A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Some of the topics discussed include: precious metals pause following yesterday's weakness, emerging markets are pivotel point in recovery, Dollar remains weak, Europe and Japan firm, Industrial metals steady, bond yields firm again.  

Why did you not share the fact that you had stop losses at USD 2,000 for gold and USD 27.50 for silver? I consider this just as important as sharing the information on the purchase and sale of your positions. Especially in light of the fact that your mantra has been for a long time that PMs are "potentially due for a consolidation" which leaves your subscribers pretty much in the dark of how you intend to act if and when the "potential consolidation" sets in and what in your personal view is the right way of (re-)acting. Sharing only ex-post the information that you actually had stop losses in place AFTER they are executed feels more like " adding insult to injury".

And

I wondered whether you can communicate in earlier fashion to your subscribers when you are trading. You don’t trade often, but with high conviction when you do. After seemingly having high conviction in a potential decade long bull market in Gold, I was a little surprised to learn you’d had a tight stop on your Gold position, this exiting at $2,000. Only the day before you were talking about Gold having lots of room to consolidate. With the decline moving through $1,900 temporarily at least, it seems you were right to sell, but I wonder how we as investors can access that critical data point in more real time. By the time we learned of it this morning, Gold had already moved through $1,900. Similarly, Silver experienced the same sort of fall, only steeper given its more volatile nature.

Thank you both these emails which offer me an opportunity to clarify some points both with the provision of my personal portfolio trades and my approach to profiting from the unfolding bull market in precious metals.

My personal portfolio is provided as a public service not as a model portfolio or as a recommendation for what you should do. Inevitably some subscribers will follow my trades but these are not recommendations. In fact, we have never made recommendations because who would they be for? The reality is subscribers come from all walks of life and financial means; ranging from private individuals right up to sovereign wealth funds. Advice for one person would in no way be appropriate for another.

Dear Eoin and team, I would like to thank you very much for the big difference you have made to my confidence in advising my clients, since I re-joined the service. If only I could find a way of explaining the benefit to my professional contacts! All the very best

Thank you for your kind words and welcome back. The one thing I would highlight for prospective subscribers is that in the evolving global tapestry of events, some big picture perspective is likely to be beneficial.

Dear Eoin, I've enjoyed reading your words for quite a while. Today is the first time I am writing you. You included a snip-it from Martin Spring suggesting a genetic component to how people from Southeast Asia avoid infections. You also suggested that it might be potential herd immunity from previous outbreaks.

As a person who has lived in Hanoi for 12 years, I wanted to share my insights with you.

First, and foremost, the government was very quick to shut things down here. The border with China closed even before we had our first case in country. Given the history with previous outbreaks, the government knew enough to act swiftly.

Second, lots of propaganda. In every neighborhood there are announcements about covid. On TV you are reminded constantly about covid. Every time you call someone, they insert a message between the time you press the button and it starts to ring. That message reminds everyone to wear a mask, wash your hands, keep your distance, etc.

Third, people here are more compliant. Conflict is frowned upon. The government says do it, you do it. They say you will protect your parents and grandparents, so you do it out of respect. Young people often avoid wearing helmets on their motorbikes (required by law) but they all wear masks.

Fourth, and something I have not seen stated before, is the Vietnamese language itself. Vietnamese is an under-aspirated language. That is, people breath much less when they speak. In the English- speaking world, sometimes we feel others spit on us accidentally while they are speaking. This does not happen in Vietnam because of the way the language works.

In short, there are plenty of reasons why Vietnam, in particular, has been lucky. Of course, we just started our second wave and now have 16 deaths. Still, I see no reason to believe that there is a genetic component to Vietnam's good fortune. Keep up the great work. Even those of us who never write to you find great value in your insights. Best regards, J.

Thank you for this informative email and your kind words. The Vietnamese response has been very impressive and I in no way wished to disregard the Herculean efforts they have made to contain infection. I did however wish to draw some attention to the question of where the disease in fact originated.

 A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Some of the topics discussed include: precious metals pull back sharply. TIPS and Treasury yields rebound, stocks pause amid short-term overbought conditions, election risk yet to be priced in.   

“Today real rates clearly moved higher and that’s clearly what moved gold lower,” Michael Widmer, head of metals research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said by phone from London.

“You had stronger PPI data out and I think when that data came out the market had another look at rates and expectations.” Exchange-traded fund investors also took a breather, seeing back-to-back outflows for the first time since June. On Friday, State Street Corp.’s SPDR Gold Shares, the largest gold-backed ETF, saw its biggest outflow since March. Meanwhile, a Bloomberg Intelligence gauge of senior gold miners dropped the most intraday since March, down as much as 5.7%.

From a medium-term perspective gold does best in a negative real interest rate environment. The inverse correlation between TIPS yields and gold over the last two months has been very tight because investors have been actively seeking a hedge against devaluation of purchasing power.

The excitement around mRNA goes beyond the pandemic. Proponents hope it can become a wide-ranging platform that will lead to vaccines for other difficult-to-treat infections, as well as customized cancer shots and even heart disease treatments. “It’s a big moment for mRNA therapeutics in general, because now it’s a household word and everybody knows about it,” says Derrick Rossi, a stem cell biologist who was a co-founder of Moderna in 2010 but is no longer affiliated with the company. “For Moderna, it’s the first time on the global stage.”

Interest in using genetic material to turn the body’s cells into vaccine factories dates to a series of experiments in the early 1990s. In 1993 researchers at Merck & Co. injected lab mice with loops of DNA that contained instructions for influenza proteins. To the surprise of the scientists, the mice generated an immune response that protected against the flu. The concept, so elegant it seemed almost too simple to be true, produced a surge of excitement among vaccine experts.

But though DNA vaccines worked in animals, they weren’t successful in initial human trials. It was difficult to get sufficient amounts of DNA into human cells, and when scientists overcame that, the vaccines turned out to be less potent than needed. (They were tried on the most challenging diseases, including HIV.) Over the years research into DNA vaccines has continued, but none has made it to market for humans. Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc., a dark horse in the Covid-19 vaccine race, is testing a DNA-based approach. It uses a hand-held device to zap the skin with electric pulses after an injection, opening up holes in cell membranes to allow in more DNA.

A few lonely scientists pursued mRNA therapies for years. In 2005, University of Pennsylvania researchers Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman found that a slight modification to the mRNA molecule could reduce the immune reaction, making it much more amenable for use in drugs or vaccines. (Since then, scientists have found ways to reduce mRNA’s other vulnerability inside the body, protecting it from enzymes by encapsulating it in lipid nanoparticles.)

The world is betting big on new technology providing solutions to an intractable problem in record time. So far, results are positive and there is reason to be hopeful a treatment effective enough to improve consumer confidence will be available in the near-term.

Some of the biggest countries are recording amazingly low figures. In India the virus has killed only two people per hundred thousand. In Brazil less than 4 per cent of those infected are dying. Nowhere is Covid-19 much worse than a bad outbreak of flu. That’s why I call the extreme policies of lockdowns and border closures the Self-Inflicted Disaster.

You may remember that I suggested months ago that the extraordinarily low infection rates and deaths in East Asia could be because people of Mongoloid race have strong genetic resistance to the virus. Till now nobody has wanted to say that could be so, because of fear of being accused of racism. However now I see that the New York Times, in an article about Thailand’s amazing success fighting Covid-19, suggests there could indeed be a genetic component in the immune systems of Thais and other peoples of the Mekong River region. Thailand has experienced only 58 deaths from the virus; Vietnam none at all; China’s southwestern province of Yunnan fewer than 190 cases.

There is an alternative interpretation of the fact that cases in Yunnan, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam has been so low. What if these populations already had herd immunity because they have been exposed to similar diseases in the past?

A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Some of the topics discussed include: demand for high beta gold increases, stock steady with rotation away from megacaps evident, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan firm, Dollar eases except against the Euro and Yen.  

The first is that many investors have underestimated the impact of low rates on valuations.  In short, what should the stock market yield?  Not its dividend yield, but its earnings yield: the ratio of earnings to price (that is, p/e inverted).  Simplistically, when Treasurys yield less than 1% and you add in the traditional equity premium, perhaps the earnings yield should be 4%.  That yield of 4/100 suggests a p/e ratio (the inverse) of 100/4, or 25.  Thus the S&P 500 shouldn’t trade at its traditional 16 times earnings, but roughly 50% higher.

Even that, it’s said, understates the case, because it ignores the fact that companies’ earnings grow, while bond interest doesn’t.  Thus the demanded return on stocks shouldn’t be (bond yield + equity premium) as suggested above, but rather (bond yield + equity premium - growth).  If the earnings on the S&P 500 will grow to eternity at 2% per year, for example, the right earnings yield isn’t 4%, but 2% (for a p/e ratio of 50).  And, mathematically, for a company whose growth rate exceeds the sum of the bond yield and the equity premium, the right p/e ratio is infinity.  On that basis, stocks may have a long way to go.

The removal of the discount rate, as a basis for valuing cashflows has an outsized effect on all income producing assets. That implies the persistent threat of deflation which allowed long-bond yields to compress to historically low levels globally will persist indefinitely.

In June, Implats balked at investing about 12 billion rand ($680 million) on building a new mine at Waterberg on the northern limb of the platinum belt. The outlook doesn’t support such spending over the next decade, said spokesman Theron. Anglo American Platinum Ltd. has delayed a decision until the second half of next year on whether to spend as much as $1.5 billion on expanding output at its key Mogalakwena mine.

Vancouver-based Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. said it’s still evaluating finance for its new Platreef project, which could require about $1.5 billion of investment. Still, notwithstanding the investment hiatus, the platinum sector remains in better shape than South Africa’s gold industry. Even without further spending, some deep-level mines have a 30-year lifespan, according to James Wellsted, a
spokesman for Sibanye Stillwater Ltd., the world’s No. 1 platinum miner.

Still, investment decisions are complicated because of an uncertain regulatory and policy environment, among other challenges, Wellsted said.
 

The price of any commodity is dictated by the actions of buyers at the margin. The biggest event to hit the sector in the last decade was the demise of the “clean” diesel market. That removed a major source of demand and the price collapsed to unimaginably low levels relative to the other precious metals. A number of platinum miners went bust because they were in no way prepared for the collapse in prices.

The 12-inch square tile module will test whether power can be harvested from its solar panel and transform the energy to a radio frequency microwave. The experiment has been in the works for more than a decade.

The module converts sunlight for microwave power transmission. Depuma said engineers decided to not use optical power transmission because a lot of energy would be lost through clouds and atmosphere.

The Naval Research Laboratory said the results of the experiment could drive the design of a dedicated spacecraft to test the transmission of energy back to Earth. The Pentagon is interested in this technology to provide energy to remote installations like forward operating bases and disaster response areas.

