Baltic Dry Index. 1260 -44 Brent
Crude 62.28 Spot Gold 1471
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.
“I have wondered at times what the Ten
Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US
Congress.”
Is a trade deal between the USA and China sunk? Hopes of
a 2019 trade deal are falling fast. They’ll probably fall even faster when
President Trump signs bills intended to support the Hong Kong rioters
protesting against China.
“The legislation, which has angered Beijing, has been sent to the White House for President Donald Trump’s approval. A person familiar with the matter said Trump was expected to sign it.”
Whatever the good intensions, there is no way China won’t
see this as a blatant interference in China’s internal affairs. It is.
Will President Xi respond by letting President Trump and
his trade deal linger all next election year, slowly twisting in the wind?
What does that mean for the global economy if he does? For
global stock markets running on the Fed’s latest monetisation? For President
Trump’s chance of re-election against a field of extreme left-wing Democrat
contenders?
Below, a dawning realisation in the markets that the
trade war game may be lost. If it is, how does the Fed monetise and support
over priced stocks all the way out to November 3rd 2020?
Asian markets sink as U.S.-China trade worries rise
By Associated Press
and Marketwatch
Published: Nov 20, 2019 11:12 p.m. ET
Shares skidded Thursday in Asia after moderate declines on
Wall Street as anxious mounted over the possibility the U.S. and China may not
reach a trade deal before next year.Hong Kong led the region with its benchmark Hang Seng index HSI, -1.65% falling 1.6%. The Shanghai Composite index SHCOMP, -0.26% lost 0.4%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 NIK, -0.41% gave up 0.8%.
A published report suggested a preliminary “Phase 1” trade pact may not be completed this year as negotiators continue to wrestle over differences. The report by Reuters cited an unnamed Trump administration official as saying it was possible a deal might not be reached, but more likely that it would.
The comments spooked investors already twitchy over the possible blow to
the talks from U.S. Congressional resolutions expressing support for human
rights in Hong Kong, where political protests have dragged on for months.
China condemned moves by U.S. lawmakers to throw their support behind
the protesters in Hong Kong, threatening “strong countermeasures.”
“Asia has been nervous about the state of trade play all week with
equities ex-China underperforming. The early price action this morning suggests
that the cautious walk to the exit may be turning into an unruly every man for
himself,” Jeffrey Halley of Oanda said in a commentary.
Investors have been hoping the world’s two biggest economies can make a
deal before new and more damaging tariffs take effect Dec. 15 on about $160
billion in Chinese imports. Those duties would cover smartphones, laptops and
other consumer goods.
Morehttps://www.marketwatch.com/story/asian-markets-sink-as-us-china-trade-worries-rise-2019-11-20?mod=mw_latestnews
Shares stumble as China-U.S. row over Hong Kong clouds trade deal outlook
November 21, 2019
/ 12:39 AM
TOKYO
(Reuters) - Global shares slid on Thursday as a fresh row between Washington
and Beijing over U.S. bills on Hong Kong could complicate their trade
negotiation and delay a “phase one” deal that investors had initially hoped to
be inked by now.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS fell 1.2%, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng .HSI shedding 2% while Japan's Nikkei .N225 dropped 1.6%. Chinese mainland shares dropped 0.6% .SSEC.
U.S. S&P500 futures ESc1 dropped 0.5% in Asian trade, a day after MSCI's broadest gauge of world stocks fell 0.4%, the biggest fall since early October. On Wall Street, all three major indexes fell, with the S&P 500 .SPX losing 0.38%.
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed two bills intended to support protesters in Hong Kong and send a warning to China about human rights.
The legislation, which has angered Beijing, has been sent to the White House for President Donald Trump’s approval. A person familiar with the matter said Trump was expected to sign it.
“China will surely take this as an interference into its domestic affairs and is likely to think it will no longer need to make concessions on trade,” said Norihiro Fujito, chief investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities.
The move came as trade experts and people close to the White House said completion of a “phase one” U.S.-China trade deal could slide into next year, as Beijing presses for more extensive tariff rollbacks, and the Trump administration counters with heightened demands of its own.
