Hoodlum

Walmart is one of the worst stores setup for handling the virus. Here is Canada they have the entrance and exit backwards so that you have to cross people going in the opposite direction between the 1st and 2nd set of doors. After 4 months they still haven't figure this out. Not to mentioned they are the only large retailer in Canada that doesn't offer tap for payments and no one is cleaning off the machine between customers purchases.

Canadian Prime Minister mentioned today that it would be months before they consider relaxing protective measures. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-return-to-work-will-be-graduated-and-likely-months-off-trudeau-says/ He cautioned that it would be a “few months, probably” before Canada is in a position to consider relaxing protective measures in place that have most Canadians staying at home and many businesses shuttered or working at partial capacity.

Yeah, I'm more bearish on the USA, because--regardless of what no_free_lunch seems to be saying--the Canadian response has been far superior to that of the USA. BC, Ontario, and Quebec have put in preventative measures that will cause the infection numbers to fall, peaking probably next week or sooner. Trudeau's economic response has been mediocre (he shouldn't have tried to shove payments to individuals through the EI system), but I think over the next few weeks, the virus numbers will be driving things, and Canada has done way better than the USA on the virus. The economy's going to suck for everyone. (Of course, all this is speculative--I'm betting on the SPY, but I'd also bet that the divergence between the S&P 500 and the TSX won't be huge....) I agree that it's a terrible time to be converting CAD to USD. It's also worth noting that I see light at the end of the tunnel. So I'm only very short-term bearish based on future infection numbers, but medium- and long-term bullish. I don't know what is happening in the US. In Canada we are testing over 20,000 per day yet it looks like the US is testing 40,000 per day?

iPhone 12 suppliers are being told to start supplying parts by the end of August. That would suggest a 2-3 month delay when compared to other years so this might get pushed out to 2021 for significant volumes. This report came out just before the NA markets closed so that might account for the greater drop in AAPL compared to indexes. https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Apple-weighs-delaying-5G-iPhone-launch-by-months-sources-say "We have been notified to start shipping in big volumes to meet Apple's new product launch by the end of August, instead of like in previous years, when it would be sometime in June," said a supplier of components related to printed circuit boards. "The change was made very recently, and that could imply that the mass production of the phone could also be delayed for months."

Expect a lot of rating warning and downgrades in the coming days. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-ratings-moody-s-ex/exclusive-moodys-readying-for-mass-global-downgrade-of-virus-hit-firms-idUSKBN2162VI “We are undertaking a global review of ratings that are impacted by the virus,” Managing Director of Global Strategy & Research Anne Van Praagh and Christina Padgett, Associate Managing Director of Corporate Finance Research, said in an interview. “By the end of the week we will have a fair amount of rating actions,” Van Praagh added, saying it was likely to impact whole groups of companies or sectors all being impacted in the same way. Earlier this week Moody’s said that about 9% of the 920 companies it rated in Europe, the Middle East and Africa had a “high exposure” to the effects of the coronavirus outbreak, with another 54% having moderate exposure. It also estimated that about 16% of the more than 2,000 companies it rates in North America would be at high risk of rating move under the now widely expected scenario of a global recession. “We have the virus, the big fall in commodity prices and now (the pressure in) the capital markets. This combination of events is unprecedented, so we have to come at it from several different angles,” Padgett said. The first flurry of downgrades could take a few weeks. As well as sectors like airlines, oil and gas and travel, shipping, hotels and entertainment and leisure will all be heavily impacted too.

That's all fine and dandy. But we don't exactly have an oversupply of tests....so wouldn't it be best to put them to the most efficient use? High risk individuals. It all starts from the top. Trump has decided he doesn't need to be tested or go into self-quarantine after being in contact with someone who now has the virus. I believe actions speak louder than words and Trump is not considering this as a serious threat. So you will see large segments of the US that won't take it seriously since the government is providing the leadership. This is not going to end well in the US.

The below is a better indication of where are based on closed cases. There is currently a 6% death rate for closed cases wordwide with 10% of open cases in serious/critical condition. It does not look good after extrapolating this out. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Downwards if I had to bet. LOL! You are a fierce betting-man LC :) It does start to feel like a real deep shit swamp and maybe it's time to start to consider buying. Why? We are only at a 12 month low. I don't think we are close to the bottom.

But shouldn't their bond gains be offsetting this?

The scary thing is that a 20-30% drop just brings us back to Jan 2016 in Toronto. We would need a 50% drop just to get back to 2012 levels.

Non-paywalled version http://www.pressreader.com/canada/the-globe-and-mail-ottawaquebec-edition/20161223/281754153977995

Unbelievable. I have no idea when this will end. B.C. offers interest-free loans up to $37,500 to first-time homebuyers The B.C. Home Owner Mortgage and Equity Partnership program will provide a maximum of $37,500 — or up to 5 per cent of the purchase price — with a 25-year loan that is interest-free and payment-free for the first five years.

More likely getting they are getting grouped in with the rest of the insurance industry who are getting killed on their long bonds.

Here is the full quote. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-04/prem-watsa-s-fairfax-sells-90-of-long-bonds-ahead-of-election “We’ve sold 90 percent-plus of our Treasury bonds and we’ve made the point that the uncertainties in the U.S. election are the reason," Watsa, chief executive officer of the Toronto-based company, said on the third quarter conference call Friday. “We don’t know who’s going to win the elections, but you could have significant infrastructure spending, a drop in corporate tax rates, and while we think it might work in the short-term, in the long-term we have questions about that. We wanted to take that risk out."

I suspect we are only scratching the surface with these issues. According to an article from yesterday students would only need 35% down in order to apply for a mortgage with no income. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/incomeless-students-spent-57-million-on-vancouver-homes-in-past-two-years/article31892652/ "Nine students with no apparent source of income bought $57-million worth of single-family homes in Vancouver’s tony Point Grey neighbourhood over the past two years"