Baltic Dry Index. 1501 +01 Brent Crude 44.84
Spot Gold 2030
Coronavirus Cases 10/8/20 World 19,953,629
Deaths 732,924
“Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.”
George Orwell. (Was he anticipating the Magic Money Tree?)
With Japan and
Singapore markets closed for holidays, Asian stock casinos are wobbly this
morning.
Better industrial
news out of China helped, but stock gamblers are nervous ahead of next weekend’s
US v China trade talks.
Will Re-election Team
Trump up the ante ahead of Saturday’s talks?
Will China retaliate
over TikToc?
Is it all moot
anyway, given China’s repressive actions in Hong Kong this morning? Will
President Trump cancel next weekend’s talks?
Will Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai be extradited to mainland
China for trial? Did President Xi just poke President Trump in the eye back?
Below, our new
trading week gets off to a very rocky political start.
Asian shares cautious as Sino-U.S. tensions weigh
August 10, 2020 /
1:55 AM
SYDNEY
(Reuters) - Asian stocks held tight ranges on Monday as worries over flaring
tensions between the United States and China weighed on sentiment although
signs of a recovery in industrial activity in the world’s second-largest
economy capped losses.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS see-sawed between red and green but held in small ranges to stay below a 6-1/2 month peak touched last week.
Trading was expected to be light with Japanese and Singaporean markets closed for public holidays.
Chinese shares started lower with the blue-chip CSI300 .CSI300 down a shade and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index .HSI falling 0.2%.
While deteriorating Sino-U.S. relations hung heavy on sentiment, data showing a slowing in China’s factory deflation boosted hopes of economic recovery in the world’s second biggest economy.
China’s industrial output is steadily returning to levels seen before the pandemic paralysed huge swathes of the economy, as pent-up demand, government stimulus and surprisingly resilient exports propel a recovery.
Investors were circumspect after U.S. President Donald Trump signed two executive orders banning WeChat, owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent (0700.HK), and TikTok in 45 days’ time while announcing sanctions on 11 Chinese and Hong Kong officials.
Rounding out the actions, U.S. regulators recommended that overseas firms listed on American exchanges be subject to U.S. public audit reviews from 2022.
“The bigger question for markets is whether these actions jeopardise the
U.S.-China trade talks on August 15 and markets will be looking closely for any
Chinese retaliation,” said Tapas Strickland, director of markets &
economics at National Australia Bank.
“The running assumption in markets has been President Trump needed the
phase one deal to succeed, as much as China, this side of the November
elections... At the same time President Trump is running a hard China line into
the elections,” Strickland added.
More
Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai arrested under security law, bearing out 'worst fears'
August 10, 2020 /
1:22 AM
HONG
KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai became the highest-profile
arrest under a new national security law on Monday, detained over suspected
collusion with foreign forces as scores of police searched the offices of his
Apple Daily newspaper.
Lai, 71, has been one of the most prominent democracy activists in the
Chinese-ruled city and an ardent critic of Beijing, which imposed the sweeping
new law on Hong Kong on June 30, drawing condemnation from Western countries.
His arrest comes amid Beijing’s crackdown against pro-democracy
opposition in the city and further stokes concerns about media and other
freedoms promised to the former British colony when it returned to China in
1997.
It “bears out the worst fears that Hong Kong’s National Security Law
would be used to suppress critical pro-democracy opinion and restrict press
freedom,” said Steven Butler, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Asia
programme coordinator. “Jimmy Lai should be released at once and any charges
dropped.”
Ryan Law, Apple Daily’s chief editor, told Reuters the paper would not
intimidated by the raid.
---- The new security law punishes anything China considers subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison. Critics say it crushes freedoms, while supporters say it will bring stability after prolonged pro-democracy protests last year.
Lai had been a frequent visitor to Washington, where he has met senior
officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to rally support for Hong
Kong democracy, prompting Beijing to label him a “traitor”.
Hong Kong police said they had arrested seven men, aged 39-72, on suspicion
of breaching the new security law, without naming them, adding that further
arrests were possible.
Apple Daily, which posted on its Facebook page a livestream of dozens of
police officers entering its premises, reported Lai was taken away from his
home early on Monday. The paper said one of Lai’s sons, Ian, was also arrested
at his home.
