Washington (AFP) -
The coronavirus pandemic inflicted a "swift and massive shock" that
has caused the broadest collapse of the global economy since 1870 despite
unprecedented government support, the World Bank said Monday.
Fed day two, and later today the
Gospel according to Chairman Powell and the President Trump re-election committee.
How high can he bid stocks by November 3rd?
Meanwhile according to the World Bank,
we are in the midst of the broadest economic collapse in 150 years, just don’t
let on to anyone in the stock casinos.
Time to sell out to Chairman Powell and
his casino agents. Cash in while the cashing in’s still there! Pretty soon
Chairman Powell will be the only greater fool buyer around.
Asian shares creep higher as
markets wait for Fed
June 10, 2020 /
1:16 AM
SINGAPORE/NEW
YORK (Reuters) - Asian stock markets eked out a 10th consecutive session of
gains on Wednesday, but momentum ebbed as doubts about the global recovery from
the pandemic returned ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve meeting.
The sideways moves in equities cap two weeks of stock
market gains, turbocharged by Friday’s data showing a completely unexpected
rise in U.S. employment last month. Safe havens from gold to the Japanese yen
won support as optimism ebbed.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan
.MIAPJ0000PUS rose 0.3% and Japan's Nikkei .N225
rose 0.1%. The yen JPY=
held on to two days of big gains and commodity currencies nursed Tuesday's
losses. Gold XAU= rose slightly.
Focus has switched to the Fed’s economic outlook and
whether a steepening of the U.S. yield curve during last week’s bond market
selloff might prompt intervention at longer tenors.
“The Fed tonight is a key variable in determining whether
this is a pit-stop or U-turn,” said Vishnu Varathan, head of economics and
strategy at Mizuho Bank in Singapore.
No action is expected from the Fed, but any hit of taking
the foot off the pedal could hammer risk sentiment and lift the dollar.
The Fed’s economic projections, guidance as to how long and
how low rates can be held down and the prospect of yield-curve control will be
closely watched, Varathan said in a note.
A statement from the Fed is due at 1800 GMT followed by a
news conference half an hour later and markets seem to be idling ahead of that.
S&P 500 futures ESc1 rose 0.6% to recoup some of Tuesday’s losses, but
other moves were smaller.
Washington (AFP) - The coronavirus pandemic inflicted a "swift and
massive shock" that has caused the broadest collapse of the global economy
since 1870 despite unprecedented government support, the World Bank said
Monday.
The world economy is expected to contract by 5.2 percent this year --
the worst recession in 80 years -- but the sheer number of countries suffering
economic losses means the scale of the downturn is worse than any recession in
150 years, the World Bank said in its latest Global Economic Prospects report.
"This is a deeply sobering outlook, with the crisis likely to leave
long-lasting scars and pose major global challenges," said World Bank
Group Vice President for Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions Ceyla
Pazarbasioglu.
The depth of the crisis will drive 70 to 100 million people into extreme
poverty -- worse than the prior estimate of 60 million, she told reporters.
And while the Washington-based development lender projects a rebound for
2021, there is a risk a second wave of outbreaks could undermine the recovery
and turn the economic crisis into a financial one that will see a "wave of
defaults."
Economists have been struggling to measure the impact of the crisis they
have likened to a global natural disaster, but the sheer size of the impact
across so many sectors and countries has made that difficult.
Under the worst-case scenario, the global recession could mean a
contraction of eight percent, according to the report.
But Pazarbasioglu cautioned: "Given this uncertainty, further
downgrades to the outlook are very likely."
Don’t Lose the Thread. The
Economy Is Experiencing an Epic Collapse of Demand.
A rip in the fabric of the economy won’t be healed easily,
and denial of the severity of the crisis won’t solve it.
Published June 6, 2020Updated June 7, 2020
Despite it all — a nation on edge, with an untamed pandemic and
convulsive protests over police brutality — for the first time in three months
there is a scent of economic optimism in the air.
Employers added millions of jobs to their payrolls in May, and the
jobless rate fell, a big surprise to forecasters who expected further losses.
