Baltic Dry Index. 706 +27 Brent Crude 27.93 Spot
Gold 1715
Coronavirus Cases 16/4/20
World 2,083,670 Deaths 138,590
“There aren’t a lot of people
in gloves and masks running out to buy cars,” said Maryann Keller, a former
Wall Street analyst who’s now an auto-industry consultant in Stamford,
Connecticut. “Auctions are mostly shut down and they’re filled with cars that
have no buyers.”
The good news yesterday, like me President
Trump thinks we have passed or are passing the peak of new coronavirus cases.
If so, we will shortly start to gradually ease up on all of the global
lockdowns.
The bad news yesterday on the global economy,
was unrelenting. The bad news yesterday in the energy sector was devastating.
Within less than a month we will run out of storage for new oil production. To
keep producing, in parts of America and possibly Canada, oil producers might
have to pay oil companies to take their oil.
Below, our wrecked global economy sinking
into a 1930s type of depression.
Stocks slide as dire economic outlook weighs
April 16, 2020 /
12:59 AM
SINGAPORE/NEW YORK (Reuters) - World stock
markets fell on Thursday, while bonds and the dollar held on to hefty gains,
after a coronavirus-driven plunge in U.S. retail sales and factory production
and increasing gloomy economic outlooks for Asia.
U.S. retail sales fell the most on record last month, while manufacturing output fell by the most in 74 years, raising fears of a deep recession.
In Asia, growth will grind to zero for the first time in 60 years in 2020, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday, as exporters are pounded by slumping demand and anti-virus measures force consumers to stay home and shops to shut down.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS fell 0.6%. In Japan, where a Reuters survey showed most firms feel stimulus measures announced so far are insufficient, the Nikkei .N225 fell 1.3%.
E-mini futures for the S&P 500 ESc1 were 0.3% lower following a 2.2% drop on Wall Street overnight. [.N]
“It’s just a reminder of how deep the economic weakness has been,” said Paul Chew, head of research at Singapore brokerage Phillip Securities.
The relatively modest drop shows some level of optimism about a brisk re-start, he said, but added: “The problem is, no-one knows how long this will go for.”
Benchmark indexes in Australia , Korea .KS11, Hong Kong .HSI and Shanghai .SSEC also posted falls between 0.3% and 1.5%. China is expected to report on Friday that the health crisis likely knocked its economy into its first decline on record.
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Pandemic to bring Asia's 2020 growth to halt for 1st time in 60 years - IMF
April 16, 2020 /
1:04 AM / Updated 4 hours ago
TOKYO (Reuters) - Asia’s economic growth
this year will grind to a halt for the first time in 60 years, as the coronavirus
crisis takes an “unprecedented” toll on the region’s service sector and major
export destinations, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday.
Policymakers must offer targeted support to households and firms
hardest-hit by travel bans, social distancing policies and other measures aimed
at containing the pandemic, said Changyong Rhee, director of the IMF’s Asia and
Pacific Department.
“These are highly uncertain and challenging times for the global
economy. The Asia-Pacific region is no exception. The impact of the coronavirus
on the region will be severe, across the board, and unprecedented,” he told a
virtual news briefing conducted with live webcast.
“This is not a time for business as usual. Asian countries need to use
all policy instruments in their toolkits.”
Asia’s economy is likely to suffer zero growth this year for the first
time in 60 years, the IMF said in a report on the Asia-Pacific region released
on Thursday.
While Asia is set to fare better than other regions suffering economic
contractions, the projection is worse than the 4.7% average growth rates
throughout the global financial crisis, and the 1.3% increase during the Asian
financial crisis in the late 1990s, the IMF said.
More
Empire State manufacturing index plunges to record low in April
Published: April 15, 2020 at 8:35
a.m. ET
The numbers: The
New York Fed’s Empire State business conditions index plummeted a record 57 points to
-78.2 in April, the regional Fed bank said Wednesday. That’s the lowest reading
on record. Economists had expected a much smaller decline to -35, according to
a survey by Econoday. Any reading below zero indicates deteriorating conditions.
What happened: New orders and shipments both declined at a record pace. Delivery times lengthened and inventories fell. Employment levels contracted at a record pace. One bright spot was that firms expect conditions to be slightly better in six months.
