Author: BlackMask Financial

TOKYO (Reuters) – Global shares held firm on Tuesday, with a solid foundation in place to extend their bull run to a 12th consecutive session as optimism about the global economic recovery and expectations of low interest rates drive investments into riskier assets. Oil prices soared to a 13-month high as a deep freeze due to a severe snow storm in the United States not only boosted power demand but also threatened oil production in Texas.

S&P500 futures traded 0.5% higher to a record level and MSCI’s all country world index (ACWI), which has risen every single day so far this month, ticked up slightly.

“Global markets have started the week higher as investors remain confident that the pandemic will soon give way to an economic boom,” wrote Mihir Kapadia, chief executive of Sun Global Investments in London. “Unless any drastic moves take place this week, we could expect equity markets to remain strong.” Successful rollouts of COVID-19 vaccines in many countries are raising hopes of further recovery in economic activities hampered by range of anti-virus curbs. U.S. President Joe Biden is pushing ahead with his plan to pump an extra $1.9 trillion in stimulus into the economy, in a further boost to market sentiment. “The pace of the market’s rally has been pretty fast but there’s no denying that it’s pretty comfortable time for stocks with expectations of low interest rates helping inflows to stocks,” said Masahiro Ichikawa, chief strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management. The bullish view on the economy lifted bond yields, with the 10-year U.S. Treasuries gaining 5 basis points to 1.252% in early Asian trade, its highest since late March. Investors are looking to the minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s January meeting, due to be published on Wednesday, for confirmation of its commitment to maintain its dovish policy stance over the near future. That in turn is set to keep a tab on bond yields. Oil prices soared to their highest in about 13 months as a U.S. winter storm added fuel to their rally on hopes of further demand recovery. U.S. crude futures traded up 1.1% at $60.11 per barrel. Prices have rallied over recent weeks on tightening supplies, largely due to production cuts from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allied producers in the wider OPEC+ group of producers. Rising oil prices supported commodity-linked currencies such as the Canadian dollar while safe-haven currencies including the U.S. dollar took a back seat. MSCI’s emerging market currency index hit a record high as well. Nick Note: This is a broad based global stock market rally this is a powerful force not to be denied. Of course it is a mindless rally SO! I want to ride the wave for as long as we can. Of course this will end in tears for the people who are practicing mindless buying. Call it stock market madness SO!

THe Bros are showing the hunkies how to get stimulus checks…… Its welfare by another name and at the trailer park they are experts at staying high and sucking off the system. We are reducing Americans to a nation of beggars. And as far as the racial bit I hate every ethnic group especially old fat white babby boomers of which I am one. .I can not be called racially prejudiced since i hate all races especially my own.  I have no problem with a police state as long as i own the police.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil prices rose about 1% on Monday as optimism around U.S. stimulus plans and some supply concerns boosted futures, but demand worries prompted by coronavirus lockdowns limited gains. Brent crude futures rose 47 cents, 0.9%, to settle at $55.88 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude ended 50 cents, or 1%, higher at $52.77 a barrel. Officials in U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration on a Sunday call with Republican and Democratic lawmakers tried to head off Republican concerns that his $1.9 trillion pandemic relief proposal was too expensive. “Newly inaugurated President Biden seems to be pushing for a quick approval of his proposed $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package, a development interpreted by the market as a clear indication that the new U.S. administration aims to kick-start an economic recovery, which will naturally benefit fuel consumption,” said Bjornar Tonhaugen, Rystad Energy’s head of oil markets.  European nations have imposed tough restrictions to halt the spread of the virus, while China reported a rise in new COVID-19 cases, casting a pall over demand prospects in the world’s largest energy consumer. Nick Note: You got the happy checks and the golden shot… Whats not to like. I vote for a mindless rally followed by the biggest wipe out ever. And if i can GUESS right its worth one of two things to us.. A wipe out or a kinds ransom… Like i said i vote for the kings ransom.

 