More
Trump’s WeChat Ban Brings Cold War With China Into a Billion Homes
August
7, 2020, 2:30 PM GMT+1 Updated on August 7, 2020, 9:04 PM GMT+1
With the stroke of a pen, Donald Trump made his strategic fight with
China hit home for potentially billions of people -- generating confusion,
panic and fear around the globe.
The U.S. president’s move to ban the Chinese-owned TikTok and WeChat in
just over six weeks from now sent shockwaves through the tech industry and the
many American businesses who rely on the apps to sell goods in China.
The
decision also spurred alarm on Chinese social media, with WeChat users in the
U.S. posting contact information so friends and family could reach them if the
app disappeared. An online forum popular with stock investors asked users if
they would give up their iPhones or WeChat if Apple Inc.
eliminated the app from its store: They voted to ditch their phones by a margin
of 20 to one.
Of
all Trump’s shots against China, from imposing tariffs to battling Huawei
Technologies Co. to ending Hong Kong’s special trading status, the executive
orders against TikTok and WeChat potentially have the widest impact. Beyond the
financial blow, they threaten to sever communication links among the people of
the world’s biggest economies in addition to spurring a decoupling of the tech
industry that could ripple around the world.
“This move points to a hegemonic war -- the U.S. is trying to suppress
China’s rise as a super power,” said Yik Chan Chin, who researches global media
and communications policy at the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou.
“All these things will leave a bad impression in China, and the tide of
nationalism is already very high right now.”
It’s
hard to overstate how ingrained WeChat and Tencent are in China and among its
diaspora: WeChat, which has more than 1 billion users and is owned by Tencent
Holdings Ltd., is relied upon so heavily that many
people have never exchanged phone numbers or emails. From Wal-Mart Inc. and
Starbucks Corp. to the NBA and Nike Inc., nearly every major American consumer
brand with business in China is deeply intertwined with Tencent and its
network, which includes WeChat and investee JD.com.
Jason Gui, co-founder of San Francisco-based startup Vue Smart Glasses,
said his team has to rely on WeChat to communicate with suppliers in China and
a ban would be very “disruptive.” Emails sent to manufacturers in China are
often unanswered for days, whereas inquiries through WeChat will get immediate
attention, he said.
“When the U.S. imposes these bans, they may not realize how intertwined
the relationships between U.S. and China have become,” he said. “Our
communication lifeline with China depends on WeChat. It hurts small businesses
that have limited resources to figure out how to circumvent these bans.”
----Trump’s
administration has stepped up its campaign against China in recent weeks,
betting that a hard line against Beijing will help him win November’s election
despite upsetting millions of younger TikTok users. The U.S. also announced on
Friday it is placing sanctions on 11 Chinese officials and their allies in Hong
Kong, including Chief Executive Carrie Lam, over their role in curtailing
political freedoms in the former U.K. colony.
More
In other news, is the
US still recovering at all? More trouble in planes for Warren Buffett.
From Bourbon Street to Food Banks, Signs of a Slow U.S. Recovery
Brendan Murray and Andre Tartar August 8, 2020
(Bloomberg)
-- What exactly does the Mall of America, with enough space for nine Yankee
Stadiums, look like without throngs of Midwestern shoppers? Or Bourbon Street
in New Orleans free of revelers? Or breadlines in the teeth of an economic
meltdown?
These are the kinds of questions the 2020 pandemic raises about hubs of tourism and consumer spending, particularly those built on models that need big crowds.
So Bloomberg News teamed up with Orbital Insight, a California-based company that uses satellites, drones, balloons and mobile-phone geolocation data to track what’s happening on the ground. (Orbital has received funding in the past from Bloomberg Beta, a venture-capital unit of Bloomberg LP.)
By counting phone signals in 15 designated areas each day for the past three months, the data offer a way to see how many people are returning to where they eat, play and spend money — at mega malls, upscale retail streets and nightlife hotspots. Golf courses are humming again, but so are the nation’s non-profit food banks, underscoring the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
The picture that emerges is not of a V-shaped recovery, but of an economy that’s being reshaped, taking its time to heal and threatening to leave permanent scars.
Months
of home confinement have left many Americans itching for a night out at the
bars, or maybe a getaway to one of those cities where whatever happens there
stays there.
Such
is the allure of Las Vegas, Nashville and New Orleans. But pedestrian traffic
in the main nightlife districts in the three cities ranges from just 15% to 44%
of year-earlier levels, according to Orbital’s phone tracking data.
