Tag: finance

Container shipping rates continue to move lower into the fourth quarter of 2019, according to FreightWaves. The drop in price comes as a result of the most recent round of tariffs discouraging U.S. importers from front loading orders. As a result, ocean carriers are looking to cut even more shipping capacity in hopes of meeting tepid demand into the back end of the year. 

Spot rates on the Freightos Baltic Daily Index for China-North America West Coast were down 8% from last week, falling to $1,327 per forty-foot equivalent unit. Container rates are down 34% since the beginning of the year, despite the industry now being in peak season. 

The drop is even steeper when compared to last year’s peak season, which had the tailwind of container front-loading from China ahead of tariff increases. September spot rates are down 43% year over year and are down 14% from 2017. 

Freightos Chief Marketing Officer Eytan Buchman says the collapse is likely due to a “tepid response” to the latest round of tariff increases. The increases were supposed to start on October 1, but have been delayed until October 15. The U.S. is set to meet with China for trade talks on October 10. The next round of tariff increases will come on $200 billion in Chinese goods and will see tariffs rise to 30% from 25%.

Tariffs on $188 billion in goods that are slated for December could help revive shipping demand, however. 

Buchman said:

“Trans-Pacific pricing remains at the mercy of the trade tariff war. The most recent tariff change carries less clout than predecessors due to the short, five week notice and the limited scope of goods affected.”

He continued: 

“Given the weak peak season prices, carriers will be banking on post-Golden Week increases, as well as the December 15 tariff change, to shore up prices. With a significantly longer four month notice, there’s a better chance that this tariff increase will lead to increased shipping – and freight rates – come October and November.”

The drop in demand is forcing shippers to cut more capacity. For example, Ocean Alliance plans to cut up to seven sailings between October 15 and December 2 in order to meet the poor demand. This news comes after nine weekly sailings between Asia and the West Coast of the U.S. were cancelled during China’s Golden Week celebration. 

According to FreightWaves, the cancelled sailings include:

• Two, 8,830 TEU sailings for the Port of Long Beach at the end of November and start of December

• Two weekly services into the Port of Los Angeles in December, one with 13,940 TEU in capacity, one with 6,680 TEU of capacity

• A Seattle sailing of a 10,800-TEU capacity service in December.

• A 9,940 TEU service into Prince Rupert

• A 5,580 TEU service into Vancouver

A ‘bad’ trade headline and suddenly Nasdaq and Small Caps are tumbling below their 50- and 100-day moving averages.

S&P and The Dow have some rom to run yet…

We are going to need a ‘good’ trade headline stat!

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Google’s new Nest Hub Max is a smart display unit that comes equipped with a 6.5-megapixel facial recognition camera that identifies you and monitors all your actions – inside your own home.

And the Orwellian icing on the cake is that it is not equipped with a physical shutter to forcibly prevent it from monitoring what’s happening in your home.

It’s the first smart home product from Google to include a camera so you can make video calls. It looks like a tablet propped up on its side, and it works similarly to smart speakers, such as Amazon Echo. …

The Nest Hub Max is essentially a smart speaker that lets you control connected smart home devices, and comes with a display and camera.

It’s the first smart home product from Google to include a camera so you can make video calls. It looks like a tablet propped up on its side, and it works similarly to smart speakers, such as Amazon Echo. …

The Nest Hub Max is essentially a smart speaker that lets you control connected smart home devices, and comes with a display and camera.

It’s not too dissimilar from the Google Home Hub, which Google just rebranded as Nest Hub. The new device has a 10-inch HD screen. It looks like a tablet in landscape orientation that’s propped up on a base. The base contains a speaker. At the top of the device are a camera and microphones. –The Daily Dot

The device allows you to check in on what’s happening in your home when you’re out, and because of its facial recognition capabilities, will detect when you enter the room and provide personalized information to you, such as your day’s appointments, the weather forecast, and so on, reported Natural News.  The camera also enables two-way video calls over Google Duo and comes loaded with the Google Assistant (which has been the focus of a huge number of privacy issues). While all these functions might sound super convenient and fun, the privacy issues raised by the camera and audio functionality cannot be overlooked.

There are concerns about Google’s face recognition.  The company has struggled to maintain a good reputation. They have proven to be biased toward Communism and authoritarian ideals, big government control over the population, and have even censored those who reject the force and violence inherent in those ideas. Today the face features are only accessible by Google, but what happens when it begins letting other apps and services access your face and you are one of those anti-government dissenters?

Clearly, there are real reasons to be concerned about Google’s latest tech offering, and those who wish to protect their online privacy might do better to steer well clear of it.