Researchers believe that a space solar system traveling above the atmosphere would catch far more energy than it would be possible on the ground due to the abundant and unimpeded sunlight in space.

One of the concerns is the thermal performance of the hardware. “It’s kind of a tricky problem to have something that’s in direct sunlight all the time and maintain the temperature of the electronics,” said Jaffe.

Solar power satellites could provide energy anywhere in the world, he said. “So a really important component of these kind of satellites would be a device that can convert the sunlight into microwaves or some other form of electromagnetic energy that’s suitable for sending to Earth. Now is the time to test it in space and see how it performs.”

Development of SpaceX’s BFR is progressing much quicker than most people gave the company credit for. The delivery of the vehicle to active commercial service will greatly reduce the cost of lifting major payloads to space.

One of the most commonly asked questions by subscribers is how to find details of my open traders. In an effort to make it easier I will simply repost the latest summary daily until there is a change. I'll change the title to the date of publication of new details so you will know when the information was provided.

A link to this week's Big Picture video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Trump’s order on WeChat came after a similar injunction against ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok, the viral video service the White House accuses of jeopardizing national security. But while ByteDance’s business outside of TikTok is largely confined to home, Tencent is central to the global distribution of games and a major conduit for American companies that sell products in the world’s No. 2 economy.

Apple, for instance, makes the majority of its iPhones in China, where WeChat is the oil that lubricates communications both on the factory floor and in the boardroom. In a worst-case scenario, American consumer brands like Walmart and Starbucks Corp. may be prevented from selling goods and services to Chinese buyers via WeChat’s “mini-programs” in China -- now one of the fastest-growing avenues for e-commerce. China accounts for about 9% of Walmart’s international sales and is its fastest-growing market.

“If you can’t pay for Starbucks coffee on WeChat, people will stop drinking it,” said BOCOM International analyst Connie Gu, commenting on the extreme cases where American brands are banned from using WeChat as a payment method.

Less quantifiable is the spillover effect on the gaming industry.
Tencent ranked as the world’s biggest games publisher by revenue in 2019, according to Newzoo data, and it collaborates with U.S. industry leaders like Activision and Electronics Arts Inc. It also holds a large stake in Fortnite maker Epic Games Inc. and owns League of Legends developer Riot Games Inc. That sprawling but somewhat stealthy gaming empire, deeply rooted in the U.S., was deemed under threat when the WeChat sanction was first announced, though a U.S. official later clarified that the action only involved the messaging service and not its parent.

Chinese language blogs were afire this morning with discussion of the WeChat ban. It is the primary vehicle many people use to communicate, shop, play and remit money across the Chinese diaspora. If India’s ban of Chinese apps is any guide, they will disappear from app-stores but will remain on consumers’ phones. That means existing users will still have access but will not have access to future updates.

Aducanumab, a so-called monoclonal antibody designed to target amyloid plaque in the brain, has been one of the most closely watched drugs in development for years. Biogen at one point halted research on it after getting disappointing results, only to revive the drug in a reversal that surprised scientists and investors and raised the hopes of patients and families.

The drug and the stop-start study process have been viewed skeptically by some. Data presented in December at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease conference in San Diego showed conflicting findings, with one trial suggesting the drug could be the first-ever to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s. But a second, essentially identical trial showed no effect on the disease at all.

Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease that most commonly arises in people over age 60. It robs patients of their memories and their minds, causing impaired speech and thought. More than 5 million Americans are living with the disease, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and more than 14 million are expected to suffer from it by 2060.

With no medications currently available to slow the progression of the disease, demand for a therapy like aducanumab would be substantial. The next focus for investors will be a meeting of outside
advisers to review the results generated by Biogen. Stifel analyst Paul Matteis said the briefing documents released prior to the panel are expected to be “a bigger determinant than usual
in dictating how panelists eventually vote” and called the panel the highlight of 2020 and 2021 for health-care investors.

Completely unmet medical need represents growth potential that does not turn up all that often. Alzheimer’s is only going to become a more pressing burden on healthcare systems as the baby boomer generation continues to age and live longer than any generation that has come before. The first product to market will have access to virgin growth potential which is why there is such clear focus on the efficacy of Biogen/Eisai’s potential treatment.

Digital continues to rise. Pre-COVID-19 trends will likely accelerate, with direct-to-consumer e-commerce, such as brands’ websites, shoppable social-media platforms, and marketplaces becoming more important. Across the globe, consumers indicate they are likely to increase their online engagement and spending. Beauty-industry players will need to prioritize digital channels to capture and convert the attention of existing and new customers. On the operations side, the use of artificial intelligence for testing, discovery, and customization will need to accelerate as concerns about safety and hygiene fundamentally disrupt product testing and in-person consultations.

The pace of innovation accelerates. As the COVID-19 crisis has shown, the world can change quickly, bringing substantial shifts in demand. Sometimes, supply cannot catch up. Even before the pandemic, brands were under pressure to overhaul their product-innovation pipelines, inspired by the ability of digital-native direct-to-consumer brands to go from concept to cupboard in less than a month. Now, the need for speed is even greater. To achieve it, there may be a greater role for contract manufacturers, both to diversify (and thus reduce production risks) and to serve as thought partners in product innovation. There is also potential for closer collaboration—among brands and retailers, in particular—through data sharing and inventory pooling.

M&A rises as multiples fall. With the COVID-19 crisis causing significant damage to the balance sheets of brands, retailers, and suppliers, many companies will need to find new sources of capital. At the same time, given the hits to revenues and the global economy, multiples could fall from precrisis levels, when some brands were trading for more than eight times revenue or 10 to 15 times earnings.

The clearest trend in online retail is the evolution of the in-person sales experience. Most men think of shopping in a perfunctory manner but most women think of it as a pleasurable experience which is part of a daily social experience. It is very difficult to replace the sales experience of in person contact online and from a purely technological experience it is inefficient. That’s where livestreaming comes in.

AQR: Value and Interest Rates Are Rates to Blame for Value's Torments?

A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Some of the topics discussed include: Silver continues to surge and gold is accelerating away from $2000, TIPS yields continue to contract, oil unchanged, Wall Street firm, Euro steady, Turkey breaking downwards, 

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area.

Financial discipline has been imposed on the shale drillers so they no longer have endless supplies of cash to fund expansive drilling programs. Investors have, for the last few years, only been willing to support the most lucrative of potential operations. That has resulted in the best and most accessible resources being drilled as companies sought to achieve economic costs of production.

A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

I have a lot of sympathy with Charlie Morris’ view that gold is best considered a zero- coupon perpetual bond. The strong inverse correlation between inflation-protected bond yields and the gold price suggest investors are increasingly of the same opinion.

In the view of analysts from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Oxford Economics, rate increases may be warranted soon. Others are less bearish, citing a shortage of liquidity in the offshore money-market engineered by authorities.

The cost of overnight funding spiked to over 1,000% earlier this week, making it prohibitively expensive for foreign investors to borrow the currency and bet against it.

“My sense is that there is more tolerance for currency volatility than there is for a drastic measure like an emergency rate hike,” said Phoenix Kalen, a strategist at Société Générale in London. “And with the squeezes in the front-end rates, market participants are, needless to say, wary about getting burned trying to short the lira speculatively.”

The single biggest lesson this year is that COVID-19 is an accelerant. It has exaggerated just about every trend that was in evidence in 2019. That’s as true of yield compression and gold’s bull market as it is of the growth of cloud computing. It’s also highlighting the serious debt problems of countries like Turkey.

A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber;'s Area. 

Some of the topics discussed include: bonds ease but TIPS remains firm, gold and silver extend breakouts, energy and industrial resources firm, Dollar eases but is oversold, Wall Street extends breakout on stimulus and vaccine bets. 

God only knows what the historians of the future will make of 2020. A global flu panic that results in countries shutting down entire economies sounds like the pinnacle of craziness – until you discover that Europe between the 15th and 17th centuries was periodically prone to something called the ‘glass delusion’, in which sufferers believed that they were made of glass and at risk of shattering into pieces. The French King Charles VI was one of the higher profile victims of the illness, and he would reportedly wrap himself in blankets to prevent his buttocks from breaking. Because human nature never really changes, we choose to allocate to uncorrelated investment vehicles known as systematic trend-followers, which make no attempt to predict the future, or to avoid seeming overvaluation, but which are simply content to ride such price trends as appear from time to time, both up and down, courtesy of the interests and enthusiasms of the mob.

We also allocate, at present, to precious metals-related companies, provided we can secure robust cash flows in the process from businesses trading on comparatively modest earnings multiples, and with little or no debt. As George Bernard Shaw once remarked,

“You have to choose (as a voter) between trusting to the natural stability of gold and the natural stability of the honesty and intelligence of the members of the Government. And, with due respect for these gentlemen, I advise you, as long as the Capitalist system lasts, to vote for gold.”

Those gentlemen in government are primed to issue a vast quantity of debt. And why wouldn’t they? Interest rates are at historic lows and investors seem willing to invest in anything with a promise of a cashflow. The US Treasury is now stretching the maturity of outstanding debt which raises some important questions. 

The debt buybacks will target an amount equivalent to about half of Devon’s outstanding net debt, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Devon stock was the best performer in the S&P 500 Index, rising 7.8% to $11.95 at 9:33 a.m. in New York after earlier climbing 8.3%.

Devon’s special payout and debt-reduction targets are the most aggressive efforts yet as shale explorers grapple with a virus-induced demand collapse and tumbling energy prices.

“These shareholder-friendly initiatives demonstrate our commitment to a new E&P business model, which moderates growth, emphasizes capital efficiencies, generates free cash flow and returns increasing amounts of cash directly to our shareholders,” Devon Chief Executive Officer Dave Hager said in the statement.

Instilling financial discipline on rapacious appetite for expansion at any cost is part of the ebb and flow of a commodity bull and bear markets. The gold mining sector went through exactly the same rationalisation process and it created healthier companies.

They are not alone. Other players in the “banking services via a messaging” space include Kotak Mahindra Bank in India (on WhatsApp) and ICICI in WhatsApp (India). However, neither of these can do actual provisioning of the card and addition to Apple Pay and Google Pay in the messengers, which is what Zelf can do.

With Zelf, users get an account and a virtual card via their Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber and Telegram accounts. For offline and online purchases Zelf supports Apple Pay and Google Pay. This lightweight onboarding means card issuance takes less than 30 seconds via a Passport or national ID. Users then get a virtual Mastercard debit card available in their favorite messenger app. Operating inside the EU’s “Single Euro Payments Area” means it’s pretty easy for the startup to scale its offering to other countries.

One of the biggest advantages emerging markets have is they are afforded the opportunity to skip whole stages of development. This is because technology is immediately available to them without having to develop it themselves. China has been able to progress meaningfully because of its adoption of technological knowhow and the introduction of India’s 4G network offers India the same opportunity to evolve the entertainment, communication, banking and ecommerce sectors.

A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Some of the topics discussed include: gold breaks above $2000, silver and platinum firm, oil steadies, stocks advance, China banks rebound, Treasury yields compress, uncertainty about the timing of a US stimulus agreement. 

Investors are so concerned about the global outlook that worldwide holdings in gold-backed exchange-traded funds now stand behind only the official U.S. reserves of bullion after they surpassed Germany’s holdings.

Gold has rallied to a record this year as the coronavirus pandemic savaged growth, with gains supported by massive inflows into bullion-backed ETFs. Bulls are fearful that the waves of stimulus to fight the slowdown may debase paper currencies and ignite inflation. They also point to simmering geopolitical tensions, rising government debt burdens, and lofty equity valuations.

Worldwide holdings in gold-backed ETFs rose to 3,365.6 tons on Monday, up 30.5% this year, according to preliminary data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s a couple of tons ahead of Germany’s stash. U.S. reserves exceed 8,000 tons.

Even after futures topped $2,000 an ounce, there are plenty of forecasts for further, substantial gains. Among them, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. says gold may climb to $2,300 as investors are “in search of a new reserve currency,” while RBC Capital Markets puts the odds of a rally to $3,000 at 40%.

China and India have historically been the biggest consumers of gold. However, prices are set by the marginal buyer. Right now, that is investment demand from ETFs which has jumped by more than 50% in the last 12 months. This is a totally fresh phenomenon. ETFs did not exist in prior cycles so it was impossible to estimate how much gold was owned by investors. It is reasonable to conclude that before this bull market has climaxed ETF holding will be the largest gold stockpile in the world.

There is a negative correlation between what the S&P did a month ago and moves in the Fed’s balance sheet. In other words, if the S&P falls, we should expect the balance sheet to be increased about a month later. Once the Fed has made its change, we should expect the two to move in the same direction for the next month — a rising balance sheet raises the S&P, a shrinking balance sheet brings it down. The lag is clear; it takes about a month for a weak stock market to prod the Fed into a response, and once that response has been made the effect is felt in full a month later. 

So, the two are indeed related but with a lag. How strong is the link? The top chart shows us what we should expect the Fed to do in response to a 10% correction, while the lower chart shows the S&P 500’s response to a 10% shift in the balance sheet:

There was also — and this should surprise nobody — a marked asymmetry to the Fed’s actions. It responds to falls in the market with alacrity. It doesn’t seem to feel any great macro-prudential need to prick bubbles by comparison, and so the tendency to respond to a rise in stocks with a shrinking of the balance sheet, as seen at the end of Janet Yellen’s tenure and the beginning of Jerome Powell’s, was much weaker. In late 1996, less than two years before the “Put” era began with LTCM, Alan Greenspan was plainly worried about the possibility of asset bubbles, and uttered his famous warning of “irrational exuberance” (following through with a rise in rates that induced a minor stock market correction). Now, the idea of raising rates to curb share prices appears so outlandish to Powell that he said in June “we would never do this.”

The Fed is reluctant to intervene to slow or reverse the rise in asset prices for a very simple reason. They believe the easiest way to objectively measure the success of their policies is in asset prices.

The continued uptrend in bond, stock and property markets is viewed as positive from the Fed’s perspective because it signals efforts to stimulate risk taking behaviour are effective. Unfortunately, that way of thinking about markets pays little heed to egregious risk taking or the assumption bad behaviour will always be bailed out.

Read a very interesting piece in Saturday's Telegraph by financial journalist, Ambrose Evans Pritchard. In a nutshell he suggests that western governments risk making the most catastrophic error of economic policy since the thirties by pulling away the stimulus rug too soon. The pandemic is still causing havoc and stimulus is running out before the rebound can reach self-sustaining escape velocity. He suggests the crunch will come in September/October.

The prospect of stimulus being removed too early has made it onto the front page because of the politically motivated rancorous debate over extending the USA’s fiscal stimulus. It remains the base case that some form of agreement will be agreed to because neither party wants to be blamed for making the lives of tens of millions of unemployed people worse.  

A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Some of the topics discussed include: natural gas rebounds, oil steady, velocity money at a trough, M2 accelerated higher, Euro and Yen pause, gold steady, ethereum breaking out, renewables surging, bonds ease. 

A collaboration of the SEBA Bank AG and the Tezos Foundation to test the integration of a CBDC for interbank settlements was one of 8 successful projects chosen by the Banque De France announced on the 20th of July. Many people had speculated whether Tezos was involved with at least one of the eight projects.

One link involved NeoFacto, partners with Tezos core development team Nomadic Labs and also partners to successful CBDC project applicants Société Générale Forge.

However, it seems that the Tezos Foundation has collaborated with SEBA Bank AG based in the Crypto Valley in the same cryptocurrency-friendly region where the Tezos Foundation is based.

A post on LinkedIn from CV Labs a Swiss incubator also based in the Crypto Valley who have relationships with both the Tezos Foundation and SEBA Bank AG appeared to congratulate both Société Générale and SEBA Bank on the project whilst also tagging several prominent Tezos Foundation figures and also displaying the Tezos logo in the visual image.

China is not the only country actively exploring the creation of a digital currency. The fact that the French central bank is also exploring a digital currency outside of its subservience to the ECB might on first impression seem a little odd. However, it is does highlight the fact many central banks see the evolution of crypto tokens as a dual currency overlay within the limits of what the view as an evolution of conventional money control measures.

Fed policy has been magnificently successful in achieving its objectives not only of lifting securities prices but also of altering investor behavior. The Fed wanted to influence buyers of securities to be bolder in their pursuit of return. The head of a major pension fund recently authored a piece describing how the fund had responded to lofty markets and low yields on safe debt instruments. Their reaction was not to lower the fund’s currently aggressive 7% risk-adjusted return objective to a more realistic threshold, but instead to direct more assets into “lower volatility” private investments while leveraging the portfolio. Private investments, of course, have the same underlying risk and inherent volatility as public investments – though because they are not publicly traded, their intermittent and privately determined appraisals may make them appear to be less volatile. And as for the choice to leverage up, we can only note that leverage is a double-edged sword that enhances returns in good times while sinking them in down markets. If markets falter, this fund will have not solved its problems but rather have multiplied them.  

Pension funds, life insurance companies and other firms with predictable future outlays are in a difficult position. If they do not take on additional risk, they will certainly not be able to meet their obligations. Alternatively, if they do take on additional risks, they might be able to reach their goals. However, that chance at success comes with the implied understanding that the alternative is financial oblivion.

Emrod currently has a working prototype of its device, but will build another for Powerco, with plans to deliver by October, then spend several months in lab testing before moving to a field trial. The prototype device will be capable of delivering "only a few kilowatts" of power, but can easily be scaled up. "We can use the exact same technology to transmit 100 times more power over much longer distances," said Emrod founder and serial entrepreneur Greg Kushnir. "Wireless systems using Emrod technology can transmit any amount of power current wired solutions transmit."

The system uses a transmitting antenna, a series of relays and a receiving rectenna (a rectifying antenna capable of converting microwave energy into electricity). Each of these components appear in these images to simply look like big ol' squares on poles. Its beams use the non-ionizing Industrial, Scientific and Medical band of the radio spectrum, including frequencies commonly used in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Unlike Tesla's globally-accessible free power dream, the power here is beamed directly between specific points, with no radiation around the beam, and a "low power laser safety curtain" immediately shuts down power transmission before any object, like a bird, drone, power thief or helicopter, can touch the main beam. There will be no difficulties this time working out where to place the meter.

The potential for wireless power transmission is a significant potential gamechanger for the energy sector because it represents an elegant solution to the question of how to connect very remote generating locations to points of consumption. While still in its infancy this is exactly the kind of technology that would benefit from venture funding and could succeed in boosting productivity.

 A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

As a result of growing debasement risk, DM investment demand strength has continued with ETF additions in both Europe and US running high (see Exhibit 6). We see this trend persisting for some time as investment allocations into gold increase in line with allocations to inflation protected assets, similar to what happened after the financial crisis. Following the GFC, inflation fears peaked only at the end of 2011 as the bounce back in inflation ran out of steam, bringing the gold bull market to a halt. Similarly, we see inflationary concerns continuing to rise well into the economic recovery, sustaining hedging inflows into gold ETFs alongside the structural weakening of the dollar, we see gold being used as a dollar hedge by fund managers. Indeed, decomposing our gold forecast, with returns of 18% over the next 12 months, we estimate 9% of the growth is driven by 5yr real rates going to -2% over the next 12 month, (an est. elasticity of 0.1), while the second 9% comes from the 15% increase in the EM dollar GDP (an est. elasticity of 0.5) (see Exhibit 7). On top of these known flows, a large share of physical investment demand in gold is non-visible, in particular vaulted bar purchases by high net worth individuals. Looking at net Swiss imports one can see that gold stocks in Switzerland, where most of these private vaults are located, have been building at close to a record pace (see Exhibit 8). In addition, the stretched valuations in equities, low real rates and high level of economic and political uncertainty all point toward continued inflows by high net worth individuals, in our view.

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

It is easy to conclude the USA is the world’s chief currency debaser because of the size of accommodation provided in response to increasingly frequent crises. However, every other country is actively debasing their currencies too. The only difference is in scale.

How will data be used by central banks and how will the central bank reassure people about the privacy of their data?

The data you are going to collect, there are two sides to it. On one side, the data that they're going to collect, given they are going to be able to engage the complete economic activity of a country in realtime, that data will be recorded on a blockchain-type network, distributed ledger, we don't know exactly. So the government will have access to all of that. On the [other] hand, it will enable the central bank to do their job more effectively. Because rather than having a lag in economic data, they're monitoring all the spending, the transactions, money supply, inflation implications, all in realtime... Tracking where people go in the world, because CBDC will be available to Chinese as they do business in other countries. It's almost a sort of a way to track an individual. So there are big alarming questions that need to be properly considered when it comes to privacy and anonymity.

The technology is there to enforce anonymity, but it's a question of are they going to implement it? Is that something that they're going to build into their currency? Time will only tell if different central banks come up with their versions of digital currency, as they say there is no one-size-fits-all, they're all going to be different and likely to reflect the values and culture of their citizens. Are we just going to accept that all governments get to have this data like we've kind of accepted with tech giants like Facebook? No one has really done anything about it.

A classic blockchain is a public ledger. There is a clear record of all transactions, but not who participated in them.

It would be comparatively easy for a state to create a digital currency that attaches identity to the ledger.

That will allow governments to track every transaction in even greater detail than they do already.

My past experience has been that when there is a stock market crash, gold suffers equally.  This pattern was repeated in March this year.  Can you recommend some protective measures?

Thank you for this question which is something I believe everyone has an interest it. In a crisis everything falls together. That’s because people end up selling what they can, rather than what they want. Gold, as you say, is not immune to those kinds of events.

Robusta coffee futures have surged about 16% in London this month, the biggest gain for a most-active contract since June 2010 amid a shift toward home coffee consumption. Worldwide lockdowns that shuttered cafes, restaurants and offices have supported demand for robusta beans, typically favored to brew instant coffee at homes.

“Nestle results provide confirmation at-home sales is doing very well,” said Carlos Mera, an analyst at Rabobank in London. “It was priced in to some extent, based on IRI data from the U.S., but this is more global.”

Robusta spreads have firmed up and its certified stockpiles have fallen to the lowest since the start of last year. Speculators covering their negative positions has also helped prices rally in recent weeks. Smaller robusta crops expected in Brazil and Vietnam in the 2020-21 season are also bullish for prices, Rabobank said.

I’ve been working from home for 13 years and even I am drinking more coffee than normal lately. Many people have probably discovered that with the help of capsules of home espresso machines it is possible to get better tasting coffee than what is available from Starbucks. Arguably, that wouldn’t be difficult.

A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Some of the topics covered include: Fed stimulus capacity, Dollar extends downtrend, oil and copper rebound from intraday lows, precious metals ease, bond rally, equities pause. 

In some ways, however, that was the easy bit. The U.S. economy now enters a phase that cautiously could be described as the beginning of a recovery. However, remember that the virus is still out there. This leads to the question of how QE can continue to provide support in the months ahead? In terms of mechanics, the Fed describes the main purpose of LSAP as putting "[…] downward pressure on longer-term interest rates […]" in order to stimulate economic activity by generating attractive financial conditions.5 The key word behind those mechanics would be financial conditions. Such metrics generally try to describe the "[…] financial conditions in money markets, debt and equity markets […]" as the Federal Reserve of Chicago puts it.6 In other words, measures of financial conditions gauge the effectiveness of monetary policy.

Deriving a metric that summarizes the stance of monetary policy once the policy rate hits the Zero Lower Bound (ZLB) is not a trivial task, however. The monetary stimulus, as a combination of rates at the ZLB and asset purchases, is not directly observable. Our preferred methodology to overcome this problem would be the so called shadow short rate (SSR) as provided through the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.7 This concept mathematically derives a theoretical policy rate which is based on the evolution of the whole yield curve, therefore accounting for the impact of QE once the true policy rate is at the ZLB (see Chart 2).

Using the inflation of financial assets as a way of measuring the success of monetary accommodation is a recipe for bubble inflation. Nevertheless, it is the most expedient way to measure the impact of a central bank’s actions in fostering growth.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of the tests were done at the big new Optum site, or inside local hospitals, and processed by Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp. Five months into the pandemic, the two giant private testing companies were taking more than a week to send back results. “If I look at Optum I always ask, ‘What am I going to do with this, because the result is eight to 10 days old?’” said Erica. “Your ability to contain is over.” By the time she got a hold of people to inform them that they had Covid-19, they no longer had Covid-19. There was no point in isolating them.

I think the rest of the world must be bemused at the resistance many Americans have to cooperating with public health officials, wearing masks and social distancing. As far as I can see there are a couple of reasons that simply are not getting discussed.

When I was tested in early May it took 11 days to get the results. That’s frankly ridiculous and timelines have not improved. I was feeling flu symptoms for about 24 hours and I quarantined myself away from my family for two days but it was a 24-hour bug so maintaining distance when you feel fine is difficult. In the end my results were negative. However, if I was positive, I would probably have passed it one to multiple people before I got my results. That pretty much means that testing is futile and everyone who has been tested knows it.

On the bright side, Chief Executive Officer Ryan Lance said he’s encouraged by low premiums for shale acquisitions, citing Chevron’s recent agreement to buy Noble Energy.

When asked if Conoco also looked into buying Noble, Lance said “we did look,” but he was worried that Noble’s Israel assets might have been the source of political tension, since Conoco operates in other areas of the Middle East.

“The gem is certainly the Middle Eastern gas position,” he said. “With some of the other things we’re doing in the Middle East, that creates maybe a little bit of an issue and problem for us politically.”

Conoco’s earnings miss followed reports from three shale-focused explorers on Wednesday that signaled a grim rest of 2020 for the broader U.S. oil industry. QEP Resources Inc. cut its production outlook, WPX Energy Inc. further reduced its capital spending budget, while Concho Resources Inc. stuck with plans to keep crude volumes flat from 2019 levels, ending years of growth.

Bankruptcies in the oil patch are likely to continue to trend higher because so many projects have break-evens in the $60 area. That is creating buying opportunities for the majors and the chance to rationalise the onshore domestic US production landscape. That will be necessary in order to survive because global demand will take time to recover from the virus hiatus.

A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Some of the topics discussed include: Fed policy constrained by debt, risk of antitrust for US tech companies contrasts with risk of government control for China's, gold and silver steady, platinum and palladium weak, oil and copper steady, 

During today’s testimony before a Congressional antitrust panel, Mark Zuckerberg went off-script a little bit -- at least the script we expected -- pointing out how Facebook Inc. lags behind a number of competitors, including Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc.

Zuckerberg isn’t hesitating to use some sharp elbows, pointing out that Amazon is the fastest-growing advertising platform and Google is the biggest.

“In many areas, we are behind our competitors,” Zuckerberg said. “The most popular messaging service in the U.S. is iMessage. The fastest growing app is TikTok. The most popular app for video is YouTube. The fastest growing ads platform is Amazon. The largest ads platform is Google. And for every dollar spent on advertising in the U.S., less than ten cents is spent with us.”

This is why the executives likely preferred to appear at once -- it allows them to spread the burden. The antitrust case against Google and Facebook is far stronger than the one against Apple, for instance.

The five largest tech companies in the USA have dominant positions in the social/ecommerce/cloud computing sectors. They may compete with one another but the barriers to entry are so large that it is largely beyond the scope for smaller companies to compete. In fact the only way for established businesses to reach consumers in any other these sectors is to use the products and services provided by the big five.

Kōno said Japan would welcome an invitation to join the Five Eyes grouping.

He warned the growth of the Chinese economy has allowed China to purchase foreign tech companies, adding: “This is a development we must monitor closely. Tech-partnerships with countries like the UK will be critical to countering China, pooling our investments and encouraging our people to study the skill sets needed for our high-tech sectors to grow.”

He added China was attempting to become independent of the US dollar economy through fast money-sending services, the introduction of their own internet, launching a digital renminbi and introducing a Chinese international order.

Kōno in his remarks stressed he was not seeking a military conflict with China, and was instead hoping to provide the Chinese Communist party with the space to cut defence spending, allowing democratic nations to take parallel steps.

Urging caution about economic decoupling, Pascal Lamy, the former World Trade Organization director general, predicted a more autonomous and closed China was likely to prove more dangerous. But he warned: “The west cannot coexist in a free trade relationship with a country that subsidies 30% of its economy. If China is not willing to accept global disciplines on state aid then we have to review a number of trade commitments – whether it is on public procurement or in specific sectors.”

The coronavirus crisis has been an accelerant for just about every trend. That is particularly true of the Anglosphere’s awakening to the threat posed by China’s increasingly ambitious program of global domination. There is no getting around the fact that many countries are heavily reliant on Chinese suppliers for essential components and products to fuel their economies, and are also reliant on Chinese demand to absorb their exports. Therefore, the process of decoupling was never going to be a simple process but it is underway and is likely to persist.

Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s proposal to privatize search engine Sogou Inc. means eight Chinese companies
have either abandoned or plan to quit U.S. markets in deals worth more than $12 billion. Should investors be anticipating more deals?

Tencent’s $977 million proposed Sogou deal follows the $6.5 billion private equity-led privatization of 58.com Inc. and a $1.6 billion acquisition of Sina Corp. The backdrop is strained U.S.-China diplomatic ties, with this month’s closing of consulates in Houston and Chengdu. In May, the U.S. Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act raised the prospect of delisting should a Chinese company be found to have broken tougher rules.

While the CEO’s of the USA’s tech companies are grilled in Washington, China’s tech CEOs face no threat of antitrust measures. In a command economy, a company either fulfils a need in supporting the rule and glory of the Party or it does not. To the extent its assists in supporting the government’s ambition size and scope are encouraged. In fact, complete market dominance is the ambition.

A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Some of the topics discussed include: gold and silver pausing amid an uptick in intraday volatility, emerging markets return to outperformance, Dollar pauses amid stimulus uncertainty, renewable energy pauses. 

“It’s attracting hedge-fund speculators,” said Norbert Rücker, head of economics at Swiss private bank Julius Baer. “With this move, carbon has really come back to life this year and it’s attracted a lot of interest—we have clients reaching out to us asking about it.”

The resurgence in carbon-credit prices began in mid-2017 when EU policy makers agreed to sharply reduce the number of available credits. That has pushed up prices and allowed the carbon market to help fulfill its purpose of punishing excess polluters. With the market set up to constrict credit supply, prices should rise further still, analysts say.

The success of Tesla, in gaming the carbon credit system to its advantage, has woken the rest of the globe up to the possibilities government sponsored markets hold.

Evacuations of the mostly local tourists will take at least four days, with domestic airlines running 100 flights from Da Nang to 11 Vietnamese cities, according to Reuters.

The first case was confirmed on Saturday, with another 11 cases, all from the hospital where the initial case was being treated, confirmed late Monday.

These are the first cases of Covid-19 in the country since April.

Those leaving Da Nang will have to self-quarantine for 14 days, fill out health declaration forms, or report on their health to local authorities.

Vietnam’s aggressive response to the burgeoning outbreak is a prime example of how it has been able to keep the pandemic at arm’s length.

With a population close to 95.5 million people, Vietnam has seen only 431 cases of Covid-19 and zero deaths, according to John Hopkins University.

The number of countries that successfully quashed coronavirus infections in February and March is frighteningly small. Vietnam was among the leaders in aggressive early action and it succeeded in keeping its case numbers low and spread contained. It is testament to just how difficult the virus is to contain that cases are rising once more in Vietnam.

