Bonds rally, stocks fall as global economy fears mount

NEW YORK - Stocks took a pounding on Wednesday, although Wall Street managed to peddle back from its steepest lows, and safe-haven government debt prices rose after U.S. and Chinese inflation data fanned worries about a global slowdown.

A key gauge of Wall Street anxiety hit its highest level since November 2011 as investors rushed to buy protection against further losses, and options activity surged as investors reevaluated their strategies in light of the latest signs that the global economy may be losing its footing.

The S&P 500 fell as much as 3 percent, briefly turning negative for the year, while European equities finished 3.2 percent lower and marked their biggest one-day slide in almost four years.

Popular trades that have worked for most of the year, including heavy bets on the dollar, more gains in stocks, and on an eventual rise in yields, are unraveling.

A fall in China's inflation rate to a five-year low and a decline in U.S. producer prices for the first time in over a year were worrisome signs to investors already skittish about the path of the global economy and caused them to reassess their views on when the U.S. Federal Reserve might hike interest rates.

"There's concern about an absence of aggregate demand in the world, and that's really what's weakening the market. The big fear out right now is we're not immune from that," said David Joy, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial in Boston.

"If you look at the lows of the day, maybe we've put in a little bit of a trading bottom here. But I don't think it makes these concerns go away."

The latest news on the spread of Ebola added to a climate of fear, with Texas officials reporting that another healthcare worker in Dallas tested positive for the deadly virus. Almost 4,500 people have died of the disease, mostly in West Africa.

An MSCI gauge of stocks in major markets was down 1 percent. The CBOE Volatility Index closed at 26.25, up 15.2 percent, after earlier hitting 31.06, the highest level since November 2011.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 173.45 points, or 1.06 percent, to 16,141.74, the S&P 500 lost 15.21 points, or 0.81 percent, to 1,862.49, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 11.85 points, or 0.28 percent, to 4,215.32.

Trading volume in the options market was the busiest of the year, according to Trade Alert data, while equities volume on Wall Street was near 12 billion shares, a nearly 50 percent increase from the average daily volume so far this month.

It was also the heaviest trading day for on-the-run 10-year Treasury note contracts since May 2008.

Bonds rally, oil falls further

Flight from risk resulted in a massive rally in U.S. Treasuries, pushing the benchmark 10-year note's yield as low as 1.865 percent, its lowest level since May 2013.

Benchmark yields retraced a large part of the downward move in late trading, but ended lower on the day, with prices up 22/32 to yield 2.1288 percent, compared with 2.206 percent in late trading on Tuesday.

Ten-year Bund yields hit a record low of 0.719 percent before edging up to 0.757 percent.

Rate futures now show the market does not expect the Fed to raise rates until early 2016, a dramatic change from a few weeks ago, which could keep downward pressure on yields.

"Everyone's animal spirit is dead. This is a pretty dramatic move when everyone was expecting higher rates," said George Goncalves, head of U.S. interest rates strategy at Nomura Securities International in New York. "It's all about capital preservation at this point. All the crowded trades are being tested, which is why I’m not sure this is over."

The spread of high-yield corporate bond spreads over the benchmark U.S. Treasuries, which represents the premium paid to investors to compensate for the risky corporate debt, rose to match the high hit in September 2013, at 483 basis points. The spread had bottomed at 335 bps in June.

A repricing of Fed expectations fueled a selloff in the dollar, which has been rising recently on bets on policy tightening at the Fed while other central banks continue easing.

The soft data "paired with the decline in Treasury yields and declines in energy prices, are all raising concern regarding the timing of the Fed's next move," said Sireen Harajli, currency strategist at Mizuho Corporate Bank in New York.

Although U.S. September retail sales had been expected to decline, the weakness was surprising because it was broad-based.

The euro rose 1.4 percent against the dollar at $1.2836, just below a three-week high of $1.2885 hit earlier. The greenback lost 1 percent against the yen at 105.93.

Spot gold prices rose 0.7 percent, up for the sixth time in the last eight sessions with the help of the weaker dollar, but copper prices tumbled 2.3 percent.

The crude trampling

Brent and U.S. crude futures fell, a day after posting their biggest daily drop in years, with more production, less demand and deflation expectations weighing heavily.

Brent lost 2 percent to $83.36 a barrel while U.S. crude fell 1 percent to $81.02.

