Baltic Dry Index. 1136 -07 Brent Crude 66.57
Every
generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before
it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
George
Orwell.
Was December the high point for Bitcoin Mania? Was
January Peak Stocks in Stock Market Mania? The answer to both is increasingly
yes. After multi decades of theft from the thrifty and prudent by rigged low
interest rates, spurring stock mania, (and several crashes,) since 1981, the
low interest rate tide seems to have turned.
Slowly at first, but faster later, picking up pennies
before steamrollers loses its appeal. Volatile markets run out of greater fool
buyers. “Sell? To whom, sir?” gradually takes over. What seemed such a brilliant
idea on the way up, becomes a millstone on the way down. And if a multi-decade
long trend just ended in January. What comes next goes from buy the dips to
sell the rallies, if any. Debt which was a blessing on the way up, becomes a curse
on the way down.
Below the prelude to Fed day.
In a
time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George
Orwell.
Stocks Slump as Facebook Hits Tech; Bonds Recover: Markets Wrap
By Sarah Ponczek
Updated on 19 March 2018, 20:05 GMT
Stocks declined globally on Monday as a technology selloff sent the Nasdaq
indexes to the steepest losses in six weeks. Government bonds pared losses,
while the pound jumped on a Brexit breakthrough.U.S. stocks slumped as tech companies were roiled by reports of a Facebook Inc. data breach and Apple Inc. efforts to develop its own screens. That sapped Asian equities, while tech also led a retreat for the Stoxx Europe 600 Index. Facebook fell the most in almost four years. The tech rout added to pressure that had mounted over the weekend in Washington, as speculation grew that President Donald Trump could be preparing to fire Robert Mueller.
“If the Facebook news didn’t exist there would be all sorts of jitters here just given the Trump stuff,” said Michael Purves, Weeden & Co.’s chief global strategist. “If the regulatory clouds come on Facebook, certainly Google and Amazon will face increasing questions about their ability to generate outsized earnings growth if the regulators are going to be beating them.”
Meanwhile, large digital companies operating in the European Union, such as Alphabet Inc. or Twitter Inc., could face a 3 percent tax on their gross revenues based on where their users are located, according to a draft proposal by the European Commission.
Sterling rallied as the U.K. and EU reached a deal on the transition agreement for the period immediately after Brexit.
In
a busy week, the biggest focus for global markets will be the first U.S. interest rate decision under new
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. It comes after he hinted to investors
that he’s open to lifting the policy rate four times this year, rather than the
three currently reflected in dot-plot forecasts. Some Wall Street banks such as
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. expect the median projection to rise to four on
Wednesday, while others say there will be no change following a round of
mediocre data and policy makers’ stated intentions to move gradually.
----Trade tensions also remain in the spotlight as U.S. Treasury official David Malpass said he misspoke hours after claiming America was pulling out of decade-old formal economic talks with Beijing. Meanwhile, investors are assessing the implications of a new head at China’s central bank.
Elsewhere, the ruble weakened for a sixth day, the longest losing streak since October, as Russian President Vladimir Putin won a landslide victory in a tightly controlled election. West Texas oil edged lower and gold gained for the first time in four days.
More
In other news, the nightmare future just arrived in
Arizona. Sometimes we’re not half as clever as we think we are. Now the police
and Arizona’s tort bar will have to sort out, who’s in the wrong, by how much,
and who pays. Not that it will help the unfortunate dead pedestrian any.
The Uber Crash Is the Nightmare the Driverless World Feared But Expected
By Dana Hull, Mark Bergen, and Polly MosendzNow, a tragedy may slow the Alphabet Inc. unit’s efforts, and the broader industry march toward commercialization of this technology. A self-driving test car from Uber Technologies Inc. hit and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, near Phoenix, late Sunday, prompting investigations by regulators and a backlash from some consumer-safety advocates.
"It will set consumer confidence in the technology back years if not decades," said Jason Levine, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, a Washington-based advocacy group. "We need to slow down."
The fatality, the first one known to involve an autonomous test vehicle and a pedestrian, comes at a critical juncture for the nascent industry. Companies including Alphabet, General Motors Co., Uber and Tesla Inc. are investing billions of dollars to develop the technology. Tests on public roads had mostly proved trouble-free and the rare major crashes were not found to be the fault of the technology.
Still, as autonomous vehicles are increasingly tested in complex urban and suburban environments, the chances of a fatal incident rose. Leaders at Alphabet have, for years, fretted that a death from a crash or reckless public road tests by a competitor could spark overbearing rules. When Bloomberg called a former driverless car engineer on Monday to discuss the industry, the person’s first comment was: it finally happened. The person asked not to be identified talking about such a sensitive topic.
When a driver using Tesla’s Autopilot system crashed and died in 2016, the initial reaction was similar to Monday’s response to the Uber incident. But the two episodes are different.
