Macro Afternoon

By in Australian Dollar, Australian Shares

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See the latest Australian dollar analysis here:

Macro Afternoon

Kayaking in the Cook Islands, 2019: Photo by H. Becker

A relatively mixed first day of trading in 2021 here in Asia with Japanese stock markets pulling back as Yen surges, while the rest of the region saw good moves higher across stocks and other risk assets. The big non-suprise (?) has been epic upside volatility in Bitcoin, which launched over 10% higher to be above $33000 after treading water just below the $30,000 level in the last week of December. Gold has been pulled along for the ride, breaking out of its own month long funk and well above the $1900USD per ounce level:

The Shanghai Composite is up nearly 1% to just above the 3500 point level in a very strong move, while in Hong Kong the Hang Seng Index has followed in a similar vain, up 0.8% to 27445 points. Japanese stock markets are the odd one out, with the Nikkei 225 losing 0.6% to be at 27266 points as trading in Yen firms immediately on the open with the USDJPY pair shifting below the 103 handle and threatening key support at the December lows:

The ASX200 finished nearly 1.5% higher at 6684 points while the Australian dollar was finding some life to begin with before moderating here later in the session to be just above the 77 handle going into the London open, looking strong on the four hourly chart at least:

Eurostoxx and S&P futures are quite strong and ready to break out above the previous Xmas highs with the four hourly chart of the S&P500 wanting to move above the 3750 point level to yet another new record high:

The economic calendar is a bit sparse, but watch for the December final manufacturing PMI print from the US.

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Comments

      • SpunkyMEMBER

        Sometimes mi know seh yo stressed out
        Caw the bills them pending
        Or yo lost everything weh yo work everyday and invest in
        Watch yah now, touch the club find a girl and bubble pon
        Find a party fi tek out the trouble on
        Popcod dedicate this one to every victim and all ex-con

        Like the feelings right
        Going on high grade flight
        Tugs a prole up, girls a roll out
        Everything is nice yea, oh oh, oh oh
        Everything is nice

    • ColinMEMBER

      Things you’ve got to do on the farm – maybe with some lighter hammering on assembly. It’s a feels thing. Measuring pressdown & springback could’ve helped speed up referencing as it straightened….. It’ll be good enough, but never straight as new. And definitely would’ve used Copper on any pressured contact points to protect the surface.

    • ErmingtonPlumbingMEMBER

      I was expecting to see that shaft shatter or get flung of that bench at speed.
      I was quite disappointed with the uneventful successful out come.
      Maybe I’ve been watching to many of them “Funny Fails” YouTube clips with the kids.

  6. migtronixMEMBER

    Notes on liberalism.

    The project of liberalism bifurcated along the well worn streams of the political and the economic.

    The political project was very successful and in half a century banished authoritarianism from Western Europe and even amalgamated the Eastern empire into a semblance of democracy.

    It was most successful in Europe and Japan, however, and left the Anglo world largely intact – and this is where the economic liberalism finds its ground.

    Economic liberalism swings wildly in its political ambition to seek profit, and is quite happy to jettison political liberalism for immediate gains.

    There are no fascists or imperialists left in Europe and Japan, but there are plenty of reactionaries in the US & UK willing to gut its institutions

  7. Goldstandard1MEMBER

    The markets look like they are on very thin ice. The final rise to peak?? I think 2021 is the new 1931.

    • robert2013MEMBER

      Fiat and QE changes everything. No straight comparison with 1930s gold standard era is possible. The problem is not that assets are overvalued it’s that consumer goods are undervalued. If anything snaps it will be CPI. Those doing it tough will likely being doing it tougher. Then we can expect revolutions and war. Good times!

      • NikoMEMBER

        I am thinking something along those lines too. But I do see market crash as well – just can’t connect the dots how/when it happens.
        One possible scenario:
        Most stimulus is directed to the 1%. Some crumbs are allowed to find the way to the unwashed but the 90% of the most unwashed will eventually wake up and revolt.
        Riots, civil wars to follow and markets have to crash – when no one pays for any goods as people will just help themselves by looting rich areas.
        Starts in Europe and US, then spreads to UK and only then us not wanting to be seen we are too far behind the trend will just copy paste whatever merican and English unwashed do.

