Baltic Dry Index. 1774 +56 Brent Crude 73.89
What separates the winners from the
losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate.
President Trump.
Trade wars are easy to win, said President
Trump, when he kicked off his Great Global Trade War on the rest of the world,
but so far no winners have shown up, only losers. To placate the losers in
China, China is about to boost domestic spending by another 199 billion
dollars. To placate the losers in the USA, President Trump has authorised 12
billion in agriculture subsidies.
Of course, the biggest losers overall are US
consumers, who must now pay higher prices for imported goods, and those
domestic produced goods affected by the higher costs imposed by tariffs. No
subsidies for them, unlike the farmers in the states that mostly voted for
President Trump and whose votes will be needed again in November.
Later today, President Trump meets with
President Juncker and his trade team
from the EC to discuss the EUSSR, friend or foe? President Trump has them
firmly marked down in his foe camp, and if Juncker doesn’t surrender PDQ,
President Trump is proposing to blow German autos and Mrs. Merkel out of the
water.
But no one in a trade war, or its sibling the
newly revived currency war, can be seen to blink first. Not in the democracies
if they expect to get re-elected. Not in China either, where China’s new
President for Life, would likely find that “life” became much more fleeting
than he originally thought.
So for now, our deepening trade war will go
on. Bizarrely the stock market algo high frequency traders all think that this
is a good news thing. By Christmas, my guess is that no one will think this
trade war was a good thing.
Below, the Great Disconnect in the stock
markets trades on. Wiser traders will use the rally to get back to the safety
of cash.
"I
think if this country gets any kinder or gentler, it's literally going to cease
to exist."
President Trump.
July 25, 2018 / 1:43 AM
Asia stocks track Wall Street gains, U.S.-EU meet keeps trade in focus
TOKYO
(Reuters) - Asian stocks were higher on Wednesday, supported by strong Wall
Street earnings and hopes China’s government spending would boost growth but
trade tensions remain in focus ahead of a meeting between the U.S. and European
Commission presidents.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS gained 0.2 percent.
The index extended the previous day’s gains made after China said it will adopt a more vigorous fiscal policy to cushion the impact of external uncertainties.
The Shanghai Composite Index .SSEC was little changed after brushing a one-month high. It has advanced roughly 3 percent so far this week. Hong Kong's Hang Seng .HSI climbed 0.6 percent.
Overnight on Wall Street, the S&P 500 .SPX closed at its highest level since Feb. 1 as Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) blowout results bolstered expectations of a robust earnings season. [.N]
“Gains by U.S. shares are providing support for equities, as well as China’s stimulus plan. Corporate earnings will continue to come out and these will be a key focal point for the markets, which also have to keep an eye on trade developments,” said Soichiro Monji, senior economist at Daiwa SB Investments in Tokyo.
On the trade front, focus was on talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker set later on Wednesday, at which trade issues are likely to dominate.
More
Trump Today: Tariffs are ‘the greatest,’ president says ahead of EU chief’s visit
By MarketWatch Published: July
24, 2018 12:00 p.m. ET
“Tariffs are the greatest!” Trump said on Twitter, following
up with what he called a simple choice: “Either a country which has treated the
United States unfairly on Trade negotiates a fair deal, or it gets hit with
Tariffs.” He added, “It’s as simple as that — and everybody’s talking!”
His tweet came one day before EU President Jean-Claude Juncker is
scheduled to visit the White House for discussions on trade and other matters.
Trump has imposed tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum and threatened new
ones on cars. Juncker will reportedly focus on arguing that the EU is
Washington’s friend, not foe.
Countries that
have treated us unfairly on trade for years are all coming to Washington to
negotiate. This should have taken place many years ago but, as the saying goes, better late than never!
Tariffs are the
greatest! Either a country which has treated the United States unfairly on
Trade negotiates a fair deal, or it gets hit with Tariffs. It’s as simple as
that - and everybody’s talking! Remember, we are the “piggy bank” that’s being
robbed. All will be Great!
July 24, 2018 / 4:19 PM
Trump wants $12 billion in aid to U.S. farmers suffering from trade war
WASHINGTON/KANSAS
CITY, Mo. (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Tuesday said it will use a
Great Depression-era program to pay up to $12 billion to help U.S. farmers weather
a growing trade war with China, the European Union and others that the
president began
.
It is a clear signal the U.S. President Donald Trump is determined to
stick with tariffs as his weapon of choice in the conflict.
