Coronavirus

[mcliu]

"Does Gates know anything about infectious diseases? Isn’t he just some tech billionaire? What a dummy!"

 

Never really thought of Gates as a dummy.

 

Italy and Spain were late to shut down and it hasn't worked out well for them. I would guess that the sooner you shut down, the sooner you will be able to open up again - but you need to stay in lock down until you can stop the spread of the virus or develop a vaccine. I'm certainly no expert, but it seems logical to me.

 

Is it not better to be over cautious than not cautious enough?

 

I think you have to shutdown high density areas like big cities.

But it probably doesn't make sense to shutdown rural or mainly suburban areas. If people are careful, outbreaks will probably be rare, because no mass transit, lots of space per person, everyone drives, etc.

[jjsto]

Does Gates know anything about infectious diseases? Isn’t he just some tech billionaire? What a dummy!

 

The Gates Foundation has been woking on infectious diseases around the world for more than a decade.  Just read their annual reports.  There are probably very few people with his combination of real world experience and knowledge of infectious diseases.  He will be on a cnn tonite at 8 pm with Dr Fauci. 

[minten]

Realize you are trying to put things iin perspective, but in the long run it is kind of irrelevant isn’t it - especially to those who has it?

 

Sure, every death is terrible on a micro-level. When discussing on a macro-level we normally never go down to the micro-level though. Not sure how it helps to do so now.

 

A national newspaper in my country wrote a whole piece today how it's perfectly normal in regular times for hospitals to assign a certain worth to a life: i.e. what treatment is (or isn't) offered to which patient, based on disease, age, life expectancy, whatever. And that there's a limit to what you'll be offered if the math just doesn't support it.

By the newspapers' own calculations the worth assigned to saving a life in this crisis is at least 100 times higher per patient than in any other disease/treatment out there. To be honest, their methodology was quite flawed, but you get my point.

[Jurgis]

Does Gates know anything about infectious diseases? Isn’t he just some tech billionaire? What a dummy!

 

The Gates Foundation has been woking on infectious diseases around the world for more than a decade.  Just read their annual reports.  There are probably very few people with his combination of real world experience and knowledge of infectious diseases.  He will be on a cnn tonite at 8 pm with Dr Fauci.

 

Viking's sarcasm went "whoosh" for this crowd...  ::)

[krazeenyc]

Does Gates know anything about infectious diseases? Isn’t he just some tech billionaire? What a dummy!

 

The Gates Foundation has been woking on infectious diseases around the world for more than a decade.  Just read their annual reports.  There are probably very few people with his combination of real world experience and knowledge of infectious diseases.  He will be on a cnn tonite at 8 pm with Dr Fauci.

 

Viking's sarcasm went "whoosh" for this crowd...  ::)

 

LOL.

[Dalal.Holdings]

FYI, COVID daily deaths now exceed that from daily auto accident deaths in the United States...

 

FYI, still nowhere near (as in less than 10%) to cancer deaths.  or cardio vascular deaths for that matter.

 

Yup - thank goodness neither of those are communicable.

 

Yep --  also comparing conditions that kill people slowly "of old age" (after accumulating a lifetime of risk factors like obesity, cholesterol, smoking) with an infection that you can catch from spending minutes with someone who has it is sure to lead you to false conclusions.

 

This gives me an idea. Instead of just comparing COVID deaths to cardiovascular deaths and cancer deaths, why not just compare to total deaths from all causes? Ah, much more reassuring!

 

We could have done the same during WW2 and realized the war was no big deal--many more people were dying from cancer & heart disease than gunshots.

[jjsto]

Does Gates know anything about infectious diseases? Isn’t he just some tech billionaire? What a dummy!

 

The Gates Foundation has been woking on infectious diseases around the world for more than a decade.  Just read their annual reports.  There are probably very few people with his combination of real world experience and knowledge of infectious diseases.  He will be on a cnn tonite at 8 pm with Dr Fauci.

 

Viking's sarcasm went "whoosh" for this crowd...  ::)

 

LOL.

 

Haha.  True.  Only recently reading this thread looking back at the last few days of posts, it is so politicized in parts, it is hard to tell what is sarcasm and what is said through political blinders.  Sorry.

[Spekulatius]

Nearing 80k confirmed cases in the U.S.

 

Within 48 hours, U.S. is on track to become the country with the most cases worldwide (more than China with 3x the population if you trust their numbers). Let that sink in.

 

Based on how people on Florida behave (Spring, full beaches) I think that state will have its moment too. Lots and lots of old people as well. Perhaps the warm weather will help, but it doesn’t seem to play as much of a role than thought, based on the countries the epidemic is spreading too.

