Baltic Dry Index. 1040
+08 Brent
Crude 73.21
Never ending Brexit
now October 31st, maybe.
Nuclear Trump
Tariffs Now In Effect.
USA v EU trade war postponed
to November, maybe.
We should keep on going along the
path of globalization. Globalization is good... when trade stops, war comes.
Jack Ma
The big news this
morning is the rising US economic war on Huawei and China. For more on that
scroll down to Crooks Corner.
We open the week with
those Asian markets open wondering where Trump’s America is headed. Economic
war on China and a real war on Iran? Brent crude prices keep creeping relentlessly
higher. But if a shooting war starts, the market is expected to soar above $100
a barrel.
If Saudi gulf oil
exports got affected, it’s anyone’s guess where global oil prices might top
out. Another 1973 – 1974 oil shock comes to mind. Back then, the crude oil
price jumped from $3 a barrel to about $12. If that happened today, the oil
price would soar to about $280, but there’s no guarantee, given Russia’s oil
pipeline problem, Libya and Venezuela, that it couldn’t go much higher. A new
recession would be the least of our troubles.
Below, what looks suspiciously
like conditioning the western public for war. But where? Iran? China? Both?
The art of war is simple enough.
Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard
as you can, and keep moving on.
Ulysses S. Grant
Stocks Mixed as Trade War Simmers; Aussie Jumps: Markets Wrap
By Adam Haigh
Updated on 20 May 2019, 05:12 BST
Asian shares were mixed and U.S. equity futures rose as
investors awaited the next chapter in the Sino-American trade dispute.
Australian and Indian assets outperformed following elections in the two
countries. Stocks in Japan were little changed, while they declined in China and Hong Kong. Australian stocks climbed and the Aussie jumped after a surprise election victory for conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Indian shares surged as exit polls showed Prime Minister Narendra Modi is poised to retain power. China’s offshore yuan strengthened, showing some relief after trade turmoil dragged down the currency to a five-month low. The yen slipped as unexpected economic growth in Japan came with reasons for caution.
Markets remain
fragile after the escalation in the trade war, with China calling on the U.S. to negotiate on
equal footing and Foreign Minister Wang Yi telling Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo in a call that while it’s still possible to work out a deal, Beijing
must safeguard its interests. A slew of U.S. data this week from home sales to
manufacturing may offer some clues on the robustness of the economic expansion
and Wednesday brings minutes from the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting.
----Elsewhere,
crude climbed after Saudi Arabia and other key producers in OPEC signaled their intention to keep oil
supplies constrained for the rest of the year, while pledging to prevent any
genuine shortages. Market closures will affect Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia
on Monday.
More
Trump, Saudi Arabia warn Iran against Middle East conflict
May 19, 2019 /
2:02 AM
RIYADH (Reuters)
- U.S. President Donald Trump issued a new threat to Tehran on Sunday, tweeting
that a conflict would be the “official end” of Iran, as Saudi Arabia warned it
stood ready to respond with “all strength” and said it was up to Iran to avoid
war.
The heightened rhetoric follows last week’s attacks on Saudi oil assets
and the firing of a rocket on Sunday into Baghdad’s heavily fortified “Green
Zone” that exploded near the U.S. embassy.
“If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never
threaten the United States again!” Trump said in a tweet without elaborating.
A U.S. State Department official said the rocket attack in Baghdad did
not hit a U.S.-inhabited facility and produced no casualties nor any
significant damage. No claims of responsibility had been made, but the United
States was taking the incident “very seriously.”
“We have made clear over the past two weeks and again underscore that
attacks on U.S. personnel and facilities will not be tolerated and will be
responded to in a decisive manner,” the official said in an emailed statement.
“We will hold Iran responsible if any such attacks are conducted by its proxy
militia forces or elements of such forces, and will respond to Iran
accordingly.”
Riyadh, which emphasized that it does not want a war, has accused Tehran
of ordering Tuesday’s drone strikes on two oil pumping stations in the kingdom,
claimed by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group. Two days earlier, four vessels,
including two Saudi oil tankers, were sabotaged off the coast of the United
Arab Emirates.
In response, countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) began
“enhanced security patrols” in the international waters of the Arabian Gulf
area on Saturday, the U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said on Sunday.
