Thursday, May 28, 2020

Violence Erupts In Minneapolis As Stocks Edge Higher, Closer to All-Time Levels, Fueling America's Outrage; 40 Million Unemployed

Nothing happens in a vacuum.

Violence has broken out in Minneapolis, where four policemen held down and killed George Floyd in broad daylight, one officer holding Floyd down with his knee on his throat, while Floyd, who was already handcuffed, repeatedly said he couldn't breath and onlookers pled with police to ease up on their restraint.

Floyd, 46, was killed on Monday, Memorial Day, in a manner shockingly similar to the death of Eric Garner in New York City, back in 2014. Garner was brought down and eventually killed by cops for supposedly selling "loosies," loose cigarettes.

Floyd's crime has yet to be revealed, though the incident occurred as police were investigating the possible use of counterfeit currency.

Wednesday night, a black man was shot and killed amid setting of fires and widespread looting and vandalism throughout the city.

It's difficult to understand how these Minneapolis police could not have known exactly what they were doing, considering the widespread coverage of the 2014 Garner killing. All four officers have been fired and will likely face charges, though they have not been, even though Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has called for criminal charges to be levied against all four.

The resultant outburst from the frustrated community was to be expected. It's what happen when those in positions of power and authority oppress the public, as has been the case nationally since the outbreak of coronavirus. Lockdowns and stay-at-home orders by governors of almost every state have put people on a razor's edge and all that was needed was a spark - like Floyd's murder - to set the violent pattern in motion.

More violence will follow, as certain as night follows day. American citizens are angry and about to erupt as their freedoms have been limited, their employment vanishing, and their rights overridden.

On Thursday morning, the Labor Department announced that another 2.1 million Americans filed initial unemployment claims. Over the past ten weeks, more than 40 million have filed for unemployment nationally.

Meanwhile, stocks continue to feed off the easy Fed currency to send stocks higher and higher. Whatever the market is doing, as unemployment and the associated distress and anger swells, the optics are not good. Everyday Americans have been railing against the huge disparity in wealth between to top one percent (or 10 percent) and the rest of the country for years. A consistent rally in the face of what looks to be coming depression only adds fuel to the fire. The NASDAQ is within five percent of its all-time high. The S&P is a little more than 10 percent away from its record close back in February.

On Wednesday, stocks gained again, as gold and silver were pounded lower, though both are rebounding prior to Wall Street's opening bell.

Most states are heading into a second phase of reopening their economies, though results have been mixed. It's a near-certainty that the economy will suffer a massive failure for the second quarter, along the lines of a 40% decline in GDP, but for now at least, Wall Street seems content to look beyond that, charging higher, as earnings continue to disappoint.

Equity markets are out of control, now fully functioning under the thumb of the Federal Reserve and their now-$7 trillion balance sheet. This relentless rally off the March lows has huge trouble written into it.

At the Close, Wednesday, May 27, 2020:
Dow: 25,548.27, +553.16 (+2.21%)
NASDAQ: 9,412.36, +36.58 (+0.39%)
S&P 500: 3,036.13, +44.36 (+1.48%)
NYSE: 11,837.53, +234.53 (+2.02%)

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

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%)

Sunday, May 24, 2020

WEEKEND WRAP: Governments Throw $$$ Billions At Drug Companies; Mall Rents Go Unpaid; Unemployment Soaring; Stocks Higher

Spurred by an announcement by Moderna (MRNA) that early trials of a possible COVID-19 vaccine were positive, stocks rode a big Monday rally to better than three percent gains across the major indices. All but the NYSE Composite closed at 11-week highs, the Comp. falling just points short.

The irony of the rally was that Moderna, a company that has never made a single dime of profit (they've lost $1.5 billion since 2016), closed last Friday at 66.68, finished Monday at an even $80 per share, but closed out the week at 69.00. In between, there were some big paydays for insiders. If that wasn't proof enough that the market is a crony capitalist playground, then something's wrong with people's world views.

It was the ultimate slap in the face to the American public by the rich and connected, the one-percenters, who made a show of fake news over something ultimately immaterial. It was a very sad display of fascism in practice.

