Baltic Dry Index. 1579 +03 Brent Crude 79.63
If an injury has to be done to
a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Later today,
President Erdogan promises to release “the truth” on the Khashoggi murder in
Istanbul on October 2nd. Depending on what that “truth” is, and how
credible its source, President Trump , Saudi Arabia, and Crown Prince Mohammad
Bin Salman, could all be in for a very rough time.
If “the truth” points
to MBS behind the murder, the government of Saudi Arabia may be thrown into
turmoil. The US midterm elections saddled with a new issue, that I doubt most
voters really cared about until today. New uncertainty heaped on existing election
uncertainty, making for a very wild last few days on the hustings. Markets
would likely react negatively.
If “the truth” is
less conclusive and credible, western governments led by the erratic Trump USA,
will be left dithering about for an appropriate response. Like it or not, a
whole lot of western contracts and jobs, rest on what the western governments
decide. One dubious upside, the likely survival of Crown Prince Mohammad.
Stability of a sort in leading oil exporter Saudi Arabia in the run down to US
sanctions on Iranian oil exports starting on November 4th.
Interestingly,
President Trump’s CIA director was sent to Turkey yesterday, presumably to try
to get President Erdogan to tone down his “truth.” But much of President Erdogan’s
leaks have been directed at President Trump as much as at MBS.
Needless to say, this
uncertainty is weighing on Asian markets.
Asian shares buckle to European woes, Saudi anxieties
October 23, 2018 / 2:06 AM /
Updated an hour ago
TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares fell on Tuesday as earnings season nerves in
the U.S. dented Wall Street, while a cocktail of negative drivers from Saudi
Arabia’s diplomatic isolation to concerns over Italy’s budget and Brexit talks
depressed sentiment.
Selling in the region erased gains made in the previous two sessions’
rally, which were led by China stimulus hopes, with the MSCI’s broadest index
of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropping 1.3 percent.
South Korea’s Kospi fell as much as 2.5 percent and was on course to hit
a 1-1/2-year low. In Japan, the Nikkei fell 2.3 percent.
U.S. stock futures dropped 0.8 percent in early Tuesday trade. On Monday
the S&P 500 lost 0.43 percent as investors kept a wary eye on earnings amid
global growth worries. Enthusiasm over some of the upbeat results was also tempered
by the growing political uncertainty around the world.
“In short, the world seems to be getting into chaos,” said Akira Takei,
bond fund manager at Asset Management One.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he was not satisfied with
what he had heard from Saudi Arabia about the killing of journalist Jamal
Khashoggi at its consulate in Turkey.
Trump has expressed reluctance to punish the Saudis economically. But
while Saudi Arabia has sought to shield its powerful crown prince from the killing,
many officials have cast doubt on Riyadh’s narrative.
Several countries, including Germany, Britain, France and Turkey, have
pressed Saudi Arabia to provide all the facts.
An immediate market focus is on Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who
said he will release information about the investigation in a speech on
Tuesday.
Any signs of instability in Saudi Arabia, a major oil producer as well
as a big investor in financial markets, could have wide-ranging repercussions.
“I would think this issue could drag on for some time,” said Asset
Management One’s Takei.
More
Asian Stock Declines Deepen as Treasuries Advance: Markets Wrap
By Andreea Papuc
Updated on 23 October 2018, 04:58 GMT+1
A sell-off in equities resumed with Asian stocks and U.S. futures
sliding as Chinese shares snapped a two-day rally ahead of a slew of key blue
chip earnings reports this week. The dollar traded around the highest level in
two months and Treasury yields fell.
The steepest decreases were in Japan, Hong Kong and China, where shares
failed to sustain the biggest jump in more than two years the previous day.
S&P 500 Index futures declined almost 1 percent. Earlier, banks and energy
stocks had led declines in the U.S. benchmark though the FANG cohort lifted
tech-heavy Nasdaq indexes ahead of earnings from the likes of Alphabet and
Twitter. The yen gained and gold ticked higher.
Risks
still abound across global markets, from the continuing U.S.-China trade
showdown and tension surrounding the killing of a Saudi journalist to Italian
budget fears and President Donald Trump’s unpredictable actions ahead of
American midterm elections. Equities are looking for direction after a
miserable few weeks, and company results from the likes of Amazon, Alphabet,
Microsoft and Intel as well as U.S. growth data may provide a stimulus in the
coming days.
