Wednesday, December 27, 2017

China halts oil product exports to North Korea in November as sanctions bite

Ryan Woo and Muyu Xu, Reuters

Dec. 26, 2017, 6:00 AM
8,220

Site of an oil field is seen at sunset in Karamay, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China. Reuters/China Stringer Network

China exported no oil products to North Korea in November, Chinese customs data showed.
China has gone above and beyond the sanctions imposed by the United Nations earlier this year.
Chinese corn exports to North Korea slumped 82% versus a year ago.

(Reuters) - China exported no oil products to North Korea in November, Chinese customs data showed, apparently going above and beyond sanctions imposed earlier this year by the United Nations in a bid to limit petroleum shipments to the isolated country.

Tension has flared this year over North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, pursued in defiance of years of U.N. resolutions. Last week, the U.N. Security Council imposed new caps on trade with North Korea, including limiting oil product shipments to just 500,000 barrels a year.

Beijing also imported no iron ore, coal or lead from North Korea in November, the second full month of the latest trade sanctions imposed by U.N.

China, the main source of North Korea's fuel, did not export any gasoline, jet fuel, diesel or fuel oil to its isolated neighbor last month, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Tuesday.

Beijing's move to turn off the taps completely is rare. In March 2003, China suspended oil supplies to North Korea for three days after Pyongyang fired a missile into waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

Chinese exports of corn to North Korean in November also slumped, down 82 percent from a year earlier to 100 tonnes, the lowest since January. Exports of rice plunged 64 percent to 672 tonnes, the lowest since March.

Trade between North Korea and China has slowed through the year, particularly after China banned coal purchases in February. In November, China's trade with North Korea totaled $388 million, one of the lowest monthly volumes this year.

China has renewed its call on all countries to make constructive efforts to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula, urging the use of peaceful means to resolve issues.

But tension flared again after North Korea on Nov. 29 said it had successfully tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile test that put the U.S. mainland within range of its nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile Chinese exports of liquefied petroleum gas to North Korea, often used for cooking, rose 58 percent in November from a year earlier to 99 tonnes. Exports of ethanol, which can be turned into a biofuel, gained 82 percent to 3,428 cubic meters.

(Reporting by Muyu Xu and Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Meng Meng and Hallie Gu; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)

Get the latest Oil WTI price here.

Israel regulator seeks to ban bitcoin firms from stock exchange

Reuters

Dec. 25, 2017, 6:15 AM
261

FILE PHOTO: Tokens of the virtual currency Bitcoin are seen placed on a monitor that displays binary digits in this illustration picture, December 8, 2017. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

FILE PHOTO: Bitcoin tokens are seen placed on a monitor that displays binary digits in this illustration picture Thomson Reuters

By Steven Scheer

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's markets regulator said on Monday he will propose regulation to ban companies based on bitcoin and other digital currencies from trading on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE).

Shmuel Hauser, the chairman of the Israel Securities Authority (ISA), told the Calcalist business conference he will bring the proposal to the ISA board next week. If approved, it would be subject to a public hearing and then the TASE bylaws would need to be amended.

"If we have a company that their main business is digital currencies we would not allow it. If already listed, its trading will be suspended," Hauser said, adding the ISA must find the appropriate regulation for such companies.

Bitcoin plunged by 30 percent to below $12,000 on Friday as investors dumped the cryptocurrency after its sharp rise to nearly $20,000. It recouped some losses to trade above $14,000 on the Bitstamp platform, down 9 percent on the day.

"We feel that the prices of bitcoin behave like bubbles and we don't want investors to be subject to that volatility and uncertainty," Hauser said. "There is an importance to signal to the market where things are... Investors should know where we stand."

Earlier this month, Hauser had said bitcoin-based companies would not be included in TASE indexes and that there was a need for a suitable regulatory framework for such instruments given that the global market value of all digital currencies grew in 2017 to $300 billion from $18 billion.

The proposal will likely be the last for Hauser, who will step down next month after 6-1/2 years as ISA chief.

"But once it's on its way it will continue to be pursued," said Hauser, who will be replaced by Anat Guetta.

He said he hopes she will promote easing capital gains taxes and focus on regulatory enforcement.

