Baltic Dry Index. 1774
+26 Brent
Crude 58.46 Spot Gold $1,516
Never ending Brexit
now October 31st, maybe. 79
days away.
Nuclear Trump
China Tariffs Now In Effect.
USA v EU trade war
postponed to November, maybe.
"Good
people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will
find a way around the laws."
Plato
Will China be forced to intervene in Hong Kong?
Yesterday protestors, (rioters, anarchists?) managed to force the closure of
the world’s busiest cargo airport, the 8th largest by passenger numbers.
How will President Trump and the US Congress react if
China sends in the PLA?
How will the rest of the world react?
After 10 weeks of growing lawlessness and chaos,
how much longer can Beijing allow the disruption to continue? Beijing is
clearly reluctant to act, but with the protestors threatening to close down the
airport again, Beijing has to be losing confidence in the local administration.
But if Beijing finally steps in, how much of an
additional drag will it turn out to be on South East Asia’s regional economy?
Would intervention even work?
Below, our world and markets, one short step away from
disaster.
Asia shares tumble as Hong Kong unrest, Argentine peso crash unnerve investors
August 13, 2019 /
2:21 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) -
Asian shares slumped on Tuesday as fears about a drawn out Sino-U.S. trade war,
protests in Hong Kong and a crash in Argentina’s peso currency drove investors
to safe harbours like bonds, gold, and the Japanese yen.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS skidded 1%. Chinese stocks .CSI300 fell 0.8%, while Hong Kong's .HSI main market index tumbled more than 1% to a seven-month low.
“The protests in Hong Kong are negative for stocks, which were already in an adjustment phase because there is talk that the trade war will trigger a recession,” said Kiyoshi Ishigane, chief fund manager at Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management Co.
Hong Kong’s airport, the world’s busiest cargo airport, reopened on Tuesday, which could ease some concern about the immediate economic impact of protests over the past two months.
The protests began in opposition to a bill allowing extraditions to mainland China but have quickly morphed into the biggest challenge to China’s authority over the city since it took Hong Kong back from Britain in 1997.
Japan's Nikkei .N225 was also hit hard, down a sharp 1.5% and on course for its biggest daily decline in a week.
U.S. stock futures were 0.13% higher in Asia, but that did little to ease the mood.
Stocks in Singapore .STI shed 1.1% to reach their lowest since June 6 after the government slashed its full-year economic growth forecasts. The city state is often seen as a bellwether for global growth because of its importance as a key trade hub.
The selling in regional markets came as Wall Street stocks took a beating on Monday, with the S&P 500 .SPX losing 1.23%.
Sentiment was already weak due to increasing signs that the United States and China will not quickly resolve their year-long trade war.
More
Next, is Hong Kong killing itself as a world class financial
and trade centre?
Hong Kong airport grinds to halt; China likens protests to terrorism
by Reuters Monday, 12 August 2019 16:56 GMT
HONG KONG, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Hong Kong's airport halted flights on
Monday, blaming demonstrators for the disruption, while China said the
anti-government protests that have swept the city over the past two months had
begun to show "sprouts of terrorism".
The airport authority said it was working with airlines to resume
flights from 6 a.m. on Tuesday, but the developments raised the stakes sharply
after a weekend of skirmishes during which both activists and police toughened
their stances.
The precise trigger for the airport's closure was not clear, since
protesters occupying the arrivals hall for four days have been peaceful. Most
of them had left shortly after midnight, but around 50 remained, discussing
their next move.
"This is about our freedom," a 24-year-old protester wearing a
mask, who gave his name only as Yu, told Reuters during the evening. "Why
should we leave?"
Some Hong Kong legal experts say official descriptions of some
protesters' actions as terrorism could lead to the use of extensive anti-terror
laws and powers against them.
China's People's Armed Police also assembled in the neighbouring city of
Shenzhen for exercises, the state-backed Global Times newspaper said. The
Communist Party's official People's Daily newspaper said on the Twitter-like
Weibo that the force can handle incidents including riots or terrorist attacks.
Hong Kongers responded by taking to the streets again.
Crowds picketed a police station, singing hymns. Hundreds of people
returned to a subway station, where police had hit activists with batons, to
protest against heavy-handed tactics.
The increasingly violent demonstrations have plunged the Chinese-ruled
territory into its most serious crisis in decades, presenting Chinese leader Xi
Jinping with one of his biggest challenges since he came to power in 2012.
"Hong Kong has come to a critical juncture," said Hong Kong
and Macau Affairs office spokesman Yang Guang in Beijing.
"Protesters have been frequently using extremely dangerous tools to
attack the police in recent days, constituting serious crimes with sprouts of
terrorism emerging."
