Baltic Dry Index. 654
+07 Brent
Crude 67.70
Car Crash Brexit 15
days away. Day 104 of the never-ending trade talks.
“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts
and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first
time as tragedy, the second as farce.”
Today, it’s mostly about
the continuing car crash of Brexit, now just about two weeks away of pushing
the EUSSR, still containing trapped GB, into recession, and the rising fallout
from the two Boeing 737 Max crashes now linked and with the whole global fleet grounded.
Not to worry though, in stock markets it’s still a case of “buy more." I suspect a gigantic error underway.
Asian markets give up early gains on weak China industrial data
By Marketwatch
and Associated
Press
Published: Mar 13,
2019 11:48 p.m. ET
Stocks in Hong Kong and mainland China pull back after report indicating slowing Chinese economy
Asian markets were mixed in early trading Thursday, as optimism after British lawmakers rejected a no-deal Brexit was tempered by poor economic data from China and a warning from President Donald Trump that the U.S. may walk away from trade talks with China.Trump spoke about China on Wednesday in Washington, and said that while he was optimistic a deal will be reached, he may walk if terms are not to his liking. “We’re making great deals, or we’re not going to make them at all. We’re going to go (with) tariffs,” Trump said
On Thursday, China’s National Bureau of Statistics said industrial output slowed more than expected in January and February, suggesting China’s economy is slowing down. Value-added industrial output in China rose 5.3% in the January-to-February period from the year before, compared to 5.7% a year ago and economists’ projections of 5.5%. Thursday’s reading was the slowest pace of growth in 17 years.
That sent stocks falling in mainland China. After early gains, the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, -1.53% was last down 0.9% and the smaller-cap Shenzhen Composite 399106, -2.88% was off more than 2%. Stocks in Hong Kong HSI, -0.07% gave up early gains as well, and were last up only about 0.1%. Japan’s Nikkei NIK, -0.02% was up 0.6%, while South Korea’s Kospi SEU, +0.32% was about flat. Benchmark indexes in Taiwan Y9999, -0.24% and Singapore STI, -0.09% were slightly lower. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 XJO, +0.30% was up about 0.1%.
More
Trump says he might walk away from China trade talks
Published: Mar 13,
2019 11:09 p.m. ET
Trump spoke on the state of negotiations with China shortly before
meeting with Republican senators on trade issues. He spoke optimistically of
the U.S. and China being able to reach an agreement, declaring that “China has
not been doing well. We’ve been doing unbelievably well.”
But Trump also seemed to hark back to last month’s summit when asked
whether he preferred that the two parties work out a trade deal before he meets
with Chinese President Xi Jinping or whether he’d prefer to work out the final
details with Xi. Trump said he preferred the latter option.
He cautioned that “President Xi saw that I’m somebody who believes in
walking when a deal is not done.”
Last month, Trump had said “sometimes you have to walk” in explaining
why his summit with Kim was abruptly cut short without a commitment from North
Korea to eliminate its nuclear arsenal.
“We’re making great deals, or we’re not going to make them at all. We’re
going to go (with) tariffs,” Trump said Wednesday.
So far, the U.S. has imposed tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese imports.
China retaliated by slapping duties on about $110 billion of U.S. goods. Many
of the tariffs imposed by China target U.S. farm products such as soybeans and
pork, contributing to a projected 12 percent drop in net farm income last year.
Farmers are anxious for the president to work out an agreement with
China as well as for Congress to ratify a new trade agreement with Canada and
Mexico to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement.
More
In Brexit news it was
more of the same farce. Below, Reuters
covers the Westminster farce and rather optimistically opts for a delay. But a
delay requires unanimity in all 27 members of the rump-EUSSR, each wanting a
pound of flesh for agreeing to delay. Not that delay guarantees anything except
more uncertainty.
My bet will go on a
new election, probably in May or June. My guess is No Brexit : No Tories. Get ready for a Corbyn
Communist government propped up by the racist anti-English SNP. Though most in
England and Wales don’t realize it, they are about to be taxed by the SNP. Buy
gold and silver.
A popular government without
popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce,
or a tragedy, or perhaps both.
James Madison
Brexit set for delay after May wounded by rejection of 'no-deal'
March 13, 2019 /
8:36 AM
LONDON (Reuters) -
The British parliament on Wednesday rejected leaving the European Union without
a deal, further weakening Prime Minister Theresa May and paving the way for a
vote that could delay Brexit until at least the end of June.
