Baltic Dry Index. 1282 +15 Brent Crude 39.59
Spot Gold 1966
Coronavirus Cases 15/9/20 World 29,319,485
Deaths 933,390
Andrew Mellon.
Today, as we wait for Apple’s latest dog and pony show,
tomorrow’s Federal Reserve dog and pony show, and the latest in the dirty
tricks US election campaign, something a little different.
A look at the Fed, Apple, the fall of big oil, and a
brand new obsolete building in newly dangerous Manhattan.
But first, as usual, our update from the Asian stock
casinos. Yet more churn and burn.
Asian Stocks Drift; China’s Yuan Extends Advance: Markets Wrap
By Andreea Papuc
Updated on September 15, 2020, 5:05 AM GMT+1
Asian stocks drifted Tuesday as investors turned their
attention to a Federal Reserve meeting for clues on monetary policy as
economies recover from the pandemic. The yuan added to gains that lifted it to
the highest this year.Japan’s stocks fell, but pared losses, and Hong Kong stocks rose after Chinese economic data showed the recovery gathering pace. Equities also climbed in South Korea and China, while Australia slipped. S&P 500 futures edged up after the benchmark gained Monday. The Nasdaq 100 Index broke a two-day slide. The dollar dipped and Treasuries were flat.
Investors are awaiting the Fed’s policy meeting Wednesday to gauge the outlook for markets following a slide of about 2% in global stocks this month. The Fed is expected to maintain its dovish stance after earlier saying it will shift to a more relaxed approach on inflation. Central bank largesse is shoring up sentiment in the face of risks from the pandemic, the U.S. presidential election and the possibility of a no-deal Brexit.
“Market volatility is returning after months of steady advances in risk assets,” BlackRock Investment Institute strategists led by Elga Bartsch said. “Valuations have risen, and we could see greater volatility as a result, especially as the U.S. election closes in.”
Chinese retail sales and industrial production in August both beat expectations, underscoring a rebound in economic activity due to fiscal stimulus and strong exports.
Elsewhere, the Australian dollar led an advance among Group-of-10 currencies after the central bank’s latest minutes showed it didn’t plan to ease further anytime soon.
Here are some key events coming up:
- Wednesday sees the FOMC policy decision and news conference from Chair Jerome Powell.
- Bank of Japan, Bank Indonesia and Bank of England policy decisions come Thursday.
- Friday sees quadruple witching -- the quarterly expiration of futures and options on indexes and stocks -- in U.S. markets
Fed meeting may give clues to coronavirus-era jobs plans
September 14,
202012:12 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Eight years ago, as the United
States struggled through the aftermath of a deep recession, the Federal Reserve
set an unemployment rate it felt would be a good benchmark to show the economy
was getting back to normal.
The 6.5% number the Fed set in 2012 was
almost double the unemployment rate the U.S. eventually hit here
during a record-setting economic expansion, leaving many convinced the Fed had
misjudged the willingness of those on the economic sidelines to get back to
work.
This week, the Fed will revive that debate
under drastically different circumstances as it begins to put into practice a
revised approach to monetary policy at its meeting on Sept. 15 and 16. Mistakes
about job creation are a thing of the past, the Fed is promising, with an
expansive commitment to “broad-based and inclusive” employment announced in
late August.
What’s unclear is just what the Fed plans to
do to speed a return to full employment for the nearly 30 million Americans
collecting some form of unemployment benefit, and when it will pull the
trigger. The issues are consequential to Wall Street investors, businesses
large and small, masses of jobless in America, and possibly the November
presidential election.
This week’s meeting won’t provide those
answers. But there should be clues from the new economic projections that Fed
officials will issue after their meeting, the last before the November
election, and from the press conference chair Jerome Powell holds afterward.
The Fed may eventually buy more bonds, offer
more detailed promises to keep credit easy for years to come, or even take more
aggressive steps if the pandemic worsens and conditions deteriorate.
