US Economic Health Check -- Long live The Stonks!

reedak

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May 1, 2014
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Part 1

1. On this particular Friday in May, we learned that the United States hemorrhaged more than 20 million jobs in the month of April. That's pretty much a minimum number. Many economists seem to think even more people lost their livelihoods. The unemployment rate is now 14.7 percent. Others have had hours or salaries cut. Folks got their onetime $1,200 stimulus checks, and there are temporarily boosted unemployment benefits, but there's no avoiding that the novel coronavirus epidemic, and the necessary lockdown it brought with it, have caused an economic cataclysm. People who were already living paycheck to paycheck working jobs that paid too little now aren't getting paid at all. Filing for—and receiving—unemployment is its own chaotic horror. Even if some or a majority of those jobs can be recovered, a big chunk won't be. And in the meantime, many people can't pay their rent. They can't afford anything beyond bare necessities. They're certainly not going to be breaking down the doors at restaurants anytime soon....

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up nearly 400 points this morning, or more than 1.5 percent. The S&P 500 was up a point and a half as well. The news that the state of employment in this country is at its worst since the Great Depression—the Great Recession of 2009 barely registers on the graph by comparison—has been met with no little positivity on Wall Street. Once again, it seems that because some forecasts predicted the numbers would be even worse, the fact that they are merely "Ultimate Cataclysm -1" is a boon to the market. In the end, it doesn't matter what's actually happening out there. It only matters how a small group of people in here feel about it, and what they believe is going to happen in the future, and whether they feel Congress and the Federal Reserve will keep looking out for them. Long live The Stonks…..

Source: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a32417197/20-million-unemployed-stock-market-goes-up/

2. After reaching dizzy heights in Trump's Dow rocket ship, let's return to check the facts on the ground: :)

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/is-t...ke-a-big-beautiful-rocket-ship-173416739.html

(a) 40 million Americans are at risk of eviction without a stimulus bill
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/07/economy/eviction-stimulus/index.html

(b) Jobless claims: Another 1.186 million Americans filed new unemployment claims last week
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jobl...yment-week-ended-august-1-2020-160514853.html

(c) US employment growth slowed considerably in July amid a resurgence in new COVID-19 infections, offering the clearest evidence yet that the economy's recovery from the recession caused by the pandemic was faltering.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/us-job-growth-slows-sharply-in-july/ar-BB17GPvo

(d) Job cuts rose 54% in July: Morning Brief
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chal...-percent-in-july-morning-brief-100254221.html

(e) News Corporation Posts 22% Decline in Q4 Revenue as COVID-19 Pandemic Hits Business; Target Price $10
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/news-corporation-posts-22-decline-071539659.html

(f) Global Insurer AIG Swings to Quarterly Loss on Substantial Losses Tied to Pandemic
https://www.wsj.com/articles/global...bstantial-losses-tied-to-pandemic-11596486068

(g) Retail bankruptcies are rising, here’s what it means for commercial real estate
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/08/...what-it-means-for-commercial-real-estate.html

(h) Goldman Sachs cuts quarterly earnings citing legal provisions
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/gol...earnings-citing-legal-provisions-2020-08-07-0

(i) US records over 2,000 deaths in 24 hours for first time since May as death toll surpasses 160,000 - and Dr Fauci warns there is 'trouble ahead' for cities like Boston, Chicago and Detroit if they don't act now to stop COVID-19 spread
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8604765/US-coronavirus-death-toll-surpasses-160-000.html

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

(j) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly 300,000 Americans could be dead from COVID-19 by Dec. 1, University of Washington health experts forecast on Thursday, although they said 70,000 lives could be saved if people were scrupulous about wearing masks.
https://www.usnews.com/news/top-new...ealth-experts-warn-us-cities-of-trouble-ahead
 
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