Baltic Dry Index. 1385 +35 Brent Crude 43.81
Spot Gold 1975
Coronavirus Cases 4/8/20 World 18,377,139
Deaths 695,631
To infinity and beyond.
Fed Chairman Powell.
In the casinos, all news is still good news (for now.)
Things are so good in the US economy, the Fedsters are begging US politicians
to get with the central bankster print-spend, print-spend, print-spend to
infinity program.
It’s an old trick and it just might work, but for how
long, and at what cost? We will all get rich by taking in each others laundry,
and paying people to fill in the holes we paid other people to dig. How long
did this work for the USSR, Zimbabwe, Venezuela?
Also, ignore the fact that the global Covid-19 crisis has
gone completely out of control, and now we have discovered that “recovery” for many
isn’t really recovery in any meaningful sense.
Below, the new “capitalism.”
Asia stocks rise as upbeat factory data lifts confidence
August 4, 2020 /
12:33 AM
TOKYO/WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - Asian shares rose on Tuesday after strong U.S. manufacturing data
and gains in tech stocks helped investors look past broader worries about the
coronavirus and global economy.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.9%, while shares in China .CSI300 nudged up 0.1%. Australian stocks gained 2% for the biggest intraday gain since July 21. Tokyo shares .N225 also jumped by more than 1%.
Oil futures gave up their overnight gains and fell in Asia due to nagging worries about an increase in the supply of crude. U.S. stock futures were 0.02% higher in Asia.
An industry gauge released overnight indicated U.S. manufacturing activity expanded in July at the fastest pace in more than a year, which helped Wall Street shares rise on Monday.
However, some investors remain cautious due to worries about a resurgence of the coronavirus and a diplomatic tussle over Chinese tech companies’ operations in the United States.
“It has been an upbeat U.S. trading session and Asia will absorb the leads accordingly,” Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone, said in a market note.
On Monday the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 0.89%, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 0.72%, and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC advanced 1.47% to set a record closing high as investors cheered the manufacturing data.
That data also caused the U.S. Treasury curve to steepen, an indication of improved investor sentiment.
U.S. stocks received an additional lift from Microsoft (MSFT.O), which jumped 5.6% after it formally declared interest in buying the U.S. operations of TikTok, a popular video-sharing app owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance.
More
Fed policymakers call for fiscal support to save U.S. economy
August 3, 2020 /
2:04 PM
(Reuters) - The
U.S. economy, battered by a resurgence in the spread of COVID-19, needs
increased government spending to tide over households and businesses and
broader use of masks to better control the virus, U.S. central bankers said on
Monday.
The calls for increased government intervention came as U.S. lawmakers
and the White House resumed talks on a new government relief package, including
a possible extension of unemployment benefits that expired on Friday.
“The ball is in Congress’ court,” Chicago Fed President Charles Evans
told reporters on a call. “Fiscal policy is fundamental to a better baseline
outlook, to a stronger recovery and getting the unemployment rate down, people
back to work safely, and ultimately reopening the schools safely.”
Without more government aid, Evans said, “aggregate demand trouble is
brewing.” Translated for non-economists: people could stop spending and the
bottom could really fall out of the economy.
Or, as Richmond
Fed President Thomas Barkin put it, “quickly pulling away the support that
consumers and businesses are receiving would be a pretty traumatic move for
what’s happening in the economy.”
More
A Q&A with David Rosenberg: Pandemic economy calls for discipline and patience
Ian Brown August 2 2020
---- The stock market isn’t taking any notice of that.
This is a flash-in-the-pan bear market rally. And actually, it’s a rally that’s been concentrated in a handful of growth stocks, megacap stocks. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of a bull market when you have financials, consumer services and industrials still in bear markets. The small-cap stocks are in a bear markets. The transports are in a bear market. The bull market is largely concentrated in health care stocks, on these vaccine hopes. And you’ve got a bull market in technology companies that are disguised as utilities: Amazon or Microsoft or Alphabet.But it's the most narrowly based rally of all time. And I don't think it has a lot of legs. The parts that you like, which are technology and delivery service and the growth stocks, which have great business models, are trading at nosebleed multiples, and are too expensive. And the stuff that's cheap, the value trade, is cheap because they have no earnings visibility. So I think that you want to be disciplined and you want to exercise tremendous patience. And I know that it must take incredible resolve not to join the herd. But there are times where you don't want to join the herd. This market, right now, is in the process of rolling over.
