Miami Herald (June 12)
“Floridians flattened the COVID curve. Then, amid upbeat talk, the numbers began to rise.” On Friday, Florida announced “a new daily record high of 1,902 additional cases of COVID-19 — surpassing the previous high of confirmed cases by 204, which was reported just a day earlier.”
Tags: Confirmed cases, COVID-19, Curve, Flattened, Record high, Upbeat
Wall Street Journal (June 10)
“Growing fears of a surge in coronavirus infections sent the stock market tumbling Thursday, pulling the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 1,800 points for its worst day since March.” In recent days “investors have gotten more signs that the smooth reopening they have been hoping for may be increasingly difficult to achieve—throwing into doubt their hopes for a nascent economic recovery.”
Tags: Coronavirus, Dow Jones, Economic recovery, Fears, Infections, Investors, Stock market, Surge, Tumbling
Responsible Investor (June 9)
“Only in finance can a product lose 24% of its value and be celebrated as success. Since traditional benchmarks have lost more than ESG funds since the beginning of the year, ESG is feted by some as a success, a ‘refuge’.” Kudos, however, are not in order. “The rude fact is that, on the whole, ESG risk management frameworks did not prepare us for the inevitability of the pandemic. They did not help investors and banks anticipate the crisis, nor how to navigate it. The pandemic is a failure of mainstream risk management frameworks. Sadly, it is also a failure of ESG risk management frameworks.”
Tags: Banks, Benchmarks, Crisis, ESG funds, Finance, Frameworks, Investors, Pandemic, Refuge, Risk management, Success, Value
NBC News (June 9)
“Stocks soar despite coronavirus and a recession. It’s time for a reality check, and a crash. Psychological factors are making markets poor gauges of the U.S. economy’s strength. We should wrench our eyeballs from the ticker tape before it’s too late.”
Tags: Coronavirus, Crash, Economy, Markets, Psychological, Reality check, Recession, Stocks, U.S.
New York Times (June 9)
“America, this is your chance: We must get it right this time or risk losing our democracy forever.” Amid protests, police violence and riots, “our democracy hangs in the balance. This is not an overstatement.”
Jerusalem Post (June 9)
“Following “a very steep increase in morbidity” in Israel, “the coronavirus cabinet decided on Monday to freeze nearly all easing of restrictions that were expected in the coming days as the number of active cases continues to climb across the country.”
Tags: Coronavirus, Crash, Economy, Markets, Psychological, Reality check, Recession, Stocks, U.S.
LA Times (June 8)
“The coronavirus transmission rate in Los Angeles County is climbing again as the economy reopens.” It could go higher still if the protests prove to be incubators. “Officials said the increase in disease transmission largely reflected infections that occurred before the start of demonstrations protesting the death of George Floyd.”
Tags: George Floyd
Houston Chronicle (June 8)
“The coronavirus pandemic and the unprecedented plunge in energy demand has forced oil companies to shut down wells by the thousands, providing another test of a shale industry that restored the U.S. as a leading global producer and spurred Houston’s economy for more than a decade.”
Tags: Coronavirus, Energy demand, Oil companies, Pandemic, Plunge, Shale, Shut down, U.S., Unprecedented, Wells
Deutsche Welle (June 7)
“Donald Trump seems to finally be making good on his threat …. to punish Germany.” The sudden move to remove 9,500 troops is “misguided.” It “does not make military sense” and “has shown once again that NATO’s European members cannot rely on the commander-in-chief in the White House. It is a wake-up call for Europeans to take the initiative when it comes to their own defense, and actually spend more money on it.”
The Economist (June 6)
“Until recently, conventional wisdom held that Hong Kong’s position would be assured for 20-30 years…. But the trade war, a year of street protests and China’s iron-fisted response to them raise new questions about Hong Kong’s durability.” So far, there is little evidence of capital flight, but the territory must again rise to the challenge or “its time as a global financial centre really will be up.”
Tags: Capital flight, China, Durability, Global financial centre, Hong Kong, Iron-fisted, Protests, Trade war, Wisdom
