| Defeating coronavirus gets more difficult, Fed minutes due, and emerging economies take a hit. Changing? Doctors in the northeast of China are seeing the coronavirus manifest differently among patients in the new cluster of cases there. The latter are taking much longer to develop symptoms than was observed in Wuhan, making it harder for authorities to catch cases and stop a feared second wave of infections. On the vaccine front, there was a reality check on the early test results from Moderna Inc. which took the wind out of its share price surge. Minutes In the fast-moving world of central bank stimulus right now, April 19 might seem like an eternity ago. But today's minutes from the last FOMC meeting will be worth looking at to gauge policy makers' views on adding more stimulus while avoiding negative rates. While Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell continues to be dismissive of a possible move below zero, traders have recently priced a cut into negative territory next year. The minutes are published at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Closing borders Brazil reported a record day for infections, turning the country into the world's fastest-growing hotspot for the pandemic. President Donald Trump said he is considering a ban on Brazilians travelling to the U.S., the country with the highest number of infections globally. Elsewhere in emerging markets, the biggest cyclone in two decades is set to hit India and Bangladesh today, leading to mass evacuations which will likely complicate efforts to control the virus there. Markets rise There have been no major developments to give global equities any major impetus, so they are moving higher for the lack of a better option. Overnight, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.5% while Japan's Topix index closed 0.6% higher. In Europe the Stoxx 600 had risen 0.2% by 5:50 a.m. in a session which has seen the gauge fluctuate between gains and losses. S&P 500 futures pointed to a stronger open, the 10-year Treasury yield was at 0.696% and oil held near $32. Coming up... As well as the minutes, Fed fans also have Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic and St. Louis Fed President James Bullard to look forward to later. U.S. crude inventories data is at 10:30 a.m. At 1:00 p.m. the Treasury debuts its new 20-year bond. Among the companies reporting earnings today are Target Corp., Analog Devices Inc. and Expedia Group Inc. What we've been reading This is what's caught our eye over the weekend. And finally, here's what Joe's interested in this morning If you haven't read it yet, there's an amazing story by Ranjan Roy that's going viral about a friend of his who owns a pizzeria, and his interactions with the food delivery service DoorDash. It's not worth summarizing here (just read it) but the gist is, the food delivery businesses is bizarre and messed up. And while there are all these companies that investors have valued at billions of dollars, still none of the big players are sustainably making money.
At the end of the post, Roy blames the bizarre state of affairs on ZIRP (zero interest-rate policies). You've heard the story: Central banks cut rates to zero, unleashed a tsunami of cheap money that caused all kinds of market distortions and egregious valuations. ZIRP gets blamed for everything from food delivery companies, the NASDAQ boom and WeWork to unprofitable shale drillers and credit spreads. The list goes on. If there's something someone doesn't like, they've probably blamed ZIRP at some point in the last 10 years.
But the reality isn't such a nice fable, and in fact ZIRP is really just a consequence of other policy conditions, which also contributed to the boom in asset prices. It didn't go as viral, but you should definitely read this blog post by Jon Turek called The Global Savings Glut, a Modern Policy Failure. Again, the whole thing can't be summarized here (really, read it!) but the basic gist is that growth has been terrible around the world for the last decade because everyone wanted to save, while governments pulled back on fiscal stimulus prematurely. Meanwhile, East Asia and Europe are still trying to export their way to growth, creating a world where there's a boom in stuff, but not a boom in demand to buy the stuff. The whole thing is massively disinflationary, which is a big reason rates don't seem to go up. Meanwhile, there's all this saved cash, looking for safe or assets exhibiting (scarce) growth. So we had a weird decade where people were simultaneously plowing money into U.S. Treasuries and DoorDash at the same time. Bottom line is that there is a connection between macro policy and asset valuations that people love to rail against. It's just not emanating from the central banks, but rather political actors who have pursued policies that leave us with such insufficient growth overall.  Like Bloomberg's Five Things? Subscribe for unlimited access to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. | 
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