QUICK OVERVIEW

•  China flies nuclear bomber over South China Sea to 'send a message' to Donald Trump
•  US officials say flight is in response to President-elect’s phone call with Taiwan's leader
• 
  
• Hmm. Is America about to enter a new golden age under (I'm, like a smart person) Trump  ? Another fresh all-time high of the skyrocketing Dow seems to says so.
•  
• Libor Fed Fund spread is looking interesting 

• Russia and others join OPEC in a rare, coordinated push to cut oil output...

• One in six Americans now believes that military rule would be a good idea...

• The CIA concluded that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help elect (I'm, like a smart person) Trump...

• Trump (I'm, like a smart person) is expected to name the CEO of Exxon Mobil Tillerson as the country's top diplomat.HE RUNS WORLDS LARGEST OIL COMPANY, has extensive business dealings with Putin & Russia, and favors doing away with sanctions. In 2013, Putin awarded Tillerson the Order of Friendship, Russia’s highest honors for foreigners.

• (NYT) Trump (I'm, like a smart person), in Louisiana, says he will end energy regulations…

• China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 2.3% YoY in November, up from October's 2.1% the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced.

• (WP) Trump's (I'm, like a smart person) transition team has issued a list of 74 questions for the Energy Department, asking agency officials to identify which employees and contractors have worked on forging an international climate pact as well as domestic efforts to cut the nation’s carbon output.

• Gold futures fell on Thursday as the European Central Bank' s decision on quantitative easing supported the U.S. dollar

• (Paul Krugman) Another metric: Trump would have to do one Carrier-sized deal a week for 30 years to save as many jobs as Obama's auto bailout

• (Reuters) - Britain's Royal Mint and leading U.S.-based derivatives exchange CME Group have teamed up to create a blockchain-based digital platform for dealing in gold in a drive to cut the costs involved in trading the precious metal.

• Economists at Zillow arepredicting a trend reversal in 2017, due partly to expected policy changes under President-elect Trump and partly to the ongoing housing recovery. Experts there say 2017 will see more millennial home ownership, more driving and rising construction costs.

• (Zillow) Experts Predict Housing Market Will Soon Favor Buyers

• The median home value in the U.S. is now $191,200, up 6.2 percent since last October, according to Zillow's October Real Estate Market Report

• - Home values rose 6.2 percent over the past year to a Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI) of $191,200 in October.

• - Rents rose 1.4 percent over the past year to a Zillow Rent Index (ZRI) of $1,402.

• - There are 6 percent fewer homes for sale than a year ago, with Boston and Indianapolis reporting the greatest drop in inventory.

• - Most experts surveyed predict the housing market will shift from the current seller's market to a buyer's market by 2019.

Weekly Charts are up-to-date   

Real Estate is up-to-date

Daily Charts are up-to-date

Baltic Exchange Dry Index etc.




is up-to-date

QUICK OVERVIEW

• (NYT) A quarter of India’s 1.25 billion people are younger than 15. Every month, until 2030, nearly a million Indians will turn 18 European Central Bank 

• (ECB) President Mario Draghi said 2016 marked the first year when gross domestic product (GDP) in the Eurozone recovered to above its pre-crisis level since 2008.

• (Economist) Global wealth distribution: Where you fit in - If you had only $2,220 to your name, you might not think yourself terribly fortunate. But you would be wealthier than half the world’s population. With $71,560 or more, you’d be in the top tenth. If you were lucky enough to own over $744,400, as 18m Americans do, you are a member of the global 1% that voters everywhere are rebelling against. Some of those railing against the global elite probably do not know they belong to it.

• (538) 82% of U.S. middle school students who weren’t able to determine the difference between sponsored content and a real news article, according to a new Stanford University study.

• (Bloomberg/538) $146 million, estimated size of the market for aloe vera products in the U.S. Well, for products that claim to contain aloe vera, anyway. It turns out that store-brand aloe products sold in Target, Walmart and CVS didn’t contain any aloe at all, according to a lab analysis sponsored by Bloomberg News, despite listing it as one of the top two ingredients.

• The Federal Trade Commission struck a blow for reality when it declared that homeopathic products may no longer make claims to treat any condition unless those claims are backed up by hard scientific evidence.

