Baltic Dry Index. 599 +37 Brent Crude 49.50 Spot Gold 1675
Covid-19 Pandemic
underway, but not according to the WHO.
Coronavirus Cases 6/3/20 World 100,242 Deaths 3,408
(Maybe.)
I knew something was wrong
somewhere, but I couldn’t spot it exactly. But if something was coming and I
didn’t know where from, I couldn’t be on my guard against it. That being the
case I’d better be out of the market.
Jesse Livermore
While today’s
title may be overstated, spreading global coronavirus cases quickly killed off
the previous day’s ludicrous renewed bubble attempt in stock markets.
With a rising,
still out of control, global coronavirus crisis increasingly impacting the
already precarious global economy, this is a time to be scaling back out of
stocks, all the more so if sitting on long term profits.
What follows now in
fast order, is a world with most curtailing their risk and their families risk
of catching Covid-19. Unfortunately that means avoiding as much as possible,
large gatherings, sporting events, cinemas, airports, cruise ships,
conferences, and much, much more.
In nations lacking
some sort of National Health Service free at the point of use, that probably
means increasing private health insurance against the risk of contracting
Covid-19.
For those too poor
to afford private health insurance, that probably means cutting back generally,
and an even greater avoidance of gatherings of all sorts.
Until either the
global coronavirus crisis is contained and diminishing, or a vaccine becomes
widely available, we are just going to have to get used to a new global
recession arriving. We can only hope that it’s short and shallow.
Below, coronavirus
bunker time.
Stocks suffer, Treasury yields plumb new depths as virus spreads
March 6, 2020 /
12:58 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares and U.S.
stock futures fell on Friday following another Wall Street rout as disruptions
to global business from the coronavirus beyond China worsened, stoking fears of
a prolonged world economic slowdown.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was down 1.3%. Australian shares were down 1.64%, while Japan's Nikkei stock index .N225 slid 2.29%.
Yields on 10-year U.S. Treasuries fell to a record low and two-year yields fell to the lowest in more than three years as investors increased bets that the Federal Reserve will follow this week’s surprise 50 basis point rate cut with further easing to prevent corporate bond spreads from widening further.
Tumbling yields hammered the dollar, which traded near a six-month low versus the yen and close to a two-year trough against the Swiss franc.
Oil prices fell due to worries that non-OPEC oil producers might not
agree to output cuts even though global energy demand is weakening.
The spread of a new coronavirus has accelerated so much in Europe,
Britain and North America that investors who once played down the virus are now
re-assessing the risks, which means more volatility in financial markets.
“Optimism overseas is fading and now people are really starting to
question just how bad things will get,” said Takuya Kanda, general manager of research
at Gaitame.com Research Institute in Tokyo.
----
The S&P 500 .SPX
tumbled 3.39% on Thursday. The benchmark S&P 500 ended down more than 10%
from its Feb. 19 closing high, after last week logging its biggest weekly
percentage decline since October 2008.
More
Coronavirus cases surge across U.S. as Americans face looming outbreak
March 5, 2020 /
5:31 PM
LOS ANGELES
(Reuters) - The coronavirus outbreak radiated across the United States on
Thursday, surfacing in at least four new states and San Francisco as Congress
quickly approved more than $8 billion (£6.2 billion) to fight the outbreak.
The death toll
from the respiratory illness rose to 12 in the United States, with the latest
fatality recorded in King County, Washington, where six people have died in an
outbreak at a nursing facility in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland.
---- At least 57 new cases of coronavirus were confirmed nationwide on Thursday as the virus struck for the first time in Colorado, Maryland, Tennessee and Texas, as well as the city of San Francisco.
At least several people suffering from the virus are said to be gravely
ill.
A helicopter flew testing kits to a cruise liner idled off the coast of
California and barred from docking in San Francisco after at least 35 people
developed flu-like symptoms aboard the ship, which has been linked to two other
confirmed cases of COVID-19.
Twenty new cases were confirmed in King County, which is home to Seattle
and has been the site so far of the greatest concentration of coronavirus cases
in the country, bringing the total in the county to 51 with 11 deaths. One
death has been recorded in California.
----
As in other countries, Americans faced a new reality where
they were often asked to stay home from work, schools were closed, large
gatherings and sporting events canceled, and stores emptied of staples like
toiletries and water.
Alphabet Inc’s Google on Thursday joined Amazon.com Inc, Facebook Inc
and Microsoft Corp in recommending that its employees in the Seattle area work
from home, after some contracted the virus.
