Baltic Dry Index. 520 +16 Brent Crude 38.64
Spot Gold 1737
Coronavirus Cases 02/6/20
World 6,379,433
Deaths 380,297
"I would not say that the future is necessarily less
predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it
started."
Donald Rumsfeld.
While
the great disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street continues, I would use
the great disconnect as an urgent exit rally.
An
America tearing itself apart in arson and looting, with 40 million unemployed,
still fighting a coronavirus crisis, and with President Trump threatening to do
a Beijing and send in the military, is to this old dinosaur trader, a reason to
sell and exit stocks, and anything but a reason to take on extra risk by buying
stocks.
If
President Trump goes through with his threat to send in the military against
rioters and looters anything can happen.
At
best, it’s a gamble that shock and awe works and makes rioters come to their senses,
though that hasn’t worked in Hong Kong.
At
worst, it all goes very wrong, setting off a more widespread insurrection
across even more of the continental USA.
I
hope for the best, but President Trump is such a divisive force in modern US
politics, I suspect that actually using US forces against US citizens, albeit
rioters and looters, will probably just make things worse.
Asian markets mostly rise, following Wall Street’s lead
Published: June 2, 2020 at 12:14 a.m. ET
Shares were mostly higher in Asia on Tuesday, lifted by
moves to reopen many regional economies from shutdowns aimed at containing the
coronavirus pandemic. Japan’s Nikkei 225 NIK, +1.19% rose 0.9% in morning trading and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng HSI, +0.38% gained 0.4%. South Korea’s Kospi 180721, +0.73% added 0.8%. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 XJO, +0.18% slipped a fraction of a percent, while the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, -0.11% lost 0.2%. Jakarta’s main index JAKIDX, +2.49% jumped 2% and Singapore’s STI, +1.25% was up 1.2% as authorities were winding down some pandemic precautions.
The gains also tracked a modest advance on Wall Street overnight. Investors are balancing cautious optimism about the reopening of businesses shut down because of the pandemic against worries that widespread protests in the U.S. over police brutality could disrupt the economic recovery and widen the outbreak.
Hopes for a quick recovery from the worst global downturn since the 1930s have helped spur buying. But Robert Carnell, regional head of research for the Asia-Pacific region at ING, warned against too much optimism, given the tensions between the U.S. and China, unrest in Hong Kong and the U.S., and uncertainties over prospects for a vaccine or dependable treatments for COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus.
“How long can markets remain buoyant?” he asked. “The honest answer, and one that may save you five minutes is, ‘I don’t know’ “
The protests that have rocked American cities for days have so far not had much impact on financial markets. But the violence and damage to property may hinder the re-opening of the economy. Crowds gathering to protest injustice and racism also could touch off more outbreaks.
More
June 1, 2020 /
9:43 AM / Updated June 1, 2020 at 11:37 PM
June 1 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump on Monday evening declared he was mobilizing all federal resources in response to protests over the police-involved killing of George Floyd and encouraged all governors to deploy the National Guard in their states.
Trump called on mayors and governors to establish an "overwhelming law enforcement presence" and said he will deploy the United States military if state and local governments do not "take the action necessary to defend the life and property of their residents."
"My first and highest duty as president is to defend our great country and the American people," Trump said. "I swore an oath to uphold the laws of our nation and that is exactly what I will do."
In order to activate the military to operate in the United States, Trump would have to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, which White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany had earlier described as "one of the tools available" to the president.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker pushed back on the legality of Trump's declaration saying the state would not request military assistance.
"It's illegal, he can't do it and we won't request military assistance in the state of Illinois," said Pritzker.
The president vowed justice for Floyd and said he was an "ally of all peaceful protesters" while also describing himself as "your president of law and order."
Trump said that a 7 p.m. curfew in Washington, D.C. would be strictly enforced and that he would deploy federal forces and law enforcement in response to protests in the capital.
