muscleman

Agree so far the interim news brief looks better than expected at 90% efficacy. Good news is so welcome in 2020! Yep. The market is at an interesting juncture. I am expecting a pull back, and it can be potentially sharp.

PFZ-BNTX vaccine data looks good. Seeking approval by end of November. A few days ago folks in this thread asked me where is the syrup. Here you go. I was a newbie investor during the 2011 EU crisis and was quite bearish. I lost 45% that year shorting a bunch of crap. Later I learned that the market always looks ahead 2-3 quarters. It is important to keep that in mind.

What makes you think we get a 2000 style crash? Unless the Fed loses control of rates, or the Democrats break up FAAG, why would that happen? I said "might" and I also said we'll revisit this theory when we get there. ;) Mmmmm waffles No one can tell what happens in 4 months. Just like the weather, if you look outside the window, you can tell what's gonna happen in an hour but can you tell what's gonna happen in 2 weeks? Come on! And why does that even matter? Then why are you betting on it? I said clearly that I am expecting a pull back and then a really strong up move. After that, we "might" be forming a 2000 dot com top. I am currently betting on the market rally. Once it rallies, I'll revisit the dot com top theory and see if it is still the most likely case. Hope that clarifies.

What makes you think we get a 2000 style crash? Unless the Fed loses control of rates, or the Democrats break up FAAG, why would that happen? I said "might" and I also said we'll revisit this theory when we get there. ;) Mmmmm waffles No one can tell what happens in 4 months. Just like the weather, if you look outside the window, you can tell what's gonna happen in an hour but can you tell what's gonna happen in 2 weeks? Come on! And why does that even matter?

What makes you think we get a 2000 style crash? Unless the Fed loses control of rates, or the Democrats break up FAAG, why would that happen? I said "might" and I also said we'll revisit this theory when we get there. ;)

Hope you guys made some money by being bullish and buying stocks as the 3rd wave COVID breaks out. Dr. Dalal was wrong all the way. Back in August he said he was bearish but if Trump wins re-election then the stock market could actually go higher. (Which might imply if Biden wins, he thinks the market will go down?) I am currently 50% invested not 100% yet because I am expecting another market pull back before a really strong market melt up. Then we might see a replay of the March 2000 dot com bubble burst. But we have to examine it as we get there.

Toomey might well be in the "let it happen" column. Question is, who (person) or what (catalyst) would "make it happen" still? I think if nothing happens prior to transition of power, then looks like it may be a long drawn out wait once again, subject to the court ruling. The court hearing and if progressing then its result are the two sure events on the calendar, everything else seems to be subject to the kindness of strangers. this is all true. but look at the price action of the common v junior pref (6% outperformance of junior over past two days). I will let muscleman inform us as to what the market is telling us, but it appears to be something that is more adverse to common than junior pref. LOL..... The chart for common is in the middle of no where. Not in the comfort zone for me say anything about it. The chart for Preferred looks a bit similar to August 2018. I think it may either go sideways or go down to 7.5 one more time before going up again. After selling out in May 2019, I am getting more interested in the preferred again. I haven't bought any though.

That's a filthy ROE! Like Robinhood daytrading type of ROE in illiquid real estate. How did you swing the 97% LTV? That's incredible. You have to share your banker with me. I think he is doing an FHA loan, which requires 3.5% down payment. Nothing below 3.5% is possible.

I recently started learning real estate investing and everyone says i should have a 10%+ cash on cash return. Those properties don't seem to exist on the West coast so people told me to look at the mid west. Rental properties on the west coast can barely cover the mortgage. I am thinking, doesn't that seem like the equivalent of buying low p/e stocks? Do investors buying rental properties in the mid west really do much better than investors buying properties on the west coast? It just doesn't feel like a yes to me.

