Baltic Dry Index. 728 -29 Brent Crude 16.44 Spot
Gold 1684
Coronavirus Cases 22/4/20
World 2,573,271 Deaths 177,604
How
to make a small fortune on Wall Street, start with a large one.
With the wild
moves in our casinos getting wilder with each passing week, it’s highly
probable that many traders are now sitting on large undisclosed losses.
In wild
unpredictable markets, now largely dominated by algo computer programs
frantically trying to front run the order stream, very few traders show up as
consistent winners. But sooner or later the losses show up, either willingly or
when the money runs out and they can’t be hidden any more.
In fact, in current
lockdown conditions still in place all over the world, with unprecedented central
bank socialism financing more and more of the failing national economies and
firms, no one knows what the future holds or whether it’s even possible to
return to the investment world pre-January 2020.
Demand for many
products has collapsed. Unemployment is soaring, with another large jump in the
weekly figures expected again later this week. Unemployed people generally aren’t
looking to buy cars, houses, or very much of anything else.
I suspect that
what comes next is a nasty round of days of reckoning. The central banks are
headed for a summer of unintended consequences, cascading implosions, and debt
defaults. Who would want to be a trader in an unfolding, real life, disaster movie
like this?
Asian markets pull back as crude prices continue to fall
April 21, 2020 /
11:48 AM / Updated April 21, 2020 at 4:50 PM
April 21 (UPI) -- U.S. stocks closed with losses for a second
consecutive day Tuesday as oil prices continued to drop.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 631.56 points, or 2.67
percent, while the S&P 500 dropped 3.07 percent and the Nasdaq Composite
slid 3.48 percent
The losses follow a historic decline of oil prices on Monday.
West Texas Intermediate's contract for May delivery -- which traded below $0 on Monday for the first time in history -- rebounded slightly Tuesday but was trading at less than $5. For June delivery, which experts view as a better indicator of how Wall Street views oil prices, WTI fell 43.4 percent to $11.57 per barrel Tuesday.
Brent crude dropped below $20 per barrel on Tuesday, at one point settling at about $18 per barrel, its lowest price since late 2001.
The United States Oil Fund fell 25.07 percent on Tuesday, while Marathon Petroleum fell 4.55 percent and Conoco Phillips dropped 3.99 percent to drag down the S&P's energy sector.
Dramatic cutbacks in demand, driven by the coronavirus and a weekslong dispute between Russia and OPEC nations, have propelled the historic oil sell-off. OPEC and Russia eventually agreed to cut production by 10 million barrels per day in May.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday tweeted that he has instructed the Treasury and Energy secretaries to develop a plan to "make funds available so that these very important companies and jobs will be secured long into the future."
Published: April 21, 2020 at 2:57 p.m. ET
The gyrations that have gripped financial markets for the
past several weeks just caught up with the oil sector, taking many investors
along for an unexpected ride. On Monday, as oil markets crashed through the floor, the United States Oil Fund LP USO, -25.06% , an exchange-traded fund that tracks the futures markets to give investors direct exposure to the oil price, tumbled 12%. On Tuesday at midday, USO was down another 30%, taking its loss over the course of its 14 years in existence to about 96%.
Many investors in USO are likely new and the ETF has seen huge inflows in recent weeks as oil markets have churned, propelled by bets on global deals on production cuts to stabilize prices.
ETFs are often popular vehicles for institutional investors or professional traders who want to sell an investment short, or use it to make a bet that the price of an asset class will decline. But only about 13% of USO’s float was held by traders with short interest in the fund, according to Ihor Dusaniwsky at S3 Partners.
Given its wide availability on retail brokerage platforms and its popularity among one of the industry’s biggest robo-advisors, ETF professionals believe many of USO’s recent entrants were retail investors, and the scope of this week’s rout was likely a rude awakening.
“I would argue that you should not be investing in this if you are not allowed to invest in the underlying assets,” said Dave Nadig, chief investment officer and director of research at ETF Database.
---- “In addition, commencing on April 22, 2020, USO in response to ongoing extraordinary market conditions in the crude oil markets, including super contango, may invest in the above described crude oil futures contracts on the NYMEX and ICE Futures in any month available or in varying percentages or invest in any other of the permitted investments described below and in its prospectus, without further disclosure,” the issuer said in an SEC filing announcing the changes. “Significant tracking deviations may occur above and beyond the differences described herein.”
