Baltic Dry Index. 1794 + 45 Brent Crude 41.45
Spot Gold 1772
Coronavirus Cases 30/6/20
World 10,455,518
Deaths 509,239
“When I used to read fairy tales, I fancied that kind of
thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!”
Fed
Chairman Powell, with apologies to Lewis Carroll.
Well we have
reached the last day of the disastrous “China virus” half year of 2020. The Fed
and its minions will be out in the markets busy dressing up stocks and bonds.
But like most Chinese statistics and now apparently Chinese gold collateral, it’s
all fake.
Our “price
discovery” markets are all a thing of the past. Prices are set by unelected
central banksters driven by the needs of political parties demands for
re-election or to get elected to get control of the levers of power.
In not quite 50
years, the Great Nixonian Error of Fiat Money, communist money, destroyed
capitalism, replaced by financial gangsterism in the west, and moderated
communism in China, Russia and the rest of the Shanghai Cooperation
Organisation.
With the central
banksters fuelling the massive and still growing wealth inequality in the west,
we seem determined to have a decade of social disorder and perhaps revolution.
As we prepare to
enter the second half of 2020 tomorrow, with holidays in Canada and Hong Kong,
to this old dinosaur commodities and stock market trader since 1968, our
commercial prospects have never looked bleaker.
We are on the cusp
of a great wave of bankruptcies, rising permanent unemployment, commercial real
estate failure, supply chain failure, consumer demand destruction, and social
disorder.
Standing against
all of that are our central banksters who only know how to rig stocks and bonds
higher. To this old dinosaur it is not enough to avert our new decade of
disorder. The Great Nixonian Error of Fiat Money has finally run out of road.
Each solution now only buys into a bigger problem.
But for today,
more stock and bond price rigging.
Asia stocks up as China PMI, U.S. data cheer markets worried over coronavirus surge
June 30, 2020 /
1:01 AM
TOKYO/NEW YORK
(Reuters) - Asian shares rose on Tuesday after data showed China’s
manufacturing sector grew more than expected in June, a hopeful sign for a
global economy still struggling to recover from the sweeping impact of the
coronavirus crisis.
Sentiment in the region, which got a boost from overnight gains on Wall Street thanks to strong housing data, got a further lift from a survey in China showing a quickening in activity in its vast factory sector.
The stock market in Australia , which has crucial economic links with China, rose 1.59%, while shares in China .CSI300 gained 0.72%.
Hong Kong stocks .HSI jumped 1.18%, undeterred by the Chinese parliament's passage of a security law that will increase Beijing's control over the former British colony.
The Nikkei .N225 rose 2%, shrugging off a larger-than-expected decline in Japanese industrial production.
Overall, however, Asian shares are still on course for a 7% decline over the first half of this year, underscoring the severity of the pandemic-sparked losses and the challenges facing investors as global infections continue to rise in a blow to hopes of a quick recovery.
“Overnight moves in markets were not large but one does get the distinct impression that markets have got it both ways – with equities rallying on rebounding data and bonds rallying on dismal COVID-19 news,” said ANZ Research analyst Rahul Khare.
Indeed, for the second quarter Asia ex-Japan shares were on course for a 17.8% gain, which would be the biggest quarterly increase since the third quarter of 2009. Stocks appear to have received an added boost on Tuesday as some investors adjusted positions on the last trading day of the quarter.
On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 2.32%, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 1.47% and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 1.2%.
More
China's factory activity quickens, but pandemic drags on exporters and recovery
June 30, 2020 /
2:12 AM
BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s factory
activity expanded at a stronger pace in June in a boost to hopes for a quick
economic recovery globally and at home, but the persistent weakness in export
orders suggests the coronavirus crisis will remain a drag on growth for some
time.
The official manufacturing Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) came in at
50.9 in June, compared with May’s 50.6, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)
data showed on Tuesday, and was above the 50.4 forecast in a Reuters poll of
analysts.
