Baltic Dry Index. 1710 +11 Brent Crude 42.23
Spot Gold 1809
Coronavirus Cases 20/7/20
World 14,592,283
Deaths 606,935
20 July 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg
and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf
Hitler, Führer
of Nazi
Germany, inside his Wolf's Lair field
headquarters near Rastenburg,
East Prussia.
When the tide goes
out, all boats sink. Some still float if the water’s deep enough. Others come
to rest on the muddy ocean floor.
This morning, most
boats seem to be stuck on that muddy sea bed.
From America,
through Europe, and all the way out to China and Hong Kong, nothing seems to be
working as before, with political tensions rising, the politics of division
dominant, and the global coronavirus crisis surging again.
Below, a dismal
start to week 29 of the roaring 20s. The trouble is, the roaring sound in the
casinos is all the stock gamblers betting on a “V” shaped recovery. Outside of
the casinos, that roaring sound is coming from a surging coronavirus pandemic,
rising bankruptcies, and the next leg of new unemployment and social unrest.
Asian shares stumble ahead of EU Summit, U.S. stimulus talks
July 20, 2020 /
1:38 AM
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian shares were
downbeat on Monday with oil and copper also soft, as a spike in global
coronavirus cases hung over markets awaiting efforts from the euro zone and
United States to stitch together fiscal stimulus plans to fight the pandemic.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slipped 0.2%, reversing early gains after E-mini futures for the S&P 500 turned negative to be down 0.4%.
Australian shares were among the biggest losers, falling 0.6%, after coronavirus cases in the southeast state of Victoria continued to rise.
South Korea's KOSPI .KS11 pared gains to fall 0.5% while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index .HSI stumbled 0.4%.
Japan's Nikkei .N225, which had started firm, faltered by late morning to be last off 0.35% after data showed the country's exports suffered a double-digit decline for the fourth month in a row in June.
Chinese shares bucked the trend with the blue-chip CSI300 index .CSI300 up 0.8%.
More than 14 million people have been infected by the novel coronavirus globally and nearly 602,000 have died, according to a Reuters tally.
Investor focus is on a European Union Summit where leaders are haggling over a plan to revive economies throttled by the coronavirus pandemic.
The leaders are at odds over how to carve up a vast recovery fund designed to help haul Europe out of its deepest recession since World War Two, and what strings to attach for countries it would benefit. Diplomats said it was possible that they would abandon the summit and try again for an agreement next month.
More
Hong Kong banks shutter branches again after COVID cases hit record high
July 20, 2020 /
5:14 AM
HONG
KONG (Reuters) - HSBC, Standard Chartered and other banks in Hong Kong closed
branches or curtailed their working hours on Monday after a spike in the number
of new coronavirus cases in the Asian financial hub.
Hong Kong recorded more than 100 cases in a 24-hour period over the
weekend, the most since the pandemic took hold in late January.
The rise in cases took the tally close to 2,000 patients, 12 of whom
have died.
Hong Kong banks shut scores of branches in late January when the first
wave of the coronavirus cases hit the city. These later reopened as case
numbers dropped.
Bank of China (Hong Kong) said in a statement on Monday it would suspend
services at nine branches due to the spread of the virus. It had already
suspended services at three branches, one of which reopened on Monday.
HSBC said in a separate statement it would temporarily close two
business centres for commercial banking and three mobile branches operating
from trucks, and shorten operating hours at all branches.
HSBC subsidiary Hang Seng Bank closed one branch for 14 days for deep
cleaning after a member of staff preliminarily tested positive for COVID-19, it
said on Sunday.
Standard Chartered and Bank of East Asia said they would shorten branch
opening hours.
On Sunday, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced tighter
coronavirus restrictions with non-essential civil servants told to work from
home.
Amusement parks, gyms and 10 other types of venues will remain closed
for another seven days, while a requirement for restaurants to only provide
takeaway after 6.00 p.m. was extended. Face masks will be mandatory in indoor
public areas.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam says COVID-19 'critical' after 100 new cases
19 Jul 2020
05:13PM (Updated:
19 Jul 2020 07:48PM)
HONG KONG: Hong Kong's leader said Sunday (Jul 19) that COVID-19 was
spreading out of control in the city as she announced a record daily high of
more than 100 cases and ordered new social distancing measures.
The finance hub was one of the first places to be struck by the virus
when it emerged from central China.
But the city had impressive success in tackling the disease, all but
ending local transmissions by late June.
However, in the last two weeks, cases have begun to spike once more and
doctors fear it is spreading undetected in the densely packed territory of 7.5
million people.
