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TOGETHER WITH
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Good morning. Hallelujah,
it's raining jabs. More than half of all US adults have received at
least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, and today all restrictions on
people over 16 are lifted.
There never has been/will be a better excuse to skip a meeting you don’t want to go to.
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MARKET PERFORMANCE: YEAR-TO-DATE
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*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 7:00pm ET.
Here's what these numbers mean.
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Markets: Stock futures edged lower
on Sunday night for all three major indexes ahead of a big week for
earnings. Over in the commodities market, the North American crude oil
benchmark, WTI, has gained almost 30% this year, but that hasn’t been enough to stave off a record number of bankruptcy filings for US shale producers.
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Crypto: The price of bitcoin fell as
much as 19.5% this weekend, its biggest plunge in weeks, and six other
top cryptocurrencies also fell over 10%. The turmoil resulted in a new
single-day record of 864,000 crypto futures being liquidated, The Block reports.
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Francis Scialabba
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One year
ago, just weeks into lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, economists
warned of the potential closures of millions of businesses across the
country. But preliminary data from the first 12 months of the pandemic
shows those predictions fell flatter than our bet on skinny jeans never
going out of style.
Fewer than 200,000 business establishments closed
from March 2020 to February 2021 on top of the roughly 600,000
businesses that typically turnover in a given year, according to a new
Federal Reserve report.
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Important distinction: An estimated
130,000 of those "excess" closures were businesses going under (as
opposed to just closing one of their locations).
Unsurprisingly,
personal services were the hardest hit—about half of the excess
failures were businesses like barber shops and nail salons. But some
categories, including carry-out restaurants, grocery stores, and outdoor
recreation, saw fewer failures than a normal year.
Zoom out: 200,000 excess closures certainly had devastating consequences for owners and employees, but the unemployment impact was less than you might expect.
Business exits are typically higher among firms with five or fewer
workers, and the majority of the US' 26 million small businesses are
sole proprietorships.
But this isn't over
The full
scope of business damage won't be known for years, and surveys continue
to show many are still struggling under burdens of unpaid loans and back
rent.
The impact of closures also hasn't been felt evenly, Fed surveys show. Firms owned by people of color experienced
larger declines in sales and more difficulty accessing capital. If
requests for pandemic aid were granted, they were less likely than
white-owned businesses to get the amount requested.
Big picture: The
Fed report offers an upbeat view of business resiliency during Covid
and evidence that PPP and other aid programs prevented more permanent
damage. "Not only are things less bad than we thought, but they are less
bad by an order of magnitude," MIT Sloan Prof. Scott Stern told the
WSJ.
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Emilio Andreoli/Getty Images
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Yesterday, a group of 12 elite European soccer clubs unveiled a breakaway competition
called the Super League, a plan that could lead to the biggest shakeup
in the sport since Zlatan Ibrahimović brought back the man bun.
Who's in? To start, six clubs
from England's Premier League, including Liverpool and Manchester
United, and six more from Spain and Italy. The ultimate goal is to have
15 permanent teams in a "closed" structure more in line with US sports
leagues.
And what do they want? More
money. Super League teams would get $400+ million each just for
participating, a sum more than 4x what they'd earn from winning the
current top European competition, the Champions League.
The response from existing soccer leadership: Imagine
an announcer saying the word "goooooal" for 30 seconds, but replace
that with "nooooo." UEFA, European soccer's governing body and the
organization that runs the Champions League, called it a "cynical
project," and even UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President
Emmanuel Macron denounced it.
Looking ahead...a battle royale for the soul of European soccer.
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Giphy
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The US and China don't agree on much—trade, aggressions in the South China Sea, where to set the thermostat. But in a joint statement Saturday, the world's two largest economies said they'd work together to combat climate change.
If you're looking for specifics, this is not the statement for you. But the countries did agree to take "concrete actions"
this decade to reduce emissions in line with the goals of the Paris
Agreement, which commits countries to limit warming to "well below" two
degrees Celsius relative to the preindustrial era.
- That won't happen without buy-in
from the US and China. The countries are No. 1 and No. 2 on the World's
Top Emitters list, together contributing almost half of the fossil fuel
emissions that warm the planet.
Zoom out: Compared
to his predecessor, President Biden is taking a U-turn with an
aggressive plan to tackle climate change. However, he has largely
maintained the same antagonistic tone toward the Chinese government.
Looking ahead...later
this week, the US will announce new carbon emissions targets before
hosting 40 world leaders at a virtual climate summit. Chinese President
Xi Jinping is a "maybe."
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Apparently
things are looking up out there—hey we read this newsletter too. So it
seems like in the not-too-distant future we’ll be able to walk outside
or maybe even take a trip.
