Written by Gary
US equities drop as coronavirus fears and business activity data weigh on traders (SPY -1.0%). The yield on the 30-year US Treasury bond fell to an all-time low.
North America Rotary Rig Count (Jan 2000 – Current)
The Market in Perspective
| Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
 | U.S. watchdog proposes national standard for disclosing expired debtThe U.S. consumer watchdog on Friday proposed establishing a national standard for how debt collectors must inform borrowers when they cannot be sued for expired debt. |
| Wall Street drops as coronavirus fears, business activity data weighU.S. stocks sold off on Friday as a spike in new coronavirus cases in China and other countries and as data showing U.S. business activity stalled in February fueled investors’ fears about the economy. |
| Inside the Philip Morris campaign to ‘normalize’ a tobacco deviceAt Germany’s Bambi Awards for the media industry in November, celebrities posed for red-carpet photos against a backdrop of established luxury brands. Alongside the likes of Mercedes-Benz and Swiss watchmaker Chopard was a newer name: IQOS, a “reduced risk” heated-tobacco device sold by cigarette maker Philip Morris International Inc. |
| Stocks slide as coronavirus fears spur safe-haven buyingGlobal equity markets slumped on Friday as the fast-spreading coronavirus drove investors into safe havens, with gold hitting a fresh seven-year high and the yield on the 30-year U.S. Treasury bond sliding to an all-time low. |
| In next downturn, Fed may opt for quick, strong actionIn the next economic downturn, the Federal Reserve and other central banks may need to roll out their big guns sooner and add new bazookas to their recession-fighting arsenals, or risk getting mired in growth-sapping deflation or worse. |
| Deere’s shares hit all-time high on unexpected rise in quarterly profitDeere & Co’s shares hit an all-time high on Friday after the company reported an unexpected increase in first-quarter profit, but the world’s largest farm equipment maker warned the outbreak of coronavirus would hit sales and earnings in the second quarter. |
| Oil slides 1% on renewed fears over toll from coronavirusOil prices fell about 1% on Friday on renewed concerns about crude demand being pinched by the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak, while OPEC and allied producers appeared to be in no rush to curb output. |
| Branson says new Virgin cruise line will overcome coronavirus fearsBritish entrepreneur Richard Branson heralded his first cruise ship “Scarlet Lady” on Friday as targeting a younger generation of holidaymakers with a range of attractions that he believes will outweigh any fears around coronavirus. |
| UniCredit may make announcement soon on CEO Mustier’s future: sourcesItaly’s biggest bank UniCredit may make an announcement as early as Friday night on the future of boss Jean Pierre Mustier, two sources familiar with the matter said, after reports he is vying for the top job at rival HSBC . |
| Schizophrenic Stocks End Near Record Highs As Virus Fears Send Yields To All-Time LowsSchizophrenic Stocks End Near Record Highs As Virus Fears Send Yields To All-Time Lows Yeah, that just happened… Stocks hover near record highs, bonds crash to all-time lows, and gold is exploding higher… |
| Fed’s Bullard Fumbles After Being Asked “How A Quarter-Point Rate-Cut Will Cure The Flu?”Fed’s Bullard Fumbles After Being Asked “How A Quarter-Point Rate-Cut Will Cure The Flu?” St. Louis Fed President Jim Bullard was guest host on CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning. Soon after sitting down, the indomitable Steve Liesman stunned everyone in the room when he dared to ask the all-knowing Bullard a simple question:
Bullard’s reaction was priceless… |
| These Are The 50 Most Popular Hedge Fund Longs And ShortsThese Are The 50 Most Popular Hedge Fund Longs And Shorts In what has started off as another woeful quarter for hedge funds, with equity hedge funds generating the worst YTD return of all asset classes tracked by Goldman – at 0% – and the composite Hedge Fund Index returning just 1%, ostensibly due to squeezed short books which have caused some major pain in the past 6 weeks… |
| China Forced To Revise Number Of Virus Cases Sharply Higher After Hubei Caught Undercounting New InfectionsChina Forced To Revise Number Of Virus Cases Sharply Higher After Hubei Caught Undercounting New Infections China’s desperate attempts to manipulate coronavirus “data” lower to ease public fears about a runaway pandemic and get more people back to work, are crossing into the outright laughable, if not surreal. As a reminder, earlier this week, China’s Hubei province where the quarantined epicenter of the covid-19 epidemic, Wuhan, is located, once again changed the definition of a coronavirus “infection” in pursuit of a lower number of new cases by defining a case as “confirmed” if it stems from a positive result in a nucleic acid test, not if it was clinically diagnosed by physicians, a reversal of the definition change it adopted just a week earlier which resulted in the biggest daily increase yet, when nearly 15,000 new cases were reported. Sure enough, this led to a plunge in new cases, with Hubei reporting just 411 new cases on Thursday and 349 new cases on Friday, sharply lower from the 1,000+ cases reported on previous days. There is just one problem: at the same time as Hubei was priding itself in its sharp drop off in “confirmed” cases (carefully ‘doctored’ definition of new cases notwithstanding), a new breakout was been observed in the local Hubei prison system. And, problematically, for the brand new leadership of the Hubei Health Commission, it appeared that none of these cases were actually accounted for in the official province-level data. Oops. So what does Hubei do? Well, late on Friday the province which has now lost all credibili … |
| Breather for Voda Idea, DoT clears Bharti Infratel-Indus dealBreather for Voda Idea, DoT clears Bharti Infratel-Indus dealDoT nod offers a much-needed avenue for Vodafone Idea to raise funds to clear a portion of its massive AGR dues. |
| How to position India as alternative to ChinaHow to position India as alternative to ChinaIn an evolving India-US ties, there’s an increased chance of American firms upping their presence in India. |
| Has China gone too far to fight coronavirus?Has China gone too far to fight coronavirus?While China must stop the outbreak, economists say, some of its methods are hurting livelihoods of people. |
| Documentary Of The Week: The Insider Trading Scandal That Nearly Destroyed Wall StreetWritten by John Lounsbury This week President Trump pardoned Michael Milken who was a major wall street player convicted of fraud for activities on Wall Street during the 1980s. Milken is euphemistically known as the “junk bond king”.
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| Bond Report: 30-year Treasury bond yield breaks to all-time low as coronavirus fears lift havensU.S. Treasury yields extend their weeklong slump on Friday as investors worry that the economic impact of COVID-19 would not be contained to China. |
| Will the shows go on? Coronavirus, MWC cancellation hang over tech conferencesThe abandonment of a show as big as Mobile World Congress stings economically for the host city, mobile industry and entrepreneurs from across the globe who attend in hopes of doing deals. And it could just be the beginning. |
| Trump Today: Trump suggests more aid for farmers until trade deals ‘fully kick in’President Donald Trump on Friday said he’d give more aid to U.S. farmers if they need it, as they wait for recently completed trade deals to take effect. |
Summary of Economic Releases this Week
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