Trade

Even The Best-Case Scenario Is Pretty Grim

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By John Rubino – Re-Blogged From Silver Phoenix

Let’s say President Trump is right about the coronavirus “miraculously” fading away as temperatures rise in the Summer. Will things then go back to the old normal of globalization, free trade and finance-driven “growth”?

Almost certainly not, because the psychological damage has already been done. Over the past couple of weeks the modern globalized economy with its multi-nation supply chains and just-in-time inventory systems has been forced to recognize that such a system only works in a nearly-perfect environment. Take the iPhone: It is designed in the US, its constituent raw materials are mined and processed in numerous other countries and the resulting components are then shipped for assembly to vast Chinese factories.

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Baltic Dry, Copper, Oil, Tech And China Continue To Call For Market Crash Soon…

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By Clive Maund – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

In this update we are going to review a small but important range of commodities / lead indicators which strongly suggest that the seemingly endless bullmarket in US equities is living on borrowed time and will end sooner rather than later, and given how long it has lasted and how extremely overvalued it has become, the downturn will likely start with a crash phase.

Regardless of what the eventual impact of the Coronavirus epidemic is, US stockmarkets in particular seem to be in a state of denial about the actual real-world consequences of the Chinese shutdown and impact on the global supply chain and corporate profitability everywhere, and some elements even seem to be gloating about China’s misfortune and predicament, completely oblivious to the fact that this is going to have a negative impact on almost everyone.

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Independence And Its Consequences

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By Alasdair Macleod – Re-Blogged From Silver Phoenix

Britain left the EU on the last day of January and is an independent nation once more. The new Johnson government is confident that Britain will do well outside the EU. Free trade will be embraced, and a no-deal outcome, now dubbed an Australian trade relationship, holds no fears for the British government.

This article summarises the political and economic consequences of this historic moment. The fly in the ointment is there is no sign that Britain’s government understands the importance of sound money, which will be crucial in the event a global economic and financial credit crisis materialises.

Independence and trade negotiations

Having given independence to all its colonies, now it’s Britain’s turn. On 1 February the UK became politically independent and entered an eleven-month transition period while trade terms with the EU and other trading nations are negotiated, with the objective of entering 2021 with freedom to trade without tariffs with as many nations as possible. If Britain succeeds in its initial objectives these trade agreements will include not only the EU but also America, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the other trans-Pacific Partnership nations and a host of sub-Saharan African nations in the Commonwealth. It amounts to about two-thirds of the world measured by nominal GDP, of which only 21% is with the EU.

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GDP Is In…And Recession Is Out…Or Is It?

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By David Haggith – Re-Bloggred From Gold Eagle

Having predicted last year that a recession would begin in the summer of 2019 and that it would likely start with a major repo crisis, I am now proven wrong by 2019’s fourth-quarter GDP. If the repo crisis that started in the final week of summer had actually been the start of a recession, we would have seen fourth-quarter GDP go negative. Instead, it came in at 2.1% growth.

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3 Upside And 1 Downside Risk For Gold

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By Arkadiusz Sieroń – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

Our base scenario for 2020 is that it might be a worse year for gold than 2019 was. However, there are three major upside (and one downside) risks for the gold market, which could materialize in 2020. Today’s article will introduce you to these potential catalysts that could send gold prices higher (or significantly lower) in 2020.

We stated earlier that unless something bad happens, 2020 may be worse for the yellow metal than 2019, as gold fundamentals seem to have deteriorated since the last year. Of course, bad things are happening all the time, but do not result in any possible negative developments. Rather, we have in mind three downside risks to our macroeconomic outlook, or three upside risks for gold. What are they?

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Trade Deal No Panacea for Rocky U.S. Relations With China

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By Reuters – Re-Blogged From IJR

From Huawei to the South China Sea, deep political rifts between Beijing and Washington are set to persist, despite a trade relations breakthrough, as the United States pushes back against an increasingly powerful and assertive China.

Relations between the world’s two largest economies have deteriorated sharply since U.S. President Donald Trump imposed punitive trade tariffs in 2018, igniting a trade war.

“The broader, darkening picture is not going to be brightened much by this deal,” Bates Gill, an expert on Chinese security policy at Macquarie University in Sydney, said of the initial trade deal signed on Wednesday.

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Tariffs Are Having A Bigger Effect On US Manufacturing Than Initially Thought

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By Frank Holmes – Re-Blogged From Gold Eagle

The U.S. manufacturing sector contracted for the fifth straight month in December, with the monthly reading from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) hitting its weakest point in more than 10 years. The purchasing manager’s index (PMI) fell to 47.2, a level we haven’t seen since June 2009, as global trade tensions continued to take a toll on the country’s manufacturers.

The news comes as two new papers indicate that U.S. tariffs on imported goods, particularly those originating in China, have had more of an impact on manufacturing and industrial output than initially believed.

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