Wall Street: The stock market's 'presidential predictor' is forecasting a Biden victory - by William Watts

The stock market’s Friday fall spells trouble for President Donald Trump’s re-election hopes.

The “Presidential Predictor,” popularized by Sam Stovall, CFRA’s chief investment strategist, tracks the S&P 500 index’s SPX, -1.21% presidential election-year performance from July 31 to Oct. 31. Going back to 1944, it’s found that a positive move over that period usually corresponds to a presidential victory by the incumbent party, while a negative move signals a loss (see chart by clicking on link below).

Read more at: The stock market's 'presidential predictor' is forecasting a Biden victory - MarketWatch

Coronavirus - Flu Vaccination: A Flu Shot Might Reduce Coronavirus Infections, Early Research Suggests - by Melinda Wenner Moyer

U.S. health officials are urging Americans to get their flu shots this year in the hopes of thwarting a winter “twindemic”—a situation in which both influenza and COVID-19 spread and sicken the public. But a new study suggests that there could be another key reason to get a flu jab this year: it might reduce your risk of COVID-19. The research, released as a preprint that has not yet been peer-reviewed, indicates that a flu vaccine against the influenza virus may also trigger the body to produce broad infection-fighting molecules that combat the pandemic-causing coronavirus.

n the new study, Mihai Netea, an infectious disease immunologist at Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands, and his colleagues combed through their hospital’s databases to see if employees who got a flu shot during the 2019–2020 season were more or less likely to get infected by SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19. Workers who received a flu vaccine, the researchers found, were 39 percent less likely to test positive for the coronavirus as of June 1, 2020. While 2.23 percent of nonvaccinated employees tested positive, only 1.33 percent of vaccinated ones did. Netea and his team posted their findings on the preprint server MedRxiv on October 16.

Read more at: A Flu Shot Might Reduce Coronavirus Infections, Early Research Suggests - Scientific American

Multilateralism: Trudeau, EU leaders express faith in American people and call for return to multilateralism

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the European Union's two top political leaders expressed faith in the American people Thursday ahead of next week's U.S. presidential election whose outcome will have major implications for global relations.

rudeau, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, the European Union Council president, all refrained — as is customary — from directly commenting on whether they'd like to see current U.S. President Donald Trump remain in office or his challenger, Democrat Joe Biden, take over.

The choice is up to the American people, the three leaders said.

Read more at: Trudeau, EU leaders express faith in American people and call for return to multilateralism | CBC News

USA: Stocks Close Sharply Lower on Rising Coronavirus Cases - as Donald Trump brags the US turned the corner on the Coronavirus

U.S. stocks continued to sell off on Wednesday in what is shaping up to be their worst week since late March, as rising coronavirus infections shook investors’ confidence in the global economic recovery.The Dow industrials lost 943.24 points, or 3.4%, to 26519.95, their fourth losing session in a row and worst day since June 11.

Read more at: Stocks Close Sharply Lower on Rising Coronavirus Cases - WSJ

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USA: Could Wall Street Crash: It's been years since investors have been this fearful of a stock market crash, Nobel-winning economist warns - by Shawn Langlois

Robert Shiller, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and Yale professor, urging a cautious approach to investing in the top-heavy stock market in an op-ed for the New York Times: “The coronavirus crisis and the November election have driven fears of a major market crash to the highest levels in many years,” Shiller wrote. “At the same time, stocks are trading at very high levels. That volatile combination doesn’t mean that a crash will occur, but it suggests that the risk of one is relatively high. This is a time to be careful.”

Read more at: It's been years since investors have been this fearful of a stock market crash, Nobel-winning economist warns - MarketWatch

Economics: China Has a Few Things to Teach the U.S. Economy - by Noah Smith

Ever since China’s spectacular economic growth became apparent in the 2000s, people have wondered whether that country’s brand of authoritarian state capitalism has proven superior to the more liberal American model. Until recently, it was possible to dismiss those concerns, but Chinese successes and U.S. failures keep piling up. If the U.S. wants to maintain both its relative power and its prestige as a model for the world, it needs to make some big adjustments.

