Baltic Dry Index. 1506 +05 Brent Crude 45.21
Spot Gold 2017
Coronavirus Cases 11/8/20 World 20,179,258
Deaths 737,850
Asian stocks shrug off Sino-U.S. tension to resume gains
August 10, 2020
/ 1:55 AM
SINGAPORE/BOSTON (Reuters) - Asian stock markets rose on
Tuesday on relief that another round of Sino-U.S. sparring appears not to have
spilled over into trade, while hopes for U.S. stimulus lent support to oil and
commodity currencies.MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was last up 1%. Japan's Nikkei .N225 returned from a holiday with a 1.7% gain led by healthcare and industrial stocks and the Hang Seng .HSI bounced 2.2%.
The risk-sensitive Australian and New Zealand dollars each lifted about 0.3%, although they sit comfortably below recent milestone peaks as some trepidation muted their rise.
Investors are awaiting a meeting between top U.S. and Chinese trade officials on Saturday to review the first six months of the Phase 1 trade deal.
With China lagging far behind on energy and farm goods purchases from the United States, it could test markets’ assumption that the trade relationship is insulated from crumbling diplomatic ties between the two nations.
Yet there was palpable relief on Tuesday that China’s sanctions on 11 U.S. citizens - a response to U.S. sanctions on Chinese individuals over Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong - seemed to shut off the latest round of tit-for-tat moves.
“It has left the White House untouched,” said Vishnu Varathan, head of economics at Mizuho Bank in Singapore.
“That gives some relief that China is still giving some priority to the (trade deal) dialogue,” he said. “It’s just the sense that you’re not rocking the boat to the point of capsizing, that is the low bar today.”
---- Overnight Wall Street found some support after Trump signed executive orders to partly restore unemployment benefits after talks between the White House and top Democrats about fresh stimulus broke down last week.
The Dow .DJI rose 1% and the S&P 500 .SPX inched ahead, while the Nasdaq .IXIC sold off a little as investors trimmed some tech holdings in favour of value stocks.
The S&P 500 now sits less than 1% below a record high hit in February, while in Asia the MSCI ex-Japan index is within 2% of a January all-time peak.
The moves have pushed valuations in Asia to precipitous highs, about 20%
above post financial crisis averages. But Nomura’s Jim McCafferty in Hong Kong
said the lofty levels are justified by an enormous shift in investor
preferences.
“The composition of stock market indices across the region has
dramatically changed,” he said. “Oil, telcos and banks used to dominate ... now
it is internet and tech.”
BoE to step up quantitative easing if economy slows again, deputy governor says - The Times
August 11, 2020
/ 4:20 AM
(Reuters) - The Bank of England will step up on quantitative easing (QE)
if the British economy slows and struggles again, Deputy Governor Dave Ramsden
said in an interview published on Tuesday, adding to his previous comments that
BoE has more headroom to act.
QE would accelerate if “we saw signs of (market) dysfunction,” Ramsden
told The Times newspaper in an interview.
“I’m confident we’ve still got significant headroom to do more QE if we
saw a much weaker recovery,” Ramsen said, adding that the central bank was
prepared to do more quantitative easing, beyond the 745 billion pounds
committed.
He added that he was “confident” there would be no further quarters of
negative growth for UK’s economy.
“A key outcome is what happens to the labour market. Some companies are
going to go under. Some jobs are going to be lost,” Ramsen said.
Last week, Britain’s central bank said it saw no immediate case to cut
interest rates below zero as it warned the economy would take longer to recover
from the COVID-19 slump than it previously forecast.
Railway Mania
Railway Mania was an instance of a stock market bubble in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in the 1840s. It followed a common pattern: as the price of railway shares increased, speculators invested more money, which further increased the price of railway shares, until the share price collapsed. The mania reached its zenith in 1846, when 272 Acts of Parliament setting up new railway companies were passed, with the proposed routes totaling 9,500 miles (15,300 km). About a third of the railways authorised were never built—the companies either collapsed due to poor financial planning, were bought out by larger competitors before they could build their line, or turned out to be fraudulent enterprises to channel investors' money into other businesses.More
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Financier Bernard Baruch credited the lessons he learned from Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds with his decision to sell all of his stock ahead of the Wall Street Crash of 1929.· Forbes magazine compared Mackay's descriptions of financial bubbles to the Chinese stock bubble of 2007, claiming that the "emotional feedback loop" that drove the Chinese market was very similar to what Mackay described.
"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."
Finally, how likely is this? It’s enough to drive the honest working man to drink. Buy now for Christmas, I suppose.
