Tag: news

Donald Trump has compared upstart Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to former Argentine first lady Eva Perón, the Guardian reported citing a review of the upcoming book entitled American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War by Politico writer Tim Alberta.

In the forthcoming book, the author claims that Trump first saw the New York congresswoman “ranting and raving like a lunatic on a street corner” and while saying that “she knows nothing”, she has “a certain talent.”

Alberta then says the Trump “became enamored” and “starstruck” by Ocasio-Cortez.

“I called her Eva Perón. I said, ‘That’s Eva Perón. That’s Evita,” Trump said.

At the time Ocasio-Cortez was pursuing a long-shot primary bid to unseat Representative Joe Crowley, a top member of House Democratic leadership. Since toppling Crowley, Ocasio-Cortez, 29, has become the most visible of the freshman Democrats trying to pull the party to the extreme left. AOC has also become a figurehead of opposition to Trump in the House and a “bête noire” of Republicans and Fox News, for her championing of progressive causes including the Green New Deal. Just last week, Ocasio-Cortez told an interviewer that she believed America was heading in a fascist direction under Trump and compared the detention camps near the southern border to concentration camps, sparking a firestorm of criticism (and occasional support) on both sides of the aisle.

Eva Perón, popularly known as Evita, was the wife of Argentine President Juan Perón and a former actress known for her popular appeal and power in her husband’s administration. “Evita” died at age 33 in 1952 and became the subject of the 1979 Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice musical of the same name.

In the book, Trump praises Ocasio-Cortez’s “talent” and “potential” but slams her knowledge, or rather lack of it. Despite the enmity between the two, Trump’s comparison may not entirely be an insult: according to ABC News, Trump wrote in a 2004 book that “Evita” was his favorite Broadway show and that he’d seen it six times.

“She’s got a good sense, an ‘it’ factor, which is pretty good, but she knows nothing,” Trump said according to Guardian’s read of the book scheduled for release on July 16.

Of course, it may also be the case that Trump sees himself as a modern-day Evita. As the Guardian notes, citing Amanda Eubanks Winkler, an associate professor of music history and culture at Syracuse University, drew direct comparisons, noting that Evita “was star of radio dramas and to a lesser extent film in Argentina, and then she went on and had this political career and political power”.

In Trump’s 2016 campaign, Eubanks Winkler said, the billionaire reality TV star echoed Evita’s appeal to the “Descamisados”, or “shirtless ones”, by “trying to reach out to people, working class people and you can see that in terms of the demographics of folks who voted for him”.

Meanwhile, like Trump, Ocasio-Cortez has been called a master of new media, especially Trump’s favorite portal, Twitter, where she has almost 4.7 million followers.

Separately, independent journalist Yashar Ali posted on Twitter an apparent screen shot from the book in which Trump tells aides to contact Crowley before the Democratic primary election to warn him of Ocasio-Cortez’s appeal.

2. In an interview for his book, Trump tells @TimAlberta he saw AOC’s rise early but that his team didn’t think she had a chance. https://t.co/DF1h0kAZYj pic.twitter.com/SFzc0dZ08u

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) July 7, 2019

And speaking of Twitter,  Ocasio-Cortez promptly responded to the Guardian’s story with a series of tweets. Attributing quotes to “Evita Perón”, she wrote: “I know that, like every woman of the people, I have more strength than I appear to have.” She added: “I had watched for many years and seen how a few rich families held much of Argentina’s wealth and power in their hands. So the government brought in an eight-hour working day, sickness pay and fair wages to give poor workers a fair go.”

3. @AOC reacts to Trump’s nickname for her….Eva Perón/Evita pic.twitter.com/86DCsqC6vp

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) July 7, 2019

It was not immediately clear if AOC was as impressed by Evita negative characteristics as her positive ones.

.@AOC, Evita Peron was a Nazi sympathizer who hid Nazis for a share of what they stole from Jewish families. https://t.co/sLDguzcqYk

— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) July 7, 2019

ahem @AOC … Evita Peron harbored Nazis while taking Jewish property. https://t.co/IRxf3Jl9wZ

— Bentley Greg (@Bentos03) July 7, 2019

Curiously, while Trump has criticized AOC, the president has also shown apparent fondness: in April he said that although the Green New Deal would not prove an electoral winner, it was the work of “a young bartender” – a reference to Ocasio-Cortez’s job before politics – whom he called “a wonderful young woman”.