The move meant to cushion the blow for a politically important
constituency was met with broad criticism by many farmers and farm-belt
lawmakers, including Republicans. Rural and agricultural states supported Trump
by wide margins in the 2016 election.
Trump’s trade policies have become central in several rural-state U.S.
Senate races ahead of congressional elections in November.
The president, speaking at an event in Kansas City on Tuesday,
reaffirmed his support for tariffs and pledged that “farmers will be the
biggest beneficiary.”
“Just be a little patient,” Trump said.
The relief package is intended as a temporary boost to farmers as the
United States and China negotiate over trade issues, officials said.
“This obviously is a short-term solution that will give President Trump
time to work on a long-term trade policy,” said Sonny Perdue, the secretary of
the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The aid will be financed through the USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation
and will not require congressional approval, Perdue said.
More
China’s Markets Embrace Risk as Traders Bet Big on Stimulus
By Sofia Horta e Costa
Updated on 24 July 2018, 23:27 GMT+1
Chinese financial markets are rediscovering an appetite for risk not seen in
months, taking cues from the government’s biggest push yet to invigorate this
year’s slowing economy.The CSI 300 Index of mainland stocks climbed 1.6 percent Tuesday, capping its biggest three-day gain since mid-August 2016, when economic indicators vindicated China’s moves to stabilize a slowdown back then. While there’s no guarantee of success this time, with the X-factor of a trade dispute with the U.S. at play, traders are betting big.
The rally looked to continue Wednesday, with futures on the FTSE China A50 rising 0.6 percent. The offshore yuan is holding near the weakest in more than a year against the dollar after Monday’s record injection of funding to lenders by the People’s Bank of China. Benchmark 10-year government bond yields have risen from the lowest since April 2017.
The moves could portend an end to the bearish sentiment that’s clouded
China’s markets for months. Investors have been fleeing equities and taking
shelter in bonds, spooked by a deleveraging campaign that’s contributed to a
record run of corporate defaults and a slide in public investment. Prospects
for U.S. tariff hikes on an increasing swathe of Chinese exports haven’t
helped. It all added up to a $2 trillion equity wipeout from January highs.
“It’s a concrete sign of coordinated stimulus and addresses one of the
key factors that’s been weighing on Chinese markets,” said Aidan Yao, a senior
economist at AXA Investment Asia Ltd. in Hong Kong. “Fiscal and monetary
authorities are providing the liquidity needed to support the economy.
More
"I
will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico
pay for that wall. Mark my words."
President Trump.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today, China reveals its domestic trade war
strategy. A controlled boost to the economy for now, with more to come later if
the trade war slows the Chinese economy below its target range. Sensible aims,
but will the USA be sensible or illogical in attacking NAFTA and NATO?
China to speed up US$199 billion of domestic spending to protect growth during US trade war
Cutting debt remains an overriding priority but some fine-tuning allows Beijing to address a deceleration of investment in infrastructure
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 24 July, 2018, 2:10am UPDATED : Tuesday, 24 July,
2018, 7:16pm
China
has decided to encourage government spending at home as a way to handle the
ongoing trade dispute with the United States, reflecting Beijing’s deep
concerns about its effect on growth.
The
State Council, the state cabinet, said on Monday that it would adopt a “more
proactive fiscal policy” and would speed up raising and spending 1.35 trillion
yuan (about US$199 billion) for local government, designated to be spent on
infrastructure.
These efforts, along with a less aggressive monetary policy stance, are
intended to “handle uncertainties in the external environment” – a euphemistic
reference to the trade war with the US – and keep economic growth within the
preferred range.
The State Council meeting, held on a Monday instead of the usual
Wednesday, preceded the Politburo gathering of the country’s top leadership,
which is likely to take place soon after President Xi Jinping’s scheduled
return from his Africa trip this Sunday.
Releasing
the statement before the Politburo’s half-year economic conference may suggest
policymakers have already reached a consensus on how to deal with the economic
slowdown, said Larry Hu, chief China economist of Macquarie Capital.
“They don’t want to see some indicators, such as infrastructure investment,
decelerating further,” he said.
This, however, did not mean a reversal of the ongoing financial
deleveraging, a long-term policy objective of Beijing. “The pace of
deleveraging will slow and not be as aggressive for long,” Hu said.
“They don’t want to see some indicators, such as infrastructure
investment, decelerating further,” he said.
This, however, did not mean a reversal of the ongoing financial
deleveraging, a long-term policy objective of Beijing. “The pace of
deleveraging will slow and not be as aggressive for long,” Hu said.