With that in mind, it’s probably time to get things properly secured around the ol’ homestead with SimpliSafe.
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So before you safely venture outside again, make sure the house that’s kept you company for the past year is safely secured.
Check out SimpliSafe today.
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Peloton is in a war of words with US regulators over the safety of one of its core products.
On Saturday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said customers of Peloton's Tread+ treadmill should not use it around small children or pets because they could get trapped underneath the machine.
- The agency cited 39 incidents involving the Tread+, including the death of a child that Peloton acknowledged last month.
- It's not clear whether Peloton's treadmill is more dangerous than other treadmills.
The company pushed back
against the report, calling it "inaccurate and misleading." Peloton
said there is "no reason to stop using the Tread+, as long as all
warnings and safety instructions are followed."
Zoom out: Peloton's
biggest problem last year was making enough equipment to fulfill
elevated demand for its connected fitness products. But 2021 has gone
much differently—its stock price has fallen more than 20% and it's
drawing the unwanted attention of regulators.
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Francis Scialabba
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Stat:
In 2012, venture capitalist Garry Tan wrote a $300,000 seed-stage check
to a new crypto exchange called Coinbase. When Coinbase went public via
direct listing last week, Tan's initial investment ($1.3 million in
total) was valued at $680 million.
Quote: "Our patient could die at any moment."
Doctors for Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who is 20 days into a hunger strike in Russian prison, say he could die within days if he does not receive medical treatment. Navalny's team has called for mass protests across Russia on Wednesday.
Read:
Some businesses kept their promise to withhold PAC donations from
lawmakers who voted to overturn election results...others didn't. (Popular Information)
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SOPA Images/Getty Images
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Vaccines: Dr. Fauci said a decision on resuming J&J's paused Covid-19 vaccine will come by Friday. He told Face the Nation that he wouldn't be surprised if there were a "resumption in some form."
Earnings: Close your eyes and picture the most prototypical companies in "Corporate America"—those are the ones reporting earnings
this week: AT&T, P&G, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon, Intel,
Coca-Cola, IBM, and Netflix. Big banks have set a high bar.
Earthy things: Earth
Day is Thursday, and so is the release date of a new PBS documentary on
activist Greta Thunberg. 4/20 is on...4/20 (Tuesday).
Everything else:
- Today, closing arguments begin in the trial over the killing of George Floyd.
- On Thursday, SpaceX is planning to send four astronauts to the International Space Station.
- Wait—the Oscars are on Sunday?
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Two men
were killed in Texas on Saturday when their Tesla crashed and caught
fire. Officials believe "no one" was driving the vehicle at the time of
impact.
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Investor Keith Gill,
aka Roaring Kitty, doubled down on his GameStop stake to 200,000 shares
worth $31 million at Friday's close. Apparently he likes the stock.
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Charles Geschke, cofounder of Adobe Inc. and one of the developers behind the PDF, died Friday at 81.
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Clubhouse closed another funding round at a reported $4 billion valuation.
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Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss,
a top bidder for Tribune Publishing, has dropped out. This could deal a
blow to Tribune's attempt to avoid a takeover by hedge fund Alden
Global Capital, its largest shareholder.
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Dive back into the week:
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That's Nikola, the EV startup whose big gains since going public last year have effectively been erased.
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April 19
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| FEATURED BIOGRAPHY
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| Charles Darwin
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| FEATURED EVENT
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| 1775
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| American Revolution begun
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| MORE EVENTS ON THIS DAY
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1995: In what was the worst act of terrorism in U.S. history up to that time, a truck bomb nearly destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City
, killing 168 and injuring more than 500 people.
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CNN’s Chris Cuomo: ‘White People’s Kids’ Need To ‘Start Getting Killed’ For Police Reform To Happen
Top
Republicans Prepare for 2024 Race, Regardless of Trump's Plans
Biden
Still Seizing Land at Border, Despite Pledge to Halt Wall
SPECIAL: The
Results Are In: Trump’s Final Approval Ratings
Armed
Black ‘Freedom Fighters’ Keep Peace in Brooklyn Center
Suburban
Minneapolis Police Shoot & Kill White Carjacker
April 19th, 2021
Related Headlines
Here’s
How to Stop Dems From Politicizing Supreme Court Once and for All
MUST SEE: This American Flag Black Hat is FREE
Today! (sponsor)
Scalise:
Kids Will Lose Opportunities at Life if Schools Continue to Stay Closed
Dems
Just Revealed Their RADICAL Plan to Destroy America As We Know It
Tucker
takes on CNN anchor Don Lemon over ‘mansplaining’
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