Baltic Dry Index. 1725
-15 Brent
Crude 63.92
Never ending Brexit
now October 31st, maybe.
Nuclear Trump
China Tariffs Now In Effect.
USA v EU trade war
postponed to November, maybe.
The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.
Walter Bagehot.
No one rang a bell,
but was that it last week, the top? Buy the rumour sell the fact, goes the old
Wall Street saying, so will everyone sell when the Fed disappoints at the end
of the month with a meaningless quarter point interest rate cut? Suppose they
don’t cut at all? Was the Deutsche Bank/Boeing 737 Max debacle the sound of
klaxons and bells ringing?
Below, fear starts to
replace hopium in stocks. What if Dow 20,000 starts to replace Dow 30,000?
Getting out early always beats getting carried out last. What if a
manufacturing slump and a construction slowdown get followed by a services
slump?
Real estate prices
are now declining in many key markets and 18,000 overpaid Deutsche Bank workers
are about to start cutting back on lifestyle. How many other banks will be
tempted to slim down as well? Was Deutsche Bank the new Lehman?
The era of the
everything boom may have just ended. Conspicuous consumption in high finance an
embarrassing thing of the past. Has a period of adjustment just rolled into town?
If so, a debt crisis looms into view. Who can repay, who needs a readjustment
and who will default? I suspect we will all find out in the next six to twelve
months.
Asia stocks fall to two-week low as hopes fade for big Fed rate cut, tech stocks drag
July 9, 2019 /
2:15 AM
TOKYO/HONG KONG
(Reuters) - Asian stocks fell to their lowest levels in two and a half weeks on
Tuesday as hopes dwindled for a hefty interest rate cut by the U.S. Federal
Reserve at the end of the month, while technology companies were pulled lower
by Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O) overnight slump.
Investors have rushed to scale back Fed rate cut expectations following unexpectedly strong gains in U.S. jobs for June, with U.S. stock markets falling for a second straight day.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS dropped 0.5% to its lowest since June 20.
Japan's Nikkei .N225 slipped 0.1%.
In China, the Shanghai Composite .SSEC and the blue-chip CSI300 .CSI300 were both 0.6% lower, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng .HSI fell 0.8%.
Australian stocks fell 0.4% and the Korean market .KS11 was 0.3% lower.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 0.48% while the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 0.78%, led by fall in Apple after a brokerage downgraded the stock to "sell".[.N]
---- Global equities will likely remain under pressure after last month’s outperformance, Pictet Wealth Management said in a memo on Tuesday.
“After a strong rally in June that more than erased the May drawdown,
valuations look demanding, underpinning our underweight stance,” the firm said.
“We expect (emerging market) equities to perform sideways in the coming weeks,
but with the possibility of rotation to quality cyclicals.”
Investors’ focus is shifting to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s testimony
before Congress later in the week for clues on monetary policy. [FED/DIARY]
More
Dow closes lower as Apple, Boeing shares slump, investors rethink Fed rate-cut chances
By Chris
Matthews and William
Watts Published: July 8, 2019 4:19
p.m. ET
U.S. stocks retreated Monday, but finished above session
lows, as investors scaled back expectations for interest-rate cuts following
last week’s strong June jobs report.The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.43% fell 115.98 points, or 0.4%, to close at 26,806.14, while the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.48% declined 14.47 points, or 0.5%, to finish at 2,975.95. The Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -0.78% declined 63.41 points, or 0.8%, to end at 8,098.38.
At session lows, the Dow had lost 177.25 points, or roughly 0.7%, the S&P retreated 20.29 points, also 0.7%, while the Nasdaq traded as many as 83.4 points lower, a loss of 1%.
---- Traders continue to look for the Federal Reserve to cut rates when policy makers meet at the end of the month, but fed-funds futures show investors cut bets for a 50 basis point reduction since Friday morning. Analysts said testimony before Congress by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will likely be a big driver for stocks this week.
“Our economists continue to expect a rate cut by the U.S. Federal
Reserve at the end of July, but all eyes will now be on Fed Chairman Jerome
Powell on Wednesday,” said Patrik Lang, head of equity research at Julius Baer,
in a note.
---- European equities SXXP, -0.05% traded slightly lower as shares of German banking giant Deutsche DBK, -5.88% DBK, -5.39% slumped more than 5% in Frankfurt, a day after announcing a sweeping restructuring that will see it shed 18,000 jobs by 2022 and drop its stock sales and trading unit as it exits investment banking activities.
