Baltic
Dry Index 598 +03
Brent Crude 62.86
Trump
25 percent tariffs 15 days away. Brexit 45
days away.
As we learned after President Herbert Hoover signed
the Smoot-Hawley tariff at the outset of the Great Depression, vibrant
international trade is a key component to economic recovery; hindering trade is
a recipe for disaster.
Asa Hutchinson
Did
President Trump just blink? Probably too much to hope for, but the markets
believe that he did. I have my doubts, and with this latest half U-turn by President
Trump, China will be emboldened to go down to the wire, putting into effect
Napoleon’s maxim “never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
With
just over a fortnight left until tariff day, the pressure for a deal now seems
to be on President Trump. Perhaps trade wars aren’t so easy to win after all.
Better luck perhaps, with crumbling Europe.
Trump Flexible on China Tariff Deadline as He Seeks ‘Real Deal’
By Saleha Mohsin, Andrew Mayeda, and Margaret Talev
Updated on 13 February 2019, 03:39 GMT
·
·
China’s president to meet U.S. delegation on
Friday, SCMP says
“If we’re close to a deal where we think we can
make a real deal and it’s going to get done, I could see myself letting that
slide for a little while,” Trump told reporters during a cabinet meeting
Tuesday. “But generally speaking I’m not inclined” to delay raising tariffs, he
added.
Negotiators from the two countries began
their latest round of talks this week ahead of the March 1 deadline for
additional U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. Trump has threatened to more than
double the rate of duties on $200 billion in Chinese imports.
More
Asian stocks touch four-month peak on U.S.-China trade deal hopes
February 13, 2019 / 12:47 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian stocks edged up to a more than
four-month high on Wednesday, lifted by optimism that the United States and
China might be able to hammer out a deal to resolve their nearly year-long
trade dispute.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares
outside Japan rose as much as 0.5 percent to hit its highest level since early
October.
Japan’s Nikkei average climbed 1.3 percent to mark
an eight-week high, while South Korea’s KOSPI gained 0.5 percent.
China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite and the
blue-chip CSI 300 advanced 0.4 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively, and Hong
Kong’s Hang Seng was up 0.6 percent. Asia took its cue from Wall Street, where
the Dow and Nasdaq each rallied about 1.5 percent overnight on optimism over
U.S.-China trade negotiations and a tentative U.S. congressional spending deal
to avert another partial government shutdown.
---- “We are currently seeing negative sentiment which had built up over trade concerns and U.S. fiscal issues being unwound,” said Soichiro Monji, senior economist at Daiwa SB Investments in Tokyo.
“For risk assets to move purely on optimism, the
U.S.-China trade row will need to see some kind of a closure in March. A more
permanent solution to avoid a U.S. government shutdown is also necessary. It
has to be remembered that we are not there yet.”
U.S. congressional negotiators cobbled together a
tentative bipartisan border security deal late on Monday to avert another
partial government shutdown. However, Trump on Tuesday expressed displeasure
with the agreement and said he had yet to decide whether to support it.
The Cboe Volatility Index, Wall Street’s
so-called “fear gauge,” dropped to as low as 14.95, its lowest level in more
than four months, overnight.
More
In
US trade war potential, things look far more promising in taking on Euroland.
Euroland already looks like it’s heading for, or actually entering a new recession. I doubt the Europeans have much resolve in
any trade war with Trade War Team Trump. If Trump shoots the EUSSR in the foot,
Brussels can only retaliate by shooting itself in the other foot.
Europe Looks Like the Real Weak Link in the Global Economy
By William Horobin and Catherine BosleyDeteriorating demand is evident across the 19-nation euro area as it finds itself squeezed between international and domestic drags. That leaves its expansion at risk of barely topping 1 percent this year, a sharp slowdown from 2018, with even continental powerhouse Germany in trouble.
Investors are tuning in. The Bloomberg euro index
is near its lowest since mid-2017 and European stocks have never been cheaper
relative to bonds in terms of yield gap.
“The concern I have right now is in Europe,” said
Salman Ahmed, chief investment strategist at Lombard Odier. “It’s clear China
is going through a slowdown, but there’s also a strong amount of stimulus in
the pipeline. However, in Europe, things are deteriorating quite fast.”
