Baltic Dry Index. 1493 -10 Brent Crude 81.60
“I
think we agree, the past is over.”
President
George W. Bush.
We all knew it was
coming, even the perma-bull money managers forever peddling their “buy stocks
now” book. 2018’s summer rally always looked rigged, misplaced and a gigantic
mistake, in the face of trade wars, currency wars, and rising interest
rates. Add in an American imposed oil
shortage that forced Brent crude oil into the mid 80s, and oil price inflation
follows next. The Dow Transports have been signalling sell for some time.
So what comes next, correction or crash? Given that we’re in October, “crash season,” it’s hard not to see this rout continuing, although I doubt it will become a 1987 style crash.
But for President
Trump and the Republicans, this correction couldn’t come at a worse time ahead
of the midterm ekections. Sears is about to file for bankruptcy, the high oil
prices will soon crash a flight of weak airlines, and oil prices are going
higher again on November 4, when Trump’s Iran sanctions start, then Trump’s 25
percent China tariffs kick in on January 1. President Trump, true to form, blamed
the Fed. “It was the Fed what done it.”
All in all there’s
little reason to be long stocks heading into 2019, let alone be adding stocks,
short of very selectively after a crash, if one happens. To this old dinosaur
market watcher, this was the longest, best telegraphed correction or crash
ever. But just how much damage was done to our Mount Everest of new corporate
debt since 2009?
“There
may be a recession in stock prices, but not anything in the nature of a crash.”
Irving
Fisher, leading U.S. economist, New York Times, Sept.
5, 1929
Asia shares plummet after Wall Street rout; Shanghai at near four-year lows
October 11, 2018 / 2:00 AM
SYDNEY/SHANGHAI
(Reuters) - Asian share markets sank in a sea of red on Thursday after Wall
Street suffered its worst drubbing in eight months, a conflagration of wealth
that could threaten business confidence and investment across the globe.
“Equity markets are locked in a sharp sell-off, with concern around how far yields will rise, warnings from the IMF about financial stability risks and continued trade tension all driving uncertainty,” summed up analysts at ANZ.
The global plunge erased hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth. The head of the International Monetary Fund said stock market valuations have been “extremely high”.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS plummeted 3.9 percent to its lowest since March 2017.
Japan's Nikkei .N225 fell 4.4 percent, the steepest daily drop since March, while the broader TOPIX .TOPX lost around $230 billion in market value.
Shanghai shares .SSEC dropped 4.3 percent, on track for their worst day since February 2016, to their lowest level since late 2014, while China blue chips .CSI300 slid 4 percent.
Shares in Taiwan were among the region's worst-hit, with the broader index .TWII losing 6.2 percent.
“We can’t see where the bottom point will be,” said Chien Bor-yi, an analyst at Taipei-based Cathay Futures Consultant.
More
The Titanic as ‘an iceberg loomed’ is how Guggenheim’s Minerd thinks of today’s stock market
By Mark
DeCambre Published: Oct 10, 2018
4:28 p.m. ET
Scott Minerd of Guggenheim Partners on Wednesday reiterated a warning
that a one-two punch of pending rate increases by the Federal Reserve and a
corporate-tax-cut-fueled fiscal deficit would ultimately upend the stock
market’s bull run.
“Just as an iceberg loomed in the distant darkness to be struck by the
Titanic under full steam, so the US economy approaches the distant fiscal drag
of 2020 under the full steam of rate increases to contain inflation and an
overheating labor market,” wrote Minerd, in a colorful and dramatic tweet.
Minerd
has persistently cautioned that investors were enjoying a run-up in stocks that
may prove short-lived. Timing aside, Wednesday’s
downdraft suggests his narrative might have been spot-on.
---- For his part, Minerd has been warning that climbing yields, which can translate to higher borrowing costs for corporations, would eventually punish Wall Street investors. He said a trillion-dollar deficit, partly resulting from President Donald Trump’s corporate tax cuts late last year could also exacerbate any rate climb and add to woes for borrowers and markets in coming years.
All that said, Minerd told CNBC in an afternoon interview that Wednesday’s selloff wasn’t necessarily the harbinger of a market downturn but more reflective of seasonal volatility, given that October is known as one of the choppiest months. “I think it’s too soon to call the end of the bull market.”
Rattled Wall Street stock investors fret about a correction
October 11, 2018 / 12:37 AM
(Reuters) - The deepest one-day selloff in Wall Street stocks
in eight months has investors using the market equivalent of a dirty word:
“correction”.
With traders spooked by rising U.S. Treasury yields and fears of a deepening U.S.-China trade conflict, the benchmark S&P 500 index .SPX on Wednesday dropped 3.29 percent, its worst one-day decline since February, bringing its loss to almost 5.0 percent since closing at a record high on Sept 20.
Many investors define a stock market correction as a fall of at least 10 percent from a high, often as a reaction to excessive gains.
“It’s probably the beginning of the correction,” said Oliver Pursche, vice chairman and chief market strategist at Bruderman Asset Management in New York.
---- Fears of a potential correction became more acute as the S&P 500 technology index .SPLRCT plummeted 4.77 percent, the deepest one-session decline since 2011 for the sector behind much of the market’s gains in recent years.
U.S. President Trump blamed the Federal Reserve, which he said has gone
“crazy” raising interest rates.
“Actually it’s a correction that we’ve been waiting for for a long time,
but I really disagree with what the Fed is doing,” Trump told reporters before
a political rally in Pennsylvania.
Investors are worried about how aggressively the Fed will raise interest
rates, and some are sceptical about whether the central bank will support
markets the way it was seen to have done under previous Fed chairs.
A stock market downturn hitting voters’ retirement savings would be
inopportune for Trump and the Republican party ahead of U.S. midterm elections
on November 6.
More
These stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq declined the most today
By Philip
van Doorn Published: Oct 10, 2018
10:55 p.m. ET
U.S. stocks suffered an unusually brutal decline Wednesday, as investors
worry about interest rates rising from historical lows.The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -3.15% was down 832 points, or 3.2%, to 25,598.74, while the S&P 500 SPX, -3.29% fell 3.3%. The Nasdaq Composite Index had its worst session in two years, declining 4.1%, as internet stocks tumbled in the wake of a mixed earnings preview from Barclays.
Meanwhile, the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes TMUBMUSD10Y, -0.54% was unchanged at 3.19%, but that’s up from 2.94% a month ago and 2.40% at the end of 2017.
An
important theme driving the bull market that began in March 2009 has been “a
world awash with cash.” The Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and the Bank
of Japan added so much liquidity with their historically low interest rates and
bond purchases that it was logical to expect a tremendous flow of money into
U.S. stocks. But the Fed has raised its target federal funds rate three times
this year, and it
is reasonable to expect additional upward moves for long-term interest rates.
And that typically spells at least short-term jitters for stocks.
---- Dow losers
All 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down Wednesday. Here they are, sorted by the day’s declines:---- S&P 500 losers
All sectors of the S&P 500 were down Wednesday. Here are the 10 worst-performing S&P 500 stocks for the day:
More
Trump Steps Up Fed Pressure With ‘Gone Crazy’ Jab After Sell-off
By Justin Sink and Shannon Pettypiece
Updated on 11 October 2018, 05:04 GMT+1
President Donald Trump slammed the Federal Reserve as “going loco” for
its interest-rate increases this year in comments hours after the worst U.S. stock
market sell-off since February.Trump said in a telephone interview on Fox News late Wednesday night the market plunge wasn’t because of his trade conflict with China: “That wasn’t it. The problem I have is with the Fed,” he said. “The Fed is going wild. They’re raising interest rates and it’s ridiculous.”
“That’s not the problem,” he said of the trade standoff. “The
problem in my opinion is the fed,” he added. “The fed is going loco.”
His latest criticism of the Federal Reserve began earlier Wednesday as
he arrived in Pennsylvania for a campaign rally. “They’re so tight. I think the
Fed has gone crazy,” the president said.
Trump’s latest attack on the U.S. central bank appeared to blame the
Federal Reserve for a stock rout that market analysts mostly attributed to
fresh concern about his trade war with China. Trump has been publicly
criticizing the Fed since July for interest-rate increases and declared he was
“not happy” in September when the central bank raised rates for the third time
this year.
More
"We
feel that fundamentally Wall Street is sound, and that for people who can
afford to pay for them outright, good stocks are cheap at these prices."
Goodbody and Company market-letter quoted in The New York
Times, Friday, October 25, 1929
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Not the usual bent politicians and crooked banksters today. Today, more
on bent Belgium. Come back that old Greek man with his lamp in the daylight, you
are badly needed in Brussels.
“The
world is a place that’s gone from being flat to round to crooked.”
Mad
Magazine.