Because the radical left Democrats want to lock in more voters at such an early age. Republicans are kinda anti-LGBTQ so if the Democrats can turn a kid into LGBTQ type then they can lock in a life time voter for them. >:( That is nonsense. I just spent 2 years in Music Theory etc., with a young guy who was flamingly gay & a vocal Trump supporter. Another one claimed to be bisexual & was a bible thumping Trumper. Get your homophobic database straightened out. Did you ask them why? Of course there are always exceptions to the rules, but in general wouldn't you say that republicans are anti-LGBTQ and most LGBTQs vote for Democrates?

Because the radical left Democrats want to lock in more voters at such an early age. Republicans are kinda anti-LGBTQ so if the Democrats can turn a kid into LGBTQ type then they can lock in a life time voter for them. >:(

Good question. I'd like her to be nurtured around nice people, but they need to have common sense. There’s two kind of private schools. The catholic ones. And the none catholic ones. The none catholic ones can be a lot more liberal than the public ones. The catholic ones have their problems too, like half of the kids don’t have immunizations. I noticed some schools are called Catholic and some schools are called Christian. I wonder if they are different?

Good question. I'd like her to be nurtured around nice people, but they need to have common sense.

In our children's school we are able to opt out of this stuff. Been opting out since 1st grade. Speak up, talk to the Principal. Worst case say your religion prohibits your child from participating in that class. If this is your main concern, it should be easy enough to opt out. Vinod It is not that easy because there has already been some boys requesting to wear like a girl when going to classes and outside of sex education classes, they still wear like.

Ah the real reason. I'm in Seattle and grew up around here. Happy to give you a run of some of the options around here, but what you're hearing from private schools is probably more based on East Coast or Asian schools than the ones in the much more relaxed Washington State :) Hi Seattle buddy, Can you please give me some advices here? I am living on the east side but I guess there is not much difference from Seattle city. Thank you!

I do have concerns that private schools are so expensive and lots of money to pay before she goes to college. But WA is pushing sex education to Kinder garden, which makes me furious. And 90% of that sex education is about LGBTQ. >:(

Good insight! My wife went to a all girl school and said the same LOL Mine too, and yea, has nothing to do with the education either. The stuff that goes on at all girls schools makes locker room talk at the all boys schools look timid. Could you elaborate on this?

I am not sure if this topic is appropriate here but Buffet said investing in a kid's education is the best investment you can have. ;D Our kid is 3 right now. We live in WA and we are pretty concerned with the public schools aggressively pushing LQBTQ contents in elementary school so we are thinking of enrolling our kid in a private school. We heard that private schools are pretty expensive and they need tests before they can enroll the kids, and on top of that, the school keeps asking for donations every quarter for more money. So it could cost a lot of money before she gets 18. Could anyone share some thoughts? Thank you!

Well at least you admit it. This was not a low stakes issue which is why I questioned your level of confidence. When people become confident in such things, the danger is that precaution is thrown aside. When leaders dismiss precaution and instead exhibit confidence that “the virus will be gone soon” or “a vaccine will be here soon”, the cost of them being wrong—economically and in terms of lives lost—is massive and will be borne by society... The Asian countries and some others like NZ seem to get the precautionary principle. Others not so much. I am in constant search for truth, with no political agenda. It is important to have high conviction when betting but always keep an open mind if wrong. That's the best mentality for an investor. As George Soros said, you can be wrong a lot of times but still make right market calls, and people who were unwilling to make calls until they are super confident are wrong most of the time about the market. Over the years I found out that it is important to be just a little smarter than the average. If I got two steps smarter, I could not make any money because the market cannot see that far.

Well at least you admit it. This was not a low stakes issue which is why I questioned your level of confidence. When people become confident in such things, the danger is that precaution is thrown aside. When leaders dismiss precaution and instead exhibit confidence that “the virus will be gone soon” or “a vaccine will be here soon”, the cost of them being wrong—economically and in terms of lives lost—is massive and will be borne by society... The Asian countries and some others like NZ seem to get the precautionary principle. Others not so much. Let's for a moment assume the herd immunity thesis is broken (we don't know that yet). You're not the only one holding it, there are plenty of others who will realize this as cases and hospitalizations go up, and we anticipate they could go up fast. My question is, can one make money from this understanding? If yes, where are the opportunities to make money if a significant third wave hits? Edit: this question is based on the realization that cases and markets have not correlated much in the last 6 months I think I said this before. Climbing cases is a bullish thing for the stock market. The way to make money from it is to buy stocks not sell short stocks or stay in cash and whining. I think reopening plays are great buys because even though the cases are spiking, I don't think another lockdown will happen. Businesses will remain open while we go through the 3rd wave. I see reopening play stocks with reasonable valuation and growing revenue during the pandemic and I expect them to do well now that lockdowns are easing.

