Bull Market officially over!! Year heading negative.

[Omega10]

Jobless claims raise stakes in battle over COVID-19 aid

Quick aside here: Mitch "No to Everything" McConnell is reportedly pushing for a lower amount, $400 or even $200. While that's better than $0, we already know the $600 was to keep the average laid-off American's income stable enough to pay bills...and even that wasn't always enough. I'm not convinced a lower amount is the solution to "there are no jobs".

And the people WITH jobs are making less money.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...=pocket-newtab

Title: America’s hidden economic crisis: Widespread wage cuts

Excerpts, which don't need much commentary

Millions of Americans who managed to hold onto their jobs amid the coronavirus pandemic have seen their incomes drop as employers slashed wages and hours to weather what they expected to be a short-term shutdown.

Now, with the virus raging and the recession deepening, those cuts that were meant to be temporary could turn permanent — or even pave the way for further layoffs. That could portend deep damage to the labor market and the economy because so many workers who have kept their jobs have less money to spend than a few months ago.

Other estimates put it higher: Roughly 7 million workers have likely received a dock in pay, according to Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. Combined with those who have been forced to log fewer hours, the number climbs to 20 million people — or 1 in 8 workers — who have seen their paychecks shrink over the past few months even as they continued to work, underscoring how much harm shutdowns have caused beyond layoffs alone.

“We have an income crisis that is even larger than a jobless crisis,” Claudia Sahm, director of macroeconomic policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, wrote on Twitter recently.

Unlike job losses, which have disproportionately affected low-income workers, the pay cuts are mostly hitting workers in white-collar industries, according to the study of ADP data. Three-fourths of the cuts in pay fall within the top 40 percent of wage earners, researchers said.

And some of the biggest companies have taken part. Julia Coronado, a former Fed economist who founded the firm Macropolicy Perspectives, tracked U.S.-based companies with market caps greater than $1 billion and found that 42 percent of the 260 firms providing details on earnings calls between April and July were reducing pay.

[Rasulis]

Microsoft-owned Minecraft will stop using Amazon’s cloud

They waited 5 years to do this? WTH! Ah, they been moving it gradually and the process will be completed by the end of the year.

Microsoft quarterly report on the 22nd. Well see if their three revenue sources - Azure cloud-computing products, Office 365 and its gaming business - hold up to the Covid-19.

Tesla also on the 22nd. I am curious to see if they manage to have another quarter of positive cash flow. Well, barely positive.

Looks like the FAAMG stocks have been pretty flat for the last week. Most work from home stocks have been pretty quiet for the last two weeks. No big losses. No big gains.

[Zan15]

Jobless claims raise stakes in battle over COVID-19 aid



Quick aside here: Mitch "No to Everything" McConnell is reportedly pushing for a lower amount, $400 or even $200. While that's better than $0, we already know the $600 was to keep the average laid-off American's income stable enough to pay bills...and even that wasn't always enough. I'm not convinced a lower amount is the solution to "there are no jobs".

Oh, and Trump is still pushing for a payroll tax cut. Which does not help anyone fired at all.



I'm just going to quote that part again.



So have we seen any Q2 results yet?

New York is saying -14.3%

Fortune had a lot to say about earnings in Q2 more than GDP. But they did say we won't see pre-COVID GDP levels (that's the less-than-three Trump has gotten for three years now) until mid-2021.

Various articles predict -20% to -35% with ever-increasing odds of recession.

And Atlanta is saying negative thirty-four percent.

That's with the rapid re-opening.

You have to remember unemployment does not track the independent contractors the way they should

So the 11% is standard unemployment. Include them and you are looking at 18%+

and the 3-4% error rate might be only down to 1.5%


Total labor force = 160,883,000.
Collecting 30 million

Total unemployed/Partially unemployed = 18.65%


Even if you take peak participation @ 164,120,000 the total unemployment is 18.3%


its crazy how manipulated the #'s have to be to get down to 11%

- - - Updated - - -

Even worse, Trump is pushing to phase out funding for testing and contact tracing, as well as "zero-out" the CDC and NIH budgets.

and they want immunity for businesses.


So you don't test, you don't sue, you just burry head in sand and hope you "finally get it right"

[cubby]

and they want liability for businesses.

So you don't test, you don't sue, you just burry head in sand and hope you "finally get it right"

Do you mean they want immunity for businesses/etc for workers returning? I don't want to misunderstand here...

[Breccia]

Do you mean they want immunity for businesses/etc for workers returning?

They have been and still are. For months, they've been pushing for retroactive immunity for businesses that re-opened quickly.

[Zan15]

Do you mean they want immunity for businesses/etc for workers returning? I don't want to misunderstand here...

bah, I typed too fast and mind could not keep up. My bad.

Republican's seem to want a total immunity even if the business are clearly at fault like at the meat packing/processing plants.
Though in the last week or so they have started to come down from the total immunity stance to limited protections depending on industry.

it will be interesting what ends up in the final bill because the democrats will have to give something up to get the 100-200-400-600 dollars rolling Aug 1st.


it just shows you what sides each of the parties are on right now.

[cubby]

They have been and still are. For months, they've been pushing for retroactive immunity for businesses that re-opened quickly.

