"I
always thought Merkel was, like, this great leader. What she's done in Germany
is insane. They're going to have riots in Germany."
President
Trump, October 2015.
This weekend, will
Ukraine v Crimea turn hot again after
the World Cup in Russia ends on July 20? Is another El Nino about to form in
the Pacific Ocean, adding to our global problems with droughts? And will it/has
it turned icy for global stocks and cryptocurrencies?
We open with a pathetic
“dress up” Friday for stocks. Getting out first always beats getting carried
out last. Up next, a Trumpian July 4th, then President Trump, takes
on NATO, Brussels, London, and President Putin.
I told you @TIME Magazine
would never pick me as person of the year despite being the big favorite They
picked person who is ruining Germany
U.S. stocks finish higher but post weekly losses
By Sue Chang
and Anora
M. Gaudiano
Published: June 29, 2018 5:23 p.m. ET
U.S. stocks closed higher Friday even as the earlier rally in financial shares flamed out, but for the week, all major benchmarks finished lower due to ongoing trade war-related jitters.
Market observers blamed some of the late selling pressure on investors window-dressing their books for the end of the quarter. Friday marks the end of the month, the second quarter and the first half of the year, with major U.S. stock indexes putting in mixed performances over these periods.
The S&P 500 index SPX, +0.08% rose 2.06 points to 2,718.37. The Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.09% climbed 6.62 points to 7,510.30.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.23% added 55.36 points, or 0.2%, to 24,271.41. The blue-chip index was up more than 200 points during the session but surrendered most of its gains in the afternoon.
Extended
gains after Thursday’s upbeat session was led by energy and materials sectors.
Financials were also popping higher earlier after several banks announced
plans to return capital to shareholders late Thursday after the Federal
Reserve released results of its annual stress test. However, financials
finished in the red as investors pocketed profits toward the closing bell.
More
June 29, 2018 / 11:56 PM
Canada hits back on U.S. tariffs; Mnuchin denies Trump wants to quit WTO
OTTAWA/WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - Canada struck back at the Trump administration on Friday over U.S.
steel and aluminium tariffs, vowing to impose punitive measures on C$16.6
billion (£9.6 billion) worth of American goods until Washington relents.
The
retaliation came as General Motors Co warned that any tariffs Washington might
impose on imported vehicles could cost U.S jobs, and as Treasury Secretary
Steve Mnuchin denied a report that President Donald Trump wanted to withdraw
from the World Trade Organization.
Rising trade
tension between Canada and the United States and a pushback from U.S.
businesses on further tariffs, including on imported autos, pressured a White
House that has championed an “America First” protectionist stance since Trump
took office in January 2017.
Mnuchin
lashed out against a report by the Axios news website that said Trump
frequently told advisers he wanted the United States to quit the WTO, a move
that could devastate global commerce. The report cited people involved in
discussions with the president.
----Canada's retaliatory tariffs, effective on July 1, largely target U.S. steel and aluminium products, along with foodstuffs such as coffee, ketchup and whisky, according to a list released by Canada's Finance Department. tinyurl.com/y8w5g895
“We will not escalate and we will not back down,” Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters at a Stelco Holdings Inc plant in the steel city of Hamilton, Ontario.
The measures are designed to pressure Trump by focusing on goods from states where his Republican party is fighting to hold Congressional seats in the November midterm elections. They were announced just as America’s largest automaker warned that overly broad tariffs could isolate U.S. businesses and cut jobs.
----In comments filed with the U.S. Commerce Department, GM said expansive tariffs could “lead to a smaller GM, a reduced presence at home and abroad for this iconic American company, and risk less — not more — U.S. jobs.”
GM, which
makes many vehicles for the U.S. market in Mexico and Canada, said the tariffs
could hike vehicle prices and reduce sales.
More
June 29, 2018 / 2:01 AM
World stocks up slightly Friday, but down for June as U.S. trade policy unnerves investors
NEW
YORK (Reuters) - World stocks edged up slightly on Friday with Wall Street and
European indexes rallying through the day, but overall major markets ended
lower for the third straight week as U.S. trade policy took its toll on
investor and business confidence.
