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Every Property On The Market Right Now Is In A Critical Situation To Sell

A report from Think Pol on Canada. “‘No.’ That’s the Government of Canada’s one-word response to Airbnb’s request to bail out hosts who are struggling to survive amid cancellations brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Airbnb’s request was met with widespread anger and derision. ‘The predators at AirBNB do not deserve a bailout,’ Tweeted housing market data analyst Stephen Punwasi. ‘AirBNB didn’t even respect the laws in place during the housing crisis. Now they want a bailout?’ Others didn’t mince their words. ‘Airbnb Hosts can F-OFF!’ tweeted Vancouver actor Steve Oatway. ‘I hope every one of them suffers from huge financial losses after what they did to our cities.'”

The Toronto Star in Canada. “Lauren Haw, CEO of online realtor Zoocasa, is watching to see whether there is an inventory injection from homes that were previously used as Airbnb rentals. Because of fears about collecting rent during the COVID crisis, many of those owners are looking at putting the properties up for sale rather than renting them as long-term leases, she said. When sales plunge 50 per cent overnight, there will inevitably be a price blip, said Christan Bosley, chief operating officer of Bosley Real Estate, who compares the market conditions to a natural disaster.”

“‘We know every property on the market right now is in a critical situation to sell,’ she said. ‘Sellers will simply pull their homes off the market,’ in the meantime, said Royal LePage CEO Phil Soper. ‘They’ll say, ‘This too shall pass and I’m not willing to let my asset go at less than market value.'”

From Prague Morning in the Czech Republic. “Airbnb is in crisis. According to bezrealitky.cz, in March the number of apartments for rent in the Czech Republic increased by 16 percent. In Prague by 41 percent. ‘To imagine, there are currently about 30 apartments that were used by Airbnb on Bezrealitky every day. If we took the growth for the whole month, we are on the growth by half compared to the previous one,’ said Hendrik Meyer, CEO at BezRealitky.”

“Meanwhile, real estate prices are also falling in the rental market in Prague, which is, according to Meyer, a short-term effect related to coronavirus on the economy in general and not just Airbnb. ‘The number of apartments to be withdrawn from Airbnb will increase. The main wave will not come until it is clear that the summer season will be without mass tourism,’ added Meyer. ‘In May and June, another 5-6 thousand apartments could be poured into the rental market.'”

From The Print. “Over the past decade, the app that connects fly-by-night tourists and short-term renters to ‘cozy’ lofts and five-star ‘experiences’ morphed into a gig-economy nightmare for cities like Paris, Amsterdam and Barcelona. That all seems like ancient history now. Paris has 100,000 empty homes and 100,000 second homes, according to the mayor’s office. One study of Airbnb in a Lisbon neighborhood between 2015 and 2017 found it looked less like a sharing economy and more like a buy-to-let craze, with 99% of short-term rentals marketed all year round.”

From Deadline News UK. “Well-heeled music lovers have the opportunity to own a stunning property once rented by Justin Bieber – and now available with £1m lopped off the asking price. The five bedroom property in Frodsham, Cheshire, features a two storey illuminated cave, 10 bathrooms and five bedrooms. All this is now on sale for £3m after the original asking price was cut by 25%.”

From Domain News in Australia. “The proportion of homes sold at a profit was rising late last year as the housing market rebounded from its slump, according to new figures based on sales from before the coronavirus outbreak. But the outlook for property values is less upbeat as the economy goes into hibernation and unemployment rises in response to the health crisis. ‘Loss-making sales could increase proportionally as those that sell are doing so out of necessity, even if it means accepting a loss,’ said CoreLogic head of Australian research Eliza Owen. ‘Some regions with a high concentration of households in accommodation and food services or the tourism sector are likely to see a larger impact on housing markets.'”

“Domain economist Trent Wiltshire said the housing market was booming during the period covered by the report, even if it now seems like a long time ago. ‘As we know things have changed dramatically since mid-March with the coronavirus pandemic,’ he said. ‘We’ll probably see a tick up or a rise in the proportion of loss-making sales from now onwards in 2020.'”

The Daily Telegraph in Australia. “Home prices in some of Sydney’s inner suburbs and further flung areas with a glut of apartment sales could see the biggest price falls during the coronavirus crisis. Sales analysis revealed these areas would be more vulnerable during a market slowdown because unit supply heavily outweighed buyer demand and prices were higher than in neighbouring suburbs. The supply of units in northwest suburb Kellyville was particularly high, with about 10 per cent of all apartments in the suburb currently up for sale, LocationScore.com.au data revealed.”

“Supply was also unusually high in Rhodes, Mascot and Haymarket, while buyer demand was expected to weaken as the pandemic deepens. LocationScore.com.au property analyst Jeremy Sheppard said affluent inner suburbs could also record price falls because speculative buying caused a market surge last year and increasingly budget conscious buyers now had cheaper options elsewhere. ‘Affluent areas jump the most in a strong market and fall the most in a downturn,’ Mr Sheppard said.”

