Baltic Dry Index. 1362 -33 Brent Crude 42.21
Spot Gold 1936
Coronavirus Cases 07/9/20 World 27,205,041
Deaths 892,183
The Battle of Borodino[a] was a battle fought on 7 September 1812[9][10] in the Napoleonic Wars during the French invasion of Russia.
The fighting involved around 250,000 troops and left at least 68,000 dead, making Borodino the deadliest day of the Napoleonic Wars and the bloodiest single day in the history of warfare until the First Battle of the Marne in 1914.
With Americans and Canadians on vacation today, while the
cats away the mice will play.
Well maybe not. Without all the fun and games going on in
massive US stock options trading, aka sophisticated stock rigging, technology
stocks would probably be crashing alongside much of the real economy, rather
than in a central bankster funded and fuelled stock mania. With American stock
riggers away, it might be a little to dangerous today to come out to play.
That it’s not capitalism goes without saying, as does all
stock manias end badly for most. We just don’t know when, or what causes the
final mania to end.
Below, food for thought as we enter the always dangerous
autumn trading season. This year,
between the “dirty tricks” US election campaign, a Covid-19 pandemic still
running out of control, the real economy on central bank life support, a
growing new cold war against China and Russia, and an attempted “colour”
revolution underway in Belarus, this autumn trading season is more treacherous than most.
If you know that the stock doesn’t know you own it, you are
ahead of the game. You are ahead because you can change your mind and your
actions without regard to what you did or thought yesterday.
Adam Smith aka George Goodman – The Money Game.
What Else Could Go Wrong for World Economy Before 2020 Is Done
Enda Curran
September 6, 2020.
Even
when a vaccine is found it will take time to distribute
The world economy’s rebound from the depths of the coronavirus crisis is fading, setting up an uncertain finish to the year.
The concerns are multiple. The
coming northern winter may trigger another wave of the virus as the wait for a
vaccine continues. Government support for furloughed workers and bank
moratoriums on loan repayments are set to expire. Strains
between the U.S. and China could get worse in the run-up to November’s presidential election, and undermine business
confidence.
Recovery Stalls
Alternative data indicate rebound halting
in major advanced economies.
“We have seen peak rebound,” Joachim Fels, global economic adviser at Pacific Investment Management Co., told Bloomberg Television. “From now on, the momentum is fading a little bit.”
That sets up a delicate balancing
act for governments. They’ve injected almost $20 trillion in fiscal
and monetary support, in an effort to get the economy as far back to normal as
is feasible in a pandemic, and can point to plenty of successes.
In the U.S., unemployment fell sharply
in August and the housing market
has been a bright spot. China’s steady recovery is cited by optimists as a
guide to where the rest of the world is headed, while Germany is posting some
decent industrial data too. And emerging markets are getting a breather from
the dollar’s decline.
Long Slog
But keeping up the momentum on all
these fronts won’t be easy. It would likely require policy makers to top up
their stimulus efforts, at a point when some are looking to cut back instead.
And for all the scientific progress with vaccines, they won’t be available
anytime soon on the scale needed to bring the virus under tight control -- a
key condition for business-as-usual.
Meanwhile, there are headwinds. On
labor markets, for example, government aid helped to drive an initial rebound
-- which may have been the easy part. Next up is the long slog of retooling
businesses, reallocating resources, and retraining workers in industries that
are no longer viable. That kind of restructuring could play out for some time.
Already this month, some of the
world’s best known industrial brands have signaled job cuts are on the way.
Morehttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-06/what-else-could-go-wrong-for-world-economy-before-2020-is-done?srnd=premium-canada
Next, more news on that
central bankster fuelled stock mania. A massive malinvestment gambling bubble
destined to go the way of all bubbles.
Huge Swings in Options-Overrun Stocks Leave Manager Baffled
By Sarah Ponczek
September 5, 2020, 2:22 PM GMT+1 Updated on September 5,
2020, 3:49 PM GMT+1
·
Nancy Tengler was mystified when Salesforce
surged in August
·
Big options positions are a common theme in the
summer rally
Nancy Tengler has managed money for 35 years. She’s confident in her positions. When one of her companies reports good earnings, she expects it to go up.
But nothing prepared her for what happened on Aug. 26 in Salesforce.com Inc., when its quarterly results ignited a paroxysm of buying that pushed the shares 26% higher in a day.