With Sweden's cases spiking, I think my initial herd immunity hypothesis is broken.

What is their incentive trying to push FNMA/FMCC and IntelSat very hard? Could it be just self re-enforcing bias? ACG first started with a bold prediction in 2019 about FnF. Then as it turned sour, they have to double down to show their clients that they should be listened to.

Anybody tracking mRNA's vaccine trial enrollment rates? I am pretty upset that they used to enroll 4-5k patients per week but has been super slow since mid September. It is down to 2k a week and then 1k a week. https://www.modernatx.com/cove-study With nearly 3 million volunteers signed up for COVID vaccine trials, I don't understand why this is the case except for intentional delays.

I looked. And there is almost no criticism of Trump in Feb/March. He is the President of the United States. He's going to get criticism (even if he did everything right). But blatant Trump-bashing was exceptionally rare on this thread. My guess is that you are recalling conversations from other threads. No need to bash Trump, the man is fully capable of speaking for himself this subject: “Just the other day, they came out with a statement that 85% of the people that wear masks catch it” “A lot of people say masks are not good, I’ll tell you who those people are, waiters.” "If we stop testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any' https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6936a5-H.pdf Please check page 1261 - table at top of page for "Reported use of cloth face covering or mask 14 days before illness onset" Mask use for Covid Positive group: Often: 14.4%; Always 70.6% (Total of Often + Always use of mask 85%) Mask use for control (negative) group: Often: 14.5%; Always 74.2% (Total of Often + Always use of mask 88.7%) I know what the numbers were for a tiny study of 150 people. But that study does not indicate that "that 85% of the people that wear masks catch it" [Covid-19]. People who wear masks got a large amount of virus on the outside of the mask. When they take it down later, their figures are full of virus. So it wouldn't be surprised that they get infected from that later. This doesn't mean masks are useless though. It just means that people need to learn how to do it properly. In case you guys still care about the market instead of just trolling Trump.... I think the fact that COVID cases are going up again is quite bullish for the market, but it is possible to have continued sideways actions for 2 more weeks before I am comfortable raising my exposure from 40% to 90%.

@muscleman, and others who have market timing investment philosophies: I'm curious about the latest wave of cases and it's impact on market timing. What are the US and European markets correlating with then, because they don't seem to be correlating with this rise in cases, or now with the rising hospitalization and death numbers or even some localized shutdowns? Is there any metric of the pandemic that they are correlating to? Were we just dealing with liquidity issues that the Fed actions improved, or does solvency come into the picture to impact them as the next wave arrives and this drags on? I already said about 2-3 weeks ago that I was turning bullish again, but with low confidence, so I turned from 100% cash to 60% cash. I have all the posts in this thread that you can go back and verify. I was aiming for 50% cash but there was 1-2 positions that shot up right before I decided to buy. >:( You have too many questions that I just felt overwhelmed to answer. :'( I can try to answer 1-2. In short, initially when the COVID broke out, it was really bearish for the market in March. Everyone was scared. But a few weeks later the fact that COVID is so bad made FED QE like the end of the world, so continued COVID cases make it bullish for the market because FED has the political cover to do more QE without being criticized. At the end of August, I was expecting sharp drop in COVID cases, which would be bearish for the market again because FED will no longer have the political cover for QE. But 3 weeks ago it seems like cases are not dropping as fast as I expected, so I am bullish again. Without QE, it is like a plant that can grow steadily and slowly in soil, but with QE, no matter how healthy a plant is, the moment it is turned off, it is like a hydroponic plant, which will start to have problems in hours, not weeks.