Democrat voters surveyed by Reuters fear that impeaching President Trump over the Biden-Ukraine scandal will backfire, giving him a boost into the 2020 US election.  In short, Congressional Democrats looking to impeach have major credibility issues after the Mueller report failed to show that Trump ‘colluded’ with Russia, and a transcript of his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky failed to show Trump strongarming him into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his coke addict son.

Among the public, interviews with more than 60 voters across four of the most important counties in the 2020 election showed Republicans largely confident the impeachment process will backfire and Trump will win re-election. Democrats, on the other hand, are worried they may be right.

Marc Devlin, a 48-year-old consultant from Northampton County, Pennsylvania, said he expects the inquiry to “incense” supporters of the president. “This is my fear, that it will actually add some flame to his fire with his base,” he said. “I just fear ‘party over country.’”

Meanwhile:

A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken on Monday and Tuesday showed 37% of respondents favored impeaching the president versus 45% who were opposed. That 37% figure was down from 41% three weeks earlier and down from 44% in May, after the release of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election. –Reuters

“After this he has a much better chance of winning another election, as scary as that sounds,” said 39-year-old Richard Sibilla of Pinellas County, Florida, who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. “It’s not even worth following because it’s all going to help him.” 

Reuters is monitoring voters in four key parts of the country that could determine the outcome of next year’s November election; Pinellas County, Florida; Maricopa County, Arizona; Northampton County, Pennsylvania; and Racine County, Wisconsin – areas which will be among the most targeted by presidential candidates next year.

Republicans, as expected, are firmly in Trump’s camp. 

“I don’t think he did anything wrong,” said 78-year-old barber shop owner Joe D’Ambrosio of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, who applauds Trump’s efforts to crack down on illegal innovation. 

“I have not had one Republican crack or say they’re turning or going the other way. They’re laughing it off. I think it’s going to help him,” said Lee Snover, chair of the Northampton County Republican Committee, who said she felt the impeachment inquiry was simply the latest Democrat attempt to take out Trump. 

That sentiment was shared at a meeting of College Republicans United at Arizona State University on Wednesday.

“They have this idea that everyone is siding with them, that Trump is an impeachable president, when really it’s only a minority,” Rose Mulet, 19, said of the Democratic leadership in Congress. “It’s not a reflection of the general public.” –Reuters

That said, Reuters was able to find at least one Republican who Trump managed to piss off enough to not only not vote for him again – but to endorse impeachment. 

“It should have been done a long time ago,” said 52-year-old Chris Harman of Maricopa County, who said he voted for Trump in 2016. “I’m not voting for Trump. I tried it, it was a grand experiment, but I’m not going to try it again.” 

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Like so many other things that were once affordable, owning pets is increasingly pricey.

One of the few joys still available to the average household is a pet. At least this is what I thought until I read 5 money-saving tips people hate, which included the lifetime costs of caring for a pet.

It turns out Poochie and Kittie are as unaffordable as college, housing and healthcare (and pretty much everything else). Over the course of 15 years, small-dog Poochie will set the owner back an eye-watering $17,560 to $93,520, while big-dog Fido costs $22,025 to $82,929 over 12 years.

Kittie is a relative bargain at $16,800 over 15 years.

Some estimates of responsible pet ownership are considerably lower, but non-pet owners may be surprised by 1) how many options for the care of pets are now available and 2) how many medical interventions and treatments are now available, at prices that aren’t much different from human healthcare.

Five-figure bills for pet surgeries and other care are not uncommon.

Unfortunately, pets aren’t able to tell us they don’t want any extraordinary measures taken to extend their lives, and so households may agree to procedures they really can’t afford.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

The SPCA lists the cost of pets as follows:

— Over 15 years, total costs for a small dog could run from $17,560 to upward of $93,520.

— Over a 12-year lifetime, the costs of a large dog range from $22,025 to upward of $82,929 for folks using dog walkers.

— All told, cost of cats will be at least $780 a year and $16,800 over its possible 15-year existence.

— American Kennel Club: “The average lifetime cost of raising a dog is $23,410.”

— US News: “RaisingSpot.com, which provides tips on raising a dog, suggests a dog that lives 12 years might cost you anywhere between $4,620 and $32,990.”

— Pet Place: “An indoor cat’s total estimated lifetime cost is $8,620 to $11,275.” Note: Outdoor cats live much shorter lives and thus cost less.

There’s even a pet cost calculator if you want to find the cost of your pet.

To summarize, a dog is going to cost roughly $20,000 while cats will be closer to $10,000.

Now, if you own multiple animals at the same time, not to mention several over the course of your adult lifetime, we’re talking a massive amount of money.

But… “My dog/cat doesn’t cost anywhere near that much. I pay $30 a month to feed him and that’s it.”