On Sunday, chief executive Carrie Lam said more than 500 infections had
been confirmed in the last fortnight, bringing the city's total tally to 1,788
cases with 12 fatalities.
More than 100 were confirmed on Sunday alone, a record daily high for
the finance hub.
"I think the situation is really critical and there is no sign the
situation is being brought under control," chief executive Carrie Lam told
reporters.
More
UK poised to suspend Hong Kong extradition treaty - British newspapers
July 19, 2020 / 10:04 AM
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will on Monday
suspend its extradition treaty with Hong Kong in a further escalation of its
dispute with China over the introduction of a security law in the former
colony, British newspapers reported.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who on Sunday accused China of “gross”
human rights violations, will announce the suspension of the treaty in
parliament, the Times and Daily Telegraph newspapers said, citing sources.
Britain’s foreign office declined to comment.
Such a move would be another nail in the coffin of what former Prime
Minister David Cameron has cast as a “golden era” of ties with the world’s
second largest economy.
But London has been dismayed by a crackdown in Hong Kong and the
perception that China did not tell the whole truth over the novel coronavirus
outbreak.
Last week Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered Huawei Technologies
[HWT.UL] equipment to be purged completely from Britain’s 5G network by the end
of 2027.
China has accused Britain of pandering to the United States.
Earlier on Sunday, China’s ambassador to Britain warned of a tough
response if London attempted to sanction any of its officials, as some
lawmakers in Johnson’s Conservative Party have demanded.
“If UK government goes that far to impose sanctions on any individual in
China, China will certainly make a resolute response to it,” Liu Xiaoming told
the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.
More
Next,
how business in Communist China really runs. Don’t criticise us if/when we
steal your firms.
China's Tomorrow Holdings slams seizure of its financial firms
July 18, 2020 /
8:25 AM
Chinese
conglomerate Tomorrow Holdings Co on Saturday lashed out at a move by
regulators to seize nine of its affiliated financial firms, in rare public
criticism that was quickly removed from its social media account.
The statement came a day after Chinese financial regulators announced
that they had taken over for one year the brokerages, trust companies and
insurers linked to the embattled group, amid a campaign to stem systemic
financial risks in a slowing economy.
Tomorrow Holdings said it had been actively moving forward with asset
disposals, which the surprise takeover had disrupted, and that none of the
institutions had faced liquidity risks or group protests from investors, and
that regulators had exaggerated risks.
“With tight regulation limiting the firms’ business development, each
institution still managed to operate normally,” the statement said. “However,
they were flagrantly announced to be taken over. What is the purpose of that?”
Tomorrow Holdings questioned the motives of the regulators.
“The regulators have been pushing hard on the takeovers, so some of them
can become corporate executives to delay their retirement. How much trade-off
of fortune and power is behind this?” it said.
The regulators could not immediately be reached for comment on Saturday
about the group’s statement.
---- The China Securities Regulatory Commission, meanwhile, said it had seized control of New
Times Securities, Guosheng Securities and Guosheng Futures, accusing the firms of concealing shareholder information, among other violations.
The nine firms had combined assets of more than 1.2 trillion yuan ($170
billion) at the end of 2019, according to a calculation by Caixin, a Chinese
financial media outlet, with Huaxia Life Insurance accounting for nearly half
if that at 587.3 billion yuan.
Tomorrow’s statement was quickly replaced with a message from the WeChat
Official Accounts Platform Operation Center saying that the content “violates
regulations.”
The
group also said that Xiao Jianhua, who controls the Beijing-based conglomerate,
had returned to mainland China in early 2017 to fully cooperate with
investigations.
Xiao,
a billionaire with links to China’s Communist Party elite, vanished from public
view in early 2017. He was last seen leaving the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong
Kong in a wheelchair with his head covered, accompanied by several people
described in media reports as mainland Chinese agents.
More
In
UK news, the harsh reality outside of the stock market gambling casinos.
Retailer M&S to announce hundreds of job cuts - Sky News
July 19, 2020 /
9:49 PM
(Reuters) - British retailer Marks and Spencer Group Plc (MKS.L)
plans to announce hundreds of job cuts in the coming week, Sky News reported on
Sunday, citing sources. The cuts would be part of redundancy plans the company will be announcing in the coming days, the Sky report added, part of a restructuring that could affect several thousand employees in coming months. The report did not specify the number of jobs at risk.
“We don’t comment on speculation and, if and when we have an announcement to make, our colleagues will be the first to know,” an M&S spokeswoman said.
