Baltic Dry Index. 631 +04 Brent Crude 34.37 Spot Gold 1636
Covid-19 Pandemic
underway, according to the WHO, at long last!
Coronavirus Cases 12/3/20 World 129,003 Deaths 4,767
(Maybe.)
One
Way Bull Street ends in spectacular U-turn.
Chaos! The coronavirus
crisis is rapidly killing off the global economy. What is now fair value on anything? How long
before the first stock market gets closed down?
More importantly,
how do we stop the coronavirus crisis from spreading?
Until we stop it
from spreading, there’s no hope of stopping our arriving new global recession.
How long before every nation is trying to print its way out of our new global
recession? Get long tangible assets.
Even this old
dinosaur trader, following the markets since 1968 has never seen anything like
the present crisis. At 70, there has never been a global pandemic of such
destruction in my lifetime. Both medical and economic.
Worse, since the
great recession of 2008-2009, corporations have run up a Mount Everest of
unrepayable debt. In America, much of it misused in stock buybacks simply to
inflate the stock price to boost CEO compensation.
The day(s) of
reckoning are now at hand.
In GB, at least it
seems to me, we still have a shot at stopping much of the contagion spreading.
It’s time to start closing down schools and sporting events for 30 days. Imposing
travel restrictions.
Though contagion
can’t be totally stopped, the way to stop overwhelming our healthcare system is
to do everything to slow down the rate of contagion, to keep it below a level
that overwhelms the system. In the UK,
and elsewhere, we still have that chance.
There were distressing
reports out of north Italy yesterday, Italy’s wealthiest region, of just how
overwhelmed the healthcare system has become. Italy acted too late. A complete, economically disastrous, lockdown
has now become necessary to try and save the healthcare system. Britain and
others should act urgently while there’s still time.
Sooner or later,
and my money’s on sooner, Italy is going to need an international bailout.
Lacking its own fiat currency Italy’s options alone are grossly inadequate.
Below, too little
to late in America? We can only hope not. Get serious America about testing, before
risking Italy’s fate.
Financial markets reel, stocks plunge as Trump stuns with Europe travel ban
March 12, 2020 /
12:08 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) - Financial markets reeled
on Thursday as stocks dived and oil slumped after U.S. President Donald Trump
took the dramatic step of banning travel from Europe to reduce the impact of
the coronavirus, threatening more disruptions to trade and the world economy.
U.S. S&P 500 futures plummeted as much as 4.9% and last traded down
3.6%, a day after the S&P 500 lost 4.89%, putting the index firmly in a
bear market territory, defined as a 20% fall from a recent top.
Euro Stoxx 50 futures plunged 8.3% to their lowest levels since
mid-2016. They were last down 6.9% while investors rushed to safe-haven assets
from bonds to gold to the yen and the Swiss franc.
“The travel ban from Europe has definitely taken everyone by surprise,”
said Khoon Goh, head of Asia Research at ANZ in Singapore.
“Already we know the economic impact is significant, and with this
additional measure on top it’s just going to multiply the impact across
businesses. This is something that markets had not factored in...it’s a huge
near-term economic cost.”
In Asia, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell
3.2% and touched its lowest level since early 2019, while Japan’s Nikkei
crumbled 5.3%.
---- The World Health Organization (WHO) described the outbreak as a pandemic for the first time on Wednesday though an official said the move does not change the agency’s response.
The highly infectious disease that virtually shut down most parts of
China for much of February is spreading rapidly in Europe and increasingly in
the United States, disrupting many corners of life from education to sports,
entertainment and dining.
The U.S. National Basketball Association was the latest to be hit by the
pandemic as it announced it will suspend the season until further notice.
Investors worry how much of an effect economic policies can have in
turning around the global economy given the widespread restrictions on daily
life, travel and disruptions to businesses.
A case in point was Britain, where the FTSE stock index hit near
four-year lows as investors doubted whether the $39 billion spending plan and
the Bank of England’s 0.5 percentage point rate cut announced on Wednesday
would be enough to counter the shock from the outbreak.
