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(Bloomberg) -- The promised end of the pandemic draws closer with every shot in the arm. So in the first three months of 2021, traders raced to position themselves for a post-Covid world by girding for super-charged growth and higher inflation.This reflation trade put Treasuries on course for their worst quarter since 1980, with the global bond plunge sending yields surging to pre-pandemic levels. These sharp moves spooked investors, who were already turning away from pandemic favorites, like tech companies, into value stocks poised to benefit from economic reopening. Market fever dreams played out in cryptocurrencies and newfangled ways to take companies public. And even as the U.S. dollar proved its resilience, traditional haven currencies were battered.At the same time, recovery measures of new U.S. President Joe Biden helped to flood money markets and, if he has his way, this will soon be followed by trillions of dollars in additional infrastructure spending. All the while, the Federal Reserve shows little inclination to rein in long-end yields.Generally reflation has been the dominant driver of global price action, said Simon Harvey, senior market analyst at Monex Europe, who revised his dollar outlook this week. What wrong-footed most people coming into 2021 is just how aggressive the U.S. outperformance was going to be.Here are some of this quarters most notable moves:Treasuries RoutWith the size of U.S. stimulus putting the nation on course for a swift economic rebound from the pandemic, its no surprise that U.S. Treasuries led the global rates selloff. Theyre on track to record their worst quarter since 1980, according to Bloomberg Barclays indexes. By comparison, the retreat seen in Europe and Asia was in line with quarterly declines seen in 2019 and 2020, respectively.Treasuries extended losses this week, fueled by Bidens plans to accelerate the vaccine campaign and rebuild infrastructure. The divergence between U.S. and European markets was borne out in the spread between benchmark Treasuries and bunds, which widened more than 50 basis points. That about matched the move seen in the final quarter of 2016, and a bigger jump hasnt been seen since 1993.Read More: Bond Rout Reignites as U.S. Stimulus Bets Overshadow Quarter-EndDominant DollarThe climb in U.S. yields relative to major peers helped to drive a surge in the dollar that ran counter to many expectations for 2021 as the currency turned from a prime haven at the height of market turmoil in March 2020 into a bet on U.S. economic supremacy.Traditional havens of the currency world -- the Japanese yen and Swiss franc -- bore the brunt of the selling, with each suffering their worst quarter in years.The importance of pandemic recovery was evident across currency markets. In a change from last years Brexit wrangling, the outlook for the British pound was all about the U.K.s vaccine drive, which far outpaced the European Unions effort, setting the euro up for its worst quarter since 2015.Brazils currency, which fell more than 7%, was among the poorest performers over the period as the country struggled to contain its mounting Covid crisis. Turkey was one of the few emerging markets whose currency did even worse. While much of that is the result of a shock decision to fire the central bank chief, that move came after the monetary authority raised its benchmark in response to global rate and foreign-exchange pressures.Read More: Dollar Reigns Supreme With Rate Gaps Too Big to Be IgnoredStock RotationsBillions are on the move as investors rotate away from previously high-flying areas and toward pockets of the market that stand to benefit from a brightening economic outlook. In that environment, tech stocks -- 2020s undisputed winners -- have lagged, while smaller companies have outperformed. The Russell 2000 index of smaller firms outperformed the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 for the second-straight quarter, beating it by about 10 percentage points. Value stocks, too, stepped into the limelight, with the Russell 1000 value index beating its growth counterpart by roughly the same amount.We would expect that rotation to continue, said Adam Phillips, managing director of portfolio strategy at EP Wealth Advisors. Moving forward, its going to be more about the recovery plays, and thats not a story thats going away.But the rise in rates rattled more speculative