(Bloomberg) — The U.S. is “at another pivotal moment in this pandemic,” with Covid-19 cases once again climbing and beds at some hospitals filling up, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said. In response to surging caseloads and hospitalizations, Texas is dispatching people to Walmarts around the state to encourage younger people to get vaccinations inside. German Chancellor Angela Merkel sounded the alarm on surging cases tied to the delta variant, saying numbers could double within two weeks. In the U.K., vaccine certificates could be required at business conferences, music festivals and sports events in England from September. China pushed back against the World Health Organization’s call for another probe into the coronavirus’s origins that includes examining whether it leaked from a lab. Global Tracker: Cases top 192.2 million; deaths exceed 4.1 millionVaccine Tracker: More than 3.71 billion doses administered ‘Ridiculous’: Vaccine myths cripple U.S. uptake as delta surgesStudy shows costs of vaccine inequity for low-income countriesWhy the vaccinated are still at risk from the coronavirusTokyo’s fraught Olympics show glaring scar of Covid. Nick Note: Slowly they are breaking it to the masses. Was talking to a friend of mine who works a covid unit. He says when they are about to shove the oxygen tube down their throat they start begging for a vaccine.. Seems as they are placed in their death beds a ha ha ha nanobot collecting their data does not seem to matter anymore…….
U.S. jobless claims show surprise gain, well above expectations
- Weekly jobless claims totaled 419,000 for the week ended July 17, above the 350,000 estimate.
- The total represented a gain from the previous week’s 368,000.
- Continuing claims declined by 29,000 to 3.24 million for another pandemic-era low.
Weekly jobless claims unexpected moved higher last week despite hopes that the U.S. labor market is poised for a strong recovery heading into the fall. Initial filings for unemployment insurance totaled 419,000 for the week ended July 17, well above the 350,000 Dow Jones estimate and more than the upwardly revised 368,000 from the previous period, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
The news sent stock market futures off their highs for the morning, with Wall Street pointing to a slightly negative open. Government bond yields also edged lower. The jobless total was the highest weekly count since May 15 and came amid expectations that the jobs picture will improve markedly as enhanced unemployment benefits end and companies get more aggressive about filling vacant positions. On the positive side, continuing claims, which run a week behind the headline number, declined by 29,000 to 3.24 million, a fresh pandemic low. The total was last lower on March 14, 2020, just after the Covid-19 pandemic declaration and as governments across the U.S. ordered businesses to close, sending more than 22 million to the unemployment line.
The total of those receiving benefits under all government programs also declined, falling by more than 1.2 million to 12.57 million. A year ago, nearly 33 million people were collecting benefits. Among states, Michigan saw the biggest gain, adding more than 13,000 at a time when auto production has been derailed due to a semiconductor shortage. Texas saw an increase of nearly 10,000, according to unadjusted data. Last week’s surprise increase in claims comes as fears grow over the relatively new delta variant of the coronavirus. Case counts and hospitalizations are rising, primarily among unvaccinated parts of the population, raising the specter that another wave of the disease is hitting the U.S. and the world. New cases and hospitalizations are around the levels they were in mid-May though they remain a fraction of where they were during the winter outbreak. Despite the surprise jump in claims last week, multiple factors point to strong potential for labor gains ahead. Job placement site Indeed estimates that there were about 9.8 million job openings as of July 16. That compares with the 9.48 million workers that the Labor Department counted as unemployed through June, indicating plenty of opportunity for aggressive hiring ahead. Businesses shuttered during the pandemic also are coming back at a brisk pace. In the April-to-June period, 60,502 businesses reopened, the highest volume of the past year, according to Yelp. That total included 38,725 reopenings just in April, the quickest monthly pace since May 2020. Of those returns, restaurants and retail businesses make up the highest portion, with more than 36,000 in that second-quarter period. Nick Note: Do not be surprised by this. Reality is something has changed. And its the fact that slowly the Delta variant is sucking shut the economy. This is not settled business yet. But i got a sniff of big trouble coming. I am seeing many businesses who WERE calling staff back to the office cubical prisons backing down… We need to carefully watch this….. R member the supply chain is still broken.