Emerging markets were also hit with a fall in Russia's rouble to its weakest level on record, while Russian government 10-year yields hovered near a five-year high, and shares in Moscow closed near a seven-month low hit last week.

source: interaksyon.com

Guinea detects Ebola in new region as US warns outbreak out of control

CONAKRY/DAKAR - Guinea's government said on Wednesday that Ebola had spread to a previously unaffected region of the country, as US experts warned that the worst ever outbreak of the deadly virus was spiraling out of control in West Africa.

Guinea, the first country to detect the hemorrhagic fever in March, had said it was containing the outbreak but authorities announced that nine new cases had been found in the southeastern prefecture of Kerouane.

The area, some 750 km (470 miles) southeast of the capital Conakry, lies close to where the virus was first detected deep in Guinea's forest region. The epidemic has since spread to four other West African countries and killed more than 1,500 people.

"There has been a new outbreak in Kerouane but we have sent in a team to contain it," said Aboubacar Sikidi Diakité, head of Guinea's Ebola task force. He insisted the outbreak was being contained.

The nine confirmed cases were in the town of Damaro in the Kerouane region, with a total of 18 people under observation, the health ministry said in a statement.

The latest outbreak started after the arrival of an infected person from neighboring Liberia, the ministry said. Guinea has recorded a total of 489 deaths and 749 Ebola cases as of Sept. 1.

President Alpha Conde urged health personnel to step up their efforts to avoid new infections.

"Even for a simple malaria, you have to protect yourselves before consulting any sick person until the end of this epidemic," Conde said in a televised broadcast. "We had started to succeed but you dropped the ball and here we go again."

Cases of Ebola have been reported in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal and Democratic Republic of Congo. The cases in Congo, which include 31 deaths, are a separate outbreak unrelated to the West African cases, however, the World Health Organization has said.

Outbreak not under control

In a stark analysis last week, the WHO warned that the Ebola epidemic in West Africa could infect more than 20,000 people and spread to 10 countries. It outlined a $490 million roadmap for tackling the epidemic.

Doctor Tom Kenyon, director of the US Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) Centre for Global Health, said on Wednesday the outbreak was "spiraling out of control" and he warned that the window of opportunity for controlling it was closing.

"Guinea did show that with action, they brought it partially under control. But unfortunately it is back on the increase now," he told a conference call. "It's not under control anywhere."

He warned that the longer the outbreak went uncontained, the greater the possibility the virus could mutate, making it more difficult to contain. Ebola is only transmitted in humans by contact with the blood or bodily fluids of sick people, though suspected cases of airborne infection have been reported in monkeys in laboratories.

A senior US official rebutted a call from medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) for wealthy nations to deploy specialized biological disaster response teams to the region. MSF on Tuesday had warned that 800 more beds for Ebola patients were urgently needed in the Liberian capital Monrovia alone.

"I don't think at this point deploying biological incident response teams is exactly what's needed," said Gayle Smith, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Development and Democracy on the National Security Council.

She said the US government was focusing efforts on rapidly increasing the number of Ebola treatment centers in affected countries, providing protective equipment and ensuring local staff received training.

"We will see a considerable ramp-up in the coming days and weeks. If we find it is still moving out of control we will look at other options," Smith told a conference call.

The US Department of Health and Human Services said on Tuesday a federal contract worth up to $42.3 million would help accelerate testing of an experimental Ebola virus treatment being developed by privately held Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc.

Human safety trials are due to begin this week on a vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline Plc and later this year on one from NewLink Genetics Corp.

source: interaksyon.com

West Africa Ebola death toll rises above 1,200; Liberia fights to halt spread of virus

MONROVIA/GENEVA - Liberia battled on Tuesday to halt the spread of the Ebola disease in its crowded, run-down oceanside capital Monrovia, recording the most new deaths as fatalities from the world's worst outbreak of the deadly virus rose above 1,200.

The epidemic of the hemorrhagic disease, which can kill up to 90 percent of those it infects, is ravaging the three small West African states of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and also has a toehold in Nigeria, Africa's biggest economy.

As the Geneva-based World Health Organization rushed to ramp up the global response to the outbreak, including emergency food deliveries to quarantined zones, it announced that deaths from it had risen to 1,299 as of Aug. 16, out of 2,240 cases.

Between Aug. 14-16, Liberia recorded the most new deaths, 53, followed by Sierra Leone with 17, and Guinea with 14.

On a more hopeful note, the WHO expressed "cautious optimism" that the spread of the Ebola outbreak in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation where four deaths out of 12 confirmed cases have been recorded since July, could be stopped.

