Baltic Dry Index. 690
+07 Brent
Crude 67.64
Car Crash Brexit now reset
15 days away. Day 118 of the
never-ending China trade talks.
Who ya
gonna believe, me or your own eyes?
Groucho
Marx.
Despite the best spin
and hype Wall Street and Washington could muster promoting no recession and a
new trade deal coming with China, global markets had largely heard it all before.
Besides, it’s whether to believe the repetitious hype or the daily drip, drip,
drip, of global statistics reinforcing recession arriving. The Baltic Dry Index
is not indicative of a global trade boom underway.
Even if there is finally
a new trade deal between America and China, how long before President Trump
abrogates it? How long before President Trump activates his trade war on the
EUSSR? How long before Brexit sinks Deutsche Bank and the EUSSR?
Below, the same old
story repeated.
"We
finished the year, and we reported that we had $17 billion of cash sitting at
the bank's parent company as a liquidity cushion. As the year has gone on, that
liquidity cushion has been virtually unchanged."
Alan Schwartz, CEO Bear Stearns, March 12, 2008.
Bust March 16, 2008.
Asian markets mostly fall, led by Nikkei
By Marketwatch
and Associated Press
Published: Mar 27,
2019 11:51 p.m. ET
Asian shares were mostly lower Thursday, following a slip
on Wall Street, as investors watched the continuing trade talks between the
U.S. and China.Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 NIK, -1.62% lost 1.5% in early trading, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 XJO, +0.65% recouped earlier losses to be up 0.3%. South Korea’s Kospi SEU, -0.74% fell nearly 0.7%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng HSI, -0.13% was little changed but slightly lower, while the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, -0.60% was also down less than 0.1%.
---- The S&P 500 SPX, -0.46% dropped 13.09 points, or 0.5%, to 2,805.37. The Dow DJIA, -0.13% slid 32.14 points, or 0.1%, to 25,625.59. The Nasdaq composite COMP, -0.63% lost 48.15 points, or 0.6%, to 7,643.38.
Investors are still waiting to see how the U.S. and China will resolve their costly trade dispute, with high-level talks between Washington and Beijing scheduled to resume.
The Trump administration and Chinese officials are about to hold their eighth round of trade talks in Beijing with several tough issues unresolved, including a timetable for lifting tariffs and a way to enforce any agreement.
Many analysts say they expect some limited agreement to be reached in the coming weeks or months. Yet it’s unclear how far any accord would go.
More
Stocks Slide Again as Bond-Yield Drop Stokes Worry: Markets Wrap
By Andreea Papuc and Adam Haigh
Updated on 28 March 2019, 04:52 GMT
Stocks declined again across much of Asia as the precipitous decline in
developed-market sovereign bond yields continued to unnerve investors about the
economic outlook.
Yields on 10-year Treasuries hit a fresh 15-month low on Thursday in
Asia, and Australian ones recorded the lowest on record, while Japan’s are near
levels unseen since 2016. Japanese shares led declines in the region, sliding
about 1.6 percent. Losses were more modest in South Korea and China, while
India and Australia saw gains and Hong Kong snuffed out early declines. U.S.
futures fell after the S&P 500 Index dropped on Wednesday. The yen headed
higher as haven demand emerged.
Britain’s pound traded at the weaker end
of its recent range after the U.K. Parliament rejected eight possible options
for a new Brexit strategy, leaving the Brexit outlook all the muddier.
Elsewhere, rates on benchmark German Bunds sank further below zero after
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said an accommodative stance is still needed.
Recent data showing weakness in U.S. housing and consumer sentiment fed into the growth concerns that have helped stoke the bond rally over the past week. Federal funds futures are now pricing in more than a quarter point of easing by the end of 2019.
“We are worried about the short term because the Fed is as dovish as they can be in the short term,” Chris Harvey, head of equity strategy at Wells Fargo in New York, told Bloomberg TV. “Interest rates are coming down throughout the globe, fears of recession are starting to go higher. We don’t think those fears are founded -- but you have to acknowledge that that’s going to weigh on markets in the short term.’’
More
Next, more spin and hype or the light at the end of the tunnel? But even if the end
of the tunnel, will President Trump be willing to accept the deal and keep to
it? Europe up next.
Exclusive: China makes unprecedented proposals on tech, trade talks progress - U.S. officials
March 28, 2019 /
3:54 AM
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - China has made unprecedented proposals in talks with the United
States on a range of issues including forced technology transfer as the two
sides work to overcome remaining obstacles to a deal to end their protracted
trade war, U.S. officials told Reuters on Wednesday.
U.S. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on $250 billion (£190
billion) of Chinese imports last year in a move to force China to change the
way it does business with the rest of the world and to pry open more of China’s
economy to U.S. companies.
Among Trump’s demands are for Beijing to end practices that Washington
alleges result in the systematic theft of U.S. intellectual property and the
forced transfer of American technology to Chinese companies.
China put proposals on the table in the talks that went further than in
the past, including on technology transfer, said one of four senior U.S.
administration officials who spoke to Reuters.