Shares of Dow component Boeing Co. BA, -1.33% fell 1.3% Monday, after a Saudi Arabian airline canceled a deal valued at more than $5.5 billion, deciding to give its business to rival Airbus SE. The loss comes amid questions regarding the safety of the 737 Max, after two fatal crashes since October.
Fellow Dow constituent, Apple Inc. AAPL, -2.06% shares tumbled 2.1% after Rosenblatt Securities analyst Jun Zhang downgraded the stock to sell from neutral.
More
Weaker growth will offset a Fed rate cut—so sell stocks, warns Morgan Stanley
By Mark
Cobley Published: July 8, 2019 6:27
a.m. ET
So we start the week with U.S. stock market indexes just a
few steps away from all time highs.That is even after Friday’s extra strong jobs data rattled some investors, who worried that the Fed could be deterred from cutting interest rates in a few weeks. But according to CME Group, that cut is happening.
Our call of the day though, kicks things off with a warning from Morgan Stanley which is “putting our money where our mouth is” and downgrading global equities to underweight from equal-weight.
Here’s why: ‘The most straightforward reason for the shift is simple—we project poor returns,” said Andrew Sheets and a team of strategists.
The S&P 500, MSCI Europe, MSCI Emerging Markets and Topix Japan
indexes are currently only about 1%, on average, below Morgan Stanley’s current
price targets—or their best guess for the indexes’ fair value. “There comes a
point for every analyst where you need to change your forecast or change your
view. We’re doing the latter,” wrote Sheets and team.
Morgan Stanley is expecting a rate cut, but Sheets argues history shows
that when central banks cut because growth is weak, it is the weakness that
matters more for stocks in the end. “If you don’t believe us, we have some
European stocks from April 2015, shortly after the European Central Bank’s
first QE program was announced, that we’d like to sell you”, he added.
The Stoxx 600 index of leading European shares is down 3.6% since April
1 2015.
More
ABB quits solar inverter business, takes $430 million charge
July 9, 2019 / 6:04
AM
ZURICH (Reuters) - ABB (ABBN.S) will take a $430 million charge after
quitting the solar inverter business and giving the business to Italy’s FIMER
SpA, the Swiss engineering company said on Tuesday. The business making solar inverters, which convert direct power from solar panels into alternating current that can be fed into the electricity grid, had sales of roughly $290 million in 2018.
Around three quarters of the charge is cash ABB will pay to FIMER, while the Zurich company said it also expected up to $40 million in separation costs.
Deutsche Bank struggles to silence doubters with rescue plan
Observers praise brutal honesty of
restructuring, but investors worry about execution risks
For Deutsche Bank
veterans, last weekend was the moment that Germans took back control of their
nation’s largest lender.
After two decades
of false starts and of Anglo-Saxon-trained traders calling the shots, Deutsche
has finally thrown in the towel in trying to become a European rival to Goldman
Sachs in global investment banking. Instead it has laid out a path to return to
its historic roots as a corporate and consumer lender.
“The new vision
really struck a chord with me,” a German member of Deutsche’s supervisory board
told the Financial Times after chief executive Christian Sewing’s historic
revamp, hailing it as the moment when “investment banking stopped being an end in
itself for Deutsche”.
The scale of the
overhaul surprised many who praised the brutal honesty of the plan, which will
result in Deutsche shutting down its entire lossmaking global equities
business, cutting 18,000 jobs and hiving off €288bn of lossmaking assets into a
bad bank for sale or run-off.
But big doubts remain over whether these
radical efforts will be enough to change the narrative at the German giant,
which has been brought to its knees by decades of hubris and poor management.
“Deutsche’s restructuring is bold and for the
first time not half-baked, but a real strategic shift giving up its top-tier
investment-banking ambitions,” said JPMorgan analyst Kian Abouhossein. Yet
questions remain about revenue growth and its “ability to operate a corporate
franchise without a European equity business,” he said.
Despite an initial
bump on Monday morning, the stock later plunged 5 per cent, back to near the
lowest in the bank’s 149-year history.
For Deutsche Bank
veterans, last weekend was the moment that Germans took back control of their
nation’s largest lender. After two decades of false starts and of
Anglo-Saxon-trained traders calling the shots, Deutsche has finally thrown in
the towel in trying to become a European rival to Goldman Sachs in global investment
banking.
Instead it has
laid out a path to return to its historic roots as a corporate and consumer
lender. “The new vision really struck a chord with me,” a German member of
Deutsche’s supervisory board told the Financial Times after chief executive
Christian Sewing’s historic revamp, hailing it as the moment when “investment
banking stopped being an end in itself for Deutsche”.
