Baltic Dry Index. 1949 -07 Brent Crude 42.93
Spot Gold 1795
Coronavirus Cases 08/7/20
World 11,906,829
Deaths 544,529
A
stock is, for all practical purposes, a piece of paper that sits in a bank
vault. Most likely you will never see it. It may or may not have an Intrinsic
Value; what it is worth on any given day depends on the confluence of buyers
and sellers that day. The most important thing to realize is simplistic: The
stock doesn’t know you own it.
The
Money Game 1968. George J. W. Goodman aka “Adam Smith.”
Today we open
focusing on Asia, and a rapidly deteriorating relationship between the USA and
China.
In reality, after
China broke the Sino-British Hong Kong treaty last week imposing draconian new
national security laws on Hong Kong, a rapidly deteriorating relationship between
most of the rest of the world and China.
Below, bunker time
to this old dinosaur commodities trader. When elephants want to fight smart
people get out of their way. I note with rising concern, spot gold approaching
1800, world official coronavirus cases approaching 12 million..
Asian shares mixed as corporate earnings loom
July 8, 2020 /
12:56 AM
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Asian stocks were set
for a mixed open on Wednesday, as an increase in new coronavirus cases in some
parts of the world cast doubts over the economic recovery, leading some
investors to cash in on recent gains ahead of earnings season.
Australian S&P/ASX 200 futures YAPcm1 lost 0.50% in early trading, while Japan's Nikkei 225 futures NKc1 added 0.11%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index futures .HSI HSIc1 rose 0.39%.
U.S. stocks fell on Tuesday, halting a five-day winning streak by the benchmark S&P 500 index, its longest this year, which had been driven by better-than-expected economic data.
Following the recent rally, the declines looked like a consolidation, with the markets largely in “wait and see mode” ahead of the upcoming earnings session, said NAB economist Tapas Strickland.
“It will be important to watch the number of U.S. deaths in coming weeks and whether greater questions will be asked about the extent of necessary restrictions,” he added.
The United States reported tens of thousands of new coronavirus infections, prompting New York to expand its travel quarantine for visitors from three more states, while Florida’s greater Miami area rolled back its reopening.
The surge has made business owners
“nervous again,” Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank President Raphael Bostic said on
Tuesday. “There is a real sense this might go on longer than we have planned
for,” he said.
---- MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS closed 0.78% lower.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 1.51%, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 1.08%, and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 0.86%.
More
China is spending less on American goods than expected
It is unlikely to hit the targets it agreed to with
President Donald Trump
Jul 6th 2020
AS PART OF his "phase one trade deal" with
China, signed in January, President Donald Trump secured promises that the
Chinese would buy a lot of American stuff. The data so far suggest that sales
are falling short. According to figures compiled by Chad Bown of the Peterson
Institute for International Economics (with whom your correspondent hosts a
podcast), over the first five months of the year Chinese imports of goods
covered by the agreement were badly behind schedule. Compared with a baseline
assuming the exports would be spread evenly through the year, purchases were
less than half of what they should have been.
Performance varies by category. China has imported
less than $1bn-worth of American energy products (chiefly oil, coal and
liquefied natural gas), compared with the $25bn promised for the whole year.
(Some in America are anyway sceptical about the industry’s capacity to supply
such an amount.) Chinese imports of manufactured goods are less than a quarter
of their way to the annual target, with five months of the year gone.
More, plus charts.
U.S. bars entry to Chinese officials over access to Tibet
July 7, 2020 /
11:06 PM
July 7 (UPI) -- In its latest reproach of China's human rights record, the U.S.
State Department on Tuesday said they will deny Chinese officials entry to the
United States who have restricted access of American government officials,
journalists, independent observers and tourists to the Tibetan Autonomous
Region.In a statement, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said access to the Tibetan areas was of "increasingly vital" importance to regional stability due to the People's Republic of China's human rights abuses in the area and its failures to prevent environmental degradation near Asia's major waterways there.
The visa restrictions, imposed under the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act of 2018, will bar PRC and Chinese Communist Party officials entry to the United States who have been determined to be "substantially involved" in policies related to the access of foreigners to Tibetan areas, the law states.