US opens mostly higher with focus on data, earnings
Wall Street posted marginal gains on Thursday, with traders unsettled by an unanticipated rise in unemployment, threatening a 2-day rally that wiped out losses sustained during the worst trading day of 2021. Sentiment took a hit after an unexpected jump in jobless claims, which last week set a fresh pandemic-era low. New unemployment filings jumped to 419,000 in the latest week, well above consensus estimates of 360,000. Since the onset of COVID-19, the data series has served as an avatar of the labor market’s health, and could take on new importance if rising infections start to trigger new restrictions — which may lead to another round of job losses. On Wednesday, stocks completed a 2-day hot streak, in an attempt to calibrate a resurgence of COVID-19 cases against a red-hot economic expansion that continues to gain momentum. In the process, strong earnings have helped the market heal from Monday’s pandemic-inspired meltdown, with investors looking at the fundamentals rather than surging coronavirus numbers. Industry bellwethers Netflix (NFLX), Chipotle (CMG), Coca-Cola (KO), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Verizon (VZ) topped market expectations, boosting a market that’s seen precious little downside in recent months. The sell-off that began the week was the year’s worst trading day, and spooked traders that had become “spoiled” by a seemingly endless series of win streaks.
“The truth is investors have been very spoiled by the recent stock market performance,” LPL Financial chief market strategist Ryan Detrick wrote on Wednesday.
“Incredibly, we haven’t seen as much as a 5% pullback since October. Although we firmly think this bull market is alive and well, let’s not fool ourselves into thinking trees grow forever. Risk is no doubt increasing as we head into the troublesome August and September months,” he added. Netflix, however, bucked the market’s trend. It beat analysts’ expectations for new subscribers in Q2, but fell short of the target for estimates for Q3. On Wednesday, the stock saw its worst day in three months, tumbling by more than 3% as markets registered their disapproval over its mixed results. Monday’s selloff momentarily took the spotlight from quarterly earnings that have almost uniformly reflected a strong rebound. The rising case count driven by the Delta variant — a more communicable form of COVID-19 — pushed the Dow (^DJI), Nasdaq (^IXIC) and S&P 500 (^GSPC) to their biggest drop in months. However, investors are reconsidering some of that pessimism, with some analysts pointing out that hospitalizations and deaths haven’t risen as dramatically — and are far below where they were during the worst days of the COVID-19 outbreak. “The market is playing this collective game of chicken right now,” CIC Wealth executive vice president Malcolm Ethridge told Yahoo Finance Live. “We all collectively agree that we can’t go on this way for much longer. There’s no obvious catalyst.” Investors are also watching cryptocurrencies, after billionaire Elon Musk— in a surprising U-turn — said that Tesla (TSLA) will likely start accepting bitcoin (BTC-USD) again for vehicle purchases. In May, Musk sent shockwaves through the digital coin market when he walked back his support for using the currency in Tesla transactions. Bitcoin was up over 1% in early U.S. trading on the news.
US slightly up in premarket as investors await earnings
Shares on the major stock market indexes in the United States traded with modest gains in the premarket on Thursday as the season of corporate earnings continued. Blackstone, AT&T, and American Airlines are scheduled to unveil their second-quarter results before the session starts, while Intel and social media giant Twitter are set to release their reports after the closing bell. The day earlier, the Republican Senators blocked the debate on the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.15% at 4:17 am ET, while the Nasdaq 100 rose 0.17% at the same time. A minute later, the S&P 500 was up by 0.14%. The euro lost 0.09% compared to the dollar, selling for 1.17837 at 4:18 am ET. Nick Note: we are waiting out stupid. Looking for our entry point. Stay alert…. When things happen it will be a fast game. Of course business profits are strong… since virtually all business came to a screeching halt as the world sucked shut. Let me ask you a question… What will their profits look like if the global economy slams into the Delta variant wall?
