UK

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-04-23/wuhan-s-return-to-life-temperature-checks-and-constant-anxiety Shopping malls and department stores are open again, but largely empty. The same is true of restaurants; people are ordering in instead. The subway is quiet, but autos are selling: If being stuck in traffic is annoying, at least it’s socially distanced. After reopening on March 23, the dealership had been selling about seven cars per day, on pace with last year despite all the restrictions. Most were relatively low-end vehicles, such as the A3, which retails for about 200,000 yuan ($28,000)—the kind of car often bought by families to complement a bigger, fancier model. “People are not willing to take public transport in Wuhan,” said the marketing director, who asked to be identified by only his surname, Pan. “And they don’t dare commute by Didi”—the ubiquitous ride-hailing app. The focus now, Pan said, was on following up with people who’d expressed interest in an Audi in the past but hadn’t bought one. They might be ready to bite. The dealership was looking to expand its current staff of about 150, and employees would soon receive the pay they’d missed during the lockdown. Another salesperson added, “It’s like a boom.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/30/coronavirus-sweden-economy-to-contract-as-severely-as-the-rest-of-europe.html Nonetheless, data released from the country’s central bank and a leading Swedish think tank show that the economy will be just as badly hit as its European neighbors, if not worse.

The market has provided ample opportunity for those who missed this in March to cash out with the S&P now where it was in October 2019. There should be no valid excuse for these people if they lose their shirts. https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-turmoil-free-trades-draw-newbies-into-stock-market-11588158001 “I feel like everything that I buy, I watch pretty closely and if it’s something that’s not doing well, I’ll generally try to put [that money] into something that is doing well instead,” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-29/firemen-and-romance-writers-faces-of-a-fierce-rebound-in-stocks “I’m a complete noob when it comes to stocks,” the mother of high school senior twin boys said while sheltering at home. “It’s not thousands and thousands of dollars that I invested, but it’s a start. We’ll see what happens. I hate to say it, but it’s like gambling, isn’t it?” More accounts were opened and dollars invested at E*Trade in the first quarter than in any prior full-year period, according to a company statement. The brokerage added 329,000 retail accounts and over $18 billion in net retail assets.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/29/swedish-city-lund-dump-tonne-chicken-manure-park-deter-visitors-coronavirus-lockdown

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-man-who-convinced-the-swedish-not-to-go-into-lockdown-9qhcc608n Meanwhile, the Swedish economy has been far less badly hit than that of other European countries and is expected to contract by only 4 per cent this year. “I’m not an economist, but the UK is far more affected with more out of work,” Tegnell says, although he insists that he would never want to sacrifice lives to protect GDP.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-24/reckitt-warns-against-using-disinfectants-to-treat-coronavirus?srnd=premium-europe

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-23/coronavirus-dies-fastest-under-light-warm-and-humid-conditions?srnd=premium-europe

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-04-23/wuhan-s-return-to-life-temperature-checks-and-constant-anxiety

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-18/china-tests-thousands-to-calculate-true-spread-of-coronavirus?srnd=premium-europe

https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-feds-williams-says-recovery-unlikely-to-be-swift-11587130541 “I don’t see the economy being back to full strength by the end of the year. It’s going to take longer to get us back to where we want to be,” he said in a CNBC interview. Mr. Williams tied the prospect of a slow recovery in part to caution by the public that is likely to outlast any social-distancing and other government restrictions. “Even as the pandemic passes, even as the restrictions are relaxed gradually over time, people may take quite a while before they are willing to get back on airplanes, on trains, or go to the theater or go to concerts or things like that,” Mr. Williams said. “So there are some risks it takes longer to get that recovery for the economy than just what happens in terms of the formal restrictions that are in place.” “We’re definitely in a severe downturn in economic activity,” he said Thursday. “Even as a pandemic passes through and the economy comes back, I expect demand to be weak and therefore needing strong monetary support, fiscal policy support as well, to get our economy back to full strength over the next couple of years.” Other regional Fed officials also weighed in on Friday, sharing by varying degrees Mr. Williams’s expectation that it will take time for the economy to right itself. Speaking on Yahoo Finance, Philadelphia Fed leader Patrick Harker said he doesn’t expect a snapback quickly once the all-clear signal arrives from health experts. “I’m not a fan of the V-shaped recovery, I don’t think it will be that V. But the goal is to make a U, but a very narrow U,” he said, which means the official, who has an FOMC vote this year, sees a sharp and deep downturn from which it takes some time to emerge. In a video presentation, St. Louis Fed leader James Bullard, an FOMC non-voter, said that second-quarter data— which he expects will show the full brunt of the economic shutdown—will be so bad as to warrant being omitted from the normal process of measuring economic activity. What will happen in the second quarter won’t be comparable “to anything we’ve seen in U.S. macroeconomic history,” Mr. Bullard said. “We should just sort of write off the second quarter. Think of it as a very different episode and quit calculating annual growth rates and quit comparing to other periods in the past because it’s deceptive in thinking about how the economy might be able to behave going forward,” he said. Mr. Bullard also joined with other Fed officials and said the central bank has made “substantial progress” in fixing financial markets, and added that “the Fed is certainly willing to do much more” if it sees a need. In a later conversation with reporters, Mr. Bullard said it’s a “very unlikely outcome” that the U.S. central bank would buy stocks as a means to support the economy. He noted that the equity market hasn’t suffered from liquidity issues, and probably wouldn’t get much lift from central bank purchases.

