Join Research Affiliates’ Rob Arnott and I on a wide-ranging tour of the current state of markets. We make stops at the Tesla bubble, the growth stock frenzy, the bottom for value stocks, a look at small caps and interest rates and lots more.

Shell and other oil majors are avoiding hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes in countries where they drill by shifting profits to thinly staffed insurance and finance affiliates based in tax havens, according to a Reuters review of corporate filings and rating agency reports. Shell, BP Plc, Chevron and Total use subsidiaries in the Bahamas, Switzerland, Bermuda, the UK Channel Islands and Ireland to provide their global operations with banking, insurance and oil-trading services, the documents show. These subsidiaries, in turn, book profits that go lightly taxed or entirely tax-free.
Such arrangements are not illegal. But they highlight the ability of international oil corporations to game global tax systems and avoid handing over revenue to nations where they conduct their core business, according to academics who study corporate taxation.

Today, Nordstrom corporate is doing all they can to get people to shop online. Meanwhile, they still pay their in-store employees on commission. Except, no one is in the store because of Covid fear-mongering and policy. Nordstrom corporate won’t change their pay policy to amend it for the new reality, and employees are suffering terribly. All employees in-store do is process returns. The overarching Covid policy combined with the corporate policy is bankrupting them.

At the start of 2020 the big industrial economies were healthy, investors were optimistic, and West Texas Intermediate was trading at about $60 a barrel. Prices began to fall in February after the first reports of the coronavirus. That accelerated as the outbreak turned into a pandemic. By the end of March, WTI futures were at $20, the lowest they’d been since after Sept. 11. Then, after tense negotiations, the big oil producers—led by Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S.—agreed to reduce production by 10% to try to stabilize prices.
Then on April 20th, 2020 oil prices sank.
Here’s how it works: Imagine a trader sees that WTI is at $10 and predicts it’s going to end the day at $5. To capitalize, he buys 50,000 barrels in the TAS market, agreeing to purchase oil at wherever the price ends up by 2:30 p.m. At the same time, he starts selling regular WTI futures: 10,000 barrels for $10 and then, if the market is falling as predicted, 10,000 more at $9, and again at $8. As the settlement window approaches, the trader accelerates his selling, offloading a further 10,000 contracts at $7, then another chunk at $6, helping push the price lower until, sure enough, it settles at $5. By now he is “flat,” meaning he’s sold as many barrels as he’s bought and isn’t obliged to take delivery of any actual oil.
The trader’s bet has come off. His profit is $150,000, the difference between what he sold oil for (50,000 barrels at prices ranging from $10 to $6, for a total of $400,000) and what he bought it for in TAS contracts (50,000 barrels at $5 a barrel, or $250,000). All of this is perfectly legal, providing the trader doesn’t deliberately try to push the closing price down to an artificial level to maximize his profits, which constitutes market manipulation under U.S. law. Manipulation can result in civil penalties such as fines or bans, or even criminal charges carrying a potential prison sentence of up to 10 years. It’s also illegal in the U.S. to place trades during or before the settlement with “intentional or reckless disregard” for the impact.

Joe Biden put a 100% clean grid at the core of his climate agenda. Even more remarkable was his proposed timeline: 15 years.
Can anyone build a clean grid that fast? And for that matter, where did an idea this big come from in the first place?

>> Basically if you're under 60 and healthy there's a 99% chance you'll live.
May be. What's the cite for this?
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographics is interesting.
Of course you know that QoL is majorly impaired in many survivors.
Two months out of date:

You separate economic impacts from public health. No one with sense does that; they are not severable in any way. If we had appropriate disaster relief, we would not be having such a bootless discussion.