A World Health Organization (WHO) official investigating the cause of the pandemic has said he “can’t rule out” the possibility that COVID originated from a Wuhan laboratory. Dr David Nabarro, who is conducting the probe into how the virus developed, said the WHO is currently working with Chinese authorities. He told He told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge On Sunday that “everything will be looked at” by the investigators. Asked if he could rule out the theory that the virus escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, he said: “The thing about theories is you have to have them as a way to set up the reason why things might be occurring in a particular way. “I can’t rule anything out and I know the team on the spot, as well as those they’re talking to in China, they’re not ruling anything out either. “All options are on the table and everything will be looked at.” As part of the investigation, the WHO is scheduled to visit the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Chinese researchers at the institute say they have handled coronaviruses but have previously strongly rejected claims that COVID-19 came from their lab. Former US president Donald Trump said in April last year that he had seen evidence it had come from a laboratory in China. But health experts and intelligence communities have previously said it is more likely that COVID-19 was naturally occuring rather than man-made. Dr Nabarro added the investigation was getting “exemplary co-operation” from Chinese authorities. He continued: “All the sites that WHO people wanted to visit are being visited, there is an openness for all kinds of communication to take place. “But it’s early days, this is detective work. We’re anticipating this will take quite a lot longer.” Elsewhere in the interview, Dr Nabarro added that “the world should be accessing vaccines in an equal way” as he praised the UK for its rollout. “We have some excellent vaccines that can stop people from dying,” he said. “The only way to deal with a global pandemic is to get fair shares across the world now, that’s the right thing to do. “I’m really hopeful that world leaders in the coming weeks will realise that to have a few countries vaccinating a lot of people and poorer countries have very limited vaccines is not really the way to go ahead economically, socially, environmentally and indeed morally.” Nabarro said the UK having 400 million doses of vaccine on order was “totally understandable” but that once all over-50s in the UK have been inoculated it should consider sharing vaccines with poorer countries through the WHO’s Covax scheme. “At the moment politicians believe that their primary duty is to make sure they get vaccines to perhaps everybody in their countries,” he said. “We think citizens can perhaps talk to their politicians and say ‘wait a minute, we’re actually part of the world, we think the first priority is to make sure everybody in the world gets what they need’.” He said 100 countries have signed up to the WHO’s vaccine-sharing Covax scheme, adding they are “ready to receive vaccines” and there is money available to buy doses. He added: “Do we want to be remembered as a world where those who had the cash could afford to vaccinate their whole populations and countries that didn’t have the cash had to cope with a possibly quite dramatically increasing death rate among their health workers? I don’t think so.” Nick Note: Their are 2 problems with PC…. The first its usually not true and in  a pandemic it can kill you dead.

The United Nations has predicted that the economic fallout from the worldwide coronavirus outbreak may end up killing more people than the actual disease itself. The virus’ outbreak has decimated the world economy and threatens the lives of millions around the globe who had been emerging from poverty. Economists forecast a global recession that will result in up to 420 million people plunging into extreme poverty, or making less than $2 a day. The U.S. has seen its unemployment levels reach levels not seen since the Great Depression while vulnerable poorer countries consider the virus’ impact on those already impoverished. “I feel like we’re watching a slow-motion train wreck as it moves through the world’s most fragile countries,” Nancy Lindborg, the president of the nonprofit U.S. Institute of Peace, said, according to the paper. The head of the International Labour Organization (ILO) said  with lost working hours higher than originally forecast, and equivalent to 495 million full-time jobs globally in the second quarter of the year.  The bleak news from ILO Director-General Guy Ryder coincided with an updated mid-year forecast from the UN body. Lower and middle-income countries have suffered most, with an estimated 23.3 per cent drop in working hours – equivalent to 240 million jobs – in the second quarter.  Previously, the ILO had suggested a 14 per cent average drop in global working time, equivalent to the loss of 400 million jobs, relative to the fourth quarter of 2019.  Workers in developing nations had also seen their income drop more than 15 per cent, ILO Director-General Guy Ryder told journalists in Geneva.  “On top of this, these are the places where there are the weakest social protection systems, so there are very few resources or protections for working people to fall back upon”, he said. “If you look at it regionally, the Americas were worst-affected, with losses of 12.1 per cent.”  Mr. Ryder highlighted that while the Governments of richer countries had shored up their economies with hundreds of billions of dollars, poorer nations had been unable to do the same.  Without such fiscal stimulus, working hours losses would have been 28 per cent between April and June, instead of 17.3 per cent, he insisted.  State financial support has led to the emergence of an extremely worrying “fiscal stimulus gap” between wealthy economies and the developing world, amounting to $982 billion, Mr. Ryder warned. “It runs a risk of leading us to post-COVID world with greater inequalities between regions, countries, sectors and social groups,” he said. “It’s a polar opposite to the better world that we want to build back, and it reminds us all, that unless we are all able to overcome and get out of this pandemic, none of us will.” Although the $982 billion global stimulus package was a staggering sum, the ILO Director-General noted that low-income countries needed a fraction of this figure – $45 billion – to support workers in the same way as wealthier nations had done, while lower-middle-income countries required the remaining $937 billion. To protect workers and economies everywhere, Mr. Ryder warned against any premature loosening of support for health measures aimed at combating the pandemic, in view of increasing infection rates in many countries. Nick Note: This plague is far from being bought under control. I still maintain we will bump along the bottom at best for another year.

