Baltic Dry Index. 1803 + 04 Brent Crude 42.08
Spot Gold 1768
Coronavirus Cases 02/7/20
World 10,724,719
Deaths 519,929
The
Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 was an Act of the
Parliament of the United Kingdom. ... The 1928 Act widened suffrage by giving
women electoral equality with men. It gave the vote to all women over 21 years
old, regardless of property ownership.
Royal
assent: 2 July 1928
Later today, the
US employment/unemployment figures from America’s Bureau of Lying Statistics, whose
main role in life seems to be to make Beijing’s statistics look good.
After that,
America heads off to celebrate their Independence Day, when 244 years ago
sensible Americans decided that they could do without the tyrant King George
and his GB London government imposing taxes in America without representation.
The weekend is
also expected to see President Trump impose more sanctions on China over China’s
scandalous treatment of its minority Moslem population. He might also take a
shot at China over China breaking the “one China, two systems” Hong Kong
treaty.
Not that any of
this interfered with latest stock mania underway. Tesla has replaced Toyota as
the most valued auto maker in the world. Nasdaq is back in technology bubble territory.
No one remembers what happened just 20 years ago,
Below, stocks
bubble on like it’s the summer of 1987 again. Does history repeat?
Asian stocks rise on vaccine hopes, eyes on U.S. payrolls
July 2, 2020 /
1:03 AM
SYDNEY/NEW YORK
(Reuters) - Asian stocks tracked Wall Street higher on Thursday although
sentiment was cautious ahead of U.S. employment data while copper prices jumped
to more than six-month highs on a better global outlook and supply fears in top
producer Chile.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside of Japan rose 0.9%
with all major indexes trading higher on hopes of a vaccine for COVID-19, which
has killed more than half a million people globally and shut down the world
economy.
Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.4%, China’s blue-chip index added 0.6% while Hong
Kong’s Hang Seng index climbed 1.7%.
E-mini futures for the S&P 500 were flat.
U.S. employment figures due later in the day are expected to show if the
world’s largest economy can sustain its fragile recovery as new COVID-19 cases
accelerate in several southern states.
Economists polled by Reuters expect private employers to show 2.9 new
million new jobs June, which would follow a surprise increase in May. Casting
some doubt over that projection, however, was a smaller-than-expected increase
in jobs seen in the ADP report on Wednesday.
“A better-than-expected outcome could go some way to settling the
near-term debate that the U.S. labor market will heal relatively quickly and justify
new highs in U.S. equities,” said Stephen Innes, strategist at AxiCorp.
Wall Street ended Wednesday higher after key economic indicators showed
a rebound in Chinese manufacturing activity as it recovers from the pandemic
while sharp declines in European factory activity eased.
More
Record U.S. job growth expected in June, but masks labor market weakness
July 2, 2020 / 5:19 AM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy likely created jobs at a
record clip in June as more restaurants and bars resumed operations, which
would offer further evidence that the COVID-19 recession was probably over,
though a surge in cases of the coronavirus threatens the fledgling recovery.
The Labor Department’s closely watched monthly employment report on
Thursday would add to a stream of data, including consumer spending, showing a
sharp rebound in activity.
But the reopening of businesses after being shuttered in mid-March has
unleashed a wave of coronavirus infections in large parts of the country,
including the populous California, Florida and Texas.
Several states have been scaling back or pausing reopenings since late
June and sent some workers home. The impact of these decisions will not show up
in the employment data as the government surveyed businesses in the middle of
the month.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell this week acknowledged the rebound
in activity, saying the economy had “entered an important new phase and (had)
done so sooner than expected.” But he cautioned the outlook “is extraordinarily
uncertain” and would depend on “our success in containing the virus.”
More
Reopenings stall as U.S. records nearly 50,000 cases of COVID-19 in single day
July 1, 2020 /
4:56 PM
(Reuters) -
Governors of U.S. states hit hardest by the resurgent coronavirus halted or
reversed steps to reopen their economies on Wednesday, led by California, the
nation’s most populous state and a new epicenter of the pandemic.
New cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, shot up by
nearly 50,000 on Wednesday, according to a Reuters tally, marking the biggest
one-day spike since the start of the pandemic.
“The spread of this virus continues at a rate that is particularly
concerning,” California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said in ordering the
closure of bars, bans on indoor dining and other restrictions in 19 counties,
affecting over 70% of the state’s population.
The change in California, which was the first U.S. state to impose
sweeping “stay-at-home” restrictions in March, will likely inflict more
financial pain on the owners of bars and restaurants who have struggled to
survive the pandemic.
The epicenter of the country’s COVID-19 epidemic has moved from the
Northeast to California, Arizona and New Mexico in the West along with Texas,
Florida and Georgia.
Texas again topped
its previous record on Wednesday with 8,076 new cases, while South Carolina
reported 24 more coronavirus deaths, a single-day high for the state. Tennessee
and Alaska also had record numbers of new cases on Wednesday.
More
Germany, U.K. Data Signal a Long Road to Recovery: Virus Update
Bloomberg News
June 30, 2020, 11:49 PM GMT+1 Updated on July 1, 2020,
10:59 AM GMT+1
Europe’s two largest economies reported more evidence of the economic damage wrought by the pandemic. Unemployment in Germany surged in June, accompanied by warnings of a slower-than-expected recovery. In the U.K., house prices posted their first annual decline since 2012, while the nation’s businesses reported a record slump in sales.
Airbus SE embarked on the most extensive restructuring in its history, setting out plans to cut 15,000 civil-aerospace jobs worldwide.
Confirmed coronavirus infections in the U.S. increased by 48,096 to 2.61 million Tuesday, a rise of 1.9% that was above the 7-day average.
----New coronavirus infections in Austria have become “worrying,” with 107 people who testing positive in the last 24 hours, Health Minister Rudolf Anschober told journalists in Vienna. That’s the biggest one-day increase since April 17.
The biggest addition is attributable to a cluster around a Pentecostal evangelical church in Linz, an industrial town two hours west of Vienna, Anschober said. The province of Upper Austria is taking “rigorous” measures, he said, without elaborating.
German Unemployment Rose Sharply in June (4:49 pm. HK)
Another sharp rise in unemployment figures in June took the number of job losses in Germany in the second quarter to 678,000, and the national total to just below 3 million. That’s a threshold not broken since 2011. Yet more redundancies were prevented by generous state wage support, the Federal Labor Agency said Wednesday.The Ifo institute, which five weeks ago predicted an economic rebound of more than 10% next year, sharply lowered its projections to growth of 6.4%.
U.K. Data Reveal Challenge of Recovery (4.39 p.m. HK)
House prices in the U.K. posted their first annual decline since 2012, dropping 0.1% from a year earlier to an average of 216,403 pounds ($267,000), according to Nationwide Building Society.Separately, measures of sales, orders and cashflow in the nation’s dominant services sector have plunged by the most in the 31-year history of the British Chambers of Commerce’s quarterly survey. Sentiment in manufacturing industry slid to the weakest level since the financial crisis.
While Bank of England Chief Economist Andy Haldane said Tuesday the recovery may be stronger than predicted, others are less optimistic, with the majority of the 7,706 companies surveyed by the BCC saying they expect turnover to worsen over the next year.
More
Rating agency S&P cuts UK forecasts, warns of 'perfect storm'
July 1, 2020 /
11:12 AM
LONDON (Reuters) - Rating agency S&P Global cut its UK forecasts for
the year again on Wednesday to a 8.1% contraction and warned of a “perfect
storm” next year if efforts to strike a post-Brexit EU trade deal fail.
S&P, which delivered its first ever double-notch downgrade to a
triple A-rated country when Britain voted to leave the European Union in 2016,
said it no longer assumed the Brexit transition period will be extended this
year.