The 50-point mark separates expansion from contraction on a monthly
basis.
The uptick was underpinned by the quickening pace of expansion in
production. The forward-looking total new orders gauge also brightened, rising
to 51.4 from May’s 50.9, suggesting domestic demand is picking up as industries
from non-ferrous metals to general equipment and electrical machinery all
showed an improvement.
But export orders continued to contract, albeit at a slower pace, with a
sub-index standing at 42.6 compared to 35.3 in May, well below the 50-point
mark.
“Despite the strong recovery between March and mid-June, we believe a
full economic recovery remains distant. In our view, it is too early for
Beijing to reverse its easing stance,” Nomura analysts wrote in a note to
clients.
In a statement, NBS official Zhao Qinghe underscored the prevailing
uncertainty about the outlook, noting that small firms in China are suffering
more than their larger peers.
Indeed, despite a flurry of government measures to support smaller
companies, the PMI survey showed activity in these firms contracting last
month.
More
83 Tons Of Fake Gold Bars: Gold Market Rocked By Massive China Counterfeiting Scandal
by Tyler
Durden Mon, 06/29/2020 - 12:15
---- Yet
one market which seemed stubbornly immune to any counterfeiting was that of
physical gold in China, which was odd considering that over the past decade
China had emerged as the world's biggest counterfeiter of various, mostly
industrial metals used to secure bank loans, better known as "ghost
collateral", and which adding insult to injury, would frequently
be rehypothecated meaning often several banks would have claims to the
same (fake) asset.All that is about to change with the discovery of what may be one of the biggest gold counterfeiting scandal in recent history. And yes, not only does it involve China, but it emerges from a city that has become synonymous for all that is scandalous about China: Wuhan itself.
With that preamble in mind, we introduce
readers to Wuhan Kingold Jewelry Inc., a company which as the name implies
was founded and operates out of Wuhan, and which describes itself on its website
as "A Company with a Golden future."
In retrospect, it probably meant "copper" future, because as a remarkable expose by Caixin has found, more than a dozen Chinese financial institutions, mainly trust companies (i.e., shadow banks) loaned 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) over the past five years to Wuhan Kingold Jewelry with pure gold as collateral and insurance policies to cover any losses. There was just one problem: the "gold" turned out to be gold-plated copper.
Some more background: Kingold - whose name was probably stolen from Kinross Gold, one of the world's largest gold miners - is the largest privately owned gold processor in central China’s Hubei province. Its shares are listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York (although its current market cap of just $10MM is a far cry from its all time highs hit when the company IPOed on the Nasdaq around 2010) . The company is led by Chairman Jia Zhihong, an intimidating ex-military man who is the controlling shareholder.
What could go wrong?
Well, apparently everything as at least some of 83 tons of gold bars used as loan collateral turned out to be nothing but gilded copper. That has left lenders holding the bag for the remaining 16 billion yuan of loans outstanding against the bogus bars. And as Caixin adds, the loans were covered by 30 billion yuan of property insurance policies issued by state insurer PICC Property and Casualty
and various other smaller insurers.
The fake gold came to light in February when Dongguan Trust (one of those infamous Chinese shadow banks) set out to liquidate Kingold collateral to cover defaulted debts. As the report continues, in late 2019 Kingold failed to repay investors in several trust products. To its shock, Dongguan Trust said it discovered that the gleaming gold bars were actually gilded copper alloy.
The news sent shockwaves through Kingold’s creditors. China Minsheng Trust - another shadow banking company and one of Kingold’s largest creditors - obtained a court order to test collateral before Kingold’s debts came due. On May 22, the test result returned saying the bars sealed in Minsheng Trust’s coffers are also copper alloy.
More
China passes Hong Kong security law amid global opposition
June 30, 2020 /
2:37 AM
HONG
KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s parliament passed national security
legislation for Hong Kong on Tuesday, setting the stage for the most radical
changes to the former British colony’s way of life since it returned to Chinese
rule almost exactly 23 years ago.
