Baltic Dry Index. 726
-02 Brent
Crude 71.39
Never ending Brexit
now October 31, maybe. Day 136 of the
never-ending China trade talks. Everyone’s still “optimistic.”
“Socialism
only works in two places: Heaven where they don’t need it and hell where they
already have it.”
Ronald Reagan.
If it wasn’t for the
bad Fed, says President Trump, the DJIA should be at 36,000. Chairman Powell you have your target, get on
with it.
While President Trump
targets the Fed and the stock market, the House Democrats and the hundreds of hopefuls
running for President against President Trump, are targeting Wall Street, more
specifically Wall Street’s banksters.
Taking up the policies
of free everything, class warfare, and generational change, that worked so well for UK’s Comrade Corbyn at
the last UK general election, the Democrats hope to sweep the Senate and ride a
wave of wealth envy right into the White House. A vicious 18 month campaign
lies ahead.
Not that this
worrying Asian markets this morning, busy salivating over the prospects of that
long awaited USA v China trade deal.
"Why
did Comrade Agent Corbyn stare at the bottle of orange juice for two hours?
Because the label said concentrate."
Czech StB report, with apologies to Ken Dodd and
blondes.
Asian shares near nine-month highs, helped by U.S. optimism on China trade talks
April 15, 2019 /
2:00 AM
SYDNEY (Reuters) -
Asian shares neared nine-month highs on Monday after U.S. Treasury Secretary
Steven Mnuchin said he hoped U.S.-China trade talks were approaching a final
lap, while strong Chinese export and bank loan data boosted confidence in the
global economy.
The consequent improvement in risk appetite resulted in the dollar
easing against other major currencies.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan climbed 0.6
percent to its highest since late July. Chinese shares led the growth with the
blue-chip CSI300 index rising 2.2 percent.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 1.2 percent while South Korea’s KOSPI rose
0.7 percent. Japan’s Nikkei also joined the party, gaining 1.4 percent to the
highest since early December.
“Stocks bulls certainly have the wind at their backs with improving
growth but steady inflation, reduced trade tensions and a
solid/better-than-feared Q1 earnings season,” JPMorgan analysts said in a note.
The rally follows on from strong finish on Wall Street on Friday as
investors cheered Chinese data showing exports rebounded in March to a
five-month high while new bank loans jumped by far more than expected.
Investors also welcomed positive headlines on the Sino-U.S. trade talk
as well.
More
Donald Trump: The stock market should be as much as 10,000 points higher
By Shawn
Langlois Published: Apr 14, 2019
9:46 p.m. ET
The value of the U.S. stock market has risen by $9.1
trillion, or 35.6%, since Election Day in 2016, according
to Wilshire Associates. For President Donald Trump, that’s not nearly enough.
Lately, he’s been blasting the Federal Reserve for raising rates, and he’s steadily urged the central banks to revert to the policies that supported the market during the last crisis, including the resumption of the Fed’s bond-buying program.
“I would say in terms of quantitative tightening, it should actually now be quantitative easing,” he said last week. “You would see a rocket ship.”
On Sunday, he put numbers to that potential “rocket ship” rally:
‘If the Fed had
done its job properly, which it has not, the Stock Market would have been up
5000 to 10,000 additional points, and GDP would have been well over 4% instead
of 3%... with almost no inflation. Quantitative tightening was a killer, should
have done the exact opposite!’
---- The Dow
Jones Industrial DJIA, +1.03%
riding strong bank earnings, closed up almost 270 points to 26,412.30 on Friday
— another 10,000 points would put the index well above the 36,000 level. The
Dow’s all-time high is 26,951.81.
With White House in their sights, Democrats challenge Wall Street
Date created :
On the campaign trail and in Congress, Democrats are challenging the
titans of Wall Street, proclaiming a "new day" as they seek to channel
the anger of their party and voters that has raged since the financial crisis.
CEOs of America's biggest banks were summoned for the first time since
the 2008 crisis by a congressional committee on Wednesday, raising their hands
as they swore their oaths ahead of their testimony.