After a day of
high drama, MPs defied the government by voting 321 to 278 in favour of a
motion that ruled out a potentially disorderly “no-deal” Brexit under any
circumstances.
It went further than the government’s position of keeping the threat of
a “no-deal” Brexit on the negotiating table — a stance many in her party said
was essential to push Brussels to make further concessions to the deal they
have rejected.
While the approved motion has no legal force and ultimately may not
prevent a no-deal exit, it carries considerable political force, especially as
it passed thanks to a rebellion by members of May’s own Conservative Party and
her cabinet.
May, who still insists it is not possible to rule out a no-deal Brexit
entirely, said MPs would need to agree a way forward before an extension could
be obtained.
The European Commission repeated that a delay would indeed require a
justification - but positive comments from Germany and Ireland suggested that
EU members at last saw a prospect that a viable deal would be found, and were
inclined to help.
The government said there were now two choices - agree a deal and try to
secure a short delay to Brexit, or fail to agree anything and face a much
longer delay.
May said her preference was for a short delay, which would mean the
government trying to pass the deal she negotiated by the middle of next week.
---- But on Wednesday evening, senior eurosceptic MPs were defiant, with one, Steve Baker, declaring they would keep on voting against May’s deal if it was put forward again.
Another eurosceptic Conservative lawmaker, Andrew Bridgen, said
parliament no longer represented “the people”, who had voted for Brexit, by 52
percent to 48, in a referendum in 2016.
“This is very
dangerous territory we are going into with regard to our democracy,” he told
Reuters.
More
In other news, what’s
gone wrong at Facebook? Way too much it seems.
U.S. prosecutors probing Facebook's data deals: New York Times
March 13, 2019 /
11:33 PM
(Reuters) - U.S. federal prosecutors are conducting a criminal
investigation into data deals Facebook Inc struck with some of the world’s
largest technology companies, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.
A grand jury in New York has subpoenaed records from at least two
prominent makers of smartphones and other devices, the newspaper reported, citing
people familiar with the requests and without naming the companies.
Both companies are among the more than 150, including Amazon.com Inc,
Apple Inc and Microsoft Corp, that have entered into partnerships with Facebook
for access to the personal information of hundreds of millions of its users,
according to the report.
Facebook is facing a slew of lawsuits and regulatory inquiries over its
privacy practices, including ongoing investigations by the U.S. Federal Trade
Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and two state agencies in
New York.
In addition to looking at the data deals, the probes focus on
disclosures that the company shared the user data of 87 million people with
Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting firm that worked with U.S. President
Donald Trump’s campaign.
Facebook said it was cooperating with investigators in multiple federal
probes, without addressing the grand jury inquiry specifically.
More
Facebook suffers the most severe outage in its history
14 March 2019
Facebook is suffering the most severe outage in its history, with key
services rendered unusable for users globally for much of Wednesday.
The last time Facebook had a disruption of this magnitude was in 2008,
when the site had 150m users - compared to around 2.3bn monthly users today.
Facebook's main product, its two messaging apps and image-sharing site
Instagram were all affected.
The cause of the interruption has not yet been made public.
"We're aware that some people are currently having trouble
accessing the Facebook family of apps," Facebook said in a statement.
"We're working to resolve the issue as soon as possible."
In response to rumours posted on other social networks, the company said
the outages were not a result of a Distributed Denial of Service attack, known
as DDoS - a type of cyber-attack that involves flooding a target service with
extremely high volumes of traffic.
Estimates suggest the issue began around 16:00 GMT on Wednesday.
While Facebook's main service appeared to load, users reported not being able to post.
Those on Instagram were not able to refresh feeds or post new material. Facebook Messenger's desktop version did not load - but the mobile app appeared to allow the sending of some messages; however, users reported glitches with other kinds of content, such as images. WhatsApp, Facebook's other messaging app, had similar problems.
A third-party outage map suggested the problem was global - DownDetector monitors posts on other social networks for users mentioning a loss of service elsewhere.
The issue also affected Facebook Workplace, the service used by businesses to communicate internally.
More
Finally, in what has
been all too obvious to passengers and aircrew of Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft,
continuing to keep the planes in service until the cause of the crashes is found
and fixed, represents an unacceptable risk to the public in the air and on the
ground.