Businesses are reopening, and the rate of coronavirus deaths has edged down.
The Trump administration has begun pointing to what are likely to be impressive
growth numbers as the economy starts to pull out of its deep hole.
All of that is good news, and far better than the alternative of a
continuing collapse in economic activity. But it also creates a risk:
distraction and complacency.
---- But there are clear signs that the collapse of
economic activity has set in motion problems that will play out over many
months, or maybe many years. If not contained, they could cause human misery on
a mass scale and create lasting scars for families.
The fabric of the economy has been ripped, with damage done to millions
of interconnections — between workers and employers, companies and their
suppliers, borrowers and lenders. Both the historical evidence from severe
economic crises and the data available today point to enormous delayed effects.
---- Consider those seemingly great new employment
numbers. It is clear that many workers who were temporarily laid off in March
and April returned to work in May, such as employees at once-closed restaurants
that opened up, or construction workers who returned to job
But it still left the economy with 19.55 million fewer
jobs than existed in February. And the rebound came in part thanks to more than
$500 billion in federal aid to small businesses offered on the condition that
workers be retained, under the Paycheck Protection Program.
Other data points to a severe but slower-moving crisis of
collapsing demand that will affect many more corners of the economy than those
that were forced to close because of the pandemic.
New orders for manufactured goods, for example, remained
in starkly negative territory in May, according to the Institute for Supply
Management; its index came in at 31.8, far below the level of 50 that is the
line between expansion and contraction.
And despite the net gain in employment in May, there have
been many announced layoffs at companies outside sectors directly affected by
the pandemic. This suggests that the forced shutdown of travel, restaurant and
related industries is rippling out into a broad-based shortage of demand in the
economy.
Consider just a partial list of large well-known companies
unaffected by the direct first-round effects of pandemic-induced shutdowns, but
which have since announced layoffs: Chevron, I.B.M. and Office Depot.
Last week, the Congressional Budget Office tried to put a
number on the aggregate economic activity that will be lost over the next
decade compared with what was projected at the start of the year. That number
is $15.7 trillion, reflecting both less economic activity and deflationary
forces that reduce prices.
As Many as 25,000 U.S. Stores May
Close in 2020, Mostly in Malls
June
9, 2020
(Bloomberg)
-- As many as 25,000 U.S. stores could close permanently this year after the
coronavirus pandemic devastated an industry where many mall-based retailers
were already struggling.
The
number would shatter the record set in 2019, when more than 9,800 stores closed
their doors for good, according to a report from retail and tech data firm
Coresight Research. Most of the closures are expected to occur in malls, with
department stores and clothing shops predicted to be among the hardest hit.
“If
the anchor tenants close stores in the mall, other tenants are likely to follow
suit,” Coresight Chief Executive Officer Deborah Weinswig said in the report,
which put the expected range at 20,000 to 25,000. “Department and large
apparel-chain store closures in malls will therefore create a ripple effect
that spells bad news for malls.”
The U.S. has the most retail selling space per capita of
any country and the lowest sales per square feet, according to commercial real
estate company Cushman & Wakefield. Most retailers have been reluctant to
shrink their store networks, but the pandemic has forced many to rewrite their
playbooks.
American retailers went dark in mid-March in response to
the Covid-19 outbreak, and -- even though states are now beginning to ease
restrictions -- many shops are still shuttered or only providing limited
service. As of June 5, retailers have planned about 4,000 permanent store
closures, including hundreds by J.C. Penney, Victoria’s Secret and Pier 1
Imports. In March, before the extent and duration of the virus lockdown was
clear, Coresight estimated that about 15,000 stores would shutter in 2020.
Following the markets on both sides of the Atlantic since 1968. A dinosaur, who evolved with the financial system as it was perverted from capitalism to banksterism after the great Nixonian error of abandoning the dollar's link to gold instead of simply revaluing gold. Our money is too important to be left to probity challenged central banksters and crooked politicians.
No comments:
Post a Comment