Baltic Dry Index. 1014 +21 Brent Crude 71.85
"For
240 years it’s been a terrible mistake to bet against America, and now is no
time to start. America’s golden goose of commerce and innovation will continue
to lay more and larger eggs. America’s social security promises will be honored
and perhaps made more generous. And, yes, America’s kids will live far better
than their parents did."
Warren
Buffett
World War Three
postponed for now, at least until after the World Cup Football competition this summer in Russia, Syria just wasn’t
worth it to either of the main parties involved, the world largely yawned and
went back to the business of trying to figure out whether stocks have peaked,
interest rates have bottomed, if rising crude oil prices have awoken Rip Van
Inflation from his decade long slumber, and which of the west’s highly flawed
politicians will fall first.
Will it be the UK’s
snake bit Prime Minister May, or Japan’s probity challenged Prime Minister Abe,
or any of Europe’s Unholy Trinity of Macron, Merkel and Juncker? It can’t be
Italy’s Prime Minister, because weeks after their general election they still
haven’t got one, nor a functioning government yet, lucky Italians. Or will it be the West’s Numero Uno, The
Donald himself, Uncle Scam’s highly colourful President Trump?
Below, life outside
of Syria, goes on as normal.
April 16, 2018 / 1:27 AM
Asia shares mixed, oil down amid Syria fallout
SYDNEY
(Reuters) - Asian share markets were mixed and oil prices fell on Monday as
relief U.S.-led strikes on Syria looked unlikely to escalate was tempered by
concerns at Russia’s potential reaction to new sanctions from Washington.
With the situation in the Middle East still fluid, moves were modest and in both directions. EMini futures for the S&P 500 ESc1 nudged up 0.38 percent, while Japan's Nikkei .N225 added 0.2 percent.
Yet MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS slipped 0.4 percent as Chinese blue chips .CSI300 took an early 0.7 percent dip.
The United States, France and Britain launched 105 missiles targeting what the Pentagon said were three chemical weapons facilities in Syria in retaliation for a suspected poison gas attack in Douma on April 7.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Sunday that further Western
attacks on Syria would bring chaos to world affairs, as Washington prepared to
increase pressure on Russia with new economic sanctions.
But with President Donald Trump declaring mission accomplished,
investors wagered the worst had been avoided.
“Trump was able to enforce his chemical weapons red line without crossing the threshold for Russian retaliation,” analysts at JPMorgan said in a note.
“Stocks were concerned about a prolonged and expanded U.S. campaign toward Assad and that doesn’t look probable.”
----Dealers were keeping a wary eye on Japanese politics after a survey showed support for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had fallen to 26.7 percent, the lowest since he took office in late 2012.
Abe’s sliding ratings are raising doubts over whether he can win a third
three-year term as ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader in a September
vote, or whether he might even resign before the party election.
More
China, Japan Hold First Economic Talks in 8 Years in Trade War Shadow
By James Mayger
16 April 2018, 01:45 GMT+1
Japan and China hold their first high-level economic
dialogue in almost eight years on Monday against a backdrop of trade
threats from the U.S.While neither side is publicly linking the talks in Tokyo between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono to President Donald Trump’s protectionist policies, the meeting is a timely reminder of not only how much they both rely on the American market, but also how interdependent the two Asian nations have become.
Even before he was elected, Trump had criticized both Chinese and Japanese trade and economic policy as unfair and damaging to the U.S. Recently, he has threatened tariffs on Chinese exports and limits on investment, and just last week took a shot at Japan, saying the nation “has hit us hard on trade for years!"
That trade may be on the table for discussion when Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe meets with Trump later this week in Florida, but the rise of intra-Asian trade has weakened the power of U.S. attempts to coerce countries.
China has replaced the U.S. as the number one trading partner for most nations in Asia, even those that have military alliances with the U.S., like South Korea, Japan and Australia.
