Baltic Dry Index. 663
-06 Brent
Crude 65.26
Brexit 23 days away.
“All rational action is in the first place individual action.
Only the individual thinks. Only the individual reasons. Only the individual
acts.”
Below, to many mixed
messages for me. What if Pompeo and Bolton are right? What if the Baltic Dry
Index is signalling the next recession is already underway?
China stocks rally on stimulus hopes, Aussie dollar hit by weak GDP data
March 6, 2019 /
12:36 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) -
Asian stocks held their ground on Wednesday as Chinese equities soared on
stimulus hopes, although a resurgence in regional tensions capped broader gains
with North Korea opting to restore part of a missile test site it had began
dismantling earlier.
The Shanghai Composite Index was up 1 percent, hovering near a
nine-month high, as China’s state planner said the government will boost
domestic consumption further this year. Beijing announced billions of dollars
in tax cuts and infrastructure spending on Tuesday to reduce the risk of a
sharper economic slowdown.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 0.2 percent and Australian stocks advanced
0.7 percent as mining stocks climbed on the prospect of increased Chinese
stimulus.
Some of region’s other equity markets, however, underperformed.
South Korea’s KOSPI was down 0.3 percent following news that North Korea
had restored part of a missile test site, with U.S. President Donald Trump’s
national security advisor John Bolton warning that new sanctions could be
introduced if Pyongyang did not scrap its nuclear weapons programme.
Japan’s Nikkei lost 0.7 percent. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific
shares outside Japan nudged up 0.1 percent.
Robust U.S. economic data supported the dollar, but its Australian
counterpart slid after data showed the economy slowed to a near standstill in
the fourth quarter.
The Australian economy expanded just 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter,
slower than the 0.3 percent increase economists had forecast in a Reuters poll.
The Aussie was down 0.66 percent at $0.7036 following a slip to a two-month
trough of $0.7029.
---- Wall Street dipped on Tuesday as a drop in General Electric shares countered positive retailer earnings and investors eyed a key resistance level for the benchmark S&P 500 after the market’s run to a five-month peak on Monday. [.N]
A report from the Institute for Supply Management showed U.S.
non-manufacturing sector companies in February placing the most new orders
since August 2005, an indicator of robust health.
More
Pompeo says Trump will walk if China trade deal isn't perfect - interview
March 5, 2019 /
1:33 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Trump will reject any U.S.-China
trade deal that is not perfect but that the United States will still keep
working on an agreement, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a media
interview.
Asked if Trump would walk away from any deal that was not perfect,
Pompeo told Sinclair Broadcasting Group, “Yes.”
“It’s got to be right,” Pompeo said according to a transcript released
by the State Department on Tuesday.
In
the EUSSR, time for a dose of reality. Europe’s coming recession has little to do
with Brexit, though Juncker and Barnier’s Brexit will greatly deepen it for paymaster
Germany.
El-Erian - Europe's slowdown is worse than investors imagined
March 4, 2019 /
10:45 PM
NEW YORK (Reuters)
- The European economy is cooling more than many investors believe, Mohamed
El-Erian, chief economic adviser for Allianz SE, said on Monday, warning that
the slowdown poses the biggest risk to the market.
In addition, El-Erian, in an interview with Reuters, said that the
European Central Bank has only limited tools at its disposal to respond to
economic weakness while European governments are not prepared to respond with
spending.
“People are underestimating how quickly Europe is slowing,” El-Erian
said.
The International Monetary Fund revised down its forecast for euro zone
growth to 1.6 percent in January from 1.9 percent three months prior, but
El-Erian thinks even the lowered outlook is overly optimistic. El-Erian, the
former chief executive of Pimco, the bond investment giant owned by Allianz,
expects the euro zone will struggle to deliver even 1 percent growth in gross
domestic product this year.
The potential
spillover effects from a cooling in Europe and China helped push the U.S.
Federal Reserve to signal in January that its interest rate hikes are on hold
for the time being, saying that it would be “patient” before making any moves,
after raising rates four times in 2018.