It was a powerful image that underscored the recent change in control of
the House of Representatives, which came under Democratic control in January
after eight years of Republican rule.
"This is a new way and it's a new day," said Maxine Waters,
the first woman and first African American to chair the powerful House
Financial Services Committee.
Tim Sloan, the former CEO of Wells Fargo, testified at a previous
hearing in March.
This time, it was the turn of the heads of Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase
& Co, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, State Street Corporation, BNY Mellon
and Goldman Sachs.
Waters had previously tangled with some of them at the peak of the
crisis, when the global financial system was imperiled.
The current round of cross-examinations has less to do with the
stabilization of the financial system and more the social impact of Wall
Street.
"You, captains of the universe, are smart enough and creative
enough and understand this business enough to see what you can do about these
citizens, these young people," said Waters.
Some of the Democrats on the committee have focused on spotlighting the
gap between these executives, all male, white and fabulously wealthy, and the
rest of society -- a tactic criticized by the panel's ranking Republican as
headline-seeking.
In one probing exchange, Nydia Velazquez, a Democrat of New York,
pressed Citigroup Chief Executive Michael Corbat to justify his 2018 pay of
$24.2 million, an estimated 486 times that of the average employee.
Corbat said his pay was set by the board of directors and that, if he
were an average employee who observed the yawning gap, "I would be hopeful
that there's the opportunity to continue to advance."
"This is why people who live in a bubble and in an ivory tower
cannot understand the anger out there, especially among millennials,"
Velasquez shot back.
- Counter-attack -
It is this groundswell of anger, despite sold growth figures and
plentiful employment, that Democrats are hoping to tap not only to keep their
House majority in 2020 but also to seize the Senate -- and the White House.
Wall Street and its big bosses are already a key part the of the
presidential campaigns of several candidates vying for the Democratic
nomination, spearheaded by ultra-progressives Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
Warren.
More
Goldman Sachs: Trump has 'narrow' shot in 'close call' election bid
Javier E. David
April 14, 2019
President Donald Trump holds a “narrow”
electoral advantage heading into 2020, according to Goldman Sachs, with his
chances buoyed by a resilient U.S. economy and a crowded Democratic field in
which a clear frontrunner has yet to emerge.
In a comprehensive report released late
Saturday, the investment bank gave its preliminary thoughts on a general
election that’s still more than a year away.
While Trump reelection is far from assured,
Goldman’s economists believe the president is bolstered by “the advantage of
first-term incumbency and the relatively strong economic performance,” in what
is sure to be a “close call” election.
Trump’s approval ratings remain mired below
50%, as new crises appear to engulf his administration on a near daily basis.
Meanwhile, early reads on the November 2020 ballot suggest the
incumbent faces an uphill climb in his reelection bid.
Yet with more than 20 Democrats vying to
replace him, voter turnout uncertain and the likely
emergence of an independent candidate suggest that “President Trump is
more likely to win a second term than the eventual Democratic candidate is to
defeat him,” Goldman wrote.
“While
we believe the majority of market participants expect President Trump to win a
second term, we note that prediction markets point in the opposite direction
and imply that the Democratic candidate has a 56% probability of winning and
the Republican candidate has a 44% chance,” the bank said.
More
It might be time to
start adding to gold and silver holdings again. The prospect of a Comrade
Corbyn government in GB and a Democratic Socialist government in the USA, and
chaos in the rump-EU is looming into view.
Comrade Corbyn’s New Communist Labour
Party: Nationalisation, Taxing and impoverishing the many, for the increased
pay of the unionised few.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
As China opens its Auto Show
this week amid falling sale in China, Germany manages to trash its auto
reputation yet again. Still after Brexit will anyone in GB be able to afford a
German motor? And if President Trump imposes auto tariffs on EU autos, will
anyone in America, either?