More
1973 oil crisis
Trump says tariffs making companies leave China, a deal can't be '50-50'
May 20, 2019 /
2:50 AM
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said his tariffs on Chinese goods are
causing companies to move production out of China to Vietnam and other
countries in Asia, and added that any agreement with China cannot be a “50-50”
deal.
In an interview
with Fox News Channel recorded last week and aired on Sunday night, Trump said
that the United States and China “had a very strong deal, we had a good deal,
and they changed it. And I said that’s OK, we’re going to tariff their
products.”
No further trade talks between top Chinese and U.S. trade negotiators
have been scheduled since the last round ended on May 10 - the same day Trump
raised the tariff rate on $200 billion (157 billion pounds) worth of Chinese
products from 10 percent.
Trump took the step after China soured the negotiations by seeking major
changes to a deal that U.S. officials said had been largely agreed.
Since then, China has struck a sterner tone in its rhetoric, suggesting
that a resumption of talks aimed at ending the 10-month trade war between the
world’s two largest economies was unlikely to happen soon.
Trump, who said the interview with Fox News host Steve Hilton had taken
place two days after he raised the tariffs, said he would be happy to simply
keep tariffs on Chinese products, because the United States would be taking in
$100 billion or more in tariffs.
But he added that he believed
that China would eventually make a deal with the United States “because they’re
getting killed with the tariffs, China’ getting totally killed.”
But he said that he had told Chinese President Xi Jinping before the
most recent rounds of talks that any deal could not be “50-50” between the two
countries and had to be more in favour of the United States because of past
trade practices by China.
Trump also said that Democratic presidential candidate and former U.S.
vice president Joe Biden should be investigated over a conservative author’s
allegation that Biden’s son Hunter Biden took advantage of his father’s
position to sign a lucrative business deal with state-controlled Bank of China.
The allegation was made in Peter Schweizer’s 2018 book “Secret Empires.”
Asked if this should be
investigated, Trump said: “100 percent. It’s a disgrace and then (Joe Biden)
says China’s not a competitor of ours. China is a massive competitor of ours.
They want to take over the world.”
Finally, it’s
European Parliament election week, with voters all across Europe disillusioned
with Brussels and the Eurocrats. Polls suggest that the usual establishment parties
are in for a beating, but the polls were hopelessly wrong with the Australian
general election.
Factbox: The national stakes in the EU elections
May 17, 2019 / 1:55
PM / 2 days ago
LONDON (Reuters) - Beyond determining the balance of power
of the next European Parliament, this week’s EU elections can have knock-on
effects in the domestic politics of Europe’s member states. Here are some
examples of how the elections play out nationally.
FRANCE - The election will serve as a referendum on French President
Emmanuel Macron’s first two years in power. Having put Europe at the heart of
his presidential campaign and having wagered on France leading euro zone
reform, if he comes second to Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National,
as polls indicate, it will be a body blow to his ambitions. It may also leave
him weakened when it comes to negotiations over top EU jobs, including the
European Commission president, whom Paris wants to be French.
GERMANY - A poor showing for Angela Merkel’s conservatives could lend
weight to calls for the veteran chancellor to spell out in more detail how she
envisages her previously announced departure from power. Her SPD coalition
partners meanwhile, languishing in the polls, are divided over whether to take
a sharp left-turn on economic policy or stick to their centrist course in the
hope of a poll turnaround. Against this background, activists from most parties
expect the far-right AfD to repeat its strong performance in 2017’s national
election.
---- ITALY - Campaigning for the EU vote has driven a deep wedge between the ruling coalition parties - the far-right League and anti-establishment 5-Star Movement - putting its future at risk. The League hopes the ballot will see its share of the vote rise, strengthening its position. The opposition Democratic Party (PD) under new leadership hopes to overtake 5-Star, while former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia fears a showing of less than 10 percent could accelerate its decline.
More
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eu-election-domestic-factbox/factbox-the-national-stakes-in-the-eu-elections-idUKKCN1SN1HR
Factbox: Europe votes - by the numbers
May 15, 2019 /
5:37 PM
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - These are numbers, key and not so key,
that will feature in voting for the European Parliament on May 23-36: 427 million
EU citizens eligible to vote in their home state or the one of the other 27 EU countries they live in; from Thursday, May 23, when the British and Dutch cast ballots in line with national tradition, through Friday (Irish and Czechs), Saturday (Latvia, Malta, Slovakia, Czechs) to Sunday (everyone else). Only Indian elections give more people a democratic choice.
