Baltic Dry Index. 973 +50 Brent Crude 39.68
Spot Gold 1728
Coronavirus Cases 16/6/20
World 8,162,116
Deaths 442,145
"There
is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit
expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the
result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a
final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."
Ludwig
von Mises
The Committee to
Re-elect President Trump, aka The Fed, turned US stock markets from down to up
yesterday, in an in everyone’s face blatant display of partisan market rigging.
Thanks to the CREEP Fed, the Dow reversed roughly 800 points down to close 157
points up, with Dow Futures this morning up almost another 500 points higher.
Poor Democrat candidate
“sleepy Joe Biden” now faces off against a sitting President with all the
advantages of office, plus a partisan Fed intent on rigging a “V” shaped
recovery, at least in US stock markets if not in reality.
Worse, if thanks
to a President intent on pursuing a self destruction election strategy, “sleepy
Joe” goes on to actually win November’s
election, he’ll take office in January 2021 facing a Fed desperately needing to
reign in all the bailout free money for Wall Street, before it triggers the
unstoppable final “crack-up boom” next year.
Below, why try to
hide the obvious rigging anymore. Larry Kudlow knows what the Fed does next.
Asian markets surge after Fed increases its bond buys
Published: June 16, 2020 at 12:15
a.m. ET
Asian shares rose Tuesday, cheered by fresh moves by the
U.S. Federal Reserve to support markets battered by the coronavirus pandemic. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 JP:NIK gained 3.2% and South Korea’s Kospi KR:180721 gained 4.5%, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 AU:XJO jumped 3.7%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng HK:HSI added 2.6% while the Shanghai Composite CN:SHCOMP edged up 0.9%.
“In case the generosity of the Fed was in any doubt, it is not. Global equity markets are recovering quickly,” after the Fed announcement, Stephen Innes, chief global markets strategist at AxiCorp, said in a report.
Market players were also awaiting a Bank of Japan policy board meeting that ended Tuesday without a change to its minus 0.1% benchmark interest rate and ultra-lax monetary stance.
----Overnight, the Fed’s move earlier brightened sentiment on Wall Street, which rallied back from a sharp, early slump on Monday to notch modest gains.
The Fed announced in the afternoon that it will buy individual corporate bonds. as part of its previously announced program to keep lending markets running smoothly and allow big employers to get access to cash.
The move was the latest reminder the Fed is doing everything it can to help support markets, analysts said. Central banks have repeatedly come to the economy’s rescue over the years, and it was huge, unprecedented moves by the Fed earlier this year that helped put a halt to the S&P 500’s nearly 34% sell-off on worries about the recession coming out of the coronavirus pandemic.
The S&P 500 US:SPX rose 0.8% to 3,066.59, which is 9.4% below its record set in February.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average US:DJIA gained 0.6%, to finish at 25,763.16 after earlier falling as much as 762 points. The Nasdaq composite US:COMP added 1.4% to 9,726.02.
“Volatility is here to stay, at least for a little while,” said Jason Pride, chief investment officer of private wealth at Glenmede. “Nobody in the financial industry has a good way to forecast this.”
More
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/asian-markets-surge-after-fed-increases-its-bond-buys-2020-06-16?mod=mw_latestnews
U.S. stock futures shoot higher, looking to extend Monday's gains
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow downplays concern about second coronavirus wave
Published: June 14, 2020 at 10:40 a.m. ET
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Sunday
downplayed the
increase in coronavirus cases seen in many states and said the country “has
got to open.”There is growing concern that nearly two dozen states are seeing rises in diagnosed COVID-19 cases after they began to reopen and lift restrictions on movement.
In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Kudlow suggested that the rise in cases stemmed from increased testing and that increased hospitalization numbers were from a resumption of elective surgeries. “Although the case rate has increased a bit, we’re not talking about a second round here,” Kudlow said.