Warning signs for global recovery as Delta dims outlook
LONDON (Reuters) – A drubbing in world equity markets and a huge flight to safety into U.S. Treasuries this week suggests investors now doubt that a much-anticipated return to post-COVID normality is feasible any time soon. Data from the United States and China, which account for more than half of world growth, suggests a slowdown in the recent blistering pace of the global economy alongside rising prices for all manner of goods and raw materials. Coinciding with a resurgence in the Delta variant of COVID-19, markets may be sending alarm signals about the global economic outlook, Deutsche Bank chief FX strategist George Saravelos told clients. “As prices have risen, the consumer has been cutting back demand rather than bringing forward consumption. This is the opposite of what one would expect if the environment was genuinely inflationary and it shows the global economy has a very low speed limit,” Saravelos wrote. That sentiment was evident in the latest flow data too. Bank of America Merill Lynch flagged “stagflation” concerns for the second half of 2021, noting slowing inflows into stocks and outflows from high-yield assets. Data on hedge funds’ weekly currency positioning is the closest available real-time indicator of investors’ thinking about the $6.6 trillion a day foreign exchange markets. With the dollar at its highest since end-March, latest Commodity Futures Trading Commission data shows net long positions on the dollar against a basket of major currencies is the biggest since March 2020. Positioning had dropped to a net short bet as recently as early June. Dollar appreciation against the euro and emerging market currencies is unsurprising given economic uncertainty, said Ludovic Colin, senior portfolio manager at Vontobel Asset Management. “Whenever Americans get worried about growth at home or globally, they repatriate money and buy dollars,” he added. In recent months, investors optimistic about an economic recovery sent a flood of cash into so-called cyclical sectors such as banks, leisure and energy. These are, in short, companies that benefit from an economic recovery. The tide may now be going out. Instead “growth” stocks, especially technology, has outperformed its value counterparts by more than 3 percentage points since the start of July. Many clients of Goldman Sachs believe the cyclical rotation was a short-lived phenomenon driven by recovery from an unusual recession, the bank said. Defensive stocks such as utilities are back in favour too. A basket of value stocks compiled by MSCI is testing its lowest levels for this year against defensive peers, having risen 11% in the first six months of 2021. Early this year, the dollar’s trajectory was determined by the interest rate differentials enjoyed by U.S. debt over its rivals, with correlations peaking in May. While real or inflation-adjusted U.S. yields are still higher than their German counterparts, the drop in nominal U.S. yields below 1.2% this week has raised concern over the global growth outlook. Ulrich Leuchtmann, head of FX at Commerzbank, said that if global production and consumption did not return to 2019 levels soon, then a permanently lower GDP path has to be assumed. This is reflected to some extent in bond markets. Investor sentiment has become more cautious, according to weekly polls by the American Association of Individual Investors. BlackRock, the world’s biggest investment manager, cut U.S. equities to neutral in its mid-year outlook. Stephen Jen, who runs hedge fund Eurizon SLJ Capital, noted that because China’s business cycle was ahead of that of the United States or Europe, weaker data there is filtering through to investor sentiment in the West. Popular reflation trades in the commodity markets have also gone into reverse. A ratio of gold/copper prices has fallen 10% after rising to more than 6-1/2 year highs in May.
