Saturday, November 26, 2016

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.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11755717&ref=rss9/11, 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".

Friday, November 25, 2016

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.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

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..

Wednesday, November 09, 2016

Wednesday, October 05, 2016


(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.

Monday, September 26, 2016

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..

Sunday, June 26, 2016

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

Friday, May 06, 2016


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.