Gold Soars Along With Everything Else As Fed Ends Capital Markets As We Know Them

As we noted earlier,  The Fed’s actions this morning mean “free markets are dead.“

Guggenheim’s Scott Minerd summed up exactly what The Fed has done with its actions today:

“The Fed has made it clear that it will not tolerate prudent and responsible investing.”

The Fed just went full Leeroy Jenkins…

And gold is starting to signal fears over fiat…

Something is brewing…

And the spot-futures markets are decoupling as physical (geographic) shortages rear their ugly heads again…

Source: Bloomberg

As Bloomberg notes, the internal mechanics of the gold market are again showing strains under this rally. Gold futures are trading more than $50 above the spot price in London.

Until recently, that was unheard of in a metal that’s so utterly fungible, so easy to transport and where trade channels are so deeply established. But with planes grounded and refining capacity severely restricted, don’t expect the arbitrage to break down immediately.

Bloomberg’s Garfield Reynolds was quick to note, the global business environment is being transformed – we are all socialists now.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Japan & Russia Report Worrisome Surge In New Cases, Britons Warned Lockdown To Be Extended: Live Updates

As Holy Week draws to a close and the long Holiday Weekend begins, the optimism that helped inspire the biggest bounce since the ‘rona rout appears to have faded, and Dow futs are back to being three figures in the red Thursday morning, pointing to a lower open as traders realize the ‘plateaus’ supposedly reached in Italy, Spain and New York didn’t really mean anything. And while the Germans truly do seem to be on top of things, other hotspots in Europe are already cropping up, as China tightens its borders as experts warn about a ‘second wave’.

Over the past 24 hours, the US reported 32,176 new cases of coronavirus and 1,901 new deaths, raising its totals to 432,727 cases and 14,768 dead, with the most widely followed projections suggesting that the US will pass half a million confirmed cases before Easter Sunday. Yesterday, NY reported its biggest one-day jump in deaths yet, and the pace of spread appeared to accelerate across Europe.

Now, we wake of Thursday morning to find that officials in Tokyo and Moscow have reported record numbers of new cases (that, and Russia recorded its biggest daily jump in deaths).

Meanwhile, as the US moves to try and stop the IMF from approving Iran’s request for a $5 billion bailout, the Ayatollah has once again chosen to retaliate in the only venue Trump truly understands: Twitter.

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#CoronaVirus is a major problem for mankind. But we won’t forget that in Vietnam, Iraq, etc. hundreds of thousands of ppl were killed by the US. Even now, millions suffer from the tyranny of the US & its allies in Yemen, Palestine, etc.
Mankind has worse problems than Corona.

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…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“No Hope”: Canada’s Nursing Homes Prepare For Mass Death

Nursing homes in Canada have been instructed by health officials to ‘keep seniors comfortable’ if they contract COVID-19 and not take them to the hospital due to their high mortality rate, according to Canada’s Global News.

“They’re treating it like a hospice, like there’s no hope like they have stage four brain cancer and they just have to keep them comfortable because there’s nothing they can do,” said Tanya Bartley, whose grandmother died last month at Pinecrest Nursing Home in Bobcaygeon, Ontario – where 22 residents have died and 1/3 of the staff are in isolation due to coronavirus.

“They don’t play god. Everybody is the same. I don’t care if it’s a two-year-old, a 10-year-old, a 20-year-old, middle-aged, elderly. I don’t care,” Bartley added.

One dementia-stricken resident, Edna Bowers, was one such coronavirus victim who was treated at the home and not transferred to the hospital.

In a March 23 letter seen by Global News, Dr. Allan Bell – medical director and chief of emergency medicine at Quinte Health Care (QHC) in Belleville, Ontario, outlines suggestions on how long-term care administrators should prepare for potential COVID-19 outbreaks in their facilities.

“Having this conversation pre-emptively is very important. It gives families time to digest the information when they are not in a crisis situation and, should an outbreak happen, it is difficult to manage all of the conversations at once,” reads the letter in part, while also recommending against hospital visits – citing a shortage of medical options for frail patients.

“Our critical care colleagues are of the strong opinion that ventilator treatment will not make a survival difference to patients who are frail and ventilator support is very unlikely to be offered,” the letter continues “for those residents who go on to develop respiratory failure, care needs to focus on the provision of comfort to ease suffering at the end of life.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

CDC To Recommend ALL Americans Wear Masks?

Dr. Matt McCarthy – Assistant Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell,staff physician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and author of Superbugs: The Race to Stop an Epidemic– claims that the CDC is about to do a 180 degree change, and to recommend that everyone wear masks.

