Baltic Dry Index. 1264 -29 Brent Crude 43.27
Spot Gold 1954
Coronavirus Cases 29/7/20
World 16,827,545
Deaths 662,002
Will
new Covid-19 cases hit 17 million today? Probably.
Later today, the
economic Gospel according to Fed Chairman Powell. How “easy” will the Fed’s
money giveaway programs become?
Coming on the
heels of a new Congressional free money giveaway program of between one
trillion to three trillion, depending on the deal to be worked out between the
Republicans and the Democrats, markets are starting to get very skittish on the
value of the US dollar.
Add in what looks
to be a US and global acceleration of Covid-19 cases, certain to add a new drag
on the already rickety global economy, and the outlook is for trillions more of
new fiat money poured in to the global economy for as far as the eye can see,
if not forever.
Which suggests we
are just at the start of a great global race to swap new fiat money for
tangible assets. Will Chairman Powell
fire the starting gun later today?
U.S. Fed faces viral wave, mounting risks to recovery
July 29, 2020 /
5:09 AM
(Reuters) - In a fast-changing global
pandemic, this was not the turn U.S. Federal Reserve officials hoped for in
early June, when their forecasts showed guarded optimism for a sharpish early
economic rebound and steady slow growth to follow.
In the ensuing seven weeks, much has gone downhill.
The coronavirus pandemic has intensified and prompted new economic
restrictions. Data has pointed to a possible slowdown in business and hiring.
And so-far stalled talks in Washington about further government relief have
pushed the country to the brink of a spending cliff.
The risks to the U.S. recovery, in short,
have grown substantially, and the new Fed policy statement to be released
Wednesday afternoon will show just how seriously U.S. central bankers assess
them. On Tuesday the Fed already made one nod to the outlook, extending from
Sept. 30 to Dec. 31 the availability of the emergency credit programs it set up
early in the pandemic when hopes of a quick “V” shaped recovery were still
strong.
Fed officials “always feared a rushed reopening would lead to a virus
resurgence that would cap the recovery,” said Krishna Guha, vice chairman of
Evercore ISI. Now that the disease has raced back over the summer, the Fed “is
grappling with whether this is a short-term or longer-range setback and what
the implications are for its policy.”
The policy statement will be released at 2 pm EDT (1800 GMT) and Fed
chair Jerome Powell is scheduled to hold a press conference a half hour later.
No new economic projections will be issued at this meeting.
More
Fed extends emergency lending for 3 more months
July 28, 2020 /
2:12 PM
July 28 (UPI) -- Treasury Secretary Steven
Mnuchin said Tuesday the Federal
Reserve approved a three-month extension of emergency lending under the
Federal Reserve Act, allowing it to run until the end of this year.The emergency lending period was supposed to run until Sept. 30 to help extend credit to small businesses. The central bank was pushed into numerous credit facilities after the markets froze because of fears over the coronavirus pandemic.
"The extraordinary Federal Reserve response to the COVID-19 pandemic, supported by Treasury's equity capital, has played a vital role in improving liquidity and restoring market function," Mnuchin said in a statement. "Through this extension, we will continue to support the flow of credit to American workers, businesses and municipalities."
Mnuchin said the programs covered under the plan include facilities for primary dealers and money markets, corporate bond purchases on the primary and second markets and Main Street Lending Program.
The Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan facility and the Paycheck Protection Program Liquidity facility were also included.
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2020/07/28/Fed-extends-emergency-lending-for-3-more-months/1731595958171/
King dollar's decline ripples across the globe
July 28, 2020 / 12:07 PM
(Reuters) - An accelerating decline in the
U.S. dollar is reverberating around the world, adding fuel to a global momentum
rally that has boosted prices for everything from technology stocks to gold.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against six other
major currencies, is down around 9% from its March highs and is on track for
its worst month since 2011, pressured in part by expectations that the United
States will take a bigger hit to growth than other economies from the
coronavirus pandemic.
Because of the dollar’s central role in the global economy, a sustained
selloff in the greenback could buoy a broad market rally driven by expectations
of continued economic stimulus from the world’s central banks and governments.
