Baltic Dry Index. 1577 +37 Brent Crude 45.08
Spot Gold 1953
Coronavirus Cases 14/8/20 World 21,008,844
Deaths 761,161
“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play;
bring a friend ... if you have one."
George Bernard Shaw,
playwright (to Winston Churchill)
"Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second, if there is one."
"Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second, if there is one."
Churchill's response”
Today the big political news is the US brokered improvement
in relations between Israel and the UAE. It has been a long time coming given
all the unofficial relations for many years. With it well covered in mainstream
media, we’ll leave it to them to cover the still unknown details.
In the markets, two things dominate this weekend.
Tomorrow’s trade war talks, phase one review, between China and the USA.
President Xi seems to have called President Trump’s bluff over last week’s Hong
Kong arrests under the China imposed HK security laws.
The other issue dominating market thinking is the growing
risk in the USA of a sudden collapse in consumer demand due to the stalemate
between the Democrats and President Trump in getting a new fiscal stimulus
package passed.
Saturday will be the third consecutive weekend for most
unemployed without the Federal unemployment supplement of $600. Most think that
President Trump’s Executive Orders on the stimulus, will be too little to late,
if they survive any probable court challenges.
With just under another million Americans filing for
unemployment, according to yesterday’s figures, while much better than in March
and April, yesterday’s number was still about three times that of 2019.
Asian stocks falter after China data disappointment
August 14, 2020 /
12:45 AM
TOKYO/BOSTON
(Reuters) - Asian shares fell on Friday after lacklustre Chinese economic data
and worries about a delay in U.S. fiscal stimulus discouraged some investors
from taking on risk.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.24%, although shares in Japan rose 0.07%.
South Korean stocks fell 1.27% after authorities reported the largest number of new coronavirus cases since March.
Chinese shares erased early gains and fell 0.1% as a slower-than-expected rise in industrial production and a surprise fall in retail sales weighed on investor sentiment.
E-mini futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.23%.
Yields on U.S. Treasuries remained elevated after an auction of 30-year bonds on Thursday was met with weak demand.
Further equity gains are likely to be limited as investors await progress in negotiations over U.S. economic stimulus, which is necessary to prevent a nascent recovery in the world’s largest economy from sliding into reverse.
The S&P 500 ended slightly lower on Thursday after briefly trading above its record closing high level for a second day as doubts about U.S. stimulus measures took hold.
---- Some traders stuck to the sidelines before a meeting between U.S. and Chinese officials about their Phase 1 trade deal on Saturday.
Spot gold held steady at $1,952.41, close to a record high set last week in another sign of cautious sentiment.
More
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets/asian-stocks-falter-after-china-data-disappointment-idUKKCN2593AB
China's retail sales unexpectedly fall as consumer caution prevails
August 14, 2020 /
3:40 AM
BEIJING
(Reuters) - China’s retail sales slipped in July, dashing expectations for a
modest rise, as consumers in the world’s second-largest economy failed to shake
off wariness about the coronavirus, while the recovery in the factory sector
struggled to gain momentum.
Asian markets pulled back on Friday following the disappointing set of economic indicators, which raised concerns about the fragility of China’s emergence from coronavirus.
China’s recovery had been gathering pace after the pandemic paralysed huge swathes of the economy as pent-up demand, government stimulus and surprisingly resilient exports propel a rebound.
However, the data from the National Bureau of Statistics on Friday showed weaker-than-expected year-on-year industrial output growth and retail sales extending declines into a seventh straight month in July. That was slightly offset by firmer property investment, which showed recent stimulus was supporting construction activity.
---- Industrial output grew 4.8% in July from a year earlier, in line with June’s growth but less than forecasts for a 5.1% rise.
Retail sales dropped 1.1% on year, missing predictions for a 0.1% rise and following a 1.8% fall in June.
The decline in retail sales was broad based with garments, cosmetics, home appliances and furniture all worsening from June.
A key exception was auto sales, which surged 12.3%, turning around from a 8.2% fall in June.