More
Italy Shuts Down All Non-Essential Services as Virus Toll Rises
By Jerrold Colten and Marco Bertacche
Updated on March 11, 2020, 10:36 PM GMT
·
·
Prime minister urges Italians to avoid runs on
supermarkets
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte ordered all shops in the country to close
except for grocery stores and pharmacies until March 25. Public transportation
as well as financial and postal services will continue, but the country’s
normally vibrant restaurants, cafes and bars will be shut.
Factories can continue operating, but only with “precautions,” the
premier said in a televised address on Wednesday evening, adding that the
government -- which had extended a lockdown for Lombardy and other northern
provinces to all of Italy this week -- recommends non-critical units be halted.
More
U.S. clampdown on European travel heaps new coronavirus woes on airlines
March 12, 2020 /
3:32 AM
LOS
ANGELES/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The new U.S. ban on foreign citizens entering
the country if they have been in Europe in recent weeks will heap more pressure
on airlines already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic, analysts said,
hitting European carriers the hardest.
The 30-day curbs from Friday, which exclude Britain, Ireland and other
countries outside the European Schengen passport-free travel area, are similar
to those that went into effect targeting China on Feb. 1. They come after the
outbreak’s rapid spread across the European continent and in the United States.
Combined with a fresh U.S. State Department advisory asking citizens to
reconsider the need to travel globally, the move could create chaos at dozens
of airports across Europe as passengers attempt a last-minute rush to fly to
the United States before the ban takes effect.
As well as slashing arrivals, the move is set to decimate spending by
European tourists in the United States. There were 5.8 million arrivals from
the biggest markets of Germany, France, Italy and Spain in 2018, according to
U.S. data, which said they spent nearly $22 billion combined.
The news sent shares in Asian carriers sliding during the region’s
trading day, with analysts warning of a significant impact to come when
European markets opened.
Flights from Europe can still operate to a limited number of U.S.
airports with enhanced screening under measures announced on Wednesday evening.
But only U.S. citizens, permanent residents and immediate family members will
be allowed in, severely denting the passenger base and hurting the U.S. tourism
industry.
More
Race to Curb Virus After Case at Mining Forum That Drew 23,000
By Jacqueline Thorpe and Aoyon Ashraf
March 11, 2020, 12:47 PM GMT Updated on March 11, 2020,
10:00 PM GMT
An international mining conference attended by more than
23,000 people in Toronto is at the center a new case of coronavirus
with the potential for global spread.A man in his 50s tested positive for Covid-19 after attending the convention, which ran from March 1 to 4. The Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada bills its mining convention as the world’s biggest and it was attended by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Brazilian and Chilean mining officials and visitors from all over the world.
“As we know, that is a massive international conference with many countries represented and many, many individuals there,” Dr. Penny Sutcliffe, medical officer of health at the local health authority in Sudbury, said in a news conference Wednesday.
The northern Ontario city, the center of the country’s nickel-mining industry, is where the unidentified man went to hospital on March 7 after attending PDAC March 2 and 3. Sutcliffe said potentially hundreds of people from Sudbury attended the conference.
Now the race is on to limit the spread.
“Our focus now is on breaking the chain of transmission to limit the spread of infection,” Sutcliffe said in an earlier statement. “As a precautionary measure, we are asking those who attended PDAC 2020 to monitor for symptoms for 14 days.”
More
Fiat halts some Italian plants, VW's Seat mulls sending Barcelona staff home
March 11, 2020 /
9:22 AM
BARCELONA/MILAN
(Reuters) - Fiat Chrysler (FCHA.MI)
said it was temporarily halting operations at some of its Italian factories in
Italy and would reduce production in response to Europe’s largest coronavirus
outbreak.
The Italian-American carmaker said it had stepped up measures across its facilities, including intensive sanitisation of all work and rest areas, to support the government’s directives to curb the spread of the infectious disease.
The actions comes as Seat, the Spanish unit of German carmaker Volkswagen, considers sending staff home temporarily from its Barcelona-area plant due to supply chain issues, a spokesman said on Wednesday, a further sign of how the coronavirus could disrupt Europe’s struggling car market.
“The Martorell plant is currently working normally. However, there are several risks derived from COVID-19, which has affected the supply chain,” the Seat spokesman said.
The VW (VOWG_p.DE) unit would make temporary layoffs if it had to cut production due to supply issues, he added.
Seat union representative Matias Carnero said the company’s supply chain
was being affected by the worsening coronavirus outbreak, which has hit China
and Italy particularly hard.
