Baltic Dry Index. 427 +20 Brent Crude 34.98
Spot Gold 1737
Coronavirus Cases 19/5/20
World 4,894,254
Deaths 320,186
John
Kenneth Galbraith.
Well that
didn’t take long, nor very much new money created out of nothing.
The South
Sea Bubble is back, renamed the Covid-19 Mania. And all it took was about 10
trillion of new fiat money issued by frantic central banksters all around the
planet.
With only
a mere 1 trillion going to the metal bashers and hamburger flippers, with the
rest going to bail out banksters, hedge funds, distressed exchange traded funds
and their ilk, it’s hardly surprising that the parasites hanging out in the
casinos have quickly found a new casino game to bet on.
The snake
oil salesmen like the new game too, as did the front running algo computers,
finely tuned to front run the Fed and the mugs order stream.
Of course,
it all ends badly, it always does when greed overcomes fear in the casino. But
it takes time for the reality of a new global depression to unfold.
Month after
month of high unemployment. Month after month of rising bankruptcies. Month
after month of missed rent payments. Month after month of vacant premises. And
if we’re really unlucky, month after month of food supply shortages.
Still all
that lies ahead, this is now. There’s easy money for all in the casino right
now, Did you get yours yesterday? Who needs reality when fantasy is so much
more fun.
Asia shares, oil rally on vaccine hopes, euro at two-week highs
May 19, 2020 /
12:46 AM
SYDNEY (Reuters) -
Asian shares jumped on Tuesday and oil extended gains on optimism the global
economy would recover quickly following a successful early-stage trial of a
coronavirus vaccine, while the euro hovered near a two-week top.
Australia's benchmark index and Hong Kong's Hang Sang .HSI were the lead gainers, up 2% each, South Korea .KS11 added 1.8% while China's blue-chip index .CSI300 climbed 0.8%.
Japan's Nikkei .N225 added 2% to the highest since early March.
The gains followed a rally on Wall Street overnight after data from Moderna Inc’s (MRNA.O) COVID-19 vaccine, the first to be tested in the United States, showed it produced protective antibodies in a small group of healthy volunteers.
The positive early test results boosted sentiment as investors wagered on a faster-than-expected economic recovery.
Analysts, for now, expect a steep contraction in world growth with the outlook for 2021 still uncertain with no approved treatments or vaccines for COVID-19 currently.
Experts predict a safe and effective vaccine could take 12 to 18 months to develop.
On Wall Street overnight, the benchmark S&P 500 .SPX posted its biggest one-day percentage gain in almost six weeks, gaining 3.15%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 3.85% and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 2.44%.
“It may be the case that central bank liquidity is chloroforming markets to overlook risks such as overleveraged corporate and government balance sheets, growing COVID-19 case numbers, growth holes and a slow recovery path,” analysts at Perpetual wrote in a note.
E-minis for the S&P 500 ESc1 were off 0.2% in Asian trading.
---- There was good news in Europe too, after France and Germany called for the creation of a 500 billion euro ($543 billion) Recovery Fund able to offer grants to the countries and regions hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis.
---- “Business survey data for the U.S. improved to merely terrible in May, up from truly awful in April,” JP Morgan Chase economists said in a note on Tuesday.
---- Oil prices jumped to their highest in over two months, as the easing of global lockdowns boosted hopes of economic activity and as producers appeared to be following through with planned production cuts.
More
Global dividends forecast to fall as much as 35% in 2020: Janus Henderson
May 18, 2020 /
2:05 PM
LONDON (Reuters) - Dividends paid to shareholders could
fall by as much as 35% in 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic cuts companies’
profits, data from asset manager Janus Henderson showed on Monday.
Company profits and dividends are set to take a hit as the new
coronavirus has spread around the world, having killed more 300,000 people
worldwide and pushed U.S. unemployment to levels not seen since the Great
Depression.
The level of uncertainty for the rest of the year is so high that Janus
Henderson said there would be little value in giving a precise estimate on
dividend payouts for 2020, and gave a range of scenarios instead.
In a best-case scenario, global dividends will drop by 15% to $1.21
trillion this year, while in a worst case scenario they could fall 35% to $933
billion, Janus Henderson said.
The asset manager tracked canceled and suspended dividend payouts from
companies responsible for more than three quarters of the world’s payouts by
value, taking into account factors such as the extent of the lockdown, local
regulation and dividend seasonality.