Trump’s fondness has not been requited: in the past week, Ocasio-Cortez condemned Ivanka Trump’s diplomatic efforts at the G20 in Osaka, Japan, criticised Trump’s spending on his 4 July event on the National Mall, and visited a Customs and Border Protection facility in Clint, Texas, where she reported “CBP officers being so physically [and] sexually threatening towards me” and said: “Officers were keeping women in cells [with] no water [and] had told them to drink out of the toilets. This was them on their GOOD behavior in front of members of Congress.”

* * *

As the Guardian also notes, Alberta’s book is a history of the Republican party from the nomination of the late senator John McCain in 2008 to midway through Trump’s first term, and “contains scenes likely to cause controversy in the press and in the party itself.” In one instance, the former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele slammed the president in remarks similar to those made by Rashida Tlaib. Trump, Steele said, is a “motherfucker … defiling the White House.”

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2RY3X92 Tyler Durden

The latest beneficiary of the so-called “Coinbase effect” which takes place when a given cryptocurrency is greenlighted to trade on the popular Coinbase platform, Chainlink, is a relatively unknown cryptocurrency, whose price has surged several hundred percents as its market cap now exceeds $1 billion and ranks 17th in crypto market cap, above Ethereum Classic, Zcash, and Bitcoin Gold.

Chainlink (LINK) has made impressive gains since its initial coin offering in mid-January, soaring over 800% in the last six months.

LINK was trading around the $2-handle in late June before its Coinbase debut gave millions of users the ability to pump the coin +150% from June 27-29; it has since slipped around the 3.50 level.

Launched by the San Francisco-based company SmartContract in summer 2017, Chainlink is a secure blockchain middleware that aims to connect smart contracts across blockchains by enabling smart contracts to access off-chain sources such as data feeds, web APIs, and traditional bank accounts. It provides a reliable connection to solve the ‘oracle problem’ for smart contracts.

Since blockchains cannot access data outside the chain, Chainlink’s oracles allow access to third-party data feeds for smart contracts. Oracles provide external data that triggers smart contract executions upon the achievement of pre-defined conditions. This model was created around LINK coins is based on incentives (through rewards) to provide smart contracts with access to external data feeds.

Should users want access to off-chain data sources, they can submit a requesting contract to ChainLink’s network. These contracts will match the asking settlement with the most relevant oracles.

LINK’s parabolic price move has been driven by the Google Cloud team integrating Chainlink’s oracle middleware with its BigQuery enterprise cloud data warehouse and the debut of Coinbase listing.

Reddit poster, u/colorsdontlie, wrote he was a “developer” and didn’t see Chainlink as a long term investment. Meanwhile, San Fransico-based software entrepreneur, Frank Marcantoni, said Chainlink reminds him of Stripe in their early days with the advantage of blockchain. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2S3bSln Tyler Durden

Authored by Douglas French via The Mises Institute,

In 1987 in an interview with “Woman’s Own” Margaret Thatcher said ,

“They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.”

Of course, The Iron Lady was making perfect sense. Prosperity and happiness comes from individual efforts, human action. The blob known as society does not act, it’s not a thing.

Ludwig von Mises explained , “Society is division and association of labor. In the final analysis, there is no conflict of interest between society and the individual, as everyone can pursue his interest more efficiently in society than in isolation.”

Author Joss Sheldon, despite having a degree from the London School of Economics, takes Thatcher’s quote and creates a dystopian world where no one talks or sees anyone else. INDIVIDUTOPIA: A novel set in a neoliberal dystopia takes us to 2084 London. There is no collaboration, only competition, depression, anxiety and suicide. Avatars are your only companions. There is no human contact. At the same time, individuals are continuously ranked versus others at various activities. A lonely pressure-cooker, indeed.

The book’s heroine Renee Ann Blanca’s living quarters are so small she can’t stand up. Her gas mask emits frequent bursts of anti-depression medication into her airflow. Her personal debt is constantly updated. She is charged for everything, including each and every step. Ms. Blanca constantly looks for jobs, but, falls deeper in debt.