“Fatality rates continue to be very low,” he said. “That is probably the ultra-key metric.”
“The country has got to open,” he said, returning to a theme the White House and allies have voiced in past months: “The costs of not opening may exceed the costs of closing down. I think we’re on the right track here.”
Kudlow painted an upbeat forecast for the economy.
“We are on our way — we are reopening,” Kudlow said. He said the economy was at a “turning point.”
“You’ve got a lot of positive, green-shoot indicators,” he said.
Kudlow predicted “a big, big” increase in retail sales in May. The government will release those data on Tuesday. Economists surveyed by Econoday expect a rebound of 7.5% after a 16.4% decline in the prior month. In addition, the Apple mobility index, which tracks the movement of consumers, is “practically prepandemic,” Kudlow said.
“This economy is now in the recovery stage — that’s the key point I want to make this morning,” he said.
More
Trump Team Weighs $1 Trillion for Infrastructure to Spur Economy
By Jenny Leonard and Josh Wingrove
Updated on June 16, 2020, 4:52 AM GMT+1
·
·
Democrats unveiled their own $500 billion
proposal this month
A preliminary version being prepared by the Department of Transportation
would reserve most of the money for traditional infrastructure work, like roads
and bridges, but would also set aside funds for 5G wireless infrastructure and
rural broadband, the people said.
President Donald Trump is scheduled to discuss rural broadband access at
a White House event on Thursday.
More
The coronavirus recession may already be over, but it’s a long uphill climb to ‘normal’
Published: June 13, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. ET
The U.S. economy appears to be climbing out of a short
though historically steep recession, but a return to normalcy? That’s not in
the cards anytime soon.After states began to reopen their economies in May, more people went back to work, consumer spending increased and Americans grew more confident that the worst of a coronavirus-induced recession was over.
Read: Consumer sentiment climbs again in June as reopening U.S. economy eases worries
More good news is on the way.
Retail sales are expected to rebound smartly in May from a record 16.4% drop in April. Wall Street economists forecast a 5.4% snapback when the report is released next Tuesday. Another gauge of industrial production the same day is also likely to show a rebound.
The rebound comes as no surprise. There’s a lot of pentup demand from consumers and businesses after a few months of the economy being almost entirely locked down. Now that businesses are reopening and people are moving about more, they can spend some of the money they had been involuntarily forced to save.
“The opening of more businesses — especially retail stores and restaurants — will prompt more consumers’ to open their wallets as they unleash a wave of pent-up demand that has been building in some parts of the country since mid-March,” said Scott Anderson, chief economist of Bank of the West.
Higher retail sales alone, however, can be misleading. What matters even more is what consumers are buying or spending their money on.
More
In
Europe news, how fast will tourism return? How fast/slow will normality return?
Holidaymakers and cigarette runs: Europe starts reopening its borders
June 15, 2020 /
2:06 AM
BRUSSELS
(Reuters) - European nations eased border controls on Monday as the number of
coronavirus cases declined after three months of lockdown, but Spain’s
continued closure, a patchwork of quarantine rules and remote-working mean
pre-crisis travel levels are a way off.
Greek airports allowed more international flights as the country sought
to salvage its summer, German tourists flocking to neighbouring Denmark caused
an 8 km (5 miles) queue and Italians popped into France to buy lottery scratch
cards.
In the Belgian village of Macquenoise, tabac stores did brisk trade as
French citizens streamed across the border to buy cheaper tobacco after
suffering higher prices at home since mid-March.
“It’s worth the effort,” said Nadege Caplain, making an early-morning
200-km (125 miles) round trip to buy cigarettes for her and her family.
The Schengen area of 22 EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway
and Switzerland operates control-free crossings. But for the past three months
they have been mostly closed to all but goods traffic and cross-border
commuters.
European officials hope the lifting of internal border controls will
allow a gradual reopening to other countries from July and resuscitate a
tourism industry that flatlined during the lockdown.
