Baltic Dry Index. 2165
-26 Brent
Crude 63.98
Never ending Brexit
now October 31st, maybe.
Nuclear Trump
China Tariffs Now In Effect.
USA v EU trade war
postponed to November, maybe.
In the absence of
the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through
inflation. There is no safe store of value.
Alan Greenspan
The Great Disconnect
continues to grow. Hopium rules for now in global stocks. Don’t confuse me with
the facts, buy more. There’s a greater fool out there somewhere if we can just
find him.
And so in this latest
iteration of hype and greed, the USA v China trade war is about to be settled next week,
the Trump cowed Fed will cut interest rates next week, a new Prime Minister in
the UK is about to square the circle on Brexit, and Japan will end its newly
started trade war on South Korea.
Call Whitehall 1212 for details on a London
bridge I have for sale.
Below, more on the
exit rally.
Asia stocks welcome trade talks, euro on defensive
July 24, 2019 /
1:49 AM
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian shares on Wednesday gave a guarded welcome to
hints of progress in the Sino-U.S. trade saga, while the dollar hit two-month
highs on the euro as investors wagered on a dovish outcome from the European
Central Bank’s coming policy meeting.
Sentiment had been helped by a Bloomberg report that U.S. Trade
Representative Robert Lighthizer would travel to Shanghai next week for
meetings with Chinese officials.
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Tuesday called it a good
sign and said he expected Beijing to start buying U.S. agriculture products
soon.
Japan’s Nikkei added 0.5%, while Australian stocks rose 0.8% to all-time
highs.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.4% and Chinese blue chips climbed 1.2%.
Not so welcome was news the U.S. Justice Department was opening an antitrust investigation of major digital tech firms and possible anticompetitive practices.
The DoJ cited concerns about “search, social media, and some retail services online” — an apparent reference to Alphabet Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Facebook Inc.
Facebook reports results on Wednesday and Amazon and Alphabet on
Thursday.
Nasdaq futures fell 0.2% in Asian trade, while E-Mini futures for the
S&P 500 eased 0.1%.
The news took a little of the gloss off a solid overnight session for
Wall Street, where upbeat quarterly reports from Coca-Cola and United
Technologies helped ease some concerns about earnings.
The Dow had ended Tuesday up 0.65%, while the S&P 500 gained 0.68%
and the Nasdaq 0.58%.
More
South Korea asks Japan to cancel plan to remove the country from white list
July 24, 2019 /
2:17 AM
SEOUL (Reuters) -
South Korea said on Wednesday a Japanese plan to remove South Korea from a
Japanese list of countries that face minimum trade restrictions would undermine
their decades-old economic and security cooperation and threaten free trade.
Japan’s planned
revision of a law to take South Korea off its so-called white list comes amid a
deepening row over compensation for wartime forced labour, and after Japan
tightened curbs this month on exports to South Korea of high-tech materials
used for making memory chips and display panels.
South Korea’s industry ministry said in a statement Japan’s removal of
South Korea from the white list would be a very grave matter that would
undermine the economic and security partnership between the two countries,
It asked Japan to scrap its plan
“It is a very grave matter that shakes the foundation of South
Korea-Japan economic partnership and Northeast Asian security cooperation that
has been maintained and developed for more than 60 years,” Sung Yoon-mo, the
South Korean industry minister, told a briefing.
“Removal of South Korea from the white list of countries is against
international norms and we are worried about its serious negative impact on
global value chains and free trade,” Sung said.
Japan has threatened to drop South Korea from the white list of
countries that face minimum trade restrictions under a trade control law. That
would require Japanese exporters to seek a licence for items that could be used
in some weapons-related applications.
On Japan’s white list are 27 countries, from Germany to South Korea,
Britain and the United States.
Japan will decide on the revision after pooling public opinions. The
deadline for the hearing of public opinions was July 24.
South Korea’s industry ministry had sent an email including its request
to shelve the plan to the Japanese government, a ministry official said.
Japanese government spokesman were not immediately available for comment
on Wednesday.