Global car makers face bumpy road as China hosts auto show
Date created :
14/04/2019
Global car makers flock to the Shanghai Auto Show this week with the
world's largest vehicle market facing an unfamiliar sales slump just as China
veers toward an ultra-competitive electric future.
Fuelled by rising incomes and government sales incentives, China has
been the golden goose upon which the global automotive industry has staked its
future.
But after years of strong growth, car sales fell last year for the first
time since the 1990s, hit by a slowing economy, US trade tension, and a Chinese
crackdown on shady credit practices that has crimped car-financing channels.
Sales dipped 2.8 percent in 2018 to 28.1 million units, according to
that China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), a pace that has
accelerated in recent months.
"This is the first time since the takeoff of the Chinese market
that there has been such a long and sharp decline in sales," said Laurent
Petizon, an auto analyst at Alix Partners.
"We are starting to worry a little bit. It's a new
phenomenon."
The decline is magnified by a prior buying rush as consumers moved to
beat the government's recent removal of tax rebates for small car purchases.
- Cut-throat -
Major carmakers still see solid potential, particularly in bright spots
such as SUVs and electric vehicles, which will account for many of the new
models on display in Shanghai.
But cut-throat competition is expected to intensify even in EVs with
Beijing moving to phase out policies that encourage the purchase of
"green" vehicles.
This mixed picture -- optimism combined with worrying new realities --
is reflected in the plans of carmakers like Ford.
The US manufacturer this month announced plans to launch 30 new models
in China within three years, a dozen electric.
But it also unveiled a strategy to cater more directly to the evolving
needs of Chinese car buyers.
This includes incorporating the artificial intelligence technology of
China's Baidu into Ford vehicles, giving Ford's Chinese joint ventures more
freedom on design choices, and other steps.
Although China is the world's largest "new energy" vehicle
market and sales soared 62 percent last year, they remain a drop in the China
bucket with 1.3 million units sold, thanks in part to purchasing incentives.
But they represent the future for China, especially with the government
planning to impose quotes requiring carmakers maintain a certain percentage of
new energy vehicles in their Chinese production.
This has given rise to a number of Chinese EV start-ups seeking to stake
out territory that will have to face off against the likes of Tesla.
More
China’s electric-vehicle ambitions in spotlight at Shanghai auto show
Published: Apr 14,
2019 9:23 p.m. ET
BEIJING — This year’s Shanghai auto show highlights the global
industry’s race to make electric cars Chinese drivers want to buy as Beijing
winds down subsidies that promoted sales.
Communist leaders are shifting the burden to automakers by imposing
mandatory sales targets for electrics, adding to financial pressure on them
amid a painful sales slump. Chinese purchases of pure-electric and hybrid
sedans and SUVs soared 60% last year to 1.3 million — half the global total —
but overall auto sales shrank 4.1% to 23.7 million.
Buyers of electrics were lured with subsidies of up to 50,000 yuan
($7,400) per car, but that support was cut by half in January and ends next
year.
More
German motor authority probes more Mercedes emissions software - Bild
April 14, 2019 /
11:33 AM
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany’s motor vehicle authority KBA is
investigating Daimler on suspicion that 60,000 Mercedes cars were fitted with
software aimed at tricking emissions tests, the Bild am Sonntag newspaper
reported on Sunday.
A spokesman for Daimler, owner of Mercedes-Benz, said the carmaker was
reviewing the facts and fully cooperating with the KBA.
Bild am Sonntag said the KBA was looking into suspicious software in
Mercedes-Benz GLK 220 CDI cars produced between 2012 and 2015, after tests
showed they only meet emissions limits when a certain function is activated.
Since rival Volkswagen admitted in 2015 to cheating U.S. emissions
tests, the scandal has spread to other carmakers. Daimler has ordered the
recall of 3 million vehicles to fix excess emissions coming from their diesel
engines.
Bild am Sonntag said the KBA found that the function it had discovered
had been removed during software updates carried out by Daimler.
The Daimler spokesman said the company had complied with a process
agreed upon with the KBA and German Transport Ministry when updating software
for the 3 million recalled vehicles.
