Saturday 2 May 2020

Special Update 02/05/2020 Slump Returns. Vitamin D. Prison Ships.


Baltic Dry Index. 617 -18 Brent Crude 26.44
Spot Gold 1700

Covid-19 cases 18/04/20 World 2,261,658
Deaths 154,341
Covid-19 cases 25/04/20 World 2,817,790 
Deaths 197,087
Covid-19 cases 02/05/20 World 3,401,318  
Deaths 239,614

They went to sea in a sieve, they did;
   In a sieve they went to sea:
In spite of all their friends could say,
On a winter’s morn, on a stormy day,
   In a sieve they went to sea.
And when the sieve turned round and round,
And every one cried, “You’ll all be drowned!”
They called aloud, “Our sieve ain’t big;
But we don’t care a button, we don’t care a fig:
   In a sieve we’ll go to sea!”

The Fed and BOE, with apologies to Edward Lear.

Our central banksters, ever more desperate to shore up the assets of the one percent, are leading the global economy deeper and deeper into economic madness, yet the world, like the Pied Piper’s children, seems all too willing to go along. Stay long fully paid up physical gold and silver, held outside of the still collapsing financial system.

Modern Monetary Theory is a socialist fraud that sooner or later ends in monetary disaster. In monetary disaster usually lies vast social disorder, poverty, and the rise of “strong men” “leaders.”

Our unelected, crooked central banksters are playing with fire, egged on by desperate global politicians, and a US presidential race fast turning into race between the parties and candidates as to who can offer the most “free money” to the voters. Nothing but future disaster lies ahead, although for now I seem to be a lone voice crying out in the wilderness.

Below, a picture of our sad global economy that Nixon, Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen and Powell made.

Stocks fall as Trump's China tariff threat adds to fears over virus-hit economies

May 1, 2020 / 10:32 AM
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street took a nosedive on Friday on fears that the world’s two largest economies could resume a trade war, dragging down a global stocks index on a day that many financial markets were closed for a holiday.

The euro rose and the U.S. dollar fell against most of its peers, while the pound succumbed to weak economic data. Crude oil prices traded in and out of negative territory.

A threat by President Donald Trump to impose new tariffs on China in retaliation for its handling of the novel coronavirus outbreak soured investor sentiment.London, Tokyo and New York markets were all open on Friday, although much of Europe and Asia were closed for International Workers’ Day.

Trump offered no evidence after claiming on Thursday he had seen proof that the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory. The pandemic, which has cost more than 60,000 lives in the United States alone, has sparked a steep economic contraction and is threatening Trump’s chances of re-election in November.

“A rise in tension between China and the U.S. certainly could have a negative impact on the U.S. economy and business confidence, which is already hurt from the shutdowns,” said Carin Pai, director of equity management at Fiduciary Trust International in New York.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI fell 622.03 points, or 2.55%, to 23,723.69, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 81.72 points, or 2.81%, to 2,830.71, and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 284.60 points, or 3.2%, to 8,604.95.

---- The market looked ahead to next week’s projection for U.S. borrowing in the second quarter to finance enormous stimulus efforts aimed at combating the economic fallout of the coronavirus outbreak.

Tom Simons, money market economist at Jefferies in New York, said the Treasury’s projection for second-quarter borrowing is going to be “astronomical.”

“There’s a lot of uncertainty how Treasury is going to handle the financing issues because the total number they have to come up with is so big,” he said.
More

Will the stock market tumble back to its coronavirus lows in March? About 92 years of S&P 500 history says there’s a good chance


Published: May 1, 2020 at 9:15 p.m. ET
Will the U.S. stock market retest bear-market lows put in on March 23?

That is perhaps the most prevalent question on Wall Street. And while there’s no way of knowing the answer for sure, if history is any guide, when the stock-market slips into a bear market, typically defined by a decline of at least 20% from a recent peak, it tends to return to return to that low more often than not, according to data from Bespoke Investment Group.

---- The Dow is up about 28% from its March 23 low at 18.591.93, the S&P 500 is up 27% from its low at 2,237.40 and Nasdaq is has returned 26% from its bear-market nadir at 6,850.67, according to FactSet data.