"The United States will continue to work to advance the sustainable economic development, environmental conservation and humanitarian conditions of Tibetan communities," Pompeo said, adding that the measure was being pursued as the United States "seeks fair, transparent and reciprocal treatment from the People's Republic of China for our citizens."
---- Tensions between Washington and Beijing have been gradually increasing over the past few years but have been drastically ratcheting up recently over the United States' condemnation of the Asian nation's human rights transgressions, particularly against its Muslim minority Uighurs in northwestern Xinjiang and Hong Kong protesters. The situation has worsened in the past week after China imposed a new national security law that has been widely condemned and which the United States has moved to punish Beijing over.
More
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2020/07/07/US-bars-entry-to-Chinese-officials-over-access-to-Tibet/9981594172952/
FBI director: U.S. counterintelligence opens a case on China every 10 hours
July 7, 2020 /
4:44 PM
July 7 (UPI) -- FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday that much of
the U.S. government's counterintelligence efforts focus on China.
He said that nearly half of the United States' counterintelligence cases
are related to China's alleged theft of U.S. information. A new case is opened
every 10 hours or so.
"At this very moment, China is working to compromise American healthcare organizations, pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions conducting essential COVID-19 research."
He made the comments at the Hudson Institute think tank in Washington, D.C.
Wray said most American adults have already had their personal
information stolen by China, noting the 2014 hacking of the Office of Personnel
Management, which compromised the data from 21 million records.
He said China's Communist Party attempts to influence U.S. policy with
"a highly sophisticated campaign involving bribery, blackmail and covert
deals."
Tech companies 'pause' requests from Hong Kong authorities for user data
July 7, 2020 /
6:26 AM / Updated July 7, 2020 at 11:55 PM
July 7 (UPI) -- Zoom and Microsoft added their names Tuesday to a growing list of
tech companies that have "paused" processing requests from Hong Kong
authorities for user data in the wake of a sweeping new national security law
Beijing imposed last week.Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp announced they had taken the step on Monday while Google said it had done so on Wednesday, the day after Beijing passed the draconian national security law.
TikTok, which is owned by Chinese internet company Bytedance, on Tuesday, told UPI in a statement that it was going a step further and that it has "decided to stop operations of the TikTok app in Hong Kong."
Tech giants Google and Facebook said in statements to UPI that they have stopped fielding such requests as they review the new controversial national security law that went into effect at 11 p.m. on June 30 despite critics and Western countries condemning it as all but ending the former British colony's autonomy from mainland China.
---- The moves were made by the tech giants as Hong Kong late Monday revealed a slew of new rules under the draconian national security law that allows police to force service providers to delete messages they say threaten national security and to imprison employees at those companies for up six months if they do not follow their orders.
Facebook said it was now reviewing the details to understand the implications for the company and its users as little was known about the law prior to its implementation.
"We believe freedom of expression is a fundamental human right and support the right of people to express themselves without fear for their safety or other repercussions," the Facebook spokesman said.
On Sunday, Telegram, a messaging application that was popular with Hong Kong protesters, told the Hong Kong Free Press it would temporarily refuse data requests from Hong Kong authorities until an international consensus was agreed to on the new law.
----- The law criminalizes acts of secession, sedition, subversion, terrorism and working with foreign agencies to undermine the national security of the People's Republic of China in Hong Kong. Since its implementation, protesters have been arrested for waving flags espousing Hong Kong independence and for possessing similar material.
---- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned Beijing's "Orwellian censorship" of Hong Kong on Monday, accusing the Chinese Communist Party of continuing its "destruction" of the financial hub.
"With the ink barely dry on the repressive National Security Law, local authorities -- in an Orwellian move -- have now established a central government national security office, started removing books critical of the [ruling Chinese Communist Party] from library shelves, banned political slogans and are now requiring schools to enforce censorship," he said in a statement.
The moves also came a week after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission designated Chinese communications companies Huawei and ZTE as national security threats.