“The allegation that we wanted to hide something with the voluntary
service measure is incorrect,” he said.
This month European Union antitrust regulators charged BMW, Daimler and
Volkswagen with colluding to block the rollout of emissions-cleaning
technology.
“When it becomes serious, you have to lie.”
Comrade Corbyn, with apologies to Jean-Claude
Juncker. Failed former Luxembourg P.M., serial liar, president of the European
Commission. Scotch connoisseur.
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?
How to solve the plastic packaging paradox
10 April 2019
But the first commercially viable version of the now ubiquitous material - cellophane - was conceived in a more innocent age, before anyone worried about plastic in landfill, or the sea, or the food chain.
It begins in 1904, at an upmarket restaurant in Vosges, France, when an elderly patron spilled red wine over a pristine linen tablecloth.
Sitting at a nearby table was a Swiss chemist called Jacques Brandenberger, who worked for a French textile company. As he watched the waiter change the tablecloth, he wondered about designing a fabric that would simply wipe clean.
He tried spraying cellulose on tablecloths but it peeled off in transparent sheets. But might those transparent sheets have a market?
By World War One, he'd found one: eye-pieces for gas masks.
He called his invention "cellophane" and in 1923 he sold the
rights to the DuPont corporation in America.
Its early uses there included wrapping chocolates, perfume and flowers.
But DuPont had a problem. Some customers weren't happy. They'd been told
cellophane was waterproof, and it was, but it wasn't moisture-proof.
Candies stuck to it; knives rusted in it; cigars dried out.
DuPont hired a 27-year-old chemist, William Hale Charch, and tasked him
with finding a solution.
Within a year, he'd done it - the cellophane was coated
with extremely thin layers of nitrocellulose, wax, a plasticiser and a blending
agent. Sales took off.
The timing was perfect. In the 1930s, supermarkets were changing - customers no longer queued to tell shop assistants what food they required. They picked products off the shelves instead.
See-through packaging was a hit. And, as Harvard Business School researcher Ai Hisano points out, had "a significant impact not only on how consumers purchased foods but also on how they understood food quality".
Cellophane let them choose food on the basis of how it looked, without sacrificing hygiene or freshness.
One study - admittedly funded by DuPont - found that wrapping crackers
in cellophane boosted sales by more than half.
And retailers had no shortage of similar advice. "She buys meat
with her eyes," said a 1938 edition of The Progressive Grocer.
In fact, the meat counter was the hardest to make self-service. The
problem was that meat, once cut, would quickly discolour.
But trials suggested a self-service meat counter could sell 30% more
food.
With such an incentive, solutions were found: pink-tinted lighting,
antioxidant additives and - of course - an improved version of cellophane,
which let through just the right amount of oxygen.
By 1949, DuPont adverts boasted about the "pleasing new way"
to buy meat - "pre-cut, weighed, priced and wrapped in cellophane right in
the store".
But cellophane would soon fall out of fashion, overtaken by the likes of
Dow Chemical's polyvinylidene chloride.
Like its predecessor, this was an accidental discovery first used in
conflict - in this case, weatherproofing fighter planes in World War Two.
And, like cellophane, it needed plenty of research and development
before it could be used on food - it was originally dark green and smelled
disgusting.
Once Dow sorted that out, it hit the market as Saran Wrap - now more
widely known as cling film.
After health scares with polyvinylidene chloride, cling film is now
often made with low-density polyethylene, though that's less, well, clingy.
It's also used to make those single-use supermarket bags now being
banned around the world.
High-density polyethylene is the kind of stuff you might get milk in.
More
In
Comrade Corbyn’s New Communist Labour Party, “Never have so many, been lied to,
over so much, by so few Corbyn communists.”
With
apologies to W. S. Churchill & the RAF.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished March
DJIA: 25,929 +54 Down. NASDAQ: 7,729 +94 Down.
SP500: 2,834
+53 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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