(Dec 24): Wall Street’s main indexes posted solid gains for a third straight session on Thursday, with the S&P 500 marking a record-high close, as encouraging developments gave investors more ease about the economic impact of the Omicron coronavirus variant. Stocks ended the holiday-shortened week on a positive note, lifting sentiment heading into Christmas. Gains were broad among S&P 500 sectors, led by consumer discretionary and industrials, which both rose about 1.2%. Vaccine makers AstraZeneca Plc and Novavax Inc said their shots protected against Omicron as UK data suggested it may cause proportionally fewer hospital cases than the Delta variant, though public health experts warned the battle against COVID-19 was far from over. The arrival of Omicron has helped ratchet up market volatility for much of the last month of 2021, which has been a strong year for equities. “There was a lot of negative sentiment coming into the final part of the year, and investors have likely continued to see pretty strong economic growth and pretty positive developments as it relates to healthcare innovation around COVID and that is putting in a bit of a bid into equities and causing investors to look to allocate capital as they close out the year,” said Matthew Miskin, co-chief investment strategist at John Hancock Investment Management. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 196.67 points, or 0.55%, to 35,950.56, the S&P 500 gained 29.23 points, or 0.62%, to 4,725.79 and the Nasdaq Composite added 131.48 points, or 0.85%, to 15,653.37. Defensive sectors, which have mostly outperformed in December, generally lagged on Thursday. The real estate sector fell 0.4%. The S&P 500 has gained for three days, after falling in the three prior sessions. “People are seeing the strength on Tuesday and Wednesday and all of a sudden everybody is more optimistic again,” said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth Management. For the week, the S&P 500 rose 2.3%, the Dow gained about 1.7% and the Nasdaq climbed 3.2%. Trading volumes were expected to be thinner than usual ahead of the Christmas and New Year holidays. The stock market will be closed on Friday in observance of the Christmas holiday. The S&P 500 is up about 26% so far this year. Still, the environment for equities could be changing heading into next year as the Federal Reserve is expected to begin raising interest rates in 2022. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 2.40-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.22-to-1 ratio favored advancers. The S&P 500 posted 35 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 62 new highs and 80 new lows. About 8 billion shares changed hands in U.S. exchanges, compared with the 11.8 billion daily average over the last 20 sessions. NN: The markets are ignoring the Omicron mutant hyper spread. But the real 2 ton guerilla is the fact that the Fed has let the inflation genie out of the bottle. The only way to reverse this crises is to drive interest rates high enough to throw the economy into a deep dark recession. Raising rates by at least 400 bases points nest year. This action will crash the stock, bond and real estate market into what will be a crash!
United, Delta cancel more than 200 U.S. Christmas Eve flights amid COVID surge
(Reuters) – United Airlines and Delta Air Lines on Thursday said they had each canceled dozens of Christmas Eve flights, as the spreading COVID-19 Omicron variant takes a toll on its flight crews and other workers. Chicago-based United canceled 120 flights for Friday, while Atlanta-based Delta said it has canceled about 90. Both said they were working to contact passengers so they would not be stranded at airports. “The nationwide spike in Omicron cases this week has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operation. As a result, we’ve unfortunately had to cancel some flights and are notifying impacted customers in advance of them coming to the airport,” United said. Delta said it has “exhausted all options and resources — including rerouting and substitutions of aircraft and crews to cover scheduled flying — before canceling around 90 flights for Friday.” Delta cited potential inclement weather and the impact of the Omicron variant for the cancellations. On Tuesday, Delta Chief Executive Ed Bastian asked the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to shrink quarantine guidelines for fully vaccinated individuals who experience breakthrough COVID-19 infections, citing the impact on the carrier’s workforce. Bastian asked that the isolation period be cut to five days from the current 10. That request was echoed both by Airlines for America, a trade group representing major cargo and passenger carriers, which wrote to the CDC on Thursday, and by JetBlue on Wednesday. The CDC released updated quarantine guidance for healthcare workers on Thursday, cutting the isolation time to seven days for workers who test positive for COVID-19 but are asymptomatic, providing they test negative. NN: As i have been telling you the sold out politicians are not going to lock her down… Its OK as you are seeing the shut downs have started..
