China – Trump On Hold? Florence Slows.

Baltic Dry Index. 1382 -29   Brent Crude 78.33

“You are a slow learner, Trump."
"How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four."
"Sometimes, Trump. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder.

President Xi, with apologies to George Orwell 1984.

With hurricane Florence well covered by mainstream media, today we will focus on the fallout from Trump’s trade war and Trump’s attempt to bully the UN’s International Criminal Court which sits in The Hague, Holland.

The Trump presidency is doing everything in its power to force the rest of the world away from the dollar, and to set up alternative trade mechanisms to bypass Trump threats and sanctions. Although this can’t happen overnight, long after the Trump presidency has ended, this process will have a life of its own.

We open with Asian markets increasingly hoping that Trade War Team Trump has folded. Suddenly the Americans want to talk to China, rather than impose sanctions on US consumers. My guess is that it’s just the Trump pause before the Trump mid-term election storm.

September 14, 2018 / 2:14 AM

Trade talk plans boost Asian shares, but China shaky

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Shares across most of Asia rose on Friday on expectations that the United States and China could launch a fresh round of trade talks, and as a surprisingly sharp interest rate hike in crisis-hit Turkey supported the lira and global risk appetite.

But stocks in China fell amid lingering uncertainty over the outlook for trade.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS gained 0.8 percent, with Australian shares up 0.6 percent, Seoul's Kospi .KS11 gaining 1.3 percent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng up 0.7 percent.

Japan's Nikkei stock index .N225 was 1 percent higher.

Those rises followed gains on Wall Street Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI ending 0.57 percent higher, the S&P 500 .SPX gaining 0.53 percent and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC adding 0.75 percent.

But Chinese shares fell, despite a short-lived bump from data that showed forecast-topping industrial output and retail sales data for August.

Other data showed real estate investment in the country fell in August, raising concerns that a cooling property market could increase risks for China’s economic outlook as the trade environment worsens.

China's benchmark Shanghai Composite index .SSEC was down 0.3 percent and the blue-chip CSI300 index .CSI300 eased 0.2 percent. Both indexes had wavered between gains and losses in the morning session.

“What the market wants is some degree of certainty,” said Jim McCafferty, head of Equity Research, Asia ex-Japan at Nomura.

“I think everyone knows that the trade deal might not be as optimistic as it might have been in ... June or July, and it might be negative for many Chinese companies. But the fact that there’s no certainty there is one reason that investors are staying on the sidelines.”

News of a possible new round of talks between Washington and Beijing comes even as the trade war between the world’s two largest economies looks set to escalate.

Chinese officials welcomed an invitation from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for new talks. But U.S. President Donald Trump tempered market expectations, tweeting on Thursday that the U.S. is “under no pressure to make a deal with China.”

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-global-markets/trade-talk-plans-boost-asian-shares-but-china-shaky-idUKKCN1LU03M

Europe Pushing for Euro Dominance to Fend Off Trump, Spain Says

By Ben Sills and Esteban Duarte

14 September 2018, 04:00 GMT+1

The European Union wants to bolster the global role of the euro as part of an effort to avoid being pushed around by President Donald Trump, whose foreign policy actions are increasingly at odds with its trans-Atlantic partner, Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said.

It’s the latest sign that European leaders are seeking to establish greater autonomy in the face of Trump’s efforts to remake the global order. Since winning the White House, the American president has questioned the importance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, pulled out of a nuclear accord with Iran and said, in the midst of a trade war, that the EU was a “foe” of the U.S.

“We have to find a way to get around the American threats,” Borrell said in an interview at his offices in Madrid this week. “It’s another way to get around sanctions,” he said, referring to Trump’s May decision to leave the Iran nuclear deal, which the EU lobbied him to preserve.

The U.S. decision forced European companies including Daimler AG and Total SA to pull out of Iran to avoid U.S. sanctions. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas have both suggested that EU countries set up payment systems independent of the U.S. to sidestep the new regulations.

But it’s not just Iran. U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton this week threatened sanctions against the International Criminal Court, a UN-backed tribunal, which is considering prosecuting U.S. servicemen over alleged abuses in Afghanistan.

