Baltic Dry Index. 498 +04 Brent Crude 35.13
Spot Gold 1735
He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points
clearly to a political career.
George Bernard Shaw. Socialist.
Virus-hit Hertz declares bankruptcy in US and Canada
Issued on:
The car
rental company Hertz, hard hit by the global coronavirus pandemic, has filed
for bankruptcy in the United States and Canada, it announced Friday.
"The
impact of COVID-19 on travel demand was sudden and dramatic, causing an abrupt
decline in the Company's revenue and future bookings," Hertz said in a
press release.
Hertz said
it took "immediate action" to prioritize the health and safety of
employees and customers and eliminate "all non-essential spending".
However,
uncertainty remains as to when revenue will return and when the used-car market
will fully re-open for sales, which necessitated today's action," it said.
Its main
international operating regions, including Europe, Australia and New Zealand,
were not included in the US Chapter 11 filing.
Hertz had
cut 10,000 jobs in North America, or 26.3 percent of its global workforce, by
April 21 to save money after the coronavirus shutdowns paralysed travel and
crippled the economy.
Chapter 11
is a mechanism that allows a company that is no longer able to repay its debt
to restructure itself without creditors.
"The
financial reorganization will provide Hertz a path toward a more robust
financial structure that best positions the Company for the future as it
navigates what could be a prolonged travel and overall global economic
recovery," the Hertz statement said.
Hertz'
franchise sites, which are not owned by the company, are also not included in
the Chapter 11 proceeding.
IBM cuts jobs in 5 states including California, New York
May 22, 2020 / 12:55 PM
May 22 (UPI) -- IBM says it has cut jobs in several states due to the lingering
effect of the coronavirus pandemic.The computer company said it has made labor reductions in five states -- California, Missouri, New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
The company didn't say how many jobs were cut.
"IBM's work in a highly competitive marketplace requires flexibility to constantly add high-value skills to our workforce," IBM spokesman Ed Barbini said in a statement. "While we always consider the current environment, IBM's workforce decisions are in the interest of the long-term health of our business."
Barbini added that IBM will offer subsidized medical coverage to laid off employees through June 2021.
IBM has a global workforce of about 350,000 and hinted at possible layoffs during its last two earnings calls. These are the first layoffs under new CEO Arvind Krishna, who took over the post last month.
IBM laid off 1,700 employees about a year ago. At the time, it was its third round of cuts in
four years.
Credit Suisse CEO expects mid-term headcount reduction in post-COVID adjustment - NZZ
May 23, 2020 / 5:14 AM
ZURICH (Reuters) - Credit Suisse (CSGN.S)
expects to get by with fewer staff in coming years as automation kicks off,
Chief Executive Thomas Gottstein told Swiss newspaper NZZ, and as the bank
positions itself toward more digital interactions and remote working in the
post-COVID-19 world. “Medium-term, we will certainly be able to get by with fewer staff - primarily, as we continue to automate business,” Gottstein said in the interview, published on Saturday. “Many processes can still be streamlined. That is one of my priorities. But we also want to grow, especially in our business with very wealthy clients and in our Asian business.”
Gottstein, the former head of Credit Suisse’s Swiss business, who became CEO in February, does not expect Credit Suisse to post a loss this year, even as he expects higher credit losses for the bank’s Swiss and international business in the next six to 12 months on global fallout of the coronavirus pandemic than the bank has seen over the past five years.
---- Gottstein expects employees to spend 10%-20% of their time working from home in the future, he told the newspaper, leading to savings on office space.
The bank
will also benefit from a reduction in travel, as video conferencing takes off,
he said, and in the future will operate fewer branches, as online banking
receives a lasting boost following coronavirus lockdowns.
More
In
USA v China news, nothing but bad news on top of bad news.
Exclusive: U.S. accuses China of blocking U.S. flights, demands action
May 23, 2020 / 3:45 AM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government
late on Friday accused the Chinese government of making it impossible for U.S.
airlines to resume service to China and ordered four Chinese air carriers to
file flight schedules with the U.S. government.
The administration of President Donald Trump stopped short of imposing restrictions on Chinese air carriers but said talks with China had failed to produce an agreement.
The U.S. Transportation Department, which is trying to persuade China to allow the resumption of U.S. passenger airline service there, earlier this week briefly delayed a few Chinese charter flights for not complying with notice requirements.
In an order posted on a U.S. government website and seen by Reuters, the department noted Delta Air Lines (DAL.N) and United Airlines (UAL.O) want to resume flights to China in June, even as Chinese carriers have continued U.S. flights during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The order said Air China (601111.SS), China Eastern Airlines Corp, China Southern Airlines Co (600029.SS), Hainan Airlines Holding Co (600221.SS) and their subsidiaries must file schedules and other details of flights by May 27. The department warned it could find Chinese flights “contrary to applicable law or adversely affect the public interest.”
