This trade war is unnecessary and is adverse to both parties. Obviously Trump has no power to force anyone to the table after failing at trade agreements for 3 plus years and everyone is waiting for the election. This is bad for both the economy as well as the stock market (they aren't following the same line if people hadn't noticed). As all economists note, trade wars and tariffs are bad but terrible in a global downturn. After all, it was a chief contributor to causing the great depression previously.

Thanks for the graphs and data. They are good things to confirm.

Sadly yes, the Republicans have given up fiscal conservatism and are now as bad or worse than the Democrats. The strong demand is caused by the US dollar safe haven buying by foreign governments and individuals, so that is somewhat expected in a time of crisis as well.

We will see how it does if Trump decides to launch a bigger trade dispute with China to lock in his weak economy into the election. His pull out of Germany looks more like fulfilling a promise to Putin than it looks like a move to make America great again. It obviously makes the US weaker and less nimble.

The issue is not that there is a reopening, but if that reopening inspires enough confidence so that people resume their normal behavior. If the threat of Covid still remains heavily, we will see a suppressed economy compared with before Covid, and the big jump may only be temporary as people spend their pent up demands for mostly needed things. Then you will see the real economic damage.

Strangely enough, what people will need is being punished in the stock market as opposed to what they can do without. I think this will reverse once things resume as food, electricity, and gas normalize to a regular floor and most everything else adjusts to normal recessionary levels. The belief that declaring a magic date for reopening will magically solve everything is a ill advised dream. Things will not return to normal until Covid is eradicated in the US and then we still will have to deal with it's ill effects which is the destruction of small and medium sized businesses among other things.

The reason the stock market has been doing ok is that 1) large businesses are able to survive this better and are consuming the small and medium sized businesses 2) the stimulus helped large corporations more than anyone else, and 3) money doesn't have many other safe places to go in a low interest environment with the Fed buying up loans in bulk and with real estate being in dicey waters.

That is good news given we are minting more and more greenbacks every day.

Without more government stimulus to get us over the hump things will not remain so rosy. The only reason things look as good as they do was because of the massive stimulus. The fact the some want to hold back on this to see what happens only endangers their party and their seat when elections arise again. I agree that big corporate payouts should be curbed, however, payments to individuals helped the economy a lot.

Sadly the debt is just half the problem. Zirp and QE are much more detrimental to the economy in the long run. There is a cost to this shenanigance. Sadly the cost will also be paid in the future in lost growth, high unemployment, dependence on yet more of what got us there, and no way out without major pain no one is willing to accept.

Mr. Snider is correct to link what is happening to the US with Japan. We can see where zirp goes, to negative rates and right into the sewer. If you want persistently low growth, no small medium sized business growth, high unemployment, and increased wealth concentration continue to follow japan's path of zirp and central bank QE.

Gold and silver will also fall in this scenario as the race to get dollars to cover expenses burns through the value of everything and the mighty Greenback takes prominence once again. The simple reason why gold and silver have as much demand as they do is because central banks buy up the excess to appear to bolster their reserves even though it means little compared to their debts. If they should ever have to dispose of this and/or can't afford to buy more the excess will become apparent very quickly.

It certainly isn't representative of most businesses. The market environment and government have helped these firms grow and prosper and they have been able to do this by cannibalizing other businesses, especially mid and small businesses. This has increased efficiencies and have cut costs. The stock market has prospered, however, the economy as a whole is still struggling.