Delta CEO Says All New Hires Must Be Fully Vaccinated
by Zero Hedge - May 14th, 2021 5:20 pm
Courtesy of ZeroHedge
Yesterday, when it announced plans to raise wages for new hires as it attempts to hire tens of thousands of new workers, Amazon added that it would offer all new hires an additional $100 bonus if they are already fully vaccinated before signing on.
On Friday, Ed Bastian, the CEO of Delta Air Lines made a splash on an otherwise slow news day by proclaiming during an interview with CNN that the company will require all new hires to be fully vaccinated – while Delta's current workforce (winnowed after waves of pandemic-inspired furloughs and layoffs) will be exempt from the mandate. However, those who refuse to get their shots will be barred from working on international flights (since destination countries, like, for example, the EU, may require foreigners to prove vaccination status before entry).
"Any person joining Delta in the future, a future employee, we're going to mandate they be vaccinated before they can sign up with the company," CEO Ed Bastian told CNN on Thursday.
It's just the latest example of how the Biden Administration is relying on he nation's employers to pressure workers to get their shots or face discrimination or other repercussions (including possible termination, as has already been seen) as demand for jabs fades across the US, creating a serious obstacle for the US vaccine rollout in the push to reach 70% vaccination rate for American adults, which is where scientists theorize 'herd immunity' will kick in.
Delta said in a statement that "we know that vaccines are the best toolw e have to protect one another and bring an end to the pandemic." It said requiring new hires to be vaccinated is important as "our business recovers and demand for air travel continues to rise."
To help accomplish this, Delta has converted its Georgia museum into a mass vaccination center. The company's work with the state of Georgia has allowed it to vaccinate 5K people per day in the museum.
As for those who are already employed, "I don't think that's fair to force them to get vaccinated if there's some philosophical issue they have," Bastian said
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China May Attempt To Land Mars Rover Today
by Zero Hedge - May 14th, 2021 3:39 pm
Courtesy of ZeroHedge View original post here.
From currency war, to trade war, to tech war, to climate war, and now to space war, the superpower rivalry between the US and China continues to flare up with Beijing expected to land its rover on the red planet today.
CNET reports that the China National Space Administration's (CNSA) spacecraft, which has been orbiting Mars since February, is expected to enter the Martian atmosphere at 7:11 p.m. ET. CNET cites multiple Twitter accounts that monitor China's space programs, though we must point out CNSA has yet to confirm the timing.
The spacecraft is expected to descend into the atmosphere for approximately seven minutes. Then deploy a parachute with a lander and rover.
The rover, called Zhurong, will be China's first attempt to probe the surface of the Red Planet in an ambitious mission called "Tianwen-1" which was first launched in July 2020.
If all goes well this evening, the lander will smoothly touch down and will later deploy a 530-pound, solar-powered rover ready to explore the surface for water ice. The mission will allow China to map out the surface of Mars and prepare for future flights where it can send a spacecraft to the planet and return rocks or dirt to Earth.
Zhurong is set to explore Utopia Planitia for 90 Martian days, according to the Tianwen-1 team.
Meanwhile, NASA landed the Mars Perseverance rover in February, searched for signs of ancient life, and collected rock samples for a possible return to Earth. The rover also launched a helicopter called Ingenuity, which has flown five flights, taking off vertically, hovering, and landing.
The US and China have taken an interest in Mars because it is packed with rare metals, including lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, niobium, molybdenum, lanthanum, europium, tungsten, and gold, essential minerals that will power the economy of tomorrow.
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Morgan Stanley Has Paid Fines for Two Decades for Abusing Customers with In-House Products, Now It Plans to Stuff Bitcoin Futures into Its Mutual Funds and Retiree Annuities
by ilene - May 14th, 2021 11:59 am
Courtesy of Pam Martens
James Gorman, Chairman and CEO, Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley has more than 15,000 financial advisors calling clients each day with investment recommendations that are frequently engineered inside the firm. (These are known as in-house or proprietary products.) For the past two decades, we have been reading about regulatory fines against Morgan Stanley for abusing its customers in these home-grown offerings.
In November 2000, Morgan Stanley’s Dean Witter unit was charged by the National Association of Securities Dealers’ regulatory arm with selling over $2 billion of Term Trusts to more than 100,000 customers using an internal marketing campaign that characterized the investments as safe and low-risk. The NASD Regulation complaint said that Dean Witter targeted “certificate of deposit holders and other conservative investors, many of whom were elderly with moderate, fixed incomes…” The risky Term Trusts at one point had lost over 30 percent of their value and had to reduce their dividends by nearly a third.