It takes about two weeks for USO to “roll” its contracts, or shift its assets to later-dated ones, a process well-known to institutional participants in the marketplace, Nadig noted. It’s important to note that on Monday, when the previously unthinkable happened and May contracts for West Texas Intermediate crude oil went negative, USO had no May exposure.
More
April 22, 2020 /
12:04 AM
SEOUL
(Reuters) - As Detroit’s automakers shut production in March due to the
coronavirus pandemic, South Korea’s Hyundai Motor cranked up its factories back
home to ship cars to the United States, a move that is proving costly for the
world’s fifth-largest auto group.
Hyundai (005380.KS) ramped up domestic production to as much as 98% of capacity by late March, not only as the Korean market was recovering from a bad February but also because it bet on demand for Tucson SUVs and other models from U.S. customers, its biggest overseas market outside of China.
While Hyundai is one of few global automakers whose production has recovered at home, its exports optimism has been dampened by the severity of the U.S. outbreak, weak consumer sentiment and as rivals have quickly moved to guard their turf.
Consignments of cars shipped from South Korea are now sitting in U.S. ports, with dealers slow to take deliveries because of slumping sales and rising inventory, four people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
The company idled a Tucson production line at home last week for five days, while sister firm Kia Motors (000270.KS) is looking to suspend three Korean plants for a week. And analysts now expect a sharp drop in first-quarter operating profit when it reports results on Thursday and some even forecast a second-quarter loss.
“I hope that the situation will recover by the middle of next month. If not, we might have to lay off some people,” said Brad Cannon, general manager of an exclusive Hyundai dealership in California, whose sales are down more than 50% from when the pandemic started.
----
Hyundai’s South Korean factory operation, which had recovered from a component
shortage from China to nearly 100% capacity by March, could fall to as much as
70% in April, the company recently told analysts.
More
Finally,
yet more distress in the food supply chain. Will the missing meat demand return
in time to save the US meat supply, or will a wave of bankruptcies reduce supply
to eventually match the new lower demand?
Cattle industry losses expected to quickly outpace federal aid
April 21, 2020 /
3:02 AM
EVANSVILLE, Ind., April 21 (UPI) -- American livestock producers will receive the lion's share of the
$19 billion federal Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, with $5.1 billion
earmarked for American cattle producers.But with cattle industry losses expected to surpass $13.6 billion, according to new research from Oklahoma State University, industry leaders fear the aid will not be enough to save struggling ranchers.
"The bottom line is there will be guys in cow-calf production that at this point probably will not be able to cover their production costs," said Derrell Peel, a professor of agribusiness and an Oklahoma State University Extension livestock marketing specialist, who lead the study.
"There are some producers that will not survive this," Peel said.
Falling consumer demand for meat from Americans staying home to slow the spread of the coronavirus is at the heart of the issue.
The demand for meat initially surged in early March, when governors started to close restaurants and schools and issued the first stay-at-home orders. Consumers flooded supermarkets and stockpiled staples like meat, bread and eggs.
But that initial demand fell dramatically in the final weeks of March. American consumers had stocked up, and nationwide restaurant closures wiped out 40 percent or more of the market for beef.
Live cattle prices have fallen some 30 percent since January, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, to about 85 cents a pound from $1.20.
Now, ranchers face yet another complication -- packing plants have been closing because workers contracted the coronavirus.
JBS, an international meat processing company, announced Monday it was closing its pork processing plant in Worthington, Minn. It is the third American plant the company has shuttered amid the pandemic. The other two were beef facilities.
Smithfield Foods closed its pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, S.D., last week. Meanwhile, National Beef Packing has closed its plant in Tama, Iowa, and Cargill closed a plant in Hazleton, Pa.
"We've seen more packing plants shut down or scale back production because of sick workers," said Colin Woodall, CEO of the Denver-based National Cattlemen's Beef Association. "Now, there's a backup of cattle in the system."
That backup means some producers are struggling to sell cattle.
"Producers have adjusted as much as they can to buy time," said Jim Petrik, a South Dakota rancher who raises cattle and hogs. "You can put cattle out to pasture to feed on grass, and reduce the energy in their diets so they grow slower. But at some point, they have to be harvested."
