Quote of the Day

While much of Wall Street focuses on the prospects for stimulus ultimately saving the day -- could happen, although ultimately saving our portfolios from the saving will be a whole other something to manage -- we're (along with stimulus prospects) focusing on stuff a bit deeper below the surface.

Stuff like this:

"The developer behind the Hudson Yards project says hotels and retail stores will be hit with a “wave of defaults” as the coronavirus batters the U.S. economy.

Jeff Blau, chief executive officer of New York-based Related Cos., said that if landlords can’t collect rent, the turmoil will soon cascade to banks.

“Once that ecosystem of rent to expenses to interest to the banks gets broken at one part of the chain, ultimately it’s going to be a problem at the banks,” Blau said in an interview on Bloomberg Television.

While lenders have been using forbearance programs to allow tenants to delay rent payments, the lack of money flowing will “quickly become credit problems” as the value of underlying assets falls and landlords can’t service their debt, Blau said.

Related said earlier this month that about a quarter of its retail tenants had paid rent in April."

Like I said last Saturday:

"When people think of the stock market, a lot of it is what they see on the screen, the way the game is traded, the way prices move. While most of what's valuable, what's telling, is really found off the screen, in the real economy..."