IBD: "Dow Plunges [nearly] 1,200 Points In Stock Market Rout As U.S. Monitors Thousands For Coronavirus"

From Investors' Business Daily:
04:28 PM ET 02/27/2020

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged nearly 1,200 points Thursday as selling ramped up into the close amid heightened coronavirus pandemic fears.

The Nasdaq crashed 4.6%, while the Dow Jones industrials and S&P 500 dove 4.4% each in the stock market today. Small caps tracked by the Russell 2000 fared slightly better, down 3.5%. Volume was sharply higher on both the Nasdaq and NYSE exchanges vs. Wednesday, according to early data.

Stocks started lower after the CDC confirmed the first U.S. coronavirus case of unknown origin in California, bringing the U.S. total to 60 confirmed cases. Selling intensified after California said it is monitoring 8,400 people for potential infections. Outside the U.S., cases in South Korea, Italy and Iran continued to rise.

The Dow Jones index is headed for a nearly 11% weekly loss, or 3,225 points for now, marking its biggest drop in years. It's also fallen sharply below its 40-week moving average. The S&P 500, down nearly 10% for the week, has undercut its long-term line. But the Nasdaq, which faces a 9.5% weekly loss, is holding above the 40-week line.

*****

Ten Dow Jones stocks dived more than 4% each, including big-cap techs Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT) and Intel (INTC). Apple, down nearly 5% in heavy trade, is now 14% off its high. it gapped below the 50-day line Monday. But the Leaderboard stock still holds a 26% gain from a 221.7 buy point of a flat base cleared in September.
Microsoft, also off more than 4% in volume, closed below its 50-day line for the first time in four months. The software giant warned current-quarter sales would miss its outlook as the coronavirus outbreak keeps spreading — joining Apple, HP (HPQ) and Mastercard (MA) with virus-related warnings.

Boeing (BA), Disney (DIS), Exxon Mobil (XOM) and Dow (DOW) also shed more than 4% apiece. Of the Dow's 30 stocks, only 3M (MMM), up 2.3%, managed a gain....

....MORE

IBD will have their comment on early futures action in a couple hours.
If someone here should fail to link it's always accessible on the blogroll at right. 

A Pattern Is Emerging: He Founded Expedia, Glassdoor and Zillow

The "pattern is emerging" line is from one of the best equity analysts I've ever met who said it as I was kicking myself for not betting on a company that kills its customers, Phillip Morris (now Altria):

BigCharts

And here's the story of the "pattern" in the headline.
From Business Insider:

Zillow CEO Rich Barton reportedly just became a billionaire. Meet the serial entrepreneur who also founded Expedia and Glassdoor.

• Rich Barton, the founder and CEO of Zillow, became a billionaire after the homebuying site stock surged on a strong earnings report on February 20.
• Barton led Zillow — which is best known for its suite of real-estate websites including Trulia, HotPads, Naked Apartments, and Streeteasy — to expand into buying users' homes on-demand.
• Barton also founded travel booking site Expedia while working at Microsoft in the 1990s and cofounded workplace review platform Glassdoor during a nine-year hiatus from Zillow.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Zillow CEO Rich Barton has made a career of disrupting closed-off industries on the internet.
First, he undermined airlines' and travel agents' control of the travel industry by launching Expedia; then, he gave homeowners access to information about housing stock and property values that was once closely guarded by real estate agents; and later, he helped job seekers share their salaries and workplace horror stories anonymously with Glassdoor, Forbes reported.

Now, Barton is a billionaire, according to Forbes estimates. Shares of the homebuying site surged on February 20 after it posted a strong earnings report, reportedly vaulting Barton into the three comma club.

A representative for Barton at Zillow declined to comment on Barton's net worth; career at Expedia, Zillow, and Glassdoor; or personal history....

....MUCH MORE

EIA Natural Gas Storage Report, February 27, 2019: No Help For the Longs

First up, the expectations via FX Empire:

....Going into the report, traders were looking for a larger-than-average withdrawal for the week-ending February 21.
A Bloomberg survey predicted withdrawals ranging from 145 Bcf to 165 Bcf, with a median of 156 Bcf. Polls by the Wall Street Journal and Reuters produced similar results, while NGI’s model projected a pull of 152 Bcf.....

And the report from the Energy Information Administration:

Working gas in storage was 2,200 Bcf as of Friday, February 21, 2020, according to EIA estimates. This represents a net decrease of 143 Bcf from the previous week. Stocks were 637 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 179 Bcf above the five-year average of 2,021 Bcf. At 2,200 Bcf, total working gas is within the five-year historical range....MORE  

Finally, from the CME the last week's price action:
New front (April ) futures 1.735  down 0.102

And In London: "First, however, it’s time once again time to crack each others' heads open and feast on the goo inside."

My first instinct was to reach for the evergreen post "Warped sense of humour could be ‘sign of impending dementia’" when the thought came to me: "OMG, What if Mr. Elder isn't making a joke."

From the FT's Markets not Live:

....A little later we’ll take on results from WPP, Aston Martin and so on. First, however, it’s time once again time to crack each others' heads open and feast on the goo inside. Wednesday’s decoupling of market moves to global coronavirus death toll metrics has proven to be a false dawn, meaning easyJet, IAG and Tui are all making fresh year-to-date lows and Goldman Sachs is hunting for market correlations in Google Trends data:

(If you want to hear from an actual microbiologist rather than analysts BTW, the Dundee Courier has an excellent, straightforward Q&A with Professor Hugh Pennington of Aberdeen University. )

Goldman’s redone forecasts to “incorporate the likelihood that the virus becomes widespread”. This puts earnings growth back to nil though US stockbroker still thinks you should buy stocks, particularly US ones:....

....MUCH MORE

Commenter Yourgrannyonbongos contributes:

For a man of science, Professor Hugh Pennington seems to be fond of the rather unscientific phrase 'knock it on the head' to describe the control of infectious diseases.

Meanwhile in China: "'China's surging small-cap stocks stir bubble fears' Shenzhen's tech-heavy start-up board ChiNext has jumped 13.1% this month"

Via StockCats:

With all the millions and millions of Chinese on lock-down, more people have more time to dabble in the stock markets,” said Grizelda Lee, head of discretionary portfolio management

— StockCats (@StockCats) February 27, 2020

Capital Markets: "The Rot Continues but Somewhat Less Dollar Friendly"

From Marc to Market:

Overview: A new phase of the Covid-19 is at hand. Yesterday was the first time that the number of new cases in the world surpassed the number of new cases China acknowledged. This confirms what we have known, namely that the battle for containing it in China has been lost. However, it wasn't until the US officials warned of it that the equities reversed their earlier gains, and the S&P 500 settled at new lows (since early December). President Trump's public address late yesterday failed to reassure investors, and risk-aversion continues. China and Hong Kong markets were among the exceptions, while Tokyo lost 2%, and South Korea and Taiwan markets lost more than 1%. Europe's Dow Jones Stoxx 600 staged an impressive recovery yesterday, leaving a hammer candlestick in its wake, but led by losses in consumer discretionary and finance sectors, the benchmark is off about 1.5% in late morning turnover. US shares are trading heavily, and the S&P is set to open around 0.8% lower. Ten-year benchmark yields are 1-2 bp lower, which puts the US 10-year yield below 1.3%. Peripheral European bond yields are edging higher as they are regarded as risk assets. The dollar is heavy against all the major currencies but the Canadian dollar and British pound. Emerging market currencies are mixed, helping the JP Morgan Emerging Market Currency Index is steady. Gold is firm but remains within Tuesday's range (~$1625-$1664). April light sweet crude oil is straddling the $48-mark after posting a high near $54.65 last week.