----MSCI’s gauge of stocks in major world markets gained 0.66 percent on Friday but ended down 1.26 percent for the week and 0.7 percent for June.
Canada
struck back at the Trump administration over U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs on
Friday, vowing to impose punitive measures on C$16.6 billion ($12.63 billion)
worth of American goods until Washington relents.
----The U.S. administration is due to impose tariffs on Chinese goods worth $34 billion beginning July 6, likely prompting a tit-for-tat response from Beijing.
In Europe a
deal struck by EU leaders on immigration helped sentiment and triggered a jump
in the euro.
The
pan-European STOXX 600 was up 0.8 percent at its close, while Germany’s
trade-sensitive DAX jumped 1.1 percent.
----While
Asian stocks also rose, the Chinese yuan suffered its worst month on record,
losing 3.0 percent against the U.S. dollar in June as investors pulled money
from a market likely to suffer from higher barriers to trade.
----The yield curve between two-year and 10-year U.S. notes flattened to 30 basis points, the flattest since 2007, after U.S. consumer spending data disappointed some analysts’ expectations. Some investors see its flattening as a sign recession may be around the corner.
The next
major U.S. economic release will be next week’s employment report for June,
which will be scoured for any indications of rising wage pressures.
More
BERLIN — At the end of a long weekend of rhetorical salvos over the G7 summit’s chaotic ending, German Chancellor Angela Merkel added her voice to the chorus, saying she found Donald Trump’s actions “sobering and a bit depressing,” while calling for more civility in international exchanges.
“The situation isn’t very nice,” Merkel told German public television in a lengthy interview. “I don’t think that ratcheting up the rhetoric is going to improve things.”
US ambassador to Estonia resigns 'over Trump comments'
2
hours ago
James D Melville revealed in a Facebook post that Mr Trump's comments had brought forward his decision to retire, Foreign Policy magazine reported.
The US president has imposed trade tariffs on some EU industries and strongly criticised Nato allies.
Other US diplomats have also left their posts early in recent months.
More
Now back to that
possible hot summer and a new El Nino for later in the year. Trump, trade wars,
currency wars, drought, water wars, and a possible new El Nino, and stocks only
slightly off their central bankster rigged highs; what could possibly go wrong?
June 28, 2018
Is Putin Planning a Post-World Cup Surprise?
By
James Brooke
A
Russia-Ukraine water war may emerge after the World Cup final on July 15.
Just as President Vladimir Putin made his move to invade Crimea immediately after the conclusion of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, he could decide that it is once again time for decisive action after the Russia-hosted World Cup wraps up.
Currently, a tense situation is building on and around the Black and Azov seas. Ukraine has cut off the flow of water to Crimea; that and a drought are pushing the Russia-occupied peninsula to ration water. At the same time, Russia is quietly strangling ship traffic to Berdyansk and Mariupol, Ukraine’s two major steel exporting ports on the Sea of Azov. A Russian-instigated military response is not implausible.
For Russian authorities on Crimea, the bone-dry canal from Ukraine is a convenient scapegoat. Without Dnipro River water flowing from Ukraine through the North Crimea Canal, agriculture on the peninsula has collapsed. A new Euromaidan report estimates that, with this summer’s drought, Crimea may only have adequate water for 1 million of its 2.5 million inhabitants.
Just as President Vladimir Putin made his move to invade Crimea immediately after the conclusion of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, he could decide that it is once again time for decisive action after the Russia-hosted World Cup wraps up.
Currently, a tense situation is building on and around the Black and Azov seas. Ukraine has cut off the flow of water to Crimea; that and a drought are pushing the Russia-occupied peninsula to ration water. At the same time, Russia is quietly strangling ship traffic to Berdyansk and Mariupol, Ukraine’s two major steel exporting ports on the Sea of Azov. A Russian-instigated military response is not implausible.
For Russian authorities on Crimea, the bone-dry canal from Ukraine is a convenient scapegoat. Without Dnipro River water flowing from Ukraine through the North Crimea Canal, agriculture on the peninsula has collapsed. A new Euromaidan report estimates that, with this summer’s drought, Crimea may only have adequate water for 1 million of its 2.5 million inhabitants.
