8,000 Jumbo Jets

• Russia’s COVID Vaccine May Not Work (Shocked Pikachu Face)
• The Vaccine Will Need 8,000 Jumbo Jets
• Governor Uses $5 Million of Coronavirus Relief for Tourism Ad
• This Corporate Junk Bond ETF Is a Great “Warning Indicator”

 HEALTH 

Russia’s COVID Vaccine May Not Work (Shocked Pikachu Face)

Scientists are questioning Russia’s miraculous coronavirus vaccine after reviewing the published data and consulting with “common sense” and “their own brains.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared its Sputnik V vaccine was “good to go, bros” last month, despite a severely truncated development period and forgoing Phase III trials and peer review.

Any scientist worth their salt was suspicious of Russia’s claim that they had developed and tested a working vaccine in such a short time. But, like good little nerds, they waited until the data was released to roast their marshmallows over this particular dumpster fire.

Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology published its results in The Lancet medical journal last Friday.

The consensus among the scientific community is that most of the Russian team’s “research” seems to be omitted from the paper, if it was done at all. Meanwhile, the data that is present is bad, wrong, not very good, and “do you bros even science?”

In an open letter to the editor of The Lancet, a group of disgruntled science folk said the data was incomplete and had shown some “unlikely patterns.”

“There are several data patterns which appear repeatedly for the reported experiments,” the open letter said. “On the ground of simple probabilistic evaluations the fact of observing so many data points preserved among different experiments is highly unlikely.”

According to the letter’s authors, The Lancet had asked the authors of Russia’s study to respond to the concerns raised by the signatories.

The Moscow-based team has yet to reply but when they do, it will say that “the vaccine is safe and effective. Our critics are jealous bitches who don’t know nothing. We even gave the vaccine to Putin’s daughter who is definitely a real person.”

 TRANSPORT 

The Vaccine Will Need 8,000 Jumbo Jets

Eight-thousand jumbo jets will be needed to deliver all the delicious COVID vaccines globally, according to the International Air Transport Association. (Where those jets will be departing from is anyone’s guess right now. Probably not Russia though.)

The international transport body said that global vaccine distribution would be the “largest single transport challenge ever.” (But I’m guessing they haven’t seen the classic Walt Disney documentary Operation Dumbo Drop, starring Danny Glover and an elephant they drop out of a plane.)

According to the IATA, “the potential size of the delivery is enormous. Just providing a single dose to 7.8 billion people would fill 8,000 (Boeing) 747 cargo aircraft.”

The group noted that land transport will help in economies with local manufacturing capacity. But the brunt of the deliveries will need to be made by eight thousand planes we don’t have.

Amid a severe downturn in passenger traffic, airlines have significantly downsized their fleets and shoved their aircraft into long-term storage, along with that lamp that looks like a lady’s leg and a big pile of National Geographics.

The IATA urged governments to start planning for the massive delivery now, as if planning was something that governments actually did, instead just stumbling blindly from one trash fire to the next.

In Other News

(Source)

ONE LAST THING

This Corporate Junk Bond ETF Is a Great “Warning Indicator”

By Money & Crisis Editor Graham Summers

As I mentioned yesterday, the markets are taking a breather. And to be honest, this is very needed, particularly in the tech space.

The markets are living, dynamic things. Nothing ever goes straight up… and nothing ever goes straight down.

Which is why, if the market is to sustain a longer-term bull market, it will require periods of correction and consolidation in order for things to cool down.

We are in such a period right now.

And by the look of things, we’re due for a bounce.

The NASDAQ, which was the most overbought market index, has hit its 50-day moving average (DMA). We might see the NASDAQ break below this level briefly to shake out the longs, but I expect this line to ultimately hold.

Why is this?

Because credit spreads haven’t broken down.

While stocks get most of the attention from the financial media, the reality is that it is the BOND markets, not stocks, that the Fed is most worried about. If you think I’m bluffing here, consider just which assets the Fed has bought via its QE programs thus far:

• US Sovereign bonds, called Treasuries
• US Municipal Bonds
• US Corporate Bonds

With that in mind, let’s take a look at what corporate junk bonds are telling us about the financial system. These are the riskiest corporate bonds in the market. As such, these bonds are usually the first to respond to major changes in the financial system.

So, what are they saying now?

The Corporate Junk Bond ETF (HYG) has fallen to test major support (red line in the chart below), which also happens to be at the same level as its bull market trendline.

If we were truly about to experience a systemic event/crash, this ETF should be breaking down in a big way. It isn’t. And even if it DID break that trendline, I’d expect the Fed to step in and intervene almost immediately.

This is why I believe the market is in a correction within a larger bull market, NOT the start of a major crash.

MARKET MOVEMENTS

Closing Data for Today

• Weekly jobless claims missed expectations last week as employment gains taper off.
• Manhattan rental market struggles as wealthy New Yorkers flee the city, leaving more than 15,000 empty apartments in August.
• Huawei to launch smartphones with a self-designed operating system instead of Google’s Android.

Cheers,

Shane Ormond
Editor, One Last Thing

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