment plants."
Sydney Water supplies clean water to about 4.8 million people in Sydney,
the Illawarra and the Blue Mountains. These natural organic matter contaminants
can affect the performance of direct filtration plants, reducing their capacity
after heavy rain.
"The most common methods used at present to remove organic matter
from water supplies include the application of chemical coagulants," said
Dr Bustamante.
"However, these existing treatments are only partly effective,
particularly as the concentration of natural organic matter is
increasing."
Dr Joshi said: "The new treatment system is made by converting
naturally occurring graphite into graphene oxide membranes that allow high
water flow at atmospheric pressure, while removing virtually all of the organic
matter."
Dr Joshi has an international reputation in this area, having published
many highly cited articles including one in the journal Science on graphene
oxide-based filtration in 2014 while working at the University of Manchester
with Nobel Laureate Sir Andre Geim.
The UNSW team is upgrading the experimental rig to construct a small
pilot plant that could be tested in the field.
"With
the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all
governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to
defraud and plunder the people." F. A. von Hayek
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished February
DJIA: 25,029 +283 Up 01. NASDAQ: 7,273 +313 Up 03. SP500: 2,714 +212 Flat.
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