Asia Pacific
Defying expectations, South Korea's central bank did not cut the key seven-day repo rate. Still, despite the acceleration of Covid-19 contagion, and cases in Seoul have been reported, the central bank has maintained a sense of humor. It suggests its forecasting tools are precise enough to shave its GDP forecast by 0.2% to 2.1%. South Korea expanded by 2.0% in 2019. The CPI forecast was unchanged at 1.0%. Last year, South Korea's CPI rose by 0.4%. The central bank will extend a cheap loan facility.

Japan is discouraging large public events over the next two weeks and will close public schools as well. This includes sporting events and concerts, for example. Meanwhile, one of the most vocal doves at the Bank of Japan (Kataoka) played down the need for easier monetary policy in response to the virus. The central bank meets on March 19....

....MUCH MORE

IBD: "Dow Jones Futures Tumble On U.S. Virus First, Microsoft Coronavirus Warning, Trump After Stock Market Rally Fizzles"

From Investors' Business Daily:
07:38 AM ET 02/27/2020

Dow Jones futures fell sharply Thursday morning, along with S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures. The CDC said there is a U.S. coronavirus of possible unknown origin, raising fears that the virus is beginning to spread in America. That came after President Donald Trump spoke on the coronavirus crisis. Microsoft (MSFT) warned it'll miss sales targets due to the coronavirus, following warnings from Apple (AAPL) and Mastercard (MA).

Microsoft stock retreated retreated Thursday, along with Apple stock, Mastercard stock and other big-cap leaders such as Tesla (TSLA), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Amazon.com (AMZN).
Earlier, Wednesday's stock market rally attempt fizzled as the Covid-19 virus continued to spread around the globe.

Meanwhile, Carvana (CVNA), Square (SQ), Teladoc Health (TDOC) and Etsy (ETSY) were notable earnings reports after the close. Gilead Sciences (GILD) announced trials for its antiviral Remdesivir to treat the coronavirus.
Carvana stock and Ansys stock tumbled. Square stock, Etsy stock, Teladoc stock also jumped. So did Gilead stock.

Stock Market On Coronavirus Quarantine

MSFT stock has been holding up relatively well in the coronavirus stock market correction, closing Wednesday above its 50-day line. MSFT stock is still worth watching. Investors should be looking for quality stocks with strong relative strength lines, signaling outperformance vs. the S&P 500 index. But, as the Microsoft warning underscores, this isn't a good time to be buying. Until coronavirus fears fade and a new market rally takes hold, consider stocks to be in quarantine.
Microsoft, Mastercard and AMD stocks are on the IBD 50 list of top-rated stocks. Mastercard and Microsoft stock are Long-Term Leaders. Apple, Tesla, AMD and Mastercard are all on IBD Leaderboard.

Dow Jones Futures Today
Dow Jones futures fell 1.4% vs. fair value. S&P 500 futures sank 1.4%. Nasdaq 100 futures retreated 1.7%. Microsoft stock is a Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq component. Apple stock, also a triple-index name, pulled back as well. So Mastercard, Amazon, Tesla and many other big caps did too.
Dow Jones futures have been volatile for the past few days, which is common during stock market corrections.

Remember that overnight action in Dow futures and elsewhere doesn't necessarily translate into actual trading in the next regular stock market session. Dow Jones futures pointed to gains on Tuesday and Wednesday, but after opening higher, the Dow closed lower.

Coronavirus News....

....MORE

DJIA futures off 368; S&P, -40.75

"Moscow Plays Hard Ball in the High North"

From the always interesting (proceed with your VPN if paranoid) Jamestown Foundation:
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 17 Issue: 17
By: Pavel K. Baev

February 10, 2020 05:54 PM Age: 2 weeks

The message from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to his Norwegian counterpart, Ine Marie Eriksen Søreide, on the occasion of the 100^th anniversary of the Spitsbergen Treaty was rude even by the standards of Russian diplomacy. Russia has, on several previous occasions, signaled disagreements with various measures Norway has taken to protecting the unique Arctic environment of its Svalbard archipelago. The letter Lavrov sent last week (February 4) describes these measures as “unreasonable” and “unlawful,” and it sternly invites Oslo “to conduct bilateral consultations to lift the [local] restrictions from the operations of Russian organizations” (Mid.ru, February 4). Official Russian media followed up with accusations of “crude violations” by Norway of Russia’s traditional and legitimate rights to unrestricted access to the archipelago (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, February 5).

Svalbard (the Arctic archipelago’s largest island is Spitsbergen), indeed, has a unique legal status fixed by the aforementioned treaty signed just 15 years after Norway became an independent state. It grants Norway sovereignty over the island group but guarantees all state parties to the treaty (originally 14, and presently 46) the right to conduct economic activities and establish settlements there; only Russia (as a successor-state to the Soviet Union) has opted to utilize this right. Coal mining used to be the main form of economic activity; Norway discontinued it in 2017, but Russia keeps exploiting the depleting resource despite the exorbitant production costs. Two Russian mining sites—Grumant and Piramida—are now abandoned ghost towns, but Barentsburg still produces some 100,000 tons a year for local needs and for export to the United Kingdom (Arcticugol.ru, February 8). Lavrov asserted that Russia had long-term plans for strengthening this presence, and “patriotic” commentators have argued that strategic calculations determine this ambition (Svobodnaya Pressa, February 6).

Russia often expresses great interest in natural resources in the Arctic, but its corporations show scant appetite for exploring them, despite government prescriptions and tax cuts (Gazeta.ru, February 2). Ten years ago, the high-profile project on developing the giant Shtokman natural gas field in the Barents Sea fell apart because Norwegian Statoil and French Total found the profit margins too low and the corruption in Russian Gazprom’s management too high (Newsru.com, February 7). Technology and know-how for off-shore drilling still remains off-limits for Russian companies. The only success in developing Arctic hydrocarbons has happened on the Yamal Peninsula, where Russia’s Novatek constructed the Sabetta liquefied natural gas (LNG) production facility, with generous credits from China (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, January 13). This new gas is exported primarily to the European market, where it competes with Gazprom’s pipeline-transported gas (Kommersant, January 20, 2020; see EDM, April 16, May 6, 2019).