 

So if Trump says that the country is open for business, does it means that people actually will go back into stores, to their hairdressers or the coffee place around the corner.

 

Certainly I wouldn’t. Went for a grocery run yesterday and put mask and a gloves on. I wasn’t the only one either, some Asian family even had the good N95 on it. The GwaiLo’s did will lesser surgical masks or some used their scarfs. I have got one handmade by my wife with some leftover med tech materials. It has some chinese letters on it, which helps with social distancing. ;D

[cwericb]

"Viking's sarcasm went "whoosh" for this crowd...  "

 

Duh, should have known he was smarter than that. Apologies.

[Spekulatius]

Value investor: Covid-19 is just a minor flu. Flu infects 10-15% of the population and kills 40-50k for a 0.1-0.15% morbidity rate. Covid-19 kills 700 1000 people. It’s just a rounding error. Yawn.

 

Growth investor: Huge addressable market -330M people. no known limit. Doubles every 4 days. Morbidity 0.5-10%. Lollapalooza effect for morbidity when case numbers exceed a certain local density and the health care system breaks down.

 

[dcollon]

There have been a lot of very worthwhile posts on this thread, but it has kind of gotten off the rails. 

 

I have truly learned from all of you, but let's try to get it back to facts as we know them today...realizing this is a very fluid situation.

 

Thanks so much for all the data, articles, charts, etc...

 

 

[Gregmal]

Yup, this thread started out pretty interesting and informative(Viking and Spekulatus for instance I found greatly helpful in their shared thoughts) but I moved on as it became clear there was little useful discussion for investing but rather became an echo chamber for people to ramble like drunken clowns and drum up nonsensical doomsday hysteria, zombie apocalypse wet dreams, with an overcoat of political bias. I think the best investable ideas I could pry from anyone was Dalals "RCL puts" which was basically retail investor on twitter worthy, ignorant of its 200%+ annual negative carry cost. Some people just lost it. A forum full of value investors and BRK was recently trading under book but everyones scared and I guess their cash is currently earning 0% in quarantine.

[Dalal.Holdings]

Yup, this thread started out pretty interesting and informative(Viking and Spekulatus for instance I found greatly helpful in their shared thoughts) but I moved on as it became clear there was little useful discussion for investing but rather became an echo chamber for people to ramble like drunken clowns and drum up nonsensical doomsday hysteria, zombie apocalypse wet dreams, with an overcoat of political bias. I think the best investable ideas I could pry from anyone was Dalals "RCL puts" which was basically retail investor on twitter worthy, ignorant of its 200%+ annual negative carry cost. Some people just lost it. A forum full of value investors and BRK was recently trading under book but everyones scared and I guess their cash is currently earning 0% in quarantine.

 

Nice to see you back and thank you. Good thing I didn't have to hold the puts anywhere close to a year for payoff. And don't forget my selling out large chunks and going to cash a month ago because of "precautionary principle" and "11 year bull market and >30% S&P return in 2019, no need in being greedy at this point". More "Twitter worthy" drivel you have no need to pay attention to (but with little in carrying costs for me).

[Spekulatius]

Yeah, bailing out at the right time certainly was a good decision. I made a half hearted decision to bail on stocks, but then got in too early. Well it saved me some grief, so there is that.

 

Now is the question where do we go from here? The news on the epidemic continues to look grim, but Germany and even Italy have turned the corner, but Spain is getting worse. The economic news will look very grim and even the GFC looks pale to what we are going to be seeing.

 

Turning the economy back on needs to happen, but how and when? County by County downs really when people are commuting from one too the other. I live in MA on the border to NH and while MA has shelter in place, NH is still open for business. many live in NH and work in MA. Also how do you turn air travel back on when cop some cities are still under siege while others are more or less free and clear.

 

Tough decision and I don’t have the answer. You can’t seal of states either, they why most states eventually apply the rules nationwide because nobody know how to make it work otherwise. Italy tried in the beginning the piecemeal thing and it didn’t work.

 

Right now, it’s a traders market because the economic impact is not known yet,  it we know it will be huge. At some point the picture will be clearer, but the economy might be looking way worse than many are expecting , so volatility will be lower, but stocks may grind lower just like they did from January to March 2009.

 

I my opinion, the implied timeline that by April we turn on the economy and by May or June this is over just isn’t correct. I can’t see a reasonable secondary where this will be the case. I can see already when I venture outside they the behavior of people  has changed. So I think even if restaurants re open again, people might not go back and eat out as if nothing has happened. For once, the economic situation went from  being secure to record uncertainty and second, people are scared that Coronavirus infections are lurking and we have no way of knowing. Invisible  Enemy are the worst.