“Buyer’s agent Peter Kelaher said in a letter to clients that the best buying opportunities would be in the upper end of the market. ‘This is where there will be distressed sales and decent price drops, maybe in the vicinity of five, 10, and 20 per cent, and maybe even more in the real upper end of the market,’ Mr Kelaher said.”

“The Western Sydney suburb of Colebee had one of the biggest imbalances between housing demand and supply, LocationScore research showed. The vacancy rate for rental properties was nearly three times the national average and the area, mostly a new estate, was surrounded by other new estates such as Marsden Park. About 7 per cent of all housing in the suburb was currently for sale. Numbers like this meant it was oversupplied with new housing, Mr Sheppard said. ‘Supply is the arch enemy of growth (in prices),’ he said. ‘This is not a market likely to see capital growth any time soon.'”

The Wall Street Journal. “Wells Fargo & Co. substantially curtailed its program for making large loans this week, one of the most pronounced signs yet of how the recent market turmoil is cutting off access to some types of mortgages. America’s largest mortgage lender will only refinance jumbo mortgages for customers who hold at least $250,000 in liquid assets with the bank, according to a bank spokesman. The change is effective immediately.”

“A jumbo loan is one considered too big to be sold to government mortgage corporations Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In most markets, it must be larger than $510,400 this year, but in the highest-cost areas it must be larger than $765,600. Wells Fargo extended more residential mortgages than any other lender last year, according to industry-research group Inside Mortgage Finance. It was also the biggest lender for jumbo loans, extending some $70 billion of them in 2019.”

“Loans without government backing, like jumbo loans, have been harder to come by during the recent market fluctuations because there has been limited appetite for investors to buy these loans. Some banks don’t sell jumbo loans to investors, but rather keep them on their balance sheets. Wells Fargo faces limitations on its ability to do so. Since 2018, the Federal Reserve has capped the bank’s total assets because of risk-management failures tied to its fake-accounts scandal. That gives it limited flexibility to make loans that it holds onto.”

“‘These difficult business decisions reflect efforts to prioritize how we serve customers and maintain prudent balance sheet discipline,’ the bank spokesman said Saturday.”

“The bank also said earlier this week that it would stop purchasing all jumbo loans made by third-party mortgage bankers. Its third-party mortgage business, known as correspondent lending, amounted to about one fifth of its total business in the final three months of 2019, according to Inside Mortgage Finance.”

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This Post Has 140 Comments

  1. Ther will be brown spots in some California board-short on this jumbo loan news.

    ‘I’m not willing to let my asset go at less than market value’

    Don’t give it away Phil.

  2. ‘Affluent areas jump the most in a strong market and fall the most in a downturn’

    ‘the best buying opportunities would be in the upper end of the market. ‘This is where there will be distressed sales and decent price drops, maybe in the vicinity of five, 10, and 20 per cent, and maybe even more in the real upper end of the market’

    Why? Nobody needs a 5 million Australian peso shack. It’s speculation. The only reason to buy one is you expect to sell it for 7.

  3. ‘The predators at AirBNB do not deserve a bailout’ …‘Airbnb Hosts can F-OFF!…I hope every one of them suffers from huge financial losses after what they did to our cities’

    Not a very popular service I see.

    1. I have never heard of anybody who likes this Airbnb garbage except for the speculators themselves. Why they are even allowing these illegal hotels in neighborhoods is beyond me. Remember the one in the Bay Area where a number of people were murdered at a party?

      2. ‘Why they are even allowing these illegal hotels in neighborhoods’

        Bribes and lawyers.

        1. Amazing how you can just flout zoning laws and local tax laws with high-powered attorneys behind you.

          1. And a few well placed brown envelopes. If they don’t prosecute, you don’t even need a lawyer.

  4. Wells Fargo’s jumbo loan change is huge news. This follows Quicken earlier in the week. Right there is a huge chunk of the lending market, gone for jumbos.

    1. Why does a low occupancy rate even matter? Doesn’t it become easier to lease space after rents increase to next year’s level if a unit is empty, eliminating the need to evict the current occupant?

    2. Another Chinese standout:

      ‘Luckin Coffee on Sunday apologised and pledged to strengthen controls after an internal investigation found hundreds of millions of dollars of alleged fake sales last year, wiping about 75 per cent off the company’s market value. Lu Zhengyao, the company’s chairman, said on social media that he was “ashamed” and “accepted all questions and criticisms”, while promising to do his best to recover the losses. Mr Lu backed the start-up in 2017 as it aimed to take on Starbucks in China and remains one of its largest shareholders.’

      https://finance.yahoo.com/m/89c91dfd-27ee-30c2-a40d-a1c9916c1a0f/luckin-coffee-apologises-for.html

      A comment:

      ‘Well, as long as they said they are sorry’

      1. ‘hundreds of millions of dollars of alleged fake sales last year, wiping about 75 per cent off the company’s market value…promising to do his best to recover the losses’

        Recover? What’s he going to do, fake them again?

