The Walt Disney Company has said it will stop paying nearly half of its workforce this week. Disney theme parks and hotels have been shut in Europe and the US for almost five weeks due to worldwide Covid-19 lockdowns. Scrapping payments for more than 100,000 of the so-called ‘cast members’ will help the company save […]
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Why Today’s 300% Oil Price Crash Isn’t As Bad As It Seems…
Oil price futures slipped into negative territory on Monday – a shocking oil-market first – making previous doom and gloom forecasts of OPEC’s too-little-too-late production cuts now seem like sober predictions rather than overzealous fearmongering. But are negative oil prices here to stay? WTI crude oil futures settled at -$37.63 per barrel on Monday, down […]
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Retirement Funds for Federal, Military Retirees May Soon Be Investing in China Defense Firms…
America’s top investment firms predict China is poised to overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy. U.S defense officials warn Beijing is seeking military supremacy in the Pacific rim. U.S. intelligence keeps highlighting Chinese efforts to steal U.S. trade secrets and intellectual property. And officials from President Trump on down accuse China of […]
Smithfield to Close More Pork Plants Amid Infection Fears…
Smithfield Foods, the world’s biggest pork processor, announced Wednesday it would close two U.S. plants that process bacon and ham over COVID-19 infection concerns. It comes after Smithfield, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chinese company WH Group, closed down a hog slaughterhouse in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, after dozens of workers daily were testing positive for […]
AG Secretary Sonny Perdue Discusses Challenges Shifting Food Supply Chains…
The U.S. economy will reopen sooner rather than later specifically because of non-discussed issues in the total U.S. food supply chain. While government officials have to be very careful in public comments, AG Secretary Sonny Perdue hinted toward the issue today during his remarks at the coronavirus task force briefing. The issue is slightly complex; […]
Best Buy Furloughing 51K Workers…
Best Buy will furlough about 51,000 hourly employees in the U.S. due to the coronavirus pandemic, the retailer announced Wednesday. The electronics retailer saw a drop in sales of approximately 5 percent in the first two months of the current fiscal quarter, below the national average slide of 8.7 percent in March, Reuters reported. Some […]
Weekly Unemployment Claims Increase Another 5.245 Million…
According to the Dept of Labor [pdf HERE] another 5.245 million more Americans filed first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week (April 11), bringing the total to just over 22 million since the Wuhan Virus layoffs began. The good news is initial claims were down 1.37 million from the prior week. The largest increases in […]
IRS: Get My Payment…
This application will give you information about: Your payment status; Your payment type; Whether we need more information from you, including bank account information…
Hunter Biden Still Listed As Board Member of Chinese Company He Pledged to Resign From in October, Business Records Show…
Hunter Biden received wall-to-wall media coverage and praise from his father, former Vice President Joe Biden, in October when he announced he would resign from the board of a Chinese private equity firm by the end of the month But six months after Hunter Biden pledged to relinquish his position with BHR Partners, no evidence […]
Hedge Fund Managers Claiming Bailouts as Small Businesses…
Free money. That’s the enticing prospect hedge funds and other trading firms are pondering after realizing they too might be able to participate in a historic U.S. stimulus package to keep small businesses alive through the coronavirus pandemic. Since early April, law firms have hosted Webinars and sent out alerts, and accounting firms have reached […]
The Fed Is Killing the Two Main Functions of Wall Street: Price Discovery and Prudent Capital Allocation…
On Thursday, knowing that a three-day Easter weekend was coming and the attention of the public would be elsewhere, the Federal Reserve announced that it would allow two of its emergency lending programs to begin buying junk bonds. Those are bonds with less than an investment-grade credit rating, meaning they have a greater likelihood of […]
‘Breadlines’ Erupt Across America As Lockdowns Crush America’s “Working Poor”…
The economy has crashed into a depression, 16.78 million Americans have applied for unemployment benefits, and consumer sentiment crashed the most on record. This American horror story has taken only three weeks to play out, the fastest and most severe economic crash in the country’s history, and still, we don’t know the true extent of […]
Trump Strikes Deal with Mexico to Help Cut Oil Production in OPEC+ Deal…
The United States is ready to help Mexico reach its production cut quota as part of the tentative OPEC+ deal, Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday, while the global pact to reduce production was in a kind of Mexican standoff early on Friday as Mexico was still balking at the large cuts […]
Trump Threatens “Very Substantial” Tariffs on Oil Imports…
Just in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past month and a half or you’re quarantining yourself from the news cycle as well as everything else, allow me to catch you up. We are currently in the midst of a historic oil price crash after crude prices fell more sharply on March […]
The Day the Fed Nationalized the Bond Market: The Complete Summary of Everything the Fed Did Today…
Two weeks after the Fed stunned markets by doing something not even Ben Bernanke dared to do, start buying investment grade corporate bonds, today the Fed’s nationalization of the entire bond market was complete when the Fed – with the blessing of the Treasury – threw the kitchen sink at the most vulnerable verticals of […]
Fed Chair Powell Tells Whoppers This Morning on the Brookings Institution Webcast…
The Fed’s advance men were all over the media today attempting to transform a sow’s ear into a silk purse (or, as they say on Wall Street, put lipstick on a pig). The Fed surprised the market today with the stunning announcement that it was going to start buying up junk bonds from the markets […]
Slash Oil Output or Else! Senate Bill Would Remove U.S. Troops from Saudi Arabia in 30 Days…
A new bill has been introduced in the Senate which if passed would punish Saudi Arabia over failure to cut oil production by removing all US troops from the kingdom within 30 days. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) introduced it after Louisiana and other states have been impacted by the ongoing OPEC+ crisis and price war […]
Stocks Surge on Fed’s $2.3 Trillion Stimulus…
U.S. equity markets rallied Thursday after the Federal Reserve’s plan to provide $2.3 trillion in lending to households and businesses overshadowed a surge in jobless claims. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 285 points, or 1.22 percent, narrowly missing gains that would have registered the index’s best week since 1938. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq […]
Oil Could Fall Back to $20 a Barrel…
Oil demand is set to plunge by as much as 27 million barrels per day (mb/d) in April, a decline larger than anything that has occurred in the history of oil. The decline in demand could cause inventories to fill up, enforcing substantial curtailments by refineries and shut ins at oil wells, according to a […]
Another 6.6 Million People File Unemployment Claims This Week Bringing Total in Two Weeks to 16 Million…
The news is horrific. The Dept. of Labor release today shows another whopping 6.6 million people filed for unemployment compensation last week. That brings the total over the past three weeks to over sixteen million. With 16 million people filing unemployment claims, the actual rate of unemployment is likely well into double digits [13% to […]