---- “Dividend suspensions are inevitable due to the sudden, unprecedented halt in economic activity in many countries,” said Ben Lofthouse, co-manager of global equity income at Janus Henderson.
“In some cases, dividend changes, along with executive pay moderation,
are an acknowledgement or even requirement that shareholders should be part of
society’s Covid-19 response,” Lofthouse added.
Morehttps://uk.reuters.com/article/us-global-dividends-report/global-dividends-forecast-to-fall-as-much-as-35-in-2020-janus-henderson-idUKKBN22U1S8
SoftBank Vision Fund records $18 billion operating loss, portfolio slides underwater
May 18, 2020 /
7:16 AM
TOKYO
(Reuters) - Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T) on Monday
reported an annual 1.9 trillion yen (14.66 billion pounds) operating loss at its
gargantuan Vision Fund, as its tech bets slid below cost, pushing the group to
its largest-ever loss.
The fund’s $75 billion investment in 88 startups were worth $69.6 billion at the end of March after booking losses of almost $10 billion at office space sharing firm WeWork and ride hailing firm Uber Technologies Inc (UBER.N) alone.
The disastrous result left the broader group falling to a 1.4 trillion yen loss in the year ended March.
Chief Executive Masayoshi Son’s strategy of fronting huge sums of cash
and pushing for breakneck growth had already delivered two consecutive quarters
of loss at the $100 billion fund before being upended by the coronavirus
outbreak.
SoftBank booked a $7.5 billion loss on other tech investments, which it
attributed primarily to the economic shock caused by the virus. The outbreak
has exacerbated underlying problems at many of its bets on unproven startups.
The firm provided scant detail on which companies saw writedowns but
offered a sector breakdown showing the fund’s bets on construction and real
estate were worth less than half of cost price, with flagship transportation
investments also underwater.
The heavily indebted SoftBank has leveraged its bets to supply further
funds to its investing juggernaut - a strategy that is coming under growing
strain as valuations tumble, with losses larger than the group’s revised
estimate from just last month.
SoftBank-backed satellite operator OneWeb filed for bankruptcy in late
March, adding to an impairment loss for investments held outside the Vision
Fund that also includes part of the stake in WeWork.
The group pointed to further pain to come, saying “uncertainty in its
investment business will remain over the next fiscal year” if the pandemic
continues.
----
The group has pledged the sale or monetisation of $41 billion in assets, in
part to finance a 2.5 trillion yen buyback to prop up its share price. By the
end of April it had spent 250 billion yen on share purchases.
More
In renewed trade war
news, America is back to bashing China again. China has taken to bashing
Australia along with Canada. Complete madness as the global economy slides into
our new depression.
Huawei calls U.S. move to curb chips supply 'arbitrary', expects business impact
May 18, 2020 /
9:29 AM
SHENZHEN, China
(Reuters) - Huawei Technologies in its first official response to the Trump
administration’s move to curb its access to global chip supplies called it
“arbitrary” and said its business would be impacted.
“We expect that our business will inevitably be affected. We will try
all we can to seek a solution,” Chairman Guo Ping read from a statement to
Huawei’s annual global analyst summit on Monday.
Guo said Huawei was committed to complying with U.S. rules and it had
significantly increased R&D and inventory to meet U.S. pressures.
Friday’s move by the U.S. Commerce Department expands U.S. authority to
require licences for sales to Huawei of semiconductors made abroad with U.S.
technology, vastly extending its reach to halt sales to the world’s No. 2
smartphone maker.
The company was added to the Commerce Department’s “entity list” a year
ago due to national security concerns, amid accusations from Washington that it
violated U.S. sanctions on Iran and can spy on customers. Huawei has denied the
allegations.
But China hawks in the Trump administration were frustrated that
Huawei’s entity listing was not doing enough to curb its access to supplies.
Huawei said the new U.S. decision was “arbitrary and pernicious, and
threatens to undermine the entire industry worldwide”.
“Huawei categorically opposes the amendments made by the U.S. Department
of Commerce to its foreign direct product rule that target Huawei
specifically,” it said in a statement, adding that Washington adding it to the
entity list a year ago was also without justification.
More
China warns US of ‘all necessary measures’ over Huawei rules
18 May 2020.
BEIJING (AP) — China’s commerce ministry says it will take “all
necessary measures” in response to new U.S. restrictions on Chinese tech giant
Huawei’s ability to use American technology, calling the measures an abuse of
state power and a violation of market principles.