By the time President
Trump finally acted to ground the US fleet, the 737 Max flights were restricted
to just US airspace, meaning that any further crashes would be in the USA. A
political risk not worth taking. But by then, who in their right mind would put
themselves and their family on a 737 Max.
Below the latest
developments in the growing Boeing crisis. Now crank up the US tort bar for all
the compensation claims, and not just for those killed in both crashes.
Boeing faces crisis with worldwide grounding of 737 MAX jetliners
March 13, 2019 /
9:34 AM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States grounded Boeing Co’s
money-spinning 737 MAX aircraft on Wednesday over safety fears after an
Ethiopian Airlines plane crash that killed 157 people, leaving the world’s
largest planemaker facing its worst crisis in years.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) cited new satellite data
and evidence from the scene of Sunday’s crash near Addis Ababa for its decision
to join Europe, China and other nations in suspending 737 MAX flights.
The crash was the second disaster involving the 737 MAX, the world’s
most-sold modern passenger aircraft, in less than five months.
The
new information from the wreckage in Ethiopia and newly refined data about the
plane’s flight path indicated some similarities between the two disasters “that
warrant further investigation of the possibility of a shared cause,” the FAA
said in a statement.
The acting administrator of the FAA, Daniel Elwell, said he did not know
how long the U.S. grounding of the aircraft would last. A software fix for the
737 Max that Boeing has been working on since a fatal crash last October in
Indonesia will take months to complete, Elwell told reporters.
The single-aisle 737 is central to Boeing’s future in its battle with
European rival Airbus SE. The new variant of the 737, the fastest-selling
jetliner in Boeing’s history, is viewed as the likely workhorse for global
airlines for decades.
---- It was the second time the FAA has halted flights of a Boeing plane in six years. It grounded the 787 Dreamliner in 2013 because of problems with smoking batteries.
Boeing, which maintained that its planes were safe to fly, said in a
statement that it supported the latest FAA move.
----
Passengers have been spooked by the two disasters. U.S. travel website Kayak
was making changes to let customers exclude specific aircraft types from
searches, and booking sites were looking to reroute passengers.
---- U.S. airlines that operate the 737 MAX, Southwest Airlines Co, American Airlines Group Inc and United Airlines, said they were working to re-book passengers. Southwest had 5 MAX-related cancellations on Wednesday and American nearly 40.
Southwest is the world’s largest operator of the 737 MAX 8 with 34 jets.
France’s air accident investigation agency BEA will analyse black-box cockpit
voice and data recorders from the crashed plane, a spokesman said.
----
The grounding was welcomed by air workers in the United
States. John Samuelsen, international president of the Transport Workers Union
of America, which represents aviation workers and flight attendants, said the
grounding of the fleet was right “both for air travellers and aviation
workers.”
Boeing 737 MAX deliveries in limbo after deadly crash - sources
March 14, 2019 /
3:30 AM
DUBLIN/SEATTLE
(Reuters) - Deliveries of Boeing’s best-selling 737 MAX jets were effectively
frozen on Wednesday, though production continued, after the United States
joined a global grounding of the narrow body model over safety concerns,
industry sources said.
---- Airlines, aircraft industry experts and financiers said that although the ban would theoretically not prevent some domestic deliveries, most airlines would avoid taking a jet banned from entering service on the wake of two crashes in five months.
“Who is going to take delivery of a plane they can’t use,” said an
aviation financier, asking not to be named.
Boeing produces 52 aircraft per month and its newest version, the MAX,
represents the lion’s share of production, although Boeing declined to break
out exact numbers.
Boeing is expected to continue with production of the 737 at its factory
outside Seattle, and has been planning to speed up production again in June.
Manufacturers avoid halting and then speeding up production as this
disrupts supply chains and can cause industrial snags. But having to hold
planes in storage consumes extra cash in increased inventory.
Each month of the grounding could cost Boeing around $1.8 billion to
$2.5 billion (£1.4 billion-£1.9 billion) in delayed revenue, according to
analyst estimates, although that could be recouped once the ban is lifted and
the planes are delivered.
Boeing in January provided guidance it would report $109.5 billion to
$111.5 billion of revenue in 2019.
---- Boeing has already been working through supplier delays on engines from CFM International, a joint venture between General Electric Co and France’s Safran SA, and fuselages from Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc that led to dozens of planes being parked outside its Renton, Washington factory last summer.