“It all looks like it is going to be requested,” said Carnero, a
representative for UGT, the main labour union at Seat, referring to the
potential temporary layoffs.
Under temporary layoffs, Spanish workers are normally paid part of their
salary.
The company spokesman said the duration of these layoffs had not been discussed yet, but Carnero said they could last between two and five weeks, adding that this could potentially affect about 7,000 people at the plant.
Italian brake maker Brembo (BRBI.MI) warned on Tuesday that its northern Italian production was under threat from the country’s restrictions to tackle the spread of the coronavirus.
Virus-hit Vietnamese carriers cut salaries, encourage unpaid leave
March 11, 2020 /
9:19 AM
HANOI
(Reuters) - Vietnam-based airlines have been forced to cut salaries and
encourage their employees to take unpaid leave as carriers struggle with the
impact of coronavirus on travel demand, three sources familiar with the
situation told Reuters on Wednesday.
The carriers have recently suspended all flights to China and South
Korea and scaled back flights to other international destinations in the wake
of an epidemic that has killed more than 4,200 people worldwide.
Tourists from China and South Korea accounted for more than half of the
18 million foreign visitors coming to Vietnam last year.
“Vietnam Airlines has to take necessary steps to cut costs, including
reducing salaries for senior positions and encouraging employees to take unpaid
leave,” one of the sources said.
A second source said salaries for senior positions at Vietnam Airlines
HVN.HM, the country’s flag carrier, have been cut by at least 20%.
Vietjet Aviation VJC.HM has told its flight attendants to take at least
one week of unpaid leave each month, two employees of budget airline said under
the condition of anonymity.
Shares of Vietnam Airlines have fallen 33% so far this year, while
Vietjet Aviation has declined 27%.
Duong Chi Thanh, Vietnam Airlines chief executive officer, told local
media late last month that 40% of the company’s fleet of 100 aircraft had been
laid idle due to the virus, directly affecting 20,000 of its employees.
More
It’s still way too soon to buy stocks, warns Deutsche Bank’s Torsten Slok
Published: March 11, 2020 at 7:29 a.m. ET
Scrambling to get ahead of coronavirus “economic shock,”
the Bank of England delivered a surprise
interest rate cut, on the heels of a Federal Reserve move last week. All
eyes will be on the European Central Bank on Thursday, particularly due to the
region’s rapidly
expanding outbreak.The rate cut is boosting European stocks, but U.S. futures are sliding after President Donald Trump’s no-show at a coronavirus news conference on Tuesday, where investors were hoping to hear about a payroll tax cut and other measures.
“Should you buy stocks today, or should you be selling stocks today?” asks Deutsche Bank Securities’ chief economist Torsten Slok in our call of the day. And he says they are ”still very, very cautious.”
“We just think it’s too early to put risk on, given some of the significant risks that are both with the progression of the disease and the negative effects of financial conditions tightening and the policy response is not quite being there yet,” Slok told MarketWatch. These three points, he said, are the most crucial determinants in whether stocks are going to fall a lot more or rebound.
“In some countries things have been done, but generally speaking, including of course, the U.S., we’re still waiting to see exactly what the response will be and very importantly, how it will be received by markets,” he said.
Slok advises watching the virus’s progression in the U.S. “If the U.S.
hasn’t stabilized, it’s difficult to see any significant stabilization
elsewhere the world,” including markets, he said. What’s clear, he says, is
policy action to help cushion the economy from the virus had better come fast.
“We don’t have three weeks to sit around and discuss academics. We need
something and relatively soon that’s targeted toward putting money into the
hands of those who are going to spend it,” be it consumers or companies, Slok
said.
More
There can be few fields of human endeavour in which history counts for so little as in the world of finance. Past experience, to the extent that it is part of memory at all, is dismissed as the primitive refuge of those who do not have the insight to appreciate the incredible wonders of the present.
John
Kenneth Galbraith.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
Today, how bad is coronavirus in the USA? Is it still safe to fly?
