COVID Loan Tracker was started by small business owners Duncan and Rita MacDonald-Korth to help their fellow small business owners understand when PPP and EIDL advance money starts flowing. The site works by crowdsourcing knowledge on applications and loan disbursements. Our goal is to help the small business community and empower journalists with the data they need to keep the government accountable.

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We have been live just 56 hours and as of 8:00 am on April 11th nearly 2,000 businesses have reported about $1bn in loan applications. So far, 19 have reported receiving PPP loans and just 2 have reported receiving EIDL advances.

Here are some trends and macro data:

1. More Money is Flowing: There was a big pickup in PPP loan disbursement on April 10^th, this should give small business owners some hope!
2. Small Banks are Leading the Charge: all but one of the PPP loan recipients we have tracked applied through a small and regional bank
3. EIDL Advances are a Disaster: only 4 out of almost 2,000 have received the advance/grant, and the ones that did applied earlier and waited an average of over 19 days. The SBA promised these would be delivered in two days.
4. Companies Seem to be Getting the Full Amount Applied For: it is very early to draw any conclusions, but thus far all but one company has gotten 100% of the amount they applied for.

Data on the Companies Who Have Received PPP Loans:

COVID Loan Tracker, a site launched on April 8th to help small business owners track the progress of PPP and EIDL advance applications, has received a surge of responses. 1,100 American small business owners have given us details of their applications.

If you have not already, please fill out the survey here.

https://www.covidloantracker.com/

The aim of COVID Loan Tracker is to let small business owners know when PPP loans really start flowing, and to empower journalists with the data they need to help keep the government accountable.

So far, just six companies out of 1,100 report receiving PPP Loans. Their details are below.

1. LLC, Colorado, 155 employees, applied 4/5, received 4/7, received $1.6m, applied through small/regional bank, received 100% requested
2. S-Corp, Oklahoma, 1 employee, applied 4/2, received 4/9, received $20,700, applied through small/regional bank, received 100% requested
3. LLC, Texas, 38 employees, applied 4/3, received 4/9, received $244,000, applied through small/regional bank, received 100% requested
4. LLC, Utah, 2 employees, applied 4/3, received 4/9, received $7,200, applied through small/regional bank, received 24% requested
5. S-Corp, Arkansas, applied 4/3, received 4/9, received $49,900, applied through small/regional bank, received 100% requested
6. C-Corp, Michigan, applied 4/3, received 4/8, received $250,000, applied through small/regional bank, received 100% requested

Average time between application and payment is 5.3 days.

General Data:

0.5% report receiving PPP Loans
>0.3% report receiving EIDL advances
15,000 employees reportedly at risk from responding companies
36% LLCs
31% S-corps
84% applied for >$250,000
12% for between $250,000 and $1,000,000
4% applied for $1m or more
49% applied through small/regional banks
17% applied through JP Morgan Chase

Special ask: please help us filling out the survey about your application by sharing COVID Loan Tracker with your business network.

As many of you know, we started a site called COVID Loan Tracker yesterday to help small business owners track applications and loan issuance so they can know when money starts to flow.

FINSUM readers gave an enormous response with over 200 small business owners in our space filling out the survey. Overall , as of 7:30 am we have had 440 small businesses report on CTL in the first 18 hours, representing up to $650,000,000 in loan applications across 47 states. Below are the findings:

0% have received PPP loans (i.e. money actually deposited)

0% have received EDL grants (i.e. money actually deposited)

39% are LLCs

28% are S-corporations

Average PPP loan request: $427,000

Average employees per application: 14

96% of applications are for less than $50,000

18% applied for more than $250,000

2% applied for $1m or more

49% applied through small and/or regional banks

16% applied through JP Morgan Chase

The conclusion is that money is clearly not flowing yet (at least at any meaningful level). Please share CTL with your networks so we can aggregate more data to keep small business owners informed and empower the media with data to keep the government accountable.

(New York)

This is a dark day economically. New data is flowing in from many sources, and all of it is pointing to a severe decline in demand that seems ever more likely to push the US into a depression. Unemployment claims came in at another 6.6m this morning, meaning a total of 16.6m Americans have applied in the last three weeks. In other data, fuel and energy demand has fallen so far that it is now at 1960s level. Electricity usage has plummeted on the back of the sharp decline in industrial output.

