NFW!
Tune out the nonsense, turn off the news, and stick to the data, folks.
The Wall Street clowns are at it again, spreading fear and loathing about the new strain of COVID, the Delta variant, retrofitting a new negative narrative to explain the nonsensical bond market action.
They thrive and need to create volatility to make their year-end bone.
No Signal, All Noise
The Fed nationalized the bond markets long ago. Trying to decipher an economic signal from bond yields is equivalent to guessing what price the central authorities in the old Soviet Union would set for blood sausage.
Are bond yields falling because the economy is about to go into a tailspin or a stock market collapse is imminent? Anything is possible, and nobody knows the future, but highly unlikely, at least until the Fed starts to pump the breaks. There is way too much money in the global monetary system.
The collapse in bond yields is all technical, baby. What a tremendous shorting opportunity if it were a proper market with true price discovery. We have done a lot of work analyzing the bond market in the past week and hope to post it for you this weekend.
Wait for it. It will be good. Promise.
Good Gawd, Such Nonsense
The Delta variant is a real threat to the unvaccinated, especially in the states with relatively low vax rates.
However, many states and advanced economies are almost at herd immunity — vaxed plus COVID recovered — including the UK where cases are spiking.
…it seemed inevitable that new cases of Covid-19 – which had been steadily declining since early January – would begin to rise again. On June 24, the number of daily infections in the UK crossed 16,000, levels not seen since early February when the UK was still in full lockdown.
But the third wave will look very different to the last two. While the Delta variant is considered to be more virulent than any that have previously followed, the UK’s successful vaccination campaign appears to have broken the seemingly inevitable link between cases, hospitalisations, and fatalities. The current hospitalisation rate remains low. There were 182 new hospital admissions on June 22 – a rate of 16 per 1000 new cases – compared with 3,812 admissions on January 12, the height of the second wave, a rate of 84 per 1000 new cases. – Wired
Share Of Population Fully Vaccinated
Number Of COVID-19 Patients In Hospital
Let The Games Begin
Though Japan has been relatively successful in keeping COVID at bay, the country’s low vaccination rate is rattling nerves as the athletes arrive and the Olympic Games are about to begin.
Olympics organizers are banning all spectators from the games this year after Japan declared a state of emergency that’s meant to curb a wave of new Covid-19 infections.
It’s the latest setback for the Summer Olympics that have already been delayed for a year and racked up high costs for postponement. The state of emergency will begin Monday and run through Aug. 22, while the games are scheduled from July 23 to Aug. 8. – CNBC
Upshot
Ignore the noise, folks, stay data-dependent. Change your view as the facts and data change.
Of course, there are states and countries still at high risk with their low vax rates. The advanced economies need to pull out all the stops to do all they can to help get shots in the arms of those at risk.
It’s kind of tough, however, given all the ignoramuses spouting their fascist conspiracy nonsense. They are the true modern-day brown shirts.
The far right-wing lawmaker has likened COVID-19 vaccination outreach to the reign of terror mounted by Hitler’s “brown shirts” during the Nazi era. – Daily News
God help us.
Thanks. Very good post.
Doug
Another view: https://nationalpost.com/news/world/virus-antibodies-are-no-match-for-delta-variant-study-show
The journal ‘Nature’ is as reputable as they come.
Thanks,
Doug
Thanks. Check out Vermont. 65 plus% vaxed, and less than 1 person per 100k contracting COVID in last 7 days. Empirical > theory, for now.
Anonymous, is the Delta variant prevalence significant in Vermont? Not likely, due to their early and significant vaccination rate. The test is yet to come, in Vermont. Elsewhere, where rate of vaccination is lower, Delta is now dominating.
Let’s see what happens, everywhere, in the Fall!
Good write-up. I take issue with only one thing. I saw Cramer’s critique on the FDA dragging their feet about full authorization to the MRNA vaccines. His point was that when the FDA finally gets around to doing this, then businesses and governments can require vaccinations—as has been the case for decades stacked on end for school children. Want to go to school, you got get your vaccinations. Wne you have knuckle heads on the right refusing the vaccine based on nonsensical political fantasies, and misinformation running rampant among Q conspiracy theorists and the like, yeah, we do need them to get off the dime and approve them fully, given the mountains of evidence that show them perfectly safe. I have a friend that works in a nursing home as a speech pathologist. She and the manager are the only workers there who have green vaccinated. Some of the other minimu wage care givers, when asked why they refuse the shots, say they are afraid BIll Gates is placing tiny little chips in the vaccine to control their brains, well, you get the picture. Mandatory.
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