Baltic Dry Index. 393 -05 Brent Crude 31.63
Spot Gold 1731
Coronavirus Cases 15/5/20
World 4,527,290
Deaths 303,418
To MMT
infinity and beyond.
Chairman
Powell, with apologies.
Nearly 3 million
more Americans file for unemployment in the latest weekly figures, bringing the
total up to about 36 million, it’s clearly a reason to run out and buy up more
stocks, taking a down market to up.
Well maybe, but
probably not. To this old dinosaur market
trader following the markets since 1968, high unemployment has never
been good for society nor prosperity. In fact, historically just the opposite.
And while I’ve never lived through anything quite like present times, I’m
willing to bet that this time it won’t be different either.
What happens when
the Magic Money Tree runs out as it will?
Below, the 2019
echo bubble wobbles. The Baltic Dry Index, gold and New York City real estate, suggest
trouble directly ahead! Can we get a summer sunshine coronavirus break?
‘You've got to ask yourself one
question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?’
Chairman Powell, with
apologies.
Asian markets inch higher as pandemic worries continue to weigh on investors
Published: May
15, 2020 at 12:00 a.m. ET
Asian shares rose Friday as markets meandered on news about
economies reopening, mixed with worries about the prolonged health risks from
the new coronavirus. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 NIK, 0.42% inched up slightly in morning trading. South Korea’s Kospi 180721, 0.05% gained 0.2% and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 XJO, 0.92% gained 0.5%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng HSI, +0.40% rose nearly 0.3%, while the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, 0.18% advanced 0.2%.
“Bright spots in the markets and the economy should not breed complacency about being out of the woods,” Riki Ogawa of Mizuho Bank said. “Fact is, even as economies prepare to emerge from varying degrees of lockdown, restoration of ‘normalcy’ is a much longer road.”
Parts of Japan are gradually easing requests for people to stay home and for some businesses to stay closed, while worries deepen over case numbers rising.
The Keidanren, which represents more than 1,000 Japanese companies and regional economic groups, released guidelines for safer work, including instructions on having office workers coming into the office just three days each week to minimize commutes, and adapting workplaces for social distancing.
Overnight, Wall Street rallied back from a sharp morning drop.
The S&P 500 SPX, +1.15% climbed 1.2% to 2,852.20 in another scattershot day of trading, with many stocks flipping from the bottom of the leaderboard to the top following a few sharp reversals in momentum.
Wall Street has been wavering for weeks as it digests gargantuan moves the market made earlier this year, first down more than 30% on worries over the coming recession and then up more than 30% on hopes for a relatively quick rebound.
Trading has been particularly erratic this week, as investors rethink bets that the reopening of economies around the world will allow for a relatively quick return of growth. Another possible flare-up in tensions between the world’s largest economies is also hitting markets, with comments from President Donald Trump about China further weighing on them Thursday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +1.62% rose 1.6% to 23,625.34. The Nasdaq composite COMP, +0.90% gained 0.9% to 8,943.72 after erasing its earlier loss of 1.8%.
Thursday’s turnaround was powered in large part by a rally for stocks that have been pummeled for much of this year: banks.
More
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/asian-markets-inch-higher-as-pandemic-worries-continue-to-weigh-on-investors-2020-05-15?mod=mw_latestnews
May 14, 2020 /
8:32 AM
May 14 (UPI) -- About 3 million more Americans have filed new
unemployment claims, the Labor Department said in its weekly report Thursday.
The increase pushes the eight-week total to more than 36 million. The
report said the new weekly figure of 2.98 million is a decrease of 195,000 from
the previous week, which the department revised up by 7,000 claims.
Economists had expected an increase of 2.7 million new claims. The peak was 6.9 million new claims in late March.
The unemployment rate rose to 14.7 percent in April, the highest since World War II. Thursday's report said the rate increased to 15.7 percent by May 2. If adjusted to include furloughed workers who have not made insurance claims, the figure is nearly 20 percent.
