| Thursday's Headlines 1. US markets close at session lows on Gilead's drug news 2. Weekly jobless claims top 4.4 million 3. Which states are hardest hit? 4. Nobel winner Stiglitz on what's next 5. Domino's v. Google Markets Closed
 image: Monty Rakusen/Getty
Markets Today U.S. markets gave up early gains to close mixed to lower following multiple reports on the global economy that show weakness in nearly every country. South Korea's economy contracted the most in the first quarter since 2008. Purchasing managers' reports out of Europe showed the biggest declines in decades. French business confidence plunged to its lowest level ever, as did consumer sentiment in Germany. Oil prices did manage to rise, adding to Wednesday's gains after brutal losses to start the week. In two days, crude oil prices have jumped 50%.
On these shores, more than 4.4 million people filed for weekly unemployment claims last week, bringing the four-week total to more than 26 million people who have recently lost their jobs or their incomes due to the pandemic.
Remdesivir, the Gilead Sciences drug that showed promising results in reducing the coronavirus pathogen, may not be as effective as many had hoped. The Financial Times published a report accidentally released by the World Health Organization, which showed the drug was not effective in treating patients with COVID-19 in China. Gilead rejected those claims, but the damage was done as both shares of Gilead (GILD) and the broader market fell in tandem this afternoon.  **Survey alert: We are running another survey of our U.S. newsletter readers to learn more about your views on these volatile markets and moves you may or may not be making in your portfolios. We don't do anything creepy or untoward with the information you provide... I promise. If you would, please take this brief survey, and we'll let you know what we learn. Thanks!**
Headlines:
image courtesy YouTube  U.S. Weekly Jobless Claims Hit 4.4 Million 4.4 million Americans filed for unemployment claims last week, which was less than the past two weeks but still historically high. 26 million people have lost their jobs or incomes in the past month as businesses large and small have laid off workers as business disappeared. All the job gains since the Financial Crisis, and then some, have been lost in just a month, and the prospects for a quick recovery with robust hiring look more dubious every day.  As you see from the chart above, initial claims have been trending lower, but cumulative initial claims continue to trend higher as more people become unemployed and seek assistance. Nearly 13% of the U.S. workforce is now unemployed, and that number is expected to rise, according to the Federal Reserve.
The states with the most claims were Colorado and New York, both topping 50,000.
To get an even deeper look into the broader impact of unemployment, you can look at the State Coincident Index, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia every month. The coincident indexes combine four state-level indicators to summarize current economic conditions in a single statistic. The four state-level variables in each coincident index are nonfarm payroll employment, average hours worked in manufacturing by production workers, the unemployment rate, and wage and salary disbursements plus proprietors' income deflated by the consumer price index (U.S. city average).
The trend for each state's index is set to the trend of its gross domestic product (GDP), so long-term growth in the state's index matches long-term growth in its GDP.
Everywhere you see pink, red, or maroon is a state experiencing heavy contractions in its workforce and their incomes.
chart courtesy Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia   Nobel Prize Winner Stiglitz on Income Inequality The economic destruction brought on by the COVID-19 global pandemic has brought up many comparisons to the Great Financial Crisis of 2008–09.
The government and central bank response to this crisis, like that of 2008–09, has also been swift and unprecedented. But there are already signs that the stimulus and policy measures will be handed out unevenly, as they were in the last crisis, creating even more income inequality in America.
Nobel laureate, professor, and best-selling author Joseph Stiglitz was among leading economists decrying the rise in income inequality and the bailout of Wall Street as Main Street slogged its way through years of a slow recovery.
As we face another severe recession, Stiglitz is very concerned about health inequality and the backlash against globalization that is already fermenting across the world.
I spoke with him about his concerns and how he thinks this global pandemic will change us 10 years from now.
Read More: Stiglitz: Pandemic Exposed Health Inequality and Flaws of Market Economy  chart courtesy YCharts
Serious Dough Domino's Pizza said U.S. same-store sales continued to grow a month into its second quarter, even as the coronavirus pandemic roils the restaurant industry.
The company's U.S. same-store sales grew 7.1% from March 23rd to April 19th, but the pizza chain withdrew its two- to three-year outlook, citing the uncertainty surrounding the economy.
Why am I telling you about a pizza chain? Because Domino's always reminds me of one of my favorite charts. Two of the many companies that went public in 2004 were Domino's Pizza and Google. If you told me that Domino's would outperform Google over the next 16 years, I would've said you've eaten too much gluten. Well... you have eaten too much gluten, because Domino's has bested Google, although putting $10,000 in either company at its IPO would've made you rich enough to eat all the pizza you want.
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(chart courtesy YCHARTS)  Shares of Las Vegas Sands are up by 12% after the casino hotel company announced that it's seeing signs of high demand in Macau and Singapore, its two most vital markets. This news comes amid talks of travel bans being relaxed in the Guangdong Province, a region of mainland China that features a major casino hub. Old Dominion Freight Lines' stock price rose by 10% following the shipping company's Q1 revenue beating analysts estimates by $4 million.  Shares of Invesco are down by 21.5% following the investment management company's poor Q1 results and a 50% dividend cut. Intel's stock price fell by over 7.5% after Apple announced it would begin producing its own semiconductor chips for its products, of which Intel has been the long-time supplier. Word of the Day Dispersion is a statistical term that describes the size of the distribution of values expected for a particular variable. Dispersion can be measured by several different statistics, such as range, variance, and standard deviation. In finance and investing, dispersion usually refers to the range of possible returns on an investment, but it can also be used to measure the risk inherent in a particular security or investment portfolio. It is often interpreted as a measure of the degree of uncertainty, and thus, risk, associated with a particular security or investment portfolio.  image: AP
Today in History April 23rd, 1985: Amid huge fanfare, Coca-Cola boss Roberto Goizueta introduces New Coke at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in Manhattan's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. "The best," he declares, "has been made even better." When it becomes clear that the company is replacing its original formula, rather than offering New Coke alongside it, the company's Atlanta headquarters is deluged with thousands of angry telephone calls from consumers. As one customer complains, "Changing Coke is like God making the grass purple or putting toes on our ears or teeth on our knees."
Frederick Allen, Secret Formula: How Brilliant Marketing and Relentless Salesmanship Made Coca-Cola the Best-Known Product in the World (HarperBusiness, New York, 1994), pp. 410–414.
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