Negotiators have made progress on the details of the written agreements
that have been hashed out to address U.S. concerns, he said.
“If you looked at
the texts a month ago compared to today, we have moved forward in all areas. We
aren’t yet where we want to be,” the official said, speaking on condition of
anonymity.
“They’re talking about forced technology transfer in a way that they’ve
never wanted to talk about before - both in terms of scope and specifics,” he
said, referring to Chinese negotiators. He declined to give further detail.
Reuters reported previously that the two sides were working on written
agreements in six areas: forced technology transfer and cyber theft,
intellectual property rights, services, currency, agriculture and non-tariff
barriers to trade.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary
Steven Mnuchin arrive in Beijing on Thursday for a new round of talks with
Chinese officials to work on a deal that would end a months-long trade war that
has cost both sides billions of dollars and hurt global economic growth.
The in-person talks, which will be followed by a round in Washington
next week, are the first face-to-face meetings the two sides have held in weeks
after missing an initial end-of-March goal for a summit between U.S. President
Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to sign a pact.
More
In
Brexit/Brino news, more muddle, confusion and chaos among MPs who are nearly
all Europhile Remainiacs. In true EUSSR style, the MPs will be asked to vote
again and again next week, until Brussels gets the outcome it dictates. The
death of British democracy.
8 Brexit alternatives rejected in series of U.K. Parliament votes
Published: Mar 27,
2019 7:21 p.m. ET
British lawmakers voted on eight different possible Brexit options
Wednesday, but none received the majority support that would clarify the U.K.’s
course.
Parliament is trying to find an alternative to Prime Minister Theresa
May’s twice-rejected EU divorce deal.
Lawmakers voted Wednesday on options that included leaving the European
Union without a deal, staying in the bloc’s customs union and single market,
putting any EU divorce deal to a public referendum, and canceling Brexit if the
prospect of a no-deal departure gets close.
The strongest support was for a plan to stay in a customs union with the
bloc after Brexit, which was defeated by eight votes: 272-264.
Lawmakers plan to narrow the list of options down and hold more votes on
Monday.
Britain has until April 12 to find a new plan — or crash out of the EU
without a deal.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Theresa May offered up her job in
exchange for her Brexit deal, telling colleagues she would quit within weeks if
the agreement was passed and Britain left the European Union.
May’s dramatic concession that “there is a desire for a new approach —
and new leadership” was a last-ditch effort to bring enough reluctant
colleagues on board to push her twice-rejected EU divorce deal over the line.
It looked like it might not be enough, as a key Northern Ireland party
said it would not be supporting the deal.
More
Finally, despite a gloomy end to 2018, low(er) energy prices set off something of a consumption boom last year.
Global energy demand rose by 2.3% in 2018, its fastest pace in the last decade
26 March 2019
Energy demand worldwide grew by 2.3% last year, its fastest pace this
decade, an exceptional performance driven by a robust global economy and
stronger heating and cooling needs in some regions. Natural gas emerged as the
fuel of choice, posting the biggest gains and accounting for 45% of the rise in
energy consumption. Gas demand growth was especially strong in the United
States and China.
Demand for all fuels increased, with fossil fuels meeting nearly 70% of
the growth for the second year running. Solar and wind generation grew at
double-digit pace, with solar alone increasing by 31%. Still, that was not fast
enough to meet higher electricity demand around the world that also drove up
coal use.
As a result, global energy-related CO2 emissions rose by 1.7% to 33
Gigatonnes (Gt) in 2018. Coal use in power generation alone surpassed 10 Gt,
accounting for a third of the total increase. Most of that came from a young
fleet of coal power plants in developing Asia. The majority of coal-fired
generation capacity today is found in Asia, with 12-year-old plants on average,
decades short of average lifetimes of around 50 years.
These findings are part of the International Energy Agency’s latest
assessment of global energy consumption and energy-related CO2 emissions
for 2018. The Global Energy &
CO2 Status Report provides a high-level and up-to-date view
of energy markets, including latest available data for oil, natural gas, coal,
wind, solar, nuclear power, electricity, and energy efficiency.
Electricity continues to position itself as the “fuel” of the future,
with global electricity demand growing by 4% in 2018 to more than 23 000 TWh.
This rapid growth is pushing electricity towards a 20% share in total final
consumption of energy. Increasing power generation was responsible for half of
the growth in primary energy demand.
Renewables were a major contributor to this power generation expansion,
accounting for nearly half of electricity demand growth. China remains the
leader in renewables, both for wind and solar, followed by Europe and the
United States.
More
He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't
let that fool you. Juncker really is an idiot.
With apologies to Groucho Marx
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
More 737 max crash news again. Did cutting costs to boost
sales, cost lives? What Boeing left out of the manual may have just cost 346
innocent lives. Pure jet fuel to the US
tort bar for years to come, I suspect. And has Boeing actually apologised yet
to any of the deceased families?