Tengler’s seen that kind of thing more often, lately -- reactions that seem out of proportion to underlying news. It’s a shift in the market’s usual volatility backdrop that gives her pause, even when it works in her favor.
“I could not for the life of me explain why it was up 26% after a 3 or 4 percent move the day before,” Tengler said. “It is inexplicable to me how some of these names have run up on almost no news. And so you have to factor in the Robinhood cohort who tend be chasing a lot of these names and driving them up further.”
The influence of stuck-at-home individuals has been a well-known theme ever since people were locked inside by Covid-19. What is emerging as a parallel factor in the market’s often-uncanny buoyancy is the presence of giant options positions in many of the same stocks they favor. Soaring open interest, particularly in bullish call contracts, are visible in virtually all the stocks that have led the rally, from Salesforce to Apple Inc. and Tesla Inc.
What’s spurring the surge is a question that started to obsess Wall Street, climaxing Friday in speculation that buying by a single money pool was responsible for much of it. Bloomberg reported in August that SoftBank Corp. was raising stakes in the Faang group using structures that don’t require public filings. The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times reported Friday that purchases of bullish options by SoftBank on billions of dollars worth of stock amplified this summer’s rally in technology companies.
Jason Goepfert, president of Sundial Capital Research, says that while SoftBank may be the biggest player, it can’t be just one firm whipping up markets. Small day traders have spent $40 billion in call premiums in a month, data he compiled from the Options Clearing Corp. show. That’s a hefty amount for retail investors to be wielding and dwarfs what SoftBank is reported to have spent.
“Softbank as a call buyer makes sense, as does the underlying buying it generates. But trades less than 10 contracts swamped the rumored Softbank buys, so clearly others were trying to tag along for the ride,” Goepfert said. “Not sure why now versus other years, other than stay-at-home boredom. Maybe the retail crowd saw this as their last, best change to get rich quick.”
Connecting The Dots: How SoftBank Made Billions Using The Biggest "Gamma Squeeze" In History
Sun, 09/06/2020 - 13:35
It was back in July when
we first reported that Goldman had observed a "historic
inversion" in the stock market: for the first time ever, the average daily
value of options traded has exceeded shares, with July single stock
options volumes hitting 114% of shares volumes.
This followed
a May report in which we discussed "how retail investors took over the
stock market", pointing out the "recent surge in options trading -
which has far more impact on market flows due to embedded leverage" and
cited Goldman data which showed that "individual investor active trading
is playing an increased role in market volatility, particularly in select
stocks. In the shares market, 2.3% of all volume is made up of
trades for $2,000 or less. The increase in small trades has been even more notable
in the options market, where 13% of all trades are for 1 contract."
We also pointed out that "a
significant portion of this increase has been driven by higher
volumes in short dated contracts, as investors are
literally using massive leverage to wager on near-term momentum moves
such as those often highlighted OTM calls traded in Tesla stock."
---- To be sure, this option frenzy was a goldmine for retail brokerages such as Robinhood, Schwab and Etrade, which reported options trading activity surging 129% YTD (up 35% from June levels), which helped explain why various HFT outfits are paying so much to frontrun Robinhood option trades.
Finally, we also pointed out where the option trading footprint was
largest, and not surprisingly we showed that options volumes had been driven
higher by an increase in trading in many of the large market cap names. AMZN,
TSLA, AAPL, NFLX and FB had the highest volumes in July. Among the top 25
underliers with high notional volumes, MRNA, WMT, NKLA and TSLA saw the biggest
jump relative to the prior 12-months.
Also of note, bullish sentiment in a number of names as indicated by
options market skew, was at extremely high levels. Three-month normalized
put-call skew in AMZN, TSLA, SQ and MRNA had declined to below 0 as of two
months ago, a striking development because as Goldman notes, "negative
skew is a relatively rare statistic for large cap names such as AMZN (where
three month skew is currently at all-time lows), implying crowding in long AMZN
calls."
---- These bizarre trends, where one or more players where furiously buying calls and pushing both the implied vol and gamma (in both single stocks and the broader market) ever higher while dealers were caught short gamma and were forced to chase stock prices to obscene levels, creating a feedback loop where the more calls were bought the higher the underlying stock price surged, leading to even more call buying and the paradox of a record high vix at an all time high in the S&P500 (in fact the last time we had observed such a confluence was the day the dot com bubble burst)...