Some experts say the slowing pace of losses, however, suggests the United States is past the worst period of job losses. With Thursday's report, the four-week average declined by more than a half-million claims.
"However, the damage that has been done is unprecedented. Our estimates imply that, at the end of April, roughly 1 in 4 people who were working in February are no longer working," said Adam Blandin of Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business.
A survey conducted by Blandin and Alexander Bick, an economist at Arizona State University, found that for the week ending May 2, the employment rate was more than 51 percent among working-age adults.
---- Most of those losing jobs recently, however, believe they can return if the economy reopens quickly.
Goldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius warned Wednesday that U.S. economic growth may fall at a 39 percent annualized rate in the second quarter, followed by a rebound of 29 percent growth in the third. Goldman revised its peak unemployment upwards from 15 percent to 25 percent.
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2020/05/14/3M-more-Americans-file-new-unemployment-claims-Labor-Dept-says/3781589456442/?ds=1
May 15, 2020 /
5:09 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan will recover only modestly in the second half of
this year from a steep contraction in the current quarter, a Reuters poll
showed on Friday, underscoring just how badly the world’s third largest economy
has been hit by a global coronavirus pandemic.
As the Bank of Japan opens its money spigot to battle the fallout, its
balance sheet was also expected to swell to a record level by the end of 2020,
economists said.
The global health crisis has forced many countries to impose strict
lockdowns crippling economic activity worldwide.
Against this backdrop, Japan’s economy is in the cusp of deep recession
as a government state of emergency adopted in April requested citizens to stay
home and businesses to close.
While the government lifted the state of emergency in large parts of the
country on Thursday, big cities like Tokyo will keep restrictions in place in a
sign of persistent economic weakness lasting many more months.
Analysts polled by Reuters expected Japan’s economy to shrink an
annualized 22.0% in the second quarter, which would be the biggest decline on
record, after an expected decline of around 4.5% last quarter.
The May 7-14 poll of over 30 economists also found the economy would
rebound 7.7% in the third quarter and 6.1% in the fourth - still not enough to
make up for the steep falls in the first half.
“A V-shaped recovery will be difficult because it will take time for the
economy to normalise, given the government needs to lift restrictions in
several stages,” said Yoshiki Shinke, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research
Institute.
“The pace of recovery from July-September will be limited compared with
the huge drop in the first half of this year.”
In the worst-case scenario projected in the poll, the economy will drop
over 29% this quarter and only manage to flatline in July-September.
GDP will shrink 5.8% this fiscal year to March 2021 before rebounding
3.2% next year, according to the poll.
The government is due to release first-quarter gross domestic product
data on May 18 and for the second quarter in August.
More
Virus Revives Worst-Case Scenarios for U.S.-China Relationship
Bloomberg News
Updated on May 15, 2020, 5:15 AM GMT+1
Four months later, the virus has prompted the worst global
health crisis in at least a century, killing more than 300,000 people and
plunging the global economy into a deep recession. The pandemic has also
revived all the worst-case scenarios about U.S.-China ties, edging them closer
to confrontation than at any point since the two sides established relations four
decades ago.From supply chains and visas to cyberspace and Taiwan, the world’s two largest economies are escalating disputes across several fronts that never really fell silent. Trump is even expressing frustration with the trade pact, one of few commitments preventing the rhetorical fights from spilling into the real world. On Thursday, Trump said he doesn’t want to speak with Xi and the U.S. would “save $500 billion” if it cut off ties with China.
The feud will likely get noisier before the U.S. election in November: Trump is increasingly blaming China for the virus turmoil as it undermines his chances at victory, while presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, Congress and several states also join in. Meanwhile, Xi’s government has unleashed nationalist forces against the U.S. as slowing exports and rising joblessness push the country toward its worst downturn in generations.
More
In other news, who wants
to live in New York City?