China is not just a trading partner, but also an important source of investment and tourists, which give it added bargaining and coercive power against other Asian nations.
----Trade tension
between the U.S. and China is not new. Even before Trump began railing against
the persistent trade deficit, the U.S. had complained to the World
Trade Organization about Chinese actions more than about any other nation.
And China has reciprocated.
More
April 16, 2018 / 3:17 AM
Former Japan PM Koizumi says embattled Abe may quit in June - magazine
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, plagued
by suspected cronyism scandals and cover-ups and with his ratings sliding, will
likely step down in June, former leader Junichiro Koizumi was quoted on Monday
as telling a weekly magazine.
A survey by broadcaster Nippon TV released on Sunday showed Abe’s
support had sunk to 26.7 percent, the lowest since the conservative lawmaker
took office in December 2012. An Asahi newspaper poll published on Monday put
his rating at 31 percent.
Abe’s sliding ratings raise doubts over whether he can win a third
three-year term as ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader in a September
vote, that he needs to win to stay in office, or whether he might even resign
before the party vote.
Speculation has also emerged that Abe could call a snap general election
as he did last October, when his ratings were in a similar slump.
The prime minister has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
The
latest signs of trouble for Abe come ahead of his summit this week with U.S.
President Donald Trump, where the difficult topics of North Korea’s nuclear and
missile threats and touchy trade matters will be on the agenda.
“The situation is getting dangerous. Won’t Mr. Abe resign around the
time parliament’s session ends (on June 20)?” weekly magazine Aera’s online
site quoted Koizumi as saying in an interview.
Koizumi - a critic of Abe’s support for nuclear power after the 2011
Fukushima crisis - said that if Abe hangs on, it could hurt LDP candidates in
an upper house election next summer.
Crowds of protestors demonstrated near parliament on Saturday, holding
signs saying “Abe is Over” and chanting “Abe quit!” Organisers said 50,000 had
participated by the time the demonstration ended.
More
Trump again lashes out against Comey, calling former FBI director a liar, ‘slimeball’
Published: Apr 15, 2018 4:19 p.m. ET
In a series of tweets on Sunday, President Donald Trump referred to “Slippery
James Comey” as a “slimeball,” accused him of lying to Congress and throwing
the former attorney general “under the bus,” and denied asking the former FBI
director for his “personal loyalty.”
The presidential tweetstorm comes as excerpts of Comey’s book, “A Higher
Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,” have been released before the tell-all
hits bookstores on Tuesday.
“Slippery James Comey, a man who always ends up badly and out of whack
(he is not smart!), will go down as the WORST FBI Director in history, by
far!,” he said at the end of a string of five tweets about Comey on Sunday
morning.
“Unbelievably, James Comey states that Polls, where Crooked Hillary was
leading, were a factor in the handling (stupidly) of the Clinton Email probe.
In other words, he was making decisions based on the fact that he thought she
was going to win, and he wanted a job. Slimeball!,” he also wrote.
In interviews to promote the book, Comey said he announced the reopening
of an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server weeks before the 2016
election because he believed she would win and if he wasn’t open about the
probe should would be seen as “illegitimate.”
About 15 minutes later, Trump blasted Comey for leaving many questions
unanswered.
“The big questions in Comey’s badly reviewed book aren’t answered like,
how come he gave up Classified Information (jail), why did he lie to Congress
(jail), why did the DNC refuse to give Server to the FBI (why didn’t they TAKE
it), why the phony memos, McCabe’s $700,000 & more?,” he wrote, referring
to former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, who Attorney General Jeff Sessions
fired last month.
The president also brought up former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s
meeting with former President Bill Clinton at an Arizona airport in June 2016
while the federal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server was
underway.
More
People
sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do
violence on their behalf.
George
Orwell.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
No crooked bankster or bent politicians today,
there’ll be more on the tomorrow, because they can resist anything except
temptation. Today, more on man made global warming, now rebranded and
relaunched as “climate change.”