True number of U.S. coronavirus cases is far above official tally, scientists say
Melissa Healy March 10, 2020 11:38 AM
An analysis of the novel coronavirus’ spread inside the
United States suggests that thousands of Americans are already infected,
dimming the prospects for stomping out the outbreak in its earliest stages.Researchers estimate that by March 1, the virus had already infected about 1,000 to 10,000 people who have not yet been accounted for. At the start of this month, about 80 U.S. cases had been confirmed and officials were still expressing confidence they could contain the new virus.
Quarantines, contact tracing and other public health measures have likely tamped down the COVID-19 outbreak here, the researchers said. But from the start, a group of infected travelers just big enough to fill an elevator likely has been expanding the virus’ reach, largely undetected.
Released into a country of about 330 million, each of these travelers was assumed to have passed the virus to 2 to 2.5 people, each of whom in turn infected another 2 to 2.5 people, and so on. Tote up the nodes on this rapidly branching network of contacts and the number of victims balloons quickly, the researchers wrote.
Their study, released Monday on the medRxiv website to discuss work that
has not yet been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, came as U.S. officials
reported a total of 704 COVID-19 cases and 29 deaths in the United States. That
is likely just the tip of a much larger iceberg, the mathematical modeling
suggests.
Under their most optimistic assumptions, as few as 1,043 people in the
United States have been infected with the novel coronavirus. Under a more
realistic scenario, that number could easily be as high as 9,484.
That only accounts for U.S. residents whose infections originated with people carrying the virus directly from Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak in China. In reality, many more people likely have brought the virus here from other hot spots, including Italy, South Korea and the rest of Asia. Each virus carrier who arrived from those places would set off his or her own cascade of infections.
The model also stopped adding up infections as of March 1. But given its firm toehold in the United States by then, the virus could have racked up tens of thousands of new cases since that date.
The mathematical simulation of the U.S. outbreak was run over a thousand times by a team from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and Peking University in Beijing. They began with a hypothetical group of undetected carriers — likely eight to 16 people — who arrived in the United States on direct flights from Wuhan after the virus now known as SARS-CoV-2 began infecting humans in late November but before those flights were halted on January.
It’s safe to assume that roughly half of these travelers were intercepted by U.S. health officials and saw their movements curtailed. The rest continued on their journeys with their undetected infections, each setting off an unrecognized chain of transmission.
While it is impossible to see, the scope of that transmission can be estimated by adopting a range of assumptions about the movements of infected people and the behavior of the virus.
----Where they had a range of assumptions to choose from, the researchers said they deliberately rejected the most alarming suspicions about, say, the virus’ ability to jump from person to person. Instead, they consistently adopted measures of viral or human behavior that were more reassuring.
As a result, their estimate likely sets a lower boundary on the virus’
presence in the United States, the team wrote.
The analysis began circulating Monday among epidemiologists but has not
yet been subject to the rigorous academic scrutiny that typically precedes
publication in a scientific journal. The authors said they planned to post the
assumptions, equations and computer code that drove their analysis so that
other disease modelers could comment and expand upon their findings.
More
Travel slump worsens as airlines try to blame media
Health officials have warned, though, that it may
not be safe for everyone to fly everywhere.
Airlines blamed the media for exaggerating the effects of the
coronavirus Tuesday, urgently broadcasting that they are "open for
business" as travel continues to slump and new numbers suggest the worst
may be yet to come for the industry.
In a statement Tuesday morning, the trade group Airlines for America
said that "false media narratives ... have led to confusion and
uncertainty across the country," and argued that it's safe to fly, saying
"numerous health officials have affirmed that the risk remains low for
travelers who follow CDC guidelines."
Health officials have warned, though, that
it may not be safe for everyone to fly everywhere, recommending that older
Americans and those with preexisting conditions avoid long flights.
That's a message that at least two lawmakers — among the nation's
most frequent flyers — heard loud and clear.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the committee that oversees
aviation, said she didn't fly home to Washington state last weekend and doesn't
plan to in the foreseeable future.
"I have an 88-year-old mom who’s living at my house [in
Washington] and she’s been ill, and I want to give her the comfort of being
there. When you have elderly people you want to make sure you’re not putting
them at additional risk," she said. “And look, do I think that there can
be airline travel that is safe? Yes. But if you don’t have to…”
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), 85, noted that the doctor said
"stay off of those planes as much as we can."
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?
Given everything else, no update today. More tomorrow.J. K. Galbraith. The Great Crash: 1929.
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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