Baltic Dry Index. 791 -53 Brent Crude 69.01 Spot Gold 1595
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.
Don't go looking
for trouble.
Aesop
This morning, it’s all about war or “peace” in the Middle
East, following Iran’s missile attacks on US bases in Iraq, including President Trump’s touted “billion
dollar” airbase.
Whether it’s to be war or peace all comes down now to how
President Trump reacts. Iran’s mouse has roared, probably pretty ineffectively,
but can President Trump not have to roar back, especially in an election year?
Below, the Middle East yet again on the brink of war. Our
stock and commodity markets nervously await President Trump’s call. Which
side of the bed will he get out of this
morning?
Stocks, gold and oil whipsawed as Iran strikes spark fears of wider Mideast war
January 8, 2020
/ 1:28 AM
SHANGHAI
(Reuters) - Financial markets were roiled on Wednesday after Iran fired
missiles at U.S. forces in Iraq, sending Asian stocks and U.S. Treasury yields
sliding and jolting oil prices higher as investors feared a wider conflict in
the Middle East.
Iran’s missile attacks on the Ain Al-Asad air base and another in Erbil,
Iraq, early in the day came hours after the funeral of an Iranian commander
whose killing in a U.S. drone strike has intensified tensions in the region.
Early reports of the attacks sparked a sudden rise in risk aversion on
worries over how the United States would respond. But by early afternoon, Asian
equities had trimmed losses, the yen had stabilised somewhat and U.S. bonds
tempered their rally as investors paused for breath.
“We are getting exaggerated moves but that’s of course volatility
playing. Markets simply hate uncertainty. It’s an old adage but it definitely
holds true in the current situation - markets can price risks but they can’t
price uncertainty,” said James McGlew, executive director of corporate
stockbroking at Argonaut in Perth.
U.S. President Donald Trump said in a tweet late on Tuesday that an
assessment of casualties and damage from the strikes was under way and that he
would make a statement on Wednesday morning. Trump said that “All is well!” and
“So far, so good!”.
A U.S. official said the United States was not aware of any casualties
from the strikes.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was down 0.5% around 0445 GMT, having dropped more than 1% earlier in the day. China's blue-chip CSI300 index .CSI300 was 0.48% lower.
Japan's Nikkei .N225 was down 1.29%, also paring earlier losses of over 2%, while Australian shares clawed back from a more-than-1% drop to shed 0.18%. U.S. S&P500 e-mini stock futures ESc1, which had earlier tumbled nearly 1.7%, were down 0.28%.
Rob Carnell, Asia-Pacific chief economist at ING in Singapore, said possible further escalation of tensions between Iran and the United States could still provoke a prolonged negative market reaction.
“If you see U.S. treasuries rallying a bit this morning, expect them to rally quite a bit further should there be a forceful response from the United States, which I’d imagine there would be...from a market perspective I think this one could run and run,” he said.
More
Oil prices pare gains, U.S. stock futures stem steep losses after Iran missile attack
By Mike
Murphy
Published: Jan 7,
2020 11:26 p.m. ET
Crude oil prices surged and U.S. stock market futures
tumbled late Tuesday after Iran fired multiple missiles at air bases in Iraq
housing U.S. troops, raising fears of a wider Middle East conflict. But
electronic markets pared those losses as overnight trading continued, likely
lessening the blow when the trading day starts Wednesday. Iranian state TV described the attack as a revenge operation over the killing of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani by a U.S. airstrike last week. U.S. officials confirmed missile strikes at two bases in Iraq, but a U.S. official said there were no immediate reports of American casualties
The attacks — and the potential of U.S. retaliation — raise the possibility of oil supply disruptions, as well as the possibility of violence spreading around the already tumultuous region. Fears were tempered, however by tweets from Iran’s foreign minister, who said Iran did not seek further escalation, and President Donald Trump, who said “All is well” in an unusually reserved message, adding that he will release a statement in the morning.
After closing lower for the first time in three days in Tuesday’s regular trading session, oil prices rose sharply after news of the attack. The U.S. benchmark, West Texas Intermediate crude for February delivery CLG20, +0.96% , jumped as much as 4% in electronic trading, up from a settlement of $62.70 Tuesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. March Brent crude BRNH20, +1.10% , the global benchmark, began electronic trading at 8 p.m. Eastern and immediately shot up more than 4%.
But prices for both benchmarks moderated as trading went on, and were last around 1.5% higher.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures YM00, -0.64% fell more than 400 points immediately after the attack, but were able to pull out of their dive, and were most recently down only about 140 points. S&P 500 ES00, -0.34% and Nasdaq Composite futures NQ00, -0.47% tumbled as well, and similarly reduced their losses.
More
Iran does not seek war but will give a crushing response to attacks - tweet
January 8, 2020
/ 5:01 AM
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran is not seeking war but it will deliver a crushing
response to any aggression, the government spokesman said on Wednesday, a few
hours after Tehran hit U.S. targets in Iraq in retaliation to the killing of
Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.
“We thank the Revolutionary Guards’ successful operation ... We have
never wanted war but any aggression will receive a crushing response,” Ali
Rabiei said on Twitter.