This week, at least three freshly built 737s were parked at or near the
factory with yellow weights hanging in the place of engines, signs of lingering
issues, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
---- Aircraft contracts do not typically contain a clause that automatically allows airlines to claim compensation for a regulatory action like a grounding.
However, planemakers do sometimes pay out compensation to cover the cost
of financing when an airline is left without a promised airplane, said a senior
industry source.
Even then, they generally balk at paying for other indirect costs borne
by the airline.
UK-based aviation consultancy IBA estimated the financing cost of a 737
MAX at $360,000 a month or $12,000 a day.
Norwegian Air said on Wednesday it would seek compensation from plane
maker Boeing for costs and lost revenue due to the 737 MAX 8 grounding.
More
There are times when one would
like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.
Mark Twain
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
Today,
is this NYC real estate project yet another sign of the top?
New York's controversial Hudson Yards complex set to open
Date created : 13/03/2019 - 04:40
With an arts center, posh stores, uber expensive apartments and lots of
controversy, the largest privately funded real estate development in US history
opens Friday in Manhattan.
It's in a place called Hudson Yards, and it took seven years and a cool
$16 billion to build.
The project was erected on a giant slab of concrete covering a rail
depot and makes New York a new center of urban planning innovation in a city
with a red hot real estate market.
In this new neighborhood, some apartments will fetch as much as $30
million.
The area between 10th and 12th avenues and 30th and 40th streets was
long a no-man's land. Now it is ready to welcome New Yorkers and tourists in a
new tribute to the US financial capital's legendary skyscrapers.
The six towers in this development, conceived by prestigious architects
in the 2000s when Michael Bloomberg was mayor, did not set a record for height.
But they are brimming with technological innovation. The complex has its
own waste treatment, a blackout-proof electrical generating system and
automatic underground doors to protect sensitive equipment from rising waters
as a result of climate change.
- A new New York icon? -
The project's goal is not just to use idle space in a city that is
fabulously dense and crowded. Rather, the idea is for the neighborhood to be
fully integrated into the Big Apple, said Douglas Woodward, a professor of
architecture at Columbia University who took part in the design master plan.
Aside from the residential towers and offices -- which already host
corporate offices of companies like L'Oreal USA and software company SAP -- the
complex has about 100 high-end stores like Dior and Fendi, and 25 restaurants
from big-name chefs like Jose Andres and Thomas Keller.
It also has an artistic center named The Shed that will open in April,
and an outdoors area with trees to create a campus atmosphere, Woodward said.
Unlike London's Canary Wharf neighborhood, which is far from the city
center, or La Defense, located west of Paris, Hudson Yards is just a few
minutes from Times Square thanks to a subway station that opened in 2015.
The neighborhood can also be reached by foot via the High Line, a raised
walkway built on a former rail line that in just a few years has become a major
city attraction.
Stephen Ross, the real estate developer behind the project, wants Hudson
Yards -- said to be the city's most ambitious since Rockefeller Center was
built in the 1930s -- to become "the biggest tourism attraction and icon
in New York."
Despite the inherent risk of such a massive investment, and the fact
that many of the apartments are still available for rent -- with a single room
apartment going for $5,000 a month -- the 78-year-old real estate magnate is brimming
with confidence and said he will soon move to a Hudson Yards penthouse.
"What we are doing here is so unique" that residents
"will want to be here," Ross said during a recent visit to the work
site. "People want to live in a place where everything is, that's what
people live in a city for.
----Not everyone is as enthusiastic.
"I can't help feeling like an alien here, as though I've crossed
from real New York with all its jangling mess into a movie studio's backlot
version," New York magazine architecture critic Justin Davidson wrote in
February.
"Everything is too clean, too flat, too art-directed."
Davidson slammed Hudson Yards as "para-Manhattan," a site that
has "no history, no holdover greasy spoons, no pockets of blight or
resident eccentrics."
At a time of growing outrage over tax breaks given to big companies such
as Amazon, some are angered by the subsidies and tax breaks granted to the
project, estimated at around $6 billion.
Critics have especially focused on "The Vessel," a giant open
air spiral staircase that climbs 15-stories high located in the plaza between
the building towers.
Visitors can climb the structure via 154 different staircases after
making a free online reservation.
When the project was presented in 2017, The New York Times dubbed it the
"stairway to nowhere.
More
Do Newly Built Skyscrapers Signal The Top of the Stock Market?
Published August 29, 2016Have you heard of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai?