Svalbard has no promising hydrocarbon-rich geological formations (other than those nearly depleted coal seams), nor has it any significance for the maritime traffic on the Northern Sea Route, over which Russia seeks to assert sovereign control (Izvestia, August 26, 2019). The archipelago figures prominently, however, on the Russian geo-strategic map for the Arctic, which is now adorned with many new military bases, from the Franz Josef Land to Chukotka (TASS, December 2, 2019). Moscow asserts that the purpose of these bases is strictly defensive, but it actually enjoys the position of military superiority in the High North and seeks to exploit it to political purposes, for instance by questioning the maritime border agreement with the United States in the Bering Sea, signed in 1990 by then–foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze though never ratified by the Russian parliament (RIA Novosti, January 21; see EDM, January 30).

Pressure on Norway is another manifestation of this forceful policy, and the demilitarized status of Svalbard prescribed by the 1920 Spitsbergen Treaty makes it difficult for Oslo to neutralize the implicit Russian threats (importantly, the treaty does not prevent Norway from employing military assets there for a wide range of peaceful purposes, including transport, search and rescue, and research). Norway relies on membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which has had to progressively increase the scale of allied military exercises in Northern Europe. Lavrov duly asserted that Russia would respond to NATO’s Defender Europe 2020 exercises, scheduled for May–June (RIA Novosti, February 4; see EDM, January 29). In fact, Moscow has already started its preemptive response with naval exercises in the Norwegian Sea (Murmansky Vestnik, February 6). Last autumn, Russia’s Northern Fleet attempted to interfere with the Alliance’s Trident Juncture drills by staging missile tests inside the designated exercise area and jamming the GPS signals; quite probably, Russian countermeasures will be even more robust this year (Kommersant, November 13, 2019)....MORE

In other Svalbard news the seed vault just received its one-millionth seed sample.
From New Scientist, Feb. 25:

Svalbard doomsday vault gets first big seed deposit since upgrade 

"Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?"

Following up on a point raised by the Financial Times' Izabella Kaminska in her Solar post on February 26.
From Finland, the Kaikenhuipun blogi, February 18:

This is a translation/guest post by Riku Merikoski. The original can be found here (in Finnish). All mistakes due to translation are my fault.

On Monday 10th February 2020 something historical happened. For the first time, the market price of electricity fell below zero in Finland. While -0.2 € per megawatt hour (or -0.02 cents / kWh) is not dramatically different from earlier lows of 0.1 €/MWh, going negative is a strong symptom of the sickness that ails our electricity markets. Governments have created a situation where it is not worthwhile to use low carbon electricity even if it is free from time to time.

There are several reasons for the negative prices, but the main driver is the reckless support-policy for renewable electricity in Germany and Denmark.

In 2017 the total subsidies paid for renewable electricity in Germany were around 26 billion euros, of which 8.5 billion was paid to wind producers. Most of the wind production in Germany gets high feed-in-tariffs regardless of the market price of electricity. Only turbines built in 2016 or later take even a small hit to their revenues if prices go below zero, and more than 75 % of the production capacity was built before that.

As a result, Germany and Denmark have experienced negative prices already for years, and this time they remained negative for six hours. Strong imports from Denmark and Germany during the night were among the main causes for pushing Finnish prices below zero.

Germany had around 104 TWh of wind production in 2017. Divided to that amount, the 8.5 billion euros in tariffs means a tariff of around 82 €/MWh. Just a few years ago, new wind projects got a higher tariff of around 80 €/MWh for the first five years, and a lowered tariff for the next 15 years, which is most of their practical operational lifetime. Offshore wind had even higher tariffs, which increases the average wind tariff further. You can find out more about these numbers from the Bundesnetzagentur statistics.

Average onshore tariff is around 66 €/MWh and offshore tariff average is 159 €/MWh. There has not been much new onshore wind coming online during the last two years and just 2,000 MW of offshore wind, so the averages have not changed that much since 2017. The production for this day (10^th February) was estimated to be around 40,000 MWh/h on average, meaning that almost 1,000,000 MWh of wind electricity was produced during the 24 hours. This means that roughly 80 million euros of wind tariffs were paid. On top of this, solar PV and bioenergy also got paid some tariffs, but during a windy winter day those are usually smaller amounts.

So is 80 million euros a lot or not? It’s a lot. The average market price for electricity in Germany was 8 €/MWh and total demand was around 1,500,000 MWh (1.5 TWh). During daytime electricity demand is higher and so is the market price, so the total market price for the 24 hours is roughly 15 million euros. The value of the wind production of around 1,000,000 MWh was roughly 8 million euros. The sources for all these numbers are from EEX and Entso-E.
Let’s take a moment to contemplate the numbers once more:

German electricity consumers paid 80 million euros in tariffs to get 8 million euros worth of wind power to the market. The total value of all electricity consumed in that day was 15 million €.

....MUCH MORE

If you want to teach yourself some Finnish by following the link to the original, two quick points:

1) It's not the simplest language for non-natives to learn. Finnish kids seem to think it's easy but it isn't.
2) Approach your study in a jovial frame of mind. As noted in another post:

I remember asking a Finnish woman why it sounded like people were laughing when they spoke Finnish, were they happy?
"Oh no" she said and then she stopped talking.

Someone, I can't recall who, mentioned that on public transportation Finns sit and stare at their shoes. It is considered very forward to stare at someone else's shoes.
I don't know as much about Finland as I do about Norway but here are some of our posts:

Thousands Of Migrants Flee Finland Hoping For A Better Life In Iraq

 "Embracing päntsdrunk, the Finnish way of drinking alone in your underwear"

The Finns used to dance the Tango but maybe not so much anymore. The only Finnish band I could name is an old-school Finnmetal band, Children Of Bodom described as:

"Melodic death metal meets virtuoso guitars: Children Of Bodom took the spirit of eighties
 heavy metal and thrash, and married it to a contemporary death metal framework"....

Shipping: This Is Just Weird—Russia's Nuclear Powered Container Ship Going To Antarctica

We've looked at this ship a few times and can't figure out what the Russians are up to.
And now Antarctica? In winter?

Cold's a'comin and even the icebreakers, the American Polar Star, heading for home port and China's Xuelong 2 , currently dropping off supplies for a couple of their southern research stations are wrapping up the season.
Or will it sail in six months? If so why advertise the voyage now?

From The Barents Observer:
Nuclear-powered «Sevmorput» gears up for Antarctica voyage

The «Sevmorput» has just been removed from the dry-dock at Kanonerskiy yard in St. Petersburg where the propellers are shifted and other hull maintenance work took place.