France adds record 91,608 COVID infections….. Britain reported more than 100,000 cases for a second straight day
(Bloomberg) — French Covid-19 infections hit a record as the spread of the more easily transmissible omicron variant gathered pace across much of Europe. New daily cases totaled 91,608 in France on Thursday, public health office data show. That surpassed the previous high of almost 87,000 from November of last year. Health Minister Olivier Veran said earlier this week that the omicron strain will become dominant in France during the period between Christmas and New Year’s, and that infections will likely reach 100,000 a day by the end of December. On Thursday, he said the threshold will probably be crossed closer to Dec. 25 than Dec. 31, BFM TV reported. French authorities are watching trends in the U.K., which has 10 to 14 days lead time in terms of progression of omicron over France, Veran said this week.
Britain reported more than 100,000 cases for a second straight day on Thursday.
Before this month, the U.K. had never registered more than 70,000 cases in a day. Italy on Thursday also reported a record high number of cases. Early studies out of South Africa, Scotland and England show the highly mutated omicron variant appears less likely to land patients in the hospital than previous strains. The findings raise hopes there will be fewer cases of severe disease, yet omicron’s greater infectiousness means it could still severely strain health services. France’s hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions have been rising, but not as quickly as cases, and remain well below previous pandemic peaks. NN: You need to hunker down…..
Biden Omicron measures too little, too late for fast-moving virus -experts
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden’s steps to backstop hospitals and distribute coronavirus test kits, however welcome, are too little too late to stem a surge of Omicron-related coronavirus cases over Christmas and New Year’s, health experts said. A day after Biden outlined plans to distribute 500 million at-home coronavirus test kits, Anne Rimoin, a UCLA professor of epidemiology, praised his focus on testing, a “critical tool” that the United States was “woefully” behind on.
“Unfortunately, it’s late in coming and will be a small drop in the bucket compared to the tsunami of cases on the horizon.”
The tests promised by the White House starting in January equate to just 1 or 2 per U.S. resident. Households need far more to make daily decisions about exposure, Rimoin said. “We need those tests now,” she said. U.S. testing is behind the curve because of a lack of skilled workers, a shortage of at-home tests and under-investment in recent months, according to interviews with more than a dozen officials, health providers and testmakers. Biden, a Democrat who took office in January, campaigned on a promise to take control of the pandemic, which his predecessor, Republican President Donald Trump, played down as hundreds of thousands died. He has focused largely on persuading Americans to get vaccinated, amid pushback from many Republican leaders who reject vaccine and masking rules and an anti-vaccination movement fueled by conspiracy theories on social media. The U.S. recently passed 800,000 deaths , the most in the world, and its vaccination rate lags most rich nations. Biden’s latest measures, including new pop-up vaccination clinics run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and federal testing sites in the hot spot of New York City and elsewhere, were welcomed by health experts and local politicians. Biden said some 1,000 military doctors, nurses and medics had been deployed to support hospitals. He stressed the unvaccinated carried the bulk of the burden of health risks. Asked about the tests shortage in an interview broadcast on ABC late on Wednesday, the president said, “No, nothing’s been good enough,” adding, “I wish I had thought about ordering” 500 million at-home tests “two months ago.” State and local leaders in New York, where Omicron is surging, said they supported Biden’s approach. But other academics criticized Biden for reassuring Americans that schools and businesses could remain open and that the vaccinated could safely gather without emphasizing the risks they face if they fail to get a booster shot.
Breakthrough Omicron infections are rising among the 61% of the country’s fully vaccinated population; only 30% have gotten booster shots said to provide more protection.