State media is expected to publish details of the law - which comes in
response to last year’s often-violent pro-democracy protests in the city and
aims to tackle subversion, terrorism, separatism and collusion with foreign
forces - later on Tuesday.
Amid fears the legislation will crush the global financial hub’s rights
and freedoms, and reports that the heaviest penalty would be life imprisonment,
prominent pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong said he would quit his Demosisto
group.
“It marks the end of Hong Kong that the world knew before,” Wong said on
Twitter.
The legislation pushes Beijing further along a collision course with the
United States, Britain and other Western governments, which have said it erodes
the high degree of autonomy the city was granted at its July 1, 1997, handover.
The United States began eliminating Hong Kong’s special status under
U.S. law on Monday, halting defence exports and restricting the territory’s
access to high technology products.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, speaking at her regular weekly news
conference, said it was not appropriate for her to comment on the legislation
as the meeting in Beijing was still going on, but she threw a jibe at the
United States.
“No sort of sanctioning action will ever scare us,” Lam said.
Lau Siu-kai, vice-president of a think-tank under the Beijing cabinet’s
Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, told Reuters the internationally criticised
law was passed unanimously with 162 votes.
The editor-in-chief of the Global Times, a tabloid published by the
People’s Daily, the official newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party, said
on Twitter the heaviest penalty under the law was life imprisonment, without
providing details.
---- Beijing is expected to set up a national security office in Hong Kong for the first time to “supervise, guide and support” the city government. Beijing could also exercise jurisdiction on certain cases.
Judges for security cases are expected to be appointed by the city’s
chief executive. Senior judges now allocate rosters up through Hong Kong’s
independent judicial system.
More
Finally, that
trade war, all against all, is back on. Will we re-run the 1930s but with
massively more unrepayable debt?
Coronavirus rekindles global trade disputes
June 29, 2020 /
7:13 AM
BRUSSELS (Reuters)
- At the start of the year, U.S.-China tensions were easing after their Phase I
trade deal, while Washington, Brussels and Tokyo agreed on new global trading
rules to curb subsidies. A relative calm had set in.
Then the new coronavirus struck.
Countries across the world imposed 222 exports curbs on medical supplies
and medicines and in some cases food, according to Global Trade Alert, a Swiss
monitoring group. For medical products, it was more than 20 times the usual
level.
Those curbs are now being lifted, but the pandemic has reinforced
protectionist arguments by highlighting how global supply chains can deprive
people of essential medical protection and disrupt food supplies, as well as
threaten jobs.
U.S. President Donald Trump has said he wants to cut ties with China,
the European Union is planning barriers to state-backed investment from China
and elsewhere and China is demanding declarations that food imports are
virus-free.
Former EU trade chief Cecilia Malmstrom said there was a “worrying”
tendency towards protectionism in the world and the re-emergence of trade
conflicts briefly paused by the health crisis.
“Trade-wise we should be concerned,” she told a seminar on Wednesday.
The World Trade Organization said on Tuesday that global trade in goods
was set for a record fall this year and that wider restrictions could see a
2021 rebound falling short.
In the past fortnight, the United States has withdrawn from negotiations
with European countries over a tax on digital firms and pledged a “broad reset”
of its set of tariffs agreed with World Trade Organization partners.
It has also threatened tariffs on a new range of European products,
including fresh olives, bakery items and gin, to maintain pressure in a 16-year
dispute over aircraft subsidies.
To some extent, political rhetoric is running ahead of reality: U.S.
China trade rose in April after COVID-19-related falls and U.S. officials have
said China is committed to buying more U.S. goods in line with the Phase 1
deal.
Chinese leaders and EU chiefs met virtually last Monday, although
Brussels told China to make good on its promise to allow greater access for
European companies and criticised its actions on the coronavirus and Hong Kong.