At the same time, further dollar weakness would likely be an unwelcome
development for economies such as Europe and Japan, as their own rising
currencies threaten to weigh on growth and efforts to spark inflation.
“The weaker dollar is almost becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, with
gains for risk assets seeing the dollar weaken further, fueling additional
gains,” said Michael Brown, senior analyst at payments firm Caxton.
The dollar is down around 3% year-to-date, after rising for each of the
last two years. The greenback slid nearly 10% in 2017.
---- Other assets are already benefiting from the dollar’s drop. Gold, which like many commodities is priced in the U.S. currency and becomes more affordable to foreign buyers when the dollar falls, stands near its historic high, part of a rally that has driven the S&P/Goldman Sachs Commodity Index 34% higher since late March, as of Monday.
Developing countries are also likely to cheer a weaker dollar as it
makes it cheaper for them to service debt denominated in the U.S. currency.
Emerging market currencies such as the Brazilian real and South African
rand have come screaming back in recent weeks, while the MSCI Emerging Markets
Index , which measures stock performance, is up some 40% from its March lows.
“It has been hard to make an argument for the dollar, short term or long
term,” said Juan Perez, currency trader at Tempus Inc. The weaker dollar will
likely benefit “emerging market players and holders of real physical material,”
he said.
More
Second COVID-19 wave forces new travel curbs around the globe
July 27, 2020 /
6:28 PM / a day ago
SYDNEY/LONDON (Reuters) - Nations
in Asia imposed new restrictions on Monday, while an abrupt British quarantine
on travellers from Spain threw Europe’s summer reopening into disarray, as the
world confronted the prospect of a second wave of COVID-19 infections.
In the United States, still dealing with its first wave as infection
rates have climbed since June, President Donald Trump’s national security
adviser, Robert O’Brien, became the most senior official to test positive. The
White House said Trump had not interacted with him in days and was not at risk.
Surges were reported in several countries that previously appeared to
have the virus under control.
Australia recorded a record daily rise. Vietnam was forcing tens of
thousands of tourists to evacuate the central city of Danang. Mainland China,
where the virus first emerged late last year, confirmed the most locally
transmitted cases since early March.
Hong Kong banned gatherings of more than two people, closed restaurant
dining and made face masks mandatory in public.
A surge of new infections in Spain, another early epicentre of the
pandemic, prompted Britain on Saturday to order all travellers from there to
quarantine for two weeks, undoing months of preparation for Europe’s reopening
to tourism.
---- Spain’s hotels on Monday offered to pay for foreign tourists to take coronavirus tests. Last year, Britons made up over a fifth of foreign visitors to Spain, which relies heavily on tourism.
Airlines and travel businesses that managed to survive the first wave
now worry that an aborted reopening could be fatal.
Europe’s biggest airline, Ryanair, cut its annual passenger target by a
quarter on Monday and warned a second wave of COVID-19 infections could lower
that further.
Europe has yet to lift bans on travellers from several countries,
including the United States, where premature reopenings have led to record
numbers of infections and deaths in many states.
More
Next,
with America playing hardball against China’s Huawei, China shows a willingness
to play hardball back. You takeout Huawei, we’ll takeout London’s HSBC. Madness rules in the global economy.
HSBC warned over Huawei role in Chinese government-backed website column
July 28, 2020 /
9:36 AM
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese
government-backed website took aim at HSBC Holdings PLC (HSBA.L) on
Tuesday, accusing the Asia-focussed lender of “maliciously” playing a role in
the arrest of Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer.
Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou’s is fighting against extradition from Canada to the United States, where she is accused of bank fraud for misleading HSBC about Huawei’s relationship with a company operating in Iran, putting HSBC at risk of fines and penalties for breaking U.S. sanctions on Tehran.
Anger in China over the treatment of Meng and Huawei, the world’s biggest telecoms equipment maker, has led to criticism of London-headquartered HSBC intensifying in recent days, with the latest salvo fired by website China.com.cn.
"The role of HSBC in the Meng Wanzhou incident is already clear. HSBC's credibility has also been wiped out," said the commentary (here) posted on the site backed by the State Council Information Office and the China International Publishing Group.