To make matters even worse, Moderna received up to $483 million in federal funding to accelerate development of its coronavirus vaccine. Governments around the world are throwing money at well-heeled companies working on a vaccine. In the United States, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a federal agency that funds disease-fighting technology, has announced investments of nearly $1 billion to support coronavirus vaccine development and the scale-up of manufacturing for promising candidates. Johnson and Johnson, Sanofi, and GlaxoSmithKline are among about 100 companies being funded for research toward a coronavirus vaccine by countries from Canada, to Singapore, to France.

The US government committed up to $1.2 billion to fund Oxford University and drug maker, AstraZeneca, in a race to produce a vaccine by October, it was announced on Friday.

The quickest a vaccine has ever been developed is four years from phase one trials to working vaccine on the market. No vaccine for a coronavirus has ever been successfully developed. SARS and MERS are variants of coronaviruses. There are no vaccines to protect against them.

This is just the common folly of the age in which we live. Instead of spending time explaining to people how to strengthen their individual immune systems - the best defense against all diseases and viruses - world governments spend taxpayer dollars funding companies that don't need any extra money. It's an incredible waste of capital, but you can bet the executives of the Big Pharma companies (one of Washington's biggest lobbying groups) and high-ranking scientists are making bank on your dollar.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the "official" unemployment figure is 14.7%, with more than 36 million Americans out of work. Wall Street continues to party while Main Street gets the shaft, as usual. Lockdowns and social distancing restrictions have blown a hole in small businesses, many of which will never recover and will be bankrupt within months, if not already.

Malls are going broke. The biggest mall in the country, Minnesota's Mall of America, is two months delinquent on it's $1.4 billion loan. Other mall landlords report collecting less than 25% of rent due from April and May. With June approaching quickly, many retailers will be three months behind on rent payments and subject to lockouts, forced liquidations, and other draconian measures written into their leases.

Bankruptcies are mounting and delinquency notices are flying around everywhere. With retail operations - from clothing stores to hair salons to baseball card shops and everything in between - suffering as a result of the nearly nationwide two-month lockdown, many employees who were furloughed will not have jobs to go back to when everything begins to get back to some semblance of normal. That means extended unemployment for millions, poverty and homelessness set to soar.

The federal government's additional $600 a week in unemployment benefits via the CARES act will run out at the end of July, just in time for back-to-school sales that may not happen because some schools won't be reopening and many colleges are planning to allow only limited on-campus activity, with many classes offered via the internet only.

The world has changed, and is changing, though it doesn't appear to be for the better, at least at first blush.

Gold and silver caught bids on the paper markets this week with gold trading as high as $1756.90 per ounce, closing out at $1732.70 bid. Silver was an even better performer, ripping through the $17 per ounce price on Monday, trading as high as $17.57 per ounce before settling in at $17.19 on Friday.

In the physical market, premiums have begun to ease after an incredible supply-demand tug-of-war. Dealers are still facing shortages of certain items, but on eBay, at least, prices were lower for the week, although still well above spot prices.

Here are the most recent prices (Sunday, May 24) for specific items on eBay:

Item / Low / High / Average / Median
1 oz silver coin / 22.74 / 38.98 / 30.72 / 29.60
1 oz silver bar / 25.45 / 39.50 / 29.84 / 26.98
1 oz gold coin / 1,855.00 / 1,985.00 / 1,894.48 / 1,894.27
1 oz gold bar / 1,839.93 / 1,987.95 / 1,869.38 / 1,855.52

Oil was up, treasuries were fairly flat for the week. It's a beautiful holiday weekend, so we're calling this a wrap, right here.

Get out and get some sun!

At the Close, Friday, May 22, 2020:
Dow: 24,465.16, -8.94 (-0.04%)
NASDAQ: 9,324.59, +39.71 (+0.43%)
S&P 500: 2,955.45, +6.94 (+0.24%)
NYSE: 11,331.97, -19.63 (-0.17%)

For the Week:
Dow: +779.74 (+3.29%)
NASDAQ: +310.03 (+3.44%)
S&P 500: +91.75 (+3.20%)
NYSE: +384.65 (+3.51%)

Friday, May 22, 2020

Stocks Take A Break, But Should Not Be At These Obscene Levels; Dividend Cuts Rampant

For a day at least, reality set into equities, as early gains on the major indices were thwarted by waves of selling throughout the session.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which was higher by more than 140 points, peaked before 10:30 am and ended the day 101 points lower. Stuck at a very stubborn resistance level in the 24,300-24,650 range, this current attempt to break out is the fourth since the market collapse of March. Repeated efforts to surge through to new recent highs has met with considerable pressure on the sell side of the equation for the past two months and it appears that the rally has either lost all of its momentum or the investment community has become skeptical of the move higher so early in the cycle.