YOU WILL SEE WAVES OF ATTEMPTED RE OPENINGS FLOWED BY REEMERGING INFECTIONS AND LOCKDOWNS AGAIN!

https://youtu.be/3lqCAEYe91k

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate acquitted Donald Trump on Saturday of inciting the mob that stormed the Capitol last month, sparing him from conviction in his second impeachment trial in a year despite broad condemnation of his role in sparking the deadly siege. The Senate voted 57-43 in favor of convicting the former president, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed to do so, on a charge that he incited the insurrection that left five people dead, forced lawmakers to flee, and put his own vice president in danger while overseeing the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election win. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who voted “not guilty,” in the trial, offered scathing remarks about Trump after the verdict.

By Brenda Goh

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China refused to give raw data on early COVID-19 cases to a World Health Organization-led team probing the origins of the pandemic, one of the team’s investigators said, potentially complicating efforts to understand how the outbreak began. The team had requested raw patient data on 174 cases that China had identified from the early phase of the outbreak in the city of Wuhan in December 2019, as well as other cases, but were only provided with a summary, said Dominic Dwyer, an Australian infectious diseases expert who is a member of the team. Such raw data is known as “line listings”, he said, and would typically be anonymised but contain details such as what questions were asked of individual patients, their responses and how their responses were analysed. “That’s standard practice for an outbreak investigation,” he told Reuters on Saturday via video call from Sydney, where hed is currently undergoing quarantine. He said that gaining access to the raw data was especially important since only half of the 174 cases had exposure to the Huanan market, the now-shuttered wholesale seafood centre in Wuhan where the virus was initially detected. Nick Note: as we reported in great detail this plague was hatched out of the Wuhan bio level 5 research facility. THe only thing not for certain is this question. Was it a deliberate release or accidental. I can tell you once the virus was in the wild the Chinese government paid for trips to foreign cities of infected hordes. WHY? The Chinese economy is fully recovered and growing like gang busters. At the same time the US and Europe are still devastated.

 

 

Billionaire real estate investor   the markets are disconnected from reality and some deals involving special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, remind him of the speculation in internet companies during the 1990s dot-com bubble. Zell said he believes SPACs do offer positive benefits for investors who buy in at the creation of the so-called blank-check companies. However, the founder of Equity Group Investments said he’s worried about the fundamental business prospects for some companies that go public via a SPAC. “If done well, it’s a very effective transaction. It’s one of the few times where the quote-unquote buyer has enormous power,” Zell said. “In other words, if you’re a buyer of an IPO SPAC, the worst thing that can happen is you get your money back in the cost to carry. The best thing that can happen is they make a very attractive deal and then you have a decision to make as to whether you want to play or not.” But in some cases, Zell said, the SPAC’s target company is not that attractive. He did not mention any names. “In this speculative environment we’re talking, you’ve had a number of these SPACs done with making money going to the moon and I saw one the other day on electric charging stations” where the company did not project positive cash flow for years, Zell said. “This is rampant speculation again, very much like the dot-com boom.” Investor enthusiasm for highly speculative internet stocks helped push the tech-heavy Nasdaq up more than 500% from 1995 until the bubble burst in March 2000. Zell, who started Equity Group Investments more than 50 years ago, launched his own SPAC called Equity Distribution Acquisition Corp., which is described as “targeting opportunities to apply technological advancement within the industrial industry.” EGI’s portfolio over the years also branched out from real estate to industries including health care, logistics, manufacturing, transportation and media. Zell also chairs five NYSE-listed firms, including three real estate investment trusts.

Zell said his concern about action in the stock market extends to other recent developments, including the Reddit-fueled short squeeze in GameStop shares.

Retail traders piled into the heavily bet-against stock, prompting hedge funds and other bearish investors to try to minimize their losses by buying up shares at their current higher prices. Both groups of people buying GameStop’s stock helped cause a meteoric rise, with shares gaining 400% in a single week in late January. The video-game retailer’s stock has plunged in February, ending Monday’s session at $60 per share. That’s down from its Jan. 28 intraday high of $483 apiece. In August, GameStop traded below $5.

“There’s no reality attached to that, and so it’s just pure speculation,” Zell said. “I think this is very negative for the stock market. It’s very negative for the capital-raising markets. It’s just creating and perpetuating just an incredible sense of disbelief and ‘can you top this?’”

The headline-grabbing GameStop saga turned parts of the U.S. equity market into a game of musical chairs, Zell said, in which “everybody knows there’s going to be one less chair when the music stops and 18-year-old mavens are betting they can get out before somebody else gets out. Nick Note: This is/will be some really tricky kick ass trading. Thats were the mega bucks are made. I see a rocket launch coming… Then a  blow up like has never been seen before.. timing and guessing lucky is everything. Maybe we can do it maybe not… It sure as hell is worth giving it a go! As in millions