To veterans of those earlier policy debates
about maximum employment, it can’t happen soon enough.
Despite the new employment commitments,
lending programs and low interest rates rolled out in response to the pandemic
this spring, “we are settling in for another long painful recovery where some
people are feeling great because they own lots of stock and others lost their
job,” said Dartmouth College economics professor and former Fed adviser Andrew
Levin.
“It is deja vu” with the last U.S. recovery,
he said.
New economic projections this week will
offer the first, longer-term glimpse, through 2023, of how Fed officials think
their new approach will work in practice and how fast they think the job market
can recover.
---- It took six and a half years for the
U.S. to reclaim the 8.7 million payroll jobs lost during the 2007 to 2009
downturn. The coronavirus recession was deeper and faster, with 22 million
payroll positions lost.
The rebound started strong, but there are
concerns it is slowing and may leave people struggling in a post-pandemic
economy where millions of jobs may have been rendered obsolete.
More
Apple's September 15 'Time Flies' event: what to expect
14 September 2020
Apple's first big fall event is upon us but it's nothing
like past September events. For starters there won't be any iPhone
announcements, despite this being the usual time iPhone announcements happen.Instead Apple will release a pre-recorded video through its website, YouTube and Apple TV.
The event titled 'Time Flies' - a subtle hint at the centerpiece of the event - will be all about the Apple Watch, the iPad Air, Apple software and a few interesting announcements.
Apple Watch Series 6
The Apple Watch Series 6 will be the star of the show. It's expected to build on the design of the Watch Series 5 but add a Blood Oxygen Saturation (SpO2) sensor, native sleep tracking, and an improved electrocardiogram feature - Series 4 and 5 watches show ECG inconsistencies in the 100-120 heart beats per minute range.
More
Next up, BP sights the end of oil. But are they right? Exxon.
What happened?
How’s solar doing in sunless, smoky California and
Oregon. When the fast moving wildfire
approaches, do you prefer to leave in a self-driving Tesla or an old fashioned
vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine?
Suppose the power was out for the day before needing to
leave! How far can you get on a half a tank of Li-ion battery energy? What if
we need to use the headlights, AC, and radio during the escape?
Despite all the smoke and particulates, Google thinks the
future’s solar.
BP Says the Era of Oil-Demand Growth Is Over
Rakteem Katakey September 13, 2020, 7:01 PM
EDT
Virus, government policy and societal
changes impacting demand
BP Plc said the relentless growth of oil demand is over, becoming the first supermajor to call the end of an era many thought would last another decade or more.
Oil consumption may never return to levels seen before the coronavirus crisis took hold, BP said in a report on Monday. Even its most bullish scenario sees demand no better than “broadly flat” for the next two decades as the energy transition shifts the world away from fossil fuels.
Getting Weaker
BP says oil demand may have peaked already.
BP is making a profound break from orthodoxy. From the
bosses of corporate energy giants to ministers from OPEC states, senior figures
from the industry have insisted that oil consumption will see decades of
growth. Time and again, they have described it as the only commodity that can
satisfy the demands of an increasing global population and expanding middle
class.
The U.K. giant is describing a different future, where oil’s supremacy is challenged, and ultimately fades. That explains why BP has taken the boldest steps so far among peers to align its business with the goals of the Paris climate accord. Just six months after taking the top job, Chief Executive Officer Bernard Looney said in August he’d shrink oil and gas output by 40% over the next decade and spend as much as $5 billion a year building one of the world’s largest renewable-power businesses.
That’s because he suspects oil use may already have peaked as a result of the pandemic, stricter government policies and changes in consumer behavior. BP’s energy outlook shows consumption slumping 50% by 2050 in one scenario, and by almost 80% in another. In a “business-as-usual” situation, demand would recover but then flatline near 100 million barrels a day for the next 20 years.
