Baltic Dry Index. 622
-13 Brent
Crude 67.15
Although more than 500 million
maritime containers move around the world each year, accounting for 90 per cent
of international trade, only 2 per cent are inspected. Strengthening customs
and immigration systems is essential.
Ban Ki-moon
Another day, and
still no trade deal, just more hype and spin. Trade team China seem determined
to take Trump’s trade team hooligans down to the wire. The closer we get, the
shriller the spin from trade team Trump.
After seven or so months of talks, both sides are now apparently talking
memorandums of understandings. Underwhelming is British understatement.
But will the dozy
European trade negotiators notice, for they are up next once Trump declares
victory in the Pacific over China.
Below, what seems
like a never ending story, and just possibly why trade team Trump seems so
desperate for a stock market boosting deal. Buy the rumour, sell the fact? What
message is the Baltic Dry Index sending?
Asia shares up on Fed outlook, Aussie dollar seesaws after jobs data
February 21, 2019
/ 1:24 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) -
Asian shares pulled ahead to fresh 4-1/2-month highs on Thursday after the U.S.
Federal Reserve affirmed it would be “patient” on further interest rate rises
and as Sino-U.S. trade talks hinted of progress towards a deal in their tariff
war.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan edged up 0.4
percent to peak last seen in early October.
Australian shares rose 0.8 percent while the Australian dollar seesawed
in the wake of strong jobs data for January.
Japan’s Nikkei was down 0.1 percent by the midday break after closing at
a two-month high on Wednesday.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained nearly 0.4 percent to hit a more than
six-month high reached during the previous session.
Chinese shares were up 0.3 percent, near a more than half-year high.
Investors have been cheered over recent days by signs of progress in
Sino-U.S. trade talks. The trade war between the economic giants have roiled
financial markets over the past year.
The United States and China have started to outline commitments in
principle on the stickiest issues in their trade dispute, marking the most
significant progress yet toward ending a seven-month trade war, sources
familiar with the negotiations told Reuters.
“We must be a little bit careful that if the trade negotiation would be
ended with a temporary success, that could in turn mean the Fed might restart
their monetary tightening,” said Yoshinori Shigemi, a global market strategist
at JPMorgan Asset Management in Tokyo.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on
Tuesday that trade negotiations were going well and suggested he was open to pushing
off the deadline to complete negotiations, saying March 1 was not a “magical”
date.
More
Exclusive: U.S., China sketch outlines of deal to end trade war - sources
February 21, 2019
/ 2:45 AM
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - The United States and China have started to outline commitments in
principle on the stickiest issues in their trade dispute, marking the most
significant progress yet towards ending a seven-month trade war, according to
sources familiar with the negotiations.
The world’s two largest economies have slapped tit-for-tat tariffs on
hundreds of billions of dollars of goods, slowing global economic growth,
skewing supply chains and disrupting manufacturing.
As officials hold high level talks on Thursday and Friday in Washington,
they remain far apart on demands made by U.S. President Donald Trump’s
administration for structural changes to China’s economy.
But the broad outline of what could make up a deal is beginning to
emerge from the talks, the sources said, as the two sides push for an agreement
by March 1. That marks the end of a 90-day truce that Trump and Chinese
President Xi Jinping agreed to when they met in Argentina late last year.
Negotiators are drawing up six memorandums of understanding on
structural issues: forced technology transfer and cyber theft, intellectual
property rights, services, currency, agriculture and non-tariff barriers to
trade, according to two sources familiar with the progress of the talks.
At meetings between U.S. and Chinese officials last week in Beijing the
two sides traded texts and worked on outlining obligations on paper, according
to one of the sources.
---- The sources requested anonymity to speak candidly about the talks.
The MOUs cover the most complex issues affecting the trading relationship between the two countries and are meant, from the U.S. perspective, to end the practices that led Trump to start levying duties on Chinese imports in the first place.
One source cautioned that the talks could still end in failure. But the
work on the MOUs was a significant step in getting China to sign up both to
broad principles and to specific commitments on key issues, he said.
The United States has accused Beijing of forcing U.S. companies doing
business in China to share their technology with local partners and hand over
intellectual property secrets. China denies it engages in such practices.
More
A $3-trillion tsunami is about to flood the stock market, warns fund manager
By Shawn
Langlois Published: Feb 20, 2019
6:59 p.m. ET
Will Nasgovitz, who oversees about $1.3 billion in assets
as the chief executive of Heartland Advisors, isn’t calling for a “full blown
financial crisis,” but, with trillions in corporate debt coming due in the
coming years, the industry veteran’s not exactly predicting smooth sailing in
the stock market, either.“With interest rates low, the economy strong, and relatively easy lending standards, the thinking went that borrowing to buyback shares or finance acquisitions was a low-risk strategy,” Nasgovitz explained in a recent post. “But the next five years could severely test that Pollyanna view.”