It’s the tallest skyscraper in the world at 828m (2,717 ft), and it was completed in 2009. The price tag was a whopping $1.5 billion, making it one of the most expensive buildings of all time.
For these bold projects to get the go ahead, global financial conditions have to be just right. Record-breaking skyscrapers can take multiple years to build, and things can change drastically from start to finish.
In this case, construction of the Burj Khalifa started in 2004. By the time it was completed, however, the financial markets were in ruins. Lehman had collapsed, and rescue efforts such as TARP and QE were in full force to try and stop the bleeding. Between October 2007 and March 2009, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 55% of value.
The crisis didn’t only bankrupt financial markets – it also took its toll on competing projects that aimed to unseat the Burj Khalifa as the world’s height record-holder. For example, One Dubai Tower
A was supposed to be a whopping 1,008m (3,307 ft) tall – but it was shelved in March 2009 once it was clear that global financial conditions would not be improving any time soon.
Do Newly Built Skyscrapers Signal The Top of the Stock Market?
Could record-setting skyscrapers signal economic over-expansion and a misallocation of capital?EWM Interactive, a subscription service focused on technical analysis, thinks so. The following infographic follows the “Skyscraper Curse” through six different market tops and subsequent crashes over the past century.
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?
Solar energy: panel engineers move over to the dark side
The latest technical advance is helping
convert more sunlight into renewable power
12
March 2019
When the UK’s largest subsidy-free solar farm opens later this year, there will be something a bit different about its panels: unlike traditional panels that absorb energy on only one side, these panels will be absorbing sunlight from both sides. The new solar farm in York, developed by Gridserve, uses “bifacial” modules, a technology that has become one of the fastest-growing trends in solar because it helps solar panels generate more electricity.
When the UK’s largest subsidy-free solar farm opens later this year, there will be something a bit different about its panels: unlike traditional panels that absorb energy on only one side, these panels will be absorbing sunlight from both sides. The new solar farm in York, developed by Gridserve, uses “bifacial” modules, a technology that has become one of the fastest-growing trends in solar because it helps solar panels generate more electricity.
The
35-megawatt plant will generate enough power for 10,000 homes. “Bifacial panels
are a no-brainer,” says Toddington Harper, chief executive of Gridserve. “In
our opinion, they will be the panel of choice for the utility-scale market.” He
estimates the solar farm will generate 20 per cent more energy due to its
combination of bifacial solar panels and trackers that enable each panel to
follow the sun, compared with traditional static photovoltaic panels.
Solar
has become the world’s biggest source of new electricity — it is bigger than
wind, gas, or coal in terms of new installed capacity each year, according to
S&P Global. Last year some $131bn was invested in solar, in spite of
decreasing government subsidies, according to BloombergNEF.
However
the solar sector has been relatively slow to innovate on the traditional
photovoltaic panel, which is now seen as a low-margin, commoditised product.
While the price of solar panels has fallen dramatically in the last decade, the
improvement in the physical performance of standard panels has not changed
nearly as much.
That could shift though, as subsidies for renewable decline, according to solar executives and analysts. In the absence of subsidies, projects that are more efficient and perform better have a greater economic advantage, they say.
That could shift though, as subsidies for renewable decline, according to solar executives and analysts. In the absence of subsidies, projects that are more efficient and perform better have a greater economic advantage, they say.
“There is a lot of room for further
performance improvements [in solar],” says Cedric Philibert, senior renewables
analyst at the International Energy Agency. In addition to bifacial modules, he
says that technologies combining different types of substrate material into
panels to capture more of the light spectrum also offer potential to grow.
“Bifacial technology captures more light, and it is not very much more expensive, so it makes sense,” he says. The first large-scale bifacial projects are only one or two years old, he points out, adding that the technology started to take off “only very recently”. In a bifacial panel, the back of the panel is replaced with glass, allowing energy to be absorbed from both directions. To date only about 1GW of bifacial projects have been built globally — representing less than 1 per cent of all solar projects — but that figure is expected to grow.
“Bifacial technology captures more light, and it is not very much more expensive, so it makes sense,” he says. The first large-scale bifacial projects are only one or two years old, he points out, adding that the technology started to take off “only very recently”. In a bifacial panel, the back of the panel is replaced with glass, allowing energy to be absorbed from both directions. To date only about 1GW of bifacial projects have been built globally — representing less than 1 per cent of all solar projects — but that figure is expected to grow.
More
In politics, nothing happens by
accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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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