Baltic Dry Index. 889
+20 Brent
Crude 71.79
Never ending Brexit
now October 31, maybe.
Day 150 of the
never-ending USA v China trade talks. Everyone’s “optimistic.”
USA v EU trade war 16
days away? No one optimistic.
“To improve is to change; to be
perfect is to change often.”
Sir Winston Churchill.
It is almost May, “time
to sell stocks and go away,” as the old Wall Street adage has it. Well maybe.
This week, we get
another Fed meeting, nothing new expected. Yet another round of USA v China
trade talks, as always, everyone optimistic. A new Japanese Emperor. The “Golden
Week” 10 days of holidays in Japan. India continues voting in its never-ending
general election, results expected May 23.
Spain gets to try to
figure out how to form a government following yesterday’s general election.
And in the UK, yet another
referendum on Brexit in the form of the local elections, where the incompetent Mrs
May’s Conservative Party is expected to get hammered at the polls on
Thursday. The Tories only hope,
widespread rain and a record low turnout. Only the latter is expected with a
massive turnoff by voters disgusted by all politicians. Later in the month, UK
voters get to do it all again in
European elections that no one wants.
Below, this morning’s
news from Asia.
“If I’d asked my customers what
they wanted, they’d have said ‘Don’t change anything.’”
Henry Ford
Asian markets mixed after surprising U.S. GDP report
By Marketwatch
and Associated
Press Published: Apr 29, 2019 12:02 a.m. ET
Hang Seng up, Shanghai down; Nikkei closed for 10-day holiday
Asian markets were mixed in early trading Monday, following a better-than-expected U.S. GDP report on Friday and ahead of a new round of U.S.-China trade talks.On Friday, data showed the U.S. economy grew 3.2% in the first quarter, higher than analysts’ expectations. That was thanks in part to the stockpiling of goods, although it was not immediately clear how, since data showed both domestic production and imports fell in the first three months of the year. On Wall Street, the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 index SPX, +0.47% hit a new high Friday while the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.31% also eked out a gain but ended the week down.
U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will lead a U.S. delegation to China on Tuesday to resume trade negotiations. Those will be followed by talks in Washington starting May 8. There have been reports that negotiations are in their final stage, and a final deal may be signed in late May or early June, putting an end to the yearlong tariff war between the world’s two largest economies.
The Fed board
meets Tuesday and is due to issue a statement on its interest rate outlook
Wednesday.
More
Two U.S. Navy warships sail through strategic Taiwan Strait
April 29, 2019 /
1:11 AM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military said it sent two Navy warships
through the Taiwan Strait on Sunday as the Pentagon increases the
frequency of movement through the strategic waterway despite opposition from
China.
The voyage risks further raising tensions with China but will likely be
viewed by self-ruled Taiwan as a sign of support from the Trump administration
amid growing friction between Taipei and Beijing.
Taiwan is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the U.S.-China
relationship, which also include a trade war, U.S. sanctions and China’s
increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea, where the United
States also conducts freedom-of-navigation patrols.
The two destroyers were identified as the William P. Lawrence and
Stethem. The 112-mile-wide (180-km) Taiwan Strait separates Taiwan from China.
---- Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said the U.S. ships had sailed north through the strait.
“U.S. ships freely passing through the Taiwan Strait is part of the
mission of carrying out the Indo-Pacific strategy,” it said in a statement.
Taiwan’s armed forces monitored the transit and nothing out of the ordinary
happened during it, the ministry said.
There was no immediate comment from China.
The United States has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to
help provide the island with the means to defend itself and is its main source
of arms.
More
China says criticisms on IP protection lack evidence amid trade spat
April 28, 2019 /
5:41 AM
BEIJING (Reuters) - Criticisms of China’s intellectual property (IP)
protection “lack evidence” and IP infringement is a worldwide problem, the head
of China’s National Intellectual Property Administration said on Sunday.
Critics also ignored the significant progress China has made on IP
protection, Shen Changyu told a press conference in response to a question on
concerns raised by countries like the United States.
“Some countries’ criticisms of China’s IP protection lack evidence and
are non-specific,” Shen said.
IP protection has been a topic of “deep concern” in ongoing Sino-U.S.
trade negotiations and China would take further measures to comprehensively
strengthen its IP protections this year, he said.
The measures will include amending China’s IP laws to increase the cost
for infringements, boosting the efficiency of IP approvals, and providing
lower-cost and more convenient IP protection channels, Shen said.
Washington and Beijing last year slapped import duties on each other’s
products as the United States seeks reforms to Chinese practices that it says
result in the theft of U.S. intellectual property and the forced transfer of
technology from U.S. companies to Chinese firms.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven
Mnuchin will travel to Beijing for trade talks beginning on April 30 to discuss
issues including intellectual property and forced technology transfer.
More
Bollywood stars, rich Indians vote in fourth phase of giant election
April 29, 2019 /
4:22 AM
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Some of India’s richest families, Bollywood
stars and others voted early on Monday in Mumbai and elsewhere in the country
as the fourth phase of a massive, staggered general election got underway.
More than 127 million people are eligible to vote in this round of the
seven-phase election held across 71 seats in nine states. Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s coalition won more than 75 percent of the seats in the previous
election in 2014.
Many of the constituencies are in Uttar Pradesh state in the north and
western India’s Maharashtra, where the financial capital Mumbai is located.
Uttar Pradesh elects the most MPs, with Maharashtra next, and both states are
ruled by Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
However, political analysts say the BJP may struggle to repeat its
strong showing this time due mainly to a jobs shortage and weak farm prices,
issues upon which the main opposition Congress party has seized.
