Baltic Dry Index. 839 +75 Brent Crude 38.07
Spot Gold 1727
Coronavirus Cases 12/6/20
World 7,640,491
Deaths 426,605
Every crowd has a silver lining.
P. T. Barnum
Well
in what was possibly the most predictable selloff since the ending of the South
Sea Bubble of 1720, stocks Chairman Powell, President Trump, and the Robinhood
day trade dreamers all came crashing back down to earth yesterday.
We
all knew it was going to happen just not when nor what would be the trigger.
Today,
being a Friday and after 3 days of down collapse, we should get a Fed assisted
relief rally, as the casino gamblers seek out bargains and flatten trading
books ahead of another weekend of social disorder.
But
while every crowd used to have a silver lining, crowds in a coronavirus crisis
have just the opposite, and we are probably just two to five weeks away from
finding out just how much Covid-19 damage all the recent global social disorder
has created.
Just
how much more of a drag it has placed on the already very fragile global
economy.
Not
that he has a clue or a plan for what to do next year as banksters and economies
crash, with more to come next year, but it might be time to place a November
bet on “sleepy Joe Biden” and a very left wing unstable America. Probably time
to add to fully paid up physical gold and silver too.
Dow sinks 1,861 points amid rise of COVID-19 cases
June 11, 2020 /
11:22 AM
June 11 (UPI) -- After weeks of significant growth, U.S. stocks fell sharply
Thursday amid concern about a rise in coronavirus cases in some states that
have reopened.The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which had been on a remarkable rally since Memorial Day, closed down 1,861.82 points, or 6.90 percent. The blue-chip stock index hasn't seen a single-day loss as great since the height of the COVID-19 crisis in April.
The S&P 500 ended the day down 5.89 percent and the Nasdaq
composite, which had outperformed the other indexes earlier in the week,
dropped 5.27 percent.
Leading Thursday's decline were airline, cruise line and retailer
stocks, which had shown growth in recent weeks after parts of the United States
began to reopen after weeks of coronavirus closures and restrictions but
struggled this week.
United Airlines stock plummeted 16.11 percent, American Airlines fell
15.51 percent, Delta dropped 14.03 percent and Southwest slid 11.60 percent,
while Norwegian Cruise Line stock dropped 16.46 percent and Carnival stock fell
15.30 percent.
Kohl's ended the day down 11.23 percent while Gap stock fell 8.07
percent.
Health officials in Arizona, Florida, North Carolina and Texas have
reported a mild surge in cases recently.
Wednesday, the Dow fell about 230 points after the Federal Reserve announced it would leave interest rates unchanged and forecast a lengthy path for economic recovery.
Thursday marked the third consecutive day of losses for the Dow and S&P 500, while the Nasdaq had been propelled to historic highs earlier in the week, closing above 10,000 points for the first time on Wednesday.
Asian shares, oil slump as coronavirus fears take hold
June 12, 2020 /
1:04 AM
TOKYO/NEW
YORK (Reuters) - Asian shares fell sharply on Friday after Wall Street and oil
tumbled over growing concerns that a resurgence of coronavirus infections could
stunt the pace of recovery in economies reopening from lockdowns.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS slid 1.3%. Australian stocks dropped 1.74%, while shares in China .CSI300 fell 0.67%.
Oil futures slumped for a second consecutive trading session due to worries about weak global energy demand, which weighed on the currencies of oil producers and countries that rely on exporting commodities.
The Chinese yuan headed for its biggest daily decline in two weeks, underscoring investors’ risk-averse mood in Asia.
---- “All of a sudden the coronavirus, which has been an also-ran story for some days now, became more important as the virus began picking up in some states, and the market began thinking there may be delays to reopening,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment strategist at Inverness Counsel in New York.
U.S. stock futures, the S&P 500 e-minis ESc1, rose 1.1% in Asia on Friday, but that did little to help sentiment.
Japan's Nikkei stock index .N225 slid 1.22%, and shares in South Korea .KS11 fell 2.24% as some investors booked profits from a recent rally in global equities.
Coronavirus cases have jumped in several U.S. states in recent days, raising concern among experts who say authorities have loosened restrictions put in place to contain the spread too early.
Cases in New Mexico, Utah and Arizona rose by 40% for the week ended
Sunday, a Reuters tally shows. Florida and Arkansas are other hot spots.
The U.S. Federal Reserve released a gloomy economic outlook at the end
of its two-day monetary policy meeting on Wednesday. Chairman Jerome Powell
warned of a “long road” to recovery.
Economic data appeared to back up the Fed’s projections, with jobless
claims still more than double their peak during the Great Recession and
continuing claims at an astoundingly high 20.9 million.
More
Labor Dept. says 1.5M more U.S. workers file for unemployment
June 11, 2020
June 11 (UPI) -- The Labor Department said in its weekly report Thursday
that 1.5 million Americans have filed new unemployment claims.
The department said the figure is a decrease of 355,000 from the
previous week. The report also revised last week's figure up to 1.9 million new
claims.
Economists predicted Thursday's assessment to report another 1.6 million jobless claims.