Big picture: This is the second straight record decline in the Empire Index as the coronavirus-related shutdown hit the factory sector hard. The prior lowest level of the index was -34.3 during the Great Recession of 2008-2009. Economists use the regional manufacturing surveys to get a sense of activity at the national level. The Institute for Supply Management said its manufacturing index slipped to 49.1% in March from 50.1 in the prior month. It looks like more deterioration is coming.
Retail sales in the U.S. plummet a record 8.7% in March at start of coronavirus crisis
Published: April 15, 2020 at 8:46
a.m. ET
The numbers: The
onset of the coronavius pandemic triggered a record 8.7% slump in sales at U.S.
retailers — and there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. Sales fell for the second month in a row in what’s likely to be a prolonged period of agony for an industry that still relies heavily on lots of foot traffic and customers bunched together when they shop.
Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected a 7.1% decline.
What happened: Sales sank 27% at auto dealers and 17% at gas stations, two of biggest segments of the retail industry.
Sales fell a smaller but still crushing 3.1% excluding those categories, but the damage was still widespread. Receipts plunged a staggering 50% at clothing stores, 26.5% at restaurants and 20% at department stores.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/retail-sales-in-the-us-plummet-a-record-87-in-march-at-start-of-coronavirus-crisis-2020-04-15?mod=home-page
Toyota to cut production in Japan in May as coronavirus squeezes demand
April 15, 2020 /
1:29 PM
TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) on Wednesday said it
will cut production of finished vehicles by 40 percent in Japan in May as
demand shrinks around the world because of the coronavirus pandemic. The measures, which will cut production to 79,000 vehicles for the month, include suspending production on some days and reducing shifts form two to one at some plants, the company said in a press release.
Oil Glut May Overwhelm Global Storage Tanks Within Weeks
By Grant Smith
April 15, 2020, 9:00 AM GMT+1
·
Consumption to fall by 9.3 million barrels a day
in 2020: IEA
·
Storage may be exhausted by mid-year despite
OPEC+ cutbacks
Global oil demand will plunge by a record 9% this year due to coronavirus lockdowns, thwarting efforts by OPEC+ to contain the resulting glut of crude, the International Energy Agency said.
A decade of demand growth will be wiped out in 2020, when consumption will slump by just over 9
million barrels a day, the agency said in its monthly report. April will suffer the hardest hit, with fuel use contracting by almost a third to the lowest level since 1995.
Demand Destruction
Global oil demand will drop by a record 9.3 million b/d
in 2020, says IEA
---- “Never before has the oil industry come this close to testing its logistics capacity to the limit,” said the Paris-based IEA, which advises most major economies on energy policy.
Saudi Arabia, Russia and other exporters in the OPEC+ coalition announced that they will collectively slash output by just under 10 million barrels a day over the next two months. This “should help bring the oil industry back from the brink of an even more serious situation than it currently faces,” the IEA said.
More
Fear of an Impending Car-Price Collapse Grips Auto Industry
April 13, 2020, 12:00 PM GMT+1 Updated on April 13, 2020, 4:30 PM GMT+1
The auto industry -- already fretting lengthy factory shutdowns and depressed new-vehicle demand -- is starting to sound the alarm about a potential used-car price collapse that could have far-reaching consequences for manufacturers, lenders and rental companies.
Used-vehicle auctions are for now virtually paralyzed, much like the rest of the economy. The grave concern market watchers have is that vehicles already are starting to pile up at places where buyers and sellers make and take bids on cars and trucks -- and that this imbalance will last for months.
If that fear is realized and prices plummet, it will be detrimental to automakers and their in-house lending units, which likely will have to write down the value of lease contracts that had assumed vehicles would retain greater value. Rental-car companies also will get less money from selling down their fleet of vehicles, which are sitting idle amid a global pandemic that’s been catastrophic for travel.
“Six months from
now, there will be huge, if not unprecedented, levels of wholesale supply in
the market,” Dale Pollak, an executive vice president of Cox Automotive, which
owns North America’s largest auto-auction company, wrote in an open
letter to auto dealers last week. “Cars are coming in, but
they aren’t selling. Today’s huge supply of wholesale inventory suggests
supplies will be even larger in the months ahead.”
