Notes From All Over -- Part 2 -- December 12, 2020

US consumer sentiment: rises unexpectedly. Link here.

• prior: 76.9
• forecast: 75.5
• actual: 81.4

Dividends, link here. I see ATT (T) declared their next quarterly dividend. Unchanged. I could be wrong, but based on dividend history at this link it looks like this will be the fifth quarter since ATT has increased its dividend. Generally, it's an annual increase.We'll see how the market reacts to this on Monday.

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QCOM: with Apple and Qualcomm in the news this week, time to check on QCOM's dividend:

• ex-div: 12/02/20
• record date: 12/03/20
• payment date: 12/17/20
• cash amount: 65 cents
• quarters at same amount: this will be the third consecutive quarter at 65 cents;
• pays: 1.8% (after shares fell 7% yesterday)

 Investment grade bonds: ZeroHedge.

Far from a blessing however, Martin counters that for long-term European IG credit investors, this unprecedented rally combination has created a negative yielding headache, as the new year dawns:

• The average IG corporate bond yields are now just 19bp,
• Average 1-5yr corporate bond yields stand at just 1bp,
• and investors have to buy 10yr credit, or longer now, to avoid the problem of negative yields, implying credit duration will likely become very crowded next year. (Akin to duration, which measure's a bond's sensitivity to interest rate changes, credit duration measures a bond's sensitivity to changes in its credit spread)

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Chinese Flu Watch

The links.

Coronavirus: statistics. By country. By state.

• penetration (more is good; herd immunity):
• North Dakota, #1, at 11.4%
• South Dakota, #2, just crossed the 10% milestone
• US: just slightly less than 5%;
• Texas: right at the US average of 5%;
• California, at less than 4% is in deep trouble;

WSJ - Johns Hopkins data. 

• cases per 100,000, top five:
• Rhode Island remains at #1
• Tennessee enters the list at #5
• South Dakota drops off the list
• North Dakota remains in at #3
• rounding out the list: Ohio at #2; Indiana, #4
• the "brown" map is getting very, very, very light in color; and this is before the first vaccine is administered in the US;
• the north slope, Alaska, is particularly hard hit right now;
  

CDC: MMWR. 

Seasonal flu: first pediatric death recorded/reported this past week. This was from "seasonal flu," not Covid-19. Was that reported anywhere other than in an obscure CDC pamphlet?

Seasonal flu testing:

• 22,474 specimens tested:
• number of positive specimens: 40
• percent positive: 0.2%

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PowerLine's Week In Pictures

This week was particularly good. I had trouble deciding which one I would use. In the end, I went for three. This is the first. 

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We'll Get Back To This Later

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Link here.

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Politics and Coffee

Me through the decades.

Link here.