US FINANCIAL MARKET

U.S. Stocks Edge Lower as Covid-19 Cases Rise – Wall Street Journal, 12/7/20

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped Monday, after hitting a record last week, as investors worried that elevated Covid-19 infection levels could weigh on economic growth through the winter months.
• New restrictions intended to slow the spread of the virus in California went into effect Sunday night, after the number of people hospitalized in the U.S. because of Covid-19 hit another record.
• Data released Friday showed that U.S. job growth slowed sharply in November, suggesting the labor-market recovery is losing steam amid the surge in coronavirus cases and new business restrictions.
• The rising case levels and faltering economic recovery could encourage Congress to pass a new fiscal-stimulus package, investors said. An expanding, bipartisan group of lawmakers has been trying to settle on a coronavirus-relief agreement to help businesses and families through March. Lawmakers and aides said Sunday that they hoped to have legislative text ready early this week.
• Overseas, the pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 slid 0.5% as talks between the European Union and the U.K. over a trade deal entered a crucial stage. The British pound fell 0.8% against the dollar following reports suggesting that negotiations have broken down between the two sides.
• Shares of some companies that the U.S. government says supports China’s military fell in Hong Kong and Chinese trading, after index compiler FTSE Russell said it would drop eight Chinese stocks from major indexes.

Coronavirus Live Updates: Hospitalizations Hit Another Record – Wall Street Journal, 12/7/20

• The U.S. reported more than 175,000 new coronavirus cases as several states saw record daily levels of infections.
• The number of people hospitalized in the U.S. because of Covid-19, meanwhile, hit another record on Sunday, climbing to 101,487, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
• Intensive-care units are under increasing pressure, with the number of patients in ICUs around the country topping 20,000 for the first time since the pandemic began.
• The U.S. daily tally of infections, while still elevated, was lower than the peaks reached last week, when the nation saw four consecutive days of newly reported cases above the 200,000 mark, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
• Data last week was affected by the Thanksgiving holiday. Holidays and weekends often see a drop in reported infections, followed by a rise in new cases.
• In California, newly reported cases hit a record of more than 28,000 for Sunday. New restrictions intended to slow the spread of the virus in the state went into effect Sunday night for tens of millions of Californians.
• Southern California—including the major metro areas of Los Angeles and San Diego—and the San Joaquin Valley will be under stay-at-home orders through the Christmas holiday.
• On Twitter, California Gov. Gavin Newsom pointed to the potential of new vaccines to end the pandemic.
• New Jersey, Virginia and West Virginia also reported record numbers of newly reported infections on Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins data.
• The nation’s death toll topped 282,000, with more than 1,100 fatalities reported for Sunday.
• More than 17,000 new cases were reported in Britain and Northern Ireland Sunday, up from around 15,500 the previous day, showing how the virus is continuing to spread widely, though not as quickly as in early November, when a lockdown was enforced in England.
• Italy recorded nearly 19,000 new infections Sunday, down from 21,000 Saturday, while France saw just over 11,000 new confirmed cases on Sunday—down from nearly 13,000 on Saturday, but still some distance from its target of reducing new infections to 5,000-a-day by mid-December.
• The country is unlikely to reach that figure, one of France’s leading virus experts said, which could set back the French government’s plans to ease more lockdown restrictions ahead of the Christmas holidays.
• The virus is continuing to circulate at a high rate in Turkey, meanwhile. Authorities recorded over 30,000 new cases on Sunday, compared with a high of nearly 33,000 on Friday prompting its government to declare a lockdown over the weekend.

Covid-19 Vaccine Rollout Faces Public Concerns Over Safety – Wall Street Journal, 12/7/20

• Governments are accelerating toward approving the first vaccines to contain Covid-19, but public anxiety over the safety of the doses is threatening to undermine those efforts.
• A survey from the University of Hamburg showed the percentage of people hesitant or unwilling to get a Covid-19 vaccine ticking up in November to around 40% of respondents across seven European countries.
• An October poll by market researcher Ipsos found that nearly a third of Japanese and almost half of French respondents said they wouldn’t get inoculated for the coronavirus.
• Only 7% of Japanese respondents in a November survey by ad company Dentsu Inc. said they planned to get vaccinated right away, while nearly 80% said they would wait and see.
• At the University of Hamburg in Germany, health-care management professor Jonas Schreyögg estimates 70% or more of a population has to achieve immunity in order for coronavirus transmission to stall.

Bob Dylan Sells Entire Songwriting Catalog – Wall Street Journal, 12/7/20

• The 79-year old legendary pioneer of modern rock music, and the only songwriter to win a Nobel Prize for Literature, has sold his entire publishing catalog—more than 600 copyrights spanning 60 years—to Universal Music Publishing Group, according to the company.
• While terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, it is likely worth hundreds of millions of dollars—rivaled in value and influence only by the Beatles.
• Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks last month closed a deal to sell a majority stake in her publishing catalog, valuing it at $100 million, according to people familiar with the matter.

Chick-fil-A Sues Poultry Suppliers, Alleging Price-Fixing – Wall Street Journal, 12/7/20

• Chick-fil-A, the leading U.S. chicken chain, sued major poultry producers, accusing them of price-fixing that the Atlanta-based company says led to inflated prices for billions of dollars worth of its chicken purchases.
• The chicken-sandwich giant alleged in a lawsuit filed Friday in a federal court in Illinois that top chicken suppliers, including Tyson Foods, Pilgrim’s Pride, Sanderson Farms and Perdue Farms, coordinated pricing for meat supplies and collectively reduced production to push up prices.
• Chick-fil-A is seeking unspecified damages and to recoup legal fees, according to the lawsuit.
• The lawsuit adds one of the U.S. poultry industry’s biggest customers to a four-year legal battle over alleged collusion among companies that produce the bulk of the roughly 37 billion pounds of chicken consumed annually in the U.S.

J.C. Penney’s retail and operating assets to exit Chapter 11 – Reuters, 12/7/20

• J.C. Penney said on Monday its retail and operating assets would exit Chapter 11 as two of its biggest landlords, Simon Property Group and Brookfield Asset Management, have acquired nearly all such assets.
• The iconic 118-year-old department store had filed for bankruptcy in May after the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to temporarily close its then nearly 850 stores.
• J.C. Penney will continue to operate the properties and distribution centers moved into the property holding companies.
• With the completion of the sale, the company will have access to about $1.5 billion in new financing, it said.

Watchdog for U.S. Agency That Brokered Controversial Kodak Loan Deal Finds No Wrongdoing – Wall Street Journal, 12/7/20

• A government watchdog agency found no wrongdoing in the process that created a now-halted U.S. loan to Eastman Kodak to produce drug ingredients for the Covid-19 response, according to a copy of the assessment reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
• The inspector general of the agency that brokered the deal, the U.S. International Development Finance Corp., provided his assessment last week to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), who had called for the investigation after the one-time photo giant landed a potential $765 million government loan in July.
• In his response, the DFC’s inspector general, Anthony Zakel, said he found no evidence that employees of the agency had any conflicts of interest in the plans, nor did he find “any evidence of misconduct on the part of DFC officials.”