Iran will respond 'proportionately' to U.S. killing of general - Zarif
January 7, 2020 /
11:32 AM
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - The killing of a top Iranian general by the United States was an
act of state terrorism and Iran will respond proportionately, Iranian Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an interview with CNN on Tuesday.
Zarif said U.S. President Donald Trump had displayed a lack of respect
for international law by threatening Iran’s cultural sites.
“This is state terrorism,” Zarif said of the killing of Qassem
Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, in a U.S. drone
attack in Baghdad last week.
“This is an act of aggression against Iran, and it amounts to an armed
attack against Iran, and we will respond. But we will respond proportionately -
not disproportionately ... We are not lawless like President Trump.”
Trump said on Saturday the United States was ready to strike 52 Iranian
sites, including some important to Iranian culture, if Iran attacked U.S.
assets or Americans.
On Sunday, he said the United States would strike back “perhaps in a
disproportionate manner” if Iran attacked any American target.
Zarif said Trump had shown the world he was “prepared to commit war
crimes, because attacking cultural sites is a war crime. Disproportionate
response is a war crime.”
more
Iran's Guards warn against U.S. retaliation to Tehran's missile attacks – TV
January 8, 2020
/ 4:53 AM
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said that any retaliatory
measures by the United States against Tehran’s missile attacks on American
targets in Iraq would draw a renewed response, state television reported.
“Americans know now that their bases can be targeted by Iran ... Their
bases will be targeted if the United States responds to Iran’s missile attacks
in Iraq,” state TV cited the Guards as saying.
A senior official in Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s office said
Iran’s response to the killing of its top commander Qassem Soleimani so far had
been the “weakest” of the Iranian revenge scenarios, state TV reported.
U.S. FAA bans airlines from flying over Iraq, Iran after missile attack on U.S. troops
January 7, 2020
/ 4:55 PM
WASHINGTON/MONTREAL (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration
said it would ban U.S. carriers from operating in the airspace over Iraq, Iran,
the Gulf of Oman and the waters between Iran and Saudi Arabia after Iran
launched a missile attack on U.S.-led forces in Iraq.
Several foreign airlines said they would now avoid flying over the
affected areas.
Tehran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles from Iranian territory
against at least two Iraqi military bases hosting U.S.-led coalition personnel,
the U.S. military said on Tuesday.
The FAA said it issued the airspace ban “due to heightened military
activities and increased political tensions in the Middle East, which present
an inadvertent risk to U.S. civil aviation operations.”
Several non-U.S. airlines had flights over parts of Iraq and Iran at the
time, according to
FlightRadar24 data. They are not directly affected by the
FAA ban, but foreign carriers and their national regulators typically consider
U.S. advice carefully when deciding where to fly.
Before the latest guidance, the FAA had already prohibited U.S. carriers
from flying below 26,000 feet over Iraq and from flying over an area of Iranian
airspace above the Gulf and Gulf of Oman since Iran shot down a high-altitude
U.S. drone last June.
Carriers are increasingly taking steps to limit threats to their planes
after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down in 2014 by a missile over
Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board. Re-routing around conflict airspace
adds to flight times and burns extra fuel.
More
In other news, poor
Europe. The EU’s leading economy is virtually built around cars. Lookout below.
German Car Production Drops to 23-Year Low on Waning Exports
By Stefan Nicola January 6, 2020, 3:55 PM GMT German car production fell to its lowest in almost a quarter of a century as Europe’s biggest economy suffers from the fallout of a global trade war.Automakers including Volkswagen AG, BMW AG and Daimler AG produced 4.66 million vehicles in German factories last year, the weakest since 1996. The country’s VDA car lobby, which published the figures on Monday, said the 9% decrease was a result of waning demand from international markets.
Germany’s status as a global manufacturing powerhouse has been built on the carmaking industry, but pollution concerns -- intensified by Volkswagen’s 2015 diesel-emission cheating scandal -- trade conflicts, and slowing economies have all weighed on demand. Daimler, Volkswagen and parts supplier Continental AG are slashing jobs to cut costs.
At the same time, the industry has to spend billions of euros to develop cleaner vehicles and counter the emergence of ride-sharing services like Uber Technologies Inc., which has a market value equivalent to Daimler.
Germany’s domestic autos market grew 5% last year after buyers registered 3.6 million new cars, the VDA said, the most since 2009. However, the industry body has said the market is likely to contract this year.
The country cemented its recently acquired lead over Norway as Europe’s biggest electric-vehicle market after selling 63,281 e-cars last year, according to latest data from the country’s Federal Motor Transport Authority, or KBA.
There never was a
good war, or a bad peace.
Benjamin Franklin
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner.
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
Today, trouble at Softbank Vision? Has the money spigot finally run dry? What
does it mean if it has?
Scoop: SoftBank shafts startups
6
January 2020
SoftBank Vision Fund has walked away from
investing in several startups, months after submitting term sheets worth
hundreds of millions of dollars and promising that closing delays were only
temporary, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: This is highly
unusual behavior, even for the idiosyncratic SoftBank, and threatens its
ability to invest in highly sought-after companies. SoftBank, which has
invested record amounts into startups over the past few years, confirmed that
it has "regret" over these situations.