The extent and surprising suddenness of the weakness reflects that the slowdown is hitting the core of the region. While the likes of Greece were at the root of past sluggishness, this time Germany’s prospects are crumbling after a protracted slump in manufacturing. Household spending has also ground to a halt in France, which is beset by the Yellow Vest protests.
Together those two countries account for about half the euro-area economy.
“If France stops consuming and Germany stops producing you have a major problem in the euro zone,” said Ludovic Subran, deputy chief economist at Allianz.
The problems don’t stop there. Italian bond yields have started to creep higher again amid doubts over fiscal management, the health of banks is questionable and Brexit remains unresolved. European elections in May could see gains for anti-EU parties, something that’s already worrying some companies.
“Ultimately we are optimistic about the U.S., but believe that the downside risks have risen sharply in Europe,” said Deutsche Bank chief economist David Folkerts-Landau.
In the meantime, softer growth in China is pinching, with automakers such as Fiat citing weaker demand in the world’s second-largest economy. That’s filtering through to other companies, with Brussels-based Umicore saying last week that profit will be held back by the global automotive slowdown.
More
Spanish PM to announce snap election soon after budget vote - sources
February 12, 2019 / 5:57 PM
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain’s minority Socialist government
plans to announce an early general election after its expected defeat in a
budget vote on Wednesday following its refusal to negotiate Catalan
self-determination, political sources said on Tuesday.
Two small Catalan pro-independence parties, on
whose votes the government has been relying to pass legislation, have so far
maintained their blanket rejection of the budget.
They said they were open to negotiate until the
budget vote if the government promised them a dialogue on the right to
self-determination, but that right is prohibited by the Spanish constitution.
Budget Minister Maria Jesus Montero told parliament
the government would “not give in to blackmail” over the budget.
---- The government and Socialist party sources said the snap election date had not been set, although April 14 was most likely, followed by April 28, because Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez wants a ballot as soon as possible to mobilise left-leaning voters against the threat of the right coming to power.
The Socialists are ahead in opinion polls which
show them on around 30 percent of voting intentions, but the two main
right-of-centre parties together poll at more than 30 percent. In Spain’s most
populous region of Andalusia they unseated the Socialists last year with the
help of the far-right party Vox.
---- Tensions were high again between Madrid and Barcelona as the first day of budget debates coincided with the start of a trial of 12 Catalan separatist leaders in Madrid over their role in the region’s failed independence bid in 2017.
“If there is no budget, it won’t be the Catalan
pro-independence parties’ fault, it will be because you think you will benefit
from an early election,” said Ferran Bel, from the Catalan PDeCat party,
addressing the government.
More
Finally,
the ambulance chasing tort bar. Ever the same the world over. Today, Justin
Trudeau’s Canada. All over the Anglo-American world, the tort bar never loses.
Quadriga Fuels Race Among Lawyers For Slice of Lost Millions
By Doug Alexander
12 February 2019, 13:06 GMT Updated
on 12 February 2019, 15:21 GMT
Canada’s top law firms are set to converge this
Valentine’s Day on a Halifax courtroom, competing for a piece of the C$260
million ($196 million) mystery behind the Quadriga CX cryptocurrency exchange.
The lawyers are contending for the right to
represent some 115,000 Quadriga customers who are owed about C$190 million in
Bitcoin and other digital assets plus another C$70 million in cash in court
proceedings involving the shuttered Vancouver-based exchange. Quadriga was
granted creditor protection last week in Nova Scotia Supreme Court, halting any
lawsuits while the firm seeks to restructure with the help of Ernst &
Young.
Others law firms have come forward, filing competing submissions ahead of Thursday’s hearing before Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Michael Wood, who may then appoint counsel to represent those account holders. For the law firms, such an opportunity would give them a slice of the administrative charges from the process to cover their professional fees.
Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt is working with Patterson Law and seeking to represent people such as Richard Kagerer, a software consultant from British Columbia who’s owed C$19,900 in crypto and U.S. dollar balances. He’s been down this road before: Kagerer’s company is one of the creditors for Japan’s Mt. Gox exchange, which entered insolvency proceedings in 2014. Kagerer also said in his Feb. 11 statement that he was “among a small number of customers" who filed claims in court when another Canadian cryptocurrency exchange shut down a few years ago.
