Stocks Rip Higher, Unemployment Claims Down Due to Labor Dept. Adjustment (?), Sturgis Biker Death Reported

Stocks were up sharply on Wednesday, September 2nd, with all major indices putting in impressive gains. Led by the Dow Industrials, which cracked the 29,000 mark for the first time since February 20, the trading was genuinely positive all day but really ramped up in the final two hours.

The big move in the Industrial Average was aided by the recent inclusion of Amgen Inc. (258.12, +7.26 +2.89%) and Honeywell (172.47, +4.50 +2.68%) but disappointed by salesforce.com (276.69, -4.56 -1.62%), which replaced ExxonMobile, Raytheon, and Pfizer.

Wednesday's move left the Dow just 450 points from its all-time closing high (21,551.42, Feb. 10, 2020), a number that is almost certainly to be shattered within weeks, if not days.






Moving ahead to Thursday's pre-market, initial jobless claims were 833,352 on an unadjusted basis, and 881,000, seasonally adjusted.

As if the unemployment figures produced by the Department of Labor weren't suspect enough, a change in how seasonally-adjusted claims are reported began with today's report.

According to Yahoo News, "Thursday’s report, however, will also mark the first time the US Department of Labor (DOL) counts new and continuing jobless claims under an updated system, with this change expected to lower the number of seasonally adjusted claims that get reported."

According to another "trusted" source, USA Today claims, "The new method involves using a seasonal adjustment that’s more stable because it applies a number rather than a percentage to the actual claims total, J.P. Morgan economist Daniel Silver wrote in a note to clients."

Now, since the seasonally-adjusted number is higher (881,000) than the non-adjusted figure (833,352), what can we make of this? Hard to tell, since the opposite of what was expected to happen (lower seasonally-adjusted number) via the change in calculation, occurred.

Well, suffice it to say that the government lies, mostly all the time.






This report would not be complete without a little taste of fake news - today's entry into the panoply of bogusness from the pre-eminent anti-truth newspaper, the Washington Post.

Their story, published on September 2, purports to detail the horrible after-effects from the evil biker rally in Sturgis, South Dakota back in the second week of August, claiming to report the First covid-19 death linked to Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

The article - with some degree of giddiness - states:

The man was in his 60s, had underlying conditions and was hospitalized in intensive care for several weeks after returning from the rally, said Kris Ehresmann, infectious-disease director at the Minnesota Department of Health. The case is among at least 260 cases in 11 states tied directly to the event, according to a survey of health departments by The Washington Post.

First, note that the man had underlying conditions, but the article - likewise the hundreds of other articles covering the same story - fails to mention what those conditions were. Cancer? Obesity? Acne? Anybody?

While the article very plainly states that the man attended the rally in Sturgis, it fails to mention where he went before and after the rally. The coronavirus, we've been told, can have a quite long incubation period, so where the Post tries to link the man's death to the rally, it doesn't mention whether he was a regular church-goer, mall shopper, or attended any other rallies, festivals, parties, or gatherings where he could have picked up the infection. For all we know, he could have contracted the COVID from a relative or somebody he had lunch with near his home. Dead horse. Stop beating it.

Let's take a look at some numbers, OK?

The annual US Death rate is 863.8 deaths per 100,000 population. That amounts to 16.61 deaths per 100,000 per week.

Considering that the Sturgis biker festival supposedly drew about 400,000, it would be statistically insignificant if 64 of the people who attended the rally died each week following the event. Many of these bikers are in the riskiest categories, over 50, surely many with one or more comorbidity, so if 100 or more of these bikers died since August 16, it would not be surprising.

But, here we have one. ONE. Just one guy and it makes news. Now, if bikers were dropping like flies sprayed with Black Flag, then there would be a story. One guy, who was old and already sick, dying, does not a news story make. What it does is promote the COVID propaganda narrative which tells us to wear masks, stay away from each other (no hugging, kissing, or, for the sake of the children, none of that intimacy stuff), be afraid, make sure to be first in line for an untested, possibly fatal, vaccine which will be rolled out in a couple of months, and stop living as normal human beings.

The fellow who passed away may have had a terminal illness for all we know and was going to the biker rally for one last good time before cashing in his chips. We don't know and rest assured the crack reporters who covered this story are unlikely to follow up with any relevant details, so, we'll probably never know the truth.

The truth. It hurts. It's also, according to the "father of tragedy," Aeschylus, the first casualty of war, and we are at war. With the government, the media, the medical and financial communities.

At the Close, Wednesday, September 2, 2020:
Dow: 29,100.50, +454.84 (+1.59%)
NASDAQ: 12,056.44, +116.78 (+0.98%)
S&P 500: 3,580.84, +54.19 (+1.54%)
NYSE: 13,276.74, +163.00 (+1.24%)

Stocks Gain Tuesday, Busy Fed Monetizes Stocks Amid Spreading COVID-19 Virus: Boeing Wants $60 Billion

On the heels of Monday's knee-knocking losses, Tuesday's trade to the upside was somewhat predictable, in that a dead cat bounce usually follows massive losses, so the major indices continued along their path of one step forward, two (or three, four, or five) steps back.

