Baltic Dry Index. 1419 -23 Brent Crude 75.40
Jack
Ma, CEO Alibaba Group.
In
the insane Great Global Trump Trade War, team Trump are now threatening to
impose tariffs on everything China exports to America and then some, assuming
team Trumps specific exemptions to the likes of Apple still apply, quite how
that’s possible wasn’t explained. Team Trump are now playing Russian roulette.
But it puts the ball back in China’s court to escalate by banning imports from specific US companies (e.g. Boeing,) or withholding access to certain export commodities such as rare earths. They could also devalue the Yuan with plausible deniability, taking global export markets away from US exporters, e.g. Caterpillar.
To say this is madness does a disservice to madness. If America cripples a large part of the world’s number two economy, how long before the whole global economy slows as China reduces global imports, and when that happens the emerging market economies start to default? How long can the fiat currencies withstand this madness?
Below, Uncle Scam, the world’s largest debtor by far, starts stamping around in a minefield.
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a
mistake.
Napoleon.
June
20, 2018 / 1:36 AM
China stocks extend slump, temper Asian bounce as trade war anxiety grows
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China’s stock markets slumped on Wednesday, extending a rout from the previous day as the prospect of a full-blown Sino-U.S. trade war put a dampener on the rest of Asian equities, even as they managed a modest bounce.MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS, rose 0.4 percent, though that came after a 2.1 percent fall on Tuesday. Japan's Nikkei .N225 was up 0.1 percent after earlier falling into negative territory. South Korea's KOSPI .KS11 rose 1 percent.
In China, the Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC dropped 0.6 percent in choppy trade, a day after falling 3.8 percent to a two-year low. Wednesday's fall came despite 30 listed firms announcing share purchase plans by major shareholders, and state media expressing confidence in the country's stock markets.
China's blue-chip CSI300 index .CSI300 was 0.5 percent lower after briefly flirting with gains, and the Shenzhen Composite Index .SZSC was flat at midday.
The extended sell-off in China comes despite indications that the country’s central bank could move to cut banks’ reserve requirement ratios (RRR) to boost market liquidity, highlighting concerns over trade. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) recommended the move in working paper on Tuesday.
----Trade
tensions between the United States and China showed few signs of easing after a
White House trade adviser said on Tuesday that Beijing has underestimated the
U.S. president’s resolve to impose more tariffs.
Washington
threatened on Monday to impose a 10 percent tariff on $200 billion of Chinese
goods after Beijing decided to raise tariffs on $50 billion in U.S. goods, in
response to similar tariffs on Chinese goods announced Friday.
Morehttps://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-global-markets/china-stocks-extend-slump-temper-asian-bounce-as-trade-war-anxiety-grows-idUKKBN1JG02G?il=0
Dow closes lower for a 6th straight session as tariff tantrum drags stock market lower
U.S. stocks finished in the red on Tuesday, albeit off session lows, as investors shed stocks following President Donald Trump’s late-Monday threat to slap an additional $400 billion in tariffs on China goods. The announcement represented the latest escalation in a tit-for-tat dispute between the No. 1 and 2 largest economies in the world, rattling investors.What did the main benchmarks do?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -1.15% fell 1.2%, or 287.26 points, to close at 24,700.21, dragged down by sharp losses in trade-sensitive, industrial stocks Boeing Co. BA, -3.84% Caterpillar Inc. CAT, -3.62% and 3M Co. MMM, -2.34% At its intraday nadir, the Dow was down by as many as 420 points.More
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dow-futures-slump-more-than-300-points-as-fears-of-a-us-china-trade-war-ratchet-up-2018-06-19
June
19, 2018 / 12:45 AM
White House piles pressure on China after Trump tariff threat
WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) - China has underestimated U.S. President Donald Trump’s resolve to impose more tariffs unless it changes its “predatory” trade practices, a White House trade adviser said on Tuesday, as Trump greatly expanded the amount of Chinese imports possibly facing new duties.
The growing
trade conflict hit financial markets hard, with Beijing accusing the United
States of “extreme pressure and blackmailing” and vowing to retaliate. With
both sides upping the ante, the risks of a damaging trade war grew
dramatically.
Trump
threatened on Monday to hit $200 billion (£151.8 billion) of Chinese imports
with 10 percent tariffs if Beijing retaliated against his previous targeting of
$50 billion in imports, aimed at pressuring China to stop stealing U.S.
intellectual property.
