Baltic
Dry Index 721 -76
Brent Crude 62.11
Trump
25 percent tariffs 29 days away. Brexit 59
days away.
"In several of their criticisms, the British are right.
People's disengagement from Europe is a major subject for all countries. I am
completely opposed to the United Kingdom's exit from Europe. The worst case
would be Brexit and Turkey joining. That would be the grand slam of errors. But
Brexit or no Brexit, we will in any case have to reform the European project
thoroughly."
Interview with Le Monde, 17 May 2016 Nicolas Sarkozy. After nearly 3 years, no sign of
reform.
With
a grovelling Fed firmly in President Trump’s pocket, US stocks soared and
re-election in 2020 now looks all but a certainty. Since the Fed caved in to
President Trump on Christmas Eve, the Fed “Put” has made stocks the top go to game
on Wall Street.
President Trump has staked his Presidency on how US stocks
perform. The Fed seems to be reigniting gold too.
Below,
Marketwatch covers the Fed’s formal surrender. What could possibly go wrong?
Don’t fight the Fed.
Wall Street adage. (Trump did, and won!)
How a dovish Fed sparked a stock-market rally and tanked the U.S. dollar
By William
Watts Published: Jan 30, 2019 6:29 p.m. ET
Was move overdue or did Fed go overboard?
The Federal Reserve and its chairman, Jerome
Powell, changed their tune Wednesday, striking a surprisingly dovish tone that
sparked a stock-market rally, tanked the U.S. dollar and roiled other financial
markets.
The Fed hinted that it may be at the end of its
rate-hike cycle and further surprised investors by issuing a separate statement
regarding its balance sheet, indicating that its efforts to reduce the $4
trillion asset portfolio could end sooner than expected. The tone was seen as
an about-face from the Fed’s hawkishly received December meeting when it
delivered its fourth rate increase of 2018.
“This is one of the most dovish turnarounds by a Fed chair that I have ever seen in my 30-year career,” said Tom di Galoma, managing director at Seaport Global Holdings.
And the initial reaction across markets appeared in keeping with the perceived shift.
The message delivered by the Fed “just couldn’t be much better for both bonds and equities and for the credit markets that track Treasurys,” said Mark Grant, chief global strategist at B. Riley FBR, in a note.
Check out: Here are the biggest stock winners on the day the Fed went soft on interest rates
Here’s a rundown of how markets reacted:
Equities soared, surging in the wake of the Fed’s statement and during Powell’s news conference before trimming gains, but still ending sharply higher. The S&P 500 SPX, +1.55% closed up 1.6% at 2,681.05, a nearly seven-week high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +1.77% ended 434.90 points higher at 25,014.86, a gain of 1.8%.
For the S&P 500, it was the biggest one-day gain on the final day of a Fed meeting since December 2014, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
More
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-stocks-surged-yields-fell-and-the-dollar-tanked-after-the-feds-dovish-pivot-2019-01-30
Congratulations, Market. The Fed Is Officially at Your Mercy.
Policy makers signal they don’t want to rock the boat.By Brian Chappatta 30 January 2019, 20:19 GMT https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-30/fed-meeting-central-bank-is-at-the-market-s-mercy
But others aren’t so sure. Some see signs of trouble ahead for stocks even with a Team Trump Fed. The rapidly sinking Baltic Dry Index seems to agree.
Stock-market investors should brace for a plunge in business investment, analysts warns
By Chris
Matthews Published: Jan 29, 2019 2:28 p.m. ET
Confidence surveys all point to weaker capex spending
For a brief, shining moment, it looked as if
American corporations had learned to invest again.
Following the passage of the late-2017 corporate
tax reform, U.S. companies rushed to pour money into spending related to
investing in research and development, new projects and equipment. So-called
capital expenditures, or capex, rose 10.1% in the first half of 2018, more than
double the 4.1% increase seen in the six months prior.
However, since then it has sputtered, rising a
comparatively meager 2.5% in the third quarter, and there’s reason to expect
this downtrend to continue, according to Veneta Dimitrova, senior U.S.
economist at Ned Davis Research Group. The analysts said recent surveys on the
business outlook paint a unfavorable picture that could spell further drops in
corporate investments and possibly an economic retrenchment, a despite a jolt
from tax cuts 13 months ago.