It was late last year the Barents Observer reported about that the 260 meters long ship had to sail all south from her homeport Murmansk to St. Petersburg for the work since the Kola Peninsula no longer has a dock big enough to take the ship.

The floating dock SD-50 at the Roslyakova shipyard north of Murmansk previously used for «Sevmorput» sank in October 2018.

The nuclear-powered container ship is by the end of February expected to sail out to the Baltic Sea, through Kattegat and the North Sea on her return voyage along the coast of Norway to the Barents Sea port of Murmansk.

Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, informs in a Facebook update that the «Sevmorput» later this year will sail across the globe with construction materials aimed for the country’s Vostok research station in inland Antarctica.

Founded by the Soviet Union in 1957, the Vostok station is the place on earth with the lowest ever reliably measured temperature with −89.2 °C. The station is 1,253 km from the South Pole. The «Sevmorput» will deliver the cargo on the coast from where it will be transported into the frozen continent....MORE

Here are some previous posts on the ship:
September 3, 2019
"The Nuclear Powered Container Ship Sevmorput Is Going to Haul Salmon Along the Northern Sea Route (and Norway and Denmark)"

This is an odd story. First off the Sevmorput is old. It went into service in 1988.
Secondly, although I haven't asked about the costs, you would have to assume a nuclear cargo ship would have to carry some high value cargo to pay the freight, so to speak.

Last March the ship was carrying construction materials and equipment from Archangel to Novatek's LNG 2 project off the Ob river and we were going to do a post on this oddball ship and its five day trip.
That at least made sense: high-value cargo short distance, entirely within Russian waters....

September 11, 2019
"Norway Would Like To Know If Russia Plans To Make More Salmon Hauling Trips With Their Nuclear Container Ship":

....If only there was some sort of land based transportation mode that could make the trip, something that crossed Siberia, Trans-Siberian if you will, that was comprised of individual cars that could be hooked up in train.  And get the damn salmon to Moscow in days not weeks.

Maybe put 'em on a boat in Petropavlovsk and sail them across the Sea of Okhotsk to Sovetskaya Gavan, whose harbormasters are (reputedly) eminently bribable and will speed your multi-modal perishables on their way west to wind up in some fat mafioso's belly. Ditto for Vladivostok but you'll need to wave a bit more cash to get anyone's attention.

November 11, 2019 
Russian Plan For Second Salmon Hauling Voyage With Their Nuclear-Powered Container Ship Cancelled

Ya think?
They were transporting fish on a nuclear powered ship.
The long way. (vs land transport):
Seriously what are the Russians up to with this?

 
I'm starting to think this is some sort of Bond-villain caper, with the propeller story just a ruse to cover for the fine-tuning of the under-hull submarine docking chamber.
Or something.

Maybe it's related to the submarine disaster last July that killed 14 high ranking officers (captains and commanders).
We had quite a few links to that Russian oddity:
Just What Was That Stricken Russian Submarine Carrying?

Tragedy at Sea: The Russian Submariners Could Have Been Saved

Still unanswered are the two questions raised almost immediately after the July 1 incident:
1) What were so many senior officers practicing on the deep-diving submersible?
2) Why did the "High Ranking Military Official" say at the funeral service:

“Today we are seeing off the crew of a research deep water apparatus, who died while performing a combat mission in the cold waters of the Barents Sea. Fourteen dead, 14 lives,” he is quoted as saying. “At the cost of their lives, they saved the lives of their comrades, saved the ship, did not allow a planetary catastrophe.”

So who knows?

Shipping: Coronavirus Costing Industry $350 Million/Week

From World Maritime News:

The impact of the outbreak of the coronavirus is estimated to be costing the shipping industry USD 350 million a week in lost revenues, according to the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS).

The virus outbreak is having a significant impact on the shipping sector and the industry is working closely with the World Health Organization (WHO) to ensure that guidelines for industry and governments help limit the spread of the virus, whilst maintaining international trade.

As such, the ICS Secretary General, Guy Platten, is leading a delegation of industry leaders to meet with WHO in Geneva and discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the industry.

ICS estimates that more than 350,000 boxes have been removed from global trade as a result of the outbreak.

As informed, global supply chains continue to suffer, and issues remain around the quarantining of ships at ports, crew changes, and ensuring the health of seafarers and passengers....MORE

Shipping: Very Large Ore Carrier Listing Badly Off Maranhão, Brazil (VALE)

Smart captain.
From Maritime Executive

02-26-2020 09:39:00

Mining giant Vale has confirmed that the very large ore carrier (VLOC) Stellar Banner suffered damage after departing a loading terminal in Maranhão, Brazil. The vessel was intentionally grounded, and images taken Tuesday show her listing heavily to starboard, with water overtopping the gunwale.

On Monday night, Stellar Banner departed the Vale-operated Ponta da Madeira Maritime Terminal in Brazil's northern Maranhão state. She suffered unspecified damage to her bow after departure, outside the port access channel, Vale said in a statement. Her 20 crewmembers were evacuated safely, Vale said, and "the vessel's captain [grounded] the vessel about 100 kilometers off the coast of São Luís" as a precautionary measure....MORE

That big boat isn't going anywhere under its own power any time soon.
A sister cousin ship, Stellar Daisy sank in 2017.

U.S. #3 Natural Gas Producer, Chesapeake Crushed, Down 32% (CHK)

I think CHK is still #3 after OXY bought Anadarko but it's possible Chesapeake has slipped to #4.
This is one of the three or four most likely bankruptcies among the gas Exploration & Production companies.
0.3011 down 0.1428  (-32.1694%)
 
From TheStreet:

Chesapeake Energy Shares Slump on Revenue Miss, Reverse-Split Plan

Chesapeake Energy shares dropped sharply after the oil and natural gas exploration and production company missed Wall Street's fourth-quarter revenue expectations and said it planned a reverse stock split.

Chesapeake Energy (CHK) - Get Report shares dropped sharply after the oil and natural gas exploration and production company missed Wall Street's fourth-quarter revenue expectations and said it planned a reverse stock split.

At last check the Oklahoma City company's shares were off 22% at 35 cents.
Chesapeake swung to a net loss of $346 million, or 18 cents a share, from earnings of $576 million, or 57 cents, in the year-earlier period.