(Editing by Peter Graff)

More: Reuters

Morgan Stanley says the true price of bitcoin might be zero

Jim Edwards

Dec. 25, 2017, 3:05 AM
364,370

The price of bitcoin as of 8.20 a.m. on December 24, after a very volatile week. Markets Insider

Even after a rough week, bitcoin is trading at around $14,400.
A recent research note from Morgan Stanley points out how hard it is to justify that valuation.
The scarcity of people willing to accept it as a means of payment indicates that its actual value might be nothing.

Morgan Stanley analyst James Faucette and his team sent a research note to clients a few days ago suggesting that the real value of bitcoin might be ... $0.

That's zero dollars. (Bitcoin stood at around $14,400 at the time of writing.)

The paper (titled "Bitcoin decrypted") did not give a price target for bitcoin.

But in a section titled "Attempts to Value Bitcoin," Faucette described why it is so hard to ascribe value to the cryptocurrency. It's not like a currency, it's not like gold, and it has had difficulty scaling. He concluded:

• Very difficult question to answer, but some points to consider

• Can Bitcoin be valued like a currency? No. There is no interest rate associated with Bitcoin.

• Like digital gold? Maybe. Does not have any intrinsic use like gold has in electronics or jewelry. But investors appear to be ascribing some value to it.

• Is it a payment network? Yes but it is tough to scale and does not charge a transaction fee.*

• Bitcoin average daily trading volume of $3bn (last 30 days) vs $5.4 trillion in the FX market.

• Est. <$300mn in daily purchase volume vs. $17bn for Visa.

Faucette backed his argument with this chart of online retailers who accept bitcoin, titled "Virtually no acceptance, and shrinking":

This is possibly the saddest bitcoin chart ever. Morgan Stanley

"If nobody accepts the technology for payment then the value would be 0," Faucette suggested.

Of course, even if bitcoin can't be used to buy goods it is still largely exchangeable for fiat currency.

*Clarification: It's not clear why Faucette wrote this, as most miners do charge transaction fees.

Get the latest Bitcoin price here.>>

EXCLUSIVE FREE REPORT:
The Bitcoin 101 Report by the BI Intelligence Research Team.
Get the Report Now »

NOW WATCH: The 5 issues to consider before trading bitcoin futures

More: Bitcoin Morgan Stanely

Barclays will take a $1.3 billion writedown because of US tax reform

Ben Martin, Reuters

16h
1,819

FILE PHOTO: Chief executive officer of Barclays, Jes Staley, takes part in the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit in New York, U.S., February 8, 2017. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: Chief executive officer of Barclays, Jes Staley, takes part in the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit in New YorkThomson Reuters

BCS Barclays PLC Sp ADR

10.82 0.01 (+0.10 %)

DisclaimerGet real-time BCS charts here »

Barclays will take a $1.3 billion writedown because of US tax reform.
The bank says the tax overhaul will cause its tier 1 capital to fall by about 20 basis points.

(Reuters) - Barclays expects to take a writedown of about 1 billion pounds ($1.34 billion) on its annual post-tax profit as a result of the U.S. tax overhaul, the bank said in a statement on Wednesday.

The reform to the tax system signed into law by President Donald Trump on Dec. 22 will force the British lender to reduce the value of its deferred tax assets, prompting it to take a one-off charge in its results for the 12 months to the end of December.

It will also lead to the bank's common equity Tier 1 capital ratio, a key measure of its financial strength, falling by about 20 basis points, the lender said.

Since taking the helm at Barclays in December 2015, Chief Executive Jes Staley has streamlined the bank into a transatlantic lender focused on the United States and Britain.

The restructuring has led it to exit a raft of non-core operations, such as its business in Africa and units in Asia, in a bid to simplify its structure and boost returns to shareholders.

Barclays already slumped to a 628 million pound attributable loss in the nine months to the end of September following write-offs in the wake of its exit from Africa. The 1 billion pound charge to account for the U.S. tax changes is expected to push it further into the red.

The $1.5 trillion tax overhaul is the biggest reform of the U.S. tax system since the 1980s and will see that corporate tax rate slashed to 21 percent from 35 percent.

While Barclays said the reduction in the tax rate is expected to "positively impact" its future post-tax earnings in the United States, it also cautioned that the Base Erosion Anti-Abuse Tax (BEAT), which was included in the legislation and designed to prevent multinational firms from abusing the tax code, could significantly offset that benefit.

"Due to the uncertain practical and technical application of many of these provisions, it is currently not possible to reliably estimate whether BEAT will apply and if so, how it would impact Barclays," the lender added. ($1 = 0.7463 pounds) (Reporting by Ben Martin, editing by David Evans)