In this corporate oligarchy, machines make everything so all jobs are of the Keynesian make-work variety. For instance, one day Ms. Blanca’s job is to move furniture from one room to another and then move the furniture back where it was. There is no fresh food, just vitamin replacement.

Some reviewers on GoodReads believe Sheldon’s dystopia is already here. “Individutopia by Josh Sheldon is a dystopian tale that takes the current obsession with individualism to its ultimate extreme. Most of the world’s wealth is owned by a few individuals—does that ring any bells?—and the individual is allowed to earn just enough income to survive, but never to be able to escape the heavy burden of debt.” writes Charles Ray.

“You’ll not miss the parallels with our current existence, and hopefully this book will make you think about the path we’re currently on, and what you, as an individual, can do to restore society to its rightful place.”

Good grief, “current obsession with individualism to its ultimate extreme.” Really, individualism is the slippery slope to dystopia?

Murray Rothbard explained, “Rugged individualism, also known as social Darwinism, is inhumane and illogical; it is based on a completely false use of analogy and an absurd theory of ethics.”

Sheldon’s hero walks out of London (no escape required) and meets other people. She’s treated as a hero by these people who get along and live a collective lifestyle, eating berries and such.

“Socialists believed in society…Living with other people, in a society, makes us ‘Socialists.’”

Renee almost punched the air:

“Yes! Yes, yes, yes! That’s exactly what I thought I wanted.”

The village Renee stumbles on to exemplifies what Thatcher said, “It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours,” but the author’s message is that we need a socialist framework to get along with, talk with, and have meaningful relationships with other people.

Now, that would be a dystopian world. Rothbard illustrates that Sheldon has it backwards.

The glory of the human race is the uniqueness of each individual, the fact that every person, though similar in many ways to others, possesses a completely individuated personality of his own. It is the fact of each person’s uniqueness — the fact that no two people can be wholly interchangeable —that makes each and every man irreplaceable and that makes us care whether he lives or dies, whether he is happy or oppressed. And, finally, it is the fact that these unique personalities need freedom for their full development that constitutes one of the major arguments for a free society.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XvEFAh Tyler Durden

Last Wednesday, with global interest rates tumbling to fresh all time lows, with German and French 10Y yields plunging to never before seen negative levels, and with a record $13.4 trillion notional in government bonds yielding negative rates, we warned that a “monstrous” VaR shock loomed as global duration – the measure of sensitivity to interest-rate changes – hit never before seen highs, and forced all bond investors on the same side (the deflationary) of the boat.

It didn’t take much for this prediction to start coming true: just 48 hours later, following a much stronger than expected June payrolls number which beat every sellside forecast, 10Y Treasury yields exploded higher in a 6-sigma move that saw massive paper losses for those who were long the curve as government bond yields unwound much of the decline triggered by Lagarde’s nomination for the ECB presidency earlier on the week.

And, as we had also warned on Wednesday when we said that “so much debt has been sold at low yields that even a modest bump in yields near record lows “could inflict a world of pain for traders the world over“, rates traders found out the very hard way just what record duration truly means.

Furthermore, as a result of the huge payrolls beat which crushed expectations for 2 rate cuts in July, bond volatility also continued to creep higher, continuing a trend that started in March. As a result, JPMorgan’s Nick Panigirtzoglou picks up where we left off and in his weekly “Flows & Liquidity” report, writes that the rise in bond volatility coupled with a still low level of government bond yields are raising questions about the risk of a bond tantrum from here, and asks – seemingly in response to our prior article – “how vulnerable are government bond markets to a tantrum or VaR shock similar to the ones we saw in May 2013, October 2014 and November 2016 in US rates, April 2013 in Japanese rates or April 2015 in Euro rates?”

What is worth noting first is that these VaR shocks did not necessarily have a fundamental trigger; some examples:

• In October 2014, a violent capitulation on short positions at the front-end of the US curve had caused a collapse in UST yields.
• In April 2013, profit-taking in long duration exposures post BoJ’s QE announcement caused a sharp rise in JGB yields.
• In April 2015 an unwinding of extreme long positions in the 30y Bund futures contract caused a spike in euro area government bond yields.