An unidentified spokesperson quoted Sunday in a statement on the
ministry’s website said the regulations also threatened the security of the
“global industrial and supply chain.”
“The U.S. uses state power, under the so-called excuse of national
security, and abuses export control measures to continuously oppress and
contain specific enterprises of other countries,” the statement said.
China will “take all necessary measures to
resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese
enterprises,” it said.
Under the new rules, foreign semiconductor
makers who use American technology must obtain a U.S. license to ship Huawei-designed
semiconductors to the Chinese company.
Chip design and manufacturing equipment used in
the world’s semiconductor plants is mostly U.S.-made, so the new rule affects
foreign producers that sell to Huawei and affiliates including HiSilicon, which
mainly designs chipsets used in smartphones and wireless base stations. The
U.S. Commerce Department said foreign foundries would be granted a 120-day
grace period for chips already in production.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Friday
that Washington wants to prevent Huawei from evading sanctions imposed earlier
on its use of American technology to design and produce semiconductors abroad.
Huawei Technologies Ltd., China’s first global
tech brand and a maker of network equipment and smartphones, is at the center
of a U.S.-Chinese conflict over Beijing’s technology ambitions.
American officials say Huawei is a security
risk, which the company denies.
It wasn’t clear what form China’s response
would take, but the sides are already deep in conflict over U.S. accusations of
copyright theft and unfair trading by firms in China’s heavily state-controlled
economy.
More
China imposes 80pc tariff on Australian barley for next five years amid global push for coronavirus investigation
By political reporter Dan Conifer Posted Yesterday,
China has imposed a massive 80
per cent tariff on Australian barley imports from today, saying the product has
been imported against trade rules.
The import tax will remain in place for five years, and is
expected to wipe out Australian sales into the lucrative market.
Typically, at least half of Australia's barley exports would be
bound for China, trade that was estimated to be worth $1.5 billion in 2018 but
due to drought fell to $600 million in 2019.
In a statement announcing the decision, China's Ministry of
Commerce said its "domestic industry had suffered substantial
damage".
"The Ministry of Commerce conducted an investigation in
strict accordance with China's relevant laws and regulations."
It said the anti-dumping tariff would be 73.6 per cent, while
the anti-subsidy tariff would be 6.9 per cent.
Barley is considered one of Australia's top three agricultural
exports to China but since 2018 has been at the centre of dumping allegations.
Beijing's decision comes amid diplomatic tension between the
countries and follows the Morrison Government leading the global push for a
COVID-19 investigation.
On Monday night, Trade Minister Simon Birmingham left open the
option of Australia appealing to the World Trade Organization (WTO), saying he
was "deeply, deeply disappointed" by China's decision.
More
In
other news, it was another bad news day at Boeing. Another bad news day in the
global food supply chain. Just don’t tell anyone in the stock casinos.
Delta Air to retire all of its 777 jets, in latest blow to Boeing
Published: May 16, 2020 at 11:52 a.m.
ET By Claudia
Assis
Delta will offer more details on the changes to its fleet at a later date
Delta Air Lines Inc. plans to retire its 777 jumbo jets made by Boeing Co. and replace them with Airbus SE aircraft in another hit for the beleaguered U.S. plane maker.Delta’s 18 Boeing 777s will end service by the end of the year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the airline said Thursday.
“The retirement will accelerate the airline’s strategy to simplify and modernize its fleet, while continuing to operate newer, more cost-efficient aircraft,” Delta DAL, -0.98% said.
Delta will continue flying its fleet of long-haul, next-generation Airbus AIR, +2.29% A350-900s, which burn 21% less fuel per seat than the 777s they will replace, the airline said.
Boeing BA, -2.05% did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The plane maker, still reeling from the worldwide grounding of its 737 Max aircraft, has struggled amid the pandemic as travel ground to a halt and its airline customers delay or forgo plane orders.
---- Delta was one of a few airlines to work with Boeing to develop the twin-jet, wide-body aircraft, which cleared new possibilities for non-stop, long-haul flights. Delta flew the planes from Atlanta to Johannesburg, from Los Angeles to Sydney, and other distant destinations.
The airline last month announced plans to accelerate the retirement of
the MD-88 and MD-90 fleets to June.
Like its peers around the world, Delta has responded to the economic
devastation caused by the coronavirus by cutting capacity and costs,
furloughing employees, and parking aircraft and considering early aircraft
retirements to reduce its operational complexity and cost.
Delta said Thursday it has parked more than 650 mainline and regional
aircraft to match the decimated demand.
Morehttps://www.marketwatch.com/story/delta-air-to-retire-all-of-its-777-jets-in-latest-blow-to-boeing-2020-05-14?mod=mw_more_headlines
Smashing Eggs, Dumping Milk: Farmers Waste More Food Than Ever
By Marvin G Perez, Michael Hirtzer, and Deena Shanker
Updated on May 18, 2020, 11:00 PM GMT+1
·
·
Impact on food security could be devastating for
millions
Food waste is taking on a new meaning in the pandemic era.
Dumped milk in Wisconsin. Smashed eggs in Nigeria. Rotting grapes in
India. Buried hogs in Minnesota. These disturbing images have stirred outrage
around the world. But here’s the surprising part: the world may not actually be
wasting more than normal, when a third of global food production ends up in
landfills.
What’s changing now is that rather than being thrown out by consumers as
kitchen waste, an unprecedented amount of food is getting dumped even before
making it into grocery stores.
Blame broken supply chains. Across the globe, production is handled
through what’s known as just-in-time methods. Output from farms can be shuttled
into stores or restaurants within just a few days, and the next batch of crops
and livestock is ready to take its place immediately.
When those chains face challenges -- as has been the case with trucking,
ports, labor crunches, restaurant shutdowns and slowed trade -- there’s a huge
backlog of supply that never makes it to stores.
That will likely have devastating consequences on food security. Prices
could end up rising further as millions are already suffering financially from
the Covid-19 fallout.
“People who can barely afford to feed themselves now will face even more
problems,” said Marc Bellemare, a co-editor of the American Journal of
Agricultural Economics. “What worries me is human welfare.”
Before the pandemic, an estimated $1 trillion of food production ended
up lost or wasted. The great bulk of that came from trash at home -- about 40%
in the U.S. Now as people deal with fewer trips to the store and concerns over
prices, dumping from the kitchen is expected to tumble, countering other losses.
Some analysts say total waste could still be “potentially” higher this year,
but close to a dozen interviews showed that no one was ready to take a firm
stand on that.
More
Finally,
in the dying EU, an optimist.
ECB's Lane: Euro zone economy won't hit pre-crisis level until 2021 at earliest
May 18, 2020 /
6:40 AM
BERLIN (Reuters) - The coronavirus-hit euro zone economy probably will
not return to its pre-pandemic levels until next year at the earliest, the
European Central Bank’s chief economist told El Pais newspaper, adding that the
ECB was prepared to tweak its tools if needed.
“From today’s perspective, it looks in any case unlikely that economic
activity will return to its pre-crisis level before 2021, if not later,” Philip
Lane said in the interview published on the ECB’s website.
Lane said the ECB was constantly monitoring the situation and was ready
to adjust all of its instruments if that proved necessary. He added that the
ECB’s Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme, also known as PEPP, could be
adjusted.
He said the ECB was analysing the situation ahead of the upcoming June
meeting, adding: “If we see that financial conditions are too tight, or the
pressure on individual bond markets is not reflecting economic fundamentals, we
can adjust the size or duration of our purchases, which we can anyway allocate
flexibly over time and market segments.”
Ordinary Joe no cure for Italy's debt disease
May 18,
2020 / 6:10 AM
ROME/MILAN (Reuters) - As Italy’s already
massive public debt soars further due to the coronavirus crisis, its
authorities are calling on ordinary citizens to help fund recovery efforts. The
plan could aid immediate financing needs but will do little to allay eventual
default risks.
Italy’s public
debt has long been seen as a fault-line for the survival of the euro zone, and
analysts say the pandemic is raising fresh questions about the sustainability
of Rome’s borrowings.For now, even with a debt which economists see heading
towards at least 170% of national output this year, Italy is safe thanks to the
European Central Bank’s massive bond purchases, recently expanded under its
Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP).
But a day of
reckoning for the euro zone’s third largest economy looks inevitable, analysts
say. The country proved unable to lower the world’s third highest debt mountain
even during economic good times - and it cannot rely on the ECB forever.
“Who will buy
our debt when the ECB stops? That is something nobody even wants to think
about,” says Roberto Perotti, economics professor at Milan’s Bocconi
University.