The companies’ work-from-home recommendation will affect more than
100,000 people in the area. One school district in the area has closed.
---- New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the number of cases in that state had doubled to 22 after the federal government approved its use of additional laboratories, boosting testing capacity.
Of the new cases in New York, eight are connected to a Manhattan lawyer
who lives in Westchester County, north of the city, previously diagnosed with
the virus.
Texas and Maryland each confirmed three coronavirus cases, and Tennessee
and Colorado each reported one, bringing the number of affected states to 17.
Pence said that there were at least 150 cases of coronavirus in the country.
More
Southwest Airlines CEO warns drop-off in domestic travel over coronavirus has '9/11-like feel'
March 5 2020
Mounting concern over the new coronavirus outbreak has
caused school closures and movie premiere pushbacks, and now the crisis' effect on the
aviation industry is drawing comparisons to 9/11.Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly told CNBC on Thursday that the company has lost several hundred million dollars in a week's time thanks to a decline in bookings amid increasing fears over COVID-19. Kelly added that the drop-off was "noticeable" and "precipitous" and has continued declining on a daily basis.
When prompted by CNBC's Phil LeBeau over whether the drop was reminiscent of former dips in demand spurred by the 2003 SARS outbreak or the events of Sept. 11, 2001, Kelly said the new coronavirus outbreak was more like the latter.
"It has a 9/11-like feel," Kelly said.
He explained that post-9/11 travel fallout was motivated by "fear" rather than being economically driven, saying fear is "really what's manifested this time" with the new coronavirus outbreak.
Kelly told LeBeau he thought the dip in bookings was an "overreaction" but that Southwest is financially prepared to handle the fallout.
The outbreak's effect has been felt heavily in the U.S. stock market, which has rotated between sinking and soaring over the last week, and it has caused at least 11 U.S. deaths and four states to declare emergencies. Marianne Dodson
UK records first coronavirus death, moves to stop spread
March 5, 2020 /
10:57 AM
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is moving into the second of four phases in
its plan to tackle the spread of coronavirus, England’s Chief Medical Officer
Chris Whitty said on Thursday, as the UK recorded its first death of a patient
and confirmed cases rose.
Britain has so far registered 115 cases of the coronavirus known as
COVID-19, which started in China, but has held off from introducing measures to
restrict movement or cancel large gatherings for fear of hurting the economy.
Whitty said in a statement later that the person who died was an older
patient with underlying health conditions.
More
As India coronavirus cases spike, experts daunted by prospect of South Asia spread
March 5, 2020 /
9:02 AM
MUMBAI (Reuters) - India has ramped up the
screening of travellers to keep the coronavirus at bay but a flurry of new
cases has experts warning that it may be hard to contain a spread in densely
populated South Asia with its generally poor medical infrastructure.
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are home to some 1.7 billion people, or
more than a fifth of the world’s population, but their over-stretched health
systems could struggle to handle the type of intensive care required for
coronavirus patients.
On top of that, a prevalence of existing health problems such as
diabetes could spell trouble while the sort of sweeping restrictions China has
imposed to stifle the virus would be hugely difficult in South Asia’s more
unruly cities.
“The way Indian society is structured, the kind of lockdown that many
countries including China and Japan have instituted, is pretty much impossible
even under good circumstances,” said Vivekanand Jha, executive director of the
George Institute for Public Health, in New Delhi.
India’s total confirmed coronavirus rose to 29 on Wednesday, from six
early this week.
---- Some health experts fear that even with the recent spike in cases, India’s actual tally could be much bigger.
“There is a strong possibility that the number of cases in India is much
higher than what has been detected,” Arunkumar G., director of the Manipal
Institute of Virology, said, citing a virus incubation of up to two weeks.
Fears were fanned this week when India’s health minister disclosed that
16 foreign tourists who have tested positive had been touring since
mid-February.
Last week, U.S. intelligence sources told Reuters that India’s available
countermeasures and the potential for the virus to spread its dense population
was a focus of serious concern.
India’s government says it has screened more than one million
travellers, boosted its testing capabilities and set up isolation wards in all
major cities with international airports.
But 450 million of India’s 1.3 billion people are estimated to be migrants,
with vast numbers packing its rail and road systems daily meaning controlling
any spread would be a huge challenge.
India’s high number of diabetics - 77 million - and high rates of
problems like kidney disease could lead to higher morbidity, or protracted
treatment, experts said.