Automakers are doing what they can to limit the damage. General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co.’s finance units already are offering customers one-month lease extensions. In addition to relieving pressure on consumers wary of going into showrooms, this will delay some of the influx of off-lease vehicles headed to auctions that are for now operating only virtually.
But these measures are unlikely to go nearly far enough to address the asymmetry between the supply of used vehicles and demand that is unlikely to rebound anytime soon given that almost 17 million Americans sought jobless benefits in just the last three weeks.
“There aren’t a lot of people in gloves and masks running out to buy cars,” said Maryann Keller, a former Wall Street analyst who’s now an auto-industry consultant in Stamford, Connecticut.
“Auctions are mostly shut down and they’re filled with cars that have no buyers.”
Used-car sales fell 64% in the last week of March, according to Manheim. The Cox Automotive-owned auction company estimates that prices have fallen about 10% in recent weeks, though that figure is based on unusually low volume at auctions.
If that level of decline lasts or worsens, it could have huge implications for GM, whose General Motors Financial unit had $30.4 billion worth of vehicles leased to customers at the end of last year. If GM Financial needs to boost its estimate of how much those vehicles are going to depreciate in value, each percentage point increase raises the firm’s expenses by $304 million, according to a regulatory filing.
More
Stocks rally as investors ask the ‘wrong question’ about coronavirus and reopening the economy, analyst says
Published: April
15, 2020 at 6:29 a.m. ET
The rebound by the U.S. stock market off its March 23
coronavirus low is impressive, but it might be predicated on the wrong
question, according to one analyst.“Most of the analysts are asking — ‘When will the economies return back to work?’ — which we believe is the wrong question,” said Boris Schlossberg, managing director of BK Asset Management, in a Tuesday note. “The much more relevant question is — ‘When will aggregate demand recover to pre-virus levels?’ That is a much more difficult dilemma to assess given the massive damage done to consumer balance sheets.”
Signs the COVID-19 pandemic is peaking in Europe and the U.S. have fanned buying interest for equities and lifted investor appetite for risky assets. Some European countries have started to lift restrictions on movement and activity, while U.S. politicians are scrapping over the timing of a reopening and who has authority to decide.
---- Analysts at Goldman Sachs this week threw in the towel on their near-term bearish forecast, which had called for the S&P 500 to test 2,000, arguing that the March 23 low would mark the bottom. Like other bulls, they argued that the flattening of the so-called viral curve combined with unprecedented rounds of monetary and fiscal stimulus by the Federal Reserve and U.S. government made it unlikely the market would carve out new lows, barring a second wave of infections down the road.
Others have argued that the rally will give way to renewed selling pressure as the damage to the economy from lockdowns becomes apparent and uncertainty about the shape of the economic recovery remains.
And it certainly is difficult to assess the answer to Schlossberg’s
question about when demand will return to pre-virus levels. Some economists
contend the unprecedented nature of the shock from the pandemic leave them and
investors flying blind as to both the near-term and longer term impact.
Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, argued in a
Monday note that predicting the shape of the economic recovery requires three
pieces of information that remain elusive for now: “How far down is the bottom
of this economic contraction? How long will it be before we get there? How much
of the world’s productive capacity will be destroyed by the contraction?”
Weinberg said he fears that those forecasting a “V-shaped” recovery that
will quickly return the economy to pre-virus levels are “hopelessly lost.”
More
Covid-19 Corner
Though
hopefully, we are passing the peak of new cases, at least of the first
SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, this section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Today,
mixed news from Europe. Potentially bad news out of Harvard.
Spain Records Biggest Rise in New Coronavirus Cases in Six Days
By Rodrigo Orihuela
April 15, 2020, 10:45 AM GMT+1
Spain reported the biggest increase in the number of confirmed
coronavirus cases in six days on Wednesday, while the daily death toll
declined.
There were more than 5,000 new infections in the 24 hours through
Wednesday, taking the total to 177,633, according to Health Ministry data. The
number of fatalities rose by 523 to 18,579, compared to Tuesday’s increase of
637.
