The Housing Bubble

The chinese central bank is trying to prop up their investments by printing cash to buy the same stocks they own. Seems unrigged to me.

George Chen
Yale World Fellow, Hong Kong
How China’s Stock Market Volatility Undermines the Communist Party’s Authority
Posted: 07/31/2015 11:51 am EDT Updated: 07/31/2015 11:59 am EDT
CHINA STOCK MARKET

HONG KONG — At the very beginning of the Chinese stock market crisis in late June, many investors felt there were problems mostly related to liquidity issues. But gradually the concerns have grown to encompass more than the market itself. People have begun to talk about whether the government is capable of handling the stock market crisis, and whether this may end up as a broader crisis of governance.

China’s leadership doesn’t like uncertainty: Beijing basically wants everything under its control, from the exchange rate of the renminbi to the rise and fall of the domestic stock market. Part of the reason why the limits to the depths and heights of all stocks traded in Shanghai and Shenzhen are allowed to fall and rise is because the government simply likes certainty — something that is predictable and ultimately can be kept under control.

The same mindset has been at work in the government’s efforts to stabilize the stock market. The central bank has pledged to provide as much liquidity support to the market as is needed, and state-owned commercial banks have jointly provided over 2 trillion RMB in loans to the government-backed margin finance agency, the China Securities Finance Corp., to help it stabilize the market. But despite these rescue efforts, the market has still been in turmoil, recording its worst single-day fall in eight years on Monday. More retail investors, who contribute about 90 percent of daily trade in mainland China’s stock market, have begun to be impatient and doubt whether the government, particularly the securities regulator, is capable of dealing with the market crisis.
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Oops
China’s stock market just had its worst month in six years
An investor stands in front of an electronic board showing stock information at a brokerage house in Fuyang, Anhui province, China, July 30, 2015.
China stocks fell on Thursday after state media reported that banks were investigating their exposure to the stock market through wealth management products and loans collateralised with stocks.
REUTERS/China Daily
Ouch.
(Reuters/China Daily)
Written by Gwynn Guilford
July 31, 2015

June was an unusually cruel month for the Chinese stock markets—and yet, somehow, July outdid it.

The Shanghai Composite benchmark index ended the month down 14.3%. That compares with June’s 7.3% loss. (To be fair, though, Chinese stocks peaked in mid-June, shedding 17.2% after June 12.)

It was only in the last week or so that things got truly ugly. Until then, the Chinese government’s heavy-handed intervention, which began July 4, kept the market mostly calm for nearly two weeks.

And then came the blowback. As long as investors felt confident that the “Xi Jinping put” meant the government would keep shoveling money into stocks, they bought, too. But when rumors that the authorities were pulling out kicked up late last week, investors bailed en masse.

This has created a weird and self-defeating dynamic, as Chang Liu and Mark Williams of Capital Economics point out. “The market is driven more than ever by speculation about official intentions,” they write in a note today, “and any positive momentum will raise questions about whether support will be withdrawn.”

In fact, by pledging to support the market until the Shanghai Composite hits 4,500, the government has made this explicit. With the benchmark index now at 3,664, the government has a Sisyphean slog to hit its target.

The problem now is that every time the benchmark index starts nearing 4,500—it hit 4,124 on July 23—investors will pack up their things and go home. This effort to time the government’s withdrawal of support likely contributed to the dramatic July 27 selloff that shaved 8.5% off the Shanghai Composite, says Lei Mao, assistant finance professor at Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick in the UK. On top of that, Shanghai stocks still don’t look cheap enough to encourage investors to stomach short-term volatility, Capital Economics’ analysts argue.

In short, the Chinese government’s “mechanical bull” campaign—i.e. a year-long effort to create a bull market plus a rescue plan for when things went south—has left it in quite a pickle.

Letting the market crash a month ago probably would not have been a huge deal; fewer than a tenth of households own stocks, so popular outrage would have been unlikely. But the government’s intervention has now put both its credibility and trillions of dollars in government resources on the line.
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August 02, 2015 14:14 UTC
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China’s Stock Market Hit with Turmoil in July
Investors look at computer screens showing stock information at a brokerage house in Shanghai, China, July 8, 2015.

From VOA Learning English, this is the Economics Report.

The last two months have been difficult for investors in China’s stock markets. Major stock indexes, measures that track share values, all had big decreases during the month. This has many people questioning what China’s stock market problems mean for its economy and the world.

On July 27th, the Shanghai Composite index dropped more than eight percent in value, its largest single-day drop in eight years. In recent weeks, prices dropped although the government put a number of measures in place to keep prices from falling too far.

Measures to stop falling prices

These included lending billions of dollars to stock trading companies, having pension funds increase stock holdings and threatening short-sellers with legal action. Short-sellers make a profit by trading stocks that are decreasing in prices.

The state China Securities Finance Corporation on Tuesday said it will continue to buy stocks to “stabilize” the market. The People’s Bank of China also said it would place over $8 billion into money markets funds, which are considered safe debt investments.

Companies have also cancelled plans to sell new shares on exchanges and, at one point, more than 1,400 companies requested that trading in their shares be halted.
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Emergency measures fail to halt China’s stock market nosedive
July ends on another low note as stocks record biggest monthly loss in almost six years, despite concerted efforts by Beijing to prop up the exchanges
An investor stands in front of an electronic board showing stock information at a brokerage house in Fuyang, Anhui province, China. Photograph: China Daily/Reuters
Katie Allen
Friday 31 July 2015 13.45 EDT
Last modified on Saturday 1 August 2015 00.43 EDT

Chinese share prices suffered a dismal end to a dire month as promises of more emergency measures from officials in Beijing failed to stem a stock market slide that is now reverberating around the global economy.

Despite policymakers’ pledges to underpin the flagging Chinese economy and a further crackdown by the markets watchdog, stocks fell further on Friday and posted their biggest monthly loss in almost six years.

The Shanghai composite index lost 10% this week alone and was down more than 14% for the whole of July. That extends the sharp sell-off that began in China’s stock market in mid-June, a rout that has prompted the country’s securities regulator to warn of “panic sentiment” gripping investors, many of whom are individuals that have borrowed heavily to play the stock market.

The backdrop to the heavy selling on Chinese stock markets, which are still up about 13% from the start of the year, is an economy that appears to be losing steam.
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CITIC Securities responds to short-selling accusations
English.news.cn | 2015-08-02 21:37:42 | Editor: huaxia

BEIJING, Aug.2 (Xinhua) — China’s top securities broker, CITIC Securities, responded on Sunday to claims that it has short-sold Chinese shares.