MarketWatch has written about the likelihood of a so-called retest of those levels, which may result in the indexes returning to or exceeding March’s drop, with Mark Hulbert suggesting that small-capitalization stocks are sending a bullish signal.

JPMorgan Chase & Co., analysts warned last month that investors should get ready for a “vicious spiral” that is twice as severe as the 2008 financial crisis, while MarketWatch’s Hulbert wrote a separate piece pointing to August as a possible last stand for the bears.

Bespoke’s data, however, says that since 1928, reviewing the past 25 bear markets, there has been a lower price put in by the S&P 60% of the time.

“In the first bear market of the Great Depression, the S&P fell 44.57% over 58 days and then rallied 20%+ to enter a new bull market,” the analysts at Bespoke wrote in a Friday report. “Unfortunately, the S&P went on to make a lower low 338 days later, and then kept going lower and lower for years,” the report continued.

Making a finer point, however, Bespoke notes that of the 11 bear markets from 1928 through 1940, 9 of them saw the S&P 500 make a lower low, but since 1940 most bear markets have tended not to see retest (see attached table):

---- Many investors believe that the monetary and fiscal stimulus could be a sufficient cocktail to help ward off a revisit to the depths of March, but economic reports that point at stark deterioration in economic activity compared with a few months ago may be enough to shake the nerve of even the most rock-solid bulls.

Indeed, the Institute for Supply Management said its manufacturing index fell to 41.5% last month from 49.1% in March. This is the lowest since April 2009 and the reading showed the biggest monthly drop for new orders since 1951.

Investors will be closely watching for nonfarm-payrolls report from the Labor Department for April next week, after the weekly jobless claims showed an increase in total claims at a record around 30 million.

In other dismal news.

ECB says virus may hobble euro area growth until 2022

May 1, 2020 / 9:27 AM
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The euro zone economy is likely to rebound in the second half of this year but it may fail to grow back to last year’s level until as late as 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic, the European Central Bank said on Friday.

The ECB kept its monetary policy largely unchanged on Thursday, reaffirming a pledge to buy 1.1 trillion euros ($1.21 trillion) worth of assets this year, or more if needed, while offering to pay banks if they borrow from it to lend to companies and households struggling with the outbreak.

In a bulletin published on Friday, the ECB said it expected the euro area’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to shrink by as much as 15% percent this quarter before “a protracted and incomplete recovery” in the remainder of the year.

“The annual figure under the severe scenario reflects a quarterly real GDP growth reaching a trough of around -15% in the second quarter of 2020, followed by a protracted and incomplete recovery, entailing quarterly growth rates of around 6% and 3%, respectively, in the third and fourth quarters,” the ECB said.

It said uncertainty surrounding the containment of the virus meant that, under it most pessimistic scenario, GDP could remain “well below” the level observed at the end of 2019 for as long as two more years.

Heathrow Airport sees April passenger numbers down 97%

May 1, 2020 / 7:18 AM
LONDON (Reuters) - London’s Heathrow Airport, traditionally the busiest in Europe, said passenger numbers were expected to be down by around 97% in April and they were likely to remain weak until governments fighting the coronavirus outbreak deem it safe to travel.

For the first quarter, revenue fell 12.7% to 593 million pounds and adjusted EBITDA fell by 22.4% to 315 million pounds.

Heathrow said it had 3.2 billion pounds in liquidity,sufficient to maintain the business at least over the next 12 months, even with no passengers.

New report says coronavirus pandemic could last for two years – and may not subside until 70% of the population has immunity

As coronavirus restrictions around the world are being lifted, a new report warns the pandemic that has already killed more than 230,000 people likely won't be contained for two years. The modeling study from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota also says that about 70% of people need to be immune in order to bring the virus to a halt. 

For the study, experts looked at eight major influenza pandemics dating back to the 1700s, as well as data about the new coronavirus, to help forecast how COVID-19 may spread over the coming months and years. Out of the eight past flu pandemics, scientists said seven had a second substantial peak about six months after the first one. Additionally, some had "smaller waves of cases over the course of 2 years" after the initial outbreak.  

A key factor in their prediction for the current pandemic revolves around herd immunity, which refers to the community-wide resistance to the spread of a contagious disease that results when a high percentage of people are immune to it, either through vaccination or prior exposure. 

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