---- Neighbouring Pakistan has found five coronavirus cases. A top health official was gloomy about the prospects of tackling a major outbreak.
“We don’t have human resources, we don’t have the required inventory, we
don’t have a capacity to cope with a big emergency with the given resources,”
Shahid Malik, secretary general of the Pakistan Medical Association, told
Reuters.
Bangladesh has not confirmed any cases of the coronavirus but five
Bangladeshi workers have tested positive in Singapore.
More
ITV predicts 10% coronavirus hit to April ad demand
March 5, 2020 /
7:20 AM
LONDON (Reuters) - ITV’s (ITV.L) ad revenue for April
could fall by about 10% as travel companies deferred campaigns due to
coronavirus, the British commercial broadcaster said on Thursday, taking the
shine off better-than-expected 2019 earnings. The company, which had a recent hit with “The Masked Singer”, said ad revenue for the first three months was forecast to be up 2%, lower than some analysts had forecast, as it said the drop in travel advertising demand also impacted March.
“At this stage it is too difficult to assess the further implications of the coronavirus but we continue to monitor the situation closely,” ITV said in a statement.
ITV reported full-year adjusted earnings of £729 million for 2019, down
10% on a year earlier but beating consensus, reflecting a decline in ad revenue
and strategic investments in the business.
Total external revenue rose 3% to £3.31 billion, helped by a strong end
to the year, with the final quarter coming in more than 5% ahead of consensus.
More.
Continental reports €1.2 billion 2019 net loss, hit by car demand slump
March 5, 2020 /
7:54 AM
BERLIN (Reuters) - German auto supplier Continental (CONG.DE) on Thursday posted
a net loss of 1.2 billion euros (£1.04 billion) in 2019, as the company
suffered from a global downturn in demand for passenger cars, forcing it to
book a 2.5 billion euro impairment. Continental reported an almost flat full-year revenue at 44.5 billion euros, slightly below a 44.55 billion euros estimate based on Refinitiv data.
Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) was down 21.5% to 3.2 billion euros in 2019.
It said it saw worldwide car production would fall for the third year in row in 2020, down between 2 %to 5%.
Merck net profit falls, warns of coronavirus hit
Published: March 5, 2020 at 1:31 a.m. ET
By Cristina Roca
Merck KGaA said Thursday that its fourth-quarter net profit fell, and
warned that it expects its 2020 sales to be hit by the coronavirus.
The German pharmaceuticals and chemicals company made a net profit of
318 million euros ($354.4 million) in the final quarter of 2019, down from
EUR2.45 billion during the same period a year earlier.
Net sales for the quarter rose 13% to EUR4.38 billion, slightly higher
than analysts' expectations of EUR4.33 billion, according to a consensus
estimate provided by FactSet. Sales growth was driven by the health-care and
life science business sectors, Merck said.
----Merck said it is difficult to determine the effect the coronavirus
epidemic will have on its business, but that it is currently working with the
assumption that the epidemic will peak during the first quarter of the year and
subside over the course of the second. Based on this, the virus should deal a
1% hit on Merck's 2020 sales, the company said.
"Yet, should the crisis grow or trigger a global recession, the
company would adapt its business forecast," Merck said.
For 2020, the company guided for strong organic growth in sales and
Ebitda pre. It proposed a dividend of EUR1.30 a share, up from EUR1.25 a share
the year prior.
Coronavirus hit to airlines could top $100 billion, Flybe collapses
March 5, 2020 /
9:47 AM
LONDON/SINGAPORE
(Reuters) - The coronavirus epidemic could rob passenger airlines of up to $113
billion in revenue this year, an industry body warned on Thursday, more than
three times a projection it made just two weeks ago as the virus continues to
spread around the world.
The warning from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) came as British regional carrier Flybe became the first big casualty of the slump in travel demand due to the crisis.
Norwegian Air (NWC.OL) also scrapped its profit forecast for 2020, while U.S. budget carrier Southwest (LUV.N) predicted a $200-300 million hit to its first-quarter operating revenues.
“There are lots of airlines that have got relatively narrow profit margins and lots of debt, and a cash flow shock like this could certainly send some into a very difficult situation,” IATA Chief Economist Brian Pearce told a media event in Singapore.
Airlines across the globe are rushing to cut flights and costs, and warning of a hit to earnings, as a new virus that started in China spreads, raising fears of a pandemic that could plunge the global economy into recession.
More
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
UAE advises against travel abroad over coronavirus concerns
March 5, 2020 /
10:33 AM
DUBAI (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates is urging its citizens and
other residents to avoid travelling abroad because of concerns over the
coronavirus outbreak, state news agency WAM said on Thursday.
Authorities in the Gulf state may order medical checks on travellers
when they return and ask them to stay in isolation at home for 14 days, WAM
cited a health ministry statement as saying.
The UAE, which is closing schools and educational institutions for four
weeks on March 8, said students and education workers would have to spend a
compulsory two weeks at home after returning from overseas.
The Gulf Arab state is a major hub for international air travel and its
Dubai airport is one of the world’s busiest.
Dubai airport handled 86.4 million passengers last year, roughly 237,000
a day, most of whom were transiting.
The UAE has reported at least 27 coronavirus cases. On Wednesday,
Dubai’s health authority said a student had contracted the virus from a parent
who had travelled overseas.
Medical tests are already being conducted on passengers arriving from
China, Italy, Lebanon, Thailand and Syria at Dubai airport and entering the
country, the airport says.
---- The latest move may add further pressure on the economy in the Gulf state as the coronavirus outbreak weighs on consumer confidence and business productivity.
Flights from the UAE to Iran, Bahrain and most of mainland China have
been suspended because of the outbreak, which has also led to major events
being cancelled across the country.
More
Cancelled bookings, empty rooms: coronavirus takes toll on tourism
March 5, 2020 /
8:05 AM
MILAN/LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) - Venice
hotelier Judith Boulbain has to go back almost two decades to the 9/11 attacks
to recall a time when business was this bad.
Only a month before Easter, one of the busiest holidays in the European
calendar, the owner of the Hotel San Samuele in the heart of Venice has seen
more than 80% of reservations cancelled, and future bookings have evaporated.
The coronavirus, which emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late
last year, has spread around the world, with more new cases now appearing
outside China than inside.
Italy is the worst-hit country in Europe, preparing to close schools,
cinemas and theatres after more than 100 people died and confirmed coronavirus
cases rose above 3,000.
“People are scared, some left early, others didn’t show up, others
called to ask for a refund,” says Boulbain, 46, originally from France, who has
been running the Italian hotel since 2006 and has been in the business for
almost 25 years.
Her problems illustrate the havoc across the global travel industry, as
companies restrict employees’ travel, major trade shows are axed and
holidaymakers choose to stay at home or postpone plans to book a spring break
or summer holiday.
The rapid spread of the virus has plunged the travel and tourism industry, which accounts for more than 10% of global economic growth, into one of its worst crises, according to interviews with more than a dozen industry experts, hotel owners and tour operators.
Travel and tourism accounted for about 319 million jobs, or 10% of total world employment in 2018, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC). Leisure represents almost 80% of the total compared with 20% for business spend, it says.
Airlines have suffered the most since the outbreak began, but hotel groups like Hyatt Hotels Corp (H.N), cruise operators like Carnival Corp (CCL.N) (CCL.L) and holiday companies including TUI (TUIGn.DE) are also reeling.
---- Experts paint a bleak picture in the near term.
International travel is expected to fall by 1.5% this year, the first
drop since 2009 at the height of the global financial crisis, according to
consultancy Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economics company. During the 2003
SARS outbreak, rates of travel fell just 0.3%.
With China at the centre of this latest outbreak, Asia Pacific will be
the hardest hit region, with a double-digit decline in visitor arrivals
forecast for 2020 at 10.5%, according to Tourism Economics.
People have become more resilient to health crises over the past decade
or so, on average returning to travel and holidays swiftly once an outbreak is
contained, Tourism Economics’ analysis shows.
But the coronavirus is unprecedented in its geographic spread. The
consultancy is using SARS as its benchmark, which means they expect the virus
to be contained by the end of the first half of the year.
---- It’s having a knock-on effect beyond tourism. Businesses near a hotel on the Spanish island of Tenerife, which has been under lockdown with hundreds of tourists inside since Feb. 24, are struggling to deal with the lack of customers.
Beverley Veness, a hairdresser from England and owner of the ‘Bamboo’ hair salon for the past seven years, located in a shopping centre in front of the H10 Costa Adeje Palace Hotel, said her business had been “massively affected” by the lockdown.
“Last week I probably did as many costumers in the whole week as I would do in maybe two hours,” she told Reuters, holding an empty appointment book.
