You ought to be keeping an extremely sharp eye on Carbon Nanotubes (CNT’s) because it turns out that CNT’s may replace copper wire in some applications.
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Of course, if you’re into electronics, you caught the bit about transmitting ‘both AM and FM radio signals” which is akin to saying a straw can carry water or milk, but they key thing is that CNT’s are the future. Sorta like the movie Mrs. Robinson where the fellow says “I have one word for you: “Plastics”.
Seems, since the linguistic reports of HalfPastHuman (which you may find useful if you’re trying to live ahead of the future, instead of under it) say we’re right now in the dawning of a period called ‘the New Electrics”, CNT’s are where to place your bets.
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There’s a second reason to invest in outfits that show high promise in CNT’s. It comes from recent work suggesting that CNT’s may actually be able to get at some of that rumored “free energy”. I assume you caught that “Carbon nanotubes can cut down motor commutator energy loss by 90%” a few days back?
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How about another reason? Then there was that report in “Nature” about CNT’s great for ultrafast charging batteries, too.
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Now let me throw one in the hopper just so it’s for sure out in the public domain: I was reading his paper last night where James Clerk Maxwell proposed in 1861 that when a magnetic field runs in a particular direction, there are ‘lines of force’. He further describes how the energy is transferred from line to line, so that all the currents induced follow the right–hand rule.
But thing creates a molecular-level problem: So here’s the key insight from Maxwell’s 1861 paper. Picture two wheels, each turning. If one wheel is turning clockwise, a while pressed against it will turn which way? Counterclockwise. This led Maxwell to propose there are something akin to ‘idler’ wheels down at the fine magnets level which transmit energy between ‘active wheels’ (right-hand-rule followers.
And you see where this gets? The so-called ‘Zero Point Energy” under Maxwell’s interpretation of magnetic vortices theory — heady stuff for 1861, eh? gut was a freakin’ genius and no wonder Heaviside edited out the good stuff – is likely to be found and tapped by utilizing these so-called idler wheels which Maxwell proposed.”
There. All public domain. Now it’s just an engineering issue. But isn’t that what us marketing guys always say? “It’s JUST software code…” was one I used to say all the time. Same thing here: Maxwell says go looking for ‘idler wheels’ – now will you just get on with the engineering and stop messing with these half steps between?
The engineering can be patented to get at these ‘idler wheels’. The wheels themselves? Sorry, already in the public domain and hanging around a magnet near you. Lodestone the next uranium? Who knows?
Maximum Pain Theories
We’re going to get to the markets – much to cover there, but before we go there, I’ll begin Life Lesson by noticing that the Universe has be calling me to write something about my pain theory, since it has been supplying plenty of pain for me to ponder over the past few days. (skip ahead to my point by clicking here)
It started with the arrival of new-born goats and a couple of nannies that wouldn’t nurse their young. These bad mommas had to be restrained so the babies wouldn’t be kicked and so the nans get into the habit of nursing. Along the way, their uncooperative horns and my body had a few disagreements. Along came my old friend pain. I may be starting 7-th decade perhaps, but not many more brain cells than where the first began, it turns out.
This was followed the next day with Aikido Master Zeus the Cat flipping me…OK, maybe more like tripping me…on the way back from the goats. Between the moment of tripping, there was a delicious moment of time-expansion that goes with all fine martial arts. It seemed like weeks in that space between trip/flip and impact as I assiduously avoided further contacts with the cat, with a cross between River Dance and Jackie Chan, as I worked out how not to break anything and set up rolling just so on impact. Except for seeing stars for a second, sensei cat was just calling pain to visit some more.
Third time’s a charm when Universe is speaking to you and you’re too dumb to get it, so instead of a single root canal on Monday, I had two. Universe conveniently had a patient booked after me cancel. Thanks, loads. This morning it’s Ibuprofen and as soon as E goes to town, something strong for the afternoon.
The now need for another crown aside, although that does get us to the financial pain topic, I think I’m starting to get the message, so maximum pain is where we begin today’s study of markets.
This is triple-witching week, when loads of options expire and will be settled up. The maximal pain theory of options trading suggests that the market will close for options traders at that price level which will allow the holders of underlying securities to pay off on as little as possible.