More
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-china-economy-activity/chinas-july-retail-sales-unexpectedly-slip-factory-output-growth-steady-idUKKCN25A09R?il=0
A faltering U.S.-China trade deal is now the nations' strongest link
August 14, 2020
/ 5:09 AM
WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) - Top U.S. and Chinese trade
officials are expected to recommit to a Phase 1 trade deal during a review on
Saturday, even though China’s promised purchases of U.S. exports are far behind
schedule.Current and former U.S. government officials and trade experts in both countries say the Phase 1 deal, signed in January after nearly two years of tit-for-tat tariffs and angry rhetoric, is the one area where the world’s two largest economies are still cooperating.
The Trump administration has sanctioned companies and individuals linked to a security crackdown in Hong Kong and human rights, banned a Chinese owned video app, penalised Chinese academics and closed Beijing’s consulate in Houston in recent months.
Beijing has responded by closing the U.S. consulate in Chengdu and sanctioning some members of Congress.
Despite the escalating conflict, the Phase 1 trade deal won’t be dismantled, U.S. officials say.
“They have said they intend to implement the plan and we are engaged with them,” White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Thursday. “We have big differences with China on other matters, but regarding the Phase 1 trade deal, we are engaging.”
Chinese trade advisors say the slowing of both economies because of coronavirus-related lockdowns has made it difficult to meet purchase targets, but they don’t expect the White House to walk away.
More
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trade-china-analysis/a-faltering-u-s-china-trade-deal-is-now-the-nations-strongest-link-idUKKCN25A0DY?il=0
Pandemic to hit Japan's economy more than expected, U.S.-China tension adds to concerns: Reuters poll
August 14, 2020
/ 5:20 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s economy will contract more than
previously expected and suffer mild deflation during the current fiscal year,
analysts predict, underscoring the fragile nature of the recovery from the
devastating coronavirus pandemic.Analysts also see renewed, escalating tensions between the United States and China as an additional source of concern for the world’s third-largest economy, which is heavily reliant on exports, a Reuters poll showed on Friday.
“Economic activity will continue to face restrictions from social distancing measures” needed to prevent the spread of the virus, said Taro Saito, executive research fellow at NLI Research Institute.
“Japan’s economy will likely rebound next fiscal year but won’t recoup the huge losses incurred this year,” he said.
The economy is forecast to shrink 5.6% in the current fiscal year to next March, the poll of 32 economists showed, more than a 5.3% contraction projected last month. In a worst case scenario it will shrink 8.0%.
The downgrade came as many analysts revised their forecasts for April-June gross domestic product (GDP) to a 27% contraction - last month’s worst case forecast - from a nearly 24% drop projected in July.
The government will publish April-June GDP data on Monday.
More
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-japan-economy-poll/pandemic-to-hit-japans-economy-more-than-expected-u-s-china-tension-adds-to-concerns-reuters-poll-idUKKCN25A0EG?il=0
The recession is over for the rich, but the working class is far from recovered
Heather Long, The Washington Post
U.S. stocks are hovering near a record high, a stunning comeback since March that underscores the new phase the economy has entered: The wealthy have mostly recovered. The bottom half remain far from it.
This dichotomy is evident in many facets of the economy, especially in employment. Jobs are fully back for the highest wage earners, but fewer than half the jobs lost this spring have returned for those making less than $20 an hour, according to a new labor data analysis by John Friedman, an economics professor at Brown University and co-director of Opportunity Insights.
Though recessions almost always hit lower-wage workers the hardest, the pandemic is causing especially large gaps between rich and poor, and between white and minority households. It is also widening the gap between big and small businesses. Some of the largest companies, such as Nike and
Best Buy, are enjoying their highest stock prices ever while many smaller businesses fight for survival.
Some economists have started to call this a "K-shaped" recovery because of the diverging prospects for the rich and poor, and they say policy failures in Washington are exacerbating the problems.
Congress has not passed another relief bill, and the bulk of the federal stimulus originally passed in March to sustain small businesses and more than 28 million people on unemployment benefits has largely expired.
As talks between Republicans and Democrats in Washington have disintegrated, the burden of supporting the economy has fallen on the Federal Reserve, which has pumped trillions of dollars into the financial system to prop up businesses and markets, fueling a 50 percent gain in the stock market since March and a surge in home and car buying. But the Fed's main tools in this situation are reducing the benchmark interest rate and buying bonds. The Fed cannot give people checks, which is why its actions have done little to help renters facing eviction or small businesses on the verge of dying.
