Baltic Dry Index. 504 +15 Brent Crude 37.64
Spot Gold 1743
Coronavirus Cases 01/6/20
World 6,275,643
Deaths 376,770
June
1, 1215 Mongols seize Beijing.
The battle for Beijing was long
and tiresome, but the Mongols proved to be more powerful as they finally took
the city on 1 June 1215,[5]
massacring its inhabitants.
There was gloom,
doom, and more gloom and doom everywhere except in the Asian stock casinos,
where all the central bankster new cash just keeps flooding in to fuel new
stock rallies.
In the harsh real
world outside of the bankster’s stock casinos, life is grim. The USA seems
determined to repeat the race riots and looting of the 1960s. I doubt rioting
and looting is a positive for the already struggling US economy.
Elsewhere, from
Asia to Europe, national economies are struggling to overcome the twin hits
from Covid-19 and the economic lockdowns most governments imposed to fight the
coronavirus pandemic.
While the casino
gamblers are all heavily betting on a “V” shaped global economic recovery
everything in the real world suggests the opposite.
Below, the latest
in the Great Disconnect.
Asia stocks reach three-month peaks, resilient to U.S. riots
June 1, 2020 /
1:30 AM
SYDNEY (Reuters) -
Asian shares pushed to three-month highs on Monday as progress on opening up
economies helped offset jitters over riots in U.S. cities and unease over
Washington’s power struggle with Beijing.
There was also relief that while President Donald Trump began the process of ending special U.S. treatment for Hong Kong to punish China, he left their trade deal intact.
“With specific and verifiable measures against China appearing to be weak, markets may draw hollow consolation that the U.S. is treading carefully,” said analysts at Mizuho in a note.
After a cautious start Asian markets were led higher by China on signs parts of the domestic economy were picking up. Hong Kong .HSI managed to rally 3.6%, while Chinese blue chips .CSI300 put on 2.2%.
An official business survey from China showed its factory activity grew at a slower pace in May but momentum in the services and construction sectors quickened.
More
Asia's factory pain worsens as China's recovery fails to lift demand
June 1, 2020 /
4:30 AM
TOKYO
(Reuters) - Asia’s factory pain deepened in May as the slump in global trade
caused by the coronavirus pandemic worsened, with export powerhouses Japan and
South Korea suffering the sharpest declines in business activity in more than a
decade.
A series of manufacturing surveys released on Monday suggest any rebound
in businesses will be some time off, even though China’s factory activity
unexpectedly returned to growth in May.
China’s Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) hit
50.7 last month, marking the highest reading since January as easing of
lockdowns allowed companies to get back to work and clear outstanding orders.
But with many of China’s trading partners still restricted, its new
export orders remained in contraction, the private business survey showed on
Monday. China’s official PMI survey on Sunday showed the recovery in the
world’s second-largest economy intact but fragile.
Japan’s factory activity shrank at the fastest pace since 2009 in May, a
separate private sector survey showed while South Korea also saw manufacturing
slump at the sharpest pace in more than a decade.
Capital Economics said the region’s manufacturing sector is in deep
recession.
---- Taiwan’s manufacturing activity also fell in May. Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines saw PMIs rebound from April, though the indices all remained below the 50-mark threshold that separates contraction from expansion.
Official data on Monday showed South Korea extending its exports plunge
for a third straight month.
Asia’s economic woes are likely to be echoed in other parts of the world
including Europe, where economies continue to suffer huge damage in factory and
service sectors.
----
A U.S.-China spat over Hong Kong’s status and Beijing’s
handling of the pandemic could sour business sentiment and add to already huge
strains on the global economy.
The final au Jibun Bank Japan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index
(PMI) fell to a seasonally adjusted 38.4 from 41.9 in April, its lowest since
March 2009.
South Korea’s IHS Markit purchasing managers’ index (PMI) edged down to
41.3 in May, the lowest since January 2009 and below 41.6 in April.
China's May factory activity expands, but weak orders signal bumpy recovery
May 31, 2020 /
2:17 AM
BEIJING
(Reuters) - China’s factory activity rose for a third straight month in May as
companies got back to business after strict measures to contain the coronavirus
were eased, but a deep contraction in export orders means the recovery remains
sluggish.
The official manufacturing Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) was 50.6 in
May, compared with 50.8 in April, official data showed on Sunday, pointing to a
gradual recovery in the industrial sector. Analysts had expected 51.0.
The 50-point mark separates expansion from contraction on a monthly
basis.