Those GOP are such characters.

Honestly though...I don't see how people could sue for this, it would be immensely complicated, with sovereign immunity playing a large part. We'll see though - if anyone is left alive....

- - - Updated - - -

bah, I typed too fast and mind could not keep up. My bad.

Republican's seem to want a total immunity even if the business are clearly at fault like at the meat packing/processing plants.
Though in the last week or so they have started to come down from the total immunity stance to limited protections depending on industry.

it will be interesting what ends up in the final bill because the democrats will have to give something up to get the 100-200-400-600 dollars rolling Aug 1st.


it just shows you what sides each of the parties are on right now.

Ah, ok - that's where I thought you were going, but didn't want to assume.

I've seen their desire for total immunity, and I wouldn't be surprised if they get it - legally speaking it's a hornets nest from the get go - assigning liability, and then tracking down who and where re exposure, and the government not tracking that stuff anymore because of President It's-All-a-Hoax.

Definitely shows the differing sides. I'm sad beyond belief that any intelligent person is still carrying the GOP flag at this point. Some of the comments and "interviews" I've seen are shockingly stupid, pushing beyond-ridiculous conspiracy theories (I know, I know - the irony).

[Breccia]

I've seen their desire for total immunity, and I wouldn't be surprised if they get it

As someone watching Trump for the last three years, I will be mortified if "total immunity" is something that the American people choose to accept.

[cubby]

As someone watching Trump for the last three years, I will be mortified if "total immunity" is something that the American people choose to accept.

I was speaking of the Coronavirus related immunity, just to be clear (your response made me think you were referring to Trump/et al). I don't think the American people would accept that at all, but it's been about three and a half years since the American people had any kind of say in what their government does.

[Breccia]

I was speaking of the Coronavirus related immunity, just to be clear (your response made me think you were referring to Trump/et al).

Trump is just an example. I don't think "absolute" should be a word with "immunity" in most circumstances, and definitely not when a business tells people to work in an unsafe environment, or be fired.

[Thekri]

bah, I typed too fast and mind could not keep up. My bad.

Republican's seem to want a total immunity even if the business are clearly at fault like at the meat packing/processing plants.
Though in the last week or so they have started to come down from the total immunity stance to limited protections depending on industry.

it will be interesting what ends up in the final bill because the democrats will have to give something up to get the 100-200-400-600 dollars rolling Aug 1st.


it just shows you what sides each of the parties are on right now.

So an example of the sort of bullshit companies are doing right now, is where I work. It is very much a skilled labor sort of place, $40 an hour an up for most of our workers, but the company is desperate to keep working through anything (South Carolina has a major problem right now, and we don't want to shut down).

So the procedure is this: If you get exposed to someone who is positive with Covid, or if you come down with Symptoms, you go into quarantine for 14 days. During this 14 days you get paid your full wages as if you worked a full day every time. HOWEVER, if you get tested for Covid, and come back positive you immediately go on Short Term disability, which is only about 60% of base pay. It doesn't matter if you come back positive 1 day into a 14 day quarantine, you are going to be on short term disability immediately.

The obvious incentive is to send sick people home, but NOT test them, because if you test them then you have to send anyone they came in contact home as well. This has allowed Covid to spread through my work a lot, we have over 2 dozen positive cases now, and a lot of our workforce is in their 50s and 60s, so I am very concerned we could have fatalities. This is the sort of thing the company can get sued over, and the sort of blanket immunity the GOP wants to protect them from.

[Zan15]

So an example of the sort of bullshit companies are doing right now, is where I work. It is very much a skilled labor sort of place, $40 an hour an up for most of our workers, but the company is desperate to keep working through anything (South Carolina has a major problem right now, and we don't want to shut down).

So the procedure is this: If you get exposed to someone who is positive with Covid, or if you come down with Symptoms, you go into quarantine for 14 days. During this 14 days you get paid your full wages as if you worked a full day every time. HOWEVER, if you get tested for Covid, and come back positive you immediately go on Short Term disability, which is only about 60% of base pay. It doesn't matter if you come back positive 1 day into a 14 day quarantine, you are going to be on short term disability immediately.

The obvious incentive is to send sick people home, but NOT test them, because if you test them then you have to send anyone they came in contact home as well. This has allowed Covid to spread through my work a lot, we have over 2 dozen positive cases now, and a lot of our workforce is in their 50s and 60s, so I am very concerned we could have fatalities. This is the sort of thing the company can get sued over, and the sort of blanket immunity the GOP wants to protect them from.

crazy part is depending on the level of immunity they could possibly in the future not pay you for either scenario and force you to take sick time or FMLA unpaid time for which you would even possibly have to pay for your own healthcare benefits during it.

LOL. GG

- - - Updated - - -

WOW i was a little off on my 18% unemployment guess when calculating the "unemployment hole" that the BLS has had for decades and especially now.

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/...heading-higher
https://wolfstreet.com/2020/07/16/32...rket-collapse/


21%

The BLS reported that the U.S. employed workforce stood at about 152 million in February. With 32 million claiming unemployment, that's an unemployment rate of 21%. How do we arrive at a 12% unemployment rate? We ignore the 14.3 million contract / gig workers who are currently drawing emergency Federal unemployment via Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA),and the 936,000 in the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program.