Have you seen anything in the pandemic that gives you comfort?
When you really think about it, society is hanging on by a thread. And the thread is called massive government deficits. We’re hanging on here because the government is borrowing record amounts of money that’s been largely financed from the central banks to pay people not to work. It’s necessary, but that’s really where the story is. There’s no way you can live with this situation. The glue holding the system together is the fact that unskilled, uneducated people laid off from their jobs were deemed to be non-essential. We learned how much of the economy turns out to be non-essential.What do you mean by non-essential?
Well, the government decided who was going to stay open and who was going to be locked down. So a bar, non-essential. Restaurant, non-essential. Movie theatre, non-essential. There were some parts of the production sector that were essential. The medical sector, some stores. It was really quite subjective. I never realized so much of the economy was non-essential. And that’s because we really built an economy that has hinged on conspicuous consumption. And I would say it’s probably even more acute in the United States.The question is, how long can this go on? Our social stability really comes down to these massive fiscal deficits down the road. These will have to somehow get repaid. The whole future of taxation and spending is going to have to go through multiple reviews.
And we’ve just scratched the surface of what this recession is looking like. And it has been muted, because the government has doled out so much money, the way they measure income in the national accounts is actually running stronger now than it was before COVID appeared. Look at the United States, because we have up-to-date numbers. In the United States, personal income is up 12 per cent so far this year, even though wages and salaries are down 17 per cent.
How is income up 12 per cent? Because government transfers to the personal sector have ballooned 230 per cent. It’s no different in Canada. The government is creating income by borrowing money and transferring it to the personal sector. Will the cupboard ever get bare? What if it does?
More
Elsewhere, some
better news but…
Strain on global manufacturing eases as euro zone returns to growth
August 3, 2020 /
4:03 AM
LONDON/TOKYO
(Reuters) - Euro zone manufacturing activity expanded modestly last month, its
first growth since early 2019, and Asia’s pain eased as the contraction slowed
in export-reliant nations, adding to hopes the sector is emerging from the hit
of the coronavirus pandemic.
Just over 18 million people have been infected by the coronavirus and
the hit from lockdowns and social distancing policies to contain its spread
have had a devastating impact on global growth and pushed many economies into
recession.
With still-rising coronavirus infections - and the risk of renewed
lockdowns increasing - the chances of any rebound reversing course have risen
and the world economic outlook has dimmed again, according to Reuters polls of
over 500 economists globally.
Still, while the euro zone economy contracted a record 12.1% last
quarter, a Reuters poll predicted 8.1% growth during the current one.
Factories appear to be playing their part in the bloc’s potential
recovery, and IHS Markit’s final Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index
bounced to 51.8 in July for the euro zone from June’s 47.4 - its first time
above the 50 mark separating growth from contraction since January 2019.
“It’s positive, they are going in the right direction. But the very fact
most of the European numbers are in the low 50s suggests there is an awful long
way to go,” said Peter Dixon at Commerzbank.
More
Spain's international tourist arrivals drop 98% in June
August 3, 2020 /
9:26 AM
MADRID (Reuters) - International tourist arrivals to Spain fell 98% year
on year in June, official statistics released on Monday showed, as the country
continues to reel from the effects of the global coronavirus pandemic.
Over the first six months of the year some 10.8 million foreign tourists
visited Spain, around 72% less than in the same period of 2019, the National
Statistics Institute said.
Aircraft engine maker MTU posts 73.9% drop in second-quarter net income
August 3, 2020 /
7:35 AM
BERLIN (Reuters) - German aircraft engine maker MTU Aero
Engines (MTXGn.DE) on
Monday reported a 73.9% drop in second-quarter adjusted net income and a 30.2%
fall in revenue citing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) fell by 76.2% to 42.4 million euros (38.14 million pounds).
The company on Friday published a new forecast for 2020 calling for revenue of between 4 billion and 4.4 billion euros.
Finally, new long-term
healthcare opportunities opening? But at what cost, and who pays?
Long-term complications of COVID-19 signals billions in healthcare costs ahead
August 3, 2020 /
12:08 PM
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Late in March, Laura Gross, 72, was recovering from
gall bladder surgery in her Fort Lee, New Jersey, home when she became sick
again.