The scale of the
overhaul surprised many who praised the brutal honesty of the plan, which will
result in Deutsche shutting down its entire lossmaking global equities
business, cutting 18,000 jobs and hiving off €288bn of lossmaking assets into a
bad bank for sale or run-off.
But big doubts
remain over whether these radical efforts will be enough to change the
narrative at the German giant, which has been brought to its knees by decades
of hubris and poor management.
“Deutsche’s
restructuring is bold and for the first time not half-baked, but a real
strategic shift giving up its top-tier investment-banking ambitions,” said JPMorgan
analyst Kian Abouhossein. Yet questions remain about revenue growth and its
“ability to operate a corporate franchise without a European equity business,”
he said. Despite an initial bump on Monday morning, the stock later plunged 5
per cent, back to near the lowest in the bank’s 149-year history.
The decision to
close the entire equity-trading business, including in Germany, was more
radical than expected. It triggered questions about the slimmed-down bank’s
ability to win business from large Europe corporates, a cornerstone of its
revamp.
“Further client
loss should be anticipated given a reduction in the ‘full service’ investment
banking model,” KBW analyst Thomas Hallett said, with clients likely to defect
to competitors that offer a broader suite of products and expertise.
Without any equity
sales or trading capacity, corporate clients and private equity groups could
lose faith in Deutsche’s equity capital markets unit — meaning it could miss
out on the lucrative business of underwriting their share sales.
---- There are
early examples of client losses. Swiss bank Pictet has been a long-term client
of Deutsche. But Pictet is looking to switch banks after many of the people it
dealt with at Deutsche left last week at the same time as their investment
banking boss Garth Ritchie, people familiar with the move told the Financial
Times.
In any case,
significant revenue will disappear. KBW reckons the equities closure will
result in €2bn of lost revenue, while a parallel slimming of the bond and rates
trading means another €750m could go. That means Deutsche will need to find
other ways to increase its core revenue by 10 per cent to the required €25bn to
hit its 2022 targets.
More
"We shouldn't pour cold water on everything. We, the eight or nine players in global investment banking, have a very good future."
Deutsche Bank, CEO Josef Ackermann. Davos, January 2007
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
Today, what is it about the 90
percent of commodities traders that gives the other 10 percent a bad name?
Exclusive: Greensill issued false statement on bonds sold by metals tycoon Gupta
July 7, 2019 /
12:03 PM
(Reuters) -
Financing group Greensill Capital, which is backed by Japan’s SoftBank Group
and General Atlantic of the U.S., last year provided a false statement to
market participants relating to bonds it had issued in 2017 on behalf of
commodities tycoon Sanjeev Gupta.
The May 2018 statement made to bond market investors and brokers said
the Scottish government had approved a guarantee related to a hydro power plant
in Kinlochleven owned by Gupta’s GFG Alliance, which the bonds were secured
against.
But Scotland says no approval was given, according to a government
statement provided to Reuters. The meeting records for the committee that would
need to approve such a guarantee, which are available on the committee’s
website, do not refer to a 2018 GFG guarantee.
Although the Scottish government had in 2016 provided a guarantee
related to an aluminium plant owned by Gupta’s GFG, “no other guarantee has
been offered to the GFG Alliance by any Scottish Minister or official,” a
spokesman said.
The prospect of government support had been a key reason Swiss asset
manager GAM Holding AG had purchased the 220 million pounds of bonds a year
earlier, because under the terms of the bonds it potentially meant a near-term
repurchase at a higher price, according to three people familiar with the
matter. A Scottish government guarantee would allow GFG to repurchase the bonds
early, according to representations in an April 2017 pre-sale document
outlining the nature of the proposed deal that was produced by Greensill for
GAM and reviewed by Reuters.
The false statement marks the latest development related to a series of
GFG bonds purchased by GAM fund manager Tim Haywood, who was suspended and then
dismissed following an internal whistleblower alerting UK regulator the
Financial Conduct Authority.
In response to questions from Reuters, Greensill initially denied
producing pre-sale documents relating to the Kinlochleven bonds or any updates
regarding a guarantee. The company more recently confirmed it had produced the
April 2017 pre-sale document and the May 2018 investor update but said the
update “was based upon information provided by GFG.”
Greensill added: “Greensill never knowingly issues false statements and
strongly refutes such assertions. The contents of any statements made are
believed to be accurate at the time made.”
GFG said it had discussed with advisors
and investors the potential for a guarantee related to the Kinlochleven power
plant but declined to comment on what specifically it told Greensill.
More
"Never have the world's moneys been so long cut off from their metallic roots."