Covid UK news live: Death toll rises by almost 100 in 24 hours as government confirms self-isolation ‘crucial’
The UK has recorded its highest number of Covid deaths in a single-day period since 24 March, Public Health England data shows. Some 96 people died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus as of 9am on Tuesday. It brings the nation’s death toll to 128,823, while there were also 46,558 new cases of Covid reported in the same 24 hours. It comes as the government said it remains “crucial” for people to self-isolate when they receive a “ping” from the NHS coronavirus app, overruling an earlier comment from business minister Paul Scully. He said on Tuesday morning that it was up to individuals to make an “informed decision” about whether or not to quarantine after getting an alert. Hours later, Downing Street scrambled to clarify its position, saying that self-isolation was an important means of preventing the spread of the virus. “It is crucial people isolate when they are told to do so, either by NHS Test and Trace or by the NHS Covid app,” a No 10 spokesperson said. The UK records almost 100 Covid deaths in 24 hours – highest since March Only a fifth of people are using Covid app properly, poll shows One million kids are out of school due to Covid – data UK vaccine passport plans condemned as ‘absolute shambles’ Businesses can disregard Covid app ‘pings’, minister suggests. Minister rules out vaccine passports for pubs. Emergency calls increased by a third compared to a normal day, with a sudden wave of more than 400 calls in a single hour during the early afternoon. The London Ambulance Service has been at the highest level of demand, previously known as a “black alert”, since 17 June. Seven out of 10 ambulance services across England are in a similar situation. Scheduled operations have been cancelled as an NHS Scotland Trust’s three acute hospitals experience unprecedented levels of pressure. NHS Lanarkshire said that increased Covid-19 cases, staff shortages due to annual leave or staff having to self-isolate as a result of contacts outside of work, were causing the pressure, along with trying to maintain and recover services – including planned operations. There are currently 81 Covid-19 cases across its three sites – University Hospital Hairmyres, Monklands and Wishaw – with seven people in intensive care, the board said. On Monday, 643 patients also attended the sites’ A&E departments. “The sustained pressure we are seeing across our three acute hospitals is showing no signs of easing,” NHS Lanarkshire director of acute services, Judith Park, said. “In fact, the pressures on our hospitals are as severe as at any time in the whole pandemic.” Ms Park blamed non-Covid issues such as sunstroke for the steady rise in numbers, especially in recent days after the heatwave much of the UK has experienced. “Unfortunately, we have had to cancel a small number of planned surgeries over the last three weeks,” she added. “This is not a decision we take lightly and I would like to apologise for any upset caused.” Dr Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England, has issued a plea to the British public to continue taking coronavirus seriously.
She said while she understood people wanted to “get back to doing” what they loved most, it was important to remember that the virus’ risk is far from over.
“The past 18 months have been tough on us all. Now restrictions have lifted many of us want to get back to doing what we enjoy most,” she said on Tuesday. “However, we must do so with caution and remain sensible. We are in a wave of infections that has seen an increase of over 40 per cent in the past week, there is still a risk of severe illness for many people.” Offering some precautionary advice, she added: “We can all reduce the risk by getting both doses of the vaccine, testing ourselves twice a week at home and spending more time outside or in well ventilated rooms. Let’s all remain vigilant.” Fans were permitted entry to Wembley Stadium for the last rounds of Euro 2020 without needing to prove their Covid status, The Independent has learned.
The news comes amid reports suggesting large numbers of fans have contracted the virus since attending the final. So large have the anecdotal numbers been that some have taken to calling the virus surge among supporters “the Wembley variant”.
Ministers previously said attendance of the Events Research Programme matches would require proof of a negative test or full vaccination, but ticket-holding fans have told us they were allowed into the stadium without being properly checked. T he first exemptions for fully-vaccinated critical workers to isolate over coronavirus contacts have been granted under Boris Johnson’s plans to ease the “pingdemic”, according to Downing Street. No 10 said on Tuesday that NHS staff and workers in other sectors are among those who were granted approval to avoid quarantine for crucial work reasons as Covid-19 infections soar. In the face of widespread criticism from businesses over staff shortages, the PM announced a plan for a “small number” of critical workers to be able to continue. But he faced calls to clarify who would be eligible, after a government statement said it would not be a “blanket exemption for any sector or role”. Mr Johnson’s official spokesman said: “The first exemptions, I understand, have already been given in some critical sectors, that work is going on given the urgency. That’s in both wider sectors and the NHS as well.” But he added: “It’s not a blanket exemption and my understanding is we’re not going to be producing a list covering individual sectors, these business-critical areas will be able to apply for exemptions to their host departments.” The need for vaccine passports could be extended to venues such as pubs, Downing Street has implied.
