Lunes 17/10/16 Produccion industrial

[admin]

LAST(MID) CHANGE
Euro (EUR/USD) 1.1003 0.0031
Yen (USD/JPY) 103.98 -0.19
Pound (GBP/USD) 1.2160 -0.0028
Australia $ (AUD/USD) 0.7621 0.0004
Swiss Franc (USD/CHF) 0.9885 -0.0019
WSJ Dollar Index 88.32 -0.14
Futures8:43 AM EDT 10/17/2016
LAST CHANGE % CHG
Crude Oil 50.39 0.04 0.08%
Brent Crude 52.13 0.18 0.35%
Gold 1254.3 -1.2 -0.10%
Silver 17.435 -0.006 -0.03%
E-mini DJIA 18039 -20 -0.11%
E-mini S&P 500 2124.50 -2.50 -0.12%

Government Bonds8:52 AM EDT 10/17/2016
PRICE CHG YIELD
U.S. 10 Year 6/32 1.780
German 10 Year -6/32 0.077
Japan 10 Year 0/32 -0.055

[admin]

utures LAST CHANGE % CHG
See all Futures
Crude Oil 50.39 0.04 0.08%
Brent Crude 52.11 0.16 0.31%
Natural Gas 3.622 -0.006 -0.17%
Gasoline 1.4923 0.0070 0.47%
Gold 1254.4 -1.1 -0.09%
Silver 17.435 -0.006 -0.03%
Corn 355.50 1.25 0.35%
Wheat 425.0 4.0 0.95%
E-mini DJIA 18037 -22 -0.12%
E-mini S&P 500 2124.00 -3.00 -0.14%
Indexes LAST CHANGE % CHG
TR/CC CRB Index 189.608 0.141 0.07%
S&P GSCI 373.25 0.54 0.14%

[admin]

Price: US$/lb

Copper October 17,08:39
Bid/Ask 2.1113 - 2.1118
Change -0.0009 -0.04%
Low/High 2.1100 - 2.1258
Charts

Nickel October 17,08:38
Bid/Ask 4.7137 - 4.7183
Change -0.0293 -0.62%
Low/High 4.7062 - 4.7470
Charts

Aluminum October 17,08:39
Bid/Ask 0.7448 - 0.7450
Change -0.0119 -1.57%
Low/High 0.7438 - 0.7571
Charts

Zinc October 17,08:39
Bid/Ask 1.0275 - 1.0280
Change +0.0073 +0.71%
Low/High 1.0157 - 1.0321
Charts

Lead October 17,08:38
Bid/Ask 0.9030 - 0.9035
Change -0.0001 -0.01%
Low/High 0.9008 - 0.9104
Charts

Uranium Sep 26, 2016
Ux U308 price: 23.75
Change from
previous week -1.00

[admin]

Oil down 50.09

Au up 1,257.20

-13

[admin]

El CEO de CAT saldra el proximo anio. Se nombra su reemplazo.

[admin]

How Caterpillar’s Big Bet Backfired
CEO Doug Oberhelman invested heavily in production of machinery and equipment. Then commodities began their slide
A Caterpillar wheel loader runs among other CAT machines at a company facility in Suzhou, China.
A Caterpillar wheel loader runs among other CAT machines at a company facility in Suzhou, China. PHOTO: LIU BIN/XINHUA/ZUMA PRESS
By BOB TITA
Oct. 16, 2016 1:36 p.m. ET
61 COMMENTS
Doug Oberhelman spent his first years as Caterpillar Inc.’s chief executive plowing billions of dollars into factories to build more of its familiar yellow machines and move the company deeper into mining equipment.

It was a bold bet, spectacularly mistimed.

The world was gripped by a global commodities boom in 2010 when he took charge, along with strong postrecession demand from developing markets and the energy industry. The world was ordering excavators and bulldozers and giant dump trucks at a rapid clip.


Mr. Oberhelman bet he could grab an outsize share if he could just make more equipment. He spent almost $10 billion world-wide on plants and equipment from 2010 through 2013.