43 percent
The proportion who actually took part in the last election in May 2014; that was down fractionally from 2009 and reflected an unbroken decline since 62 percent voted in the first direct election in 1979, with only nine member states. In Belgium, where voting is compulsory, it was 90 percent; in Slovakia, laggard of the ex-communist laggards, just 13 percent voted.
--- 96 versus 6
Number of seats Germany, the EU’s biggest country, has compared to four
tiddlers, Estonia, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta.
Morehttps://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eu-election-numbers-factbox/factbox-europe-votes-by-the-numbers-idUKKCN1SL26L
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
Today, who gains from putting Huawei out of business? Is Trump declaring
economic war on friend and foe alike?
Top U.S. Tech Companies Begin to Cut Off Vital Huawei Supplies
By Ian King, Mark Bergen, and Ben Brody
Updated on 20 May 2019, 05:27 BST
·
·
The move escalates tensions between the U.S. and
China
Top U.S. corporations from chipmakers to Google have frozen the supply of critical
software and components to Huawei Technologies Co., complying with a Trump administration crackdown that threatens to choke off China’s largest technology company.
Chipmakers including Intel Corp., Qualcomm Inc., Xilinx Inc. and Broadcom Inc. have told their employees they will not supply Huawei till further notice, according to people familiar with their actions. And Alphabet Inc.’s Google cut off the supply of hardware and some software services to the Chinese giant, another person familiar said, asking not to be identified discussing private matters.
The moves, which had been anticipated, hamstring the world’s largest provider of networking gear and No. 2 smartphone vendor. The Trump administration on Friday blacklisted Huawei -- which it accuses of aiding Beijing in espionage -- and threatened to cut it off from the U.S. software and semiconductors it needs to make its products. Blocking the sale to Huawei of critical components could also disrupt the businesses of American chip giants like Micron Technology Inc. and retard the rollout of critical 5G wireless networks worldwide -- including in China. That in turn could hurt U.S. companies that are increasingly reliant on the world’s second largest economy for growth.
----Huawei “is heavily dependent on U.S. semiconductor products and would be seriously crippled without supply of key U.S. components,” said Ryan Koontz, an analyst with Rosenblatt Securities Inc. The U.S. ban “may cause China to delay its 5G network build until the ban is lifted, having an impact on many global component suppliers.”
----“The extreme scenario of Huawei’s telecom network unit failing would set China back many years and might even be viewed as an act of war by China,” Koontz wrote. “Such a failure would have massive global telecom market implications.”
More
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-19/google-to-end-some-huawei-business-ties-after-trump-crackdown?srnd=premium-europe
Huawei founder says growth 'may slow, but only slightly' after U.S. restrictions
May 18, 2019 /
9:37 PM
(Reuters) - Huawei
Technologies’ founder and chief executive Ren Zhengfei said on Saturday the
growth of the Chinese tech giant “may slow, but only slightly” due to recent
U.S. restrictions.
“It is expected that Huawei’s growth may slow, but only slightly,” Ren told Japanese media in his first official comments after the U.S. restrictions, adding that the company’s annual revenue growth may undershoot 20%.
On Thursday, Washington put Huawei, one of China’s biggest and most successful companies, on a trade blacklist that could make it extremely difficult for Huawei to do business with U.S. companies, a decision slammed by China, which said it will take steps to protect its companies.
The developments surrounding Huawei come at a time of trade tensions between Washington and Beijing and amid concerns from the United States that Huawei’s smartphones and network equipment could be used by China to spy on Americans, allegations the company has repeatedly denied.
A similar U.S. ban on China’s ZTE Corp had almost crippled business for the smaller Huawei rival early last year before the curb was lifted.
The U.S. Commerce Department said on Friday it may soon scale back
restrictions on Huawei.
Ren said the company was prepared for such a step and that Huawei would
be “fine” even if U.S. smartphone chipmaker Qualcomm Inc and other American
suppliers would not sell chips to the company.