I like Tepper but saying that it's okay to nibble isn't exactly calling a bottom. Unless there is something I'm missing that he said? https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/08/cramer-says-he-and-david-tepper-confused-by-the-market-recent-rally.html “I spoke to Dave Tepper yesterday and we were both kind of marveling, ‘Jeez it’s been bullish. Why?’”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/warren-buffett-is-lying-low-and-ackman-stepping-up

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-12/fed-s-kashkari-says-u-s-may-face-18-months-of-rolling-shutdowns

https://www.wsj.com/articles/health-authorities-roll-out-new-coronavirus-tests-to-gauge-infections-spread-11586511004 "There are early signs that past infection by the new coronavirus can prevent future disease. But some infectious-disease experts say there are too many unknowns about the immune system’s response to the virus—including how long immunity might last and the likelihood of reinfection—to rely on the tests to predict complete immunity. “I don’t know we have enough trust in what an exposure means that it would change the way we deploy our workforce,” Kimberly Hanson, an infectious-disease physician at the University of Utah School of Medicine, said at a media briefing. “We’re still trying to figure out what detecting an antibody response means, and if it’s protective or not, we don’t know.” Given the potential shortcomings, early serology tests might prove more useful as a tool for gauging the spread of the virus through communities, rather than for determining whether individuals have full immunity, said Stanford’s Dr. Bendavid." https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-doesnt-flu-tank-economy-like-covid-19-11586511000?mod=trending_now_4 "For starters, the flu tallies are estimates of total flu burden, while the Covid-19 figures are confirmed cases only. Eventually, the CDC will estimate the total Covid-19 burden, but for now, the numbers are not an apples-to-apples comparison.“We always know confirmed cases are an underestimate,” said Lynnette Brammer, who leads the CDC’s domestic influenza-surveillance team. In addition, Covid-19 differs from the flu in how quickly it spreads, the length and severity of the illness, and the unusual demands a contagion with no cure places on medical staff and facilities. Instead of gentle waves of cases cascading across the country over a span of six months, like the flu, a tidal wave of Covid-19 cases has swept over a handful of cities in half the time. The concentration of quickly amassing serious infections overwhelmed the affected areas, and the fear is that without social distancing—for now the only effective intervention—other places will have a similar experience. A snapshot of the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic shows the difference in the speed of transmission between a raging flu and the new coronavirus. Comparing only laboratory-confirmed cases, in the first 102 days of the H1N1 flu pandemic, the CDC reported 43,677 illnesses and 302 deaths. In 22 fewer days, Covid-19 infected 11 times as many people and killed 60 times as many. “The flu season is spread out,” said William Schaffner, an infectious-disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. “This is being jammed up in a short time frame.” Covid-19 outbreaks have also been highly localized. “You’ve got a hot-spot pattern instead of an even pattern,” said Emily Martin, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. “All the pressure is concentrated in small areas.” Not only are more Covid-19 patients coming into hospitals, they require longer care.The median length of stay for adults hospitalized with seasonal flu is 3.6 days, according to research published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. In nine Seattle-area hospitals, where 12 of 24 Covid-19 patients died through March 23, the median stay was 12 days in the hospital, 9 days in ICU and 10 days on mechanical ventilators. (The median for survivors was 17 days in the hospital, 14 in ICU and 11 on a ventilator.) Having a hospital full of highly contagious patients leads to diminished stores of equipment intended to protect staff members who are also at risk of infection. The University of Michigan Medical Center now requires everyone to wear a mask. Additionally, anyone caring for patients who have or are suspected of having Covid-19 must wear a gown and eye protection. During flu season, the center uses “droplet protection” only in some rooms, and there is no universal masking requirement. “It’s a different world,” Dr. Lauring said. Most people have some immunity to the flu, either from vaccines or previous exposure, and nearly all health-care workers are protected by the flu shot. “It’s not unusual to have compliance rates above 95%,” Vanderbilt’s Dr. Schaffner said, referring to vaccinations of hospital employees. “That’s everybody—doctors, nurses, dietitians, people who clean at night—everybody.” Currently, there is no vaccine or specific treatment for Covid-19, so slowing or stopping its spread has required social distancing. But there is one quality that might make Covid-19 less problematic than flu. “It’s not changing and mutating at the rate the flu can do,” said Allison Weinmann, an infectious-disease physician at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit. That could make it easier for pharmaceutical companies to develop an effective vaccine—and render Covid-19 no more remarkable than the seasonal flu."