Much of that went toward building more of its flagship CAT construction machinery. It also paid $8.8 billion in 2011 for Bucyrus International Inc., a Milwaukee mining-equipment maker, to gain a position in giant open-pit-mining shovels and underground-mining machines Caterpillar didn’t make.

In China, Caterpillar was “going to play offense and we’re going to win,” Mr. Oberhelman proclaimed in 2010. It had missed opportunities in China before. From 2011 to 2014, Caterpillar roughly doubled its number of plants and facilities there to 26.

“Everybody was convinced that this time would be different,” said Ken Banks, who retired in 2013 as manager for Caterpillar’s electric mining shovels. “They thought the Chinese market was so hot, that commodity prices would continue to be very strong and Caterpillar would increase sales substantially.”

The year 2012 would prove to be a peak for Caterpillar. Soon after, miners began shelving equipment-buying plans as commodity prices fell. China’s growth slowed. Then oil prices fell, along with demand for related equipment.

Caterpillar now faces its fourth straight year of falling sales, the longest decline in its history. Its stock is up 29% this year—the best-performing in the Dow Jones Industrial Average—but trades 25% below its 2012 peak.

Caterpillar CEO Doug Oberhelman, taking over in 2010 during a global commodities boom, invested heavily in production of machinery and equipment. Then commodities began their long slide.
Caterpillar CEO Doug Oberhelman, taking over in 2010 during a global commodities boom, invested heavily in production of machinery and equipment. Then commodities began their long slide. PHOTO: MICHAEL NAGLE/BLOOMBERG NEWS
“Everybody was surprised by the size of the downturn and the length of it,” Mr. Oberhelman, 63 years old, said at a September mining trade show in Las Vegas. “I firmly believe we couldn’t have forecast that at the time” of the Bucyrus deal. The company declined to make Mr. Oberhelman available for comment for this article.

Slumps are common in Caterpillar’s world, and rivals are suffering, too. Caterpillar, though, has long been a flagship American firm, a reliable blue chip in the Dow industrials and a major job creator with plants around the world. Now, it has fallen behind in the slow-growing economy.

Caterpillar has reduced its workforce 20% in the past four years, about 30,000 jobs, and has said it expected to close or consolidate as many as 20 plants. In China, Caterpillar said, it has closed one plant and is operating many others at low production rates. Caterpillar in August said it would sell off some of the mining-equipment lines it gained with the Bucyrus acquisition.

ENLARGE
Its stock, up 46%from the beginning of Mr. Oberhelman’s tenure, trails the S&P 500 index’s 107% rise.

“They overlooked the possibility that the whole market would collapse,” said Charles Yengst, a Connecticut equipment consultant. “They opened factories all over the place to operate at a market peak that doesn’t happen every year or even every 10 or 15 years.”

Caterpillar is still the world’s largest seller of construction and mining equipment and continues to gain market share, especially in China. The Peoria, Ill., company has posted annual profits throughout Mr. Oberhelman’s CEO tenure. “In what is likely to be our fourth down year for sales and revenues, we’re proud of what we’re accomplishing,” Mr. Oberhelman said in a July release, adding that “our machine market position has increased, including in China, product quality continues to be at high levels, and the safety in our facilities is world class.”

Caterpillar invested in increased production of its flagship construction machinery, such as this CAT excavator at work near Boke, Guinea.
Caterpillar invested in increased production of its flagship construction machinery, such as this CAT excavator at work near Boke, Guinea. PHOTO: WALDO SWIEGERS/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Caterpillar spokeswoman Amy Campbell said Caterpillar expects to handle the next upturn with a more-nimble manufacturing operation. “We’re lowering our cost structure,” she said. “The company has learned a lot of lessons on how you drive more capacity without spending on capex.”

The possibility of a market collapse was almost unthinkable when Mr. Oberhelman, who joined Caterpillar in 1975, became CEO in July 2010. The northeast-Illinois native, whose father was a Deere & Co. salesman, had been chief financial officer in the 1990s and developed a cost-reduction contingency plan credited with helping Caterpillar navigate the last recession.