While the real economy has not even bottomed out yet, stocks seem to be of a mind of their own, pricing in every positive development but failing to realize the overall negative consequences from lockdowns and a dramatically reduced global economy.

More to the point, first quarter earnings for the bulk of companies on the exchanges have been recorded and they were, for the most part, uninspiring, with more than a handful of companies issuing cautious forward guidance and a slew of firms cutting dividends or eliminating them altogether. The recent gains have been fueled only by excessive amounts of Fed currency seeking a temporary place to park. Thus, share prices are unlikely to remain elevated for much longer.

More than 100 companies cut their dividend payout in the week ending April 16, and that number is on top of hundreds of other companies that have slashed and burned shareholders with dividend reductions or eliminations.

The folks at TradingStockAlerts.com keeps track of these important developments on a weekly basis and the numbers are scary for anyone investing in stocks for steady income.

What happens when second quarter GDP numbers arrive in July and show the economy slowing by 40% or further? Along with companies cutting their dividends, there's the likelihood of declines in the value of their shares as well, as profitability is eroded as markets shrink.

With Wall Street giddy with Fed fun money, it's something to thank about going forward.

Funny thing is, stocks are right about where they were just after the moonshot open Monday morning. They've managed to hold onto most of the gains from that huge gap up open, but have not moved forward since. How long stocks can maintain the facade of robustness when 20-25% of the working population is out of a job or thousands of companies are cutting dividends is unknown. What is known, however, is that financial fakery has been rewarded, but the probable end game is something completely different, with many more losers than winners.

Like it or not, the economic crisis is real and just getting started.

At the Close, Thursday, May 21, 2020:
Dow: 24,474.12, -101.78 (-0.41%)
NASDAQ: 9,284.88, -90.90 (-0.97%)
S&P 500: 2,948.51, -23.10 (-0.78%)
NYSE: 11,351.60, -68.44 (-0.60%)

Thursday, May 21, 2020

Dear President Trump: Please Fire Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx and Shut Down the CDC

Dear President Trump and all Americans:

Have you had enough of the news and fear-mongering over coronavirus, or COVID-19, or Wuhan Flu, or whatever they're calling it today?

For months the media and government agencies have been cramming this infectious disease down our throats - not literally, mind you, but don't put that past them - closing public places (paid for with your tax dollars), issuing non-enforceable stay-at-home orders, telling everybody to stay six feet apart (as though standing within four feet or seven feet is going to make a difference), telling us to prepare for a "second wave" even as the first wave is winding down.

All along, the CDC has managed to put forward inconsistent and misleading information, including telling people that wearing masks was not an effective measure in controlling the spread of the virus. Extensive data from around the world - particularly in Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong, where mask-wearing is routine and acceptable behavior - proves the CDC wrong. The CDC also likes to remind everybody to wash their hands and not touch their faces, but never once have they advised taking vitamins C, D, and Zinc, or to take regular doses of elderberry syrup to improve one's immune system.

They've promoted drugs that haven't been proven effective against the virus, like remdesivir, while at the same time bad-mouthing treatments that have been used extensively around the world in preventing and reducing the severity of illness, such as hydroxychloroquine with zinc. Additionally, the CDC spokespeople, Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, have suggested that a vaccine might be found when, as doctors and scientists, they surely know that the most likely outcome from billions of dollars spent on research will be wasted because no vaccine against coronaviruses has ever been developed. None. Zero.

COVID-19 (also known as SARS-CoV-2) is a strain of SARS-CoV, which is a coronavirus that spread rapidly from China in November, 2002 and was brought under control by 2003. 774 people died from SARS. SARS-CoV-2 is the seventh coronavirus known to infect humans. The CDC's original estimate was that it could kill up to two million Americans.