----
Local businesses are trying to adapt, with more social-media promotions and
online shopping options, she said. But the current dearth of tourists might be
the eye of a harsher storm. A pressing question is whether conventions will
descend on New Orleans like usual this autumn. That’s when many shops and
restaurants will have to decide whether to continue or to close, given the
looming expiration of government aid and rent-abatement periods.
---- At the other end of America’s economic strata are those who find themselves without enough money to eat. In March, nearly 200 U.S. food banks suddenly became lifelines to the thousands who never needed such assistance.
According to Lee Lauren Truesdale, chief development officer at The
Foodbank Inc. near Dayton, Ohio, February was fairly normal with almost 2,350
people served. In March, that number doubled and the National Guard arrived
late in the month to help with distribution. In April, nearly 8,700 people
received its emergency food assistance with the help of two off-site
distributions in a university parking lot nearby.
An even bigger influx occurred at the Weld Food Bank in Greeley,
Colorado, where strong demand appeared to be sustained through July, according
to the mobile-phone data.
At the Food Bank of Siouxland in Iowa, Orbital’s data
didn’t capture the jump in demand, but only because it doesn’t have a
distribution pantry at its address where phone activity was measured and staff
started working from home, according to Valerie Petersen, the depot's
development director. Siouxland gave away more than 300,000 pounds of food per
month from March through June, breaking earlier records, and 46% more in July
than a year earlier.
More
Coronavirus punishes Warren Buffett as Berkshire Hathaway takes big writedown
August 8, 2020 /
1:25 PM
(Reuters)
- Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N)
on Saturday announced a $9.8 billion writedown and 10,000 job losses at its
Precision Castparts aircraft parts unit, as the coronavirus pandemic caused
widespread pain at Warren Buffett’s conglomerate.
Despite the writedown, Berkshire said second-quarter net income surged 87% because of gains in stock investments such as Apple Inc (AAPL.O) as markets rebounded.
Operating profit fell 10%, cushioned by a temporary bump at the Geico auto insurer, as the pandemic caused “relatively minor to severe” damage to most of Berkshire’s more than 90 operating businesses.
“The writedown was prudent,” said Cathy Seifert, an equity analyst at CFRA Research. “It’s a recognition of what the market has long believed, that the purchase price was rich, and the integration not as smooth as many would have hoped.”
Berkshire, which paid $32.1 billion for Precision in 2016 in its largest acquisition, and which Buffett at the time called a steep price, said COVID-19 caused airlines to slash plane orders, significantly curbing demand for Precision’s products.
Buffett himself soured on airlines during the quarter, selling $6 billion of their stock and telling shareholders on May 2 the industry’s future had become “much less clear to me.”
Berkshire said Precision, which also makes industrial parts, saw revenue fall by one-third and plans an “aggressive restructuring” to shrink operations. Precision ended 2019 with 33,417 employees, and has shed 30% of its workforce.
More
Scars Inflicted on Travel Are Looking Permanent
According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, one in 10 workers worldwide, or 330 million in all, owed their jobs to the travel and tourism industry. In the five years through 2019, the sector was responsible for one in five of jobs created globally.
But that was the economy we once knew. Now, this massive engine of growth has been thrown into reverse as Covid-19 continues to ping-pong around the globe. And unlike after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the scars inflicted on travel and tourism look to be permanent as companies shift away from massive travel budgets and experiential living becomes a memory. The monthly U.S. employment report on Friday made clear that many of those jobs aren’t coming back anytime soon — if ever.
The former strength of the travel and leisure sector can be tied to a confluence of demographic and economic factors. Income inequality concentrated record levels of wealth in a small coterie of financiers and corporations that spent freely on leisure and business travel. At the same time, Baby Boomers started to retire in droves and hordes of Millennials sought lifestyles that embraced travel. Tack onto these drivers the emergence of China’s burgeoning middle class, which was eager to see the world beyond the mainland.
The massive pullback in business travel is apt to inflict the deepest economic pain. Airline and hotel business models have been designed around the steadfast and relatively price agnostic expense-account traveler. One way to illustrate this is via the $489 billion commercial mortgage backed securities market. As of March, the lodging sector accounted for $86 billion of the outstanding securities, with California and Florida each accounting for 10% of the total, according to research firm Trepp. More than half of these loans backs full-service properties, reflecting the push into high-end properties that catered to well-heeled and businesses travelers.