Read: Bernie Sanders takes shot at former Goldman Sachs boss Lloyd Blankfein over ‘making the very rich even richer’
Nasgovitz used
this chart to illustrate his stance:
---- As you can see, about $3.3 trillion — or 48% of all current outstanding commercial debt — comes due by 2023. The timing could be problematic.
“The sheer volume would be challenging for the market to digest in the
best of scenarios, let alone this late in an economic expansion,” Nasgovitz
wrote. “Adding to our sense of caution are early signs that lending standards
have begun to tighten for commercial and industrial borrowers.”
He says that, as banks become more stringent, borrowers could end up
paying higher rates just to secure funds to retire outstanding obligations.
“While we don’t currently see signs of a full-blown financial crisis on
the horizon,” he concluded, “we do believe that excessive debt adds unnecessary
challenges to companies in general and will likely be a headwind for heavy
borrowers in the intermediate term going forward.”
More
In
other news, are America and China cutting a coal deal? Is America’s win,
Australia’s loss? It’s a funny old distorted world in a trade war.
Exclusive: China's Dalian port bans Australian coal imports, sets 2019 quota - source
February 21, 2019
/ 5:31 AM
BEIJING (Reuters)
- Customs at China’s northern Dalian port has banned imports of Australian coal
and will cap overall coal imports for 2019 through its harbours at 12 million
tonnes, an official at Dalian Port Group told Reuters on Thursday.
The indefinite ban on imports from top supplier Australia, effective
since the start of February, comes as major ports elsewhere in China prolong
clearing times for Australian coal to at least 40 days.
Five harbours overseen by Dalian customs - Dalian, Bayuquan, Panjin,
Dandong and Beiliang - will not allow Australian coal to clear through customs,
said the official. Coal imports from Russia and Indonesia will not be affected.
The ports handled about 14 million tonnes of coal last year, half of
which was from Australia, said Gu Meng, analyst at Orient Futures.
The Dalian official declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the
matter. Dalian customs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Finally, the ever
growing mystery of the mercenaries arrested in falling apart Haiti. Was the
deep state attempting a coup or to prop up the current unpopular, but US supported
regime? Shame they don’t have any oil, or they might have got more than a
pennyweight mercenary army.
Heavily armed foreigners arrested in Haiti sent to United States, officials say
February 21,
2019 / 5:39 AM
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - A heavily armed group of foreign nationals,
who were arrested in Haiti on Sunday after days of massive anti-government
protests, were handed over to U.S. authorities on Wednesday, Haitian and U.S.
authorities said.
It was unclear if all the members of the group, which reportedly
included five Americans, a Serb and a Russian, were flown to the United States.
“The return of the individuals to the U.S. was coordinated with the
Haitian authorities,” a State Department representative for Western Hemisphere
Affairs said in an emailed statement, without providing further details.
A spokesman for Haiti’s Justice Ministry also confirmed that the
individuals were “were handed over to U.S. authorities this Wednesday.”
Media reports said that, at the time of their arrest, the men were armed
with semi-automatic weapons, rifles, pistols, drones and satellite phones in
their two vehicles.
Videos circulating on social media alleged to show at least six men
being escorted through the airport in Port-au-Prince towards a plane bound for
the United States.
Since the arrests, Haitian newspapers have printed names that
corresponded to social media profiles of U.S. citizens claiming military
backgrounds. However, Reuters could not independently confirm the identities of
the arrested men.
Thousands of demonstrators called for President Jovenel Moise to resign
and for an independent probe into the whereabouts of funds from the PetroCaribe
agreement, an alliance between Caribbean countries and OPEC member Venezuela.
Protests that began on Feb. 7 died down after about a week-and-a-half
but opposition leaders have called for Haitians to take to the streets again on
Friday.
The State Department last week ordered all non-emergency U.S. personnel
and their families to leave Haiti and advised U.S. citizens not to travel there.
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
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
Yes it’s those unicorn dealers again. More on the folly of giving other
people control of your hard earned cash, if cryptocurrency can really be called
cash. Venezuela, and reportedly even Australia, can’t even get back their gold
from alleged storage at the supposedly honest Bank of England even by using
lawyers. What chance of getting blood out of a stone called quadriga?
Quadriga dead or alive? Law firms jockey to represent cryptocurrency clients short millions
'Business is currently suspended and may never resume, although that remains to be determined,’ says judge
· CBC News · Posted: Feb 19, 2019 1:22 PM PT | Last Updated: February
19
Top Canadian law firms are jockeying for position to represent people
who have money tied up in a cryptocurrency exchange that became frozen after
the mysterious death of its founder in India.
Gerald Cotten, possibly holding the only keys to money tied up in his
virtual currency exchange, died in December.
