Thursday, July 30, 2020

The 32.9% annualized slump in GDP – equivalent to a quarterly fall of 9.5% – is the worst since records began in 1947

Monday, July 27, 2020

Sunday, July 26, 2020


Quick Overview is up to date
  • Initial U.S. Jobless claims increased to 1.42 million in the week ended July 18, up 109,000 from the prior week in a clear sign of a pause in the economic recovery.


  • After days of quarreling, the EU approved a 750 billion euro  ($870 billion) fund to combat effects of the pandemic and thereby raising hopes of more fiscally integrated block.


  • Treasury Secretary Mnuchin says that a stable U.S. dollar is the goal of the Trump administration.
  • Ray Dalio however says the U.S. is already endangering the dollars stability by being “our own worst enemy”.



  • Treasury’s Mnuchin is objecting to using taxpayer money to help taxpayers “We’re not going to use taxpayer money to pay people more to stay home”. Depressing economic effects coming up? The GOP is considering extending the extra unemployment benefits at a reduced level of $400 through December - $100 per week...



  • Bloomberg: Corporate insiders, who’s buying correctly signaled the bottom in March, are now mostly sellers. Almost 1,000 corporate executives and officers have unloaded shares of their own companies this month.



  • Insiders seem to have, um, ramped up their selling. What do they know??  


  • Judy Shelton, a gold bug, one of Trump’s economic advisor is getting support to join the FED from Louisiana Senator John Kennedy. Shelton is a conservative economist who has argued the nation would be better off returning to the gold standard. Back to the gold standard – remarkable. However, as just one of 19 interest-rate-setters at the Fed, her influence at the central bank would be limited.


  • Bloomberg Gold ETF holdings: looks like a new high - along with gold.



  • MotherJones: Trumpachieved a longstanding goal in weakening environmental protection: The administration significantly narrowed the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)…. This move is the latest in a litany of rollbacks.



  • Arctic Sea Ice is falling off a cliff


  • An alliance from various sectors that includes Microsoft, Nike, Starbucks and Unilever unveiled a plan called ‘Transform to Net Zero’ to help businesses globally achieve zero carbon emissions



  • People’s Daily China: By the end of 2020, the catering industry in China shall ban the use of plastic straws as the nation strides on with environmental protection ambition.


  • Twitter bans 7,000 QAnon accounts, limits 150,000 others as part of broad crackdown.



  • FT: 70% of Britons supported mandatory face masks.



  • The CDC says Corona Virus infections far exceed reported cases.


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  • Florida becomes state with second-highest virus cases in US





  • Arizona, with 7 mil people is exceeding the EU’s 420 mill people death toll.


  • Following massive public outrage Sinclair will not air conspiracy theory suggesting Dr. Fauci created the coronavirus.


  • North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declares state of emergency after 1st apparent case of coronavirus. First? Really?





Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Gold, a bit closer to  an all time high...Is a black swan on the way??



Gold, moving right along...



But for a new all time high silver has a bit farther to go.


 Silver new high for the move.


The daily U.S. national death rate appears to be climbing again.


The FED has a new index that is quite interesting. Check it out!
use tabs to adjust time frame

Monday, July 20, 2020

Evidently not much eating out happening unless people are convinced that the pandemic is at least somewhat under control


Sunday, July 19, 2020

Covid-19 Death Per Million Population as of  7/19/2020
Belgium 845
U.K 667
Spain 608
Italy         580
Sweden 556
France 462
U.S.         432
Netherlands 358
Canada 232
Switzerland 227
Germany 109
Austria 79
Norway 47
Israel 44
Greece 19
Japan 8
S. Korea         6
Australia         5
New Zealand 4
China 3

Saturday, July 18, 2020


China's industrial capacity utilization rebound is quite impressive.





Quick Overview is up to date







  • Bloomberg : Almost 40,000 Robinhood accounts added shares of Tesla during a single four-hour span on Monday.


  • More than half of wealthy investors responding to a UBS survey said they were worried about staying liquid in another pandemic and that they may not have as much cash to pass along their heirs.




  • Singapore GDP QoQ - 41%


  • Axios:  UnitedHealth Group registered more than $6.6 billion in profits in the second quarter — by far the conglomerate's highest quarterly profit ever, according to an analysis of company financial data from FactSet. Why it matters.