More
Published: June 1, 2020 at 11:52 p.m. ET
U.S. stock benchmarks were indicating losses on Tuesday as
President Donald Trump said he would deploy military troops across cities
facing protests if state governors and local officials prove unable to contain
a fresh bout of civil unrest erupting across the nation.Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average YMM20, -0.41% YM00, -0.41% were 131 points, or 0.5%, lower at 25,332, those for the S&P 500 index ESM20, -0.41% ES00, -0.41% were trading 17.50 points, or 0.6%, lower at 3,036.50, while Nasdaq-100 futures NQM20, -0.20% NQ00, -0.21% were declining 29 points to reach 9.566, a decline of 0.3%.
On Monday, the Dow DJIA, +0.36% rose 91.91 points, or 0.4%, to finish at 25,475.02, after trading negative at the start of Monday’s session. The S&P 500 SPX, +0.37% rose 11.42 points, or 0.4%, to end at 3,055.73. The Nasdaq Composite COMP, +0.65% added 62.18 points, or 0.7%, to close at 9,552.05.
“I am dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers,” Trump said late Monday at the White House. “If a city or state refuses to take the actions necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”
Major cities from Los Angeles to New York have been engulfed in nightly protests after George Floyd, a black man, died last Monday following a confrontation with police in Minneapolis in which a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, was captured on video driving his knee onto Floyd’s neck until the handcuffed man lost consciousness and later died.
Curfews were announced Monday for Minneapolis and St. Paul and in other cities, while New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo placed New York City under curfew Monday night starting at 11 a.m. Eastern and ending at 5 a.m., marking the first such curfew in the city in years.
“Anarchy in the streets threatens to throw a wet blanket on risk recovery as investor optimism over economic reopening in the U.S. could wane,” wrote Stephen Innes, global chief market strategist at AxiCorp, in a Monday research note.
-----Meanwhile, a report from the Congressional Budget Office released Monday said it expected real gross domestic product to be about 3% smaller over the 2020-to-2030 period than it had projected in January, before the pandemic hit the U.S. In inflation-adjusted dollar terms, that drop would be equivalent to $7.9 trillion.
The figures are based on projections released May 19 and the CBO repeated they reflect a “significant markdown” in growth estimates.
GDP isn’t expected to catch up to the previously forecast level until the fourth quarter of 2029, the CBO added.
More
China says U.S. attempts to damage China's interest will be countered
June 1, 2020 /
8:31 AM
BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Monday said that U.S. attempts to harm
Chinese interests will be met with firm countermeasures, criticising
Washington’s decision to end special treatment of Hong Kong as well as actions
against Chinese students and companies.
Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters during a briefing
that both countries stand to benefit from bilateral cooperation but said
Beijing will resolutely defend its security and development interests.
In other news, yet more unemployment to
come.
Truckmaker Scania signals lay-offs, has 5,000 more staff than needed
June 1, 2020 /
9:33 AM
STOCKHOLM/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Swedish truckmaker Scania,
owned by Germany’s Traton (8TRA.DE),
is planning major job cuts and estimates it has 5,000 more staff globally than
it needs as a result of the coronavirus crisis. Traton, in which Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) has a 89.7% stake, said last month its first-quarter operating profit had fallen by two thirds, as the coronavirus pandemic brought large parts of the automotive industry to a near standstill.
Scania Chief Executive Henrik Henriksson said on Monday that up to 1,000 white-collar positions at its headquarters in Sodertalje would be reviewed by the Swedish truckmaker, which employs around 51,000 people globally.
“Our assessment is that it will take long before market demand reaches pre-crisis levels and we therefore need to adapt the organisation to the new situation,” Henriksson said.
“These will be company-wide measures and formal notices of redundancies
are not excluded,” he added in a statement.
Scania said it will also reassess parts of its industrial and commercial
operations, adding it had too many staff in global sales and services and that
the truckmaker’s research & development had also been hit by the fall in
activity.
“The executive management is working together with the union
representatives on different cost reduction measures, where reducing the number
of consultants is one,” Scania said.
"Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make
mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."
Donald Rumsfeld. On rioting and looting in Iraq.
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, did The Lancet get
taken for a ride? Did The Lancet just publish a bogus study? Cui bono? How much lasting damage to The
Lancet’s former reputation?