 

I did post a short while ago, that the president really should challenge the industry to make a gain leap in testing. It is the only way to make the invisible enemy visible. I am taking about test capacity not in the ten thousands, like we have right now and get results back in couple of days, but thousand times higher and fast - within minutes., so we can test millions and ideally every American many times over. That’s probably the flying a man to the moon project for this decade.

[LC]

My fear is that the U.S. will be a late peaking country (due to it being a late onset country) and right now the focus is on NY/WA, but it has already seeded throughout the nation...  :-\

 

I am holding my breath as well. Doctor/nurse friends here in Denver are gearing up for an expected influx of patients, and believe they are unprepared. Specialists are worried about COVID cases taking resources from other areas.

[Spekulatius]

Yup, this thread started out pretty interesting and informative(Viking and Spekulatus for instance I found greatly helpful in their shared thoughts) but I moved on as it became clear there was little useful discussion for investing but rather became an echo chamber for people to ramble like drunken clowns and drum up nonsensical doomsday hysteria, zombie apocalypse wet dreams, with an overcoat of political bias. I think the best investable ideas I could pry from anyone was Dalals "RCL puts" which was basically retail investor on twitter worthy, ignorant of its 200%+ annual negative carry cost. Some people just lost it. A forum full of value investors and BRK was recently trading under book but everyones scared and I guess their cash is currently earning 0% in quarantine.

 

Nice to see you back and thank you. Good thing I didn't have to hold the puts anywhere close to a year for payoff. And don't forget my selling out large chunks and going to cash a month ago because of "precautionary principle" and "11 year bull market and >30% S&P return in 2019, no need in being greedy at this point". More "Twitter worthy" drivel you have no need to pay attention to (but with little in carrying costs for me).

 

Actually, BRK was never trading below book, if you used fluid book value numbers based on the current value of their stock holdings. I don’t disagree it is cheap though.

 

One thing that is interesting though through the epidemic episode that big tech as become the safe haven while value investments utterly collapsed . NFLX, AMZN  and even FB and GOOGL are outperforming the greater stock market. Even the SAAS stocks to a great extend have outperformed. Real estate gets utterly destroyed and what seemed cheap just go cheaper and looks partly impaired.

[cwericb]

Here is a comparison between the US and Canada's handling of Covid-19.

 

 

Ottawa Citizen

Cohen: Why Canada's response to COVID-19 is so different from that of the U.S.

Andrew Cohen

 

Comparing the character of nations is risky and imprecise. In the Age of Contagion, though, it offers a window into how the peoples of the world are coping.

 

Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore have handled the crisis relatively well. We expect that of people we see as highly disciplined, motivated and organized. Italy is reeling from the contagion. Gregarious, unruly, passionate, creative, independent – this is how we see Italians. It suggests why they were slow to respond.

 

Which brings us to the United States and Canada. As Miss Christie used to say in third-grade geography class, let us compare and contrast.

 

In the United States, a country of 330 million, there were some 43,500 cases and 537 deaths as of early Tuesday. In New York City, the virus is surging. Parts of the country are in seclusion, others are not. There is no clear national strategy and no federal emergency. States are responding radically differently.

 

In Washington, Congress struggles to forge an economic response. The president is erratic and unempathetic. He is widely disbelieved, skeptical of expertise and reluctant to accept responsibility.

 

The media send mixed messages. Fox News, with the highest audience, once denied the pandemic, calling it “a hoax.” One host – before she was fired – claimed the coronavirus was a plot by the Democrats to re-impeach Donald Trump.

 

The danger is that the medical system will be overwhelmed. On the tenth anniversary of Obamacare, universal health care remains contentious in the United States – undermined by the Republicans, who have tried repeatedly to abolish it, and repeatedly challenged in the courts.

 

Canadians trust what their leaders are saying. In Canada, a country of 37 million, there were some 2,100 cases and 24 deaths as of early Tuesday. The system is holding, for now. Hospitals have enough masks and respirators, for now. The prime minister appears in public every day, alone, outside his residence. He speaks sensibly, with authority, without hyperbole. This has been his finest hour.

 

Canadians trust him. They may not have voted for him – only about one-third did – but that doesn’t matter now. Nor do we question the competence of his ministers who are the other faces of the crisis – Chrystia Freeland, Marc Garneau, Patty Hajdu, Bill Blair. All are calm, competent and professional. This is what we want.

 

The provincial premiers, most of whom are not Liberals, have lost their congenital instinct to attack Ottawa. Doug Ford, no admirer of Justin Trudeau, now praises his leadership.

