Dow rose 469 in highly volatile trading but ending near season highs, advancers over decliners 4-3 & NAZ went up 128. The MLP index added 3+ to the 93s & the REIT index fell 2+ to the 284s. Junk bond funds were mixed & Treasuries closed slightly higher in price. Oil advanced 4+ to the high 24s & gold jumped up 52 to 1643 (more on both below).
AMJ (Alerian MLP Index tracking fund)
![Live 24 hours gold chart [Kitco Inc.]](https://www.kitco.com/images/live/gold.gif?0.2180338269244485)
US unemployment will peak in the “low- to mid-teens” before falling to about 8% by the end of 2020, Dallas Fed Pres Robert Kaplan said. From there, the recovery likely will be more U-shaped as consumers struggle to recover from an economic near-stoppage brought on by efforts to contain the coronavirus, the central bank official said. Kaplan added he anticipates a “severe contraction” in Q2 spilling into Q3 before a recovery begins. “The issue is, what’s the strength of the rebound?” he said. After unemployment peaks, Kapan said he sees it slipping “below 10%, probably closer to 8%.” “Then it’s going to take a while for us to work that off, and so the consumer is going to be much more cautious for obvious reasons,” he continued. “There’s just an open question about what the strength of the consumer is going to be once we get past this virus and we get into the fourth quarter. That’s a big challenge and question mark for the economy.” Those comments came just a few hours after the Labor Dept reported that more than 6.6M Americans filed first-time claims for unemployment insurance for last week. Coupled with the previous week, that brought the total to about 10M for the worst of the coronavirus-related cuts. Forecasts for how bad the damage will be to the jobs picture vary. Kaplan's view is closer to the consensus, though the St Louis Fed has said the unemployment rate could rise to 32% as 47M Americans lose their jobs. “Managing down the unemployment rate is going to be challenging and the consumer’s not going to be as strong as he or she was going into this crisis,” he said. “That’s high on top of the list of challenges coming out of this crisis.” The Fed thus far has emptied its crisis playbook, bringing down its benchmark interest rate to near zero & instituting a slew of other programs aimed at supporting the economy & keeping markets functioning. Most recently, the Fed announced that it is loosening capital requirements for banks. However, Kaplan said more action will be needed on the fiscal side from Congress, which itself just passed a $2T rescue bill. “I think we will actually need stimulus from here,” he said. “That’s not a Fed decision, that’s a Congress fiscal authority decision. But it’s going to be needed.”
Fed’s Kaplan sees jobless rate rising to mid-teens then falling to 8% this year
China defends its coronavirus data after report says US intelligence doubted numbers
White House advisor Fauci says coronavirus vaccine trial is on target and will be ‘ultimate
Gold futures gained ground as another large jump in US weekly first-time jobless claims prompted prices to settle higher for the first time in 5 sessions. Data showed the number of first-time jobless claims rose by 6.6M. Prior to the coronavirus crisis, the largest-ever rise in first-time claims was less than 700K. The Labor Dept payrolls & unemployment report is due to be published tomorrow but will likely not reflect the surge in unemployment in Mar as most of the data was collected in the first ½ of the month before many of the business shutdowns occurred to combat the coronavirus epidemic. The news boosted haven demand for gold, sending the Jun futures contract up $46 (2.9%) to settle at $1637 an ounce, following losses for the contract over the past 4 sessions in a row, the biggest one-day percentage gain for the most-active contract since Mar 24. While gold found haven appeal today, the metal has seen a mixed performance as the COVID-19 pandemic takes a toll on global economic growth & sends shock waves thru financial markets.
Gold posts first gain in 5 sessions after another surge in jobless claims
Oil futures rallied, sending US prices up nearly 25% after Pres Trump tweeted that he expects Saudi Arabia & Russia to reach an agreement to significantly cut production. Trump tweeted that he expects a cutback of “approximately 10 Million Barrels, and maybe substantially more.” He later tweeted that it could be as high as 15M barrels. New agency Sputnik reported that a Kremlin spokesman refuted Trump's claim about a phone conversation between Putin & the Saudi crown prince. “No. There was no such conversation,” Peskov said when asked if Putin had a phone conversation with bin Salman, the news agency reported. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's official new agency, the Saudi Press Agency, tweeted the kingdom has called for an “urgent” meeting of OPEC & its allies “with the aim of reaching a fair solution to restore a desire[d] balance of the oil markets.” West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for May rose $5.01 (24.7%) to settle at $25.32 a barrel after tapping a high of $27.39. Jun Brent crude climbed $5.20 (21%) to $29.94 a barrel. The WTI & Brent crude benchmarks marked their largest one-day percentage gains on record, based on the front months. Today, Texas Railroad Commissioner Ryan Sitton tweeted that he spoke with Russian energy minister Alexander Novak & said they both agreed that the COVID19 pandemic requires an unprecedented level of intl cooperation & “Discussed 10mbpd out of global supply.” Q1 has been punishing for financial markets, with oil especially hit by a Russia-Saudi price war that is flooding the market with supply & demand destruction tied to the coronavirus outbreak. Meanwhile, the Energy Information Administration reported Wednesday that US crude supplies rose by 13.8M barrels last week, marking a 10th straight weekly increase. The forecast expected the data to show a rise of 4.6M barrels.