More
Dozens of Chinese companies added to U.S. blacklist in latest Beijing rebuke
May 22, 2020 / 8:47 PM
The U.S.
Commerce Department’s move marked the Trump administration’s latest efforts to
crack down on companies whose goods may support Chinese military activities and
to punish Beijing for its treatment of Muslim minorities. It came as Communist
Party rulers in Beijing on Friday unveiled details of a plan to impose national
security laws on Hong Kong.
Seven
companies and two institutions were listed for being “complicit in human rights
violations and abuses committed in China’s campaign of repression, mass
arbitrary detention, forced labor and high-technology surveillance against
Uighurs” and others, the Commerce Department said in a statement.
Two dozen
other companies, government institutions and commercial organizations were
added for supporting procurement of items for use by the Chinese military, the
department said in another statement.
The
blacklisted companies focus on artificial intelligence and facial recognition,
markets that U.S. chip companies such as Nvidia Corp and Intel Corp have been
heavily investing in.
Among the
companies named is NetPosa, one of China’s most famous AI companies, whose
facial recognition subsidiary is linked to the surveillance of Muslims.
Qihoo360, a
major cybersecurity firm taken private and delisted from the Nasdaq in 2015,
recently made headlines for claiming it had found evidence that CIA hacking
tools were used to target the Chinese aviation sector.
Vaccine for COVID-19 safe, effective in first human clinical trial, study says
The Phase I study in China included 108 patients, and a Phase II study already is underway.
May 22, 2020 / 10:34 AM
May 22 (UPI) -- A potential vaccine for COVID-19
appears to be safe and able to generate an immune response against the virus,
according to a study published Friday by The Lancet.The new study marks the first time the vaccine was tested in humans.
The findings are preliminary, and based on observations made over the first 28 days after the vaccine was administered. The final results are to be evaluated in six months.
"These results represent an important milestone," co-author Wei Chen, of the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology in China, said in a statement.
"However, these results should be interpreted cautiously [because] the challenges in the development of a COVD-19 vaccine are unprecedented, and the ability to trigger these immune responses does not necessarily indicate that the vaccine will protect humans from COVID-19," he said.
Currently, more than 100 candidate COVID-19 vaccines are in development worldwide. However, the new adenovirus type 5 vectored COVID-19, or Ad5-nCoV, is the first to be tested in humans.
It uses a weakened common cold virus, adenovirus, which infects human cells but is incapable of causing disease, to deliver genetic material that codes for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to the cells.
They then produce the spike protein and allow the immune system to create antibodies to fight the coronavirus. SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus -- is the virus that causes COVID-19.
Chen and colleagues assessed the vaccine's safety and its ability to generate an immune response by using three different doses in 108 healthy adults between 18 and 60 years old who had not been infected with SARS-CoV-2.
Participants were enrolled from one site in Wuhan, China, and assigned to receive either a single intramuscular injection of the new vaccine at a low dose of 5 × 1010 viral particles per 0.5 milliliters, a middle dose of 1×1011 viral particles per 1.0 ml. or a high dose of 1.5 x 1011 viral particles per 1.5 ml.
The researchers tested the volunteers' blood at regular intervals following vaccination to see whether the vaccine stimulated both arms of the immune system -- the one that produces neutralizing antibodies that can fight infection and could offer a level of immunity and the cell-mediated portion, which depends on a group of T cells, rather than antibodies, to fight the virus.
The ideal vaccine would generate both antibody and T cell responses to defend against SARS-CoV-2.
The
researchers found that the Ad5 vaccine candidate was well tolerated at all
doses with no serious side effects within 28 days of vaccination. The most
common adverse reactions were mild pain at the injection site, fever, fatigue,
headache and muscle pain, they added.
Within two
weeks of administration, the authors noted, all dose levels of the vaccine
triggered some level of immune response in the form of binding antibodies -- 44
percent in the low-dose group, 50 percent in the medium-dose group and 61
percent in the high-dose group.
Morehttps://www.upi.com/Health_News/2020/05/22/Vaccine-for-COVID-19-safe-effective-in-first-human-clinical-trial-study-says/2631590154893/?ds=4
Next this long weekend, an amusing, but
serious, long read. Enjoy.
A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on
the support of Paul.
George Bernard Shaw. Socialist.
Our “Reality TV Game Show” Financial System…..
May 15, 2020
Last Sunday
morning, on his awesome “This Week” show, our good friend George Stephanopoulos
took some of his valuable time to interview the always captivating, never a
dull moment, master of the one-liner, Larry Kudlow….possibly one of the most
entertaining, congenial and amazing spin-doctor-mouthpieces that an
administration could ever hope to have in its corner. As expected, and as
always, sure enough, he didn’t disappoint.