On Friday, the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges restricted trading of 24 accounts as they were suspected of misleading other investors by frequent orders and cancellations.

One of the accounts used to be owned by two shareholders, a foreign hedge fund named CITADEL GLOBAL TRADING S.AR.L and the Shenzhen CITIC United Venture Capital Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of CITIC Securities.

Market rumors began that CITIC Securities had ganged up with foreign hedge funds to short-sell Chinese stocks.

In response, CITIC Securities said the historical investment started in 2010, but ended after the company transferred its equity in November 2014. It does not own the hedge fund’s stock rights any more, a CITIC source said.

Besides, the previous investment, which was one million U.S. dollars and accounted for 20 percent of the hedge fund’s total equity, was “small scale” and CITIC did not participate in the hedge fund’s operation or management, according to the source.

CITIC insisted it will support the government’s regulatory measures to stabilize the stock market.
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Investing 7/19/2015 @ 2:40PM
World Bank States The Obvious On China, China Gets Mad
Kenneth Rapoza
Contributor

China needs to change its economic model, the World Bank said recently, stating something Beijing knows all too well.

“The growth model that was based on fixed investments helped the Chinese economy take off. But reforms are necessary from hereon to allow for the financial system to support sectors that have reasonable growth prospects in the medium term,” the Bank said.

That may be easier said than done.

While fixed asset investment growth has been in decline for the past two years, once growing at compounded annual rates of 20% or more and now down to the low teens, municipal level governments are still prone to throw money at job-seeking sectors regardless of return on investment.

All China-watchers know that the country is moving away from being a low cost export manufacturer and trying to become an entrepreneurial consumer-driven society. This is taking longer than expected. The market is impatient.

Oversupply remains a problem. During the commodity boom, China was busy building “ghost cities” and subway systems from scratch. That helped other emerging markets like Chile sell more copper and Brazil sell more iron ore. Not anymore.

The World Bank’s China report turned China off in its first draft. The Bank said China’s state run banks were distorting the market, and even brought up the dreaded hard landing issue. The Bank is calling for a more open financial services sector, and called on China to be more mindful of corrosive practices at its banks. On Friday, the Bank back-peddled a bit with Jim Yong Kim, its president, saying publicly that China considered its claims as being “illegitimate”. The apology, of sorts, shows China’s growing importance within the institution.

Regardless of China’s concerns, the Bank’s claims are indeed legit. Muni-lending has created dozens of automotive companies in China and dozens of solar panel makers that will struggle with reforms.

For example, the Chinese Automotive Manufacturing Association said it expects the auto-market to grow by just 3% this year, less than half their original forecast.

Iron ore and steel imports, in particular, have hit their peak, according to Mysteel Research.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, also says that China’s exhausted its old growth model. OECD said that China will eventually grow below 7% and stay there for a long time.
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Does it seem a rush to the exits is underway in China?

Chinese control of stock market disturbing
USA TODAY
11:51 a.m. EDT August 2, 2015

The Chinese government certainly likes to control things. It keeps its currency artificially low to promote exports. It meddles heavily in real estate prices. And it is obsessed with controlling information on the Internet.

But nothing has been as jarring to American sensibilities as its recent efforts to prop up stock prices, which began plunging this summer after a huge run-up in late 2014 and the first half of 2015.

In its bid to push prices back up, the government has bought stocks directly and lent to brokers to buy as well. It has halted trading in certain shares, barred large shareholders from selling and loosened restrictions on margin buying. If these weren’t enough, it has cut interest rates and initiated another round of fiscal stimulus.

Efforts to artificially prop up stock prices are, of course, doomed to eventual failure. Markets are driven by greed and fear, conventional wisdom and contrarianism. Attempting to control basic human emotions and thoughts is about as realistic as controlling the weather. When it rains, you can go inside or get wet. You can’t stop it from raining.

But China is trying. Its efforts are particularly disturbing as they show how the government is heading in the wrong direction on issues of economic and political reform. Instead of beginning to privatize some of its more than 100,000 state-owned enterprises and instituting other changes, China is clamping down on an emerging culture of ownership.

It might be doing this in the name of protecting people’s investments. But, at bottom, it is preventing people from buying and selling something at a mutually agreed price. It is trying to have the rewards of rising stock prices without the risks, just as it is trying to have the benefits of capitalism without democracy.

Those in the West who’ve watched China’s rapid ascent have long thought that economic growth will eventually force some level of democratization. This will happen, Westerners believe, when an educated middle class demands more freedoms and when businesses demand greater access to information, more transparency in government and consistent laws they can navigate.

China’s stock market intervention suggests that line of thinking could be overly optimistic. So far at least, most Chinese appear content to have rising standards of living without the messiness of democracy. And Chinese leaders are committed to a form of authoritarian capitalism that attempts to marry free enterprise and political control.

Nowhere is that commitment to control more evident than in the Chinese government’s determination to undermine the Internet by imposing a “great firewall” within its own borders and by trying to turn the World Wide Web into a Balkanized communications platform that national governments control as they see fit.

Earlier this year, China, Russia and several other countries proposed that the United Nations adopt an Internet “code of conduct.” Such a regime would give governments control over technical protocols that currently make the Internet a seamless global presence.
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The Wall Street Journal
China manufacturing data point to more sluggishness
Published: Aug 1, 2015 7:48 a.m. ET
Official China manufacturing PMI weakens to 50.0 in July
Workers install car parts a factory in Qingdao, in Shandong province.
By William Kazer

BEIJING — A gauge of China’s factory activity slipped in July, pointing to further sluggishness in the key manufacturing sector of the world’s second-largest economy.

Analysts said the relatively weak reading in the official China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index reflected a continuing trend of weak demand at home and abroad, a battered property sector and added pressure from a swooning stock market.

“Economic momentum is still very fragile,” said Haibin Zhu, economist at J.P. Morgan.

China’s official manufacturing purchasing managers index slipped to 50.0 in July from 50.2 in June, the National Bureau of Statistics said Saturday. A reading of 50 is right at the cutoff point between expansion and contraction compared with the previous month.

Subindexes showed weakness across a broad front, including output as well as new orders and new export orders along with employment and prices for materials.