BP isn’t the only big oil company adapting its business to the energy transition. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Total SE and others in Europe have announced similar pivots toward cleaner operations as customers, governments and investors increasingly call for change.
Three Possible Futures
BP’s report comes ahead of three days of online briefings starting Monday on its clean-energy and climate strategy. The study considers three scenarios, which aren’t predictions but nevertheless cover a wide range of possible outcomes over the next 30 years and form the basis of the new strategy Looney announced in August.
More
Exxon Used to Be America’s Most Valuable Company. What Happened?
The oil giant doubled down on oil and gas before the pandemic crushed demand
By Sept. 13, 2020 6:50 pm ET
It has been a stunning fall from grace for Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM -0.27%
Just seven years ago, Exxon was the
biggest U.S. company by market capitalization. It has since lost roughly 60% of
its value, with its market cap now at around $160 billion, after the pandemic
crushed demand for fossil fuels.
Analysts estimate Exxon will lose
more than $1 billion this year, compared with profits of $46 billion in 2008,
then a record by an American corporation. The company’s removal from the Dow Jones Industrial Average in
late August, after nearly a century on the index, marked a milestone in its
decline.
At the heart of the problem: Exxon
doubled down on oil and gas at what now looks to be the worst possible time.
While rivals have begun to pivot to renewable energy, it is standing pat.
Investors are fleeing and workers are grumbling about the direction of a
company some see as out of touch and stubborn.
More
Google aims to run on carbon-free energy by 2030
September 14,
2020
OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's GOOGL.O Google aims to power its data centers and offices using
solely carbon-free electricity by 2030, its chief executive told Reuters,
building on its previous goal of matching its energy use with 100% renewable
energy.
The “stretch goal,” as CEO Sundar Pichai described it, will force Google
to move beyond the tech industry norm of offsetting carbon emissions from
electricity use and require technological and political breakthroughs to
achieve.
“The problem is so immense, many of us need to lead the way and show
solutions,” Pichai said. “We’re one small player in this but we can set an
example.”
Wildfires burning a record area in the western United States this month
have increased public awareness of climate change, Pichai said, and Google
wants to bring further attention through its new goal as well as product
features.
Wind, solar and other renewable sources accounted for 61% of Google’s
global hourly electricity usage last year. The proportion varied by facility,
with carbon-free sources fulfilling 96% of hourly power needs at Google’s
wind-swept Oklahoma data center compared with 3% at its gas-reliant Singapore
operation.
But Google, which consumes slightly more power annually worldwide than
residents and businesses in Delaware, has grown optimistic that it can bridge
the gap with batteries to store solar power overnight, emerging sources such as
geothermal reservoirs and better management of power needs.
More
Finally, is this the wrong building, in the wrong city,
at the wrong time? Do you really, really want to commute into a Manhattan where
the Mayor is defunding the police?
How many guinea pigs is it safe to fit in an elevator at
the same time? Who gets to face the elevator walls and who gets to face the
front? How long does it take to get and down from that once desirable top floor,
when only a few can use the elevator at the same time?
Iconic new tower opens as pandemic crushes Manhattan office market
September 14,
202011:47 AM
NEW YORK (Reuters) - One Vanderbilt, the
latest super-tall skyscraper to grace New York’s skyline, opens Monday in a
socially distant ribbon-cutting ceremony as COVID-19 leaves offices and the
streets of Manhattan largely barren.
The airy $3.3 billion tower adjacent to
Grand Central Terminal represents a major step in city efforts to ensure that a
blocks-long swath of Midtown Manhattan, where buildings on average are 85 years
old, remains a premier office district.
Majority owner SL Green Realty Corp provided
$220 million for new staircases and enhanced connections to the subway and
suburban rail lines at Grand Central in a private partnership model the city
plans to replicate in the area.
But the 1,401-foot (427-meter) One
Vanderbilt, the second tallest office tower in Manhattan after One World Trade
Center, opens at a time when leasing prices are in decline thanks to work from
home and the city’s biggest construction boom since the 1980s.