Uh, no it’s not. Here’s a list of expenses you just left out:

— Vaccines

— Flea/tick control

— Heartworm prevention

— Ear and dental care

— Grooming

— Food (Premium?)

— Toys

— House (fenced backyard? cleaning? etc.)

— Bowls, collar, leash/harness

— Cost of pet (if from breeder)

— Boarding

— Training

— Walking (yes, some people pay walkers)

And then there’s the big one: medical costs. This is where things get really pricey, especially toward the end of a pet’s life.

As I said earlier, how you spend your money is your choice. You simply need to realize that two dogs throughout your 50-year adulthood will run you somewhere around $150k. That’s $3,000 a year.

$3,000 a year saved and invested at 8% for 50 years equals $1.7 million.

Even if you spend ‘only’ half that amount, it’s still costing you a fortune.

Now that you understand how much your pets cost you, you can make an informed decision about where to spend and where to save.

Like so many other things that were once affordable, owning pets is increasingly pricey.

*  *  *

Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($6.95 ebook, $12 print, $13.08 audiobook): Read the first section for free in PDF format. My new mystery The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake is a ridiculously affordable $1.29 (Kindle) or $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF). My book Money and Work Unchained is now $6.95 for the Kindle ebook and $15 for the print edition. Read the first section for free in PDF format. If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com. New benefit for subscribers/patrons: a monthly Q&A where I respond to your questions/topics.

With Democrats going all-in with a rare impeachment process — for the fourth time ever in American history — it appears Moscow couldn’t resist the opportunity to troll, while also perhaps legitimately slamming what is a deeply unusual practice in foreign relations. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office is said to be bristling over the “embarrassing” release the Trump call transcript — which of course means Kremlin officials have grabbed the popcorn to sit back and enjoy the show. 

“The Kremlin says it hopes the US will not release the transcripts of Vladimir Putin’s phone calls with Donald Trump after a whistleblower claimed the White House was hiding records of the US president’s phone conversations with foreign leaders,” FT reports from Moscow.

Spokesman for President Putin’s office, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Friday that Russia “would of course like to hope that we won’t get to that kind of situation in our bilateral relations, which are already full of extremely serious problems.”

“This practice is fairly unusual; as a rule, materials from conversations between world leaders are usually classified secret or top secret and not published,” he said, according to an Interfax report cited in FT. 

Meanwhile Politico reported Thursday that “The White House annoyed and embarrassed Ukraine’s president by releasing his comments in a private conversation with President Donald Trump — and may have violated the Ukrainian constitution.”

Zelenskiy said in the aftermath of the transcript’s release, which he may or may not have been warned about shortly ahead of time: “I think such things, such conversations between heads of independent states, they shouldn’t be published,” according to Politico.

Media commentators fairly unanimously mocked what appeared to be the Ukrainian president’s seeming attitude of abject groveling and fawning over Trump — something which would have likely remained more hidden if he knew the whole world would later see his words. 

In what appears to dismiss President Trump’s claims that a deal is a lot closer than you think, Bloomberg reports that the White House is said to support a review of investment limits for China.

Among the options the Trump administration is considering:

• delisting Chinese companies from U.S. stock exchanges and

• limiting Americans’ exposure to the Chinese market through government pension funds.

Exact mechanisms for how to do so have not yet been worked out and any plan is subject to approval by President Donald Trump, who has given the green light to the discussion, according to one person close to the deliberations.

Bloomberg adds that there is reportedly no timeline for a Chinese capital restriction action.

The market did not like that…

Yuan is also tumbling…

Source: Bloomberg

Alibaba shares plunged…

Trade deal odds tumble…

Source: Bloomberg

Cue – headline touting how great the deal talks are going…

Authored by Michael Scott via SafeHaven.com,

How do you raise $1 million for charity accidentally and turn into one of the best unwitting promoters of a giant beverage company at the same time, and then witness a massive fall from grace, embarrassing all involved?

As it turns out, it’s easier than you might think thanks to social media, fintech and global streaming.

ESPN’s ”College GameDay” on September 14th between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Iowa State Cyclones accomplished all of that in record speed: In the sea of people, one stood out, starkly: The previously unknown Carson King, a regular college football fan, holding up a sign that said: “Busch Light Supply Needs Replenished.”

He also included his Venmo username – a key ingredient for what was to come next…

By virtue of this sign, much to King’s surprise, he ultimately ended up raising over $1 million for beer and getting a lot of free, viral advertising for a payment giant and the beer king.

Less than two weeks later, after having his face even appear on Busch Light cans as an “Iowa Legend”, Busch cut ties with Carson King after the social media monster dug up old racist tweets that tarnished the unwitting charity fundraiser’s image.

