Monday 15 October 2018

$200 Oil? Saudi Sanctions? 1973?


Baltic Dry Index. 1579 +64   Brent Crude 81.44

"The great merit of gold is precisely that it is scarce; that its quantity is limited by nature; that it is costly to discover, to mine, and to process; and that it cannot be created by political fiat or caprice." 

Henry Hazlitt

This morning, if it wasn’t for bad news there would be no news at all. Today we are truly spoilt for choice. From President Trump blasting China and the Saudis, to China and the Saudis responding, with the Saudis hinting at using the oil weapon.  President Trump has now picked a fight with the Saudis and Iran at the same time!

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the weeks ahead, but already there is fear of sharply higher oil prices. At best, Saudi Arabia simply doesn’t replace Iranian oil, 100 dollar crude probably. At worst they play the oil card rather like the October 1973 oil crisis, what is it about October and crash season? That probably gets us to $200 oil, a global slump then crashing the price of oil, but the damage is done.

The other bad news this morning seems trivial in comparison. The voters in Bavaria thumped Chancellor Merkel’s coalition parties, leaving her already weak government looking terminal. Yet another round of Brexit talks at the weekend failed, leaving this week’s EU “Great Leaders” summit largely irrelevant, but Brexit becomes largely irrelevant itself, if we bungle ourselves into a world of 200 dollar oil.

Below, bad news Monday.

“This sucker could go down.”

President George W. Bush. September 2008.

Trump Threatens Another Round of China Tariffs

By Jennifer Epstein
Updated on 15 October 2018, 01:00 GMT+1
President Donald Trump threatened to impose another round of tariffs on China and warned that Chinese meddling in U.S. politics is a “bigger problem” than Russian involvement in the 2016 election.

Asked in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” whether he wants to push China’s economy into a depression, Trump said “no” before comparing the country’s stock-market losses since the tariffs first launched to those in 1929, the start of the Great Depression in the U.S.

“I want them to negotiate a fair deal with us. I want them to open their markets like our markets are open,” Trump said in the interview that aired Sunday, while adding that more tariffs “might” be in the mix. So far, the U.S. has imposed three rounds of tariffs on Chinese imports totaling $250 billion, prompting China to retaliate against U.S. products.

The president previously has threatened to hit virtually all Chinese imports with duties.
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China Didn’t Want a U.S. Trade War But Will Respond, Envoy Says

By Ryan Beene and Christopher Condon
Updated on 14 October 2018, 17:56 GMT+1
China’s ambassador to the U.S. said Beijing has no choice but to respond to what he described as a trade war started by the U.S.

“We never wanted a trade war, but if somebody started a trade war against us, we have to respond and defend our own interests,” Ambassador Cui Tiankai said on “Fox News Sunday” in a rare U.S. television appearance.

His comments come amid rising political and economic tensions between the world’s two largest economies, and as international bodies and other countries warned that global growth will suffer if the dispute isn’t resolved.

Cui also dismissed as “groundless” a suggestion by Vice President Mike Pence that China has orchestrated an effort to meddle in U.S. domestic affairs.

Pence ramped up the rhetoric in a speech Oct. 4, saying Beijing has created a “a whole-of-government approach” to sway American public opinion, including spies, tariffs, coercive measures and a propaganda campaign.

His comments were some of the most critical about China by a high-ranking U.S. official in recent memory. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo got a lecture when he visited Beijing days later, about U.S. actions that were termed “completely out of line.”

The tough words followed months of increases tit-for-tat tariffs imposed by Washington and Beijing that have ballooned to cover hundreds of billions of dollars in bilateral trade.
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Asian shares resume descent, oil prices up on Saudi tensions

October 15, 2018 / 1:44 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares slipped on Monday as worries over Sino-U.S. trade disputes, a possible slowdown in the Chinese economy and higher U.S. borrowing costs tempered optimism despite a rebound in global equities late last week.

Not helping the mood, oil prices jumped and Saudi Arabian shares tumbled on rising diplomatic tensions between Riyadh and the West after the monarchy warned against threats to punish it over disappearance of a journalist critical of its policies.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS fell 0.8 percent while Shanghai shares .SSEC were down 0.4 percent in early trade.

Japan's Nikkei .N225 dropped 1.4 percent, with carmaker shares .ITEQP.T hitting 13-month lows after Washington said it would seek a provision about currency manipulation in future trade deals with Japan.

MSCI’s broadest gauge of the world’s stock markets .MIWD00000PUS was off 0.2 percent after a sizable 3.87 percent decline last week - its biggest since March - to a one-year nadir.

The market shakeout has been blamed on a series of factors, including worries about the impact of a U.S.-China trade war, a spike in U.S. bond yields this week and caution ahead of earnings season.

---- Fujito said the trade war is starting to take a toll on growth in China, noting that data released later on Friday showed Chinese auto sales posted the biggest drop in seven years.