Let’s look at General Motors options, just for example. If GM closes out the week at exactly 2 1/2, it looks like 109,960 call option holders would not make a dime. 56,486 holders of $4 call option holders (call options are bets the stock would go higher) options would be out all their dough, and so forth.
But then look at the put options (the bets the stock will go lower): There’s 56,475 holders of GM call options that expire this week, who could make $1.50 a share ($150 per contract which stands for 100 shares worth).
What the market will do over the balance of the week, is usually to tend toward that price which will cause the most amount of pain among the option holders, or at least that’s how it seems to option players including me when I engage my darker side and am playing them. One way to do this is calculate all the losses on GM amongst all call options and all put options and model out the weigh (or buoyancy) of things based on creating the maximum number of losers.
Another way to consider short-term directionality of the market is to go back to the previous options expiration, which was February 20th, and look at where the indices were then compared to where they may end up this week. Last expiration, the Dow was at 7,365′ish, the NASDAQ composite was around 1,441, while the S&P 500 was about 770.
Naturally, this ‘maximum pain theory’ is not perfect, and the indices are made up of lots of individual stocks, so anything goes, but at the macro level, you could ask “Has my outlook on the economy gotten better or worse, compared with last month at this time?”
Frankly, from where I sit, not much has changed. We still have only one way to get out of the mess – printing money, otherwise while a good Depression would punish the wicked (rather than making them whole and sticking you & me with the tab, there’s that little matter of social unrest, soup lines, and upset people who might be inclined toward revolutionary thinking and acting; such as replacing the lobbyist controlled Congress with an outfit that could be recalled and which would listen to those of us back home when we call and express our opinions on this or that.
There’s still a larger tab coming, though, because we’re likely to see tougher gun control, the corporate takeover of farming will be pushed along with HR 875, and Nancy Pelosi is pushing for free-money for a couple of Bay Area papers which, hey! Didn’t they endorse her? Why is it folks in Denver weren’t recipients when the Rocky Mountain News was in trouble? At least there, the ex-staffers are launching a web site and getting with the change.
Saw an email yesterday (or was it a web site) that said something to the effect that 20-years ago the majority of the nation’s media was owned by 50 companies. Today we’re down to just six.
Oh, and if you’re retired military (thank you for serving), we are also reading how the Obama administration is about to follow in the footsteps of the crooked Clinton administration and pull a ‘change the deal’ on some types of medical coverage for service-related disabilities and injuries. As I see it, when someone gets a service related injury, you don’t ever change the terms and conditions that were in place at the time of injury; that’s just dishonest, but further evidence I suppose of just how far the lobbyists have gotten in their checkbook coup in Washington. Let’s not go there (although I am seriously pissed about this kind of ‘change’.)
OK, let’s go there, then. Is it just me, or since we’ve had a minor rally in this bear market is the timing purely coincidental that the slap at the military shows up as soon as there’s a chance they won’t be necessary to maintain domestic order should a Depression show up in earnest? I’m not talking about the rumors that folks re-upping for another term are being asked if they would turn guns on Americans, or the fine work of Oath Keepers. I’m talking about changing deal terms for people who have paid some of freedom’s highest prices.
I guess, since the Obama administration has hired so many Clintonistas, it shouldn’t come as a surprise: Huge disappointment.
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Senator Charles Grassley is so upset about the AIG bonus situation that he’s quoted as saying that AIG execs should ‘quit or suicide’. Grassley’s got one thing right: there is no “culture of shame and acceptances of personal responsibility” to be seen in any of this so far.
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What’s ahead for the market, then? I called my friend Robin Landry to find out if yesterday’s drop from a session high just 11-points from his ‘last-line-in-the-sand rally target of 7,404 was enough to turn him into a believer.
“No George. My proprietary indicators, when I look at the 60-minute chart say the downside is ready to resume, but ideally, we should see a couple of days right around this level before there’s a big move, which would let my 90-minute chart and another indicator catch up to confirm…”
OK, that’d line up with the notion that right in here would be a good resting point in the rally while the market makes up its mind where to go next.
