Showing posts with label Fearless Rick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fearless Rick. Show all posts

Sunday, June 21, 2020

WEEKEND WRAP: Fake COVID Data, Faulty HCQ Studies, Bailouts for Zombies, Secret Handshakes, Excessive Lying and Bunk

The level of fraud in the scientific community is absolutely out of control. It's even beyond that of the government and media, though the media probably holds the title of most disingenuous as it lies or distorts on practically everything.

On Friday, yet another clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine was halted, this time by the National Institutes of Health.

Citing that the drug has no ill effects on hospitalized patients - in opposition to previously unfounded claims that HCQ was dangerous - a data and safety monitoring board (DSMB) said the drug offered no benefit to hospitalized patients.

It's too bad that the mainstream medical authorities have to be so obviously stupid. HCQ is used as a preventative medicine. It helps the immune system fight off coronavirus, especially when used in a regular regimen with zinc and Azithromycin when asymptomatic or in early stages of infection as this study and many others have clearly shown.

Instead, the NIH, CDC, WHO and other "official" medical bodies refuse to release the proof of the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine as what doctors call a prophylactic remedy, insisting that COVID-19 is a deadly disease and that billions must be spent in search of a vaccine, when they know a vaccine will likely never be developed.

These people, who first told the world that wearing a mask was a waste of time, then promoted the use of masks when it suited their purposes, should all be met with swift justice because it is they, not the virus, who are causing countless deaths that could have been saved if proper preventive measures had been taken. They, and the media which continues to promote COVID-19, lockdowns, quarantines, social distancing, absurdities like not allowing fans into sporting events, keeping restaurant customers six feet apart and other ridiculous notions should be tried for operating a criminal conspiracy.

Even this post, because it violates the dictatorial policy of Google, Twitter, or Facebook may be deemed conspiracy theory or in violation of their standards may be labeled with a warning or removed from public view.

The virus is a total scam. The rising cries of a coming "second wave" are nothing more than another attempt to scare people into rash behaviors using slanted statistics while playing on emotions. Places like Georgia, Texas, and Arizona have been cited as possible new hotspots for the virus, but the truth of the matter is that more testing has produced more cases, therefore increasing the daily bogus coronavirus counts. Additionally, all of the various tests have proven to show an abundance of false positives. Hospitalization and death statistics have been overstated since the beginning of the pandemic.

In other words, almost all of the data and scare-mongering from the media is bunk. Complete rubbish. Take off your masks and start living like a human being again. The chances of catching the virus are slim. It has mutated numerous times and most strains circulating are severe or deadly only to people over the age of 60 who have pre-existing health conditions or are obese, suffer from diabetes or heart disease. The general population is in no more danger from COVID-19 than from the common flu.

Get over it. Move on. Tell anybody who disagrees to take their opinions elsewhere. As it stands, there's no baseball this summer and there may not be football this fall. All this pandemic nonsense is about as important and vital as the BLM/Antifa protests. All of it needs to stop and the media is largely to blame for promoting false narratives.

The absurdities were on display at yesterday's Belmont Stakes, where no spectators were allowed into the sprawling Belmont Park facility and everybody on the grounds - except the horses - were required to wear masks. Even jockeys had to wear masks during the races. Please, somebody explain how a rider traveling at 25 to 40 miles per hour is going to catch the virus. It's as bad as the idiots who wear their masks while driving in their cars with the windows rolled up. Stupid. Banal. Idiotic. Is the world really populated by that many morons? If so, maybe the virus should relieve us of 30-40% of the population. More room for everybody. Happy days!

It's just all so annoying and stupid. This post was originally going to be about gold and silver, but the news of yet another HCQ trial being shut down changed those plans.

Go and check your local pharmacy or drug store or vitamin center. They're out of ZINC. Yeah, ZINC. Apparently, some people aren't buying the "we're all gonna die" narrative being shoved down the throats of the unsuspecting public. As the thrust of Money Daily posts over the past few days and weeks have been stressing, the media and government are doing you no good. You need to extricate yourself and your family from the clutches of creeping socialism and outright tyranny.

Let's get away from those who wish only to control everything and move forward to better lives. There is so much the word has to offer, having it ruined by a small minority of psychopathic monsters is a sin and an outrage.

Moving on to the markets and financial world from the week just past, stocks seem to have hit a stall space. The major indices, while all advancing for the week, have not recovered fully from the downdraft of Thursday, June 11. This week's gains were made mainly on Monday and Tuesday. Things slowed down in midweek and by Friday the bloom was off the rose once again.

Not to worry. There's a huge chance that the news will be cocked forward to produce a running start for the major averages and bourses around the world Monday morning. It's just how the Fed and the algorithm-pumping mechanisms operate these days. There's no market. There's no need to study charts or engage in fundamental analysis. Everything is fake, crooked, corrupted.