FINSUM: Let’s do some rough calculations. The US workforce is about 164m people. We started this coronavirus lockdown with just under 4% unemployment, and have since added 16.6m people. By a rough calculation that means we likely have already hit 14% unemployment.

(New York)

This is a difficult time to be any kind of investor, but being one trying to get yields out of equities is particularly hard-bitten at the moment. Dividends are being cut left and right, so investors need to turn to other options, but much of fixed income looks very scary. That said “Quality yield is on sale”, according to a fund manager at Tocqueville Asset management who specializes in income investments. “Don’t ignore the rest of the capital structure”, says another fund manager at Socoro Asset Management. For instance, look for things like a JP Morgan Chase preferred security with a fixed coupon of 5% and yield-to-call of 7.72%, or Invesco’s Variable Rate Preferred ETF (VRP), yielding 4.85%.

FINSUM: These are good suggestions. For a yield that will really knock your socks off, take a look at the Virtus Private Credit Strategy ETF (VPC), which owns many BDCs and CEFs and has been beaten up in the selloff, but yields a whopping ~18% net of expenses.

(New York)

One of the small but important pillars of the recent years of the bull market has been Millennials beginning to invest. However, as this coronavirus meltdown has unfolded, that growing support for the market may evaporate. Millennials mostly invest in the market via retirement plans, such as 401(k)s, but given the huge layoffs occurring, they are likely to have to raid their retirement funds in order to get through these hard times. Because of this there is likely to be billions withdrawn from the market.

FINSUM: Millennials were a growing part of the market, but given their often precarious financial circumstances, it seems like their participation will be less for the next year or so.

Dear readers, like you we are concerned for the longevity of small businesses across the country and are eager to receive the Payment Protection Program (PPP) loans and EIDL grants that hundreds of thousands of small business owners have applied for across the US. Seemingly everyone who has applied is frustrated and confused because of all the issues that the SBA, lenders, and the government are having in issuing the loans. We know thousands of financial advisors are also small business owners and have applied for these loans. Because of this, we have started a site – covidloantracker.com – to track the application and issuance of PPP and other loans. This will help business owners understand when and how many loans are actually being paid and will hold media and the government accountable to provide the aid they have promised. Our aim to is to share this site with as many small business owners as possible and then share results with the media on a daily basis as a way to track what percentage of applicants have received their loans.

Please visit covidloantracker.com and fill out the 60 second form.

(Washington)

The President and his team are working furiously on plans for how to open the $22 tn US economy after its unprecedented lockdown. “We’re looking at the concept where we open sections of the country and we’re also looking at the concept where you open up everything”, says Trump. In particular, the White House is looking to open the economy entirely within 30 days, or possibly 60 days, with different schedules being considered. The new strategy is to open the economy based on much more widespread and rapid testing. This will allow workers to be verified as having (or not) the virus and sent back to work.

FINSUM: Just as the coronavirus is a nearly unprecedented occurrence, so is the reopening of the world’s largest economy. It is going to take exceptionally good planning to balance the competing priorities of public health and economic restoration.

(New York)

Advisors need to be careful of how they market and sell annuities to clients. The market is rife with annuities demand as the big losses and volatility of the last month have sent many looking for guaranteed retirement income. That said, advisors need to make sure they walk a fine line in selling annuities. In particular, be mindful of wording you use. Particularly, avoid fear-based selling tactics, and even the word “crisis”—though that could be appropriate in some circumstances. Also, don’t only focus on one aspect of the annuity you are selling, as that can easily be misconstrued as misleading selling.

FINSUM: Some selling techniques are always wrong, but in this scary environment, even the most disciplined advisors could accidentally overstep the line in their approach.

(Washington)

A lot of financial advisors are small business owners, and thousands of them are likely looking for the government’s Payment Protection Program assistance right now. As anyone involved in applying for the program knows, things have been very frustrating and uncertain, with that stress exacerbated by the fact that it is a first come-first serve program. However, there is some potential good news on the horizon. The White House and Senate leader Mitch McConnell are trying to get another $250 bn of loans approved by Congress, which would add to the $349 bn that is already being deployed (apparently it is already being deployed).

FINSUM: It appears as though demand is exceeding supply, so this additional funding is likely to be very necessary.