Senators urge U.S. to remove tariffs on EU foods, beverages
August 10, 2020 /
11:17 AM
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - A bipartisan group of 13 U.S. senators have asked the U.S. Trade
Representative’s Office (USTR) to remove 25% tariffs imposed in October 2019 on
European Union food, wine and spirits, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
The tariffs, in retaliation for EU subsidies on large aircraft, hit
French wine, Italian cheese and single-malt Scotch whisky, as well as cookies,
salami, yogurt, olives from France, EU-produced pork sausage and German coffee.
Seven Republican and six Democratic senators, including Robert Menendez,
John Barrasso, Cory Gardner, Susan Collins, Dianne Feinstein, Pat Toomey,
Kyrsten Sinema and Cory Booker said in a letter to USTR Friday that American
“restaurants, retailers, grocers, importers and distributors” are experiencing
“severe economic hardship due to the increased cost of goods.”
The senators noted “demand for these goods has declined, leaving
importers and distributors with months’ worth of product, much of it
perishable, in storage and in transit with no clear end date for the COVID-19
pandemic.”
USTR did not immediately comment.
Last month, Europe’s Airbus said it would increase loan repayments to
France and Spain in a “final” bid to reverse U.S. tariffs and jog the United
States into settling a 16-year-old dispute over billions of dollars of aircraft
subsidies.
The United States last year won World Trade Organization authorization
to impose tariffs on up to $7.5 billion of EU goods.
The U.S. Distilled Spirits Council last month urged ending EU and U.S.
beverage tariffs, saying drinks firms on both sides of the Atlantic “have
suffered enough.”
The group noted Scotch Whisky imports by the United States fell nearly
33% between October 2019 and May 2020, a $378 million decline over the same
period a year earlier.
The EU in a separate dispute imposed 25% tariffs on all U.S. whiskey
imports in June 2018. Since then, U.S. whiskey exports to the EU have fallen by
33%, or $300 million, the group said.
Trade groups are bracing for an escalation this autumn when the EU is
expected to win WTO approval to retaliate with its own tariffs over subsidies
for U.S. planemaker Boeing Co.
USTR announced in June it was considering imposing additional tariffs on
products from many EU countries including gin, vodka, beer, sparkling wine and
other whiskies.
“I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.”
Covid-19 Corner
Cases Top 20 Million; German Infections Rise: Virus Update
Bloomberg News
Updated on August 11, 2020, 6:26 AM GMT+1
Coronavirus infections topped 20 million, the latest
milestone as the pandemic wreaks havoc across the globe. While it took six
months after the virus first surfaced to reach 10 million infections, the
spread has steadily accelerated, doubling in six weeks.Cases are soaring in India, while nursing-home outbreaks are lifting death rates in Hong Kong and Australia. Germany’s new infections jumped back above 1,000.
In the U.S., which accounts for a quarter of all cases, hard-hit states including New York, California and Texas reported falling hospitalizations. Lawmakers remained in a stalemate for a stimulus plan, after President Donald Trump moved to implement scaled-down relief without congressional approval.
Key Developments
- Global Tracker: Global cases top 20 million; deaths pass 736,000
- Trump end run around Congress fails to jolt stalled relief talks
- Merck bets on one-shot vaccine in race with faster rivals
- Early signs of India economic recovery wane as virus surges
- How coronavirus and race collide in the U.S.: QuickTake
More
Tokyo reports 197 new virus infections; nationwide total tops 50,000
August 10, 2020 05:03 pm JST
The Tokyo metropolitan government on Monday reported 197
new cases of the novel coronavirus, down from the 331 infections confirmed the
previous day.It was the first time since July 27 that the figure had dropped below 200, officials said.
Of the total, 197, or 56%, are in their 20s and 30s.
Monday’s figure brings the cumulative total for Tokyo to 16,064.
Across Japan, 401 cases were reported, bringing the nationwide total to over 50,000, including about 700 from the Diamond Princess cruise ship that was quarantined in Yokohama in February.
Aichi Prefecture reported 100 new infections, Okinawa 52, Chiba 41, Hyogo 26 and Mie Prefecture 11.
In Tokyo, average daily new infections over the last seven days stood at 335.9, according to the city government, which has raised its own alert for the pandemic to the highest of four levels, meaning "infections are spreading."
Meanwhile, the number of patients in the capital with severe symptoms increased to 24 from 23 the previous day, according to the metropolitan government.
The city has requested residents to refrain from travel or returning to their hometowns for the Bon holiday season, in order to prevent the spread of the virus.