If true, such a change would be very helpful.  Specifically, numerous studies show that “facemasks play a pivotal role in the prevention and control of infectious respiratory disease transmission“. 

Indeed, a study last year by scientists at the Departments of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, University of Maryland, and the FDA’s Division of Applied Mechanics, showed that – if 80% of a population wears masks – it will stop a flu epidemic (it “essentially eliminated the influenza outbreak”).   They found that if half of a population wore masks, it “resulted in a significant … reduction in risk” (the typical flu virus is between 80 and 120 nanometers in diameter. The Wuhan Coronavirus is 120 nanometers).

Many other studies and metastudies show that masks are effective in combatting respiratory virus pandemics:

And the Czechs claim that they’re succeeding while many other countries have failed because of a widespead use of home-made masks.

The New York Times notes:

As the coronavirus pandemic rages on, experts have started to question official guidance about whether ordinary, healthy people should protect themselves with a regular surgical mask, or even a scarf.

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When researchers conducted systematic review of a variety of interventions used during the SARS outbreak in 2003, they found that washing hands more than 10 times daily was 55 percent effective in stopping virus transmission, while wearing a mask was actually more effective — at about 68 percent. Wearing gloves offered about the same amount of protection as frequent hand-washing, and combining all measures — hand-washing, masks, gloves and a protective gown — increased the intervention effectiveness to 91 percent.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“We’re Pulling Out All The Stops”: Trudeau Promises To Help Canadians With Their Bills As He Leads Nation From Home

After his wife, Sophie Gregoire, revealed last night that she had been diagnosed with Covid-19 following a trip to London, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – who apparently hasn’t been infected – said during a noon press conference on Friday that he is feeling fine, and will continue running the country from the comfort of his home office until he’s officially cleared to return to the office.

During a news conference held outside his home

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Trudeau says Canada is “pulling out all the stops” to respond to COVID-19.

“I know that you’re worried. You’re worried about your health, about your family’s health. About your job, your savings. About paying rent. About the kids not being in school.” https://abcn.ws/2TYW18W 

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Trudeau also said he’s spoken with world leaders including Trump, UK PM Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron, and assured Canadians that the G7 would deliver a “coordinated response” to the crisis. The leaders of the organization’s nation-state members will join a conference call on Monday to decide (or not) exactly what the nature of that response will be.

He said he’d be keeping in touch to provincial governors and indigenous leaders during his stay at home, and added that he’d be speaking with several of them later in the day.

In keeping with his liberal beliefs in open borders, Trudeau said Canada would continue to monitor foreign travelers and decide on “further measures that will be based on science.” In the mean time, the administration will be restricting international flights to fewer airports, to improve monitoring and screening, while asking some travelers to “consider” self-quarantine. He also advised Canadians against all “non-essential” traveling abroad, especially to areas impacted by the virus, at this time.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Japan Confirms 10 nCoV Cases Aboard Quarantined Cruise Ship; Officials Warn Virus Could “Spread Widely Through Hong Kong”

Summary:

• Confirmed deaths: 490
• Confirmed cases on mainland: 24,324; additional 172 in ROW
• Chinese authorities have enforced full community lockdown in Nanjing Province
• American Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Jetstar close routes to China
• Taiwan tightens travel restrictions
• WHO infectious hazard chief says outbreak ‘not a pandemic’
• Japan confirms at least 10 cases of coronavirus aboard “Diamond Princess”
• Kudlow says impact on US economy from outbreak will be ‘limited’

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Update (1845ET): At least 10 cases of coronavirus have been discovered aboard the Carnival Japan cruise ship “the Diamond Princess”, which has been quarantined at Japan’s Yokohama port since yesterday after officials learned that a passenger who recently disembarked tested positive for the virus in Hong Kong.

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JUST IN: More than 10 people aboard a Japanese cruise liner have tested positive for #coronavirus, Japan’s @tbs_news reported, after all 3,000+ passengers were quarantined earlier Tuesday

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As we reported earlier, 3,000+ passengers aboard the cruise ship are under quarantine. It’s unclear when they’ll be allowed to leave the ship. All individuals who were found to be infected with the virus were taken to a local hospital for treatment.

Meanwhile, after unveiling the city’s first virus-related death, Hong Kong health officials warned Tuesday that the coronavirus outbreak could “spread widely through Hong Kong.” Three newly diagnosed cases raised the total number diagnosed in the city to 18, with at least four of those cases being confirmed human-to-human transmissions, according to SCMP.

“It is highly probable the four were infected locally, so there could be invisible chains of infection happening within communities,” Chuang said. “We are not ruling out a large spread [of the virus] in the future.”

And for the second time in as many hours, health officials on the mainland updated the tally of confirmed cases.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…