Instead it expects London to strike a “core” free trade deal starting
2021, though the risk that negotiations fail remains “elevated”.
“A second, bigger wave of (coronavirus) infections in autumn, then
followed by a switch to WTO trade rules in January would be a perfect storm,”
S&P said.
BoE's Haskel sees worrying signs of rise in unemployment
July 1, 2020 /
12:37 PM
LONDON (Reuters) - Bank of England interest rate-setter Jonathan Haskel
said there was a risk that Britain’s economy would be harder hit by the
coronavirus crisis than the central bank has predicted and there were worrying
signs of rising unemployment.
“I believe the current stance of monetary policy is appropriate but, on
balance, risks are to the downside,” Haskel said in remarks he was due to
deliver online to the Brighton Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday.
Haskel was among the eight members of the nine-strong Monetary Policy
Committee who voted last month to expand the BoE’s bond-buying programme to
help the economy cope with the shock of the coronavirus lockdown.
In his remarks, Haskel said there had been some signs that economic activity
was coming back from its initial slump more quickly than the BoE thought early
on in the crisis.
“But we should remember this past quarter is still likely to see by far
the largest decline in output since quarterly national accounts began,” he said.
“Worryingly the indicators of rising unemployment are already revealing
themselves.”
There was a lot of uncertainty about how many of the workers who are
temporarily laid off under the government’s furlough scheme would be able to
return to their jobs, he said.
More
EasyJet to cut aircraft and employees in Berlin
July 1, 2020 /
10:47 AM
LONDON (Reuters) - Low cost carrier easyJet (EZJ.L) said on Wednesday it
planned to cut the number of aircraft and employees based in Berlin and has
launched a consultation. “Although we will remain Berlin’s largest carrier we have to adjust our schedule to reflect the demand following the pandemic and focus on profitable flying,” Chief Executive Johan Lundgren said in a statement.
There can be few fields of human endeavour in which history counts for so little as in the world of finance. Past experience, to the extent that it is part of memory at all, is dismissed as the primitive refuge of those who do not have the insight to appreciate the incredible wonders of the present.
John
Kenneth Galbraith
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.
Beijing approves experimental Covid-19 vaccine for use in Chinese military
Updated 1354 GMT (2154 HKT) June 30, 2020
Hong Kong (CNN)The Chinese government has approved the use of an
experimental Covid-19 vaccine for the country's military -- the latest step in
a global race to stop the deadly disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
The vaccine, known as Ad5-nCoV, was jointly-developed by the Beijing
Institute of Biotechnology -- part of the Chinese government's Academy of
Military Medical Sciences -- and vaccine company CanSino Biologics.
In a statement to the
Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Monday, CanSino announced that
China's Central Military Commission had given the vaccine a "military
specially-needed drug approval" on June 25. The special permission will
last for one year and will only apply to military personnel.
China
has
repeatedly insisted that its military has remained unaffected
by the pandemic, with officials claiming that the People's Liberation Army
(PLA), has not recorded a single coronavirus case.
US
observers, however, have cast doubt on the claims, noting that the PLA is the
among the world's largest standing armies, making it statistically unlikely
that its personnel have not been exposed to the virus.
Neither the
Chinese government nor CanSino have said how broadly the vaccine will be distributed,
which units were be selected or whether it will be mandatory or voluntary for
personnel.
CNN
has reached out for CanSino for comment on the announcement.
According
to a CanSino statement, clinical trials of the new vaccine have shown a
"good safety profile" with initial results indicating that Ad5-nCoV
had potential to prevent diseases caused by SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus strain
that causes Covid-19.
CanSino
had previously announced in May that the Canadian government was allowing
human trials of the Ad5-nCoV vaccine. "This vaccine
candidate holds great promise," Iain Stewart, president of the National
Research Council of Canada, said in a statement at the time.