The stimulus debate pits the GOP’s political pragmatists against its spending hawks, with the fate of swing-state incumbents hanging in the balance: At-risk Republican senators don’t want to return to the campaign trail during the August recess empty-handed, while fiscal conservatives recoil at any plan that they see as ballooning the deficit and conditioning the public to expect broader government assistance once the pandemic is over.

At stake could be control of the Senate and White House, some Republicans warn. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report last week released a new analysis of key Senate races that for the first time this cycle favored Democrats to take back the chamber.

Democrats already control the House and are expected to keep or expand their majority in November, making the GOP-held Senate a critical bulwark against total Democratic control of the legislature next year. Democrats need to flip three seats from red to blue to seize control of the chamber in November, or four if President Trump wins re-election.

The massive stimulus introduced during the initial lockdown with $1200 for the majority of adults and $600 a week for millions of unemployed people plugged a significant hole in consumer spending potential. It also allowed ecommerce businesses to flourish and gain market share.

Thanks to your good guidance, the month of July has (already) produced the best portfolio performance in my life-time of investing! The portfolio switch from NDX stocks to gold and silver stocks has been phenomenal (20.59% in one stock today).

Attached is a report from “Goldmoney” regarding future inflation that you have addressed in recent commentaries.  (Underlining in the article is mine) Could we expect a sudden change in the Velocity of Money to facilitate an inflationary outcome or will other factors cause inflation regardless of the VoM?

Thank you for this interesting article and congratulations on taking opportunities in the market. Velocity of Money is a major component of inflation. The fact it has been falling for so long is one of the primary reasons we have not seen widespread inflation resulting from massive money printing over the last 12 years.

A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Some of the topics discussed include: gold hits new all-time high, silver extends breakout, precious metal miners extend advances, Dollar breaks down, stock market  steady, Taiwan hits new all-time high, biotech steadies

It has been a couple of years since I last submitted a question, however the following has been niggling at me for some time and your Big Picture video this week was the final catalyst I need to put fingers to the keyboard. 

Traditional guidelines for asset allocation usually vary somewhat depending on the advisor and the client’s age, financial means etc, however they follow a general model of diversifying investable assets into property/shares/international shares/government bonds/corporate bonds/cash, etc in various percentages.  Gold, if recommended at all, gets relegated to the 1% - 2% category.

But as you have been pointing out in your audios/videos for some time now, in the current environment of unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus, dollar debasement, a looming sovereign debt crisis,  geopolitical tensions etc, etc, I feel perhaps the traditional allocation percentages can be detrimental to new wealth creation, and that a more skewed approach, with a much higher conviction to certain asset classes should be considered. 

Fortunately, from a personal position, I started moving to overweight shares in gold, silver and other precious metal miners about 3 years ago, starting initially with gold, and then into silver and silver miners about a year ago.  Although perhaps a bit early in some instances, I now find these positions in 15 different mining companies and 4 ETF’s in Australia, USA, Canada & the UK are all up between 30% - 300%, and now constitute about 60% of my investible assets.  I realise by traditional gauges most financial advisors would say I’m crazy (which is why I haven’t used any for about 20 years), and that I’m too heavily invested in one asset class.  But I have always taken a high conviction approach to my investment initiatives. In addition, a good lesson learned during the GFC was to keep 2-3 years cash available to get through any downturn, so in case my timing is wrong or I’m just plain wrong, I will have adequate funds to support myself & family without compromising our lifestyle.

But as you indicate, we are in a different environment, so my takeaway is that a different approach needs to be taken. Consequently, my question/quandary is what to do with the remaining 40% of my investments?  Most of these have been invested in the Platinum Asia Fund, which has basically gone nowhere over the past 4 years, and to a lesser extent Platinum Japan, with a similarly dismal performance.  Your recent audios/videos paint a rather gloomy outlook for China and correctly highlight the country’s investment risks.  Since the Platinum Asia Fund is predominantly China focused, I am feeling more at risk than optimistic for future returns, and am now thinking of selling my entire holding in this fund to take advantage of investment opportunities in other areas.

But outside of the gold, silver & base metal miners, I find little or nothing that inspires me at present. I would never think about putting these funds into Tesla, FAANG or other high-flying technology stocks, and with economic growth looking so precarious in most countries around the world due to Covid-19, I have little appetite to initiate investment in Europe or the USA (other than mining companies).  I am already well established in various segments of the market relating to battery technology and perhaps I’ll hang onto the Japan Fund for now.  But regardless of where else I look, I keep coming back to gold,  silver & base metal miners as representing the best opportunity over the next 2-3 years, especially when one considers that we are only at the beginning of a major secular bull market in gold/silver/platinum, with the miners usually high beta the metal at this stage in the cycle.

The ramification is that my entire investment portfolio would then be even more highly skewed to about 80% gold, silver and other metal miners. At some stage I will obviously need to keep a sharp eye on the charts to look for acceleration and over extension because if my timing is wrong and I sell too late, this happy scenario can quickly turn into a disaster as getting out of 15 - 20  companies quickly, especially in some of the small-mid caps where I am a major shareholder, could be a challenge!   

So, considering my age which is now late 60’s, is this crazy & irresponsible?  Or should one seize this moment and take full advantage of what can be perceived as a once in a generation opportunity to profit from the unfolding crisis?  Over recent days I have begun to see gold & silver mentioned on mainstream media such as CNBC, Bloomberg, the Australian Financial Review etc, and Wall Street firms are starting to take note and provide an outlook on the sector.  If metals and miners were not just beginning to break out from their long-term ranges, one could interpret this as a contrarian indicator. But what encourages me is that so far the mainstream media doesn’t seem to fully grasp the reasons behind the recent rise in gold/silver prices, (e.g. one expert telling people to now sell gold as it had reached its peak and was all downhill from here), advisors are still not recommending gold shares in the media or on Q & A sessions, pension funds and private investors are still underweight gold/gold shares or have no holdings at all, and everyone still seems to be in denial or at least not very concerned or vociferous about the debasement of the dollar and other fiat currencies and the wide-ranging impact it will have on all sectors of the market.

Anyway, your comment and insight would be greatly appreciated. 

Eoin, I have enjoyed and benefitted from your service since the late 1980’s, when I had zero funds to invest, but still anxiously awaited each edition of the old hardcopy reports!  These formed the basis of my acquiring an understanding of the markets and guiding me through my first steps in investing once I eventually had some funds to invest in around 1990! The service has gone from strength to strength, through the addition of the Chart Library, the daily audio and now video where charts can be analysed as you explain them. I continue to learn every day and am grateful to you and the service for facilitating this. 

And

Further to my earlier email, I omitted mentioning an important point so add it below as a PS.

P.S. I’m not proposing to jump in now and chase the market for additional Gold/Silver shares, but want to have funds available to take advantage of any pullback. In addition, if/when the gold/silver shares take another leg up from here, my plan is to take some profits off the table in anticipation of a consolidation and build up further reserves for the next buying opportunity.

Thank you for this thought-provoking email and your long-term support. At the Melbourne Chart Seminar in April 2018, the clear message was Australian gold miners were breaking out. At the time shares like Evolution Mining, St Barbara, Northern Star and Perseus Mining were on the verge of completing bases and the price of gold in Australian Dollars was testing the upper side of a six-year base.

Since then we have seen significant appreciation in the Australian gold mining sector which was accompanied until quite recently by a downtrend in the Australian Dollar. The weakness of the US Dollar is now creating a global trend toward increasing positions towards gold in portfolios. 

The culmination of over five years of research and development, Ethereum 2.0 is a highly ambitious upgrade.

Never before has the cryptocurrency industry seen a blockchain of the same size and value as Ethereum attempt to transition all users, as well as assets, to an entirely new decentralized network while keeping all operations on the old network active and running. 

It will likely take many years for the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade – in all its complexity – to be complete. However, developer commentary featured in this report suggests the biggest hurdle (and perhaps most important milestone) in the Ethereum 2.0 roadmap is its initial launch.

The breakout to new recovery highs by Ethereum last week and bitcoin this week suggest a return to demand dominance following a multi-month hiatus. The coincident surge in precious metals suggests this is more about the demand for a hedge against the debasement of fiat currencies than the range of impending innovations in the cryptocurrency sector.

The deformation occurred last Saturday when the flood from western provinces including Sichuan and Chongqing along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River peaked at a record-setting 61,000 cubic meters per second, according to China Three Gorges Corporation, a state-owned enterprise that manages the dam and the sprawling power plant underneath it.

The company noted that parts of the dam had “deformed slightly,” displacing some external structures, and seepage into the main outlet walls had also been reported throughout the 18 hours on Saturday and Sunday when water was discharged though its outlets.

But the problem of water seeping out did not last long, as the dam reportedly deployed floodgates to hold as much water as possible in its 39.3 billion-cubic-meter reservoir to shield the cities downstream from the biggest Yangtze deluge so far this year.

And

Meanwhile, Wang Hao, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and an authority on hydraulics who sits on the Ministry of Water Resources’ Yangtze River Administration Commission, has also assured that the dam is sound enough to withstand the impact from floods twice the mass flow rate recorded on Saturday.

It is still raining in southwest China and that means the dam will be letting out more water to control the level behind the wall. Therefore, it is unlikely to be able to curtail the risk of flooding downriver.

 A link to this week's Big Picture Long-Term video is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

The escalation in tensions comes at a particularly volatile time for China’s stocks, with the government taking steps to manage a debt-fueled frenzy that had pushed equities to their highest since 2015. Bullish traders have pushed leverage to an almost five-year high.

“Worries over China-U.S. relations will dominate the market,” said Raymond Chen, a portfolio manager with Keywise Capital Management (HK) Ltd. “People will be closely watching how the U.S. reacts to the closure of Chengdu consulate. I expect more panic selling in the near term.”

China’s yuan fell as much as 0.28% to 7.0238 versus the greenback, the weakest since July 8. China’s government bonds extended gains, with futures contracts on 10-year notes climbing as much as 0.36% to the highest since July 3. The yield on debt due in a decade dropped 5 basis points to 2.86%, the lowest since July 1.

Overseas investors sold 16.4 billion yuan of China stocks Friday, the most since a record 17.4 billion yuan was dumped on July 14. Turnover rose to 1.3 trillion yuan, the 17th session over the 1 trillion yuan mark.

The Chinese government has been trying its best to paper over the cracks in the economy. The boom in IPOs and the efforts to repatriate foreign listings of its tech champions are all aimed at creating a façade of capital market strength and stability. It fulfills the secondary purpose of trying to protect Hong Kong’s status as a major financial hub despite the destruction of its legal freedoms.

