LC

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.

Not sure I understand this. A month ago, no one was dead in Italy. Now 3000+ plus are dead with an additional 400-500 coming in daily despite the fact the entire country has been shut down for 9 days. Similar numbers in the US would be 15,000 dead in 2 weeks time with a full shutdown - but we haven't done that yet. LA just announced it. Nowhere else has and we have over 100k confirmed cases w/o testing. This is already on course to be way worse than the 30k annually from the flu even w/ the shutdown which hasn't been implemented yet. I'm not trying to fear monger - just extrapolating the data that's available What I find mind-boggling is that the first confirmed case in Italy was on Jan 31. The first confirmed case in the USA (WA state) was on Jan 21. Obviously the two areas are different, but to date there are 74 coronavirus deaths in WA, versus 3,400 in Italy. On the flip side, let's compare Italy vs NYC: Italy first case: Jan 31 NYC first case: March 1 NYC has about 4500 cases and about 30 deaths. When Italy had about 4600 cases, deaths were around 175.

The best part? He dumped his portfolio on 2/13: https://www.propublica.org/article/senator-dumped-up-to-1-6-million-of-stock-after-reassuring-public-about-coronavirus-preparedness Oh and he's on these committees: Committee on Finance Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Health Care Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Children and Families Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security Select Committee on Intelligence (Chairman)

Colorado: about 3K tested, 275 positives, 4 deaths.

I opted for calls to protect downside. Cost was not much more vs. margin. Until we know more about long-term situation, I felt it was the more conservative choice.

Eric, difficult to say: Around a dozen reporters could be required to leave, in a move that Beijing said was reciprocation for the United States’ forcing out of about 60 Chinese reporters, who worked for propaganda outlets, this month Best guess is to (1) trust international groups operating within China; and (2) overweight data sources outside China

Poll results seem to indicate that people have no damn idea ;D

I raised cash, converting my entire V position into ITM LEAPS. I'll be holding the cash and trying my darnedest not to buy too early.

Unemployment estimates: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-18/coronavirus-recession-is-already-causing-staggering-job-losses A spike in initial claims for unemployment insurance is among the earliest signs that a recession is underway. The most recent official number is from the first week of March, and it shows 221,000 claims, roughly on par with the average of the last several months. State unemployment offices, however, are reporting huge increases in the volume of more recent claims. Hawaii reported 1,500 claims on Monday, five times the previous Monday. From Friday to Tuesday, Connecticut saw 30,000 claims, about 10 times the average for a whole week. Pennsylvania received a staggering 50,000 claims on Monday alone, compared to 12,000 claims for the first week of March. Again, using back-of-the-envelope math, that implies a rise in the unemployment rate to about 27% — even higher than the 20% Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has warned as possible. It would exceed the highest unemployment on record, 24.9%, set during the Great Depression. To repeat: These are rough estimates based on early data.

PM today as well. Not sure how exactly a cigarette producer will fare in a post-respiratory virus world, but hey let's find out! :-X

There are other structures you can use to achieve the same, for example You can buy the full 100 shares for 14,500 and margin the 7800 against it; use some of the 7800 to purchase a put option to prevent a margin call, and invest the remainder.