muscleman

You are welcome. I think the whole point of this thread is to exchange information and facts, instead of bias. I totally agree on that. :) Trying to graph a linear curve of total deaths/million and log curves of daily deaths per million population - better done on your own device so you can highlight each country at a time. I'm attaching a snapshot from my screen. Per CDC total deaths per million for NYC is ~2800/M; NJ 1780/M. Comparatively, each of these countries on the graph is is 680/M or lower. India is less than 50/M (certainly there could be virus strain effects or reporting issues rather than just the host immunity). We do know that NYC went through intensive social distancing after initial spread, rather than deaths ceasing from achieving herd immunity, so I doubt the death rate was maxed out until "herd immunity" was reached. You are correct that Sweden death rates flattened - however there could have been mobility reductions there as well; people do behave differently than what governments ask them to. Also trying to compare log rates of daily deaths/Million. Countries with lesser mobility reductions could include Brazil, Sweden and US, as compared w Europe or Asia. Here Brazil and US still have a log curve above 1 which tells us it is too early to predict max deaths here. Sweden however did have a log curve reduction in the daily deaths which I cannot explain. My take after looking at these is it is too hard to tell if there is true herd immunity, and likely not there, given that countries with lower mobility restrictions like Brazil and US have ongoing deaths with a per million death toll nowhere near even the NYC death rates. Apart from Sweden, the rest are not supporting the herd immunity thesis. Also, as long as large swaths of vulnerable populations remain, businesses and daily life will continue to be impacted and thus social distancing will need to continue. There is one thing that is not supporting my viewpoint. Nowhere has the healthcare system been overwhelmed twice. That would be a true second wave, which has not happened anywhere. That would be clear evidence of herd immunity not being present. Economically, I think Governments will keep opening up until that happens, they almost have no choice as financial life support will run out. I hope we never find out and you're right :) https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths https://www.timeout.com/news/new-tracking-data-shows-which-countries-and-cities-are-social-distancing-the-most-040920 https://www.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases I believe the best way to know if the water is too cold is to stick the toes into the water and feel it. We had a massive protests throughout US in May, with crowds standing next to each other, with no masks. If NY and a few other states do not have herd immunity, they will definitely have the 2nd wave. I think comparing states to states is the best way to estimate herd immunity because if you do country by country, well, most other countries have not done as much testing as the US.

Can you expand on how deaths are being covered up? It's my understanding that individual States are responsible for reporting deaths to the CDC. We live in alternative world these days. ::) What I heard from a friend who is a San Diego ER doctor said his friend is an ER doctor in NY and that they were forced to write death cause to be COVID, for pretty much any death, even including gun shot death. The death number is inflated so the NY state can get more federal funding for this.

You are welcome. I think the whole point of this thread is to exchange information and facts, instead of bias. I totally agree on that. :)

