This is the fifth straight annual acceleration and corroborating other recent data that showed a flurry of housing market activity prior to the coronavirus pandemic.
"Our Q2 forecast would represent a decline that is more than three times larger than the previous low in the history of the modern US GDP statistics (-10% in 1958 Q1)."
As we wait for scientists to develop a vaccine for COVID-19, there is another, more readily available tool at our disposal. Social distancing is the first line of defense for containing an infectious disease...
The cyclically adjusted primary fiscal deficit to rise to 14% of GDP in 2020 (assuming stimulus of US$2.0 trillion) compared with 7% of GDP in 2009 – the highest level since the 1930s. The headline fiscal deficit will rise to around 18% of GDP in 2020.
We can anticipate a federal bailout of pension funds and one-time aid to state and local governments, but bailouts won't repair the eroding foundations of tax revenues.
Overdue credit-card debt in February exploded by about 50% and the delinquency ratio jumped to a staggering 20% in February, after 8 million people lost their jobs in February. That's just the start.
"If getting us into $6 trillion more debt doesn’t matter, then why are we not getting $350 trillion more in debt so that we can give a check of $1 million to every person in the country?"
On Friday morning local time, China reported that industrial profits crash the most on record in January-February, both due to the Lunar new year, but mostly due to the virus outbreak and the government's restrictive measures to contain the virus.
"While long term we can't be sure how this will play out, we want to commit to you that there will not be a reduction in force at Morgan Stanley in 2020."
