sandy beach

Bloomberg: China Retail sales -11.1% YoY; estimate -6.6%; Worst since May of 2002 Industrial output = -2.9% YoY; estimate +0.5%; Worst Since 1990's USD.CNH shooting up. This is COVID related and will have reverberations globally. Markets now down - rates down, oil down, etc. Bloomberg "Can we call this a shocker?"

North Korea COVID-19: there were 402,920 new cases of fever, 152,600 people recovered, and 8 people died. From the end of last April until 18:00 on May 15th, the total number of sick people nationwide was 1,213,550. The total number of deaths so far is 50. http:// https://t.co/huH8tH3qW228d 9cab30137c627964e50ea2f42487.kcmsf

Futures open - US Stocks up, oil up, US treasury interest rates up. Gyro taking a small hit.

That could leave a mark.

Friday afternoon long covering on the S&P500

Thanks doc!

Short covering - incoming!

Banks are really starting to look reasonable: VFH Vanguard Financial Sector ETF hitting January 2021 levels. P/E 9.8 and Price / Book 1.6. JPM P/E 8.6 Pr/Bk 1.3 BAC P/E 9.8 Pr/Bk 1.2 DB P/E 9.2 Pr/Bk 0.3 CMA P/E 10.2 Pr/Bk 1.5 MS P/E 9.8 Pr/Bk 1.4 CB P/E 10.8 Pr/Bk 1.5 SIVB P/E 14.4 Pr/Bk 2 Not that they can't get way Dover Sole from here but unless we looking at a 2008 level financial crisis some of the better quality names may soon be worth a look.

Metals and mining sector really taking a hit lately. Is this just large players raising cash? Or is there a more fundamental reason?

The Capitalstool bottom index hasn't been reached yet. Only two pages?

Well the S&P500 can only drop another 3,990 points. That's not so bad.

Have you checked out Interactive Brokers? They charge 0.20 basis points for under a million ($2.00 minimum for the first $100,000) and the rates go down after a million: https://investors.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=1590&p=fx Alternately your can attach an FX market order to a trade when buying securities in other countries: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=47638

Sorry about that doc.

Lael Brainard rips the market a new one - bond yields exploding up.