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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: carranza2 who wrote (161449)8/19/2020 11:49:20 PM
From: TobagoJack  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 218074
 
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To: carranza2 who wrote (161449)8/20/2020 12:33:08 AM
From: TobagoJack  Respond to of 218074
 
Re <<massive flood ... landslides ... havoc>>

The fellow is either polite or funny, meaning humorous, and thus at only 3% allocation. Imagine such same try to reach for 10% - they think the gold is there to allow them to get to 10%, at whatever price they plan on.

Gold is “fairly rich versus oil or other real commodities, but it hasn’t appreciated nearly as much as money-supply growth since its previous peak in September of 2011,” Gayeski said in an interview. “It wouldn’t surprise us if by the end of next year, it’s around the $2,100-to-$2,200 range.”


bloomberg.com

Gold Will Gain on ‘Massive Currency Debasement,’ SkyBridge Says

Ranjeetha Pakiam
August 20, 2020, 9:09 AM GMT+8

Gold will extend its record-setting rally on “massive currency debasement” and expectations for further stimulus, according to SkyBridge Capital, which recently added exposure to the metal after exiting in 2011.

“When you think of currency debasement the question is, what is the dollar going to weaken against, and when you look around the globe, it’s hard to be excited about alternative currencies,” said Troy Gayeski, co-chief investment officer and senior portfolio manager, listing the euro, yuan and emerging-market monies. “So, gold is obviously a natural alternative currency.”



The precious metal surged to a record well above $2,000 an ounce earlier this month -- although prices have stumbled since then -- as central banks including the Federal Reserve unleashed vast stimulus to support economies hurt by the coronavirus pandemic. That’s spurred bets that paper currencies will lose their value as money supply jumps. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. calls gold the currency of last resort and has forecast more gains.

Gold is “fairly rich versus oil or other real commodities, but it hasn’t appreciated nearly as much as money-supply growth since its previous peak in September of 2011,” Gayeski said in an interview. “It wouldn’t surprise us if by the end of next year, it’s around the $2,100-to-$2,200 range.”



Photographer: Joe Buglewicz/Bloomberg

Spot gold hit an all-time high of $2,075.47 on Aug. 7 as the dollar weakened and real interest rates fell well below zero. On Thursday it was at $1,930 an ounce, up 27% this year. Prices eased midweek after minutes from the Fedshowed it edging away from a step that would underscore a commitment to an extended period of ultra-loose policy.

Ultimately, the driver for gold is “you have massive currency debasement, particularly in the U.S.,” Gayeski said.

Related coverage and commentary:
Gold Is Expensive, and May Be Just Warming Up: John Authers Gold Can Do What Bonds Can’t in a Super-Low-Rate World Goldman Warns on Inflation Threat to Dollar as Reserve Currency Berkshire Makes a Bet on Gold Market That Buffett Once Mocked

SkyBridge, which manages $7.35 billion, has about 3% exposure to gold, with the majority of positions taken in the past two months. The fund-of-funds manager’s primary exposures are to U.S. cash-flow-generative strategies backed by tangible assets, including residential mortgage-backed securities.

While the latest round of fiscal stimulus talks haven’t yet yielded a deal, the Fed has already swelled its balance sheet by about $2.8 trillion this year, with Goldman cautioning that U.S. policy is triggering debasement fears.

The Fed will likely ramp up asset purchases, and there’s more fiscal stimulus coming too, according to Gayeski. “All those things argue for a continued bull market in gold, again driven principally by money-supply growth and dollar debasement as opposed to real inflation fears,” he said. “Furthermore, expect continued asset inflation long before real inflation ever shows up.”

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To: carranza2 who wrote (161449)8/20/2020 9:17:37 AM
From: Pogeu Mahone  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 218074
 
Twitter removed that tweet

scmp.com

FLOODING IN CHINA

Massive evacuation under way in southwest China as floods trigger unprecedented alert Caroline Kwok
0 SHARES
China’s longest river, the Yangtze, and several of its tributaries rose to dangerous levels after days of heavy rain. The southwestern province of Sichuan, which includes a major upstream section of the Yangtze, raised its flood emergency response to the highest level for the first time on August 18, 2020. Tens of thousands of people have been forced from their homes as rivers overflow and villages and farmland were inundated with water.