While the pace of expansion in production slowed in May constrained by
lacklustre demand, the forward-looking total new orders gauge showed an
improvement to 50.9 from April’s 50.2, suggesting domestic demand could be
picking up soon.
However, export orders are still contracting at the fastest pace in
years, with a sub-index standing at 35.3 in May, well below the 50-point mark.
“The current situations for the pandemic and global economy are stil
severe and complex, which resulted in a continued contraction in global demand
(in May),” NBS official Zhao Qinghe said in a statement accompanying the data
release.
Hammered by the health crisis, China’s economy shrank 6.8% in the first
quarter from a year earlier, the first contraction since quarterly records
began. Analysts believe it will be months before broader activity returns to
pre-crisis levels, even if a fresh wave of infections can be avoided.
While most businesses have reopened, many manufacturers are struggling
with reduced or cancelled overseas orders as lockdowns push the global economy
into recession. Domestic demand also remains depressed amid increased job
losses and worries about a second wave of infections.
Factories reduced headcount for the first time since they reopened, with
a sub-index falling to 49.4 from 50.2 in April, the survey showed.
More
China media bristles at U.S. moves on Hong Kong over national security push
May 31, 2020 /
3:35 AM
HONG
KONG (Reuters) - China’s state media lashed out on Sunday at possible
retaliatory moves by the United States to impose sanctions and end Hong Kong’s
special status if Beijing imposes new national security laws, as the city
braces for fresh protests.
The state-backed China Daily said U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge
to “take action to revoke Hong Kong’s preferential treatment as a separate
customs and travel territory”, and to impose sanctions on unspecified
individuals, would hurt the United States, and unite Hong Kong with mainland
China.
“China has already prepared for the worst. No matter how far the U.S.
goes, China will keep its company. If Trump’s plan continues, Washington will
soon run counter to the interests of most Hong Kong people,” the state-run
Global Times tabloid wrote.
“The extreme tactics of a superpower like the U.S. are nothing less than
chronic suicide.”
A Hong Kong government spokesman expressed regret the United States
continued to “smear and demonise the legitimate rights and duty of our
sovereign” to safeguard national security.
In a sign of diplomatic manoeuvring, the U.S. government said it would
put one of its prime Hong Kong properties up for sale - a luxury residential
complex worth up to HK$5 billion ($645.09 million).
A spokesman for the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong told Reuters this was
part of the U.S. government’s global reinvestment programme that “reinforces
the U.S. government’s presence in Hong Kong” through reinvestment in other
areas.
China and Hong Kong officials have justified the laws that will be
directly imposed by China to restore order to a city that has been wracked by
sometimes violent anti-China, anti-government protests over the past year.
More
U.S. lawmakers to unveil bill banning investment in firms tied to China's military: document
June 1, 2020 /
5:03 AM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of Republican lawmakers plans to unveil
legislation this week to keep Americans from investing in foreign defense
companies with ties to China’s military, according to a document seen by
Reuters, the latest in a string of measures aimed at curbing U.S. funding for
China-based firms.
Representatives Mike Gallagher, Jim Banks and Doug LaMalfa plan to
introduce the bill, which would require Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to
submit a report to Congress listing foreign defense companies that have
“substantial contracts with, ties to, or support from” the Chinese military.
Six months after the report is issued, American companies and citizens
would be required to divest from those firms and would be banned from making
new investments in them.
“On one hand, Congress is asking taxpayers to help grow our military so
we can compete with China. On the other hand, large U.S. investment funds are
dumping U.S. dollars into China’s military industrial base,” Banks said in a
statement. “We need to end our cognitive dissonance and stop funding the rise
of our chief global adversary.”
The move comes as the U.S. government has begun extending its trade and
technology battle with Beijing to capital markets, as ties between the rival
nations have soured over the origins of the deadly coronavirus.
While it was not immediately clear if Democrats or other Republicans
would support the bill, anti-China sentiment is running high in the Capitol
after China moved to curb Hong Kong’s independence. Both the Democratically-led
House of Representatives and the Republican-controlled Senate approved
legislation to punish top Chinese official for human rights abuses against
Uighur Muslims.
On Friday, President Donald Trump said his administration will study
ways to safeguard Americans from the risks of investing in Chinese companies,
ratcheting up pressure on the firms to comply with U.S. accounting and
disclosure rules.
