Free Republic

“They told us that the patient from China did not appear to have any symptoms.” Afterward, however, RKI and the Health and Food Safety Authority of the state of Bavaria did talk to the Shanghai patient on the phone, and it turned out she did have symptoms while in Germany. According to people familiar with the call, she felt tired, suffered from muscle pain, and took paracetamol, a fever-lowering medication.

Getty Images The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down more than 500 points as investors finally decide to start worrying about the spread of China’s coronavirus and the implications for the global economy. The Dow has dropped 511.80 points, or 1.8%, to 28,347.64, while the S&P 500 has fallen 1.4% to 3239.05. The Nasdaq Composite is off 1.3% at 9175.40. The coronavirus is spreading. According to Johns Hopkins, which has a website dedicate to the virus, 9,776 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed, with 213 total deaths. Most of the cases are still in China, but it has spread...

The liberal media can pipe down now that President Donald Trump’s formidable economy is crushing it following his speech concerning the U.S.-Iran conflict Jan. 8. CNBC reported Jan. 8 that “Stocks rose on Wednesday after President Donald Trump spoke about an attack by Iran at an Iraqi airbase that hosts American troops, which led to a massive sell-off in overnight trading.” The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 213 points (0.8 percent), The Nasdaq increased 0.7 percent to an all-time high, and the S&P 500 increased 0.7 percent to hit a record high. This came after Trump stated that Iran“‘appears to...

For all the media brouhaha over an imminent recession in 2019, President Donald Trump’s economy has continued to stupefy prognosticators going into the new year. The Wall Street Journal reported Jan. 1 in a piece headlined “The Bull Market is Charging into 2020,” that stocks across the globe “closed out one of their best years over the past decade, defying money managers who began 2019 expecting the bull market to be upended by threats from the U.S.-China trade fight and a slowdown in growth.” Stock indexes in the U.S., as well as Brazil and Germany, were up more than 20...

What a difference a year makes. 2018 was tough on investors, and it ended with stocks in retreat. The decline was triggered by growing fears of a prolonged U.S.-China trade war fueled by President Trump’s “I am tariff man” tweet on December 4.In addition, the Federal Reserve was in a multiyear cycle of rate hikes. Nobody knew it at the time, but the last hike occurred on December 18, 2018. Across nearly every major asset class, 2018 was a bad year. Fast forward to December 2019.A yearlong rally accelerated in the fourth quarter, with stocks ending the year at...

It must be difficult for CNN to have to admit President Donald Trump’s economy is remarkable after their obsession over his impeachment. Their latest poll shows a stunning result even the liberal outlet felt compelled to concede.CNN reported on Dec. 20 that as the year 2019 closes, “the US economy earn[ed] its highest ratings in almost two decades” [emphasis added]. This, according to CNN, potentially boosts “President Donald Trump in matchups against the Democrats vying to face him in next year's election, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.”

Crude oil production in the U.S. shale patch is seen rising by 49,000 bpd next month to a record-high daily average of 9.133 million barrels. That’s according to the latest edition of the Energy Information Administration’s Drilling Productivity Report. A month earlier, the EIA estimated that total shale oil production will rise by 58,000 bpd in November from October, to 8.971 million bpd. The latest report, however, pegged the November average at more than that: 9.048 million barrels daily.

China signaled on Monday it was now seeking a rapid and "calm" end to its ongoing trade war with the U.S., as Asian markets crumbled and China's currency plummeted to an 11-year low following the latest tariffs on $550 billion in Chinese goods announced last Friday by the Trump administration. News of the possible opening in negotiations came shortly after President Trump threatened to declare a national emergency that would result in American businesses freezing their relationships with China.

The California state seal declares “Eureka,” originally a Greek word that means “I found it,” and with good reason. After James Marshall discovered gold in the territory in 1848, the rush was on. By 1852, two years after California gained statehood, the population skyrocketed from 14,000 to 250,000. But times have changed, and people are now leaving. California is the second most expensive state to live in and has the second worst overall tax burden, according to the Tax Foundation. As if that is not enough, California lawmakers want the district schools to focus on progressive grandstanding instead of serving...

“This is a tipping point now. If we don’t address it in this window, in this presidential debate, we’re not going to deal with it.” Those are the words of former South Carolina governor and U.S. Congressman from South Carolina, Mark Sanford. Sanford is talking about federal debt.But if one didn’t know better, and if one weren’t familiar with the issues of importance to Sanford, it would be easy to speculate that the South Carolinian who plans to take on Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination was talking about global warming. The way that Sanford references a “tipping point”...