Health Minister Salvador Illa said this week that Spain has already
passed the peak of what is Europe’s most extensive outbreak. While the
situation at many hospitals and intensive care units has been improving, severe
restrictions on movement are still in place.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said that he will seek to extend a
state of emergency beyond its current April 25 expiry date, but has also
indicated that lockdown rules may be eased.
There is growing pressure to allow people out of their homes for
exercise or for activities with children. A government team led by Ecological
Transition Minister Teresa Ribera is working on how to relax the measures.
The administration in Madrid is also facing growing pressure about its
strategy to deal with the economic fallout.
More
Portugal Reports Biggest Rise in New Virus Cases in Five Days
By Joao Lima
April 15, 2020, 1:04 PM GMT+1
Portugal reported the biggest increase in new confirmed coronavirus
cases in five days on Wednesday, while the number of hospitalized patients
fell.
There were 643 new cases in a day, taking the total to 18,091, the
government said on Wednesday.
The total number of deaths rose to 599 from 567
reported through Tuesday morning.
- The number of hospitalized cases fell to 1,200 from 1,227 reported on Tuesday, while cases in intensive care units dropped to 208 from 218.
- A total of 383 patients have now recovered, up from 347.
- Deaths so far indicate a fatality rate of 3.3%, while for those more than 70 years old it’s 11.7%, Secretary of State for Health Antonio Lacerda Sales said at a press conference in Lisbon on Wednesday.
More
French coronavirus toll jumps by record 1,438 deaths
April 15, 2020 /
7:34 PM / Updated 14 minutes ago
PARIS (Reuters) - The number of people who died from coronavirus
infection in France jumped by 1,438 or 9.1% to 17,167 in the biggest single-day
increase as a number of nursing homes reported cumulative tolls following the
three-day Easter weekend, the health ministry said on Wednesday.
The number of people who died in hospitals rose by 514 or 5% to 10,643,
less than the 541 reported on Tuesday, but the cumulative death toll in nursing
homes rose by 924 or 17% to 6,524, compared with 221 on Tuesday.
“This increase is not the mortality rate over 24 hours but is due to a
catch-up in reporting of data following the three-day weekend,” Health Ministry
Director Jerome Salomon said.
He said the COVID-19 pandemic is still highly active and called on
French people to strictly respect confinement measures.
But he also reported that for the first time since the start of the
epidemic, the number of people in hospital for COVID-19 had fallen by 513 or
1.6% to 31,779 in a sign that the infection rate is slowing and that
confinement is working.
More
Germany to extend coronavirus lockdown until May 3 with some easing: sources
April 15, 2020 /
10:34 AM
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany will consider relaxing restrictions next week
on shops introduced last month to slow the spread of the coronavirus but extend
limits on movement until May 3, several participants in talks between regional
and central government said on Wednesday.
Chancellor Angela Merkel is to hold talks with state premiers of
Germany’s 16 states from 2 p.m. (1200 GMT) to agree whether and how to loosen
some of the restrictions given some improvement in the situation.
Among the issues under discussion are when schools, shops and factories
may re-open, the option of making people wear protective face masks in public
and the merits of a mobile phone app to help trace new cases.
Merkel’s cabinet has already decided to extend border controls to
Austria, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg and Denmark by 20 days to early May,
an Interior Ministry spokesman said.
With several EU countries now trying different ways to ease their
restrictions, the European Commission is urging member states to coordinate
their efforts, warning that failure to do so could result in new spikes in
cases.
Infectious disease experts say that four weeks of keeping schools,
factories and shops shut has brought progress but warn that the epidemic is not
yet contained and there is a long way to go before normal life resumes in
Europe’s biggest economy.
More
Lockdowns should be lifted in two-week stages to stem COVID-19 spread - WHO
April 15, 2020 /
10:57 AM
GENEVA
(Reuters) - Countries that ease restrictions imposed to fight the spread of the
coronavirus should wait at least two weeks to evaluate the impact of such
changes before easing again, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on
Wednesday.
In its latest Strategy Update, the U.N. agency said that the world
stands at a “pivotal juncture” in the pandemic and that “speed, scale, and
equity must be our guiding principles” when deciding what measures are
necessary.