The official gauge was still better than a competing measure compiled by research house Markit and Chinese media firm Caixin. Their preliminary PMI estimate was below the 50 level at 48.2—the lowest reading in 15 months.
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Would you buy stocks in a country where selling your shares could result in severe punishment?

South China Morning Post
Chart of the day: Another shoe still to drop for China stocks
PUBLISHED : Friday, 31 July, 2015, 8:41pm
UPDATED : Friday, 31 July, 2015, 11:39pm

The bounce in China’s onshore stock market has been decidedly half-hearted, lasting only for a few days after it began on July 9 despite the massive government intervention involved. The brief rally started, entirely logically, at the steeply rising 40-week moving average at 3,750 points on the CSI 300 Index. Now, three weeks later, it is back down there again, battling to hold the key long-term trend. We doubt it will. The 40-week moving-average uptrend at 44.5 per cent is still steep by most standards, but of course this is no ordinary situation; and it is slowing sharply, from close to 100 per cent. Stock market crashes generally have two down legs, and the same should be expected here. The eventual recovery will be long and hard.

John Schofield is the founder of Tempus Investment Research

Wsj dot com
Markets
China’s Stock Markets: Nearly 25 Years of Wild Swings

Recent rout in Shanghai only ranks 21st in terms of losses

A police officer kept watch as people waited in line for IPO applications in Shenzhen in 1992. Disappointed investors later rioted.
Photo: MANDEL NGAN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
By Chao Deng
Updated July 31, 2015 6:04 p.m. ET

In the two years after China opened its stock markets, shares soared 1200% and twice fell by half. Investors seeking IPO shares rioted, overturning cars and smashing windows, leading police to use tear gas and fire their guns in the air to quell the disturbance.

China will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the opening of its stock markets later this year, and not much has changed since their founding. They vacillate between big government-driven rallies and equally dramatic selloffs that leave once-euphoric investors disillusioned and angry.

“China’s stock markets have developed quickly and their accomplishments are great, but they are very irregular,” Zhu Rongji, China’s premier at the time, said in 2000. “If they are to receive the people’s trust, the investors’ trust, then they have a lot of work to do.”

Stocks are down by 29% from their peak in June, and investors have continued to sell shares despite the strongest efforts ever by Beijing to prop up prices. The current bear market—defined as a fall of 20% or more from a peak—is the 27th that investors have suffered in the past 25 years. It is the 21st worst in terms of losses.

Shares have lost half their value three times, and plummeted by two-thirds once, in 1993-1994, when the Shanghai Composite Index fell by 67% from its peak to its low point.
…

BloombergBusiness
Asian Stocks Fall on China Growth Concerns as Oil Extends Drop
by Emma O’Brien
August 2, 2015 — 4:16 PM PDT
Updated on August 2, 2015 — 7:13 PM PDT

Asian stocks fell for the first time in four days amid signs of a deepening slowdown in China’s economy. Crude declined with copper, while the won strengthened.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 0.8 percent at 11:09 a.m. in Tokyo. The Shanghai Composite Index slid 1 percent, following its worst monthly drop in six years. U.S. index futures were little changed. Oil retreated 0.7 percent, with Iran claiming it will be able to bolster crude production a week after sanctions are lifted. Copper dropped 0.3 percent. South Korea’s currency climbed 0.5 percent as the central bank reported a record current-account surplus.

An official gauge of Chinese manufacturing at the weekend slid to a five-month low, with the final reading on a private gauge Monday contracting more than estimated. Factory indexes for Japan to India and the U.S. will be released and Greek markets are set to resume following a five-week suspension.

“China will have several hard questions asked of it over the week, feeding into concern it’s facing a hard landing,” Evan Lucas, a markets strategist in Melbourne at IG Ltd., wrote in an e-mail to clients. “We see a slightly negative start to August.”
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News
China stocks fall at market open
SHANGHAI | Sun Aug 2, 2015 10:18pm EDT

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China major stock indexes opened down on Monday.

The CSI300 index (.CSI300) fell 1.2 percent to 3,772.53 points at 1:36 GMT (9:36 p.m. EDT), while the Shanghai Composite Index (.SSEC) lost 1.4 percent to 3,612.93 points.

China CSI300 stock index futures for August fell 1.0 percent, to 3,623.2, -149.33 points below the current value of the underlying index.
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BloombergBusiness
European Stock-Index Futures Drop With Asia Shares as Oil Slumps
by Emma O’Brien
August 2, 2015 — 4:16 PM MST
Updated on August 2, 2015 — 11:13 PM MST

European equity-index futures fell with Asian shares amid signs of a deepening slowdown in China’s economy. Crude extended its biggest monthly slump in nearly seven years, while the Australian dollar weakened.

Euro Stoxx 50 Index futures dropped 0.2 percent at 7:05 a.m. in London, while U.S. index contracts were little changed. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 0.7 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index slumped 2.5 percent, following its worst monthly retreat since 2009. The Aussie depreciated 0.2 percent. Oil slid 1.1 percent in New York. Copper dropped 0.6 percent.

An official gauge of Chinese manufacturing at the weekend slid to a five-month low, with the final reading on a private gauge Monday contracting more than estimated. Iran claimed it will be able to bolster crude production a week after sanctions are lifted. Factory indexes in Europe and the U.S. will be released and Greek markets are set to resume following a five-week suspension.

“China will have several hard questions asked of it over the week, feeding into concern it’s facing a hard landing,” Evan Lucas, a markets strategist in Melbourne at IG Ltd., wrote in an e-mail to clients. “We see a slightly negative start to August.”
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Gas report - $1.98 a gallon at the Canton, TX wal mart.

Private Equity and Hedge Funds
Carlyle Group battered by commodities rout: WSJ
Javier E. David
20 Hours Ago
CNBC.com
A sign for the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm, in Washington, DC.
Getty Images

The Carlyle Group, one of the top private equity firms on Wall Street, has seen one of its funds sustain hefty losses because of the washout in raw materials, the Wall Street Journal reported late Friday.

The publication, citing unnamed sources close to the firm, said that Vermillion Asset Management—which Carlyle purchased 3 years ago—has seen holdings in its flagship fund plunge from about $2 billion to less than $50 million.

The report stated that Carlyle’s co-founders, David Rubenstein and William Conway, invested “tens of millions of dollars of their own money in the fund,” only to see it evaporate in a wave of losses and redemptions, the WSJ added.

As a result of the losses, Vermillion’s founders departed the private equity giant at the end of June, sources told The Journal. The firm is pulling back from investments in key markets like oil, natural gas, coal and agriculture, the report added.