Read More: Crypto Exchange Founder Dies, Leaves Behind $200 Million Problem
More
Trade wars aren't started by countries appealing to
respected, independent trade authorities. Rather, trade wars begin when one
country decides to violate international trade rules to undercut another
country's industries.
Ron Wyden
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over banksters and politicians.
Today, China. If we keep demonising China in the
west, how long before we end up in an “accidental,” or otherwise war?
China's space debris cleanup may be cover story for arms against U.S. satellites, Pentagon says
Bloomberg Feb 12, 2019
WASHINGTON - China is developing sophisticated
space capabilities such as “satellite inspection and repair” and debris cleanup
— “at least some of which could also function” as weapons against U.S.
satellites, according to the Defense Intelligence Agency.
The increase in what’s essentially orbiting garbage
that could damage or destroy a satellite “has implications for policymakers
worldwide and is encouraging the development of space debris removal
technology,” the agency said Monday in an unclassified publication on threats
to U.S. satellites.
But “this technology is dual-use because it could
be used to damage another satellite,” it said.
Of about 21,000 large objects in space that are
least 10 cm (4 inches) in size that are tracked and cataloged in Earth’s orbit,
only about 1,800 are active satellites, according to the defense agency. The
rest is debris, including parts of spacecraft.
More than a third of all recorded debris is from
two events: China’s use of a missile in 2007 to destroy a defunct satellite and
the accidental collision between a U.S. communications satellite and a defunct
Russian one in 2009.
From 1998 through 2017, the International Space
Station, which is in low Earth orbit, maneuvered at least 25 times to avoid
potential orbital collisions, the intelligence agency said.
China calls US concerns over Huawei 'groundless'
Date created : 12/02/2019 -
11:20
Beijing called the latest US warning against using
Huawei equipment "groundless" on Tuesday, as the Chinese telecom
giant faces espionage fears in a growing number of countries.
The world's second-largest smartphone maker and
biggest producer of telecommunications gear has been under fire in recent
months after the arrest of a top executive in Canada and a global campaign by
Washington to blacklist its equipment.
"The US has spared no effort in unscrupulously
fabricating all kinds of groundless charges," said Chinese foreign
ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying at a regular press briefing in Beijing
Tuesday.
She also accused the US of "sowing
discord" between China and other countries, and called the actions of
Washington "neither fair nor moral."
On Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said
on a visit to Hungary that it would be difficult for the United States to
partner with countries that co-locate Huawei equipment near "important
American systems".
"We want to make sure we identify (to) them
the opportunities and the risks with using that equipment," he said.
His comments came less than week after a team of US
officials toured EU capitals -- including Brussels -- urging European
governments to scrap Huawei 5G technology from their telecom infrastructure
plans.
Several Western nations have voiced fears that
using Huawei base stations and other gear could give Chinese authorities access
to critical network infrastructure worldwide, possibly allowing it to spy on
foreign governments.
In December, Britain's largest mobile provider said
it was removing Huawei equipment from its 4G cellular network after the foreign
intelligence service singled out the company as a security risk.
Australia, New Zealand, and the United States also
enacted similar bans last year.
Huawei has remained dismissive of these concerns,
with the company's vice president and representative to the EU Abraham Liu
calling them "ungrounded and senseless allegations" in a speech last
week.
Pompeo in Slovakia on latest stop to curb Russia, China
Date created : 12/02/2019 - 10:34
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday
visited Slovakia on the latest stop on a Central European tour aimed at curbing
the growing influence of Russia and China.
Pompeo, the first US secretary of state to visit
Slovakia in 14 years, will meet President Andrej Kiska, Prime Minister Peter
Pellegrini and a group of students on the half-day stop in Bratislava.
He arrived from Hungary, the most pro-Russia member
of the European Union, where he raised concerns to Prime Minister Viktor
Orban's government both over widening ties with Moscow and Budapest's contract
with Chinese telecom giant Huawei to develop the country's fifth-generation
mobile network.