Continuing claims, which lag initial jobless claims data by one week, were expected to total 20 million for the week ending May 30, down from 21.5 million in the prior week.
U.S. unemployment claims peaked in April at 6.6 million for two weeks in a row and the department said a record 20 million U.S. workers lost their jobs during the month.
Economists are eyeing this week's jobless figures as they relate to the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which covers "gig economy" and self-employed workers ineligible for traditional unemployment benefits.
PUA claims fell last week from 1.3 million to about 623,000, signaling that the labor impact of the COVID-19 outbreak may have reached a bottom. Continuing PUA declines, the Commerce Department said last week, would further "increase our conviction in the labor market stabilization and suggest processing backlogs have been cleared."
On Wednesday, the Federal
Reserve indicated that the economic toll of the pandemic is likely to
remain in some form for at least two years. It projected an unemployment rate
of 9.3 percent by the end of 2020 and overall contraction of 6.5 percent for
the year.
Elsewhere,
it was pretty much the same old story. A dying global economy, a still active
coronavirus crisis, rising social disorder, and central banksters and
politicians out of ideas, touch, ammo, and up a creek without a paddle.
Germany Heading for 9.4% Contraction This Year, Institute Says
By Iain Rogers
June 11, 2020, 10:00 AM GMT+1
·
Berlin-based DIW expects only a gradual recovery
into 2021
·
Recent government stimulus package will help
limit the damage
Germany’s economy is heading for a contraction of almost 10% this year due to the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and will recover only gradually from its worst recession since World War II, according to one of the nation’s leading research institutes.
Gross domestic product will likely shrink by 9.4% in 2020, before expanding by 3% next year, the Berlin-based DIW institute predicted Thursday in its latest forecasts for Europe’s largest economy. The projection for this year compares with the Bundesbank’s -7.1% and the OECD’s -6.6%.
“The slump in the German economy this year will be significantly worse than during the financial crisis some 10 years ago,” DIW President Marcel Fratzscher said in a statement. “The fact that many companies are dependent on exports makes the German economy very vulnerable in times of crisis.”
A government stimulus package agreed last week would provide some support if implemented in full, limiting this year’s contraction to 8.1% and boosting growth to 4.3% in 2021, the institute said.
More
Singapore facing its most severe recession ever
Published: June 10, 2020 at 11:38 p.m. ET
Singapore is facing its most severe recession ever, due to the shock to
supply and demand caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, said Ravi Menon, managing
director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The country's gross domestic product for this year is forecast to
contract between 7% and 4%, Mr. Menon said in a transcript of a podcast with
Tim Adams, president and chief executive officer of Institute of International
Finance, on May 28. MAS released the transcript on Thursday.
The MAS's role is mostly aimed at supporting fiscal policy, by easing
monetary policy, ensuring smooth functioning of the funding markets and
facilitating the flow of credit to the real economy, Mr. Menon said.
On the monetary policy front, the MAS eased the Singapore dollar's rate
of appreciation to zero percent, starting at a lower prevailing level of the
exchange rate in March, he said. Hence, the exchange rate is at a lower level
against a trade-weighted basket of currencies and has been kept stable. This is
an accommodative and supportive policy stance, Mr. Menon said.
One of the risks that MAS is quite concerned about is renewed capital
outflows from emerging market economies. "They remain vulnerable if there
is a round of secondary waves of infections," Mr. Menon said.
Another risk is increased deterioration in credit quality, he said;
"There's going to be ratings downgrades."
Finally,
it never rains but it pours. With all our other global problems, we really don’t
need an active Atlantic hurricane season to aggravate all the other problems. We're also at the solar sunspot minimum, which for some unknown reason correlates to an increased probability of a rise in earthquake and volcanic activity. Lucky us.
Lower chance of El Niño this year means higher risk of busy hurricane season
June 11, 2020 /
3:57 PM
June 11 (UPI) -- Federal forecasters predicted Thursday there's less of
a chance that an El Niño will form this year, bumping up the chances that an
already-above-average Atlantic hurricane season will be more active.
El Niño conditions mean sea water in the Pacific Ocean is warmer than
average, suppressing hurricane activity. On the other end of the spectrum, La
Niña conditions mean colder sea water and an increased hurricane activity.
The Climate Prediction Center said there's a 60 percent chance the Pacific Ocean will be ENSO-neutral during the summer months. And there's an equal chance of La Niña and ENSO-neutral conditions during the autumn in the northern hemisphere, potentially making for a more active Atlantic hurricane season.
The season has already included three named storms -- Arthur, Bertha and Cristobal -- all three of which formed before the official start of the season on June 1.
The Climate Prediction Center predicted an above-normal 2020 Atlantic hurricane season in May. The agency, operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said there will be between 13 and 19 named storms this year, six to 10 of which will become hurricanes. Of those, three to six will strengthen to major hurricanes -- Category 3 or higher.
A typical hurricane season produces 12 named storms, six of which become hurricanes, including three major hurricanes.
The NOAA predictions fall in line with forecasts by Colorado State University and AccuWeather scientists.
“Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the
American public.”
P. T. Barnum.
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.