The adjusted loss came to 4 cents a share, better than the FactSet consensus of a 6-cent loss.
Revenue fell 31% to $1.93 billion, missing FactSet's call for $2.02 billion. ...MUCH MORE

In early February S&P downgraded six of the E&P names:

S&P Ratings downgrades 6 shale gas producers; outlook 'negative' on sector

...MORE

EQT is the big one and the one that has the bankers worried.
Among the possible survivors we have always appreciated the way Devon ran their business.
Related:
Natural Gas: Giant EQT Takes Impairment, Downgraded To Junk Status
Don't Look Now But There's Something Funny Going On Over At Chesapeake, George (CHK)
Chesapeake Energy Downgraded At Tudor Pickering, Price Target Lowered to $0.00 (CHK)
Natural Gas: Chesapeake Energy Gets a 'Going Concern' Warning from the Auditors (CHK)
May 2016 
Barclays: Chesapeake Energy Still Worth Only a Buck (CHK)
The stock of the country's second-largest natural gas producer closed at $4.59, down 19.61%.
March 2016 
Oil & Gas: Peak Chesapeake (CHK)
The stock is at $5.33 up 25 cents after trading as high as $5.76.
"Chesapeake Energy Comments On Market Volatility" (plus Morgan Stanley says nice things) CHK 
I don't think volatility is the problem.

Here's the monthly chart:

FinViz

And interestingly, for each period daily, weekly, monthly (above) it is the same pattern, almost as a fractal.
Meaning this is not something new that came out of nowhere.
Here's the daily chart:...

San Francisco Mayor London Breed Declares State of Emergency Over Coronavirus

I'm not sure I know what is going on here.
From USA Today:

San Francisco Mayor London Breed has issued an emergency declaration aimed at preparing the city for a coronavirus outbreak – even though no cases of the new virus have been confirmed in the city.

“Although there are still zero confirmed cases in San Francisco residents, the global picture is changing rapidly, and we need to step up preparedness,” Breed said. “We see the virus spreading in new parts of the world every day, and we are taking the necessary steps to protect San Franciscans from harm.”

The declaration raises awareness, mobilizes city resources, accelerates emergency planning and coordinates agencies across the city, Breed said. She said it also allows for future reimbursement by the state and federal governments.

Santa Clara and San Diego counties have issued similar declarations to bolster their preparedness.

“San Francisco is united and,” Board of Supervisors President Norman Yee said. “We have one of the most renowned medical systems of care here, and we have a long and proven track record of being able to protect, treat, and care for our residents.”....MORE

This is a city that has people crapping in the streets.

A city that has a "Poop Patrol" to clean said human fecal matter and pays a pretty penny for folks to do the job: 

San Francisco 'Poop Patrol' employees make $184,000 a year ... (Business Insider) 

Granted that is both salary and benefits but it's still adding up.

This is a city that the U.N.'s special rapporteur on Adequate Housing compared to the worst she had seen in Mexico City and Mumbai.

What are the Mayor and top Alderman talking about? 

(because S.F. is both a city and a county Yee is both the top county legislator and heads the city council)

"CDC recommends men shave their beards to protect against coronavirus"

Well there go the  hipsters.
From Sacramento CA's KTXL-TV:




....MORE
And in market moving news:

Video: A Trip Through New York City, 1911—Restored, 4K, Stunning

Via Gothamist, Feb. 24:

Take A Colorful Stroll Through 1911 NYC With Incredible Restored Footage

In the early part of the 20th century, a team of cameramen with the Swedish company Svenska Biografteatern were sent around the world to take footage of well-known places. They ended up with a priceless document of New York City in 1911 with A Trip Through New York City. The video opens and closes with shots of the Statue Of Liberty, but you can also catch the brand-new Manhattan Bridge, Battery Park, the Flatiron Building, Madison Avenue, the elevated railway lines at Bowery and Worth Streets, different parts of Broadway, and more....

....MUCH MORE

As Coronavirus Spreads, SpaceX Accelerates Starship Schedule (MUSK)

From Engadget:

SpaceX approved to build Starship factory and research hub in LA
Musk wants Starship to take its first orbital test flight this year.

[so retro]

SpaceX has been given the final go ahead to build its Starship manufacturing plant in the Port of Los Angeles. Authorities granted the company a permit for the facility by a unanimous 12-0 vote, allowing Elon Musk and his team to push on with the development of technology designed to take humans to the moon and Mars.

SpaceX has pursued the permit for some time after first identifying and subsequently leasing the site back in 2018. As Reuters notes, the company has the option to terminate the permit within 180 days, and indeed, it canceled a similar permit two years ago when it moved the initial phase of the Starship project to Texas. However, the Los Angeles Port site brings Starship development closer to SpaceX's headquarters in LA, and written into the permit contract is the option to expand the site from 12.5 acres to 19 acres, so it seems SpaceX is committed to the location.

Councilman Joe Buscaino, whose district includes the port, said, "It's crazy that here we are in 2020 preparing ourselves to send people to Mars, and it's going to happen in our backyard....MORE

Elon Musk (pictured, with two "volunteers")

Be safe Rocket man.

Alternateively:
August 2015
As The Good Ship Tesla Sells Some Equity, A Reminder That Elon Musk Has Exit Options ...Not Available To The Rest Of Us (TSLA)
But what many may not remember is that a couple years ago he secured a second, more prosaic, if that's the word, escape vehicle:
James Bond’s Lotus Esprit Submarine Purchased by Elon Musk 

The sub is electrically powered,
of course.

World Bank Pandemic Catastrophe Bond Under Pressure As Coronavirus Spreads

I have become convinced these things were designed to NOT pay.
As noted previously:
Reinsurance: "No coronavirus price response from World Bank’s pandemic cat bond yet"

We saw with Ebola that, even after both triggers—1) a minimum 250 victims and 2) the crossing of an international border—were reached, the World Bank's Pandemic Emergency Facility was very reluctant to declare the payout, eliciting some snark from yours truly:

"And if the cross-border contagion is reported on a day ending in a 'Y' all contracts will be null-and-void and coverage denied." 

From Artemis:

Coronavirus pressure on pandemic cat bond rises as virus spreads

The pressure is rising on the World Bank’s pandemic catastrophe bond transaction as the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV or Covid-19) spreads internationally and the number of deaths in certain countries around the globe nears the trigger point.

As we explained in January, the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV or Covid-19) outbreak that began in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province China poses a threat to the World Bank’s $320 million IBRD CAR 111-112 pandemic catastrophe bond transaction that provides a source of insurance or reinsurance capital to back the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF).

The coronavirus outbreak has the potential to become an eligible event under the terms of the World Bank’s pandemic catastrophe bond notes that provide insurance or reinsurance like capacity to back a pandemic financing facility.

The bonds and reinsurance like component of the financing behind the facility can be triggered if the outbreak reaches pandemic levels and meets certain pre-defined trigger criteria, in terms of officially confirmed cases, growth rate, fatalities and international spread.

As of the beginning of February, the two tranches of notes issued as the World Bank’s pandemic catastrophe bond had not shown any significant response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Secondary market bid indication data from broker-dealer pricing sheets as of February 17th then showed that the price or marks had reacted to the escalating coronavirus situation, with average bid dropping to around 45 cents on the dollar for the riskier Class B tranche of notes.

