Weekend Papers Summary
NEW YORK TIMES
Saturday
• Faced with a growing number of coronavirus cases, including new strains that could make the crisis worse, Joe Biden plans to launch an vaccination program that calls for greatly expanding access while using the Defense Production Act to increase production.
• Federal health officials say a new and highly contagious variant of the coronavirus, first identified in Britain, could become the dominant source of infection in the US by March, and would likely lead to a surge that would further burden hospitals.
• In the days leading up to the mob attack on the Capitol, congressional security officials never alerted House and Senate leaders that the Capitol Police had warned they might need National Guard backup.
• India is set to launch an ambitious and complex rollout of coronavirus vaccines to 1.3 billion people, an undertaking that will stretch from the Himalayas to the dense jungles of the country’s southern tip.
• Biden has asked Dr. David Kessler, a former FDA head, to oversee the effort to accelerate the development, manufacture, and distribution of coronavirus vaccines, replacing Moncef Slaoui, who led Trump’s Operation Warp Speed.
• Russia will pull out of the Open Skies treaty with the US, which allows reconnaissance flights over each country’s territory, escalating tensions as the Biden administration prepares to negotiate a key nuclear arms-control treaty with Moscow.
• House speaker Nancy Pelosi said impeachment managers were preparing to prosecute Trump in the Senate, but she refused to offer a timeline for when they would move forward with the trial, the first of a non-sitting president.
• Biden tapped David Cohen to be deputy head of the CIA, giving him the opportunity to lead the agency—with which he worked on intelligence matters during the Obama administration—while Burns’ nomination goes through the Senate.
• Military experts call hypersonic warheads capable of delivering nuclear or conventional munitions the next big thing in intercontinental warfare, but some experts who have studied them say their advertised features are more illusory than real.
• + F, Volkswagen: The automakers are among those poised to seriously challenge TSLA in the electric-car sector—they will begin selling models with greater driving range than earlier ones that failed to attract buyers.
• Investors are increasingly choosing exchange traded funds over mutual funds, and at least three fund issuers intend to convert some mutual funds—which with their once-a-day pricing are generally more stable—into ETFs.
Sunday
• As Trump’s presidential term ends, Republican leaders are working to thwart his grip on the GOP in future elections, while forces aligned with the president are looking to punish Republican lawmakers and governors who have broken with him.
• When Joe Biden becomes president, he faces a host of challenges, and will launch his administration with dozens of executive directives on top of expansive legislative proposals in a 10-day blitz meant to signal a turning point for a nation.
• Though much remains unknown about the planning and financing of the storming of the Capitol, the event to overturn the election was driven by a network of low-budget agitators, including far-right militants, Christian conservatives, and adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory.
• A small number of political activists have fled Hong Kong since China’s central government imposed a harsh national security law on the city to quash political dissent, but their arrival in the US could create further tensions between Washington and Beijing.
• As the work-at-home trend grows, migration from the Bay Area is increasing—residential rents in San Francisco are down 27 percent from a year ago, and the office vacancy rate has spiked to 16.7 percent, a number not seen in a decade.
• In the last two years, several dozen so-called defined-outcome ETFs, which blunt the impact of stock market declines by absorbing some losses, have been introduced, but while they can manage swings in a portfolio, their effectiveness is limited.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Weekend
• A highly transmissible coronavirus variant that was first identified in the UK is spreading rapidly in the US and likely to become the dominant strain circulating domestically in March, according to the CDC, unless measures are taken to counter it. + JPM, C, WFC: America’s top banks say the economic recovery has held up better than they expected and should continue in the new year, and that they will release some of the stockpiles of cash they had set aside as reserves to cover a wave of bad loans that haven’t materialized.
• US retail sales dropped by 0.7 percent in December as Covid-19 cases surged—consumers held back on retail spending during the December peak of the holiday season as the country confronted a surge in coronavirus infections.
• “A sizable chunk of President-elect Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion plan is aimed at lower-income people, which, in combination with ultralow interest rates, could drive down unemployment rapidly,” says columnist Greg Ip.
• The IRS won’t start accepting 2020 individual income tax returns until February 12, several weeks later than usual, as it manages tax legislation and prepares for returns from people who didn’t get full stimulus payments from laws passed in March and December.
• During a rare Workers’ Party Congress meeting that ended this week, North Korean president Kim Jong Un offered a look at military hardware, including drones and a nuclear submarine, as well as a hypersonic warhead.
• The financial industry, which received a light touch under the Trump administration, could face more aggressive regulation if Joe Biden’s nomination of Gary Gensler—who formerly led the Commodity Futures Trading Commission—to lead the SEC is approved.
• +/- AMZN: A lawsuit in New York alleges that a deal between Amazon and five major book publishers has led to higher e-book prices for all consumers, because it prevents rival retailers from selling e-books from those publishers at lower prices.
• So-called story ETFs invest not in an entire market or single sector but rather in a concept or trend, and cut across industries, trying to capitalize on ideas such as alternative energy, cloud computing, or 3D printing—but their narrow focus increases their risk.
• H.O.T.S.: The pandemic-puppy craze has been a boon for pet-food and supply companies, but the trend may not outlast the pandemic; Large lenders have deposit-fueled cash piles, but it’s uncertain how that will benefit shareholders; “The holiday retail sales slump has boosted the argument for the Biden administration’s stimulus plans.”
FINANCIAL TIMES
Weekend
• Front page story reports that European Union governments in the midst of rolling out their coronavirus vaccine programs are criticizing PFE after it announced it would delay additional supplies to European countries until mid-February.
• The Dutch government resigned two months ahead of upcoming elections after a child benefits scandal involving thousands of families falsely accused of defrauding the state rocked the political establishment and sparked an emergency cabinet meeting.
• Brazilian authorities are airlifting oxygen supplies to the Amazonian city of Manaus, where a new strain of the coronavirus appears to be surging, leading to a number of deaths by asphyxiation.
• Big Read piece on the “messy fight over free speech” in the US says “The decision to ban Donald Trump has created a moment of reckoning for social media companies—but by taking action against perceived hate speech, they have demonstrated the arbitrary power they hold.”
• The effects of an unanticipated “blue wave” after Democrats won two Senate seats in Georgia have been far-reaching—tech stocks have struggled while prices of commodities such as copper and shares in CAT and DE have advanced.
• Lex Column: While cryptocurrencies have a use beyond speculation and illicit transactions, as investments they are to be avoided; Short interest in Babcock is dissipating as critics crystallize gains; Regulatory challenges at C and WFC could limit any upside the banks see from an economic recovery.
• Comment: “A Senate trial is not the answer to Trump,” says Vernon Bogdanor. “Impeachment is ill-suited to the problem posed by a divisive and dangerous leader.”
NEW YORK POST
Saturday
• Billionaire MSFT co-founder Bill Gates has become the largest owner of farmland in the US by quietly acquiring large plots across the country, totaling about 269,000 acres across 19 states, with the largest chunks in Louisiana and Arkansas.
• + AAPL: The tech giant will drop the Touch Bar from its next line of MacBook Pro computers and will return to physical keys for those functions, according to analyst and Apple watcher Ming-Chi Kuo of TFI Securities. Sunday
• Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said that “more ominous” strains of Covid-19 have emerged from South Africa and Brazil, and that government scientists are taking the them very seriously.
• Federal authorities have charged a Missouri woman named Emily Hernandez with storming the Capitol and posing with House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s nameplate during the riot.
• Chinese president Xi Jinping wrote a letter to SBUX founder and former chief executive Howard Schultz asking him to help strengthen the fraying relationship between the US and China.