For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
Anon.
For more on missing nails scroll down to the Global Inflation
section.
Did the Asian stock casino bubble just run into its pin?
A very large pin called China Evergrande Group.
It’s hard to see why a White Knight might want to show up
to take on the impossibility of turning around this sinking behemoth, nor why
Beijing might want to rescue reckless, vanity, avarice and hubris.
While large, it’s more Refco than Lehmann Brothers.
Still, with October coming, plus winter in the northern
hemisphere with already sky high prices for natural gas, generating yet more
supply chain difficulties in the G-7 economies, this doesn’t seem a good time
to be fully invested in stocks.
What if we’ve just started to run out of the supply of
greater fool buyers?
Below, a world staring at a lot of very hard choices as
we approach the Autumn equinox and Harvest Full Moon.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index drops
4% as Evergrande shares plunge nearly 17%, other property stocks fall
SINGAPORE — Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index led losses among
Asia-Pacific markets in Monday trade, with shares of embattled Chinese
developer China
Evergrande Group continuing to drop.
The Hang Seng
index dropped 4.11% in Monday trade. Shares of China Evergrande Group in
the city plummeted almost 17%. The Hang Seng Properties index also dropped to a
52-week low, last trading nearly 7% lower.
Shares of insurers listed in the city also plunged, with AIA dropping
about 6% while Ping
An Insurance fell nearly 8%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan
fell 1.99%.
Markets in mainland China, Japan and South Korea are closed
on Monday for holidays.
Over on Wall Street, stocks have struggled in the seasonally
weak month of September, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average seeing three
straight weeks of losses — its first in 2021.
Investor focus for the week will likely be on the U.S. Federal Reserve’s upcoming
September meeting for clues on the central bank’s tapering of its easy monetary
policy.
Evergrande collapse could have a
‘domino effect’ on China’s property sector, AllianceBernstein says
A spillover of the crisis at China Evergrande
Group into other parts of the economy could become a systemic problem,
warned Jenny Zeng from AllianceBernstein.
Zeng said a sizable number of developers in the
offshore dollar market appear to be “highly distressed” and may not
survive much longer if the refinancing channel remains shut for a
prolonged period.
These developers may be small individually, but
when combined, they make up about 10%-15% of the total market, she added.
----Evergrande,
the world’s most indebted property developer, is crumbling under the weight of
more than $300 billion of debt and warned
more than once it could default. Banks have reportedly declined to extend new loans to buyers of
uncompleted Evergrande residential projects, while ratings agencies have
repeatedly downgraded the firm, citing its liquidity crunch.
The financial position of the other Chinese property
developers also took a hit following rules outlined by the Chinese government
to rein in borrowing costs of the real estate firms. The measures included
placing a cap on debt in relation to a company’s cash flows, assets and capital
levels.
While the struggling developers are
tiny individually, compared to Evergrande, they make up about 10%-15% of the
total market on aggregate, Zeng said. She warned that a collapse could result
in a “systemic” spillover to other parts of the economy.
“Once it starts, it takes much more
from a policy perspective to stop it than to prevent it from happening,” she
added.
‘Take those profits’: Strategist
says extreme market moves are on the horizon
Published Fri, Sep 17 2021 5:57 AM EDTUpdated Fri, Sep 17 2021 12:12 PM EDT
Financial markets appear vulnerable to what could be an
extreme move in either direction, according to Paul Gambles, co-founder of
investment advisory firm MBMG Group.
As a result, Gambles said investors should consider sitting
on the sidelines and build up their cash positions significantly.
His comments come as market participants remain cautious given
a flurry of risks on the horizon. These include fears of rising inflation,
persistent concerns about the economic outlook amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, supply
shortages and valuation concerns.
Some investors are also wary of the possible implications
of China’s indebted property firm Evergrande, which
is on the brink of default.
“Our advice is just be a little bit cautious. We think that
the market is very finely poised waiting for what potentially could be a very,
very big move,” Gambles told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on
Friday.
“We’ve got no idea which direction that could be; I realize
that doesn’t sound helpful, but frankly there are just so many unanswered
questions out there right now,” he said. “Until we start to get answers to
those, our advice is actually unless you can really afford to take what could
be a pretty big hit, and possibly even a permanent hit, then it is better to
just sit on the sidelines.”
Gambles said MBMG Group, which says it has more
than $1.5 billion in assets under advice, has looked to raise cash levels
“quite dramatically” of late, warning market risk had “suddenly gone up and off
the scale” compared with just one month ago.
Gold and gold miners were “one of the best ways to hedge
risk” for the moment, he added, suggesting there was also still some value in
Treasurys.
Next, Iran becomes a full member of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organisation. Despite Brexit and the fall of US run Afghanistan, the
world goes on. Who knew?
