Global Trade Tumbles Most In 5 Years.

Do not look at this chart if you remain of the opinion that everything is fine in the world. For the 3rd time in the last 4 months, world trade volumes dropped. The 0.5% fall in March - it must have been weathery all over the world? - continues the biggest plunge in global trade since May 2009. As WSJ reports, exports from developing economies in Asia recorded the largest decline, a drop of 4.5%. Central and Eastern Europe was the only region to record a rise in exports as the decline in trade flows is consistent with other evidence that suggests the global economy got off to a weak start this year. So, $12 trillion of global money printing and world trade is unable to sustain growth...

The last 4 month shave seen the biggest tumble in world trade since the financial crisis...

As World Trade has decoupled from the money-printing mania of the central banks as transmission mechanisms everywhere are saturated and broken...

Must mean that the central planners just need to print more?

Charts: Bloomberg

How U.S.A Spend Their Time Online

We have good news for budding entrepreneurs considering launching yet another online method of stalking the object of their affection: exhibitionism and sharing photos of your dinner, pardon social networking, remains as popular as ever on the internet.

According to an online survey by GfK and the Interactive Advertising Bureau, people said they spent about an average of 37 minutes a day on social networks like Facebook and Twitter in 2013. That internet staple, emailing, clocked in at a 29 minutes, while watching online video was 23 minutes.

However, in a troubling trend for the YouTubes of the world, the WSJ notes that while people doubled the amount of time they spent watching online video over the past four years, the overall percentage of their online time spent watching video slipped to 12% in 2013 from 13% the year before.

But the worst news is for that biggest loser of all in the New Online Normal: legacy media, whose paper publications are an endangered anachronism in a day and age when everyone reads (if only the headlines) on their mobile device, is also getting hammered when it comes to its online incarnation, with the average American spending just 5 minutes reading online newspapers, less than even blogs.

Of course, when the day comes that the final investigative reporter and journalist loses their job, suddenly the question will arise what will all those 20-some year old "journalism" majors whose only skill is to copy and paste, do?

For now nobody cares to even contemplate this issue: they are too busy updating their Facebook profiles.

Billions of barrels-worth of shale oil found in southern England

About 4.4 billion barrels-worth of shale oil have been found in the ground beneath the south of England, according to a report published Friday by the British Geological Survey (BGS).

The study, commissioned by the Department for Energy and Climate Change and released this morning, says the huge oil reserves lie under the Weald Basin in Kent and parts of Sussex and Surrey.

How much of this is recoverable is not yet known — further drilling and testing of new wells will be needed to establish this, but the discovery is set to spark a new stage in the battle between environmentalists and energy firms over the controversial topic of fracking.

The discovery has already pushed British authorities to start mulling plans to ease rules on accessing shale oil and gas, including drilling without landowners' permission

The discovery has already pushed British authorities to start mulling plans to ease rules on accessing shale oil and gas, including drilling without landowners' permission, reports Reuters.

Under the new plans, energy firms will be allowed to dig 300 metres (1,000ft) down for shale gas and deep geothermal operations provided they notify local communities and give them a “voluntary community payment” for access to the land of US$34,000 per well.

Last year, the BGS published a study of the Bowland Shale in northern England, which, it said, contained about 1,300tn cubic feet of gas. Analyst say that even if only a tenth of that were extracted, it would be the equivalent of 40 years’ gas supply for the UK.

Aluminum Reaches Three-Week High on Shortage Speculation

Aluminum reached a three-week high in London on speculation supply of the lightweight metal will run short of demand. Copper headed for a third weekly climb as available supplies shrank further.

The aluminum market will be in deficit this year by 1.3 million metric tons, leading global producer United Co. Rusal said today. China’s imports of bauxite, used to make the metal, dropped 14 percent in April, customs data showed this week. There were no shipments from Indonesia, China’s main supplier in 2013, which banned raw-ore exports in January of this year.

“Concerns of the Indonesian ore ban impacting bauxite availability have been voiced recently,” Vicky Sanders, head of analytics sales at Marex Spectron Group, said in a note. “We would caution that tightness isn’t expected to have a material effect until mid-2015/2016.”

Aluminum for delivery in three months added 1.3 percent to $1,819 a ton by 12:43 p.m. on the London Metal Exchange after touching $1,824, the highest since April 29.

Copper was set for the longest weekly winning streak since February after inventories available for removal from LME warehouses fell below 100,000 tons for the first time since 2008. Stockpiles total 175,850 tons, of which 92,650 tons is available for delivery, according to daily data. The remainder is earmarked for removal.

The metal for delivery in three months gained 0.6 percent to $6,915 a ton on the LME, leaving prices up 0.8 percent this week. Copper for immediate delivery traded at an $80-a-ton premium to the three-month contract, indicating limited supply. The metal for delivery in July on the Comex inNew York rose 0.7 percent to $3.164 a pound.

“Copper remains supported above $6,850 by lower stockpiles and higher premiums for immediate deliveries,” RBC Capital Markets LLC said in a note.

Disrupted output at LS-Nikko Copper Inc. also aided copper, said Chae Un Soo, a metals trader at Korea Exchange Bank Futures Co. in Seoul. The company was ordered to halt operations at a smelter after a fire broke out yesterday. Operations at another smelter remain suspended after a blast on May 13.

Tin, lead and zinc climbed in London. Nickel fell.

Rusal hikes Aluminum offer prices to Japan to $405/Mt for Q3

The world's biggest aluminum producer United Company RUSAL has raised its aluminum offer prices to Japan, as per the latest reports.

A news from Platts mentioned, the Russian aluminum giant has offered to Japanese buyers, a premium of $405 a metric ton to London Metal Exchange cash, CIF Japan, for third quarter shipments.

The prices are for primary aluminum ingot, sows and T-bars of LME P1020A specification, imported into Japan in the third quarter.

Weak demand, high inventories may continue to drag Chinese Zinc prices down

Overcapacity, weak demand and high inventories will continue to drag down domestic zinc prices, said Shanghai Metals Market.

“High inventories are now exerting a big impact on prices in domestic zinc market,” Suo Fang, chairman of Yunnan Haolong Industrial Group said at SMM’s 2014 Lead&Zinc Summit (May 21-24) held in Qingdao. She expected zinc prices to continue under downward pressure, factoring in soft consumption and capacity surplus.

Despite rising zinc prices, the digestion of zinc stocks was slow, leaving inventories at domestic smelters high at 800,000 tonnes in the first quarter of this year. Chinese zinc smelters generally sit on 2-2.5 months of inventories, she added.

Sluggish prices would bold bad for the whole zinc industry chain in 2014, conference participants said at the Summit.

The Last Time The Market Was This Short, Stocks Crashed

It is common knowledge among those that prefer to see the glass of aggregate demand always half-full (in need of fiscal or monetary stimulus and thus always time to BTFD) that stocks "climb a wall of worry" and that stocks can't drop if so many people are negative. However, while we are sorry to steal the jam from their exuberant 'cash on the sidelines' donut, the truth is that eventually 'strong hand' short positions build to a point where they dominate and provide the tipping point of weakness in stocks. As Goldman Sachs highlights in the following two charts of short interest ratio (days to cover) and aggregate short interest (dollars), the last time there was this much money short was mid-2007... and that didn't end well.

Short interest ratio is at pre-crisis high levels...

and aggregate dollars short is now at levels just before the market crashed...

Yet another market meme broken by the facts of the data...

Charts: Goldman Sachs