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%)

Fed Reduces Bank Reserve Requirements to ZERO Nationwide; Hydroxychloroquine Proves Effective; Stocks Gain; Gold, Silver Mashed

A few developments in the financial sphere over the holiday weekend were worth noting.

Reserve Requirements

As announced on March 15, 2020, the Board reduced reserve requirement ratios to zero percent effective March 26, 2020. This action eliminated reserve requirements for all depository institutions.

Did anybody see or hear that announcement from the Fed?

It must have been announced via double-secret handshake pinky-swear written in invisible ink on flash paper. Thankfully, Mike Maloney has been keeping tabs on the out-of-control Fed and released the information in a video over the Memorial Day weekend.



Actions by the Federal Reserve concerning currency in circulation evokes memories of this famous South Park clip:



Also developing over the weekend (when nobody was paying attention), the World Health Organization announced a "temporary pause" to clinical trials on hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as a treatment for COVID-19, based on a report from the medical journal, The Lancet, on May 22 which had published an observational study on HCQ and chloroquine and its effects on COVID-19 patients that have been hospitalized.

The study included some very sketchy data and besides being "observational", rather then relying on the gold standard: randomized double blind clinical trial, the study looked at patients already hospitalized from COVID-19, when the benefits of HCQ, especially when taken in conjunction with zinc, is effective as a preventative drug and also has shown in various anecdotal cases to be effective as a treatment for asymptomatic people who tested positive for COVID-19 and also those showing early symptoms of the virus.

A Texas nursing home treated patients and staff with HCQ, Azithromycin (Zithromax, Z-Pak) and zinc with amazing results, only one death from 56 residents and 33 staff who tested positive. Great video coverage in this report.

Costa Rica has been using HCQ effectively to combat COVID-19 with exceptional results. Costa Rica’s reported fatality rate of 1.2 per 1,000,000 population is one of the lowest in the world.

Coronavirus Treatment: India Expands Use Of Trump's Hydroxychloroquine As WHO Halts Trials

Dr. Chris Martenson, who has no bias or agenda, and has been producing some of the most informative and extensively-researched video reports on the virus since January, offers much more:



Oh, yeah, we can't test HCQ because it's so dangerous... to Big Pharma's bottom line. The generic drug costs roughly 10 cents per dose to produce.

And, in case you missed it, President Trump signed an executive order on May 19, which instructed all federal agencies to...

"address this economic emergency by rescinding, modifying, waiving, or providing exemptions from regulations and other requirements that may inhibit economic recovery, consistent with applicable law and with protection of the public health and safety, with national and homeland security, and with budgetary priorities and operational feasibility."

This was presented earlier on Money Daily, but advisors believe the president's executive order was created to keep federal and state agencies on short leases as regards enforcement of stay-at-home, lockdown, social distancing, and other orders and restrictions on the American public and especially on small business.

The markets on Tuesday were the usual mix of stocks and oil up, gold and silver smashed, bonds flat.

At the Close, Tuesday, May 26, 2020:
Dow: 24,995.11, +529.95 (+2.17%)
NASDAQ: 9,340.22, +15.63 (+0.17%)
S&P 500 2,991.77, +36.32 (+1.23%)
NYSE: 11,603.00, +271.03 (+2.39%)

The World Has Been Hoaxed; Hydroxychloroquine Works; Rent Strike, Mass Protests On Tap for May 1

April is over and done. The month that saw the WuHan Flu, coronavirus, COVID-19, SARS-COV II, or whatever you prefer calling it spread like wildfire throughout the United States and the world also produced the best performance in the S&P 500 since 1987.

As if the stock market's miraculous rebound off the March lows wasn't enough, the Fed's balance sheet, thanks to sopping up trillions in debt of all varieties - from corporate issuance to high yield (junk) to munis to the usual nasty mortgage=backed securities (MBS) and low-yielding treasuries - increased by some $2.23 trillion to a record amount of more than $6.6 trillion.

Also showing up on the national radar are people who are refusing to go back to work because they are making more on unemployment, states reopening businesses with some restrictions and precautions, Florida opening beaches while California closes them down, a GDP for the first quarter of -4.8%, and various misdirections, untruths, fabrications, and outright lies due to conflicts of interest by doctors (including the CDC's Dr. Anthony Fauci) promoting Gilead Science's remdesivir as a primary treatment of COVID-19 with little to no evidence that it does anything more than shorten the length of hospitalizations.