“Global
financial markets continue to struggle to rally as various geopolitical
concerns weigh on investor confidence,” Nick Twidale, chief operating officer
at Rakuten Securities Australia, said in a note. “With the rest of the world
looking much more pessimistic in the current environment,” markets were poised
for “a firm correction,” he added.
More
Turkey - Khashoggi murder 'monstrously planned', truth will emerge
October 21, 2018 / 1:27 PM
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey’s ruling party
said on Monday Jamal Khashoggi was the victim of a “monstrously planned”
murder, dismissing Riyadh’s assertion he died in a fight, as Western
incredulity deepened over varying Saudi accounts of the journalist’s
disappearance.
Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and
critic of the powerful Saudi crown prince, disappeared three weeks ago after he
entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents for an upcoming
marriage.
Riyadh’s reaction since - it initially denied knowledge of his fate
before saying he was killed in a fight in the consulate - has left several
Western governments deeply sceptical and strained ties with the world’s largest
oil exporter.
Ruling AK Party spokesman Omer Celik said efforts had been made to cover
up the killing, referring to surveillance footage aired by CNN showing a man
dressed as Khashoggi walking around Istanbul after he vanished in an apparent
attempt at deception.
“We are facing a situation that has been monstrously planned and later
tried to be covered up. It is a complicated murder,” he told reporters.
“We are being careful so nobody tries to
cover the issue up. The truth will come out. Those responsible will be
punished, something like this will not cross anybody’s mind anymore.”
---- “One cannot help but wonder how there
could have been a ‘fistfight’ between 15 young expert fighters ... and a
60-year-old Khashoggi, alone and defenceless,” Yasin Aktay, an adviser to
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and a friend of Khashoggi’s, wrote in the
pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper.
“The more one thinks about it, the more it
feels like our intelligence is being mocked,” he wrote.
More
Trump says he remains unsatisfied with Saudi accounts on Khashoggi
October 21, 2018 / 1:27 PM /
Updated 3 hours ago
WASHINGTON/ISTANBUL (Reuters) -
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that he was still not satisfied with
what he has heard from Saudi Arabia about the killing of journalist Jamal
Khashoggi in Turkey, but did not want to lose investment from Riyadh.
Trump spoke with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of
the world’s top oil exporter, on Sunday. He told reporters on Monday that he
has teams in Saudi Arabia and Turkey working on the case and would know more
about it after they returned to Washington on Monday night or Tuesday.
CIA Director Gina Haspel was travelling to Turkey on Monday to work on
the Khashoggi investigation, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
“I am not satisfied with what I’ve heard,” Trump told reporters at the
White House. “I don’t want to lose all that investment that’s been made in our
country. But we’re going to get to the bottom of it.”
He later told USA Today that he believed the death was a “plot gone
awry.”
Trump has expressed reluctance to punish the Saudis economically, citing
the kingdom’s multibillion-dollar purchases of U.S. military equipment and
investments in U.S. companies.
Prince
Mohammed met in Riyadh with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and
discussed “the importance of the Saudi-U.S. strategic partnership,” Saudi state
media said. Mnuchin’s spokesman said on Twitter the two discussed the Khashoggi
investigation as well as Iran sanctions and Saudi economic issues.
Mnuchin cancelled his speaking engagement at a high-profile Saudi
investment conference on Tuesday, as did two dozen other top speakers.
Hundreds of bankers and company executives were still expected to attend
the Future Investment Initiative, which aims to help the country curb its
economic dependence on oil exports. But Khashoggi’s killing has tarnished an
event that last year attracted global business elites and won the moniker
“Davos in the Desert.”
More
Men are so simple and so much
inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for
his deceptions.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Today, a hopping mad, revenge
seeking, Washington Post sets out to get
even with Saudi Arabia.
Princes and governments are
far more dangerous than other elements within society.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Inside the Saudis’ Washington influence machine: How the kingdom gained power through fierce lobbying and charm offensives
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was preparing for his first official visit to the United States, just four months after he consolidated power by ordering the detention of members of the royal family and business elite. At the same time, Congress was facing a vote on a bipartisan resolution seeking to end U.S. support for a Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen that has killed tens of thousands of civilians since 2015.
