LC

Kind of. Doing the same in terms of establishing long position. Then selling call options against the position on big up days, and closing them out on down days.

Not only that, but politicians and particularly health & safety politicians seem to have some difficulty understanding the populace. One example: yesterday our mayor in Denver communicates a "stay-in-place" order; the exceptions being essential industries and going out for groceries & medicine. Then he says, "oh by the way, liquor stores and recreational marijuana are not essential industries - so they will be closing tomorrow". So of course, the entire damn city floods every liquor and weed store to stock up. Lines around the block, social distancing be damned. Now I'm not sure I could design a better way to transmit a virus if I tried... Then of course 3 hours later he has to re-classify liquor/weed stores as essential industries. I mean, c'mon.

A 60-year old millionaire marries a 25-year old hot girl. After honeymoon they throw a party celebrating their marriage... After a few drinks, the millionaire's friends want to know the secret of how he landed 25 yo hottie... "It's simple" the millionaire boasts... "I faked my age" "Yes, but even for a 40/45 years old guy...she is sensational, what age btw did you tell you are?" A friend asks. With a smile on his lips billionaire responds "85 years old" 8)

My girlfriend left me because I am insecure. ... ... No wait she's back, she just went to get coffee.

Dipped a toe in XOM

FYI - a decent website to track weekly insider transactions: https://shareseer.com/

This is utter bullshit. This situation is why you have federal/national governments. In order to have a large coordinated response to large scale problems that don't care about borders or your political views. It doesn't get more textbook than a pandemic. I agree with rb. Cuomo just said today NYS is paying 7$/mask because they are competing with other states. This is where federal government is supposed to step in.

New York state has more coronavirus cases than France or South Korea as infections soar to 15,168 https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/22/new-york-state-has-more-coronavirus-cases-than-france-or-south-korea-as-infections-soar-to-15168.html New York state now has more coronavirus cases than France or South Korea. The number of confirmed infections soared to 15,168, according to new data released by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. “New York is testing more people than any state in the country and, per capita, more than any country in the globe,” Cuomo said, adding that the state has tested 61,000 people.

Billions, trillions of dollars in healthcare, and we've come to this:

Do standard (non-N95) masks aid healthy people avoid infection, prevent sick people from spreading, or both? YES - both. There is a good video posted under this about 2 weeks ago: https://m.facebook.com/smartairfilters/ This company manufactures air filtration devices and presents the evidence on different masks. Interestingly, surgical masks are actually slightly better at preventing virus spread than N95 masks. Both are effective.

I saw the table posted elsewhere and did not think to double check it. Thank you for correcting!

UK vs Italy trajectory:

Oh man I forgot about that gem: "Patrick was traveling and packed a bag that he hadn't used in quite some time," said Overstock President Jonathan Johnson. "He didn't realize that he had left a gun in the bag." "It was an innocent mistake," he said. "He was in a hurry to catch a plane and packed a bag he hadn't used before. It hasn't happened before and hopefully won't happen again." What a hero ;D ;D

I'm pretty sure you're right about selling short to hedge... ... but I don't think you're right about buying a put to hedge, because there is still the capacity for upside potential. Because there is the capacity for upside potential, the IRS cannot argue that it is functionally the same thing as selling the stock. But I do believe it can restart the holding period clock in terms of short vs long capital gains treatment. If you simultaneously write ATM calls to pay for ATM puts, they'll likely rule that a constructive sale. Even so, if you reverse the transaction after the stock drops a lot, and you do so within the time period rules, you don't trigger the sale but you have restarted the capital gains clock and you're back to waiting 12 months for long term treatment. I'm not positive on the put option. Selling calls and buying puts is certainly closer because the payoff curve is identical. According to this: https://www.fidelity.com/viewpoints/active-investor/protect-your-profits Buying a put is viewed as a constructive sale, but this is a footnote in an internet article that ends with "consult your tax advior". So if you have first hand experience and have dealt with the IRS on this, I would certainly defer to that. These are the constructive sale rules (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/1259): ©Constructive sale For purposes of this section— (1)In general A taxpayer shall be treated as having made a constructive sale of an appreciated financial position if the taxpayer (or a related person)— (A)enters into a short sale of the same or substantially identical property, (B)enters into an offsetting notional principal contract with respect to the same or substantially identical property, ©enters into a futures or forward contract to deliver the same or substantially identical property, (D)in the case of an appreciated financial position that is a short sale or a contract described in subparagraph (B) or © with respect to any property, acquires the same or substantially identical property, or (E)to the extent prescribed by the Secretary in regulations, enters into 1 or more other transactions (or acquires 1 or more positions) that have substantially the same effect as a transaction described in any of the preceding subparagraphs.