All the while, evidence continues to pile up showing hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as a drug with a wide range of uses in not only diminishing the severity of coronavirus symptoms, but possibly acting as a preventive treatment, i.e., Lupus patients, who are prescribed Plaquenil (the brand name for HCQ), do not contract coronavirus.

Various studies from countries around the world have shown early use of HCQ is highly effective in combating the coronavirus, though the mainstream media refuses to report any positives about the drug, preferring to bombard the public with questionable research on remdesivir, a drug that can cost as much as $100 per dose, where HCQ can be produced in massive quantities for about a dime per dose.

Peak Prosperity's Chris Martenson, who has been doing incredible daily reporting on the crisis, has details in his latest video:



While the US continues to lurch toward some degree of normalcy at the end of a six-week near-nationwide lockdown, many questions linger, not the least of which being how badly the American public has been hoodwinked by the wealthy elite and their cohorts in government. From all appearances, it seems the public has been royally screwed this time around.

The economy is in tatters, more than 30 million lost their jobs, but what is likely going to be worse, are the millions of small businesses which have been severely hampered or outright destroyed by government overreach. Many of these businesses will not come back in the summer, or the fall. They are gone forever, and with them, their owners facing financial ruin. It will take years to undo the damage wrought by the government response to a virus that essentially affects people over 50 or those with pre-existing serious medical issues.

Friday, May 1, will offer some pushback agains the federal tyranny. There's a nationwide rent strike being waged in big cities and small, along with a May Day work stoppage promoted by employees of some of the multi-national companies that were not forced to shut down for the past six weeks, including Wal-Mart, Amazon, Target, and others. Protests will be very visible, as will the outrage expressed in Michigan, where governor Gretchen Whitmer is extending the lockdown until May 28.

Protesters there have already been storming the Capitol, and some were actually armed inside the Capitol building on Thursday, though that received scant notice on the evening TV news. This explosive situation merits closer attention, as what happens in Lansing, Michigan's capitol, may serve as a template for popular uprisings in places like Virginia, California, New York, Massachusetts, and any other state that believes they can keep the general population under lock and key indefinitely.

With warmer weather and a weekend ahead, some payback may be forthcoming from an angry, frustrated American public.

In other markets, gold and silver were beaten down as they usually are at the end of the month, though the dislocation between spot, futures, and actual prices for acquiring physical metal has completely blown up. Silver especially is out of whack, with premiums over the futures price of anywhere from 30 to 100% now commonplace. Gold premiums are still in the 10-15% range, though dealers have been and continue to impose minimums with lengthy shipping delays.

Oil markets continue to fluctuate wildly as the supply glut and demand collapse refuse to abate. Beyond giants Russia and Saudi Arabia, countries which produce oil as a primary revenue source are going to be devastated, while in the US, rig counts are plummeting as shale drilling operations are being shut down. They're unable to make money at the current prices and investors are being wiped out along with the lenders who financed operations. WTI crude, as of Friday morning is hovering just under $19 a barrel, though it's been as low as $10.64 earlier this week. The June futures contract is beginning to look like another disaster - as was the May contract - in the making.

Treasuries have been relatively unmoved during the week, though the 30-year bond has increased yield from 1.17% last Friday to 1.28% Thursday. The curve has steepened slightly, though not in any statistically meaningful way. 118 basis points covers the entire complex.

Equity futures are pointing to a very ugly open Friday, with Dow futures down more than 450 points.

Could this be the "sell in May and go away" signal? Possible, but the real fallout may not occur until late July or August when earnings and the first reading of second quarter GDP will shock the markets, not just in the United States, but globally. The Greater Depression is ramping up.

At the Close, Thursday, April 30, 2020:
Dow: 24,345.72, -288.14 (-1.17%)
NASDAQ: 8,889.55, -25.16 (-0.28%)
S&P 500: 2,912.43, -27.08 (-0.92%)
NYSE: 11,372.34, -245.89 (-2.12%)