In May, when the pandemic hit, M&S was already in the middle of a new plan to improve its fortunes, including reviewing headcount, cost cuts and store closures. The company furloughed around 7,000 employees and announced plans to close about 100-120 stores.
More
In
rump-EU news, the never-ending summit just goes on, and on, and on. Without
major reform, the rump-EU is drinking in the last chance saloon,
EU leaders struggle with 'mission impossible' at deadlocked recovery summit
July 20, 2020 /
3:11 AM
BRUSSELS
(Reuters) - EU leaders stood at an impasse on Monday after three days of
haggling over a plan to revive economies throttled by the COVID-19 pandemic,
but the chairman of their near-record-length summit urged them to make one last
push on “mission impossible”.
Charles Michel reminded the 27 leaders of the European Union that more
than 600,000 people had now died as a result of the coronavirus around the
world, and it was up to them to stand together in the face of an unprecedented
crisis.
“My hope is that we reach an agreement and that the headline ...
tomorrow is that the EU has accomplished mission impossible,” the European
Council President said at their third dinner in a row at the Brussels
conference centre. “That is my heartfelt wish ... after three days of non-stop
work.”
The leaders are at odds over how to carve up a vast recovery fund
designed to help haul Europe out of its deepest recession since World War Two,
and what strings to attach for countries it would benefit.
The meeting was adjourned on Monday until 1400 CET (1200 GMT).
---- On the table is a 1.8-trillion-euro ($2.06-trillion) package for the EU’s next long-term budget and recovery fund.
The 750 billion euros proposed for the recovery fund would be raised on
behalf of them all on capital markets by the EU’s executive European
Commission, which would be a historic step towards greater integration, and
then funnelled mostly to hard-hit Mediterranean rim countries.
More
Finally,
today, treachery. President Donald Trump's former national security advisor flirts
with treason to promote his book and drag down President Trump.
Interview with John Bolton "Trump Is Capable of Almost Anything"
John
Bolton, 71, served as U.S. President Donald Trump's national security advisor
from 2018 to 2019. In a DER SPIEGEL interview, he speaks about Trump's
relationship with women leaders and the roots of his conflict with German
Chancellor Angela Merkel.
17.07.2020,
17.29 Uhr
DER
SPIEGEL: Mr. Bolton, Donald Trump had already begun
firing barbs at German Chancellor Angela Merkel back when he was still one of
many Republican candidates for president. Merkel's refugee policies, he said at
the time, had been a "disaster for Germany." Do we have the wrong
impression, or is Trump rather obsessed with the German chancellor?
Bolton: Trump's relationships with Chancellor Merkel and (former British
Prime Minister) Theresa May were two of the most difficult that I saw. I
think there's an element of increased difficulty with female foreign leaders.
But with Merkel, it's kind of complicated - the president's father was German,
so that might have something to do with it. But there are also political
reasons. U.S.-EU trade relations have been a major source of controversy
between the U.S. and Germany. Then there is the issue of support for NATO and
the agreement that each member state would spend 2 percent of GDP on defense,
which Germany is behind on.
DER SPIEGEL: Trump, though, has similar conflicts with a number of other world
leaders. Could it be that he simply has a problem with women?
Bolton: I do think that is a factor. But he has a problem with a lot of
democratically elected leaders, male or female. He seems to have better
relations with authoritarian figures than with many who are elected in
democratic countries.
DER SPIEGEL: How would you explain that?
Bolton: Part of Trump's difficulty with international affairs is his lack of
any philosophical basis. He has no philosophy. That was a complicating factor
across the board. I am a conservative Republican. He is not. But he's not a
liberal Democrat either. He tends to confuse personal relationships with
foreign leaders with the underlying bilateral relationship between the U.S. and
that country.
----DER SPIEGEL: Why does Trump show no interest in cooperation with America's long-time partners?
Bolton: There is a constant effort by political commentators in the U.S. and
Europe to understand Trump or to define a Trump Doctrine. Stop wasting your
time! There isn't any Trump Doctrine. The decision you get in the morning on an
issue could be different in the afternoon, largely dependent on political
considerations. He is primarily interested in his reelection.
More
There can be few fields of human endeavour in which history counts for so little as in the world of finance. Past experience, to the extent that it is part of memory at all, is dismissed as the primitive refuge of those who do not have the insight to appreciate the incredible wonders of the present.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Covid-19 Corner
This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Coronavirus latest: Australia’s Victoria state records 275 new cases; Japan’s local tourism campaign panned
·
A woman in her 80s is the 39th virus victim in
Victoria state, where a new surge could take ‘weeks’ to subside, a health
official says
·
In Japan, polls show most people don’t support
the Abe government’s plan to boost local travel as Covid-19 cases continue to
rise, particularly in Tokyo
Australia’s Victoria state on Monday reported 275 coronavirus new cases and
warned that it was too early to say if a lockdown across the city of Melbourne
was helping to slow the spread of the Covid-19 disease.
State Premier Daniel Andrews said a woman aged in her 80s had died from
the virus, bringing the state’s death toll to 39.
While the number of new infections was down from 363 cases reported on
Sunday, Andrews said it was too soon to say whether the state had “turned a
corner”.
Australia’s Melbourne city has made it compulsory for people to wear
face masks. Photo: AFPAustralia’s Victoria state on Monday reported 275 coronavirus new cases and
warned that it was too early to say if a lockdown across the city of Melbourne
was helping to slow the spread of the Covid-19 disease.
State Premier Daniel Andrews said a woman aged in her 80s had died from
the virus, bringing the state’s death toll to 39.
While the number of new infections was down from 363 cases reported on
Sunday, Andrews said it was too soon to say whether the state had “turned a
corner”.
The surge in cases in Victoria state could take “weeks” to subside
despite a lockdown and orders to wear masks in Melbourne, Australia’s Acting
Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said, as the country braces for a second wave
of infection.
“We have learned over time that the time between introducing a measure
and seeing its effect is at least two weeks and sometimes longer than that,”
Kelly told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio.
---- Meanwhile in Japan , most people are against
government plans to kick-start domestic tourism with a subsidised travel
campaign , according to newspaper surveys published on Monday, as fears
grow over the number of new coronavirus cases, particularly in Tokyo.
The results highlight growing concerns that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s US$16 billion
“Go
To” campaign, set to begin on Wednesday, could spread the virus to rural
parts of the country where medical systems are fragile.
WHO reports record daily increase in global coronavirus cases for second day in a row
19 July, 2020 06:20 am JST
GENEVA
The World Health Organization reported a record increase in global
coronavirus cases for the second day in a row, with the total rising by 259,848
in 24 hours.
The biggest increases reported on Saturday were from the United States,
Brazil, India and South Africa, according to a daily report. The previous WHO
record for new cases was 237,743 on Friday. Deaths rose by 7,360, the biggest
one-day increase since May 10. Deaths have been averaging 4,800 a day in July,
up slightly from an average of 4,600 a day in June.
Total global coronavirus cases surpassed 14 million on Friday, according
to a Reuters tally, marking another milestone in the spread of the disease that
has killed nearly 600,000 people in seven months. The surge means that 1
million cases were reported in under 100 hours.
The WHO reported 71,484 new cases in the United States, 45,403 in
Brazil, 34,884 in India and 13,373 in South Africa.
India on Friday became the third country in the world to record more
than 1 million cases of the new coronavirus, behind only the United States and
Brazil. Epidemiologists say India is still likely months from hitting its peak.
Cases in Brazil crossed the 2 million mark on Thursday, doubling in less
than a month and adding nearly 40,000 new cases a day. A patchwork of state and
city responses has held up poorly in Brazil in the absence of a tightly
coordinated policy from the federal government.
The United States, which leads with world with over 3.7 million cases,
has also tried to curb the outbreak at the state and local levels with only
limited success.
The Changing Virus
Scientists are suspiciously tracking every
change in SARS-CoV-2, with dangerous looking mutations regularly appearing. On
the long term, though, experts hope that the pathogen could prove less
aggressive.
By Philip Bethge •
15.07.2020, 11.20 Uhr
----The reason for the skepticism is simple: SARS-CoV-2 hasn’t had
enough time to change much. Although coronaviruses mutate constantly, they have
their own repair mechanism that allows them to eradicate harmful mutations.
Only about 15 mutations separate the genome of any of the currently
circulating SARS-CoV-2 viruses from the original Wuhan virus, therefore making
all SARS-CoV-2 viruses largely identical. There are no different types.
And there is an additional factor holding back the virus from rapidly
evolving new characteristics: So far, SARS-CoV-2 has been subject to very
little selection pressure. Things are going pretty well for the virus. The
pathogen can expect little resistance because very few people have developed
antibodies. "With immunity within the population still low, the virus can
find many easy targets,” says Michael Lässig, an evolutionary biologist from
the University of Cologne.