IMF: Global economic growth is 'sluggish' amid trade/tech conflict
July 23, 2019 /
3:16 PM
July
23 (UPI) -- The International Monetary Fund said
Tuesday the global economic growth forecast has become 'increasingly sluggish,'
amid conflicts over trade and technology.The IMF released the July update to the World Economic Outlook, forecasting global growth, trade and inflation for this year and next, from Santiago, Chile, Tuesday. The report comes after previous projections earlier this year of a downgraded economic outlook and slowing global economy for 2019.
In remarks before the report was unveiled, Gita Gopinath, the IMF's chief economist, said the IMF is urging countries to resolve trade and technology conflicts to boost "increasingly sluggish," growth.
The updated projection for growth this year is 3.2 percent, down from 3.3 percent growth in the April projection, and 3.5 percent forecast in January.
For 2020, growth is expected to pick up to 3.5 percent, but that is still below an earlier projection of 3.6 percent.
"Global growth remains sluggish," Gopinath said. "Going forward there are significant risks to the outlook. Some of the main ones are an escalation in trade tensions or in technology tensions. A change in financial risk sentiment. It is therefore very important for countries to cooperatively work together to resolve their disagreements, especially on the trade and technology front. Because that would be important to support growth going forward."
International trade growth is at its lowest point since 2012, the report found. Though a rebound is forecast in 2020, it's unknown if current trade and technology conflicts will be resolved or escalated.
More
U.S. sanctions Chinese oil buyer over alleged Iran violations
July 22, 2019 /
4:52 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has sanctioned Chinese
state-run energy company Zhuhai Zhenrong Co Ltd for allegedly violating
restrictions imposed on Iran’s oil sector, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
said in a speech on Monday.
“We’ve said that we will sanction any sanctionable behaviour, and we
mean it,” Pompeo said in a speech in Florida in which he announced the move.
It comes amid increased tensions between Iran and the West as well as
between the United States and China, which have been engaged in a major trade
war.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has stepped up its
sanctions against Iran after breaking from a nuclear pact brokered between
Tehran and other Western nations under the previous administration of President
Barack Obama.
In a later statement, Pompeo said Zhuhai Zhenrong “knowingly engaged in
a significant transaction for the purchase or acquisition of crude oil from
Iran” after the expiration of a U.S. sanctions waiver covering China on May 2.
More
China says strongly opposes U.S. sanctions on Chinese firm over Iran oil
July 23, 2019 /
8:33 AM
BEIJING (Reuters) - China strongly opposes U.S. sanctions on a Chinese
energy firm accused of violating curbs on Iran’s oil sector levied over
Tehran’s nuclear programme, its foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
The United States sanctioned the company, Zhuhai Zhenrong Co Ltd,
because it “knowingly engaged in a significant transaction for the purchase or
acquisition of crude oil from Iran”, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said
on Monday.
Beijing firmly
opposed the sanctions, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, adding
that China’s cooperation with Iran was normal under international law.
“We urge the U.S. to correct this wrongdoing and stop its illegal
sanctions on companies and individuals,” she told reporters at a daily
briefing.
“The U.S. has neglected the legitimate rights of all countries and
randomly applies sanctions, this is in violation of international law,” Hua
added.
Finally, more on
those trade war tariffs. Good for America or good for America’s fat cats?
Aluminum Suppliers Kick Our Cans
Investigate companies like Alcoa, which kept prices high even after Trump lifted tariffs in May
By Pete Coors July 22, 2019 6:54 pm ET
According to President Trump, tariffs can be “completely
avoided if you buy from a non-Tariffed Country, or you buy the product inside
the USA (the best idea). That’s Zero Tariffs.” Unfortunately, this isn’t quite
true for anyone buying aluminum. Thanks to manipulative business practices that
appear to permeate the industry, it doesn’t matter if you buy from a tariffed
company or an American one—you’ll still pay the same high price.Until May, U.S. companies purchased only 73% of their imported aluminum from tariffed countries, but all of it was priced as if it were tariffed. Now Mr. Trump has lifted tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, so 77% of the imported aluminum that U.S. companies buy is free from tariffs—yet it still is priced higher as if it were tariffed.