There has not been back-to-back gains on the majors since a four-day stretch from February 4-7, as stocks rose relentlessly to new highs, the general top coming on February 12, in itself a surprising date, since the coronavirus was already in the process of devastating China and its economy, already having disrupted the global supply chain. How could investors have been so short-sighted? Greed has a certain blinding element to it, as does the opposite market reaction, fear, which has taken firm hold in the US markets and around the world.

Tuesday's events surrounding the viral outbreak were more of the standard fare of shutdowns, closures, government-imposed rules, as Europe closed its borders, every nation inside the EU locking down, as did the city of San Francisco, soon to be followed, most likely, by a similar "shelter in place" order in New York City, hinted at by Mayor Bill DeBlasio, shutting down all commerce for the foreseeable future.

The global case count has no exceeded that of mainland China and continues to outpace it. China's figures are still suspect, as they claim to have all but conquered the virus, the number of new cases since February 18 having grown by only 7,000, leveling off in the 81,000 range, a minuscule percentage of China's 1.4 billion population. However, China did lock down more than half of the country, especially in the province of Hubei, he original epicenter. There's probably never going to be any way to verify China's figures, since they announced Tuesday that reporters from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post would have their media credentials revoked, essentially barring them from reporting on anything.

With the March FOMC meeting underway, the Fed was very busy, boosting QE, extending credit for commercial paper to businesses large and small, and, after the market closed, re-instituting a loan facility to primary dealers from the 2008-09 crisis.

Officially called the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, or PMDF, the program will supply primary dealers of equities and other financial instruments loans of up to 90 days for at least the next six months, essentially monetizing stocks by allowing the 24 primary dealers to use stocks as collateral for short-term funding.

Also making headlines were Secretary Steven Mnuchin and President Trump, who were touting a plan to send $1000 checks to most Americans, specifically singling out millionaires, who, according to their statements, would not receive any handouts.

Boeing (BA), besieged by their own errors, is asking for a $60 billion bailout from the federal government. Boeing stock has fallen from a high of 440.62 to 124.14 currently, but the aerospace and airplane manufacturer should not be afforded such generosity, given that the company has been derelict in its corporate money management. Over the past 12 years, Boeing has repurchased at least $40 billion of its own shares, so, if it is in need of capital, it should just sell those stocks in the open market.

Boeing's stock buyback scheme worked to enrich shareholders and top executives as the share price soared as available stock was taken out of circulation and dividends were increased. Instead of reinvesting their profits, Boeing executives showered themselves with lavish bonuses and stock options. Now that a rainy day has arrived, they come begging for money from US taxpayers.

The same is true of major airlines, who spent almost all of their free cash flow on stock buybacks since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008-09. It's a travesty beyond compare.

While stocks held their own private party, other parts of the economic landscape obviously didn't share in the celebratory mood. Crude oil was sent to fresh lows, WTI crude cratering to $26.95 on Tuesday, and falling even more, to $26.04, in early Wednesday trading.

Gold and silver have been ravaged for days, though gold rallied sharply on Tuesday while silver fell to new lows, sending the gold-silver ratio to unimaginable heights. The last spot silver price in New York was $12.56 per ounce. Gold settled Tuesday at $1527.90, leaving the ratio at 121.65, an unbelievable figure, far and away the highest level in the 5,000 years of gold and silver being used as money.

As investment grade (IG) spreads have blown out to crisis levels, the treasury curve steepened dramatically on Tuesday, as the short end was bought and longer-dated maturities were sold. The total spread from 1-month bills out to 30-year bonds increased from 109 basis points on Monday to 151 Tuesday, the 30-year yield spiking 29 basis points to 1.64%, the 10-year note yielding 1.02%, also 29 basis points higher. At the short end, the 1-month bill yields 0.12%, falling from 0.25% on the day.

Thus, with millions of Americans at home for the next two weeks, with no sports, little work, and high anxiety, high finance drama continues to play out daily in the markets, which, for better or worse, remain unfettered and open for business.

The world is witnessing a financial calamity in real time.

At the Close, Tuesday, March 17, 2020:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 21,237.38, +1,048.86 (+5.20%)
NASDAQ: 7,334.78, +430.19 (+6.23%)
S&P 500: 2,529.19, +143.06 (+6.00%)
NYSE: 10,063.36, +495.83 (+5.18%)

2019 Is Done: Stocks Roared, Trump Still President in 2020

2019 is over, and aren't we all so happy.

Donald Trump with Brandi Brandt
on the cover of Playboy magazine, March 1990

By many measures, it was a somewhat unremarkable year, ending with odd and twisted political theater, courtesy of Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and her merry band of miscreants, led by congresspeople Adam Schiff and Gerald Nadler, chairmen of, respectively, Intelligence and Judiciary committees. In the case of Schiff, the obvious misappropriation of his ilk being somehow related to intelligence was as humorless as it was frightening.