Oshrat Carmiel May 14,
2020, 12:01 AM EDT
Apartment leasing plummeted in New York City last month -- and why wouldn’t it? It was almost impossible to move.
Most businesses were shuttered from mid-March on and the state imposed social-distancing rules to limit the spread of Covid-19, effectively outlawing in-person home showings. As a result, new leases in Manhattan tumbled 71% in April from a year earlier, appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate said in a report Thursday.
Brooklyn and northwest Queens didn’t fare much better -- they had declines of 67% and 65%, respectively. For each of the three boroughs, the slide was the steepest in records going as far back as 2009.
The lack of new deals may force landlords to reduce rents once the
lockdown eases and they get a truer picture of demand. Prospects look bleak
right now, with unemployment spiking and work-from-home mandates pushing
renters to question their desire to live in the city.
“As the physical act of showing property is allowed, we will see more
new leases and the potential for softer price trends,” said Jonathan Miller,
president of Miller Samuel.
Manhattan’s vacancy rate rose to 2.42% in April, the highest for the
month in at least 14 years. Apartments there rented for a median of $3,650.
More.
The
whole [UK] Constitution has been erected upon the assumption that the King not
only is capable of doing wrong, but is more likely to do wrong than other men
if he is given the chance.
A.P. Herbert. Uncommon Law (1935) "What Is the Crown?"
Though
hopefully, we are passing/have passed the peak of new cases, at least of the
first SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, this section will continue until it becomes
unneeded.
May 14, 2020 /
1:01 PM
May 14 (UPI) -- COVID-19
causes at least 10 times more deaths than typical seasonal influenza, according
to the authors of an analysis published Thursday by JAMA Internal Medicine.Using statistics from Worldometer.info to make their case, the researchers noted that the disease caused by the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, caused 15,455 deaths across the United States during the week ending April 21 and 14,478 during a week earlier.
Conversely, during a typical week during the winter season, the flu
causes 350 to 1,600 Americans' deaths, based on a review of figures from the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that cover 2015 to 2018.
The stark differences in the impact of the two viruses, however, should
alert Americans to the seriousness of COVID-19 and help shape public health
response to the ongoing pandemic, experts said.
"Unfortunately, differentiating between 0.1 percent -- the death
rate for the flu -- and 1 percent -- the death rate for COVID-19 -- means
little to the general public, but when you say that 100,000 people will die
from the flu compared to the 1 million people who will die from COVID-19, then
people start to take notice," Kevin S. Harrod, an infectious disease
specialist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told UPI.
Harrod was not involved in the JAMA Internal Medicine analysis, which
was conducted by researchers at Harvard University and Emory University.
More
They've identified several compounds that
seem to keep the virus from reproducing.
by Dan Robitzski / 18 hours ago
In order to find new treatments for COVID-19, scientists
are probing how the coronavirus alters human cells when it infects and hijacks
them.Medical virologists at the Frankfurt University hospital have been culturing cells of SARS-CoV-2 since February, learning as much as they could about how it affects them, according to a Goethe University Frankfurt press release. Now, they’ve identified a number of compounds — available in existing drugs including the metabolism-inhibiting cancer medication WP1122 — that seem to stop the coronavirus from reproducing inside a host.
The team’s findings were published Thursday in the journal Nature. With those in hand, pharmaceutical companies are already launching clinical trials in a bid to develop new pharmaceuticals that could block the deadly virus.
Some viruses force cells to dedicate all their resources to churning out copies of the virus, but the virologists found that SARS-CoV-2 takes a less extreme approach. Instead of taking over all protein production within the cell, it increases the amount of proteins the cell synthesizes and helps itself to the surplus.
As a result, the team found that they could stop viral reproduction by taking away the building blocks of proteins, and found a number of compounds that did the trick.