---- The punchline, for all those who had been looking at the market action in recent weeks in stunned silence, was that "while most of the market is fading lower we are seeing a battle between a few big hedge funds and banks who are getting shorter and shorter gamma."
Then all the pieces fell into place last Thursday when we first reported that contrary to expectations that the furious melt up of July and August was solely due to a buying frenzy among retail speculators, the identity of the "mystery marketwide call buyer" - or "nasdaq whale" as he was later dubbed - was none other than SoftBank and its founder, Masa Son. This is what we said:
More
Finally, the new era of
the co-opted, politicised, new fiat money spewing central bank. Just wait until
the Democrat Socialists get control.
Monetary Policy Expert David Marsh "We Are Witnessing the End of Independent Central Banks"
Former investment banker David Marsh is
critical of the European Central Bank and the U.S. Federal Reserve for having
transformed themselves into political instruments. Inflation, he says, isn't
dead - and it will come back.
Interview Conducted by Tim Bartz
04.09.2020, 18.10 Uhr
DER SPIEGEL: Mr. Marsh, the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) has just bid farewell to its
inflation target and is now tolerating inflation rates above 2 percent. The
European Central Bank (ECB) could soon follow suit. Will inflation soon be
making a comeback?
Marsh: I wouldn't be so defeatist, but it is clear that a new era is dawning.
The Fed is further constraining the ECB’s freedom of maneuver.
DER SPIEGEL: How so?
Marsh: The Fed has always been careful to keep inflation and unemployment
under control with its monetary policy. That is now over. Because of the
pandemic, unemployment has risen sharply, and at the same time, inflation has
been very low for 10 years. There are reasons for this, but they have nothing
to do with the central banks.
----DER SPIEGEL: If inflation is no longer
a problem, why is the Fed's decision to tolerate higher consumer prices such a
big deal?
Marsh: Because inflation is not dead, but can once again become a real danger
given the debt-financed government spending deployed in the fight against the
pandemic. The central banks should be ready to fight rising inflation
rates. But they are abandoning the fight.
DER SPIEGEL: How much inflation are we actually talking about? There are some
believe the global economy is heading back to the hyperinflation of the 1920s.
Marsh: I think that's completely exaggerated. If industry recovers from the
corona shock, prices could rise by well over 2 percent. That would be just fine
for politicians, because if prices rise, the nominal gross domestic product
also grows. And as long as that increases faster than debt, the sovereign debt
level will melt away essentially automatically.
DER SPIEGEL: What would be great for finance ministers …
Marsh: ... but would be accompanied by social injustice. Those who own their
own homes or stock portfolios are happy because both become worth more with
inflation. But those who have hardly any assets and live in rented
accommodation feel rising prices much more directly. The gap grows bigger,
which in turn helps the populists. We see this happening already.
DER SPIEGEL: Critics say that the basket of goods and services used by the ECB to
measure the inflation rate, which in turn is used as the basis of its monetary
policy, is calculated incorrectly. Do you agree with that criticism?
Marsh: I think so, yes. The real inflation is higher. As I said: Real estate
prices, including rents, are decisive for the cost of living and the shopping
basket does not reflect that. But that is not the real problem.
DER SPIEGEL: What is?
Marsh: The politicization of the central banks. The new Fed strategy is the
strongest sign that the central banks are taking on more and more tasks for
which politicians are responsible, such as fighting unemployment. The ECB,
which intends to present its new strategy in 2021, will follow in the Fed's
footsteps. We are witnessing the end of independent central banks -
which was partly a myth anyway.
More
We live in an age of charts and computers, and the thing about charts and computer studies is that they show what is moving, and if everybody plays this game, then what moves is what is already moving.
Adam Smith, aka George Goodman. The Money Game.
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.India Surpasses Brazil With World’s Second Highest Virus Cases
By Ruth PollardNow the global virus hotspot, India added the largest number of cases in a day with 90,802 recorded overnight Sunday, according to data released by India’s health ministry. More than 71,000 people have died from Covid-19, making India the third-largest by number of deaths.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government initiated the world’s biggest virus lockdown in the country of 1.3 billion people in late March, but the economic and social costs forced a gradual reopening even as infections surged at a record pace.
India’s economy posted the biggest contraction among major economies last quarter, with its gross domestic product shrinking 23.9% in the three months to June from a year earlier.