There is somewhat of a silver lining approaching for people who don't appreciate ever-rising stock prices when companies are showing dwindling profits or actually losing money, however. In a few weeks, publicly-traded companies will be releasing their second quarter financial reports and many of them figure to be absolute dumpster-diving material.

There's been a chart circulating recently showing the number of "zombie" corporations steadily increasing to a point at which nearly one in five US companies are insolvent. A zombie company is loosely defined as a business that has to borrow to survive and doesn’t make enough profit to cover the cost of its debt service. Simply put, these are companies being kept afloat by banks, or the Fed, or both. If it were possible to actually make sense of the books of large commercial banks like Wells Fargo (WFC), Bank of America (BAC) and Citibank (C) it's probable that the banks themselves would be zombies, underwater and headed to bankruptcy if not for the largesse afford them by the Federal Reserve.

The outcome from keeping zombie companies afloat is lower, slower growth in the overall economy. The Fed is actually exacerbating the effects of ultra-low interest rates and keeping insolvent companies alive with the most recent emergency measures that have the Federal Reserve buying debt from ETFs and corporate paper of individual (healthy and failing) companies. The Fed is also buying up municipal debt and may be positioning itself to fund states and cities that have deep budget deficits and buying individual stocks. Yes, the Fed may soon be buying stocks. And who said the markets weren't manipulated?

The bottom line is that we have a central bank producing counterfeit currency to buy assets offered by insolvent companies. Making matters worse, is that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow believe the companies that have received bailouts or funding from the Cares Act should not be disclosed to the public. So, on top of it all, the underhanded workings of the government, the Fed and big business should be kept secret. Nice. Not.

Treasuries basically spent the week flopping around like a landed fish. The yield spread for the entire curve, from 1-month to 30 years ended at 1.31% on Friday, June 12. As of this past Friday (June 19) the spread was 1.34%. Some steepening, but not notable. The 10-year note ended the week one basis point lower than the previous Friday, at 0.70%.

The July futures contract for WTI crude oil closed at a three-month high Friday, at $39.75 a barrel. Like the stock market, oil prices have engaged in a V-shaped rebound, the bottom coming in mid-April when oil hit $11.57 a barrel. While there has been some demand recovery, there's still a worldwide overhang of supply. The price of oil, with almost a direct pathway to gas prices, is another manufactured number. Most US shale producers can't survive below $50 a barrel, much less $40. Thanks to renewables like solar, wind, and hydro-electric, the oil business is dying a slow death. There's abundant resources available, but inroads have been made by so-called "green energy", and efficiencies in newer vehicles are crimping the use of oil and distillates. In an economy on a slowing glide path, there's no good reason for oil prices to rise other than to support the ailing old companies that rely on pumping and consumer use of the greasy stuff.

In the precious metals space, both gold and silver were dumped in the futures market on Monday and then rallied over the course of the week. Silver, despite a generally positive end to the week, closed at the lowest week-ending price ($17.52) since May 11. Since the March 19 bottoming at $12 an ounce, the trend has been higher, though it's been a slow grind despite high demand, shortages, huge premiums, and shipping delays.

Gold was flattened to $1710.45 on Monday, but rebounded to the high of the week at the close of business in New York Friday, at $1734.75. Like silver, gold has been rangebound since mid-April, suggesting a breakout on the horizon, though it could go either way.

Here are the latest free market prices for select items on eBay (prices include shipping, which is often free):

Item: Low / High / Average / Median
1 oz silver coin: 26.50 / 39.90 / 31.52 / 31.12
1 oz silver bar: 24.75 / 46.00 / 31.35 / 28.70
1 oz gold coin: 1,803.85 / 1,963.52 / 1,875.30 / 1,865.36
1 oz gold bar: 1,780.00 / 1,852.38 / 1,833.92 / 1,840.45

Finally, Fearless Rick nailed the trifecta in the Belmont Stakes, making a public pick prior to the race for everyone. Such generosity! What a guy!

At the close, Friday, June 19, 2020:
Dow: 25,871.46, -208.64 (-0.80%)
NASDAQ: 9,946.12, +3.07 (+0.03%)
S&P 500: 3,097.74, -17.60 (-0.56%)
NYSE: 11,980.12, -92.48 (-0.77%)

For the Week:
Dow: +265.92 (+1.04%)
NASDAQ: +357.31 (+3.73%)
S&P 500: +56.43 (+1.86%)
NYSE: +112.95 (+0.95%)

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Coincidence Or Conspiracy? The Art Cashin - Fearless Rick Echo Chamber

Not one to expectantly toot one's own horn, Money Daily continues to display some market sense, the latest iteration being the confluence of the weekly market recap post from Sunday, February 26, Dow At Record Highs 11 Staight Sessions; Eye On PPT, Central Bank Intervention dovetailing with legendary floor trader Art Cashin's commentary at King World News the same day.