To read more about strained EU-U.S. relations, click here

By increasing the amount of international trade conducted in euros, the EU would make it easier for companies and individuals to do business beyond the reach of the U.S. government.

“Everyone who supports the International Criminal Court and who deals with the International Criminal Court could be punished by any means by the American authorities,” Borell said.

Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, on Wednesday said it is “absurd” for European companies to pay for European planes in dollars and questioned why 80 percent of the continent’s energy imports are paid for in the U.S. currency.

In his annual State of the Union address to the European Parliament, Juncker promised to flesh out his ambitions with a plan by year-end.

More

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-14/europe-pushing-for-euro-dominance-to-fend-off-trump-spain-says?srnd=premium-europe

September 14, 2018 / 1:14 AM

China says world trade system not perfect, needs reform

BEIJING (Reuters) - The current world trade system is not perfect and China supports reforms to it, including to the World Trade Organisation, to make it fairer and more effective, Beijing’s top diplomat said.

China is locked in a bitter trade war with the United States and has vowed repeatedly to uphold the multilateral trading system and free trade, with the WTO at its centre.

But speaking late on Thursday to reporters after meeting French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, Chinese State Councillor Wang Yi said some reforms could be good.

While certain doubts have been raised about the current international trading system, China has always supported the protection of free trade and believes that multilateralism with the WTO at its core should be strengthened, Wang added.

“At the same time, we do not believe that the current system is perfect and without flaws,” he said.

“China supports necessary reforms and perfection of the current system, including to the WTO, to make it fairer, more effective and more rational,” Wang added.

The basic tenets of the WTO, in opposing protectionism and supporting free trade should not change, but the rights of developing nations should also not be overlooked, he said.

“The aim of reform should be to allow countries to enjoy the development fruits of globalisation more fairly, not to further widen the differences between south and north,” Wang said.

WTO reforms need to include listening to voices from all parties and broad consultation, and should especially listen to a respect the opinions of developing countries, rather than just allowing “one person to have a say”, he added.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trade-china/china-says-world-trade-system-not-perfect-needs-reform-idUKKCN1LU00P

In EUSSR news, it’s not all for one and one for all, anymore.

September 13, 2018 / 9:06 AM / Updated 12 hours ago

'Wash your mouth out,' Italy's Salvini tells EU Commissioner

PARIS (Reuters) - The EU’s top economic official said on Thursday he feared “little Mussolinis” might be emerging in Europe, drawing a furious response from Italy’s far-right interior minister who accused him of insulting his country and Italians.

Frenchman Pierre Moscovici, who is the European Union’s economics affairs commissioner, said the current political situation, with populist, far-right forces on the rise in many nations, resembled the 1930s when Germany’s Adolf Hitler and Italian fascist chief Benito Mussolini were in power.

“Fortunately there is no sound of jackboots, there is no Hitler, (but maybe there are) small Mussolinis. That remains to be seen,” he told reporters in Paris, speaking in a jocular fashion.

Moscovici, a former French finance minister, mentioned no names, but Matteo Salvini, who is a deputy prime minister and heads Italy’s anti-immigrant League, took it personally.

“He should wash his mouth out before insulting Italy, the Italians and their legitimate government,” Salvini said in a statement released by his office in Rome.

Salvini took advantage of the spat to set out once again his grievances with France, which he accuses of not doing enough to help deal with migrants from Africa and of having plunged Libya into chaos by helping to oust former strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

“EU Commissioner Moscovici, instead of censuring his France that rejects immigrants ... has bombed Libya and has broken European (budget) parameters, attacks Italy and talks about ‘many little Mussolini’ around Europe,” Salvini said.

In other comments at the Paris event, Moscovici said Italy needed to cut wasteful spending and prioritise investment and infrastructure spending that will help stimulate growth and productivity.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-italy-debt-moscovici/wash-your-mouth-out-italys-salvini-tells-eu-commissioner-idUKKCN1LT117

September 13, 2018 / 7:53 PM

ECB's Draghi should help Italy, 'not just criticise' - Salvini

ROME (Reuters) - The head of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi should look after Italy’s interests and not just criticise the country, Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini, said in a statement on Thursday.

