stimulus

Here comes a 20% stock market plunge if Trump and Democrats don’t agree on trillions more in COVID-19 stimulus

By Tommy Flemm 2 years ago

Add the potential of not getting another massive new fiscal stimulus plan as beginning to weigh on the minds of otherwise exuberant investors.

“I think you are looking at a 10% to 15% range minimum [if there isn’t a new stimulus plan],” warned EvercoreISI senior managing director Dennis DeBusschere on Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade. “And then from there it’s going to be about your expectation for the policy response. So you probably go down 10% to 15%, and then we’ll all wait around to see if that 10% to 15% causes the political apparatus to get moving quickly. And if you ultimately get nothing, by the way, you know it’s a down 20%. And you know, we’ll reassess from there.”

In March, lawmakers passed the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES). It surpassed the $700 billion bailout package handed out to Wall Street during the

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College students could be leaving up to $5,000 in coronavirus stimulus money on the table

By Tommy Flemm 2 years ago

Billions of dollars in stimulus set aside for America’s college students impacted by the coronavirus shutdown remains largely untapped.

As much as $7 billion was earmarked specifically for students as part of the $2 trillion relief package passed by Congress earlier this year, but as of late-April only 1% had actually been distributed, partially because students may have been unaware they were eligible.

To help remedy that issue, financial aid startup Frank recently teamed up with education giant Chegg to simplify the application process with a new online tool. According to Frank CEO Charlie Javice, their new portal was immediately hit with unprecedented demand.

“In about 10 hours we got over 10,000 applications submitted,” she told Yahoo Finance’s YFi PM. “Students could be eligible for anywhere from $500 to up to $5,000 of aid.”

The rules for distribution of the aid, referred to as the Higher Education Emergency Relief

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Retail investor boom during coronavirus crisis ‘unnerving,’ may be stimulus driven

By Tommy Flemm 2 years ago

Billionaire bond investor Jeffrey Gundlach believes the retail investor boom is “unnerving” given the ongoing coronavirus crisis, but it may help explain the historic rally in recent weeks that’s left institutional investors on the sidelines. 

“There’s something really unnerving that’s going on in this rally,” which hit its trough on March 23, Gundlach said on Tuesday during a webcast for the DoubleLine Total Return Bond Fund (DBLTX). “And that seems to be driven by a lot kind of rampant speculation.”

The investor pulled up a chart showing retail investor behavior from Robinhood — the free trading app popular amongst millennials. The data showed a spike in investor accounts during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Elsewhere, online brokerage accounts from e-Trade and Interactive Brokers have also seen an explosion in new users during lockdowns. 

As it happens, the rise in new accounts coincides with the government stimulus checks sent out as part of

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Mark Cuban proposes ‘use it or lose it’ debit card as coronavirus stimulus

By Tommy Flemm 2 years ago

Mark Cuban has proposed that the government issue a “use it or lose it” debit card to U.S. households to help spark consumer demand for struggling businesses hit by the coronavirus crisis.

As states and businesses begin to reopen following widespread COVID-19 shutdowns, Congress is currently debating a new round of stimulus for consumers, and aid to states and localities.

Along those lines, the billionaire entrepreneur on Wednesday made a case for a “perfectly timed stimulus program” — in the form of a debit card for households to patronize businesses that are currently in a “state of suspended animation.”

During a Verizon Media special event, RESET YOUR MINDSET AT WORK, Cuban explained that “the primary reality is no business can survive without sales. And two-thirds of the economy is consumer-generated demand” — which is not functioning with many out of work and stuck at home.

The “Shark Tank” investor

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‘America was back in our stores shopping’ after stimulus checks

By Tommy Flemm 2 years ago

Target’s physical and digital registers are humming again, in large part to the arrival of stimulus checks to households via the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

“We are all using our home as our office, educating our kids at home. And we saw a big surge in electronics and office supplies. Like most of us, we’re having a lot of meals at home. So we saw a big uptick in categories like home and kitchen,” Target Chairman and CEO Brian Cornell said on Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade. “When April 15 hit and those stimulus checks arrived, we saw a very different shopping pattern. America was back in our stores shopping all of our categories, still taking advantage of the convenience of our contact-free online services.”

Target’s first quarter ended May 2, so it had a few weeks under its belt of consumers receiving their stimulus checks.

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