Profiteering Politicians, Slick Money Managers Make Hay on Possible COVID-19 Vaccine Headlines

Two headlines:

JCPenney says it will close about 240 stores after filing for bankruptcy

Moderna says test results for possible COVID19 vaccine 'positive'

Only one mattered. Moderna's positive spin over fairly insignificant early stage trials for a vaccine against COVID-19 sent stocks into orbit. Actually, sending stocks skyward was more the work of the Federal Reserve's relentless currency printing press, running full speed since late March. The Fed has created so much liquidity - for nothing, out of thin air - that there's a global glut, just like oil, and it has to find somewhere to go, and that place is usually in risk assets, like stocks, because, well, it's just extra money.

It's kind of like this: Suppose you went to the race track with some friends and hit a superfecta for $15,000. You'd probably splurge over a night on the town, treating your friends to dinner at a great restaurant and endless drinks at some club. In other words, you'd basically just blow some of it because it was an unexpectedly large sum of dough.

Getting back to the cover story from Moderna, never mind that the company has been working with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAD), headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, since January, or that Moncef Slaoui resigned from Moderna's board of directors just last week when he was tapped by the Trump administration to head up Operation Warp Speed, the president's fast-track search for a COVID-19 vaccine.

Slaoui is reportedly going to divest all of his stock options for 156,000 shares of Moderna, which shot up nearly 20% (MRNA, 80.00, +13.31 (+19.96%) At close: May 18 4:00PM EDT) on the news.

Coincidence? Perhaps. Insider trading? Definitely, though nobody wants to talk about that.

Between the Fed's meddling and the White House's understanding of the situation (surely, anybody who is anybody in Washington, DC was aware that this news would break Monday morning), the whole COVID-19 racket is beginning to look like another major scandal to be piled atop all the other government scandals over the past 40 years. Nobody will be charged with anything. Nobody will go to jail. There probably won't even be an investigation, and, even if there is, it will reveal nothing. Business as usual for the rich and infamous in DC and on Wall Street.

Apparently, it wasn't enough to enrich politicians and send stocks to the moon. The Federal Meddlers made sure that the massive gains in gold and silver were squelched, quickly, and with undue force.

Gold was cruising along around $1762, up $20 just prior to the opening of the NYMEX (8:15 EDT). Over the course of the day, it reversed and fell, finally closing in New York at $1732, down $10 on the day.

Since it is so wickedly undervalued, it stood to reason that silver fared a little better, up nearly a dollar just before the NYMEX open, at $17.50. It was hammered back down to $16.97 at the close. Still a gain, but hardly of the magnitude that was building before the maligners became involved.

Money Daily has said this before, multiple times, in many ways: the elitist politicians and Wall Street insiders are among the most corrupt connivers in history. The levels of dishonesty, self-dealing, and bad faith practices are at extremes and they commit their financial and societal crimes in full view, without remorse. We're all just along for the show.

This show should have been cancelled long ago.

Let's not forget, unemployment, with more than 36 million out of work, is well over 20% and second quarter GDP is expected to post a 42 percent decline, numbers not seen since the Great Depression.

At the Close, Monday, May 18, 2020:
Dow: 24,597.37, +911.95 (+3.85%)
NASDAQ: 9,234.83, +220.27 (+2.44%)
S&P 500: 2,953.91, +90.21 (+3.15%)
NYSE: 11,402.23, +454.91 (+4.16%)