More
Rise in Japan's first quarter capex undercut by pandemic-driven profit slump
June 1, 2020 /
1:12 AM
TOKYO
(Reuters) - Japanese firms raised spending on plant and equipment in the first
quarter, though a sharp drop in profits highlighted the economic pain inflicted
by the coronavirus pandemic.
Capital spending rose 4.3% in the first quarter year-on-year, lifted by
demand for electrical machinery and big-ticket items, a preliminary survey by
the Ministry of Finance (MOF) showed on Monday.
However, corporate recurring profits decreased sharply at their fastest
pace in over a decade, according to the survey, backing recent data underlining
the pandemic’s sweeping impact.
The damage from the virus is likely to have worsened due to a wider hit
to the domestic economy from March, said Takumi Tsunoda, senior economist at
Shinkin Central Bank Research Institute.
“It’s likely there will be a bigger drop in April-June,” he said.
Japan’s economy slipped into recession for the first time in 4-1/2 years
in the last quarter, putting the nation on course for its deepest postwar
slump.
The government last week lifted an April-imposed state of emergency and
approved a second $1.1 trillion stimulus package to combat the blow from the
pandemic, which has ravaged the global economy and upended supply chains.
Japan’s factory activity shrank at the fastest pace in over a decade in
May, a separate private sector survey showed on Monday.
More
Finally,
a depressing view from Germany, Europe’s top economy. But it’s the same view
all across Europe now, including GB and Ireland. And who will hire all the
school leavers just about to start seeking employment?
Economic Scars for Decades to Come
Companies
in Germany were practically begging 20- to 30-year-olds to come work for them.
Then came the coronavirus, destroying health, lives and jobs. It will take
decades for this generation to catch up economically.
29.05.2020,
10.16 Uhr
Perhaps
it's just this diffuse fear of the future that seems to lie over the country
like a fog, but sometimes Yavuz Dașkin worries that everything was in vain: the
six years of study at universities in Giessen and Hamburg, the semester abroad
in Oslo, half a dozen internships. He finally wanted to start his career and
write his master’s thesis while working in a company this fall. He has written
application letters to a number of companies, but has received one rejection
letter after the other, and the response is always the same: There are no more
jobs for students because of the coronavirus pandemic. "I have to
completely rethink things,” Dașkin says.
Similar
stories from students leaving high school or university are everywhere these
days. Of the cancelled traineeship at the travel agency, the cancelled trainee
post in event marketing, of the future hotel management trainee who nobody
needs right now. Or of the engineer trainee who isn’t getting that dream job at
German flag carrier Lufthansa. Of the non-university prep high school graduates
who are in a state of panic because very few of them are landing training
positions.
This
year, a half-million students will graduate from university in Germany. They
are entering a labor market that is "essentially frozen,” says Detlef
Scheele, the head of the Federal Employment Agency.
At the end of the summer,
more than a half-million vocation trainees were hoping to begin
apprenticeships, but nobody knows how many spots will still be available.
Scheele is urging companies to continue with their trainee programs at all
costs. "We can’t have a lost corona graduating class of 2020,"
he says.
But
in the face of the biggest economic slump seen in Germany since World War II,
that will be extremely difficult to avoid.
----
The coronavirus crisis is hitting all industries and all workers. In the long
term, it will likely be the young who suffer the most in the aftermath. That
was true once before during the financial crisis of 2009, but it is even worse
this time around: Around 750,000 companies have already placed employees on
government-subsidized work furlough programs. In that environment, who is going
to create apprenticeships and take on trainees? How many companies are going to
hire inexperienced newcomers when they are in the process of eliminating jobs?
Almost one-third of all 20- to 30-year-olds in Germany are employed under
limited-term contracts. And they are often the first to be shown the door.
More
Interest
rates are the most important prices in the economy, according to Nobel laureate
F.A. Hayek, because they reflect the collective time preference of individuals
to consume either now or later. Accordingly, interest rates co-ordinate
allocation of capital across the economy by signalling to businesses whether
they should invest. Distortions in interest rates can cause “clusters of
errors” in which large swathes of businesses unwittingly miscalculate at the
same time.
Caitlin
Long is head of Corporate Strategy, Capital Markets at Morgan Stanley.
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.
Lab escape theory of SARS-CoV-2 origin gaining scientific support
Published: 28 May 2020
The possibility that SARS-CoV-2 is a human-manipulated
virus that escaped from a lab has been flagged up by a whole series of
scientists, such as Prof Richard Ebright, Prof Stuart
Newman, Dr Michael Antoniou, Dr Jonathan
Latham, Yuri Deigin, Dr Billy Zhang, and Prof Jonathan J. Couey. Now it is gaining further scientific support in the form of two papers, recently posted on academically established pre-peer review websites. Although these studies have not yet been peer-reviewed, they are being taken seriously by the scientific community, which has opened up a lively discussion on social media.