“In the U.S. government’s political pursuit of Huawei, HSBC was the one
who ‘handed the knife’,” it said in a column written under the byline Tang Hua,
and signed by three editors.
HSBC had issued a statement on Saturday saying it had not participated
in the decision by the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Huawei and
that it had no “malice” against the company.
The Chinese website article dismissed HSBC’s denial as “meaningless”.
“Now, wallowing in degradation and with its reputation at rock bottom,
HSBC may struggle to continue to enjoy treatment in China where it can break
the pot it eats food from,” the column said.
A spokeswoman for HSBC in China declined to comment on the article.
HSBC, which last month broke from its usual political neutrality to back
Beijing’s imposition of a controversial national security law in Hong Kong,
generates the bulk of its revenue in Hong Kong and mainland China.
Other official Chinese media outlets including the People’s Daily
newspaper and the China Global Television Network have also targeted HSBC in
the past week.
Finally, how will
we return to office work? Will we return
to working in skyscrapers? WeWork anyone?
Despite New York City’s Reopening, Few Manhattan Office Workers Have Returned
Most office workers continue to work from home even though the city permitted their return in June
By July 27, 2020 7:00 am ET
Fewer than one-tenth of Manhattan office workers have returned to the workplace a month after New York gave businesses the green light to return to the buildings they vacated in March, according to the city’s leading landlords, brokerage firms and employers.
Major financial institutions like Citigroup Inc. C -0.90% and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have allowed only a small number of traders, bankers and other employees to return to the workplace. Technology firms have been even more tentative, with companies like Facebook Inc. telling employees they can continue working from home through the end of 2020.
As of last week, only 8% of the employees who work in downtown office buildings managed by CBRE Group Inc. had returned from sheltering in place from the pandemic. The figure, based on unique card-swipes at security turnstiles, was 9% in midtown. CBRE, the world’s largest commercial real estate services firm by revenue, manages 20 million square feet of space in Manhattan.
----After three months of lockdown, New York City allowed companies to reopen their offices to nonessential workers in late June because Covid-19 cases and deaths were in decline. While all businesses have remained cautious, some have been faster to implement return-to-the-office plans than others.
Financial services giant JPMorgan Chase has kept occupancy of its Manhattan office space at about 20% in most locations and no building is expected to exceed 50% at this point. About half of its sales and trading teams have returned.
On the other end of the spectrum are most big tech firms. For example, October would be the earliest that Microsoft Corp. MSFT 0.74% would reopen its New York office and that will depend on the severity of the pandemic at the time. For now: “We continue to recommend that most employees work remotely,” a Microsoft spokeswoman said last week.
More
https://www.wsj.com/articles/one-month-later-few-manhattan-office-workers-have-returned-despite-new-yorks-reopening-11595847600?mod=mhp
Alan Schwartz, CEO Bear Stearns, March 12, 2008.
Bust March 16, 2008.
Covid-19 Corner
This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Five US states report one-day records for Covid-19 deaths
Issued
on:
Five U.S. states in the South and West reported one-day
records for coronavirus deaths on Tuesday and cases in Texas passed the 400,000
mark as California health officials said Latinos made up more than half its
cases.
The United States confirmed that nationwide more than 1,200 lives were lost on Tuesday, the biggest one-day increase since May, according to a Reuters tally.
California health officials said Latinos, who make up just over a third of the most populous U.S. state, account for 56% of Covid-19 infections and 46% of deaths. Cases are soaring in the Central Valley agricultural region, with its heavily Latino population, overwhelming hospitals.
Florida saw 191 coronavirus deaths in the prior 24 hours, its highest single-day rise yet, the state health department said.
Texas added more than 6,000 new cases on Monday, pushing its total to 401,477, according to a Reuters tally. Only three other states - California, Florida and New York - have more than 400,000 total cases. The four are the most populous U.S. states.
California and Texas both reported decreases in overall hospitalisations as Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top U.S. infectious diseases expert, saw signs the surge could be peaking in the South and West while other areas were on the cusp of new outbreaks.