 

All provinces have declared states of emergency, and will not object if the national government does, too. If it must, it will – and we won’t complain.

 

Opposition parties are not posturing. Andrew Scheer, who called Trudeau “a fraud” last autumn, says this is no time for politics. He is right. His fellow Conservatives, vying to succeed him, have put away their popguns. Some want the leadership vote scheduled for August delayed.

 

Unlike in America, there is consensus in Canada. No one is saying that the aid package is inadequate, that the government is slow, that money unduly favours corporations. Jason Kenney is not talking about western alienation and the Bloc Québécois is not talking sovereignty. Canadians want only freedom from fear.

 

Mercifully, we have no Fox News. Whatever the CBC’s flaws as national broadcaster, its reporting has been thorough and honest, under trying circumstances. Same with CTV and Radio Canada, and the country’s newspapers and websites.

 

Why is our response different? It may be a case of identity. Americans celebrate independence, individualism, personal liberty. Many distrust government, resent politicians, court conspiracy and dismiss science. This wasn’t always so – the New Deal and the Great Society expanded the state – but it is now.

 

Canadians accept big government, which is how we built the social welfare state. Two-thirds of us voted for progressives last year. We defer to authority.

 

Yes, we’ve made real mistakes in the crisis. We didn’t secure airports fast enough or test early and widely enough. Too many are treating physical distancing as a snow day. If we ultimately do better in all this – it’s too early to know or crow – it’s not because we are morally superior. It is because we are smaller, organized, well-led, more united, more measured, more of a community.

 

It’s a question of character.

 

 

[thowed]

A suggestion - can we start a new thread and reboot this?  As Gregmal said, it has got a bit out of control here.

 

[minten]

Yep --  also comparing conditions that kill people slowly "of old age" (after accumulating a lifetime of risk factors like obesity, cholesterol, smoking) with an infection that you can catch from spending minutes with someone who has it is sure to lead you to false conclusions.

 

You make it sound like people dying from COVID are generally perfectly healthy people in their prime. We both know that's just not true. The very, very, very large majority of deaths are already very sick people with very serious underlying conditions; people that would have a limited life expectancy even without this virus ever having been near them. If it wouldn't have been COVID now, it would have been something else very soon. Every stat from every country shows this. The only thing that contradicts this conclusion are on a micro-level: isolated anecdotes of outliers.

 

 

[Gregmal]

Yeah, bailing out at the right time certainly was a good decision. I made a half hearted decision to bail on stocks, but then got in too early. Well it saved me some grief, so there is that.

 

Now is the question where do we go from here? The news on the epidemic continues to look grim, but Germany and even Italy have turned the corner, but Spain is getting worse. The economic news will look very grim and even the GFC looks pale to what we are going to be seeing.

 

Turning the economy back on needs to happen, but how and when? County by County downs really when people are commuting from one too the other. I live in MA on the border to NH and while MA has shelter in place, NH is still open for business. many live in NH and work in MA. Also how do you turn air travel back on when cop some cities are still under siege while others are more or less free and clear.

 

Tough decision and I don’t have the answer. You can’t seal of states either, they why most states eventually apply the rules nationwide because nobody know how to make it work otherwise. Italy tried in the beginning the piecemeal thing and it didn’t work.

 

Right now, it’s a traders market because the economic impact is not known yet,  it we know it will be huge. At some point the picture will be clearer, but the economy might be looking way worse than many are expecting , so volatility will be lower, but stocks may grind lower just like they did from January to March 2009.

 

I my opinion, the implied timeline that by April we turn on the economy and by May or June this is over just isn’t correct. I can’t see a reasonable secondary where this will be the case. I can see already when I venture outside they the behavior of people  has changed. So I think even if restaurants re open again, people might not go back and eat out as if nothing has happened. For once, the economic situation went from  being secure to record uncertainty and second, people are scared that Coronavirus infections are lurking and we have no way of knowing. Invisible  Enemy are the worst.

 

I did post a short while ago, that the president really should challenge the industry to make a gain leap in testing. It is the only way to make the invisible enemy visible. I am taking about test capacity not in the ten thousands, like we have right now and get results back in couple of days, but thousand times higher and fast - within minutes., so we can test millions and ideally every American many times over. That’s probably the flying a man to the moon project for this decade.

 

What we know for sure is that the government has basically guaranteed a bailout to bridge the gap between pre corona and a return to normalcy. The tricky part, really the only one, is to avoid getting snagged in an investment or business that doesnt have a firm footing on its own, or an ironclad bailout.

 

From another thread, here's a interesting scenario to highlight.