But El-Erian, a long-time central bank observer, said a strong U.S.
economy may force the Fed to shift its message as soon as by summertime.
Allianz managed 1.4 trillion euros in assets at the end of 2018.
“There’s a real chance that the Fed may have to change signals again
from patient on rates,” he said. “The domestic economy does not justify
patience and flexibility. The domestic economy justifies a continued
normalization of monetary policy because the labour markets remain strong,
because wages are increasing at 3 percent and because business investment is
picking up.”
But although there are real risks from in Europe and China, El-Erian
said the extent that the market is pricing in the chance of a Fed rate cut is
overdone.
More
Italy reaches deal with EU on new bad loan guarantee scheme - source
March 5, 2019 /
3:40 PM
ROME (Reuters) - Italy has reached an accord with the European
Commission to renew a state guarantee scheme aimed at easing sales of bad bank
loans, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday.
The scheme currently in place, known as ‘GACS’, is due to expire on
March 6. The government needs approval from EU competition authorities before
launching a new programme to avoid it being classed as state aid.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said there was a “de
facto” deal and that the economy ministry had already drafted a bill.
Asked about a possible accord, a Commission spokeswoman said Brussels
was in “constructive talks” with the Italian authorities.
In Rome for a parliamentary hearing, Competition Commissioner Margrethe
Vestager also said discussions were ongoing.
The government may include the new GACS scheme in a decree containing
measures to guarantee the smooth functioning of markets in case of a no-deal
Brexit, sources have told Reuters.
A government source said on Tuesday that the cabinet was expected to
approve the decree next week.
Italian banks completed 13 GACS-backed deals in 2018, using the scheme
to shed some 44 billion euros (37.9 billion pounds) in bad debt, according to
bad loan data group Credit Village.
Rising risk premiums on Italian assets have made the GACS scheme more
costly and less convenient but renewal remains important for the country’s
banks which still hold 100 billion euros in bad debts, a legacy of the
financial crisis which hit Italy’s economy hard.
More
In
EU auto news, Europe as a whole, continues losing out on manufacturing, whether
inside the EUSSR or not. Renault and Peugeot are driving out of high cost
France, for low cost Turkey, eastern Europe and Morocco. The extreme left wing
BBC will still blame it on Brexit.
21st
century adage: Is that true, or did you hear it on the BBC?
Duelling superminis distract from auto industry troubles
March 5, 2019 /
8:06 AM
GENEVA (Reuters) -
Two of Europe’s best-selling cars, the Renault Clio and Peugeot 208, go
head-to-head at the Geneva motor show on Tuesday, as the auto market they
dominate faces transformative pressures on its future profits and jobs.
In other ways, though, they show an industry fast adapting. Both models are poised to abandon what remains of their French production, completing a once controversial shift to lower-cost plants in Turkey, eastern Europe and Morocco. Both will also introduce electric and hybrid drivetrain options - which themselves pose a further challenge to supplier jobs reut.rs/2wrsoPT.
“There’s an ongoing need for compact, efficient urban models,” said
Jean-Philippe Imparato, head of the Peugeot brand. “The market is robust.”
Small certainties are welcome in an industry facing hard-to-quantify
strains including Britain’s planned exit from the European Union, a U.S.-led
assault on trade liberalisation and the many billions spent developing a new
generation of electric vehicles for which mass demand remains largely unproven.
Major auto markets are now in decline or stagnating, and hopes for a
lucrative self-driving car boom have also receded as costs and technical
hurdles stay stubbornly high.
More
“The masses do not like those who surpass them in any regard.
The average man envies and hates those who are different.”
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
Today, who watches the watchers again, in the land of
the not quite so free. Metadata turns out not to be vital to US national
security after all, despite the NSA’s earlier claims.
Still, according to President Trump, German Mercs and
Beamers are a terrifying threat to US national security, and very soon US
consumers are to be tariffed out of being able to afford them. They bbetter buy
one now while they still can.