The ECB’s Draghi, who is an Italian, earlier told reporters in Frankfurt that suggestions by some policymakers in Italy that the country’s 2019 budget may fail to comply with EU norms had impinged on the economy and hit financial markets.

“I count on Italians in Europe to look after the interests of Italy as happens in all other countries, and that they help and advise and not just criticise,” Salvini said in a statement, adding that he was responding to the previous comments from Draghi.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-view-thursday/daily-briefing-steady-as-they-go-ecb-and-boe-rate-decisions-idUKKCN1LT0UT

Finally, Volvo presents the next decade’s big logistics advance.  Shame about all those union jobs. Trains and planes next? Drivers and pilots gone, guards and stewardess hired?  How long before they automate ancient dog walkers like me!

September 12, 2018 / 6:41 PM

Volvo shows off self-driving, electric truck with no cab

BERLIN (Reuters) - Sweden’s Volvo (VOLVb.ST), the world’s second-biggest truck maker, presented a new self-driving electric truck on Wednesday, which it said should help respond to the boom in ecommerce and a shortage of freight drivers.

Volvo said the truck, which does not have a driver’s cab, was still under development and declined to say when it would be available commercially. It expects the vehicle to be deployed first in places like ports and large logistics centres.

“We believe there will be a driver behind the steering wheel for the foreseeable future, but we will pretty soon see self-drive commercial vehicles in confined areas,” Lars Stenqvist, Volvo chief technology officer, told a conference in Berlin.

Trucking is viewed by transport experts as a natural application for self-driving technology because of the relative predictability of highways compared with busy city streets.

The cabless truck - which Volvo calls Vera and can pull loads weighing up to 32 tonnes - can be attached to any standard trailer, Michael Karlsson, head of autonomous solutions at Volvo Trucks, said after the vehicle was unveiled.

“Vera means faith and we have faith in the future,” Karlsson said, adding the vehicle has a lower operating speed than a normal truck for safety reasons.

Guests at the presentation were made to stand behind a barrier as the truck drove out unaided from a tent and were only allowed to approach when it came to a stop.

The 1.4-million member International Brotherhood of Teamsters union is campaigning against new U.S. rules to speed the deployment of self-driving trucks, warning they could mean the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs and hit road safety.

However, trucking firms in many countries are finding it harder to attract and retain drivers amid tight labour markets.

Karlsson said the truck would allow places like ports that are currently dependent on daytime working hours to run round-the-clock, optimising the flows of goods and potentially cutting down on stockpiles and increasing productivity.

He expects autonomous technology to increase the need for skilled drivers, while cutting down on the need for people to perform repetitive tasks.

More
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-volvo-autonomous/volvo-shows-off-self-driving-electric-truck-with-no-cab-idUKKCN1LS2QT

 “Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power”

George Orwell 1984.

Crooks and Scoundrels Corner

The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.

Yes, those unlovable gambling banksters again. A rough Diamond defends the indefensible.

Bob Diamond defends risk-taking banks

13 September 2018.

Former Barclays boss Bob Diamond has said he fears banks have become too cautious about taking risks.

Mr Diamond told me the risk-averse culture means they can't support the economy and generate jobs and growth.

Ten years on from the collapse of Lehman Brothers he believes the appetite for risk taking within banking may have swung too far the other way.

"If they are totally without risk, they are not helping create jobs and economic growth," he said.
"The culture of banking now is that if anyone makes a mistake they get fined - or the bank is in trouble.

Once dubbed the unacceptable face of banking, Mr Diamond mounted a spirited defence of the culture and behaviour of crisis-era Barclays.

He told me that critics of the banking industry's behaviour in the run up to the financial crisis should distinguish between those that ultimately needed government bailouts and those that didn't.

·         Gordon Brown warns about next financial crisis

Defending a culture

Barclays raised money from Middle East investors to stay afloat while RBS needed a £45bn taxpayer bailout.

"I think HSBC and Barclays deserve credit for raising capital privately," said Mr Diamond. "People should be angry with RBS for failing in the way it did - ten years later people still haven't got their money back. Private investors who put money into Barclays have seen very good returns."