    1. I hadn’t thought of the crushing losses for the rental car business. Did they get a bailout?

      1. That’s one way to get rid of excess inventory.

        So, when does the local Ford dealer burn to the ground?

    2. “A fire at a Florida airport destroyed more than 3,500 rental cars”

      Wow, that was an incredible fire!

  7. Does it suddenly seem as though every industry is going down, due to social distancing?

    Sex workers struggle to make ends meet as coronavirus spreads
    By Brian Niemietz
    New York Daily News
    Mar 17, 2020 | 2:28 PM
    Red light districts are hurting too.
    (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

    Sex industry workers in Berlin are feeling the squeeze, thanks to a citywide brothel closure that followed a stagnant earnings period due to social distancing.

    On Saturday, German officials ordered brothels in the nation’s capitol to close after more than 330 people tested positive for coronavirus. The period leading up to the shutdown wasn’t much better, bordello operator Aurel Johannes Marx told the Associated Press Friday night.

    “Over the past week, business has gone down by 50%,” Marx said.
    …

    1. “…make ends meet…”
      “…has gone down…”

      The jokes continue to write themselves in this new environment.

  8. ‘Hospitals in New York state have discharged more COVID-19 patients than they have added for four days in a row, according to the latest data from the state hit hardest by the CCP virus pandemic. Hospitals in the state admitted 574 COVID-19 patients on April 4, while discharging 1,709 patients. The number of daily discharges had also surpassed the daily admissions on the three prior days, state data shows.’

    “Discharge rate is way up and that’s great news,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on April 5.’

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/discharges-outpace-hospitalizations-in-new-york-for-4th-straight-day_3299082.html

    ‘While tens of thousands are hospitalized across the United States due to the COVID-19 disease caused by the CCP virus epidemic, the numbers are a fraction of what experts predicted just a few days ago. The main reason appears to be that the projections were already off the day they were released.’

    ‘The model in question was published by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). It was repeatedly referenced by Dr. Deborah Birx. The interactive projections model on IHME’s website was last updated on April 1.’

    ‘But the numbers were already off. It said New York would need 41,000-58,000 hospital beds for COVID-19 patients on April 1. But even by April 3, the state had less than 16,000 hospitalized.’

    ‘The model is supposed be updated later on April 5, a spokesman for the institute told The Epoch Times. He didn’t explain why the predictions were off and by so much. “Sorry, wish I had more to offer you right now,” he said via email.’

    ‘The lead author of the model, Health Metrics Sciences Professor Christopher Murray, didn’t respond to a request for comment. The model was off about states other than New York too, but exactly how far off is often hard to determine because many states don’t make their daily CCP virus hospitalization data easily available.’

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/ccp-virus-us-hospitalizations-way-below-projections_3299284.html

    1. They better hurry up on that next bailout, or stimulus, or whatever they’re calling it. Time is of the essence. Need to slam that down the peoples’ throats before it’s too late.

    2. The model is being used by frontmen Fauci and Birx to fuel fear so people like oxide clamor for a rushed vaccine while giving their buddies huge profits with no legal liability. Cheap drugs, like hydroxychloroquine, are off patent — cheap to make and cheap to use. Patented therapeutics take years and billions of dollars before profits are realized but they still carry legal liability.

      2. If the reason for the shutdown was to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed, what the heck are we doing? If New York is releasing more than they take in already, this thing was way overblown. Look at the state by state admittance’s versus this projection: it’s 10-20%.

        1. Why was Trump on tv yesterday talking about how grim it’s going to be the next couple weeks? He seems to be peddling fear now. He did a complete 180.

          Why does everything have to be one extreme or the other in this country? There is no middle ground anymore and I think that’s the problem. It’s almost like there’s extreme partisanship in everything, not just politics.

          1. He did a complete 180

            He’s listening to his advisers from the sick care industrial complex. This is their moment in the sun. He also gets relentless withering criticism that he isn’t taking the situation serious.

          2. Trump gets hammered for being anti-science and not listening to “the experts.” This situation is exposing “the experts” as bureaucratic pharma cronies willing to kill the economy for more bucks.

          3. The problem is that scientists and “experts” are bought and paid for, all with an agenda which matches that of their benefactors. We end up with all this bunk science, like the stuff that supports the “climate change” garbage, but I digress.

            There’s too much noise right now, coming from all directions. You’ve got right wing extremists like Hal Turner talking about millions of dead in China, and that this virus is an extinction event that’s being covered up, while other right wingers say this whole thing is a PSYOP and the virus doesn’t even exist. Talk about a mass divergence among traditionally similarly minded people.

            It is difficult to know what to believe right now, especially when two professionally trained scientists can disagree on something so seemingly simple as to whether or not an N-95 mask works, or how long the virus remains viable on a surface.

            The only thing I really pay attention to is how many are dead. That’s really the only number that matters, in my opinion. 1,300 dying per day, as was the case yesterday, seems pretty bad. But I understand that will not continue for an extended period of time, that it will diminish. I hope that’s the case. I’d like to get back to working.