Vermillion is not the only firm to be laid low by the swoon in commodity prices. Assets under management at commodity hedge funds have tumbled 15 percent since 2012, according to data from HFR cited by The Journal.
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Commodities Slide Deeper Into a Rut
An index tracking 24 commodities fell to its lowest level since 2002 on Friday
Men work on a building’s steel frame in Beijing. China is the largest consumer of raw materials and commodity investors worry about a slowdown there.
Photo: Wu Hong/European Pressphoto Agency
By Tatyana Shumsky
Updated July 31, 2015 8:38 p.m. ET

Commodity prices tumbled anew, plunging the S&P GSCI Total Return index to its worst monthly loss since November 2008 and deepening a yearslong rout that few observers expect to moderate.

The index, which tracks a basket of commodities, fell to its lowest level since 2002 on Friday, according to data from S&P Dow Jones Indices. All but one of the 24 index components posted losses for July.

Investors in commodity markets are confronting threats from a slowdown in China, an anemic global economy and the prospect of higher U.S. interest rates from the Federal Reserve. The dollar, which has rallied this summer on expectations of tighter U.S. monetary policy, is also pressuring prices of raw materials, which are traded in the U.S. currency and become more expensive for buyers in other countries when the buck rallies.

Hopes that China has seen the worst of its economic slowdown were spurned after the country’s stock market dived in July, notching its worst month in six years. China is the largest consumer of raw materials, and investors now fear that problems in its equity market will reverberate across the economy in coming months as cash-strapped consumers abort purchases of new cars, homes and other goods.

Europe is battling to stave off another economic downturn. A weaker euro hasn’t buoyed exports from the region, and growth and inflation remain stubbornly low. This dims any prospect of higher demand for raw materials from the region.

Commodity prices are also under pressure as supply of many raw materials runs ahead of global demand. Companies that grow soybeans or mine for coal outside the U.S. are opting to keep up production because weaker domestic currencies keep their costs low, while a stronger dollar means they bring homxxe larger profits despite falling prices.

Against this backdrop, many investors are choosing to give commodities the cold shoulder.

“Folks are being very cautious in terms of where they want to apply their capital, we’ve seen that in commodities…it just continues to be an area that people want to avoid,” said Dan Farley, chief investment officer at State Street Global Advisors, who helps manage $2.4 trillion. Mr. Farley said he reduced investments in the sector at the end of 2014.

July’s selloff touched every sector, with U.S. crude-oil prices tumbling 21%, their worst drop since October 2008, to $47.12 a barrel. Traders were caught off guard by reports that U.S. oil drilling accelerated in July for the first time since December, raising the potential for greater supplies. A nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers also opened the door to more oil exports from the Middle East.

Corn and soybeans fell as improved weather conditions raised the prospects for the harvest. Grain prices were also pressured by the turmoil in China, which sowed concern about export demand.

These worries pushed copper prices to a six-year low in July, slashing 9.8% off the metal’s value for the month. China drives 40% of global copper demand.

Lean hog prices fell 14.3% in July. However, since the S&P GSCI Total Return index tracks the daily performance of the contract as well as daily interest earned on funds committed to the investment, this index component rose 0.5% for the month.

Gold sank to a five-year low during July amid disappointment that China’s official gold reserves didn’t grow as much as expected over the past six years.
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If you forecast something that took place in the past, isn’t that more of a “backcast”?

ft dot com > Markets > Commodities >
The Commodities Note
July 29, 2015 8:33 am
Goldman says Chinese metals in for a ‘hard landing’
By Henry Sanderson
Goldman’s new index shows demand growth for mined commodities has been slowing for four years
Employees work at a steel factory in Dalian, Liaoning province in this March 16, 2015 file picture. China’s crisis-hit steel sector is calling for strong government backing for plans to ramp up foreign acquisitions, as it looks to escape weak demand-growth and soaring environmental costs at home. In a draft of a revised restructuring plan for the industry issued late last week, Beijing included a line saying it would support mills’ efforts to buy assets abroad, with attention now turning to more detailed measures that could be announced later in the year. REUTERS/China Daily/Files
CHINA OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN CHINA

China’s statistics pose multiple difficulties for analysts, especially since they were called “man-made” by the current premier, Li Keqiang, in a US diplomatic cable.

The country grew at 7 per cent in the second quarter of this year according to Beijing, but commodity prices, especially metals, have fallen to some of their lowest price levels in six years. That is leading analysts to take a new stab at working out just how large the slowdown in commodity demand really is in the world’s biggest consumer.

Working out China’s demand is not easy, however. In many cases, data are obfuscated by imports from Hong Kong, a Chinese territory, and the practice of importing metal as collateral to obtain bank loans. It is also unclear how many stocks of metal and other commodities are sitting at warehouses not monitored by exchanges.

To try to tackle this problem, analysts at Goldman Sachs this month created an index the bank argues may provide a clearer picture. It isolates more than 100 components of China’s industrial production data that pertain to commodity consumption, and is called the China metals consumption index.

The bank found the index shows the pace of demand growth for metals and other mined commodities has now been slowing for four years. In the second quarter this year, Chinese demand fell by the most since the financial crisis, the index suggests.

Goldman is now forecasting a “hard landing” for metals demand for the first half of this year.
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NOW they tell us!

World Markets
Choppy July punishes China, commodities and EM
Jenny Cosgrave
Friday, 31 Jul 2015 | 10:19 AM ET
CNBC.com

After a month of multi-year record lows for a number of different asset classes, a lot of investors will be relieved to see the back of July.

Trade was relatively muted on Friday, ahead of what is likely to be a less eventful August as much of the market takes time off in preparation of what could be a much more volatile September, if the U.S. Federal Reserve decides to go ahead with a much-anticipated move in interest rates.

Leading the losing pack was the commodity sector, with WTI crude slumping almost 19 percent in the month of July on a confluence factors including persistent strength in the dollar, excess production worries and the general weakness in China.

“Analysts have been in a huge hurry to downgrade their medium-term forecasts (in commodities). I think that is probably the wrong way to think about it. But it is still very difficult, not a sector we are hugely exposed to. We are very disappointed in the opportunities that are being presented to us,” said fund manager at GLG, Henry Dixon.