• (Economist) Arctic sea ice: On the rocks Scientists are interested in sea ice as a marker—and amplifier—of climate change. In recent years the melting season in the Arctic has been ending later in the year. As a result, the total sea-ice extent in September 2016 was over 3m sq km smaller than in September 1980—though not quite as small as in 2012, the worst year so far. In the Arctic, it is around 2m sq km below average, the lowest figure on record for November (Economist)

• Donald Trump said this week that on his first day in office, America would quit the TPP, a trade pact nearly a decade in the making. It would have covered almost 40% of the global economy. The deal was meant to be strategic as well as economic; its other signatories consider it pointless without American participation. Observers expect China to fill the void and assume economic leadership in Asia.

• CME Group, announced it set a total open interest record of 116,999,368 on Nov. 23, 2016. The new record surpassed the previous open interest record of 116,427,935 contracts set on June 9, 2016. Interest Rate open interest also hit a record of 69,493,548 contracts, surpassing the previous open interest record of 68,147,202 set on Nov. 22, 2016.

9/11, global elites and goblins: How America's top conspiracy theorist helped Donald Trump win (NZ Herald)

Mr Jones offered his followers $US1000 if they appeared on national TV for more than five seconds wearing the shirt, and $US5000 if they shouted the phrase "Bill Clinton is a rapist".

The Drums of War George Monbiot

The combination of automation, complexity and climate change is dangerous in ways we haven’t even begun to grasp.

 
Dow Trend Earnings (aka Fed model) is up-to-date

Baltic Exchange is up-to-date

Capesize etc. is up-to-date

Trump voters will not like what happens next


..millions of people will take up leaf-raking and garage cleaning with intense pleasure. I'll be one  of them - back whenever..

 

An American Tragedy

David Remnick (The New Yorker)

(USDA) Indian centrifugal sugar production in marketing year (MY) 2016/17 (out-year) is revised down by six percent to 23.9 million metric tons (MMT). Despite higher sugar production in Uttar Pradesh, lower than anticipated sugar production from Maharashtra and Karnataka will further push overall production levels below last year. Assuming normal sugarcane yields and a net decline in planted area, overall sugarcane production during the out-year is now revised lower to 324 MMT from 4.57 million hectares. Commercial trade will be minimal.

California Dreamin: If memory serves, the sugar move in the early seventies went from some 2 cents to some 66 cents. (I believe I know the guy that bought that all-time high tick).

Translating this to “now”, per the bureau of labor statistics inflation calculator, 2 cents in 1973 equals $11 cents now.
And 66 cents in 1973 are equal to $3.63 now.

Therefore, I’m now looking for a sugar move to $3.63. The Presidential debate is over, time for another whisky -
$ 3.63 HA

All you heavy Orange Juice drinkers may want to stock up - in case it makes "all time" new highs..

Charts are up-to-date

Daily Charts are up-to-date

Brexit cost investors $2 trillion, the worst one day drop ever

(CNBC)Worldwide markets hemorrhaged more than $2 trillion in paper wealth on Friday, according to data from S&P Global, the worst on record. For context, that figure eclipsed the whipsaw trading sessions of the 2008 financial crisis, according to S&P analyst Howard Silverblatt.

Charts are up-to-date

Dry Bulk Shipping To Witness Steady Progress Moving Forward On The Back Of Growing Trade Volumes Says BIMCO

“We are still worried about the sustainability of freight rates in the years to come. Our main worry is that demolition activity will slow down as the BDI improves. If shipowners slow demolition of ships considerably, the fleet will keep growing. This will widen the fundamental imbalance further because we forecast the demand side to grow slowly in the coming years. In order to reverse several years of adding capacity in excess of demand growth, we need to develop a multi-year trend of negative fleet growth. BIMCO assess the current utilisation rate of the dry bulk fleet at the low end of the 70s”, said the report.

Baltic Dry Index and Overview are up-to-date

Baltic Dry Index and Overview are up-to-date

BDI and Overview are up to date

Baltic Dry index and Quick Overview are up-to-date

Where in this cycle are we? - (YOU?)