          4. how many are dead. That’s really the only number that matters…1,300 dying per day…seems pretty bad

            Two things, if you will indulge me. It’s not pretty bad if there is no significant increase in the death rate from all causes. Something like 10,000 people a day die in this country. My neighbor got carried out of his house on Valentine’s day and the medics did CPR on him lying in the snow for 20 minutes while we all watched in sadness. They gave up and loaded him into the ambulance. He didn’t become a Cvirus statistic, today he might have been.

            whether or not an N-95 mask works

            We seem to have lost common sense. Nothing is Safe. N95 increases your odds. Exposure is an odds game always. I monitor particulate levels in my shop because of odds. Running the air filtration system increases my odds. Wearing an N95 also does but not as much as wearing the P100. Shaving my face increases my odds if I’m going to wear a mask. Actually opening the door to the street makes my odds drop. Things we already know but do not discuss. Why? Do these Experts have zero practical experience?

            Same thing with the 6 ft distancing. Better than touching! If you increase the distance by 1/4, you cut your exposure (to anything) by half. This is so fundamental, yet we beg voices of authority to pick a number and tell us what to do!

          5. My neighbor got carried out of his house on Valentine’s day and the medics did CPR on him lying in the snow for 20 minutes while we all watched in sadness.

            Sorry about the loss. But it sounds like he might have had a hell of a Valentines day.

          6. “…the medics did CPR on him lying in the snow…”

            One of the first things a medical technician is taught is to protect your patient from the environment. Maybe his core temperature was too high?

      3. These “models” appear to be based as much upon opinion as fact. Also, how could the virus be peaking in the next couple weeks when not even 1% of the population is infected thus far? I am not an epidemiologist so this is way above my pay grade.

        1. The number of confirmed cases as a share of the population is not the infection rate.

          The true (population) infection rate is a known unknown, for which the confirmed cases as a percentage of the number tested is a biased sample statistic.

          1. Yes, I understand that and should have clarified. But with 1/10 of 1% CONFIRMED infected in our country, by supposedly one of the most infectious diseases we’ve seen in our lifetimes, the idea that it would be petering out before infecting large swaths of the population seems to not square with the warnings coming from on high.

          3. Because not everyone is wearing an improvised coronavirus mask yet. How can the disease end unless everyone puts on a mask?

          4. Because not everyone is wearing an improvised coronavirus mask yet. How can the disease end unless everyone puts on a mask?

            If they don’t work, why does the medical community want them so bad? Very odd, right?

          5. When you say “medical community wants them”, are you referring to themselves at work wearing medically approved masks while
            treating COVID-19 cases, or me visiting the grocery store and wearing a scarf over my face to express my anxiety about the dire situation we face to my fellow shoppers.

            I am not clear why the “medical community” would want the latter scenario, but I admit to be a bit politically tone deaf and dumb.

          6. When you say “medical community wants them”, are you referring to themselves at work wearing medically approved masks while treating COVID-19 cases,

            I’m referring to the medical community using them at work, and BOTH types. Our local seamstresses are sewing them since the hospitals don’t have enough. But I think you’re just trolling anyway, so this is probably a waste of time.

          7. No I’m not just trolling. There’s a huge difference between the virus contraction risk in a medical ward treating COVID-19 and a trip to Costco which hysteria is blurring. I’d rather not wear a mask, given that I am not entering high risk areas.

          8. I’d rather not wear a mask, given that I am not entering high risk areas.

            I’m with you! Besides feeling ridiculous, my glasses fog up.

          9. the idea that it would be petering out before infecting large swaths of the population is probably true. We won’t know for sure until an adequate survey of the population is done. Another possibility is that a hefty %age of the population already had DNA that makes it resistant to COVID-19. And there are other possibilities.

      4. As someone who has done actual research, this kind of failure is pretty typical. Scientists fail, every day. You just don’t see it because it’s in a lab and not in the news. It’s doesn’t mean that they “lied,” or that they have a financial motivation. But go right ahead and continue to dump on scientists, and soon there will be no pesky scientists left.

        And Ben, Chris Martensen at Peak Prosperity understands your comments. That’s the nature of an exponential function. Any action before the bend in the hockey stick is seen as an overreaction; and any action after the bend is seen as an underreaction.

        My guess is that the fearmongering is actually working, especially on the vulnerable. The social distancing is working better than they thought. And perhaps the hydroxychloroquine, or heck, Z-packs and multivitamins (C,D, Zn) are helping. The other day I was telling a friend that the virus seems to have only one evolutionary advantage: asymptomatic transmission, because that’s all it needed to multiply. But other than that it’s pretty weak. If we defeat the asymptomatic transmission with masks and distance, the rest is easy.

          2. Red, could you show me where the links went?
            I am sure that Big Pharma is heavily involved. I think there’s a rush to a vaccine anyway, so I’m not sure why they need to instill fear. Are you saying we shouldn’t fear either? Thousands of deaths not enough for you?

