Economic instability was a concern of the FOMC Minutes, with debates as to whether or not the country is recovering faster than they expected. While it bears noting they said the recovery was 'unprecedented and uneven', which I think speaks volumes to disagreement or just lack of conviction, about when it will be appropriate to start tapering, much less hike rates.

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The Fed wants to buy time here to let the country coalesce recovery with the 'erring' being on the side of waiting too long to hike rates, versus preemptively moving. Of course history shows us times when that left them behind not just a 'curve', but having to reinvigorate an economy because they were to 'easy' for too long.

Remember current ultra-low rates were 'supposed' to be merely emergency measures, so the Fed isn't just walking a fine line, they are fearful of being the culprit that is blamed for the subsequent breakdown or recession, and hence I totally get what they're looking at, and suspect they know it, too. However they don't know what to do about it, which is the 'box they painted themselves' in.

Meanwhile, perhaps progress with 'redirected drugs' had an impact on stocks like Sorrento (SRNE), but I doubt that's what ails it. In my view any drugs that help people survive matter, I know that Remdesivir as well as dexamethazone were given to me (and President Trump before, along with monoclonal antibodies that he got, I wanted, but weren't available), and of course something worked, as we are both still cooking.

An affiliated group evaluated therapies and concluded treating severe / critical COVID patients with these interleukin-6 antagonists block inflammation, thus "reduces the risk of death and the need for mechanical ventilation".

According to WHO analysis, a risk of dying within 28 days for patients getting one of these arthritis drugs with corticosteroids (such as dexamethasone) is 21%, compared with an assumed 25% risk among those who got a standard care approach. Personally, I don't think that's a sufficient improvement, though if there's nothing better available then the arthritis drugs have some role. I'm a bit suspicious that 'WHO' is talking to less developed countries, because most of the world wouldn't get all excited about a 4% statistical difference, unless of course one is in a place where nothing superior (like a MAB) might be found.

As to the United States and COVID: there are now 5 active "sub- variants" , or strains of Delta currently active in the U.S. Experimental data shows that the one of greatest concern, and the most recent arrival, largely evades all the currently available vaccines. A significant surge of this variant is likely. COVID is here to stay or at least for a good while longer, unfortunately.

I do want to mention the assassination of Haiti's President (his critically-injured wife was airlifted to Miami). Now a real question will be if the United States (or perhaps France) sends paratroopers or other military forces into Haiti to restore order and prevent civil war. There's lots of crime and disease and almost zero vaccinations against COVID. There's precedent for intervention, or peacekeeping, so we'll see if that happens. The impact on the market is likely nil, unless Cuba somehow got involved.

Overall:

Longer-term trends are in-flux. There are no tectonic shifts just now for that matter. How those shift going forward will depend on COVID being well contained or running rampant and economic sustainability. In the US and also abroad. It's the 'world going back to normal' that is a term thrown around a bit too easily. Events (or lack) around the Tokyo Olympics might give a clue.

If (as we cross our fingers) the US continues recovering and Oil stays firm but we fail to work with China, or have 'synchronized global recovery', in key too. It depends not just on Chairman Xi (ironically he could squeeze companies and Taiwan severely and that is a concern for Semiconductors 'potentially'). It's not a broad sell warning, but it is a heads-up time about things getting a bit nasty, or even ugly, and that depends mostly on how China plays its hand. It's also a function of cyberhacking and if we don't have a response, you'd have a good idea why the US has talked around it, but not resolved matters.