Baltic Dry Index. 1354 +09 Brent
Crude 61.82 Spot Gold 1462
Never ending Brexit now January 31, or maybe sooner.
Trump’s Nuclear China Tariffs Now in effect.
The USA v EU trade war started October 18. Now in effect.
In central banking as in diplomacy, style, conservative
tailoring, and an easy association with the affluent count greatly and results
far much less.
John Kenneth Galbraith
He came, he spoke, he Trumped. For all his bragging and
bluster, President Trump’s speech yesterday largely left stock markets more confused
than ever. Is there a trade deal “lite” part one with China, ready to be signed
next month, somewhere in Asia or Europe, or not? No one, including President Trump himself
seems to know.
With rising socio-political strife from Hong Kong, to Lebanon,
to Bolivia and Chile, a no trade deal result will likely destroy most global
stock markets. President Trump’s threat to increase tariffs on China if that
happens, would be completely counterproductive.
To this old dinosaur commodities trader, commodities are
already signalling the global economy has one foot on a banana skin and the
other in the grave.
Below, more on that speech.
Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.
John Kenneth Galbraith.
Asian shares slide on trade disappointment, HK unrest
November 13, 2019
/ 12:44 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) -
Asian stocks and Wall Street futures fell on Wednesday, as growing worries that
U.S.-China trade talks are stalling and concern about intensifying unrest in
Hong Kong hurt demand for risky assets.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 1.01% to
the lowest in more than a week. Hong Kong shares slumped 1.8% to a two-week
low, battered by fears that anti-government protests appear to be spiraling out
of control.
The dollar drifted in Asia after U.S. President Donald Trump said a
trade deal was “close” but gave no new details on when or where an agreement
would be signed, disappointing investors in what was billed as a major speech
on his administration’s economic policies.
Trump also rattled some investors by threatening China with even more
tariffs if they do not sign a deal.
Oil prices fell as diminishing prospects for an immediate resolution to
a 16-month long trade war between the world’s two-largest economies suggested
less demand for energy in the future.
Expectations for a “phase one” trade deal some time this month have been
a key factor supporting stocks and riskier assets recently. However, the lack
of material progress on an agreement has only increased doubts about whether a
trade deal will take place at all.
“I’m absolutely concerned. The clock is ticking,” said Michael McCarthy,
chief market strategist at CMC Markets in Sydney.
“Markets are now expecting substantial progress in the next week or so,
and if not, then confidence could crumble. There are diverging interpretations
of Trump’s comments. I tend to go with commodities like oil and copper because
they are plugged in to global demand, so their fall is significant.”
U.S. stock futures fell 0.27% in Asia after the S&P 500 eked out a
0.16% gain on Tuesday. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit all-time peaks during
trading on Tuesday but stocks ended off session highs after Trump’s speech.
More
Trump touts U.S. economic strength at Economic Club of New York
Nov. 12, 2019 /
6:07 PM
Nov.
12 (UPI) -- President Donald
Trump touted U.S. economic strength, and criticized Democrats and the Federal
Reserve on Tuesday in remarks to the Economic Club of New York.The Economic Club of New York, a non-profit organization, is dedicated to promoting discussion of social, economic and political questions. The non-profit is non-partisan, but Trump didn't shy away from criticizing Democrats, including his predecessor, President Barack Obama, while pushing his own economic record.
U.S. job growth has slowed recently to roughly 2 percent annually, which economists expected considering that it's in a record-breaking 11th year. Job growth has averaged about 189,000 percent in Trump's tenure through October. It averaged about 217,000 per month in Obama's second term. Yet Trump said the economy was declining prior to his administration, which ended "a war on American workers."
"We have ended the war on American workers, we have stopped the assault on American industry, and we have launched an economic boom the likes of which we have never seen before," Trump told nearly 1,300 people gathered for the non-profit's luncheon at the Hilton in Midtown Manhattan.
Trump said his administration "delivered on our promises" and "exceeded expectations by a very wide margin."
In particular, Trump said his administration created nearly 7 million new jobs.
"Back in 2016, before I took office, the Congressional Budget Office projected that fewer than 2 million jobs would be created by this time in 2019, instead my administration has created nearly 7 million new jobs and going up rapidly," Trump told the crowd. "We beat predictions more than three times over."
