18Aug2015 Market Update: Markets Opened Lower On Fears That China’s Woes Are Going To Be Contagious To Global Markets, U.S. Markets Breifly Saw Green Before Falling Again

Here is the current market situation from CNN Money

North and South American markets are lower today with shares in Brazil off the most. The Bovespa is down 0.82% while Mexico’s IPC is off 0.22% and U.S.’s S&P 500 is lower by 0.19%.

Singapore Dollar Whipped by China Headwinds

Singapore’s currency will face pressure both from a rising U.S. dollar and a more turbulent Chinese yuan.

Cyanide Thunderstorms Feared As Mystery Deepens Around $1.5 Billion Tianjin Explosion

The story behind the chemical explosion that rocked China’s Tianjin port last Wednesday continues to evolve amid fears that the public could be at risk from the hundreds of tonnes of sodium cyanide stored at the facility.

More specifically, Monday’s heightened concerns were related to the possibility that rain could interact with the water soluble chemical, releasing deadly hydrogen cyanide gas into the air. “First rain expected today or tonight. Avoid ALL contact with skin,” a text message purported to have originated at the US Embassy in Beijing read. The Embassy would later deny the message’s authenticity, perhaps at the behest of the Politburo which has kicked off the censorship campaign by shutting down hundreds of social media accounts for “spreading blast rumors.”

Despite efforts to preserve order and clamp down on discussion, the anger in China is palpable as citizens demand answers as to how a catastrophe of this magnitude could have happened and as it turns out, not only was Tianjin International Ruihai Logistics storing sodium cyanide in amounts that were orders of magnitude larger than what they were supposed to be storing, but they were apparently doing so without a license. “The company has handled hazardous chemicals during a period without a licence,” an unnamed company official said on Tuesday. Apparently, Ruihai received the licenses it needed to handle the chemicals just two months ago, BBC reports, citing Xinhua.

Meanwhile, it looks as though determining who actually owns Ruihai will be complicated by the fact that in China, it’s not uncommon for front men to hold shares on behalf of a company’s real owners. This is of course an effort to obscure Communist p …

German lawmakers debate Greek bailout, Merkel faces rebellion

BERLIN (Reuters) – German lawmakers broke off their holidays on Tuesday to debate Greece’s third bailout plan before approving it, though Chancellor Angela Merkel faces a rebellion in a vote shaping up as her last chance to keep Athens in the euro zone.

Housing starts near eight-year high; building permits fall

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. housing starts rose to a near eight-year high in July as builders ramped up construction of single-family homes, suggesting that the economy was firing on almost all cylinders.

China & The Decline In Quality (And Soon In Profits)

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Automation poses an insurmountable obstacle to China’s full employment and spells the end of Corporate America’s vast skimming operation based on low wages and zero-regulatory costs in China.

The general decline in the quality of tools and consumer goods predates the emergence of China as the workshop of the world, but the decline has gathered momentum with China’s dominance of manufacturing.

Young people have little to no experience of tools and consumer goods that function for decades; today, everything that isn’t disposable is expected to fail/break within a few years. Whatever doesn’t break must be upgraded or tossed as uncool.

This is partly the result of planned obsolescence: designing the device or appliance to fail or become obsolete within a few years so the consumer has to replace it.

But planned obsolescence is not the entire problem; the quality of goods has declined dramatically due to shoddy manufacturing, poor quality control and low-quality materials. This trend has accelerated as production moved to China.

A few decades ago, things built in the U.S.A. and elsewhere were built to last: not just tools and appliances, but electronics: My 31-Year Old Apple Mac Started Up Fine After 15 Years in a Box (February 28, 2015)

Correspondent Mark G. has been sharing his experience with machine tools that were made in the U.S.A. 60 or 70 years ago that are still going strong.

By his reckoning, table saws sold in the U.S. in the e …

Wall Street, Europe dip after Chinese stocks tumble

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A 6 percent tumble in Chinese shares on Tuesday hit Asian stocks and dented U.S. equities while copper and oil prices touched multi-year lows.

Hilsenrath Warns Fed Is Out Of Ammo, “Policy Makers Resorting To Backup, Backup Plans”

As the U.S. economic expansion ages and clouds gather overseas, policy makers worry about recession. But, as WSJ’s Jon Hilsenrath warns, their concern isn’t that a downturn is imminent but whether they will have firepower to fight back when one does arrive. “The world economy is like an ocean liner without lifeboats,” economists at HSBC Bank explained, and as looming threats are a reminder that the slow-growing global economy is just a shock away from peril, with rates already at zero, Douglas Elmendorf, the recently departed director of the CBO, warned, “policy makers are thinking about their backup, backup plans.”

As The Wall Street Journal reports,

Money has been Washington’s primary weapon in the decades since British economist John Maynard Keynes proposed aggressive government spending to battle the Great Depression. The U.S. generally injects cash into the economy through interest-rate cuts, tax cuts or ramped-up federal spending.

Those tools could be hard to employ when the next dip comes: Interest rates are near zero, and fiscal stimulus plans could be hampered by high levels of government debt and the prospect of growing budget deficits to …

Silver Is Crashing

For the 3rd time in a week, Silver futures prices are plunging. This time though it is on considerably heavier volume as Silver drops 3.75% – the most in over a month – hammered off resistance at its 50DMA. Gold is also falling though not as aggressively.

Silver slammed…

After failing at the 50DMA…

Gold also weak…

One wonders if this is related to the big China plunge… or just a reflection of broad-based commodity margin calls.

Wall Street falls as Wal-Mart results disappoints, China weighs

(Reuters) – Wall Street open lower on Tuesday, weighed down by a 6 percent slump in Chinese shares and Wal-Mart’s weaker-than-expected quarterly results.

U.S. oil prices near six-year lows as China weighs

LONDON (Reuters) – U.S. oil prices fell towards six-year lows on Tuesday after stock markets tumbled in China, the world’s largest energy consumer, adding to worries about global fuel demand at a time of heavy oversupply.

With ‘The Visit,’ M. Night Shyamalan Returns to His Filmmaking Roots

Mr. Shyamalan, whose early studio movies were hits, starting with “The Sixth Sense,” has shifted from lumbering projects like “After Earth” and back to bringing his own stories to the screen.

Ryanair Formally Accepts IAG Offer for Aer Lingus

Ryanair on Tuesday formally agreed to sell its stake in Aer Lingus to British Airways owner International Airlines Group, giving IAG the approval of over 90 percent of shareholders in Ireland’s former flag carrier.

Wal-Mart cuts outlook

(Reuters) – Wal-Mart Stores Inc reported weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings and lowered its full-year forecast, citing higher costs from adding worker hours as well as weaker margins in its U.S. pharmacy business.

Housing recovery boosts Home Depot sales

(Reuters) – Home Depot Inc , the world’s No.1 home improvement retailer, reported a better-than-expected rise in quarterly same-store sales, helped by increased home remodeling activity in the United States and a recovery in the housing market.