Baltic Dry Index. 1388 -72 Brent
Crude 64.62 Spot Gold 1467
Never ending Brexit now January 31.
Trump’s Nuclear China Tariffs Now in effect.
The USA v EU trade war started October 18. Now in effect.
Getting VERY close to a BIG DEAL with
China. They want it, and so do we!
Donald J. Trump.
With President Trump tweeting about VERY close to a BIG
DEAL with China, and Reuters reporting on no new tariffs on China, and a roll
back on some existing tariffs, stocks are expected to surge into the year end.
Add in UK voters trashing Comrade Corbyn’s New Communist hate
filled Labour Party in the general election, and Britain’s do-nothing
Parliament gets replaced by a do-everything Parliament, with the EU exit now on
for January 31.
Below, a happy Friday the thirteenth to all.
Asian shares, sterling on a high as global risks ebb
December 12, 2019
/ 10:38 PM
SYDNEY
(Reuters) - Asian shares scaled eight-month peaks on Friday as a last-gasp
Sino-U.S. trade deal and a likely major election win by Britain’s Conservative
Party cleared a couple of dark clouds from the global horizon.
The double dose of relief slugged safe-haven sovereign bonds and the
Japanese yen, and led markets to scale back the chance of more interest rates
cuts around the world.
“Global investors have been given two of the biggest gifts on their
Christmas list and should be appreciative for a while at least,” said Sean
Callow, a senior forex analyst at Westpac.
“Global equity indices such as MSCI World should set more record highs
and sterling could push above $1.36.”
The pound hit its highest since mid-2018 as the run of UK vote results
ruled out a shock win by the left-wing Labour opposition, which had been a worry
for investors.
Prime Minster Boris Johnson looked set to gain a commanding majority in Britain’s Parliament giving him the power to deliver Brexit, though trade talks with the European Union were set to drag on for months yet.
The pound was last up 2.3% at $1.3460 GBP=D3 and reached levels on the euro not visited since mid-2016.
A wave of trade euphoria had already lifted Wall Street to record highs. Reuters reported the United States has agreed to reduce some tariffs on Chinese goods and delay a tranche of tariffs as part of a phase one deal.
China also has agreed to make $50 billion in agricultural purchases in 2020 as part of the deal, that person and another U.S. source familiar with the talks said.
“If the U.S. cuts the current tariffs to some extent as reported, that is not something markets have priced in, so we could see a further leg up,” said Norihiro Fujito, chief investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities in Tokyo.
More
Winning big, Johnson on course to deliver swift Brexit
December 12,
2019 / 10:04 PM
LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Boris Johnson won a resounding
election victory on Friday that will allow him to take Britain out of the
European Union in matter of weeks.
For Johnson, whose 20-week tenure in power has been marked by chaotic
scenes in parliament and stark division on the streets over Britain’s tortuous
departure from the European Union, victory in Thursday’s contest was
vindication.
Educated at the country’s most elite school and recognisable by his
bombastic style, the 55-year-old must not only deliver Brexit but also convince
Britons that the contentious divorce, which would lead to lengthy trade talks,
is worth it.
A landslide Conservative win marks the ultimate failure of opponents of
Britain’s departure from the European Union who plotted to thwart a 2016
referendum vote through legislative combat in parliament and prompted some of
the biggest protests in recent British history.
Johnson won an outright majority in the
650-seat parliament after an exit poll showed the Conservatives on course to
win a landslide 368 seats, the biggest Conservative national election win since
Margaret Thatcher’s 1987 triumph.
U.S President Donald Trump said it was “looking like a big win for
Boris”.
Labour were forecast to win 203 seats, the worst result for the party
since 1935, after offering voters a second referendum and the most radical
socialist government in generations. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he would
step down.
With results from across Britain indicating the exit poll was accurate,
Johnson’s bet on a snap election has paid off, meaning he will swiftly ratify
the Brexit deal he struck with the EU so that the United Kingdom can leave on
Jan. 31 - 10 months later than initially planned.
More
China to buy $50 billion in U.S. farm goods for tariff relief - U.S. sources
December 12, 2019
/ 7:29 AM
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - Washington has agreed to suspend some tariffs on Chinese goods and
cut others in return for Beijing’s pledge to hike U.S. farm product purchase in
2020, sources said on Thursday, taking a step to de-escalating the bitter trade
war.
