Baltic Dry Index. 2366 -27 Brent
Crude 61.24 Spot Gold 1496
Never ending Brexit now October 31, maybe. 49 days away.
Trump’s Nuclear China Tariffs Now In Effect.
USA v EU trade war postponed to November, maybe.
“As government expands, liberty contracts.”
Yesterday it was all about the America v China trade war
again. This time it was both generating goodwill gestures in a badly needed
attempt to goose up stock markets in the face of ever more distressing signs of
a new recession rolling out.
China said it would produce a list of US goods to be
excluded from new Chinese tariffs. President Trump said he would delay an October
1st tariff hike to October 15th, since no one had told
him October 1st was the 70th anniversary of the founding of modern
communist China. You couldn’t make this sort of trade war insanity up.
No one wins a trade war, the “winner” is just who loses
least. Right now that seems to be the rest of the world, with America and China
in a tight race for the dubious title of loser.
Today, all eyes are on Euroland’s central bank, where
developments in Germany are expected to have the ECB hitting the panic button.
To this old dinosaur market follower, this is a time to be selling out of stocks
to the latest in greater fool buyers.
Asian markets mostly gain as trade tensions ease
By Marketwatch
and Associated
Press
Published: Sept 11,
2019 11:06 p.m. ET
Asian markets were mostly up in early trading Thursday as
trade-war tensions eased after President Donald Trump announced a two-week
delay in implementing tariff hikes against $250 billion in Chinese goods. In a pair of tweets late Wednesday, Trump said the tariff hikes, which had been scheduled to take effect Oct. 1, will be put off until Oct. 15 as a “gesture of good will.” Earlier in the day, China said it would exempt some U.S. goods from tariff hikes it intends to impose starting Sept. 17. The conciliatory moves appear to be efforts to create goodwill before the resumption of trade negotiations in early October.
In a positive sign, Trump and China appear “willing to negotiate to put an end to this trade war spat,” Stephen Innes, Asia-Pacific market strategist at AxiTrader, wrote in a note.
Investors were also optimistic of a rate cut by the European Central Bank later Thursday. Policy makers are expected to announce further monetary stimulus at a news conference Thursday morning, Eastern time.
More
China unveils lists of US products to be excluded from additional tariffs
Xinhua | Updated:
2019-09-11 13:36
China on Wednesday unveiled the first set of lists of US
goods to be excluded from the first round of additional tariffs on US products.The exemption will be effective from Sept 17, 2019 to Sept 16, 2020, the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council said in a statement.
Two lists of goods will be excluded from China's first round of tariff countermeasures against the US Section 301 measures.
The first list includes 12 items and allows affected import enterprises to apply for refunds of collected duties within six months from Wednesday.
The second list includes four items that will enjoy the exemption but are not eligible for tariff refunds.
Next, the commission will continue to work on the exemption process and release subsequent lists in due course, according to the statement.
http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201909/11/WS5d7887eba310cf3e3556afbf.html
Trump pledges to postpone 5 percent hike on Chinese tariffs
Sept. 11, 2019 /
8:09 PM
Sept. 11 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the United States will
postpone a planned 5 percent tariff increase on Chinese goods.Trump wrote on Twitter that he will push the 5 percent increase in tariffs back two weeks at the request of Chinese Vice Premier Liu He because the original date of Oct. 1 fell on China's 70th anniversary.
"We have agreed, as a gesture of goodwill, to move the increased tariffs on $250 billion worth of goods (25 percent to 30 percent) from Oct. 1 to Oct. 15," Trump wrote.
The president initially announced the tariff increase last month, again accusing China of "taking advantage of the United States on trade, intellectual property theft and much more."
Also, earlier this month the United States imposed new 15 percent tariffs on about $111 billion worth of Chinese goods including clothing and food.
The news also comes after the two countries agreed to another round of trade negotiations in the coming weeks.
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/09/11/Trump-pledges-to-postpone-5-percent-hike-on-Chinese-tariffs/7661568245391/?ls=2
In European news, panic time. Germany is leading
Euroland into a new recession and we haven’t had Brexit yet. At the ECB later
today, outgoing President Draghi is expected to hit the panic button.
