#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40000380

U.S. tells citizens to leave India as covid crisis deepens

The U.S. told its citizens to get out of India as soon as possible as the countrys covid-19 crisis worsens at an astonishing pace.

In a Level 4 travel advisory — the highest of its kind issued by the State Department — U.S. citizens were told “not to travel to India or to leave as soon as it is safe to do so.” There are 14 direct daily flights between India and the U.S. and other services that connect through Europe, the department said.Indian authorities and hospitals are struggling to cope with unprecedented covid infections and deaths. Official data on Thursday showed new cases rose by a staggering 379,257 over the prior 24 hours, another record, while 3,645 additional lives were lost. More than 204,800 people have died.

“U.S. citizens are reporting being denied admittance to hospitals in some cities due to a lack of space,” the website of the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in India said in a health alert. “U.S. citizens who wish to depart India should take advantage of available commercial transportation options now.” All routine U.S. citizen services and visa services at the U.S. Consulate General Chennai have been canceled.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, anyone returning to the U.S. from overseas must have a viral Covid-19 test between three and five days after travel. Individuals who haven’t been vaccinated should also stay at home and self-quarantine for a week.

The South Asian nation now has the world’s fastest-growing caseload with 18.4 million confirmed instances. The virus has gripped India’s populace with a severity not seen in its first wave. Mass funeral pyres, lines of ambulances outside overcrowded hospitals and desperate pleas on social media for oxygen underscore how unprepared India’s federal and state governments are to tackle the latest outbreak.

The unfolding tragedy is prompting some of the world’s biggest corporations to organize aid. Amazon.com is harnessing its global logistics supply chain to airlift 100 ICU ventilator units from the U.S., and the equipment will reach India in the next two weeks. Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said he was “heartbroken” by the situation and the tech behemoth is using its voice, resources and technology to aid relief efforts and help buy oxygen concentrators.

Blackstone Group Chairman Stephen Schwarzman said his private equity firm is committing $5 million to support India’s covid relief and vaccination services to “marginalized communities.” Local companies, too, are wading in, with the philanthropic arm of India’s most valuable company — Reliance Industries Ltd., controlled by Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani — pledging to create, commission and manage 100 ICU beds that will become operational mid next month.

As thousands of doctors, nurses and non-medical professionals work around-the-clock to save what patients they can, countries around the rest of the world are drawing up their bridges.

Within Asia, Hong Kong banned flights from India, as well as Pakistan and the Philippines, for 14 days from April 20. Singapore has barred long-term pass holders and short-term visitors who have recently been in India from entering. Indonesia is also denying entry to people traveling from India.

Further afield, the U.K. has added India to its travel ban list, and the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have halted passenger flights from India. Canada last week banned flights from India and Pakistan for 30 days. Australia banned flights from India this week.

Published : April 30, 2021

By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Angus Whitley

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40000379

Stocks climb in volatile trading amid news of GDP, earnings

U.S. stocks rose to a record as investors digested the latest batch of corporate earnings and data that showed that the American economy gained steam in the first three months of the year.

Apple wiped out its gains amid concern that the iPhone maker may not sustain growth after a blockbuster quarter as it faces a tightening supply of chips. Weak earnings dented Ford and eBay. Facebook held its post-earning gains, surging to a record after its sales dwarfed estimates.

The S&P 500 briefly turned negative in afternoon trading. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 broke a two-day losing streak. The volatility came as investors continued to assess major corporate results that overshadowed signs of a resurgence in the economy. Data released Thursday showed U.S. gross domestic product expanded at a 6.4% annualized rate in the first quarter, while applications for U.S. state unemployment insurance fell last week to a fresh pandemic low.

“It looks like it’s a tug of war between those that think the good earnings results we’ve seen are just the beginning of a longer economic and corporate earnings boom and those that believe we are at peak growth and markets are unlikely to go higher from here,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Independent Advisor Alliance.

While the GDP figures may support the Federal Reserve’s strong assessment of the economy, the central bank is in no mood to halt aggressive support as it looks for even further progress in employment and inflation. Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday dismissed worries about price surges or anecdotes of labor shortage, implying that policymakers are prepared to run the economy hot for a while. President Joe Biden unveiled a $1.8 trillion spending plan targeted at American families, adding to the economic optimism.

With their plans, the Fed and Biden have delivered a boost to investor sentiment that has seesawed in recent days between optimism over a string of robust economic data and caution amid high valuations and speculation about stimulus tapering by year’s end.