At the same time, the base price for primary aluminum as set by the London Metal Exchange has fallen 15% in the year since the aluminum tariffs took hold. Prices for scrap material—which composes 70% of aluminum in a beverage can—have fallen 26%. Yet my company pays almost 20% more for the aluminum in our cans than it did a year ago.
Why? Because aluminum suppliers and traders are taking advantage of the pricing umbrella that the tariffs put in place. Because tariffs boost prices for part of the industry, the remaining untariffed firms are under less competitive pressure to keep their prices low. In fact, Alcoa and other aluminum giants have the market power to raise prices above the market rate. The less transparent and competitive a market is, the more firms can charge.
The aluminum market is dominated by a handful of companies that employ archaic and opaque pricing mechanisms. They are exploiting the aluminum tariffs to profit at the expense of the end user, raising their prices to match tariff prices. Smelters and traders have such significant market power that even with tariffs lifted off Canada, which supplies half the aluminum imported to the U.S., Harbor Aluminum Intelligence predicts that end users like Molson Coors will keep paying the higher prices they do now. Aluminum suppliers will pocket an extra $700 million a year in profit.
I’ve seen this behavior up close. Smaller firms likely have it worse, but even a company the size of Molson Coors is powerless to obtain better prices. Every year, my company sells 12 billion cans of beer and buys enough aluminum to build 4,000 jumbo jets. In the past six months we asked each U.S. supplier, separately, for better rates and they flatly refused. It was as if they were singing in unison.
These elevated prices enrich dominant suppliers and big trading firms such as Glencore . But their billions in profits come at the expense of U.S. consumers and companies that use aluminum, like Molson Coors. American companies have had to pay an additional $2 billion in higher aluminum costs since the tariffs went into effect, according to Harbor.
More
Fear and euphoria
are dominant forces, and fear is many multiples the size of euphoria. Bubbles
go up very slowly as euphoria builds. Then fear hits, and it comes down very
sharply. When I started to look at that, I was sort of intellectually shocked.
Contagion is the critical phenomenon which causes the thing to fall apart.
Alan Greenspan
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner.
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
Today, not the usual crooks and suspects. Today a
most unusual scoundrel with a tall story or a mistaken version of the truth.
Trump touches off storm in India with Kashmir mediation offer
July 23, 2019 /
7:23 AM
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi never asked
U.S. President Donald Trump to help mediate with Pakistan their dispute over
the Kashmir region, the government said on Tuesday, after Trump’s comments set
off a storm of criticism.
Trump told reporters on Monday that Modi had asked him, during a meeting
in Japan last month, if he would like to be a mediator on Kashmir, which is at
the heart of decades of hostility between India and Pakistan.
Trump was speaking at the White House just before he sat down for talks
with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan who welcomed the U.S. effort to
intercede, saying he would carry the hopes of more than a billion people in the
region.
But the comments triggered a political storm in India which has long
bristled at any suggestion of third-party involvement in tackling Kashmir, a
Muslim-majority region that it considers as an integral part of the country.
The divided Himalayan region is claimed by both Hindu-majority India and
Islamic Pakistan and the nuclear-armed neighbours have gone to war two times
over the territory since independence in 1947.
Pakistan has long pressed for the implementation of decades-old U.N.
resolutions calling for a ballot for the region to decide its future. India
says the United Nations has no role in Kashmir, where separatist militants have
been battling Indian forces for years.
Trump’s comments risked further straining political ties with India
which are already under pressure over trade.
Foreign Minister Subrahmanyan Jaishankar, who was part of the Indian
delegation at the G20 meeting in Japan where Trump and Modi met, told agitated
lawmakers that Modi did not seek any help from Trump over Kashmir.
“The U.S. president made certain remarks to the effect he was ready to
mediate if requested by India and Pakistan. I categorically assure the house
that no such request has been made by the prime minister, I repeat, no such
request was made,” he told parliament.
Tension between India and Pakistan has been high since an attack on an
Indian military convoy in Kashmir in February claimed by a Pakistan-based
militant group prompted India to send warplanes into Pakistan.
Pakistan retaliated by ordering its jets into India’s side of Kashmir
the following day, raising the prospect of a wider conflict.
Jaishankar said there could be no third-party involvement in India’s
problems with Pakistan.