A
Russia-Ukraine water war may emerge after the World Cup final on July 15.
Just as President Vladimir Putin made his move to invade Crimea immediately after the conclusion of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, he could decide that it is once again time for decisive action after the Russia-hosted World Cup wraps up.
Currently, a tense situation is building on and around the Black and Azov seas. Ukraine has cut off the flow of water to Crimea; that and a drought are pushing the Russia-occupied peninsula to ration water. At the same time, Russia is quietly strangling ship traffic to Berdyansk and Mariupol, Ukraine’s two major steel exporting ports on the Sea of Azov. A Russian-instigated military response is not implausible.
For Russian authorities on Crimea, the bone-dry canal from Ukraine is a convenient scapegoat. Without Dnipro River water flowing from Ukraine through the North Crimea Canal, agriculture on the peninsula has collapsed. A new Euromaidan report estimates that, with this summer’s drought, Crimea may only have adequate water for 1 million of its 2.5 million inhabitants.
Just as President Vladimir Putin made his move to invade Crimea immediately after the conclusion of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, he could decide that it is once again time for decisive action after the Russia-hosted World Cup wraps up.
Currently, a tense situation is building on and around the Black and Azov seas. Ukraine has cut off the flow of water to Crimea; that and a drought are pushing the Russia-occupied peninsula to ration water. At the same time, Russia is quietly strangling ship traffic to Berdyansk and Mariupol, Ukraine’s two major steel exporting ports on the Sea of Azov. A Russian-instigated military response is not implausible.
For Russian authorities on Crimea, the bone-dry canal from Ukraine is a convenient scapegoat. Without Dnipro River water flowing from Ukraine through the North Crimea Canal, agriculture on the peninsula has collapsed. A new Euromaidan report estimates that, with this summer’s drought, Crimea may only have adequate water for 1 million of its 2.5 million inhabitants.
Stopping
vessels carries an economic cost. Since April, the Russians have stopped and
“inspected” as many as fifty Ukraine-bound ships. With some ships detained for
as long twenty hours, shipping deadlines are missed. Costs to shipping
companies can mount as high as $15,000 per vessel, Ayna Chagir, Mariupol Port
spokeswoman, tells the Kyiv Post.
Shipping at both ports had been declining, but this pressure is accelerating the trend. Through May, cargo to Mariupol is down 14 percent year over year. Now, insurers are raising rates, shippers are looking for alternatives, and some seamen are refusing to go the Sea of Azov.
On the water, Ukraine has no navy ships and only a few Border Guard patrol boats.
With a disproportionate conflict increasingly possible, Ukrainian strategists increasingly talk of creating a “mosquito fleet.” In this scenario, Ukraine would put to water small, high speed power boats armed with shoulder-held ship-killing missiles, Mykhailo Samus, deputy director for Foreign Affairs of the Center for Army, Conversion, and Disarmament Studies, writes.
With tensions rising, the main hope is that the Kremlin is following an old Soviet ploy: create a problem, then offer the solution. The tradeoff would be water flows to Crimea in return for freedom of navigation for Ukraine in the Sea of Azov.
But Russia also has two possible military responses to Ukraine’s actions.
Shipping at both ports had been declining, but this pressure is accelerating the trend. Through May, cargo to Mariupol is down 14 percent year over year. Now, insurers are raising rates, shippers are looking for alternatives, and some seamen are refusing to go the Sea of Azov.
On the water, Ukraine has no navy ships and only a few Border Guard patrol boats.
With a disproportionate conflict increasingly possible, Ukrainian strategists increasingly talk of creating a “mosquito fleet.” In this scenario, Ukraine would put to water small, high speed power boats armed with shoulder-held ship-killing missiles, Mykhailo Samus, deputy director for Foreign Affairs of the Center for Army, Conversion, and Disarmament Studies, writes.
With tensions rising, the main hope is that the Kremlin is following an old Soviet ploy: create a problem, then offer the solution. The tradeoff would be water flows to Crimea in return for freedom of navigation for Ukraine in the Sea of Azov.
But Russia also has two possible military responses to Ukraine’s actions.
More
Meanwhile, is another El Nino forming in the Pacific?