Read more at: China Has a Few Things to Teach the U.S. Economy - Bloomberg

America's Latest Export: The Conspiracy Theorists Crazies have crossed the Atlantic and QAnon is now in Europe–by Mark Scott

If you don't know what QAnon is this is how wikileaks divines the cult - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon.

At first glance it’s not a natural fit. The U.S. conspiracy theory — now with millions of acolytes worldwide — alleges a vast deception to undermine U.S. President Donald Trump. It blends anti-government, anti-lockdown and anti-Semitic rhetoric with unfounded beliefs about a vast pedophile ring run by the global elite. Its followers adhere to a quasi-religious belief that a great savior — aided by “Q,” an anonymous government insider from whom QAnon gets its name — will protect followers from the dark forces behind the conspiracy.

In the U.S., discussion about QAnon has broken into the political mainstream. When Trump was asked to disavow the group at a recent town hall event, he first said he knew “nothing about QAnon” but then added: “I do know that they are very much against pedofiles.

Despite its digital roots, this conspiracy based, populst, ultra -right-wing QAnon has extended its reach into the real world, with attendees at protests against anti-coronavirus measures and supportive of conspiracy theories spreading its talking points across Europe, the U.S. and other parts of the world.

Read more at: QAnon goes European – POLITICO

US Presidential elections: Biden leads Trump by 10 points nationally in new Quinnipiac poll

Former Vice President Joe Biden maintains a wide national lead over President Trump heading into the final 12-day stretch before Election Day, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released on Thursday.

The Democratic nominee has a 10-point advantage in the race, garnering the support of a slight majority of likely voters — 51 percent — while Trump lagged behind him at 41 percent, according to the latest poll. That margin is virtually identical to the lead Biden held in two Quinnipiac polls from September that showed the former vice president ahead of Trump 52 percent to 42 percent.

Read more at: Biden leads Trump by 10 points nationally in new Quinnipiac poll | TheHill

EU-Britain Relations: How a ‘Global Britain’ Could Cope With the Brexit Consequences - by Ben Judah, Georgina Wright

Over the past four years, as the United Kingdom has wrestled with the consequences of its narrow vote to leave the European Union, there has been little to no broader foreign policy debate in the country. Instead, Britons seem to have become caught between three temperaments. There are the catastrophists, who argue the U.K. has become completely irrelevant on the international stage as a result of Brexit; the nostalgics, who see a powerful Britain through the lens of a great colonial power; and the denialists, who refuse to accept that Britain must adapt to a changing global context. All are characterized by a surfeit of emotion and deficit of strategy⎯and none have answers to the key questions their government must now answer.

Read more at: How a ‘Global Britain’ Could Cope With the Brexit Consequences

EU-Britain Negotiations-Stalemate: No more trade talks unless EU changes position, Johnson says

There will be no more trade talks with the European Union unless the bloc fundamentally changes its stance on the discussions, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told his Greek counterpart in a call on Tuesday.

Read more at: No more trade talks unless EU changes position, Johnson says | Reuters

Canadian-US relations: Trudeau and Trump are worlds apart on the Canada-U.S. border closure

Although Canada and the U.S. have agreed to close their shared land border to non-essential travel, they don't appear to agree on several related issues — including what to do next.

More than seven months after the border closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump have offered up contradictory messages about what happens now.

The Canada-U.S. border is set to stay closed until Oct. 21, and Trudeau implied this week that the date will be extended.

In an interview Wednesday on Winnipeg podcast The Start, Trudeau said Canada plans to keep the border closed as long as COVID-19 case counts in the U.S. remains high.

Read more at: 
Trudeau and Trump are worlds apart on the Canada-U.S. border closure | CBC News

US Economy: It is time to stop looking at the US economy from Wall Street - by Cristina Ramirez

Crises have a way of turning existing cracks in political and economic systems into fault lines. They bring to light what has been hiding beneath the surface. This is why the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic, the most serious global health crisis in a century, has exposed the many pre-existing weaknesses of the US economy and laid bare the nation’s failure to judge the economy by what actually matters: How it works for working and middle-class Americans. 