---- The rise in U.S. deaths and infections has dampened early hopes the country was past the worst of an economic crisis that has decimated businesses and put millions of Americans out of work.
The trend has fueled a bitter debate over the reopening of schools in
the coming weeks. President Donald Trump and members of his
administration have pushed for students to return to class, while some teachers
and local officials have called for online learning.
More
Fauci: 'We just can't afford another surge' of COVID-19 cases
July 28, 2020 /
12:31 PM
July 28 (UPI) -- Florida reported its highest single-day COVID-19 death
toll to date on Tuesday as the United States' top infectious diseases expert
warned Midwest states with rising positivity rates against easing restrictions
too much too soon.The Florida Department on Health said 186 patients died Monday, seven deaths higher than the state's previous record mark. The state also reported another 9,000 cases and now has seen a total of 442,000.
Nationally, there have been 4.307 million cases since the start of the pandemic and 148,300 deaths, according to updated figures Tuesday from researchers at Johns Hopkins University.
For the sixth time in seven days on Monday, U.S. deaths topped 1,000, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, appeared on Good Morning America Tuesday and urged caution for some Midwest states that are determining whether to further relax restrictions.
While states in the South and West are showing some signs of leveling off, positivity rates are rising in parts of the Midwest like Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and Kentucky -- which Fauci called a "surefire sign that you've got to be really careful."
Fauci said following federal guidelines is an important step in preventing more outbreaks.
"I think we can prevent the surges that we've seen in the southern states, because we just can't afford, yet again, another surge," he said.
Fauci reiterated "cautious optimism" about having a COVID-19 vaccine by late fall or early winter. Moderna, which has an agreement with the government to distribute its developed vaccine, said Monday it's begun stage three of its clinical trial.
More
Can Covid Spread With Air Conditioning? HVAC Makers Plan Upgrades
Thomas Black July 27, 2020
With research showing the coronavirus may spread through shared air, property managers are rushing to upgrade heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems before reopening buildings. That’s leading to costly upgrades for equipment that armies of professionals used to take for granted.
Building specialists are poring over how well heavy-duty filters block microbes and considering whether to install systems that use ultraviolet light or electrically charged particles in the ductwork to kill the virus. Companies including Honeywell International Inc., Carrier Global Corp. and Trane Technologies Plc are benefiting from the surge in demand, offering everything from air-monitoring sensors to portable filter machines to help make up for deficiencies in ventilation.
“Every building is going to have some kind of solution. Is it going to be 100%? No,” said Hani Salama, head of the New York chapter of the Building Owners and Managers Association. “But it’s going to be better than what they have now, and will help mitigate some of these airborne transmission issues that everybody is afraid of.”
More
Being over six foot tall doubles Covid-19 risk
Being over six foot tall more than doubles the probability of catching Covid-19 through aerosol transmission as opposed to larger droplets according to a survey analysed by data scientists.
By
Kevan Christie Tuesday, 28th July
2020, 12:30 pm
Early results from a poll of 2000 people in the UK and US has suggested
that the Covid-19 transmitted through aerosol transmission is materially
significant.
The survey analysed by a team of data scientists in the UK, Norway and
the US is one of the first to examine a wide range of personal and work-related
predictors of transmission.
Taking both samples together, being tall more than doubled the
probability of having a Covid- 19 medical diagnosis or positive test for people
over 6ft.
The data in both countries, argue the researchers, could suggest that
aerosol transmission is very likely, with taller individuals at higher risk –
something that would not be expected if transmission was exclusively through
droplets.
And that, they say, is something that would
not have been observed if downward droplet transmission was the only
transmission mechanism.
Aerosols can accumulate in poorly ventilated areas and are carried by
air currents.
Droplets, however, are bigger than aerosols and are thought to travel
relatively short distances and drop quickly from the air.
Though the paper is yet to be peer reviewed, the authors feel its
implications on the debate over aerosol transmission should be made available
to the wider community.
The survey also explores the impacts of personal characteristics,
circumstances and working conditions.
More
Some useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus
resource centre
Rt Covid-19
Covid19info.live
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.