Italy’s debt
management chief Davide Iacovoni told Reuters the Treasury was not worried
about what will happen when the ECB scales down its purchases.
“Once we are
out of this emergency we will return to a situation of fully functional
markets, without the ECB or with a minimal ECB presence,” he said.
“The underlying
structure of our public finances are under control, now we are tackling this
emergency situation but immediately afterwards the government will be committed
to a debt reduction strategy.”
With the
economy brought to its knees by the pandemic, the three normal paths to debt
reduction – faster GDP growth, austerity, and inflation – look implausible.
---- Last year, Italy issued 245 billion euros
worth of bonds, more than half the current lending capacity of the euro zone’s
bailout fund. This year, financing needs are set to reach to half a trillion
euros, including also short-term bills.Deutsche Bank forecast this week that
Italy’s debt-to-GDP ratio would climb to more than 200% at the end of next
year, concluding that “this does not seem sustainable.”
More
Economics is extremely useful as a form of
employment for economists.
John Kenneth Galbraith.
Covid-19 Corner
Though
hopefully, we are passing/have passed the peak of new cases, at least of the
first SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, this section will continue until it becomes
unneeded.
Coronavirus Vaccine From Moderna Shows Early Signs of Viral Immune Response
By Robert Langreth
May 18, 2020, 12:35 PM GMT+1 Updated on May 18, 2020,
1:12 PM GMT+1
An experimental vaccine from Moderna
Inc. showed promising early signs that it can create an immune-system
response in the body that could help fend off the new coronavirus, according to
sampling of data from a small, first human trial of the inoculation.The study was primarily designed to look at the safety of the shot and showed no major warning signs in a small phase 1 trial, the company said in a statement Monday. The trial is being run with the U.S. government, and Moderna plans to continue advancing it to wider testing.
A vaccine is considered a crucial step toward lifting social-distancing measures and safely reopening economies, schools and events around the globe. The new coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2, has infected more than 4.7 million people and killed over 300,000, spurring a global race by drugmakers, academic institutions and governments to find a vaccine.
Moderna shares surged 26% in trading before the market opened in New
York. Broader markets rose as well, with S&P 500 futures and European
stocks trading near session highs.
The company plans to report full results from the trial later.
More
Doubts over Oxford vaccine as it fails to stop coronavirus in animal trials
Experts have warned that the vaccine may only be
'partially effective' after the results of a trial in rhesus macaques monkeys
The Oxford University vaccine, tipped as a “front runner” in the race to develop a coronavirus jab, does not stop the virus in monkeys and may only be partially effective, experts have warned.
A trial of the vaccine in rhesus macaque monkeys did not stop the animals from catching the virus and has raised questions about the vaccine’s likely human efficacy and ongoing development.
The vaccine, known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, is now undergoing human trials in Britain. The Government has brokered a deal between Oxford University and AstraZeneca, the drug company, to produce up to 30 million doses if it proves successful having ploughed £47m into the research.
“All of the vaccinated monkeys treated with the Oxford vaccine became infected when challenged as judged by recovery of virus genomic RNA from nasal secretions,” said Dr William Haseltine, a former Harvard Medical School professor who had a pivotal role in the development of early HIV/Aids treatments.
“There was no difference in the amount of viral RNA detected from this site in the vaccinated monkeys as compared to the unvaccinated animals. Which is to say, all vaccinated animals were infected,” he wrote in an article on Forbes.
Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham, said that the vaccine data suggests that the jab may not be able to prevent the spread of the virus between infected individuals.
More
Study: COVID Patients Suffering Acute Kidney Damage
A new piece of the coronavirus puzzle.
by Victor Tangermann / May 15 2020
According to a new study conducted at Northwell Health, a large medical system located in New York, over a third of COVID-19 patients experienced acute kidney injury, Reuters reports.
“We found in the first 5,449 patients admitted, 36.6% developed acute kidney injury,” Kenar Jhaveri, associated chief of nephrology at Hofstra/Northwell and co-author of the study published in the journal Kidney International on Thursday, said in a statement.
Doctors have also found links between COVID-19 and a variety of other conditions, including vitamin deficiency, blood clots, and it’s also known to have devastating effects on the lungs, intestines, and the heart. All told, a picture is starting to emerge of a ferocious, unpredictable illness that can attack organ systems across the body.
Despite these early findings, though, the deadly virus is still not well enough understood to draw many definite conclusions. Kidney failure is relatively common among seriously ill patients.