So what, JPMorgan would like to know, is causing these VaR shocks – seemingly without an immediate catalyst – and why are they happening more often? As JPM – and virtually every other bank has argued before – one of the unintended consequences of QE, via inducing structurally lower volatility, is a higher frequency of volatility episodes or VaR shocks: in simple terms, investors who target a stable Value-at-Risk, which is the size of their positions times volatility, tend to take larger positions when volatility is low. But the same investors are forced to cut their positions when volatility rises or hit  by a shock, triggering self-reinforcing, volatility-induced selling.

Add to that the proliferation of VaR sensitive investors, such as hedge funds, mutual fund managers, risk parity funds, dealers and banks, and the sensitivity of bond markets to self-reinforcing, volatility-induced selling soars. These investors set limits against potential losses in their trading operations by calculating Value-at-Risk metrics.

As an aside, as JPM explains, Value-at-Risk (VaR) is a statistical measure that investors use to quantify the expected loss, over a specified horizon and at a certain confidence level, in normal markets. Historical return distributions and historical market volatility measures are often used in VaR calculations given the difficulty in forecasting volatility. This in turn induces investors to raise the size of their trading positions in a low volatility environment, making them vulnerable to a subsequent volatility shock. Or, as we said previously, the amount of debt sold at record low yields has made it so that even a modest bump in yields near record lows “could inflict a world of pain for traders the world over.”

So when one day the volatility shock arrives following this jump in yields due to an unexpected inflationary catalyst or “just because”, VaR sensitive investors cut their duration positions as the Value-at-Risk exceeded their limits and stop losses are triggered.

That is known as a Var Shock. This volatility induced position cutting becomes self-reinforcing until yields reach a level that induces the participation of VaR-insensitive investors, such as pension funds, insurance companies or households.

Looking at the historical record, the VaR shock in the JGB market in April 2013 contained most of the above characteristics. By looking at quarterly Flow of Funds data from the BoJ, it was Japanese banks, Broker/Dealers and foreign investors who sold JGBs at the time. And it was VaR insensitive investors, such as Pension Funds and Insurance Companies and Households (via investment trusts) who absorbed that selling along with the BoJ. Similarly, the May 2013 UST taper tantrum or the Bund VaR shock of April 2015, was driven by unwinding of long duration positions by banks, hedge funds and asset managers, including trend following investors such as CTAs.

It is also worth noting that a common feature of these bond tantrums (or VaR shocks) was that bond volatility started creeping higher ahead of the shock, which once unfolded caused volatility to spike to even higher levels, in such a reflexive fashion it would make Nassim Taleb smile. The next chart shows that bond volatility has been creeping up for months now and rose further following Friday’s US payroll report.

According to Panigirtzoglou, another common feature of previous bond tantrums or VaR shocks was a deterioration in market liquidity ahead of the shock. There is some evidence of a deterioration in the current conjuncture by looking for example at our market depth proxy for 10y UST futures shown in the next chart. This market depth measure, based on the size of the tightest three bids and asks each day measured in number of contracts, has unwound this year much of the previous improvement seen during 2017 and 2018.

A third common feature of previous bond tantrums or VaR shocks has been position vulnerability by VaR sensitive investors such as hedge funds and asset managers including CTAs who are typically active participants in futures markets. Predictably, JPM currently sees several bond position vulnerabilities by such VaR sensitive investors:

• 1) Movements between government bond yields and the HFRX Systematic Diversified CTA index have almost mirrored each over the past two months or so. This is shown in Figure 3 which depicts a CTA performance index against the average of 10y UST and Bund yields. The CTA performance index spiked over the past two months suggesting that CTAs have been increasingly benefiting from the bond rally. A likely overhang of long duration positions by CTAs is also suggested by JPM’s momentum signals for 10y UST and Bund futures. These momentum signals have been rising and currently stand at pretty high levels for USTs and very extreme levels for Bunds.

• 2) Real money managers appear to be also long duration at the moment as shown by the next two charts. These charts show that the biggest active bond mutual fund managers have a beta to bond indices that is above average in both the US and Euro area.

• 3) JPM’s European client survey, which tends to be less volatile and to exhibit clearer medium-term trends than its US counterpart, shows an unusually large increase in the long duration exposures by the bank’s clients over the past few months.