During an afternoon meeting on March 12, Saudi Ambassador Khalid bin Salman sat at the head of a long table in an embassy conference room, flanked by a whiteboard detailing the prince’s itinerary. His assembled advisers included Norm Coleman, the former Minnesota senator; Marc S. Lampkin, a veteran Capitol Hill adviser who served on President Trump’s transition team; and Democratic strategist Alfred E. Mottur, according to people familiar with the gathering.
Eight days after their meeting, the congressional resolution aimed at extracting the United States from what the United Nations labeled “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world” would be defeated — hours after Mohammed was warmly welcomed at the White House at the start of his nationwide tour.
Those twin successes reflected the power of a sophisticated Saudi influence machine that has shaped policy and perceptions in Washington for decades, batting back critiques of the oil-rich kingdom by doling out millions to lobbyists, blue-chip law firms, prominent think tanks and large defense contractors. In 2017, Saudi payments to lobbyists and consultants in Washington more than tripled over the previous year, public filings show.
The strength of the Saudi operation is now being tested amid a global condemnation of the killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi earlier this month in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul — a death the kingdom belatedly acknowledged last week.
Beyond
their spending in Washington, the Saudis have enjoyed a priceless advantage: a
warm relationship with the president, who has done business with its
wealthy citizens, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who developed a close
bond with the crown prince as he crafted the administration’s Middle East
policy. The ties build on a long-standing relationship between past
administrations and the Saudi royal family.
The kingdom also cultivated opinion leaders through aggressive charm offensives. Powerful government figures — including deputy intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, who was fired for Khashoggi’s killing — have visited Washington to court reporters and think tank analysts.
The Saudi ambassador has hosted intimate dinners in Washington and even occasional galas, such as a lavish event at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium honoring this year’s visit of the crown prince.
The kingdom’s lobbying team was dispatched to ensure that leading members of congressional foreign relations panels attended, public filings show.
Earlier this year, Saudi officials even offered Super Bowl tickets and chartered flights to the event to media stars such as Jake Tapper of CNN and Bret Baier of Fox News, according to Tapper and a Fox News spokeswoman. (Both said they turned the offers down.)
More
A prince never lacks
legitimate reasons to break his promise.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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?
New Materials Could Make Concentrated Solar Power Cheaper Than Battery Storage
October 19th, 2018 by Steve Hanley
Sunlight
can do lots of useful things. It can make plants grow. It can allow solar
panels to make electricity. And it can be used to heat stuff up to extremely
high temperatures. That last one is what makes concentrated
solar power possible. According to a report in Science
Daily, “Concentrated solar power plants convert solar
energy into electricity by using mirrors or lenses to concentrate a lot of
light onto a small area, which generates heat that is transferred to a molten
salt. Heat from the molten salt is then transferred to a “working” fluid,
supercritical carbon dioxide, that expands and works to spin a turbine for
generating electricity.”
The critical elements in that process are the heat exchangers used to transfer the heat stored in the molten salt to the carbon dioxide working fluid. If the whole process could be made to operate at even higher temperatures, CSP systems could make more electricity from a given amount of sunlight.
“Storing solar energy as heat can already be cheaper than storing energy via batteries, so the next step is reducing the cost of generating electricity from the sun’s heat with the added benefit of zero greenhouse gas emissions,” says Kenneth Sandhage, a professor of materials engineering at Purdue University.
At the present time, those heat exchangers are made of stainless steel or nickel based alloys, but they get too soft at the desired higher temperatures and at the elevated pressure of supercritical carbon dioxide. Professor Sandhage has been collaborating with researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to develop new materials that can be used in heat exchangers that operate at those higher temperatures. The results of their research have been published recently in the journal Nature.
The scientists looked at the materials used to make nozzles for solid fuel rocket engines and created new heat exchangers made from zirconium carbide and tungsten that can withstand the high temperature, high pressure supercritical carbon dioxide needed for generating electricity more efficiently. An economic analysis by Georgia Tech and Purdue researchers also showed that the scaled up manufacturing of these heat exchangers could be conducted at comparable or lower cost than for stainless steel or nickel alloy-based ones.
“Ultimately,
with continued development, this technology would allow for large scale
penetration of renewable solar energy into the electricity grid,” Sandhage
says. “This would mean dramatic reductions in human-made carbon dioxide
emissions from electricity production.” What a delicious irony that carbon dioxide
— the molecule responsible for most global warming — could be used to help
reduce carbon emissions from the energy generation sector. Check out the video
below for more on this breakthrough research.
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
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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