Murray M. Rothbard
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 you charge your mobile phone could compromise its battery lifespan
Date:
June 26, 2019
Source:
University of Warwick
Summary:
Researchers have found that use of inductive charging, whilst highly
convenient, risks depleting the life of mobile phones using typical LIBs
(lithium-ion batteries).
Consumers and manufacturers have ramped up their interest in this
convenient charging technology, abandoning fiddling with plugs and cables in a
favour of just setting the phone directly on a charging base.
Standardisation of charging stations, and inclusion of inductive
charging coils in many new smartphones has led to rapidly increasing adoption
of the technology. In 2017, 15 automobile models announced the inclusion of
consoles within vehicles for inductively charging consumer electronic devices,
such as smartphones -- and at a much larger scale, many are considering it for
charging electric vehicle batteries.
Inductive charging enables a power source to transmit energy across an
air gap, without the use of connecting wire but one of the main issues with
this mode of charging is the amount of unwanted and potentially damaging heat
that can be generated. There are several sources of heat generation associated
with any inductive charging system -- in both the charger and the device being
charged.
This additional heating is made worse by the fact that the device and
the charging base are in close physical contact, any heat generated in one
device may be transferred to the other by simple thermal conduction and
convection.
In a smartphone, the power receiving coil is close to the back cover of
the phone (which is usually electrically nonconductive) and packaging
constraints necessitate placement of the phone's battery and power electronics
in close proximity, with limited opportunities to dissipate heat generated in
the phone, or shield the phone from heat generated by the charger. It has been
well-documented that batteries age more quickly when stored at elevated
temperatures and that exposure to higher temperatures can thus significantly
influence the state-of-health (SoH) of batteries over their useful lifetime.
The rule of thumb (or more technically the Arrhenuis equation) is that
for most chemical reactions, the reaction rate doubles with each 10 °C rise in
temperature. In a battery, the reactions which can occur include the
accelerated growth rate of passivating films (a thin inert coating making the
surface underneath unreactive) on the cell's electrodes. This occurs by way of
cell redox reactions, which irreversibly increase the internal resistance of
the cell, ultimately resulting in performance degradation and failure. A
lithium ion battery dwelling above 30 °C is typically considered to be at
elevated temperature exposing the battery to risk of a shortened useful life.
----All three charging methods (wire, aligned inductive and misaligned
inductive) were tested with simultaneous charging and thermal imaging over time
to generate temperature maps to help quantify the heating effects. The results
of those experiments have been published in the journal ACS Energy Letters
in an article entitled "Temperature Considerations for Charging Li-Ion
Batteries: Inductive versus Mains Charging Modes for Portable Electronic
Devices."
The graphics with this press release illustrates three modes of
charging, based on (a) AC mains charging (cable charging) and inductive
charging when coils are (b) aligned and (c) misaligned. Panels i and ii show a
realistic view of the charging modes with a snapshot of the thermal maps of the
phone after 50 min of charging. Regardless of the mode of charging, the right
edge of the phone showed a higher rate of increase in temperature than other
areas of the phone and remained higher throughout the charging process. A CT
scan of the phone showed that this hotspot is where the motherboard is located
- In the case of the phone charged with conventional mains power, the maximum average temperature reached within 3 hours of charging did not exceed 27 °C.
- In contrast this for the phone charged by aligned inductive charging, the temperature peaked at 30.5 °C but gradually reduced for the latter half of the charging period. This is similar to the maximum average temperature observed during misaligned inductive charging.
- In the case of misaligned inductive charging, the peak temperature was of similar magnitude (30.5 °C) but this temperature was reached sooner and persisted for much longer at this level (125 minutes versus 55 minutes for properly aligned charging).
-----The researchers do note that future approaches to inductive
charging design can diminish these transfer losses, and thus reduce heating, by
using ultrathin coils, higher frequencies, and optimized drive electronics to
provide chargers and receivers that are compact and more efficient and can be
integrated into mobile devices or batteries with minimal change.
In conclusion, the research team found that inductive charging, whilst
convenient, will likely lead to a reduction in the life of the mobile phone
battery. For many users, this degradation may be an acceptable price for the
convenience of charging, but for those wishing to eke out the longest life from
their phone, cable charging is still recommended.
more
"Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate… it will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people."
Andrew Mellon.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished June
DJIA: 26,600 +51 Up. NASDAQ: 8,006 +70 Down.
SP500: 2,942 +50 Up.
The S&P has reversed again to up after only one month. The Dow has
reversed to up, while the NASDAQ remains down. On to next
month’s numbers for clarification.
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