Iron ore rally: Mere dead cat bounce?

A breath-taking rally in iron ore prices in recent weeks has put the sector back in bull market territory, but strategists warn that the upside may be short-lived.

The beleaguered commodity has recovered 25 percent since hitting a ten-year low of $46.70 per metric ton earlier this month; a 20 percent gain from recent lows is typically considered in bull market territory.

Spot prices traded just below $60 a ton on Tuesday, extending a two-and-a-half week run and pushed Australia's benchmark stock index to seven-year highs on Monday.

"Let's not get too carried away. Iron ore is still down 60 percent over the course of 12 months and the supply-demand response has not changed," warned Gaurav Sodhi, resources analyst at Intelligent Investor. This [rally] is a short-term bump; it's not suggestive of a change of trend."

Capital Economics agrees: "The bigger picture is that the market remains massively oversupplied. As such, we expect prices to fall back once market dislocations ease," senior commodities economist Caroline Bain said in a note.

Increased Chinese demand for the key steelmaking ingredient is fuelling current price gains. The China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) reported on Friday that output rose 5.1 percent in the first ten days of April compared with the previous ten days.

An additional boost came from BHP Billiton's recent announcement to delay plans to expand its Port Hedland facilities, signaling reduced output. April's reserve requirement ratio cut from the People's Bank of China also lifted sentiment on expectations the stimulus will translate to more infrastructure spending.

Oversupply still in place

A supply glut from top producers saw iron ore halve in value last year and Sodhi says the market remains plagued by oversupply, with 300 million additional metric tons due to come online over the next two years.

Weak China demand

Iron ore is the raw material used in steel, and with output from world's top producer China remaining on the downtrend, iron ore prices will remain under pressure.

The rebound in Chinese steel output in April came from an unusually low base, noted Capital Economics. Production from January to March dropped 1.7 percent on year, marking it the worst first quarter in a decade.

The World Steel Association expects Chinese steel demand to shrink 0.5 percent to 707 million metric tons this year and fall to 703.7 million tons in 2016.

For now, China has yet to prove it is back in the game, IG's Lucas said. "If iron ore can sustain these prices for a month, then we will know China is absorbing the supply glut. But, be aware the price trend hasn't been broken and a snap back is likely."

Freshwater Pearls

What are Freshwater Pearls?

Strand necklace with freshwater pearls, white south sea pearls and black south sea pearls

Freshwater pearls are cultivated in mussels rather than oysters, and most of the world’s supply are farmed in the lakes, rivers and ponds of China, often along the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) river. The history of the Chinese Freshwater pearl is vast. It has been reported that in 2206 BC, pearls from fresh sources were already being paid as tributes, and descriptions about them can be seen in records such as the Chinese dictionary ‘Kangxizidian’, which dates back to the 18th century.

They are easier to grow than salt water pearls; one freshwater mussel can grow a multitude of pearls at a time, compared to salt water oysters that usually produce only one pearl. That said, the cultivation of Freshwater pearls is still a labour of love;  mussels are often cultivated in farms in southern regions where pearl formation is faster, and then moved to northern farms (that have slower cultivation) to produce a compact nacre for better colour and lustre. They come in a range of colours including white, peach, pink and purple.

Buying advice for Freshwater pearls:

Freshwater pearls are an affordable option, often favoured by first time pearl buyers, and are available in many styles of jewellery to suit a wide variety of customers.

In recent years, improvements in the cultivation of Freshwater pearls has led to better roundness and shape, meaning many now adorn the same exquisite pearl

 History of Electronic Trade

For many years stock exchanges were physical locations where buyers and sellers met and negotiated. Exchange trading would typically happen on the floor of an exchange, where traders in brightly colored jackets (to identify which firm they worked for) would shout and gesticulate at one another – a process known as open outcry or pit trading (the exchange floors were often pit-shaped – circular, sloping downwards to the center, so that the traders could see one another). With the improvement in communications technology in the late 20th century, the need for a physical location became less important and traders started to transact from remote locations in what became known as electronic trading. Electronic trading made transactions easier to complete, monitor, clear, and settle and this helped spur on its development.

