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Wall Street is watching you. With the sway of stay-at-home traders growing and even eclipsing other influences on equities, figuring out who is doing what among stock dabblers has become a critical mission for big investors. —David E. Rovella

Bloomberg is mapping the pandemic globally and across America. For the latest news, sign up for our Covid-19 podcast and daily newsletter.

Here are today’s top stories

U.S. stocks closed higher as gains in technology shares helped offset a late slide in financials. Crude oil pushed higher. Meanwhile, Snowflake is giving investors a rare chance to disrupt Amazon.

It was billed as a lifeline for America’s middle-market companies seeking cash to get through the pandemic. Yet the Fed’s $600 billion Main Street Lending Program isn’t living up to expectations as few banks are willing to provide the loans. One chief operating officer whose company struggled to get help said “this whole thing is kind of a joke.” 

A 50-member group of House Democrats and Republicans released a $1.52 trillion version of a second coronavirus bailout in a long-shot attempt to break the deadlock on providing relief to the U.S. economy.

On Monday, Bloomberg reported JPMorgan was saying employees working from home had been slacking off. On Tuesday, Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said if workers avoid the office for much longer, economies may suffer long-term damage. It turns out that, back on Sunday, JPMorgan had informed workers in New York that an employee in equities trading had tested positive for Covid-19, and has since sent some back home.

Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, speaks during a panel discussion at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Beijing last November.

Photographer: Takaaki Iwabu/Bloomberg

Ray Dalio is having a very bad year. How bad? So bad that the billionaire risks losing his title as king of hedge funds.

Researchers monitoring Pfizer’s vaccine trial have reported no safety problems after 12,000 people received the second of two doses. Joe Biden’s advisers are developing plans to distribute a vaccine if he is elected president. Hong Kong injected its fading economy with a fresh virus bailout while a U.K. court ruling could lead to tens of millions of payouts related to Covid-19. Almost 200,000 new cases were confirmed worldwide in the past 24 hours. Here is the latest on the pandemic.

Bill Gates questioned whether the two government agencies central to the U.S. fight against the virus can be trusted. The billionaire said the once-solid reputations of the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Protection have been sullied during the Trump administration. Gates said that White House pressure has resulted in some agency leaders “going completely off the rails.”

What you’ll need to know tomorrow

What you’ll want to read tonight in Businessweek

The Ship That Spread Covid Around the World

How were hundreds of infected passengers aboard Carnival’s Ruby Princess allowed to disembark in Sydney and return to homes from Tasmania to Florida? The decision to allow the ship to dock would have profound consequences, becoming the single most important vector for the coronavirus in Australia, accounting at one point for more than 10% of the country’s cases. Other infected passengers flew to the U.S., where some ultimately died. 

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