 

Two working parents, one a party/event planner for a reasonable sized corporation. The other a consultant to the energy industry and thus an independent contractor. Both made good money in 2018 and 19. The contractors work dries up and the event planner is laid off. Away goes their health insurance. Away goes their income. Their eligibility for stimulus money is nil because of their previous year income levels. And the contractor cant even file for unemployment....Their only fallback? An rental property in NYC, where the mayor just told tenants to stop paying rent...

 

This is potentially the scenario of a friend of mine, and one that could very easily apply to companies in jeopardized industries as well. (Note to myself and other small cap value investors: think twice or maybe three times before buying that distressed microcap hotel operator with owned real estate at 30% of book)

 

But all in all, the funny money being pumped into the system makes it impossible for stocks to ever get too cheap, for too long a period of time. If nothing else the scarcity and supply demand aspect for HNW and institutional dollars will keep the valuations elevated. More dollars and less assets can really only lead to higher prices.

[tng]

Thread on mask usage, including in the Czech republic:

 

 

Could help explain why Japan did so well..?

 

I understand that masks need to go to those on the frontlines first as long as there's limited supply, but as soon as supply ramps up, probably a good idea for everybody to have masks for a while. Cheap way to save lots of lives, including from the flu and other diseases, and ben R0 <1.

 

 

I strongly believe that masks are very critical. The Chinese doctors seem to recommend that people wear them too. All the Asians who wear masks post SARS are not crazy. I think the U.S. doctors are telling people that masks (anything less than N95) don't do anything because they don't want people buying up all the masks and leaving none for the healthcare workers, but I think this will backfire horribly because when our mask production goes up and we have the capability for supplying masks for everybody, people won't wear them because they will remember what was said originally.

 

People don't get sick because a single virus enters their body. It has to land in the right place (in this case, into an ACE receptor in the lungs) and successfully attach and reproduce. And there is no guarantee that the reproduced viruses will land onto another ACE receptor. They are not creatures with legs that can walk around looking for the right receptor. And RNA is fragile and can break down or mutate into something harmless pretty quickly. If getting sick is as simple as a single virus entering the body, we would be sick all the time because there are viruses all over the place. The right thing happening for the virus to win is like making a basketball shot from the stands, it has to be perfect. However, if you allow millions or billions of viruses in, then eventually the "lucky shot" happens (or in this case, "unlucky shot"). When you hit critical mass, at least some of the reproduced viruses will land into the right receptors and reproduce again.

 

So even if the masks only prevent 50% of the viruses from entering your body, it could make a big difference. It's the same reason why 6 ft is the accepted safe social distancing length. You will most likely still get some of the virus in the air if someone is breathing it out, but it's dissipated enough where it's unlikely to set off the perfect chain reaction to infect you. Masks don't make you invincible and you still should practice social distancing and proper hygiene. But even if it only reduces the probability of infection by a tiny amount, that is a huge number of total cases when you take compounding or exponential growth into effect.

[Viking]

Does Gates know anything about infectious diseases? Isn’t he just some tech billionaire? What a dummy!

 

The Gates Foundation has been woking on infectious diseases around the world for more than a decade.  Just read their annual reports.  There are probably very few people with his combination of real world experience and knowledge of infectious diseases.  He will be on a cnn tonite at 8 pm with Dr Fauci.

 

Viking's sarcasm went "whoosh" for this crowd...  ::)

 

Thank you for pointing people straight :-)

[drzola]

Paul Tudor Jones gives millons of greenbacks to Nature Conservancy and Ducks Unliimited and I mean Shatloads he basically saved teh Everglades maybe .

I salute him here as a PeeON @ the front row whom benefits from his in kind donations.

P.S.  Koch and Turner do too ha!

 

Cheers

[John Hjorth]

Thank you for pointing people straight :-)

 

lol! Sarcasm isen't actually your usual posting style, Viking. Almost always to the point and polite. [but this situation isen't "as always".]

[minten]

I think the U.S. doctors are telling people that masks (anything less than N95) don't do anything because they don't want people buying up all the masks and leaving none for the healthcare workers, but I think this will backfire horribly because when our mask production goes up and we have the capability for supplying masks for everybody, people won't wear them because they will remember what was said originally.

 

It might backfire, but still seems like a better solution than the alternative. We've seen people going crazy over toilet-paper (my local supermarket has sold out for weeks in a row now); if somehow masks are spun as the solution to staying healthy, some people would end op hoarding millions and millions of them while most others will kill each other over what's left. healthcare would get nothing. humankind at its worst. So yeah, let's first ramp up production and then take it from there.