A senior US official said that Pompeo had a similar
message in Slovakia, which is heavily dependent on energy imports from Russia.
"The overall goal in Central Europe you can
see as an analogue to our Asia-Pacific strategy -- it emphasises in vulnerable
regions where our rivals, the Chinese and the Russians, are gaining ground that
we want to increase our diplomatic, military and cultural engagement," the
official told reporters travelling with Pompeo.
He said that the United States was also looking
across the region to provide more support to boost an independent media, amid
concerns about an erosion of press freedom.
In Hungary, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto
welcomed Pompeo's calls for closer ties and promised more defence cooperation
but also brushed off the criticism on relations with Russia and China.
He said that Western concerns on Hungary's ties
with Moscow amounted to "enormous hypocrisy" as Western European
nations were doing the energy deals with Russia.
More
We should keep on going along the path of
globalization. Globalization is good... when trade stops, war comes.
Jack Ma
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?
X-rays used to understand the flaws of battery fast charging
Date: February 11, 2019
Source: DOE/Argonne National Laboratory
Summary: Researchers imaged a battery as it was
quickly charged and discharged, allowing for the observation of lithium plating
behavior that can inhibit the battery's long-term function.
A closer look reveals how speedy charging may
hamper battery performance.
While gas tanks can be filled in a matter of
minutes, charging the battery of an electric car takes much longer. To level
the playing field and make electric vehicles more attractive, scientists are
working on fast-charging technologies.
Fast charging is very important for electric
vehicles," said battery scientist Daniel Abraham of the U.S. Department of
Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory. ?"We'd like to be able to
charge an electric vehicle battery in under 15 minutes, and even faster if possible."
"By seeing exactly how the lithium is
distributed within the electrode, we're gaining the ability to precisely
determine the inhomogeneous way in which a battery ages." -- Daniel
Abraham, Argonne battery scientist
The principal problem with fast charging happens
during the transport of lithium ions from the positive cathode to the negative
anode. If the battery is charged slowly, the lithium ions extracted from the
cathode gradually slot themselves between the planes of carbon atoms that make
up the graphite anode -- a process known as lithium intercalation.
But when this process is sped up, lithium can end
up depositing on the surface of the graphite as metal, which is called lithium
plating. ?"When this happens, the performance of the battery suffers dramatically,
because the plated lithium cannot be moved from one electrode to the
other," Abraham said.
According to Abraham, this lithium metal will
chemically reduce the battery's electrolyte, causing the formation of a
solid-electrolyte interphase that ties up lithium ions so they cannot be
shuttled between the electrodes. As a result, less energy can be stored in the
battery over time.
To study the movement of lithium ions within the
battery, Abraham partnered with postdoctoral researcher Koffi Pierre Yao and
Argonne X-ray physicist John Okasinski at the laboratory's Advanced Photon
Source, a DOE Office of Science User Facility. There, Okasinski essentially
created a 2Dimage of the battery by using X-rays to image each phase of
lithiated graphite in the anode.
By gaining this view, the researchers were able to
precisely quantify the amount of lithium in different regions of the anode
during charging and discharging of the battery.
In the study, the scientists established that the
lithium accumulates at regions closer to the battery's separator under
fast-charging conditions.
"You might expect that just from common
sense," Abraham explained. ?"But by seeing exactly how the lithium is
distributed within the electrode, we're gaining the ability to precisely determine
the inhomogeneous way in which a battery ages."
To selectively see a particular region in the heart
of the battery, the researchers used a technique called energy dispersive X-ray
diffraction. Instead of varying the angle of the beam to reach particular areas
of interest, the researchers varied the wavelength of the incident light.
More
Every day, I wake up determined to deliver a better
life for the people all across this nation that have been neglected, ignored,
and abandoned. I have visited the laid-off factory workers and the communities
crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals. These are the forgotten men and
women of our country.
Donald Trump
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished January.
DJIA: 24,999 +76 Down. NASDAQ: 7,282 +124 Down.
SP500: 2,704 +71
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 the Fed’s Plunge
Protection Team now officially part of President Trump’s re-election team, probably
the safest action here is fully paid up synthetic double options on most of the
major indexes.
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