“I also reiterate that it has been India’s position that all outstanding
issues are discussed only bilaterally. I further underline any engagement with
Pakistan would require an end to cross-border terrorism.”
More
Afghanistan seeks clarification on Trump talk of wiping it out
July 23, 2019 /
8:50 AM
KABUL (Reuters) -
Afghanistan called on Tuesday for an explanation of comments by U.S. President
Donald Trump in which he said he could win the Afghan war in just 10 days by
wiping out Afghanistan but did not want to kill 10 million people.
Trump’s remarks followed a meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan
at the White House on Monday during which Trump voiced optimism that Pakistan
could help broker a political settlement to end the nearly 18-year-old war in
Afghanistan.
The comment about wiping out Afghanistan prompted a stiff response from
its presidential palace, which has been excluded from talks between the United
States and the Taliban and which accuses Pakistan of supporting the insurgency.
“The Afghan nation has not and will never allow any foreign power to
determine its fate,” the presidential palace said in a statement.
“While the Afghan government supports the U.S. efforts for ensuring
peace in Afghanistan, the government underscores that foreign heads of state
cannot determine Afghanistan’s fate in absence of the Afghan leadership,” it
said.
It called for clarification of Trump’s statement.
During his comments in Washington, Trump said that Pakistan was helping
the United States “extricate” itself from Afghanistan, where the United States
was acting as a “policeman” rather than fighting a war.
“If we wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan and win it, I could win that
war in a week. I just don’t want to kill 10 million people,” Trump told
reporters at the White House where he was hosting a visit by Pakistani Prime
Minister Imran Khan.
“I have plans on Afghanistan that, if I wanted to win that war,
Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth. It would be gone,” he
said.
“It would be over in — literally, in 10 days. And I don’t want to do — I
don’t want to go that route.”
More
To succeed, you
will soon learn, as I did, the importance of a solid foundation in the basics
of education - literacy, both verbal and numerical, and communication skills.
Alan Greenspan
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?
Search for new semiconductors heats up with gallium oxide
Date:
July 22, 2019
Source:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, News Bureau
Summary:
Electrical engineers have cleared another hurdle in high-power semiconductor
fabrication by adding the field's hottest material -- beta-gallium oxide -- to
their arsenal. Beta-gallium oxide is readily available and promises to convert
power faster and more efficiently than today's leading semiconductor materials
-- gallium nitride and silicon, the researchers said.
Their findings are published in the journal ACS Nano.
Flat transistors have become about as small as is physically possible,
but researchers addressed this problem by going vertical. With a technique
called metal-assisted chemical etching -- or MacEtch -- U. of I. engineers used
a chemical solution to etch semiconductor into 3D fin structures. The fins
increase the surface area on a chip, allowing for more transistors or current,
and can therefore handle more power while keeping the chip's footprint the same
size.
Developed at the U. of I., the MacEtch method is superior to traditional
"dry" etching techniques because it is far less damaging to delicate
semiconductor surfaces, such as beta-gallium oxide, researchers said.
"Gallium oxide has a wider energy gap in which electrons can move
freely," said the study's lead author Xiuling Li, a professor of
electrical and computer engineering. "This energy gap needs to be large
for electronics with higher voltages and even low-voltage ones with fast
switching frequencies, so we are very interested in this type of material for
use in modern devices. However, it has a more complex crystal structure than
pure silicon, making it difficult to control during the etching process."
Applying MacEtch to gallium oxide crystals could benefit the
semiconductor industry, Li said, but the advancement is not without hurdles.
"Right now, the etching process is very slow," she said.
"Because of the slow rate and the complex crystal structure of the
material, the 3D fins produced are not perfectly vertical, and vertical fins
are ideal for efficient use of power."
In the new study, the beta-gallium oxide substrate produced triangular,
trapezoidal and tapered fins, depending on the orientation of metal catalyst
layout relative to the crystals. Although these shapes are not ideal, the researchers
were surprised to find that they still do a better job conducting current than
the flat, unetched beta-gallium oxide surfaces.
More
Markets do very
weird things because it reacts to how people behave, and sometimes people are a
little screwy.
Alan Greenspan
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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