Soccer - Belgium raids top soccer clubs over fraud, match-fixing
October 10, 2018 / 11:28 AM / Updated 4
hours ago
BRUSSELS
(Reuters) - Belgian police carried out a series of raids at soccer clubs and
homes across the country on Wednesday and detained many people for questioning
about financial fraud and possible match-fixing, Belgian prosecutors said.
A
total of 44 searches were carried out at top Belgian clubs and residences,
federal prosecutors said in a statement. At the same time, searches of 13
houses also took place in France, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Montenegro, Serbia and
Macedonia.
Prosecutors
did not name any clubs or people. Belgian broadcasters VRT and RTBF said
searches had taken place at leading teams including Anderlecht, Club Bruges and
Standard Liege.
Prosecutors said the searches were related to an investigation launched
at the end of 2017 into suspect financial transactions in the top Belgian
league, with possible charges of criminal organisation, money laundering and
corruption.
Some agents were suspected of hiding commissions on transfers, players’
pay and other payments from the Belgian authorities, the prosecutors said.
“During the investigation there were indications of possible influencing
of matches in the 2017-2018 season,” the prosecutors said.
The searches come after Belgium reached the World Cup semi-finals. Most
of the national team squad now play abroad but previously played in the Belgian
premier league, which is a major feeder of players for top European club sides.
Some of the house searches were carried out at the homes of club
directors, soccer agents, referees, a former lawyer, a trainer, journalists and
at an accountancy office.
“A large number of people have been deprived of their liberty and taken
in for a thorough interrogation,” the prosecutors said, adding that a judge
would later decide who should be held in custody or formally arrested.
The searches abroad were chiefly at offices and residences of people
used to set up the suspect transactions, the prosecutors said.
Why did I take up stealing? To live better, to own things I couldn't afford, to acquire this good taste that you now enjoy and which I should be very reluctant to give up.
Cary Grant. To Catch A Thief.
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?
Route to flexible electronics made from exotic materials
Cost-effective method produces semiconducting films from materials that outperform silicon
Date:
October 8, 2018
Source:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Summary:
Engineers have developed a technique to fabricate ultrathin semiconducting
films made from a host of exotic materials other than silicon. To demonstrate
their technique, the researchers fabricated flexible films made from gallium
arsenide, gallium nitride, and lithium fluoride -- materials that exhibit
better performance than silicon but until now have been prohibitively expensive
to produce in functional devices.
The vast majority of computing devices today are made from silicon, the
second most abundant element on Earth, after oxygen. Silicon can be found in
various forms in rocks, clay, sand, and soil. And while it is not the best
semiconducting material that exists on the planet, it is by far the most
readily available. As such, silicon is the dominant material used in most
electronic devices, including sensors, solar cells, and the integrated circuits
within our computers and smartphones.
Now MIT engineers have developed a technique to fabricate ultrathin
semiconducting films made from a host of exotic materials other than silicon.
To demonstrate their technique, the researchers fabricated flexible films made
from gallium arsenide, gallium nitride, and lithium fluoride -- materials that
exhibit better performance than silicon but until now have been prohibitively
expensive to produce in functional devices.
The new technique, researchers say, provides a cost-effective method to
fabricate flexible electronics made from any combination of semiconducting
elements, that could perform better than current silicon-based devices.
"We've opened up a way to make flexible electronics with so many
different material systems, other than silicon," says Jeehwan Kim, the
Class of 1947 Career Development Associate Professor in the departments of
Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering. Kim envisions the
technique can be used to manufacture low-cost, high-performance devices such as
flexible solar cells, and wearable computers and sensors.
Details of the new technique are reported today in Nature Materials.
In addition to Kim, the paper's MIT co-authors include Wei Kong, Huashan Li,
Kuan Qiao, Yunjo Kim, Kyusang Lee, Doyoon Lee, Tom Osadchy, Richard Molnar,
Yang Yu, Sang-hoon Bae, Yang Shao-Horn, and Jeffrey Grossman, along with
researchers from Sun Yat-Sen University, the University of Virginia, the
University of Texas at Dallas, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Ohio State
University, and Georgia Tech.
More
"This
is the time to buy stocks. This is the time to recall the words of the late J.
P. Morgan... that any man who is bearish on America will go broke. Within a few
days there is likely to be a bear panic rather than a bull panic. Many of the
low prices as a result of this hysterical selling are not likely to be reached
again in many years."
R. W.
McNeal, market analyst, as quoted in the New York
Herald Tribune, October
30, 1929
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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