In May 2016, Joshua Brown, the driver of a Tesla Model S who had Autopilot engaged, slammed into a semi truck on a Florida highway and was killed. The National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration and the NTSB investigated, supplier Mobileye NV cut ties with Tesla and numerous updates were made to the Autopilot technology. But the fallout was largely contained to Tesla.
----"In Tesla’s Florida crash, the car was purchased by and used by the victim. In the Arizona crash, the vehicle was a test vehicle under the control in every sense by Uber, and the victim was an ordinary person," Smith added.
More
Finally, China. President Xi sets out that he means
business over Taiwan, Hong Kong, and America’s meddling in the region. To
President Xi’s bad cop, Premier Li tried to play good cop. But the power all
lies with President for life Xi. In threatening a trade war with China, President
Trump might just be a decade too late.
China's Xi Begins Second Term With Stark Warning to Taiwan
Bloomberg News
Chinese President Xi Jinping warned that efforts to widen divisions with
Taiwan would be “punished by history” in a nationalistic speech to mark the
start of his second term.
In an address to China’s almost 3,000-member national parliament, Xi
said China had the capabilities to stop any attempt to formalize the
democratically ruled island’s independence. The remarks came just days after
U.S. President Donald Trump signed a law allowing high-level official visits to
Taiwan, a move which would elevate its diplomatic status.
“All acts and schemes to split China are doomed to failure and will be
condemned by the people and punished by history,” Xi told the closing session
of the National People’s Congress in Beijing. “The Chinese people have the firm
will, full confidence and sufficient ability to defeat all activities to split
the country.”
The remarks on Taiwan were part of a roughly 40-minute speech in which
Xi repeatedly emphasized the importance of “the people’s” support for the
Communist Party’s rule. The president said public backing was fundamental to
achieving his goal of becoming a global power by 2050.
----Although
Xi didn’t directly reference rising tensions with the U.S., including Trump’s
threats of tariffs and other trade actions, he acknowledged challenges
overseas. “The situation at home and abroad is undergoing profound and complex
changes, and it is an important period of strategic opportunities for China’s
development,” Xi said.
March 20, 2018 / 3:11 AM
China's door to outside will only open wider - Premier Li
BEIJING (Reuters) - China will further open up its
economy, and its door to the outside will only get bigger and bigger, with
foreign and domestic firms allowed to compete on an equal footing, Premier Li
Keqiang said on Tuesday.
China will increase access to its services and manufacturing sectors
while further lowering import tariffs, Li said at his once-a-year press
conference in Beijing.
“China’s economy has been so integrated with the world’s, that closing
China’s door would mean blocking our way for development,” Li told reporters
following the close of China’s annual meeting of parliament.
“China’s aim is to ensure that both domestic and foreign firms, and
companies under all kinds of ownership structure, to be able to compete on fair
terms in China’s large market.”
The familiar pledges to further open up China’s economy come as the
prospect of a global trade war dominates headlines and conversations among
world leaders.
U.S. President Donald Trump on March 8 announced global tariffs of 25
percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminium. He is expected on Friday to
announce new tariffs on up to $60 billion worth of Chinese technology and
consumer goods annually, sources told Reuters.
As China further widens access to its markets, there will be no forced
transfers of technology, and China will better protect intellectual property
rights, Li told reporters.
China has maintained that technology transfers are not a condition of
gaining market access. But Trump says Beijing has forced U.S. companies to
transfer their intellectual property to China as a cost of doing business
there.
More
"On
the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the
time.”
George
Orwell.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
No crooks today, more on them tomorrow. Today do our missing sunspots
spell a cooler world ahead?
Approaching ‘grand solar minimum’ could cause global cooling
There’s a lot of evidence mounting that solar cycle 25 will usher in a new grand solar minimum. Since about October 2005, when the sun’s magnetic activity went into a sharp fall, solar activity has been markedly lower, with solar cycle 24 being the lowest in over 100 years.Meteorologist Paul Dorian at Vencore weather writes:
All indications are that the upcoming solar minimum which is expected to begin in 2019 may be even quieter than the last one which was the deepest in nearly a century.
Some scientists are even saying that we are on the cusp of a new grand solar minimum, and the upcoming cycle 25 may have even lower cycles after it.
This empirical modeling of solar recurrent patterns has also provided a consequent multi-millennial-scale experimental forecast, suggesting a solar decreasing trend toward Grand (Super) Minimum conditions for the upcoming period, AD2050–2250 (AD 3750–4450).
Simon Constable, in Forbes writes:
The question is whether we will enter another grand solar minimum just like the Maunder minimum which, if history is a guide, would mean a period of much colder weather winters and summers.