“The successful use of substances that are components of already approved drugs to combat SARS-CoV-2 is a great opportunity in the fight against the virus,” lead author and Frankfurt virologist Jindrich Cinatl said in the release. “These substances are already well characterized, and we know how they are tolerated by patients. This is why there is currently a global search for these types of substances. In the race against time, our work can now make an important contribution as to which directions promise the fastest success.”
May 13, 2020 /
1:29 PM
May 13 (UPI) -- Adding zinc to hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin might help the
drug combination resolve some COVID-19
symptoms, a study posted online this week said, though experts say the
two-drug treatment's benefit is questionable and carries health risks.The findings breathe new life into a treatment regimen that has been touted by political and business leaders even before the results of clinical trials were in, experts said Wednesday.
Studies to date have indicated that the combination offers limited benefits at best, with potentially dangerous side effects.
"There is currently no highly effective agent for COVID-19 that we are aware of," Dr. Joseph O. Rahimian, an infectious disease specialist at New York University Langone Health and co-author of the zinc study, told UPI.
"It may end up that optimal treatment will include multiple agents and that zinc may be a part of a treatment 'cocktail,'" he said.
Historically, hydroxychloroquine has been used to treat malaria, while azithromycin is a commonly used antibiotic. Both have been studied in numerous clinical trials since the start of the outbreak of the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2.
To date, research has yielded mixed results. Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning about "life-threatening" side effects associated with hydroxychloroquine and advised that the drug only be used in hospitalized patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2.
Still, with nearly
1.4 million Americans infected -- more than 180,000 in New York City alone --
researchers are desperate to find treatments.
For the study, which has not been published or peer-reviewed, Rahimian and his colleagues analyzed data from 932 people with COVID-19 treated at New York hospitals.
All of the patients enrolled received intravenous hydroxychloroquine -- an initial dose of 400 milligrams followed by twice daily 200-mg. doses for five days -- and 500 mg. of azithromycin once a day.
In addition, roughly 400 also received 100 mg. daily of zinc sulfate in the form of a supplement.
Taking more than 40 mg. per day of zinc, however, can cause significant side effects, including damage to joint cartilage, according to Xuhua Xia, a professor of biology at the University of Ottawa in Canada, who was not part of the study.
The authors found that patients given zinc were 1.5 times more likely to recover from the disease, reducing their need for intensive care and ventilation, compared to those who received hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin alone.
However, Rahimian emphasized that these findings need to be confirmed in a randomized, controlled trial, which is considered the gold standard for evaluating the safety and effectiveness of a treatment.
Zinc, available as an over-the-counter supplement, has long been viewed as an immune-system booster that helps in the development of immune cells -- or antibodies -- and strengthen the body's response to a virus or other pathogen, according to Adrian Gombart, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Oregon State University's Linus Pauling Institute. Gombart was not part of the NYU-led study.
More
By Lila Thulin smithsonianmag.com May
13, 2020 8:30AM
---- This reality makes the search for treatments for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, all the more challenging. Currently, no broad-spectrum antiviral is approved for the treatment of all coronaviruses, of which a new strain has driven the current pandemic. Scientists are rushing to find a solution.
“If you have an antiviral that works against multiple respiratory viruses [from different families], that would be super useful,” says Andrea Pruijssers, an assistant professor of research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “That’s like shooting for the moon, but we’re doing it anyway.” Pruijssers researches coronavirus antivirals, including the broad-spectrum drug remdesivir, which recently became the first medication to receive FDA authorization for emergency use for COVID-19.
Viruses are more
slippery targets than bacteria. They’re often a hundred times smaller and
consist only of bare-bones cellular machinery. Their tiny footprint creates a
conundrum for researchers: There are simply fewer targets at which to aim
antivirals, especially for drugs that would shoot for the rare viral components
that remain common across diverse types of viruses. Hepatitis C, for example,
is caused by HCV viruses from Flaviviridae, a family that
also includes the virus behind yellow fever. Some
Hepatitis C treatments are so targeted that they combat only some of the six
main types of HCV, and certainly not
yellow fever. Scientists call this virus-pinpointing
model the “one drug, one bug” approach.