Fed leaders have urged Congress to act swiftly before the damage to the economy becomes permanent. Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren warned on Wednesday that "the recovery may be losing steam." Former Fed chair Janet Yellen called for "urgent" fiscal action.
"The stock market isn't the economy. The economy is production and jobs, and there are shortfalls in virtually every sector of the economy," Yellen said in an interview with The Washington Post.
"This pandemic is causing suffering and losses," Yellen said. "Individuals and businesses are not going to make it through this unless they get grants, and only the federal government can do that."
As much of the economy has moved to work-from-home mode, the shift has mainly benefited college-educated employees who do most of their work on computers. A Fed survey found that 63 percent of workers with college degrees could perform their jobs entirely from home, while only 20 percent of workers with high school diplomas or less could work from home.
Wealthier Americans also have seen their wealth recover - or even surge - as home values have jumped to their highest level ever (even in inflation-adjusted terms), according to the National Association of Realtors.
New analysis by Opportunity Insights of Labor Department data found employment is still 20 percent below pre-pandemic levels for workers earning under $14 an hour, and 16 percent down for those making $14 to $20 and hour. Opportunity Insights also analyzed data from the payroll processors Paychex, Intuit and Earnin and came to a similar conclusion.
"The recession is nearly over for high-wage workers, but low wage workers are no more than half-recovered," said Friedman, who led the research, which is sponsored by Harvard and Brown universities and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The pandemic and economic crisis have hit Black and Hispanic neighborhoods the hardest. Many of these households had little savings before the pandemic, and their jobs have been slower to return as the coronavirus risk remains highest in crowded indoor spaces such as shopping malls.
More
https://www.chron.com/business/article/The-recession-is-over-for-the-rich-but-the-15482561.php
For the 1st time in months, U.S. unemployment claims under 1 million
Aug. 13, 2020 /
8:37 AM
Aug. 13 (UPI) -- Fewer than 1 million U.S. workers have filed for new unemployment
benefits, the first time in months the figure has been that low, the Labor
Department said in its weekly report Thursday.The report listed 963,000 new claims for the week ending Aug. 8, a decrease of 228,000 from the previous week. It listed the unemployment rate at 10.6%.
Thursday's report also revised up last week's claims by 5,000.
Most economists expected about 1.1 million new claims. The department said there are 15.5 million continuing claims, the lowest since the pandemic began. Continuing claims lag initial claims by a week.
Thursday's report ended a streak of 20 consecutive weeks, dating back to the middle of March, in which initial claims exceeded 1 million. More than 55 million U.S. workers have submitted unemployment insurance claims during that period.
More
Finally, the ECB signals stay long fully paid up gold and
silver as long haul insurance. Trillions of new fiat money out on thin air at
the push of a central bankster computer button now, quadrillions next.
ECB liquidity floods euro money market and distorts indicators
August 12, 2020 /
5:22 PM
LONDON
(Reuters) - A key euro zone interbank money-market rate is trading below the
European Central Bank’s own official rate for the first time in over five
months, a sign of the vast amount of cash that has been poured into the system
to combat the COVID-19 crisis.
The ECB has flooded the system with so much liquidity that the rate at
which banks borrow from each other — Euribor — is within a whisker of a record
low.
Three-month Euribor was trading on Wednesday at minus 0.486%, and in
what is a rare occurrence – this rate is now below the ECB’s own euro overnight
indexed swap (OIS), which was trading at minus minus 0.47%.
“The system is so flooded with liquidity that banks are essentially
telling you they don’t need the money,” said Peter Chatwell, head of rates at Mizuho.
The situation is very different from late March, when Euribor rose to
-0.16% and the spread over OIS was at its widest since the 2012 euro zone debt
crisis, a sign of severe stress in the system.
Global policymakers have pumped in more than $20 trillion in stimulus in
response to the coronavirus pandemic, and the ECB has massively raised its bond
buying scheme and provided vast quantities of cheap loans to banks.
More
It’s a recession when your neighbour loses his job. It’s a depression when you lose yours.
Harry Truman.
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneededNew Zealand reports more COVID-19 cases ahead of lockdown decision
August 14, 2020 /
12:53 AM
WELLINGTON
(Reuters) - New Zealand’s first coronavirus outbreak in three months has spread
further, officials reported on Friday, just hours before Prime Minister Jacinda
Ardern is due to announce whether a lockdown in the country’s biggest city will
be extended.