The NASD Regulation complaint noted that “Dean Witter’s marketing effort for the Term Trusts also included high-pressure sales efforts at the regional and branch levels, include the use of sales contests and sales quotas.”
In 2003, Morgan Stanley was fined $50 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission for improper mutual fund sales practices. The SEC said the firm had set up a “Partners Program” in which a “select group of mutual fund complexes paid Morgan Stanley substantial fees for preferred marketing of their funds.” The firm further incentivized its brokers to recommend the purchase of the “preferred” funds by paying them increased compensation. The SEC said Morgan Stanley also failed to disclose the higher fees imposed on Class B shares of its proprietary funds versus sales of Class A shares.
In November 2019, the SEC again charged and fined Morgan Stanley for selling its customers more expensive share classes of mutual funds when less expensive share classes were available. The SEC noted that Morgan Stanley’s recommendations of more expensive share classes negatively impacted the overall return on the customers’ investments. According to the SEC, the activity had occurred for more than seven years, from at least July 2009 through December 2016.
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The PhilStockWorld com LIVE Weekly Webinar 05-12-2021
by clarisezoleta - May 14th, 2021 2:19 am
For LIVE access on Wednesday afternoons, join us at PSW!
The PhilStockWorld com LIVE Weekly Webinar 05-12-2021
Major Topics:
00:00:10 – Checking on the Market
00:01:57 – NASDAQ
00:13:34 – Lumber Futures | Softs Futures
00:15:31 – HG
00:27:50 – Crude Oil WTI
00:31:38 – Employers Facing Staff Shortages
00:46:59 – Lumber
00:52:33 – PHM | HOV | KBH
00:55:31 – Trading Techniques
00:59:50 – Indices
01:00:59 – Portfolios
01:01:56 – Current News
01:08:35 – STP
01:09:11 – LTP | INTC
01:11:02 – INTC Chart
01:12:33 – Low Volume Trades
01:14:40 – CMG
01:24:23 – W
01:26:54 – More Trading Techniques
Phil's Weekly Trading Webinars provide a great opportunity to learn what we do at PSW. For LIVE access to PSW's Weekly Webinars – demonstrating trading strategies in real-time – join us at PSW!
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and view our past weekly webinars here.
For LIVE access on Wednesday afternoons, join us at PSW!
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Why the inflation rate doesn’t tell the whole story – all it takes is a spike in a category like used cars to cause consumer prices to soar
by ilene - May 14th, 2021 1:54 am
Why the inflation rate doesn’t tell the whole story – all it takes is a spike in a category like used cars to cause consumer prices to soar
A big increase in use car prices drove the inflation rate higher in April. AP Photo/David Zalubowski
Courtesy of Richard S. Warr, North Carolina State University
Markets, economists and policymakers have been fretting about inflation for months, worried that the trillions of dollars being spent in recent and future government stimulus programs could overheat the economy and send prices soaring.
On May 12, 2021, the worrywarts seemed to have their fears confirmed when the April consumer price index shot up a seasonally adjusted 0.8%, the biggest jump since 2008. The year-over-year inflation rate of 4.2% is double what the Federal Reserve has set as its target.
Should consumers be concerned?
As a finance expert, I believe the answer to this question lies in a closer look at what actually goes into the main way the U.S. measures inflation.
What is inflation?
Inflation is defined as the change in the price of everything from a rib-eye steak and a bar of Ivory soap to an eye exam or tank of gas.
In the U.S., the most commonly used measure of inflation is based on the consumer price index. Simply put, the index is the average price of a basket of goods and services that households typically purchase. It’s often used to determine pay raises or to adjust benefits for retirees. The year-over-year change is what we call the inflation rate.
Since this is an average across a range of categories, the main number masks lots of key details and big month-to-month swings in various goods and services. For example, airline fares jumped a seasonally adjusted 10% in April – partly recovering from their pandemic plunge – while shelf-stable fish and seafood declined 3.5%.
Food and energy prices in particular can be very volatile, and, for that reason, policymakers often focus on what is known as “core inflation,” which excludes those numbers.
A moderate amount of inflation is generally…
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Here Are The States Hardest Hit By The Gasoline Shortage
by Zero Hedge - May 13th, 2021 9:05 pm
Courtesy of ZeroHedge View original post here.
Colonial Pipeline restarted operations Wednesday evening after a ransomware attack paralyzed the entire pipeline system that spans from Texas to New Jersey since last Friday. The company warned it could take days to normalize and that its pipeline would not be fully functional immediately.