“Doug had been in the succession pipeline for a number of years,” said Gail Fosler, a Caterpillar director who left the board in 2010. “The board felt he would bring a performance discipline to the company that it really needed.”

Expansion strategy
His strategy was to expand Caterpillar’s dominance into the developing world. In particular, he set sights on markets such as Brazil and China where mining and infrastructure construction were running full tilt. Meanwhile, strong crude prices were driving sales of oil-field-related equipment, especially in North America.

Mr. Oberhelman voiced determination to avoid production-capacity constraints that had clipped Caterpillar’s sales growth before the recession. He increased production of the equipment that contractors use to construct buildings and roads and pipelines—Caterpillar’s forte—in existing plants. Caterpillar built new factories such as one in Victoria, Texas, to produce some excavator models and another near Athens, Ga., for small dozers—machines it previously made overseas and imported.

ENLARGE
Mining companies were telling Caterpillar they wanted to buy more of their equipment from one source. Caterpillar already made some mining machinery, such as the giant dump trucks strip mines and quarries use.

To produce more trucks at its Decatur, Ill., plant, Caterpillar used a tack it repeated during the boom: It narrowed the plant’s assembly lineup by relocating some other work to new, smaller plants.

The approach would come to hurt the Decatur plant’s workforce, but during the mining boom it allowed Caterpillar to pledge a 30% increase in mining-truck production capacity. The company also planned to double production capacity in East Peoria, Ill., for large bulldozers it mainly exported to mining customers.

What Caterpillar still needed in its catalog were the gargantuan shovels used in open-pit mines and rock-shearing machines for underground mining, among other pieces of mining machinery. Rather than building capacity in-house, as it traditionally did, Caterpillar agreed to buy Bucyrus, the largest deal in the company’s history. Caterpillar thus secured a line of shovels, underground-mining equipment and large assembly plants in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Texas.

In less than six months on the job, Mr. Oberhelman had turned Caterpillar into a full-line mining-equipment player.

Caterpillar aimed to grab a bigger market share in mining equipment with its acquisition in 2011 of Bucyrus, maker of the giant mining shovel pictured here at a Russian mine.
Caterpillar aimed to grab a bigger market share in mining equipment with its acquisition in 2011 of Bucyrus, maker of the giant mining shovel pictured here at a Russian mine. PHOTO: ANDREY RUDAKOV/BLOOMBERG NEWS
In China, Mr. Oberhelman went on an investing spree. In 2008, Caterpillar had bought Chinese construction-equipment concern SEM, gaining a local brand to sell in lower price ranges; it now invested to expand the brand. It expanded existing factories and built new plants to produce more machines and engines, and Bucyrus made Caterpillar a stronger competitor there.

It acquired ERA Mining Machinery Ltd. in Zhengzhou for nearly $700 million, which sold hydraulic roof supports for mechanized underground coal-mining systems. Months after the 2012 deal closed, Caterpillar said, it discovered ERA had inaccuracies in reported profit, revenue and inventory. Caterpillar eventually wrote down ERA’s value by $580 million.

Mr. Oberhelman’s strategy still looked like a winner. Caterpillar reported profit of $5.68 billion in 2012, nearly 60% above 2008 results.

After the peak
The year 2012 would prove to be the high point. Afterward, prices for mined and other commodities began to fall. China’s GDP growth waned, and equipment sales slowed around the world.

The market weakened in 2013 as developing countries cut construction and consumed fewer commodities. Caterpillar’s machinery and engine sales fell 16% in 2013 from 2012.