In the nearly 15-minute audio, Cashin, Director of Floor Operations for UBS, touched (near the end of the broadcast) on the very same subject matter as Money Daily, namely, central bank intervention in markets.

Like Fearless Editor and Publisher, Rick Gagliano, Cashin - undeniably a more expert analyst than our own - sees intervention as unsettling to markets, comparing the intrusion to a rigged poker game, and sees danger in such action. As is the usual case, Mr. Cashin plows some new ground as well, coining the phrase "intellectual civil war" in describing the conditions in Northern vs. Southern Italy and touching upon other established, mostly European nations.

In defense of his moderate style, Cashin opines that his success has been largely based upon, quoting him,
...because the first thing I do when I enter a room is look for the exit signs.

Good stuff, indeed, and well worth a listen.

Keeping in mind central bank intervention, i.e., buying at all-time highs, the Dow made a new record close for the 12th straight session, that, in itself, should be cause for alarm... the one that never goes off at market tops (Old Wall Street saying: "they never ring the bell at the top").

The Dow has never closed higher for 13 straight sessions, the most recent run tying the mark set in January 1987, which, as market observers know well, was the precursor of one of the most devastating crashes in market history.

At the Close, 2.27.17:
Dow: 20,837.44, +15.68 (0.08%)
NASDAQ: 5,861.90, +16.59 (0.28%)
S&P 500: 2,369.75, +2.41 (0.10%)
NYSE Composite: 11,558.35, +17.06 (0.15%)

Friday, April 1, 2011

Kicked Off Zero Hedge for Interposing Perception with Reality

Following the release of today's non-farm payroll for March (+216,000), the level of insanity at the usually-nutty-anyways Zero Hedge blog went over the edge as the site's operators simply could not stomach the idea that maybe the government can fudge statistics enough to "match the policy" (a term made popular during the Iraq War) with seven posts covering all angles on the NFP data.

Naturally, being that Zero Hedge is a hangout of gold bugs, canned food hoarders, survivalists, anarchists and iconoclasts of every stripe, the perception that 216,000 new jobs were created in March could not go unchallenged, so every attempt was made to discredit the government figures.

I applaud the efforts of Zero Hedge. They usually are pretty good at picking up on the daily failures and fabrications of the military industrial complex, and no doubt, CNBC and the shills for limitless stock buying (Perma-bulls) offer up an endless stream of material for their usual antiestablishment agenda.

But, I was surprised that upon posting some comments that drifted from the company line (government evil, bankers evil, Fed evil, gold and silver good), trying to rile up the assembled loonies, that my posting privileges had been summarily denied, my username deleted. When trying to post comments, I was met, not with a login prompt, but with this:
The username Fearless Rick has not been activated or is blocked.

Now, I've been booted from message boards before, most notably on eBay, for disagreeing with policy, but getting kicked off Zero Hedge is another story altogether, because of what they are supposed to represent: an alternative view, a departure from the norm, a counterbalance to the mainstream media.

I normally like the site, generally get good ideas from their articles (mostly reprints or excerpts of stories posted elsewhere on the web) and post my own comments often. Being banned from posting there really gave me pause, though.

A couple of comments by me not in the general spirit... here's two:

Where's Harry Wanger! He's kicked the crap out of most of our resident geniuses by picking stocks using the tried-and-true "throw darts" method.

Wall Street is laughing its ass off at ZH. Time to get back to work, serfs!

and
Over: 7 articles related to NFP. Number of typos in headlines: 2. TD needs to add +1 to the NFP data by hiring a proofreader.

Now, where's that CogDis guy? Zero Hedge readers are suffering from CD by not believing that government can create statistics to "match the policy." Now where did we hear that term before?

That little bit of taunting was, I suppose, too much criticism to accept by the mongolian editorial board at Zero Hedge. One must not bite the hand that handles the daily propaganda feed. The politburo cannot be criticized and in no way can their secrets be exposed. One must drink the Kool-aid, no matter how distasteful the flavor.

I broke the unwritten rules. C'est la vie. Que sera, sera. I was banned.

The episode gave me pause to reflect upon exactly what Zero Hedge - modeled after the fictional movie Fight Club - actually represents. Capitalism would be a good start. After all, the site actively solicits donations in addition to running the maximum allotment of Google AdSense ads on their page(s).

They are no more anti-capitalist than the Wall Street Journal or the United Way in that regard. They need money to operate, just like the rest of us.

But banning from comment those who disagree or at times are critical - like me - effectively negates all of their very own Fight Club creed and substantially reduces their level of credibility to that of outright hypocrisy.

Maybe I missed something in the movie, something about the need to follow orders and obey, obey, OBEY! I'll have to watch Fight Club again, I guess, and search for more hidden meaning.

Or maybe Tyler Durden can enlighten me.

Somehow, I doubt that, because prosperity, whether imagined or real, is anathema to the Zero Hedge business model.

Fight Club should rename itself Punk Club.