Oil rallies, with U.S. prices up nearly 25% as Trump expects Saudi Arabia and Russia to cut production
This was another very wild day for stocks. Oil had a sharp rebound on word about a Saudi Arabia - Russia aggreement to limit oil production & confusion reigned thoughout the day. More importantly, another dreadful week of unemplment claims was nagging at investors' thoughts. And the future of fightinig the corornavirus threat is unclear. The Dow has fallen 8K from its record highs in mid Feb. Another way to look at it is it's about 3K above its recent lows. These times are confusing, something investors do lnot like to see.
Dow Jones Industrials
AMJ (Alerian MLP Index tracking fund)
US unemployment will peak in the “low- to mid-teens” before falling to about 8% by the end of 2020, Dallas Fed Pres Robert Kaplan said. From there, the recovery likely will be more U-shaped as consumers struggle to recover from an economic near-stoppage brought on by efforts to contain the coronavirus, the central bank official said. Kaplan added he anticipates a “severe contraction” in Q2 spilling into Q3 before a recovery begins. “The issue is, what’s the strength of the rebound?” he said. After unemployment peaks, Kapan said he sees it slipping “below 10%, probably closer to 8%.” “Then it’s going to take a while for us to work that off, and so the consumer is going to be much more cautious for obvious reasons,” he continued. “There’s just an open question about what the strength of the consumer is going to be once we get past this virus and we get into the fourth quarter. That’s a big challenge and question mark for the economy.” Those comments came just a few hours after the Labor Dept reported that more than 6.6M Americans filed first-time claims for unemployment insurance for last week. Coupled with the previous week, that brought the total to about 10M for the worst of the coronavirus-related cuts. Forecasts for how bad the damage will be to the jobs picture vary. Kaplan's view is closer to the consensus, though the St Louis Fed has said the unemployment rate could rise to 32% as 47M Americans lose their jobs. “Managing down the unemployment rate is going to be challenging and the consumer’s not going to be as strong as he or she was going into this crisis,” he said. “That’s high on top of the list of challenges coming out of this crisis.” The Fed thus far has emptied its crisis playbook, bringing down its benchmark interest rate to near zero & instituting a slew of other programs aimed at supporting the economy & keeping markets functioning. Most recently, the Fed announced that it is loosening capital requirements for banks. However, Kaplan said more action will be needed on the fiscal side from Congress, which itself just passed a $2T rescue bill. “I think we will actually need stimulus from here,” he said. “That’s not a Fed decision, that’s a Congress fiscal authority decision. But it’s going to be needed.”
Fed’s Kaplan sees jobless rate rising to mid-teens then falling to 8% this year
China denied that it hid the true number of its people who have been infected & killed by the coronavirus outbreak, decrying accusations of concealment as a “despicable attempt to put political interests above human life.” The blistering statement came a day after a report said that a classified US intelligence report concluded that China's
public tally of COVID-19 infections & deaths is purposefully
incomplete. However, the Chinese Embassy in DC said that Beijing ”has
fully honored its obligation of notification prescribed by the
International Health Regulations, and has been updating the statistics
of its confirmed and death cases in an open, transparent and responsible
manner.” “The Chinese government has, out of a strong sense of
responsibility for its people’s health, taken the most comprehensive and
stringent measures to fight the pandemic,” the Chinese Embassy said. “Slandering
and shifting blame cannot help make up for the lost time,” the embassy
added, “nor can they conceal some people’s incompetence in the
containment efforts or their despicable attempt to put political
interests above human life.” “In this fight, countries are all
interconnected, and they can only prevail by solidarity and stronger
cooperation,” the embassy added. Pres Trump was asked yesterday at a White House press briefing whether he had
received an intelligence report describing any discrepancies in China’s
numbers. “We have not received” any such reports, Trump said.
But he noted that China's tally appeared “to be a little bit on the
light side, and I’m being nice when I say that, relative to what we
witnessed and what was reported.” Trump has previously cast doubt
on China numbers. But he said last evening that
“we really don’t know” if China “underreported or reported however they
report.” The coronavirus pandemic began around the city of Wuhan in China’s Hubei province – though Beijing’s foreign ministry has claimed that it didn’t necessarily originate there. China has reported 82K coronavirus cases, data from Johns Hopkins University shows. That number is less than ½ of the total cases confirmed in the US, which has become the country with the highest number of reported infections in the world. More than 217K COVID-19 cases have so far been confirmed in the US. While
the disease in recent weeks has spread exponentially around the world –
especially in parts of the US & Europe – China's numbers have
flattened. China attributes its apparent success in “flattening
the curve” of coronavirus growth to the “comprehensive and stringent
measures” it has put in place to fight the pandemic. Those extreme steps
reportedly included forcibly holding Wuhan residents in pop-up
hospitals, conducting door-to-door health checks & requiring that
citizens who showed any symptoms be immediately quarantined. The total lockdown of daily life seems to have worked, according to China's numbers.
