Covid-19 Pandemic
underway, but not according to the WHO.
Coronavirus Cases 10/3/20
China 115,622 Deaths 4,096
(Maybe.)
The Italians have had 2,000 years to fix up the Forum and just
look at the place!
P. J. O'Rourke
Normally,
after such devastation in stock and commodity markets, I would expect the
markets to bounce, if only due to some short covering aided and abetted by the
NY Fed’s plunge protection team of market riggers. But this is far from normal
times.
The
Fed’s, and other central banksters, “everything” bubble just blew up.
In
the oil market, Saudi Arabia’s unstable de facto ruler has declared an oil war
on the rest of OPEC and Russia.The
likely biggest losers, Saudi Aramco, the USA deeply indebted fracking oil industry,
the oil sector in general, Russia, Canada, Nigeria, Libya and Venezuela, among others.A great wave of debt defaults lies directly ahead.
The
winners, the oil importing countries, led by China.
Adding
to all the global market chaos, the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world.
Australia and Canada yesterday joined the USA in requesting their citizens to
stop using cruise lines until the pandemic is over. In the circumstances cruise
line shares are more likely to sink than to bounce.
Italy,
being Italy, last night put all of Italy and all Italians, into lockdown. I
expect the Italian economy to sink faster than cruise line stocks.
But
which Italian bank will go bust first? Will Italy finally push the rump-EU into
recession?If they do, how long before
Germany’s Deutsche Bank blows up?
These
are far from normal times. To this old dinosaur commodities and stock market follower
since 1968, this is no time to be volunteering to catch falling swords. For
now, any bounce in stocks is an exit opportunity. Time to sell out to what will
probably be, the last stand of the greater fool buyers.
Yesterday’s
action, probably set-off a great wave of across the board hedge fund
redemptions. It will be interesting to see who gets locked-in at month-end.
By
the way, how did WeWork do?
Stocks savaged, Italy on
lockdown, Trump seeks to reassure as coronavirus spreads
March 9, 2020 /
11:39 AM / Updated 24 minutes ago
ROME
(Reuters) - All of Italy under lockdown, reeling financial markets and rioting
prisoners made clear on Monday how the global coronavirus epidemic was
extending its reach into all aspects of social and economic life.
Major European stock markets dived more than 7%, Japanese indexes fell
over 5% and U.S. markets sank over 7% after Saudi Arabia launched an oil price
war with Russia that sent investors already spooked by the coronavirus epidemic
running for the exits.
In Italy, scene of Europe’s worst outbreak with infections and deaths
still soaring, the government took its most drastic steps yet to contain the
outbreak, affecting some 60 million people. It ordered everyone across the
country not to move around other than for work and emergencies, banned all
public gatherings and suspended sporting events, including soccer matches.
Deaths in Milan’s Lombardy region - which had already been on lockdown
with cinemas, theatres and museums closed and restaurant hours restricted -
jumped 25% in a day to 333, while the national death toll soared by 97 to 463,
the highest in the world after China.
Over 9,000 people have become infected in Italy in little over two
weeks, out of a global total of more than 113,000 in over 100 countries. Nearly
4,000 people have died across the world, the vast majority in mainland China.
“Now that the virus has a foothold in so many countries, the threat of a
pandemic has become very real,” World Health Organization Director-General
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference.
But he welcomed Italy’s tough measures, noting that just four countries
- China, South Korea, Italy and Iran - accounted for 93% of cases worldwide.
Israel ordered anyone entering the country to self-quarantine for 14 days on
Monday.
‘Pasta started flying off
supermarket shelves in Milan.’ Italians struggle to adjust to the New Normal
amid nationwide coronavirus lockdown
---- A 38-year-old man had become ill with respiratory
problems. Local reports said he had several contacts with doctors
before he was admitted to a hospital and put under isolation in Codogna, a town
just southeast of Milan. Still, we never expected to be spared the virus.
The government took swift action. Universities and schools
were closed. The change in people’s behavior was almost immediate. Pasta
started flying off the shelves of supermarkets in Milan. If such panic buying
was any indication, people were taking it seriously. Turns out, they had good
reason.