Colonial's pipeline carries about 100 million gallons per day of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, resumed operations around 1700 ET Wednesday. The company said it would take several days for deliveries to recover fully, and disruptions are still possible.
Four states and federal regulators relaxed fuel driver restrictions to increase deliveries of supplies to stem fuel shortages. Georgia suspended sales tax on gasoline until Saturday.
Tracking firm GasBuddy (by the way, the number one app in the App Store) outlines the hardest hit states by the fuel shortage.
As of 2300 ET Wednesday (or an hour before midnight), GasBuddy provided a full list of the percent of gas stations with fuel outages per state:
- AL 9%
- DC 42%
- DE 5%
- FL 29%
- GA 50%
- KY 3%
- LA 0%
- MD 31%
- MS 6%
- NC 74%
- NJ 1%
- SC 53%
- TN 27%
- TX 0%
- VA 56%
- WV 6%
The Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Tennessee seem to be the hardest hit states by the gasoline shortage, with relief that may not come until the weekend. Even if Colonial's pipeline system is flowing, there is a shortage of qualified tanker drivers that may prolong shortages or at least result in continued elevated prices.
All week, drivers across the Southeast US have waited in long lines to fill up, panic hoarded fuel, were given a taste of what it's like to live in socialist Venezuela.
With the fuel shortage crisis entering the sixth day, seventeen states and Washington, DC, are still under emergency declarations to address fuel shortages.
The emergency declaration covers Alabama, Arkansas, D.C., Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
The shortage has pushed up the average US price of gasoline above the $3 mark for the first time in 6.5 years.
Just how much inflation is the consumer willing to take? Well, a breaking point could be nearing as consumer prices are exploding at the fastest pace since the early 1980s.
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The QE Endgame: A Big Problem Is Emerging For The Fed
by Zero Hedge - May 13th, 2021 7:45 pm
Courtesy of ZeroHedge View original post here.
For the second time in three weeks, the US Treasury sold $40BN in 4-week bills at a price of 100.000% representing a rate of 0.00%.
To be sure, Bills had printed at 0.000% at auction previously, but that was largely during the reserve glut days of 2015.
So why now? The same reason usage of the Fed's Reverse Repo facility has soared in recent weeks from zero to over $100 billion at the end of April, hitting a whopping $235 billion today…
…as investors choose to directly transact with the Fed – where only positive rates are allowed – rather than the open market where collateral rates have frequently been negative in recent weeks as Curvature's Scott Skyrm explained in this note from April 26:
Overnight rates are low. Too low by all normal standards. The fed funds rate is well below the mid-point of the fed funds target range and the Repo GC rate is at zero; often trading negative. Zero percent interest rates are forcing billions of dollars of cash into the Fed's RRP facility.
While this This is a delightful case of deja vu irony – the Fed is taking Treasurys out of the market through QE purchases and putting them right back in via the RRP - it is also distorting the Repo market, and although the Fed can fix this aberration by hiking the IOER or RRP rates, it has so far refused to do so.
But the ongoing surge in reverse repo usage masks a far bigger problem in store for the Fed, and it's why Curvature's Skyrm writes that "now is a pretty good time to start talking about the size of the SOMA portfolio, even if some people don’t want to talk about it."
Why is the surge in reverse repo linked to tapering? Skyrm explains, by posting a rhetorical question:
"What are the next steps for tapering purchases and what will the SOMA portfolio look
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Dogecoin Soars After Musk Tweets “Working With Doge Developers To Improve System Efficiency”
by Zero Hedge - May 13th, 2021 7:07 pm
Courtesy of ZeroHedge
Just when you thought things couldn't get any more surreal after the past 24 hours, moments ago Elon Musk, who last night rejected bitcoin because its mining is "bad for the environment" as it consumes a lot of electricity (just wait until Elon discovers how all those rare earth metals that are in every electric car are mined, or what those electric cars run on), moments ago Musk poked the hornets nest again, and shortly after tweeting that 'it's high time there was a carbon tax'…
It is high time there was a carbon tax!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2021
… because billionaires are so fond of giving advise on how to tax others, and an hour after saying that he "strongly believe in crypto, but it can’t drive a massive increase in fossil fuel use, especially coal", perhaps unaware that the biggest end-market for his cars also happens to be the world's biggest polluter…
To be clear, I strongly believe in crypto, but it can’t drive a massive increase in fossil fuel use, especially coal
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2021
… Musk decided to go back to the crime scene and sparked a sharp rally in the literal joke of a cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, saying that hs is "working with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency. Potentially promising."