Despite concerns around the volatility seen in the Chinese market, as a well as Greek debt fears, the traditional safe haven gold did not get a bid, losing over 7 percent, pressurized by the stronger dollar, which is flat on the month after seeing a spike in the middle of the month.

Foreign exchange markets also saw a month of records, with the Mexican peso at an all-time low and currencies in Turkey, Braziland South Africa also hitting their lowest levels in more than a decade.

“The rand has only ever traded at these levels for two days I believe in history and that was back in the end of 2001,” said Simon Derrick, chief currency strategist at BNY Mellon.

“We clearly have the potential for commodities to come under pressure because of this. There is also the risk that we could see these currencies come under seriously substantial further pressure. It could be the one thing that causes the Fed to pause a little bit,” Derrick told CNBC.

While global equities had a choppy few weeks, developed market indices were not much changed by month end, with the exception of China.
…

I have a buddy who is a financial planner, which I assume includes offering investment advice. I asked him if he had heard about last month’s Chinese stock market or commodities routs, and apparently he was unaware of either of them.

Go figure!

Top News
RPT-UPDATE 2-
Hedge funds’ bullish exposure to U.S. oil near 5-year low
Sun Aug 2, 2015 4:00pm EDT
(Repeats Friday story with no changes to text)
(Adds U.S. rig count rise in paragraph 9)
By Barani Krishnan

July 31 (Reuters) - Hedge funds and other speculators have
slashed their bullish exposure to U.S. crude to the lowest in
nearly five years, trade data showed on Friday, as local
drillers continue to add rigs and pump at full throttle despite
a global oil glut.

U.S. crude prices posted their largest monthly decline since
the 2008 financial crisis on Friday, ending down 21 percent, as
global demand continued to trail production by about 2 million
barrels.

Corresponding with the price tumble, data from the Commodity
Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) showed money managers’ net
long position in U.S. crude futures and options at the lowest
levels since September 2010.

“People are just piling out of WTI and the hedge funds are
among the forerunners in the selling,” said Tariq Zahir, a fund
manager at New York’s Tyche Capital Advisors, referring to West
Texas Intermediate, the benchmark for U.S. crude.

“We are going to be swimming in even more oil with the way
OPEC is pumping,” he added.

OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries,
groups Saudi Arabia and some of the biggest oil producers within
and outside the Middle East.

The group produced over 32 million barrels per day in July,
up 140,000 bpd from June, reaching its highest monthly level in
recent history as it continued to favor retention of market
share over price defense, a Reuters survey shows.

U.S. government data early this month showed OPEC production
at a surplus of 1.77 million bpd, and forecast it to grow to 2.1
million bpd in 2016.

Aside from fears of runaway OPEC output, industry data shows
the U.S. rig count for oil rising by 26 percent over the past
two weeks, suggesting more domestic supply in the future.

The CFTC data showed money managers cut their combined
futures and options positions in WTI by 2,497 contracts to
105,199 during the week to July 28.

WTI’s front-month contract settled on Friday at below $47.12
a barrel, down more than $12 from its June close.

Not all are bearish on U.S. crude going forward, though.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a note that WTI could
trade at a premium to global benchmark Brent by next
spring if U.S. gasoline demand, which helped oil prices recover
somewhat in the second quarter, remained on a tear.

Brent, which lost 18 percent through July to settle
at $52.21 a barrel, is at a near-$5 premium to WTI now.
…

A president is not mucking Futch. Nor is a congressman or Supreme Court judge. They should get out of the way.

I would take Biden over Hillary any day. If you read Bob Woodward’s books about the O administration, Biden comes off as a lot smarter and more astute than Obama himself or his cabinet officials, including Hillary, who with her myophic focus on making “women’s rights” a central question, ensures we’ll continue to be bogged down in places like Afghanistan for years to come.

Will Joe Biden run for prez ??

I say no…Win or lose, I think it will be Hillary…

Doesn’t it rain in Tampa several days a week nine months out of the year anyway?

Palmetto, I’m in the Orlando area. Winter Park to be exact. Born and raised. I would take this rain any summer day over the hot sweltering sun or hurricanes. It’s 10am and already dark clouds and overcast. Many local churchgoers will get drenched.

Palmy, I’m going to tampa in september to look for a house, and winter house!

I lived in Pinellas County, Florida for about 10 years. My absolute least favorite month of the year there was September.

In September you’re in the peak of hurricane season, the peak of the rainy season, and you’ve been suffering from the sweltering summer heat and humidity since May.

In many respects, September in Florida is analogous to March in the northeast: you’ve been suffering with the long winter/summer for months on end and you’re sick of it.

March in Pinellas County is its best month of the year. September is its worst.

He comes off that way, but he would be a much better alternative than HillaryJeb - he hasn’t totally forsaken the middle and working classes like the oligarch hirelings in the GOP clown car, or Horrendous Hillary.

I haven’t paid much attention to Biden as a politician, but stories about how he has coped with personal loss have certainly impressed me that he must have an extraordinary constitution.

And in case your suggestion that he is a Buffon (SIC) is correct, then he will fit right in with the rest of the candidates!

Pharma & Healthcare
5/31/2015 @ 9:15AM 47,604 views
How Joe Biden Grieved - And Survived - His Family’s Darkest Chapter

There was a moment when Joe Biden’s whole family was either in the hospital — or dead.

And it should’ve been the happiest time of his life.

It was December 1972. Biden was 29 years old, and had been elected to the Senate the month before.

Then he got the call that changed everything.

“You knew when the call came. You knew,” Biden would say years later. “You just felt it in your bones something bad happened.”

If you read my work at FORBES, you know: When we discuss the business of health care, we mostly focus on keeping people alive — the drugs, the treatments, the costs, the financial opportunities and scientific breakthroughs.

But dealing with death? We’re still figuring out how to grieve. How to help survivors cope with what they’ve lost.

Few people have ever faced tragedy as painfully — or publicly — as Joe Biden did forty years ago.

While Biden had been in D.C. hiring his staff, the rest of his family was Christmas shopping in Delaware.

But their station wagon was blindsided by a truck, knocked off the side of the road, and rammed by three trees.

The crash was devastating.

Joe Biden’s first wife, Neilia, and daughter were killed. Biden’s two sons were injured and taken to the hospital, one with possible permanent brain damage.

And Joe Biden — the husband, the father, the man — was wiped out.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be a senator anymore. As Ezra Klein notes, “Biden’s political career almost ended before it began. He almost resigned his seat before he took it.”

