•  Zero commissions, stuck at home, attempting to make ends meet...

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• FT: This was the week we witnessed the funeral of austerity. 
• The IMF and World Bank are urging richer countries to spend their way out of the pandemic, although some developing nations continue to face cuts 

• The U.S. budget deficit hit a record $3.132 trillion during fiscal 2020, more than triple the 2019 shortfall, as a result of massive coronavirus rescue spending, the U.S. Treasury said on Friday.
• The deficit more than doubled the previous record of $1.416 trillion in fiscal 2009, when the United States was battling a financial crisis. 

• Median weekly earnings of the nation's 109.7 million full-time wage and salary workers were $994 in the third quarter of 2020 (not seasonally adjusted). This was 8.2 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 1.2 percent in the CPI-U.

• Boris Johnson just told the U.K. to prepare for a no-deal Brexit. 

• Japan plans to release Fukushima water into the Pacific Ocean 

• The Covid-19 treatment remdesivir has no substantial effect on a patient’s chances of survival, a clinical trial by the World Health Organization has found. 

• Retail sales above expectations at 1.9% - Good news on consumption at a time when many people have lost extra benefits.

• Global Clean Energy  - performing as advertised.

•  and so is Coal

The extra $600 per week in jobless benefits doubled the savings of unemployed Americans in July. However, a month after the payments ended, they burned through most of that. So, pointing out the obvious, unless new emergency funds are forthcoming, household spending will get tight. And so far, it seems not to be forthcoming.

 FT View: Joe Biden and Donald Trump have been exposed to unrelenting scrutiny. And yet neither will have as lasting an influence on US life as Amy Coney Barrett, who is cruising towards confirmation to the Supreme Court as something of an enigma..

 Cole Smead, president of Smead Capital Management, explaining in a CNBC interview on Thursday how "young, dumb" investors have created a "total nightmare" in the current climate.    "They are buying bullish call options that expire inside two weeks. There was ($500 billion) of bullish call options bought in a four-week stretch by small retail traders," Smead said. "In '99 it was $100 billion, in '07, it was $100 billion." 

• US Initial jobless claims climbed (unexpectedly) to 898,000, an increase of 53,000 from the previous week's revised level of 845,000.

• Housing appears to be a bright spot in the U.S. economy, but some data suggest a weaker outlook ahead for the sector.