Working with Doge devs to improve system transaction efficiency. Potentially promising.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2021
The tweet sent Dogecoin sharply higher as yet another round of hapless Tesla fanatics rushed in, making Musk – whose behavior has gotten dangerously erratic in recent weeks - instantly richer by a few more billion.
Alas, there was nobody to tell said fanatics that because Dogecoin is by definition- a joke – there are no developers because unlike Ethereum, it is not meant to be a platform. It's like programming Teslas in Fortran… or better yet, Basic.
Meanwhile, the one crypto
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Disney Tumbles On Subscriber, Revenue Miss
by Zero Hedge - May 13th, 2021 4:25 pm
Courtesy of ZeroHedge View original post here.
After several impressive quarters of huge gains for its recently launched Disney+ subscription service, Disney couldn't quite make it this time and moments ago the company reported Q1 earnings that beat on the bottom line but missed on revenues and subscribers, sending the stock sliding in after hours.
Here are the details: first the good news:
- Adjusted EPS 79c, more than double the estimate of 32c
And now the bad:
- Disney+ subscribers 103.6 million, estimate 110.3 million (Bloomberg Consensus)
- Revenue $15.61 billion, estimate $15.85 billion (range $14.94 billion to $16.93 billion)
Similar to Netflix, the torrid growth of Disney+ is also stalling fast:
- Nov 2019: launches
- Feb 2020: 29 million
- Apr 2020: 50 million
- May 2020: 55 million
- Jun 2020: 58 million
- Aug 2020: 61 million
- Oct 2020: 74 million
- Dec 2020: 87 million
- Jan 2021: 95 million
- Mar 2021: 100 million
- Apr 2021: 104 million
The top-line breakdown showed softness in the media and entertainment distribution even as parks came in line:
- Media and entertainment distribution revenue $12.44 billion, estimate $12.64 billion,
- Parks, experiences and products revenue $3.17 billion, estimate $3.17 billion
Of note: had it note been for the 59% increase in direct to consumer revenue, Disney's revenue would have been an ugly mess:
Despite the top-line miss, media and entertainment distribution operating income of $2.87 billion was $1 billion higher than the estimate of $1.87 billion, while parks, experiences and products operating loss $406 million was slightly higher than the estimated loss $369.4 million. Even so, both Operating and Free Cash Flow tumbled 56% and 67% respectively, YoY,.
Looking ahead, Disney said that costs "to address government regulations and implement safety measures for our employees, talent and guests" may total approximately $1 billion in fiscal 2021:
We have incurred, and will continue to incur, additional costs to address government regulations and implement safety measures
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Stocks Surge, Crypto Crushed, Commodity Fever Breaks As Lumber Slides For 3rd Day
by Zero Hedge - May 13th, 2021 4:01 pm
Courtesy of ZeroHedge View original post here.
It was an erratic day, which in so many ways was a mirror image of yesterday, and even though today's blistering PPI print confirmed yesterday's near-record CPI number, traders who expected a continuation of yesterday's action were left nursing big losses.
Perhaps it was the fervent defense of the "transitory inflation" narrative on Wall Street, but whatever the reason, yesterday's surge in the VIX reversed sharply, with the fear index tumbling from yesterday's high of 29, sliding to session lows of 23.
This was enough to activate risk on mode in vol-targeting funds and momentum chasers, which saw spoos surge 90 points form a session low of 4030 to 4120 at the close…
… even as tech stocks found it more difficult to overcome gravity with the Nasdaq dipping into the red by mid-day only to rebound as we approached the close, with Bloomberg pointing out that after months of misery, the NYSE FANG index may be poised to blast off having formed a triple bottom around 6,100.
Helping the risk-on mood was not just the plunge in the VIX but also the sharp drop in yields, and despite a rather ugly, tailing 30Y auction,. the 5Y breakeven yield tumbled all day and was set to close below Tuesday's low, completely fading yesterday's CPI spike.
Which is not to say that all stocks were roaring higher: Cathie Wood's ARK Innovation ETF, which from "do no wrong" has turned into the market's Anti-Midas, tumbled again, dropping below $100 per share..
… as Tesla had another dismal day, sliding as much as 4% and headed for its worst week since March 2020, one day after Elon Musk shocked the market announcing he would no longer accept bitcoin "because it uses lots of electricity." Elon, do you know what else uses lots of electricity…?
Nowhere is the pain as concentrated as in the index of
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.