Please refresh my memory about your stance on Bitcoin & Crypto Currencies. Regarding Bitcoin, one of the best hedge fund managers, Mark Yusko loves it an suggests it likely reaches $100K within the next 12-18 months, and much higher going forward. AVI GILBURT, the Elliott Waver says if you want to be safe, wait until it breaks out above 10,000. Warm Regards

Thank you for this question which may be of interest to subscribers. Bitcoin’s halvening, when the reward for mining a new coin halves about once every four years, passed off without a hitch in May. In the past, these events have resulted in investors refocusing on the limited supply argument and prices have rallied meaningfully both ahead and after the halvening.

Outsourcing is the norm in the $400 billion industry nowadays, but for 50 years Intel has combined chip design with in-house production. And until recently, Intel was even planning to churn out processors for others.

“To the extent that we need to use somebody else’s process technology and we call those contingency plans, we will be prepared to do that,” Swan told analysts on a conference call, after the company warned of another delayed production process.

“That gives us much more optionality and flexibility. So in the event there is a process slip, we can try something rather than make it all ourselves.”

Pursuing this option would represent a huge shift in the industry and the end of Intel’s biggest differentiator, Cowen & Co. analyst Matt Ramsay said.

Design can only do so much for semiconductor performance. The manufacturing step is crucial to ensuring these components can store more data, process information faster and use less
energy. Combining the two helped Intel improve both sides of its operation for decades.

Intel has lagged in its ability to deliver 10nm chips at scale and is also having difficulty in getting its 7nm manufacturing up and running. The reality is as the width of a single silicon atom is approached the difficulty in manufacturing chips increases exponentially. That means the cost and focus required to succeed is progressively more difficult to maintain. Intel’s willingness to entertain the idea of subcontracting represents a significant defeat. 

Giving GPT-3 a Turing Test

A link today's video is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Some of the topics discussed include: Stay at Home stocks pausing with rotation underway, gold testing 2011 highs, gold shares pause, oil pauses, Dollar weak, bitcoin steadies, ethereum breaks out, nickel firms, 

For a view of just how high the bar is set for technology stocks, consider this: Every single one of their earnings reports this season has topped forecasts. Yet the sector has recently gone from being 2020’s best performer to one of its biggest laggards.

Not that beloved tech companies have crumbled. Since the reporting season began July 14, the S&P 500 technology sector is up 0.7% while the Nasdaq 100 is virtually unchanged. But both have trailed the broader S&P 500 over the period, and tech’s performance is the second-worst of S&P’s 11 main sector groups.

That’s a change from earlier in 2020 -- a year in which megacaps and tech firms have been viewed as coronavirus havens because of their strong balance sheets, healthy profit pictures and the fact that some have actually benefited from the stay-at-home economy. Still, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 up 22% this year, investors want proof that those stocks are worth the high prices they’re fetching.

“On the positive side, there are so many reasons why tech should be okay,” said Gene Goldman, chief investment officer at Cetera Financial Group. “But on the negative side, it’s just valuations and earnings. It’s a high bar that companies are going to have to beat.”

Stay-At-Home stocks have been the clear winners from the lockdowns. The concentrated number of winners coupled with a surge in liquidity and punters eager to participate resulted massive outperformance over the last few months. 

How far could the "Robinhooder's" distort the precious metal markets?

So far today the GDX/GDXJ do not seem to be confirming the upward movement in gold prices.

Thank you for this question which may be of interest to the Collective. There is a tendency among precious metals investors to expect a full bull market to unfold in a short period of time. That is because the price tends to range for lengthy periods before experiencing explosive breakouts. These tend to go faster and farther than anyone has been conditioned to expect during the range.

And yet the earnings call — where Musk has in the past ranted about “fascist” virus lockdowns and attacked analysts for asking “boring, bonehead” questions — was a bit of a snooze. It even featured a long discussion about insurance and Musk’s appreciation for the actuarial profession.

In the current economic environment, such steadiness is an achievement. Most car companies will probably suffer huge losses because of the recent closures of factories and showrooms, even if things won’t be quite as bad as feared initially. By contrast, Tesla reported $104 million of net income in the April to June period, bringing its total profit over the past four quarters to $368 million.

Still, these are modest amounts for a company that’s valued at an inexplicable 800 times trailing earnings, giving it a $295 billion market capitalization. 

The profits are also more than accounted for by $1 billion of regulatory credits that Tesla sold to other carmakers during the 12 months to June, including $428 million in the latest quarter. It’s only able to earn this income because rivals haven’t gotten their act together yet on building enough electric vehicles and have to buy credits from Musk’s company to satisfy emissions regulators. Tesla acknowledges this good fortune won’t last forever.

Without clear support from green regulations the company would be incapable of generating a profit. That effectively means Tesla’s competitors are being forced to fund its expansion. It’s an odd situation which runs contrary to the basic conditions of capitalism, but it is the reality provided by the market. It’s part of Elon Musk’s genius that he realised that fact before everyone else.

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Some of the topics discussed include: Dollar weakens but Renminbi weakens more, gold, silver and gold shares extend breakouts, stock market quiet but China weakens. India eases, geopolitical tensions rise but tech earnings positive with Tesla's positive surprise. 

Congrats on your positioning for this continued rerating of all things precious metals related. Today I had a bit of an epiphany. I was re-reading Jim Collins Good to Great, and in particular about the Hedgehog Principle (lasering in on one thing and making sure its very well understood and its done better than anyone else does it), compared to the Fox which is more scatty, and tends to be here, there and everywhere, often distracted.

There's a lesson in there for investors too. For years I have been a Hedgehog, owning 12 of the world's best companies each with significant competitive advantages in their respective fields, and done very well. The last four months though have seen me be a Fox, trading more than I should have, often in stocks I have never traded in before, and often the volatile market has shaken my conviction. As you might expect, I have done far less well and often felt trapped in no-man's land. I've decided you're a Hedgehog, and I expect that your strong focus on all things precious metals related will continue to stand you in good stead, and hopefully me too now that I've finally had that Eureka moment!

Thank you for your kind sentiment and I had to admit that, like a hedgehog, I can be prickly from time to time. The bigger point here is that from an investor’s perspective it is often best to try and identify a secular trend early and ride it as long as it stays consistent.

The US dollar accounts for over 50% of reserves held and has unwaveringly remained the primary reserve currency since 1945, especially after it replaced gold as the most-held reserve asset after there was a move to a fiat monetary system.  European currencies have remained steady at 20-25% since the late 1970s, the yen and sterling are around 5%, and the Chinese RMB is only 2%, which is far below its share of world trade and world economic size, for reasons we will delve into in the Chinese section of this book.  As has been the case with the Dutch guilder and the British pound, the status of the US dollar has significantly lagged and is significantly greater than other measures of its power.

That means that if the US dollar were to lose its reserve status and significantly depreciate in value it would have a devastating effect on the finances of those countries holding those reserves as well as private-sector holders of dollar-debt assets.  Who would be the winners?  Those with dollar-debt liabilities and those with non-dollar assets would be the big winners.  In the concluding chapter, “The Future,” we will explore what such a shift might look like. 

The massive increase in the supply of currency since the end of the quantitative tightening regime last year is a headwind for the US Dollar. The fact the monetary and fiscal assistance programs deployed by the USA are much larger than in other countries is certainly a near-term headwind for the Dollar but the big question is whether this is a secular change?

“The current crisis makes it even more important to not impose burdens where they are not strictly necessary,” the commission said in the document. “Many stakeholders believe that increasing small and midcap research would lead to greater liquidity in those issuances.”

The change could take effect in early 2021, according to an official familiar with the plans, but still needs approval from the European Parliament and the bloc’s 27 member states. When the coronavirus pandemic brought Europe’s economy to a grinding halt in March, politicians, regulators and central
bankers focused first on facilitating bank loans to keep companies afloat. Now the goal is to avoid an excessive reliance on debt, which is seen as keeping firms from investing in their future and could even threaten their survival.

The coronavirus has been a clear accelerant for trends in just about every asset class the changes being wrought in the Eurozone are among the most momentous. In the last few months, we have seen a clear evolution of the cooperation inside the Eurozone, a willingness to dispense with the fiscal strait jacket, willingness to implement shared fiscal responsibility, a willingness to donate funds to debt stricken southern countries and now the relaxation of strict financial sector regulations. This is the clearest signal in a decade that the EU is once more moving towards closer cohesion.

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Some of the topics discussed include: financial repression and gold, silver breaks out, dollar weakens, platinum firm, commodity currencies firm, technology pauses ahead of earnings, China indices post higher reaction lows. 

But junior miners are now starting to benefit. Take the case of American Pacific Mining Corp., an exploration and gold-mining firm with market capitalization of less than $20 million. The company raised $3 million in the second quarter, six times more than it had initially planned. Interest was so big that it had to turn away offers for more, said CEO Warwick Smith.

“The big boys play first, and then that money trickles down to the smaller companies, exploration companies,” he said. Revival Gold Inc., a Toronto-based exploration company, said Tuesday it was increasing its previously-announced public offering by C$3 million ($2.2 million) amid “strong demand” from investors. Spot gold prices rose 1.3% Tuesday to $1,841.94 an ounce, trading near the highest level in almost nine years.

The reasons that boosted the appeal of gold miners are the very same pushing investors away from companies digging for metals like copper or lithium, which are more dependent on economic growth. Base and industrial metals firms raised just $34 million in the second quarter, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. That’s a 40% decrease from the same period a year earlier.

Free cash flow became the bane of miners during the latter stages of the last gold bull market. They were borrowing money at such a prodigious rate and were so eager to build new production that any hope of profitability fell by the wayside. That contributed to significant underperformance relative to the gold price.

The hydrogen industry is gaining momentum from unprecedented political and economic support. Shares in some electrolyser, hydrogen and fuel cell companies are up more than 50% this year. Investors have become more bullish over the past year as several large companies have announced investments or joint ventures with hydrogen players. There are now major opportunities for players throughout the PGM sector to capitalise on the strong legislative backing of the hydrogen economy, providing a long-term positive demand signal for platinum.

The EU has just announced a new €500 billion green energy stimulus package which is the biggest effort yet to wean the continent off of imported energy. The intermittency of renewables, coupled with their short lives compared to conventional fossil fuel power plants suggests clear efforts need to be made to tackle efficiency, longevity and costs if the sector is to have a long-term future beyond outright government support. Meanwhile, the considerable support from subsidies and regulations is a sufficient catalyst to fuel a significant bull market.