Her throat, head and eyes hurt, her muscles and joints ached and she
felt like she was in a fog. Her diagnosis was COVID-19. Four months later,
these symptoms remain.
Gross sees a primary care doctor and specialists including a
cardiologist, pulmonologist, endocrinologist, neurologist, and
gastroenterologist.
“I’ve had a headache since April. I’ve never stopped running a low-grade
temperature,” she said.
Studies of COVID-19 patients keep uncovering new complications
associated with the disease.
With mounting evidence that some COVID-19 survivors face months, or
possibly years, of debilitating complications, healthcare experts are beginning
to study possible long-term costs.
Bruce Lee of the City University of New York (CUNY) Public School of
Health estimated that if 20% of the U.S. population contracts the virus, the
one-year post-hospitalization costs would be at least $50 billion, before
factoring in longer-term care for lingering health problems. Without a vaccine,
if 80% of the population became infected, that cost would balloon to $204
billion.
Some countries hit hard by the new coronavirus - including the United
States, Britain and Italy - are considering whether these long-term effects can
be considered a “post-COVID syndrome,” according to Reuters interviews with
about a dozen doctors and health economists.
Some U.S. and Italian hospitals have created centers devoted to the care
of these patients and are standardizing follow-up measures.
Britain’s Department of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention are each leading national studies of COVID-19’s long-term
impacts. An international panel of doctors will suggest standards for mid- and
long-term care of recovered patients to the World Health Organization (WHO) in
August.
---- They stem from COVID-19’s toll on multiple organs, including heart, lung and kidney damage that will likely require costly care, such as regular scans and ultrasounds, as well as neurological deficits that are not yet fully understood.
A JAMA Cardiology study found that in one group of COVID-19 patients in
Germany aged 45 to 53, more than 75% suffered from heart inflammation, raising
the possibility of future heart failure.
A Kidney International study found that over a third of COVID-19
patients in a New York medical system developed acute kidney injury, and nearly
15% required dialysis.
More
Some COVID-19 survivors suffer psychiatric disorders, Italian study says
by Reuters Monday, 3 August 2020 15:38 GMT
MILAN, Aug 3 (Reuters) - COVID-19 survivors suffer higher rates of
psychiatric disorders including post-traumatic stress (PTSD), anxiety, insomnia
and depression, according to a study conducted by San Raffaele hospital in
Milan on Monday.
The survey showed that more than half of the 402 patients monitored
after being treated for the virus experienced at least one of these disorders
in proportion to the severity of the inflammation during the disease.
The patients - 265 men and 137 women - were examined at a one-month
follow-up after hospital treatment.
"It was immediately clear that the inflammation caused by the
disease could also have repercussions at the psychiatric level," said
professor Francesco Benedetti, group leader of the Research Unit in Psychiatry
and Clinical Psychobiology at San Raffaele, in a statement.
The report was published on Monday in the scientific journal Brain,
Behavior and Immunity.
Based on clinical interviews and self-assessment questionnaires,
physicians found PTSD in 28% of cases, depression in 31%, anxiety in 42% of
patients and insomnia in 40%, and finally obsessive-compulsive symptoms in 20%.
The study shows that women in particular suffered the most from anxiety
and depression, despite the lower severity of the infection, the statement
said.
"We hypothesise that this may be due to the different functioning
of the immune system," said Professor Benedetti.
Finally, less serious psychiatric repercussions have been found in
hospitalised patients than in outpatients.
More
Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult
problem.
Henry Kissinger
Covid-19 Corner
This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Australian state to deploy military, impose hefty fines to enforce COVID-19 isolation
August 4, 2020 /
2:59 AM
SYDNEY
(Reuters) - Australia’s second-most populous state Victoria said on Tuesday
military personnel will be deployed to enforce COVID-19 isolation orders, with
anyone caught in breach of those rules facing hefty fines as high as A$20,000
(10,899.50 pounds).
Australia, once heralded as a global leader in containing COVID-19, is
desperately trying to slow the spread of the virus in Victoria to prevent a
national second wave of infections.
Victoria earlier this week imposed a night curfew, tightened restrictions
on people’s daily movements and ordered large parts of the local economy to
close to slow the spread of coronavirus.
But nearly a third of those who contracted COVID-19 were not home
isolating when checked on by officials, requiring tough new penalties, Victoria
state Premier Daniel Andrews said on Tuesday.