“All evidence still points to continued support from both fiscal and monetary policy against a backdrop of accelerating corporate earnings,” said Mark Haefele, UBS Global Wealth Management’s chief investment officer. “This reinforces our view that markets can advance further, with cyclical parts of the market – such as financials, energy, and value stocks – likely to benefit most from the global upswing.”

Crude oil rose on a confident outlook on demand from OPEC and its allies, despite the threat from India’s flaring coronavirus crisis.

– – –

These are some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

– The S&P 500 rose 0.7% as of 4 p.m. New York time

– The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.5%

– The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.7%

– The MSCI World index rose 0.4%

Currencies

– The Bloomberg Dollar Spot index was little changed

– The euro was little changed at $1.2128

– The British pound rose 0.1% to $1.395

– The Japanese yen fell 0.3% to 108.89 per dollar

Bonds

– The yield on 10-year Treasurys advanced two basis points, to 1.63%

– Germany’s 10-year yield advanced four basis points, to -0.19%

– Britain’s 10-year yield advanced five basis points, to 0.84%

Commodities

– West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.7%, to $65 a barrel

– Gold futures were little changed

Published : April 30, 2021

By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Vildana Hajric, Kamaron Leach

#SootinClaimon.Com : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation.

https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40000378

Economy grew by 1.6% in first quarter, showing potential for boom

WASHINGTON – The U.S. economy grew 1.6% in the first three months of the year because of rising coronavirus vaccinations and massive federal stimulus spending. It is on the verge of regaining all of its pandemic losses in coming months.

The GDP report, released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Thursday, showed that consumers are spending more on things such as cars and homes. A record boost in household after-tax income suggests there’s more consumer spending power waiting in the wings.

The rosy economic news came the same day as news of the third straight week of reduction in jobless claims, according to the Labor Department. A range of companies across different sectors – including Caterpillar, Comcast, Mastercard, McDonald’s and Microsoft – reported strong revenue in recent days.

“Virtually all key economic indicators are flashing a green light suggesting there’s a lot of economic momentum for growth,” said Bernard Baumohl, chief economist at the Economic Outlook Group. He likened the country’s prospects to a bursting firework: spectacular while it lasts, with an afterglow that may linger for some time.

The recovery has been good for small businesses including Chesapeake Light Craft, which has seen surging sales of its flat-pack building kits for kayaks, 31-foot outrigger sailboats and more. The company is hiring new staffers for its 10,000-square-foot warehouse in Annapolis, Md., to handle a 20% increase in orders.

“Everyone I’ve talked to, they’re just ready to get out,” Chesapeake Light Craft CEO John Staub said. “They’re ready for life to resume to normal.”

Even when the economy reverses its pandemic losses, signs of trouble will linger. While the unemployment rate has fallen, about 8.4 million jobs lost during the pandemic have yet to return. The GDP report noted inflation is picking up: prices grew at a 3.5% annualized rate in the first quarter and are up 1.7% from a year earlier. Economists, including those at the Fed, expect prices to continue to pick up in the near term, reflecting ongoing supply-chain problems that are expected to ease as the global economy reopens.

The optimistic picture could make it more politically difficult for the Biden administration, which is making the case that the economy needs an ambitious $2 trillion infrastructure plan and an equally sweeping $1.8 trillion plan that directs money toward child care, education and paid family leave. Republicans in Congress oppose such large proposals and could point to the strengthening recovery and say there is not sufficient need, said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM.

“On infrastructure, maybe that’s an easier case to make, because of the productivity lift that would follow,” Brusuelas said. “I could make a very strong case for the social programs. But it becomes much more difficult when you’re back to pre-pandemic levels of economic activity, and one can reasonably expect the economy will be back to full employment.”

Harvard University economist Jason Furman, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama, said the data make a strong case that the novel coronavirus remains the biggest factor holding the economy back. People are spending in areas where it’s safe to do so – buying goods such as boat kits or fire pits – but avoiding spending on face-to-face services such as restaurants and bars.

“It was an extraordinary quarter for people going out and buying stuff, particularly cars – I myself bought a car in Q1 – but the services part of the economy was still well below where it was before the pandemic,” Furman said.

And customers have money to spend. Thursday’s report showed that Americans received a record amount of after-tax income in the first three months of the year as the bulk of the $600 checks for the December stimulus and $1,400 American Rescue Plan checks were distributed. The record would not have been reached without more than $1.6 trillion in federal stimulus spending reaching household balance sheets since the crisis began, with $0.6 trillion of that coming in the past quarter, according to the BEA.