Texas oil people who’ve lived through past busts remain resolute. This spring the Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates the oil industry, considered limiting crude production in the hope of bolstering prices amid the Saudi-Russia price war. Some Texans reacted with disdain. “Texas, out of all states, represents a humble, steadfast resolve that refuses to sacrifice its principles due to foreign influence,” David Dale, a Houston-area land manager for oil and gas producer Ovintiv Inc., wrote to the commission. Troy Eckard of Eckard Enterprises LLC in Allen, Texas, told regulators that Russia and Saudi Arabia are “terrorists” whose “game of supply hostage is not the time to bow down and sell out. Let the weak go broke. Let the overpaid, poorly run private equity-back[ed] companies fall by the wayside. Leave us to our own free-market solutions.” The commission stood pat.

As oil historian Daniel Yergin has observed, companies go bankrupt, rocks don’t. Assuming prices slowly recover, producers will begin to turn wells back on—a process that’s never been tried at this large a scale—and maybe drill some new ones. Whether they start paying pumpers better remains to be seen. Opportune LLP, a Houston energy advisory firm, says pumpers and other service companies face “a test of survivability, not profitability.” Consolidation seems likely, with producers themselves possibly acquiring the smaller service companies on the cheap.

The initial surge in production from shale oil reserves was driven by wildcatters and the viability of the business model was predicated on high prices persisting. The reality that much of the USA’s shale production is higher cost is now leading to many of these companies going bankrupt or experiencing significant problems.

Ant Group is seeking a valuation of more than $200 billion as it goes public, and could raise more than Saudi Aramco’s record $29 billion if market conditions are favorable, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Hong Kong portion could raise about $10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, which would make it the sixth-largest initial public offering in the city.

The listing is a boost to exchanges in Hong Kong and Shanghai, while dealing a blow to U.S. bourses as more Chinese firms look to raise money closer to home amid rising U.S.-China tensions. Hong Kong-listed Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. raised $7.5 billion from a Shanghai share sale in July, while Chinese internet firms JD.com Inc. and NetEase Inc. added secondary listings in Hong Kong this year.

Ant’s IPO is also a major lift for the city of Hong Kong, which is facing mounting challenges from a sharp recession, political turmoil from year-long protests and a new national security law that has prompted concerns about an exodus from the financial hub.

“Ant Group’s listing in Hong Kong will be a vote of confidence in the city,” according to Bruce Pang, head of macro research at China Renaissance Securities Hong Kong.

Western media has been filled with coverage of the negative ramifications of the Hong Kong security law and with good reason. The reality on the ground is that personal freedoms are being curtailed and that represents a significant decision point for many companies. If China’s approach to gaining tighter control of Hong Kong might be considered in terms of carrot and stick leverage, then the security law is the stick and listing of some of the country’s most prized companies on the domestic Hong Kong market is the carrot.

One of the most commonly asked questions by subscribers is how to find details of my open traders. In an effort to make it easier I will simply repost the latest summary daily until there is a change. I'll change the title to the date of publication of new details so you will know when the information was provided.

 A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Some of the topics discussed include: silver and gold hit new recovery highs, stocks firm amid additional iquidity infusions, China moves to support markets, Dollar weak, 

Recently there has been discussion about yield curve control (YCC), and whether the FED will introduce a new policy on managing interest rates. Do not be fooled - this is a rather large red herring, as the debt is now too large in the US (as it is in most major economies) to raise rates without the increased interest cost having a debilitating effect on annual government budget figures.

There is no longer $ 1trn of outstanding US federal Bills - in June the outstanding amount surpassed $ 5trn. If rates rise from 0.2% to 2%, the ANNUAL interest cost just on that segment of the outstanding $19trn debt would rise from ~$ 8.5bn to ~$ 102bn. Naturally you would also need to also factor in the impact of higher interest rate costs on leveraged households and corporates.

This is the red herring - the size of the debt will force monetary policy. To think that the central bank can raise rates means ignoring the consequence from the debt stock. And this is the root of my lower for longer view, which is obviously influenced from years of studying Japan, and which is now almost completely priced in to rates markets. Remember that the YCC in Japan led to a severe reduction of the BOJ buying of JGBs - it just did not have to.

The Japanification of the developed world represents a massive challenge for investors in search of yield. 90% of all sovereign bonds have yields below 1% and the total of bonds with negative yields is back at $14 trillion and climbing.

“Silver is currently trading at close to a record discount to gold, which should attract demand,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said in a note this month. “Silver often tends to lag gold at the beginning of a precious rally, and catch up to it as the rally continues and investors look for ways to diversify.”

During the week through Tuesday, hedge funds and other money managers added to their bullish bets on silver, boosting net-long positions to the highest since late February, according to government data Friday. That amounted to “a larger-than-usual” US$638 million bullish flow spurred by the trifecta of rising haven demand, recovering industrial activity, particularly in China, and South American supply disruptions, according to Societe Generale SA analysts including Michael Haigh.

Green Stimulus
Unlike gold, silver’s price is largely driven by a host of manufacturing applications. Morgan Stanley estimated that industrial demand makes up 85 per cent of silver demand. The metal may be poised to benefit from a push toward less-polluting energy technologies such as solar power, according to BMO Capital Markets.

With eyes on recovering industrial demand in countries including China, the world’s largest consumer of industrial commodities, some investors may be buying silver as a bet on new technology. U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden outlined a goal last week of “a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035” -- a move that would require rapid acceleration in the deployment of renewable wind and solar power as well as electricity storage, while continuing to rely on emission-free nuclear power.

“Silver-intensive areas such as 5G and solar technology could well benefit from any fiscal impulse,” BMO analysts including Colin Hamilton said in a research note. “More than US$50 billion of green stimulus has been approved by governments thus far this year, over which roughly three-quarters has been in Europe. But perhaps more impactful has been the recent Biden campaign Clean Energy plan, most notably a zero-carbon power grid by 2035 which would see new wind and solar capacity built to displace thermal generation.”

The price of any asset is influenced by the actions of marginal buyers. Therefore, new sources of demand and limitations on supply tend to have an outsized influence on the prevailing trend. Silver is used in solar panels, electronics and communications equipment. It also has healthcare applications as an antibacterial.

After negotiating through the night, the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Sweden are satisfied with 390 billion euros ($450 billion) of the fund being made available as grants with the rest coming as low-interest loans, the officials said, asking not be named discussing private conversations. The total size of the recovery package is in flux, but an earlier proposal was for 750 billion euros.

The bloc’s 27 leaders will gather again at 4 p.m. in Brussels to settle the outstanding issues such as the overall size of the fund and the mechanisms for controlling its spending. A French official said that their delegation now see a path to a full deal.

“After lengthy talks last night, we worked out a framework for a possible agreement,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday. “It’s progress and gives hope that perhaps today an agreement will be made, or at least that an agreement is possible.”

€750 billion is a substantial aid package, but is rather small when compared to the measures taken by the USA. The reluctance of creditor nations to give money away, the length of time taken to negotiate the deal, and the fact the agreement has been reached following the peak infection point for Eurozone countries have contributed to the tailored size of the package.

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Like Germany, Japan was also hit exceptionally hard by the depression and became more autocratic in response to it.  Japan was especially vulnerable to the depression because, as an island nation without adequate natural resources, it relied on exports for income to import necessities.  When its exports fell by around 50% between 1929 and 1931, it was economically devastated.  In 1931, the depression in Japan was so severe that the country went broke—i.e., it was forced to draw down its gold reserves, abandon the gold standard, and float its currency, which depreciated it so greatly that Japan ran out of buying power.  These terrible conditions and large wealth gaps led to fighting between the left and the right.  In 1932 that led to a massive upsurge in right-wing nationalism and militarism to forcefully restore order and bring back economic stability.  To that end, Japan’s military took control and pursued military options to get Japan the resources it needed by taking them away from other countries.  Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and later expanded through China and Asia to obtain natural resources (e.g., oil, iron, coal, and rubber) and human resources (i.e., slave labor).  As in the German case, it could be argued that this path of military aggression to get needed resources was the best path for the Japanese because relying on classic trading and economic practices wouldn’t have gotten them what they needed.   

Shifting to more autocratic, populist, and nationalist leaders and policies during times of extreme economic stress is typical, as people want strong leadership to bring order to the chaos and to deal strongly with the outside enemy.  In 1934, there was severe famine in parts of Japan, causing even more political turbulence and reinforcing the right-wing, militaristic, nationalistic, and expansionistic movement.  

In the years that followed, this movement in Japan, like that in Germany, became increasingly strong with its top-down fascist command economy, building a military-industrial complex with the military mobilized to protect its existing bases in East Asia and northern China and its expansion into other territories.  As was also the case in Germany, during this time, while most Japanese companies remained outside government ownership, their production was controlled by the government.

It makes sense that no one would enter a war under the assumption they are going to lose more than they gain. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude the increasing competition between China and the USA will not result in a war until one side clearly believes they can win. Nuclear weapons obviously complicate the calculus.

Physical deficits forecast in 2020 and 2021. We have updated our supply-demand forecasts for silver, which now see physical deficits in 2020 and 2021, from modest surpluses previously. This primarily reflects a stronger rebound in economic activity than we had expected and we now forecast demand in 2020 down -4% vs. -17% previously. We have also incorporated a material ETF inventory build, resulting in even larger net deficits. Our near-term supply forecasts were relatively unchanged.

Underlying industrial & commercial demand more robust. In the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Industrial Production (IP) on a period-over-period basis went to a highly negative level, driving a sharp move lower in silver prices. While we continue to assume YoY declines in global GDP and IP, we now think there could be a better outcome than previously expected, reflecting recent strength across industrial sectors in China, supportive global central bank stimulus and apparent rebounds in global PMIs. As such, our forecasts for industrial and commercial demand have improved.

Investment demand accelerating. Silver offers many of the same investment qualities as gold even with 50-55% of demand coming from industrial use. This means it is similarly attractive in the current supportive gold macro environment. Notably, physically backed silver ETF holdings have risen +140 Moz over the past 3 months and this appears to have continued to support prices in recent weeks. We now add significant ETF build into our demand forecast to reflect likely further investment interest.

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Silver is high beta gold but it takes time for investors to get the message that a new gold bull market is in the offing. Therefore, it is quite normal for silver to underperform, often by a wide margin, until investors begin to think about how they can gain leverage to the gold price. Therefore, the return to outperformance of silver relative to gold is a significant transition in the psychological make-up of the market.

“What we found,” she says, “was actually similar to what WHO said.” Asymptomatic people can transmit the disease to others — the risk is not zero. The so-called attack rate, which measures the fraction of contacts infected was, in high-risk settings, less than 1% for asymptomatic cases versus 75% for those showing symptoms. Among members of the same household, the attack rate was 15% for symptomatic cases and 2% for asymptomatic ones. She and colleagues published their conclusions as a response to the Annals of Internal Medicine article.

“As a clinician, this really bothers me because we really have to get this right,” she says.  That means getting a better handle on the range of symptoms — including the inability to smell, which happens in as many as 60% of mild cases. It means making sure people recognize these symptoms, stay home, and ideally, allow contact tracers to stop chains of transmission.