His research group is trying to predict the evolution of viruses using
mathematical models. "The mutation rate of SARS-CoV-2 is five to six times
lower than that of the flu virus,” says Lässig. It is a finding that offers a
glimmer of hope, because in competition with human antibodies, this level of
mutability is likely not sufficient. "At some point, the majority of
people will have developed immunity against the virus,” says Lässig. "If
the pathogen cannot significantly develop by that point, it will disappear
again or at least be severely curtailed.”
Targeting Mutations
Balloux and his team at University College London have classified the
mutations that have been discovered thus far. They identified around 200
mutations in the virus’ gene pool that occurred several times independently of
one another - an indication that they might offer an evolutionary advantage.
They include instructions for making four important viral proteins – including
one that is part of the spikes.
But Balloux says that it is still unclear how and if these mutations
affect the behavior of the virus. Many of the mini imperfections, he says, are
likely due to attacks from the human immune system as it tries to stop the
virus from multiplying.
Using the mutation rate, the experts have at least been able to
determine that the pandemic probably started between October 6 and December 11,
2019. This refutes speculation that the pandemic started last summer and was
kept secret by the Chinese government.
More
COVID-19 antibody test passes first major trials in UK with 98.6% accuracy - Telegraph
July 18, 2020 /
1:07 AM
(Reuters) - British ministers are making plans to distribute millions of
free coronavirus antibody tests after a version backed by the UK government
passed its first major trials, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on
Friday.
The fingerprick tests, which can tell within 20 minutes if a person has
ever been exposed to the coronavirus, were found to be 98.6% accurate in secret
human trials held in June, the newspaper reported.
It added the test was developed by the UK Rapid Test Consortium
(UK-RTC), a partnership between Oxford University and leading UK diagnostics
firms.
Britain’s only antibody tests approved thus far have involved blood
samples being sent to laboratories for analysis, which can take days, The
Telegraph said.
Anticipating a regulatory approval in the coming weeks, tens of
thousands of prototypes have already been manufactured in factories across the
United Kingdom, the report added.
Ministers are hoping that the AbC-19 lateral flow test will be available
for use in a mass screening programme before the end of the year, the newspaper
reported.
“It was found to be 98.6 per cent accurate, and that’s very good news,”
Chris Hand, the leader of the UK-RTC, was quoted as saying by The Telegraph.
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.
Low Cost Perovskite Solar Cells Breathing Down The Neck Of Coal, & Fossil Gas, Too
July 16th, 2020 by Tina Casey
----To put things in perspective, solar panels alone cost $300
per watt when the first commercial version hit the shelves in 1956, and
that was just for the panel. Installing them someplace cost extra.Now, 74 years later, solar panels cost as low as 50 cents per watt, and can you can pepper your whole roof with them for an average cost of less than $3.00 per watt, fully installed. That includes the solar panels and all the other hardware, and the grid connection and whatever permits apply, plus your installer’s costs for labor, marketing, administration and what-not.
At 50 cents per watt, one would think that solar cells can take a breather from becoming even more inexpensive. However, the “hard” cost of a solar installation still accounts for about 35% of the total.
Getting solar cells down to the cheapest level possible is still a brass ring worth reaching for in terms of where the R&D dollars are going.
So far, all of this cost-dropping action has taken place on the back of silicon technology. However, silicon is a difficult material to work with on the manufacturing side, and the finished product is stiff, heavy, and bulky.
That’s where perovskite solar comes in. Perovskite refers to a class of crystals that can be grown synthetically, involving relatively low costs. In addition, a perovskite solution can be sprayed or printed onto a thin, flexible, lightweight surface, which means that the manufacturing process can deploy roll-to-roll printing and other conventional, low cost methods.
This also means that perovskite solar cells can provide for a much broader range of applications including building integrated solar as well as the emerging field of vehicle integrated solar, among other uses.
If you know your perovskites, you know that perovskite technology still has some major hurdles to overcome. CleanTechnica has been following the perovskite stability issue, but we somehow missed the problem of size, and that’s where the latest research comes in.
As described by a team of scientists at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, so far the research efforts have focused on setting performance records at a scale of “much less” than one square centimeter. The solar cells lose efficiency at a larger scale.
So, the NTU team tried something different. Instead of using a conventional spin-coating method to fabricate their new perovksite solar cell, they deployed another coating method called thermal co-evaporation, which is commonly used in a wide range of products including organic LED televisions.
The result was a mini-module of 21 square centimeters with a conversion efficiency of 18.1%, a record-breaker at that scale according to NTU.
They also achieved 19% at the smaller scale of one square centimeter, and did even better at 20.28% for 0.16 of a square centimeter.
More
In the long run commodity prices are governed by one law – the
economic law of demand and supply.
Jesse Livermore.
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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