Dalal.Holdings

What’s even more amusing is the other hedgie names being brought up here while Warren’s name is trashed. The guy built up one of the most valuable companies on the planet from a failing textile mill, did not charge investors fees for the privilege of being on the ride, literally built up a company that stands the test of time, and people are freaking out that the company has 20% of its intrinsic value in cash... Why aren’t those hedge funds worth hundreds of billions like berkshire is? Why couldn’t they take all the fee money they nabbed from managing OPM and build up a berkshire over decades? Could they not figure out how compounding works like Warren could? Why are Ackman and Einhorn still managing single digit billions? A legendary investor is able to compound $20M or so over time into a megacap conglomerate while most great hedgies merely “tread water” while taking home fat fees. Guess it’s similar to a couple of months ago how everyone thinks the cash is “burning a hole” in Warren’s pocket. Maybe easy to say when the S&P is at 2019 levels. Don’t think Warren is too bothered what other people think, certainly not minority shareholders who have only been around for a tiny fraction of Berkshire’s ride.

Great summary of the progress that has been made in this thread (though there are forces that insist we go backwards and rehash some older, largely defunct discussions). Funny that "socialist" state Sweden (whose numbers don't look that good and has very low density) is cherry picked. Coming up with notions alternative to Occam (and ignoring the pile of evidence on Occam's side) is hard work. Germany gets it. So did S Korea. We've flattened in the hard hit places in U.S. and I think it is time to strategically reopen them. I think it is going to take lots of testing, public masks, some form of contact tracing, etc. And I think some regions (due to governors) will excel over others (due largely to vacuum of leadership at the federal level).

Who would want to hold cash? Sounds "irrational"... Some people sound upset that WEB was not aggressive enough with cash which is strange. Look around you. There are so many companies that didn't stock up because "no one could have predicted this crisis" and now they're on life support. What is your "adjusted EBITDA" when >50% of your revenue evaporates??? Companies that "optimize the balance sheet" and don't believe in having excess capacity around are the ones to fall. The ones that keep ample cash are the ones to stand the test of time. That's why it's safe for these guys to not diversify and keep 90% of their wealth in that single stock. $125B in cash is not much for a company Berkshire's size. AAPL is a worse offender, but AAPL mgmt has fewer options with cash. When you manage hundreds of billions of dollars, your investment options dwindle (and so will your returns as Warren and Charlie repeatedly state). I don't think Buffett is hypocritical. He clearly has shown that he has run out of investment options for a while--his investments in airlines and OXY show desperation that there was not much else out there for him. He's broken some of his old rules because his investable field has gotten much smaller. And he's more likely to invest at low PE airline stocks than some SaaS with barely positive "non-GAAP adjusted earnings less stock comp".

Yeah be careful with ozone--O3 is highly reactive and can damage tissues, can be carcinogenic. And it may not be necessary--if you leave your garage open on a sunny day (or leave contaminated items in a car with windows that don't block UV/windows rolled down, that's probably enough UV light to do the job. The primary way of catching this is likely inhalation of droplets from someone nearby who has it, not from touching fomites anyway.

A sorry excuse for a leader. The virus is coming for your guns! Buy more guns and shoot it! That's the only way to make sure. My in vitro study shows that guns kill viruses (you try for yourself and see what happens when you put a bullet thru a test tube). Let's open up the gun shops as essential businesses. ;D

On point.

This is my quick take from the full text: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1.full.pdf 1) Completely disproves the "this infection has been widespread for months thesis". It wasn't even widespread by April 3 in this CA county. 2) Pretty much makes herd immunity unfeasible due to #1 3) Their estimated mortality rate is very low--like close to Flu level low. Note how they recruited volunteers: they used facebook ads. From the Dutch bloodbank study, we say that younger folk have this in much higher numbers asymptomatically. So their estimate of asymptomatic infections may skew higher due to Facebook ads as the method of recruiting. There are some other caveats to their estimates that cigarbutt pointed out. And note: But anyway, let's say this is the case and it is just as deadly as the Flu. How does one explain Italy, parts of WA, and NYC getting a surge of ICU/vented patients? Is it just as deadly as the Flu, but much more contagious so we see a sudden surge of critically ill patients? If that is the case, then why should we declare "this is nothing to worry about"? You have two choices here: 1) Occam's razor: every country that saw this didn't overreact for a reason--this is something to take seriously and Wuhan, Italy, NYC show that clearly. 2) Everyone is wrong and this is no different than the Flu. Choose wisely. Or unwisely. The choice is yours.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-17/trump-tells-three-democratic-states-to-liberate-themselves Trump tweet: A sorry excuse for a leader.

All hail Kathleen Mullane, woman who moved markets round the world after hours. What a world we live in!

https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/16/early-peek-at-data-on-gilead-coronavirus-drug-suggests-patients-are-responding-to-treatment/ Looks promising. No control arm in the study is a caveat.