If by "death rate" you mean [confirmed cases]/deaths, you certainly seem to be right based on the data we have already. Cases also appear to be inflecting down in FL, AZ and TX. So, I'm very curious what exactly you mean by "herd immunity" and why you think we'll have it by the end of the August. Do you think the NYC already has it? I already explained in prior posts. NYC already had 24% people antibody positive in early April, so probably 40% now. Also research shows likelihood of 40-60% of entire global population who have never been exposed to COVID but their T cell can already fight COVID. So we are easily at 80% immunity in NYC. The proof is the 10k daily cases in March but no second spike in July. Now Texas and FL, with similar population size, have experienced what NY experienced in March, so in four weeks, the new daily cases should be sharply lower. I don't want to keep explaining things over and over. People who believe it will find evidence that confirms their view, and people who disbelieve it will also find evidence that confirms their view. My high conviction prediction is that by the end of August, the COVID situation is dramatically better. Then the Democrats will face tremendous pressure to reopen. Then Trump wins again in November. And to Dalal holdings, my prediction of the crash depends on many things and 6 month time line is just a tentative one. I have to revisit it later. I have high conviction that we are in the early stage of an asset bubble and I have high conviction that this bubble will burst. I have low conviction for the 6 month timeline. But as it approaches, I'll see it more clearly at that time. It is simply not a good idea to put your words into my month and say, yeah you agree with me and that the market will crash in 30 days and COVID will be gone in 30 days. I never said that. Again, I will push back on your thesis that herd immunity is developing muscleman. The NY serosurveys were of people out and about and willing to get serosurvey testing done, not a random sample IMHO. Secondly, if pre-existing immunity were to play a large role, those who have lived longer, or been more exposed like those in nursing homes or healthcare work, would do better. But those are the populations heavily impacted in this first wave. Also, simply having T cell reactivity does not prove anything; again the elderly are dying in larger numbers and they would be the most likely to have pre-existing cross reactive immunity. On the contrary, young children who have never been exposed are doing relatively well. I acknowledge you have repeated your conviction, but the purpose of being on a message board at least for me is to be open to contrary views and clarify my thinking. There is an important distinction between cases going down due to control measures of social distancing (which need to be maintained until herd immunity develops) and true herd immunity (where life and business can resume as usual). Beyond the theoretical disconfirmation, your thesis has also not played out in any country so far. Places that reopen without proper social distancing are having recurrence of infections rather than displaying herd immunity. Also, since you have been following this in China, can you offer any reasoning why the virus did not spread as much within China outside Hubei province as in the rest of the world? I've been curious about that. Is it just fake data or is there more? How has their social distancing evolved now? My conviction of herd immunity comes from the research papers regarding T cell and antibodies %, and also from confirmation of the charts from various states and countries. Sweden has been open for a long time and the peak has passed. They have 10 million people and their peak was roughly below 2k per day. New York has 20 Million people and their peak was 10k a day but testing is far more widely done in the US than in other places. Which country are you referring to that reopened and now having a second wave? I'd like to take a look. If the first wave peak is too small relative to their population then of course they'll have the 2nd wave when they reopen. But if the first wave peak is high enough like New York, there should not be a second wave because herd immunity has been achieved. That's my theory. Please let me know which country you are looking at. I would like to take a look. Regarding China..... There are many things that were implemented that are simply illegal to do in other countries. 1. They have mobile apps that trace everyone' interactions. They initially start as green but if you have close contact with a red (infected), your status turns yellow and you have to be tested. This is a big privacy concern that is impossible to implement in the US. If you don't have this mobile app in China, you can't take any buses or trains or do any other basic things. 2. Some towns have crazy policies to use cement or steel to seal the resident's door if the resident is infected. They'll deliver food daily but the resident is locked at home. And sometimes they forgot to deliver food and the resident's whole family starved to death. 3. Some towns with high infections rates would found out that overnight, their public road going out of the town was rigged up by other towns, and they couldn't go out anymore. 4. They jacked up the airline ticket back to China from foreign countries to something like $10000 economy class. This makes it very hard to get back to China for these Chinese citizens, which also some kind of way to slow down infection.

Muscleman's family is Chinese from his previous posts. This is why the Chinese wind up owning most of the real estate. Because we have had 5,000 years of dealing with land scarcity. Americans has this wide open land mass that allow them to continue to build outward. So Americans tend to think of renting. Either that or Americans are lazy people who spent all their money. They make fun of the Chinese people for speaking bad English and working in the Chinese take outs. The kids winds up saving money and buying the RE who they rent to the Americans. I'm half joking and half serious. But I have seen enough of these stories play out that it's got an ounce of truth to it. Ask any Asian parents for $50k to start a hedge fund and they will scold you for gambling. Ask them for a $250k down payment and they will re-mortgage their primary residence to help you out. Muscleman's quest to look to buy a vacation rental and your response are very telling of the different philosophical approaches to real asset ownership. My $0.02 I am actually open to renting a place for a month and then move to the next place. I am also open to buying a vacation rental and living in it for 2 months a year and renting it out for the rest 10 months if the cash flow makes sense and it won't keep me too busy.

For the record, I am not saying that what you are saying is definitely not going to come to pass--I believe there is a chance you are right and the probability is not zero, but just not that high and with wide confidence interval (on if we can in fact extrapolate from small studies to population and in fact there is cross immunity from other coronaviruses and if we have hit the 60-80% infected/immune nationwide). What I am questioning is the level of confidence/conviction you have for a complex, nonlinear multi-ordered process (immune system dynamics, population dynamics, etc etc). In other words, I think you are discounting the probability that you are wrong. The precautionary principle to me means it is better to be conservative when facing uncertainty instead of proceeding with "high conviction" about anything. In other words, having a large margin of safety when buying a stock...or wearing a seatbelt even if it's just a short neighborhood drive...or not being fully invested even if you are sure the bubble has a few more months/weeks to go... I hope the scenario of early herd immunity does pan out. Though I am afraid even if it does, the economic damage is done for the U.S. and we have a huge number of people who have suffered (needlessly IMO)... We just have different approaches then. I don't have high conviction all the time, but I do have it now. "it is better to be conservative when facing uncertainty". If you ever studied Pabrai's interviews, he said investors need to distinguish uncertainty vs risk. They are different things, but they both make investors uncomfortable. I guess this is why I originally emphasized to focus on COVID in this thread because discussing facts around COVID is already difficult, whose facts are widely politicized. Not to mention the market implication of COVID. I am going to stop talking about the market now in this thread.