August 19, 2020

UP NEXTAUTO PLAY OFF

01:18

FLOODING IN CHINA

Heavy rain hits one of China’s driest regions

02:31

FLOODING IN CHINA

China’s new tools to fight road flooding

01:25

FLOODING IN CHINA

Heavy rain triggers gas pipeline blast in China

02:17

FLOODING IN CHINA

China’s Yangtze River floods for third time

03:18

FLOODING

China’s ageing dams put to the test

03:53

FLOODING IN CHINA

Why have China’s 2020 floods been so severe?

04:39

FLOODING IN CHINA

First Covid-19, now floods hit China’s porcelain capital
July 17, 2020

03:12

FLOODING IN CHINA

After coronavirus, floods now threaten Wuhan, China
July 17, 2020

03:53

NATURAL DISASTERS

Millions hit by floods in Asia’s south and southeast
July 16, 2020

00:55

FLOODING IN CHINA

700-year-old Chinese pavilion survives devastating floods
July 15, 2020

03:14

FLOODING IN CHINA

Yangtze River island faces flood disaster... again
July 14, 2020

04:30

FLOODING IN CHINA

Saving villagers from China’s flooding Yangtze
July 13, 2020

03:18

FLOODING IN CHINA

Massive floods hit southeastern China
July 11, 2020

03:05

FLOODING IN CHINA

Massive floods along China’s Yangtze River
July 10, 2020

01:37

FLOODING IN CHINA

Extreme weather torments China
July 7, 2020

02:16

FLOODING IN CHINA

Heavy floods in China
June 25, 2020

01:15

FLOODING IN CHINA

Rats try to escape floods in southern China
June 11, 2020

01:41

FLOODING IN CHINA

Massive floods ravage China
July 11, 2019

01:25

FLOODING IN CHINA

Torrential rain batters China
May 28, 2019

01:01

FLOODING IN CHINA

65 villagers rescued from floods in Beijing suburb
July 23, 2018

01:31

CHINA TECHNOLOGY

Food-tracing system introduced in China
August 6, 2020

01:56

SOCIETY

Chinese courier with 1 leg makes 500,000 deliveries
August 18, 2020

Copyright © 2020 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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To: carranza2 who wrote (161449)1/18/2021 4:58:41 AM
From: TobagoJack  Respond to of 218074
 
Hello C2, re <<havoc>>

it is just possible that my early-warning read of the situation turns out to be correct, that the flood was a ruse for a series of planned coincidences to play out - just in time for regime change

It can easily be the case that the Trump was warned by Xi that should Huawei be cut off than Nasdaq would be put in ER, and knowing this, the Trump gifts Biden a situation as he de-camps the WH

Let's watch



Message 32891362



Message 32894888



forbes.com

China’s Rare Earths ‘Slump’ A Sign Of Domestic ‘Hoarding’ For EV Batteries, And More

Kenneth Rapoza
08:30am EST Jan 17, 2021,|2,112 views

I write about business and investing in emerging markets.


EV batteries are loaded with rare minerals like lithium. China is a huge player in this supply ... [+]

NurPhoto via Getty ImagesChina loves to be in everybody’s strategic supply chains. Rare earths is one of them. These are the minerals, often dug out of mines in Africa, that China controls. They go into your iPhone. They go into the Panasonic battery that powers your Tesla TSLA -2.2%.

China’s rare earth exports fell to 35,448 tons last year from 46,330 tonnes in 2019, customs data showed on Thursday. China blamed the pandemic for weak demand. The 2020 exports were the lowest since 2015, according to Reuters.

But there may be more to it than the pandemic. For those China watchers, and competitors, looking for tears in the fabric, the slump has a little less to do with the pandemic than Beijing may be letting on.

“We are seeing the unfolding of the Chinese Communist Party’s Made in China 2025 and Belt and Road initiatives,” says Pini Althaus, CEO of USA Rare Earth. Both policies have been strategies for China’s continued dominance as a global manufacturer and exporter of finished goods. This strategy is leading to an increase in local demand for rare earth metals, from lithium to cobalt.

Last month, China’s export control law (ECL) went live. It’s their latest effort to control the export of strategic commodities — including minerals used for EV batteries — and to increase dependency on China by ‘hoarding’ supply.