corners of the market as investors started to question lofty valuations. Sentiment soured, for instance, on special purpose acquisition companies, a group that came to symbolize risky behavior in equities. An index tracking SPACs is down roughly 21% since its mid-February peak. Meme-stock mania also cooled: An index tracking companies including GameStop Corp. and Naked Brand Group Ltd. is down about 28% since its recent January high, data compiled by Bloomberg show.Youre seeing corrective phases in those previously hot areas, but its happening through a process of rotation, so the money is just going to other parts of the market, Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, said by phone. There was so much hype and so much appreciation that, yes, I think its natural and healthy to see rollovers in those areas.Volatility EverywhereBut while benchmark stock indexes glide along, the subsurface churn has been extremely violent. A model from Bank of America that plots how much value is being created and destroyed each day in individual stocks shows that 2021 has generated more turbulence than virtually any other year. The volatility -- which is prevalent among small-cap stocks as well -- is just being masked because up-and-down moves in different companies over days and weeks have tended to offset each other.Read more: Blowups and Rotations Making This Market Just as Brutal as 2020Meanwhile, turbulence in the $21 trillion Treasury market has been on the rise. The ICE BofA MOVE Index, a gauge of U.S. bond volatility, has been grinding higher. The measure currently clocks in at 67, higher than its one-year average of 52 and well above Septembers low of 37.Commodities SupercycleRaw materials from copper to oil have started the year off strong, with investors flocking to commodities as a popular pandemic recovery trade and to hedge against inflation.The 23-member Bloomberg Commodity Spot Index in February reached the highest in almost eight years before easing this month, and still remains on track to notch a gain this quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. even went as far as to flag the start of a new commodities supercycle. An upcoming energy transition could constrain oil supplies, while at the same time boosting demand for metals required in renewables infrastructure, JPMorgan analysts said in a report last month.Bond SalesInvestors in credit benefited from a narrowing in spreads to pre-pandemic levels, but that did little to offset the negative impact from the broader rise in rates -- the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Corporate Bond Indexs 5% drop has it on course for its worst quarterly return since 2008.Emerging-market bond spreads drifted wider, but the shift wasnt enough to throw bond sales off track. The gap between emerging-market hard currency debt and Treasuries rose seven basis points in the quarter, according to a JPMorgan Chase & Co. index, compared with a 335-basis point jump the same period last year.That said, cracks have recently started to show on issuance front. Indonesia shrank the size of a debt offering, Russia canceled a bond sale and South African debt saw lower demand than usual.Read More: The Sweet Spot Is Behind Us: Bond Rout Hits Deals Around WorldBitcoin BoomCryptocurrencies have had a marvelous 2021 so far. Bitcoin, the worlds largest digital asset, has doubled since the start of the year, gaining 104% in its second-best quarterly performance since June 2019. Much of its momentum has been driven by wider institutional acceptance, with more mainstream firms taking a greater interest in crypto assets. At the same time, applications for Bitcoin exchange-traded funds also trickled in, with Fidelity Investments the latest firm to join the list of crypto-ETF hopefuls.Meanwhile, fans, including Tesla Inc.s Elon Musk, have argued the coin can be a great store of value -- Bitcoin gained after the electric-vehicle maker said that it put more than $1 billion into the coin.Still, others worry its run up too far, too fast and could be losing its shine as speculation grows that retail investors are becoming less involved in the market. Bitcoin hit a record of $61,742 in mid-March and is roughly 4% off its highs.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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Reify Health and SubjectWell Launch Partnership to Boost Patient Recruitment for Clinical Trials - Yahoo Finance

Semisopochnoi volcanoStratovolcano 1221 m / 4,006 ftUnited States, Aleutian Islands, 51.93N / 179.58ECurrent status: minor activity or eruption warning (3 out of 5) Semisopochnoi volcano eruptions:2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 1987Typical eruption style:unspecified

Fri, 2 Apr 2021, 08:00

FVAK21 at 07:48 UTC, 02/04/21 from PAWUVAAAK1VA ADVISORY

DTG: 20210402/0747Z

VAAC: ANCHORAGE

VOLCANO: SEMISOPOCHNOI 311060

PSN: N5156 E17935

AREA: ALEUTIAN ISLANDS

SUMMIT ELEV: 4006 FT [1221 M]

ADVISORY NR: 2021/001

INFO SOURCE: HIMAWARI/GOES/AVO

AVIATION COLOR CODE: ORANGE

ERUPTION DETAILS: ONGOING ERUPTION AS OF 20210402/0550Z.

OBS VA DTG: 02/0747Z

OBS VA CLD: SFC/FL100 N5422 W17556 - N5338 W17453 - N5138 E17952- N5207 E17913 - N5422 W17556 MOV ENE 35KT.

FCST VA CLD +6HR: 02/1347Z SFC/FL100 N5542 W17151 - N5542 W17148- N5426 W17032 - N5136 E17953 - N5205 E17908 - N5542 W17151.

FCST VA CLD +12HR: 02/1947Z SFC/FL100 N5557 W16602 - N5424W16643 - N5355 W17336 - N5137 W17959 - N5204 E17912 - N5512W17350 - N5557 W16602.

FCST VA CLD +18HR: 03/0147Z SFC/FL100 N5542 W16309 - N5423W16412 - N5409 W17205 - N5133 E17954 - N5204 E17907 - N5527W17053 - N5542 W16309 - N5542 W16309.

RMK: STG VA SIGNAL OBS IN SATELLITE IMAGERY EXTENDING NE OF THE VOLCANOSUMMIT.

NXT ADVISORY: WILL BE ISSUED BY 20210402/1347Z

JAM APR 2021 AAWU

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Semisopochnoi Volcano Volcanic Ash Advisory: ONGOING ERUPTION AS OF 20210402/0550Z. to 10000 ft (3000 m) - VolcanoDiscovery

You know what you get for spending trillions of dollars you dont have? More fights over Dr. Seuss, cancel culture, and identity politics.

By any measure, the federal government has been on a spending spree for decades. Without getting bogged down in the green eyeshade stuff, suffice it to say Uncle Sam has been spending more than he takes in from tax revenues since the 1990s. Weve made up those shortfalls by borrowing money. The national debt ($28 trillion) is now considerably larger than the GDP (about $21 trillion).

Reasonable people can differ on how much value we got for all that credit card debt. But thats not relevant here.

Whats relevant is that when both parties reach a de facto bipartisan consensus that deficit spending is fineat least when their party is doing the spendingit makes it difficult to argue about overspending or overborrowing in a credible way.

For instance, during what was supposed to be the debate period for President Bidens $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, which spent plenty on non-pandemic Democratic priorities, the Republican National Committee was silent on it. The RNC did release two statements about itbut only after the bill passed. Yet plenty of Republicans found time to decry the cancellation of Dr. Seuss.

For the record, Seuss wasnt actually canceled. His estate announced that it wouldnt continue to publish a handful of his least popular and allegedly racially insensitive works. In what he thought was an act of defiance to cancel culture, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy staged a reading of Green Eggs and Hama book that wasnt actually canceled. That showed those profligate Democrats!

We tend to define bipartisanship as both parties openly agreeing with each other in a gauzy spirit of civic cooperation. But theres another kind of bipartisanshipwhen each party cynically and tacitly agrees to take turns doing things they denounce when the other party does them. Thats what the parties do on spending and debt (and Supreme Court nominations, gerrymandering, and a host of other issues). The cumulative effect is a political culture that says you can do whatever you can get away with. Why should voters care about deficits when most politicians only claim to care about them when its the other party increasing them?

But heres the catch. Political parties need to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Neither Republicans nor Democrats can run on the vow, Theres not a dimes worth of difference between us and the other party. So what does that leave? Culture-war stuff.

This is not to say that cultural issues arent legitimate or important points of disagreement in a democracy. They often are. But if thats all youve got to work with, youre going to make as big a deal of that stuff as you can.

As Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institution recently noted on my podcast, The Remnant, this is precisely whats happened in Western Europe. Theres a broad consensus among European political parties on spending and a generous welfare state. This doesnt mean economic issues arent important to European voters. But the partisan fights are often over which state-dependent interestgovernment workers, unions, farmers, big businessshould get more subsidies or protections. Meanwhile, cultural issues like European identity vs. national identity and, especially, immigration become major sources of brand differentiation.

Indeed, immigration is a perfect example of what Im getting at. Its an important issue regardless of where you come down on the specifics of immigration policy. But theres a reason that Republicans and Democrats often invest so much more in the issue than it warrants. It taps into, among other things, questions of race, national identity, and the relationship between wealthy elites and average workers. Democrats love the issue because it lets them demonize Republicansoften but not always unfairlyas rank nativists and bigots. It lets Republicans rail about Democratic animosity toward the working class and indifferencereal or allegedto American culture.

Again, immigration is a legitimate issue to debate. But a lot of the culture-war trollingand much of the immigration hysteriathat takes up so much of our energy and attention amounts to a convenient distraction from the fact that both parties have spent this country into a hole it will take decades to climb out of, if either of them ever bothers to try.

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The Culture Wars as Distraction - The Dispatch

In the year since Gov. Bill Lee issued his stay-at-home order, weve seen the pro-life and pro-choice tribes largely swap values. Pro-lifers are now claiming a right to choose to defend their decisions and pro-choicers argue for restrictions in the name of preserving life.

Separated from the issue of abortion, what do these terms mean? To me, pro-choice emphasizes the liberty part of our inalienable rights. Obviously, you cant actively kill someone as that would infringe upon their right to life, but even an actively dangerous lifestyle is acceptable if others can distance themselves from your danger.

Even though smoking is detrimental to your own health and those near you, people can still see the light and plumes of your cigarette and choose to avoid you. They are informed and capable of avoiding you, so it is your choice.

Pro-life, it then would stand to reason, promotes the right to life more heavily than liberty. If it means protecting life and that certain choices should be taken away.

Some people will hang out with you regardless of your habits. Therefore, you should not be allowed to light that cigarette since second-hand smoke can be lethal.

Obviously, this doesnt just apply to smoking. Indeed, I want to focus on that C word weve already heard too much of: COVID-19.

Here in Tennessee, Lees stay-at-home order expired within a month and he declined to issue a mask mandate, instead encouraging personal responsibility to curb the pandemic. Many who consider themselves pro-choice were irritated, believing the lockdown should have been longer and that a mask mandate would have been prudent.

But if you are actually pro-choice, why would you want a mask mandate? If your chiropractor chooses not to wear a mask, you can choose another chiropractor.

Its possible, however, that no chiropractor in your area wears a mask at work, meaning you have to decide between risking COVID-19 exposure and severe back pain. If you additionally had a weakened immune system, that would be an especially cruel choice.

The other side has its share of hypocrisy, too, and its probably worse.

There are good odds (around 40%) that you will be unaware if you have COVID, and if you do have COVID, the chances also are such that infecting just seven customers while working at the caf will kill one person between those customers, their friends and their families.

Masks may not eliminate coronavirus transmission, but science agrees that they reduce it (by 40% to 70%). Nevertheless, it doesnt take long in Blount County to find a pro-life business owner who doesnt require masks.

Naturally, this is a generalization, but it is certainly ironic that those labeled pro-life on the abortion issue are more likely to defend their actions on a principle of personal choice while those labeled pro-choice tend to favor mandating what individuals wear.

The logical question remaining is why? A pro-choice pro-masker may point to the aforementioned cruel choice dilemma or assert the pandemic is different since the life being protected is already realized. A pro-life anti-masker might cite natural selection or skepticism of mask efficacy.

In truth, this role reversal mostly comes down to a perceived culture war especially for anti-maskers. The pandemic has become an extension of the broader political divide, with the pro-life and pro-choice camps largely defaulting to their conservative and progressive identities, respectively.