Petrik added that the coronavirus aid will be welcomed by ranchers, but that it won't make up for all the losses.
More
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2020/04/21/Cattle-industry-losses-expected-to-quickly-outpace-federal-aid/4161587417083/?ls=4
UN says food shortages due to Covid-19 pandemic could lead to humanitarian catastrophe
Issued on:
The coronavirus pandemic could nearly double the number
of people around the world facing acute hunger, the UN's World Food Programme
said Tuesday, its director warning of a looming
"global humanitarian catastrophe."
"We are on the brink of a hunger pandemic," David Beasley, the WFP's executive director, told the UN Security Council in a video conference.
The warning came as the WFP and other partners released a new report on food crises around the world that predicted an explosive growth in the number of people threatened with "acute food insecurity."
The fourth annual Global Report on Food Crises said the number was already on the rise last year before the outbreak of the new coronavirus.
But the economic impact of COVID-19 is projected by the WFP to increase the number facing food insecurity to 265 million this year, from 135 million in 2019, already the highest in the four years the report has been prepared.
---- "In a worst-case scenario, we could be looking at famine in about three dozen countries, and in fact, in 10 of these countries we already have more than one million people per country who are on the verge of starvation."
Comparing the 50 countries in the reports this and last year, the number of people in food crisis rose by nearly 10 percent to 123 million people.
The increase was due to conflicts, economic shocks and weather-related events such as drought.
The report found another 183 million were at risk of slipping into food crisis "if confronted by an additional shock or stressor".
COVID-19 could easily turn out to be such a shock, both as ill people overwhelm hospitals and governments impose lockdowns that have disrupted the economy and thrown people out of work.
"COVID-19 is potentially catastrophic for millions who are already hanging by a thread," the WFP’s Senior Economist Arif Husain said in a statement.
https://www.france24.com/en/20200422-un-says-food-shortages-due-to-covid-19-pandemic-could-lead-to-humanitarian-catastrophe
Stocks are never too high to begin buying or too low to begin selling.
Jesse Livermore
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.
No benefit, higher death rate for malaria drug in coronavirus study
Issued on: 22/04/2020 - 00:10Modified: 22/04/2020 - 00:09
A malaria drug widely touted as a potential cure for COVID-19 showed no
benefit against the disease over standard care -- and was in fact associated
with more deaths, the biggest study of its kind showed Tuesday.
The US government funded analysis of American military veterans'
treatment courses was posted on a medical preprint site and has not yet been
peer reviewed.
The experiment had several important limitations, but adds to a growing
body of doubt over the efficacy of the medicine that counts President Donald
Trump and right wing news channel Fox News among its biggest backers.
Researchers looked at the medical records of 368 veterans hospitalized
nationwide who either died or were discharged by April 11.
Death rates for patients on hydroxychloroquine were 28 percent, compared
to 22 percent when it was taken with the anti-biotic azithromycin -- a
combination favored by French scientist Didier Raoult, whose study on the
subject in March triggered a surge of global interest in the drug.
The death rate for those receiving only standard care was 11 percent.
Hydroxychloroquine, with or without azithromycin, was more likely to be
prescribed to patients with more severe illness, but the authors found that
increased mortality persisted even after they statistically adjusted for higher
rates of use.
Other drawbacks include the fact that the study did not assign people
randomly to groups, because it was a retrospective analysis meaning it looked
back on what had already happened.
In
addition, the results are hard to generalize because the population was highly
specific: most of the patients were male, with a median age over 65, and black,
a group that is disproportionately affected by underlying illnesses like
diabetes and heart disease.
---- Hydroxychloroquine and a related compound chloroquine have been used for decades to treat malaria, as well as the autoimmune disorders lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
They have received significant attention during the novel coronavirus
pandemic and have been shown in lab settings to block the virus from entering
cells and prevent it replicating -- but in the pharmaceutical world, "in
vitro" promise often fails to translate into "in vivo" success.
The true answer can only be determined through very large, randomized
clinical trials that assign patients to receive either the drug under
investigation or a placebo.
Several of these are underway, including notably in Europe, Canada and
the United Kingdom.