In a matter of weeks, the pandemic left 26 million Americans unemployed and food banks overwhelmed. As one in four workers in the country are not entitled to a single day of paid sick leave, COVID-19 also forced many Americans to choose between staying healthy and putting food on their tables. It brought to the surface the growing economic precarity of tens of millions of Americans which Wall Street, and many in Washington, have long been ignoring.

While some economists and politicians, such as Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs Executive Steven Mnuchin, claim that the American economy was doing just fine before the start of the pandemic, the truth is many Americans have been living on the verge of economic collapse long before COVID-19 reached the country. After the 2008 economic crash, Wall Street and big corporations rebounded quickly, but millions of Americans did not. 

The likes of Mnuchin get away with claiming the US economy was doing brilliantly before the outbreak because they judge economic success merely by the success and profitability of big corporations and not the economic stability and wellbeing of ordinary Americans, such as small business owners, warehouse workers and delivery drivers. 

If Mnuchin judged the health of the US economy by how well everyday people are coping, he would have seen that things were not so rosy on “Main Street” even before COVID-19.

Read more at: 
It is time to stop looking at the US economy from Wall Street | US & Canada | Al Jazeera

Brexit negotiations: EU tells UK to move if it wants post-Brexit deal - by Eszter Zalan

EU leaders on Thursday (15 October) called on London to make the "the necessary moves" in negotiations on the EU-UK future relationships, in order to have a deal ready for January next year.

The EU-27 also called on the EU Commission to draw up contingency measures in case there is no deal.

The heads of government talked Brexit for over two hours at their Brussels summit, and without phones in the room, as the negotiations now enter two critical weeks.

The EU wants to UK to move on the following issues: fair competition and state aid, fisheries, and governance of the future agreement.

"We are united and determined to reach on agreement, but not at any cost," European Council president Charles Michel told reporters online in a break of the EU summit, which is also dealing with climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic.

"I will continue intensive discussion in the coming weeks," EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said, who gave the press conference along with Michel after commission president Urusla von der Leyen had to abruptly leave the summit to go into precautionary self-isolation after one of her staff tested positive for coronavirus.

Barnier said that he will discuss with his British counterpart, David Frost, a schedule for talks, adding he will be in London ready to continue talks throughout next week, and offered to continue in Brussels the week after.

Read more at: 
EU tells UK to move if it wants post-Brexit deal

The US Economy and the US Dollar: the US is facing a dollar collapse by the end of 2021 and an over 50% chance of a double-dip recession, economist Stephen Roach says - by Shalini Nagarajan

• The US dollar could collapse by the end of 2021 and the economy can expect a more than 50% chance of a double-dip recession, the economist Stephen Roach told CNBC on Wednesday.
• The US has seen economic output rise briefly and then fall in eight of the past 11 business-cycle recoveries, Roach said.
• Grim second-quarter data cannot be dismissed, he said, pointing out that "the current-account deficit in the United States, which is the broadest measure of our international imbalance with the rest of the world, suffered a record deterioration."
• Roach last predicted a crash in the dollar index in June, when it was trading at about 96. He said at the time that it would collapse 35% against other major currencies within the next year or two.

The "seemingly crazed idea" that the US dollar will collapse against other major currencies in the post-pandemic global economy is not so crazy anymore, the economist Stephen Roach told CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Wednesday.

Roach,a former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, also said he sees a more than 50% probability of a double-dip recession in the United States.

He based that prediction on historical evidence, saying that in eight of the past 11 business-cycle recoveries economic output has risen briefly and then fallen.

"It's certainly something that happens more often than not," he said.

Roach last predicted a dollar crash in June, saying it would collapse 35% against other major currencies within the next couple of years. At the time, the dollar index traded at about 96. On Thursday, the index traded at about 94.41.

He said on Wednesday that he expected the collapse to happen by the end of 2021, but he did not say by how much.

Read more at: 
The US is facing a dollar collapse by the end of 2021 and an over 50% chance of a double-dip recession, economist Stephen Roach says | Markets Insider

The Covid-19 Vaccine development pains: COVID-19 vaccine setback weighs on Wall Street

News of a setback on a coronavirus vaccine candidate and reports of the first COVID-19 reinfection in the United States are sapping investor sentiment, while the official start of earnings season, the unofficial start of the US holiday shopping season, and Apple’s iPhone launch event are all moving markets.

Shares of Johnson & Johnson were down more than two percent minutes into the trading session after the pharmaceutical giant said it had paused clinical trials of its coronavirus vaccine candidate due to an “unexplained illness” in a study participant.

Last month, AstraZeneca halted a late-stage trial of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate after a participant fell ill.

The news follows in the wake of more documented evidence that sheds doubt on whether herd immunity to COVID-19 is possible.

Read more at: 
COVID-19 vaccine setback weighs on Wall Street | US & Canada News | Al Jazeera

The Global Pandemic: COVID-19 situation update worldwide, as of 12 October 2020

Since 31 December 2019 and as of 12 October 2020, 37 568 843 cases of COVID-19 (in accordance with the applied case definitions and testing strategies in the affected countries) have been reported, including 1 077 508 deaths.

Read more at: 
COVID-19 situation update worldwide, as of 12 October 2020

Britain: Brexit poll: Brits say leaving EU without a trade deal would be bad - by Adam Payne

• Nearly two-thirds of Brits believe leaving the Brexit transition period without a trade deal with the EU would be a "bad" outcome for the UK, a new poll has found.
• The survey shared exclusively with Business Insider, found strong opposition to a no-deal outcome in every part of the UK.
• The highest level of opposition was in Scotland, where polls suggest growing support for independence.
• Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently described no deal as a "good outcome" and last weekend said the UK would "prosper mightily" in the event of widespread disruption.

 Read more at: 
Brexit poll: Brits say leaving EU without a trade deal would be bad - Business Insider

EU-Britain-Brexit: Trade negotiators meet, as deadline looms

Downing Street said the meeting with Lord Frost - held with less than a week to go until the UK's deadline for agreeing a deal - had been "useful".
But differences remained on important issues, a spokesperson added.

A No 10 spokesman confirmed that informal discussions would resume in Brussels next week.

"We have had useful discussions this week," the spokesman said.

"Progress has been made in some areas, however there still remains differences on some important issues but we remain committed to trying to agree a FTA (free trade agreement).

"We continue to want an agreement, we continue to want an FTA but it is important that we can agree on some issues."

The talks came after European Council President Charles Michel said the sides were approaching "the moment of truth".

The UK's post-Brexit transition period, during which its trading relationship with the EU has remained the same, is due to end in December.

Read mor at: 
Brexit: Trade negotiators meet, as deadline looms - BBC News

Internet - and working from home: Berlin, Lagos, Budapest: How fast is your internet?

Working from home can be a challenge in itself: no office chair, no canteen, no colleagues to chat with over coffee. But with the coronavirus here to stay for the foreseeable future, millions of people around the world have gotten used to sitting at the kitchen table just like Merguet to work on spreadsheets or take conference calls. But without a fast and reliable connection, slow downloads, choppy audio or video calls that keep freezing up can make life difficult for telecommuters.

Merguet isn't the only one who has had to wind down data-intensive tasks. Even in well-off countries like Germany, internet problems are common. DW used open-source data from M-Lab to compare the speed of internet connections around the globe. M-Lab collects data from many millions of speed tests that users perform every month.