            But again, go ahead and dump on the scientists doing the real work. They aren’t the ones making the big bucks.

          3. The modelers have offered some explanation as to why the numbers were off, if you’re willing to give the poor scientists a chance to explain themselves before slamming them with the bribery hammer.

            http://www.healthdata.org/covid/updates

            They are updating their models and will release new data tomorrow.

          4. And the models look like they’ve been updated with new data. Curves are being flattened to where few states will be overwhelmed. Maryland is projected to peak about 10 days earlier. Nationwide, deaths looks like they will top out at ~82,000. But I think this still assumes social distancing through May. In other words, the model is much more optimistic than it was yesterday, which is a cause for less fear, not more.

          5. a cause for less fear

            When you just don’t know, having a model of what you don’t know printed out is comforting.

          6. As is having a religious or political leader weigh in with a prediction, coping strategy, or proposed remedy.

            All of these social control strategies are aimed at protecting people from the terror of uncertainty over the situation at hand.

        2. “If we defeat the asymptomatic transmission with masks and distance, the rest is easy.”

          There’s no testing and determination of who had it in your recovery scheme?

        3. As someone who has done actual research…a financial motivation…soon there will be no pesky scientists left.

          Fortune tellers on strike?

          2. Scientific modeling with non scientifically collected data is an imperfect art, but it seems preferable to fortune telling or making up numbers.

        4. Since we haven’t had enough tests to try to save people’s lives, we certainly have enough tests to use on cadavers and people who are not sick.

          We don’t know how many people have died of this disease. People are blasting China for this, but if someone died at home, is it work sending them to the hospital to test them for COVID-19? They are already saying a huge number of people in Italy probably died from this and were uncounted.

          We don’t know how many people had a mild case and recovered without medical intervention.

          For the death rate, we don’t know the numerator or the denominator. We won’t know either of these things for a year. So anyone who is blasting away on this, or speaking with any certainty, is an idiot.

          1. “So anyone who is blasting away on this, or speaking with any certainty, is an idiot.”

            Scientific spokespeople face a conundrum, in that their results are intrinsically uncertain, but policymakers and the public demand certain answers and either don’t understand uncertainty bounds in scientific results, or assume they are a hallmark of bad work. And if the data are not scientifically collected, and are thus unrepresentative of the population situation being modeled, it may be impossible to bridge the chasm between sample and population.

            What’s a poor scientist to do when asked to communicate uncertain results based on inadequate data to a world that doesn’t understand them?

          3. What’s a poor scientist to do when asked to communicate uncertain results based on inadequate data to a world that doesn’t understand them? Perform like Dr. Fauci has been doing, I guess.

    3. ‘While tens of thousands are hospitalized across the United States due to the COVID-19 disease caused by the CCP virus epidemic, the numbers are a fraction of what experts predicted just a few days ago. The main reason appears to be that the projections were already off the day they were released.’

      Well I’m about as shocked as I was when I saw the sun coming up this morning.

        1. Like bad assumptions and bad models, all peas in a pod.

          I wonder if blind faith in disaster models designed by real scientists will be shaken at all.

          1. I wonder if blind faith in disaster models designed by real scientists will be shaken at all. Some day the average man
            will finally understand what a famous natural philosopher once said: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

  9. ‘Luxury bargain hunters, listen up. Villa Tarka, the spectacular 12-bedroom, 20,000-square-foot oceanfront estate on Nassau’s Paradise Island in the Bahamas, hit the market a year ago for $39 million.’

    ‘Today, the price has been “re-aligned” to a hard-to-ignore $24.65 million. If our math is correct, that’s a non-trivial 37 percent drop.’

    ‘Its vibe is decidedly retro, with its shades-of-beige-and-brown color scheme that may not be to everyone’s taste—it’s been likened to an airport lounge circa-1979.’

    https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/home-week-spectacular-oceanfront-bahamas-164501860.html

  10. Vancouver, WA Housing Prices Crater 19% YOY As Portland, OR And Seattle Housing Markets Meltdown Under Weight Of Toxic Mortgages

    https://www.zillow.com/vancouver-wa-98684/home-values/

    *Select price from dropdown menu on first chart

    As a noted economist stated so eloquently, “A house is a rapidly depreciating asset that empties your wallet it every day you own it.”

      1. It’s weird how sometimes the stock market seems very sensitive to the oil market, other times it is indifferent.

        The Financial Times
        Oil & Gas industry
        Oil falls 12% on doubts over any Saudi-Russia deal
        Exchange of barbs continues to hurt prices devastated by price war and coronavirus pandemic
        Brent crude fell in early trading to just over $30
        © Reuters
        Derek Brower and David Sheppard in London an hour ago

        Oil prices fell 12 per cent as markets reopened on Sunday after Saudi Arabia and Russia traded barbs over the weekend, casting doubt on their ability to reach a deal to cut oil supply to shore up prices devastated by their month-long price war and the coronavirus pandemic.