Making matters even more ominous, the current long duration positioning is not far from the highs seen in April 2015 ahead of the Bund tantrum at the time.

Overall, JPM concludes that “the above evidence points to significant risk of an abrupt bond reversal going forward.” But as Panigirtzoglou notes, there is another factor that is raising this risk at the moment which did not always feature in previous bond tantrums: bond supply.

The Flows and Liquidity author had argued back in April that there was a deterioration in the bond supply/demand balance of around $300BN for 2019. Due to stronger bond demand by banks and reserve managers so far this year, he is now revise this deterioration estimate lower to $100bn. Although a lot more modest than the $850bn deterioration in the bond supply/demand balance seen in 2018, this $100bn deterioration would still imply small upward pressure on bond yields this year which contrasts with the large 60bp YTD decline in the yield of the Global Agg bond index.

In JPM’s concluding opinion, “the large discrepancy between its estimated bond supply/demand balance for 2019 and the YTD decline in bond yields poses a challenge for bond markets going forward as it suggests that the large 60bp decline in global bond yields YTD looks rather unsustainable.”

One final note of caution from JPMorgan: “any abrupt bond selloff is unlikely to be favorable to equities given the support that equity markets received from the strong rally in bond markets in recent months.”

And now, we await as that other JPM quant, Marko Kolanovic, slams his co-worker for daring to spread such pessimistic fake news.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JHkjPR Tyler Durden

Authored by Irinia Slav via OilPrice.com,

A group of seventeen metallic elements whose names most of us have never heard recently came into the spotlight amid the latest trade tension escalation between Beijing and Washington. Rare earths, used in a myriad of products from electronic displays to lasers and electric cars, are currently the dominion of China and there is concern it could decide to weaponize this dominion.

There is precedent.

Back in 2011, as a territorial dispute between China and Japan got rough, Beijing imposed a rare earths export embargo on its neighbor. The result: soaring prices as everyone started stockpiling in case things got even rougher until the World Trade Organization intervened and China lifted the embargo.

China is home to 85 percent of the world’s rare earths production capacity, and unlike other countries it has spend decades developing the most efficient technologies not just for extracting them but for processing these seventeen metals as well, as a recent in-depth analysis of the situation from the South China Morning Post noted. In short, China has the resources and the know-how to extract them. In a trade war this is a major advantage.

The U.S. imported 80 percent of the rare earths it used between 2014 and 2017, Reuters reported, as the topic garnered more media attention. There is only one rare earths mine operating in the country right now, the Mountain Pass in California, and it has only been operating for two years after MP Materials – a company with Chinese financial backing – bought it from Molycorp, which went under in 2015.

According to MP Materials, Mountain Pass produces a tenth of the world’s supply of rare earths… but there is no rare earths refining capacity on the site so everything mined at Mountain Pass is shipped to China for processing. The country has 220,000 tons in annual rare earths refining capacity. This is five times the combined refining capacity of the rest of the world.

This is what can reasonably be called almost complete dependence.

The problem with shaking off this dependence is two-pronged.

On the one hand, recycling is out of the question and will remain out of the question simply because rare earths are used in such tiny amounts there is not enough of them to recycle. Recycling companies don’t recover them at all when they separate materials from, say, electronic devices for recycling.  Few companies are collecting them for recycling and working on new recycling technology specifically aimed at rare earths – but there are some.

Apple, for example, made a robot named Daisy that can recover 32 kilograms of rare earths per 100,000 iPhones recycled. Companies in Asia are also launching recycling plants for rare earths, but on a relatively small scale for now. It seems that mainstream recycling of rare earths will in all likelihood have to wait.

Alternative materials are also being researched with some success, but rare earths remain the dominant choice for electronics and various other products, pretty much like lithium ion batteries still dominate the battery industry despite the multitude of potential challengers.

MP Materials says it plans to reopen the refining facility at the Mountain Pass mine by the end of 2020. This would certainly be a start to reducing this uncomfortable dependence on China. Yet it will be just that, a start. An Australian company, Lynas, earlier this year sealed a deal with Blue Line Corporation in Texas to jointly build a rare earths separation facility on U.S. soil. That’s another step.