737 Max flight manual may have left MCAS information on 'cutting room floor'
Flight manual of Boeing's 737 Max 8 planes mentions MCAS computer system only once
· CBC
News · Posted: Mar 26, 2019 12:00 PM ET | Last
Updated: March 26
In the over 1,600-page flight manual of Boeing's 737 Max 8 planes, the
aircraft's new MCAS computer system, now at the centre of the
investigations into two deadly crashes, is mentioned only once by name — in the
glossary of abbreviated terms.
That brief mention in the manual, a copy of which was obtained by CBC
News, has prompted some speculation that more details about the
anti-stall computer system may have been included in previous drafts, but then
left out of the final version.
"I think the fairly obvious conclusion is that a broader
explanation of MCAS was included in an earlier edition of the manual, and
somewhere along the way it ended up on the cutting room floor,"
said Judson Rollins, a New Zealand-based aviation consultant, who worked
for three airlines and a plane manufacturer.
Rollins
believes it was cut "to prevent the MCAS from
having to be included in 737 Max transition training, which in turn will save
737 Max operators training costs."
But Rollins said that including MCAS in the manual would suggest it
was a significant enough system that pilots would need to undergo classroom- or
simulator-based training.
Costs for that extended training, he said, could range anywhere from
hundreds of thousands of dollars per plane to the low millions.
The operating manual mentions the term MCAS under the section
entitled "Abbreviations," where the acronym is defined as
"Maneuver Characteristics Augmentation System." That's the one
and only reference to MCAS, which is suspected of playing a role in two
recent crashes involving Max 8 planes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, which killed
346 people in total.
Raymond Hall, a former Air Canada pilot, said "it's very
interesting" that the subject of MCAS was broached in the manual, but
that "no follow-up" was done to explain it. Hall said that
Boeing has historically been quite vigilant in making sure that all
of its systems are laid out in clear terms, both in pilot training and in pilot
manuals.
"The system is critical to the safety of the flight. And pilots
ought to have known that it was there, ought to have been able to recognize it
when it was implemented and ought to have been able to respond
effectively," Hall said.
He
said he didn't think there was any "sinister action" on the part of
either Boeing or the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), but that it
was a "matter of oversight shortage."
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?
Today, when man ‘[or
woman] plays God, it doesn’t often end well.
CRISPR-chip enables digital detection of DNA without amplification
Date:
March 25, 2019
Source:
Keck Graduate Institute
Summary:
Researchers have found multiple applications for the CRISPR gene editing
technology since it came into use by the scientific community.
Researchers have found multiple applications for the CRISPR gene editing
technology since it came into use by the scientific community. Keck Graduate
Institute (KGI) Assistant Professor and University of California, Berkeley
Visiting Scientist Kiana Aran is the first to combine the power of CRISPR's
nucleic acid targeting with the ultra sensitivity of graphene, making it
possible to digitally detect DNA without amplification.
"The innovation is to bring the two together as a capture
mechanism. Our system does not use amplification; instead, it relies on
CRISPR's genome-searching capability and graphene's sensitivity," explains
Aran, who led the multi-university research team responsible for the work
described in the paper "CRISPR-Chip: A CRISPR-based Graphene-enhanced
Field Effect Biosensor for Electronic Detection of Unamplified Target
Genes," to be published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering
on March 25.
Aran's novel system immobilizes the CRISPR complexes on the surface of
graphene-based transistors. These complexes search a genome to find their
target sequence and, if the search is successful, bind to its DNA. This binding
changes the conductivity of the graphene material in the transistor, which
detects the change using a handheld reader developed by Aran's industry
partner, San Diego-based Cardea Bio.
"What Kiana does is an application we hadn't thought about before
-- that no one thought about before. It shows the potential of a graphene
biosensor that no one knew was even possible," says Brett Goldsmith,
Cardea's chief technology officer and cofounder. "To detect DNA without
amplification is so shocking, so futuristic. This will skip several generations
of technology development."
Aran and her research colleagues demonstrated the system's effectiveness
by testing for the digital detection of DNA mutations in Duchenne Muscular
Dystrophy, a genetic disorder that results in progressive muscle degeneration
and shortened life expectancy.
"We have shown that our system is sufficient for genetic mutation
testing. Now we need to enhance the system to detect infections," says
Aran. "We're also evaluating CRISPR-Chip for detection of single-point
mutations."
Aran notes that the system, which enables users to run a test in less
than an hour, has potential applications beyond diagnostics. She explains that
these include multiplexing capabilities to run hundreds or thousands of tests
at the same time. Another potential application is for quality control purposes
within companies that use CRISPR for therapeutics; the system could enable them
to better evaluate the efficiency of the CRISPR technology.
For Aran, turning to electronics to develop a system with unique
capabilities came naturally: She earned an undergraduate degree in electrical
engineering and went on to a PhD in biomedical engineering and postdoctoral
work in bioengineering.
"I look at everything through the lens of electronics. It's
important to think about electronic biosensors because that is where I believe
biological analysis is heading," says Aran, who is now exploring avenues
to commercialize the system. "My goal is to integrate fast-growing
electronics technologies with modern biology not only to develop better
diagnostic tools, but also to gain a better understanding of biological events
using nanoscale electronics devices."
More
“If
economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent
people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.”
John Maynard Keynes.
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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