“We’ve been skeptical that the massive $1.5
trillion tax reform of 2017 would supercharge U.S. investment growth for years
to come,” Dimitrova wrote in a Tuesday research note to clients. “Now there are
mounting signs from business indicators that the downward pressure on capex
will continue in 2019.”
Dimitrova points to the Conference Boar’s CEO
Confidence index, which fell from a reading of 55 in December to 43 in January
— its lowest reading since the third quarter of 2012.
The trend in CEO confidence is troubling,
as there have only been 10 other instances since 1976 when CEO confidence has
fallen to 43 or lower, and in the median case, business investment has declined
4.8% four quarters later. In abut 40% of instances, the low level of confidence
coincided with a recession.
More
In regime change news, how long
can Maduro hold on in Venezuela? America steps up the pressure. The oil market
starts to rise. Why would Venezuela’s troops be willing to fight for a dictator
who wrecked Venezuela? My guess is that they won’t. Russia evacuates its
Venezuelan loan collateral. Surely a signal that his end is near.
'Don't deal in Venezuelan gold,' White House says, in anti-Maduro push
January 30, 2019 / 4:03 AM
CARACAS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House warned
traders on Wednesday not to deal in Venezuelan gold or oil following its
imposition of stiff sanctions aimed at forcing socialist President Nicolas
Maduro from power.
National security adviser John Bolton tweeted that
traders should not deal in gold, oil or other commodities “being stolen” from
the Venezuelan people, as opponents of Maduro’s government worried that a
Russian-operated plane had shipped gold out of Caracas on Wednesday afternoon.
The White House said U.S. President Donald Trump
spoke to Venezuela’s self-proclaimed interim president, Juan Guaido, by phone
on Wednesday, reiterating support for his “fight to regain democracy.”
On one side of the tussle for control of Venezuela,
an OPEC member that has the world’s largest oil reserves but is in dire
financial straits, Guaido and Western backers led by the United States are
insisting on an immediate transition and fresh elections.
On the other, Maduro, with backing from Russia,
China and Turkey, says he will remain for his second six-year term despite
accusations of fraud in his re-election last year and the economic meltdown.
Venezuela’s struggle to pay its debts even to
allies Russia and China amid a sharp drop in oil output has been exacerbated by
the new sanctions, which will make it very hard to sell oil to its main client,
the United States.
In that context, the arrival in Caracas of a Boeing
777 plane from Moscow on Monday led to speculation Maduro’s government was
shipping more gold reserves out of the country, following shipments of $900
million of gold to Turkey last year. That was part of a strategy to increase
the central bank’s liquidity.
The flight, operated by Russia’s Nordwind
Airlines, left Venezuela at 4.52 pm local time (2152 GMT), a Reuters witness
said. Another Russian-operated flight, a Boeing 757 cargo plane, arrived at the
airport an hour earlier via Cape Verde, according to publicly-available flight
data. There are no routine flights between the two countries.
---- Oil prices rose nearly 3 percent on Wednesday, as investors remained concerned about supply disruptions.
Wills Rangel, a board member of state oil company
PDVSA, told Reuters the company was having problems unloading fuel imports
because the sanctions were complicating payments.
Maduro, 56, says Guaido is staging a U.S.-directed
coup against him. He told Moscow’s RIA news agency on Wednesday that Trump
ordered “the government of Colombia and the Colombian mafia to kill me,”
reprising an accusation of plots he has made over the years and which Bogota
and Washington routinely deny.
Maduro is not expected to stand down while he has
the backing of senior military officers and has made daily visits to troops.
More
I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a
country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are
much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.
Henry Kissinger. (Venezuela?)
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over banksters and politicians.
Today, a Brexit update as the sky starts to fall in.
"Deserters
will not be welcomed back with open arms."
Jean-Claude
Juncker. Failed Luxembourg Prime Minister and ex-president of the Euro Group of
Finance Ministers. Confessed liar. European Commission President. Scotch
connoisseur. May 20, 2016.