Do you guys know if a vacation home can be cash flow break even if I live there for 2 months and rent it out via airbnb for the other 10 months?

Dalal Holdings. Let's just agree to disagree, ok? We will revisit in the end of August, and if the daily new cases is not sharply lower, I'll apologize in this thread ok? :) I am not gaining anything from this discussion here. From the very beginning in late January, I have been sharing valuable COVID info. I wanted to help this community. People can either believe or disbelieve me. That's their own choice.

If by "death rate" you mean [confirmed cases]/deaths, you certainly seem to be right based on the data we have already. Cases also appear to be inflecting down in FL, AZ and TX. So, I'm very curious what exactly you mean by "herd immunity" and why you think we'll have it by the end of the August. Do you think the NYC already has it? I already explained in prior posts. NYC already had 24% people antibody positive in early April, so probably 40% now. Also research shows likelihood of 40-60% of entire global population who have never been exposed to COVID but their T cell can already fight COVID. So we are easily at 80% immunity in NYC. The proof is the 10k daily cases in March but no second spike in July. Now Texas and FL, with similar population size, have experienced what NY experienced in March, so in four weeks, the new daily cases should be sharply lower. I don't want to keep explaining things over and over. People who believe it will find evidence that confirms their view, and people who disbelieve it will also find evidence that confirms their view. My high conviction prediction is that by the end of August, the COVID situation is dramatically better. Then the Democrats will face tremendous pressure to reopen. Then Trump wins again in November. And to Dalal holdings, my prediction of the crash depends on many things and 6 month time line is just a tentative one. I have to revisit it later. I have high conviction that we are in the early stage of an asset bubble and I have high conviction that this bubble will burst. I have low conviction for the 6 month timeline. But as it approaches, I'll see it more clearly at that time. It is simply not a good idea to put your words into my month and say, yeah you agree with me and that the market will crash in 30 days and COVID will be gone in 30 days. I never said that.

Muscle, I’ll let you know when I can get one of those charts that looks into the future...oh, wait looking at a leading indicator like rise in U.S. cases and predicting that that’s where deaths (lagging indicator) are headed is exactly what I did in June...almost like “looking in the windshield”... Anyway, you can’t help bringing up the market in covid thread. If in your windshield there is going to “be a crash” with “high conviction” in the next 6 mo—I ask, are you looking through your own windshield? FYI I try to avoid making short term market predictions (6 mo is short), and certainly not high conviction ones, so your posts are quite peculiar to me, especially the fact that you predict a crash while I do not. I only lament over dead Americans and long term damage inflicted to the economy... The latest bankruptcies: Lord & Taylor CPK Tailored Brands Do you think all of these would have occurred if covid had not resurged in June in the U.S.? Are we Great Again or what? I don't think you have a solid understanding of the virus. Probably no one has better understanding about it than me, at least in this forum. (Uh Oh, i don't want to sound like Trump..... ;)) This second wave will have far smaller death rate than the first one, and by the end of August, the US will have herd immunity and new daily cases will drop sharply and these Democratic governors will face severe pressure to reopen. However, the new daily cases will be a long tail on the chart and that gives FED the political cover to QE, and on top of that, they are proposing to drop the policy to pre-emptively raise interest in prediction of inflation. I see an asset bubble brewing so I am very bullish right now, but I think all bubbles will end in the same way. They crash. But it does not make any sense to hold a bearish view right now at the initial stage of an asset bubble. You may argue that valuation looks insane but valuation never matters in an asset bubble. That's my windshield view of the market. Hope that helps.

Now we have this. That's all deflationary policies huh? I guess Stan Drunkenmiller has made a really bad macro call. https://www.wsj.com/articles/fed-weighs-abandoning-pre-emptive-rate-moves-to-curb-inflation-11596360600 The Federal Reserve is preparing to effectively abandon its strategy of pre-emptively lifting interest rates to head off higher inflation, a practice it has followed for more than three decades. Instead, Fed officials would take a more relaxed view by allowing for periods in which inflation would run slightly above the central bank’s 2% target, to make up for past episodes in which inflation ran below the target.