His sudden death set off a wave of outrage as clients tried to retrieve
their funds — only to face a frozen website and a lack of information.
On Tuesday, Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Michael Wood released a
decision after accepting applications from at least four named law firms
that each represent the interests of more than 100 of the 115,000 clients of
Quadriga Coin Exchange or Quadriga CX which is operated by Quadriga Fintech
Solutions Corp.
In total, clients are owed approximately $250-million, according to
Wood's decision filed Feb. 19.
Since the initial creditor protection hearing on Feb. 5, the court had
received competing motions on behalf of Quadriga clients who are owed a few
hundred to several million dollars, according to the court decision.
All parties seek to have a committee of creditors and legal
counsel appointed to represent their varied interests — with a reasonable cap
and control on the fees that can be charged.
The challenge, according to the judge, is the varied interests of the vastly different creditors all looking to recover their cash.
This amid fears some of the money has already vanished.
A week ago, the court-appointed monitor overseeing the search for millions lost by the Canadian cryptocurrency exchange, reported that an additional half-million dollars worth of bitcoin had disappeared.
Ernst and Young reported that Quadriga "inadvertently" transferred bitcoins to cold digital storage wallets that were inaccessible, making clients short funds even more nervous.
"The business is currently suspended and may never resume, although that remains to be determined," Wood wrote.
He said there's been "a great deal of discussion" online about Quadriga — and where the cash has gone, noting the vast array of blockchain detectives all vying to prove exactly what has happened to the missing cash.
Lawyers for both a monitor appointed by the court — and the applicants — urged the court to make a decision as fast as possible before the next hearing scheduled for March. 5, in order to enable a suggested $100,000 cap on legal expenses.
For people short investments, the legal process seems slow, and many say they are frustrated.
A few dozen moved to start a class-action — only to have their retainers returned by the organizer, after the court gave Quadriga 30 days of protection against any legal action.
More
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?
Breakthrough in the search for graphene-based electronics
Date:
February 19, 2019
Source:
Technical University of Denmark
Summary:
A team of researchers from Denmark has solved one of the biggest challenges in
making effective nanoelectronics based on graphene.
For 15 years, scientists have tried to exploit the "miracle
material" graphene to produce nanoscale electronics. On paper, graphene
should be great for just that: it is ultra-thin -- only one atom thick in fact
and therefore two-dimensional, it is excellent for conducting electrical
current and should be ideal for future forms of electronics that are faster and
more energy efficient. In addition, graphene consists of carbon atoms -- of
which we have an unlimited supply.
In theory, graphene can be altered to perform many different tasks
within e.g. electronics, photonics or sensors simply by drawing tiny patterns
in it, as this fundamentally alters its quantum properties. One
"simple" task, which has turned out to be surprisingly difficult, is
to induce a bandgap -- which is crucial for making transistors and
optoelectronic devices. However, since graphene is only an atom thick all of
the atoms are important and even tiny irregularities in the pattern can destroy
its properties.
"Graphene is a fantastic material, which I think will play a
crucial role in making new nanoscale electronics. The problem is that it is
extremely difficult to engineer the electrical properties," says Peter
Bøggild, a professor at DTU Physics.
The Center for Nanostructured Graphene at DTU and Aalborg University was
established in 2012 specifically to study how the properties of graphene can be
engineered, for instance by making a very fine pattern of holes. This should
subtly change the quantum nature of the electrons in the material, and allow
the properties of graphene to be tailored. However, the team of researchers
from DTU and Aalborg experienced the same as many other researchers worldwide:
it didn't work.
"When you make patterns in a material like graphene, you do so in
order to change its properties in a controlled way -- to match your design.
However, what we have seen throughout the years is that we can make the holes,
but not without introducing so much disorder and contamination that it no
longer behaves like graphene. It is a bit similar to making a water pipe, with
a poor flow rate because of coarse manufacturing. On the outside, it might look
fine. For electronics, that is obviously disastrous," says Peter Bøggild.
Now, the team of scientists have solved the problem. Two postdocs from
DTU Physics, Bjarke Jessen and Lene Gammelgaard, first encapsulated graphene
inside another two-dimensional material -- hexagonal boron nitride, a
non-conductive material that is often used for protecting graphene's
properties.
Next, they used a technique called electron beam lithography to
carefully pattern the protective layer of boron nitride and graphene below with
a dense array of ultra small holes. The holes have a diameter of approx. 20
nanometers, with just 12 nanometers between them -- however, the roughness at
the edge of the holes is less than 1 nanometer or a billionth of a meter. This
allows 1000 times more electrical current to flow than had been reported in
such small graphene structures.
"We have shown that we can control graphene's band structure and
design how it should behave.
More
Every decision on trade, on
taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American
workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of
other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our
jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.
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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