I just got back
from my local Tesco supermarket, and the shelves were mostly empty save for a
few canned vegetables and some out of date confectionary. Toilette rolls – all gone. Bread – not
expected till June. German, Dutch, Belgian, Czech beer all gone, only some
unknown beer from a tiny UK craft brewery on display. Meats only offal on sale.
Medicines forget it. Pasta, gone
forever. Tomatoes so 2018.
Instead of masses
of obese customers waddling out with overloaded trolleys, just hungry masses
wandering around moaning and sighing, trailed by wailing, crying, children, and
confused Old Age Pensionners. Petrol, at
least fifty cars waiting on the next delivery, no word on when.
In a recent report from my local newspaper, a Dr. J.
Swift reported:
“It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through
this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads
and cabin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three,
four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an
alms. These mothers instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood,
are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their
helpless infants who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for want of work, or
leave their dear native country, to fight for the Pretender in Venezuela, or
sell themselves to the lucky well fed Europeans.”
With apologies.
Prime Minister Maybe, with apologies to Jean-Claude Juncker.
Failed Luxembourg Prime Minister and ex-president of the Euro Group of Finance
Ministers. Confessed liar. European Commission President. Scotch connoisseur.
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?
Graphene: Large, stable pieces of graphene produced with unique edge pattern
Date: January 29, 2019
Source: University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
Summary: Graphene is a promising material for use in
nanoelectronics. Its electronic properties depend greatly, however, on how the
edges of the carbon layer are formed. Zigzag patterns are particularly
interesting in this respect, but until now it has been virtually impossible to
create edges with a pattern like this. Chemists and physicists have now
succeeded in producing stable nanographene with a zigzag edge. Not only that,
the method they used was even comparatively simple.
Their research, conducted within the framework of
collaborative research centre 953 -- Synthetic Carbon Allotropes at
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) funded by the German
Research Foundation (DFG), has now been published in the journal Nature
Communications.
Bay, fjord, cove, armchair and zigzag -- when
chemists use terms such as these, it is clear that they are referring to
nanographene. More specifically, the shape taken by the edges of nanographene,
i.e. small fragments of graphene. Graphene consists of a single-layered carbon
structure, where each carbon atom is surrounded by three others. This creates a
pattern reminiscent of a honeycomb, with atoms in each of the corners.
Nanographene is a promising candidate for use in the field of microelectronics,
taking over from silicon which is used today and bringing microelectronics down
to the nano scale.
The electronic properties of the material depend
greatly on its shape, size and above all, periphery, in other words how the
edges are structured. A zigzag periphery is particularly suitable, as in this
case the electrons, which act as charge carriers, are more mobile than in other
edge structures. This means that using pieces of zigzag-shaped graphene in
nanoelectronic components may allow higher frequencies for switches.
The problem currently faced by materials scientists
who want to research only zigzag nanographene is that this form makes the
compounds rather unstable, and unable to be produced in a controlled manner.
This is a prerequisite, however, if the electronic properties are to be
investigated in detail.
The team of researchers led by PD Dr. Konstantin
Amsharov from the Chair of Organic Chemistry II have now succeeded in doing
just that. Not only have they discovered a straightforward method for
synthesising zigzag nanographene, their procedure delivers a yield of close to
one hundred percent and is suitable for large scale production. They have
already produced a technically relevant quantity in the laboratory.
More
“I told him bluntly, come on David, get real. I
know that all prime ministers are promising to help you, but believe me the
truth is that no one has an appetite for revolution in Europe only because of
your stupid referendum."
"If you try to force us, to hurry us, you will
lose everything. And for the first time I saw something close to fear in his
eyes. He finally realized what a challenge he was facing.”
European
Council President Donald Tusk
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished December.
DJIA: 23,327 +115 Down. NASDAQ: 6,635 +152 Down.
SP500: 2,507
+90 Down.
Normally this would
suggest more correction still to come, but with President Trump wanting to be
judged by the performance of the stock market and his Treasury Secretary
activating the Plunge Protection Team after the Christmas Eve Crash, will a
politicised PPT cover the President’s back? [Yes] Probably the safest action
here is fully paid up synthetic double options on most of the major indexes.
Hopefully a USA –
China trade deal reinvigorates the markets, but failure and 25 percent tariffs,
is a market killer.
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