But Biden ended up taking the oath of office at the bedside of his son Beau.
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The recovery is for people people who can borrow @ zero and invest in stocks and real estate as the central banks pad their investments.

“Consumer debt, flat wages, rising rates…”

The indebted deserve a good shagging from the Joshua Tree.

Bernie.

Des it have to be real hair?

The answer is clearly, Omaba.

In a Twitter post, Deepa Kumar, associate professor of journalism and media studies, wrote: ‘Yes ISIS is brutal, but US is more so, 1.3 million killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan #NoToWar.’

Testify my bindi wearing sister! This country had more outrage on the killing of Cecil than the killing of women and children (to date) in those countries. Wonder why is that?

“A Rutgers University professor has sparked outrage after declaring that the United States is ‘more brutal’ than the Islamic State because its invasions of the Middle East have killed 1.3 million people.”

Most of us here are not outraged. We have deprogrammed ourselves on this blog over the past few years.

The outrage is that there are still a majority of people who think government is telling the truth and the MSM (CNN/ABC/MSNBC/FOX, etc) are independent and not mouthpieces of the government.

Glenn Greenwald’s book “No Place To Hide” made it clear that the ENnessA runs the empire and its propaganda.

Thanks for posting. Greece’s non-performing loans must be sky-high and getting worse. It’s criminal that banks are directed not to give people full access to their accounts, or that those accounts are at risk of seizure to make good the losses of the criminal banks and oligarchs who led Greece and the EU into this disaster.

First fallacy: There’s no such thing anymore as “sovereign governments.” All of them have been captured to one degree or another by international finance.

Let’s kick some a$$ with this bad boy ??

Some have written that even the F-22 Raptor is defenseless against the F-35

recent reports have estimated that the total cost to the Pentagon will be closer to $1.4 trillion

Meanwhile, ISIS continues to hold territory with a bunch of dudes with AK-47s riding in Toyota trucks.

Like I say, anyone older than 35 or more than ten pounds overweight please stay covered. For the sake of the rest of us.

ree gambling money to their .1% partners in crime on Wall Street

And they wonder about the “growing inequality.”

Comment by phony scandals
2015-08-02 08:07:39

Planned Parenthood Official Taped Discussing Sale of Aborted Baby Body Parts by Austin Ruse 14 Jul 2015
breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/14/planned-parenthood-official-taped-discussing-use-of-aborted-baby-body-parts/

“There’s trouble in River City!“

Trump in River City
Donald Trump is the Prof. Harold Hill of the presidential election.
By Daniel Henninger
July 29, 2015 7:01 p.m. ET

In “The Music Man,” Meredith Willson’s great musical, super salesman Harold Hill talks the townspeople of River City, Iowa, into buying trombones, bassoons and drums to form a boys’ band. Then, after the people of River City have committed belief and money to him, he’ll skip town.

Donald Trump is America’s Music Man, and the United States is his River City. Unlike the original, the Trump version isn’t going to have a happy ending.

Like Professor Harold Hill, Donald Trump must know it’s all a fabulous scam. How else to explain that on June 4—just before his presidential announcement—the Donald came to Mason City, Iowa, Meredith Willson’s hometown and the model for River City. And where did Donald Trump address Mason City’s locals? In Music Man Square.
…

They help those correctional officers make 100k / year.

lather, rinse , repeat

They will keep talking about how great things are and then all of a sudden it will change to doom and gloom after they go short.

whats amazing is they keep finding a new round of sheep.

A woman “assaulted” a cop by pressing her breasts against his arm? Oh the poor “victim” - he’ll require weeks off work undergoing counseling, if Hong Kong public unions are anything like ours.

What a silly article. NYC is awesome.

Sorry to keep raising the same question, but why can’t they simply invoke QE4 whenever they decide it is needed?

“Meanwhile, housing markets in Toronto and Vancouver are still super hot. Canadian home prices did not drop nearly as much as home prices in the US during the housing-market crash, and they’ve soared ever since.”

It must be different there.

Failed Baja condo project haunts U.S. buyers
The Residences at Playa Blanca was never completed
By Sandra Dibble | 8:51 p.m. Aug. 1, 2015
Dean Marriott reviews his sales contracts and other documents relating to his investment at The Residences at Playa Blanca.
Nancy Lewis

TIJUANA — Fueled by booming U.S. real estate prices, the summer of 2005 was a heady time for condo sales on Baja California’s Pacific coastline. That was when San Diegan Dean Marriott set his sights on The Residences at Playa Blanca, a luxury development under construction 12 miles from the border.

“I saw this project and fell in love with it right off the bat,” said Marriott, a 49-year-old accounting manager for a Burbank-based construction company. He and his soon-to-be wife, Connie, selected two eighth floor units in the project’s North Tower looking out over the Coronado Islands, and began counting the days when they could start driving down with their blended family of five daughters.

The developer, Coastal Design and Development Group (CDDG), promised a 2007 completion, but eight years later, the building sits empty and unfinished at Tijuana’s southern boundary, just off the coastal toll road to Rosarito Beach. Purchasers like the Marriotts, who signed contracts and deposited $254,000 for two units — half their sales prices — are facing a tough reality after years of hoping and waiting: Their investment, drawn from Connie Marriott’s retirement savings, may well be lost.

“Up until three or four months ago, everything was rolling along, investors were being found, and this project was going to be completed,” Marriott said in an interview last week at his Kearny Mesa office. “And then, all of a sudden, everybody went away.”

Neither representatives for the project’s development company, CDDG, nor the main creditor, Mexico’s Monterrey-based bank Banorte, have returned Marriott’s calls and emails. The blogs and company websites where buyers could receive updates about the project have been taken down. Banorte is said to have foreclosed on the property in recent weeks, but bank officers in Tijuana who have been overseeing The Residences declined interview requests last week.

Fearing the worst, Marriott and other buyers at the Residences are telling their story at a time when the coastal real estate market has been slowly picking up again after several difficult years of slow sales. Victor Loza, a real estate broker in the area and past president of the Real Estate Board of Baja California, said about 40 percent of the buyers are foreigners.

“We’re going back up, we’re selling,” said Luis Bustamante, a longtime real estate broker in the area. “The (housing) prices in the United States have been rising, and when that happens, people come and say, ‘I have equity.’”