More
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2020/07/07/Tech-companies-pause-requests-from-Hong-Kong-authorities-for-user-data/6181594111275/
Pompeo says U.S. looking at banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok
July 7, 2020 /
4:41 AM
(Reuters) - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday
that the United States is “certainly looking at” banning Chinese social media
apps, including TikTok, suggesting it shared information with the Chinese
government, a charge it denied.“I don’t want to get out in front of the President (Donald Trump), but it’s something we’re looking at,” Pompeo said in an interview with Fox News.
U.S. lawmakers have raised national security concerns over TikTok’s
handling of user data, saying they were worried about Chinese laws requiring
domestic companies “to support and cooperate with intelligence work controlled
by the Chinese Communist Party.”
Pompeo said Americans should be cautious in using the short-form video
app owned by China-based ByteDance.
“Only if you want your private information in the hands of the Chinese
Communist Party,” Pompeo remarked when asked if he would recommend people to
download TikTok.
In response to his comments, TikTok told Reuters it has never provided
user data to China.
Morehttps://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok-china-pompeo-idUSKBN2480DF
In UK news, for
most outside of the BOE’s stock casinos, life continues to be grim. Later this
month comes a wave of school and university leavers. How many delivery drivers
do UK supermarkets really need? Will HMG just pay them not to work?
UK 'jobs crisis' is underway, recruiters warn
July 8, 2020 /
1:08 AM
LONDON (Reuters) - The collapse in Britain’s labour market eased only
slightly last month, according to a survey on Wednesday from the Recruitment
and Employment Confederation (REC) industry body which warns that a “jobs
crisis” is underway.
The figures from REC and accountants KPMG underscore the challenge
facing finance minister Rishi Sunak ahead of an update to parliament, due
around 1130 GMT, on measures to support workers through the aftermath of the
coronavirus pandemic.
REC said demand for staff continued to fall and at 31.9 in June - up
from 19.1 a month before - it remained well below the 50 level that represents
an increase in hiring.
“This is now a jobs crisis,” Neil Carberry, chief executive of the REC,
said. “Rishi Sunak should use today’s Summer Statement to boost job creation,
with a cut in National Insurance designed to retain jobs and boost hiring.”
The supply of available workers soared in June by the largest amount in
more than a decade, according to the survey, which is based on responses from
around 400 recruitment companies.
Last month the Bank of England said there were some signs the economy
had picked up by more than it had initially expected, but added that a rise in
unemployment could be worse than it had thought.
Finally, the Great
21st Century Real Estate Reset, gathers speed. A lot of the old assumptions
just died in early 2020.
Banks Are Ditching London Offices and Not Just Because of Covid-19
Jack Sidders
6 July, 2020.
· Lenders have cut six million
square feet of space since 2011 The giants of Wall Street and European banking are giving up their stronghold on London.
In the coming months alone, Barclays Plc may ditch its investment bank’s headquarters in the capital; Credit Suisse Group AG is offloading nine floors of office space; and Morgan Stanley is reviewing its entire London footprint.
And all of those moves were planned before the coronavirus hit. Now, with thousands of job cuts likely to follow what’s forecast to be the worst recession in three centuries, the tenants of the glass and steel towers that dominate the City of London and Canary Wharf may face an even bigger retreat.
“Larger banks are clearly a higher risk for landlords,” said Rogier Quirijns, head of European real estate at Cohen & Steers Inc., who oversees more than $2 billion of property funds. “For London, there are the threats of recession and a possible no-deal Brexit to deal with, and I expect Covid-19 will most likely accelerate those risks.”
The pandemic has given banks further impetus to downsize and preserve cash after already spending a decade quietly offloading space as jobs vanished in the wake of the financial crisis. In the past nine years, their London footprint has been slashed by about six million square feet -- or the equivalent of a dozen Gherkin skyscrapers, according to broker CBRE Group Inc.
Layoffs accelerated in the first quarter, with headcount across the 12
biggest investment banks dropping 5% -- the steepest decline for that period in
at least six years, according to Coalition Development Ltd. Much of that’s been
driven by troubled European lenders, which were already shrinking long before
the virus struck, according to Amrit Shahani, head of research at Coalition.