Over the weekend, China central bank governor Yi Gang said he still sees plenty of room for adjustment in interest rates and the reserve requirement ratio (RRR), as downside risks from trade tensions with the United States remain significant.

Also starting to attract wider attention, Saudi Arabia doubled down on pressure from the West on the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and Washington Post columnist, after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened “severe punishment” if it turns out Khashoggi was killed while many company executives have cancelled their plans to attend a Saudi investor conference later this month.

Investors suspect the latest development could undermine the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and has the risk of eventually destabilising the oil-rich kingdom.
Saudi Arabia’s shares .TASI plunged as much as 7 percent on Sunday, and closed down 3.5 percent at their lowest levels since early January.

Shares in Dubai, a regional economic hub, slid 1.5 percent .DFMGI to a low last seen in January 2006.

---- “Oil prices could rise to $100 on worries about Saudi Arabia,” said Kazuhiko Fuji, senior fellow at Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry, a think tank affiliated with the Japanese government.

“People had thought the Saudis will make up for fall in Iran’s output. If they are starting to use oil as their weapon, that will be a whole new chapter,” he said.

Higher oil prices could boost inflation around the world and spark rises in U.S. borrowing costs, which are also seen hurting weak borrowers, especially those in emerging markets.
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Saudi Arabia says will retaliate against any sanctions over Khashoggi case

October 14, 2018 / 1:29 PM
DUBAI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia on Sunday warned against threats to punish it over last week’s disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as European leaders piled on pressure and two more U.S. executives scrapped plans to attend a Saudi investor conference.

Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and Washington Post columnist critical of Riyadh’s policies, disappeared on Oct. 2 after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Turkey believes he was murdered and his body removed. Saudi Arabia has denied that. 

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened “severe punishment” if it turns out Khashoggi was killed in the consulate, though he said Washington would be “punishing” itself if it halted military sales to Riyadh.

“The Kingdom affirms its total rejection of any threats and attempts to undermine it, whether by threatening to impose economic sanctions, using political pressures, or repeating false accusations,” the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) quoted an unnamed official as saying.

“The Kingdom also affirms that if it receives any action, it will respond with greater action, and that the Kingdom’s economy has an influential and vital role in the global economy,” the official added, without elaborating.

The Saudi Embassy in Washington later tweeted what it called a clarification, thanking countries including the United States “for refraining from jumping to conclusions” over the case.

---- In a column published just after the SPA statement, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya channel’s General Manager Turki Aldakhil warned that imposing sanctions on the world’s largest oil exporter could spark global economic disaster.

“It would lead to Saudi Arabia’s failure to commit to producing 7.5 million barrels. If the price of oil reaching $80 angered President Trump, no one should rule out the price jumping to $100, or $200, or even double that figure,” he wrote.

---- “If they lured this man into that consulate, they went medieval on him, and he was killed and he was chopped up and they sent a death crew down there to kill him and do all of this, that would be an outrage,” Florida Senator Marco Rubio told CNN’s State of the Union.

“Just because they are an ally in an important mission, which is containing Iranian expansion in the region, cannot allow us to overlook or walk away from that.”

---- Senators have triggered a provision of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act requiring the president to determine whether a foreign person is responsible for a gross human rights violation. The act has in the past imposed visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials.

Anti-Saudi sentiment in the U.S. Congress could conceivably raise pressure to pass the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act, which would end sovereign immunity shielding OPEC members from U.S. legal action.
More

Bavaria election humbles Merkel allies, raising tensions in Berlin

October 14, 2018 / 12:07 AM / Updated 6 hours ago
BERLIN/MUNICH (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Bavarian allies suffered their worst election result since 1950 on Sunday, bleeding votes to the far-right and the ecologist Greens in a setback that raised tensions within Germany’s crisis-prone national government.
More

Brexit talks stall before midweek EU summit

October 14, 2018 / 12:53 PM / Updated 6 hours ago
BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) - The stubborn problem of Britain’s land border with Ireland thwarted a drive to clinch a Brexit deal before a European Union summit this week, as negotiators admitted defeat after marathon talks and pressed pause for the coming days.
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Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.

Socrates

Crooks and Scoundrels Corner

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

Today, the New York Times no friend of President Trump, gets its readers hopes up about impeaching President Trump after the midterm elections. I would take the other side of that bet as it’s hard to see any impeachment attempt getting sufficient votes in the US Senate.

"The world urgently needs to create a diversified currency and financial system and fair and just financial order that is not dependent on the United States."
Shi Jianxun. China People’s Daily. September 16, 2008

Is Trump on a Collision Course With Impeachment?

Democrats are largely ducking the topic on the campaign trail, but few people in Washington doubt that it will be on the table if they win the House.
Oct. 13, 2018

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — President Trump was energized. Fresh from the fight to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, he was firing up thousands of supporters at a rally by complaining about how Democrats had treated his nominee and how they may yet try to remove Justice Kavanaugh from the bench.
“They’re saying, ‘We’ll impeach him!’” Mr. Trump practically bellowed into the microphone here last week, his voice brimming with incredulity and righteous outrage. “Impeach him for what? For what?” The crowd booed on cue.