German institutes see recession, cut growth forecasts for 2019, 2020
September 11,
2019 / 9:19 AM
BERLIN (Reuters) - The German economy will slide into a recession in the
current quarter, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW) said on
Wednesday as it slashed its growth forecasts for Europe’s biggest economy due
to trade disputes and Brexit uncertainty.
The IfW institute said it expected the German economy to shrink by 0.3%
quarter-on-quarter in the third quarter after a 0.1% contraction in the
previous quarter.
It also cut its 2019 growth forecast for the German economy to 0.4% from
0.6% previously. For 2020, it now sees growth of 1.0% for 2020, down from its
earlier estimate of 1.6%. For 2021, the institute predicts an expansion of
1.4%.
“The real problem with (U.S. President) Donald Trump’s trade disputes is
not the tariffs themselves, but the great uncertainty about what is to come.
Uncertainty is poison for investment decisions,” IfW President Gabriel
Felbermayr said.
---- The RWI
economic institute also reduced its growth forecast for the German economy for
this year to 0.4% from 0.8% previously. For 2020, it sees 0.9% growth, saying
there were increasing signs that the economy was going into a downturn.
“In particular, the decline in production continues in the manufacturing
sector, especially in the automotive industry,” it said. “This increases the
risk that the German economy will fall into recession.”
Chancellor Angela Merkel told lawmakers earlier that the current
economic situation in Germany meant tax revenues may come in lower than
expected. This could limit the government’s fiscal room to counter a recession.
More
Moment of truth for ECB on new round of stimulus
Issued on:
After 2019 opened with hopes the European Central Bank could begin
"normalising" policy after years of buttressing the eurozone,
governors appear set for a fresh unconventional turn Thursday, under pressure
from financial markets.
Deeper negative interest rates, a new bond-buying programme and relief
for struggling banks are all on the agenda, producing a rarely-seen level of
public division on the bank's governing council.
President Mario Draghi, who will yield his seat to departing
International Monetary Fund chairwoman Christine Lagarde on October 31, could
yet tie her hands for months -- or years -- to come with his final moves.
Over the summer, Draghi stoked confidence in an upcoming policy package.
In July he reiterated the "possibility of actions in the future, if
there is no improvement" in economic conditions.
"This might be his last stunt, but we expect Mario Draghi to
conquer the barricades once again" around the council table, ING bank
economist Carsten Brzeski said.
"The costs of waiting or only delivering parts of a big package and
then trying to get ahead of the curve at a later stage will be higher," he
added.
- Washington watching -
Central bankers have for years failed to hit their inflation target of
just below 2.0 percent, despite unprecedented interventions -- peaking in a
2.6-trillion-euro ($2.9-trillion) bond-buying scheme from 2015-18 and negative
rates on banks' deposits.
Now US-led trade wars, weakness in emerging markets and the risk of a
no-deal Brexit are slowing growth.
In the second quarter, economic activity in the eurozone expanded by
just 0.2 percent compared with January-March, while annual inflation fell to
1.0 percent in July. Its leading economy, Germany, is forecast to slide into
recession in the third quarter.
Pictet Wealth Management strategist Frederik Ducrozet underscored risk
of markets' expectations for future inflation becoming "de-anchored"
from the central bank's aim.
The resultant bets on lower future inflation could turn into
self-fulfilling prophecies.
Ducrozet suggested Draghi could announce 600 billion euros worth of new
bond purchases, as well as a cut in the deposit rate banks pay to park cash
with the ECB, from -0.4 to -0.5 percent.
But "dissensions within the governing council could lead to a
sub-optimal decision" that leaves asset purchases for another day, he
added.
Trouble could also loom from far beyond the ECB's 43-floor glass tower
in Frankfurt.
"An ECB decision for further monetary stimulus could be seen by the
US president as anti-competitive behaviour by the ECB," warned Nomura
analyst Chiara Zangarelli.
"This could well mean a renewed focus by the Trump administration
on auto tariffs."
More
Finally, Norway, the
poster child of electric vehicles, or is it? Below, what mainstream media don’t
cover. How to make a small fortune – start with a large one.
Norway’s electric car miracle is a smug national fraud built on subsidizing rich people with Teslas
Published time: 8 Sep,
2019 09:40 Edited time: 9 Sep, 2019 10:12
The government in Oslo spending billions of oil export dollars to help
the affluent buy an electric second car they wouldn’t otherwise want is
European environmentalism at its phoniest and most hare-brained.