The statement from No 10 comes just hours after business minister Paul Scully said pubs would not require customers to show proof of vaccination.
The correction came from Boris Johnson’s official spokesperson. “The prime minister talked about the sort of areas we were considering, and nightclubs are where there is significant evidence we have at the moment,” he said. “But we’re going to use the coming weeks to look at the evidence, particularly both in the UK and globally before making a specific decision.” Nick Note: The world has gone stark raving mad mad i tell you. As infections skyrocket England opens sport venues, discos and pubs to unvaccinated and non mask wearing barbarian hordes… And expects them to self isolate… YEAH RIGHT! Reality is it summer time fuck fest beach party time.. and the masses want to party and government is going to let them no matter how mant people they kill.
Delta strain amounts to 83% of new virus cases – US CDC head
Top infectious disease specialists say the spread of the delta variant across unvaccinated pockets of the country is causing flare-ups and leading to an increase in hospitalizations as cases climb. Nationwide, cases are once again on the rise as the highly transmissible variant takes hold as the dominant strain in the U.S. The seven-day average of newly confirmed Covid cases has climbed to about 23,300 a day, almost double the average from a week ago, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Health officials and physicians have been hoping that high vaccination rates among the most vulnerable and oldest Americans would keep hospitalizations, which generally lag new cases by a few weeks, from also rising. But that hasn’t materialized so far, doctors said on a call hosted Tuesday by the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “Hospitalizations ICU admissions and deaths all lag behind (new cases), so we expect those to continue to get worse, substantially worse over the next two to three weeks” Dr. Andrew T. Pavia, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Utah School of Medicine, said on the call. After several weeks of declining infections, cases are again climbing in many parts of the country, Dr. Jay Butler, deputy director for infectious diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on the call. “Unfortunately that’s also been accompanied by some increases in the number hospitalized, as well as emergency department evaluations, for people who are ultimately confirmed to have Covid-19,” he said. As the delta variant spreads across the U.S. it’s hitting states with low vaccination rates particularly hard. First detected in India in October, the variant is quickly spreading to more than 100 countries across the world and established itself as the dominant strain in America in a few weeks. “When the Delta strain appeared, it rapidly became the dominant strain. … In the last full week of data, more than 80% of the sequenced viruses were delta, and so far this week it’s 92% of all variants” (in Utah), Pavia said. “If you think about what it means to have a virus take over that rapidly, it means that it is the most fit virus, that is spreading more efficiently, that it is spreading in pockets that are unvaccinated and it’s causing a lot of disease and a lot of stress.” Cases are rising in Missouri, Arkansas, Nevada, Utah and Florida at higher rates than in other states over the past couple of weeks. New infections and hospitalizations are highest in rural areas, where vaccination rates are low, Pavia said. “That’s what drives the susceptibility to having an outbreak.” In Utah, the infection rates are highest among young people ages 15 to 45 and hospitalizations are similarly higher in those younger age groups than they were earlier in the pandemic, he said. Roughly 80% of Americans over the age of 65, the most at-risk population, are fully vaccinated, helping to drive down hospital rates. Scientists haven’t yet figured out whether the delta variant makes people sicker or not than the original ancestral strain. NB: how fucking stupid,,, of course we need a yearly booster shot targeted at the latest variant……U.S. health officials and physicians are still split on whether or not there will be a need for booster shots in the fall or winter. “We’re not seeing evidence at this point in time that waning immunity is occurring among people who were vaccinated back last December or January and that they are at higher risk of breakthrough infections,” the CDC’s Butler said. State Department, CDC says to avoid travel to the UK as Covid cases rise Echoing statements made by World Health Organization officials Monday, Butler also said that breakthrough cases are often milder and that the vaccines are extremely effective in reducing hospitalization and death. “There’s even evidence that people who have breakthrough infections, who are fully immunized, are shedding less virus … it can reduce the risk of spread to others,” Butler said. The WHO also recently recommended both vaccinated and unvaccinated people continue wearing masks and practice social distancing, citing reduced vaccine efficacy against the delta variant and increased social mixing in countries with varying rates of immunization. “Everyone wants this to be over, and a lot of the behavior that I think is driving the spread of infections is people wanting it to be over, and acting as if it’s over and really abandoning even the more modest precautions like mask-wearing,” Pavia said. Nick Note: You are seeing mass stupidity. Greed + ignorance = a global plague. People are the only way the virus spreads….