With its Pacific Ocean ocean vistas, proximity to the border, and affordable prices, the Baja California coastline long has been popular with Southern Californians. Many U.S. citizens have purchased successfully, securing title through a bank trust as required under Mexican law, and found fulfillment of their dreams of owning oceanfront property in Mexico. But cases like The Residences at Playa Blanca have cast a cloud on the idyllic picture often portrayed by the region’s promoters — in many cases U.S. companies and individuals who came offering assurances that the investment would be secure.

For many projects along the coastal corridor from Tijuana to Ensenada, the promises came to a halt in 2008, as U.S. credit markets dried up. “Sales stopped 100 percent, and everyone ended up with bank debts that generated interest every day,” Bustamante said.

While developers of The Residences continued to look for financing to complete their project, another high profile project, Trump Ocean Resort Baja Mexico, never even broke ground. Purchasers who lost their deposit there sued and received a settlement in 2013 from Trump, who it turned out was not a partner but had only franchised his name to the project.

Bustamante said that today The Residences is one of about 10 coastal condominium buildings in the tourist corridor where banks have foreclosed. In some cases the bank has taken only a portion of the units, while in others the entire building. Every case is different, he said, with some buildings completed and occupied, with the bank in the process of recognizing the occupants’ ownership.

“It’s better to deal with a bank than a bankrupt company,” Bustamante said.

The Residences promised much: A development with 240 condos and a 114-room boutique hotel, with amenities that included four restaurants, a delicatessen, two pools, a private white-sand beach, a European spa and a nine-hole executive putting green, according to a promotional flyer.

The units offered double-pane windows, travertine tile floors, marble kitchen counters, and on clear days views all the way to Point Loma.

“Built to American standards by an American developer,” read a description given to prospective buyers. All deposits would be made to Stewart Title Company of California, a U.S. company that offered escrow services, it said, adding that “your money is safe.”

Like scores of developers on the Baja California coast, CDDG used the buyers’ deposits to finance construction. “Here it’s too expensive to borrow, so we use the money to build,” Jack Coskey, the owner of The Residences, told the San Diego Union Tribune in a 2005 interview.

The Marriotts were part of a group of 220 people with deposits totaling more than $30 million, said Ian Fusselman, a San Diego attorney whose firm, Thorsnes Bartolotta McGuire, represented some 90 buyers in several lawsuits in San Diego Superior Court. All of them settled with Stewart Title for the return of one-third of their deposits.

The firm has won a lawsuit against The Residences, but has yet to collect. “We are attempting to have liens placed against the project in Mexico,” Fusselman said.

Coskey, the co-owner of The Residences, had built more than 1,000 swimming pools, but until The Residences had never embarked on a major condominium and hotel project, according to his 2013 testimony in San Diego Superior Court. Still, he is said to have worked for years to keep the development going, seeking financing to complete the project.

But in the end his efforts failed. Coskey died several weeks ago, just as the bank was taking over, associates said. “There’s 100 different ways to make this a sad story,” Fusselman said. “Jack Coskey consistently said that he never intended to mislead anyone. I tend to believe that may be the case, but many buyers were told their money was safe.”

Alejandro Moreno Medina, Baja California’s tourism secretary at the time, still speaks highly of the project. “I saw the quality of the investment they were making, and the commitment they had with Baja California in building things the right way.”

Chris Hill, CEO of Stewart Title Latin America — which was not involved in The Residences — said that what happened in The Residences “you can multiply by 1,000 — Costa Rica, St. Kitts. There was a huge boom, a lot of these developers were not major corporate developers … when the cycle came crashing in 2008, they didn’t have the financial structure in place.”

With limited credit available, using deposits to begin construction is a common practice in Mexico. Hill and others warn against such projects. “Buyers should not buy anything that is not complete, period,” real estate broker Loza said. “When you put a deposit on a building that is not completed, you’re running a risk, you’re getting a lower priced unit, but people should be aware that they may end up losing their investment.”

But José Larroque, who heads the Tijuana office of the law firm Baker & McKenzie, said expecting deposits to be held through a project’s completion in most cases “is a non-reality in Mexico, because you don’t have a system like in the U.S. where everything is completely funded.” In Mexico, he said, banks “would give you at most 50 percent on a project.”

Testifying at his civil trial in November 2013 in San Diego Superior Court, Coskey said The Residences and a second project across the toll road, One Eleven, was launched with a $2.9 million line of credit from Investors Mortgage in Nevada. The plan was to pay for the project through $50 million in deposits, and a $65 million loan from Banorte, Coskey said.

Even as financing was delayed, buyers said they were repeatedly reassured by both the developers and the bank that The Residences would be built. Buyers said told they were in a trust with Banorte, and that offered a guarantee that they could not lose their investment.“We are working to complete the project,” a Banorte officer wrote in an email to Marriott in 2013.

But another buyer, Martin Valdez, said he was told last week by another Banorte officer that the bank has no obligation to the buyers, and suggested they go after the developer for the return of their deposits.

Jim Holliday, a 56-year-old database architect, said he invested $118,000 between the deposit and upgrades to his unit. Losing the funds “is a retirement blow,” he said. “I was thinking that this was going to be my retirement.”

Like others he is still hoping for resolution. The hope is for “Banorte to come through,” he said, “behave ethically and honor our sales contracts, complete the project and deliver completed units to the investors.”
…

Shanghai’s European-style ghost towns – in pictures
Thursday 23 July 2015 07.02 EDT

Just a decade after six European-style towns were built to absorb Shanghai’s increasing population, China’s slowing economy has left them mostly deserted. James Bollen’s images record the failure of these empty copycat boroughs

China outlaws ghost cities
By Houses and Holes in China Economy
at 12:03 am on July 27, 2015

Uh oh, from Investing in Chinese Stocks:

There will be few, if any, new ghost cities in the future because former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, Qiu Baoxing, says leaders will be held accountable.

In his speech, Qiu noted that developing countries can not rely on speculation and land to get rich, land finance is a double-edged sword, used properly it may create ghost town. He explained that big cities like Guangzhou because attractiveness is relatively large, high demand, so it is not a ghost town, but some second and third tier cities, there are not many foreign population, city leaders to pursue drastic change to performance by making the surface of the town, resulting in Many ghost town appears.