He also
threatened tariffs on another $200 billion of Chinese products should Beijing
hit back again, bringing to $450 billion the potential amount of Chinese
exports that could be targeted. That sum approaches the roughly $500 billion in
total annual Chinese exports to the United States.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, who views China as a hostile economic and military power, said Beijing had more to lose from a trade war. China imported $129.89 billion of U.S. goods last year, while the United States purchased $505.47 billion of Chinese products, according to U.S. data.
More
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trade-china-trump/white-house-piles-pressure-on-china-after-trump-tariff-threat-idUKKBN1JE2ZR
Billionaire investor Jim Mellon: This is the start of a ‘very major’ correction
‘This is the beginning of a serious correction’
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -1.34% opened Tuesday’s session with a stinging retreat that Wall Street experts are pinning to the White House’s freshly announced trade tariffs.Billionaire investor Jim Mellon, chairman of asset management firm Burnbrae Group, says it’s more than that, and the pain is just beginning.
He explained in an interview on CNBC early Tuesday that while heightened trade war fears are “certainly having an effect on the market,” the bigger issue is that stocks are just too expensive.
“The U.S. is selling at 32 times cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings (PE) ratio, which is an all-time high,” he said. “Surely it’s time for a major correction anyway.” More overvalued than in 1929 and 2000? According to Mellon, yes.
“We’ve seen in last few days the Dow’s gone down [five in a row, to be exact], there have been sideways moves, we’re almost flat on the year,” he said. “This is the beginning of a serious correction in my opinion.”
Watch the interview:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/billionaire-investor-jim-mellon-this-is-the-start-of-a-very-major-correction-2018-06-19
Trump trade ‘bloodlust’: Washington ‘wants to suck lifeblood’ from Chinese economy
State-run China Daily ramps up rhetoric in escalating conflict
PUBLISHED
: Wednesday, 20 June, 2018, 11:13am UPDATED :
Wednesday, 20 June, 2018, 11:13am
The administration of US President
Donald Trump has “bloodlust” when it comes to pushing its trade agenda against
China and wants to “suck the lifeblood” from the Chinese economy, an official
state-run Chinese newspaper said on Wednesday, stepping up the rhetoric.Trump threatened on Monday to hit US$200 billion of Chinese imports with 10 per cent tariffs if Beijing retaliated against his previous targeting of US$50 billion in imports, aimed at pressuring China to stop stealing US intellectual property.
Beijing has
vowed to retaliate, accusing the United States of “extreme pressure and
blackmailing”, and financial markets have been hit hard by the escalating trade
conflict.
In an
editorial, the English-language China Daily, often used by Beijing to
get its message out to the rest of the world, said the United States had failed
to honour an agreement on rebalancing trade, referencing a deal stuck in May
for China to significantly increase purchases of US goods and services.
“Faced with
this heightened intimidation from the US, China has no choice but to fight back
with targeted and direct measures aimed at persuading the US to back off, since
it appears that any concessions it makes will not appease the Trump
administration, which wants to suck the lifeblood from the Chinese economy,”
the paper said.
“Beijing
will have to ensure that Washington is aware that there will be heavy price to
pay [for] every action it strikes against China if it is to avoid being a
victim of the Trump administration’s growing bloodlust.”
----One of the
most important reasons – China was united, it said.
“Everyone is
joined in opposition against the common enemy supporting the government’s
counter-attack,” it said.
“Everyone is
clear – China has been forced into battle. The price the United States wants is
not only to take advantage of China; even more so it wants to wreck China’s
economy. China has really been compelled to a desperate action.”
More
China will become a dangerous competitor in science and technology if the US treats it like one
Chi Wang says if the US sees Chinese graduate students as a threat to its scientific and technological knowledge, and seeks to lock them out, Beijing will react by blocking opportunities for collaboration and ultimately leave the US behind
PUBLISHED :
Wednesday, 20 June, 2018, 2:03am UPDATED :
Wednesday, 20 June, 2018, 2:16am
A US Senate subcommittee hearing this month, originally titled “A Thousand Talents: China’s Campaign to Infiltrate and Exploit US Academia”, refused for the first time in two decades a committee member’s request to testify. Later changed to “Student Visa Integrity: Protecting Educational Opportunity and National Security”, the hearing served as a clear attempt to paint all Chinese students and scholars in the United States as potential spies.