On Monday, the Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte
imposed quarantine restrictions on the entire country, starting
this Tuesday. “There won’t be just a red zone,” he said. It’s an expansion of
last weekend’s lockdown that had effectively covered 16 million people in the
country’s north.
In Lombardy, we were already in lockdown mode. People may
now only travel for work, health reasons or emergencies. As a teacher, I was
fortunate to be able to work from home, stay in touch with
my students, and plan my lessons remotely.
But for all the immediate government measures that were
taken, they don’t seem to have had much of an impact on the spread of the
coronavirus. I’ve been following the number of confirmed cases in real time in
the area of Lombardy. Last week, in one 24-hour period, they literally doubled.
As of Monday evening, there were 9,172 cases in Italy, and
at least 463 deaths. That’s the highest number of infections for one country
outside of mainland China, where there are now more than 80,754 confirmed cases
of COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.
Of course, many are following protocol and taking positive
action, but there does seem to be a lack of awareness of how serious the
situation actually is; serious in the sense that the coronavirus — which now has more than 114,219 confirmed cases
worldwide — is spreading fast.
Hospital staff are under enormous pressure as they don’t
have the facilities to deal with the number of critical cases. There’s even
talk of the possibility of having to select which patients take precedence, if
the worst comes to the worst and they can’t admit all of those people infected.
I heard that retired doctors have been asked to go back to
work, despite being in the high-risk category because of their age. It’s the
medical staff that are literally pleading with the general public to wake up,
and start acting responsibly. Not everyone is having an easy time doing that.
Some people are in denial, while
others are defiant
Take the 71-year old man who was hospitalized in Como. He
was in isolation for the virus, but felt fine so he packed his bags, called a
taxi and headed home to Bergamo. The staff discovered that he’d “escaped” when
they were doing their rounds, and so the authorities were called in.
Even the unfortunate taxi driver was quarantined! It’s that
lack of a sense of social responsibility or, perhaps in this case, simply an
unfortunate lack of awareness about the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreak
in Italy that hasn’t helped. And these are not isolated cases.
Opinion: These energy companies
have the highest debt and the most at risk as the oil market collapses
Published: March 10, 2020 at 1:17 a.m. ET
Investors shocked at Saudi Arabia’s decision to lower oil
prices and increase production sent financial markets reeling. A concern now
for the oil and gas industry is which players can survive a prolonged market
imbalance.
West Texas crude oil for April delivery CLJ20, 7.420%
fell as much as 34% to $27.34 a barrel Monday. That action followed Saudi
Arabia’s announcement Saturday that after failed negotiations between OPEC and
Russia to cut production in an attempt balance supply with reduced demand as
the coronavirus spread, it would actually lower its own prices while
increasing production.
“Now the question is, what is the Russian response?” said Philip
Orlando, chief equity market strategist for Federated Hermes, in an interview.
“Do they hold their breath until they turn blue? Or do they say, ‘You have the
market weight here, why don’t we sit down to cut and stabilize the market?’
That may be too obvious and rational, so I have no idea how this is going to
end up.”
Banks with heavy exposure to the energy industry may be
facing defaults, loan losses and other fallout. Here’s a list of banks with the most exposure
as a share of tangible common equity.
Canada reports first COVID-19
death as number of infected climbs
10 Mar 2020 03:21AM
OTTAWA: Canada on Monday (Mar 9) reported its first death from a new coronavirus
as the number of people in the nation who have contracted the disease jumped to
above 70, officials said.
The dead man had been living in a nursing home, the Lynn Valley Care
Centre in North Vancouver, British Columbia's chief health officer Bonnie Henry
told a news conference.
---- Canada now has at least 72 presumptive and
confirmed cases of the virus that causes the respiratory illness COVID-19, up
from 51 on Friday.
Following the markets on both sides of the Atlantic since 1968. A dinosaur, who evolved with the financial system as it was perverted from capitalism to banksterism after the great Nixonian error of abandoning the dollar's link to gold instead of simply revaluing gold. Our money is too important to be left to probity challenged central banksters and crooked politicians.
No comments:
Post a Comment