Notes From All Over -- The Market Fears A Biden Presidency -- Nothing About The Bakken -- July 16, 2020

Updates

Later, 3:49 p.m. CDT: mortgage rates -- headline from The WSJ earlier today --

Later, 3:43 p.m. CDT: watch out below! Netflix misses earnings; forecasts weaker growth; shares fall 10%.

Later, 12:26 p.m. CDT: Germany plunges into recession with biggest slump in decade.

With restrictions to contain the pandemic only slowly being lifted, the economy is set to suffer much more in the three months through June -- May 15, 2020. Link here. 

Later, 9:25 p.m. CDT: Dow cuts 500-point loss to a mere 64 points. Apparently they're reading the blog. LOL.

Original Post

US retail sales: increase more than expected in June -- Reuters;

Jobless claims: in line with forecasts despite headlines. Link here.  

• prior: 1.314 million
• revised: 1.310 million
• forecast: 1.288 million
• actual: 1.300 million

Whiteness: I thought this was a joke -- I've been reading about it for several days, it seems, and it turns out that not only is it true, it was put out by the Smithsonian. Link here. Here is the webpage from the museum. Wow. Even The [London] Sun  -- England's #1 tabloid -- was shocked, or at least seemed shocked. LOL.

Update, July 16, 2020, one day later: apparently huge over-reach by the Smithsonian. The museum has removed the two charts from its web page. If you go to the link for the webpage, the webpage is still there, but not the charts. Here are the charts, easily found everywhere:

Hope springs eternal: "EVs got crushed in 2020, but next year could be their best." Link here. 

Tesla: Tesla vehicle registrations in California dropped by half in 2Q20. Link here.

Hi-Crush crushed: files for bankruptcy.

Oil and Covid-19: no oil company has reported a worse death toll than Pemex. Wow. Death toll, not just cases. 

Oil: California's top oil driller files for bankruptcy protection. Link here. This was a debacle from the beginning ... back in 2014. Simplistic to say it was due to debt.

Twitter scam: that bitcoin / twitter / hack / scam story didn't last long. It was the "Big" story yesterday afternoon, evening. Today, not only headline over at Yahoo!Finance on the story. Link here. Note whose name is not mentioned: Tim Cook. Apple, yes, but not Tim Cook.

Must-read on investing: investing legend Burton Malkiel on day-trading millennials, the end of the 60/40 portfolio and more. Link here. Unfortunately it's behind a paywall. I read the story. Headline says it all. These three things from the article:

• day-trading: not investing, and most lose money; Malkiel is in the "buy and hold" camp;
• 60/40 portfolio is dead (or at least he recommends getting rid of the 60/40 portfolio) -- that should have been obvious several years ago; and,
• how does Burton Malkiel spend his time during Covid-19 lock down? watching TCM, specifically mentioning "Casablanca"

Fast and furious. I've just scanned the financial headlines, and the earnings reports are surprisingly good. Headlines without links are from Yahoo!Finance:

• Morgan Stanley earnings crushes views, link here;
• Morgan Stanley joins Wall Street's gold rush with record profit;
• Bank of America, link here;
• AstraZeneca stock jumps on report of positive data on Covid-19 vaccine trial;
• Domino's US sales surge on pizza demand during pandemic;
• Johnson & Johnson earnings top; Dow Jones giant raises full-year guidance; 
• Abbot Labs' stock gains after profit, revenue and full-year outlook top expectations;

Comment: with those headlines on earnings, and the market is down today. If the market is lower today after these headlines, the market is down for two reasons:

• profit-taking, which "no one" ever wants to admit; and,
• polls showing Biden's lead over Trump widening; Biden's #1 promise: raise taxes;

Mortgage delinquencies: