WASHINGTON (MaceNews) –-The following is Thursday’s status check of developments in the U.S. that can influence economic, health and political outcomes:
- So severe was the day’s stocks pullback that the Nasdaq – pulled down 4.96% – was the lowest it’s been since … Tuesday a week ago. After so many record highs, how serious was the pullback? The Dow fell 2.8% or 808 points and its newly split Apple lost 8%. So what? That’s $179.92 billion in market capitalization, the WSJ pointed out, the largest one-day loss for a U.S. listed company ever. After-hours trading showed very modest losses to break-even trading. So Friday is an open question, a day that starts off with the August monthly jobs report.
- With coronavirus testing leveled out at around 800,000 a day, far from the several million many health experts say is necessary, the daily death toll that had been improving, was above 1,000 for a second day (NYT Tracker) resuming last week’s pattern. Other counts for the day were much higher. As CDC chief Robert Redfield has predicted, a lightening of the daily tally of new cases, now 14% below the average two weeks ago, should be followed by fewer deaths. So far that hasn’t happened..
- Dr. Anthony Fauci, back on the airwaves since his throat surgery that improved his voice considerably, warned in a Bloomberg interview that seven states are at risk for surges in the virus over the Labor Day weekend and repeated that the fall’s confluence of influenza and COVID-19 could trigger another challenge to medical facilities. The states: North and South Dakota, Iowa, Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana and Illinois. Twenty-nine states have positivity rates above 5%, with Alabama the worst, at over 40%.
- Politico reported that a survey of contact tracing showed three-quarters of people in states with high infection rates refuse to cooperate. President Trump’s audience of several hundred Thursday in a aircraft hangar in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, had few mask wearers among them. He mocked opponent Joe Biden’s observance of the need for masks. “Did you ever see a man who likes a mask as much as him?”
- The Conference Board reported: “Many businesses hoped to reopen their workplaces after Labor Day, but a new survey of managers and executives suggests a long, uncertain road ahead. Thirty-five percent say the timing of when their companies will reopen the workplace is unknown.”
- The AP was first to report House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin Tuesday agreed to avoid a government shutdown September 30 midnight by passing a short-term kick-the-can continuing resolution of unspecified length without a fight. This would be entirely separate from any resumption of talks on virus relief..
- Chicago Federal Reserve Bank Pres. Charles Evans again used blunt language to press Congress to do more to address the pandemic’s challenges in a speech tweeted @macenewsmacro. The story is at macenews.com.
- Upon his return from Pennsylvania Thursday night, President Trump delivered an impassioned denial of an Atlantic Magazine story earlier in the day written by the editor in chief that quoted several people who said he disparaged wounded and dead service members on several occasions. “If they really exist, if people really exist that would have said that, they’re low lifes and they’re liars,” Trump said. “And I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes. There is nobody that respects them more. So, I just think it’s a horrible, horrible thing. It made a great evening into frankly a very sad evening when I see a statement like that. No animal, nobody, what animal would say such a thing?”
- Upcoming economic statistics include the monthly jobs report at 8:30a ET and the Baker-Hughes rig count at 10:30a. The morning’s report on new claims for unemployment benefits showed them falling by 130,000 to 881,000, far fewer than expected although still a staggering number. But a new seasonal adjustment methodology meant the new number is not comparable to previous numbers, Keven Kastner wrote at macenews.com.
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