“He kept reiterating, ‘vaccines work, vaccines work,’ like a mantra, a talisman,” tweeted Gregg Gonsalves, a Yale University professor of epidemiology, adding Biden should have made clear a booster shot was key to protecting against the Omicron variant. He said Biden should have made masks a more integral part of the response. “And on masks? Bupkis. Get people N95s and other better masks,” he wrote. “This sounded like an administration caught flat-footed, running to play catch-up.” “There’s a tidal wave of infection coming, and I would have liked to see the president emphasize that all of us – whether vaccinated or boosted or unvaccinated – can do more to minimize transmission risks,” said Joshua Salomon, a Stanford University professor of health policy. The World Health Organization urged people to cancel holiday gatherings, saying they would result in “overwhelmed health systems and more deaths.” Instead the White House said on Tuesday it was following CDC guidance https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/holidays/celebrations.html, which includes recommending masks in indoor public settings and self-testing before gatherings with another household. “They’re going to the path of least resistance now. They know people are tired, people are fed up. They know that any talk of any harsher measures … will get met by vociferous pushback from the Republicans,” Gonsalves said. While that decision may have averted further political backlash, some saw it as a lost opportunity, including Harvard Professor Bill Hanage, who said he understood why lockdowns were unpalatable but described curbing activities as a useful tool. “It takes time to send rapid tests out,” he said.
“People can choose right now to not go to the holiday party because they want to see Grandma on Christmas Day,” Hanage said.
Some U.S. cities, states and businesses have wasted no time in imposing fresh mask and vaccine mandates or cancelling events, often going far beyond White House recommendations. NN: they should have started all this BEFORE flue season back in August.. Now its to late!
Britain reports record 119,789 new COVID-19 case
NN: of course they have not arrived at the hospitals yet. Its 2x2x2. Two weeks from testing positive to the emergency room. Two weeks on the ventilater and two weeks before they report it. People are spending a average of 8 weeks on the ventilater before they recover or die. In other words it too early to claim the Omicron is less deadlier
Happy Holidays Everyone
Burl Ives was a long time subscriber he did very well for himself.. I always think of him this time of year. Tomorrow markets are closed. We will be posting stories all weekend and the party begins again Monday. Please isolate the best you can. And it looks like we will have a very nice surprise for you in the begging of the new year. Be will my friend….
Risk-on rally resumes as Omicron fears recede
* European, Asian shares gain on Omicron severity data
* Safe-haven bonds less favoured
* U.S. consumer confidence grows
By Alun John and Lawrence White
HONG KONG/LONDON, Dec 23 (Reuters) – Global shares extended a recent rally on Thursday while safe-haven bonds and currencies eased as markets welcomed signs that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 might be less severe than feared, as well as robust U.S. economic data. The STOXX index of Europe’s 600 largest shares rose 0.3%, following earlier gains in Asia. Japan’s Nikkei gained 0.57% and MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.8%. It put stock markets on course for a third successive day of gains as they recovered from a jolt on Monday when worries about the new coronavirus variant pushed investors to safe-haven assets like the greenback. “The recent health data from the UK and other places around the world indicate that the worst case is unlikely: even though (Omicron) transmission rates are reportedly higher, this variant seems less virulent and less prone to cause serious illnesses or death,” said David Chao, global market strategist Asia Pacific at Invesco. The risk of needing to stay in hospital for patients with the Omicron variant of COVID-19 is 40-45% lower than for patients with the Delta variant, according to research by London’s Imperial College published on Wednesday. European government bond yields continued to tick up as the trickle of risk sentiment flowing back into the market reduced the need for safe-haven debt. Germany’s 10-year Bund yields hit -0.284%, their highest since late November. NN: A price will be paid for the markets not taking the Omicron variant seriously.
Hospitals have run out of the only antibody treatment that works against people infected by the Omicron mutation
Strained hospitals bracing for a COVID-19 surge caused by the quickly spreading Omicron variant could face another grim possibility: preliminary experiments suggest that most of the antibody treatments for the disease are powerless against Omicron1,2,3,4. Doctors use artificial versions of natural antibodies to stave off severe COVID-19 in high-risk people who are infected with the coronavirus. But a slew of publications posted on preprint servers report laboratory evidence that Omicron is totally or partially resistant to all currently available treatments based on these monoclonal antibodies. The publications have not yet been peer reviewed, but some of the companies that manufacture antibody therapies already concede that their products have lower potency against Omicron than against other variants. The preprints report that only two antibodies show strong evidence of retaining some ability to thwart the variant: sotrovimab, developed by Vir Biotechnology in San Francisco, California, and GSK, headquartered in London; and DXP-604, which is undergoing clinical trials in China and was developed by BeiGene and Singlomics, both based in Beijing.