Caterpillar added its newly acquired Bucyrus line to a catalog that already included mining machinery such as this heavy dump truck moving coal in Maryland.
Caterpillar added its newly acquired Bucyrus line to a catalog that already included mining machinery such as this heavy dump truck moving coal in Maryland. PHOTO: LUKE SHARRETT/BLOOMBERG NEWS
In 2014, oil prices began falling. Caterpillar sales fell 15% in 2015 as fracking drillers deployed less equipment. U.S. coal mining fell as pollution regulations and cheap natural gas reduced the generation of coal-produced electricity. Caterpillar continued layoffs and in September 2015 said it would make permanent job cuts that could exceed 10,000 positions through 2018.

Rivals were hurt, too. Mining-equipment maker Joy Global Inc. of Milwaukee expects revenue of about $2.4 billion for its current fiscal year, down from $5.6 billion in 2012. Japan’s Komatsu Ltd., which in July agreed to acquire Joy, said it expects a 5% to 10% drop in demand for its construction equipment in its current fiscal year and a 15% to 20% decrease in its mining business.

A significant sign of strategic retreat was Caterpillar’s August announcement that it would sell some underground-mining equipment lines that serve markets Mr. Oberhelman had aimed to expand in by acquiring Bucyrus.

“The amount of investment it would take to make that business successful we thought was better placed elsewhere in our product portfolio,” said Denise Johnson, president of the mining-equipment group, at the Las Vegas trade show. “We have to make choices in this environment.”

In its Decatur, Ill., plant, Caterpillar’s mining emphasis has cost jobs. To focus on the giant trucks, Caterpillar moved away assembly of some other products including graders, used in road building, which it shifted to a new plant in North Little Rock, Ark.

Now Decatur didn’t have those lines to fall back on, as it had in many past downturns, when big-truck orders waned. “Graders kept the lights on for a lot of years,” said Craig Karnes, president of the United Auto Workers Union Local 751. “When we lost them, it hurt us.”

Fewer than 600 mining and other off-highway dump trucks left the Decatur plant last year, down 78% from the plant’s 2011 peak, according to market-research firm Power Systems Research, which forecasts 543 trucks this year. Decatur’s production workforce has fallen to about 800 workers, the lowest in more than 50 years and a third of 2012 levels, Mr. Karnes said.

Models of Caterpillar machinery at a CAT dealership in East Peoria, Ill.
Models of Caterpillar machinery at a CAT dealership in East Peoria, Ill. PHOTO: DANIEL ACKER/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Caterpillar confirmed the plant’s volume and production workforce have declined, but had no comment on the research firm’s or the union’s calculations. The company plans to send some powertrain-assembly work back to Decatur that it moved to a new plant in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Charlotte Opalka was laid off April 2015. “I like building those big mining trucks,” said Ms. Opalka, 45, who assembled hoods and cowls. Each month without work puts more strain on her family. “It took our pay and cut it in half,” said Ms. Opalka, whose three small grandchildren live with her.

Caterpillar has enough production capacity to benefit from the next upturn, industry analysts say. And investors have shown renewed confidence in Caterpillar, which has remained profitable by slashing expenses, driving its stock price up in 2016.

U.S. construction-machinery sales, though, are being held down by a slow-growing economy and persistent inventories of used fracking-related equipment. In the mining-equipment market, sales droughts typically last seven or eight years.

Caterpillar said it expects overall revenue—including sales and revenue from its finance business—of about $40 billion this year, down 39% from 2012, and profit of $2.75 a share after restructuring expenses, down 68%. Through the first six months of 2016, Caterpillar’s overall revenue was $19.8 billion, down 21% from the same period in 2015; profit dropped 60% to $821 million.

Mr. Oberhelman may not be at the helm when fortunes turn. Caterpillar chiefs by tradition haven’t stayed beyond age 65, leaving him about two years. Caterpillar declined to comment on whether Mr. Oberhelman intends to depart in the next two years. Spokeswoman Rachel Potts said the board is “actively engaged and has a robust process for managing succession planning,” which it reviews annually.

Mr. Oberhelman recently warned that a recovery probably wouldn’t start this year. Still, he said at the Las Vegas show, “When the industry emerges, we’ll be a very key player and a very solid performer for our customers.”