Andrews said 500 military personnel will this week deploy to Victoria to
bolster enforcement of self-isolation orders, with fines of nearly A$5,000
($3,559.00) for breaching stay at home orders. The only exemption will be for
urgent medical care.
“There is literally no reason for you to leave your home and if you were
to leave your home and not be found there, you will have a very difficult time
convincing Victoria police that you have a lawful reason,” Andrews told
reporters in Melbourne.
Repeat offenders face a fine of up to A$20,000, he said.
More
They may never be a 'silver bullet' for COVID-19, WHO warns
August 3, 2020 /
11:58 AM
GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization warned on Monday that,
despite strong hopes for a vaccine, there might never be a “silver bullet” for
COVID-19, and the road to normality would be long.
More than 18.14 million people around the world are reported to have
been infected with the disease and 688,080 have died, according to a Reuters
tally. [nL4N2AY3AS]
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and WHO emergencies head
Mike Ryan exhorted all nations to rigorously enforce health measures such as
mask-wearing, social distancing, hand-washing and testing.
“The message to people and governments is clear: ‘Do it all’,” Tedros
told a virtual news briefing from the U.N. body’s headquarters in Geneva. He
said face masks should become a symbol of solidarity round the world.
“A number of vaccines are now in phase three clinical trials and we all
hope to have a number of effective vaccines that can help prevent people from
infection. However, there’s no silver bullet at the moment - and there might
never be.”
Ryan said countries with high transmission rates, including Brazil and
India, needed to brace for a big battle: “The way out is long and requires a
sustained commitment.”
The WHO officials said an advance investigative team in China, where the
virus originated, was not yet back.
A larger, WHO-led team of Chinese and international experts is planned
next to study the origins of the virus in the city of Wuhan, although the
timing and composition of that is not yet clear.
Vietnam virus outbreak hits factories employing thousands in Danang epicentre
August 3, 2020 /
7:03 AM
HANOI
(Reuters) - The coronavirus outbreak that began in the central city of Danang
more than a week ago has spread to at least four factories in the city with a
combined workforce of around 3,700, state media reported on Monday.
Four
cases were found at the plants located at different industrial parks in the
central city which collectively employ 77,000 people, the Lao Dong newspaper
said.
Vietnam, praised widely for its decisive measures to combat COVID-19
since it first arrived in late January, is battling a new wave of the virus
having gone more than three months without domestic transmission.
All but one of the four cases that media reported at the factories have
yet to be included in the health ministry’s tally.
Vietnam on Monday reported one new case linked to Danang, a tourism
hotspot, bringing its tally to 621 infections, with six deaths.
The new outbreak, the source of which is unclear, was first reported on
July 25, and has reached at least 10 locations in the country, including Hanoi
and Ho Chi Minh City, infecting 174 people and killing six.
One of the four factories has halted operations, Lao Dong reported,
citing the chairman of the trade union of Danang’s industrial park management
board.
More
Hong Kong third wave: city expecting 80 new coronavirus infections, as another elderly patient dies
·
The 82-year-old victim had chronic illnesses and
was admitted to Queen Elizabeth Hospital on July 9 with fever and cough
·
Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan of the Centre for Health
Protection urged residents not to lower their guard as the count was still
significantly high
Published: 12:38pm, 4 Aug, 2020
Hong Kong is expecting another 80 Covid-19
infections on Tuesday, according to a medical source, breaking the trend of
triple-digit infections for the second
consecutive day, while one more elderly patient died.
The 82-year-old woman, identified as a diner at Deluxe Cuisine at Tsz
Wan Shan Shopping Centre, had chronic illnesses and was admitted to Queen
Elizabeth Hospital on July 9 with fever and cough.
Her condition later deteriorated and she died at 5.29am on Tuesday.
That came amid the announcement that
social-distancing measures will be extended by another week. The measures include
a ban on gatherings of more than two people and mandatory mask-wearing in
public places.
The ban on dine-in services at restaurants from 6pm until 5am will also
continue, while 14 types of establishments – such as bars, gyms, and sports
facilities – will remain closed.
The city’s tally of confirmed infections stands at 3,589, with 39
deaths.