'Longest winter of my life': Edmonton breaks record with historic cold stretch
Published Saturday, April 14, 2018 1:19PM
EDT Last Updated Saturday, April 14, 2018 3:05PM EDT
It’s the never-ending winter. Or at least it feels like that in
Edmonton.
The city’s winter-weary residents may be forgiven for griping about the
lingering chill this year after they broke their record for most consecutive
days of temperatures at or below freezing.
On unlucky Friday, April 13, the temperatures dipped to a low of -2 C
with a wind chill of -6 C, according to Environment Canada. It marked the 167th
consecutive day of minimum temperatures at or below 0 C, which means Edmonton
hasn’t seen an overnight temperature above the freezing mark since Oct. 29,
nearly six months ago.
That’s according to weather historian Rolf Campbell who shared a chart
on Twitter with historical data from the city’s coldest stretches. The previous
record was set in 1974 to 1975 when Edmonton endured 166 consecutive days of
temperatures at or below the freezing mark.
Resident Adam Morris wasn’t alive back then, so for him, this winter’s
stubborn cold is unprecedented.
“This is the longest winter of my life,” he told CTV Edmonton on Friday.
Despite the weather, Morris attempted to get into the spring spirit by
hitting some balls at the Victoria Driving Range in the city’s River Valley.
“It felt great getting out to swing some clubs,” he said.
Kevin Hogan, the head golf professional at the range, said the business
chose Friday as its opening date two weeks ago.
“Bring toques and mitts and when you start hitting some balls you’ll
warm up pretty quick,” he recommended.
Other residents tried to find spring indoors at a local garden centre
filled with flowers.
“We came today to feel the life, to see all the flowers and spring’s on
its way,” one visitor said.
Despite the optimism, it could be a while yet before seasonal
temperatures return to Edmonton with Environment Canada predicting a
continuation of chilly overnight lows for the coming week
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?
Sensing interactions between molecules
Nanoscientists have developed an atomically defined probe tip with extraordinary stability which enables them to image molecular structures by atomic force microscopy
Date:
April 11, 2018
Source:
University of Münster
Summary:
An experimental approach to visualize structures of organic molecules with
exceptional resolution is reported by physicists and chemists.
In a recent study published in the scientific journal Nature
Nanotechnology, physicists and chemists of the University of Münster
(Germany) describe an experimental approach to visualising structures of
organic molecules with exceptional resolution. The key to this newly developed
microscopic method is the high stability of a particularly sharp and atomically
defined probe tip.
The new method which can be used to image the structural and chemical
properties of organic molecules with extreme precision was developed by physics
researchers in the labs of the Center for Nanotechnology (CeNTech) at the
University of Münster. The experiment is based on atomic force microscopy where
sample surfaces are scanned with the apex of a needle-like probe. As the lead
author of the study Dr. Harry Mönig explains: "Our special technique
involves a copper-based probe tip which is passivated by a single oxygen atom
at the tip termination." Here, passivation means that the oxygen atom
reduces undesired interaction between the atoms of the tip and the atoms in the
molecules under investigation. This greatly increases the imaging resolution.
In contrast to previous methods, the bond between the oxygen atom at the tip
and copper base is particularly strong, thereby reducing imaging artefacts to a
minimum.
Prof. Dr. Harald Fuchs, co-author of the study, emphasises: "The
potential of the new method is considerable as it allows us to investigate
bonding structures of molecular networks with exceptional accuracy."
Providing fundamental insights into the interactions between molecules is
important for the development of new so-called nanostructured materials. Such
materials take advantage of the fact that very small deviations on the
nanoscale can significantly alter the material properties. The difference
between diamonds and graphite is a well-known example of such nanoscale
deviations.
Although both consist of pure carbon, diamond is extremely hard whereas
graphite is comparatively soft. Only the structural arrangement and bonding
between the carbon atoms are different.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment