Category: zerohedge

Yesterday, when giving an update  on the global coronavirus infection curve, and highlighting where various nations currently reside on the curve, we said what has become conventional wisdom, namely that “with every passing day, the world – most of which is currently on lock down – gets closer to the infection inflection point, and as the updated “corona curve” chart shows, all the nations that were in the exponential rise phase (acceleration), are now moving into the stage of infection growth rate slowdown (accumulation), suggesting that a peak for most countries is now just a matter of time, at which point the number of new cases will start slowing down aggressively. This means that while US cases continue to soar, the light at the end of the tunnel is now visible.”

Some, such as JPMorgan’s delightfully permabullish quant Marko Kolanovic (who is so keen on giving flashbacks to his notes from x weeks ago, if not so much his “once in a decade” call to buy value/short low-vol stocks last July), ran with this data to its extreme conclusion, writing today that his models “have indicated that social distancing is working and that the apex of the pandemic will come sooner and require significantly less peak hospitalizations than projected by the models used by government officials at the time.”

In short, it’s all downhill from here on the corona-curve… literally, which is great news if that was all there is to it as every analyst-trader-amateur-epidemiologist jumps to conclude.

Unfortunately, it turns out that there is much more to it what happens next than “conventional wisdom” hot takes and amateur Wall Street virologists would have you believe, because in a separate not from a far more erudite JPM analyst – at least when it comes to coronavirus analysis – the bank’s MW Kim writes that the first apex is just the beginning, and then – as China is learning now as it reports the most new cases in a month…

… it gets much worse again as the second infection wave is unleashed, then the third, and so on.

So what’s really going on?

First let’s do the good news, which as JPM’s MW Kim notes, have to do with the slowdown in global infections which grew 62% w/w to 1,275,542, while infection growth momentum has slowed compared to ~95% w/w ten days ago.

Furthermore, as we reported yesterday, several of the larger impacted countries are now in the slower infection growth rate accumulating stage (the latest curve chart as of this morning is shown below)…

… and JPM is optimistic that post Easter holidays, market focus could likely shift towards “infection peak”/ “recovery statistics” from the current ‘daily new additions’.

Now, and as is customary, are the not so good news: MW Kim cautions that his findings on COVID-19 so far include (1) the lack of a vaccine makes it difficult to clear the virus; (2) social distancing is an expensive strategy in terms of economic/ social cost perspective; (3) it may perhaps prove challenging to build popular acceptance of stricter social distancing for more than a month.

Therefore, and this is the key part, JPMorgan (at least the non-quant part of JPMorgan) “cannot rule out the possibility that global infection curves propagate secondary waves, shaped similar to seismic aftershocks until a vaccine is broadly available.”

Some more details from JPM on how and why “reducing new contacts” aka social distancing has been the primary containment strategy:

Most countries so far have taken the strategy of reducing the virus transmission rate in the community to slow the infection curve. We have proposed that COVID- 19 seems to have a higher basic reproduction number (Ro: 2) compared to the Spanish Flu (Ro: 1.5-1.8). Also, it could take 12-16 months for a vaccine to be under mass production. As a result, the spread of COVID-19  could potentially paralyze the hospital system in a short period. Majority of countries have implemented strong social distancing measures including city lockdowns to reduce the pressure on hospital capacities. This way, new contact with potential infection pool could be reduced which would lead to smaller new infection additions. Meanwhile, it allows time for governments to build up healthcare capacities such as intensive care units, which could then minimize the mortality risks.

So far so good, and social distancing does indeed show success. But, as JPM asks, the question is if authorities will face challenges in acceptance to extend strict social-distancing for longer periods (say over a month).

Therefore, the bank’s analyst cannot rule out the possibility that successive global infection curves form until a vaccine is broadly available. The strategy then may shift to society living with COVID-19, but minimizing infection scale/scope.

Which then brings us to the $64 trillion (roughly in line with global GDP) question: is the coming “second reinfection wave” going to be smaller or bigger, similar to the Spanish Flu pandemic, where deaths in the second wave were 5x greater than those from the first?

Here JPM believes that next waves could be at a smaller amplitude with lower mortality rate potential compared to the current first wave. This is due to (1) strong risk awareness among stakeholders; (2) faster government response potential at the infection tipping point; and (3) enhanced risk manual at the containment stage. However, even a substantially reduced amplitude of wave 2 (and 3 and 4), suggest that ongoing economic shutdowns will be recurring feature of life for quarters if not years!

The amplitude could be higher, however, a la the Spanish Flu pandemic, if it turns out that the life cycle of the coronavirus is far longer than assumed.  As JPM notes, the COVID-19 infection life cycle could last for 4-5 weeks including a 2-week incubation period.

The bottom line, and somewhat counterintuitively, the sooner the world declares victory against the Wu Flu, the faster the general population will rush back into “social undistancing”, sparking countless new case clusters as the infection restarts from scratch, forcing authorities to re-establish social distancing once again, and so on, as the entire process repeats from square one.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Calls for a “national quarantine” ignore both the historical and legal foundations for such orders. While the President can reduce travel at transportation hubs and certainly call for a national quarantine as “an aspirational” matter, the legal authority to enforce a national quarantine is far from obvious…

• In Chicago, residents are being told they will face jail if found exercising outdoors.

• In Washington, residents are also being threatened with jail for violating lockdown orders.

• In Rhode Island, officials are looking for New Yorkers to forcibly quarantine them.

• While President Trump has shelved his consideration of an enforceable quarantine of New York, there have been new calls for him to order a national quarantine of the country. For his part, Governor Andrew Cuomo declared that any national quarantine of his state would be a “federal declaration of war on states.”

Such rhetoric on both sides outstrips the legal realities of government options to contain a contagious outbreak.

While Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson famously declared “the Constitution is not a suicide pact,” it is also not carte blanche for the federal government to bar the exercise of rights during a pandemic. Quarantines have a controversial history in the United States, with numerous lingering legal questions.

The term “quarantine” is often used loosely by politicians and pundits who refer to widely different government actions. What some had described as quarantine orders during previous outbreaks were really isolation orders limiting people with known or suspected contagious conditions. Isolation orders have existed for centuries and present less of a legal challenge, as the individual who is infected is deemed a public health risk.

The need for isolation orders is personified in the case of Mary Mallon, or the infamous Typhoid Mary. She was a dangerous combination of amoral and asymptomatic. Despite deaths and illnesses occurring in households where she worked as a cook, Mallon refused to accept or address the fact that she was a toxic “super spreader” of the disease. She was forcibly isolated twice by New York authorities. The first time she was confined for three years until she agreed not to work as a cook.

But she soon grew unhappy working for lower wages as a laundress and returned to cooking under the name Mary Brown. For five more years, she spread typhoid with a vengeance until again put into forced confinement, where she remained until her death with typhoid bacteria still evident in her body. So Mallon is the ultimate justification for involuntary isolation orders. She not only refused to yield to authorities but, when she was apprehended the last time, was delivering food to a friend.

Isolation orders have been used throughout history to battle contagions, from the Spanish flu to tuberculosis. Only six years ago, Kaci Hickox, a nurse who worked with Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, was ordered into a mandatory quarantine by New Jersey officials. She sued the state, and the complaint was dropped in a settlement in which the state agreed to use such powers only when medically necessary. But in contrast, quarantines involve the confinement of large numbers of people through lockdowns and travel bans. It derives from “cordon sanitaire,” a term associated with a 19th century order by the Duke of Richelieu blocking Spaniards from entering France during a yellow fever outbreak.

Unquestionably, Trump issued the same type of directive as the Duke of Richelieu by barring entry from countries like China. Presidents have enhanced authority over our borders, and such limits on international travel are specifically contemplated in laws and regulations governing pandemics. What Cuomo described as a “civil war kind of discussion” is the notion of a federal quarantine line around a state, as opposed to around the country. The analogy is more apt than one might think, since an outbreak like the coronavirus can create a type of warfare between the states. The Rhode Island hunt for fleeing New Yorkers reflects the fears of other states like Florida of a wider outbreak spread by a line of Mary Mallons caravaning from New York.

The federal government has a great deal of authority to order increased production of materials and other measures supporting the states during a pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has the express authority to quarantine suspected carriers of a disease or virus. Yet federal regulations contain highly generalized and untested language for action. One rule entitled “Measure in Event of Inadequate Local Control,” reserves the right of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “to take such measures to prevent such spread of the diseases” deemed reasonably necessary.

But there is no express authority for domestic quarantines on the federal level. The federal government has long claimed the authority to order quarantines as part of its jurisdiction over interstate commerce, and a president can cite national security authority for some public health measures. Thus, the national transportation system, including the interstate and railway systems, can be used as chokepoints to restrict travel between the states.

Indeed, the federal government can effectively shut down interstates by simply creating checkpoints for medical examinations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director has authority to quarantine anyone “reasonably believed to be infected with a quarantinable communicable disease in a qualifying stage and is moving or about to move from a state into another state.” A white jacketed official from the agency with a thermometer at a tollbooth can do wonders in slowing traffic.

The problem is that a national or regional quarantine is designed to confine people who do not have symptoms, a fact that would lead to immediate challenges. Yet as shown in the Hickox case, any legal challenges would likely take longer than the period of the quarantine. On a practical level, quarantines are most successful for limited areas and limited periods. States and cities have greater authority to impose and enforce lockdown orders, as the Constitution leaves public health powers largely in their hands. Indeed, the model pandemic plans reaffirm that governors, not the president, hold the primary authority and responsibility to prepare for and address health emergencies.

Yet even state orders can contravene liberties ranging from the right to travel, the right to association, and the right to due process. None are absolute, but contravening such rights requires high burdens that often involve compelling interests, which are easy in a pandemic, and narrow tailoring of government actions, which is more difficult with a blanket ban on travel. A man was arrested last week for holding a “coronavirus party” in violation of the New Jersey Emergency and Temporary Acts. Such actions are likely to be upheld as long as the state can show an immediate danger to the public from viral transmissions.

Such state interests can even trounce religious exercise. New York Mayor Bill De Blasio warned the Jewish community to stop holding minyanim, a gathering of worshipers for prayers, as a threat to public health. The problem is personified by Tony Spell, a pastor in Louisian who defied authorities by holding services with 1,000 followers of his Life Tabernacle Church. Spell, who has claimed to cure such things as cancer, questioned why Walmart can stay open but not his church. The answer is obvious. Walmart cannot get food to people through the internet, but churches can hold online services in emergencies.

There are, however, striking contradictions under the Constitution. The federal government can stop televangelist Jim Bakker from selling a “silver sol liquid” as a coronavirus cure, but it cannot stop a minister promising that faith alone will heal or protect followers, even though such assurances can discourage people from seeking medical help or engaging in preventive measures.

The courts are likely to be highly deferential to quarantine orders by state authorities and even limited orders by federal authorities. There is room at the elbows in the Constitution to deal with emergencies, but the countervailing demands of such rights as association and religious exercise grow quickly with time. More importantly, the efficacy of such orders depends greatly on the cooperation of virtually everyone in a population. Not even the federal government can keep a large population in effective lockdown unless people are willing to stay in lockdown. That means the key to containment is persuasion rather than coercion.

*  *  *

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates online @JonathanTurley.

Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced the entire country will enter complete lockdown starting 4 pm on Tuesday until 7 am Friday.

This will also include a mandated home-confinement for all citizens from Wednesday׳s Passover Seder until 7am on Thursday, with citizens only allowed to venture outside up to 100 meters from their home during that time. All travel between cities will be banned, which appears to have already begun to be enforced by police.

Netanyahu further indicated some restrictions will remain in effect for the full holiday week, with some likely to be lifted gradually following the Passover holiday. It’s being interpreted as a controversial move to prevent families from traveling to gather for Passover.

Local media reports have suggested the move is in part a bid to open up the economy again after the intensive period of ‘stay at home’ orders.

Passover typically includes large family gatherings and heightened travel across the Jewish state, and the PM framed the drastic nationwide police-enforced lock down as aimed at preventing large-scale transmissions during the festivities.

He also said during his statements, “we see positive signs on the horizon” at a moment over 8,400 Israelis have been confirmed for COVID-19, including 53 deaths as of Monday afternoon.

Netanyahu in his remarks touted that Israel has successfully initiated testing on a more expansive level than any other country currently hard-hit by the pandemic, and emphasized health officials are determined to reach 10,000 tests a day.

Police have been particularly active in resistant ultra-Orthodox towns, especially Bnei Brak outside of Jerusalem, for broad refusal to shut down synagogues and religious schools amid local mandates.

This is crazy. A group of 20 hilltop youth settlers who were in contact with a known corona patient refused to enter a quarantine facility in #Jerusalem. As they were being driven to another location in the south, they rioted in the police bus and broke the windows of the bus https://t.co/LwndsWWZHC

— Anna Ahronheim (@AAhronheim) April 6, 2020

The new national lockdown and strict curfew for Passover still needs to be approved by the cabinet, where there’s been fierce internal debate over whether the lockdown should only be applied to ultra-Orthodox communities, given the rapid spread of the virus there and broad refusal to abide by health restrictions and social distancing.

Likely the new lockdown orders will be met with resistance in conservative neighborhoods, given also Passover is among the top few most important observances on the Jewish calendar. 

Some positive second-derivatives in various state and nation case- and death-count-curves appeared to spark hope in stocks…

Source: Bloomberg

Do you believe in miracles…

…but gold’s surge suggests more fear than hope (or more helicopter money)…

Source: Bloomberg

Live look at Dow futures pic.twitter.com/kLWZySZUu0

— Quoth the Raven (@QTRResearch) April 6, 2020

The ‘Virus Fear’ trade eased modestly today

Source: Bloomberg

Gold futures finally broke above (and held above) $1700 today…

This is the highest gold futures price since Dec 2012…

Source: Bloomberg

“The virus is continuing to spread unchecked, especially in the US. US President Trump has warned that the population should prepare itself for two very tough weeks. This will further delay any normalisation of public life,” Carsten Fritsch, an analyst as Commerzbank, said in a note.

“The economic impact is already very serious … It is hardly surprising that gold is in demand against this backdrop.”

Rather notably, futures are leading spot once again and the markets are decoupling over physical shortages stress…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasuries were sold today (no safe haven bid) as stocks soared…

Source: Bloomberg

And today was a massive day for US stocks… all up around 8% with a mind-numbingly stupid meltup into the close on a $6.5bn MoC headline…

On the back of the second biggest short-squeeze ever…

Source: Bloomberg

Dow Futures (up 1700 points) perhaps show the algos’ preferences best as recent high stops were run…

Virus-impacted sectors bounced…

Source: Bloomberg

Banks also surged on the day…

Source: Bloomberg

VIX fell to a one-month low…

Treasury yields were higher across the curve today with 10Y yields up most (+7.5bps) and the short-end relatively outperforming…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar drifted lower to end unchanged from overnight gains…

Source: Bloomberg

Cable tumbled on news that BoJo was moved to ICU as his condition worsened…

Source: Bloomberg

With BoJo down (but not out), this seemed appropriate…

Cryptos screamed higher today, led by Ethereum…

Source: Bloomberg

Commodities were mixed with opil down hard, copper gaining and PMs strong…

Source: Bloomberg

WTI tried to rebound after the disappointing delay for the OPEC+ meeting sent prices sharply lower…

As Gold topped $1700, Silver surged back above $15

Finally, as we asked earlier – is it a retest of the lows?

Or no retest?

But an ugly ending…

Source: Bloomberg

Of course, this is once again not about fun-durr-mentals…

Source: Bloomberg

Trade accordingly.

While the global coronavirus pandemic has had its share of tragic consequences, including tens of thousands dead, a near halt in the global economy, millions of businesses on the verge of collapse, and the biggest intervention of central banks in capital markets in history, there have been two distinctly positive consequences: the collapse in oil prices and the decimation across the buyside has meant that Greta Thunberg and her carefully scripted climate cult have been all but forgotten, and that the ESG insanity shoved down everyone’s throat by virtue signaling banks desperate to find a new revenue source is about to go extinct.

As a reminder, two months ago we reported that when virtue-signaling tour de force that is ESG, or Environmental, Social, and Governance, is anything but, as a quick look at the most popular holdings across the various ESG funds revealed.

This is what we said in February:

Instead of finding companies that, well, care for the environment, for society or are for a progressive governance movement, it turns out that the most popular holdings of all those virtue signaling ESG funds are companies such as…. Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple and Amazon, which one would be hard pressed to explain how their actions do anything that is of benefit for the environment, or whatever the S and G stand for. It gets better: among the other most popular ESG companies are consulting company Accenture (?), Procter & Gamble (??), and… drumroll, JPMorgan (!!?!!!?!).

In short: even as everyone was rushing to jump on the ESG bandwagon in hopes of boosting “virtuous” investing money, virtually none of the so-called ESG funds were actually investing in.. drumroll… ESG. In fact, it turns out that most ESG funds were in fact nothing more than a portfolio of some of the highest momentum and biggest buyback names, and since the wave of passive investing was being allocated disproportionately to ESG, it helped boost those stocks even if they had nothing to do with ESG at all!

Just a few days later, in the first sign that Wall Street’s latest bout of epic hypocrisy was about to be exposed, Bloomberg reported that “the Securities and Exchange Commission wanted to know whether money managers are engaging in false advertising by saying funds are devoted to doing good when the reality is much murkier.”

… the SEC asked whether ESG products should have to follow existing rules that require a fund’s name to broadly match what it invests in. For instance, a fund that includes “stocks” in its name generally has to have at least 80% of its portfolio in equities.

Additionally, on ESG, the SEC asked for comment on issues including whether:

• The rule for naming funds should apply to ESG or sustainable products?
• Investors are relying on these terms to understand funds’ strategies?
• There should be specific requirements that funds must adhere to in order to call their investments ESG or sustainable?

Fast forward to today when the SEC may also want to look into performance criteria as well.

The reason:  Six of the 10 biggest “ESG-focused” U.S. mutual funds – with such “ESG” holdings as Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple, Accenture, Procter & Gamble, and – of course – JPMorgan, posted bigger losses than the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index this year as the Covid-19 outbreak roiled global markets.

The worst performer was the $2.6 billion Parnassus Endeavor Fund, which has lost 29.1% through Friday, compared with the S&P 500’s 22.6% decline. The fund with the least losses was the $3.6 billion Calvert Equity Fund, which was down 16% .

As Bloomberg notes, that ESG stalwart Macroclimate pardon Microsoft were among the top picks for the Calvert Equity in the past year, according to fund manager Joe Hudepohl.

“Their movement toward the cloud, which is a good growth area, helped as well as being a leader in privacy issues, and they are strong on diversity at the top level too,” he said, adding the usual disclaimer for any investor that has suffered a huge loss, namely that “the fund is a long-term investor and doesn’t focus too much on short-term market gyrations.“

And when the fund does start to focus on short-term market gyrations, which usually takes place just as the margin calls start coming in, the fund also tends to demand a bailout. Because, clearly, its Millennial managers were so “good” in investing and collecting their management fee, that their only recourse when their precious “ESG” stocks plunge, is to see a bailout from the Fed.

In short, one can only hope that if nothing else, the coronavirus crisis at least wipes out the virtue signaling quasi-fraud that is ESG, even if it means that sellside desks will be forced to write about fundamental analysis instead of spinning long presentations full of nothing more than poignant bullshit.

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

You understand, there will be no meaningful resuscitation of the dear, departed, so-called greatest boom in history. Ponzi schemes don ‘t “bounce back,” they collapse for the simple reason that the pieces holding them up were not really there.

Such are the unanticipated consequences of a media over-saturated culture that we were so easily deceived by appearances.

The emotions entrained by this implacable disaster have barely expressed themselves in the social arena. The public is still too shell-shocked by the prospect of losing everything ­– jobs, incomes, status, chattels, a future – to commence what the shrinks call “acting out.” Anyway, half the country is still acting out over the election of Mr. Trump three years ago.

But, for the moment, an interesting debate rages internationally as to whether the Covid-19 virus was some kind of engineered event designed to bring about various political outcomes…

One thread declares that the Democratic Party, its media handmaidens, and a helpful Chinese leadership used the virus to blow up the US economy and finally, after several botched attempts, get rid of the vexing Mr. Trump.

It’s a tidy story, but I don’t buy it, for the simple reason that the entire global economy has blown up, including China’s, so you can file that meme in the Wile E. Coyote folder.

A gloss on that one is the idea that NIAID director Anthony Fauci and other medical experts are wicked conspirators bent on destroying American morale by overstating the threat of Covid-19.

This includes the phrase that the novel corona virus is “just another seasonal flu,” and so ordering people to stay away from work and business was unnecessary. Again, you’d have to ask yourself why medical experts and other plausibly intelligent people in so many other countries would do exactly the same thing. They can’t all be orcs.

Then there’s the one that has Bill Gates so worked up about climate change that he’s using his foundation’s deep resources to reduce the world’s population by sowing maximum disorder onto the scene with Covid-19 hysteria.

This one casts Mr. Gates as something like a villain from a James Bond movie, deep in his Seattle mega-fortress petting a Persian cat as millions perish. Sounds like another case of Americans confusing movies with real life.

Another story has a shadowy gang of “globalists” using the disorder spawned by the virus to impose a centralized global uber-government run by international financiers. 

First of all, that one smacks of the hoary conspiracy theory that Bilderberger bankers are scheming to take over the world – yet these supposedly hyper-clever “puppet-masters” are proving that they can’t even run the banks and their own financial ops, which are now crashing down around their ears along with everybody else’s. Thirdly, if there is trend anywhere in this collapse scenario, it is for the devolution of power downward, away from floundering centralized power structures and institutions. As they flounder, the faith of their subject peoples ebbs away and the trust horizon shrinks so that the people are no longer willing to depend on distant authorities for anything.

That floundering of centralized authorities is exactly what’s in process here in the USA.

Mr. Trump surely has enough problems attempting to manage this crisis, not the least of which is his own unfortunate habit of jumbled impromptu speech that often sounds like sheer blather. Some observers like to call it “plain speech,” but in my experience even the common folk of America, the plumbers, truck drivers, and waitresses, express themselves more coherently. It’s just not very reassuring. Believe me, I don’t want to see the president fail, but I would advise him to stick to the teleprompter.

Of course, then, there is Joe Biden, the implausible nominee-presumptive of the opposition. Who are they kidding with this emperor’s new clothes scam? It’s obvious now to anyone over twelve in this land that Joe Biden is missing a few transistors on the old motherboard – not to mention the slime-trail of grift and money-laundering that he laid down in his adventures abroad as vice-president. His manner of speech, while different than Mrs. Trump’s, is even more pathetically incoherent. The Democrats’ pretense that he is a viable candidate is the ultimate falsehood in a long train of barefaced falsehoods they’ve so earnestly retailed since 2016, making them utterly untrustworthy to run the nation’s affairs.

We don’t know whether anyone, or any faction, will be able to run the nation’s affairs in the months upcoming. The least credible cohort these days are the folks presiding over the financial side of things. There is plenty of debate as to whether the mega bailouts and backstops will bring on inflation or deflation, both ruinous at the grand scale.

There’s abundant evidence that this flood of money-from-thin-air will do nothing to arrest the unwind of a system so rotten that it casts an odor across the boundaries of history.

Wall Street has screwed America’s pooch so completely that the poor pooch can’t even squeal for mercy anymore. The Federal Reserve crew and their allied banksters have barely a few weeks before an immiserated public comes after them with the modern equivalent of pitchforks. Wait for the breaking news on the cable networks: The Hamptons are burning!

After being admitted to the hospital over the weekend, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been taken to intensive care as his condition has apparently worsened dramatically overnight.

Dominic Raab has now been deputized to lead Britain in his place.

The Prime Minister has been taken to intensive care

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) April 6, 2020

PM is asking Dominic Raab to deputise for him

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) April 6, 2020

The news sent GBP/USD tumbling into the red on the day.

In a video message he delivered to the British people on Friday, BoJo looked extremely pale and feverish, his skin glistening with sweat, but although he sounded a bit hoarse, he didn’t appear to be having any trouble breathing. Downing Street has described his condition as “worsening.”

Remember, the thing that makes COVID-19 infections so deadly for some patients is that they can sometimes trigger a secondary bacterial infections in the lungs that lead to the destruction of lung tissue that the body simply cannot repair, or replace.

The news of BoJo’s condition is nothing short of a thunderbolt for the UK press, who will be holding a 24-hour BoJo death watch until he recovers. Of course, Britain has plenty of medical resources available to treat him, and although his condition has worsened, we suspect that doctors would be more willing to move a patient of critical importance to national security to the ICU sooner than some poor shmuck who just stumbled in the door of the nearest NHS hospital.

