Baltic Dry Index. 1090 -13 Brent Crude 68.16 Spot Gold 1511
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.
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
Mark Twain
It’s near to the end of 2019, a year
remembered for the Fed caving in to President Trump and setting off the Great
Everything bubble, which if/when it all goes awry, might yet usher in the next
Great Depression. Certainly, the end of the Great Nixonian Error of fiat money,
communist money, as we currently know it.
A time of year to be positive though, in
the spirit of our new “roaring 20s” age. While extreme left-wing lunatics rant
and rave in the “Comrade Corbynistic” USA Democratic Party, they all seem
headed towards a Comrade Corbyn style comeuppance in next November’s
presidential election. Does history repeat? America’s Democrats seems determined
to find out next year.
Just as Maggie Thatcher was “John the
Baptist,” to Ronald Reagan, without the same grisly ending, so Comrade Corbyn
seems to be that role model for the thousands of obscure extreme left wing
Democrats, auditioning for the US role of Comrade Corbyn in next year’s US presidential election.
“It’s a funny old world,” as they saye
in Merrie Olde England. While John Bull breaks out of the European continent’s wealth
and jobs destroying prison, how many more will break out next year into the
sunlit uplands and well-watered plains of 21st century economic
opportunity?
I wonder what they make of it in Moscow
and Beijing?
All generalizations are false, including this one.
Mark Twain
Nasdaq snaps 11-session win streak but Dow and S&P 500 end at records to wrap up Christmas week trade
By Mark
DeCambre Published: Dec 27, 2019
4:06 p.m. ET
U.S. stock benchmarks on Friday closed out
a holiday-shortened week modestly lower, as the main indexes lost steam at the
end of a stretch that has mostly seen investors scoop up risky assets with just
two trading sessions remaining in 2019. The Nasdaq Composite Index COMP,
-0.17% snapped an 11-day streak,
finishing down 0.2%, at 9,006, holing above a psychologically significant level
at 9000, which it broke above for the first time on Thursday. The technology-laden
index had produced 11 straight gains and 10 consecutive record finishes before
Friday's close.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
+0.08% finished slightly higher at
28,645, marking a fresh record, while the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.00% ended the session virtually unchanged
at 3,240 (and could notch a record if it settles in the green. All closing
levels are on a preliminary basis). All three benchmarks ended Thursday trade
at all-time highs and have produced healthy weekly gains.
For the week, the Nasdaq logged a 0.9%
gain, the S&P 500 closed up 0.6% and the Dow gained 0.7% on the week. In
corporate news, shares of Tesla Inc. TSLA,
-0.13% finished slightly lower,
down 0.1%, even as the electric-car maker said it was set to deliver China-made
Model 3 cars starting on Monday. Separately, shares of Michaels Cos. MIK, +32.89% surged 33% after the arts-and-crafts
retailer said it was hiring Ashley Buchanan, a top e-commerce executive from
Walmart Inc. WMT, +0.06% to become its president and CEO.
Markets will see another abbreviated session next week, with markets closed for
the New Year on Wednesday.
Here’s a warning for investors who are tempted by this year-end rally for stocks
By Barbara
Kollmeyer Published: Dec 27, 2019 10:33 a.m. ET
----Onto our call of the day, which warns individual investors against getting sucked into this Santa Rally, lest they want to pay the piper come January.
“This is the time to be taking profits, not adding new money. Without a doubt, most of the people buying today will come to regret that decision over the next few weeks as prices dip back under these levels,” writes popular financial blogger Jani Ziedins of Cracked Market. While he says that a pullback may not occur until February.
That bit of gloom flies in the face of optimism that’s been swirling around — that stocks are due for some first-quarter lift off. However, as Ziedins reminds us, “institutional money managers are on vacation and not participating in this price action.
“That means whatever happens over the next few days is meaningless and has no bearing on what comes next,” said Ziedins. In fact, it could have the opposite effect. “A good few days now could be stealing profits from January and the higher we go now, the less room we have left next month,” he says.
To be sure, someone has to be trading all those Amazon shares. See the stat below.
After Thursday’s record session, the Dow DJIA, +0.08% , S&P 500 SPX, +0.00% are up, but the Nasdaq COMP, -0.17% is slipping. The dollar DXY, -0.53% is down. Europe stocks SXXP, +0.21% are mixed, while Asia markets ADOW, +0.83% gained, thanks to Wall Street’s rally.
Our chart comes from The Market Ear blog, which shows the rising and falling fortunes of two exchange-traded funds this year. On the upside, we’ve got the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY, -0.02%, which is a popular play on that index, while the cannabis-company focused ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF MJ, -0.18% shows just how tough 2019 has been for that nascent sector.
More
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-a-warning-for-investors-who-are-tempted-by-this-end-year-run-up-for-stocks-2019-12-27?mod=home-page
Recession, robots and rockets: another roaring 20s for world markets?
December 27, 2019 / 10:24 AM
LONDON (Reuters) - Helicopter cash, climate crises, smart cities and the space economy — investors have all those possibilities ahead as they enter the third decade of the 21st century.
They go into
the new decade with a spring in their step, after watching world stocks add over
$25 trillion in value in the past 10 years and a bond rally put $13 trillion
worth of bond yields below zero.
They also
saw internet-based firms transform the way humans work, shop and relax. Now
investors
are positioning for the tech revolution’s next 10 years.
Could we see
a repeat of the roaring twenties, as the 1920s were known — years of
prosperity, technological innovation and such social developments as women
winning the right to vote?
Possibly.
