5-Chart Friday (6/19/20)

By Charlie Bilello

19 Jun 2020


5 charts from the past week that tell an interesting story in markets and investing…

1. The Worst Risk/Reward in History?

Yields on investment grade US corporate bonds hit a new all-time low this week: 2.23%.

2. The Irrational Investor

Would you pay someone $205 for an asset worth only $21.87?

Investors in the Ethereum Trust ($ETHE) are doing just that, paying a stunning 837% premium above the net asset value (NAV) of the underlying holdings (see here for recent post on this).

3. The Covid Trade and Home for Longer…

New highs this week in…

  1. Daily new COVID-19 cases globally (see here for our recent post on the current state of COVID).
  2. Clorox.
  3. Zoom.

Is working from home a secular trend?

If given the choice, more people seem to prefer working at home than in the office. Where are they more productive? Interesting poll results…

4. US COVID-19 Trends

We saw new highs in daily cases this week in California, Texas, Florida (the 3 largest US states) and Arizona. New York and New Jersey cases continue to trend lower.

Hospitalizations in New York and New Jersey are at their lowest levels since March while Texas and Arizona hospitalizations are at new highs (but well below peak NY/NJ peak levels). California hospitalizations are up over the last week but have trended sideways over the past two months.

Deaths are a lagging indicator, but on the positive front they continue to trend lower in the US.

The prevailing view: the uptick in new cases is the result of more testing of a younger, healthier population with milder symptoms and we won’t see an increase in deaths. We’ll know over the next few weeks if this is correct.

5. Largest US Companies…

By Market Cap, Net Income, Revenue, and Number of Employees.

And that’s it for this week. Thanks for reading.

Have a great weekend everyone!

-Charlie

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