Things started off in a wave of unexpected celebration for all involved.

No sooner had the game started on the 14th than King’s Venmo account started to ping out of control with notifications, quickly reaching $400. That prompted the unwitting beer beggar to consider ways to distribute those funds in a more socially responsible manner.

After speaking with his family, he decided to splurge on a single case of Busch Light and donate the rest to the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital.

“The University of Iowa’s Stead Family Children’s Hospital does amazing work for kids and families all over the country,” King was quoted as saying at the time. “I just wanted to help them out in any way I could.”

“We can’t think — our minds are blown by all of this!” the hospital said in a tweet on Saturday. “Thank you to everyone who helped reach this milestone! We’re so grateful!

As word spread of his plans to donate the money, more people decided to contribute. Busch Beer and Venmo raised the stakes by pledging to match his contribution.

Busch is one of America’s most iconic companies, behind some of the country’s most recognized brands, including Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob ULTRA, and Stella Artois, as well as a number of regional brands. In 2017, Busch announced a $2 billion investment in U.S. facilities through 2020. 

Venmo, a mobile payment service owned by PayPal, handled $12 billion in transactions in the first quarter of 2018. As of last year, Venmo had an estimated 7 million users, and the mobile payments app handled an estimated $50 billion-worth of transactions in 2018.

It was a free advertising flurry until a reporter at the Des Moines Register called attention to a 2011 tweet by a then-16-year-old King with racist undertones.

King has publicly apologized for the 2011 tweet, calling as „hurtful and embarrassing“.

Busch and Venmo will still honor their commitment to match contributions to the Iowa children’s hospital, but have cut ties with King.

An Anheuser-Busch spokesperson confirmed in a statement to local media:

“Carson King had multiple social media posts that do not align with our values as a brand or as a company and we will have no further association with him. We are honoring our commitment by donating more than $350,000 to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.”

King’s last-minute campaign #FortheKids has now reached over $1.4 million.

Day two, the Peloton IPO continues to collapse, at the 10 am hour, shares are trading down -7% in the 23-handle, and in the last 645 minutes of trading, are now down more than 13%. 

Peloton, having priced the IPO on Thursday at $29 – the upper end of the range – and being promoted by mainstream media as “oversubscribed,” has been a bloodbath for insiders who bought 40 million shares at $29 each, now collectively down 17.5%.

As Bloomberg pointed out, the worst opening trades for a $1 billion or greater IPO since 2008 are:

• SmileDirectClub -11% (Sept. 12)
• ADT -9.6% (2018)
• Uber -6.7% (May 10)

Peloton, opening-up at $27 on Thursday, was a 6.9% drop and thus the third-worst opening trade for a unicorn IPO.

There have been nearly 100 IPOs with better starts since 2008 after raising at least $1 billion.

None of this should be a huge surprise to readers as the value of Peloton on a fundamental basis, is nowhere close to $29, but rather worth $14 per share, something we outlined yesterday. 

The collapse of the Peloton IPO is a massive embarrassment for underwriters Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Securities, who have done very little, as far as judging by price action, in stabilizing trading for the second day.  

It’s very likely the IPO window is shutting, with news overnight of Endeavor Group Holdings pulled its planned offering. Endeavor is the second recent company to pull its IPO after WeWork’s parent company pulled its offering earlier this month. 

And the reason for the horrible performance of the Peloton IPO could be due to the global IPO market is collapsing as a worldwide recession is imminent, reported Dealogic, first reported by the Financial Times.

Nearly 845 companies listed their shares via IPOs globally so far this year, that’s a 25% decline versus the same period in 2018 and the lowest level since 2016. 

Translation: the IPO market is closing as speculative money is finished betting in the global stock market casino. 

“In more than two decades in the IPO market I’ve never seen so many risk factors and uncertainties,” said Martin Steinbach, IPO leader for Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa for EY, the consultant. “These uncertainties create volatility like we saw over the summer period and volatility has a negative correlation with IPO activity.”

Dealogic said Europe was the worst region for IPOs in 2019. Activity plunged by nearly 40% so far this year compared to the same period last year. The US posted a 23% decline. 

As shown in a series of charts below, 2019 IPOs in the US have been a complete bust. Any millennial who bought into the whole CNBC hype of buying Lyft and Uber at IPO day is significantly in the red, and will be in the red for a generation to come.

Other IPOs, including Levi Strauss and Pinterest, are also underperforming as well.

In the Asia-Pacific region, IPO activity so far this year dropped 9%, versus the same time last year.

The window to IPO companies around the world appears to be rapidly closing as a global recession is imminent.

We noted earlier this week that a fascinating trend is developing among the ultra-wealthy: the dash for cash ahead of the next market crash.