The good news is that new cases and new deaths in the US declined week to week. The bad news is that the decline in case numbers was miniscule, and there were big regional differences. The Northeast, which was by far the worst hit region, is showing improvement. The South is getting worse.
Rumor has it that China will say bye bye to the trade deal. Futures were down when that “news” hit the Twitter. Now they’re up.
Gold is consolidating. Here’s what to look for to signal that it’s something worse.
The trends for the nation as a whole looked good as of Sunday May, 10. 20,329 new cases were reported Sunday. That’s down from 27,348, the previous Sunday. 25,524 cases were reported Saturday, May 9, down from 29,744 the previous Saturday. But unfortunately, that’s not the whole story.
The BLS reported a seasonally adjusted 20.5 million jobs lost in April and stocks rallied on the news. Wall Street loves both death and unemployment apparently.
Stocks are selling off this morning but the trend still favors the bulls. Here are the parameters to watch that would confirm, or signal a change.
Macro liquidity has slowed slightly in recent weeks as the Fed has taken its foot off the accelerator. But it continues to grow at an historic pace. What does that mean for the short term and the long term.
Oh, wait.
There is no long term.
The BLS reported a seasonally adjusted 20.5 million jobs lost in April and stocks rallied on the news. Wall Street loves both death and unemployment apparently.
The more deaths, the more the market rallies. Yesterday’s US COVID 19 death toll was 2,528, the highest since April 21. The University of Washington model, which has been pretty accurate, now calls for 3,000 deaths a day in June as states reopen their economies.
Notice how the stock market correlates. Deaths have broken out. Will stocks follow?
The Fed has cut back its POMO purchases to an average of $8 billion per day of Treasuries and $6 billion of MBS this week. That’s down from $10 billion and $8 billion last week, and hundreds of billions in the peak of the panic in April.
The effects of that are beginning to show up in stock prices. Be prepared because here’s what happens next.