Interview, he further explained that the local Party and government officials to form a ghost town of accountability. He said the destruction of the ecological environment is now clear that the responsibility for a life-long pursuit, if you only need to build a 500,000 square meters of the town, but they’re built 1.5 million square meters, the ghost town of behavior made damage to the environment, we also need to recover responsibility, “the central document has made it clear to those responsible prosecuted lifelong damage to the ecological environment, such as the city of 500,000 people actually need 50 square kilometers of land. If you built a 100 square kilometers, is the serious waste of resources and ecological destruction, should be investigated responsibility. ”

In making a keynote speech, Qiu believes that the future demand for housing will continue to decrease. He lists the data show that by the end of 2014 the average first-tier cities housing destocking cycle has exceeded 10 months, 30-50 months and third tier cities, while China’s current per capita housing area has reached 35 square meters, close to Japan and France. Qiu stressed that the future must be wary of “empty” and “ghost city” of emerging.

…

As always, great stuff there, Ray K. Thanks for performing this public service for the HBB!

“Dream Ticket: Trump — Caitlyn in 2016″

Lovin’ it!

“Don’t worry Debbie the Republicans are Socialists too.”

That’s the ticket Mr. Scandals.

Oh snap! December 2015 oil is just pennies above its 52-week low, with the price declining at an accelerating rate.

Crude Oil - Electronic (NYMEX) Dec 2015
NMN: CLZ5
$48.50
Change -$1.68 -3.35%
Volume 68,600
Jul 31, 2015, 5:13 p.m.
Quotes are delayed by 10 min
Previous close $50.18
Day low $48.47
Day high $50.33
52 week low $48.41
52 week high $93.16

I just noticed something interesting: The 52-week low in oil prices is also the 260-week (5-year) low!

How far back in time does one need to go to find oil prices at current levels?

Oil and Gas
Oil prices could be as low as $50 by 2020: Goldman
Alexandra Gibbs
Friday, 31 Jul 2015 | 10:25 AM ETCNBC.com

The price of oil could be stuck firmly at around $50 a barrel by 2020, a Goldman Sachs analyst told CNBC, raising new fears about the energy companies that have already started to cut costs, projects and jobs to cope with falling revenues.

Several big oil and gas companies announced this week they intend to make cutbacks to stay afloat in this sinking environment. Royal Dutch Shell expects to cut 6,500 jobs, 6,000 for Centrica, and at Chevron, a 2 percent slash to its global workforce.

These measures were introduced while Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude are trading around $53 and $48 a barrel respectively as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has kept its supply high – and process low – in its battle for market dominance over U.S. shale oil.

But Michele Della Vigna, co-head of European equity research at Goldman Sachs, told CNBC Friday that by 2020, they see oil around $50 per barrel.

“What we’ve learned from this reporting season is that deflation is accelerating from a cost perspective. Efficiency is improving in all the mature regions and productivity is sharply improving in almost all the shale places in the U.S.”

“With all of that compounds to what we think will be a multi (year) deflationary trend in oil. If we look to the end of the decade, we see oil at $50, as this productivity continues and as costs keep coming down.”

Goldman Sachs’ estimate conflicts with World Bank’s latest commodity price forecast, who forecast crude oil to be at $57.50 per barrel on average this year, and $71.90 by 2020.
…

Markets Commodities Oil Markets
Oil Prices Fall to Multi-Month Lows as U.S. Rig Count Rises
Plentiful supplies have kept oil prices under pressure
The number of rigs drilling for oil in the U.S. rose this week, according to data Friday, helping send crude prices lower.
Photo: Associated Press
By Timothy Puko
Updated July 31, 2015 5:45 p.m. ET

Oil prices fell to new multi-month lows Friday as data showed U.S. producers put more drilling rigs to work despite a lingering world-wide glut.

Many analysts and investors have warned for months that crude production could keep rising even amid massive cutbacks from U.S. producers. U.S. prices have fallen into bear market territory in recent weeks as that scenario has started to play out.

Now U.S. producers are putting more rigs to work. Baker Hughes Inc. ’s weekly oil rig count rose by 5 to 664 this week, on top of a 20-rig increase last week. Combined with larger-than-expected production from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the move shows how a glut of oil may persist despite the slide in prices over the past year, analysts said.

“It’s just one more thing that adds to that bearish feel to the market,” said John Saucer, vice president of research and analysis at Mobius Risk Group in Houston. He said oil prices are likely to test their lows for 2015. Production “has really overwhelmed demand, even though demand is up.”

Money managers have retreated to their weakest bullish stance on oil in nearly five years, adding twice as many bearish bets as bullish bets in the week that ended Tuesday, according to data the Commodity Futures Trading Commission released late on Friday.

News of the added rigs and crude’s continued fall overshadowed signs that U.S. production may have peaked after all. The U.S. Energy Information Administration released data late Friday afternoon showing that the country’s oil production hit a 44-year high of nearly 9.7 million barrels a day in March and has declined to 9.5 million barrels in the two months since. Though the declines have been small, it is the first proof that production has peaked, a data point many traders have been seeking desperately.

The U.S. benchmark settled down $1.40, or 2.9%, to $47.12 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Losses accelerated in the afternoon, especially after the rig-count data was released, and landed at their lowest settlement since March 20.

Brent, the global benchmark, fell $1.10, or 2.1%, to $52.26 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe, the lowest settlement since Jan. 29.

The losses put U.S. crude down nearly 21% for July. Brent lost nearly 18% for the month. Both had their worst month since December. The U.S. benchmark has finished lower in 21 of the past 27 sessions. Brent has posted losses in 11 out of the last 13 months.

High international supplies have kept prices under pressure and increased competition among producers who are taking cost-cutting measures. But few have ventured to cut production, and instead have targeted higher-producing wells and more efficient drilling techniques as they all fight to hold on to their customers and sell more oil, even at lower prices.

Comments by Abdalla Salem el-Badri, secretary-general of OPEC, on Thursday have done little to reassure the market that the oil glut will be tackled soon. Mr. el-Badri was in Moscow for talks with Russia’s energy minister, Alexander Novak.

“OPEC shows absolutely no sign of blinking,” said David Hufton of PVM Oil Associates in London. He said the secretary-general believes an increase in oil demand will support prices and will absorb any additional oil exports from Iran. “Unfortunately for OPEC, the data, such as it is, does not support this view,” he added.

The world will be entering 2016 with a record high level of global stocks, and the average surplus is expected to be around 1.5 million barrels a day, he said.
…

I upgraded my 5 yr old Gateway i5 laptop with a new SSD drive and Linux. It is crazy-fast now. Dont throw them out.

Your cup of rage spilleth over grasshopper.

crushing.housing.losses

THHH

Two Hillary Hens Haggling