What made Pelosi's gambit significant was not that she impeached a president, but that she impeached one Donald J. Trump, a populist president who apparently did nothing wrong other than defeat the chosen candidate of the left, Hillary Rodham Clinton, in the presidential race of 2016. Thus, three years a a few months hither, Trump is impeached on charges that are as vacuous and ephemeral as the open-and-closed-door hearings themselves: Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress, neither of which are codified as criminal acts, and almost assuredly do not rise to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors" outlined in the US constitution. In the final analysis, Trump's real crime is being nearly universally hated by leading Democrat politicians, movie stars, and the establishment media.

But that was not all.

Pelosi and nearly all of her fellow Democrats in the House voted along strict party lines and then failed to name managers or send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate for a trial, also prescribed by the constitution, leaving the president, and the nation, in a state of suspended impeachment limbo. This final, futile, feckless act of desperation came after months of Pelosi claiming that Trump needed to be impeached as quickly as possible as he posed a grave, immediate threat to our nation's security.

That argument went right out a window high on the Capitol, along with the baby, the bathwater, the Green New Deal, and the electoral hopes of a plethora Democrat candidates for federal offices in November 2020, not the least of which were named Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete whatever-his-name-is, mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

The funny thing about Mayor Pete, incidentally, is not that he is openly gay (the priests running the University of Notre Dame are still trying to downplay his position), but that the mainstream media almost never mentions this salient fact. Maybe they think that since he looks straight, people will forget or simply overlook his sexual inclination.

That's a good one. The MSM continues to push their agenda, which recently has devolved into a convoluted collection of mistruths, untruths, hidden truths, innuendo, scare tactics, race-baiting, gender-bending, misinformation, disinformation, lies, statistics, more lies, omissions, Facebook posts, deleted Tweets, and Instagram memes, mostly consisting of accusations of President Trump strangling kittens, starting wars, ending wars, killing immigrant children, or otherwise undermining democracy.

It's so sad that it has become almost laughable, but not quite yet. The mainstream media is saving the laugh track stuff for the primaries and general election. Chuck Todd, moderator of NBC's Meet the Press thinks that he, his network, the New York Times and Washington Post more believable than the president. That's how deluded and delusional most of the apparatchik reporters, readers, reciters and anchors are, but none more than the non-journalist, Todd. The mainstream media gave birth to the malady known as TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) and they continue to feed it. They're like doctors prescribing amphetamines to meth heads.

2019 finished on a nearly comical note if not for the snarly seriousness of the matter. Attempting to remove a sitting president isn't something that should be undertaken without careful consideration of the consequences. Democrats have not done their homework and have put the American public under considerable stress, needing relief.

For the financial world, New Year's Eve was especially celebratory, with champagne toasts to a grand and glorious annum of outsize gains for stocks. The major indices - following the sudden and sharp declines of 2018's fourth quarter - posted gains as follows:

• Dow: ended 2018 at 23,327.46; ended 2019 at 28,538.44; 22.34% gain
• NASDAQ: ended 2018 at 6,635.28; ended 2019 at 8,972.60; 35.25% gain
• S&P 500: ended 2018 at 2,506.85; ended 2019 at 3,230.78; 28.88% gain
• NYSE Composite: ended 2018 at 11,374.39; ended 2019 at 13,913.03; 22.32% gain

Those are pretty good numbers.

Will they be repeated in 2020? Advance indications are that the bull market will continue, but, as every prospectus in the history of financial instruments and advisors purports, past performance is no guarantee of future results. Keep that in mind as the Fed will continue to keep flooding the market with liquidity until it decides to stop, which can happen at any time, without much notice.

Concern about the Fed changing its dovish, dulcet tune is not something on the minds of most investors heading into the new year. The Fed has shown itself to be accommodative at all times, no matter the circumstance, and they're likely to continue to be so. What used to be known as "applying the brakes" of an overheating economy by raising interest rates is not a probability in the coming year, as the economy shows about as much potential to overheat as a potato has to become an orange. It's not going to happen, and neither is a recession, because the Fed won't have that.

Precious metals also found bids. Gold posted a marvelous gain of 18.43%, rising from 1279.00 to 1514.75 over the course of 2019.

Silver was similarly impressive, going from 15.47 to 18.05 through the year for a profit of 16.68%.

To the dismay of consumers everywhere, WTI Crude Oil also experienced a rise in price, from 47.09 on January 3, 2019, to 61.68 on December 30, up 30.99%. That sent North American gas prices higher at the pump and elsewhere.

Prices for just about everything anybody would want or need were higher in 2019, by varying amounts. For that, we have the Fed, trade wars, tariffs, and greed to thank.

OK. 2020 is a thing. It's out of beta. Have at it.

At the Close, Tuesday, December 31, 2019:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 28,538.44, +76.30 (+0.27%)
NASDAQ: 8,972.60, +26.61 (+0.30%)
S&P 500: 3,230.78, +9.49 (+0.29%)
NYSE Composite: 13,913.03, +36.88 (+0.27%)