Dalal Holdings, I just have a friendly reminder. Buffet said investors looking backward is just like people driving their cars with their windshield covered and only use their rear view mirrors to drive. Have you considered the likelihood that you are doing just that? In your vehicle, the charts you posted are in your rear view mirror. But what's in your windshield? ;)

Margins calls get executed the same day, but it takes time to wind down a fund. Could you tell me where you heard these rumors? If he did not lever up, then he would have survived the COVID crash and be fine right now. But if he had levered up, it would be strange for him to say in his letters that he will dissolve the fund in 6-9 months, because with margin calls, he does not have 6-9 months to dissolve. If he gets margin calls, then he had to blow it out on the same day. Then the fund is probably already in cash right? Why does it still take another 6-9 months to dissolve? Is it confirmed that he started using leverage again right before the COVID crash, which caused this tragedy? I feel so sorry for him.

Wow 45% discount? That's insane! I'd love to do that! So if I just go to airbnb and put in a reservation of over 28 days, I'll get this discount? That sounds really good. I was initially thinking of buying a vacation home and then later convert it to an airbnb property while I am not there. No, it's not Airbnb that gives you the discount. It's all up to the hosts whether they want to give a discount or not. But generally most do and generally it's in the 15-20% range. The 45% discount that Gamecock is seeing is most likely something like 15% normal discount +30% COVID discount. So if I try to book something like 28 days, do I have to contact the host to negotiate the discount or does airbnb automatically applies the discount?

Wow 45% discount? That's insane! I'd love to do that! So if I just go to airbnb and put in a reservation of over 28 days, I'll get this discount? That sounds really good. I was initially thinking of buying a vacation home and then later convert it to an airbnb property while I am not there.

Thank you. What does below MM 30 mean? What do you do outdoor in Utan, Montana, Wyoming?

That depends on how long you live in the vacation property right? I could spend 4 months a year there now that my company allows permanently work from home

I thought you said let's keep the discussion in here about covid, yet you keep bringing up "the market"? Anyway, hate to break it to you but since you said there is going to be "a crash" with "high confidence" in the next 6 mo, you would fall right in the bearish camp... :-X These graphs reflect what Dalal.Holdings is feeling (avg over 1,000 Americans dead per day and going in the wrong direction...): errr...... You caught me...... ;D I was reading the AAII chart this morning and your name jumped out right away and I felt I had no other threads to post it so I put it here. I think a crash in 6 months is a possibility but the market looks bullish right now and I have to re-examine everything in 4-6 months to determine if the crash is still coming. Long term inflection points are hard to time.

This chart below probably reflects what Dalal.Holdings and other bearish investors are feeling. It makes wonder how AAII determines which investors to survey to sample for the data. Clearly Dave Portnoy is not included because he said "Stocks only go up"

Could you tell me where you heard these rumors? If he did not lever up, then he would have survived the COVID crash and be fine right now. But if he had levered up, it would be strange for him to say in his letters that he will dissolve the fund in 6-9 months, because with margin calls, he does not have 6-9 months to dissolve.

My company just allowed us to permanently work from home, which makes me think if I should buy a vacation home somewhere that's both affordable and enjoyable. I can also rent it out as airbnb later after COVID is gone. Any suggestions? I am currently in Seattle and suffer from the consistent rain. I really need some sunshine.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/eurozone-economy-contracts-by-record-40-11596191720?mod=hp_lead_pos2 Yesterday wsj reported US GDP down 32% and today EU down 40%. That's the end of the world guys! But hey, did you guys see the word "on annualized basis"? ;)

I have to wonder why Fauci is appointed by Trump to lead this.

https://nypost.com/2020/05/20/chris-cuomo-took-less-safe-version-of-hydroxychloroquine-mcenany/ HCQ is just another drug being politicized in the US.

Ok...So I guess "the crash" will be in 6 mo then... You also said schools will open in most states by September which is possible but depends too much on local politicians. I think new case numbers will improve from here on out (have likely peaked nationwide), but "dramatically improved" is questionable. Furthermore, hospitalizations and deaths will have a longer tail due to inherent delays. I definitely do not think there is enough data to suggest we are close to herd immunity as you've suggested. But none of this really matters economically as the damage is done particularly to the U.S. due to a much longer drawn out and larger in magnitude pandemic than most industrialized countries (second round of fiscal stimulus in progress...). Those second and third order (largely economic) effects of the pandemic will have a long tail... Let's put it this way, if the US daily new cases do not drop to 20k or below by the end of August, I'll apologize in this thread. How about that? I am pretty sure the infection rates will be going down near term, but predicting the infection rates really didn’t help much predicting the stock market at all. I also think come fall and in particular post Thanksgiving, the Infection rates will start rising again most likely. However by then, the election Outcome is likely more important for the stock market. No I don't think it will rise again in the fall to Thanksgiving. Maybe COVID will not help predicting the stock market but this is the COVID thread so discussion of COVID going forward should be the top priority here.