Spekulatius

My wife gets anxiety in a clinical setting and her self-administered-at-home blood pressure reading is far lower than what the nurse or doctor will see. I took her into the Mercy Hospital ER a couple of days ago when her blood pressure dropped to 84/57 with a pulse of 91. The triage nurse then took her blood pressure and it was way back up again. This happens to my wife a lot, but she's never had a reading THIS low. What the hospital should have done, but didn't, is lay her down on a bed in a quiet room alone with a machine periodically measuring her pressure every 5 minutes. Her primary care doctor has measured her low blood pressure using that method, and tells her to eat pickles and put salt on her food to manage it. If not, she gets dizzy. My mom get‘s crazy high blood pressure readings when she goes to her doctor for checkups. Then when she his home, it’s back to normal. She has some problems with heart arrhythmia lately, but her doc thinks the high readings SRE due to anxiety - I guess it’s the white cost Syndrome that cigarbutt mentioned. As for false negative COVID-19 tests that’s a problem at hospitals my wife works. Every patient get‘s tested but some test negative even though it looks like they have COVID-19- Then they retest the next day and they sometimes test positive. That means that everyone who with them Better gets a test too because they wear different PPE and follow different procedures based the first negative test result. Crazy.

Hulu has a BF deal for it’s ad supported version for $1.99 for one year. I subscribed to it. Watching the seasonal “Free Birds” animation and it’s actually pretty good. I am slo rewatching the Fargo series that originally aired on FX. I watched Episode 1 and it’s a classic.

Talked with my Mom today (she lives in Germany) and they are putting in several vaccinations location for COVID-19 vaccinations in her town. Vaccination to start in mid December. The vaccinations centers will work in 2 shifts. To roll out mass vaccinations as quickly as possible. Health care workers and first responders come first. https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-digest-germany-may-start-vaccinating-in-december/a-55696560 I wish I had a better feeling about rollout plans in the US. This should be front center and focus, imo. @Eric - thank you for sharing your episode and glad you and your family are OK. Do you have any idea how your stepson get infected?

Isn’t the risk with SPAC’s that they announce a crappy deal and the stock falls below par ($10)?

Bought a bit of MITK the last few days. RKABANG brought it up and it looks like a decent growth/ value intersection stock to me.

Yes, governments as well as the potential reward from selling the vaccine caused the development to speed up. It wasn’t just warp speed either - BioNtech got ~460M Euro in R&D funding from the German government for example. Moderna got R&D funding from the US government, I believe. Both had contracts to sell the vaccine (in the US and elsewhere) if they can get approval. The internet really took off after the HTML protocol was developed at CERN in Geneva. Since other countries had it too at the same time, I don’t think Al Gore had much to do with it. The early funding in the 60’s and 70’s came from military funding in the US.

Why would you want to deal with Merrill Edge instead if Schwab, Fidelity or Interactive Brokers? I see no benefit of using Merrill Edge (I have never used it, but used Wells Fargo brokerage). The dedicated investment brokerage offerings are far superior in terms of platform and customer service, imo. Back in the day, Merrill Edge and Wells Fargo gave free trades when you had other products with them, which was worth something. Now everyone has free trades, so that point is moot.

Going back to the topic of the thread - where is the predicted recession like we have never seen before? When is the stock market finally getting the message?

Sold INTC (loss) and reduced PKE, CMCSA and BNTGY

I don’t have much of a clue about CRISPR technology and I am not sure one has to. I have become convinced that in most cases, platform companies are not the way to invest in Biotech. Rather invest in smart management team that are platform agnostic, but have deep knowledge in therapeutic areas and clinical development and let them pick the technology that they think works best. I don’t have many positions in Biotech, but I do have a smallish position in BMRN because I have followed them for a decade or more, when I could find stories in the local newspaper. Now looking at them, they have proven that they know what they are doing and brought several products to market and are cash flow positive now. That’s more like a bet I feel making, but everyone’s view is different.

A smaller doses should not be more effective. I think in a clinical trial in Ph 1 or 2 (where different doses are tested) this type of response is typically a red flag, but then I haven’t looked at the data yet. In any case, the bottom line is we now have 3 proven vaccines with more to come.

Time to get infected before it is too late. A trip to South Dakota is probably your best option.

Medical staff infection are becoming more and more an issue. We will run out of medical workers before we run out of hospital capacity, hence the need to vaccinate medical workers as well as nursing home staff first.

And then think about whether fecal diseases (typhoid, cholera, etc) are spread by farts. Farts work well to enforce social distancing though.

Why are the alternatives horrible? The most straightforward alternative is to open an account with a reputable low cost asset manager like Fidelity or Schwab and cost average into low cost index funds like (SP500, QQQ or total stock market index). That’s easy to do for everyone. If handholding is required, I think Fidelity and Schwab actually do a pretty good job with their advisors for a relatively low fee. those are alternatives that I have and would advise my friends.

The story of how BioNtech developed the COVId-19 vaccine: https://www.ft.com/content/c4ca8496-a215-44b1-a7eb-f88568fc9de9 I didn’t know this, but Pfizer was not involved in the early stages, but assisted with manufacturing and running the trials. The research was funded by the German government (375M Euro) and of course a large order (if the vaccine would be approved ) by the US government played a role too.

Why is this stupid? The drug apparently has not produced any tangible benefit in their large study and it is expensive and complex to administer. They are not the first ones to bring this up either. The WHO supports more trials but so far, it does not seem very effective, if at all.

Yeah, Liberator is worth checking out. i like the Visual Style, but I do think that the storytelling falls a bit flat. If you do want to watch a really good WW2 swords, try “Generation war” on Netflix: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_War For something lighthearted and seasonal (Xmas), “Dash and Lilly” is well scripted and entertaining.

Interesting comparison of the two mRNA vaccine front runners (Moderna, Pfizer-BioNtech): https://twitter.com/biohazard3737/status/1329131035540516865?s=21 FWIW, that @biohazard3737 fellow is worth a follow.

Sold down a little more BNTGY.

I also bought MRK in the mid seventies and think it is a classic GARP stock, above average quality (business, balance sheet) for a below market multiple. MRK seems like a straightforward buy for Buffet holding. He has avoided Pharma so der because he was unsure about valuing their product pipelines. I guess that is why he takes the basket approach.

Side effects have been an issue with the RNA vaccines, I believe, so the FDA will look out for these when thee trial results are published. The standard vaccines (Adenovirus etc) have a better known side effect profile.

Another letter from Bronte. I put this here because he talks a lot about behavioral aspects of the Coronavirus as well as investing implications. I understand many here don’t like him, but I find his reasoning very sound: http://files.brontecapital.com/amalthea/Amalthea_Letter_202009.pdf

Pretty good article explaining why people do what they do: https://siouxcityjournal.com/news/state-and-regional/iowa/surging-virus-cases-get-a-shrug-in-many-midwestern-towns/article_b1022b5a-d490-5b1f-b99e-58f9911ebce3.html