It has also requested karaoke venues and establishments serving alcohol to close by 10 p.m., which came into effect last week and will continue through the end of August.
Last week, the metropolitan government has raised its alert for the pandemic to the highest of four levels, meaning "infections are spreading." It has urged residents of Tokyo to avoid traveling or returning to their hometowns for this week's Obon holidays.
Spain defends pandemic response as case numbers overtake Britain
August 10, 2020
/ 7:27 PM
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain’s government
defended its response to the coronavirus pandemic on Monday after official data
showed the country had overtaken Britain to register the highest total number
of cases in Western Europe.
“Appropriate measures are being taken to control the pandemic in
coordination” with the regions, the government said in a statement, after
experts questioned its policies. “The data shows that we are being very active
in tracking and detecting the virus.”
Health ministry data showed 1,486 new cases were diagnosed in the past
day, bringing the cumulative total to 322,980, compared with 311,641 in
Britain.
The disease claimed 65 lives in Spain over the past seven days. More
than 28,000 people have died from the disease in Spain, while more than 46,000
have died in Britain.
---- In the first half of April, Spain was second only to the United States in total cases before reining in its soaring infection rate through a strict nationwide lockdown.
However, the virus has rebounded sharply since the state of emergency
was lifted six weeks ago, with average daily infections surging from 132 in
June to nearly 1,500 in the first 10 days of August.
More
“In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water
there is bacteria.”
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.
Wireless Charging Is a Disaster Waiting to Happen
We crunched the numbers on just how inefficient wireless charging is — and the results are pretty shocking
Eric Ravenscraft August 5, 2020
Wireless charging is increasingly common in modern smartphones, and
there’s even speculation that Apple might ditch charging via a cable entirely in the near future. But
the slight convenience of juicing up your phone by plopping it onto a pad
rather than plugging it in comes with a surprisingly robust environmental cost.
According to new calculations from OneZero and iFixit, wireless charging
is drastically less efficient than charging with a cord, so much so that the
widespread adoption of this technology could necessitate the construction of
dozens of new power plants around the world. (Unless manufacturers find other
ways to make up for the energy drain, of course.)
On paper, wireless charging sounds appealing. Just drop a phone
down on a charger and it will start charging. There’s no wear and tear on charging ports, and chargers can even be built into furniture.
Not all of the energy that comes out
of a wall outlet, however, ends up in a phone’s battery. Some of it gets lost
in the process as heat.
While this is true of all forms of charging to a certain extent,
wireless chargers lose a lot of energy compared to cables. They get even less
efficient when the coils in the phone aren’t aligned properly with the coils in
the charging pad, a surprisingly common problem.
To get a sense of how much extra power is lost when using wireless
charging versus wired charging in the real world, I tested a Pixel 4 using
multiple wireless chargers, as well as the standard charging cable that comes
with the phone. I used a high-precision power meter that sits between the
charging block and the power outlet to measure power consumption.
In my tests, I found that wireless charging used, on average,
around 47% more power than a cable.
Charging the phone from completely dead to 100% using a cable took
an average of 14.26 watt-hours (Wh). Using a wireless charger took, on average,
21.01 Wh. That comes out to slightly more than 47% more energy for the
convenience of not plugging in a cable. In other words, the phone had to work
harder, generate more heat, and suck up more energy when wirelessly charging to
fill the same size battery.
---- On top of this, both wireless chargers independently consumed
a small amount of power when no phone was charging at all — around 0.25 watts,
which might not sound like much, but over 24 hours it would consume around six
watt-hours. A household with multiple wireless chargers left plugged in — say,
a charger by the bed, one in the living room, and another in the office — could
waste the same amount of power in a day as it would take to fully charge a
phone. By contrast, in my testing the normal cable charger did not draw any
measurable amount of power.
While wireless charging might use relatively more power than a
cable, it’s often written off as negligible. The extra power consumed by
charging one phone with wireless charging versus a cable is the equivalent of
leaving one extra LED light bulb on for a few hours. It might not even register
on your power bill. At scale, however, it can turn into an environmental
problem.
“I think in terms of power consumption, for me worrying about how
much I’m paying for electricity,
I don’t think it’s a factor,” Kyle Wiens, CEO
of iFixit, told OneZero. “If all of a sudden, the 3 billion[-plus] smartphones that are in use, if all of them take 50%
more power to charge, that adds up to a big amount. So it’s a society-wide
issue, not a personal issue.”
More
“Never memorize something that you can look up.”
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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