Subletting and short-term renewals now
account for more than 70% of leases as companies and landlords fight off the
impact of a downturn that has given New York the highest unemployment rate, at
20%, among the biggest U.S. cities.
The average lease term at SL Green, the
city’s largest office landlord, in the second quarter slid to 4.3 years from
10.1 years in the prior period, while the number of free months’ rent more than
doubled to 4.5, regulatory filings show.
While One Vanderbilt is 71% leased with
tenants that have taken out long-term leases at more than $100 a square foot,
fear of COVID-19 has kept offices in Manhattan, the largest U.S. office market,
mostly empty, which is likely to persist until a vaccine has been fully rolled
out.
Tenants won’t start to move in until later
this year.
The tower, which tapers as it rises above
the nearby Chrysler Building to the east, has above-average floor-to-ceiling
heights, addressing demand in recent years for workplaces with more sunlight.
The challenge, at least in the near term, is
getting people back in the office and confident that floor configurations, along
with elevators, allow ample safe space between workers.
More
The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.
Walter Bagehot.
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.Corporations Slash Deeper Under Burden of Covid-19: Virus Update
Bloomberg News
Updated on September 15, 2020, 5:30 AM GMT+1
Citigroup Inc., Qantas Airways Ltd. and Singapore’s United Overseas Bank Ltd. joined the
ranks of companies globally making deeper cost cuts, from property and
equipment to jobs and pay, as the pandemic drags on.Developing Asia’s battered economy will this year shrink for the first time since the early 1960s, the Asian Development Bank said. Hong Kong is set to deploy a new round of its virus relief fund. The city will reopen pubs, swimming pools and theme parks from Friday, the South China Morning Post reported.
A vaccine may be available for “ordinary Chinese” as soon as November, the state-owned Global Times said. In the U.K., researchers are beginning the first study of whether two experimental vaccines can be inhaled.
Key Developments:
- Global Tracker: Cases pass 29.1 million; deaths exceed 927,000
- A cure for Covid? Your body is still the best virus killer
- Lockdowns halt Europe’s air-travel recovery, threaten jobs
- Lagarde leverages virus to push for greener monetary policy
- At JPMorgan, productivity falls for staff working at home
- The keys to speed in race for vaccine, and its perils: QuickTake
More
China coronavirus vaccine may be ready for public in November: official
September 15,
2020
BEIJING (Reuters) - Coronavirus vaccines being developed in China may be
ready for use by the general public as early as November, an official with the
Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.
China has four COVID-19 vaccines in the final stage of clinical trials.
At least three of those have already been offered to essential workers under an
emergency use programme launched in July.
Phase 3 clinical trials were proceeding smoothly and the vaccines could
be ready for the general public in November or December, CDC chief biosafety
expert Guizhen Wu said in an interview with state TV late on Monday.
Wu, who said she has experienced no abnormal
symptoms in recent months after taking an experimental vaccine herself in
April, did not specify which vaccines she was referring to.
A unit of state pharmaceutical giant China
National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) and U.S.-listed Sinovac Biotech SVA.O are developing the three vaccines under the state's
emergency use programme. A fourth COVID-19 vaccine being developed by CanSino
Biologics 6185.HK was approved for use by
the Chinese military in June.
More
September 14, 2020 Journal article Open Access
Unusual Features of the SARS-CoV-2 Genome Suggesting Sophisticated Laboratory Modification Rather Than Natural Evolution and Delineation of Its Probable Synthetic Route
Yan, Li-Meng; Kang, Shu; Guan, Jie; Hu, ShanchangThe COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has led to over 910,000 deaths worldwide and unprecedented decimation of the global economy. Despite its tremendous impact, the origin of SARS-CoV-2 has remained mysterious and controversial. The natural origin theory, although widely accepted, lacks substantial support. The alternative theory that the virus may have come from a research laboratory is, however, strictly censored on peer-reviewed scientific journals. Nonetheless, SARS-CoV-2 shows biological characteristics that are inconsistent with a naturally occurring, zoonotic virus. In this report, we describe the genomic, structural, medical, and literature evidence, which, when considered together, strongly contradicts the natural origin theory.
The evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 should be a laboratory product created by using bat coronaviruses ZC45 and/or ZXC21 as a template and/or backbone. Building upon the evidence, we further postulate a synthetic route for SARS-CoV-2, demonstrating that the laboratory-creation of this coronavirus is convenient and can be accomplished in approximately six months. Our work emphasizes the need for an independent investigation into the relevant research laboratories. It also argues for a critical look into certain recently published data, which, albeit problematic, was used to support and claim a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2. From a public health perspective, these actions are necessary as knowledge of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and of how the virus entered the human population are of pivotal importance in the fundamental control of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as in preventing similar, future pandemics.
More
Next, some vaccine links
kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada. The links come from a most
informative update from Stanford Hospital in California.
World
Health Organization - Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines
NY
Times Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html
Regulatory
Focus COVID-19 vaccine tracker. https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker
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.
Today something
different. Fun with numbers! No really, perfect numbers.
For
millennia, many have wondered whether odd perfect numbers exist. Insight could
come from studying the next best things.
09.13.2020 08:00
AM
As a high school
student in the mid-1990s, Pace Nielsen encountered a mathematical question that
he’s still struggling with to this day. But he doesn’t feel bad: The problem
that captivated him, called the odd perfect number conjecture, has been around
for more than 2,000 years, making it one of the oldest unsolved problems in mathematics.
Part of this problem’s long-standing allure stems from the simplicity of
the underlying concept: A number is perfect if it is a positive integer, n,
whose divisors add up to exactly twice the number itself, 2n. The first
and simplest example is 6, since its divisors—1, 2, 3, and 6—add up to 12, or 2
times 6. Then comes 28, whose divisors of 1, 2, 4, 7, 14, and 28 add up to 56.
The next examples are 496 and 8,128.
Leonhard Euler formalized this definition in the 1700s with the
introduction of his sigma (σ) function, which sums the divisors of a number.
Thus, for perfect numbers, σ(n) = 2n.
But Pythagoras was aware of perfect numbers back in 500 BCE, and two
centuries later Euclid devised a formula for generating even perfect numbers.
He showed that if p and 2p − 1 are prime numbers
(whose only divisors are 1 and themselves), then 2p−1
× (2p − 1) is a perfect number. For example, if p is
2, the formula gives you 21 × (22 − 1) or 6, and if p
is 3, you get 22 × (23 − 1) or 28—the first two perfect
numbers. Euler proved 2,000 years later that this formula actually generates
every even perfect number, though it is still unknown whether the set of even
perfect numbers is finite or infinite.
Nielsen, now a professor at Brigham Young University (BYU), was ensnared
by a related question: Do any odd perfect numbers (OPNs) exist? The Greek
mathematician Nicomachus declared around 100 CE that all perfect numbers must
be even, but no one has ever proved that claim.
Like
many of his 21st-century peers, Nielsen thinks there probably aren’t any OPNs.
And, also like his peers, he does not believe a proof is within immediate
reach. But last
June he hit upon a new way of approaching the problem that
might lead to more progress. It involves the closest thing to OPNs yet
discovered.
More
US Politics Betting Odds
"Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate… it will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people."
Andrew Mellon.
DJIA: 28,430 Up. NASDAQ: 11,775 Up. SP500:
3,500 Up.
The NASDAQ
remained up. The DJIA and SP500 turned up in July. With stock mania running
fueled by trillions of central bankster new fiat money programs, especially
tech stock mania in the NASDAQ, the indicators are essentially worthless after
all these years. I will discontinue this section at the end of the month.
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