Friday, October 9, 2020

Markets extend gains on hopes for a stimulus bill

Dow added 113, advancer barely ahead of decliners & NAZ jumped also 113.  The MLP index fell 1 to the 116s & the REIT index was off 2 to the 363s.  Junk bond funds did little & Treasuries were steady.  Oil eased back to 41 & gold jumped a very big 35 to 1931.

AMJ (Alerian MLP Index tracking fund)

stock chart

CL=FCrude Oil40.98   
-0.21-0.5%







GC=FGold  1,933.90
+38.80+2.1%







Congress likely will not pass another coronavirus stimulus package before the election, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said.  The White House & Dems have restarted last-ditch talks toward an elusive relief deal.  The Rep said “the situation’s kind of murky” while negotiators try to “elbow for political advantage” as Americans cast their ballots.  “I’d like to see us rise above that like we did back in March and April, but I think that’s unlikely in the next three weeks,” he added.  Officials have disagreed over how much money to put in a 5th pandemic aid package as economic pain for Ms of Americans sharpens during a sluggish recovery.  After he told his administration to pull out of talks earlier this week, Pres Trump then renewed his push to inject Ts into the economy during his reelection bid.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi & Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin would still have to strike an agreement, then write a bill expected to cost at least $1.5T.  The package would have to get thru both the Dem-held House & GOP-controlled Senate — where Reps have expressed concerns about spending Ts more on the federal response to the virus.  McConnell's comments follow days of confusion about exactly what the pres wants in an aid agreement.  He called off talks Tues, then reversed course & called for stand-alone bills to address direct payments to Americans, small business loans & aid to airlines to cover payroll.

Mitch McConnell says a stimulus package is 'unlikely in the next three weeks'

US wholesale inventories rose by 0.4% in Aug as companies began to stock up again to replace dwindling supplies.  Inventories of durable goods, such as autos & lumber, increased by 0.6%.  Stockpiles of nondurable goods were unchanged, however, largely because of a decline in the production of grocery staples & clothing.  The inventory-to-sales ratio slipped to 1.31 from 1.32 in the prior month & is back to precrisis levels.  The ratio soared early in the pandemic as sales nosedived & firms got stuck with an excess of goods.  Yet the ratio has declined as the economy recovered & sales picked up.

U.S. wholesale inventories climb 0.4% in August

Gilead Sciences (GILD) will have sufficient global supply of its coronavirus treatment remdesivir by the end of Oct,  CEO Daniel O'Day said.  The comments came shortly after the publication of peer-reviewed final data from GILD's large-scale trial of remdesivir.  It showed the antiviral drug helped Covid-19 patients who are hospitalized recover 5 days faster on average.  For severely ill patients who received remdesivir, recovery was expedited by 7 days.  “These results are meaningful. They’ll definitely help patients around the world who have the misfortune of entering into the hospital to get better, and I’m really pleased to say that we have ample supply,” O'Day said.   The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, also found that remdesivir contributed to significant reduction in death rates for patients who were in the early stages of receiving oxygen support.  The study did not find, however, a statistically significant mortality reduction across the 1060 patients in the trial.  “The earlier you treat, the better in the hospital and you can prevent people from ever even going onto those stages of the disease where the risk of dying is very high,” O'Day said.  “This is a medicine that works by reducing the viral replication in the body, which is important earlier in the disease and earlier in your hospital stay, which is why it has its greatest effect there.”  The stock went up 93¢.
If you would like to learn more about GILD, click on this link:
club.ino.com/trend/analysis/stock/GILD?a_aid=CD3289&a_bid=6ae5b6f7

Gilead CEO: ‘We have ample supply’ of remdesivir for hospitalized coronavirus patients

Markets are meandering, with hopes those guys in DC can come up with another spending bill even though prospects are not good..  The Dow has been rising for the last 2 weeks, but that momentum will be lost if there is no spending bill soon.  The breadth of the market is already very thin & gold, negative bets on stocks, jumped in trading.

Dow Jones Industrials

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