They told us it could be spread by touching objects with traces of the disease on them and also said that it could be spread by people couching or sneezing up to six feet away, when actual science has proven that droplets from people just talking normally could travel as far as 29 feet. They also never warned anybody about how easily the virus could spread in enclosed spaces, especially those with modern ventilation systems (central air).

High on the hit list of things the CDC was completely wrong about was the use of ventilators. As it turns out, ventilators, as a last resort, are not recommended against this virus. Over 80% of people who were put on ventilators eventually died.

Now they're telling us that after wiping down everything from your kitchen counter to packages from Amazon, that the virus is not very infectious from surfaces. Thanks for the heads up, losers.

“It may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes. This is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads, but we are still learning more about this virus,”

-- New CDC Guidelines

The CDC has been nothing but a headache and an annoyance throughout this viral episode. The agency, as most government agencies, is nothing more than a conduit for Big Pharma and multi-national drug companies.

Br. Deborah Birx is a lifelong public employee. She's never had a job outside of government, so, at age 64, she's probably socked enough money away to take a semi-early retirement. Good riddance to you and all your scarves, none of which have ever been pulled up over your mouth and nose, where they belong.

From 1983 to 1986, Birx completed two fellowships in clinical immunology in the areas of allergies and diagnostics, where she worked in Anthony Fauci's lab, so the two are well acquainted.

In January 2014, President Barack Obama nominated Birx to be the Ambassador at Large and U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator as part of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program. Fauci played a significant role in the early 2000s in creating the PEPFAR, an agency that has wasted billions of tax dollars on AIDS prevention in Africa, with mixed results.

For more on PEPFAR, see Is AIDS US $90B Taxpayer Dollars A Global Slush Fund?

Fauci, who will turn 80 on December 24 (we should all be so lucky to look as well as he does at that age, have to give him that), is also a lifetime government employee. In 1968, he joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a clinical associate in the Laboratory of Clinical Investigation (LCI) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In 1974, he became Head of the Clinical Physiology Section, LCI, and in 1980 was appointed Chief of the Laboratory of Immunoregulation. In 1984, he became director of NIAID, a position he still holds today.

To see how deeply in bed with big drug companies the CDC is, one need only do some cursory research on the internet. It's all there. Here are a few (of many) examples:

LewRockwell.com: The CDC, NIH, Big Pharma, Big Medicine, AAP, AMA Bill Gates Plan to Abolish the Informed Consent Ethical Principle and Vaccinate Everybody

Circleofdocs.com: Is the CDC Sleeping With Drug Companies? You Decide

Science Defies Politics: COVID-19 Panel Gilead Ties

National File: The Dark Truth About Fauci and Birx, Bill Gates And Globalist Elites

Those are just for starters. There are hundreds, if not thousands of reports of the extensive, deep ties Drs. Fauci and Birx and the CDC have to Big Pharma, Bill Gates, and the discredited, corrupt World Health Organization (WHO).

Get rid of these people and their agency, please, before they inflict more pain and suffering on the American public. We've had enough.

Regards,

Fearless Rick Gagliano
Publisher, dtmagazine.com, Money Daily

But wait, there's more!

Here's Gregory Mannarino, the Robin Hood of Wall Street, with his hair on fire on May 19 over the President's Executive Order that calls for "rescinding, modifying, waiving, or providing exemptions from regulations and other requirements that may inhibit economic recovery" and Congressional testimony from Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell.



President Trump's Executive Order is here. Anybody who operates a business or enterprise anywhere, doing anything, should make multiple copies of this order and distribute them widely throughout the business community and shove them in the face of any government regulator who wants information on anything related to any business.

You can be sure that the Wall Street hotshots will be using this order to get around any and all regulations that would, in even the slightest way, affect their profitability negatively. President Trump has effectively de-regulated the entirety of American business. Read it and think about it.

Stocks were up again on Wednesday, but that's becoming a side show for rubes.

And, by the way, the Bank of England issued bonds with a negative yield for the first time on Wednesday and another 2.4 million people signed up for initial unemployment benefits last week.

At the Close, Wednesday, May 19, 2020:
Dow: 24,575.90, +369.04 (+1.52%)
NASDAQ: 9,375.78. +190.67 (+2.08%)
S&P 500: 2,971.61, +48.67 (+1.67%)
NYSE: 11,420.04, +171.06 (+1.52%)