Today's topics include fire up the printing press, corporate issuance, talking technicals, dealing with volatility, salary reductions, money market funds deal with the potential of negative rates, defining black swans, stock market seasonality, banks stocks, and driving season off to a slow start.
Excess deaths over modeling during the COVID-19 pandemic shows more than 300,000 "extra" deaths than predicted. This is 3x the official COVID-19 death count of 100,000.
With 95% of Q1 2020 earnings now reported, earnings are expected to decline 17% compared to a year ago. Q2 2020 is expected to be one of the worst quarters ever, down 43% with estimates still falling. The S&P 500 forward P/E ratio continues to extend higher from a 19-year extreme. Small-cap stocks are more overvalued than any time on record.
Today's topics include yield curve control, searching for a V-shaped recovery, using flows data in trading, crude oil's breakeven, mortgage credit, the yuan fix, moving averages, and companies trade in commercial paper for longer-term debt.
Data from the options market further supports the case that the retail crowd should be taken very seriously.
Today's topics include Illinois to get bailed out by the Fed?, financials struggle, the economics of the restart, crude oil's roll yield, the Fed's foreign swaps lines, the next stage of the PPP, real estate, Japanification, China ditches its growth target, and another fat finger error for claims data.
The presidential election, which is now less than 6 months away, is being considered a coin-toss by bettors. We would argue this is correct because the election will be determined by events that have yet to happen or be judged, mainly the re-opening of the economy. The congressional elections are trending toward the Democrats. The Senate was a solid Republican hold, but is now a coin-toss.
Today's topics include a note on unemployment claims, active managers' performance during coronavirus, the first 20-year auction since 1986, the potential hit to banks from negative rates, computers vs. trading pits, the FOMC minutes and yield curve control, another survey on the damage to U.S. households, what goes up must come down and vice versa, and Blackrock's government role.