----In recent years, the US has seen a rise
of vague, sweeping claims about “intellectual
property theft” directed at people of Chinese descent.
Chinese students and Chinese-Americans, like scientist Sherry
Chen, have been disproportionately profiled in
espionage cases. This subcommittee hearing appears to have been another excuse
to target people of Chinese descent, despite little evidence of so-called
“espionage”.
The Associated
Press reported this month that the Donald Trump
administration already plans
to limit Chinese graduate students to one-year visas
instead of the usual five years, due to concerns about “intellectual property
theft”. In February, FBI director Christopher Wray declared
the “threat” from Chinese students requires a “whole of
society response”.
Alongside the
rising rate of espionage cases against Chinese-Americans, this shows signs of
repeating a dark and little-acknowledged time in American history of anti-Asian
racism: the Chinese Exclusion Act, Japanese
internment camps and the “Red Scare” among them. I witnessed the era of
McCarthyism, and though we are not repeating it just yet, there are some
warning signs that we should not ignore.
Morehttp://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/china/article/2151470/china-will-become-dangerous-competitor-science-and
Instead of a trade war with China, here’s
what Trump should do
By Paul
Brandus Published: June 19, 2018
5:18 p.m. ET
North, South, East, West. Point in any direction and we’re in a trade
war. To the north, our good friends—and top trading partner—in Canada. To the
south, our good friends in Mexico. To the East, our good friends in Europe. And
to the West (or Far East, I suppose), China.
These four fights that Trump has picked are each worthy of a column, but
I’m going to focus on China here, because unlike the others, China isn’t our
friend. Trump has badly damaged our ties with Canada, Mexico and the European
Union, but all three are now just waiting him out and looking ahead to a new
president. Our shared values, our history, our deep friendship will survive his
(Putin-inspired) trans-Atlantic wrecking ball.
But China is different. China is a true national security threat that
works daily, and with an impressive long-term focus and discipline, to
undermine our national security. On the high seas, in outer space, in
cyberspace, it threatens us. Unlike past enemies we have faced down—Nazi
Germany and Japan—we are badly outnumbered. Unlike past enemies—the Soviet
Union—our economy is, in some key respects, falling behind. We have to
acknowledge that China is a rival unlike any America has ever had—and the
competition is intensifying.
But a tariff war—which Trump probably can’t win for reasons I’ll get to
in a minute—isn’t the way to boost America’s economy, create jobs or make us
“great” again.
More
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/instead-of-a-trade-war-with-china-heres-what-trump-should-do-2018-06-19As we learned after President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff at the outset of the Great Depression, vibrant international trade is a key component to economic recovery; hindering trade is a recipe for disaster.
Asa
Hutchinson
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today great news from Malaysia and a warning to bent politicians
everywhere. But are they listening in Berlin, Brussels, London, and Washington,
District of Crooks? We’ll leave Ottawa out. They’ve got enough problems being
public enemy number one in the District of Crooks.
June 19, 2018 / 10:06 AM
Exclusive: Malaysia seeks to lay multiple charges against ex-premier Najib over 1MDB - Mahathir
KUALA
LUMPUR (Reuters) - Embezzlement and bribery with government money are among the
charges that Malaysia is looking to bring against former prime minister Najib
Razak following a probe into funds allegedly looted from the state-run fund
1MDB, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Tuesday.
Mahathir told Reuters in an interview that Malaysian investigators
already “have an almost perfect case” against the principal suspects who had
defrauded 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and misappropriated billions of
dollars in public funds.
He also described Najib, who had founded 1MDB, as playing a central
role.
“He was totally responsible for 1MDB. Nothing can be done without his
signature, and we have his signature on all the deals entered into by 1MDB.
Therefore, he is responsible,” Mahathir said.
Having retired as prime minister in 2003 after 22 years in power,
Mahathir - who is aged 92 - came out of retirement and joined the opposition to
topple Najib in an election last month.
Following his stunning victory, Mahathir has reopened investigations
into 1MDB and Najib’s involvement in its operations.
As a result of an anti-kleptocracy probe, the U.S. Department of Justice
has alleged more than $4.5 billion was misappropriated from 1MDB and that about
$700 million (527.55 million pounds) of that ended up in Najib’s personal bank
accounts.
Mahathir has barred Najib from leaving Malaysia, and police have
searched properties linked to him, while anti-graft investigators have
questioned both Najib and his wife, Rosmah Mansor.