But even the 21% real-world unemployment rate doesn't reflect the full unemployment picture: previously full-time workers who have had their hours cut to part-time aren't counted in unemployment statistics, even though their employment status has changed for the worse.


An entire class of workers has been glossed over: small business owners who have closed their businesses. Those owners who incorporated and paid unemployment insurance on themselves as employees of the corporation qualify for unemployment, but many small business owners didn't pay themselves as employees, and their status is uncertain.
Anecdotally, the number of small business owners who have decided to close in recent weeks appears to be significant, as the hoped-for V-shaped recovery failed to materialize even as states re-opened. This trend could gather momentum as hope decays into realistic assessment and funds borrowed from emergency federal programs (PPP) run out.

[Rasulis]

Oil Driller Calls Fake News on ‘Fraudulent’ Press Release

As the old stock market adage has it, buy the rumor, sell the fact. For investors who bought shares of Denbury Resources Inc. early Monday, it might be buy the fake news release, sell on the official denial.

At 5:51 a.m. New York time, a statement carried by press release service Accesswire and purporting to be from the Texan oil driller said the company received a takeover offer at $1.20 a a share.

Denbury’s stock more almost tripled in pre-market trading, only to pare those gains after CEO Chris Kendall told Bloomberg News the release was “completely fraudulent.” The company said it reported the matter to the New York Stock Exchange. Accesswire later rescinded the announcement, and a spokesman said an investigation is ongoing.

Ut oh! Follow the money?

[Zan15]

Oil Driller Calls Fake News on ‘Fraudulent’ Press Release



Ut oh! Follow the money?

LOL so stupid since its so easy to follow the money in stock trades....

[Rasulis]

LOL so stupid since its so easy to follow the money in stock trades....

Even more amazing. As the price of the stock drops, more and more people are piling in. What is wrong with people? Don't they bother looking at the quarterly reports anymore? That spike on 06/08 is highly suspect.

[Zan15]

Even more amazing. As the price of the stock drops, more and more people are piling in. What is wrong with people? Don't they bother looking at the quarterly reports anymore?

[IMG][/IMG]

i followed robin hood discussions and chat rooms for a while and basically its like the tide.
as soon as something gains popularity they try to push the stock to every other robin hooder to try to move the stock by sheer volume and no fundamentals.

Problem is at this point there is hundreds of competing "pushes" right now vs just a few dozen when this whole trend started.


This is a repeat of the boiler room antics of the 90s-00s in penny stocks.

100k people drive this stock up, dump it as thousands more keep jumping in then a mass exodus of those in the "know".
Then they move on to the next one as the vast majority of those left lose their shirts


if we had a functional administration the SEC would be all over robin hood and these pump and dumpers. But nah, don't want to impact the market in an election year.

[Rasulis]

This is a repeat of the boiler room antics of the 90s-00s in penny stocks.

I hope Robinhood investors learn quickly that this is a zero-sum game. For somebody to win, somebody has to lose. On top of that, they are competing against trading houses with access to tremendous amount of background information and AI executed trading. In the time it takes a retail investor to browse a page the AI would have executed dozens of trades. It is not a fair fight.

[Zan15]

I hope Robinhood investors learn quickly that this is a zero-sum game. For somebody to win, somebody has to lose. On top of that, they are competing against trading houses with access to tremendous amount of background information and AI executed trading. In the time it takes a retail investor to browse a page the AI would have executed dozens of trades. It is not a fair fight.

i dont even know how they make money? i was always afraid to use them because they could just go bankrupt at any minute?

[BeepBoo]

i dont even know how they make money? i was always afraid to use them because they could just go bankrupt at any minute?

Stock market isn't just about how well a company is doing and a company has only so many stocks issued at one point. If you convince a lot of people to buy, as the supply starts to get limited, price goes up. Now, when price is high and it's popular (independent of how well the company is doing, mind you, because stock price isn't directly tied to company's performance or health), you sell. As people sell, the price drops (obviously) because supply is being reintroduced.

As long as you stay on the front end of the curve, you come out. If you come in on the tail end, you usually get hosed. Ergo, robin hoods are usually the front end. Or they're on the tail end and trying to convince more people to jump on so they can cash out and not be screwed for holding too long or being late to the actual party.

[Zan15]

Stock market isn't just about how well a company is doing and a company has only so many stocks issued at one point. If you convince a lot of people to buy, as the supply starts to get limited, price goes up. Now, when price is high and it's popular (independent of how well the company is doing, mind you, because stock price isn't directly tied to company's performance or health), you sell. As people sell, the price drops (obviously) because supply is being reintroduced.

As long as you stay on the front end of the curve, you come out. If you come in on the tail end, you usually get hosed. Ergo, robin hoods are usually the front end. Or they're on the tail end and trying to convince more people to jump on so they can cash out and not be screwed for holding too long or being late to the actual party.

From the top 50-100 charts on robinhood you can easly see that the majority of robin hooders are on the tail end and are not "in the know" of the manipulation