        Brent crude fell in early trading to just over $30, losing more than $3 a barrel but holding on to the bulk of the gains made last week when Donald Trump, US president, sparked a rally after suggesting that Saudi Arabia and Russia would agree to remove 10m-15m barrels a day of oil.

        Brent hit an 18-year low near $20 a barrel early last week, before rebounding to near $34 a barrel.

        It still remains down by more than half since January, spreading fear through the industry. Brent stabilised shortly after the open to trade down about 8 per cent near $31 a barrel. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate lost a similar amount to trade near $26.

        The oil producers’ meeting, initially scheduled for Monday, has been postponed until Thursday as a war of words between Moscow and Riyadh deepened, with both accusing each other of sparking the price war to hurt the US oil sector.
        …

  12. We have been saved!

    Televangelist Kenneth Copeland ‘blows wind of God’ at coronavirus and claims pandemic is ‘destroyed’ in sermon
    https://news.yahoo.com/televangelist-kennth-copeland-blows-wind-194622515.html

    “American televangelist Kenneth Copeland, who recently claimed that the coronavirus pandemic will be ‘over much sooner you think because ‘Christian people all over this country praying have overwhelmed it,’ has summoned the ‘wind of God’ to destroy the novel coronavirus during a recent sermon.

    “Before blowing at the camera, he said: ‘I blow the wind of God on you. You are destroyed forever, and you’ll never be back. Thank you, God. Let it happen. Cause it to happen.’

    “Leading a chant surrounded by members of his church and preaching to an empty room, he called out: ‘Wind, almighty, strong, south wind, Heat: Burn this thing, in the name of Jesus. I say, you bow your knees. You fall on your face.’

    “In a sermon last month, the pastor ‘executed judgment’ on Covid-19, which he declared ‘finished’ and ‘over’ and made the US ‘healed and well again.’

    After all of this …

    “He also demanded ‘a vaccination to come immediately.'”

    😁

  13. Given that the FED now has “QE Unlimited Infinity” in its arsenal, which didn’t even require a vote or authorization, is it safe to say that the stock market will be ripping to 30,000 and beyond once there is even the slightest hint of a COVID-19 respite?

    2. Rather than have your savings lose half of their purchasing power the bond market is telling savers that equities are now the prettiest girl at the dance.

  14. I was thinking during our daily drive that realtors may have been shortsighted in having their industry declared as essential. Rather than allowing a market pause, homeowners may be making decisions under fear or distress. When prices are set at the margin, that’s not a good thing.

      1. And, I’m thinking that they may have shot themselves in the foot or cut off their nose to save their face. Choose whatever metaphor you deem fit.

  15. New notification from the school district: work is no longer optional; fourth graders are expected to do 3h10m a day with specified times for reading, writing, math, PE and more. I don’t know of any households that’ll manage that, whether it be the attention span of the children and/or the parents’ need to work from home.

    1. work is no longer optional

      The children pretend to work, the parents pretend to supervise while they pretend to work from home, and the teachers pretend to grade and the state certifies the whole thing.

      1. And soon all the “employers” will pretend to pay if we don’t get some productivity going.

  16. Science
    The Pandemic Is Turning the Natural World Upside Down
    Widespread social-distancing measures have produced some jarring effects across land, air, and sea.
    Marina Koren
    April 2, 2020
    Barry Wilmore / NASA

    From inside her living room in London, Paula Koelemeijer can feel the world around her growing quieter.

    Koelemeijer, a seismologist, has a miniature seismometer sitting on a concrete slab at the base of her first-floor fireplace. The apparatus, though smaller than a box of tissues, can sense all kinds of movement, from the rattle of trains on the tracks near Koelemeijer’s home to the waves of earthquakes rolling in from afar. Since the United Kingdom announced stricter social-distancing rules last month, telling residents not to leave their home except for essential reasons, the seismometer has registered a sharp decrease in the vibrations produced by human activity.

    With fewer trains, buses, and people pounding the pavement, the usual hum of public life has vanished, and so has its dependable rhythms: Before the spread of COVID-19 shut down the city, Koelemeijer could plot the seismometer’s data and see the train schedule reflected in the spikes, down to the minute. Now, with fewer trains running, the spikes seem to come at random.

    “It’s very literally reflecting a slowdown of our lives,” Koelemeijer told me over Skype.

    Koelemeijer said she briefly geeked out over the recent data before reality set in. At first glance, this is indeed a fascinating observation, the kind of factoid that might appear on the underside of a Snapple cap. The “wow” moment is short-lived, of course, because the explanation is not a quirk of nature or some other benign eccentricity, but a catastrophic virus that has sickened and killed thousands, crumpled economies, and plunged public life into a fearful limbo with no easily discernible end.
    …

  17. Just heard on TV: San Diego if facing an expotential increase in COVID-19 cases.

    Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

    1. Current cases inSan Diego County 1,326

      Daily increase 117

      117/(1326-117) = 9.7%

      Doubling time in number of cases at this growth rate is 7 1/2 days

    1. The Financial Times
      The Big Read
      Eurozone economy
      Coronavirus: Is Europe losing Italy?
      Furious at their plight being ignored and over resistance to coronabonds, Italians’ sense of betrayal deepens
      © AP
      Miles Johnson in Rome, Sam Fleming in Brussels and Guy Chazan in Berlin 4 hours ago

      A year ago Carlo Calenda ran in European parliamentary elections in Italy under the slogan “We are Europeans”, a rallying cry to defend his country’s place in the EU at a time of rising nationalism.