It also described the situation in Guinea, where the virus made its first appearance in West Africa in December, as currently "less alarming" than in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The WHO said it was working with the U.N.'s World Food Programme (WFP) to ensure food delivery to 1 million people living in Ebola quarantine zones cordoned off by local security forces in a border zone of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

"Providing regular food supplies is a potent means of limiting unnecessary movement," it said in a statement.

Besides infection in border zones, Liberia is fighting to stop the spread of the virus in the poorest neighborhoods of its capital, such as the West Point slum where at the weekend a rock-throwing crowd attacked and looted a temporary holding center for suspected Ebola cases, 17 of whom fled.

As fears of wider contagion increased - Ebola is spread by contact with the bodily fluids of infected persons - Liberia sent police to track down the fugitive suspected cases.

"We are glad to confirm that all of the 17 individuals have been accounted for and have now been transferred to JFK Ebola specialist treatment center," Liberia's Information Minister Lewis Brown told Reuters on Tuesday.

He added that after meetings with religious and community leaders, a task force was being set up to go door-to-door through West Point, a labyrinth of muddy alleys, to explain the risks of the disease and the need to isolate infected patients.

"I know that Monrovia is really of concern to WHO," WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said in Geneva.

Lewis said the Liberian authorities were considering imposing even tougher restrictions on movements.

Liberia and Sierra Leone's weak health systems have been overwhelmed by the multiplying numbers of cases and deaths.

WHO has said it is coordinating a "massive scaling up" of international assistance to the worst affected countries.

But a Liberian health ministry report for Aug. 17 said its Ebola-hit Lofa County had stopped burials due to a lack of body bags. "Absolutely no body bags," the report said.

It said the ministry warehouse had only three pairs of rubber boots remaining and no more bottles of hand sanitizers.

"I am sorry to say the government has lost the fight against Ebola. It is out of control now," said student Samuel Zorh.

On Friday, the Liberian and Sierra Leonean governments and a medical charity chided the WHO for its slow response, saying more action was needed to save victims threatened by the disease and hunger.

"IMPROVEMENT" AFTER RARE DRUG USED

The WHO declared the West African Ebola outbreak a "public health emergency of international concern" on Aug. 8, triggering global alarm as countries stepped up precautions and testing.

Reflecting this, emergency services in Berlin on Tuesday cordoned off a job center and took a woman with Ebola-like symptoms including high fever to hospital.

The U.N. health agency this month gave the green light to use untested pharmaceuticals to treat Ebola patients.

In Monrovia, three African healthcare workers were given the rare experimental ZMapp drug, which has already been used on two American aid workers being treated in the United States after being evacuated from Liberia with Ebola.

Lewis said the three Africans treated with ZMapp were showing "remarkable signs of improvement".

However, the manufacturer of the drug, California-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical, has already said its scarce supplies have been exhausted. Officials have cautioned the public not to place too much hope in untested and scarce treatments.

As part of the increased international response, WFP is stepping up emergency food deliveries to the quarantined areas, which include severely-affected cities such as Gueckedou in Guinea, Kenema and Kailahun in Sierra Leone and Foya in Liberia.

Fears of the disease and quarantine measures like military and police roadblocks have stopped farmers from reaching their fields, and as a result food output has dropped, raising fears that a famine could set in on top of the deadly illness.

"We think that even beyond the control of the outbreak there will be severe food shortage," said Gon Myers, WFP country director for Sierra Leone. The extra food deliveries would be trying to reach 400,000 people in Sierra Leone alone.

The WHO has told countries affected by the outbreak to screen people departing at airports, seaports and major land border points and stop any with signs of the virus.

It has argued against further travel restrictions, but several international and regional airlines have canceled services to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Shipping companies operating on Africa's west coast, as well as port authorities, were also on high alert.

"We sense a certain amount of concern out there in the industry," Ian Millen, Chief Operating Officer of Dryad Maritime, a maritime operations company, told Reuters, but he said he had not seen widespread cancellations of services.

Nigeria said on Monday its confirmed Ebola cases had reached 12, up from 10 last week, but five had almost fully recovered. Four people have died from the virus in Lagos, where it was transferred by a U.S. citizen who arrived by plane from Liberia.

Although WHO said the situation in Lagos looks "reassuring", Cameroon closed its borders with Nigeria on Tuesday as a precaution.

source: interaksyon.com

Death toll from Ebola in W. Africa hits 887: WHO

ABUJA, Nigeria — The doctor who treated a man who flew to Nigeria and died of Ebola now has contracted the disease, authorities said Monday, presenting a dire challenge to Africa's most populous nation as the regional toll for the outbreak grew to 887 dead.

As Nigerian health authorities rushed to quarantine others who had been exposed, a special plane left Liberia to evacuate the second American missionary who fell ill with Ebola. Nancy Writebol, 59, is expected to arrive in Atlanta on Tuesday, where she will be treated at a special isolation ward.

The second confirmed case in Nigeria is a doctor who treated Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian-American man who died July 25 days after arriving in Nigeria from Liberia, said Nigerian Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu.

Three others who also treated Sawyer now show symptoms of Ebola and their test results are pending, he said. Authorities are trying to trace and quarantine others in Lagos, sub-Saharan Africa's largest city of 21 million people.

"This cluster of cases in Lagos, Nigeria is very concerning," said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Controls and Prevention, which is dispatching 50 experienced disease control specialists to West Africa.

"It shows what happens if meticulous infection control, contact tracing, and proper isolation of patients with suspected Ebola is not done. Stopping the spread in Lagos will be difficult but it can be done," he said.


The World Health Organization announced Monday that the death toll has increased from 729 to 887 deaths in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria.

Cases in Liberia jumped from 156 to 255, WHO said, as the government ordered that all Ebola victims must now be cremated because of rising opposition to burials in neighborhoods around the capital. Over the weekend, police were called in amid a standoff over whether health authorities could bury nearly two dozen victims in a neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital, Monrovia.

Sierra Leone marked a national stay-at-home day Monday in an effort to halt the disease's spread. A documentary film of the first outbreak of the Ebola disease in Congo was being shown intermittently throughout the day by the national broadcaster.

The emergence of a second case in Nigeria raises serious concerns about the infection control practices there, and also raises the specter that more cases could emerge. It can take up to 21 days after exposure to the virus for symptoms to appear. They include fever, sore throat, muscle pains and headaches. Often nausea, vomiting and diarrhea follow, along with severe internal and external bleeding in advanced stages of the disease.

"This fits exactly with the pattern that we've seen in the past. Either someone gets sick and infects their relatives, or goes to a hospital and health workers get sick," said Gregory Hartl, World Health Organization spokesman in Geneva. "It's extremely unfortunate but it's not unexpected. This was a sick man getting off a plane and unfortunately no one knew he had Ebola."

Doctors and other health workers on the front lines of the Ebola crisis have been among the most vulnerable to infection as they are in direct physical contact with patients. The disease is not airborne, and only transmitted through contact with bodily fluids such as saliva, blood, vomit, sweat or feces.

Sawyer, who was traveling to Nigeria on business, became ill while aboard a flight and Nigerian authorities immediately took him into isolation upon arrival in Lagos. They did not quarantine his fellow passengers, and have insisted that the risk of additional cases was minimal.

Nigerian authorities said a total of 70 people are under surveillance and that they hoped to have eight people in quarantine by the end of Monday in an isolation ward in Lagos.

Tracking down all the people who came into contact with Sawyer and his caregivers could prove difficult at this late stage, said Ben Neuman, a virologist and Ebola expert at Britain's University of Reading.

"Contact tracing is essential but it's very hard to get enough people to do that," he said. "For the average case, you want to look back and catch the 20 to 30 people they had closest contact with and that takes a lot of effort and legwork ... The most important thing now is to do the contact tracing and quarantine any contacts who may be symptomatic."

___

Paye-Layleh reported from Monrovia, Liberia. Associated Press Medical Writer Maria Cheng reported from London. Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal; Clarence Roy-Macaulay in Freetown, Sierra Leone; and Maram Mazen in Lagos, Nigeria contributed to this report.

source: philstar.com

Number of Ebola cases in Guinea rises to 134; death toll at 84

CONAKRY -- Guinea's health authorities have said four new Ebola cases have been reported in the country, bringing the total number of victims to 134 with 84 fatalities.

The disease is mostly widespread in the southern regions of Gueckedou, Macenta, Kissidougou and the capital Conakry.

To curb the spread of the epidemic, the government has taken certain measures that include setting up medical isolation centers in the affected regions, disinfection of homes with suspected cases or where Ebola patients have died and mobilization of necessary resources to provide individual protective materials to the most affected zones.

The United Nations Children's Fund has equally proceeded to distribute hygiene kits to schools in areas most hit by the Ebola virus.

source: interaksyon.com