To woo customers into making bookings for later in the year, many hotel chains including Melia Hotels (MEL.MC), Pangea Group and B the Travel Brand in Spain said they are offering discounts and loosening their cancellation policies.
More
Israel severely restricts entry from Europe due to virus
AFP•March 4, 2020
Jerusalem (AFP) - Israel on Wednesday imposed tough new travel
restrictions on five European nations due to fears of coronavirus, barring
entry to almost all non-residents of the Jewish state arriving from these
affected countries.
Israel had earlier in the day ordered all citizens and residents
returning from the five countries -- France, Germany, Spain, Austria and
Switzerland -- into 14-day home quarantine upon entering the country.
The measures come on top of restrictions previously imposed on arrivals
from mainland China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Macau, South Korea, Japan
and Italy.
Guidelines issued by the health ministry on Wednesday afternoon declared
that foreigners from the affected European countries "will not be able to
enter Israeli territory unless they can prove they have a place to stay in
quarantine".
The interior ministry issued a statement in the evening saying tourists
from these countries "will not be able to enter Israel from Friday at 8:00
am (0600 GMT)".
"Those who arrive before this date will not be turned back,"
the statement added.
The ministry added that the restrictions did not apply to people who
merely transitted through airports in one of the listed countries.
More
Technology Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC or DC
energy mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards?
Best Solar Cell Ever: Graphene + Perovskite + Silicon
March 5th, 2020 by Tina Casey
What with all the excitement over the
“wonder” solar cell material perovskite, it’s easy to forget that just a few
years ago graphene was all the rage for new clean tech. Well, graphene is still
very much in the mix, and researchers are coalescing around the idea of
combining it with perovskite in a new solar cell. Easier said than done!
If that sounds like a lot to handle in one device, it is. Nevertheless, researchers have been tinkering around with the graphene-perovskite combo. In the latest twist, a team based in Italy has designed a solar cell around those twin challenges, and achieved an impressive solar conversion efficiency of 26.3%.
Actually, 26.3% is not quite a record for perovskite solar cells, the title for which stands at a hair over 29% in combination with silicon. However, when the tradeoff between conversion efficiency and cost comes into play, the advantage could go to solar cells that are amenable to high-volume, low cost manufacturing techniques.
The new research is a collaborative effort between the EU’s Graphene Flagship initiative at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, the Italian Institute of Technology, and an IIT spin-off, the graphene specialist BeDimensional and the Spanish clean tech company ENEA.
You can get all the details in the paper, “Mechanically Stacked, Two-Terminal Graphene-Based Perovskite/Silicon Tandem Solar Cell with Efficiency over 26%,” newly published in the latest issue of the journal Joule.
For those of you on the go, the team started with the premise that perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells could be the next big thing, due to a killer combo of relatively low manufacturing costs plus a decent chance at exceeding the solar conversion efficiency limits of silicon alone.
The bottleneck is — or was — on the manufacturing side, until the team figured out a workaround.
“The solution processing of perovskite solar cells directly onto the textured front surface of high-efficiency amorphous/crystalline silicon heterojunction cells is the main bottleneck,” the researchers explain. “Our simple two-terminal mechanical stacking of the sub-cells helps achieve highly performant PV devices.”
Basically, the new approach is to configure each part of the solar cell before hooking them all up together with an assist from graphene-based ink.
According to the researchers, the new technique can be applied to the existing crop of perovskite solar cells, using standard solution-based manufacturing methods.
Emmanuel Kymakis, Graphene Flagship Energy Generation Work Package Leader, provides the technical explainer (GRMs refers to graphene and other inks made with 2-D materials).
“This pioneering work demonstrates that the integration of GRMs inks with on-demand morphology and tuneable optoelectronic properties in a tandem structure, can lead to high-throughput industrial manufacturing,” he said. “Graphene and related materials improve the performance, stability and scalability of these devices.”
More
Another
weekend and how will the coronavirus crisis develop? No one knows of course,
but what happens next in America and Europe, especially Italy will be critical.
Have a great weekend everyone.
I learned early that there is nothing new in Wall Street. There
can’t be because speculation is as old as the hills. Whatever happens in the
stock market today has happened before and will happen again. I’ve never
forgotten that.
Jesse Livermore
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished February
DJIA: 25,409 +75 Down. NASDAQ: 8,567 +171 Up.
SP500: 2,954 +133 Up.
In current circumstances,
this is no time to be blindly following technical signals.
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