Zombie ships send maritime freight into worst crisis in living memory Cheap debt, the China slowdown, and a glut of ships have seen the Baltic Dry Index plummet to its lowest level in more than 30 years

Mercator to exit dry bulk shipping business due to downturn  
Mercator decides to exit dry bulk cargo business carried on by its Singapore unit by way of divestment as part of its ongoing portfolio-restructuring exercise

 Baltic Exchange Capesize index in new low


 Opportunities are emerging to tempt those with strong nerves..

Quick Overview is up-to-date

Baltic Dry Index (BDI) is up-to-date 

New low :(

QUICK OVERVIEW

• The whole world is on edge “again” so global stocks had a miserable start to the year – the worst ever.

• China’s stock market lost almost 10% for the week, causing trading to be suspended twice.

• Fears of a wider Sunni-Shia conflict are increasing

• North Korea keeps rattling nukes, and South Korea put its military on alert

• America’s economy added 292,000 jobs in December, better than expected.

• Inflation in the Eurozone is unchanged at 0.2%. Forecasters had expected a rise.

• Sweden, also battling low inflation, has a benchmark interest rate of -0.35%.

• Car manufacturers in the US had the best year “ever” – selling 17.47 million vehicles.

• Iron Ore prices continue depressed

• APX spot electricity rates are at a 15 year low

• Rubber continues to sink

• Total U.S. Rail carloads are down 20.3 %

• YoY Coal Rail carloads are down 35.3% YoY

• The Libor - Fed Funds Spread is beginning to look interesting “again”.

• Our opinion of Dow Theory is currently bearish. IT will return to a bullish stance if the Dow Industrials close above 17919 “and” the Dow Transports close above 8292.

• Dow Divided by CPI pulling back to breakout point.

• The CPI adjusted S&P hasn’t made new highs “yet”..

• When vied from this angle (lt DJ log) things look quite benign “so far”- especially if one includes dividends..

• The next short term S&P Cycle low should show up around Jan. 22 - perhaps!

• The S&P Vix Ratio is in green territory - perchance it’ll get a bit greener?

• Gold Bugs: buy XAU versus Gold?

• % of world markets with 5 week average above 20 week average
• % of world markets with 6 month average above 24 month average

• ( WSJ) 40% of millennials have used a pawnshop or payday lender.

• Brazil's inflation rate soaring to 10.7% a 13-year high

• U.S. home values gained $1.1 trillion; renters paid record $535 billion in 2015 T .

Charts are up-to-date

Charts are up-to-date

QUICK OVERVIEW

• (The Economist) November was another strong month for America’s labour market. The economy added 211,000 jobs, according to data published on Friday; figures for September and October were revised up. The unemployment rate stayed at 5%. The healthy report makes an interest-rate rise this month look all but certain. This week Janet Yellen, head of the Federal Reserve, hinted that an increase was on the way.

• (The Economist) The European Central Bank headed in the other direction, though not as far as expected. On Thursday, the ECB pushed its deposit rate further into negative territory, from -0.2% to -0.3%, and promised to extend its bond-buying programme by six months, to March 2017. But markets had anticipated more. European share prices fell and the euro rebounded from recent lows.

• Xi Jinping, China’s president, told other world leaders in Paris that their talks mark a “new starting-point” in tackling climate change, his own capital was stewing in a pea-souper of smog. Yesterday Beijing’s air-quality index topped 600: “Hazardous…everyone may experience…serious health effects”.

• The Debt held by U.S. farmers in 2015, expressed in proportion to net income, is estimated at 6.3 to 1. One has to go back to the 1980s to find another 6 to 1.

• (Zillow) With the majority of renters in the largest metros putting about 30 percent of their monthly income toward a rental payment, saving money for a 20 percent - or even 10 percent - down payment is extremely difficult. First-time homebuyers and millennials are left trying to find other ways to break into the housing market, turning to friends and family for financial help. In 2014 alone, 13 percent of home purchases were bought using a loan or gift from friends or family for the down payment

• Euro Zone third-quarter GDP growth slowed to 0.3%.

• (Economist) The taxation of multinationals is getting an overdue shake-up. At the G20 summit in Turkey this weekend, the leaders of the world’s biggest economies are expected to approve the biggest overhaul in decades. The OECD drew up the new standards (snappily entitled “Base Erosion and Profit Shifting”) over two years. They are intended to make country-by-country corporate reporting more transparent, and to close loopholes that allow multinationals—particularly technology and drug companies with lots of easily movable assets, such as intellectual property—to shift profits to tax havens. The OECD thinks the reforms could help governments claw back more than $200 billion a year. Approval is all but guaranteed: the G20’s finance ministers have already given BEPS the thumbs-up. The next stage is to implement the reforms. But doing it uniformly won’t be easy: national parliaments will want to bend the rules.