The first study, led by Dr Alina Chan at the Broad Institute, MIT (USA), strongly challenges the much promoted narrative that the virus jumped from animals to humans at the Huanan seafood and wildlife market in Wuhan, China.
The researchers compared SARS-CoV-2 to the earlier SARS virus, SARS-CoV, which caused a human epidemic in 2003. They found that by the time SARS-CoV-2 was first officially announced and its genetic sequence reported in late 2019, it was already pre-adapted to human transmission, to an extent similar to late epidemic SARS-CoV. This is very different from how SARS-CoV first emerged. That virus was initially far less well adapted to infecting humans and had to acquire many mutations gained though many rounds of infectious cycles to reach peak infectivity. This type of progressive adaptation (mutation and selection) is exactly what is expected and known to happen in animal to human virus disease transmission. But SARS-CoV-2, even at very early stages of its detection in humans, was already highly adapted for human infectivity. In other words, no sufficiently similar natural “parent” animal virus or, in the researchers’ words, “branches of evolution stemming from a less well-adapted human SARS-CoV-2-like virus” have been found.
Casting further doubt on the “zoonosis” (jump from animal to human) theory of the virus’s origin is that samples taken from the Huanan market in Wuhan were found to contain viruses that were genetically identical to human SARS-CoV-2. According to Dr Chan, “This makes it unlikely for the Huanan market isolates to have come from an intermediate animal host; likely from SARS2-infected humans who visited the market.”
Interestingly, just in the last few days Chinese scientists have themselves thrown cold water on the “wet market” theory. According to the Wall Street Journal, "China’s top epidemiologist said Tuesday that testing of samples from...[the wet market]...failed to show links between animals being sold there and the pathogen." As all pandemic-related communications from scientists in China are now centrally vetted, we can conclude that the Huanan market theory is being walked back at an official level because of the lack of supporting evidence.
Indeed, on 27 May the Chinese government came up with another theory for the virus’s emergence. The Huanan market is now described as “more of a victim rather than the origin” of SARS-CoV-2 and the the virus is now claimed to have “multiple origins” – a suitably vague term that says nothing about laboratory escapes.
Lab escape theory “should be considered”
Alina Chan and colleagues say, "The sudden appearance of a highly infectious SARS-CoV-2 presents a major cause for concern that should motivate stronger international efforts to identify the source and prevent near future re-emergence." In this context they conclude that the possibility of a lab escape “should be considered regardless of how likely or unlikely”.In GMWatch’s view, Dr Chan’s research suggests one of three potential origin scenarios:
1) SARS-CoV-2 has a natural origin in animals. If this is the case, it must have been circulating in humans in Wuhan long before the Chinese government alerted the international authorities to the COVID-19 epidemic, thus giving the animal virus the time needed to adapt to humans, as was seen with SARS-CoV in the 2003 epidemic.
2) SARS-CoV-2 is a natural animal-derived virus that has been studied in a laboratory for human infectivity for a considerable period of time, during which it acquired mutations that make it highly infectious to humans. The human-adapted virus then escaped from the lab that was studying it, with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) being a prime candidate.
3) SARS-CoV-2 is a genetically engineered virus that escaped from a lab that constructed it, such as the WIV.
Interestingly, however, the researchers pre-emptively close off the third option. They define the potential lab-origin virus as “non-genetically engineered”, even though their paper presents no evidence that such a virus could not have been genetically engineered. Given the long history of genetic engineering of coronaviruses at the WIV, this is an unwarranted assumption.
----The other paper pointing to a possible lab escape is more forthright about the possibility of human intervention. The paper is authored by a team led by Nikolai Petrovsky, a vaccine developer and a professor at the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia. Using cutting edge computer molecular modelling tools, the researchers conclude that SARS-CoV-2 contains unique properties that mean it could have been cultured and selected in the laboratory to increase human infectivity.
Prof Petrovsky said his team considers that human manipulation is plausible because of the unmatched ability of the virus’s protruding spike protein to infect human cells. The virus’s ability to bind to human cells “far exceeds” its ability to infect other animals, he said. He added, “This, plus the fact that no corresponding virus has been found to exist in nature, leads to the possibility that COVID-19 is a human-created virus. It is therefore entirely plausible that the virus was created in the biosecurity facility in Wuhan [WIV] by selection on cells expressing human ACE2 [receptor], a laboratory that was known to be cultivating exotic bat coronaviruses at the time.”