China offered deeper cooperation on COVID-19 and urged the EU to relax
export controls. On Wednesday, Beijing said it was opening up seven more
sectors to foreign investors.
More
China to impose visa restrictions on U.S. individuals over Hong Kong
June 29, 2020 /
8:33 AM
BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing said on Monday it will impose visa
restrictions on U.S. individuals with “egregious conduct” on Hong Kong-related
issues, mirroring U.S. sanctions against unnamed Chinese officials deemed
responsible for curbing freedoms in the city.
The announcement comes as the top decision-making body of China’s
parliament deliberates a draft national security law for Hong Kong that
pro-democracy activists in the city fear will be used to eliminate dissent and
tighten Beijing’s control.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, who announced the new
sanctions during a press briefing in response to a question about Washington’s
new visa restrictions, did not specify which U.S. individuals have been
targeted.
“The U.S. is attempting to obstruct China’s legislation for safeguarding
national security in the HK SAR (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region) by
imposing the so-called sanctions, but it will never succeed,” he told
reporters.
“In response ... China has decided to impose visa restrictions on U.S.
individuals with egregious conduct on HK related issues.”
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that the new visa
restrictions by Washington apply to “current and former” officials of China’s
ruling Communist Party “believed to be responsible for, or complicit in,
undermining Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy.”
The U.S. Senate also approved a bill last week that would impose
mandatory sanctions on people or companies that back efforts to restrict Hong
Kong’s autonomy. It includes secondary sanctions on banks that do business with
anyone backing any crackdown on the territory’s autonomy.
Zhao, the foreign ministry spokesman, told reporters that China has
lodged a complaint with the U.S. over the bill and warned that Beijing will
respond with strong countermeasures in response to U.S. actions on Hong Kong.
Swiss-EU treaty deal unlikely this year: former EU commissioner
June 29, 2020 /
9:38 AM
ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland and the European Union are unlikely to
agree a deal on a new treaty regulating their relations until next year, when
the outcome of Brexit talks is known, former EU Commissioner Guenther Oettinger
said in an interview published on Monday.
Switzerland, which is not part of the EU, has a patchwork of 120
sectoral accords with the bloc, and the two sides have spent years negotiating
a framework agreement.
But officials have said a Swiss-EU accord is unlikely to emerge until
the terms of Britain’s future relationship with the bloc have been settled,
because Brussels has been loath to give the Swiss concessions that Britain
might seize on.
Britain, which quit the EU at the end of January, has until the end of
this year to reach an agreement with the EU on their future relationship but
the talks are at an impasse.
“I don’t think that an (EU-Swiss) agreement will be reached in the
second half of the year before the exact course of Brexit is clear,” Oettinger,
the former point person in Swiss-EU ties, told the Neue Zuercher Zeitung
newspaper.
----
Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis has said a new agreement is not his
country’s top priority as it tackles the COVID-19 pandemic. Bern wants to keep
the treaty issue under wraps before a September referendum on ending a Swiss-EU
pact on the free movement of citizens.
More
Airbus sees output down 40% for two years as job cuts loom
June 29, 2020 /
6:58 AM
PARIS/TOULOUSE
(Reuters) - Airbus (AIR.PA) plane output
will be 40% lower for two years compared to pre-crisis plans, its chief
executive said in remarks published on Monday, underscoring the threat to jobs
as it draws up rapid restructuring plans due to a travel slump.
Reuters reported on June 3 that Airbus was looking to hold underlying
jet output at 40% below pre-coronavirus pandemic plans for two years as the
basis for the restructuring.
“For the next two years - 2020/21 - we assume that production and
deliveries will be 40% lower than originally planned,” CEO Guillaume Faury told
Die Welt newspaper, saying output would return to normal by 2025.
Airbus has till now said it was cutting output by a third on average.