Officials reported 12 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, all linked to a now 30-strong cluster that was first detected in a family in Auckland two days ago. Officials believe an imported strain of the virus is responsible for the country’s first outbreak in three months, but are still investigating how the family was infected.
Ardern, under pressure ahead of a general election next month, repeated her “go hard, go early” response to the pandemic this week, putting Auckland, home to about 1.7 million people, into lockdown and reinstating social distancing measures across the country.
Ardern is due to announce later on Friday whether those measures will be extended, but there is growing concern that a repeat of the tough five-week lockdown she imposed earlier in the year could cripple the economy.
Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said it was a positive sign that all the new confirmed cases were linked to the Auckland cluster, but noted two were recorded in Tokorua, in the neighbouring Waikato region. Authorities had also identified one other probable case, Bloomfield said, in which connections still had to be traced.
More
COVID-19 deaths in NYC 'comparable' to 1918-1919 flu pandemic
Aug. 13, 2020 /
11:24 AM
during the first two months of the outbreak were
"remarkably comparable" to those seen in the city at the height of
the 1918-1919 flu pandemic, according to an analysis published Thursday by JAMA Network Open."Excess deaths" in the city in the first two months of the new coronavirus outbreak were about 70% as high as those recorded during the peak of the 1918-1919 flu pandemic, likely because of population growth, the researchers said.
While some have suggested the 1918-1919 flu pandemic was far worse than the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, researchers said that deaths for the two are comparable. But without modern medicine, the new coronavirus likely would be killing far more people.
The city reported more than 33,000 total deaths from all causes between March 11 and May 11 -- for a death rate of 202 deaths per 100,000 people in the general population.
The death rate for New York City during the height of the 1918-1919 flu pandemic -- October and November of 1918 -- was 287 deaths per 100,000 people in the general population, researchers said.
"These crises caused death rates along the same order of magnitude," study co-author Dr. Jeremy Faust told UPI.
"They were remarkably comparable in their effects on death rates in New York City in the time periods we assessed," said Faust, an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "I only hope what we had in March and April [with COVID-19] was the worst of it."
More
Scientists Built an Inhaler They Claim Stops Coronavirus
The scientists say it's like wrapping the
virus up in a straightjacket.
by Dan Robitzski / 21 hours ago
Imagine: An antiviral inhaler that could protect you from the coronavirus. One puff a day that keeps COVID away?
If it sounds like a distant dream, wake up: A team of scientists from the University of California, San Francisco claim to have created it.
The scientists developed a tiny molecule that they say can latch onto SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, and make it impossible for the virus to infect human cells. There’s a hell of a lot of testing left to go before their treatment reaches shelves, but the team suspects that a single puff from the inhaler every day could keep people safe until a vaccine is finally ready.
The actual protection comes from tiny proteins called nanobodies, considerably smaller versions of the antibodies that your body uses to fend off infections. According to the team’s research, which was shared online Monday but hasn’t yet been published in a journal, two of these nanobodies can latch onto the coronavirus’ spike protein, which prevents it from infecting a new cell.
A third nanobody — which is the main nanobody the team’s focusing on in their treatment — takes it a step further. Rather than merely blocking the spikes, it actually prevents the spikes from activating at all. In a press release about the work, the scientists compared it to binding the coronavirus up in a straightjacket.
Most teams working on antiviral treatments are trying to use antibodies rather than nanobodies. The UCSF team says nanobodies are a more realistic prospect, because they’re smaller. Their diminutive size makes them easier to manipulate in a lab setting, and helps them survive abuse, like the process of being turned into an aerosol, and loaded up into an inhaler thereafter.
More
https://futurism.com/neoscope/inhaler-stops-coronavirus?mc_eid=f4cd094325&mc_cid=b35f320e2b
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.
Stack and twist: Physicists accelerate the hunt for revolutionary new materials
Date:
August 11, 2020
Source:
University of Bath
Summary:
Scientists have taken an important step towards understanding the interaction
between layers of atomically thin materials arranged in stacks. They hope their
research will speed up the discovery of new, artificial materials, leading to
the design of electronic components that are far tinier and more efficient than
anything known today.