• (Economist) ExxonMobil was sent a subpoena by New York state’s attorney-general, requiring it to hand over documents regarding what the company knew about climate change, and when. The state is asking whether Exxon was forthcoming with its investors about the results of its own decades-long research into carbon emissions’ effects on the atmosphere—and the liabilities faced by the world’s largest publicly traded oil company.

• China has decided to end its decades-long one-child policy, the state-run Xinhua news agency reports. Couples will now be allowed to have two children. Condom shares fell, however shares in companies that make diapers, strollers and baby food have been bolstered. However, the policy shift will make no difference to the workforce for almost 20 years when China will be in the full grip of a demographic crunch.

• To boost more coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, 23 new intercity rail lines will be built by the end of 2030, according to the company that will make the investment.

• China announced plans to build a nationwide charging-station network that will fulfill the power demands of 5 million electric vehicles by 2020.

• The European Union predicted that 3m more migrants could arrive by the end of 2017.

• Almost half of investors surveyed by E*TRADE expect a market downturn.

• (Spiegel) Ahead of the planned lifting of Western sanctions against Iran, businessmen from around the world are visiting the country, and as one group from Germany discovered, there is no shortage of opportunities

• The Bank of Japan’s main inflation gauge dropped for a second consecutive month as the effects of low oil prices continue to take a toll, keeping Governor Haruhiko Kuroda distant from his 2 percent inflation target. Consumer prices excluding fresh food declined 0.1 percent in September from a year earlier

• Contracts to buy previously owned U.S. homes fell unexpectedly in September, a warning sign that the housing market recovery may be stumbling. The National Association of Realtors said on Thursday its Pending Home Sales Index, based on contracts signed last month, dropped 2.3 percent to 106.8, the second lowest reading of 2015.

• Condos are appreciating faster than single-family homes in markets across the U.S., especially where job markets are thriving or urban renewal is underway, according to Zillow® Condos in the U.S. are appreciating at a rate of 5.1 percent, compared to the 3.7 percent appreciation among single-family homes. YoY Iceland's fish catch decreased by 6.7 % in September

Interesting Chart of the U.S. Labor Force Participation Rate

  There are an estimated 10,000 Baby Boomers retiring each day..
  A Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) study estimates that 55% of the decline in the LFPR
   from   the end of 2007 to the end of 2014 was entirely due to demographic reasons.

Daily charts are up-to-date

QUICK OVERVIEW

• Lazaridis added that “in the case of the Capesize and Handysize vessels, this looks to be a double gain, as we only need to see a similar rise in interest as the one noted last year during the same period in order to generate an equal improvement in freight levels, given as the fleet size of both these size segments has remained overall unchanged during the past 12 months. Taking the same consideration for Panamaxes and Supramaxes things aren’t as rosy, as their respective fleets have shown a notable increase since then. Nevertheless, things have been more positive for these size segments thanks to the improving demand from India which is driving bigger interest in the Pacific for these vessels. As such it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to place a base case scenario of the Baltic TCA rates in the Supramaxes and Panamaxes surpassing at some point the US$ 10,000/day mark before the year closes, while Capesizes should easily reach the US$ 25,000/day mark”, Allied’s analyst noted.

• The Federal Reserve is still expected to raise U.S. interest rates in December but signs the labor market may be in a soft patch have dented confidence the central bank will pull the trigger, according to a Reuters poll

• Eurozone’s trade surplus in August declined more-than-forecast from the previous month, as exports declined and imports increased, figures from Eurostat showed Friday.
• The seasonally adjusted trade surplus fell to EUR 19.8 billion from EUR 22.4 billion in July. Economists had expected EUR 22.1 billion surplus.
• Exports dropped 1.3 percent from July, while imports grew 0.2%

• Factory output fell in September for a second month as high inventories and lukewarm demand from overseas customers kept American producers bogged down. The 0.1 % drop at manufacturers, which make up 75 % of all production, followed a revised 0.4 % decrease the prior month, a Federal Reserve report showed .