---- Hong Kong is the world's busiest air cargo port and the 8th busiest by passenger traffic, handling 73 million passengers a year. The airport has been filled with anti-government protesters for four days.
The mostly young black-clad protesters have chanted slogans such as
"No rioters, only tyranny!" and "Liberate Hong Kong!" while
approaching travellers with flyers describing their demands and explaining the
unrest.
U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said they were "bravely
standing up to the Chinese Communist Party," and that a violent crackdown
would be completely unacceptable.
More
Hong Kong’s leader defends police actions as airport struggles to reopen
By Associated Press
Published: Aug 12, 2019 11:10 p.m. ET
HONG KONG — Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam defended law enforcement actions
Tuesday after protesters prompted an airport shutdown with calls to investigate
alleged police brutality.
At one of the world’s busiest airports, airlines were checking in
passengers for new flights and for those unable to leave Monday when 200
flights were cancelled because thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators had
packed into the airport’s main terminal.
Protesters have shown no sign of letting up on their campaign to force
Lam’s administration to respond to their demands. No new violence was reported,
although the city is on edge after more than two months of near-daily and
increasingly bloody confrontations between protesters and police.
Demonstrators have called for an independent inquiry into what they call
the police’s abuse of power and negligence. Some protesters thrown bricks, eggs
and flaming objects at police stations.
---- Software engineer Joydeep Chakravarti, whose connecting flight to San Francisco was canceled late Monday, expressed frustration that he was told to leave the airport when he wanted to stay inside the terminal.
“I don’t know what’s out there, so I don’t want to leave. I didn’t make
any plans for Hong Kong,” said Chakravarti, who had a carry-on bag with laptop,
charger and an extra shirt while the rest of his luggage already was checked in
on his Singapore Airlines flight.
Kerry Dickinson, a traveler from South Africa, said she had trouble
getting her luggage Tuesday morning. “I don’t think I will ever fly to Hong
Kong again,” she said.
More
How Hong Kong clashes could wallop the U.S. stock market
By Mark
DeCambre Published: Aug 12, 2019 5:03 p.m. ET
---- So what does the Hong Kong clash mean for markets?
Along with trade tensions between the U.S. and China, the confrontation in Hong Kong has rattled investor confidence.“Tensions are rising in Hong Kong and the clashes between protesters and police are circulating around the globe, and that has chipped away at investor confidence in the West,” wrote David Madden, market analyst at CMC Markets U.K., in a Monday research note.
The Hong Kong Hang Seng HSI, -1.86% slipped 0.4% on Monday and is down 7% so far in August and nearly 10% over the past three months, according to FactSet data. The exchange traded iShares MSCI Hong Kong ETF EWH, -3.14%, one of the most popular funds used to gain exposure to Hong Kong stocks, was down 3.2% in Monday and has fallen 9.5% so far in August and 12.4% over the past 90 days.
What happens if the Hong Kong conflict worsens?
The concern is that the Chinese government could look to clamp down on what it may view as an insurrection, which may invoke memories of Tiananmen Square, when the Chinese military in May of 1989 violently cracked down on student protesters in a bloody confrontation shown around the world.Some fear that China declaring the protests an act of terror could lead to military action by Beijing. China has 6,000 to 10,000 People’s Liberation Army troops stationed in Hong Kong, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Market participants say that heightened tensions or a bloody clash could roil global markets because Hong Kong is seen as a financial hub and problems in the region could also stall any chance of a near-term Sino-American trade resolution.
“The increasing tension in Hong Kong, which could lead to greater intervention by mainland Chinese authorities, poses a risk to the region because Hong Kong is a major financial center and its disruption could have implications for markets in Asia as well as spillover to Europe and the U.S.,” Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Independent Advisor Alliance, told MarketWatch via email.
“In addition, the Chinese media have already accused the U.S. of being behind the protests — or at least encouraging them — tying the unrest in Hong Kong to the greater trade dispute with the U.S.,” Zaccarelli said.
Ultimately, a harsh response to protesters by China’s PLA, including loss of life, could make it unpalatable for the Trump administration to forge a grand trade deal.
“The big fear is that Beijing could respond with force of the kind
seared into memories about Tiananmen Square. If so, assessments of the
Politburo would also have to be revised to stand at a more pessimistic view. In
turn, markets would have to become less hopeful of the degree and speed of
progress possible on a whole host of fronts, including trade,” Ken Odeluga,
market analyst at City Index told MarketWatch.
Zaccarelli said that even if Trump were willing to overlook a violent
crackdown, it isn’t clear that Congress would.