Scientists at the University of Bath have taken
an important step towards understanding the interaction between layers of
atomically thin materials arranged in stacks. They hope their research will
speed up the discovery of new, artificial materials, leading to the design of
electronic components that are far tinier and more efficient than anything
known today.
Smaller is always better in the world of electronic circuitry, but there's a limit to how far you can shrink a silicon component without it overheating and falling apart, and we're close to reaching it.
The researchers are investigating a group of atomically thin materials that can be assembled into stacks. The properties of any final material depend both on the choice of raw materials and on the angle at which one layer is arranged on top of another.
Dr Marcin Mucha-Kruczynski who led the research from the Department of Physics, said: "We've found a way to determine how strongly atoms in different layers of a stack are coupled to each other, and we've demonstrated the application of our idea to a structure made of graphene layers."
The Bath research, published in Nature Communications, is based on earlier work into graphene -- a crystal characterised by thin sheets of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb design. In 2018, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that when two layers of graphene are stacked and then twisted relative to each other by the 'magic' angle of 1.1°, they produce a material with superconductive properties. This was the first time scientists had created a super-conducting material made purely from carbon. However, these properties disappeared with the smallest change of angle between the two layers of graphene.
Since the MIT discovery, scientists around the world have been attempting to apply this 'stacking and twisting' phenomenon to other ultra-thin materials, placing together two or more atomically different structures in the hope of forming entirely new materials with special qualities.
"In nature, you can't find materials where each atomic layer is different," said Dr Mucha-Kruczynski. "What's more, two materials can normally only be put together in one specific fashion because chemical bonds need to form between layers. But for materials like graphene, only the chemical bonds between atoms on the same plane are strong. The forces between planes -- known as van der Waals interactions -- are weak, and this allows for layers of material to be twisted with respect to each other."
The challenge for scientists now is to make the process of discovering new, layered materials as efficient as possible. By finding a formula that allows them to predict the outcome when two or more materials are stacked, they will be able to streamline their research enormously.
It is in this area that Dr Mucha-Kruczynski and his collaborators at the University of Oxford, Peking University and ELETTRA Synchrotron in Italy expect to make a difference.
"The number of combinations of materials and the number of angles at which they can be twisted is too large to try out in the lab, so what we can predict is important," said Dr Mucha-Kruczynski.
The researchers have shown that the interaction between two layers can be determined by studying a three-layer structure where two layers are assembled as you might find in nature, while the third is twisted. They used angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy -- a process in which powerful light ejects electrons from the sample so that the energy and momentum from the electrons can be measured, thus providing insight into properties of the material -- to determine how strongly two carbon atoms at a given distance from each other are coupled. They have also demonstrated that their result can be used to predict properties of other stacks made of the same layers, even if the twists between layers are different.
The list of known atomically thin materials like graphene is growing all the time. It already includes dozens of entries displaying a vast range of properties, from insulation to superconductivity, transparency to optical activity, brittleness to flexibility. The latest discovery provides a method for experimentally determining the interaction between layers of any of these materials. This is essential for predicting the properties of more complicated stacks and for the efficient design of new devices.
Dr Mucha-Kruczynski believes it could be 10 years before new stacked and twisted materials find a practical, everyday application. "It took a decade for graphene to move from the laboratory to something useful in the usual sense, so with a hint of optimism, I expect a similar timeline to apply to new materials," he said.
Building on the results of his latest study, Dr Mucha-Kruczynski and his team are now focusing on twisted stacks made from layers of transition metal dichalcogenides (a large group of materials featuring two very different types of atoms -- a metal and a chalcogen, such as sulphur). Some of these stacks have shown fascinating electronic behaviour which the scientists are not yet able to explain.
"Because we're dealing with two radically different materials, studying these stacks is complicated," explained Dr Mucha-Kruczynski. "However, we're hopeful that in time we'll be able to predict the properties of various stacks, and design new multifunctional materials."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200811153905.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmatter_energy%2Fgraphene+%28Graphene+News+--+ScienceDaily%29
Another weekend and a big weekend in the trade war between
the USA v China. Will the trade talks be positive or acrimonious? It probably
all depends on how the Trump Re-election Team want to play the talks for
domestic political spin. Hopefully not. Have a great weekend everyone.
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing has happened.”
Sir Winston Churchill.
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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