A paper published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences conclude that isolating sick people isn’t enough, and that’s true. But tracing their contacts and isolating them seems a better option than giving up in defeat.

Many countries from Japan to Ethiopia have been successfully stopping chains of transmission this way. Ultimately, science can’t tell people what to do. There should be a political side to deciding how to balance risk of death and quality of life, health hardship and economic hardship. Those are value judgements. But politicizing the science ensures the public will suffer the worst of both.

How COVID-19 is contracted and containing the spread are two separate but related topics. I go to the post office every day. I wear a mask and wash my hands with sanitiser as soon as I get back to the car. The people working in the post office wear masks and gloves and none of them have gotten sick. We are also not seeing large numbers of grocer store workers collapsing from infections. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that even for people who are in high risk professions, who are indoors all day and constantly deal with the public, the spread has been contained.

Nuveen: Identifying tomorrow’s world cities

A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Some of the topics discussed include: China's markets pull back sharply, India steady, Tech stocks pause, Europe steady, Dollar steadies gold and silver pause, oil and bitcoin quiet. 

The impact showed in Wednesday’s smallest increase in stock leverage since late June. The CSI 300, which was up almost 17% for the month on Monday, has now given up half those gains.

An attack from the People’s Daily newspaper on Moutai was taken as another sign of Beijing’s desire to slow the recent run-up, after government-backed funds sold shares or announced plans to so in the past few days. Increasing tensions with the U.S., the central bank’s clampdown on easy money and a drop in retail sales are also adding up as reasons to start selling.

Data Thursday showed the Chinese economy returned to growth in the second quarter, expanding a better-than-expected 3.2%. While industrial output rose 4.8% from a year earlier, retail sales shrank 1.8%, weaker than a projected 0.5% increase. That suggests the recovery is still largely industry-driven, with consumer sentiment remaining fragile.

“Retail sales came worse than expected, which hurts sentiment towards some consumer stocks,” said Daniel So, a strategist at CMB International Securities Ltd. “A stabilizing economy means the scale of monetary easing may be smaller than expected. Ample liquidity was one of the key reasons for markets to jump.”

Overseas investors continued to trim their holdings of mainland-listed shares, selling nearly $4 billion worth of the stocks through exchange links in the past three days.

The CSI 300 pulled back sharply today to test the upper side of the underlying range. This represents the first area of potential support so evidence of demand returning in the next day or two will be required if the benefit of the doubt is to be given to the breakout.

Gold is a monetary metal because it has been viewed as a store of value for millennia. The question therefore is how do we best measure its performance as a store of value? Afterall, the simply looking at its value in different currencies gives us an historical perspective but it does not illustrate how much the purchasing power of currencies has been degraded over time. In order to do that we need to create charts of gold adjusted for the purchasing power parity of various currencies.

In a dramatic statement on Thursday, Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said vaccine and therapeutic sectors in multiple countries have been targeted by a group known as APT29, which it said is “almost certainly” part of Russian state intelligence. Security agencies in the U.S. and Canada later issued their own statements backing up the findings.

“It is completely unacceptable that the Russian intelligence services are targeting those working to combat the coronavirus pandemic,” British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said. “While others pursue their selfish interests with reckless behavior, the U.K. and its allies are getting on with the hard work of finding a vaccine and protecting global health.”

The intelligence bombshell came at a delicate time in geopolitics with a combative U.S. election looming in November and the pandemic plunging the world economy into recession. Coronavirus has launched a global race for a vaccine, in which researchers in the U.K. have made progress recently.

The geopolitical dividend of being the country that develops a viable solution for the coronavirus first is obvious. That is regardless of the fact that most countries and companies have clearly stated they are willing to do everything possible to made a vaccine widely available.

A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area.

Some of the topics discussed include: resilience means more government support for stock market themes, oil and gold steady, Dollar eases, Wall Street rotation into broader recovery

The conclusion that comes from our examination of hydrogen is that without some major technological breakthrough that reduces the cost of producing it substantially, the economic hurdle will not be overcome.  That means the only way hydrogen could become an important energy source is with government intervention in the energy market and assigning a price to carbon, or subsidizing the hydrogen fuel.  At this point in time, as governments around the world struggle to reopen their economies and repair the financial damage done to their citizens and businesses by the response to the pandemic, it is difficult to see them embracing carbon prices, which raises energy costs for their people and companies.  This is why the strong push, especially in Europe, for tying net-zero carbon emission policies in government stimulus efforts to rebuild their economies following Covid-19.  We suggest energy executives, analysts and investors worry more about the debates over the economic rebuilding efforts than the short-term moves in oil prices, demand and supply.  The long-term future of the oil market will be impacted by the success of governments instituting carbon prices.

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Natural gas and coal prices are low in both nominal and relative terms. Economics 101 dictates that when the price of a vital commodity falls, consumers will naturally migrate towards it and find new uses for the resource.

The sole miner of rare earths in the U.S. is becoming a public company amid elevated trade tensions with China, the dominant global supplier of the material used in everything from computers to cars.
MP Materials, which runs a mine and processing facility in Mountain Pass, Calif., near the border of Nevada, will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange in a deal with the blank-check company Fortress Value Acquisition Corp.

“This business combination and becoming a public company is a key milestone in MP Materials’ mission to restore the full rare earth supply chain to the United States of America," said James Litinsky, a co-chairman who will become chairman and CEO. MP Materials can produce refined neodymium-praseodymium, a rare earth material used in magnets that help power electric vehicles, wind turbines, robotics, drones and defense systems. China currently controls more than 80% of that market. MP Materials Corp. will be listed under the ticker symbol “MP."
 

A decade ago, the price of rare earth metals surged to unimaginable heights because China restricted exports in a mercantilist effort to force investment in its high-end manufacturing sector. The effort created significant efforts to develop alternative sources of supply but most failed to reach production when China started exporting again.

A combined Aphria and Aurora Cannabis entity would suggest a company with over C$1 billion in sales in 2021, with over C$600 million in net cannabis sales, Stifel analyst W. Andrew Carter wrote in note.
 

* Stifel says “headset market share data suggests” a combination would produce a leader in Canada’s adult-use market, with 30% share
* Stifel questions whether a potential deal would garner regulatory scrutiny
* Separately, Scotiabank analyst Adam Buckham wrote in note a potential deal makes sense
** Positives for Aurora holders would be annual cost savings and improved credit position
** Could spark pot sector M&A
* Aurora shares in Toronto rose as much as 6.3% intraday; Aphria rose 7.7%
* NOTE: Earlier, Aurora-Aphria Merger Talks Are Not Just Smoke: React (BI)
* NOTE: July 14, Aphria and Aurora Explored Merger, Talks Failed: BNN Bloomberg

The legalisation of cannabis in Canada was a buy the rumour, sell the news phenomenon. The prices of related shares surged ahead of the transition but did not improve on that performance subsequently and have since declined meaningfully.

A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Some of the topics discussed include: Liquidity remains the fuel for the stock and bonds markets, commodities, oil and precious metals firm, Dollar eases.

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

I found the chart comparing the Swedish and US COVID-19 infection rate to be particularly interesting. It suggests that anything less than total adherence to social distancing, effective testing and contact tracing is ineffectual. That’s a challenge because while some Asian countries have been able to implement these types of protocols swiftly, not least because of their prior experience with SARS, it seems beyond the ability of most countries to do. With cases in Hong Kong and Australia rising it is looking increasingly likely this is going to be a long hard slog until a vaccine is widely available.

The frenzy in interest means that as of the end of Monday’s trading session, there are now roughly 457,000 users on the Robinhood app that hold shares of the company in some form. That makes it the 10th-most popular stock on the platform, ahead of even Amazon.com Inc., which is held by 358,000 users.

It isn’t at all clear that day traders are the main driver for the nosebleed rally in Tesla shares over the past few weeks. Indeed, there are myriad other possibilities, from the potential reveal of a new battery technology, to short covering, to conjecture over the possibility for the stock’s addition to the S&P 500 Index.

The rise of the day trader is another late cycle signal that we are now in the speculative excess phase of the bull market. When regular people make more money from trading than from their regular jobs it is an anomaly that does not last indefinitely.

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Governments are engaged in a massive nationalization of private assets. Whether its buying sovereign, corporate or mortgage bonds, equities, repos and commercial paper it all represents an accumulation of private assets. Indirectly, property taxes and rising payments to public sector workers represent an additional confiscation and redirection of private property to sustaining the status quo. 

A link to today's video commentary is posted in the Subscriber's Area. 

Some of the topics discussed include: downside key reversals on accelerating trends in tech suggest at a pause, gold steady silver firm, bonds firm, Dollar eases versus Euro, copper pauses.

A link to the full report is posted in the Subscriber's Area.

Rather than compare the pace of the current advance with what we saw in 1999, I think it is more appropriate to highlight the COVID-19 fear mongering to what went on ahead of Y2K. Back in 1999 there was palpable fear all computers, everywhere, would stop working on January 1st 2000. That catalysed spending decisions in corporations globally to frontload technology upgrade decisions into 1999. Y2K effectively pulled forward sales from 2000. 2001 and 2002 and tech sales looked like they would go on forever.

Political scientist Joseph Nye believes that the key trigger in the Thucydides trap is an excessive reaction to the fear of losing one’s power status and prospects for future development. In the case of Washington and Beijing, the relative decline of America’s power and the rapid rise of China’s power destabilizes their relationship and makes it difficult to manage. Gen. Martin Dempsey, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Armed Forces, even admitted in May 2012 that his primary task was to ensure that the United States did not fall into the Thucydides trap.

As a result of the slow but noticeable erosion of the U.S. position in the Western Pacific, it is highly conceivable that a scenario could emerge in which the current hegemon is tempted to conduct a strategic counteroffensive in response to an incident, even a trivial one, in the South China Sea or East China Sea, believing falsely that it has the edge over its inferior rival. This would trigger a modern Thucydides trap.

An in-depth reading of Thucydides’ work reveals a second trap, even more complex and dangerous than the first. Thucydides clearly warned that neither Sparta nor Athens wanted war. But their allies and vassal states managed to convince them that war was inevitable anyway, which meant that both city-states would need to gain a decisive advantage at an early stage of the escalating confrontation. Thus, they decided to enter the war after being urged to do so by their vassal states.

The discussions of the Great Game between China and the USA and many interlinkages across the global economy has been fodder for analysts for much of the last five years. I believe a much greater intensification of the competition between the USA and China is likely. Arguably it is already underway. However, for outright war to take place a number of additional conditions would need to be met.