Iran blasts 'unilateralism' as it
joins group headed by China, Russia
Sept. 17, 2021 / 1:50 PM
Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Iran became a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
Friday as its new President Ebrahim Raisi blasted the United States and
"unilateralism."
Iran, which has faced heavy sanctions by the United States
under former President Donald Trump, which have mostly been kept in place by
President Joe
Biden, accepted membership in the group, that includes China,
Russia, India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
China and Russia are part of the Obama-era
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action meant to limit Iran's nuclear capabilities
but was abandoned by the Trump administration in favor of sanctions to get Iran
to return to the bargaining table, which never happened.
Iran and the United States had talked about returning to
the deal but nothing has come of those discussions.
"The world has entered a new era," Raisi said,
according to Aljazeera. "Hegemony and unilateralism are failing. The
international balance is moving toward multilateralism and redistribution of
power to the benefit of independent countries."
Raisi said, according to PressTV, Iran wants to be an "active
participant" in international organizations "based on justice,
cooperation, mutual respect and the need to play a constructive role in facing
international and regional challenges."
---- Shanghai Cooperation Organization was created in 2001
as a political, economic and security alliance led by China and Russia. Iran
had observatory status for 15 years until being granted full status on Friday.
“How did you go bankrupt?"
Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
Ernest
Hemingway, The
Sun Also Rises.
Global Inflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our
spendthrift politicians, inflation now
needs an entire section of its own.
Today, for the want of a nail.
Rising gas prices endanger food
supplies
Saturday 18 September
2021 2:20 pm
Food production could be hit by
major disruption after rocketing energy prices have threatened to create a
shortage of carbon dioxide needed for farming.
Two fertiliser plants in the country
have been temporarily shut down as gas prices have climbed.
Firms could run out of carbon
dioxide in less than two weeks, with some being forced to stop taking animals
and close production lines, the British Meat Processors Association (BMPA).
Business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng
said he would meet with energy supplier bosses on Saturday over concerns about
the rise in prices
“Britain has a diverse range of gas
supply sources, with sufficient capacity to more than meet demand. We do not
expect supply emergencies this winter,” the minister said.
Businesses said the shutdowns were
the last thing they needed, requiring carbon dioxide to stun animals, preserve
packaged meat and produce fizzy drinks.
Nick Allen, chief executive of the
BMPA, said: “We’ve had zero warning of the planned closure of the fertiliser
plants and, as a result, it’s plunged the industry into chaos.
“The British food supply chain is at
the mercy of a small number of major fertiliser producers (four or five
companies) spread across northern Europe. We rely on a by-product from their
production process to keep Britain’s food chain moving.”
Zoe Davies, chief executive of the
National Pig Association, said for many pig farmers this would be “the final
straw.”
She added: “This is the absolute
last thing pig farmers need right now. They are already having to accommodate
and feed more pigs on farms than they have the space for due to reduced
throughput of abattoirs caused by the existing labour shortages.”
Why natural
gas prices have surged to some of their highest levels in years
CBC News ·
Natural gas prices have climbed to some of their
highest levels in years, with the increases expected to ripple into
people's gas bills as winter fast approaches.
A marriage of factors in North America and Europe — from
summer storms to an overseas supply crunch — have contributed to sharp
rise in the price of the fossil fuel.
Martin King, senior analyst at RBN Energy, said the Alberta
spot price for natural gas was around $4.80 a gigajoule on Thursday
morning. With the exception of a February price spike amid
a nasty North American cold snap, it's some of the highest prices he's
seen in years.
"It's pretty astounding," King said.
"We're seeing seven-year highs for natural gas both in
the U.S. and Canada and, on the international front, we're seeing pretty much
close to all-time highs in many markets worldwide."
While those prices will help natural gas producers, it'll
have consumers facing higher gas bills at a time when they're already paying
more for housing, transportation and
food.
"We'll see how the spring and summer next year shape
up," King said. "But in the very short term, going into the
winter, we're all going to be facing higher natural gas bills."
----In the U.S. futures market, the natural gas contract for
October climbed to over $5 US per one million British thermal units — a
level not seen since February, 2014.
Reuters
reported Thursday that U.S. natural gas futures slipped as storage levels
improved, but one analyst told the news service it wasn't "enough to put a
ceiling on the recent rise in prices."
Meanwhile, the price of natural gas in Europe has risen fivefold
since last year, pushing power prices across the continent to their highest in
over a decade.
King said itseems like the price could
potentially go a "little bit higher" into October, adding much
depends on how cold things get at the start of the winter heating
season.
Following the markets on both sides of the Atlantic since 1968. A dinosaur, who evolved with the financial system as it was perverted from capitalism to banksterism after the great Nixonian error of abandoning the dollar's link to gold instead of simply revaluing gold. Our money is too important to be left to probity challenged central banksters and crooked politicians.
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