He was also critical of Democrats' support for an impeachment inquiry which will include the first public hearings Wednesday. Trump suggested the crowd should vote for him in November.
"The truth is look, you have no choice, because the people we are running against are crazy," he said.
Trump also blasted the Federal Reserve.
More jobs were added than expected "despite a near record level of rate increases and quantitative tightening by the Federal Reserve since I won the election," Trump said, adding that the Federal Reserve has put the United States at a "competitive disadvantage" compared to other countries.
On the same day of his speech, economic research group BST Associates released an analysis that said the U.S.-China trade war threatens nearly 1.5 million U.S. jobs. The Port of Los Angeles commissioned the analysis.
More
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/11/12/Trump-touts-US-economic-strength-at-Economic-Club-of-New-York/3951573589820/?lh=1
Trump Threatens Substantially More Tariffs If No China Deal
By Brendan Murray
Updated on November 13, 2019, 2:19 AM GMT
President Donald Trump said the U.S. will increase tariffs on China in
case the first step of a broader agreement isn’t reached.
“If we don’t make a deal, we’re going to substantially raise those
tariffs,” he said Tuesday in a speech to the Economic Club of New York.
“They’re going to be raised very substantially. And that’s going to be true for
other countries that mistreat us too.”
China is “dying” to make a trade deal with the U.S., Trump said, adding
that he’d only sign it if it’s good for American companies and workers. Still, “we’re
close -- a significant phase one deal could happen, could happen soon.”
Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had planned to sign “phase one”
of the deal at an international conference this month in Chile that was
canceled because of social unrest in that country.
Shanghai stocks opened lower and the yuan was weaker against the dollar
on Wednesday. Other Asian markets also declined. Hong Kong’s benchmark declined
2% as the city faced heightened tensions.
A new site for the signing hasn’t been announced. U.S. locations for the
meeting that had been proposed by the White House have been ruled out,
according to a person familiar with the matter. Locations in Asia and Europe
are now being considered instead, the person said, asking not to be identified
because the discussions aren’t public.
Trump reiterated complaints about China’s ascendance in the global
economy. “Nobody’s cheated better than China,” he said. “The theft of American
jobs and American wealth is over.”
More
Below, a reality check from one
of the few great economists who called the Great Recession in advance.
David Rosenberg: The Fed seems to think we are in a happy economic place — but we aren't
The 30% of GDP that resides outside the consumer and local government sphere are actually in a recession of their own, having contracted two quarters in a row
November 11, 2019 4:26 PM EST
The stock market has clearly been on wheels of late and the prime
reasons from where I sit are price momentum and sentiment. Meanwhile, market
liquidity remains low and this is exaggerating the up moves as they did in the
opposite direction a year ago.
At the same time, public sector pension funds have emerged as big buyers
and their 57 per cent exposure to equities now is actually marginally higher
than it was at the 2007 bubble peak. In some sense, the current bubble is even
more intense, even if it doesn’t apply to residential mortgages.
There is also this pervasive sense that we are on the precipice of
something called a ‘smooth’ Brexit. There is no such thing. With or without
some sort of trading relationship, the world’s largest economic unit is going
through a divorce and rupture no matter how you slice it or dice it. This is a
big change and the only real question is how acute the disruption will be.
Then there is this issue of the ‘Phase One’ trade deal coming our way
soon, and every day there is a leak of some new wrinkle. The latest one, from
the Chinese, is that there is going to be a rollback of the tariffs put in
place. Boy, so much for the art of the deal. Beyond soybean purchases, I don’t
see that much that has really changed and the markets have gotten way ahead of
themselves, in my opinion.
There is some jubilation that the Fed has not only cut rates three
times, but it has managed to push the yield curve back to a positive slope and
has begun a QE program, even if it doesn’t call it that, by monetizing the
fiscal deficit via massive purchases of Treasury bills. That is one heck of a
way to ‘de-invert’ the Treasury curve, while calming the once-hyper repo market
all at the same time. That said, the lags from the prior tightening cycle have
yet to exert their maximum impact and it isn’t rare to see the lag — from the
last rate cut to the recession — last as much as 14 months.
It’s now been 11 months since that last fatal mistake by Powell et al.
to push the funds rate fully 100 basis points above our estimate of where the
nominal ‘neutral’ rate is. There is a penalty to be paid for that.