More
Is China a currency manipulator or is Donald Trump to blame for the yuan’s weakness?
Neal Kimberley says the drop in the yuan is more likely to be a market response to the US-China trade war than the result of active management by the Chinese authorities
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 24 July, 2018, 12:03pm UPDATED :
Tuesday, 24 July, 2018, 12:30pm
The
Chinese renminbi “has been dropping like a rock”, said US President Donald Trump in a CNBC interview on Friday, also tweeting that China
and others “have been manipulating their currencies and interest rates lower”.
Both assertions are debatable. Nor is there any acknowledgement that
Washington’s resort to trade tariffs
on China has contributed to recent yuan weakness.
For example, measuring a move in foreign exchange, as in all markets,
depends as much on the start point as on the end date. Certainly, as Douglas
Porter, chief economist at Canada’s BMO Capital Markets wrote on Friday, the
yuan “is down 7 per cent in three months, a very big move”.
Yet, as another Canadian firm, TD Securities, noted last Thursday, the
yuan’s real effective exchange rate “had diverged significantly over the past
year from the rest of Asia, and particularly north Asia, by appreciating by 7.3
per cent into the end of May”.
Consequently when yuan weakness became more pronounced in June, the
subsequent fall in the China Foreign Exchange Trade System official index,
which measures the yuan’s value against a basket of currencies, led TD
Securities to write of the unwinding of “over two-thirds of the [yuan’s]
appreciation over the course of the past year”.
Clearly that unwinding has occurred quickly, but if the yuan was
overvalued, the process might have occurred anyway, albeit at a slower pace.
Perhaps the real question should be what
was the catalyst for the recent fall in the value of the yuan?
It might be politically convenient for the US
administration to attribute recent yuan depreciation to manipulation by China but the
timeline of Chinese currency weakness parallels the sequence of the ratcheting
up of trade tensions between China and the United States as Washington has
moved to announce trade tariffs.
More
"Our
country is in serious trouble. We don't have victories any more. We used to
have victories but [now] we don't have them. When was the last time anybody saw
us beating, let's say, China, in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all
the time. All the time."
President Trump.
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 scent of coffee appears to boost performance in math
Smelling a coffee-like scent, which has no caffeine in it, creates an expectation for students that they will perform better on tests
Date:
July 17, 2018
Source:
Stevens Institute of Technology
Summary:
Research reveals that the scent of coffee alone may help people perform better
on the analytical portion of the Graduate Management Aptitude Test, or GMAT, a
computer adaptive test required by many business schools.
Drinking coffee seems to have its perks. In addition to the physical
boost it delivers, coffee may lessen our risk of heart disease, diabetes and
dementia. Coffee may even help us live longer. Now, there's more good news:
research at Stevens Institute of Technology reveals that the scent of coffee
alone may help people perform better on the analytical portion of the Graduate
Management Aptitude Test, or GMAT, a computer adaptive test required by many
business schools.
The work, led by Stevens School of Business professor Adriana Madzharov,
not only highlights the hidden force of scent and the cognitive boost it may
provide on analytical tasks, but also the expectation that students will
perform better on those tasks. Madzharov, with colleagues at Temple University
and Baruch College, recently published their findings in the Journal of Environmental
Psychology.
"It's not just that the coffee-like scent helped people perform
better on analytical tasks, which was already interesting," says
Madzharov. "But they also thought they would do better, and we
demonstrated that this expectation was at least partly responsible for their
improved performance." In short, smelling a coffee-like scent, which has
no caffeine in it, has an effect similar to that of drinking coffee, suggesting
a placebo effect of coffee scent.
----Madzharov, whose research focuses on sensory marketing and aesthetics, is looking to explore whether coffee-like scents can have a similar placebo effect on other types of performance, such as verbal reasoning. She also says that the finding -- that coffee-like scent acts as a placebo for analytical reasoning performance -- has many practical applications, including several for business.
"Olfaction is one of our most powerful senses," says
Madzharov. "Employers, architects, building developers, retail space
managers and others, can use subtle scents to help shape employees' or
occupants' experience with their environment. It's an area of great interest
and potential."
Coffee
keeps me going until it’s time for wine.
Anon.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished June.
DJIA: 24,271 +221 Down. NASDAQ:
7,510 +267 Down. SP500: 2,718 +169 Down.
All
three slow indicators moved down in March and have continued down in April. May
and June. For some a new bear signal, for others a take profits and get back to
cash signal.
It's not your salary that makes you rich,it's your spending habits.financial advisory company
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