One of the earliest examples of widespread electronic trading was on Globex, the CME Group’s electronic trading platform conceived in 1987 and launched fully in 1992. This allowed access to a variety of financial markets such as treasuries, foreign exchange and commodities. The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) produced a rival system that was based on Oak Trading Systems’ Oak platform branded ‘E Open Outcry,’ an electronic trading platform that allowed for trading to take place alongside that took place in the CBOT pits.

Set up in 1971, NASDAQ was the world's first electronic stock market, though it originally operated as an electronic bulletin board, rather than offering straight-through processing (STP).

By 2011 investment firms on both the buy side and sell side were increasing their spending on technology for electronic trading. With the result that many floor traders and brokers were removed from the trading process. Traders also increasingly started to rely on algorithms to analyze market conditions and then execute their orders automatically.

The move to electronic trading compared to floor trading continued to increase with many of the major exchanges around the world moving from floor trading to completely electronic trading.

Working of Centrifugal Pumps

Centrifugal pumps are the most preferred hydraulic pumps used in domestic and industrial world. In this video we will have a conceptual overview of the working of centrifugal pumps.

 

 

 

Impeller - The Heart of Centrifugal Pumps

Centrifugal pumps are used to induce flow or raise pressure of a liquid. Its working is simple. At the heart of the system lies impeller. It has a series of curved vanes fitted inside the shroud plates. The impeller is always immersed in the water. When the impeller is made to rotate, it makes the fluid surrounding it also rotate. This imparts centrifugal force to the water particles, and water moves radially out. In Fig.1 this process is illustrated.

Fig.1 The rotating impeller imparts a centrifugal force to the water particles and the water moves radially out

Since the rotational mechanical energy is transferred to the fluid, at the discharge side of the impeller, both the pressure and kinetic energy of the water will rise. At the suction side, water is getting displaced, so a negative pressure will be induced at the eye. Such a low pressure helps to suck fresh water stream into the system again, and this process continues.

Fig.2 Negative pressure created by displacement of water from the eye helps to suckfresh stream of water

From foregoing discussions it is clear that, the negative pressure at the eye of the impeller helps to maintain the flow in the system. If no water is present initially, the negative pressure developed by the rotating air, at the eye will be negligibly small to suck fresh stream of water. As a result the impeller will rotate without sucking and discharging any water content. So the pump should be initially filled with water before starting it. This process is known as priming.
The impeller is fitted inside a casing. As a result the water moves out will be collected inside it, and will move in the same direction of rotation of the impeller, to the discharge nozzle.This is shown in the Fig.3.

Fig.3 Water which leaves the impeller gets collected inside the casing, flow direction is also marked

 

 

 

 

 

Use of the Casing

 

From the illustrations of the pump so far, one speciality of the casing is clear. It has an increasing area along the flow direction. Such increasing area will help to accommodate newly added water stream, and will also help to reduce the exit flow velocity. Reduction in the flow velocity will result in increase in the static pressure, which is required to overcome the resistance of pumping system.

Impeller Design

As we have discussed earlier impeller is the most vital part of a centrifugal pump. Successful impellers have been developed with many years of analysis and developmental work. Fig.4 shows one of such impeller with its one shroud plate removed for better view of vanes.
These vanes are backward curved. Backward curved vanes have the blade angle less than 90 degree. Backward curved vanes are the most preferred vane type in the industry due to its self stabilizing power consumption characteristics. This means with increase in flow rate power consumption of the pump stabilizes after a limit. Forward and radial blades are less common in the industry. The eye configuration of the impeller shown is state of the art. This vane is extracted from a Kirloskar pump model. Such projecting eye section induces better swirl of flow and guarantees high negative pressure at the suction.