The secondary marks have not slipped much further at this stage, with a range of pricing from low 40’s to around 70 as of Friday’s pricing sheets, we understand from investor sources.
Most are citing a bid average of 45 to 55 now, depending on which pricing sheet you look at.

We can also reveal that there has been selling interest at these bid ranges, as our sources said that some investors appear to be preparing to sell the notes....

....MUCH MORE

Essential reading if you have an interest in cat bonds or structured products or Insurance Linked Securities.

Solar Energy: In Which The FT's Izabella Kaminska Challenges For This Year's Bulwer-Lytton Award

She is such a show-off.
For folks not familiar with the contest, each year writers from around the world compete to emulate the opening sentence of Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton's (1st Baron Lytton) novel "Paul Clifford"

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness." 

Although it is not the first sentence of Ms Kaminska's piece, "What if solar has a utility-scale demand problem?", when I got to:

“...we’ve built it, but they’re not coming, because arriving at the destination is turning out to be a lot more expensive than we appreciated”.

I did a coffee-out-the-nose snort while exclaiming to a rather alarmed companion: "She did that deliberately!!"
But enough with my little divertissement, here's a look at solar by someone who actually knows the subject. (thanks for the mention Izzy):

In the great race to reduce the impact of climate change, solar photovoltaics are widely perceived as a tried and tested technology that’s ready for deployment in the here and now, and on a mass scale.

If any barriers exist they’re largely perceived as solvable through private or public-sector led investment, an impression firmly underpinned by the “if we build it they will come” mentality.

The view is further bolstered by the falling year-to-year cost of modules and their increasing cost competitiveness with fossil fuels, which gives the impression that when it comes to solar’s viability as an alternative energy source, the sector is winning.

But global industry dynamics suggest there may be greater economic headwinds than many appreciate. A key stumbling block remains the global oversupply of modules versus demand, in large part driven by the saturation of profitable deployment sites but also loss-leading manufacturing by state-assisted corporations.

A better adage in that context might be “we’ve built it, but they’re not coming, because arriving at the destination is turning out to be a lot more expensive than we appreciated”.
So how can costs be reduced without increasing the burden on government subsidisation — especially as deployment scales up and eats into budgetary commitments elsewhere?
It’s worth looking at the specific challenges at hand more closely.

On that front, a hat tip to Climateer for alerting us to the fact that US solar-panel maker First Solar massively disappointed the Street last Friday when it reported a surprise quarterly loss and below-expectation sales. Shares were down as much as 14.9 per cent.

While there were plenty of unique issues affecting the results, among them the settlement of a $363m class-action lawsuit for a historical failure to report defects, one interesting factoid highlighted by the Street was that the company was looking to evaluate options for its solar farm-building business from the quarter onwards. Those options include the possible sale of all or a portion of the US project development business.

This directly feeds into the bigger trends at hand for the solar industry.
For those who don’t know, First Solar, which went public in 2006, is primarily focused on the business of manufacturing solar modules.

Within that field, the company differentiates itself by specialising in the production of non-crystalline-based solar panels, known as thin film. These are more cost effective to produce than crystalline alternatives. The technology is also perceived to be more eco-friendly as it relies less on silicon wafers and more on cadmium telluride. Both materials are toxic, but the latter — combined with other materials used in thin film production — is easier and less costly to recycle.

But there are trade offs. Thin film modules aren’t as efficient as their crystalline counterparts and need a lot more surface area to achieve the same generation capability. This makes them less suitable for private rooftops and much more useful for large-scale utility developments: one of the reasons First Solar moved into the systems development business in the first place. ....

....MUCH MORE

Oh we had a jolly time with FSLR, it was the poster child of the 2005-2008 mania:
Nov. '06 IPO at $20, $317.00 top tick in May 2008, $11.43 by June 2012. Yeah baby!

A Google search of the blog  site:climateerinvest.blogspot.com "First Solar" returns 1060 hits with this as #1:

First Solar Drops Like A Turd From A Tall ... - Climateer Investing
climateerinvest.blogspot.com › 2016/11 › first-solar-drops-like-turd-f...
Nov 16, 2016 - First Solar Drops Like A Turd From A Tall Cow (FSLR). Splat During the regular session the stock was down 1.11% (37¢) to $32.82 and ...

We are so proud.

And just so you know we are no Bulwer-Lytton's-come-lately here's a 2010 post on a WSJ blog:
Climateer Line of the Day: MarketBeat does Bulwer-Lytton Edition (ACN)
MarketBeat's Matt Phillips has a walk-off home run. Game over.
From their post "Accenture for a Penny: MarketBeat’s Investigation Continues!":

Like a rottweiler on a slightly undercooked leg of lamb, MarketBeat refuses to let go of its probe of the depths of Thursday’s Flash Crash, particularly the momentary trades that priced ostensibly healthy companies such as Accenture at one cent....

That makes "It was a dark and stormy night" read like Blake in comparison...

Unfortunately we had to report some months later:
MarketBeat's Matt Phillips Does Not Win the 2010 Bulwer-Lytton Contest

If interested here is the Bulwer-Lytton contest homepage.
List of winning entries, 1983 - 2019.

On a more serious note, Bulwer-Lytton coined the phrases "the great unwashed", "pursuit of the almighty dollar", "the pen is mightier than the sword" and lived at Knebworth House.

How you doin'?

Capital Markets: "Dramatic Investor Adjustment Continues"

From Marc to Market:

Overview: The warning by the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention that Americans should prepare for an outbreak of Covid-19 sent the S&P 500 tumbling to an 11-week low and the 10-year Treasury yield to a record low near 1.30%. The volatility of the S&P (VIX) jumped to its highest level since 2018. The sell-off in global equities continues unabated. Thailand (-5%) and Australia (-2.3%) led the carnage in the Far East. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index was sold through its 200-day moving average yesterday, and the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 did so in early morning activity today after gapping lower. However, as the morning progressed, the benchmark was paring its losses and moved back above its 200-day moving average. US shares have pared their earlier losses. The 200-day moving average is a couple percentage points lower near 3045. Bond yields are not responding as strongly to the fifth consecutive losing session for global equities as they did previously. Most core yields are slighter softer, while the European peripheral bonds are being shunned like risk assets, and yields are mostly 3-5 bp higher there. The US 10-year is near 1.33%. The dollar is mixed, but firm against most of the major currencies, but the Swiss franc and the euro. The Australian dollar and sterling are the weakest so far today, off about 0.4%. The JP Morgan Emerging Markets Currency Index is trading at new multi-year lows, led by the South African rand, Korean won, and Mexican peso. Gold, which counter-intuitively fell yesterday (~-1.5%), is back on track, gaining around 1% today. Demand concerns and rising US inventories have pushed April WTI briefly below $49 a barrel.