More
China trims new benchmark lending rate again to shore up sputtering economy
November 20, 2019
/ 7:00 AM
SHANGHAI
(Reuters) - China lowered its lending benchmark rate on Wednesday, as widely
expected, to reduce company funding costs and shore up an economy hurt by
slowing demand and U.S. trade tariffs.
The cut was the second to a key Chinese rate this week and came a day
after central bank governor Yi Gang said Beijing would step up credit support
and lower real lending rates, as pressure on the world’s second-largest economy
increases.
With growth sliding to near 30-year lows and a partial trade deal with
the United States proving elusive, China has slowly picked up its tempo of
policy easing in recent weeks, with authorities pushing banks to keep supporting
cash-strapped small- and medium-sized businesses.
Wednesday’s pruning of the loan prime rate (LPR) followed China’s first
cut in a short-term market rate in four years on Monday, suggesting the start
of “a new easing cycle”, said Ji Tianhe, China head of foreign exchange and
local markets strategy at BNP Paribas in Beijing, who says there is room for
rates to go lower.
The one-year LPR, a rate set by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) based
on quotes from a panel of banks, fell five basis points to 4.15% from 4.20%
CNYLPR1Y=CFXS in October. The five-year LPR CNYLPR5Y=CFXS was lowered by the
same margin to 4.80% from 4.85%.
The one-year LPR has now been reduced three times since it became the
official lending benchmark in August, and this week’s twin cuts suggest the
PBOC is keen to push ahead with lowering financing costs across the curve
despite pressures on inflation from rising pork prices from an outbreak of
African Swine Fever.
More
Meanwhile in other news, China and Russia move ahead on
de-dollarisation. Today and tomorrow it means nothing, but by the end of next
decade about a third or more of planet earth may be conducting trade without
using the US dollar. The eurozone, China-Russia, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
members.
Time to add some more fully paid up physical gold
insurance. Our new trade war global economy is about to undergo a decade of
transformational change.
Push for yuan-ruble exchange aims to reduce reliance on US dollar: experts
By
Shen Weiduo Source:Global Times Published: 2019/11/19 21:33:41
China
and Russia signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in Shanghai on Tuesday to
deepen financial cooperation and push for direct trading between the yuan and
the ruble, a move in line with both countries' demand for diversifying reserve
assets and reducing dollar reliance amid rising global uncertainties, experts
said on Tuesday.
The MOU was signed between the Moscow Exchange and the China Foreign Exchange Trading System & National Interbank Funding Center (CFETS), in a bid to satisfy "economic interest rate and exchange rate hedging demand," said a post on the official website of CFETS.
With a closer political bond, deep mutual trust and the common pursuit of reducing reliance on the US, the two are set to ditch the US dollar in bilateral trade in the future, Dong Dengxin, director of the Finance and Securities Institute at Wuhan University of Science and Technology, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Dong noted that the move is "critical" as the two have huge cooperation prospects in trade of bulk commodities such as agricultural products, oil products and lumber.
From January to October this year, China's trade with Russia reached 616.4 billion yuan ($87.76 billion), up 7.94 percent year-on-year. China's imports from Russia increased by 8.5 percent, according to data from China's General Administration of Customs.
Dong forecast the trade would climb further as the two strengthen cooperation in advanced sectors such as aerospace.
"The two sides can jointly explore potential business cooperation opportunities, including further developing the feasibility of the yuan's liquidity interconnection to the ruble, so as to better promote the mutual opening of China-Russian financial markets, enhance the level of liberalization and facilitate China-Russian trade and investment," said Zhang Cuiwei, vice president of the CFETS.
Experts said that move, which comes amid China's trade war with the US and Russia's urgent demand to reduce US assets, is the best way to de-dollarization for both countries, and will also push the internationalization of the yuan.
Moscow plans to cut the dollar's share in its $125 billion sovereign-wealth fund, following a major move last year out of US assets by the Russian central bank, Bloomberg reported on November 14.
Russia's Deputy Finance Minister Vladimir Kolychev said that the share of the dollar will be reduced in its reserves and other reserve currencies will be considered, including the yuan and those of other countries, according to the report.
China aims to diversify its foreign reserves in both overt and silent ways during the ongoing trade war between the world's two largest economies, experts said.