  • Disney shuts Hong Kong Disneyland again as coronavirus cases rise.


  • UN reports global e-waste production soared beyond 53 million tonnes in 2019


  • If the numbers are correct  China’s economy has returned to growth






Wednesday, July 15, 2020

However the total # continues to be horrifying
A bit of good news regarding the virus. The national death rate  remains much lower than it was three months ago.
COVID-19 gives the lieto global healthexpertise

As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak began spreading in Europe and the USA, a chart started circulating online showing ratings from the 2019 Global Health Security Index, an assessment of 195 countries’ capacity to face infectious disease outbreaks, compiled by the US-based Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health’s Center for Health Security. The USA was ranked first, and the UK second; South Korea was ranked ninth, and China 51st; most African countries were at the bottom of the ranking. Things look different now

Sunday, July 12, 2020

Expert warns China's Three Gorges Dam in danger of collapse

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — As torrential rains in China continue to wreak havoc on more than 24 provinces, notable Chinese hydrologist Wang Weiluo (王維洛) has questioned the safety of the massive Three Gorges Dam, warning that it could collapse at any moment.


  • Year to date inflows into bullion-backet ETF’s are setting a record.…FREEEEEEE Money
  • Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic warned Thursday that real-time data suggest the recovery is flattening out, possibly warranting more monetary or fiscal action..

  • As someone quipped: If Martians are invading Earth, the first thing we will do is lower interest rates.

  • The rate on the 30-year fixed U.S. mortgage — the most popular home loan — dropped to 3.03%, according to Freddie Mac, down from 3.07% from the week before. A 50-year low.
  • Bloomberg: Wells Fargo, the largest employer among U.S. banks, is preparing to cut thousands of jobs starting later this year.

  • Some 200,000 marine crewmembers remain trapped at sea by the virus.

  • Chinese stocks have added more than $1 trillion in value, far outpacing gains in every other market worldwide.

  • 7/5/2020 Le monde: 37% of Italian companies will go bankrupt in September.

  • ECB President Lagarde expects euro zone to face 2 years of disinflation.

  • The Facebook boycott now numbers more than 300 advertisers and is growing…Tolerating and spreading hate speech is perhaps not a particularly good business plan after all. 

  • 7/6/2020 for the first time Amazon shares closed above $3,000, and climbing, as demand for its e-commerce and cloud-computing services continues. Up some 90% in the middle of a seriously big recession. … 

  • Wired Mag: A study involving 61,000 participants in Spain has shown that only around 5 percent of the country's population is carrying coronavirus antibodies. The findings back up those of other smaller studies that suggest that herd immunity—which experts say can occur when 60 to 70 percent of the population has immunity—may be unrealistic to achieve.

  • UK’s health secretary Jeremy Hunt: They did not model a Korean style test and trace – which turned out to be the best way of tackling coronavirus.
  • Death per 1 mill. Population 
  • South Korea    = 6
  • UK                = 660
  • US       = 414
  • Sweden           = 547
  • New Zealand had 74 death per million. Their lock-down worked. Schools are open. Everything is back to normal, except international travel.

  • Trump disagrees with the CDC strategies for reopening schools – as excessively restrictive.

  • US reports record single-day spike of 60,000 new coronavirus cases 7/7/20

  • Despite Florida’s covid-19-cases rising 107% in the last 2 weeks Disney Land (DIS) decides to open. 

  • ‘Unknown pneumonia’ deadlier than corona-virus sweeping Kazakhstan, Chinese embassy warns.

  • Tesla's Musk believes Level 5 self-driving cars are right around the corner. A corner with perhaps a few more years in it?


  • US rivers and lakes are shrinking for a surprising reason: cows  “The fact that over half of that water is going to cattle-feed crops just floored us,” Richter said. “We had to double and triple check to make sure we got the numbers right.”

  • The USDA says that China bought 1.3 million mt of US corn. Its biggest purchase since 1994

  • Heat Index Oklahoma today is 120
  • New Orleans 117    
  • Swiehan UAE reached 123.8
  • Potentially Fatal Combinations of Humidity and Heat Are Emerging Across the Globe