Shahani predicts that by the end of this year, the continent’s banks
could have 20% fewer staff than at the start of 2019.
As
well as job losses, the future of the office itself is on lenders’ minds. It’s
taken the arrival of a deadly pandemic to convince bosses that working from
home can be both effective and relatively easy, and that’s provided a timely
opportunity for an industry neck-deep in cost rationalizations.
More
All those marvelous things, or those terrible
things, that you feel about a stock, or a list of stocks, or an amount of money
represented by a list of stocks, all of these things are unreciprocated by the
stock or the group of stocks. You can be in love if you want to, but that piece
of paper doesn’t love you, and unreciprocated love can turn into masochism,
narcissism, or, even worse, market losses and unreciprocated hate.
The
Money Game 1968. George J. W. Goodman aka “Adam Smith.”
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: Majority testing positive have no symptoms
This hammers home the importance of "asymptomatic transmission" - spread of the virus by people who aren't aware they're carrying it.
Health and social care staff appeared to be more likely to test positive.
This comes as deaths from all causes in the UK fell to below the average for the second week in a row.
While the ONS survey includes relatively small numbers of positive swab tests (120 infections in all) making it hard to make any strong conclusions about who is most likely to be infected, there are some patterns coming through in the data:
Those in people-facing health or social care roles, and working outside their homes in general, were more likely to have a positive test.
·
People from ethnic minority backgrounds were
more likely to have a positive antibody test, suggesting a past infection.
·
White people were the least likely
proportionally to test positive for antibodies.
·
There was also some evidence that people living
in larger households were more likely to test positive than those in smaller
households.
The figures are based on tests of people selected at random in homes in England - people living in care homes or other institutions are not included in this study.
----While 22% in the study reported symptoms on the day, a larger group - a third (33%) of people testing positive for coronavirus - reported having symptoms either on the day of their test or at their previous or subsequent test.
This group includes "pre-symptomatic" people as well as "asymptomatic"- those who will never develop noticeable symptoms.
Meanwhile, weekly deaths in the UK are slightly below average for this time of year with 10,267 registered in the week of 26 June, and lower than the week before, figures show.
There were 651 deaths registered mentioning Covid-19 which remains above the number registered the week lockdown was announced (607).
Six months of coronavirus: the mysteries scientists are still racing to solve
From immunity to the role of genetics, Nature
looks at five pressing questions about COVID-19 that researchers are tackling.
03 July 2020
In late December 2019, reports emerged of a mysterious pneumonia in
Wuhan, China, a city of 11 million people in the southeastern province of
Hubei. The cause, Chinese scientists quickly determined, was a new coronavirus
distantly related to the SARS virus that had emerged in China in 2003, before
spreading globally and killing nearly 800 people.
Six months and more than ten million confirmed cases later, the COVID-19
pandemic has become the worst public-health crisis in a century. More than
500,000 people have died worldwide. It has also catalysed a research
revolution, as scientists, doctors and other scholars have worked at breakneck
speed to understand COVID-19 and the virus that causes it: SARS-CoV-2.
They have learnt how the virus enters and hijacks cells, how some people fight it off and how it eventually kills others. They have identified drugs that benefit the sickest patients, and many more potential treatments are in the works. They have developed nearly 200 potential vaccines — the first of which could be proved effective by the end of the year.
But for every insight into COVID-19, more questions emerge and others linger. That is how science works. To mark six months since the world first learnt about the disease responsible for the pandemic, Nature runs through some of the key questions that researchers still don’t have answers to.
Why do people respond so differently?
What’s the nature of immunity and how long does it last?
Has the virus developed any worrying mutations?
How well will a vaccine work?
What is the origin of the virus?
More
Why No One Should Believe COVID-19 Is Naturally Occurring
by Tyler Durden Mon, 07/06/2020 - 23:40
----The Nature article also does not mention that the receptor-binding domain of RmYN02 showed only a 61.3% sequence identity with COVID-19, meaning it is highly unlikely that RmYN02 could even bind to human cells.