More
Finally, troubled bank, Deutsche Bank, seeks a rescue from robots
replacing workers. The start of many more to come next decade, I suspect.
Deutsche Bank says robots are already replacing workers as it ramps up a plan to axe 18,000 jobs
Nov. 18,
2019, 07:45 AM
· Deutsche Bank is using robots
to replace some of the 18,000 staff it cut earlier this year.
· Financial News spoke to the
bank's head of operations for Deutsche's corporate and investment bank, who
said that using AI "massively increased productivity" in certain
sectors of the business.
· So far "680,000 hours of
manual work" has already been saved, he said.
· In July, Deutsche Bank
announced a massive restructuring, axing thousands of jobs, and dissolving its
equities sales and trading unit.
· The bank has axed over 4,000 jobs since
last year, and about 1,000 since July.
Deutsche Bank is using robots to replace some of the 18,000 staff it plans to cut, according to Financial News.
Mark Matthews, head of operations for Deutsche's corporate and investment bank, told Financial News that machine learning algorithms "massively increased productivity" and "redistribute capacity."
The London-based news organization said that Deutsche is pushing to "automate large parts of its back-office" via a new strategy called "Operations 4.0," as part of its $6.6 billion savings initiative over the next three years.
Deutsche Bank is having a torrid year. In July, it announced that it will cut 18,000 jobs over the next three years as well as dropping its equity sales and trading unit. In its October earnings report, the bank posted €315 million in "severance and transformation-related charges," while net revenues fell 15%.
Matthews told FN that the machine learning tools helped to save "680,000 hours of manual work" and that it "so far used bots to process 5 million transactions in its corporate bank and perform 3.4 million checks within its investment bank."
In what insiders called a surprising move, the bank this summer said it will keep the bulk of its equity research department despite eliminating the bulk of its stocks sales and trading division.
A spokesperson for the German bank confirmed the Financial News report, adding that it has cut 4,700 jobs in the last year, with about 1,000 of those since the announcement.
“If more government is the answer, then it was a really stupid
question.”
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner.
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
China again, working flat out to damage its credibility and reputation.
Sabotaging Xi’s chance of a meaningful US trade deal. Is China’s deep state
setting out to undermine President Xi, or is this the true face of President
Xi’s China?
Former UK consulate worker says Chinese police tortured him
Issued on: 20/11/2019 - 11:11Modified: 20/11/2019 - 11:08
A former employee of Britain's consulate in Hong Kong said Wednesday
that Chinese secret police tortured and interrogated him about London's role in
protests in the semi-autonomous city.
Simon Cheng, a Hong Kong citizen, claimed he was shackled to a steel
"tiger chair", hung spread-eagled on a "steep X-Cross" and
beaten while he was detained for 15 days in August.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Cheng's allegations are
credible and that the treatment "amounts to torture".
Raab told BBC radio that he summoned the Chinese ambassador to denounce
the "disgraceful" and "outrageous behaviour from the authorities
in China" which violate international law.
Cheng was placed in administrative detention after visiting the
neighbouring southern Chinese city of Shenzhen in August.
He said in a statement on Facebook that he had taken a high-speed train
to Hong Kong's West Kowloon station, where he was stopped by mainland police
and sent back to Shenzhen.
Cheng said police tied him to a steel "tiger chair," accused
him of being a British spy and forced to do "extreme strength
exercise" for hours, beating him whenever he failed to complete it.
He was also shackled to an X-shaped frame that kept his hands aloft for
"hours after hours," Cheng wrote.
"It felt extremely painful."
Cheng said he was asked if he knew anyone who worked for British
intelligence agencies, what part he had played in protests and what he knew
about mainland citizens who had joined the demonstrations.
China has repeatedly accused Washington and London of condoning violence
in Hong Kong.
The former British colony was handed back to Beijing in 1997 under a
50-year agreement that gave Hong Kong special rights unseen on the mainland,
including freedom of speech and an independent judiciary.
The protests started as a response to a now-scrapped extradition bill
but has since expanded to include broader demands for democracy and
investigations into police violence.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang on Wednesday said that
Shenzhen police had "guaranteed" Cheng's "legitimate rights and
interests in accordance with the law."