More
World takes stock of COVID-19 drug remdesivir after U.S. snaps up supplies
July 1, 2020 /
7:02 PM
SEOUL/BERLIN/LONDON
(Reuters) - Some governments in Europe and Asia said on Wednesday they have
enough of Gilead’s COVID-19 anti-viral remdesivir for now despite fears of
shortages since the U.S. drugmaker pledged most output to its home market for
the next three months.
The pharmaceutical company’s move stirred the global debate about
equitable access to drugs and brought concerns about accessibility, especially
in regions where coronavirus rates are still high or there have been new
outbreaks.
Remdesivir is in high demand after the intravenously-administered
medicine helped shorten hospital recovery times in a clinical trial. It is
believed to be most effective in treating COVID-19 patients earlier in the
course of disease than other therapies like the steroid dexamethasone.
Still, because remdesivir is given intravenously over at least a
five-day period it is generally being used on patients sick enough to require
hospitalisation.
Britain and Germany said they had sufficient reserves for now, though
they were weighing options for when those might be exhausted.
South Korea, for its part, has started distributing stocks, but plans
talks to purchase more supplies in August.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) this week said it
had secured all of Gilead’s projected production for July and 90% of its
production in August and September, in addition to an allocation for clinical
trials.
More
Some useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus
resource centre
Rt Covid-19
Covid19info.live
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.
Researchers print, tune graphene sensors to monitor food freshness, safety
Date: June 29,
2020
Source: Iowa State
University
Summary:
Researchers are using high-resolution printing technology and the unique
properties of graphene to make low-cost biosensors to monitor food safety and
livestock health.
Researchers
dipped their new, printed sensors into tuna broth and watched the readings.
It turned out
the sensors -- printed with high-resolution aerosol jet printers on a flexible
polymer film and tuned to test for histamine, an allergen and indicator of
spoiled fish and meat -- can detect histamine down to 3.41 parts per million.
The U.S. Food
and Drug Administration has set histamine guidelines of 50 parts per million in
fish, making the sensors more than sensitive enough to track food freshness and
safety.
Making the
sensor technology possible is graphene, a supermaterial that's a carbon
honeycomb just an atom thick and known for its strength, electrical
conductivity, flexibility and biocompatibility.
Making graphene practical on a
disposable food-safety sensor is a low-cost, aerosol-jet-printing technology
that's precise enough to create the high-resolution electrodes necessary for
electrochemical sensors to detect small molecules such as histamine.
"This fine
resolution is important," said Jonathan Claussen, an associate professor
of mechanical engineering at Iowa State University and one of the leaders of
the research project. "The closer we can print these electrode fingers, in
general, the higher the sensitivity of these biosensors."
Claussen and
the other project leaders -- Carmen Gomes, an associate professor of mechanical
engineering at Iowa State; and Mark Hersam, the Walter P. Murphy Professor of
Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University in Evanston,
Illinois -- have recently reported their sensor discovery in a paper published
online by the journal 2D Materials.
The National
Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Air Force Research
Laboratory and the National Institute of Standards and Technology have
supported the project.
The paper
describes how graphene electrodes were aerosol jet printed on a flexible
polymer and then converted to histamine sensors by chemically binding histamine
antibodies to the graphene. The antibodies specifically bind histamine
molecules.
The histamine
blocks electron transfer and increases electrical resistance, Gomes said. That
change in resistance can be measured and recorded by the sensor.
"This
histamine sensor is not only for fish," Gomes said. "Bacteria in food
produce histamine. So it can be a good indicator of the shelf life of
food."
The researchers
believe the concept will work to detect other kinds of molecules, too.
"Beyond
the histamine case study presented here, the (aerosol jet printing) and
functionalization process can likely be generalized to a diverse range of
sensing applications including environmental toxin detection, foodborne
pathogen detection, wearable health monitoring, and health diagnostics,"
they wrote in their research paper.
More
"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 Monthly Coppock Indicators finished June
DJIA: 25,813 -2 Down. NASDAQ: 10,059 +196 Up.
SP500: 3,100 +75 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. The Dow has now gone negative.
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