Mad news is bad news
The Shanghai and all other Chinese indexes got down to 3042 in their morning session during our night. Then of course in the afternoon, they all shot up again. The robotic nature of this nonsense reminds me of the gold tracker market in 2006-9, when China would buy tonnes overnight, and then America would sell tonnes the following morning. But ooooh noooo said the ‘experts’ at the time – the market isn’t manipulated.
Anyway, the pavanne continues – but be careful to get your hay under cover before it the new Noah starts thinking of building an Ark. UK futures are off 0.5%. Barclays is negotiating (aka pleading whinily) to get out of Brazil as fast as it can – see last night’s Slogpost. I wouldn’t mind betting that the next sick kid on that block proves to be Mexico.
Two months ago, Mexico hoped for whopping incomes from an offshore oil-rights auction. But things being as they are in this total global slump recovering global economy of ours, the world glut of oil doesn’t need any more black stuff pouring into the already overflowing can. The Mexicans sold just 2 out of the 14 fields on offer.
Juan Carlos Zepeda, head of the country’s National Hydrocarbons Commission – and thus bossing this Mission Impossible – is going to have another go in two days time.The prices are going to be lower, and Senor Zepeda expects more bidders. Then in December he’s going to try and flog off the onshore fields.
Zepeda avers, “It’s more challenging, it’s a bit more painful, but in the end, it will make the industry stronger.” I wish him luck, because he’s going to need ‘it’. I’m just unclear about what the ‘it’ is. Excuse my incorrectness here, but based on his surname, I sort of expect the bloke to have a mile-wide moustache, large hat and be covered in ammo belts. 
Sad to relate, in this sense he’s a bit of a disappointment. He doesn’t look as if he’s about to wave a six-shooter around and say “Hey Greeengo, buy my oilfields or tomorrow dey gonna be eatin’ you down in the canteeena….”
The long-term ‘big prize’ for Mexico is selling off the deep fields where risks are greater but returns potentially enormous. I think given the nature of the world and energy now, that’s going to be a very long long term indeed. And I’m wondering how Mexico will survive while it waits. The country’s futures look very sick, and the pesos sicker still. There’s a sense of death’s door about it; and as George Carlin once remarked, “If yer think bein’ sick is awful, trust me on this one – bein’ dead really sucks”.
As and if Yellen does something silly about rates, South America is going to be a gigantic basket case. I continue through family connection to be well informed on how the glitz bricks sector is taking tons of money from the risky brics….but just when you thought gold was also starting to look as if it might revert to fundamentals too, this happened in the last hour:
I included silver to show you the astonishingly twinned and no doubt purely coincidental slump in the prices during the same minute.
Gold has risen $40 in the last fortnight. Somebody has clearly decided that sort of thing could start a gold rush, and we don’t want that oh dear me no we don’t, ‘cos we got trouble right here in Reserve City, with a capital T and that rhymes with G and it stands for GOLD.
It’s a strange world, but I leave you for the moment with news that London Mayor Boris Johnson “has an answer to the obesity crisis” in Britain. And in an unrelated news item, Yasser Arafat has discovered the secret of eternal life.
Recently at The Slog: It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad modelm
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