More
India Tops Brazil for Second-Most Cases Globally: Virus Update
Bloomberg News
Updated on September 7, 2020, 5:11 AM GMT+1
India, the world’s new Covid-19 epicenter, surpassed Brazil as the second-worst hit country. The country’s
virus curve is showing no signs of flattening out, with infections rising by
more than 90,000 a day.The U.S., India and Brazil account for more than half the world’s coronavirus cases, which have now topped 27 million. Australia warned of mounting economic pain as Victoria state announced only a gradual easing of its lockdown. South Korea reported the fewest new infections in three weeks.
European hot spots are spiking again, with infections in the U.K. increasing by the most in more than three months. While U.S. cases steadied, governors across the country urged citizens to be cautious during the Labor Day holiday weekend.
Key Developments:
- Global Tracker: Cases surpass 27 million; deaths exceed 882,000
- Airplane cabins could look different the next time you fly
- Hong Kong tycoons, banks claimed millions in virus subsidies
- Australia warns of economic pain as Melbourne lockdown extended
- Vaccine tracker: Where are we in the race for protection?
More
France Leads Europe’s Coronavirus Surge Just as Schools Reopen
By Francois De Beaupuy and Alessandro Speciale
September 5, 2020, 5:16 PM GMT+1
The surge in new coronavirus cases in France is far
outstripping increases in other
European countries and is coming just as millions of children return to
school, leaving the government weighing ways to respond.New cases jumped by almost 9,000 Friday, the biggest daily increase since the start of the pandemic. That was almost twice the advance in Spain and about four times Italy’s, with daily cases in both countries at or near the highest gains in months. Infections are also surging in Germany and the U.K.
Part of the French spike is linked to testing increasing to more than 1 million a week, and policy makers can take some comfort from the fact that hospitalizations and fatalities are contained. The number of patients in intensive care was at 473 Friday, compared with about 7,000 at the peak. Still, the surge is coming just as 12 million students return to school, creating pressure for action on a government reluctant to consider a new, national lockdown.
----Some things remain sacrosanct. The Tour de France started in Nice last week after a two-month delay. Still, with strict health protocols in place, the cyclists’ Grand Depart was watched by just 100 people.
Across Europe, cases have been jumping due to a combination of stepped
up testing and an easing of lockdown measures that permitted millions to travel
this summer. Reviving broad lockdowns may not be an option for leaders
struggling to revive crippled economies who are facing growing public fatigue,
and even open opposition to restrictions that have triggered protests in places
like Germany, the U.K. and Italy.
The
economy may continue to take priority over lockdowns as long as
hospitalizations and fatalities remain constrained. Many of the new infections
have been among younger, healthier people, who tend to recover more quickly and
with fewer complications.
More
Raging Campus Outbreaks Send Students Home Across the U.S.
Janet Lorin
September 4, 2020, 11:27 AM EDT
Experts say schools may be incubators, threatening communities.
The State University at Oneonta in central New York on Thursday said
it’s sending students home amid rising Covid-19 rates. The same day, Temple
University in Philadelphia called it quits. So did Colorado College earlier in
the week.
At the University of Alabama, 1,200 of 38,500 students are infected, and
the University of South Carolina’s positive test rate topped 27%. Even the
University of Illinois, one of the pioneers in saliva testing for students, had
to beg them to stop partying and increased patrols after finding more than 700
positive cases since classes began.
Weeks into the academic year, colleges are hosting raging clusters of
infections, crises that are both medical and political. Administrators are
under intense pressure to keep schools functioning, providing a semblance of
educational and athletic normality: President Donald Trump has said canceling
football games would be a “tragic mistake.” But experts say that virus cases
will inevitably emerge and could threaten surrounding communities.
----Many schools sit amid hot spots, especially in the Midwest. The University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, which has performed almost 200,000 tests on students, faculty and staff in twice-weekly screenings, warned Wednesday of a worrisome increase in virus cases.
Risky behavior by undergraduates was to blame, including partying and
ignoring quarantine guidance, the university said. It is disciplining more than
100 students and several organizations.
“The irresponsible and downright dangerous actions of a small number of
our students have created the very real possibility of ending an in-person
semester,” Chancellor Robert Jones said Wednesday.
At Iowa State University in Ames, the positivity rate during the first
week of classes, which started Aug. 17, was 13.6%. In the second week, it shot
to 28.8% on the campus of more than 31,000 students.
Large parties and gatherings were the cause, President Wendy Wintersteen
said in a statement. The university expanded testing and contact tracing, and
enacted new requirements such as face coverings. Calls from the community also
led Wintersteen to reverse course and not allow any fans to watch the home
opener football game Sept. 12 in the stadium. The school had previously planned
to allow 25,000 people, less than half the capacity.