Shaking off China’s dominance in rare earths will take years, but it is necessary as the world’s demand for those seventeen elements will only continue to rise as we continue to increasingly depend on products that can’t work without them.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/30lptHL Tyler Durden

Usually the ‘reductio ad hitlerum’ argument rolls out shortly before the West or its allies take some kind of military action against a Middle East regime. Following Sunday’s announcement out of Iran that it’s advancing its uranium enrichment beyond the 3.67% ceiling set by the 2015 nuclear deal — with officials telling Reuters over the weekend that enrichment will go to 5% — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did just that. 

Speaking at a weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu told his ministers that it’s a “mistake” to dismiss Iran’s declaration as a mere “small step” given that the Nazis also took “small steps” in the 1930s before blitzing across European territory. He said Iran’s enrichment “is for only one thing – to prepare nuclear weapons,” according to The Jerusalem Post. 

This after Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi announced Sunday plans to increase uranium enrichment to the level needed for operations of Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant. Prior statements had indicated this level at five percent. 

The Deputy FM said:

Our commitments regarding the level of enrichment were revised, and we are reducing our commitments starting today.

And Iran nuclear agency spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi announced further that, “Within hours, the technical tasks will be done and enrichment above 3.67% will begin.” He said, “We predict that the IAEA measurements early tomorrow morning will show that we have gone beyond 3.67%.”

The IAEA, which is the international nuclear watchdog, said “inspectors in Iran will report to our headquarters as soon as they verify the announced development.”

Netanyahu was reacting to these and other statements out of Tehran. He asserted the entirety of World War II began when: 

“Nazi Germany took one small step – to enter the Rhineland [in 1936]. A small step. No one said anything and no one did anything. The next step was the Anschluss, the connection with Austria [annexation of Austria in March 1938], and the next step was entering the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia [October 1938]. And the rest is known.”

He then appealed to international signatories of the 2015 JCPOA to take action, saying, “I call on my friends, the heads of France, Britain and Germany: You signed this [nuclear] agreement [with Iran], and you said that once they take this step, there will be harsh sanctions. That was the decision of the Security Council.”

“Where are you?” Netanyahu pleaded of European allies. “Take the actions you promised to take; impose the sanctions,” he added, though it appears he fundamentally wants to see more actions taken like last week’s UK Royal Marine seizure of a tanker transporting Iranian oil allegedly to the Syrian port of Baniyas. 

Speaking of allies Syria and Iran, the Israeli prime minister asserted Israel was doing its part to “nip” Iranian expansion “in the bud” and that Europe must do the same regarding Iran’s pursuing higher enriched uranium. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XwfHWu Tyler Durden

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

Tesco, one of the world’s largest supermarket operators, is testing cashierless stores solely dependent cameras…

Frictionless Pick and Go

Tesco, a UK firm doing business in 11 countries, is testing a cashierless store design that goes beyond Amazon’s Go.

Tesco is not dependent on bar codes, RFID smart tags, or customer scanning.

Please consider Spurred by Amazon, Supermarkets Try Swapping Cashiers for Cameras

Tesco is one of several grocers testing cashierless stores with cameras that track what shoppers pick, so they pay by simply walking out the door.

Tesco’s 4,000-square-foot test store uses 150 ceiling-mounted cameras to generate a three-dimensional view of products as they are taken off shelves. In its recent demo, Tesco’s system detected shoppers as they walked around the store. It also identified a group of products when a person holding them stood in front of a screen, tallying up their total price. Tesco is considering identifying shoppers through an app or loyalty card when they enter the store and then charging their app when they leave.

Tesco told investors its method costs one-tenth of systems used by its competitors, partly because it only uses cameras. Amazon Go uses cameras and sensors to track what shoppers pick. Amazon customers scan a QR code at a gate when they enter a store, then walk out when finished.

French retail giant Carrefour SA is also running tests in at least two stores where cameras track what is taken off shelves and shoppers are charged automatically when they leave. Carrefour is working with French startup Qopius Technology, whose cameras and software can read labels on products.

Limitations

For now, Tesco’s pick and go is only in use at smaller stores and it’s still a test.

And what about something like a bunch of bananas or a handful of potatoes?

