Notes From All Over -- The Wall Street Edition -- June 29, 2020

The wall: US Supreme Court declines to hear border wall challenge. Story and links should be everywhere.

The Supreme Court is leaving in place a decision that rejected environmental groups’ challenge to sections of wall the Trump administration is building along the U.S. border with Mexico.

The high court on Monday declined to hear an appeal involving construction of 145 miles (233 kilometers) of steel-bollard walls along the border in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas.

The Center for Biological Diversity, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Southwest Environmental Center had challenged a federal law that allows the secretary of Homeland Security to waive any laws necessary to allow the quick construction of border fencing. The groups had argued that violates the Constitution’s separation of powers. But a lower court dismissed the case.

Focus on Fracking: has been posted, dated June 29, 2020 -- natural gas prices hit 25-year low; crude supplies and oil +  oil product supplies again at new all-time highs. Link here. 

Amazon: will pay one-half billion dollars in one-time bonus to front-line workers.  On that news, AMZN drops about a percent. Wow, talk about greedy Wall Street investors. Hey, share the wealth.

Boeing: gets FAA okay to start certification test flights of its 737 Max jet. Wow. So, let's see. Maybe by the end of the year we start seeing them fly again?

Facebook pummeled -- ZeroHedge: Facebook shares down 16.3% from last week's high; boycott widens. Coca-Cola halts social media advertising; the list grows. The market is surging today and FB is down about a percent. From IBD:

Facebook dipped 0.8% Monday, after plunging 8% Friday as Unilever joined a growing number of companies that say they will stop advertising on Facebook and Instagram as the "Stop Hate for Profit" boycott picks up steam. Over the weekend PepsiCo reportedly followed suit. 

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

APPL: stores closing? What stores closing? AAPL up over a percent today; back over $357/share.

IMUX: down 6%.

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Cytokine Storm / Cytokine Release

For background, see wiki entry.

The Verge had a story on Decadron and Covid-19 back in March, 2020. The first textbook on Cytokine Storm Syndrome was published last November, 2019, before Covid-19 was even a glimmer in the eye of Wuhan biowarfare researchers.

With regard to Covid-19, the press is making a big deal out of something that's been known by physicians since at least the 1990s.

It makes sense that in certain patients a steroid would work, in this case dexamethasone, or Decadron, wiki entry.

When I was first introduced to Decadron, in the late 1970s / early 1980s I thought it was a miracle drug, just as penicillin was considered a miracle drug back in the day.

Decadron was first made in 1957 by Philip Showalter Hench, of Mayo Clinic fame, and was approved for medical use in 1961. Hench was one of three physician-researchers to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1950 for the discovery of the hormone cortisone, and its application for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

The bottom line for me: technology is speeding the spread of information for everyone, including physicians, and physicians practicing medicine, still an art, will tailor their treatment for each of their patients. But this is really, really cool -- physicians have another tool in their toolkit to fight corona virus.

By the way, learning that Dr Hench was from Mayo, as was one of the other two physicians awarded the 1950 Nobel Prize for Medicine, connected several dots for me. It's a long story and I won't go into now, and probably never will, but, again, the blog "forced" me to do a little "research" and in the process, I closed a few loops, connected a few dots.