It’s not that you can’t financially encourage societies to be more
planet-conscious, but this charade of perverse incentives, inefficiencies, and
negative side effects is not it.
Norway’s electric car miracle is primarily one of numbers.
Last year, EVs accounted for 49.8 percent of all cars purchased in the
country, and so far this year three in five new cars bought in Norway are
electric. For comparison, 2.1 percent of new cars registered in the US last
year were EVs, while for the EU the figure is even lower – 0.9 percent.
Thus, with a population of only 5 million, Norway has become the world’s
third biggest electric car market.
This has burnished the Scandinavian country's credentials as a land
populated by uniquely-ethical people.
But how has this incredible outlying result been achieved? Pure
shameless bribery from the state.
By dropping VAT, CO2 tax and weight tax a Tesla imported for $70k
becomes cheaper than an Audi that cost $35k when it crossed the Norwegian
border. Add in the lowered road tax and free passage through toll roads, free
places on ferries and free parking, as well as the difference in the fuel
price, such cars are 75 percent cheaper to operate.
Norway is spending about $2 billion each year on the subsidies – as much
as it expends on parental leave pay – and with the current uptake rate and
existing rules the current figure will balloon into the tens of billions.
-----At
least you are taking conventional cars off the road… Well, not really.
Two-thirds of the EV buyers have another internal combustion engine car.
Similarly two-thirds of households buying their only car, will still buy
traditional engines.
Because other than for urbanites making regular short city runs, owning
an electric car is impractical, particularly as your sole means of independent
transportation in a country with a small population scattered over great
distances.
Unsurprisingly, studies show that rich people are many times more likely
to invest in an electric car – particularly since there are few second-hand
ones available – than poor people. And then they still use it less than their
main car.
One thing it replaces though is public transport, which becomes less
financially attractive, and more troublesome, what with the EVs clogging all
the dedicated bus lanes they are allowed to use.
“The most terrifying words in the English
language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.”
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner.
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
Today, did Apple just seriously misjudge its market in China?
Chinese users are trolling Apple for not having a 5G phone
By Echo Huang 11 September 2019
China’s fans used to stay up late for Apple’s product launch.
This time they woke up to complain that the iPhone no longer leads the mobile
market.
Hours after the California-based phone maker presented
the iPhone 11 series on Wednesday (Sept. 10), Chinese fans expressed their
disappointment at the latest lineup on Weibo. Among launch-related topics
trending on the social media platform, #iPhone
11 has no 5G version# stood out—posts under the topic have garnered some 30
million views as of writing. 5G is the fifth
generation of wireless networking, which will be far speedier than current
connections even when dealing with large amounts of data—in other words, great
for playing mobile games.
“iPhone 11’s China market will look bad without a 5G version. As
domestic phones are rushing to apply 5G, people might not want to get an iPhone
11. Domestic manufacturers will easily beat a phone that cost more than 10,000 yuan
with no 5G support in China in 2020,” wrote
a user. (The iPhone 11 Pro Max starts at 9,599 yuan, or about $1,350,
in China.)
“This version is like a transition product. There’s nothing much
to look at besides iOS. I am looking forward to next year’s if they have a
bigger change. I am looking at Huawei’s Mate series more than Apple’s iPhones
now,” wrote
another user.
Apple has yet to set a date to launch a 5G phone—Apple-focused
news sites have said we might not see a 5G iPhone until well into
2020. Meanwhile several Asian smartphone makers are already selling 5G
phones. Chinese phone and telecom equipment maker Huawei, for instance, last
month rolled out
the Mate 20. Huawei said it has more than a million orders for
the phone, which comes with a starting price of 6,199 yuan ($871). Korean
electronics maker Samsung rolled
out the Galaxy S10, also a 5G model, in March at a starting price of $1,299.
Ahead of the launch, research firm IDC noted that Apple will
have a challenging 2019, in part due to its lack of 5G devices. “Commercial
deployments have begun in many regions and while 2019 is very much an
introductory year at best, 2020 looks to be the year where 5G begins to ramp
up,” according to a report by the Chinese-owned market research group in early
September.