Exclusive interview – Jinko Power on how it offered the world’s lowest solar power price
pv magazine’s Amjad Khashman has spoken to Chinese solar developer Jinko Power about negotiating the world record low price tariff agreed for electricity generated at the Al Dhafra solar project in Abu Dhabi.
July 27, 2020
Commissioning utility the Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC) accepted the tariff price offered by Jinko and EDF of $0.0135/kWh.
With the Chinese developer having now claimed its second world record for cheap solar power – following the Sweihan project win in Abu Dhabi in 2017, now rebranded the Noor Abu Dhabi project
– pv magazine spoke to representatives from the Jinko Power International Business: president Charles Bai, VP for investment Ian Tu and managing director for the Middle East and Africa region Mothana Bahjeat Qteishat, about how the Shanghai Stock Exchange listed company with a 3 GW operational portfolio in its homeland has again managed to screw down on solar’s levelized cost of energy (LCOE).
The Jinko executives also touch on the energy-weighted levelized electricity cost – or EWLEC – criteria applied to ranking the competing project proposals, which attempts to go beyond merely considering the lowest price to also include the maximum energy yield.
Summing up the Al Dhafra solar tender, Jinko Power stated: “The success, transparency and fairness of the authorities in Abu Dhabi, based on our experience in the previous project of Sweihan, lead us to be engaged again in [the] Dhafra project, setting new benchmarks in the industry.”
pv magazine: How could Jinko Power deliver this world record price?
Jinko Power: The bid our consortium submitted is a collaborative effort and [was made in] consensus with our partner EDF Renewables. [With] the Al Dhafra project, we will sell power to EWEC under a 30-year PPA [power purchase agreement]. Jinko Power’s conviction to propose a competitive charge rate to EWEC is a result of our great experience to have had finished, on time and under budget, the world’s largest standalone project [at] Sweihan [with a capacity of] 1.17 Gwp in 2019, and [which is] currently selling power to EWEC. The Abu Dhabi regulatory authority, in our experience, has shown unprecedented fairness and support to facilitate the completion of the Sweihan project. The experience drove our determination to repeat the success again in Abu Dhabi with the Al Dhafra project, which is 2.1 GWp. [The] Sweihan project bid, back in 2016, has been a world record in terms of size and charge rate. We are very proud that we are setting a new record again and new milestone in … PV industry history, in addition to our credential of having developed … standalone gigawatt-scale PV solar projects.
We priced our investment return based on successful precedents and [the] risk profile of the project, among other things. The highly-credit-rated Abu Dhabi sovereign investment [of] 60% of the Al Dhafra project under [a] public private partnership scheme, has again created a delicate risk-reward profile that [encouraged] us to be competitive.
We are also attracted by the tendering philosophy of EWEC, which sets [a] clear boundary of obligations and responsibilities for both EWEC and bidding consortia and weighs both quality and cost in parallel, as a procurer. As a leading global developer, the success of [the] Sweihan project which we partially own and [which is] fully operational, has set a unique benchmark to influence the policy makers of other countries which Jinko Power invests in, specifically in the aspect of how policy makers should work with sponsors to make a project work [in] timely [fashion and] with robust quality.
Talking about technicalities, a novel design, allowing for optimization, was chosen. In terms of the technology of the modules, it is not a secret that we have utilized the bifacial models to enhance the annual yield and lower the LCOE, which both comprise [part of] the award criteria. The other design concept that was applied is single-axis trackers. However, to maximize the performance in the huge project area of 20km2, the tracker design is not similar to what we see typically in other projects, especially in terms of spacing. In our case, significantly lower spacing is considered between the rows to maximize the energy generated per square meter.
More
“But
enough of me. Let’s talk about you. What do you think of me?”
Ed
Koch, once Mayor of New York. (Come back
Ed, all is forgiven! Given the current Mayor, come back Mayor Beame!!!)
The Monthly Coppock Indicators finished June
DJIA: 25,813 -2 Down. NASDAQ: 10,059 +196 Up.
SP500: 3,100 +75 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. The Dow has now gone negative.
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