·
"Hurry up and wait" is how numerous
sources describe negotiations with SoftBank, saying that the process was
time-consuming, expensive, and ultimately fruitless.
Honor is a San Francisco
home care company for older adults that's raised over $100 million from firms
like Andreessen Horowitz, Naspers, and Thrive Capital.
·
It received a term sheet from SoftBank in
mid-November, with subsequent
reports putting the deal size at around $150 million.
·
SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son gave his blessing
during a meeting at his Woodside, Calif. estate with Honor CEO Seth Sternberg.
·
Per a source familiar: "SoftBank kept
saying it had to run some 'process stuff' before getting the term sheet
fully-signed, but said they wanted to get it funded by year-end, so it started
confirmatory due diligence—law firms, background checks, EY going through
stuff, etc... There was no reason to think there was going to be a
problem."
·
SoftBank killed the deal one week before
Christmas, telling Honor that Son had changed his mind. Son did not personally
communicate his decision or rationale to the company.
Seismic is a San
Diego-based maker of B2B sales software that's raised over $180 million in VC
funding, most recently at a $1 billion valuation, from firms like General
Atlantic, Jackson Square Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and JMI Equity.
·
It wasn't looking to raise money but, over the
summer, SoftBank came with a term sheet that was hard to refuse. High
valuation, an opportunity for early investors to sell some secondary stock, and
a promise to take Seismic into Japan.
·
The two sides struck a deal by early August,
with CEO Doug Winter getting Son's initial okay via a phone call.
·
"It was originally supposed to be the last
company in Vision Fund 1, but SoftBank kept dragging its feet so suddenly it's
supposed to be the first or second deal in Vision Fund 2," says a source
close to the situation.
·
Winter traveled to Japan in October for an
in-person meeting with Son, after which Seismic was given "three more
boxes to check... not substantive things —busywork to make things last
longer."
·
The deal died shortly thereafter.
Creator is a San
Francisco-based developer of hamburger-making robots, whose backers include
Google Ventures and Khosla Ventures.
·
SoftBank signed the company to an exclusive,
six-month term sheet for a round that was many multiples of the $25 million it
had raised to date.
·
"Totally screwed," is how one source
close to Creator refers to what happened next. Like with the other examples, it
was unexplained delay after unexplained delay, and at one point said it wanted
to add a co-lead investor.
·
The company pushed back, and SoftBank agreed to
wire between $10 million and $15 million as a show of good faith.
·
But the "hurry up and wait" persisted,
with multiple sources telling me last month that the original deal was dead.
Things may have since changed, however, as a source close to SoftBank says
negotiations remain active.
Company executives and investors all
declined to speak on the record, when contacted by Axios.
The big picture: SoftBank's
reasons for its reversals are unclear.
·
Some sources believe a driving factor is
SoftBank's struggle to raise Vision Fund 2. In short, outside money still
hasn't materialized.
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?
Researchers build a particle accelerator that fits on a chip
Date:
January 2, 2020
Source:
Stanford University
Summary:
For the first time, scientists have created a silicon chip that can accelerate
electrons -- albeit at a fraction of the velocity of the most massive
accelerators -- using an infrared laser to deliver, in less than a hair's
width, the sort of energy boost that takes microwaves many feet.
On a hillside above Stanford University, the SLAC National Accelerator
Laboratory operates a scientific instrument nearly 2 miles long. In this giant
accelerator, a stream of electrons flows through a vacuum pipe, as bursts of
microwave radiation nudge the particles ever-faster forward until their
velocity approaches the speed of light, creating a powerful beam that
scientists from around the world use to probe the atomic and molecular
structures of inorganic and biological materials.
Now, for the first time, scientists at Stanford and SLAC have created a
silicon chip that can accelerate electrons -- albeit at a fraction of the
velocity of that massive instrument -- using an infrared laser to deliver, in
less than a hair's width, the sort of energy boost that takes microwaves many
feet.
Writing in the Jan. 3 issue of Science, a team led by electrical
engineer Jelena Vuckovic explained how they carved a nanoscale channel out of
silicon, sealed it in a vacuum and sent electrons through this cavity while
pulses of infrared light -- to which silicon is as transparent as glass is to
visible light -- were transmitted by the channel walls to speed the electrons
along.
The accelerator-on-a-chip demonstrated in Science is just a
prototype, but Vuckovic said its design and fabrication techniques can be
scaled up to deliver particle beams accelerated enough to perform cutting-edge
experiments in chemistry, materials science and biological discovery that don't
require the power of a massive accelerator.
More
In a bull market your game is to buy and
hold until you believe that the bull market is near it’s end. To do this you
must study general conditions and not tips or special factors affecting
individual stocks. Then get out of all your stocks; get out for keeps!
Jesse Livermore
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished December
DJIA: 28,538 +91 Up. NASDAQ: 8,973 +125 Up.
SP500: 3,231 +114 Up.
All higher again, but it’s
not a buy signal I would take. The rally is all down to the Fed monetizing at a
rate of about 100 billion a month. I continue to look on the Fed’s latest stock
bubble as an exit rally.
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