Many of the minerals China does get outside of his borders are mined by state-owned enterprises who then bring the raw materials home to be processed into usable metals for manufacturing. As these Chinese state-owned companies operate at a loss, for the most part, they serve the purpose of being able to supply end-users with cheap resources.

China controls around 86.5% of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s cobalt exports and their SOEs own most of them, according to business intel conducted by Horizon Advisory. The DRC is home to around 60% of the world’s mined cobalt, for example. There are at last 12 mines of cobalt in that country and China’s companies invest in and own them all. China Non-Ferrous Metal Mining Group is the biggie in this space there.

China is also stockpiling rare earths and critical minerals for its own domestic use, as companies and governments face worldwide shortages due to new demand for electric vehicles. China is on par to totally own that market. The more of those metals in China’s control, the higher the price for batteries, making it cheaper to make them in China than in Detroit, for example, where South Korea’s LG Chem is making batteries for the new line of Ford battery-powered trucks.

Emily de La Bruyère, co-founder of Horizon, says China “has a large enough market share in rare minerals like lithium that it can have an outsized impact on pricing.”

Two of the world’s largest battery makers are Chinese — BYD and CATL. Tesla is now developing batteries with CATL at its Gigafactory in Shanghai, the Tesla hub for China, Asia and exports bound for Europe.

The customs data released and reported by Reuters on Thursday showed that in 2020, China exported the fewest rare earth elements in five years, falling by more than 25% from 2019 as China is using more of that resource to crank up its own base supply. Most of it is likely going to chipmakers and battery makers.

“This decline is a harbinger of a tightening of the market, limiting global access, increasing prices and enabling China to maintain dominance (in the space),” says Althaus.

In 2010 when China entirely cut Japan off from rare earth exports as part of a dispute in the South China Sea, the U.S. and Japan took its case to the World Trade Organization.

China was forced to resume exports to Japan.


Aerial view of the Rockwood Lithium mine in Silver Peak, Nevada. Lithium, nickel, magnesium, ... [+]

gettyBut reductions today, whether partly due to Covid or not, can be chalked up as China gearing up for a mad rush for EVs and wanting to produce all the batteries it can, or own the metals that the likes of Panasonic and LG Chem — both market leaders — will need to make high powered car batteries.

Withholding exports for internal use will not be regarded by the WTO as a breach of international trade laws. China is now a net importer of rare earth materials though they are mostly importing from mines they own outright in southeast Asia and Africa or have large investment positions.

The U.S. is way behind the eight ball on this issue, though the Department of Defense is worried that some of the rare earths that go into making magnets for fighter jets are highly dependent on China.

There are several rare earth deposits located within U.S. USA Rare Earth owns one of them. Their Round Top Project in Hudspeth County, Texas, has some of those minerals used in car batteries, including lithium, as well as metals used in defense contract projects for things like magnets.

MP Materials’ mine in Mountain Pass, Calif., is the only operational rare earth mine in the United States. But all of its minerals are offloaded to China. The mine used to be majority-owned by the Chinese, and now it still gets nearly everything that is pulled out of the ground there.

With China supplying about 80% of rare earths to the United States as of 2018, the Trump Administration set a goal in 2018 to move some of the supply chain of rare earth metals the U.S., especially for defense-related product lines.

With the Biden Administration taking the helm this week, interest in rare earths is taking off as a play on his commitment to strong environmental policy. Center to this is the growth in EVs, of course.

The VanEck Rare Earths Strategy (REMX) is up 87% since March, but most of that has come since November 9. It’s been a rocket ever since. Nearly everything in it is Chinese. The only American company in the top 10 is Lithium Americas. Three others are Australian. The rest are from China.

The U.S. is just way behind on the natural resources required to power Tesla’s and the new battery-powered Hummer. The battery may be made here, but the metals that go into it are dependent on China. No China metals, fewer EVs.

“No one project and no one company is going to end this dependence on China,” Althaus says. “Collaboration is required between the rare earth mining and processing companies themselves, as the demand for these materials will far outweigh what any one project will be able to provide. To succeed, we have to approach this with a united front, with the government supporting companies that are investing in the critical minerals sector.”

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I've spent 20 years as a reporter for the best in the business, including as a Brazil-based staffer for WSJ. Since 2011, I focus on business and investing in the big