The move will see the European Commission blocking Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada and Singapore from accessing parts of the European Union's financial market, according to the Financial Times. The five countries are deemed as no longer regulating credit rating agencies as rigorously as the bloc — thereby removing them from a position which made it possible for European banks to rely on those ratings, reported the Financial Times, The European Commission will be blocking five countries from accessing parts of the European Union's financial markets — in a move that could hit the United Kingdom after it leaves the bloc,...

On July 18 of last year, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted two Merrill Lynch precious metals traders, Edward Bases and John Pacilio, charging them each with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud affecting a financial institution and one count of commodities fraud each. Pacilio was further charged with five counts of spoofing. (Spoofing is where a trader uses a high-speed computer to issue a rapid barrage of buy or sell orders, with no intention of executing the trades, in order to mislead the market and gain an advantage for his own position in the market.) On Tuesday...

When I was pregnant with my first child 16 years ago, I asked my doctor how much it would cost to pay for the birth out-of-pocket. He had no clue. The truth of the matter is that in most cases, neither doctors nor their patients have any idea what their treatments cost. That's because the health care market is not a real market. The prices that emerge in this "market" aren't the result of supply and demand, influenced by innovation and competition. Instead, they're the product of a bunch of legislators who want to create a system where anyone but...

Just hours after President Trump announced he will be imposing 5% tariffs on Mexican imports over illegal immigration, Mexico’s president Lopez Obrador sent Trump a letter begging for a meeting to work toward a solution. “Mexico’s President Lopez Obrador asks Trump to have U.S. officials meet with the Mexican foreign minister in Washington on Friday to seek a solution that benefits both nations,” Reuters reported.

The Nasdaq on Friday closed at a record, and the S&P 500 narrowly missed its own, as investors bought stocks following an April employment report that came in hotter than expected, underscoring consistent labor-market strength. The Nasdaq Composite Index COMP advanced 127.22 points, or 1.6%, at 8,164, buoyed by gains in e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc., which helped the technology-laden index to carve out a fresh all-time high and recover from a three-session stumble. The S&P 500 index climbed 28.12 points, or 1%, at 2,945.64, barely missing its own closing record at 2,845.83. All 11 S&P 500 sectors finished in positive...

Albert Einstein once wrote that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Were he alive today, he would be repeating the line to anyone who would listen, especially the reporters on cable news channels such as CNBC. He might add that the world’s policymakers always approach oil market disruptions in the same way: predicting there will be no impact on prices. Einstein would then point out that the policymakers are consistently wrong. A hefty price boost has followed every disruption. The world has experienced nineteen oil market disruptions over the...

U.S. stocks posted slight gains on Wednesday after a volatile session kicked off 2019. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 18 points higher after dropping nearly 400 points earlier in the day. The S&P 500 gained 0.1 percent while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.46 percent. At their lows of the day, the S&P 500 were both down more than 1 percent. “Finally, we’re starting to see this buy-the-dip mentality creep into the market,” said Phil Blancato, CEO of Ladenburg Thalmann Asset Management. “It’s because of valuations and it’s because the underlying data has been pretty good so far, albeit a...

Anyone paying even the slightest amount of attention to the stock market recently is aware that traders are behaving more like lemmings than investors. One day they all run north and the market advances 400 points. The next day they all run south and it declines 600. It even happens in the same day. This has been the pattern for the last several months. The economic numbers having changed not a wit. So we wonder, what is going on here? Financial writers always have an answer. Fears about a trade war with China. Worries over Brexit. Oil prices are too...

The Dow is thrashing around 500 down (~ minus 500) at the time of this writing. Reutershttps://www.reuters.com/markets/stocks Or Bloomberg, if you prefer. No content allowed from Bloomberg allowed here except title and/or link. Here's the link. https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/stocks Any speculation in regards to any honest causes? The economy has been getting better so far.

Stocks took a nosedive on Wall Street as investors worried that a US-China trade truce reached over the weekend wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank almost 800 points Tuesday. ------------------ The markets plunged after Trump unleashed a threatening tweet Tuesday morning. “President Xi and I want this deal to happen, and it probably will. But if not remember, I am a Tariff Man,” Trump tweeted.