Friday 6 April 2018

Trump’s Trade War Intensifies!


Baltic Dry Index. 953 -24     Brent Crude 67.94

The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.

Walter Bagehot.

While President Trump’s trade team and economic advisor were out playing good cop in the media yesterday, saying the tariffs on China won’t take effect for 60 days, allowing plenty of time for negotiations and for China to cave in, generating a stock market rally, President Trump went back to playing bad cop after the stock markets closed, generating a stock index futures collapse, and setting off an “interesting” Friday in the all too edgy markets.

Who would be a professional money manager or stock pedlar in today’s markets? Below, President Trump sets the cat loose among the pigeons. Over to President Xi.

Trump Escalates Trade Tensions With Call for New China Tariffs

By Toluse Olorunnipa Andrew Mayeda, and Enda Curran
Updated on 6 April 2018, 03:57 GMT+1
President Donald Trump ordered his administration to consider tariffs on an additional $100 billion in Chinese imports, sending U.S. stock futures tumbling on concern the world’s two largest economies are hurtling toward a full-blown trade war.

The move threatens to unravel efforts by top U.S. and Chinese trade officials to lower the heat and reach an agreement that could stave off an escalating conflict, after the release of a list of tariff targets earlier this week prompted immediate threats of retaliation from Beijing.

U.S. stock futures dropped on Trump’s latest trade directive to the U.S. Trade Representative. S&P 500 Index futures slid as much as 1.6 percent, after the underlying gauge ended up 0.7 percent Thursday. Asian equities were mixed, while the yen rose.

“In light of China’s unfair retaliation, I have instructed the USTR to consider whether $100 billion of additional tariffs would be appropriate under section 301 and, if so, to identify the products upon which to impose such tariffs,” Trump said in a statement issued by the White House.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-05/trump-orders-consideration-of-100-billion-in-new-china-tariffs

Futures fall as Trump seeks $100 billion in additional China tariffs

Published: Apr 5, 2018 8:08 p.m. ET

After previously identifying $50 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, president asks for $100 billion more

President Donald Trump sought late Thursday to identify an additional $100 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, after both countries proposed $50 billion in taxes on imports from the other in an escalating trade skirmish.

The White House said in a statement after markets closed Thursday that Trump has asked the United States Trade Representative to identify another $100 billion in potential tariffs on Chinese goods. Stock-index futures fell in response, with S&P 500 futures ESM8, -0.93%  , Dow Jones Industrial Average futures YMM8, -1.09%  and Nasdaq-100 futures NQM8, -1.04%  all signalling declines of more than 1%.

The latest move is a continuation of a growing trade dispute between the two countries. Trump previously announced $50 billion in proposed tariffs on goods imported from China, which responded by announcing about $50 billion in proposed tariffs on U.S. goods. China has also complained to the World Trade Organization about the U.S. tariffs.

In his statement Thursday, Trump again cited China’s “illicit trade practices” for the tariffs, claiming that they had destroyed American factories and jobs. He called China’s proposed tariffs “unfair retaliation” to his own, and asked the USTR to identify products that could raise another $100 billion in tariffs.
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Bogle on stock turbulence: ‘never seen a market this volatile to this extent in my career’

Published: Apr 5, 2018 7:40 p.m. ET
Vanguard founder Jack Bogle has been around the block. The 88-year-old investing titan, who is basically the father of passive investing, says this renewed regime of volatility in stocks is uncanny.
How uncanny? He’s never seen anything like it in his 66-year career. Here’s what he had to say during a CNBC interview on Thursday:

‘I have never seen a market this volatile to this extent in my career. Now that’s only 66 years, so I shouldn’t make too much about it, but you’re right: I’ve seen two 50-percent declines, I’ve seen a 25-percent decline in one day and I’ve never seen anything like this before.’
 