Geng said that he was unaware of any statements from London on Cheng's
situation, but that China expressed "strong indignation at the recent
series mistakes and deeds of the British side on the Hong Kong issue."
Police in Shenzhen declined to comment on Cheng's statement when
contacted by AFP.
- Filmed confession -
Cheng said he had monitored the protests as part of his work at the
British consulate in Hong Kong, "in order to evaluate travel alerts"
and whether British citizens were involved.
Outside of work, he supported the movement and had joined the protests.
The longest round of interrogations by a team of police officers lasted
48 hours with no break, Cheng said.
Police expected Cheng to confess that the "UK instigates the riots
in Hong Kong by donating money, materials and equipment," and that he was
paying the bail for mainlanders arrested by Hong Kong police using money from
the UK government, Cheng said.
Shenzhen police had said in August that Cheng was detained for
"violating the law of the People's Republic of China on public safety
management."
The Global Times, a state-run tabloid, said cited police as saying that
Cheng had been held for "soliciting prostitutes".
Cheng said he felt he had no choice but to make a filmed confession to
"soliciting prostitution," a charge that he said was offered by
police as an alternative to "indefinite criminal detention."
- 'Fight for human rights' -
Cheng said he was asked during his detention by police to provide
information on members of protest-related Telegram chat groups.
Police also wanted to know why protesters were becoming increasingly
violent by late summer, and challenged Cheng's belief in democracy, calling him
a traitor to China.
He said he had complied with some of their demands and drawn up an
"organisational chart" of one Telegram group.
Cheng was asked if he had safeguarded the "Lennon Wall" in
Hong Kong's Jordan neighbourhood, where protesters had put up messages and
posters, and shown a photograph of the wall.
"That photo is not from my mobile phone, I suspect they have eyes
and ears for gathering information in Hong Kong," Cheng wrote.
Cheng said has resigned from the British consulate and fled to an
unnamed third place and intends to seek asylum.
"I won't give up the fight for human rights, peace, freedom and
democracy for the rest of my life, no matter the danger, discrimination and
retaliation I will face, and no matter how my reputation will be stained,"
he wrote.
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?
Good news for turbines: Global wind speeds rapidly increased in last decade
Nov. 19 (UPI) -- Wind speeds are up across the globe, new research suggests. New analysis of wind speed data showed wind speeds have been steadily increasing since 2010.The findings, published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, marks a turnaround.
To the chagrin of turbine operators, global winds began to slacken beginning in the 1970s, a phenomenon dubbed global terrestrial stilling. The trend has now reversed.
Over 30 years, global wind speeds decreased at a rate of 2.3 percent per decade. Since 2010, wind speeds have increased at rates three times the rate of slowing measured during the period of stilling.
For the study, scientists analyzed wind speeds measured between 1978 and 2017 at some 9,000 weather stations in Europe, North America and Asia.
Had global winds not rebounded and wind speeds continued to decrease, scientists calculated that the potential of global wind energy would have been cut in half by 2100. Permanent decreases in global wind speeds could hamper efforts to transition to carbon neutral energy sectors.
Today, wind energy accounts for more than 6 percent of global electricity production. That number could increase as more turbine installations come online and the trend in stronger winds continues.
Should global winds continue to increase at the same rate for the next several years, wind power production could increase by 3.3 million kilowatt hours by 2024.
"This rapid increase in global wind speeds is certainly good news for the power industry," study co-author Adrian Chappell, researcher at Cardiff University, said in news release.
In addition to analyzing wind speed trends, Chappell and his colleagues ran models to identify the cause of the 30-year stilling. Their simulations showed changes in large-scale ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns best explained the slowing trend.
The study's authors claim important patterns like the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Tropical North Atlantic Index have all since reversed, and they are likely to continue driving increases in global wind speeds for another decade.
Scientists suspect the trend will reverse once again in the near future, as large-scale ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns shift again, causing winds to slacken. For now, wind turbine operators can enjoy their growing energy production.
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2019/11/19/Good-news-for-turbines-Global-wind-speeds-rapidly-increased-in-last-decade/1101574174314/?ts_=21
“Government does not solve problems. It subsidizes them.”
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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