More
Some COVID-19 survivors may have permanent nerve damage
Sept. 5, 2020 /
3:40 AM
Placing a hospitalized COVID-19 patient in a face down position to ease
breathing -- or "proning" -- has steadily gained traction as a
pandemic lifesaver. But a small new study warns that it may lead to permanent
nerve damage.
The concern is based on the experience of 83 COVID-19 patients who were
placed face down while attached to a ventilator. Once they improved, all began
post-COVID-19 rehabilitation at a single health care facility.
By that point, roughly 14% had developed a "peripheral nerve injury" (PNI) involving one or more major joints, such as the wrist, hand, foot or shoulder.
Despite that damage, study author Dr. Colin Franz said proning "is a lifesaving intervention, and we think it is saving lives during the COVID pandemic."
And although placing patients face down has been known to cause skin pressure injuries in non-COVID-19 patients, he said nerve compression injuries are typically uncommon with regular repositioning and careful padding.
"So we were very surprised to find 12 out of 83 patients with nerve injuries," said Franz, neurology director of the Regenerative Neurorehabilitation Laboratory at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in Chicago.
More
Some useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus
resource centre
Rt Covid-19
Covid19info.live
Technology Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC or DC
energy mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards.
UK firm's solar power breakthrough could make world's most efficient panels by 2021
Oxford PV says tech based on perovskite crystal can generate almost a third more electricitySat 15 Aug 2020 00.00 BST
British rooftops could be hosting a breakthrough in new solar power technology by next summer, using a crystal first discovered more than 200 years ago to help harness more of the sun’s power.
An Oxford-based solar technology firm hopes by the end of the year to begin manufacturing the world’s most efficient solar panels, and become the first to sell them to the public within the next year.
Oxford PV claims that the next-generation solar panels will be able to generate almost a third more electricity than traditional silicon-based solar panels by coating the panels with a thin layer of a crystal material called perovskite.
The breakthrough would offer the first major step-change in solar power generation since the technology emerged in the 1950s, and could play a major role in helping to tackle the climate crisis by increasing clean energy.
By coating a traditional solar power cell with perovskite a solar panel can increase its power generation, and lower the overall costs of the clean electricity, because the crystal is able to absorb different parts of the solar spectrum than traditional silicon.
Typically a silicon solar cell is able to convert up to about 22% of the available solar energy into electricity. But in June 2018, Oxford PV’s perovskite-on-silicon solar cell surpassed the best performing silicon-only solar cell by reaching a new world record of 27.3%.
The perovskite-coated panels will appear different too. Instead of the blue tint usually associated with traditional silicon panels, Oxford PV’s panels will appear black and blend in better with rooftop slates.
The mineral perovskite, also known as the crystal calcium titanate, was first discovered by a Russian mineralogist in the Ural mountains in 1839. In the last 10 years, scientists around the world have been locked in a race to engineer chemical compounds based upon the perovskite crystal structure but that are able to generate more renewable electricity at a lower cost.
Dr Chris Case, the chief technology officer at Oxford PV, said using perovskite represents “a true change” for solar technology, which has remained relatively unchanged since the silicon-based panels developed in the 1950s.
“Silicon has reached its culmination of capability,” he said. “There are residual improvements to be made, and cost of production opportunities, but from a performance standpoint it is at its efficiency limit. The perovskite material is something totally innovative for solar.”
The company won £100,000 of funding from the UK government in 2010, before attracting equity investment from Norwegian oil giant Equinor, Legal & General Capital and the Chinese renewables giant Goldwind.
Frank Averdung, Oxford PV’s chief executive, said the company will be able to steal a march on the first commercially available solar panels which use perovskite to improve solar generation against the company’s rivals.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/aug/15/uk-firms-solar-power-breakthrough-could-make-worlds-most-efficient-panels-by-2021
If you are in the right stocks at the wrong time, you may be right but have a long wait; at least you are better off than coming late to the party. You don’t want to be on the dance floor when the music stops.
Adam Smith aka George Goodman.
US Politics Betting Odds
The Monthly Coppock Indicators finished August
DJIA: 28,430 Up. NASDAQ: 11,775 Up. SP500:
3,500 Up.
The NASDAQ
remained up. The DJIA and SP500 turned up in uly. 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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