• China's role in helping revitalize infrastructure and financial investment across Africa is gaining momentum ahead of the forthcoming Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit set to be held in South Africa in December, Kenyan expert said.

• China increased its holding of U.S. Treasury securities in August, while Japan cut its share.

• U.S. recession a little more likely? The probability that the world’s biggest economy will enter a recession in the next 12 months jumped to 15 %, its highest level since October 2013, according to economists surveyed Oct. 2-7 by Bloomberg. ...

• (MW) Federal Reserve officials now seem open to deploying negative interest rates to combat the next serious recession even though they rejected that option during the darkest days of the financial crisis in 2009 and 2010. “Some of the experiences [in Europe] suggest maybe can we use negative interest rates and the costs aren’t as great as you anticipate,” said William Dudley, the president of the New York Fed, in an interview on CNBC.

• Finance leaders from the Group of 20 largest economies backed an international agreement to limit tax avoidance by multinational corporations. The international effort, which represents the most wide-ranging overhaul of tax rules in decades, is meant to curb revenue losses from companies keeping profits overseas.

• MoM German exports slumped by 5.2% in August, pushing down the trade surplus, adjusted for seasonal variations, to EUR19.6 billion ($22 billion), the Federal Statistical office said . That was the steepest decline in German exports since January 2009, an economist at Destatis said.

• The Bloomberg US Consumer Comfort Index improved to 44.8 in the period ended Oct. 4, pushing above this year’s average, from 43. The measure has advanced 4.6 points over the last three weeks, the biggest gain for any comparable period since May 2009.

• Britain’s Construction output plunged by a monthly 4.3% percent, its biggest fall since December 2012, contrasting with a median forecast for growth of 1.0 %.

• China’s retail sales growth slowed during the week-long National Day Holiday, Ministry of Commerce data showed, adding to concerns about weakness in the world’s second largest economy.

• The bond market isn’t buying what Feds Janet Yellen is selling on inflation. While she reiterated last week that the Fed expects inflation to gradually rise back near 2% - bonds are demonstrating this is bs..

• U.S. consumer confidence rose in September to 103.0 from a revised 101.1 in August. Forecasters had it dropping to 96.0…

• (MarketWatch) -- U.S. house prices rose 0.6% in July, led mostly by western markets including Portland and San Diego, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city composite released Tuesday. After seasonal adjustment, prices slipped 0.2%. Over the last 12 months, prices have climbed 5%, led by 10.4% growth in San Francisco and 10.3% growth in Denver.
• Fourteen cities reported greater price increases in the year ending July 2015, and every city saw price gains.
• U.S. New-home sales rose 5.7 % last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 552,000m - that is the strongest pace since February 2008, near the beginning of the Great Recession.

• According to the most recent weekly data from credit card data tracking website CreditCards.com, the national average for U.S. credit card interest rates is 15% So, unless this is paid off - it'll double every 4.8 years (rule of 72)
• According to a report from the Federal Reserve in July, revolving debt rose to $914.6 billion, up $4.3 billion MoM. This is the highest level of consumer-carried debt since December 2009, implying a YoY growth rate of 5.7%.

• China’s top government-affiliated think tank has lowered its growth estimate for 2015, saying the economy is unlikely to deliver the 7% annual growth. It now expects growth of 6.9%

• Goldman Sachs released a September 22 research note that predicted that coal will decline and never come back. “Peak coal is coming sooner than expected,” the investment bank concluded.

•  “ Germany’s wages rose 2.7 % YoY

• Dry bulk market fundamentals are still grim despite funds buying into dry bulk firms

• To provide complete care for its residents, Chaseley Trust — a venerable British nursing facility housed in an ornate seaside mansion — offers amenities such as a movie theater, a gymnasium and a pool table. It also, from time to time, invites prostitutes and strippers to provide their services to residents.

Charts are up-to-date

Some that could be of interest:

• Vix ratio ROC
• S&P Cycle (short term low tomorrow?)
• DJIA CPI adjusted  -  is back to 2000 level  
• XAU    and what a dog it has been (support?)
• NYSE new weekly highs - can it go lower?
• Investors Intelligence
• Gold / Crude ratio

•  And if you want to scan all charts, one right after another, you can do so easily here