Every country should implement comprehensive publichealth measures to
maintain a sustainable steady state of low-level or no transmission and prepare
its surge capacity to react rapidly to control any spread, the WHO said.
Some of the countries hardest-hit by the virus are now considering
lifting lockdowns and beginning the transition toward a resumption of normal
life. The WHO update said any such steps should be taken gradually, with time
to evaluate their impact before new steps are taken.
“To reduce the risk of new outbreaks, measures should be lifted in a
phased, step-wise manner based on an assessment of the epidemiological risks
and socioeconomic benefits of lifting restrictions on different workplaces,
educational institutions, and social activities...,” the WHO said.
“Ideally there would be a minimum of 2 weeks (corresponding to the
incubation period of COVID-19) between each phase of the transition, to allow
sufficient time to understand the risk of new outbreaks and to respond appropriately,”
it added.
It warned that the “risk of re-introduction and resurgence of the
disease will continue”.
More
What if Covid-19 Returns Every Year, Like the Common Cold?
A new Harvard study models how long we’d
have to keep social distancing if the virus turns out to be seasonal, like its
coronavirus cousins. It could be years.
04.15.2020 07:00
AM
----But
that kind of sweeping containment has begun to look far less plausible. To
predict the long-term course of Covid-19, a different analogy may be in order.
What if the virus is more like some of its lesser-known family members, like
HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-HKU1? The names are not as familiar, but you’ve likely met
them before. These viruses cause the common cold. And while they’re less deadly
than SARS or MERS, they’re peskier too; they come
and go with the seasons, with human
immunity waning over time. It’s why we keep catching them, again and again.
The Harvard researchers found we could be looking at being shut-ins, at least from time to time, for a long while—think 2022.
The role of seasonality “is certainly not zero,” Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard who coauthored the study, said at a press conference held Tuesday. He cautioned that seasonal variability is not the same thing as saying the virus will go away in the summer. Outbreaks could occur at any time, he noted, but those that begin in the fall might be more severe. That kind of variation could have important implications for how social distancing measures are timed.
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.
US Scientists Create New Solar Cell That Blows Past Theoretical Limit, But Why?
April 14th, 2020 by Tina Casey
The National Renewable Laboratory just
nailed down bragging rights to the world’s most efficient solar cell to date.
The new PV device sails past the theoretical limit of 33% and gets pretty close
to the 50% range, clocking in at an impressive 47.1%. The downside is that
high-performance devices like these have an irritating tendency to price
themselves out of the marketplace. They get stuck in outer space and other
niche areas. Nevertheless, high performance could pay off in the sparkling
green future, even though the cost of garden-variety solar is already low and
falling.
Before we get to the sparkling green economy of the future, let’s take a quick look at that new photovoltaic research from NREL.
For those of you new to the topic, the basic idea is that the right combination of materials can improve the ability of a solar cell to convert solar energy to electricity.
So far, silicon has proved to be the gold standard for solar cell efficiency. The 33% limit is based on single-junction solar cells, which use only silicon.
By switching up materials, adding more junctions, and performing some impressive feats of engineering in between, you can push past that limit.
Some triple-junction solar cells, for example, can surpass 45% under concentrated sunlight.
The new NREL solar cell is a six-junction affair of the III-V variety (“III-V” refers to the position of light absorbing elements on the periodic table).
You can get all the details from the research paper, published in the journal Nature Energy under the title, “Six-junction III-V solar cells with 47.1% conversion efficiency under 143 suns concentration,” but if you only have time for the plain-language version, the basic idea is that each of the six junctions capture different parts of the solar spectrum.
Through the magic of modern engineering and nanotechnology, the new solar cell consists of about 140 layers of the various materials, but it is narrower than a hair.
If that sounds rather pricey, it probably is. NREL has been working on bringing the cost of III-V solar cells down, but they are typically used in space and other niche applications where small is good and money is not an obstacle.
More
J
The Monthly Coppock Indicators finished March
DJIA: 21,917 +45 Down. NASDAQ: 7,700 +149 Down.
SP500: 2,585 +38 Down.
The NASDAQ and S&P have
joined the DJIA in down. All three monthly slow indexes have collapsed.
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