Indonesia's hundreds of suspected child virus deaths highlight danger
June 11, 2020 /
10:36 AM
JAKARTA
(Reuters) - Hundreds of children in Indonesia are believed to have died from
COVID-19, giving the Southeast Asian country one of the world’s highest rates
of child deaths from the novel coronavirus that experts around the world say
poses little danger to the young.
Paediatricians and health officials in the world’s fourth most populous
country said the high number of child deaths from a disease that mostly kills
the elderly was due to underlying factors, in particular malnutrition, anaemia
and inadequate child health facilities.
“COVID-19 proves that we have to fight against malnutrition,” Achmad
Yurianto, a senior health ministry official, told Reuters.
He said Indonesian children were caught in a “devil’s circle”, a cycle
of malnutrition and anaemia that increased their vulnerability to the
coronavirus. He compared malnourished children to weak structures that “crumble
after an earthquake”.
Since Indonesia announced its first coronavirus case in March it has
recorded 2,000 deaths, the highest in East Asia outside China.
A total of 715 people under 18 had contracted the coronavirus, while 28
had died, according to a health ministry document dated May 22 and reviewed by
Reuters.
It also recorded more than 380 deaths among 7,152 children classified as
“patients under monitoring”, meaning people with severe coronavirus symptoms
for which there is no other explanation but whose tests have not confirmed the
infection.
Even the official figure for children who have died of the coronavirus,
at 28 as of May 22, would give Indonesia a high rate of child death, at 2.1% of
its total.
Different countries use different age brackets in statistics but deaths
for those under 24 in the United States are a little over 0.1% of its
fatalities.
In Brazil, the number of suspected COVID deaths under age 19 is 1.2%. In
the Philippines, deaths of those under 19 are about 2.3% of its coronavirus
toll.
More
Over 3 per cent of people in Wuhan may have had Covid-19, possibly with no or mild symptoms, studies say
·
Researchers carried out antibody tests on
samples from health care workers, family members and hotel staff from the
outbreak epicentre in China
·
Separate study concludes that results of nucleic
acid testing may reflect just a fraction of infections in the city
Two separate studies that involved antibody testing for Covid-19 suggest
more than 3 per cent of people in Wuhan – a city of 11 million – may have
previously had infections, possibly with no or very mild symptoms.
One team of Chinese scientists tested 17,368 people in Wuhan – where the
first cases were reported in December – and other cities in China from March 9
to April 10, aiming to assess how prevalent the disease had been.
While nucleic acid tests are used to identify whether someone has
contracted Covid-19
at the time they are ill, testing for antibodies – blood proteins
produced by the immune system to fight the disease – is an important way to
determine, later on, how many people were infected. It can also indicate
whether they had asymptomatic or subclinical infections, meaning the symptoms
were so mild that they did not notice them.
Tests for two types of antibodies found that 3.2 per cent to 3.8 per
cent of the blood samples from Wuhan were positive, meaning they had previously
been infected with Covid-19, according to the peer-reviewed study published in Nature
Medicine last week.
The research was conducted by scientists from Guangzhou, Chongqing,
Sichuan, Hong Kong and other Chinese cities.
Among those tested were 714 health care workers, 3.8 per cent of whom
were found to have been infected with Covid-19. The proportion was the same,
3.8 per cent, for 346 staff at hotels where health care workers treating
Covid-19 patients were staying. And among the 219 family members of health care
workers tested, antibodies were found in 3.2 per cent.
The study found that people aged over 65 had a higher prevalence of
antibodies.
But its authors noted that since the study was not based on a random
sample, there could be bias and more research was needed to get a better
estimate of the total number of infections in Wuhan during the outbreak.
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.
Polish solar energy to take off after €79m investment from two giant banks
The funding will support the development of 128 solar power plants with a total power of 121MW
10 June 2020
Santander Bank Polska and mBank, two of the largest banks
in Poland, will finance with €79 million (£70m) a project of 128 solar power
plants developed by R.POWER.The company plans to build facilities with a total power of 121MW within the next 18 months to boost the renewable energy transition of Poland.
The transaction claims to be ‘the biggest funding for solar power projects
provided in Poland so far’ and each bank will hold a 50% share.
Juan de Porras, Deputy President of the Management Board and Head of the
Corporate and Investment Banking Division in Santander Bank Polska, commented:
“This is another such a big initiative taken by Santander Bank Polska to
support the transformation of the Polish energy system.”
Adam Pers, Deputy President of mBank and Head of the Corporate Banking,
said: “The decision to support companies from the RES sector brings us double
satisfaction, we not only help entrepreneurs but also accelerate the green
transformation.”
Poland’s power from photovoltaic (PV) installations is forecast to grow
to 16GW by 2040.
Another weekend, and
hopefully a weekend of lower crowds and social disorder. But even if that
happens, the coronavirus Sars-Cov-2 may already have been let loose from all
our earlier efforts at containment via lockdowns. We are now in God’s waiting
room for about the next four weeks.
Have a great weekend
everyone, try not to get caught up in rioting crowds of possibly infectious Cov-idiots.
There is scarcely anything that drags a person down like debt.
P. T. Barnum
The Monthly Coppock Indicators finished May
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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