Baltic Dry Index. 1748
+28 Brent
Crude 58.42 Spot Gold $1,498
Never ending Brexit
now October 31st, maybe. 80
days away.
Nuclear Trump
China Tariffs Now In Effect.
USA v EU trade war
postponed to November, maybe.
“As your president,
one would think that I would be thrilled with our very strong dollar,” “I am
not! …. The Fed’s high interest rate level, in comparison to other countries,
is keeping the dollar high, making it more difficult for our great
manufacturers like Caterpillar, Boeing… John Deere, our car companies, &
others, to compete on a level playing field.”
If the Fed cut
rates, he added, “the dollar will make it possible for our companies to win
against any competition.”
President
Trump. August 8, 2019.
With global recession
odds rising, the odds of a US recession are also rising. That’s bad news for
any US president facing re-election about 15 months away, but especially bad
news for President Trump who has tied his re-election to the US economy, and
especially the fate of the stock market.
President Trump badly
needs the US Fed to get busy with more and larger interest rate cuts. Walls
excepted, what President Trump wants he usually gets, so despite what his advisor
Larry Kudlow says about a strong dollar policy, I fully expect President Trump
to get his way with a weak dollar policy. A competitive, continuing dollar devaluation
policy between now and November 2020.
Whether that will be
enough to carry over priced stock markets out to November 2020 seems unlikely
to me, but if a new recession starts to unfold in the US economy, I expect to
see the under heavy pressure Federal Reserve, return to a new bout of quantitative
easing and to follow the ECB and Bank of Japan into negative interest rates.
Below, nervous global
markets await this week’s political fallout, which includes Pakistan Independence
Day on Wednesday followed immediately by India Independence Day on Thursday.
Both countries are on the brink of war over Kashmir.
Asian shares inch up on China recovery, yuan fixing
August 12, 2019 /
2:06 AM
SHANGHAI (Reuters)
- Gains by Chinese equities and the yuan’s stronger-than-expected daily fixing
helped lift a broad gauge of Asian shares above water on Monday, but firm gold
prices underscored investor worries over risks from a prolonged Sino-U.S. trade
war.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan shook off
early losses to eke out a 0.02% gain.
The index was aided by Chinese shares, which rallied from the previous
week’s losses. Blue-chip shares rose 0.96%, with listed brokerages boosted by a
late Friday announcement from China’s securities regulator of relaxed margin
financing rules..
Further helping sentiment, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) set its
daily midpoint for yuan trading - which determines the limits for its onshore
movement - at 7.0211 per dollar. That was weaker than Friday’s setting but
stronger than market expectations.
Ryan Felsman, senior economist at CommSec in Sydney, said there was a
“positive reaction” to Monday’s fixing, including a pick-up in the Australian
dollar, as it reassured investors that China won’t steadily weaken the yuan.
At the same time, uncertainty over how the U.S.-China trade conflict
will be resolved is contributing to market volatility, Felsman said.
---- On Monday, Australian shares dipped 0.17% and Indonesian shares fell 0.3% while the South Korean market reversed early losses to rise 0.39%.
Trading activity was relatively muted with some regional markets,
including Japan, Singapore and India, closed for holidays on Monday.
More
Fed remains a target as economy falls short of Trump's ambitious goals
August 11, 2019 /
1:10 PM
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - It has become a jarring and frequent contradiction. President
Donald Trump blames the Federal Reserve for putting the U.S. economy at risk
while data shows an economy in “reasonably good” shape, as the head of the
central bank recently said.
But behind that confusing dance between a norm-breaking Republican
president and a stick-to-its-knitting Fed lies a dilemma for Trump.
“Reasonably good” is not what Trump promised to deliver during his 2016
campaign, and at this point he heads into a reelection year short of the key
economic goals he set and worried a recession could undermine his bid for a
second term.
Growth is ebbing and well below the 3% annual rate he said his
administration would hit; the trade deficit has widened and there is no sign of
the “easy” victory he said would come in a trade war with China; far from the
surge in investment he promised would follow a corporate tax cut, business
capital spending of late has been a drag on growth overall.
---- “He is so focused on the Fed because in terms of avoiding a recession that is truly in his eyes his biggest obstacle,” to reelection, said a source in regular communication with the White House, explaining that Trump wants to take no chances, even if the risk of a downturn is low.
It’s in that context that Trump scorns a central bank whose longer-term
approach to policy has clashed with his more immediate interests - the same
tension apparent in other battles between the president and government agencies
with their own institutional powers or culture.