The Fed started cutting rates in 1989 and that didn’t prevent the 1990
recession. The Fed started cutting rates in 2001 and that didn’t stop the
recession that very same year. The Fed started cutting rates in 2007 and that
didn’t stop the 2008 recession. As Carole King would say as the lags kick in,
“Well it’s too late baby, it’s too late.” There is no “get out of jail free”
card after a net Fed tightening of around 400 basis points from 2016-2018,
which is what it was once QT is tacked on to the nine rate hikes.
The macro fundamentals are very poor. The OECD leading economic
indicator is negative now for 20 months running. The U.S., often dubbed “the
smartest kid in the detention room” has seen its comparable retreat now for 16
straight months. And both metrics are down to ten-year lows. All the while,
this is the first global economic cycle in which the output gap failed to close
at the peak — aggregate demand never crossed above aggregate supply — and
therefore has remained in disinflation terrain throughout and is now set to
morph into a path of outright deflation. We are just about there already in
terms of producer price trends and this will surely morph into the consumer
side. Global inflation peaked at a historically low four per cent pace in the
last cycle and next thing you knew we were talking about deflation in credit,
equities, housing and assets in general. We never did have the deflation in
consumer prices, but we will this time.
The peak in inflation this cycle was 2.4 per cent, a level not seen
before in the context of the post-Second-World-War era, and as the output gap
widens, with or without a technical recession, mild inflation turns into
consumer deflation. This has already happened in producer prices, as I
mentioned. And this prospect continues to encourage me to remain steadfastly
constructive on the long bond because, ultimately, the fundamentals win out.
And the two most powerful forces explaining the direction of long-term interest
rates are expectations of Fed policy and inflation expectations. The markets
are so far ahead of any reasonable assessment of the situation that they have
priced out a December cut entirely and don’t even have one full move being
discounted for all of 2020. Now that is ballsy.
More
About 55% of wealthy investors are bracing for a ‘significant drop’ before the end of 2020, UBS survey shows
Published: Nov 12,
2019 4:51 p.m. ET
Even as the market ascends to new heights, wealthy investors are bracing
for a turbulent period that could produce a “significant drop” in equity
benchmarks in the near term.
That is according to a recent survey produced by UBS Wealth Management
that finds that some 55% of deep-pocketed investors are preparing for a drop in
the market before the end of the 2020. That is not to say that this cohort,
consisting of 3,400 high-net-worth investors with at least $1 million in
assets, doesn’t hold a mostly upbeat view of the economy and stock market over
a longer period, the survey finds.
Against a backdrop where worries about a China-U. S. trade war and
concerns about an economic slowdown dominate here and abroad, cash is expected
to be king and will also rule a healthy portion of investors’ portfolios.
Indeed, wealthy investors hold 25% of their portfolios in cash, far
higher than the roughly 5% that UBS recommends on average.
In
fact, holdings of cash since the financial crisis have been particularly
elevated, with the past two quarters reflected cash holdings that were three
times the recommended average (see chart below).
---- The report from UBS comes as the Wall Street Journal and Axios recently reported that corporations are also holding on to a large chunk of cash, partly so they can opportunistically invest in businesses and because C-suiters are worried that the trade fracas between Beijing and Washington may yet escalate.
The WSJ said assets in money-market funds have grown by $1 trillion over the last three years to their highest level in around a decade, citing Lipper data. Axios last week reported that firms are trying to protect themselves from a recession, noting that the recent pullback in spending by major companies could in fact help to cause a recession or exacerbate any downturn in the economy.
More
In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.
John Kenneth Galbraith.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner.
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
Today, the madness of Hong Kong. We’ve got to destroy this town to save
it.
BENTRE, Feb. 7, 1968
(AP)―“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,” a United States
major said today
He was talking
about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless
of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong.
Violence brings Hong Kong to 'brink of total breakdown' - police
November 12, 2019
/ 12:15 AM
HONG
KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong police fired tear gas on Tuesday in the Central
financial district, over the harbour in Mong Kok and at universities to break
up pro-democracy protests which they said were leading the city to the “brink
of total breakdown”.
The clashes came a day after police shot a protester at close range and
a man was doused with petrol and set on fire in some of the worst violence in
the Chinese-ruled city in decades.