https://www.wsj.com/articles/after-the-coronavirus-shareholders-will-have-to-share-their-crown-11585829466 "As companies of all sizes shut their doors and make claims against their business interruption policies, insurers are coming under the spotlight. Unsurprisingly, few documents explicitly detail how they will deal with this unprecedented pandemic, creating gray areas that insurers and the policyholder will view differently. Claims will be in the “many billions of dollars, if not trillions,” according to Ben Lenhart of law firm Covington. Over the coming months and years these claims will work their way through settlements, arbitration or the courts. But governments are already getting involved. Four U.S. state legislators—insurance is regulated on a state-by-state basis—and a U.K. government committee are all considering both what type of financial support to offer insurers and how to compel or force the companies to be generous with their customers. Insurance, usually considered an economically defensive industry, has underperformed in the current crisis. On both sides of the Atlantic the sector is down about a third this year, compared with 24% for the S&P 500 index and 25% for the Stoxx Europe 600." https://www.wsj.com/articles/pressure-mounts-on-insurance-companies-to-pay-out-for-coronavirus-11585573938 "In at least three states, lawmakers have proposed legislation to force insurers to pay billions of dollars for business losses tied to government-ordered shutdowns. In other states, regulators are pushing insurers to expand coverage under personal-car policies to also cover certain commercial activity, such as delivery of takeout meals by owners and employees of restaurants that are struggling to survive bans on dine-in eating. Some regulators have declared moratoriums on cancellations and nonrenewals of policies. And some are urging car insurers to lower people’s bills. These states note that policyholders now working from home don’t have the commutes they used to and thus aren’t on the roads as much. This push comes despite specific contractual exclusions in most standard policies for claims stemming from viruses. As a result, some insurers are threatening court challenges over these efforts to rewrite policies and provide benefits that weren’t priced in. “If elected officials or courts require payment for perils that were excluded and for which no premium was ever collected, catastrophic results are likely to occur and we may deal with a second crisis: insurance insolvencies and impairments,” said Charles Chamness, president of trade group National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies."

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fed-is-settling-into-its-role-as-the-worlds-central-bank-11585732095

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-26/ecb-will-scrap-bond-limits-for-its-pandemic-purchases-program "The dramatic move tallies with President Christine Lagarde’s comment that there are “no limits” to the central bank’s commitment as the economy faces a deep recession due to restrictions intended to stem the spread of the coronavirus. Former President Mario Draghi weighed in with a commentary in the Financial Times on Wednesday urging public authorities not to worry about rising debt levels, arguing that the “the cost of hesitation may be irreversible.” Central banks globally have stepped up with extraordinary measures to fight the crisis. U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell made a rare televised interview appearance on Thursday, stating his institution is “not going to run out of ammunition.” Maybe markets are starting react to this? Or how one can be sure, that cash is going to protect purchasing power in the (near) future? What would you do if you are Norwegian wealth fund?

https://www.ft.com/content/5ff6469a-6dd8-11ea-89df-41bea055720b "The new coronavirus may already have infected far more people in the UK than scientists had previously estimated — perhaps as much as half the population — according to modelling by researchers at the University of Oxford. If the results are confirmed, they imply that fewer than one in a thousand of those infected with Covid-19 become ill enough to need hospital treatment, said Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology, who led the study. The vast majority develop very mild symptoms or none at all. “We need immediately to begin large-scale serological surveys — antibody testing — to assess what stage of the epidemic we are in now,” she said."

https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-the-coronavirus-as-deadly-as-they-say-11585088464?mod=hp_opin_pos_2 "In Iceland, deCode Genetics is working with the government to perform widespread testing. In a sample of nearly 2,000 entirely asymptomatic people, researchers estimated disease prevalence of just over 1%. Iceland’s first case was reported on Feb. 28, weeks behind the U.S. It’s plausible that the proportion of the U.S. population that has been infected is double, triple or even 10 times as high as the estimates from Iceland. That also implies a dramatically lower fatality rate." "The epidemic started in China sometime in November or December. The first confirmed U.S. cases included a person who traveled from Wuhan on Jan. 15, and it is likely that the virus entered before that: Tens of thousands of people traveled from Wuhan to the U.S. in December. Existing evidence suggests that the virus is highly transmissible and that the number of infections doubles roughly every three days. An epidemic seed on Jan. 1 implies that by March 9 about six million people in the U.S. would have been infected. As of March 23, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 499 Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. If our surmise of six million cases is accurate, that’s a mortality rate of 0.01%, assuming a two week lag between infection and death. This is one-tenth of the flu mortality rate of 0.1%. Such a low death rate would be cause for optimism." "This does not make Covid-19 a nonissue. The daily reports from Italy and across the U.S. show real struggles and overwhelmed health systems. But a 20,000- or 40,000-death epidemic is a far less severe problem than one that kills two million. Given the enormous consequences of decisions around Covid-19 response, getting clear data to guide decisions now is critical. We don’t know the true infection rate in the U.S. Antibody testing of representative samples to measure disease prevalence (including the recovered) is crucial. Nearly every day a new lab gets approval for antibody testing, so population testing using this technology is now feasible." "If we’re right about the limited scale of the epidemic, then measures focused on older populations and hospitals are sensible. Elective procedures will need to be rescheduled. Hospital resources will need to be reallocated to care for critically ill patients. Triage will need to improve. And policy makers will need to focus on reducing risks for older adults and people with underlying medical conditions. A universal quarantine may not be worth the costs it imposes on the economy, community and individual mental and physical health. We should undertake immediate steps to evaluate the empirical basis of the current lockdowns."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-23/swedes-try-laissez-faire-model-in-controversial-virus-response

How it is possible to explain that ADS or VIAC are both down -72 and -69 YTD with a pre corona PE ~2, when even AAL is down "only" -45 and trades at pre corona PE ~3. Is VIAC more corona sensitive than AAL?

https://millervalue.com/market-uncertainty-coronavirus/ https://brooklyninvestor.blogspot.com/2020/03/who-cares-what-mr-market-thinks.html

https://www.wsj.com/articles/marijuana-madness-turns-into-a-cannabis-crash-11570888800 "Sales disappoint, stocks tumble and startups scramble for financing"

https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1hjlb0qs4c807/GMO-Is-Feeling-Pain-Reminiscent-of-the-Late-1990s

https://www.wsj.com/articles/virtually-no-one-will-lease-to-wework-thats-a-drag-on-nycs-office-market-11569762002 The vast majority of New York City landlords have little interest in taking on WeWork as a new tenant while the company is struggling to shore up its finances, brokers and landlords say. Other big U.S. office markets could also suffer from the current aversion to WeWork. Building owners in cities including Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco have relied heavily on WeWork to fill excess space and to appeal to startup companies attracted to co-working’s layouts and ethos. Co-working tenants occupy 54.2 million square feet nationally and more than 16.5 % of office demand since the beginning of 2017 can be attributed to WeWork and other co-working firms in 54 major U.S. markets, according to data firm CoStar Group Inc. S&P Global Ratings on Thursday said it cut a We entity’s credit rating to the lower junk rating of single B-minus from single-B, reflecting “heightened uncertainty around The We Company’s ability to raise capital to support aggressive growth and the pressure this places on liquidity,” S&P said in a press release. WeWork also became a favorite New York tenant in part because it was sometimes willing to pay above market rents to keep its growth firing. In one recent instance, WeWork made a verbal offer to lease up to 80,000 square feet in a Midtown Manhattan tower—paying a 20% premium to the market rate for space that wouldn’t be available for two years, said Craig Deitelzweig, chief executive of Marx Realty, the building’s owner. But Mr. Deitelzweig said he turned the deal down because he was suspicious of WeWork’s business model. “The numbers do not work,” he said.7