The latest figures do not imply any immediate new production cut after
Airbus reduced output by between 33% and 42% to new output levels that it plans
to keep under review.
Industry sources say the 40% cut in core or “single-aisle equivalent”
output is expected to drive a widely anticipated restructuring of the company’s
workforce, details of which Airbus has promised to announce by the end of July.
The sources have predicted phased cuts of between 14,000 and 20,000 jobs
based on the production targets.
Union officials said the plans could be set out as early as Wednesday,
when Airbus has called an emergency session at the end of two days of union
meetings.
More
“If there’s no meaning in it,”
said Chairman Powell, “that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn’t
try to find any.”
With
apologies to Lewis Carroll
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.
We
start with an intriguing development from Spain. If other countries are also
storing frozen wastewater samples, we need them to start back testing too.
Coronavirus traces found in March 2019 sewage sample, Spanish study shows
June 26, 2020 /
6:18 PM
MADRID (Reuters) -
Spanish virologists have found traces of the novel coronavirus in a sample of
Barcelona waste water collected in March 2019, nine months before the COVID-19
disease was identified in China, the University of Barcelona said on Friday.
The discovery of virus genome presence so early in Spain, if confirmed,
would imply the disease may have appeared much earlier than the scientific
community thought.
The University of Barcelona team, who had been testing waste water since
mid-April this year to identify potential new outbreaks, decided to also run
tests on older samples.
They first found the virus was present in Barcelona on Jan. 15, 2020, 41
days before the first case was officially reported there.
Then they ran tests on samples taken between January 2018 and December
2019 and found the presence of the virus genome in one of them, collected on
March 12, 2019.
“The levels of SARS-CoV-2 were low but were positive,” research leader
Albert Bosch was quoted as saying by the university.
The research has been submitted for a peer review.
Dr Joan Ramon Villalbi of the Spanish Society for Public Health and
Sanitary Administration told Reuters it was still early to draw definitive
conclusions.
“When it’s just one result, you always want more data, more studies,
more samples to confirm it and rule out a laboratory error or a methodological
problem,” he said.
There was the potential for a false positive due to the virus’
similarities with other respiratory infections.
More.
Asia Today: India’s virus cases jump with another daily high
NEW DELHI (AP) — India has reported a new daily
record of nearly 20,000 new infections as several Indian states reimpose
partial or full lockdowns to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
India’s health ministry has recorded 548,318
COVID-19 total cases as of Monday, a jump of nearly 100,000 cases in a week in
the world’s fourth-worst affected country after the United States, Brazil and
Russia. India’s death toll has reached 16,475, while 321,723 patients have
recovered from the disease.
The capital district of the northeastern state
of Assam on the Bangladesh border has reimposed a full lockdown until July 12
following a spike in cases. Another border state, West Bengal, has extended its
lockdown until July 31.
However, in India’s worst-affected states,
Maharashtra which includes India’s financial capital, Mumbai, and Delhi, home
to the federal capital of New Delhi, most of the country’s lockdown
restrictions have been eased, with restaurants, shopping malls and parks
reopened, and public buses and shared-ride services back on the roads.
In other developments in the Asia-Pacific
region:
— Fans of South Korea’s pro sports may be
required to wear masks and discouraged from shouting or eating food when they
possibly return to the stands in coming weeks. Jung Eun-kyeong, director of
South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said such measures
were being discussed as health authorities and the sports ministry map out
plans for spectators to return to sports. The plans could be announced as early
as this week. Jeong said it will be crucial for the leagues to enforce distance
between the fans. Limits on attendance could be eased as the country’s
anti-virus efforts progress. South Korea’s professional baseball and soccer
leagues returned to action in May without spectators. The discussions on fans’
return come despite a resurgence of the virus in the Seoul area. South Korea on
Monday reported 42 new infections, and authorities are considering stronger
social restrictions if if the epidemic continues to grow.