In the Fed’s case, while its chairman and Washington-based governors are
appointed by the president, its responsibility is to a “mandate” established by
Congress.
More
Trade war is raising the risk of U.S. recession, Goldman Sachs warns
By Mike
Murphy Published: Aug 11, 2019 7:32 p.m. ET
The trade war with China is having a greater effect on the
U.S. economy than expected, and the risk of recession is rising, Goldman Sachs
Group Inc. said Sunday.In a note to clients, Goldman analysts led by chief U.S. economist Jan Hatzius said a trade deal between the U.S. and China is no longer expected before the 2020 presidential election.
Goldman GS, -0.05% said it now expects a 0.6% drag on the U.S. economy due to trade-war developments, up from earlier estimates of 0.2%. “Fears that the trade war will trigger a recession are growing,” Hatzius said in the note.
Goldman also lowered its fourth-quarter U.S. growth forecast by 20 basis
points to 1.8%, saying the trade war is weighing down the economy.
“Overall, we have increased our estimate of the growth impact of the
trade war,” Hatzius wrote. “The drivers of this modest change are that we now
include an estimate of the sentiment and uncertainty effects and that financial
markets have responded notably to recent trade news.”
Uncertainty caused by the trade war could cause businesses to lower
spending until tensions are resolved, the report said. “Relatedly, the business
sentiment effect of increased pessimism about the outlook from trade war news
may lead firms to invest, hire, or produce less,” wrote Hatzius.
The
Goldman analysts said they expect President Donald Trump to carry out his
threat to impose 10% tariffs on an additional $300 billion in Chinese exports
starting Sept. 1.
Global bond yields have fallen to 120-year low
By Steve
Goldstein Published: Aug 9, 2019
11:19 a.m. ET
It’s been 120 years since bond yields around the world were this low.
That’s according to a calculation by Bank of America Merrill Lynch,
which uses average yields from a host of countries — the U.K, Australia, Japan,
Switzerland, France and the U.S. — to arrive at the data.
“With a substantial amount of central bank easing already priced, in our view, a marked deterioration in economic data would be required for the rally to continue. We believe the risk of a reversal has risen, and [we] turn neutral on duration,” strategists at Goldman Sachs said this week.
J.P. Morgan strategist Marko Kolanovic pointed out that the S&P SPX, -0.66% earnings yield is 5.9% while the global 10-year bond yield is at 0.59% — with that wide spread being in the 95th percentile in data going back to 1985.
More
When monetary
policy destroys the currency, it always destroys the middle class.
Ron Paul
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner.
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
Today, alleged technology spy, Huawei. President Trump forces Huawei to
go it alone. For now Huawei’s problem, but in a couple of years or so, everyone
elses.
Below, America’s Wired puts in America’s knife.
Huawei's HarmonyOS Is No Android Replacement
08.09.19 01:34 pm
For months, rumors have circulated that Chinese tech giant Huawei was hard at work on a
homegrown operating system, an increasingly necessary step
toward independence after US sanctions prompted Google
to sever ties. It’s now here: HarmonyOS, or Hongmeng in China. By all
appearances, it’s an interesting, innovative take on what a modern-day
operating system should be. Just don’t call it an Android replacement.HarmonyOS made its debut at Huawei’s developer conference in Dongguan, China, where Richard Yu, CEO of the company’s Consumer Business Group, talked up its wide-ranging potential. “We needed an OS that supports all scenarios, that can be used across a broad range of devices and platforms, and that can meet consumer demand for low latency and strong security,” Yu said.
It’s true that HarmonyOS has been built
with that breadth of applications in mind. The open-source platform is destined
for smart TVs, smartwatches, and a bevy of Internet of Things
doodads. Its microkernel architecture is lightweight and, more important, free
of any legacy baggage from the Linux kernel that underpins Android. (The kernel
is the core of an operating system, the hands that make the marionette dance. A
microkernel is just a stripped-down version, tugging one or two strings instead
of 10.) Huawei touts HarmonyOS as having a “Deterministic Latency Engine,” a
fancy way of saying that it can better prioritize resources when apps and
functions compete over them than Android can.
While smartphones weren’t the primary
focus of Huawei’s announcement, they’re clearly top of mind. At a press
conference following the event, Yu said that Huawei was “waiting on an update”
to see what products it might be able to use Android in, given the slight thawing of
geopolitical tensions in recent months. In the event that it’s
still blocked, Yu said, Huawei is prepared. “If we cannot use [Android] in the
future, we can immediately switch to HarmonyOS,” he
said.
