Constantin Gurdgiev: True Economics

Sweden has been continuing its uncontested-by-anyone-else march toward thee non-existent 'herd immunity': And the pipeline of upcoming intensive care patients seems to be un-abating: In the mean time, the rest of the Nordics have crushed the curve. And this is without inclusion of Iceland.  Personally, I cannot understand how Sweden's resident are tolerating this, but... who knows... 

Updating charts on the U.S. vs EU27 comparatives for COVID19 pandemic:U.S. is now one day away from catching up with the EU27 in terms of total deaths, even without adjusting for the larger EU27 population: Note: since higher rates of testing - per 1 million population - should result in earlier and better detection of the COVID19 cases, and since the U.S. population is younger, demographically, than that of the EU27, one should expect U.S. death rates peer 1 million of population to be...

Updating COVID19 data through today's ECDC release: Worldwide, new cases are at a historic high of 227,756, reaching above 200K in three days in a row. In the last 7 days, we have had highest, second and third highest daily counts on record. This is despite the fact that testing remains spotty in higher growth geographies (emerging and developing economies). The trend is accelerating, as well (see last chart, blue line).Deaths:  In the last seven days, we had three days with daily...

Updating my series of 'America's Scariest Charts' for the latest data releases this week.First: continued unemployment claims for data through the week of June 27th. Continued unemployment claims fell from 18,760,000 in the week of June 20 to 18,062,000 in the week of June 27. Continued claims are now down 6,850,000 from their pandemic-period peak, which implies a decline of 978,571 per week since the peak. Based on the last two weeks' average weekly decline, it will take around 28 weeks...

Something will have to give, and on an increasingly more proximate timeline, although we have no idea when that timeline runs its course... In basic terms, U.S. Bonds yields are only sustainable as long as:There remains a market-wide faith that the U.S. Government will not deflate itself out of the fiscal mess it has managed to run, virtually un-interrupted, since at least 1980 on;  There remains a regulatory coercion into the U.S. Government bonds being 'risk-free' capital...

So, we have a new Presidential Pearl of Dumbness: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1280209106826125313?s=20. I have compiled some earlier summaries of the same here: https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2020/05/2452020-trumpassery-of-coronavirus.html. Accompanied by an academic institution's direct fact-checking: And the actual facts, without the need for media interpreations: Why are we focusing on countries with > 25,000 cases as in above, instead on looking at...

COVID19 impact on services sectors activity in Ireland, data through May 2020: Huge adverse impact on the economy. Note precautionary purchasing effect on Retail sales in the difference between Wholesale & Retail index and Wholesale sub-index. And some recovery in May, compared to 1Q 2020. But overall, conditions are still dire. And we are not yet seeing the effects of consumer behavior changes on post-restrictions demand. That is still coming...Forward industry view (ex-behavioral...

As promised earlier (https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2020/07/3720-services-composite-pmis-q2-2020.html), here are the BRIC Services and Composite PMIs for 2Q 2020 with updated Global PMIs. Note: my charts show quarterly PMIs, derived from the Markit's monthly data.Services sectors: As the above shows, 2Q 2020, Services sector growth in India and Russia lagged Global sector activity.Manufacturing: India, Russia and Brazil manufacturing sector activity lagged Global activity in 2Q...

Updating U.S. vs EU27 charts. Main conclusions in the charts, so click to enlarge these:Death rates and deaths: key here, the U.S. is now within four-five days from completely overtaking the EU27 in the number of total fatalities, without even adjusting for the population size: Of course, the U.S. already has higher death rates than the EU27, once we adjust for population differences.And U.S. cases are roaring ahead. In fact, the U.S. leads the world in new cases additions, having...

No over-the-peak, yet for world cases: Deaths are persistently high, and trending up, and are too far lagged to reflect that last 10 days of massive global uplifts in new cases. 7-days average of deaths is at 4,625, which is 0.62 standard deviations higher than the average, and is slightly above the 60-days average of 4,590: Death rates and new cases stats for select countries: 50 most impacted (by case numbers) countries in alphabetical order: Meanwhile, 4th of July crowds are...