“Jobs should be the priority for the new government,” said Aaditya Nair,
a hotel management student, as he stood in line outside a polling station in
Mumbai.
India’s financial markets were closed on Monday for the election.
Mumbai, which has six seats, is India’s wealthiest city but ageing and
insufficient infrastructure is a major concern. Six people were killed last
month when part of a pedestrian bridge collapsed, bringing back memories of a
2017 rush-hour stampede that killed at least 22 people on a narrow pedestrian
bridge.
More
In the European news update, today and
tomorrow might be a very good time to sell and go away for the rest of May, at
least. Below Spain goes hard left as the Vox Party splits the vote on the
right.
Brits opt for non European holidays,
which if true, will leave a big hole in the Iberian peninsula economies. The UK
Tories are told by Mrs May to go back to your constituencies and lose. Will GB
have a new Prime Minister by this time next week?
Spain's Socialists on course to regain power but talks await
April 27, 2019 /
11:07 PM / Updated an hour ago
MADRID (Reuters) -
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez looks set to regain power after his
Socialists overcame a historic challenge by right-wing nationalists in
elections on Sunday, a result he portrayed as a morale booster for the European
Union.
The Socialists gained seats in one of Spain’s most hotly contested
elections in decades, which featured the rise of far-right party Vox whose
ultra-nationalist campaign echoed political trends across Europe where traditional
parties have ceded to anti-immigration and eurosceptic forces.
However, the rise of Vox also splintered the right-wing vote, further
fragmenting Spain’s political landscape and playing into the hands of the
Socialists which won an almost 50 percent increase in seats.
“The Socialists
have won the general election,” Sanchez declared, smiling broadly as he
addressed jubilant supporters at party headquarters in Madrid. Outside,
hundreds celebrated in the street, waving red party flags and chanting ‘Long
live Spain’ and ‘Long live Socialism’.
---- Vox secured one in 10 votes and 24 seats, the first far-right party to get a sizeable presence in parliament since the country’s return to democracy in the late 1970s, but it did not get the kingmaker role it was looking for.
Far left-wing party Podemos immediately offered to open coalition talks
with Sanchez, though the two parties together cannot command a majority.
---- It was unclear in the early hours of Monday if he would also require the support of separatist lawmakers from Catalonia, the country’s richest region where a push for independence flared into violence two years ago.
“Pedro Sanchez is in a good position,” said Pablo Simon, a political
science professor at Madrid’s Carlos III University.
A government deal would be complicated and certainly not be clinched
before next month’s
European Parliament elections, he added.
More
Britons opt for non-EU holidays in face of Brexit impasse - Thomas Cook
April 29, 2019 /
12:31 AM
LONDON (Reuters) -
British holidaymakers are favouring destinations outside the European Union
after repeated delays to Brexit discouraged travellers from booking early and
prompted them to look further afield, travel firm Thomas Cook said on Monday.
Turkey and Tunisia are among the biggest beneficiaries from the trend
towards non-EU bookings, the firm said in a report, with demand for both
recovering after security concerns curbed bookings in recent years.
Britain was due to leave the EU on March 29, but an impasse in
parliament over the terms of Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal has
delayed departure. A new deadline of Oct. 31 was agreed with Brussels.
Thomas Cook, the world’s oldest travel company, said it was “clear that
the prolonged uncertainty around the manner and timing of Britain’s exit from
the European Union has led many to delay their decision on when and where they
book for their summer holidays.”
But a majority of
the 3,422 UK holidaymakers surveyed by the company nevertheless said they were
more likely to holiday abroad than last year, with a quarter saying that a
foreign holiday was higher in their spending priorities than in 2018, compared
to just 8 percent who said it was lower.
---- “The political turmoil is having an impact in other ways, revealing itself in a clear shift to non-EU countries.”
Thomas Cook said 48 percent of its UK package holiday bookings for this
summer so far were to non-EU destinations, up 10 percentage points on the same
time last year.
More
Conservatives expected to get hammering in local elections
Party anticipates difficult night as voters get chance to show exasperation over Brexit process
Sun 28 Apr 2019 13.44 BST
“The public have had enough,” the prime minister told
voters in her televised address from the podium in No 10 last month. “You’re
tired of the infighting. You’re tired of the political games. Tired of MPs
talking about nothing else but Brexit.”On Thursday, many of those voters will get their first chance to go to the polls, since Westminster entered deadlock and Brexit was delayed. Election-watchers expect them to use it to hammer Theresa May’s Conservatives.
More than 8,300 council seats are up for grabs, in 248 English local authorities, as well as six mayoralties, and 11 councils in Northern Ireland.
Many of the contests in England are in traditionally Tory areas. The last fight over them coincided with the 2015 general election, at which David Cameron’s party clinched an unexpected outright majority.
Local election results are notoriously hard to interpret. Turnout tends to be low – particularly when, as this year, there is no other vote taking place on the same day – and genuinely local issues, from hospital closures to bin collections, can swing results.
But this week’s vote will inevitably be seen as a measure of the public’s exasperation with the political wrangling that resulted in May accepting a second Brexit delay, potentially until 31 October.
The Conservatives’ deputy chair, Helen Whately, said on Sunday the council elections would be a difficult night for the party and that there was limited “bandwidth” in government to tackle issues aside from Brexit.
Pollsters put it more strongly. “It is going to be desperate for the Tories,” says Deborah Mattinson of the political consultancy Britain Thinks.
“Typically local elections are one part potholes and dog poo, and three or four parts a referendum on the government – but in this instance, the potholes and dog poo aren’t featuring at all.”
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