A flash mob of more than 1,000 protesters, many wearing office clothes
and face masks, rallied in Central for a second day during lunch hour, blocking
roads below some of the city’s tallest skyscrapers and most expensive real
estate.
After they had dispersed, police fired tear gas at the remaining
protesters on old, narrow Pedder Street. Police made more than a dozen arrests,
many pinned up on the pavement against the wall of luxury jeweller Tiffany
& Co.
“Our society has been pushed to the brink of a total breakdown,” a
police spokesman told a briefing, referring to the last two days of violence in
the former British colony.
He said masked “rioters” had committed “insane” acts, such as throwing
trash, bicycles and other debris onto metro tracks and overhead power lines,
paralysing the transport system.
He said the man set on fire on Monday was still in critical condition
and appealed for information on who was responsible.
Police also fired tear gas at City University in Kowloon Tong, beneath
the Lion Rock, and at Chinese University on the other side of the mountain,
where protesters threw petrol bombs and bricks at police.
Protesters at City University had stockpiled bricks and petrol bombs on
the bridges and other approaches and were making small devices with nails. They
had overrun the campus and were smashing up the next-door Festival Walk
shopping mall and setting fires.
Streets inside and outside the Chinese University campus entrance were
littered with bricks, other debris and small street fires as police tackled
some protesters to the ground.
A van used as part of a street barricade was set ablaze.
“IT’S OUR SCHOOL”
The students were taking part in a heated late-night exchange with the principal when clashes reignited, with police again firing volleys of tear gas and protesters throwing petrol bombs, lighting up the sky.“It’s crazy that police have been firing tear gas for more than 20 minutes. If they didn’t come in, we wouldn’t clash with them. It’s our school. We need to protect our home,” Candy, 20, a student, told Reuters earlier.
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?
Better biosensor technology created for stem cells
Innovation may help guide treatment of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's diseases
Date:
November 11, 2019
Source:
Rutgers University
Summary:
A team has created better biosensor technology that may help lead to safe stem
cell therapies for treating Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and other
neurological disorders. The technology, which features a unique graphene and
gold-based platform and high-tech imaging, monitors the fate of stem cells by
detecting genetic material (RNA) involved in turning such cells into brain
cells (neurons).
A Rutgers-led team has created better biosensor technology that may help
lead to safe stem cell therapies for treating Alzheimer's and Parkinson's
diseases and other neurological disorders.
The technology, which features a unique graphene and gold-based platform
and high-tech imaging, monitors the fate of stem cells by detecting genetic
material (RNA) involved in turning such cells into brain cells (neurons),
according to a study in the journal Nano Letters.
Stem cells can become many different types of cells. As a result, stem
cell therapy shows promise for
regenerative treatment of neurological disorders
such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, stroke and spinal cord injury, with diseased
cells needing replacement or repair. But characterizing stem cells and
controlling their fate must be resolved before they could be used in treatments.
The formation of tumors and uncontrolled transformation of stem cells remain
key barriers.
"A critical challenge is ensuring high sensitivity and accuracy in
detecting biomarkers -- indicators such as modified genes or proteins -- within
the complex stem cell microenvironment," said senior author KiBum Lee, a
professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology in the School of
Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. "Our technology,
which took four years to develop, has demonstrated great potential for
analyzing a variety of interactions in stem cells."
The team's unique biosensing platform consists of an array of ultrathin
graphene layers and gold nanostructures. The platform, combined with high-tech
imaging (Raman spectroscopy), detects genes and characterizes different kinds
of stem cells with greater reliability, selectivity and sensitivity than
today's biosensors.
The team believes the technology can benefit a range of applications. By
developing simple, rapid and accurate sensing platforms, Lee's group aims to
facilitate treatment of neurological disorders through stem cell therapy.
Stem cells may become a renewable source of replacement cells and
tissues to treat diseases including macular degeneration, spinal cord injury,
stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid
arthritis, according to the National Institutes of Health.
"In
economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension."
John Kenneth
Galbraith.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished October
DJIA: 27,046 +59 Up. NASDAQ: 8,292 +67 Up. SP500: 3,038 +67 Up.
Another inconclusive month,
but all three continued to move up weakly. A buy signal. But, like the Fed, I would
await more data.
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