Jack Bogle, Vanguard Group founder and retired CEO

Bogle is referring notably to the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.99% which erased a 510-point decline on Wednesday to end up by 1%, or about 240 points, with the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.69% and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.49% also producing stunning intraday turnarounds as fears of a trade clash between the U.S. and China receded in dramatic fashion.
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Bannon on trade-war angst: ‘To hell with Wall Street’

Published: Apr 5, 2018 7:41 p.m. ET
“Ask the working people in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan about Wall Street. Wall Street supported and cheered on the export of their jobs. To hell with Wall Street if they don’t like it. It’s time somebody stood up to them and Donald Trump is the perfect guy. Wall Street is always short term. Trump is trying to protect the beating heart of American capitalism - our innovation.”
Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist

Those are the choice words offered up by former aide to President Donald Trump Steve Bannon during an interview with Reuters published Wednesday, referencing the dim reaction by Wall Street to the White House’s recent trade tactics.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.99% was down on Wednesday as many as 510 points at its low, a decline of 2.1%, while the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.69% and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.49% were also showing ugly declines, following news that Beijing planned on imposing retaliatory duties on U.S. exports to China including airplanes, autos and soybeans, spanning 106 categories of products.

The market has since come off its lows as investors appear to be betting that recent tariff proposals reflect negotiating tactics rather than concrete policy.
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The United States brags about its political system, but the President says one thing during the election, something else when he takes office, something else at midterm and something else when he leaves.

Deng Xiaoping

Crooks and Scoundrels Corner

The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today, China’s trade war spin before last night’s new “Glasgow kiss” from President Trump.
It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.

Deng Xiaoping

April 5, 2018 / 8:32 AM

China says it never backs down in the face of threats after trade salvos with U.S.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has never surrendered to external pressure and it will win any trade war with the United States, the nation’s state media stressed in a series of editorials and columns in the hours after the world’s two top economies targeted each other with steep tariffs.
While China’a Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai stressed in comments to reporters in Washington that Beijing’s preference was to resolve the trade dispute through negotiations, Beijing’s official mouthpieces were taking a more belligerent line.

The ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper said Beijing’s quick counter-move had caught the Americans off guard.

“Within 24 hours of the U.S. publishing its list, China drew its sword, and with the same strength and to the same scale, counterattacked quickly, fiercely and with determination,” the paper said in a commentary on Thursday.

“The confidence to know that [China] will win the trade war comes from the scale of [China’s] consumer market,” the paper said, noting that China’s market potential is incomparable to other economies.

Many American consumer product and industrial companies see the Chinese market as a big source for future growth given the continued rise in the number of people joining both the middle class and the wealthier levels of Chinese society.

The United States’ proposed list of $50 billion (£35.5 billion) in duties on Chinese goods is aimed at forcing Beijing to address what Washington says is deeply entrenched theft of U.S. intellectual property and forced technology transfer from U.S. companies.

China hit back within hours with its own threatened tariffs on U.S. imports including soybeans, planes, cars, whiskey and chemicals.

The official Xinhua news agency said late on Wednesday that the U.S. tariffs proposal would cost the United States “dearly”.

“China will not be afraid or back down if a trade war is unavoidable. The country has never surrendered to external pressure, and it will not surrender this time either,” Xinhua said.
The apparent determination not to retreat is at the polar opposite of comments by White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, who told Fox News Channel on Wednesday: “I believe that the Chinese will back down and will play ball.”
April 4, 2018 / 5:34 PM

U.S.-China trade war could hit German automakers, plus Tesla, Ford

(Reuters) - Escalating trade tensions between the United States and China may dent production of German luxury SUVs made in the U.S. South and sent to China, with exports from electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) and Ford Motor Co (F.N) also vulnerable.
If a tit-for-tat tariff dispute between the two countries erupts into a full-blown trade war, auto production in both will be affected, but U.S. factories would feel the strongest effect because China imports nearly 270,000 U.S. vehicles, worth $11 billion, and sends relatively few back.

Tesla’s California plant, which ships an estimated 15,000 cars a year to China, as well as BMW’s (BMWG.DE) South Carolina facility and Daimler AG’s (DAIGn.DE) Alabama factory, could lose hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of production if China goes ahead with its threat to double import tariffs. All three export high-margin luxury models, many of them sport utility vehicles, to China.

Ford’s problem is twofold, involving both imports of premium Lincoln vehicles to China and a plan to export low-cost Focus compacts from China to the United States.