Fig.4 More details of vanes inside the impeller

NPSH - Overcoming the problem of Cavitation

If pressure at the suction side of impeller goes below vapor pressure of the water, a dangerous phenomenon could happen. Water will start to boil forming vapor bubbles. These bubbles will move along with the flow and will break in a high pressure region. Upon breaking the bubbles will send high impulsive shock waves and spoil impeller material overtime. This phenomenon is known as cavitation. More the suction head, lesser should be the pressure at suction side to lift the water. This fact puts a limit to the maximum suction head a pump can have.

Fig.5 Low pressure at the suction side can cause cavitation; More the suction head,lesser is the suction pressure required

However Cavitation can be completely avoided by careful pump selection. The term NPSH (Net Positive Suction Head) helps the designer to choose the right pump which will completely avoid Cavitation. NPSH is defined as follows.

Where P_v is vapor pressure of water
V is speed of water at suction side

For a given pumping system it will have an NPSH called 'Available NPSH'. Pump manufacturer will specify the minimum NPSH required for each pump for its safe operation, known as 'Required NPSH'. If the pump needs to work without Cavitation the 'Available NPSH' should be greater than 'Required NPSH'.

Types of Impeller

The impeller type we have used for the discussion so far is called as an enclosed type. Here vanes are closed from both the ends with shroud plates. Other types of impeller which are used in industry are Semi open and open impellers. If the working fluid is cloggy in nature it is preferred to use an open kind of impeller. But they are slightly less efficient.

Fig.6 Kind of impellers used in centrifugal pumps : Enclosed, Semi-Open and Open

Mechanical Design Aspects

The mechanical design of centrifugal pump is always challenging. A shaft is used to connect between the impeller and motor. Since water pressure inside the casing is huge, a proper sealing arrangement is imperative in arresting the water leakage through the shaft casing clearance. Mechanical seal or stuffing box based mechanism is used for this purpose.

Fig.7 In this figure gland sealing is provided in order to arrest the water leakage

Impeller is mounted on the bearings. But at the suction side of impeller it is not advisable to fit a bearing, since it will block the flow. As a result the bearings have to be fitted at the other end. This means impeller is mounted like a cantilever. For high flow rate pumps, a bearing housing with cooling oil is necessary for improving the life of the bearings.

                                                             click here 

ONline auction

An online auction is an auction which is held over the internet. Online auctions come in many different formats, but most popularly they are ascending English auctions, descending Dutch auctions, first-price sealed-bid, Vickrey auctions, or sometimes even a combination of multiple auctions, taking elements of one and forging them with another. The scope and reach of these auctions have been propelled by the Internet to a level beyond what the initial purveyors had anticipated. This is mainly because online auctions break down and remove the physical limitations of traditional auctions such as geography, presence, time, space, and a small target audience. This influx in reachability has also made it easier to commit unlawful actions within an auction. In 2002, online auctions were projected to account for 30% of all online e-commerce due to the rapid expansion of the popularity of the form of electronic commerce.

What Is Bidding ?

Bidding is an offer (often competitive) of setting a price one is willing to pay for something or a demand that something be done.^[1] A price offer is called a bid. The term may be used in context of auctions, stock exchange, card games, or real estate. Bidding is used by various economic niche for determining the demand and hence the value of the article or property, in today's world of advance technology, Internet is one of the most favourite platforms for providing bidding facilities, it is the most natural way of determining the price of a commodity in a free market economy.

Biddings are arranged by first disclosing the time and space location of the place where the bid is to be performed, so that more interested bidders may participate and the most "true" price of the commodity may come out, in terms of bidding on Internet the time frame for posting the bids may be a topic of interest.

Many similar terms that may use or may not use the similar concept have been evolved in the recent past in connection to bidding, such as reverse auction, social bidding, or many other game class ideas that promote them self as bidding. Bidding is also sometimes used as ethical gambling in which the prize money is not determined solely by luck but also by the total demand that the prize has attracted towards itself.