Tourism and recreation make up almost 10% the EU economy and even more
in the Mediterranean countries, some of which were hit hardest by the pandemic.
In Greece, passengers arriving from airports deemed high-risk by the
EU’s aviation safety agency will be tested for the coronavirus and quarantined
up to 14 days, depending on the result. Restrictions remain for passengers from
Britain and Turkey. Arrivals from other airports will be randomly tested.
More
Euro zone trade surplus plunges year-on-year in April amid lockdowns
June 15, 2020 /
10:03 AM
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The euro zone’s trade surplus plunged year-on-year
in April as pandemic lockdowns of economies around the world slashed trade
volumes, data from the European Union’s statistics office Eurostat showed on
Monday.
Eurostat said the external trade surplus of the 19 countries sharing the
euro dropped to an unadjusted 2.9 billion euros in April from 15.5 billion a
year earlier as exports plunged by 29.3% year-on-year and imports fell 24.8%.
Adjusted for seasonal swings, the euro zone trade surplus was even
smaller at 1.2 billion, a fraction of the 25.5 billion euros the month before.
Exports of Europe’s biggest exporter Germany plunged by almost a quarter
month-on-month and by more than a third France and Italy.
Finally,
in UK news, don’t hold your breath for a “V” shaped rebound.
Britain's Travis Perkins to cut 2,500 jobs as recession looms
June 15, 2020 /
9:37 AM
LONDON (Reuters) - Travis Perkins (TPK.L), Britain’s biggest
building materials group, plans to cut around 2,500 jobs or 9% of its
workforce, warning an impending recession caused by the coronavirus crisis will
hit demand for the rest of the year and 2021. The group, which trades from more than 20 businesses including Travis Perkins builders merchants, the Wickes home improvement chain, Toolstation and Tile Giant, said on Monday it had started a consultation process regarding the closure of around 165 branches, about 8% of its network.
Other jobs will go in distribution, administrative and sales functions.
Shares in Travis Perkins were down 1.6% at 0918 GMT, extending 2020 losses to 34%.
The group said branch closures will be concentrated in the merchant businesses, in particular the Travis Perkins General Merchant fascia, focused on small branches where it was either difficult to implement safe social distancing practices or where marginal profitability will be eroded.
“Whilst we have experienced improving trends more recently, we do not expect a return to pre-COVID trading conditions for some time,” said Chief Executive Nick Roberts.
The group’s sales volumes plunged 40% in May year-on-year but have since recovered to about 85-90% of last year’s levels as more branches have reopened with social distancing measures.
More
“But it [the boom] could not
last forever even if inflation and credit expansion were to go on endlessly. It
would then encounter the barriers which prevent the boundless expansion of circulation
credit. It would lead to the crack-up boom and the breakdown of the whole
monetary system.”
Ludwig
von Mises.
Covid-19 Corner
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.
Today,
Sars-Cov-2 returns to China and New Zealand. America’s FDA promotes the Gilead
drug agenda, but why? Published results seem iffy, at best.
More lockdown measures in Beijing as fresh coronavirus outbreak grows
Published: June 15, 2020 at 10:43 p.m. ET
BEIJING — China reported 40 more coronavirus infections Tuesday as it
increased testing and lockdown measures in parts of the capital to control what
appeared to be its largest outbreak in more than two months.
The new cases included 27 in Beijing where a fresh outbreak has been
traced to the city’s largest wholesale market and bring the city’s total to 106
since Friday.
Tests were administered to workers at the Xinfadi market, anyone who had
visited it in the past two weeks or anyone who had come in contact with either
group. Fresh meat and seafood in the city and elsewhere in China was also being
inspected.
Experts say food is an unlikely source of transmission though the virus
can survive on surfaces and packaging for a period of time. An infected person
who visited or worked at the market is considered a more likely source.