Super El Nino could well have had an Indian Ocean trigger, say Japanese researchers
Thiruvananthapuram, June 29
The super 'El Ninos' (the
likes of 1972, 1982 and 1997) with devastating impacts worldwide could well
have been the handiwork of a villain traced to no farther away than in the
Indian Ocean.
A study by a team led by Saji
N Hameed, Professor at University of Aizu, Japan, has shown for the first time
that the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) events are a key factor in the generation of
super El Ninos.
Noting that the years of super
El Ninos co-occurred with IOD events (a phenomenon similar to El Nino, but
generated by processes inherent to the Indian Ocean), the researchers explored
possible mechanisms linking both phenomena.
They found that while Pacific
processes are needed to initiate El Ninos, it was the extra energy generated by
the IOD, and transferred to the Pacific through atmospheric pathways, which
eventually transformed the El Nino into a super El Nino event.
The study, titled 'A model for
super El Ninos' has been published in Nature Communications, Saji Hameed
wrote in an e-mail to BusinessLine. In this manner, the University of
Aizu team has identified two distinct Indo-Pacific processes shaping the unique
features and extraordinary ferocity of super El Ninos.
Elusive super El Ninos
A systematic analysis of these
processes and their interactions will improve the forecasts for elusive super
El Ninos, the researchers claim.
One of the most powerful El
Ninos in 1972 set off economic shock waves when it utterly devastated the
Peruvian anchovy fishing industry and drove global food production per capita
and global food reserves to their lowest level since the end of World War II.
With the arrival of the
powerful El Ninos of 1982 and 1997, scientists felt the need for a new term
‘'super El Nino' to describe these extraordinarily strong El Nino events.
"Till recently,
scientists believed that climate and weather processes operating within the
Pacific Ocean could explain the occurrence of super El Ninos. The infamously
failed prediction of the 2014 super El Nino event had its root in these
assumptions," says Saji Hameed.
Computational simulation
To unveil the mechanisms of
super El Ninos, Hameed and his colleagues conducted computational simulations
that recreated selected Pacific Ocean processes involved in the generation of
El Ninos. To their surprise, they discovered a new mechanism embedded within
the Pacific Ocean, which prevented sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the
far-eastern Pacific rising too far above normal.
"Extremely warm sea
surface temperatures are a notable feature of the super El Ninos," said Dachao
Jin, co-author of the study, who was a visiting scientist from the Nanjing
University of Information Science and Technology at that time.
"The fact that Pacific
Ocean processes responsible for generating regular El Ninos could not explain
this key signature of super El Ninos came as a big shock", he added.
Meanwhile, responding to a
specific question, Hameed told BusinessLine that he was not very sure
“'if what we are going to see concurrently in the Pacific’’ is an El Nino.
"There has been strong decadal
SST variations since 2012, and my feeling is that we are still seeing some
remnants of that. The situation with IOD is also not yet clear as on
date."
El Niño watch issued for fall, winter: What does that mean?
The National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration has issued an El Niño watch… but what does that even
mean?
A watch means that there is a
possibility of development, but it has not happened yet. In fact, there is a
50-percent chance of development this fall and a 65-percent chance of
development this winter for an El Niño to form.
But what is El Niño?
El
Niño is actually the warm phase of ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation), which
is a coupled climate event. It is considered to be coupled because El Niño is
the ocean component, which interacts with the atmospheric component (Southern
Oscillation). During El Niño the surface temperature of the water in the
eastern tropical Pacific Ocean are warmer than normal. This causes the
easterlies along the equator to switch direction to become westerlies. During a
La Niña, the sea surface temperatures in the Pacific are cooler than normal,
which results in stronger easterlies. These events both have a tremendous
amount of impacts across the globe. Some of these impacts during the El Niño
phase can be seen in the graphic.
More
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government
when it deserves it.”
Mark
Twain.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished June.
DJIA: 24,271 +221 Down. NASDAQ:
7,610 +267 Down. SP500: 2,718 +169 Down.
All
three slow indicators moved down in March and April and May and continued down
in June. For some a new bear signal, for others a take profits and get back to
cash signal.