The Nature article suggests that pangolins (scaly anteaters), might be an intermediate host because some pangolin coronaviruses “share up to 92% of their genomes” with COVID-19, presumably bridging the gap between bats and humans.
When asked about that possibility, Dr Ralph Baric, a coronavirus expert from the University of North Carolina, in a March 15, 2020 interview, stated unequivocally that pangolins were not the source of COVID-19:
“Pangolins have over 3,000 nucleotide changes - no way they are the reservoir species [for COVID-19], absolutely no chance.”
Nevertheless, the receptor-binding domain of COVID-19 is structurally closer to pangolins than bats indicating a recombinant event, in this case, likely artificial.
In fact, Ralph Baric and Zheng-Li Shi, the “bat woman” from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, conducted just such an artificial receptor-binding domain insertion from a newly isolated bat coronavirus (SHC014) onto the “backbone” from SARS-CoV, the coronavirus responsible for the 2003 pandemic.
In a December 9, 2019 interview, Dr Peter Daszak, President of the EcoHealth Alliance and a long-time collaborator with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, presumably referring to the Ralph Baric- Zheng-Li Shi experiments, stated “you can manipulate them in the lab pretty easily” inserting a spike protein “into a backbone of another virus.”
Thus, an artificial recombinant event carried out in the laboratory would be a far better explanation of pangolin-like structures appearing on a bat coronavirus backbone than one occurring in nature, at least given the current state of knowledge.
The most conspicuous sign of COVID-19 genetic manipulation is the presence of a furin polybasic cleavage site, a structure that is not present in any of the coronaviruses so far identified as possible direct ancestors.
The authors of the RmYN02 article stretch credulity even further by claiming that RmYN02 has a precursor cleavage site.
In reality, it is a weak attempt to offer a naturally-occurring explanation for the presence of the furin polybasic cleavage site in COVID-19.
Unfortunately, the amino acid sequence PAA, the insertion cited by the authors, is chemically neutral, totally unlike COVID-19's polybasic PRRAR sequence and PAA has no ability to cleave anything.
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.
GKN Aerospace joins Graphene@Manchester as Tier 1 partner
30 June 2020
GKN Aerospace - one of the world’s leading suppliers of
manufacturing to the aerospace industry - is the latest company to join the
Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC) at The University of Manchester
as a Tier 1 partner.The collaboration will explore multiple areas of graphene application, including the use of graphene in innovative coatings for aerospace applications, and development of new composite materials.
James Baker, CEO of Graphene@Manchester, said: “We are pleased to welcome GKN as our latest Tier 1 partner. My background is in aerospace, so I’m really excited about the potential for a collaboration with such an influential player in the industry.
“GKN supplies products to 90% of the world’s aircraft and engine manufacturers, so we have an opportunity to make a genuine difference to the next generation of lighter, more sustainable aircraft through innovation in 2D materials.”
GKN Aerospace CTO and Head of Strategy Russ Dunn (pictured) said: “The GEIC’s core capabilities and wealth of knowledge in 2D materials and manufacturing make it an excellent partner for GKN Aerospace. It offers a practical path from the development of materials science all the way to industrial application. This includes support to establish new supply chains and collaboration to increase the speed of development, maintaining the UK’s global leadership position in research and development.
“Graphene has the ability to increase the life of products in-service and reduce cost, for example by reducing the need for platinum in fuel cells,” Russ added. “We look forward to working with the University and the local ecosystem to explore commercial applications that meet the growing demand for more sustainable, lighter-weight technology, with increased functionality.”
The Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC) is a £60 million,
industry-led facility, designed to work in collaboration with commercial
partners to create, test and optimise new concepts for delivery to market,
along with the processes required for scale up and supply chain integration.
Tier 1 membership of the GEIC offers partners a dedicated
laboratory within the GEIC facility, plus access to our unique application labs
and specialist equipment, and the chance to work with our academic partners.
“What Gutfreund said has become
a legend at Salomon Brothers and a visceral part of its corporate identity. He
said: “One hand, one million dollars, no tears.”
Liar's Poker.
Does this sound like Wall Streeters who
deserve taxpayer bailouts via the Fed?
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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