More
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/scars-inflicted-on-travel-are-looking-permanent/ar-BB17KrSa
I've always won, and I'm going to continue to win. And that's
the way it is.
Donald Trump
Covid-19 Corner
Australia borders to stay shut as COVID-19 daily deaths reach record
August 10, 2020 /
12:47 AM
SYDNEY
(Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said internal border
closures were unlikely to lift before Christmas, as the country on Monday
reported a record single day rise in COVID-19 deaths.
There was, however, some evidence that drastic lockdown measures in the
city of Melbourne were having an effect, with daily new infections in the state
of Victoria slowing to a near two week low.
“I am more hopeful of that today than I was in the course of the past
week,” Morrison told reporters in Canberra, as he called on state leaders to
cooperate to allow stranded residents to return home.
Australia’s federal political system has led to its eight states and
territories taking different measures in response to the crisis, resulting in
several internal border closures.
Victoria state, which is home to Melbourne, the country’s second biggest
city and the epicentre of its second coronavirus wave, reported 19 people had
died from the virus over the past 24 hours. With some other states still to
report daily new case and death numbers, that already marks the country’s
biggest single day rise in fatalities.
However, Victoria officials also reported 322 new coronavirus cases in
the last 24 hours, the lowest single day rise in new infections since July 29.
Melbourne, home to nearly 5 million people, has been in lockdown since
early July, with people largely confined to their homes and business shuttered.
State Premier Daniel Andrews said on Monday he understood frustrations
but declined to put an end date on the lockdown.
More
COVID-19: Japan records highest single-day number of cases
Aug. 8, 2020 /
9:37 AM
Aug. 8 (UPI) -- Japan has hit a new daily record of coronavirus cases.The country reported 1,601 cases of COVID-19 Friday, the highest number since the pandemic began, the country's Ministry of Health said.
It's also the fourth-consecutive day that Japan has recorded more than 1,000 cases.
Urban areas were especially hard hit. The Japanese capital of Tokyo reported 462 new cases Friday, surpassing 400 for the second day in a row. And Osaka, Japan's second-largest metropolitan area recorded a daily high of 255 cases.
In response to rising cases, prefecture governors have asked citizens to avoid travel over Japan's summer holiday season, which started Saturday.
On Thursday, Japan commemorated the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing at Hiroshima with a scaled-down ceremony and face masks due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Japanese restaurant chain, Saizeriya, said Friday that it developed a face mask to be used while eating and drinking.
Japan has reported 47,324 cases and 1,042 deaths since the pandemic began, according to the Johns Hopkins University global tracker.
South Korea has also seen a new high in cases with health authorities reporting the highest level of new cases in more than two weeks Saturday.
The new cases were reported in South Korea's capital of Seoul and nearby regions.
The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 43 new cases over the past 24 hours, including 30 local cases and 13 imported cases.
Sixteen of the local cases have been linked to a church in Going City, Gyeonggi province, Kwon Joon-wook, vice director of South Korea's CDC, said in a briefing.
Kwon added that this is the second church in Going City linked to new infections.
A separate church in the same city previously reported 18 infections, he said.
To date, South Korea has reported 14,562 cases and 304 deaths.
Germany has also seen a spike.
The country reported 1,122 new cases Friday, marking the third day in a row that over 1,000 new COVID-19 cases were recorded.
Germany also reported 12 new deaths Friday, which has brought Germany's total death toll from the pandemic to 9,200, according to the global tracker.
Government officials have responded to the spike by calling for people to strictly adhere to COVID-19 safety measures and calling for expansion of testing.
More
China reports 49 new coronavirus cases in mainland on August 9
August 10, 2020
/ 1:27 AM
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China reported on Monday 49 new coronavirus cases
in the mainland for August 9, compared with 23 cases a day earlier, the health
authority said.
The National Health Commission said in a statement 35 of the new
infections were imported cases. There were no new deaths.
China also reported 31 new asymptomatic patients, compared with 11 a day
earlier.
As of August 9, mainland China had a total of 84,668 confirmed
coronavirus cases, it said.
China’s death toll from the coronavirus remained unchanged at 4,634.
Cutting Corners in the Race for a Vaccine
Russia, China and India are racing to find
a coronavirus vaccine. But international standards are not always being
respected. Some researchers have even tested their remedies on themselves.