May 29, 2020
A group of more than 140 scientists, researchers, and statisticians have written an open letter to the Lancet and the authors of a recently published observational study showing that the use of chloroquine, and its newer derivative hydroxychloroquine, increased the risk of mortality and the occurrence of cardiac arrhythmias when used in the treatment of hospitalized patients with COVID-19.
The letter writers, who include James Watson, PhD (Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, Thailand), a statistician who first raised concerns about the integrity of the results in a review on Twitter, call for the release of patient data and for the findings to be validated by the World Health Organization (WHO), or at least one other independent institution.
Contacted by TCTMD, one of the Lancet study investigators said that they, too, will conduct an independent review of the data they used for their analysis, which was provided by a private company.
Published May 22, 2020, and reported on by TCTMD along with a wide range of other media outlets, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, the study in question focused on 96,032 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 between December 20, 2019, and April 14, 2020, at 671 hospitals on six continents. On multivariable adjustment, use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine with or without a macrolide antibiotic was associated with a 33% to 45% higher risk of in-hospital mortality. The risks of ventricular arrythmia were increased by several orders of magnitude.
The observational study has had a “considerable impact on public health practice and research,” according to the letter writing group, which also noted that the WHO paused the recruitment of patients into the hydroxychloroquine arm of the SOLIDARITY trial the day after the study was published. Other regulators around the globe have also pressed pause on their studies of hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19.
“The subsequent media headlines have caused considerable concern to participants and patients enrolled in randomized controlled trials seeking to characterize the potential benefits and risks of these drugs in the treatment and prevention of COVID-19 infections,” according to the letter. “There is uniform agreement that well-conducted randomized controlled trials are needed to inform policies and practices.”
In an email to TCTMD, lead study investigator Mandeep Mehra, MD (Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA), said his group used data from Surgisphere, a private company whose president and chief executive officer Sapan Desai was one of the study authors, because of the absence of large, publicly available data sets on hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine and the lack of evidence regarding the safety and benefits of those treatments for hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Like the letter writers, he stressed the importance of conducting randomized controlled trials before any conclusions can be reached.
“However, results are not anticipated from such [randomized controlled] trials until the summer and, given the urgency of the situation, leveraging the available data set was an intermediary step,” said Mehra.
Some Specific Concerns
The letter raises several concerns about the observational analysis, among them inadequate adjustment for known and measured confounders and the absence of an ethics review for the study. The authors question some of the data from Australia, noting there were too many COVID-19 cases and too many deaths, numbers that are inconsistent with government reports. They also challenge some of the findings from Africa, question the dosing of hydroxychloroquine, and point to unusually small reported variances in baseline variables, interventions, and outcomes between the continents.
More.
May 28, 2020 Report Open Access
An open letter to Mehra et al and The Lancet
James Watson on the behalf of 146 signatoriesOpen letter to MR Mehra, SS Desai, F Ruschitzka, and AN Patel, authors of
“Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis”. Lancet. 2020 May 22:S0140-6736(20)31180-6. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31180-6. PMID: 32450107
and to Richard Horton (editor of The Lancet).
New coronavirus losing potency, top Italian doctor says
May 31, 2020 /
7:53 PM
ROME (Reuters) -
The new coronavirus is losing its potency and has become much less lethal, a
senior Italian doctor said on Sunday.
“In reality, the virus clinically no longer exists in Italy,” said
Alberto Zangrillo, the head of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan in the
northern region of Lombardy, which has borne the brunt of Italy’s coronavirus
contagion.
“The swabs that were performed over the last 10 days showed a viral load
in quantitative terms that was absolutely infinitesimal compared to the ones
carried out a month or two months ago,” he told RAI television.
Italy has the third highest death toll in the world from COVID-19, with
33,415 people dying since the outbreak came to light on Feb. 21. It has the
sixth highest global tally of cases at 233,019.
However new infections and fatalities have fallen steadily in May and
the country is unwinding some of the most rigid lockdown restrictions
introduced anywhere on the continent.
Zangrillo said some experts were too alarmist about the prospect of a
second wave of infections and politicians needed to take into account the new
reality.
“We’ve got to get back to being a normal country,” he said. “Someone has
to take responsibility for terrorizing the country.”
The government urged caution, saying it was far too soon to claim
victory.
More
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 higher.
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