Residential communities around the market were put under lockdown, along
with the area around a second market, where three cases were confirmed. In all,
90,000 people are affected in the two neighborhoods in the city of 20 million.
China had relaxed most of its controls after the ruling Communist Party
declared victory over the virus in March, but Beijing suspended Monday’s
planned restart of some primary schools and reversed the relaxation of some
social isolation measures.
Of the new cases reported by the health ministry Tuesday, eight were
imported by returning Chinese travelers, four were reported in Hebei province
next to the capital and another was detected in the southwestern province of
Sichuan that has seen relatively few cases.
No new deaths were reported and 210 people remained in treatment while
another 114 are being monitored in isolation for showing signs of COVID-19 or
for testing positive for the virus but showing no symptoms. China has reported
4,634 deaths from COVID-19 among 83,064 cases.
In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:
• New Zealand is no longer free from the coronavirus after two cases
were detected in people who had traveled to the United Kingdom. Officials said
the two cases were connected. Until Tuesday, New Zealand had gone more than
three weeks without any new cases and had declared that everybody who had
contracted the virus had recovered, aside from the 22 people who died. In
total, New Zealand has had just over 1,500 cases.
FDA warns hydroxychloroquine could interfere with Gilead coronavirus drug
Published:
June 15, 2020 at 6:19 p.m. ET
The
effectiveness of a Gilead Sciences Inc. GILD, +1.05%
emergency treatment for COVID-19 could be hampered by other drugs that have
been associated with treating the disease, the Food and Drug Administration
warned late Monday.
The
agency said that remdesivir, a drug made by Gilead that recently gained an
emergency use authorization from the FDA, could be adversely affected if
combined with the drugs chloroquine phosphate or hydroxychloroquine sulfate.
The FDA said that the latter two drugs could reduce the effectiveness of the Gilead
drug. Earlier
Monday, the FDA revoked its emergency use authorization for
hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine. Gilead shares rose 0.1% after hours,
following a 1.1% rise to close the regular session at $73.97.
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.
Ben Coxworth June 11, 2020
Russia has a long history of experimenting with wing-in-ground-effect
(WIG) vehicles, most notably the huge ekranoplans dating back to the 1960s.
Now, Russian scientists are developing a smaller unmanned WIG, that's
solar-powered.
Sort of a cross between an airplane and a
boat, wing-in-ground-effect vehicles use forward velocity to
create lift, at the same time producing a cushion of air beneath their
relatively short and stubby wings. This allows them to fly just above the
surface of the water, moving much faster than a boat while using less fuel than
a conventional aircraft.
The new vehicle is being built by engineers at Peter the Great St.
Petersburg Polytechnic University, led by researcher Alexei Maistro. It's known
as the Storm-600.
Designed to operate autonomously, it forgoes an onboard pilot for
GPS-based navigation, conventional radio wave-based radar, and a LiDAR (Light
Detection and Ranging) system that allows it to detect and avoid obstacles.
Battery power for its electric motors is supplied by an array of photovoltaic panels on its topside, potentially allowing the craft to remain deployed for long periods of time without needing to return to a base for refuelling. It currently has a theoretical top speed of 200 km/h (124 mph), although its designers hope to boost that figure to 300 km/h (186 mph).
Plans call for the Storm-600 to be tested on the Neva River in St. Petersburg, later this summer. It could ultimately find use in patrolling, search-and-rescue or cargo delivery operations, plus it may also be utilized as a mobile charging platform for both aerial and underwater drones.
Source: Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University via EurekAlert
“The issue is always the same: the government or the market.
There is no third solution.”
“The people of the United States are more prosperous…because
their government embarked later than other governments…upon the policy of
obstructing business”
Ludwig von Mises
DJIA: 25,383 +12 Down. NASDAQ: 9,490 +178 Up.
SP500: 3,044 +83 Down.
The NASDAQ has remained up.
The S&P and the DJIA still remain down despite the best efforts of the Fed
to get them to go higher.
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