These findings are already affecting health-care policy. US health officials have said they will ration sotrovimab, allotting it to states on the basis of numbers of infections and hospitalizations and the prevalence of Omicron.
But many countries either can’t meet the impending demand for sotrovimab or can’t access it at all, which will increase the burden for an “already stressed health-care system”, says Rajesh Gandhi, an infectious-disease physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Some monoclonal-antibody treatments for COVID-19 consist of a single antibody; others of a cocktail of several. The details differ, but all of the monoclonal antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 bind to the virus’s spike protein, preventing the virus from infecting human cells. The treatments reduce the risk of severe COVID-19 by up to 85%. But when virologists saw that Omicron has a multitude of mutations concentrated on its spike protein, they feared what it would mean for these treatments. The outcome was even worse than they anticipated, says Olivier Schwartz, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and a co-author of one of the preprints3. “We didn’t expect to see such a shift in the antibodies’ effectiveness,” he says.To test the treatments’ powers against Omicron, researchers combined either live SARS-CoV-2 or artificial ‘pseudoviruses’ that have traits of the actual pathogen with varying concentrations of each antibody treatment. They then pitted the antibody–virus combination against cells that express ACE2, the receptor that the virus uses to gain entry to human cells. Researchers then identified the concentration of each treatment that would cut viral replication in half, as measured by the number of infected cells. Most of the drugs couldn’t reach that threshold, even at an extremely high concentration. The antibodies made by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in Tarrytown, New York, for example, “have diminished potency against Omicron”, the company conceded in a 16 December statement.
Sotrovimab is the best of the lot. Even so, the concentration required to halve viral replication was roughly three times higher for Omicron than for other coronavirus variants.
Although sotrovimab’s drop in potency against the new variant is significant, says Stuart Turville, a virologist at the Kirby Institute in Sydney, Australia, and a co-author of one of the preprints2, “it’s nothing like what we saw for the others”. That might be because sotrovimab targets a part of the spike protein that is unchanged across many related coronaviruses. Some of the studies found that two antibodies developed by AstraZeneca in Cambridge, UK, retained some neutralization power — although it was significantly diminished2,3,4. Schwartz adds that it’s important to complement the neutralization data with actual clinical data to confirm the findings. Scientists are racing to determine exactly how severe Omicron infections are, compared with infections caused by other variants, such as Delta.
But if the antibody arsenal is wiped out, physicians will be without a key tool to prevent severe disease. “If Omicron bites hard, it’ll be a recipe for disaster,” says Turville.
Gandhi says that this calls for an expedited review and production of oral antiviral drugs such as Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir and ritonavir) and molnupiravir, which are expected to be effective against Omicron because of their mechanism of action, and which are cheaper than antibody treatments. Paxlovid manufacturer Pfizer, based in New York City, reported on 14 December that the antiviral was 89% effective at preventing hospitalization and death in high-risk patients ( of the delta mutation) when administered soon after symptoms began. Another challenge will be to discern whether an individual is infected with Delta or Omicron, says Gandhi, because that will determine which treatments are most likely to be effective. Ideally, physicians would have access to a quick test to identify the variant. But without such a tool, he says, they will have to rely on Omicron’s prevalence in their local community to make that decision. NN: monoclonal-antibody treatments are only effects in the first few days are effective. They are what saved Trump. The problem is the only working monoclonal-antibody treatments is sotrovimab and their is none to be had…… By the way Ivermectin still works… You better stock up.
Why won’t Florida,CDC release states breakthrough COVID cases data
For more than two months, the Tampa Bay Times and other news organizations have been asking Florida for data that breaks down how many vaccinated people have been infected, hospitalized or died of COVID-19. They are called “breakthrough” cases, data that would show how effectively the vaccine has protected Floridians — and how vulnerable the unvaccinated are.