Najib has consistently denied any wrongdoing, and repeated last week
that he did not take money from 1MDB.
Najib’s spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment on
Tuesday.
Investigators are looking to bring “a number of charges” against Najib,
Mahathir said, adding those charges would be based on abuse of power when he
was prime minister.
They could include “embezzlement, stealing government money, losing
government money and a number of other charges. Using government money to bribe.
All those things,” he said.
Mahathir
said Rosmah was also being investigated in connection with 1MDB.
“Some of the money is believed to have gone to her, lots of money,”
Mahathir said. “We know about this, but finding the paper trail is a bit more difficult
in this case because she doesn’t sign any papers. Najib signs a lot of papers.”
Mahathir said he expected Malaysia to make its first arrest in the 1MDB
case within months and “hopefully” start a trial by the end of the year.
“We are working as hard as possible at a furious pace. We think that we
already have almost a perfect case,” Mahathir said.
Asked to name the targets of that case, he said, “Against Najib, against
Jho Low and a few others.”
More
"When
paper money systems begin to crack at the seams, the run to gold could be
explosive." Harry Browne
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?
Solar power firm FRV in talks with funds to sell India project
By Reghu Balakrishnan, ET Bureau|Jun 19, 2018, 10.12 AM IST
Mumbai:
Madrid-based developer of large-scale solar power plants, Fotowatio Renewable
Ventures (FRV), is in talks to sell its 100-MW power project in India in a deal
worth Rs 500-600 crore, according to two people aware of the development.
FRV is talking with various investors such as Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA), green infra JV between PE fund Everstone Group & UK-based Lightsource BP’s Eversource Capital and Edelweiss Infrastructure Yield Plus Fund, said one of the persons cited above.
FRV is talking with various investors such as Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA), green infra JV between PE fund Everstone Group & UK-based Lightsource BP’s Eversource Capital and Edelweiss Infrastructure Yield Plus Fund, said one of the persons cited above.
FRV
was awarded a 100 MW power purchase agreement (PPA) by Solar Energy Corporation
of India (SECI) under the National Solar Mission programme in 2016. The
project, which is FRV’s first in India, is in Ananthapuramu Solar Park in
Andhra Pradesh.
FRV,
which was acquired by the Saudi Arabia-headquartered Abdul Latif Jameel Group
in April 2015, has sold out several businesses worldwide. Its US business had
been sold off earlier to SunEdison. In June last year, FRV sold its 100 MW
solar plant in Australia to a consortium of Lighthouse Infrastructure and DIF,
while a 65 MW solar plant in Uruguay was sold in March. Mails sent to
spokespersons at FRV, Eversource, Edelweiss and Macquarie did not elicit any
responses till press time.
In
April, PE firm Everstone Group joined hands with Lightsource BP, the UK based
leader in renewable energy development, to form a JV platform— Eversource
Capital to fund the green energy businesses in India.
The
platform launched Green Growth Equity Fund (GGEF), with a target of $700
million where the UK government and the India’s National Investment and
Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) will be co-anchors with a commitment of $160 million
each. Eversource has recently hired Satish Mandhana, former managing partner
& CIO of IDFC Alternatives, as chief investment officer.
Another
contender, Edelweiss Infrastructure Yield Plus Fund, is a newly set up
infrastructure focused fund by Edelweiss Alternative Asset Advisors. The fund
raised Rs 2,000 crore last month and plans to raise $1 billion in total.
Australia’s
Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA) has been an active investor in
Indian energy sector and invested in Adhunik Power & Natural Resources,
Soham Renewable Energy India and Ind-Barath Energy Utkal. “Global renewable
investors require scale and will shuffle their portfolio to exit markets that
find hard to grow in. That’s why the industry witness many such exits,
especially as buyers look for assets with good tariffs for the same growth
reasons,” said Kameswara Rao, leader, energy, utilities and mining, PwC India.
More
"For
more than two thousand years gold's natural qualities made it man's universal
medium of exchange. In contrast to political money, gold is honest money that
survived the ages and will live on long after the political fiats of today have
gone the way of all paper."
Hans F.
Sennholz
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished May.
DJIA: 24,416 +201 Down. NASDAQ:
7,442 +276 Down. SP500: 2,705 +180 Down.
All
three slow indicators moved down in March and have continued down in April and
May. For some a new bear signal, for others a take profits and get back to cash
signal.
No comments:
Post a Comment