“It’s not specific to COVID-19,” Jhaveri told Reuters. “It’s more related to how sick you are.”
The study, however, could still help health practitioners prepare for future severe cases among COVID-19 patients.
Jhaveri also told Reuters that 14.3 percent of patients required dialysis, the process of removing excess water and toxins from the blood when the kidney can no longer take care of the process.
And 37.3 percent of patients initially arrived at the hospital with failing kidneys, or eventually had their kidneys fail within 24 hours of getting there.
There was also a strong association between COVID-19 patients ending up on a ventilator and developing acute kidney failure. Among more than 1,000 patients on ventilators, 90 percent developed the serious condition.
Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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.
Atomically thin magnets for next generation spin and quantum electronics
Date:
May 13, 2020
Source:
Stevens Institute of Technology
Summary:
In 2005, Science asked if it was possible to develop a magnetic semiconductor
that could work at room temperature. Now, just fifteen years later, researchers
have developed those materials in two-dimensional form, solving one of
science's most intractable problems.
As our smartphones, laptops, and computers get smaller and faster, so do
the transistors inside them that control the flow of electricity and store
information. But traditional transistors can only shrink so much. Now,
researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology have developed a new atomically
thin magnetic semiconductor that will allow the development of new transistors
that work in a completely different way; they not only can harness an
electron's charge but also the power of its spin, providing an alternative path
to creating ever smaller and faster electronics.
Rather than relying on making smaller and smaller electrical components,
the new discovery, reported in the April 2020 issue of Nature Communications,
potentially provides a critical platform for advancing the field of spintronics
(spin + electronics), a fundamentally new way to operate electronics and a
much-needed alternative to continued miniaturization of standard electronic
devices. In addition to removing the miniaturization barrier, the new
atomically thin magnet can also enable faster processing speed, less energy
consumption and increased storage capacity.
"A two-dimensional ferromagnetic semiconductor is a material in
which ferromagnetism and semiconducting properties coexist in one, and since
our material works at room temperature, it allows us to readily integrate it
with the well-established semiconductor technology," said EH Yang, a
professor of mechanical engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology, who led
this project.
"The magnetic field strength in this material is 0.5 mT; while such
weak magnetic field strength cannot allow us to pick up a paper clip, it is
large enough to alter the spin of electrons, which can be utilized for quantum
bits applications," said Stefan Strauf, a professor of physics at Stevens.
When computers were first built, they filled an entire room, but now
they can fit in your back pocket. The reason for this is Moore's law, which
suggests that every two years, the number of transistors that fit on a computer
chip will double, effectively doubling a gadget's speed and capability. But
transistors can only become so small before the electrical signals that they
are supposed to control no longer obey their commands.
While most forecasters expect Moore's law will end by 2025, alternative
approaches, which do not rely on physical scaling, have been investigated.
Manipulating the spin of electrons, instead of relying solely on their charge,
may provide a solution in the future.
Building a new magnetic semiconductor using two-dimensional materials --
that is, two-atoms thick- will allow the development of a transistor to control
electricity with control of the spin of an electron, either up or down, while
the whole device remains lightweight, flexible and transparent.
Using a method called in situ substitutional doping, Yang and his team
successfully synthesized a magnetic semiconductor whereby a molybdenum
disulfide crystal is substitutionally doped with isolated iron atoms. During
this process, the iron atoms kick off some of the molybdenum atoms and take
their place, in the exact spot, creating a transparent and flexible magnetic
material -- again, only two-atoms thick. The material is found to remain
magnetized at room temperature, and since it is a semiconductor, it can
directly be integrated into the existing architecture of electronic devices in
the future.
Yang and his team at Stevens worked with several institutions to image
the material -- atom by atom -- to prove that the iron atoms took the place of
some of the molybdenum atoms. These institutions included the University of
Rochester, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Brookhaven National Laboratory,
and Columbia University.
"To do something great in science, you need to get others to
collaborate with you," said Shichen Fu, a Ph.D. student in mechanical
engineering at Stevens. "This time, we brought all the right people
together -- labs with different strengths and different perspectives -- to make
this happen."
In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.
John Kenneth Galbraith.
The Monthly Coppock Indicators finished April
DJIA: 24,346 +26 Down. NASDAQ: 8,890 +162 Up.
SP500: 2,912 +89 Down.
The NASDAQ has rebounded to
up. The S&P and the DJIA remain down.
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