But the Florida Department of Health has continually refused those requests, citing what public health and legal experts say are misplaced privacy concerns.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also refuses to release that data, deferring to the state on whether to share it publicly. It’s information Florida residents and researchers have repeatedly asked for. Now it’s crucial to determine how vulnerable Floridians are to omicron, the highly contagious variant that quickly became the dominant strain in the U.S. “It’s the number one thing that people ask me for,” said University of South Florida epidemiologist Jason Salemi. That data may be more important than ever, he said, because it’s “especially pertinent to how omicron may or may not spread.” Breakthrough cases demonstrate how effective vaccines are and can also show how that protection changes over time. Immunity from initial vaccinations wanes 3 to 6 months later, health experts say, so boosters are crucial to fighting off the new variant. Nearly 2.6 million Floridians have contracted the coronavirus since the first vaccine was approved in December 2020, and nearly 42,000 have died from COVID-19 since then. But there is no public data that shows how many were unvaccinated. Nor is there public data that shows how many vaccinated people got breakthrough infections, and whether they had the added protection of booster shots. For example, if Florida released breakthrough data, then we would know how many of the state’s 29,568 new COVID-19 infections — a 118 percent jump from the previous week’s caseload — and 194 new deaths reported Friday were vaccinated or unvaccinated. While Florida won’t release breakthrough data, officials did reveal what some of that data shows: About 30 percent of Florida’s new COVID-19 cases found over a 30-day period were breakthrough infections in people who were vaccinated — but hadn’t received a booster shot — according to a Dec. 19 article in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Salemi said that single data point doesn’t provide much insight: “One of the most common questions I receive is the extent to which receiving a full series of a COVID-19 vaccine is protecting me from infection, symptomatic illness and hospitalization. “To really answer these questions, it would be valuable to have key COVID-19 metrics reported frequently and stratified by vaccination status and prior infection status.” NN: As reported in yesterdays Radio Free Wall Street researchers are threatened constantly. Their is a organized government conspiracy to under report the severity of the Omicron mutant strain. The truth is if your last vaccine is 4 months or more old you have a great chance of getting infected and also getting severely ill. And only one monoclonal anti body works against the Omicron mutation Sotrovimab. And for the punch line hospitals have run out…. You have been warned…..
Wall Street rises on rosy economic data, encouraging Omicron update
A trader in a face mask works on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as the Omicron coronavirus variant continues to spread in Manhattan, New York City, U.S.,
Dec 22 (Reuters) – Wall Street’s main indexes climbed on Wednesday in a broad rally after upbeat economic data and hopeful developments about the severity of the Omicron coronavirus variant that is sweeping the world. Stocks gained for a second straight session as volatility has ratcheted up in the last month of 2021 following the arrival of Omicron and an otherwise strong year for equities. A South African study suggested reduced risks of hospitalization and severe disease in people infected with the Omicron variant versus the Delta one, but World Health Organization officials cautioned that it was too soon to draw firm conclusions. “We are still struggling for direction in the face of the Omicron outbreak, but in the past few days … more and more evidence is building that the strain is potentially less severe than prior strains, specifically Delta, which bodes well for economic momentum in 2022,” said Mike Stritch, chief investment officer at BMO Wealth Management. According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 (.SPX) gained 47.50 points, or 1.02%, to end at 4,696.73 points, while the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) gained 180.81 points, or 1.18%, to 15,521.89. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) rose 262.58 points, or 0.74%, to 35,755.28. Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) shares rose, boosting the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said in an interview he has sold “enough stock” following several weeks of share sales by the billionaire. U.S. consumer confidence improved further in December, suggesting the economy would continue to expand in 2022. The survey from the Conference Board showed more consumers planned to buy a house and big-ticket items such as motor vehicles and major household appliances as well as go on vacation over the next six months. Other reports showed U.S. home sales increased for a third straight month in November, and that gross domestic product increased at a 2.3% annualized rate in the July-September quarter, revised up from the 2.1% rate estimated last month. In another encouraging development against the pandemic, the U.S. authorized Pfizer Inc’s (PFE.N) oral antiviral COVID-19 pill for at-risk people aged 12 and above, making it the first at-home treatment for the coronavirus. The benchmark S&P 500 is now up about 24.5% so far in 2021.