“Besides that,” Mr. Trump then added slyly, “I have to go first, right?” The crowd laughed.
Perhaps only in the Trump era would the prospect of being impeached become a punch line for the president of the United States. But after almost two years of living under the cloud of a possible impeachment, it may soon cease to be a laughing matter. While Democrats are largely ducking the topic on the campaign trail, few in Washington doubt that impeachment will be on the table if they win the House on Nov. 6.

If that happens, anyone who thought the battle over Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation was ugly and divisive should buckle up, because history suggests it would provide only a small taste of what lies ahead. The impeachment drives against Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton tore at the nation’s fabric, but an effort to remove Mr. Trump could lead to an even more incendiary conflict, thanks to the advent of social media and Mr. Trump’s brand of blowtorch politics.

----Rather than being apprehensive about the threat, Mr. Trump, who loves a good brawl, seems almost eager for Democrats to bring it on. He has begun making his case in recent months without waiting for the election. In August, he warned that if he is impeached, “the market would crash” and “everybody would be very poor.” In September, he told supporters it would be their fault if he is impeached because it would mean “you didn’t go out to vote.”

And in Iowa, he laid out what would undoubtedly be his public argument. “You get impeached for having created the greatest economy in the history of our country,” he said. “The best job numbers in the history of our country, just about, right? The greatest trade deals, which we’ve just finished, in the history of our country.”

Putting aside the hyperbole about the economy and jobs numbers, which are both strong but hardly the best ever, Mr. Trump has a certain advantage going into any impeachment fight. The history of presidential impeachments shows that they are started by the opposition party but are never successful unless the president’s party buys into the effort.
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Russia will not soon become, if it ever becomes, a second copy of the United States or England - where liberal values have deep historic roots.

Vladimir Putin.
  
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?

Researchers quickly harvest 2-D materials, bringing them closer to commercialization

Efficient method for making single-atom-thick, wafer-scale materials opens up opportunities in flexible electronics

Date: October 12, 2018

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Summary: Researchers have developed a technique to harvest 2-inch diameter wafers of 2-D material within just a few minutes. They can then be stacked together to form an electronic device within an hour. 

Since the 2003 discovery of the single-atom-thick carbon material known as graphene, there has been significant interest in other types of 2-D materials as well.

These materials could be stacked together like Lego bricks to form a range of devices with different functions, including operating as semiconductors. In this way, they could be used to create ultra-thin, flexible, transparent and wearable electronic devices.

However, separating a bulk crystal material into 2-D flakes for use in electronics has proven difficult to do on a commercial scale.

The existing process, in which individual flakes are split off from the bulk crystals by repeatedly stamping the crystals onto an adhesive tape, is unreliable and time-consuming, requiring many hours to harvest enough material and form a device.

Now researchers in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT have developed a technique to harvest 2-inch diameter wafers of 2-D material within just a few minutes. They can then be stacked together to form an electronic device within an hour.

The technique, which they describe in a paper published in the journal Science, could open up the possibility of commercializing electronic devices based on a variety of 2-D materials, according to Jeehwan Kim, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, who led the research.

The paper's co-first authors were Sanghoon Bae, who was involved in flexible device fabrication, and Jaewoo Shim, who worked on the stacking of the 2-D material monolayers. Both are postdocs in Kim's group.

The paper's co-authors also included students and postdocs from within Kim's group, as well as collaborators at Georgia Tech, the University of Texas, Yonsei University in South Korea, and the University of Virginia. Sang-Hoon Bae, Jaewoo Shim, Wei Kong, and Doyoon Lee in Kim's research group equally contributed to this work.

"We have shown that we can do monolayer-by-monolayer isolation of 2-D materials at the wafer scale," Kim says. "Secondly, we have demonstrated a way to easily stack up these wafer-scale monolayers of 2-D material."

----The researchers have also demonstrated the technique by successfully fabricating arrays of field-effect transistors at the wafer scale, with a thickness of just a few atoms.

"The work has a lot of potential to bring 2-D materials and their heterostructures towards real-world applications," says Philip Kim, a professor of physics at Harvard University, who was not involved in the research.

The researchers are now planning to apply the technique to develop a range of electronic devices, including a nonvolatile memory array and flexible devices that can be worn on the skin.

They are also interested in applying the technique to develop devices for use in the "internet of things," Kim says.
More

The monthly Coppock Indicators finished September.

DJIA: 26,458 +199 Down. NASDAQ: 8,046 +261 Down. SP500: 2,914 +166 Down.
All three slow indicators moved down in March, but the S&P and NASDAQ  turned up in August.  September will be critical for confirmation of this change. All 3 slow indicators failed to confirm August’s positive change making October very vulnerable to a sell-off.

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