      Now even Mr Calenda, a 46-year-old former minister and Italian permanent representative to the EU, is experiencing a crisis of faith in an idea he has spent a lifetime fighting for.

      “This is an existential threat, I am not sure if we are going to make it,” he says. “You have to consider my party is one of the most pro-European parties in Italy and I now have members writing to me saying: ‘Why do we want to stay in the EU? It is useless.’”

      “A massive, massive shift is happening in Italy. You have thousands of pro-Europeans moving to this position,” says Mr Calenda, who leads the recently formed liberal Action party.

      Last month Sergio Mattarella, Italy’s softly-spoken 78-year-old president, and the man its establishment has relied on to safeguard its constitution and international alliances, warned the future of Europe was at stake if its institutions did not show solidarity with their country.

      “I hope that everyone fully understands, before it is too late, the seriousness of the threat to Europe,” he said in an evening television address beamed into the homes of millions of Italians.

      Many in Rome now feel that unless bold action is taken by northern European countries, they risk Italy turning its back on the European project forever.
      …

    1. This guy needs to learn to put more faith in Unlimited Quantitative Easing:

      In Fed We Trust.

      Key Words
      Wall Street star money manager says S&P 500 could plunge to 1,500 in worst case, with coronavirus fallout lingering for years
      Published: April 5, 2020 at 10:38 p.m. ET
      By Mark DeCambre
      ‘We need to see the other shoe drop’ before getting back into stocks: Minerd
      …
      “Probably the most surprising thing to me at this point is how well the markets are holding up,” Minerd said. “Given the economic data, and given the fact that large portions of the capital markets are still virtually closed for business, I would have expected stock prices to be lower at this point,” he said.
      …

    2. Czar Putain i$n’t pe$$imistic, knot in thee lea$t. In, fact he’$ rather joyu$ the$e day$!

  22. Maybe more good news will come our way.

    “Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, a board-certified family practitioner in New York, after he successfully treated 350 coronavirus patients with 100 percent success using a cocktail of drugs: hydroxychloroquine, in combination with azithromycin (Z-Pak), an antibiotic to treat secondary infections, and zinc sulfate. Dr. Zelenko said he saw the symptom of shortness of breath resolved within four to six hours after treatment. “

    1. “hydroxychloroquine”

      The political dialogue about this gets weirder by the day.

      1. Yep.

        Downplaying this as a ‘miracle drug’ is one thing, but the outright rejection to consider as a potential drug is mind boggling imo.

        Dr Fauci and many others must be working on their own expensive ‘cure.’

        1. their own expensive ‘cure.’

          The CDC is here to help you. They will have a patent on whatever they order as an appropriate treatment.

        2. As usual in the political landscape we currently inhabit, the rational middle ground is missing in action.

        3. their own expensive ‘cure.’

          https://www.modernatx.com/modernas-work-potential-vaccine-against-covid-19

          “On January 13, 2020, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Moderna’s infectious disease research team finalized the sequence for mRNA-1273, the Company’s vaccine against the novel coronavirus. At that time, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of NIH, disclosed their intent to run a Phase 1 study using the mRNA-1273 vaccine in response to the coronavirus threat and Moderna mobilized toward clinical manufacture. Manufacture of this batch was funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).”

          Fauci has been NIAID’s director since 1984. Go back and look at his position on this coronavirus at the end of January.

          CEPI was co-founded and co-funded with US$460 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Wellcome Trust, and a consortium of nations, being Norway, Japan, Germany; to which the European Union (2019) and Britain (2020) subsequently joined.

          http://www.healthdata.org/about/director-statement

          “The announcement of the 10-year, $279-million investment in IHME by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation this year provides a moment in time to reflect and to look ahead.”

          Enough dots for everyone?

        4. “Dr Fauci and many others must be working on their own expensive ‘cure.”

          Cough, Bill cough cough Gates.

      2. “hydroxychloroquine”

        This is a low cost to drug for people with autoimmune disorders such as arthritis or lupus. There is a modern replacement today for people who have good Health Insurance plans. If hydroxychloroquine becomes widely prescribed then low income patients who will no longer have access to affordable solution for their autoimmune disorder.

        1. I’ve heard anecdotally of patients with hydroxychloroquine prescriptions having their treatments scaled back so more can be allocated to COVID-19 use. It might not seem low-cost to those who need it badly.

    2. jeff
      March 19, 2020 at 11:29 am

      Oh No! “All six, 100 percent, tested negative at day six.”