Dow up over 200 pts premarket after selloff
Shares on Wall Street posted gains early in premarket trading on Tuesday following yesterday’s massive selloff on the back of rising virus concerns. The rapidly spreading Delta variant of COVID-19 reignited fears that the global economic recovery from the pandemic could be delayed, particularly hitting hard travel stocks like airlines and cruise operators. On the earnings calendar, Philip Morris was set to report its second-quarter results ahead of today’s open, while streaming giant Netflix was scheduled to announce its earnings after the closing bell. The Dow Jones gained 240 points at 4:25 am ET. At the same time, the S&P 500 advanced 0.59% while the Nasdaq 100 climbed 0.49%. The euro was down 0.08% against the dollar, buying 1.17911. Nick Note: Now you can see why i want to stand aside. Let this shake out,,, The story is the plunge in bond yields… please follow our latest reco and take profits in our beloved ZEROES…….
UK reopens, it is going to be a difficult summer
Stocks sink as virus worries fuel flight to safety
Stocks slumped around the world as investors rushed into haven assets after the delta coronavirus variant cast a pall over the economic recovery, while tension between the U.S. and China escalated. In a reversal of the reopening trade that has powered this year’s equity rally, cyclical companies bore the brunt of Monday’s rout. Commodity, financial and industrial shares led losses in the S&P 500, which fell the most since May. Airlines and cruise operators tumbled amid concern over further travel restrictions. After recently plunging to pre-pandemic levels, the Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX, soared. European stocks had their biggest drop of 2021, following a selloff in Asia. With the risk-off sentiment spreading across global markets, Treasury 10-year yields spiraled to their lowest since February, while the dollar rose alongside the yen and the Swiss franc. Despite the classic safety trade, gold retreated. Oil sank after OPEC+ agreed to boost supply into 2022. Meantime, Bitcoin’s slide pushed the world’s largest digital currency closer to US$30,000. The resurgence of COVID-19 is unsettling global investors, who are considering whether new lockdown restrictions will sap the economic rebound and reverse an equity rally that had driven stocks to a record. For Matt Miskin, co-chief investment strategist at John Hancock Investment Management, the move to “higher-quality assets” such as Treasuries is justified. In a Bloomberg Television interview, he said that “we’re in a decelerating growth environment.” “Risk aversion is firmly in place as the Delta COVID variant spread is triggering a flight to safety,” wrote Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda. “Equities were ripe for a pullback given Wall Street was in agreement that this is ‘as good as it gets’ for peak earnings, economic growth, monetary stimulus. It is hard to hold risky assets over the short-term now.” Geopolitical jitters also resurfaced on Monday after the U.S., the U.K. and their allies said the Chinese government has been the mastermind behind a series of malicious ransomware, data theft and cyber-espionage attacks against public and private entities — including the sprawling Microsoft Exchange hack earlier this year. Nick Note: Nothing is settled business in these markets. It is far far wiser to wait and watch……. Is driving me crazy!