By Alexander Chernyshev, Wu Dandan, Georg Fahrion, Christina Hebel, Laura Höflinger und Bernhard Zand
07.08.2020,
18.04 Uhr
When
Alexander Ginzburg injected himself with the vaccine he developed, he hadn't
even begun testing the substance on monkeys. That was four months ago, and
Ginzburg, a microbiologist and director of the state-owned Gamaleya Institute
in Moscow, says he is still feeling just fine. One hundred institute employees
also agreed to be vaccinated. And all are still healthy.
Ginzburg is working on what is called a vector vaccine, which involves
introducing genetic material from the SARS-CoV-2 virus into a harmless carrier
virus in order to trigger the human immune system to produce antibodies. The
68-year-old Ginzburg isn't particularly interested in the risks associated with
injecting a substance that is still in development. "I want to protect
myself and my employees," he says, claiming that his vaccine is both safe
and effective. After all, he says, he's already developed a vaccine on one
other occasion.
The Russian government is hoping to approve Ginzburg's vaccine as
rapidly as possible, with Health Ministry officials saying that a decision
could be made in the next several days. And if it is approved, Russian doctors
and teachers are to be injected first. It is unclear whether they will have a
choice.
Russia, though, isn't alone. It's just one of many examples showing how
the race for a COVID-19 vaccine continues to accelerate -- fueled in part by
autocratic countries like Russia and China, which aren't always so fastidious
when it comes to medical and ethical standards. A research breakthrough would
mean that Moscow and Beijing would be able to protect their populations more
quickly and reopen their economies earlier than their rivals. A vaccine
wouldn't just represent an advance in the fight against the virus, it would
also translate into power, prestige and money, since the rest of the world
would be clamoring to buy the remedy.
At
the same time, the premature introduction of a vaccine that isn't ready for
primetime can have grave consequences. Politicians must be aware that rapidly
developing a vaccine isn't their only challenge, they must also convince the
populace that the vaccine is safe, says Chandrakant Lahariya, an epidemiologist
from India. Late-developing side effects could lead to a situation where
"trust doesn't just sink in this vaccine, but in all others developed
around the world."
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.
Spacetime wave packets: New class of laser defies laws of light physics
August
06, 2020
Scientists
have created a new class of laser beam that appears to violate long-held laws
of light physics. These new beams, which the team calls “spacetime wave
packets,” follow different rules of refraction, which could lead to new
communication technologies.
Light
travels at different speeds through different media, slowing down in denser
materials. It’s a phenomenon that’s best summed up in a basic, middle-school
science experiment: if you place a spoon in a glass of water, the spoon will
appear to be broken at the water’s surface. That’s because the light is
travelling slower through the water than the air, and the light rays bend as
they enter the water – a phenomenon known as Snell’s Law.
But the new laser beams don’t follow this basic law of light. And
it’s not just Snell’s Law either – the team says they also ignore Fermat’s
Principle, which says that light always takes the shortest possible path.
“This new class of laser beams has unique properties that are not shared
by common laser beams,” says Ayman Abouraddy, principal investigator of the
study. “Spacetime wave packets can be arranged to behave in the usual manner,
to not change speed at all, or even to anomalously speed up in denser
materials. As such, these pulses of light can arrive at different points
This has some major implications for optical communications
technologies. The team uses the example of a plane sending messages encoded in
light to two submarines, at the same depth but different distances away.
Normally, the message would arrive at the closer sub first, but with spacetime
wave packets the pulses could be propagated to reach both at the exact same
time.
While it may sound like this technology is contradicting some key laws
of physics, the team stresses that it’s actually still in line with special relativity.
That’s because they’re not messing with the oscillations of the light waves
themselves – instead, they’re controlling the speeds at which the peaks of the
light pulses travel. This is done using a device called a spatial light
modulator, which reorganizes the energy of each pulse of light to intertwine
its properties in space and time.
“Space-time refraction defies our expectations derived from Fermat’s
principle and offers new opportunities for molding the flow of light and other
wave phenomena,” says Basanta Bhaduri, co-author of the study.
You
know the funny thing, I don't get along with rich people. I get along with the
middle class and the poor people better than I get along with the rich people.
Donald Trump
The Monthly Coppock Indicators finished July
DJIA: 26,428 -1 Up. NASDAQ: 10,745 +243 Up. SP500:
3,271 +89 Up.
The NASDAQ
has remained up. The DJIA and SP500 have turned up. With stock mania running
fueled by trillions of central bankster new fiat money programs, I would not
rely on the indicators.
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