Neither Washington nor Beijing have released any official statements,
however, raising questions about whether the terms had been agreed by both
sides.
A source briefed on the status of bilateral negotiations said the United
States would suspend tariffs on $160 billion (£124.7 billion) in Chinese goods
expected to go into effect on Sunday and roll back existing tariffs.
In return, Beijing would agree to buy $50 billion in U.S. agricultural
goods in 2020, double what it bought in 2017, before the trade conflict
started, two U.S.-based sources briefed on the talks said.
The news helped cheer financial markets with the Chinese yuan surging to
its highest in more than four months while shares rose in early Asian trade on
Friday.
Both countries need to make formal announcements to cancel or postpone
the scheduled tit-for-tat tariffs on each other’s goods that are scheduled to
take effect Sunday, however. Chinese tariffs on U.S. goods would take effect at
0401 GMT, while U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods are scheduled to take effect at
0501 GMT.
More
Presumably Reuters
reporting is accurate, but we shall soon see over the weekend.
Comrade Agent Corbyn, a glutton for
punishment, stared at himself in the mirror.
With
apologies to P G Wodehouse.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner.
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
Today, the EUSSR sets out to shoot itself in both feet. Germany’s worst
ever Defence Minister, now the new European Commission President, sets out a
plan to reduce Europe to a global backwater, of over-taxed serfs. Poland opts
out.
European Green Deal Calls for Taxes on Transport and Energy
Fossil-fuel and transport companies could end up paying tens of billions more in taxes
By Dieter Holger and Maitane Sardon Updated Dec. 11, 2019 12:39 pm ET
The Green Deal is a cornerstone of newly elected European Commission
President Ursula von der Leyen’s plan for the European Union. In her speech to
the European Parliament, she heralded the plan as the bloc’s “new growth
strategy.”
“If companies invest in clean technologies, if they respect our
environment, it cannot be that they face unfair competition from heavy
polluters,” she said.
The Green Deal pledges to “create the context for broad-based tax
reforms, removing subsidies for fossil fuels, shifting the tax burden from
labor to pollution and taking into account social considerations” at the
national level, according to a document provided by the commission. It will
also “look closely at the current tax exemptions including for aviation and
maritime fuels.”
Higher taxes could help the bloc achieve its climate ambitions. For the
EU’s 28 member states-—including the U.K., which is set to exit the
union—reaching the bloc’s goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 could cost
up to 575 billion euros ($637.0 billion) a year, or close to $13 trillion over
two decades, according to an estimate by the commission.
“We do not have all the answers yet,” Ms. von der Leyen said. “Today is
the start of a journey.”
Calls for more climate-related taxes grew this month after the European
Council, which represents the heads of member states, said that the commission
should consider revising energy taxes in “relevant sectors such as aviation” to
tackle climate change. The council added that “particular consideration” should
be given to “specific tax reductions and exemptions.”
The commission said it will present a proposal to revise the EU’s Energy
Taxation Directive by June 2021.
One of the taxes could be on jet fuel, which doesn’t carry an EU-wide
excise duty. It could cost airlines €14.4 billion a year, more than doubling
their current yearly taxes in the bloc, according to a July 2019 report from
the commission. Including the U.K., the tax could generate up to €17 billion.
“Too long we have been subsidizing polluting modes of transport like
aviation,” said Bas Eickhout, member of the Dutch greens and vice-chair of the
European Parliament Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food
Safety.
Maritime companies could also end up paying billions more. The EU
currently provides around €24 billion a year in subsidies to the maritime
industry, mostly in the form of fossil-fuel tax exemptions, according to
Transport & Environment, a research and advocacy group.
Between 2014 and 2016, EU member states subsidized the production and
consumption of oil, gas, coal and fossil fuel-based-electricity by up to €55
billion a year, according to the commission.
More
EU leaves Poland out of 2050 climate deal after standoff
December 12, 2019
/ 12:53 AM
BRUSSELS
(Reuters) - The European Union left Poland out of a 2050 climate neutrality
agreement on Friday after hours of summit haggling with three poorer eastern
member states that demanded more funds for economic transition and support for
nuclear power.