General Motors Co’s (GM.N) exposure is limited because it imports only 30,000 Buick Envision crossovers a year from China, while sending just a handful of vehicles back.

Shares of automakers ended higher on Wednesday as Wall Street stocks changed course in the afternoon when investors’ trade fears subsided. [.N] Tesla shares closed 7.3 percent higher at $286.94, Ford shares gained 1.6 percent to close at $11.33, and GM shares were up 3 percent at $38.03.

Barclays auto analyst Brian Johnson, in an investor note on Wednesday, predicted that Tesla “would bear the brunt of any increased auto tariff on a relative basis,” with China accounting for 17 percent of the company’s revenue.
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A large Bank is exactly the place where a vain and shallow person in authority, if he be a man of gravity and method, as such men often are, may do infinite evil in no long time, and before he is detected. If he is lucky enough to begin at a time of expansion in trade, he is nearly sure not to be found out till the time of contraction has arrived, and then very large figures will be required to reckon the evil he has done.

Walter Bagehot. Lombard Street. 1873
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?

A new way to atomically thin materials

Silicon secedes: Titanium carbide flakes obtained by selective etching of titanium silicon carbide

Date: April 4, 2018

Source: Wiley

Summary: Metallic conductivity and hydrophilicity of MXenes have established them as electrodes in rechargeable batteries and supercapacitors, as well as other applications, including photothermal cancer therapy, electromagnetic shielding, water purification and gas sensing. Researchers have now introduced a new production method. Instead of using conventional, yet more expensive, titanium aluminum carbide, they selectively etch silicon out of titanium silicon carbide, a cheaper and more common precursor, to synthesize titanium carbide.

Metallic conductivity and hydrophilicity of MXenes have established them as electrodes in rechargeable batteries and supercapacitors, as well as other applications, including photothermal cancer therapy, electromagnetic shielding, water purification and gas sensing. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, researchers have now introduced a new production method. Instead of using conventional, yet more expensive, titanium aluminum carbide, they selectively etch silicon out of titanium silicon carbide, a cheaper and more common precursor, to synthesize titanium carbide.

Two-dimensional materials, consisting of extremely thin layers that are a few atoms thick, have unique properties that are completely different than the normal three-dimensional versions. A prominent example of this is graphene, which is made of single layers of carbon atoms. In 2011, a new class of two-dimensional materials was synthesized at Drexel University in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, USA). Known as MXenes, the materials are made of transition metal carbides and nitrides, where the M stands for a transition metal, such as titanium, vanadium, or molybdenum, X can be carbon and/or nitrogen, and many compositions are available (about 30 have already been experimentally demonstrated and dozens more are expected). One such MXene is titanium carbide, Ti(3)C(2).

Obtaining the desired MXene usually involves a roundabout process: Layered carbides and nitrides, known as MAX phases, are selectively etched with hydrofluoric acid to remove the layers of the "A" element, which is a group 13 or 14 element such as aluminum, silicon, or germanium. In this way, titanium carbide can be obtained by etching the aluminum out of titanium aluminum carbide (Ti(3)AlC(2)). However, this starting material is expensive, and the production is complex. In contrast, the silicon analog, titanium silicon carbide (Ti(3)SiC(2)), is commercially available and less expensive. Ti(3)SiC(2 )was the first MAX phase Drexel researchers tried to selectively etch in 2011, but synthesis failed using hydrofluoric acid alone because the silicon atoms are strongly bound to the adjacent transition metal atoms.
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Another weekend, and an exciting one promised, thanks to President Trump strongly upping the ante in his trade war on China. How will President Xi’s China respond? I think it safe to say that he won’t be ordering his trade negotiators to roll-over and play dead. Have a great weekend everyone.

All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality - the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.

Walter Bagehot.

The monthly Coppock Indicators finished March.

DJIA: 24,103 +272 Down 10. NASDAQ: 7,063 +300 Down 13. SP500: 2,641 +202 Down 10.
All three slow indicators moved down in March. For some a new bear signal, for others a take profits and get back to cash signal. 

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