Asia Pacific
There has been a dramatic market reaction in the last few days, but as recently as this past weekend at the G20 meeting, the IMF seems to be naively in denial. It shaved its 2020 world growth forecast by 0.1%. Given the accuracy of private and public sector economists in forecasting GDP, a 0.1% adjustment gives a sense of precision that is not justified. The IMF also shaved its forecast for China by a little more, but at 5.6%, it is still unreasonably high. It said it was looking at more dire scenarios.

It is still five months away, but the Tokyo Olympics will likely be at risk if the coronavirus cannot be contained in the next two-three months, according to the longest-serving senior official on the International Olympics Committee. More likely than relocating or rescheduling the games, the Olympic official, suggested they would be canceled.The decision would be made in conjunction with the World Health Organization.

Hong Kong is taking bold action. It unveiled a stimulus program that is worth a little more than 4% of (2018) GDP. It includes a one-time cash disbursement of HKD10k ($1285) per person. The deficit will widen from 1.3% to about 4.8% of GDP. Even with the fiscal support, the economy may still contract as much as 1.5%, according to officials, or grow by as much as 0.5%. Separately, Hong Kong reported a sharp fall in January exports (-22.7%) and imports (-16.4%). The decline was a combination of the Lunar New Year, fewer working days, and the coronavirus disruption....

....MUCH MORE 

"U.S. Coast Guard announces plans for a third heavy icebreaker"

It's not so much a plan as an aspirational statement.
From Arctic Today:

Adm. Karl L. Schultz, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, said the service has plans to build a third heavy icebreaker, and intends to build three medium breakers after that.

In a speech in Charleston, S.C., on Thursday, Schultz highlighted the $555 million request to Congress for a second icebreaker in the Trump administration’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2021 that was released last week.

“And the good news is, there’s an acquisitions and funding strategy beyond that to build a third,” he said.
But Schultz did not mention a timeline for this third icebreaker.

Last May, he said the budget for 2021, which begins on Oct. 1, 2020, would “get after” awards for both the second and third icebreaker.

[Trump’s 2021 budget includes more funding for icebreakers, other Arctic priorities]

The president’s budget request only includes funding for one — although that could change in the final budget passed by Congress.
In April 2019, the Coast Guard awarded a contract to build its first heavy icebreaker in nearly half a century.

But the U.S. Government Accountability Office recently released a report detailing concerns that the construction timeline of this icebreaker may be too ambitious.
Delays in funding for subsequent vessels could push back the introduction of the three heavy breakers beyond 2028, which was the goal Schultz mentioned in May.

Schultz also announced that the Coast Guard is “developing operational requirements for medium icebreakers,” with the aim of establishing a fleet of “at least” three heavy icebreakers followed by three medium icebreakers.

The Coast Guard will use those discussions to inform a vessel design for the medium icebreakers. The design for the Healy, the only active medium icebreaker in the Coast Guard fleet, is already two decades old.
Schultz called the current fleet of two icebreakers “woefully unacceptable.”....

....MORE

Stephen Roach: "When China Sneezes"

Mr. Roach was Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia and now hangs out at Yale as a senior lecturer.
From Project Syndicate:

The COVID-19 outbreak has hit at a time of much greater economic vulnerability than in 2003, during the SARS outbreak, and China's share of world output has more than doubled since then. With other major economies already struggling, the risk of outright global recession in the first half of 2020 seems like a distinct possibility.

NEW HAVEN – The world economy has clearly caught a cold. The outbreak of COVID-19 came at a particularly vulnerable point in the global business cycle. World output expanded by just 2.9% in 2019 – the slowest pace since the 2008-09 global financial crisis and just 0.4 percentage points above the 2.5% threshold typically associated with global recession.

Moreover, vulnerability increased in most major economies over the course of last year, making prospects for early 2020 all the more uncertain. In Japan, the world’s fourth-largest economy, growth contracted at a 6.3% annual rate in the fourth quarter – much sharper than expected following another consumption-tax hike. Industrial output fell sharply in December in both Germany (-3.5%) and France (-2.6%), the world’s fifth- and tenth-largest economies respectively. The United States, the world’s second-largest economy, appeared relatively resilient by comparison, but 2.1% real (inflation-adjusted) GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2019 hardly qualifies as a boom. And in China – now the world’s largest economy in purchasing-power-parity terms – growth slowed to a 27-year low of 6% in the last quarter of 2019.In other words, there was no margin for an accident at the beginning of this year. Yet there has been a big accident: China’s COVID-19 shock. Over the past month, the combination of an unprecedented quarantine on Hubei Province (population 58.5 million) and draconian restrictions on inter-city (and international) travel has brought the Chinese economy to a virtual standstill. Daily activity trackers compiled by Morgan Stanley’s China team underscore the nationwide impact of this disruption. As of February 20, coal consumption (still 60% of China’s total energy consumption) remained down 38% from the year-earlier pace, and nationwide transportation comparisons were even weaker, making it extremely difficult for China’s nearly 300 million migrant workers to return to factories after the annual Lunar New Year holiday.

The disruptions to supply are especially acute. Not only is China the world’s largest exporter by a wide margin; it also plays a critical role at the center of global value chains. Recent research shows that GVCs account for nearly 75% of growth in world trade, with China the most important source of this expansion. Apple’s recent earnings alert says it all: the China shock is a major bottleneck to global supply.But demand-side effects are also very important. After all, China is now the largest source of external demand for most Asian economies. Unsurprisingly, trade data for both Japan and Korea in early 2020 show unmistakable signs of weakness. As a result, it is virtually certain that Japan will record two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, which would make it three for three in experiencing recessions each time it has raised its consumption tax (1997, 2014, and 2019).The shortfall of Chinese demand is also likely to hit an already weakening European economy very hard – especially Germany – and could even take a toll on a Teflon-like US economy, where China plays an important role as America’s third-largest and most rapidly growing export market. The sharp plunge in a preliminary tally of US purchasing managers’ sentiment for February hints at just such a possibility and underscores the time-honored adage that no country is an oasis in a faltering global economy....

....MORE
Roach does not mention that the U.S. response to China's trade depredations over the last
couple years has had the salutary effect of jump-starting the decoupling of the U.S. economy from China's.

That is not to say the U.S. is inoculated from the economic contagion, just that it was becoming somewhat less exposed to supply chain disruption.
This is something the FT's Rana Foroohar mentioned in passing in her opinion piece, "Coronavirus is speeding up the decoupling of global economies":

"...A gradual decoupling of global economies has been under way for a few years. The South Korean electronics group Samsung, for example, has been closing Chinese plants and opening others in Vietnam. Mexico has benefited from some US corporations moving their supply chains closer to home. But decoupling will undoubtedly speed up as Beijing’s opacity in handling the coronavirusn epidemic highlights the risks of doing business in China...."