@wxman123 And you are ignoring my point that by the measures that matter most regarding health, Newsom's covid response has been successful and not at all "pretty dreadful overall" as you stated. Would you admit he has been successful relative to other states?
Would I support a total lockdown is a misleading question in that regard because Newsom hasn't done a total lockdown:
https://covid19.ca.gov/stay-home-except-for-essential-needs/#regional-stay-home-order

Under the Regional Stay Home Order Can We Go Outside?
Members of the same household are encouraged to maintain physical and mental health by safely going to a park, a beach, hike, walk, or bike ride with members of their own household. Californians are also encouraged to keep connected with loved ones virtually.
Limiting mixing and movement of individuals from different households is critical in order to stop the transmission of the virus.

First, the order isn't for all of California but for any region that "falls below 15% ICU bed availability, the Regional Stay Home Order goes into effect." But secondly, what really bothers you if this aspect of Stay at Home does is not that people are forced to stay inside--they can still go outside--but that they can't congregate in large numbers at businesses. That's it, the making money part that seems to upset the GOP.
But also the would-I-support-a-total-lockdown question is a false one because like the California order itself, the answer really depends on the infection rate, the availability of medical treatment, and the length of the lockdown. My answer is yes I would support a total lockdown if conditions were severe enough and no I wouldn't if they weren't that severe. But it's a false question because no U.S. politician has enforced a "total lockdown."
What really bothers you is the inability to make as much money from businesses as before. And you are willing to sacrifice lives for those businesses. The appropriate anology is to the movie Jaws and the mayor who refuses to shut the beaches down when a shark is killing people. It wasn't human life he was concerned about. It was the loss of the summer business. If he shut the beaches, people could still leave their homes, just not congregate in the water where the shark was.
And this anology is especially relevant in relation to DeSantis in Florida, given the beaches there and his lousy response to the pandemic. This is where he is ethically now: https://aol.com/entertainment/florida-gop-official-resigns-protest-075650944.html
Even members of his own party are abandoning him as he tries to suppress the truth.
The Jaws analogy is even relevant on an economic basis, because it's fair to say that from a long-term economic perspective shutting down the beaches temporarily would have been a better idea. The brand value of the beach was severely damaged by keeping the beaches open because tourists will think after the attacks "That's the beach where ten people died from shark attacks because the greedy mayor cared more about business interests than human life." They won't want to go to that beach even after the shark is gone. So, in the short-term business is lost from the shut down and the local economy is hurt. But in the long-term, it's actually better for the business's brand to have a pristine safety record. It won't have the stain on its record of unecessary deaths.
To put it in Covid terms, I have no desire to visit Florida as a tourist right now and probably won't for a long-time even after Covid is gone because of DeSantis's terrible response.

Additional side effects are surfacing with regard to the Pfizer vaccine that were not observed during trails (individuals with allergy sensitivities at greater risk to negative side effects). This may slow its deployment.
Allergy-risk-Pfizer-jab-TWO-patients-fall-ill
MA reporting today that 64% of all state deaths are still occurring in senior care facilities. Many of these residents leave the care facility to be treated by area hospitals and then are being sent back to the facility where special wings are being setup when possible. Contracting Covid-19 complicates the already compromised health of this population.
Using MA data, that means 36% of Covid-19 related deaths are occurring outside of these facilities. Again, do some / most of these individuals often have compromised health issues? The vaccines (with all there potential side effects) may be the best response for both of these populations.
We hear a lot about positivity rates which is important when dealing with the problem of transmission, but does anyone have numbers on the death rate of "healthy" individuals? Herd immunity...which is a thing... will play a part in this population because we mingle more in herds.
Seniors home residents seem to be our top priority going forward, then our general population that have preexisting conditions.
coronavirus & preexisting conditions
Masks, vaccines, and common sense behavior all play a part for the rest of us
As far as the economy is concerned. Senior facility have little impact. E-commerce has entered into a perfect storm and should emerge stronger than ever. Home based businesses will grow. Small businesses (in- store retail) are being tested, while big box retail gains market share. Travel and leisure businesses are in full stress test mode. For individuals whose jobs are going away we'll need re-training programs, Shifting resources toward construction and infrastructure projects would make good sense.