For the complete report go to:  
Berlin, Lagos, Budapest: How fast is your internet? | World| Breaking news and perspectives from around the globe | DW | 09.10.2020

EU: Coronavirus -Remdesivir: Commission signs a joint procurement contract with Gilead for the supply of Remdesivir

 The Commission has signed a joint procurement framework contract with the pharmaceutical company Gilead for the supply of up to 500,000 treatment courses of Veklury, the brand name for Remdesivir, and the opportunity to increase supply beyond the 500,000 treatment courses. There are  36 signatories of the Joint Procurement Agreement participating in this joint procurement, including all EU countries, the EEA countries of Norway and Iceland*, the UK, as well as six candidate countries and potential candidates (Albania, the Republic of North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo** and Bosnia and Herzegovina). All participating countries can now place their orders to procure Veklury directly. Veklury is at this stage the only medicine with a conditional marketing authorisation in the EU for the treatment of COVID-19 patients needing oxygen supply.

Read more at: Coronavirus: Remdesivir

USA: The Economic Recovery Story Is As Fake As Ever - by Jeffrey Snider

Disastrous to employment. Absolutely right. And in the more modern, 21^st century sense it doesn’t even have to be outright deflation anymore. We’ve seen time and again that a realistic threat is all it takes (a reminder about what happened last September before this March).

Familiar to us, if not always easily recognizable, it’s the very hazard of unsolved, chronic liquidity risks that spikes the dollar, keeps interest rates low (interest rate fallacy), and, as Keynes said, is therefore disastrous to employment by the introduction of what current Economists and central bankers otherwise call, while they do everything humanly possible to avoid recognizing, macro slack.

Bernanke, like his predecessors and successors, claims to be a keen follower of Keynes anyway.

What comes next is the weekly reminder about the labor market; initial jobless claims were 870k last week. That is, still, in the middle of September, 200k more than any of the worst weeks on record before March. And this latest “disastrous to employment” comes to us on top of the macro slack which has already forced the Fed to redefine (undefine, really) their whole conception of full employment.

They’ve got everything covered. Recovery’s in the bag. That’s the story, and it’s one with all the same characters, all the same scenery, and, least surprising of all, the same ending.

Read more at:
The Economic Recovery Story Is As Fake As Ever | RealClearMarkets

Rebooting the EU economy during a world health pandemic

The EU economy is starting to wake up again after suffering the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, it is far from over and the recovery is not going to be smooth.

For this episode of Real Economy, Euronews went to the Brussels Economic Forum and spoke to the European Commissioner for Economy, Paolo Gentiloni - and the European Council President, Charles Michel, about the EU's €1.82 trillion joint recovery package, and how it is helping to cushion the economic fallout.

Read more at
Rebooting the EU economy during a world health pandemic | Euronews

Canada: Swiss bank UBS says Toronto has 3rd biggest housing bubble in the world

A Swiss bank has concluded that Toronto's housing market is in bubble territory, as homes in the city are more overpriced based on local rents and incomes than in places like New York, San Francisco, London and Hong Kong.

In an annual ranking, UBS looks at 25 major cities in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia to track and compare the risk of housing bubbles at the local level in each of them, and it then assigns them a number based on that ranking.

A score above 1.5 indicates the bank thinks there's a risk of a bubble, which UBS defines as "a substantial and sustained mispricing of an asset, the existence of which cannot be proved unless it bursts."

Read more at: Swiss bank UBS says Toronto has 3rd biggest housing bubble in the world | CBC News

Spain's job market: Labor market sets positive records in September, but employment still far from pre-pandemic levels

Despite the covid-19pandemic 15-million-spaniards-are-either-jobless-or-furloughed-due-to-coronavirus.html" target="_blank">devastating effect
that the coronavirus pandemic has had on the Spanish economy, September
was a record month for the labor market. Registered unemployment fell
by 26,329 people, which is the highest figure since at least 1996, when
the current statistical series began. Employment also grew, with 84,013 new registrations with the Social Security system,
also the highest figure for the month of September. This was partly due
to new hirings of teachers – more staff are being drafted in across the
country so that schools can cope with coronavirus measures – as well as
of agricultural workers. The total number of workers signed up with
Social Security reached 18,876,389 last month.