Write to Bob Tita at robert.tita@wsj.com

[admin]

-8

[admin]

+18.22

[admin]

-31.09

[admin]

-38.83

[admin]

-15.13

[Antonio Nalvarte]

Russia’s March to War
(Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. | Monday, October 17, 2016 at 7:30 am)

The first time Elisabeth and I visited Russia, we stayed with dear friends in a Soviet-era apartment of St. Petersburgh.

We waited patiently in long lines like everyone else.

And everywhere we went, we thoroughly enjoyed the warm hospitality of a country still mostly enamored with everything American.

But on our most recent visit, all that had changed dramatically.

While strolling along a southern city’s beautiful embankment of the Volga River, one friend asked me, her voice cracking with emotion:

“Why do Americans hate Russians so much?

“Why in the world is Obama providing arms directly to ISIS?

My rudimentary Russian was good enough to understand the questions. But no language seemed good enough to provide simple answers, except to say “it’s not true.”

From there, we went to Zheleznovodsk, a cluster of mineral water spas in the Caucasus Mountains.

Thankfully, everyone abided by the golden rule that health — not politics — was the main topic worthy of discussion.

But there was one exception. Our massage therapist always had his radio tuned to talk shows with nonstop rants on “America’s evil plots to bring Russia down.”

As I soon learned, he didn’t have much choice. All Russian news sources blast out similar “information and analysis” almost around the clock.

It is the most pervasive propaganda machine I have ever studied or experienced in my lifetime.

It engulfs government media, “independent” media and social media. It deploys tens of thousands of individuals who provide personal “testimonials” designed to shock and awe, invoking deep feelings of pity or hatred. It’s in multiple languages, including English. It employs “prominent Western analysts” to tout the same theories and support them with a tirade of stats and “facts.”

It is extremely effective. And it’s downright dangerous. The narrative:

1. Obama is leading a global conspiracy to destroy Russia.

2. Clinton will do exactly the same, or worse.

3. Unless Trump wins, Russia and the United States are headed for war.

Hard to believe they truly see the world this way? Then consider last week’s comments from Russian lawmaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky:

“Americans voting for a president on November 8 must realize that they are voting for peace on Planet Earth if they vote for Trump. But if they vote for Hillary, it’s war. It will be a short movie. There will be Hiroshimas and Nagasakis everywhere.”

Zhirinovsky himself is not considered a particularly believable source in Russia. But thanks to round-the-clock messaging by the media, the anti-Clinton sentiment is almost universal.

All this raises urgent questions for investors: How did U.S.-Russia relations deteriorate so far, so fast? What will be the impact on the global economy and markets? Is war with Russia truly likely?

The Rapid Deterioration in U.S.-Russian Relations

I hate to say this, but in this new 21st Century cold war, many Western analysts argue that it was NATO that fired the first shot. Follow along with me as I retell the events based on some (but not all) of the known facts:

February 9, 1990. Secretary of State James Baker is in Moscow negotiating the reunification of Germany. Transcripts of the meetings show that, in exchange for Russian cooperation, he makes “iron-clad guarantees” that NATO will not expand “one inch eastward.”

In the years that follow, NATO and State Department officials correctly argue that there was never a formal deal. But Russia argues, also with some factual basis, that the quid pro quo was understood on both sides: Gorbachev would cooperate fully on Germany and the U.S. would limit NATO’s expansion.

Mid-1990s. Russia’s economy is in shambles; its military, in disarray; its hegemony over East European nations, virtually non-existent.

So those former Warsaw Pact countries see absolutely nothing to gain from a continuing military alliance with a fallen empire. They naturally gravitate to NATO.

March 12, 1999. NATO begins adding a long line of former Soviet Bloc countries …

first, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, three countries still far from the Russian border …
but then, five years later, a new batch, including Bulgaria and Romania, somewhat nearer to the former Soviet Union, plus …
Lithuania (very near the Russian border) along with Estonia and Latvia (right on the Russian border).
Early 2014. The Ukrainian revolution bursts onto the global scene with unpredicted fury. A series of violent events — by protesters, riot police, and unknown shooters — erupts in Kiev. It culminates in the fall of the pro-Russian Ukrainian government and the rise of a pro-Western regime.

For Vladimir Putin, it’s the last straw.

In addition to sharing a long, 2,000-mile border with Russia, Putin views Ukraine as an integral part of Russia’s history and geography. So do most Russian citizens.

On February 22, he convenes an all-night meeting with heads of security forces, declaring that Crimea must be returned to Russia.

On February 27, he sends in troops; and the very next day, unidentified Russian men in military uniform take control of the two main airports. Soon, they take the entire peninsula.

In March, Crimeans vote in a referendum to rejoin Russia, and the Russian Federation promptly moves to annex the territory.

It is the first time in modern history that a major nation invades and captures the territory of another nation. It’s a large, resource-rich area. It’s in Europe. And this single act threatens to dismantle the world order that has prevailed since the end of World War II.

The West responds with three rounds of sanctions, expanding each as the war in the Ukraine escalates. Russia responds in kind, with a total ban on food imports from the EU, U.S., Norway, Canada and Australia.

September 2015. Russia jumps into the Syrian civil war, starting with air strikes against rebel forces … soon expanding to a massive build-up of military bases … and most recently, the bombing of entire cities like Aleppo.

September 2016. The United States and Russia jointly announce a Syrian cease-fire. But they leave a gaping loophole: The agreement does not apply to attacks against “terrorist targets,” which, according to Russia’s standard definition, might also include U.S.-supported rebels.

U.S.-British airstrikes aimed at ISIS accidentally kill 60 Syrian government troops. Syrian or Russian airstrikes kill 14 aid workers and destroy 18 truckloads of food.

In Russian news outlets, Moscow declares that U.S. and Russia have broken off diplomatic relations regarding Syria, a not-so-subtle threat to U.S.-Russian relations overall.

October 2016. Russia suspends a landmark agreement with the U.S. to dispose of surplus weapons-grade plutonium. It announces its plan to re-establish military bases in Vietnam and Cuba. And it continues to move steadfastly toward conflicts with the U.S.

The U.S. retaliates with formal accusations of war crimes in Syria and of malicious meddling in the U.S. presidential elections.

October 15, 2016. Just this past Friday, CNN explains it this way:

“It’s not a new Cold War. It’s not even a deep chill. It’s an outright conflict.”

What Next?

I pray, hope, and expect that a direct conflict between the two nations is not in the cards, at least not in the near future. But it’s undeniable that the two nations are already engaged in escalating economic wars, cyberwars and most recently, proxy wars.

The most frightening prospect of all: The declared readiness — and willingness — on both sides to use tactical nuclear weapons.

Technically speaking, these smaller bombs are less destructive than the mega-weapons that were so widely feared during the Cold War. But paradoxically, therein lies the big concern: It’s precisely because they are less destructive that supposedly “sane” military strategists on both sides seriously consider using them.

Expect the following economic consequences:

First, regardless of which party controls the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court … and regardless of federal budget deficits, the state of the economy or the direction of financial markets, we’re bound to see a rapid build-up of

U.S. conventional forces,
tactical nuclear weapons, plus
security, intelligence and cyber capabilities.
Defense and cyber-related sectors will explode with growth.

Second, despite any noise to the contrary, expect aggressive government efforts to stimulate the economy.

Whether they succeed or not in avoiding a recession is another matter entirely. But with the threat of U.S.-Russian conflict, you can be certain that the Treasury and the Fed will pursue this course to the bitter end.

Third, the fear of war — in all shapes and forms — will continue to drive global flight capital to the United States. But, as I’ve warned, this cannot continue forever. If U.S. civil conflicts deepen, much of that capital flow may reverse, seeking new safe havens.

Un gobierno con Donald Trump, tendra mejores relaciones con Rusia ????.........

[admin]

Oil down 49.76

[admin]

Europa a la baja.

[admin]

VIX up 15.42

-15.85