But there’s unease, along with all the euphoria. The current economic cycle is
already the longest in U.S. history and a recession looks inevitable in the new
decade — which also will mark 100 years since the Wall Street crash of 1929.
And solutions may need to be unconventional, even more so than the extraordinary policies of negative interest rates and bond-buying that eased the post-2008 global funk.
With those
policies maxed out, “in the 2020s it seems inevitable that a world of
helicopter money awaits,” Deutsche Bank predicts.
That would
entail central banks or governments providing citizens with large amounts of
money, as though it was being dropped from helicopters, a strategy rejected
even by the unorthodox policymakers of the 2010s.
Another
radical option under discussion is modern monetary theory, when governments
create and spend as much money as needed, so long as inflation stays low.
Morehttps://uk.reuters.com/article/us-markets-outlook-2030-analysis/recession-robots-and-rockets-another-roaring-20s-for-world-markets-idUKKBN1YV0QQ
Finally, something different, but interesting,
for the last weekend of 2019.
12.27.2019 10:00 AM
This Cave Contains the Oldest Story Ever Recorded
Archaeologists say the 43,900-year-old cave painting
might also include the oldest known religious images.
At this very
moment, you're a participant in one of the things that makes us human: the
telling and consumption of stories. It's impossible to say when our species
began telling each other stories—or when we first evolved the ability to use
language to communicate not only simple, practical concepts but to share vivid
accounts of events real or imagined. But by 43,900 years ago, people on the
Indonesian island of Sulawesi had started painting some of their stories in
images on cave walls.
A newly
discovered painting in a remote cave depicts a hunting scene, and it's the
oldest story that has been recorded. And if Griffith University archaeologist
Maxime Aubert and his colleagues are right, it could also be the first record
of spiritual belief—and our first insight into what the makers of cave art were
thinking.
A
44,000-Year-Old Hunting Story
Across a 4.5
meter (14.8 foot) section of rock wall, 3 meters (9.8 feet) above the floor of
a hard-to-reach upper chamber of a site called Liang Bulu'Sipong 4, wild pigs
and dwarf buffalo called anoa face off against a group of strangely tiny
hunters in monochrome dark red. A dark red hand stencil adorns the left end of
the mural, almost like an ancient artist's signature. Through an opening in the
northeast wall of the cave, sunlight spills in to illuminate the scene.
Liang
Bulu'Sipong 4 is a living cave, still being reshaped by flowing water, and
layers of rock have begun to grow over the painting in spots. The minerals that
form those layers include small traces of uranium, which over time decays into
thorium-230. Unlike the uranium, the thorium isn't water-soluble and can only
get into the rock via decay. By measuring the ratio of uranium-234 to
thorium-230 in the rock, archaeologists can tell how recently the rock layer
formed.
The deposits
have been slowly growing over the hunting mural for at least 49,300 years,
which means the painting itself may be even older than that. That makes the
Liang Bulu'Sipong 4 mural the oldest record (that we know of) of an actual
story. At first glance, it seems to suggest a game drive, in which people flush
animals from cover and drive them toward a line of hunters with spears or other
weapons. If Aubert and his colleagues are right about that, it means that
somebody 44,000 years ago created a firsthand record of how they made a living.
A Scene From
Legend?
But the
oldest story ever recorded by human hands may be something more than a hunting
record. "Some, or all, aspects of this imagery may not pertain to human
experiences in the real world," wrote Aubert and his colleagues. Up close,
the tiny hunters don't look quite human; many of them have strangely elongated
faces, more like animal muzzles or snouts. One has a tail, and another appears
to have a beak.
More
Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
Mark Twain
This weekend’s musical diversion. Prague’s almost unknown Antonin Reichenauer,
who died at the early age of 35 or 36.
Reichenauer - Sonata For Two Trumpets, Timpani, Strings And Basso Continuo
Antonin Reichenauer
Finally, on this date in the past:
1065
Westminster Abbey consecrated.
1612
Galileo first observes the planet Neptune.
1836 The colony of Adelaide, and British province
of South Australia is formally
proclaimed.
1846
Iowa becomes 29th state of the USA.
1879
The Tay railway bridge disaster happens.
1926 Imperial
Airways commences England – India services.
The Tay Bridge Disaster
Beautiful
Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
‘Twas
about seven o’clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem’d to frown,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem’d to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem’d to say-
“I’ll blow down the Bridge of Tay.”
“I’ll blow down the Bridge of Tay.”
When the train left Edinburgh
The passengers’ hearts were light and felt no sorrow,
But Boreas blew a terrific gale,
Which made their hearts for to quail,
And many of the passengers with fear did say-
“I hope God will send us safe across the Bridge of Tay.”
Which made their hearts for to quail,
And many of the passengers with fear did say-
“I hope God will send us safe across the Bridge of Tay.”
But when the train came near to Wormit Bay,
Boreas he did loud and angry bray,
And shook the central girders of the Bridge of Tay
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
----So the train mov’d slowly along the Bridge of Tay,
Until it was about midway,
Then the central girders with a crash gave way,
And down went the train and passengers into the Tay!
The Storm Fiend did loudly bray,
Until it was about midway,
Then the central girders with a crash gave way,
And down went the train and passengers into the Tay!
The Storm Fiend did loudly bray,
Because ninety lives had been taken away,
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
More, sadly much, much more
bad Scots poetry from the “worst poet in history.”
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished November
DJIA: 28,051
+63 Up. NASDAQ: 8,665 +94 Up. SP500: 3,141 +90 Up. All higher again, but it’s not a buy signal I would
follow.
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