China defends its coronavirus data after report says US intelligence doubted numbers
The first human trial testing a potential vaccine
to prevent COVID-19 is “on track” with public distribution still
projected in 12-18 months, which would be the “ultimate game changer”
in the fight against the pandemic, White House health advisor Dr.Anthony Fauci said. US health officials have been fast-tracking work with biotech company Moderna to develop a vaccine to prevent COVID-19. They began their first human trials on a potential vaccine Mar 16. The trial had to test 3 different doses of the vaccine, Fauci
said, adding that they've already tested the first 2 doses & are now
administering the highest dose to human volunteers to see if there are
any adverse reactions to it. “It’ll take a few months to get the
data to where we’ll feel confident to go to the phase two, and then a
few months from now we’ll be in phase two and I think we’re right on
target for the year to year and a half,” Fauci said at a White House
press conference. Fauci
said world health leaders dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, which
has infected more than 932K globally, have all agreed that
COVID-19 may cycle back in future seasons & the only protection would
be the development of a vaccine. “The ultimate solution to a
virus that might be coming back would be a vaccine,” Fauci, the director
of the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases, said.
“The same way a vaccine for other diseases that were scourges in the
past that now we don’t even worry about.” Dr Deborah Birx, the
coronavirus task force coordinator, said she's been asking universities & private companies to develop rapid coronavirus tests to confirm
whether health-care workers that have been treating coronavirus patients
already have the antibodies to fight it. She added the US owes it to health-care workers —
many of whom have been treating coronavirus patients for a month now —
“the peace of mind that would come from knowing that you already were
infected, you have the antibody, you’re safe from reinfection 99.9% of
the time.” She said US universities can get those tests out by tomorrow. However,
Fauci said that it’s not their priority right now. The main focus is to
develop widespread testing for somebody who is infected so they can
conduct better case finding & isolation.
White House advisor Fauci says coronavirus vaccine trial is on target and will be ‘ultimate
Gold futures gained ground as another large jump in US weekly first-time jobless claims prompted prices to settle higher for the first time in 5 sessions. Data showed the number of first-time jobless claims rose by 6.6M. Prior to the coronavirus crisis, the largest-ever rise in first-time claims was less than 700K. The Labor Dept payrolls & unemployment report is due to be published tomorrow but will likely not reflect the surge in unemployment in Mar as most of the data was collected in the first ½ of the month before many of the business shutdowns occurred to combat the coronavirus epidemic. The news boosted haven demand for gold, sending the Jun futures contract up $46 (2.9%) to settle at $1637 an ounce, following losses for the contract over the past 4 sessions in a row, the biggest one-day percentage gain for the most-active contract since Mar 24. While gold found haven appeal today, the metal has seen a mixed performance as the COVID-19 pandemic takes a toll on global economic growth & sends shock waves thru financial markets.
Gold posts first gain in 5 sessions after another surge in jobless claims
Oil futures rallied, sending US prices up nearly 25% after Pres Trump tweeted that he expects Saudi Arabia & Russia to reach an agreement to significantly cut production. Trump tweeted that he expects a cutback of “approximately 10 Million Barrels, and maybe substantially more.” He later tweeted that it could be as high as 15M barrels. New agency Sputnik reported that a Kremlin spokesman refuted Trump's claim about a phone conversation between Putin & the Saudi crown prince. “No. There was no such conversation,” Peskov said when asked if Putin had a phone conversation with bin Salman, the news agency reported. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's official new agency, the Saudi Press Agency, tweeted the kingdom has called for an “urgent” meeting of OPEC & its allies “with the aim of reaching a fair solution to restore a desire[d] balance of the oil markets.” West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for May rose $5.01 (24.7%) to settle at $25.32 a barrel after tapping a high of $27.39. Jun Brent crude climbed $5.20 (21%) to $29.94 a barrel. The WTI & Brent crude benchmarks marked their largest one-day percentage gains on record, based on the front months. Today, Texas Railroad Commissioner Ryan Sitton tweeted that he spoke with Russian energy minister Alexander Novak & said they both agreed that the COVID19 pandemic requires an unprecedented level of intl cooperation & “Discussed 10mbpd out of global supply.” Q1 has been punishing for financial markets, with oil especially hit by a Russia-Saudi price war that is flooding the market with supply & demand destruction tied to the coronavirus outbreak. Meanwhile, the Energy Information Administration reported Wednesday that US crude supplies rose by 13.8M barrels last week, marking a 10th straight weekly increase. The forecast expected the data to show a rise of 4.6M barrels.
Oil rallies, with U.S. prices up nearly 25% as Trump expects Saudi Arabia and Russia to cut production
This was another very wild day for stocks. Oil had a sharp rebound on word about a Saudi Arabia - Russia aggreement to limit oil production & confusion reigned thoughout the day. More importantly, another dreadful week of unemplment claims was nagging at investors' thoughts. And the future of fightinig the corornavirus threat is unclear. The Dow has fallen 8K from its record highs in mid Feb. Another way to look at it is it's about 3K above its recent lows. These times are confusing, something investors do lnot like to see.
Dow Jones Industrials
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