The technology seems better suited for department stores that do not have weigh-priced items and for which it would be easier to place a RFID tag.

Then again, who needs department stores? Amazon and online retailers are killing those stores.

The bottom line is the same in either case, the end of cashiers is coming.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/30hHu9N Tyler Durden

Authored by Andrew Sheets, chief cross-asset strategist at Morgan Stanley

Over recent weeks, you’ve heard us discussing why we think investors should fade the optimism from the recent G20. Why we think bad data should be feared rather than cheered because it will bring more central bank easing. Why we think the market is too optimistic on 2019 earnings and is underestimating the pressure from inventories, labour costs and trade uncertainty.

The time has come to put our money where our mouth is. In light of these concerns and others, we are downgrading our allocation to global equities from equal-weight to underweight.

The most straightforward reason for this shift is simple – we project poor returns: Over the next 12 months, there is now just 1% average upside to Morgan Stanley’s price targets for the S&P 500, MSCI Europe, MSCI EM and Topix Japan (including dividends and equally weighted). If we ignore those targets and estimate returns for those same regions based on current valuations, adjusting for whether returns tend to be better or worse given current economic data, the upside is very similar (3%). There comes a point for every analyst where you need to change your forecast or change your view. We’re doing the latter.

Why are those return estimates so low, especially in light of possible central bank easing? Our economists, after all, are calling for the Federal Reserve to lower rates later this month, and the ECB to embark on a new round of quantitative easing.

Our concern is that the positives of easier policy will be offset by the negatives of weaker growth: We think a repeated lesson for stocks over the last 30 years has been that when easier policy collides with weaker growth, the latter usually matters more for returns. Easing has worked best when accompanied by improving data. If you don’t believe us, we have some European stocks from April 2015, shortly after the ECB’s first QE programme was announced, that we’d like to sell you.

As markets have rallied over the last month, global trade and PMI data have continued to worsen. Global inflation expectations, commodity prices and long-end yields suggest little optimism about a growth recovery. On the back of the G20, our economists downgraded their global growth forecasts. We forecast an aggressive Fed and ECB action because we think growth concerns are material.

Given our disagreement on how much policy easing will help, it’s reasonable to ask: Why not make this change in August, after the Fed cuts? Because we do see two potential nearer-term catalysts: 2Q earnings season and the drop in summer liquidity.

On earnings, we think the market is underpricing the risk that companies lower full-year guidance. Just think about how much has changed since 1Q reporting in mid-April:

• A US-China trade deal that was widely expected to be resolved led instead to a new round of tariffs.
• Global PMIs have continued to fall.
• And Morgan Stanley’s Business Conditions Index, a survey of how our equity analysts feel about their companies, suffered its largest one-month decline ever in June. We believe all this signals risk to equities.

Meanwhile, we’re mindful of the drop in both liquidity and average returns starting in late July. For trivia fans out there, July 13-October 12 has historically been the worst 90-day period for equity returns since 1990, possibly because liquidity and risk appetite tend to worsen after 2Q results. And given high expectations of central bank easing, and a number of geopolitical uncertainties, the risk that poor liquidity magnifies bad news seems credible.

What about ‘TINA’ and the lack of investor euphoria? The idea that ‘there is no alternative’ to stocks, given richness in other asset classes, is one of the most frequently cited reasons to be positive (along with central bank support). Meanwhile, it’s equally fair to say that measures of investor sentiment don’t look excessive.

Relative to bonds, stocks do offer a historically elevated equity risk premium (ERP). But we think it’s dangerous to be too sanguine about both these supports. ERP is a valuation measure, and like all such measures it is much better as a multi-year guide than a near-term indicator, being easily swamped by more pressing concerns. Stocks have looked cheap to bonds for almost the entire post-crisis period. That didn’t prevent a number of meaningful drawdowns.

If investors really believe in the power of ‘cheapness to bonds’ they have an odd way of showing it. Europe, Japan, Value and Cyclicals are the segments of the market cheapest to fixed income. They are also the least-loved. Indeed, while investor positioning may not be particularly extended overall, it looks relatively concentrated in the US, Growth, Quality and Defensives.

