Dow gave back 45, decliners modestly ahead of advancers & NAZ jumped 90 (flirting with a new record). The MLP index was off a tad in the 136s & the REIT index fell 2 to the 359s. Junk bond funds fluctuated & Treasuries were weak. Oil slid back in the 42s after reaching a 5 month high yesterday. & gold was up 6 to 1955.
AMJ (Alerian MLP Index tracking fund)
| CL=F | Crude Oil | 42.66 | -0.01 | -0.0% |
| GC=F | Gold | 1,949.20 | +0.20 | +0.0% |
The number of laid-off Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell below 1M last week for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic started in mid-Mar. The latest jobless claims figures from the Labor Dept show that 963K workers sought aid last week, pushing the total number since the shutdown began to nearly 56M. The forecast called for 1.12M new claims. The figure, the lowest since Mar 21, just as the pandemic brought the economy to a grinding halt, indicates there's still driving power behind the job market's recovery, despite fears that a flare-up in COVID-19 cases & a fresh round of business closures would derail its early recovery. It marks the first time in 20 weeks that jobless claims came in below 1M; before the pandemic, the record high was 695K, set in 1982. The last time the number was below 1M was Mar 14, when just 282K Americans filed for aid. Continuing claims, the number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid fell by 604K to 15.5M. There are other signs the battered labor market is starting to make a turnaround: Employers added 1.8M jobs in Jul, the 3rd consecutive month of job growth above 1M. The jobless rate fell to 10.2% last month. Still, there are about 10M more unemployed Americans than there were in Feb.
Number of Americans filing for jobless aid falls below 1M for first time amid pandemic
The recent expiration of the gov's enhanced unemployment benefits of $600 a week could impact families & the broader economy by removing income that was used to pay for rent, groceries & other debts, San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank Pres Mary Daly said. "It creates the potential for a hole, a little bit of a hole in consumer demand and consumer spending," Daly added. "We have evidence that suggests they were spending those resources to pay rent or to buy food or to buy other consumer goods." Daly said recent economic data suggests consumers are already starting to pull back on activities as their benefits shrinks & coronavirus infections rise, leading to new restrictions. "I also hear from my contacts that they're seeing foot traffic and other things just slow as people become aware that the virus isn't behind us," she said. The economic crisis caused by the virus is turning out to be more prolonged than initially expected, increasing the need for Congress to provide a "bridge" that gets consumers & businesses thru the downturn. Bankruptcies & insolvencies could rise in the fall as some businesses close permanently & others struggle to catch up on rent & other debts, she added.
Fed's Daly says loss of enhanced unemployment benefits creates a 'hole' in spending
Pres Trump said he views China differently since the coronavirus pandemic began. US-China tensions were high before the pandemic as the 2 countries took part in a year long trade war & finally started eyeing a bilateral deal before COVID-19 spread from Wuhan to the US. "It's before plague and after plague. Right now, I view China differently than I did before plague," he added The 2 countries have been trading jabs since COVID-19 forced states
across the US to implement lockdown restrictions — some of which are
still in place nearly ½ a year later in an effort to contain its
spread. "They're running their country, and we're running our
country, and we have other countries that treat us very badly. ... We
have the new USMCA. We were in the process of straightening it out with
China, but the plague came. But even before that, I had a complete deal
with China, and four days before it was going to be signed, they broke
it." American & Chinese officials have blamed one another for the origins of the
virus, though experts believe it was transmitted from an animal —
specifically, a bat — to a human in Wuhan as early as Nov. The pres & other senior administration officials have dubbed COVID-19 "the China virus" & "China plague." The pres last week signed an exec order banning US companies from doing business with social media apps TikTok & WeChat & in Jul issued similar restrictions against 5 Chinese companies includingHuawei, Hikvision & Dahua, citing national security concerns related to the country's 2017 National Intelligence Law.
Trump: 'I view China differently' since coronavirus
Stocks wavered as upbeat figures
on employment failed to counter concerns about friction
over trade & the stalemate over another stimulus package. But the stock market has following winds with the popular averages close to record levels. The bulls are feeling good.
Dow Jones Industrials
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