The Czech Republic and Hungary eventually dropped their resistance after
winning a guarantee that nuclear energy would be recognised as a way for EU
states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But Poland remained against.
The tussle came a day after Germany’s Ursula von der Leyen, the new head
of the bloc’s executive European Commission, proposed a 100-billion-euro (85.7
billion pounds) investment plan for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by
mid-century, declaring it Europe’s “man on the moon moment”.
With fires, floods and droughts ruining millions of lives around the
world, the European Union’s new push comes as popular protest demanding more
action to fight climate change spreads around the bloc.
More
“When it becomes
serious, you have to lie.”
Jean-Claude
Juncker. Failed former Luxembourg P.M., serial liar, ex-president of the
European Commission. Scotch connoisseur.
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?
How to induce magnetism in graphene
Elusive molecule predicted in the 1970s finally synthesized
Date:
December 10, 2019
Source:
Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA)
Summary:
Graphene, a two-dimensional structure made of carbon, is a material with
excellent mechanical, electronic and optical properties. However, it did not
seem suitable for magnetic applications. Researchers have now succeeded in
synthesizing a unique nanographene predicted in the 1970s, which conclusively
demonstrates that carbon in very specific forms has magnetic properties that
could permit future spintronic applications.
Depending on the shape and orientation of their edges, graphene
nanostructures (also known as nanographenes) can have very different properties
-- for example, they may exhibit conducting, semiconducting or insulating
behavior. However, one property has so far been elusive: magnetism.
Together
with colleagues from the Technical University in Dresden, Aalto University in
Finland, Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz and University of
Bern, Empa researchers have now succeeded in building a nanographene with
magnetic properties that could be a decisive component for spin-based
electronics functioning at room temperature.
Graphene consists only of carbon atoms, but magnetism is a property
hardly associated with carbon. So how is it possible for carbon nanomaterials
to exhibit magnetism? To understand this, we need to take a trip into the world
of chemistry and atomic physics.
----Back in the 1970s, the Czech chemist Erich Clar, a distinguished expert in the field of nanographene chemistry, predicted a bow tie-like structure known as "Clar's goblet." It consists of two symmetrical halves and is constructed in such a way that one electron in each of the halves must remain topologically frustrated. However, since the two electrons are connected via the structure, they are antiferromagnetically coupled -- that is, their spins necessarily orient in opposite directions.
In its antiferromagnetic state, Clar's goblet could act as a
"NOT" logic gate: if the direction of the spin at the input is
reversed, the output spin must also be forced to rotate.
However, it is also possible to bring the structure into a ferromagnetic
state, where both spins orient along the same direction. To do this, the
structure must be excited with a cer-tain energy, the so-called exchange
coupling energy, so that one of the electrons reverses its spin.
In order for the gate to remain stable in its antiferromagnetic state,
however, it must not spontaneously switch to the ferromagnetic state. For this
to be possible, the exchange coupling energy must be higher than the energy
dissipation when the gate is operated at room temperature. This is a central
prerequisite for ensuring that a future spintronic circuit based on
nanographenes can function faultlessly at room temperature.
From theory to reality
So far, however, room-temperature stable magnetic carbon nanostructures
have only been theoretical constructs. For the first time, the researchers have
now succeeded in producing such a structure in practice, and showed that the
theory does correspond to reality. "Realizing the structure is demanding,
since Clar's goblet is highly reactive, and the synthesis is complex,"
explains Mishra. Starting from a precursor molecule, the researchers were able
to realize Clar's goblet in ultrahigh vacuum on a gold surface, and
experimentally demonstrate that the molecule has exactly the predicted
properties.
Importantly, they were able to show that the exchange coupling energy in
Clar's goblet is relatively high at 23 meV, implying that spin-based logic
operations could therefore be stable at room temperature. "This is a small
but important step toward spintronics," says Roman Fasel.
Another weekend, and if
Reuters is correct, a great trade war relief weekend, as we head into the final
weeks before Christmas. But what if
Reuters got it wrong? What if that VERY close BIG DEAL turns out not to be so
close or so big? What happens then next week? Have a great weekend everyone.
Fisher
Ames.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished November
DJIA: 28,051 +76 Up. NASDAQ: 8,665 +94 Up. SP500: 3,141 +90 Up. All higher again, but it’s
not a buy signal I would follow. I would wait for the next sell signal.
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