Via Global Macro Monitor,

Is this a sign of spiking consumer confidence or just a signal of a less shitty week to come?

It has begun…,yes she is at the returns counter and yes she is doing exactly what you think she’s doing….. pic.twitter.com/CnPnOvcGHi

— Lisa Forte (@LisaForteUK) April 4, 2020

The futures markets seem to like it, but you decide…

You think the Masters of the Universe and their algos are going to use toilet paper returns as a source of alternative data to signal a economic inflection point and get all lathered up in spooz only to get wiped out?  

Just askin’…

After the Biden campaign refused to sanction plans to delay the vote, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers is taking on both the Republican-controlled state assembly and national figures in the Democratic Party by issuing an executive order postponing Tuesday’s election.

Evers issued the order Monday afternoon, and Republican lawmakers are expected to challenge it almost immediately in the courts. Whether the people of Wisconsin will vote tomorrow remains to be seen.

But the decision is a rare example of a politician actually prioritizing the health of the people of his state over the whims of politicians, something that hasn’t been happening enough amid the worst pandemic in generations.

The Biden campaign felt it would be better for Wisconsin’s primary, which is also a special election for more than 3,000 seats in the state legislature.

“Frankly, there’s no good answer to this problem — I wish it were easy,” Evers said. “I have been asking everyone to do their part to help keep our families, our neighbors, and our communities safe, and I had hoped that the Legislature would do its part – just as the rest of us are — to help keep people healthy and safe.”

“The bottom line is that I have an obligation to keep people safe, and that’s why I signed this executive order today,” he added.

If Evers’ executive order holds, Wisconsin would become the 16th state to delay its election amid the pandemic. The governor previously called a special session of the legislature on Saturday to try to push through legislation barring in-person voting on Tuesday, but Republicans blocked it.

Despite Mayor Bill de Blasio confirming Monday the federal government had sent 600,000 N95 masks to New York City, and that other supplies have been procured, including ventilators — finally enough at least for the near-term immediate needs of besieged hospitals and panicked health workers — city morgues and burial spaces remain overwhelmed.

According to a breaking report by the New York Post, the city council has come up with a ghastly solution as state-wide the death count reaches 4,159, with more than 1,200 deaths coming in the last two days alone: authorities will begin “temporary internment” in local public parks.

The Post cited Councilman Mark Levine as confirming Monday emergency plans to begin burying the city’s dead in local parks, though specific park names and locations were not immediately identified.

Levine (D-Manhattan) in a series of tweets detailed the morgue and healthcare system chaos and strain as “the equivalent of an ongoing 9/11” adding that city hospital morgues are “now all full”.

“Grieving families report calling as many as half a dozen funeral homes and finding none that can handle their deceased loved ones,” he said. “Cemeteries are not able to handle the number of burial requests and are turning most down.”

And still the number of bodies continues to increase. The freezers at OCME facilities in Manhattan and Brooklyn will soon be full. And then what? 8/

— Mark D. Levine (@MarkLevineNYC) April 6, 2020

“Soon we’ll start ‘temporary interment’,” he wrote. “This likely will be done by using a NYC park for burials (yes you read that right). Trenches will be dug for 10 caskets in a line.”

“It will be done in a dignified, orderly–and temporary–manner. But it will be tough for NYers to take,” Levine added. “The goal is to avoid scenes like those in Italy, where the military was forced to collect bodies from churches and even off the streets.”

Soon we’ll start “temporary interment”. This likely will be done by using a NYC park for burials (yes you read that right). Trenches will be dug for 10 caskets in a line.

It will be done in a dignified, orderly–and temporary–manner. But it will be tough for NYers to take. 9/

— Mark D. Levine (@MarkLevineNYC) April 6, 2020

Mayor de Blasio was questioned at a later press briefing about the extreme contingency. He confirmed, “We may well be dealing with temporary burials, so we can deal with each family later,” according to NY Post.

“I’m not going into details,” de Blasio said. “I don’t think it’s a great thing to be talking about.”

Over the past month the COVID-19 epicenter in Italy, Lombardy, witnessed horrific scenes of town morgues becoming so overwhelmed that military trucks were sent by the national government to evacuate bodies for burial in other regions and cities.