----“I think Huawei is under-communicating
the work it will take to make this successful,” says Patrick Moorhead,
president of Moor Insights & Strategy, a technology analyst firm. “Most
every Android app writes to specific Android APIs, so any code that touches
cameras, fingerprint readers, AR cameras, microphones, proximity sensors, and
even privacy and security standards must be altered.”
That potentially makes HarmonyOS a tough
sell, especially given that smartphones aren’t its initial focus. The exception
is in Huawei’s home market of China, where the company has enough clout to
attract developers. But this is a global company with global ambitions.
Internationally, HarmonyOS will face the same problems that felled Windows
Phone and Tizen and other aspiring Android and iOS alternatives: Without apps,
no one buys the devices. If no one owns the devices, developers don’t bother
tailoring apps.
More
He who tampers with
the currency robs labor of its bread.
Daniel Webster
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?
HET electric motor massively boosts power, torque and efficiency, reduces weight and complexity
Loz Blain August 9th, 2019A Texas-based startup has raised US$4.5 million in seed funding to develop and commercialize a remarkable electric motor technology. The father/son team claims the design can massively reduce the size and complexity of electric powertrains while also significantly boosting efficiency and doubling the torque output.
Electric cars are stunning performers off the line. In sprint tests they routinely humble high-performance combustion-engined cars many times more expensive than them. But in order to achieve this massive startup torque out of small-diameter, easily packaged motors, most of them use gearboxes. Not multi-speed gearboxes like you'd use with a combustion engine, but single-speed reduction boxes designed to let electric motors spin at high, efficient RPM while the wheels spin slower.
These gearboxes are heavy, complex and expensive – and potentially unnecessary, according to a Texan father-and-son team that claim they've invented a new type of electric motor that can radically simplify the electric powertrain while delivering big efficiency, torque, power and range bonuses.
Linear Labs completed a seed round of financing in April this year, bringing in US$4.5 million to develop its key IP: the Hunstable Electric Turbine (HET), Hunstable being the surname of its two founders, CEO Brad and his father and CTO Fred.
The HET is a three-dimensional, circumferential flux, exterior permanent
magnet electric motor with some interesting characteristics. For starters, it
runs four rotors where other motors typically run one or two. The stator is
fully encapsulated in a four-sided "magnetic torque tunnel," each
side having the same polarity, ensuring that all magnetic fields are in the
direction of motion, and there are no unused ends on the copper coils wasting
energy. All magnetism the system creates is thus used to create motion, and all
four sides of the stator contribute torque to the output.
It also achieves field weakening in a unique way. Field weakening is
used to increase motor RPM when it's already running at full voltage, by
reducing the field flux – which is usually achieved by injecting extra current
in an opposing direction. This current injection trades additional speed for
motor torque, and reduces the efficiency of the motor. The HET achieves field weakening
by rotating one or both of its magnetic end plates out of alignment, meaning
that this motor can build extra speed with no efficiency loss. Indeed, overall
efficiency climbs at higher speeds.
----The result, says Linear Labs, is a truly remarkable motor that produces two to five times the torque density, at least three times the power density and at least twice the total output of any permanent magnet motor of the same size.
It also eliminates the need for DC/DC converters and the aforementioned
gearboxes, reducing total vehicle cost and weight significantly, and the
company says the motor's inherent efficiencies across different speeds, as well
as the weight savings it achieves through component reduction, can draw some
10-20 percent more range out of a given battery pack.
It doesn't cost any more to manufacture than a traditional motor design,
or require any specialized tooling – and it can be built without using rare
earth metals if necessary. It's easy to cool, at least the stator is, because
you can run liquid cooling inside the copper coils.
These are, of course, enormous claims. And while Linear Labs quickly
backs them up with quotes from independent experts, there's a long path between
disruptive idea and world-changing commercialization. The company says it's
looking to implement the motor in a scooter prototype next year, and a car
prototype in 2021. The company sees further potential for the motors in
multirotors, flying cars, wind power generation and HVAC.
More plus video.
https://newatlas.com/linear-labs-hunstable-electric-motor/60974/https://www.linearlabsinc.com/
Money is the worst
currency that ever grew among mankind. This sacks cities, this drives men from
their homes, this teaches and corrupts the worthiest minds to turn base deeds.
Sophocles
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished July
DJIA: 26,864 +53 Up. NASDAQ: 8,175 +65 Down.
SP500: 2,980 +53 Up.
The S&P and Dow remain up, but in very unconvincing fashion. The NASDAQ remains down. Like the Fed, I would await a better data
driven signal.
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