Hong Kong woes could spell trouble for Asian neighbors
If matters get worse in Hong Kong it could ripple to other Asian markets and hasten a slowdown already at hand in the region.“More practically, rising political disquiet in the Asia-Pacific region is a growth issue too. As such, it’s entirely rational for global markets to retreat if the HK situation looks like it’s reaching a critical juncture,” Odeluga said.
James Meyer, analyst at Tower Bridge Advisors, concurred with that assessment in a Monday research report: “Tensions in Hong Kong add risk to world economic growth should they lead to violent confrontation. They aren’t at that level yet, but today’s sit-in at Hong Kong’s airport leads to a situation that the government won’t tolerate forever,” he wrote.
More
Finally, President Trump looks like getting his lower dollar
but for all the wrong reasons. With the longest, if weakest, US recovery still
underway, the best of times if you like, why is the US Treasury running a massive
deficit? What happens when the economy turns down? Time for some physical gold
and silver.
$3,727,014,000,000: Federal Spending Sets Record Through July; Treasury Runs $866,812,000,000 Deficit
By Terence P. Jeffrey | August 12, 2019 | 4:33 PM
EDT
(CNSNews.com) - The federal government spent a record
$3,727,014,000,000 in the first ten months of fiscal 2019 (October through
July), according
to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today.While spending that record $3,727,014,000,000, the government ran a deficit of $866,812,000,000.
Before this year, the most that the federal government had ever spent in the first ten months of a fiscal year was in fiscal 2009, when the Treasury spent $3,576,745,930,000 (in constant June 2019 dollars, adjusted using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator).
Federal spending was impacted in fiscal 2009 by the recession that was
ongoing when that fiscal year began. At the beginning of fiscal 2009, President
George W. Bush signed the Troubled Asset Relief Program to bailout failing
banks. Later that fiscal year, President Barack Obama signed the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act, aimed at stimulating the economy.
Total federal revenues in the first ten months of fiscal 2019 equaled
$2,860,202,000,000. That was less than the total revenues the federal
government collected in the first ten months of fiscal 2017 ($2,866,978,570,000
in constant June 2019 dollars) and fiscal 2015 ($2,868,253,370,000 in constant
June 2019 dollars).
Federal individual income tax revenues in the first ten months of fiscal
2019 equaled $1,428,904,000,000. That was less than the individual income taxes
the federal government collected ($1,438,381,490,000 in constant June 2019
dollars) in the first ten months of fiscal 2018.
Morehttps://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/3727014000000-federal-spending-sets-record-through-july-treasury-runs
“The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.”
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner.
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
Today, more on that not so easy to win trade war with China. I wonder if
another approach might have worked better and faster?
Farm equipment maker Deere's dealers reel from trade war, bad weather
August 9, 2019 /
6:14 PM
CHICAGO (Reuters)
- When China announced this week that it had stopped buying U.S. agricultural
products and might impose additional tariffs on farm shipments from America,
Dave Schmidt braced for another blow to his business.
The Salem, Wisconsin-based dealer of Deere & Co’s (DE.N) tractors, planters and combines is grappling with declining sales and higher levels of inventory as farmers have put off equipment purchases in the wake of rain-delayed planting in the Midwest and the yearlong Sino-U.S. trade standoff.
Schmidt says sales at his dealership, in general, declined by as much as 15% in the first half of the year, led by a fall in the demand for large equipment. In a sign of things to come, early orders for planting equipment for next season’s soybean and corn crops are down up to 25%.
He is not alone. Half a dozen dealers of Deere’s agriculture equipment across the Midwest shared similar accounts in interviews with Reuters. One of those dealers, in Geneseo, Illinois, said sales at his dealership were down 50% so far this year from the same period last year.
This is a worrying sign for Deere, which gets nearly 60% of its sales from the United States and Canada. The Moline, Illinois-based company is expected to report lower sales at its agriculture & turf segment when it reports its third-quarter earnings on Aug. 16.
The segment, which accounts for the bulk of the company’s sales, is expected to report quarterly sales of $6.24 billion, compared with $6.29 billion a year ago, according to Refinitiv IBES’ average analyst estimate.
---- In May, Deere slashed its full-year profit and sales outlook, blaming the U.S. trade war with China for weak demand for its farm machines.
The company’s shares, however, have gained a little over 14% since its
last earnings report on hopes that a rally in corn prices would encourage
farmers to buy new equipment.
But dealers are not so sanguine.
“We are not expecting demand for planting equipment to come back up this
year,” Schmidt said. “We might see more repair and upgrading of the existing
equipment.”
---- China imported $9.1 billion of U.S. farm produce in 2018, down from $19.5 billion in 2017, according to the American Farm Bureau, the largest farm industry group in the country.