      Researchers Look To Old Drugs For A Possible Coronavirus Treatment

      Mary Beth Pfeiffer
      Mar 18, 2020, 4:33pm EDT

      https://www.forbes.com/sites/marybethpfeiffer/2020/03/18/science-works-to-use-old-cheap-drugs-to-attack-coronavirus–it-might-just-work/

      jeff
      March 19, 2020 at 11:40 am

      COVID-19: Could Hydroxychloroquine Really Be the Answer?

      (I know some people that hope not)

      Aude Lecrubier
      March 18, 2020

      https://pastebin.com/82CYaFp4

      jeff
      March 20, 2020 at 8:51 am

      hydroxychloroquine and a Z pack

      Somebody give those people a hand getting in off the ledge.

      1. God forbid we should have cheap and effective therapeutics. No, we need a rushed vaccine using unproven technology. And if I don’t get the vaccine or have antibodies against SAR-CoV-2, no immunity passport for me.

  23. In 1918 San Francisco applied all the health measures and it paid off. But, than SF got hit with a second wave 8 months later.

    This leads me to when are the shelter in place group rid of the risk of infection? Is it only when a vaccine is discovered?

    It seems to me that the best method is total containment in the place where the flu started. China screwed the World in this regard.

    Now that C19 is World wide it’s like the cat is out of the bag Isn’t herd immunity the final solution until a vaccine is discovered, along with meds that might be life saving?

    How is the USA going to control other Countries like Africa in what their response is going to be?

    I’m complying with all the orders In California , but what’s the end game ?

    1. How is the USA going to control other Countries like Africa in what their response is going to be?

      Immunity passports, which strike me as unconstitutional, are being bantered around.

      1. Immunity passports?

        What are they? Who’s behind them? I bet they see a dollar sign with each passport.

        Revenue = 7 billion people, $100 a pop = 700 billion
        Cost = 10 cents per passport. (Mass produced in China tainted with corona virus)

        Proft! Profit! Profit!

        1. Bill Gates is proposing that people be branded like cattle with a tattoo and have an RFID chip inserted under their skin once they’ve been inoculated.

          2. And you’re ahead of the game later when it’s required in order to buy or sell anything.

          3. when it’s required in order to buy or sell anything.

            Hence my Mark of the Beast remark. Expect some serious and armed push back against this.

    2. Jim Rogers: Worst Yet to Come for U.S. Markets
      Despite a positive start for Monday’s session, Jim Rogers, co-founder of the Quantum Fund and chairman of Rogers Holdings, continues to ring a bearish alarm bell for U.S. markets. However, he believes that investors can now find opportunities in Asia and Russia. Additionally, Sylvia Yeh of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, unpacks the pressure that the U.S. municipal bond market is confronting amid the coronavirus crisis.
      Posted April 6, 2020
      …

    5. Try not to get $ea$ick or cap$ize if you decide$ to $et $ail into thi$ volatility $torm.

  26. So a “bad” flu year is 75k deaths in the US. A whopping 9k have died.

    What a load of bullshit this entire thing has been.

    1. Are societal level quarantine measures typically put in place for seasonal flu? All over the planet?

    2. de Blasio is saying NYC hospitals will run out of supplies Tuesday or Wednesday, maybe even today!

      1. That must be the Barney Fife of the Choir who can’t sing sitting in the corner beatin’ on the bongos.

  27. Cuomo just said they have allowed hydroxychloroquine to be given in the hospitals, but after being infected with coronavirus last week and not going to the hospital, Chris Cuomo’s doctor told him he could expect bad dreams and or hallucinations which are side effects of hydroxychloroquine for the next 5 or 6 nights, go figure.

    1. So they are saving the ‘good stuff’ for the connected few while denying that it doesn’t work in public?

      Yes I have heard tales of ‘epic’ hallucinations from taking the malaria drug.

        1. Ditto for my mother, but she uses something else these days that comes via UPS “cold-packed” in a Styrofoam box.

        2. My dad took it for half a century and never had hallucinations. Multiple this story by a very large number to get some perspective on tales told by the ‘others’.

  28. The OC Register has an article on home sales in the past month. In the 4 county area (LAC OC RC & SBC) 11700 transacting have fallen out of escrow in March. (Some are not COVID19 caused, but quite a few are.) Pending new deals fell by 16% the week after March 19th when the Governor issued his stay at home order, and 5% of active listings went to “on hold” that week. A broker in Lancaster lost three deals in the past few weeks, and two went back on the market with a $5000 price cut. The third house had a buyer who failed to get the loan and all the other buyers backed out as well. Employment status is a big sticking point according to a Newport Beach loan officer.

    2. Probably a slow recovery once the “stay at home” order is lifted as households experience a tough slog of consumer credit expansion coupled with uncertain income. The COVID-19 couldn’t have arrived at a worse time.

      1. The COVID-19 couldn’t have arrived at a worse time.

        If it hadn’t been the ‘rona it would have been something else. But this was a very fast shock to the system. Who knows how long it would have taken otherwise…

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