YouTuber CGP Grey summarized it well, noting how the pandemic quickly went from a humanity-uniting event to fracturing in the usual tiresome ways with two groups each creating a totem, they can yell about how the other side is not just dumb but maliciously evil.

That attitude has always destroyed civic trust, but in the past year it has destroyed lives. There is no cost to wearing a mask, yet many pro-lifers are happy to take an arbitrary stand against the progressives at the cost of their health and that of their loved ones.

As conservative columnist David Brooks said on the PBS NewsHour, The mask issue has become not a scientific issue, not a public policy issue, just a symbolic issue. And we seem to take every practical issue and turn it into a culture war issue.

In the long-term, our country would be better off not making every issue about the culture war. Rather, we each should identify our values and consistently use them as guidelines for personal, political and policy decisions.

But in the short term, I encourage us to remember that we humans ultimately value both choice and life. In these final months of the pandemic, we all have some choice. Lets choose life. Until we are fully vaccinated, lets wear a mask, watch our distance and wash our hands. Lets all do our part and care for the good of our neighbors.

Francisco A.J. Camacho of Friendsville is an undergraduate student at the George Washington University, writes for The GW Hatchet, and has contributed to The Tennessean in Nashville and The Daily Times. He welcomes responses, comments and questions relating to his pieces at P.O. Box 363, Friendsville, TN 37737.

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Coronavirus, conservatives and the culture wars | Opinion | thedailytimes.com - Maryville Daily Times

The return of the wolf and grizzly bear to the northern Rockies are two success stories that came out of the Endangered Species Act. In 1975, when grizzly bears were listed as endangered species, there were from 100 to 200 of them, mostly in Yellowstone and Glacier national parks. Their numbers are now estimated at about 1,800 in the Lower 48 states. The grizzlies were able to make that comeback largely because hunting was ended, trash was carefully managed and there was an effective crackdown on poachers.

Outside Yellowstone and Glacier national parks, grizzly bears roam mainly in wilderness areas of the state, though they are expanding into more populated areas where they are increasingly vulnerable to being hit by cars, shot by hunters, and killed or removed by biologists because of conflicts with humans. And bears and wolves pose a real threat to livestock and to humans. Every year, hikers or hunters are attacked by bears, and in many parts of the state anyone hiking is cautioned to be bear aware and carry a pepper-based spray for protection.

The debate over protecting endangered species, particularly predators, has long roiled Montana, pitting liberal urban areas in the state and across the country against rural ranchers who are increasingly concerned about their livestock being killed or hunters who think game animals are in decline. Until now, a measured approach which includes some hunting of wolves and intervention by the state when grizzlies get into someones beehive or chicken coop along with lots of protection have prevailed. But with wildlife management increasingly part of the culture wars, antagonism toward widening federal control and Republican control of the state, the balance has shifted, conservationists say.

The new bills approach management of bears and wolves in various ways. One of the new bills would pay wolf hunters their expenses in effect, critics say, a bounty to kill the animals. Another bill would allow for snaring animals with a metal aircraft cable fashioned into a noose that would hang over a trail. When the animal gets its head caught in one, it grows tighter as the animal tries to flee, until it is strangled to death. Snares can be used for coyotes in Montana but not wolves.

A major problem with snares is that they also kill species that are not the target, such as moose, elk, deer and even pet dogs. Snares are cheap, Mr. Bangs said. It isnt unusual for a trapper to set out 100. And you catch all kinds of stuff. Snares that were set for coyotes, for example, inadvertently killed 28 mountain lions from 2015 to 2020, Mr. Gevock said.

Another bill would extend the wolf trapping and snaring season. Wildlife experts say the extended season would overlap with the period that grizzly bears and black bears are out of their dens and could be inadvertently trapped. Another would reinstate hunting black bears with dogs and prevent Montana wildlife officials from relocating any grizzly bears captured outside recovery zones. Most recovery zone habitat are occupied, which means many grizzlies would most likely have to be euthanized.

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In Montana, Bears and Wolves Become Part of the Culture Wars - The New York Times