Once upon a time, people would worship the sun as
a deity. It was with good reason that they did so for the sun provided much of
what sustains life on our small planet, warmth and bountiful harvests. How would
we survive if the sun stopped beating down on us? It was a real fear.
Then came science and industrialization. As the new era took over, we mostly forgot the sun and its importance to our existence. (Of course, most people occasionally complain that it is either too sunny or not sunny enough.)
But just because we stopped paying close attention doesn’t mean that it lost any of its importance to our world. And neither does the fact that the life of the sun is far more complex than many people realize. Indeed, if we are to believe the experts,the sun’s behavior is about to change in a way that could have dramatic consequences for the food we eat and the broader economy.
That’s why it is rather handy
that an important book on the matter was recently published in paperback. Nature’s
Third Cycle: A Story of Sunspots by Arnab Rai Choudhuri.
The third cycle is that of the Sun and the dark spots which
appear on the solar surface. The first two cycles are day versus night and the
changing seasons.
Choudhuri gives us a condensed history of the study of the
sun and of sunspots over the past few centuries back to Galileo Gailiei, whose
discovery of the Sun’s 27-day rotation marked the serious start of solar
physics.
The remarkable tale includes skilled amateurs as well as professional academics, the rivalries between the main players, and a probable husband-wife murder-suicide thrown into the mix. Yes, there is a lot in the story of studying the sun, and the author does a masterful job of making it a fascinating read. Not too shabby when many scientific books do more to muddle the reader than to enlighten.
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?
The biggest solar parks in the world are now being built in India
Mar 19, 2018
Weeds poke listlessly from the flat, rocky earth as the temperature
climbs to the mid-90s. On a cloudless March afternoon, the blue horizon
stretches out uninterrupted, as if even birds are too weary to fly.
On this unforgiving patch of southern India, millions of silver-gray
panels glimmer in the sun, the start of what officials say will be the biggest
solar power station in the world.
When completed, the Pavagada solar park is expected to produce 2,000
megawatts of electricity, enough to power 700,000 households — and the latest
milestone in India's transition to generating more green energy.
Long regarded as a laggard in the fight against climate change, India is
building massive solar stations at a furious clip, helping to drive a global
revolution in renewable energy and reduce its dependence on coal and other
carbon-spewing fossil fuels blamed for warming the planet.
While the Trump administration abandons the Paris agreement on fighting climate change and pledges to revive the U.S. coal industry, India this month hosted the inaugural conference of the International Solar Alliance, an organization launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the aim of raising $1 trillion to promote solar generation and technology in 121 countries.
Thanks to low-cost solar panels and government incentives for renewable energy, India surged past Japan last year to become the world's third-biggest market for solar power, after China and the United States. Modi has called for generating 100 gigawatts of solar capacity by 2022 — nearly 30 times what it had three years ago, and equivalent to the entire energy output of Spain.
"It's pretty inspiring," said Tim Buckley, director of energy finance studies at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. "The U.S. and India have sort of swapped places, and Modi is now becoming a global statesman for renewable energy and solar."
India's need for green energy is obvious. With an economy expanding at roughly 7% annually, and ambitions to bring electricity to hundreds of millions of people who still lack it, India must pump up solar and wind power dramatically in order to meet its commitments under the Paris agreement. Air pollution has worsened in its cities, partly because of emissions thrown up by old power plants.
Coal still accounts for 58% of India's power, while wind provides 10% and solar 5%, according to government figures. India had created 20 gigawatts of solar power at the end of December, nearly doubling its capacity from a year earlier.
Three years ago, California could lay claim to the world's biggest solar farm: the 579-megawatt Solar Star power station just north of Lancaster, in the Antelope Valley.
That station was soon eclipsed by a series of huge solar parks in China, the No. 1 producer of the photovoltaic panels that capture the sun's radiation for conversion into energy.
India has approved plans for 14 solar parks larger than Solar Star. Most lie in India's northern deserts and southern scrubland, where state and local authorities are racing to fulfill Modi's agenda and foreign companies are vying for pieces of perhaps the last great solar market.
"The potential of solar power in India is huge," said Sanjay
Aggarwal, managing director of the Indian office of Fortum, a Finnish energy
company that is generating 100 megawatts at Pavagada.
Unlike in the United States, Germany, Australia and other nations with
large renewable programs, the vast majority of solar power in India and China
comes not from decentralized rooftop panels but from expansive parks. Indian
authorities have enticed developers by acquiring land, building transmission
links and offering up buyers for the new power, usually state-owned companies
with low default risk.
Morehttp://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-india-solar-20180319-story.html
"The history of paper money is an account of abuse, mismanagement, and financial disaster."
Richard M. Ebeling
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished February
DJIA: 25,029 +283 Up 01. NASDAQ: 7,273 +313 Up 03. SP500: 2,714 +212 Flat.
No comments:
Post a Comment