Huawei’s chip arm HiSilicon said on Friday it has long been prepared for
the scenario that it could be banned from purchasing U.S. chips and technology,
and is able to ensure steady supply of most products.
The Huawei founder said that the company will not be taking instructions
from the U.S. government.
“We will not
change our management at the request of the U.S. or accept monitoring, as ZTE
has done,” he said.
More
China Paper Says U.S. ‘Fabricated’ Forced Tech Transfer Claims
Bloomberg News
18 May 2019, 06:31 BST
The U.S. “purely fabricated” accusations that Chinese
authorities had been forcing foreign companies to transfer technology,
according the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party, saying it was an old
argument to suppress the country’s development.The U.S. hasn’t been able to provide examples of cases where overseas companies had to do so despite repeated requests by China for evidence, according to a commentary published Saturday in the People’s Daily newspaper.
“A lie repeated a thousand times still is a lie,” according to the op-ed. “Maybe what’s really pricking the nerves of the Americans are China’s rapid-developing innovation capabilities and technological achievements.”
China has long denied it makes it compulsory for overseas companies to transfer their technology in return for market access, reinforced by a new foreign investment law passed earlier this year that banned forced tech exchanges.
China’s state media has stepped up its rhetoric since U.S. President Donald Trump moved to implement billions of dollars of new tariffs on Chinese goods earlier this month, and curtailed access for Huawei Technologies Co. to American technology.
The Trump administration on Friday blacklisted China’s largest tech company -- which it accuses of aiding Beijing in espionage -- threatening to cut off the American software and semiconductors it needs to make smartphones and networking gear. That U.S. maneuver coincides with sensitive trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing.
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?
Washable, wearable battery-like devices could be woven directly into clothes
Date:
May 15, 2019
Source:
University of Cambridge
Summary:
Washable, wearable 'batteries' -- based on cheap, safe and
environmentally-friendly inks and woven directly into fabrics -- have been
developed by researchers.
Wearable electronic components incorporated directly into fabrics have
been developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge. The devices could
be used for flexible circuits, healthcare monitoring, energy conversion, and
other applications.
The Cambridge researchers, working in collaboration with colleagues at
Jiangnan University in China, have shown how graphene -- a two-dimensional form
of carbon -- and other related materials can be directly incorporated into
fabrics to produce charge storage elements such as capacitors, paving the way
to textile-based power supplies which are washable, flexible and comfortable to
wear.
The research, published in the journal Nanoscale, demonstrates
that graphene inks can be used in textiles able to store electrical charge and
release it when required. The new textile electronic devices are based on
low-cost, sustainable and scalable dyeing of polyester fabric. The inks are
produced by standard solution processing techniques.
Building on previous work by the same team, the researchers designed
inks which can be directly coated onto a polyester fabric in a simple dyeing
process. The versatility of the process allows various types of electronic
components to be incorporated into the fabric.
Most other wearable electronics rely on rigid electronic components
mounted on plastic or textiles. These offer limited compatibility with the skin
in many circumstances, are damaged when washed and are uncomfortable to wear
because they are not breathable.
"Other techniques to incorporate electronic components directly
into textiles are expensive to produce and usually require toxic solvents,
which makes them unsuitable to be worn," said Dr Felice Torrisi from the
Cambridge Graphene Centre, and the paper's corresponding author. "Our inks
are cheap, safe and environmentally-friendly, and can be combined to create
electronic circuits by simply overlaying different fabrics made of
two-dimensional materials on the fabric.
The researchers suspended individual
graphene sheets in a low boiling point solvent, which is easily removed after
deposition on the fabric, resulting in a thin and uniform conducting network
made up of multiple graphene sheets. The subsequent overlay of several graphene
and hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) fabrics creates an active region, which
enables charge storage. This sort of 'battery' on fabric is bendable and can
withstand washing cycles in a normal washing machine.
More
Every gun that is made, every
warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from
those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished April
DJIA: 26,593 +51 Down. NASDAQ: 8,095 +89 Down.
SP500: 2,946
+55 Up.
The S&P has
reversed to up largely as a result of the Fed falling into line with President
Trump’s demands, 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 still fully paid up synthetic double options on most of the
major indexes. This could all go very wrong very fast.
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