More
The Latest: Philippine capital going back under lockdown
MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte
is reimposing a moderate lockdown in the Philippine capital and outlying
provinces after medical groups appealed for the move as coronavirus infections
surge alarmingly.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said Monday
that metropolitan Manila, the capital region of more than 12 million people,
and five densely populated provinces will revert to stricter quarantine
restrictions for two weeks starting Tuesday. Mass public transport will be
barred and only essential travel will be allowed.
Leaders of nearly 100 medical organizations
held a rare online news conference Saturday and warned that the health system
has been overwhelmed by infection spikes and may collapse as health workers
fall ill or resign from exhaustion and fear.
They asked Duterte to reimpose a tight lockdown
in the capital to allow health workers “a timeout” and allow the government to
recalibrate its response to the pandemic.
The number of COVID-19 cases in the Philippines
surged past 103,000 on Sunday and is second-most in Southeast Asia.
Indonesia reports 1,679 new coronavirus cases, 66 deaths
August 3, 2020 /
9:48 AM
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia recorded 1,679 new coronavirus infections
on Monday, bringing the total number of cases in the Southeast Asian country to
113,134, official data on the health ministry website showed.
The data also showed there were 66 additional deaths, taking the overall
number of fatalities to 5,302.
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.
China says chips for devices using Beidou navigation system in mass production
August 3, 2020 /
3:58 AM
BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Monday that 28-nanometre chips that
enable mobile devices to receive signals from the Beidou navigation system are
in mass production and mass manufacturing of high-precision 22-nanometre
positioning chips will soon kick off.
China will build a complete industrial chain of chips, modules, boards,
terminals, operation services for Beidou, Ran Chengqi, director general of the
China Satellite Navigation Office, said at a press conference.
In the past decade, the total output value of China’s satellite
navigation and location services industry has been growing at an average annual
rate of more than 20%, reaching 345 billion yuan ($49.47 billion) in 2019 and
is expected to exceed 400 billion yuan in 2020, Ran said.
In June, China successfully put into orbit its final Beidou satellite,
completing a navigation network years in the making and setting the stage to
challenge the U.S.-owned Global Positioning System (GPS).
Many countries using Beidou services are involved in the Belt and Road
initiative spearheaded by China to create a modern-day Silk Road of trade and
investment.
Beidou-related services such as smart port and land mapping have been
exported to about 120 countries, including those in ASEAN, South Asia, Eastern
Europe, West Asia and Africa, Ran said.
A new synthesis method for three-dimensional nanocarbons
Connecting carbon by catalysis to create octagonal structures
Date:
July 31, 2020
Source:
Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (ITbM), Nagoya University
Summary:
A team has developed a new method of synthesis for three-dimensional
nanocarbons, utilizing a catalytic reaction to connect benzene rings and create
an eight-membered ring structure.
This represents a breakthrough in the
synthesis of these nanocarbons, which are expected to be valuable next-generation
functional materials.
A team of scientists led by Kenichiro Itami, Professor and Director of
the Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (WPI-ITbM), has developed a new
method for the synthesis of three-dimensional nanocarbons with the potential to
advance materials science.
Three-dimensional nanocarbons, next-generation materials with superior
physical characteristics which are expected to find uses in fuel cells and
organic electronics, have thus far been extremely challenging to synthesize in
a precise and practical fashion. This new method uses a palladium catalyst to
connect polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons to form an octagonal structure,
enabling successful three-dimensional nanocarbon molecule synthesis.
Nanocarbons, such as the fullerene (a sphere, recipient of the 1996
Nobel Prize), the carbon nanotube (a cylinder, discovered in 1991) and graphene
(a sheet, recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize) have attracted a great deal of
attention as functional molecules with a variety of different properties. Since
Mackay et al. put forward their theory in 1991, a variety of periodic
three-dimensional nanocarbons have been proposed. However, these have been
extraordinarily difficult to synthesize. A particular challenge is the
eight-membered ring structure, which appears periodically, necessitating an
efficient method for its synthesis. To do so, Dr Itami's research team
developed a new method for connecting polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons using a
palladium catalyst to produce eight-membered rings via cross-coupling, the
first reaction of its type in the world.
The success of this research represents a revolutionary achievement in
three-dimensional nanocarbon molecule synthesis. It is expected to lead to the
discovery and elucidation of further novel properties and the development of
next-generation functional materials.
Consistency is the
last refuge of the unimaginative.
Oscar Wilde
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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