— Philippine officials say authorities in a
central village may face criminal or administrative complaints for allowing a
street parade and dance despite a strict coronavirus lockdown. Mayor Edgar
Labella of Cebu city said officials of Basak village have been ordered to
explain why the religious fiesta in honor of St. John the Baptist was held
Saturday despite a prohibition against public gatherings. Performers in native
wear and face masks danced during the night procession, which drew a large
crowd. While the Philippines has eased quarantine restrictions in most regions,
Cebu city is under a strict lockdown following a spike in infections. The
Philippines has more than 35,000 virus case, including 1,244 deaths.
---- — China reported a
further decline in new cases, with just 12. Seven of those were locally spread
cases in Beijing, where nearly 8.3 million people have been tested in recent
weeks. The number of new cases in the city was down by half from the day
before, the National Health Commission reported. Beijing temporarily shut a
huge wholesale food market where the virus spread widely earlier this month,
reclosed schools and locked down some neighborhoods. Anyone leaving Beijing is
required to have a negative virus test result procured within the previous
seven days.
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.
Process for 'two-faced' nanomaterials may aid energy, information tech
Date: June 26,
2020
Source: DOE/Oak
Ridge National Laboratory
Summary: A team
used a simple process to implant atoms precisely into the top layers of
ultra-thin crystals, yielding two-sided structures with different chemical
compositions. The resulting materials, known as Janus structures after the
two-faced Roman god, may prove useful in developing energy and information
technologies.
"We're
displacing and replacing only the topmost atoms in a layer that is only three
atoms thick, and when we're done, we have a beautiful Janus monolayer where all
the atoms in the top are selenium, with tungsten in the middle and sulfur in
the bottom," said ORNL's David Geohegan, senior author of the study, which
is published in ACS Nano, a journal of the American Chemical Society.
"This is the first time that Janus 2D crystals have been fabricated by
such a simple process."
Yu-Chuan Lin, a
former ORNL postdoctoral fellow who led the study, added, "Janus monolayers
are interesting materials because they have a permanent dipole moment in a 2D
form, which allows them to separate charge for applications ranging from
photovoltaics to quantum information. With this straightforward technique, we
can put different atoms on the top or bottom of different layers to explore a
variety of other two-faced structures."
This study
probed 2D materials called transition metal dichalcogenides, or TMDs, that are
valued for their electrical, optical and mechanical properties. Tuning their
compositions may improve their abilities to separate charge, catalyze chemical
reactions or convert mechanical energy to electrical energy and vice versa.
A single TMD
layer is made of a ply of transition metal atoms, such as tungsten or
molybdenum, sandwiched between plies of chalcogen atoms, such as sulfur or
selenium. A molybdenum disulfide monolayer, for example, features molybdenum
atoms between plies of sulfur atoms, structurally similar to a sandwich cookie
with a creamy center between two chocolate wafers. Replacing one side's sulfur
atoms with selenium atoms produces a Janus monolayer, akin to swapping one of
the chocolate wafers with a vanilla one.
Before this
study, turning a TMD monolayer into a two-faced structure was more a
theoretical feat than an actual experimental accomplishment. In the many
scientific papers about Janus monolayers published since 2017, 60 reported
theoretical predictions and only two described experiments to synthesize them,
according to Lin. This reflects the difficulty in making Janus monolayers due
to the significant energy barriers that prevent their growth by typical
methods.
In 2015, the
ORNL group discovered that pulsed laser deposition could convert molybdenum
diselenide to molybdenum disulfide. At the Center for Nanophase Materials
Sciences, a DOE Office of Science User Facility at ORNL, pulsed laser
deposition is a critical technique for developing quantum materials.
More
`Have
you guessed the riddle yet?′ Trump said, turning to Powell again.
`No, I give it up,′ Powell
replied: `what’s the answer?′
`I haven’t the slightest idea,′
said President Trump.
With apologies to Lewis Carroll.
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 go higher.
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