Today's Top Stories: April 17, 2020
Channel: My Daily Grind News
Date: 2020-04-17

Today's Top Stories: April 17, 2020. LEI index down record 6.7%, largest ever in 60-year history, Biden putting together WH transition team, Gilead drug promising in fighting COVID-19.


https://mydailygrind.news/todays-top-stories-april-17-2020


Coronavirus update:
April 17, 2020 COVID-19 pandemic map
Coronavirus COVID-19 (2019-nCoV)

2,182,734 confirmed infections, up from 2,081,969 yesterday.
147,632 confirmed deaths, up from 138,487 yesterday.
Relevant COVID-19 stories:

    Gilead’s shares rise on report of experimental drug’s promise in COVID-19

Economy Update:

The Leading Economic Indicators came out today, setting a new record for the steepest decline in history, doubling the worst to that point, set during the 2008 financial crisis.

LEI was down 6.7 percent, the largest in the index’s 60-year history.

EDITORIAL: If THIS doesn’t kill Trump’s chances of winning re-election, NOTHING will. Now, I’m not saying the economic collapse is all Trump’s fault. Far from it.

But he and his administration bungled the response to the coronavirus by sitting on their thumbs for two months.

Now, the US has the most fatalities and confirmed cases of COVID-19. We are NOWHERE NEAR the highest in population, so our “per capita” infection and mortality rates are far higher than those in China, India, Italy, and Iran, to name just a few.

It’s that slow response that has led to our protracted economy. And there is no end in sight.

I don’t see us ever returning to “normal.” Put another way, THIS is our new normal. Get used to it.
April 17, 2020 DJIA stock chart
Source: The Street dot com

Dow is up nearly 400 points, closing in on 24k.
Upcoming economic reports this week:

    Wednesday – retail sales. This will be BAD. It was BAD – down 8.7 percent for March 2020.
    Wednesday – business inventories. Down 0.4 percent.
    Wednesday – homebuilders’ index and housing starts. April 2020: 30. March 2020: 72.
    Thursday – weekly jobless claims. Will we have another new record? No. But another 5.245 million people lost their jobs last week.
    Friday – Leading Economic Indicators (LEI). Wait for it…NEW RECORD – down 6.7 percent, largest decline EVER.

Source: https://www.marketwatch.com/tools/calendars/economic
Relevant Economy stories:

    Fed’s Bullard Says It May Be Wrong to Doubt U.S. ‘V’ Rebound
    Hobbled by coronavirus, China’s first-quarter GDP shrinks for first time on record 

Check out Gig Economics–Learn how to thrive in the gig economy. Don’t ever be that cube monkey again!
Politics:

Joe Biden is putting together a White House transition team in the event he can pull off a win in November.

Of course, that remains to be seen. But at the very least, he’s putting together a team, unlike Trump did in 2016 when even he thought he had no chance to win.

Joke’s on us. He won. He was–and still is–unprepared and unfit to hold the office.
Relevant Politics stories:

    Only Senate Republican not invited to join Trump task force? Romney
    Biden Says He’s Starting to Put Together a White House Transition Team 

Offbeat Story of the Day:

Cops: Man Threatened To Shoot Up Supermarket Because Too Few Shoppers Were Wearing Masks, Gloves

    Incensed that his fellow Floridians were not wearing masks and gloves to the pharmacy and supermarket, a 62-year-old Florida man yesterday warned on Facebook that if he were to test positive for the coronavirus, “I will head right to Publix and empty every Clip I own!”

    Police say that Robert Kovner’s 4:23 PM post declared that, “I FIND it criminal that you enter the supermarket or pharmacy without a mask as if you are either to (sic) stupid to understand the danger your (sic) spreading or so selfish that you don’t give a f%8k that your (sic) endangering others?”

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