More
Solution to century-old math problem may predict disease transmission
May 29, 2020 /
2:24 PM
May 29 (UPI) -- The solution to a century-old math problem could help
modelers predict infectious disease transmission without relying on
time-intensive computer models.
The solution, discovered by Luca Giuggioli, a senior lecturer in the
engineering mathematics department at the University of Bristol, calculates the
probability of occupation of a diffusing particle or entity in a confined space
at a specific time and space.
Until
now, such computational predictions required cumbersome computer models.
---- Running powerful computer models requires time, energy and money -- finite resources that limits the kinds of problems can be solved.
"The discovery of this exact analytic solution allows us to tackle problems that were almost impossible in the past," said Giuggioli.
In addition to predicting the transmission of infectious disease within a crowd of individuals, the solution could help scientists predict the diffusion of molecules within a cell, the movement of bacteria in a petri dish or the foraging patterns of animals within the limits of their range.
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.
Tuning the surface gives variations to metal foils
Paper-sized single-crystal metal foils with various surface structures are obtained by seeded annealing
Date:
May 27, 2020
Source:
Institute for Basic Science
Summary:
Researchers reported how to give variations to single crystalline metal foils.
Via the oxidation-led annealing plus seeded growth strategy, they obtained over
30 types of copper foils the size of A4 paper, which is roughly the same size
as US legal paper.
Just as cloning in biology allows for the creation of one or more
replicas of the exact same genes, seeded growth in chemistry can produce a very
large metal foil with the exact same surface texture as that of a seeded one.
Seeded growth is very popular in synthesizing three-dimensional (3D) single
crystals: 3D crystals are always grown into the same shapes, just as salts are
invariably cubic single crystals.
Meanwhile, very thin foils/films can grow into different types depending
on surface structures. As such, applications can vary. Great efforts had been
dedicated to the synthesis of single crystalline metal foils as they have many
important applications, such as (i) a substrate to support the synthesis of
various two-dimensional (2D) materials, (ii) engineering the properties of the
material deposited on it, (iii) allowing for selective catalysis, and (iv)
fabricating metal wires with optimized electrical and thermal conductivities.
Despite such possibilities, seeded growth has rarely been applied to grow thin
films due to a lack of knowledge on how to control the growth process.
Prof. Feng Ding's group from the Center for Multidimensional Carbon
Materials, within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS, South Korea), in
collaboration with Prof. Kaihui Liu's group and Prof. Enge Wang's group from
Peking University, as well as Prof. Dapeng Yu's group from Southern University
of Science and Technology, reported how to give variations to single
crystalline metal foils. Via the oxidation-led annealing plus seeded growth
strategy, the research team obtained more than 30 types of copper foils the
size of A4 paper (~30×21 cm2), which is roughly the same size as US legal.
The research team has been exploring copper foils, one of the most
popular substrates to support the growth of graphene and other 2D materials.
Though they obtained single crystal copper (Cu) foils in their previous study
(Science Bulletin, 2017, 62, 1074-1080), they were mostly Cu (111), whose surface
is ultra-flat and thus less active than those with step edges and kinks.
Through theoretical calculations, the research team concluded that Cu (111)
tends to be formed more easily than other types, as the Cu (111) surface has
the lowest surface energy and thus is the most favorable structure in nature.
This reasoning led them to tune the surface energy of Cu foils in order to
obtain single-crystal metal foils with desired surface types.
More
Hayek
observed that interest rate stimulus interfered with economic calculations,
causing managers to invest in projects that would not otherwise have appeared
profitable. Losses can subsequently materialise as customer demand fails to
meet forecasts that were, in retrospect, optimistic. Long-term projects are
highly sensitive to interest rates and are therefore more susceptible to such
distortions. Pension obligations and long-term, capital-intensive projects are
at high risk of miscalculation based on artificially low rates.
Caitlin
Long is head of Corporate Strategy, Capital Markets at Morgan Stanley.
The Monthly Coppock Indicators finished May
DJIA: 25,383 +12 Down. NASDAQ: 9,490 +178 Up.
SP500: 3,044 +83 Down.
The NASDAQ has remained up.
The S&P and the DJIA still remain down despite the best efforts of the Fed
to get them to higher.
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