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Investors who were around in 2009 might be having déjà vu this year.

That’s because the S&P 500’s run so far in 2020 has eerily tracked the market’s path in 2009, with similar dips and recoveries, strategists have pointed out. Randy Frederick, Charles Schwab’s vice president of trading and derivatives, is one such prognosticator who has long highlighted the roadmap’s accuracy this year—and even he is a little surprised.

“Amazingly, it never really deviated for more than just a few days,” Frederick tells Fortune. “I always expected it eventually to break down but it frankly just never did.”

What’s more, with that pattern having continued “a lot longer than I thought it would,” Frederick says, he believes “it’s pretty late in the game to think it’s going … Read the rest

Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam says that she has “piles of cash” at home because she is denied basic banking services due to U.S. sanctions.

In a television interview, Lam said the Hong Kong government has to pay her in cash because she does not have a bank account following sanctions imposed by the U.S. on her and other officials for what it called their role in undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy from mainland China, including imposing a national security law on the city at the end of June.

“Sitting in front of you is a chief executive of the Hong Kong SAR (special administrative region) who has no banking services made available to her,” Lam told Hong Kong International Business Channel. “I’m using cash every day, for all the things. I have piles of cash at home because the government is paying me cash for my salary because I … Read the rest

Congress is bracing for President-elect Joe Biden to move beyond the Trump administration’s state-by-state approach to the COVID-19 crisis and build out a national strategy to fight the pandemic and distribute the eventual vaccine.

The incoming administration’s approach reflects Democrats’ belief that a more comprehensive plan, some of it outlined in the House’s $2 trillion coronavirus aid bill, is needed to get the pandemic under control. Republicans have resisted big spending but agree additional funding is needed. With the nation on edge but a vaccine in sight, the complicated logistics of vaccinating hundreds of millions of Americans raise the stakes on the major undertaking.

“We have an incredible challenge on our hands,” said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, which is approaching the anniversary of its first reported case of the virus last January.

A vaccine can only go so far, Murray warned, without a distribution plan. “A vaccine can … Read the rest