Bidding perform in two ways on online. One is Unique Bidding and another one is Dynamic Bidding.

Unique Bidding: In this bidding users bid for the product, in that bids which one is unique that user will get the product. For Example If A,B,C,D,E users are there who are bidding for the same product. A bid for $5 and B also bid for $5, C and D bid for $2 and E bid for $3 then E got the product, because his bid is unique in those 5 bids.

Dynamic Bidding: Dynamic Bidding is type of bidding where one user can set his bid for the product. At this time if the user present or not for bidding, automatically the bidding will perform up to his defined amount. After reaching his bid value the bidding stops from his side.

Timed Bidding

What is timed bidding?

Timed bidding auctions allows users to bid at any time during a defined time period, simply by entering a maximum bid. Timed auctions take place without an auctioneer calling the sale so bidders don’t have to wait for a lot to be called. This means that a bidder doesn't have to keep your eye on a live auction at a specific time.

How does timed bidding work?

By entering a maximum bid a user is indicating the highest they’re willing to pay for a lot. An automated bidding service will bid on their behalf to ensure that they meet the reserve price or that they always stay in the lead, up to your maximum bid. If someone else has placed a bid that is higher than the maximum bid, the bidder will be notified, allowing them to change the maximum bid and stay in the auction. At the end of the auction, whoever’s maximum bid is the most wins the lot.

How is it different to live bidding?

Live bidding is a traditional room-based auction. These can be broadcast via a website where you can hear live audio and see live video feeds. The idea is that a bidder places their bid over the Internet in real-time. Effectively it’s like being at a real auction, in the comfort of the home. Timed bidding on the other hand is a separate auction all together, which allows bidders to participate without the need to see or hear the live event. It’s another way of bidding, that is more convenient to the bidder.

Bidding off the wall

Bidding off the wall or taking bids from the chandelier, as it is sometime known, is where the auctioneer bids on behalf of the vendor.

This is allowed by law in some countries and states and the auctioneer is allowed to bid on behalf of the vendor up to, but not including the reserve price or beyond it. In some cases, this may be extremely helpful for bidders because the reserve needs to be met.

For an example in a property auction supposing the property is coming up for auction and there’s only one person interested in bidding for it in the room. The reserve has been set at #100,000 and this bidder is happy to buy it at #120,000. The bidding starts #80,000 and without the auctioneer bidding on behalf of the vendor, it would never progress beyond that amount. However, because the auctioneer will take bids or generate bids of #85,000, the bidder then goes #90,000 etc. It can end up where the bidder, if he wants to, can bid 100,000 pounds and secure the property on the reserve price.

The result is that the vendor sold the property at reserve and the purchaser has bought the property on the reserve price at less than he was prepared to pay. Without the auctioneer taking bids off the wall, this would never have happened.

All professional auctioneers do it with all types of auction including motor vehicles. As long as they're pushing it up towards the reserve price then its not an issue. If you don't want to bid at the price the auctioneer is asking then don't bid.
Source  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidding

History of Billets

HISTORY of Billets

 

Originally, a "billet" (from the French) was a note, commonly used in the 18th and early 19th centuries as a "billet of invitation." A particular use of the word in this sense is to denote an order issued to a soldier entitling him to quarters with a certain person. From this meaning, the word billet came to be loosely used of the quarters thus obtained.^[1]Repeated petitions against the practice of billeting, starting in the 16th century, culminated in its outlawing in 1689 as an extension of a section of the Petition of Right 1628.

During wartime, civilians who have been evacuated from a city in danger of attack are billetted in communal shelters or in the homes of individuals. The practice of billetting evacuees was widespread in Britain during World War II, particularly during the Blitz, when children and other non-essential persons in major cities were sent to rural areas for safety.

In European countries since the formation of regular forces the Quartermaster was an occupation and a rank of the individuals responsible for provision of sleeping quarters as well as other provisions for regular time troops.

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