LC

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:

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.

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.

A soldier ran up to a nun. Out of breath he asked, "Please, may I hide under your skirt. i'll explain later." The nun agreed... A moment later two Military Police ran up and asked, "Sister, have you seen a soldier?" The nun replied, "He went that way." After the MPs ran off, the soldier crawled out from under her skirt said " I can't thank you enough, sister. You see, I don't want to go to Syria." The nun said, "I understand completely." The soldier added, "I hope I'm not rude, but you have a great pair of legs!" The nun replied, "If you had looked a little higher, you would have seen a great pair of balls.... I don't want to go to Syria either." :o

I have been buying puts on the up bounces. Sold some stock, some profitable, some at a loss. Probably a net of zero. I cleared all my long orders. The puts are my currency to buy Leaps later on. I figure the US Covid case load exceeds China by Monday morning. I am doing the same but with selling short-tenor (1-3 month) calls on the dividend-paying portion of my portfolio. Difficult to exit sometimes, perhaps puts are better in that regards.

Oh, yea - not illegal, but morally corrupt, they all need to go. At least four senators dumped their stocks after receiving a briefing on Jan 24. Trump had the exact same information -- and did mostly nothing to prepare. The buck stops at the top, doesn't it? Is Trump required to disclose equity transactions? And Senators are only required to disclose for themselves & their spouse. Who knows what their kids are doing.

Raised cash - about 20% now. Moved most non-dividend paying holdings into 2 year ITM LEAP exposure. Probably will sit tight for a bit and raise some more cash over the next few weeks, see how this whole thing (starts) to shake out as we approach the warmer months.

So here's a question - when does it stop? And, when does society emerge from the "shelter in place" policies? Let's say come end of April, May the virus retreats. Do we still sit inside all day? I mean, look at the uncoordinated response and lag-time that government took to enforce the start of quarantines. Will we see the same lag time when removing quarantines? If so it could be July, August before thing return "to normal". Most people simply do not have the resources to last that long without work.