That includes stimulus measures that President Donald Trump signed in the final days of 2020, and the coronavirus relief package President Joe Biden signed in March. Economists say the first-quarter numbers will not reflect the full thrust of Biden’s $1.9 trillion bill, which probably will charge the economy and year-long growth.

In Annapolis, Staub recently surveyed his employees about their willingness to reopen their small retail space to in-person traffic. Based on their input, he plans to open for retail and restart in-person boatbuilding classes in the very near future.

Customers flocked to the company when stay-home orders proliferated last spring and people were looking for socially distanced activities. Boatbuilding demand has not subsided, and Staub said 2021 is on track to at least match the record sales he saw in 2020. The company is shipping about 2,000 kits a year.

“I think there’s going to be a ripple effect through the economy for a long time,” Staub said. “The economy is just not the same as it was 12 to 16 months ago.”

As people find that they have enough furniture and recreational vehicles, economists are watching for the service sector to spring back. If people start booking travel and dining out once again, jobs that vanished a year ago at hotels and restaurants may return.

Constance Hunter, chief economist at KPMG, said she’ll be looking for complications of a strong rebound: supply constraints. Also telling will be the extent to which demand for services picks back up after peoples’ quarantine spending fixated on goods.

Hunter noted auto sales – and an accompanying semiconductor chip shortage – as one example. In a tweet Thursday morning, Hunter said she did not expect that auto sales would keep growing at their roaring pace. But if people shift away from buying cars and spend more on services, that could ease pressure on demand for chips, giving supply chains time to recalibrate.

The aluminum trailers and specialty imported metal boat parts needed at Chesapeake Light Craft are often sold out months ahead of time. Nationally, demand for new homes has triggered a lumber shortage, sending prices soaring.

As Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at the national real estate brokerage Redfin, ticked off all the ways in which this housing market had set records – price growth, time on market, homes sold over list price, homes selling in less than a week – she said all that housing activity had an outsize effect on economic growth in the first three months of the year.

New construction, agent fees and remodels propelled residential real estate to its biggest share of the economy since the housing bubble of the mid-2000s, Fairweather said. Although those forces should remain strong through the summer, she expects that housing’s role in the economy will recede as price growth slows and other sectors catch up.

As recently as early January, economists surveyed by Wolters Kluwer’s Blue Chip Economic Indicators thought the first quarter would see 0.6% growth (2.3% annualized) as the pandemic peaked, but they raised their forecasts as stimulus money flooded the country and 94 million Americans were at least partly vaccinated in a three-month period, according to data compiled by The Washington Post.

The first quarter’s growth, 1.6%, would be 6.4% at an annualized rate, but annualized rates can be misleading amid an unprecedented crisis because they imply that a quarter’s trend will continue for an entire year. The Washington Post is focusing on quarterly rates until the economy recovers.

In the first half of 2020, as the United States shut down over fears of the fast-spreading novel coronavirus, the U.S. economy shrank more than 10%. After nine months of growth, it is more than nine-tenths of the way back. It remains further behind after accounting for population growth and the economy’s estimated potential.

For much of corporate America, the boom is underway. Amid the rosy reports from firms including McDonald’s and Northrop Grumman are ample signs companies believe that the boom will continue. Caterpillar’s profits rose as the nation’s mines and factors gear up for rising demand. Microsoft reported that the nation’s coronavirus-era digital transformation continued apace.

If the current pace of economic growth is to be sustained, it will require increased productivity driven by new technologies such as those that proliferated during the pandemic, said the Economic Outlook Group’s Baumohl. This week, Microsoft reported a 19% jump in revenue. On a call with analysts, CEO Satya Nadella noted the work-from-home world in which white-collar workers have been living played to the Seattle tech titan’s strengths.

“Over a year into the pandemic, digital adoption curves aren’t slowing down. In fact, they’re accelerating and it’s just the beginning,” Nadella said.

Economists expect inflation to rise this year as vaccines become more widespread and people unleash pent-up desire to spend. But there’s much debate about how high it will climb, and when the increase will trigger a response from the Federal Reserve or the White House.

On Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned that increases in inflation this year will be temporary and will reflect mismatches in supply and demand as the economy reopens. That’s different from persistent or widespread price increases that weigh on the whole economy, he said.

“The supply will take a little bit of time to adapt,” Powell said. “New restaurants will have to be opened. The supply of various inputs into the goods part of the economy will have to be brought back up to speed. And you’re seeing some of that.”

Published : April 30, 2021

By : The Washington Post · Andrew Van Dam, Rachel Siegel