NSA Weighs Ending Phone Surveillance Program Exposed by Snowden
Spy agency once argued the collection of call metadata was vital to national security
By Dustin Volz Updated March 4,
2019 10:17 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON—The National Security Agency is considering
ending a once-secret surveillance program that annually collects hundreds of
millions of telephone call records, including those belonging to Americans,
because it lacks operational value, according to people familiar with the matter.Terminating the program, which was exposed publicly by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden nearly six years ago, would represent a stunning concession from a spy agency that once argued the collection of call metadata was vital to national security.
Luke Murray, a national security adviser for Republican congressional leadership, said in a recent podcast interview with the Lawfare security blog that the NSA hadn’t used the program in the past six months and might not seek its renewal when portions of the Patriot Act that authorize it expire at the end of the year.
The NSA declined to comment, and the National Security Council didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The people familiar with the NSA’s internal deliberations cautioned that no final decision had been made and that the discussions about potentially ending the metadata program were in the early and informal stages.
Metadata includes the numbers and timestamps of a call or text message but not the contents of the conversation.
Portions of the Patriot Act are due to expire at the end of 2019, including the section of the law that authorizes the metadata program. Congress is expected to extend the expiring provisions of the law, but debate isn’t expected to begin in earnest until the fall, according to congressional aides on relevant committees.
The NSA’s practice of vacuuming up telephone metadata in bulk was exposed in 2013 by Mr. Snowden, who leaked a trove of classified surveillance secrets to journalists.
---- After nearly two years of debate fueled by Mr. Snowden’s disclosures, Congress passed the USA Freedom Act in 2015, requiring the spy agency to replace its bulk metadata program with a pared-down system under which call records were retained by the telephone companies. The new measures have allowed the NSA to request those records on an as-needed basis rather than ingest them wholly into its own servers.
Privacy advocates have said the new system continues to pose troubling
issues and that evidence of its value to national security is thin or
nonexistent.
More
“The
worship of the state is the worship of force. There is no more dangerous menace
to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men. The
worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments.
The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of
mischief and disaster.”
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?
China plans solar power station in space
4
March 2019
China is planning to build the world's first solar power station in space
to provide "inexhaustible clean energy", according to reports.Researchers at the China Academy of Space Technology claim they are already testing the technology and intend to build the station by 2050, according to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald.
China correspondent Kirsty Needham cites the country's Science and Technology Daily as the source of the information, describing a story that ran on the newspaper's front page. It is the official newspaper of China's Ministry of Science and Technology.
The story quotes China Academy of Space Technology researcher Pang Zhihao as saying the technology would provide "an inexhaustible source of clean energy for humans" without interference from the atmosphere, cloud cover or periods of night time.
He continues on to say such a space station could reliably supply energy 99 per cent of the time, at six-times the intensity of solar farms on Earth.
The space agency is said to be currently building an experimental early model at a test site in the city of Chongqing.
It will continue testing over the next ten years with a view to begin building the station by 2030.
The concept of space-based solar power has been floated for decades, and has at times been explored by NASA.
Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency is also on a quest to take the solar power plant into space and has made strides in advancing the technology.
One of the main questions over space solar power is how the energy would be transmitted back down to earth. China's researchers are said to be investigating using either a microwave or laser beam for the task.
A receiving system on earth would capture the transmissions and convert them to electrical energy to be put into the grid.
Another enduring question over the technology is how to get the station up there in the first place. The weight of China's proposed plant would be approximately 1000 tonnes — more than double that of the International Space Station.
For that, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that China is exploring whether it can fabricate the station mostly in space, using robots and 3D printing. There has been rapid development of technologies in this field in the last few years, with NASA developing such a facility since 2013.
https://www.dezeen.com/2019/03/04/china-space-solar-power-station/
“The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished February
DJIA: 25,916 +68 Down. NASDAQ: 7,533 +109 Down.
SP500:
2,784 +62 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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