---- Remdesivir’s potential first drew public attention in October 2015 during an Ebola outbreak in West Africa that claimed more than 11,000 lives. The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases announced that, in partnership with the biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, it had found the first small-molecule drug that protected infected rhesus monkeys from the deadly effects of Ebola. GS-5734 (remdesivir’s original name) was a fine-tuned version of a compound from Gilead’s libraries that was concocted to treat other viruses. A CDC screen of 1,000 possibilities had established its broad-spectrum activity. In cells in the lab, it hampered not only Ebola viruses but also several others, including the coronavirus that caused MERS.
Remdesivir subdues a virus by interfering with replication—the way a virus copies itself. It’s a common strategy among broad-spectrum antivirals because the enzymes involved tend to be conserved across many types of viruses. For example, the genetic sequences of coronaviruses’ RNA polymerases are at least 70 percent identical. By contrast, the genetic code behind the “spike” that helps coronaviruses invade host cells varies more widely, Baric says.
First, the body converts remdesivir into an imposter. It becomes what’s called a nucleoside analog—a genetic doppelganger that resembles adenosine, one of the four “letters” of the RNA alphabet that make up the genomes of ebolaviruses and coronaviruses. When the virus replicates, it weaves this analog into the new strand of genetic material. However, the analog's molecular makeup differs from real adenosine just enough to grind the copying process to a halt. “If the virus can’t make copies of itself, the body’s immune system can take over and fight off the infection,” USAMRIID researcher Travis Warren explained in the 2015 announcement.
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.
Reducing Air Pollution with Graphene Composites
Air pollution is becoming a growing worldwide issue, as pressures to
tackle emissions build and scientists find more evidence of the negative impact
of various atmospheric molecules on human and environmental health.
To tackle this problem, a group of scientists working under the
Graphene Flagship initiative has developed a graphene-based photocatalyst that
they have proven to be effective at downgrading at least 70% more nitrogen
oxide (NOx) than current methods can achieve. It is thought that
this innovation will be key to reducing air pollution by
lowering levels of NOx that is added to the atmosphere by
burning fossil fuels.
Titania nanoparticles are currently used in coatings to help reduce
atmospheric nitrogen oxides. However, the new approach that uses a graphene
titania photocatalyst will vastly improve the impact of these coatings on
reducing the greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
Air pollution is being deemed a public health emergency by the World
Health Organization (WHO) director, Dr. Maria Neira. It is estimated that air
pollution claims the lives of over 7 million people each year. Put into perspective,
that is more than the combined deaths attributed to HIV, malaria, and
tuberculosis.
----Technology is being called upon to address this problem. For a
number of years, researchers have dedicated themselves to exploring new ways to
safely remove harmful pollutants from the atmosphere, giving people cleaner air
to breathe.
Air pollution is being deemed a public health emergency by the World
Health Organization (WHO) director, Dr. Maria Neira. It is estimated that air
pollution claims the lives of over 7 million people each year. Put into
perspective, that is more than the combined deaths attributed to HIV, malaria,
and tuberculosis.
As the world’s population grows, and more rural areas are urbanized, the
demand for power increases. While governments across the globe are setting
goals to switch to clean energy alternatives to stop adding more greenhouse
gases into the atmosphere, some of these initiatives will take years to see
countries fully adopting clean energy.
In the meantime, the combustion of fossil fuels continues to add harmful
gases into the air, with traffic being a major contributor to this kind of
pollution. Nitrogen oxides, along with volatile compounds, are the main cause
of air pollution-related deaths, which currently account for around one in nine
mortalities.
DJIA: 24,346 +26 Down. NASDAQ: 8,890 +162 Up.
SP500: 2,912 +89 Down.
The NASDAQ has rebounded to
up. The S&P and the DJIA remain down.
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