The Friday Night News Dump -- Release The Kraken -- April 23, 2021

Updates

April 24, 2021: Just when you thought you had forgotten about the honey bees --- not so fast!  This is another meme that will never go away. The question not being asked: why were honey bees affected by "man," whereas the wasps did just fine?

Original Post

Wow, that was fast: taking a page out of the Obama playbook -- the Friday night news dump. US government says okay to put JNJ Covid-19 vaccine back on the market. "They" waited until late Friday to announce the decision. 

Some folks have suggested the previous administration rushed the bureaucratic process in order to allow "emergency use" authorization of JNJ's Covid-19 vaccine. It took about a year, I suppose, to go from "zero" to "emergency authorization use" with a gazillion pages of scientific research and bureaucratic review prior to release. 

So, on a Tuesday, April 13, 2021, nine business days ago, the "authorities" asked states to temporarily and voluntarily halt the administration of said vaccine. 

Then, on Friday, April 17, 2021, less than four full business days later, the "authorities" were apparently ready to recommend states voluntarily resume administration of the JNJ vaccine. 

Apparently "four days" looked a little fishy, so they waited a few more days, until today, April 23, 2021, to make the announcement. Less then ten business days to get through all that scientific research. Pretty fast for government work. 

And it's so safe, the panel says it's okay for pregnant women and their babies. Link here. Yup, and there it is -- the time-stamp: 4:51 EDT. Can't cut it much more closely than that. The vaccine will be re-released with no restrictions. There will be a warming label for women under the age of 50.

What we knew all along: social distancing is worthless. MIT study. 

US Covide vaccinations: slowing. More states showing more than 50% of residents stabbed/jabbed.

Today's market: it looks like simple sector rotation. LOL. Money moved from cryptocurrency to blue chips. Cryptocurrency loses $200 billion in one day.

Mixed messages:

• CNBC says the week ended with the US equity markets back to "no change" from the beginning of the week.
• Yahoo!Finance says the S&P 500 hit a new all-time high.

A little clarity:

The S&P 500 added more than 1% to reach a record intraday high, after the index dropped 0.9% during the regular trading day for its worst session in five weeks.

The blue-chip index ended just short of its record closing high. The Dow and Nasdaq also rose to reverse Thursday's losses.

Ouch: on a day when even American Airlines gained 5.2%, Intel lost as much as 5.2%. Not good. Most active:

• SNAP: up 4%
• AAPL: up 2.4%
• INTC: down 3.3%

RELEASE THE KRAKEN: over at MarketWatch today:

Analysis:

• the new capital gains tax won't go into effect until next year, assuming it's even passed by Congress;
• at most, the new law would affect 500 families in the US (I doubt you are one of them);
  
• already the proposed maximum tax increase has already been watered down;
• the families that are super-rich have 95% of these companies in retirement accounts and capital gains are tax-deferred in these accounts
• of the equity not in retirement accounts, families will make a cost-benefit analysis before selling;
• the rich who would be affected by this change in the tax law have accountants whose sole purpose is tax avoidance;
• the new law will take up several pages; the BIG PRINT: the rich will pay more in capital gains taxes;
• in really, really small print, there will be pages of exceptions, deductions, and credits;
• there's no way there will be language that would encourage selling shares in  solar and wind energy companies

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Rose Bush