Northwest China sees return of coronavirus cases
April 21, 2020 /
1:43 AM
BEIJING/SHANGHAI
(Reuters) - A northwestern province on the frontline of China’s coronavirus
battle reported on Tuesday its first cases in nearly three weeks, all involving
travellers from overseas, as imported infections started to level off
elsewhere.
The province of Shaanxi reported 21 new infections from abroad, as well
as seven cases with no clinical symptoms, all travellers on a commercial flight
from Moscow bound for the Chinese capital of Beijing.
As the result of a ban on international flights arriving in Beijing, the
Air China jet landed on Monday in the provincial capital of Xian, where the
virus was detected by medical staff running tests at the airport, and confirmed
on Tuesday.
All those infected were Chinese nationals.
New imported infections in mainland China fell to four cases on Monday,
the National Health Commission said, the lowest since March 12, after Chinese
authorities cut back on international flights and severely restricted arrivals
of foreigners.
Despite the curbs, the arrival of imported cases has proved difficult to
predict, although in the last 14 days, Chinese citizens returning home from, or
through, neighbouring Russia have made up the majority.
With links by both air and land to Russia, the northeastern province of
Heilongjiang has so far taken the brunt of such infections.
Fearing infections from Heilongjiang, authorities in neighbouring Jilin
province have ordered quarantine and three rounds of testing for people who
have lived in, or travelled to, Heilongjiang’s cities of Harbin or Mudanjiang
this month.
Shenyang, capital of the northeastern province of Liaoning, issued
similar rules on Monday for people from either city.
Last week, a case in the province’s city of Fushun was linked to a
locally transmitted case at a hospital in Harbin, spurring fears of a widening
outbreak.
More
COVID-19 death toll in England 41% higher than early data suggested: ONS
April 21, 2020 /
9:48 AM
LONDON (Reuters) - The true extent of the death toll in England and
Wales from COVID-19 was 41% higher than the daily figures from the government
indicated by April 10, according to data on Tuesday that includes deaths in the
community.
The Office for National Statistics said it recorded 13,121 deaths by
April 10, compared with 9,288 in the government’s daily toll for those who died
in hospital.
COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, was
mentioned in a third of all death certificates issued in England and Wales in
the week to April 19.
In London, more than half of the death certificates issued that week
mentioned COVID-19.
The latest hospital deaths data published on Monday show 16,509 people
had died across the United Kingdom.
Oktoberfest gets cancelled as Bavarian governor says ‘risk is too high’
Published: April 21, 2020 at 4:53 a.m. ET
BERLIN — This year’s Oktoberfest in Munich has been called off because
of the coronavirus pandemic. The cancellation of the world-famous annual
celebration of beer, which was supposed to run from Sept. 19 to Oct. 4,
underlines expectations that the way back to normal life will be very long.
The Oktoberfest typically draws about 6 million visitors every year to
the packed festival grounds in Bavaria’s capital.
Bavarian governor Markus Soeder said after meeting Munich’s mayor
Tuesday: “We agreed that the risk is simply too high.” He added that “you can
neither keep your distance nor work with facial protection” at the Oktoberfest.
Soeder noted that the festival attracts visitors from around the world,
raising concerns about bringing new infections to Bavaria.
Mayor Dieter Reiter said that “it is an emotionally difficult moment and
of course it is also an economically difficult moment for our city.”
As it stands, major events with large audiences are banned in Germany
until at least the end of August. The country has taken the first steps toward
loosening its shutdown, allowing small nonessential shops to start opening this
week, but it remains unclear when bars and restaurants will be able to welcome
customers again.
The Oktoberfest has previously been canceled during the two world wars;
at a time of hyperinflation in Germany in 1923; and because of cholera
outbreaks in 1854 and 1873, German news agency dpa reported.
New York begins widespread, random antibody testing, but questions remain about effectiveness and immunity
Published: April 20, 2020 at 7:19 p.m. ET
On Monday, 51 days after the first coronavirus case in New
York, the state has begun conducting random antibody testing, administered on
consenting grocery stores patrons in different regions across the state. The procedure, also known as serology testing, uses a fingerstick blood sample and will analyze 3,000 people across New York, which has a population of 19.5 million, over the next week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday in his daily news conference.
It comes as the number of total hospitalizations and intubations are down, along with the number of deaths. On Sunday, 478 people died from COVID-19 in New York state, bringing the state’s official total to 14,347.
“We are going to sample people in this state, thousands of people in this state, across the state to find out if they have the antibodies,” the governor said. “That will tell us, for the first time, what percent of the population actually has had the coronavirus and is now at least short-term immune to the virus. This will be the first, true snapshot of what we are really dealing with.”
While antibody testing has been around in the state, this is the first time that a random and mass testing is being initiated.
The test looks for the presence of antibodies, which are specific proteins made in response to infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Their presence in the blood indicates that a person has had the disease.
Scientists, though, are divided on whether the presence of antibodies means someone is now immune to the disease and the effectiveness of some tests is also under scrutiny.
Antibody testing has been lauded by officials as a crucial step in the process of restarting the economy, and identifying which people can safely return to work.
“The keys to reopening the economy are continuing to limit the spread of the virus and ramping up antibody testing,” Cuomo said last week.
New York’s PAUSE executive order, which closed nonessential business and schools, first came into effect on March 22, and will extend until May 15, at least. The economic impact of the virus in New York City alone, is expected to be $10 billion in lost revenue and a half million lost jobs.
“The
problem is that these are tests that need to be validated and calibrated, and
many of the tests out there don’t do that,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Monday morning on
TV, on “Good Morning America (GMA).” “So even though you hear about companies
flooding the market with these antibody tests, a lot of them are not
validated.”
The FDA has approved four antibody tests under its emergency-use authorization,
including Mount Sinai Laboratory, with more expected in the coming weeks. The
authorization “will provide laboratories and providers with assurance that FDA
has reviewed that test,” the agency said.
Wadsworth Center, a state-run lab in Albany, will be providing the
antibody testing in New York, the state’s health department said. An inquiry as
to whether Wadsworth Center has received or applied for the FDA’s emergency-use
authorization was not immediately returned.
A further point of contention is regarding exactly how much immunity an
antibody test proves.
“There’s an assumption—a reasonable assumption—that when you have an
antibody that you are protected against reinfection, but that has not been
proven for this particular virus,” Fauci said in the same GMA interview. “It’s
true for other viruses, but we don’t know how long that protection, if it
exists, lasts.”
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.
Graphene shown to protect pipes from bacterial corrosion
Ben Coxworth April 20, 2020
Graphene,
the highly useful material consisting of a one-atom-thick sheet of linked
carbon atoms, has already been shown to keep steel from
rusting. Soon, though, it could also be used to stop bacteria
from corroding metal pipes.
In wastewater-handling facilities such as sewage treatment plants,
microbes known as sulfate-reducing bacteria frequently colonize the inside
surfaces of pipes and other equipment. Taking the form of what are known as
"biofilms," the resulting bacterial colonies can develop in as little
as 10 days after the pipes have been cleaned, and they proceed to degrade those
pipes in two main ways.
First, the microbes extract electrons from the surface of the metal as
they respire. Second, as the bacteria consume organic matter in the water, they
produce corrosive hydrogen sulfide.
And while protective polymer coatings can be applied to the inside of
pipes, these may themselves be degraded as the bacteria consume the
plasticizers within them. Additionally, such coatings can become brittle over
time, subsequently cracking, flaking off, and entering the water stream.
With these limitations in mind, South Dakota School of Mines &
Technology research scientist Govind Chilkoor looked instead to the use of
graphene as a coating. In lab tests, he found that even a single layer of
graphene – measuring less than 1 nanometer thick – was highly effective at
keeping sulfate-reducing bacteria from latching onto the inside surface of
metal pipes.
"Graphene can be very antimicrobial," he explains. "It
can induce oxidative stress and the bacteria will die."
Additionally, given that graphene is one of the strongest manmade
materials, it ought to be much more durable than the polymers currently used in
protective coatings. And as an added bonus, because graphene is very
thermally-conductive, it should perform better than polymers when utilized in
heat-exchanging pipes.
I did exactly the wrong thing. The cotton
showed me a loss and I kept it. The wheat showed me a profit and I sold it out.
Of all the speculative blunders there are few greater than trying to average a
losing game. Always sell what shows you a loss and keep what shows you a
profit.
Jesse Livermore
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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