So I would say each portfolio is different. Are you trying to avoid constructive sales (i.e. tax consequences) on a long position in Google? Is your portfolio comprised of index ETFs? Dividend-heavy stocks? Compounders? Are you sitting on heavy capital gains (or losses)? A smart hedge will take these into consideration. I'll respond generally: The true hedge is to buy a put option. Volatility is very high these days so option prices are expensive - so if buying puts you will be paying a premium for high implied vol. You'll want to be aware of how vol is priced across strikes (i.e. the vol smile) - again generally, the volatility premium goes up the further you move away from the at-the-money price - so deep ITM or OTM options have a high premium for volatility as a % of overall price. Same goes for volatility over time - i.e. the vol term structure. Combine the smile & term structure, and you get the vol surface. Generally, vol premiums drop as you approach expiration. Other options that kind of accomplish the same: You can hedge a long position by purchasing a deep ITM LEAP call covering the same notional amount and selling the stock. This effectively gives the same upside exposure (above the strike price) and frees up 50-60% of the position to cash. Really a risk-reduction approach rather than an explicit hedge. (Also you can create a similar position by keeping the long stock position, taking out a margin loan against 50% of the position, and buying a put option to protect your downside from a margin call. So, multiple ways to extract cash from a long position while maintaining identical exposure.) You can also sell OTM calls at prices you are willing to sell; this again frees up cash but now you are trading upside. And, whether you are selling calls or buying puts, you can layer on top - taking opposite positions in different strikes and/or tenors to offset either the risk you are taking (when selling calls) or the premium you are paying (when buying puts). Ericopoly wrote a few good posts recently on why these spreads can be a bit hairy in practice. Something like, selling June/July calls (which you expect to expire worthless as the world is recovering from COVID); and purchasing December of January calls which you intend to exercise as the world has recovered and earnings yields are below 5%. But that's a hairy bet - a lot can go wrong. ;D For me, I was sitting on long positions in Berkshire and Visa which paid little/no dividends. I wanted to free up cash in case the index hits 2000 and below. So I sold half my stock, bought deep ITM LEAP calls for the same notional amount to free up that cash. And I also sold deep OTM calls on the remaining half of stock which I kept, but those expire in June. With all option strategies it's good to write down exactly how you can lose all your money. Helps structure the position. For the trade I made, if the index stays here for 3 months, my OTM options expire and I pocket that premium. My deep ITM options still have 2 years left. If the market skyrockets, well my ITM options are now worth a bunch; and if I get called on the OTM position - well I've sold at a good but not great return. And if the market tanks over the next 2 years such that my ITM calls are now OTM - well I'll will have pocketed the OTM call premiums, and the money I raised from this trade I can now put to work. So it will hurt, but hurt less than if I was fully exposed. Essentially I've traded short term upside for long term downside protection - and was able to get a lot more protection than usual due to the crazy high vol premiums when I sold the OTM calls. For you assuming you're sitting on a 100% GOOG portfolio with very large embedded long term capital gains, for which you want to avoid any sales with tax consequences. You'd want to map out how the above positions would work but instead of using options on GOOG, you find a highly-correlated asset that you expect to maintain that correlation through future downturns. And you'll have to take tax considerations into it.

Face mask production I can understand. Take a look into how melt blown and spun plastic fabrics are created to achieve 0.3 micron filtration meshes. Very difficult. These guys produce the machinery: https://www.reicofil.com/en/pages/products And lead times are 12 months. Testing is unforgivable. The US has a web of facilities which can be used to testing, there is no excuse except for lack of federal resources to provide national guidance. That's what happens when you slash federal budgets, though.

It’s a great opportunity to redeem me themselves. I think the Fed will grant this request. Given their recent absence of a spine I fail to see why not ;D

That is only if you are selling short duration and buying long duration, correct? That leverages the trade even more unless I am misunderstanding

As a hedge it does make some sense. The underlying assumption is that in crisis (ie where you need the hedge), governments will drop rates. So your long duration hedge will pay off. The flip side is that if they don’t and rates rise, now your hedge is working against you as well. Am I understanding it right?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/airline-ceos-promise-to-eliminate-dividends-and-stock-buybacks-if-congress-passes-29-b-coronavirus-bailout-175925540.html Airline CEOs promise to eliminate dividends and stock buybacks if Congress passes $29B coronavirus bailout CEOs from America’s largest publicly traded airlines sent an urgent letter Saturday to Congressional leaders promising to stop stock buybacks and paying dividends in exchange for a multi-billion dollar coronavirus bailout. The letter says “If loans and or loan guarantees are enacted, equaling at least $29 billion, participating passenger and cargo air carriers commit to placing limits on executive compensation; eliminating stock buybacks over the life of the loans and eliminating stock dividends for the life of the loans.” The letter signed by CEOs from Alaska, Atlas, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, FedEx, Hawaiian, JetBlue, Southwest, United Airlines, and UPS was sent from the trade group Airlines for America. “The breadth and immediacy of the need to act cannot be overstated,” the CEOs warned. “It is urgent and unprecedented.”

The problem with this trade or trading down the curve in general is that it is essentially a bet on interest rates. You have 1 way to win. I prefer equity investing because it is not as much of a one-dimensional trade - even if one factor goes against you, you can still make money. If you know where interest rates will be, then yes taking a 20 or 30x leveraged vehicle and hitting that spot will be an incredible trade.

Given how sporadic COVID testing has been implemented globally, this will probably be the measure-of-choice in 2020 as well, now almost 100 years later. Look how far we've come... :-\

I feel like I am waiting for the big reveal. Yes, going long duration is an incredible strategy if you know interest rates would decline for 35, 40 years. The question is who the hell knows that? I mean, you tell me: what will interest rates do over the next 40 years?

Some counterpoints: -S Korea and Singapore are both enforcing social distancing -Russia has been accused of hiding COVID cases (refusing testing, classifying deaths as pneumonia) -China manufactures the majority of face masks globally and production had slowed due to their own viral outbreak -Additionally there is a shortage of blown fabric used to create 1um masks -And finally the US doesn't exist in a vacuum - there is heavy demand from countries such as the ones you mention and others

The only plausible refutation is a data sampling or reporting issue. Which, is still possible. But this possibility grows less likely every day.