He also defended the culture that prevailed at Barclays during the time he ran the investment bank and subsequently took over as chief executive in 2011. In these years, Barclays employees - along with those of other banks - were found to have rigged markets including interest rate benchmarks, precious metals, foreign exchange and energy prices.

"I don't think the reprehensible behaviour of a few people out of 160,000 employees is representative of the culture we had at Barclays - I think we had a very strong culture".

Really? I asked.

"Yes Really", he replied tartly.

Not for the first time since the financial crisis, Mr Diamond seemed in no mood for insincere apologies. This is the man who transformed Barclays from a sleepy but profitable retail bank into a trading and investment powerhouse - becoming the poster child of buccaneering, risk taking, highly paid bankers in the process.

Was there never a point when he privately thought the bank was taking too much risk?

"After every earnings report up to 2007 I would have investors and shareholders saying - can't you take more risk, get higher returns and there was no regulatory pressure. But with 20/20 hindsight any banker working at that time will now say we didn't have enough capital."

As well as being called the "unacceptable face of banking" by Peter (now Lord) Mandelson, Mr Diamond was branded a casino banker by Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable and eventually lost the confidence of the governor of the Bank of England in the wake of the Libor scandal - forcing him to resign in 2012.

More

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45498235

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 21^st century onwards?

Industry Giants Samsung and Hyundai Invest in Solid-State Batteries

Solid Power wins $20 million from automotive and electronics players.

Eric Wesoff September 11, 2018

Automotive and electronics giants are flooding the battery ecosystem with strategic investments. 

Solid-state battery startup Solid Power, based in Louisville, Colorado, just won $20 million in a Series A investment round from Hyundai, Samsung Venture Investment, Sanoh Industrial, Solvay Ventures and A123 Systems. Late last year, Solid Power announced a partnership with BMW to work jointly on automotive batteries. 

The company claims that its battery technology provides "substantially higher energy than conventional lithium-ion" while also reducing the system-level costs of safety precautions. 

With the level of investment and excitement in automotive and consumer battery markets, one might forgive a battery startup for using such aspirational language as "a multi-MWh roll-to-roll facility, which will be fully constructed and installed by the end of 2018," or writing, "The company’s ultimate objective is to displace lithium-ion as the battery of choice."

But the company's claim that its technology provides "2 to 3X higher energy vs. current lithium-ion" really raises a red flag in the world of battery improvements. We spoke with Solid Power's CEO to learn more.

In an industry that is thankful for 10 percent performance gains, Solid Power co-founder and CEO Doug Campbell said that the 2x to 3x greater energy claim encompasses its near-term and longer-term targets. 

Campbell told GTM that state-of-the-art nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) cathodes with metallic lithium in a rechargeable chemistry can result in a 50 percent to 100 percent improvement in watt-hours per kilo compared to conventional graphite-based anodes and liquid electrolytes.

The CEO also noted that the startup is working on a more advanced chemistry, a conversion reaction cathode instead of the NMC formulation. This was the technology the startup initially licensed from the University of Colorado, and according to Campbell, when combined with metallic lithium, it can "credibly reach 2x to 3x" improvements.   

The CEO added that his firm's chemistry requires fewer safety precautions and less stringent cooling requirements. 

----Solid Power is by no means the only well-funded startup going after these markets with new battery technologies. Here's a partial list of competitors. 

More

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/industry-giants-samsung-and-hyundai-invest-in-solid-state-batteries?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Storage&utm_campaign=GTMStorage#gs.YwncISM

Another weekend, and another weekend for me to be thankful to God for Rosie my border 

collie’s, fast recovery from her breast cancer operation. Thankfully there’s more to life than our rigged markets, trade and currency wars, unrepayable debt mountains, incompetent politicians and bent central banksters. 

We are one week away from the autumn equinox. What will autumn bring, a Democrat Congress and an impeachment? Probably not, butstill a market shattering possibility just a few weeks ahead.  Have a great weekend everyone.

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”

George Orwell 1984.

 The monthly Coppock Indicators finished August.

DJIA: 25,965 +207 Down. NASDAQ: 8,110 +265 Up. SP500: 2,902 +168 Up.

All three slow indicators moved down in March, but the S&P and  NASDAQ have now turned up.  September will be critical for confirmation of this change.