It’s unclear how the topic got going on Weibo, but some Chinese
state media picked up on it. China
News Service published a poll that asked whether people would buy the
iPhone 11, and a majority of the more than 4,000 comments said they weren’t
considering it because of its price and the lack of 5G support.
Some users, though, pointed out there isn’t much use to a 5G
phone yet: “Don’t keep talking about whether it has 5G, which is expensive to
start with. Also, 5G base stations are far from ready. It will at least take
another two years [for the application] to be widespread, so use what you have
first,” a user wrote under the poll.
China’s expected to roll out a commercial 5G network next month,
starting
in Shanghai, while in the US carrier AT&T
has turned on 5G in at least 20 cities. South Korea also
launched its 5G service this year.
Weibo comments don’t necessarily translate into low sales but
they’re a worrying sign given Apple’s recent performance in China hasn’t been
great. Sales in the fourth-quarter of 2018, after its last launch, were
down 20%
from a year earlier, and competition is only likely to intensify as China’s
mobile
market slows.
“I've heard that hard work never killed
anyone, but I say why take the chance?”
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?
Future of portable electronics -- Novel organic semiconductor with exciting properties
Researchers synthesize a new substance that can potentially be adapted to form a semiconductor with wide applications in electronics
Date:
September 10, 2019
Source:
Tokyo University of Science
Summary:
Organic semiconductors have advantages over inorganic semiconductors in several
areas.
However, there are only a few known organic n-type semiconductors, and
even they have certain drawbacks such as instability and insolubility in
organic solvents. Now, scientists report on the production of a novel organic
substance with potential applications as an n-type semiconductor.
Semiconductors are substances that have a conductivity between that of
conductors and insulators. Due to their unique properties of conducting current
only in specific conditions, they can be controlled or modified to suit our
needs. Nowhere is the application of semiconductors more extensive or important
than in electrical and electronic devices, such as diodes, transistors, solar
cells, and integrated circuits.
Semiconductors can be made of either organic (carbon-based) or inorganic
materials. Recent trends in research show that scientists are opting to develop
more organic semiconductors, as they have some clear advantages over inorganic
semiconductors. Now, scientists, led by Prof Makoto Tadokoro of the Tokyo
University of Science, report on the synthesis of a novel organic substance
with potential applications as an n-type semiconductor. This study is published
in the journal Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry. According to Prof
Makoto Tadokoro, "organic semiconductor devices, unlike hard inorganic
semiconductor devices, are very soft and are useful for creating adhesive
portable devices that can easily fit on a person." However, despite the
advantages of organic semiconductors, there are very few known stable molecules
that bear the physical properties of n-type semiconductors, compared to
inorganic n-type semiconductors.
N-heteroheptacenequinone is a well-known potential candidate for n-type
semiconductor materials. However, it has some drawbacks: it is unstable in air
and UV-visible light, and it is insoluble in organic solvents. These
disadvantages obstruct the practical applications of this substance as a
semiconductor.
A team of Japanese scientists -- Dr. Kyosuke Isoda (Faculty of
Engineering and Design, Kagawa University; ex-Tokyo University of Science), Mr.
Mitsuru Matsuzaka (ex-Tokyo University of Science), Dr. Tomoaki Sugaya (Chiba
Institute of Technology, ex-Tokyo University of Science), and Prof Tadokoro --
aimed to bridge this gap, and identified a novel substance called C6OAHCQ,
derived from N-heteroheptacenequinone, that overcomes the drawbacks of
N-heteroheptacenequinone.
---- The synthesis of organic C6OAHCQ is a new step forward in semiconductor research, due to its distinctive properties that distinguish it from existing organic semiconductors. C6OAHCQ is also a revolutionary step in the current research scenario dominated by inorganic semiconductors. Prof Tadokoro and team assert the importance of this novel substance, stating, "the identification of this organic acceptor molecular skeleton that has the property of stably receiving electrons is very important, as it can be used to develop molecular devices with new functionality. These devices are soft, unlike hard inorganic semiconductor devices, and can help to create portable devices."
“Government's view of the economy could be
summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving,
regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished August
DJIA: 26,403 +52 Down. NASDAQ: 7,963 +59 Down.
SP500: 2,926 +53 unchanged.
An inconclusive month, but
all three shows signs of weakening.
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