This bull market, which started in 2009, has repeatedly defied all manner of doubts. There are many ways we could be wrong, but the greatest risk, in our view, is that the growth data bounce but central banks still follow through with aggressive easing. Such a scenario would likely see a bear steepening of the yield curve, higher inflation expectations and higher commodity prices. We’ll watch for those as signs that we need to make a change.

For now, we’re putting our money where our mouth is. Following these changes, we are underweight both equities and credit, equal-weight government bonds and overweight cash. Our most preferred asset class remains emerging market fixed income.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Ji0wHn Tyler Durden

Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

Mark Mobius took over for the legendary John Templeton at Franklin Templeton’s Emerging Markets Fund back in the 1980s, and filled those big shoes well for three decades.

Now running his own shop, he recently made what seems like a completely reasonable suggestion about gold – one that if adopted by the broader investment community would send the metal’s price to the moon:

Gold Bull Mobius Says Every Portfolio Needs at Least 10%

(Bloomberg) — Veteran investor Mark Mobius says that gold’s set to push higher, potentially topping $1,500 an ounce, as interest rates head lower, central banks extend purchases, and uncertainty surrounding geopolitics and cryptocurrencies fans demand.“I love gold,” Mobius, who set up Mobius Capital Partners LLP last year after three decades at Franklin Templeton Investments, said in an interview in Singapore, adding bullion should always form part of a portfolio, with a holding of at least 10%. “As these interest rates come down, where do you go?”

Gold has rallied in 2019, rising to the highest level in six years, as investors contemplate slowing economic growth, prospects for easier monetary policy in the U.S. and Europe and festering trade frictions.

The upswing has been given added momentum as central banks, including authorities in Russia and China, step up purchases. A revival in cryptocurrencies may lead to spillover demand from investors for the older haven, according to Mobius.

“Interest rates are going so low, particularly now in Europe,” he said. “What’s the sense of holding euro when you get a negative rate? You might as well put it into gold, because gold is a much better currency.”

Two points about Mobius’ suggestion that most portfolios should be 10% allocated to gold:

First, the idea of replacing dollar cash with a historically better-performing store of wealth seems like a no-brainer in a world of soaring fiat currency debt and plunging interest rates.

Second and vastly more interesting, the current allocation to gold in the financial world is about 1% of total investable capital, so moving from here to 10% would produce spectacular price gains for gold. If it’s even possible, which it might not be: Most current demand for physical metal is from the Chinese and Russian central banks, which presumably won’t be selling their reserves to investors anytime soon.

As for gold mining stocks, here’s a chart from Marin Katusa showing their weighting within the S&P 500. Note that it’s both minuscule and historically low.

A reversion to just the average would send the miners up dramatically.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XSdbJk Tyler Durden

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) says that he’s “confident” that the American people will learn of “severe, serious abuses” carried out by the FBI and CIA against President Trump and his campaign during the 2016 US election. 

Speaking with New York radio host an billionaire John Catsimatidis, King said “There was no legal basis at all for them to begin the investigation of his campaign,” when asked about the ongoing probe by Attorney General William Barr, referring to the FBI’s application for a FISA warrant to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. 

“Just from evidence I’ve seen over the last several years being on the Intelligence Committee, being a member of Congress,” said King, “there’s no doubt to me there were severe serious abuses that were carried out in the FBI, and I believe the top levels of the CIA.” 

Listen: 

While Democrats dispute that anything untoward took place against Trump or his campaign, Republicans have called out the FBI for relying on an unverified dossier compiled, and possibly fabricated, by a former UK spy on behalf of the Clinton campaign. 

Republicans, including California Rep. Devin Nunes, claimed that federal authorities did not fully disclose their reliance on an unverified dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, which was part of opposition research for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Democrats dispute the notion that anything improper took place. They claim the dossier did not play a major role, and point to a footnote in the warrant application that acknowledged that some of the information came from research on Trump that was likely meant to hurt his campaign, even if it did not spell out exactly who paid for it.

Republicans are now waiting on a report from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, following an investigation of possible FBI abuses of the FISA system. Fox News has learned that key witnesses have come forward, after previously holding out. –Fox News

Meanwhile, special counsel Robert Mueller is set to appear on July 17 before the House Intelligence Committee, where he will face questions about his investigation into the events surrounding the 2016 US election. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/30hDVAr Tyler Durden