NOTE:
As always, out of respect for your time, feel free to just scan the “Red” text
for the gist of today’s rant if you don’t have the emotional fortitude to wade
through every painful word of this…
Here’s the
full video below…..for the purposes of today’s discussion, I’d like to focus on
the couple of minutes beginning at minute 5:00 of the video clip. A few relevant sentences from the transcript, with one specific clip are highlighted in “Red”
, are also listed below…..
---- KUDLOW: I think, hopefully, that has something to do
with the $3 trillion of assistance, including the payroll protection plan. All
in on this, we probably, including the Federal Reserve’s operations and the
budget and fiscal work that President Trump has led, with the bipartisan
congressional votes, we have probably had, George,
$9 trillion worth of assistance going to 175 million individuals.
STEPHANOPOULOS: ….It has…
KUDLOW: It’s a remarkable plan to attempt to stabilize a very, very, very difficult situation.
STEPHANOPOULOS: It has been — it has been an extraordinary response from the government and the Fed……. Now House Democrats are saying, led by Speaker Pelosi, that they need about another $2 trillion plan, aid to state and local governments, much more testing, more direct aid, like unemployment insurance, food stamps, direct checks.
Now, we all know George is a busy guy and he might not have had time to bone up on the details of the administration’s spending. After all, with legislation like the the CARES Act (HR-748, 880 Pages); The Families First Act (HR-6201); the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act (H.R. 266) extending the program first introduced in the CARES Act, as well as the thousands of unintelligible pages prepared in the 343 separate Coronavirus Bills, pending as they work their way through the legislative process, all dutifully prepared by America’s tireless lobbyist lawyers, pumping out a record amount of “law” that our Senators and Representatives have neither the ability to understand, nor the time to read, prior to voting on it, we certainly can’t expect George to try to keep up.
Perhaps George wasn’t briefed on what Larry was going to say, maybe he was caught up in the moment, or maybe he just didn’t think it through as Larry was blurting and babbling it out, but I found it remarkable that Larry could just throw out a “$9 trillion worth of assistance going to 175 million individuals” figure without George giving out at least a “huh?” or possibly a “hmmm…really??” He just agreed with him and moved on.
If I were George, at that particular moment I might have done some quick math in my head and said something like…
“Whoaaa Larry, Larry…hold your horses pardner….$9 Trillion spread out among 175 million Americans is about $51,428.57 per person….that seems like a whole lot of money…..we’re not hearing anything like this from the folks out there in God’s country…I’m thinking they would have said something if they were getting checks like that……are you sure that’s right?….I mean, if that were true, everybody would be jumping for joy….nobody would want to be going to work….social distancing would be a walk in the park….that $9 Trillion can’t be right…”
….and of course. it’s not even close to being right/accurate/correct or any other adjective you might want to apply….in fact, like so many features of this Reality TV Game Show Financial System we’ve created, it’s what we financial people call “total bullshit”.
More, much, much, more!
Traders Beware: U.S. taps new tools to find fraud in volatile commodities market
May 21, 2020 / 11:04 AM
The
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) investigated the same business as
part of a similar probe of the silver market years earlier, but it was not able
to build a case with the data it had at the time, according to U.S. court
filings and a person with knowledge of the aborted probe.
Since then,
leaps in the agencies’ data analysis capabilities have enabled them to detect
and prosecute increasingly sophisticated forms of manipulation in the
commodities futures markets which for decades have gone under-surveilled,
according to ten officials and industry experts.
The Justice
Department fraud division is beefing up with the creation of a sub-unit
specializing in combating commodities fraud overseen by Avi Perry, a trial
attorney who has prosecuted high-profile cases involving trading powerhouse
Tower Research Capital, Merrill Lynch Commodities Inc, and the ongoing JPMorgan
probe, according to two sources.
The unit is
also hiring a handful of additional trial attorneys, according to the sources
and online job postings. A Justice Department spokesman said the agency intends
to fill the positions “promptly”.
The unit is
part of a broader Justice Department initiative to dramatically expand the
scope of market manipulation the agency targets for criminal prosecutions,
beyond traditional insider trading and futures manipulation into a range of
asset classes, sources told Reuters.
The effort,
if successful, raises the stakes for traders with potential jail-time, while
banks, brokers and prop trading firms could face chunky fines and business
curbs as the agency gets better at detecting potential misconduct across
institutions.
The
new-found expertise may also give the agencies an edge as they scrutinize
extreme market volatility sparked by the novel coronavirus disruption,
including last month’s historic oil price crash. The CFTC is reviewing how the
U.S. crude oil benchmark fell below $0 a barrel for the first time ever.
More
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The Monthly Coppock Indicators finished April
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. But
the game is now totally rigged by the Fed.
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