I've had an (unrequited) love-hate relationship with Mr. Roach for a few years, see the recycled introduction to:
Stephen Roach—"The Crisis of 2020"

           The introduction to our last visit with Mr. Roach, December 1's "Stephen S. Roach: After the US-China Trade War":

Mr. Roach is a sharp guy with a vast knowledge of Asia, one of the reasons MS kept him around as chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia. However....when the U.S. retaliated against China for China's trade practices Mr. Roach seemed to have lost a half-step, focusing on the next quarter rather than the next quarter-century (as the pension/insurance crowd is fond of saying, if not doing) and was too dovish in his estimation of the effects of U.S. tariffs on the Chinese economy.
Because of that we haven't linked to him since July 2017 after years of visiting him for his thoughts on possible futures.*
But now he's back to doing what he does so well, getting his audience to think about the picture on the horizon rather than the one immediately in front of one's nose....

All that being said the U.S. is still very dependent on China.
From Statista:

Shipping: "CMA CGM’s Debt Plan Seen at Risk Amid Virus Fears"

From Bloomberg via gCaptain:

The coronavirus outbreak is threatening to scupper a debt refinancing for the world’s third-largest container shipping company.

France’s CMA CGM SA is aiming to start refinancing its debt pile by the end of next month. The Marseille-based company, one of the biggest maritime carriers out of China, is seeking to extend about $400 million of loans and is also in talks with creditors to refinance about 725 million euros ($784 million) of bonds due in January.

“I don’t see a bond refinancing in the near term,” said Jan Patteyn, a credit analyst at Octo Finances in Paris. “The coronavirus adds uncertainty to the sector and should weigh on CMA’s first quarter results.”

The consequences could potentially be severe for CMA CGM, which has been present in Shanghai since 1992 and moves one out of eight containers from Asia to Europe and the U.S. The virus could finally trip up the company, which has used debt to fuel growth in recent years. It has about $18 billion of debt in total.

The shipper’s bonds maturing in January 2021 have slumped about 10 cents on the euro over the past month to 89 cents, pushing up the yield. That implies the company would have to pay interest in excess of 20% on a new debt sale.

A CMA CGM spokesman said the company will provide details on its plans when it publishes its financial results in early March....

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Norway's Equinor Decides Not To Drill In Australian Marine Park, No Word On Fracking For Uranium In Grand Canyon

From the Guardian:

Great Australian Bight: Equinor abandons plans to drill for oil 
Norwegian oil company announces it has scrapped its $200m plan to deepwater drill in Great Australian Bight Marine Park

Norwegian oil giant Equinor has abandoned plans to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight, declaring the controversial project did not make commercial sense.

The company said on Tuesday it had told federal, South Australian and local authorities it had decided to scrap the $200m project to deepwater drill in the Great Australian Bight Marine Park.
It is the third major oil company to abandon plans to drill in the bight, following BP and Chevron.

“Following a holistic review of its exploration portfolio, Equinor has concluded that the project’s potential is not commercially competitive compared with other exploration opportunities in the company,’’ the company’s country manager for Australia, Jone Stangeland, said in a statement.

The decision is a significant win for environment groups and other opponents of the project, including Indigenous elders and local councils. The proposal sparked protests supported by tens of thousands of people opposed to fossil fuel extraction in a marine wilderness area.

Equinor’s announcement comes shortly after the proposed Stromlo-1 well site, in water more than 2.2km deep and nearly 400km off the South Australian coast, was granted environmental approval by the federal offshore petroleum regulator. The Wilderness Society launched legal action challenging the decision last month, arguing opponents had not been properly consulted....

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Mining the Grand Canyon is an idea triggered by periodic proposals to go after the numerous uranium plays near the National Park. Equinor has nothing to do with it and besides fracking isn't how you'd extract the radioactive stuff.
Additionally and unrelatedly, the Australian Government has decided not to mine the oil shale under the Great Barrier Reef. The coal ports at the north and south ends of the reef are going ahead as planned however:

(click to enlarge)

IBD Late Market Commentary

From Investors' Business Daily:

06:42 PM ET 02/25/2020
Dow Jones Futures: Coronavirus Stock Market Sell-Off Continues; Disney, Salesforce, Virgin Galactic, Insulet Move On Earnings

Dow Jones futures rose late Tuesday, along with S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures, trying to rebound after the coronavirus stock market sell-off continued Tuesday. Disney (DIS) CEO Bob Iger will step down immediately, ahead of schedule.

Salesforce.com (CRM), Virgin Galactic (SPCE), Insulet (PODD), Toll Bros. (TOL) and Planet Fitness (PLNT) reported earnings after the close.

Disney stock fell modestly to a 10-month low overnight. Salesforce stock, Virgin Galactic stock, Insulet stock, Toll Bros. stock and Planet Fitness stock all fell overnight. Several signaled declines through buy points or key support.

Dow Jones Futures Today
Dow Jones futures rose 0.6% vs. fair value. S&P 500 futures climbed 0.6%. Nasdaq 100 futures popped 0.75%.
Remember that overnight action in Dow futures and elsewhere doesn't necessarily translate into actual trading in the next regular stock market session.
Case in point: Early Tuesday, Dow Jones futures were volatile but generally pointed to a modest rebound. The Dow Jones and other major indexes did open higher, but soon reversed lower.

 Coronavirus News
Coronavirus cases have topped 80,000, with deaths above 2,700. While the vast majority of Covid-19 cases and deaths are in China, new cases are slowing in that country, with few new infections outside of the Hubei province epicenter. However, coronavirus cases are expanding in South Korea, Japan, Italy and the Middle East. That raises fears of a global pandemic that will chill global economic growth and supply chains.
A top CDC official said Tuesday that the coronavirus likely will become a global pandemic.

Coronavirus Stock Market Sell-Off Continues
The current stock market rally has suffered four straight down days, with major losses in the last two sessions. This kind of rapid, heavy selling through moving averages is a red flag.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 3.15%, the S&P 500 index 3% and the Nasdaq composite 2.8%. The Dow Jones plunged below its 200-day line, a day after the major indexes undercut their 50-day lines. The S&P 500 index and Nasdaq composite undercut their late January lows, during the first wave of coronavirus selling.

Among the best ETFs, the Innovator IBD 50 ETF (FFTY) slid 3%. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) fell 2.8%. The VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (SMH) lost 2.9%.

The Dow Jones today is back to overall record levels. The stock market rally already was under pressure as of Monday's tumble. After several days of heavy selling, the Dow Jones and other major indexes could bounce back, but one or two good days doesn't make for a secure stock market rally....

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DJIA futures up 139; S&P 500 futures up 19.

Earlier:
04:15 PM ET 02/25/2020
Stock Rout Intensifies As These Stocks Flash Sell Signals