    • footsore

      You insult all the muppets and puppets of the world with that comment. Though, if you were to create a puppet character based on Trump, you’d have to have its head placed so far up its own arse that he’d be a Cheezel. It’s astounding how self involved he is. He’s definitely one for the ages.

  9. migtronixMEMBER

    “Recently, artificial intelligence (AI) has been used to solve the Schrodinger Equation in quantum chemistry. A team of scientists at Freie Universität Berlin has developed a means of calculating the ground state of the equation with artificial intelligence (AI), according to recent study results published in the journal Nature Chemistry. The deep learning method developed by German researchers is capable of achieving an unprecedented combination of computational efficiency and accuracy, according to the report. ”

    Apparently the observe hypothesis collapses when the observer observes all before hand…

    https://sputniknews.com/science/202101041081640679-artificial-intelligence-cracks-schrodingers-equation-study-finds/

      • migtronixMEMBER

        This is not a problem for “AI” – we’ve been generating mathematical proofs this way for 2 decades.

        Recursion works really well when you have enough processors…

        • JohnRMEMBER

          You mean, they predict what happened?
          and then I guess the flipside is; it’s very difficult to test de novo predictions for eg in the protein structure example. Models are always very pretty until that point at which they are tested.

          • migtronixMEMBER

            I mean that equation solving algorithms have generated mathematical proofs in ways that had never been found before. NP hard problems are hard because there is no efficient solution, if you divide and conquor by breaking up the computations and then collating the results you don’t need efficiency.

        • Frostilicus

          The old saying was ‘it’s amazing what you can achieve with an infinite supply of slave labor’ …

  10. NikoMEMBER

    and sold my BBUS 30min after I bought – small loss but over very good day for me. If I can make as much everyday.🙂

  15. GavinMEMBER

    Ok, so I am going to buy some BTC – start with $200 (looks like price has fallen 9% in the last day?) but only a small amount to dip my toes in the crypto (rat poison squared) waters :).

    I think I get the concept of a wallet, but is there a good video that explains how they work and how to make sure you have things stored securely and backups?

    I’m still a little confused on how wallets work.

    • JohnRMEMBER

      Also: if you lose it, will your mum be able to find it again, or will she just say “where did you last see it?”?

    • ErmingtonPlumbingMEMBER

      Sell those Rice burners of yours and go all in Gav.
      You could end up a billionaire like Mig

      • GavinMEMBER

        Part of the reason I haven’t bought earlier is because it’s in some ways admitting I’ve been wrong on crypto. I’ve been skeptical for a while, but as early as 2010 I was interested in it and a work manager warmed me off it in 2014 when I was looking to buy. My brother bought in, in 2017 and I said he was nuts.

        My best mates older brother constantly promotes it. And I keep thinking it will all implode. But sometimes you have to stop letting pride get in the way and explore these things with an open mind.

        Hence my small dip in the water. I’ve certainly wasted money on more frivolous things.

    • bjw678

      Middle of a bubble event is probably not the best time to buy in :).
      If you have an exchange you trust, or a small enough amount you don’t care, leaving the btc in the exchange is the easiest way to deal with storing it. Of course you are implicitly trusting the exchange short term simply by depositing money to buy in the first place.

      • GavinMEMBER

        Somewhat agree, but these are crazy times. Not gonna gamble anymore than I’m willing to lose.

  17. migtronixMEMBER

    F#CK YES!!!

    “Judge: Therefore I rule it would be unjust to extradite Mr Assange. The US has the right to appeal.’

  20. Sacha

    Chris Martenson from Peak Prosperity deleted from Wikipedia for being a conspiracy theorist.

    Edit: Hahaha, I’m a bit late. Was already deleted in February 2020 after starting to report on the Cerveza sickness.