Not that it means stability: There’s a whole pile of data coming, and I suppose we could start with this morning Producer Price Index figures just released by the Labor Department:
“The Producer Price Index for Finished Goods advanced 0.1 percent in February, seasonally adjusted, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. This rise followed a 0.8-percent increase in January and a 1.9-percent decline in December. At the earlier stages of processing, prices received by manufacturers of intermediate goods decreased 0.9 percent in February after falling 0.7 percent in the previous month, and the index for crude materials declined 4.5 percent following a 2.9-percent decrease in January.”
After the PPI numbers, the futures were looking like a pop of 14 points, as I keep an eye on 7,404.
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Another thing that may weigh on the market is tomorrow’s release Consumer Prices and then the Fed decision, but that last is a no-brainer. Fed’s now in the box I’ve been telling you would show up a long time ago, and like Japan, we’re now locked into a zero-percent paradigm and once there, recovery gets to be difficult. The answer, of course, is to get money into hands of consumers, so while we wait the two years till the mislabeled ‘stimulus’ does something, don’t be surprised if conditions deteriorate, layoffs continues, and oh yeah, a few million more folks lose their homes.
Don’t think it can happen? Wrong. MSNBC reporting this morning that “US Banks supper 149 percent rise in band loans: New data on each of 8,000 banks shows breath of recession’s impact.”
So is there any good news in all this? Oh…er…sure: Like no one but me seems to be calling it a Depression yet. Although I’ve been working on Scoville Hamlin’s 1930′s book (more for Peoplenomics readers this weekend) and what the “Menace of Overproduction” is all about.
Global Warming Notes
A new study out of the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee says earth is undergoing a natural climate change. Gosh, better discredit this one quick, or that carbon credit hysteria might die down. This as worldwide hurricanes set a new low. Quick…whip up some fear! Hide the heat island data! World’s ending! Government must expand power! Give me a frigging break.
Natural outgrowth of excess consumption of resources and amazingly, Hamlin and others warned of precisely this kind of environmental damage in the last depression.
Those who don’t learn the lessons of history are abound to repeat what?
Snake Swallowing It’s Tail Department
You ever ask yourself “If a snake started to eat itself, but chowing down on its own tail, would it in the end (LOL) consume itself? This is the core visual that always comes to mind when dealing with circular references in spreadsheets or databases.
It’s also especially useful when reading the remarks of other economics realists, who it’s fashionable to call ‘doomsters’, such as the headline from CNBC: “Treasurys are a disaster waiting to happen’: Dr. Doom.”
Got time for a little thought experiment to internalize Faber’s correct assertion? Try this one.
Grab all the money out of the kid’s Monopoly set. and get a friend to help you. Lend all the Monopoly money to your assistant at 10% interest. Have them cut down a tree, make more paper, and print up additional Monopoly money to pay you back.
Now repeat this process for as long as you can while asking “How long before we run out of trees to cut down?”
That’s the core issue with the Fed buying Treasurys. Oh, and as soon as that happens, what’s China’s incentive to ever buy another? Move over Mugabe! He come Tim and Ben.
Many Tea Partiers, Missing Media
As one might suppose, made ever-so-convenient by the concentration of media power, there’s not been much coverage (nearly zilch) of the more than 150 ‘tea parties’ being planned or held already around the nation. Quick, look surprised.
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Please also recall that at some point, someone in government will figure ouit as I have, that just like the FCC seized radio control in the last Depression, so too, internet regulation and perhaps licensure will come with this one. Remember where you read it first.
Iran’s Nukes
In the latest round of headlines, Israel’s “IDF Chief: Strike on Iran concrete option” says ynet. And, the JPost has this curious headline: British Prime Minister “Brown: Iran must talk to the American’s.“
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The problem I have with Brown is how can anyone take him seriously on matters related to the future? I mean after selling of Britains gold on the cheap and now amidst reports he might sell off the Royal Mint to private holders in TPTB (the PowersThatBe)? Would you listen to someone like that? I mean especially if you were sitting on approximately 11% of the world’s proven oil reserves? Right…..so move along, nothing to be seen here…