Notes Today:

• The Dow had its best month since 1987.
  

• U.S. prosecutors are investigating whether several individuals offered political contributions in exchange for a presidential pardon, according to an unsealed court document.

• US Residential construction rose 2.9% .
• US construction projects rose 1.3% in October.

• Joe Biden’s Treasury Secretary nominee and former Fed President Janet Yellen warned that America is battling a historic economic crisis and called for urgent policy action to avert a “self-reinforcing” downturn.

• A new push began in Congress to send federal aid to businesses, state and local governments slammed by the pandemic. So, 10-yearnotes are a bit higher, with 10-year yield last up 7.7 basis points at 0.9194%.

Thanks to the heroic efforts of health workers - a little bit of good news regarding the virus. While the overall US news is grim and getting grimmer daily, the % of people dying from the disease is now under 2%. That is down from over 6% in the spring. A development for which we should be most thankful.

Warren Buffett dismissed bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as worthless in a CNBC interview on Monday. "Cryptocurrencies basically have no value," Buffett said. "They don't produce anything." "You can't do anything with it except sell it to somebody else," he added.Feb 24, 2020

Meanwhile, Bitcoin has shot to a record just as billions of institutional dollars have fled gold. (Gold’s at least good for a filling in someone’s tooth  😉) 

Notes Today:

• Bloomberg: Bank of America Corp. said that it won’t provide project financing for oil and gas exploration in the Arctic after facing opposition from environmentalists. 
  
• Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on Monday ramped up her calls for a new Scottish independence referendum. 

• Bloomberg: Moderna Inc. requested clearance for its coronavirus vaccine in the U.S. after a new analysis showed it was highly effective in preventing Covid-19, with no serious safety problems.

  

• Japan's jobless rate rose to 3.1% in October.

• WSJ: The coronavirus was in the US in mid-December 2019, a few weeks before it was officially identified in China, according to CDC analysis of blood donation samples. This also matches waste water analysis that found virus earlier in Europe.

• Scott Atlas, Trump’s herd immunity dude (nothing but the finest people) is gone. And so is the herd immunity guy in Sweden. GR!

• Japans factory output jumped 3.8% MoM mainly due to strength in general machinery production and motor vehicle manufacturing.

• Japans Retail sales rose 6.4% YoY in October up for the first time in eight months.

• China, the first major economy to fully recover from the coronavirus crisis, said its  PMI rose to 52.1 in November from 51.4 in October. 

• About 3.2 billion people live in agricultural areas with “high to very high” water shortages and competition over resources is rising, the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organization said in a report. 

•  According to a Bloomberg article qanon is thriving, not just in the US, but also in Japan.  

 

 Besides lithium, batteries evidently also need copper.  

 Soybean Oil - worth a look?

Amazon has added 427,300 employees in 10 months, bringing its global work force to more than 1.2 million.

WP: Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismisses lawsuit against mail ballots with prejudice in another defeat for Trump

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed with prejudice a Republican lawsuit seeking to invalidate more than 2.5 million votes cast by mail in the general election, the latest in a string of legal defeats for the GOP as President Trump fails to undo his losses in key battleground states.