U.S. shipments to China of soybeans, the country’s most valuable farm
export, sank to a 16-year low last year as the Asian nation mostly shifted
purchases to Brazil, leaving American farmers with surplus stocks. U.S. soy
prices are down 18% since March 2018, when President Donald Trump launched a
tariff war on China and other countries.
More
Chinese Tariffs Rock US Lobster Exports
By Julie Taboh August 7, 2019 03:02 PM
----- But China's love of fresh seafood, particularly live
lobsters, has become a challenge for companies like Maine Coast, a live lobster wholesaler
headquartered in York, Maine. In July 2018, Beijing retaliated against U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods by raising their own tariffs on U.S. food and agricultural exports, which included live lobsters.
Vice President of sales and marketing at Maine Coast, Sheila Adams, says she saw the company's business drop by 20% overnight.
"Essentially what's happened is about 80% of our sales into mainland China have gone away," she said. "And that's purely because our product is simply just too expensive compared to the Canadian because of the additional 25% tariff that was levied."
The tariff has to be paid by the Chinese customers.
"The North American lobster is caught in U.S. waters, but also in
Canadian waters," Adams said. "So when they make a buying decision
between 'Do I want to buy a lobster out of Canada or do I want to buy a lobster
out of the United States?' it becomes very difficult for them to make a
decision to buy an American lobster because it's so much more expensive.
"The Chinese as a culture love live seafood in general, and have a
particular passion for live lobster," she explained. "Obviously it's
a very large country, with a lot of people, so they consume — or have the
ability to consume — a lot of lobster, which is important for us as a
wholesaler volume business."
But with the loss of China as a major customer, Adams and her team have
had to look to other markets — both domestically and overseas — to make up the
difference.
"It takes all
of those other countries combined to equal one market in mainland China. So we
had to put a tremendous amount of effort across many, many markets to try to
recoup the lost business in China," Adams said.
More
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?
New design strategy brightens up the future of perovskite-based light-emitting diodes
Date:
August 8, 2019
Source:
Tokyo Institute of Technology
Summary:
Scientists have discovered a new strategy to design incredibly efficient
perovskite-based LEDs with record-setting brightness by leveraging the quantum
confinement effect.
Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology discover a new strategy to
design incredibly efficient perovskite-based LEDs with record-setting
brightness by leveraging the quantum confinement effect.
Several techniques for generation of light from electricity have been
developed over the years.
Devices that can emit light when an electric current
is applied, are referred to as electroluminescent devices, which have become
orders of magnitude more efficient than the traditional incandescent light
bulb. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) comprise the most notable and ubiquitous
category of these devices. A myriad of different types of LED exist nowadays,
which has been made possible by advances in our understanding of quantum
mechanics, solid-state physics, and the use of alternative materials.
Electroluminescent devices consist of several layers, the most important
being the emission layer (EML), which emits light in response to an electric
current. Metal halide perovskites, with the chemical formula CsPbX3 (X = I, Br,
Cl), have been recently considered as promising materials for fabricating the
EML. However, current perovskite-based LEDs (PeLEDs) perform poorly compared
with organic LEDs, which are typically used to design displays of TVs and
smartphones. Several researchers have suggested fabricating PeLEDs using
low-dimensional (i.e., emitting structural units are connected on a plane or
linearly in the crystal structure) perovskites that offer improved
light-emission performance based on the quantum confinement effect of excitons.
An exciton is an electron-hole pair that emits photon efficiently. However,
using low-dimensional perovskites has an intrinsic drawback in that the
conducting properties, i.e. low mobility, of these materials are very poor, and
this lack of low mobility leads to low power efficiency.
Interestingly, as discovered by a team of researchers led by Prof. Hideo
Hosono from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, it is possible to design highly
efficient PeLEDs using three-dimensional (3D) perovskites, which have superior
mobility of electron and hole and hence would address the limitation of
low-dimensional perovskites. The team investigated if the quantum confinement
effect that occurs in low-dimensional materials using new electron transport
layer adjacent to the perovskite and results in attractive light-emission
properties, could be achieved in 3D materials. In an electroluminescent device,
the EML is sandwiched between two layers: the electron transport and hole
transport layers. These two layers play a key role in ensuring good conducting
properties of the device. The team found that the energy-level characteristics
of these layers also play a crucial role in emission efficiency of the EL.
----
Aside from these tangible practical achievements, this research sheds light
into how the exciton-related properties of a material can be influenced by the
adjacent layers and provides a strategy that can be readily exploited in the
development of optical devices. "We believe this study provides new
insight into the realization of practical PeLEDs," concludes Hosono. With
such interesting advances in light-emitting materials, it seems that a
(literally) brighter future awaits.
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a
society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that
authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”
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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