Most lung tissue is actually in the back (posterior region of thorax). When a patient lies in bed for a long time, these airway sacs (alveoli) collapse (atelactasis) which means they no longer participate in gas exchange. Because these regions are located below in a supine patient, they also get more blood flow due to gravity. So now you have most of your lung that’s getting more blood flow not participating in gas exchange (what’s called V-Q mismatch) and this worsens hypoxia. There are docs who think spending prone time may be worthwhile for non intubated Covid patients as well—covid patients with shortness of breath should consider it...

Nice job.

Do you really think that the oil ppl will under any circumstance vote D? Also how is this helping shale patch voters? Last time I checked you don't need a lot of people to not drill. Margins on Pres elections in the U.S. is not very large. Even a low single digit swing either way can change the color of a state. All it takes is economic hardship from shale to trickle to other businesses in those areas to threaten the admin's security in those regions. Farmers + oil folks are key constituents for R's. Even the appearance of doing something--like attempting to broker an OPEC agreement--goes a long way in helping secure votes (even if those attempts fail to stop job losses).

The shale patch and associated votes are worth a lot to this admin's reelection campaign. So are farmers. They will try whatever it takes to bail these sectors out. Remember, as in 2016, you do not need to win the most votes (popular vote) to win the election, you just need to win votes that are in the right places.

You're right, this Lancet study is good enough for me for the time being. And so are you! You treasure, you!

This is interesting. Netherlands used policies more or less intermediate compared to places like Austria on one side and Italy on the other with, as expected, more or less intermediate results. Netherlands has also produced interesting work on influenza vaccine effectiveness and is a good relative European student in terms of historical flu vaccinate rates. It looks like (picture developing) that the CV does behave (intrinsic features) similarly to the influenza virus, with the main difference being that the population tends to have a much lower natural immunity to it and there is no vaccine, not even a partially effective one. Reasonable extrapolation of data in the Netherlands suggests that the eventual death rate from CV (with some social distancing and other basic measures) will look like (compare to a reasonable degree) the typical death rate for influenza, had there been a 0% rate of vaccination. What society is doing is basically trying to adapt (with various levels of 'success') to this new and evolving reality. @LC Thank you for supplying the link for the European monitoring of mortality with seasonal variations. Apologies. To my own embarassment upon re-reading this I made a primary school calculation error here (my only defence: it was early). 3100 out of 500 000 obviously isn't 0.06%, but 0.6%, which makes quite a bit of difference here, Still not quite the 3% some are saying, but definitely not flu percentages either. https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S1473-3099%2820%2930243-7 See Table 1. Estimated CFR 1.38%, >10x deadlier than the Flu. The best CFR from published studies is in the vicinity of 1% which is 10x deadlier than Flu. The 3% antibodies is not good news for feasibility of herd immunity as you note. British government backed off of that strategy quickly...

Happy to be on the green line, even if it means I “predicted wrong” to some! :D

No, they were appallingly bad, to the extent that I'd lose a some degree of respect for all doctors if it weren't for Dalal's sensible posts on this thread to pull me back off that ledge. Frankly, it terrifies me that doctors exist who ignore evidence for gut feel, make wild speculations not even supported by common sense let alone facts, and then when the evidence proves them wrong, continue to insist that they were right. (What the heck is one to do if one seriously needs a doctor, and this is the doctor one gets? Just roll over and die?) Lol. Please point to me where I was wrong Dick? Dalal's sensible posts? Jesus Christ, which ones? the chicken little the sky is falling ones? the never ending cock sucking of Taleb? The tiresome Buffett and Munger quotes? The personal attack ones? The one where he told Gregmal "Fuck you" when he was wrong? The never ending Trump bullshit and political innuendo. The ones where he insulted myself and others unabated? Cherzeca was right, you belong in the Dalal pile too. You want to align yourself with that childish bullshit? Be my guest. We could have a 10 page thread of just his/her insults throughout the message board. Quite a character on the end of that keyboard. Self assumingly witty, smart, and bumptious but in all honestly if the real life personality matched what has been typed out on this message board a DSM-5 evaluation would be in order. You mean i told that guy to fuck off after he mocked NYers dying in “the cesspool”. You continue to make things up. It’s ok, in your corner you have: - Gregmal - cubsfan - chezerca A.k.a. The best of the best You typed that stuff no one else, and it has nothing to do with corners or teams. If in real life you treat people with same vitriol and aggression that you do on here then maybe you need to actually re read those Munger/Buffet quotes because let me tell you are not even in the same galaxy. Bro, I don’t care about arguing further. Like I said, new policy. I am glad it hasn’t been the worst case scenario and we’ve flattened. Just like being glad I didn’t have to use my seatbelt. If in your book that means I too predicted wrong, then so be it. Carry on.

No, they were appallingly bad, to the extent that I'd lose a some degree of respect for all doctors if it weren't for Dalal's sensible posts on this thread to pull me back off that ledge. Frankly, it terrifies me that doctors exist who ignore evidence for gut feel, make wild speculations not even supported by common sense let alone facts, and then when the evidence proves them wrong, continue to insist that they were right. (What the heck is one to do if one seriously needs a doctor, and this is the doctor one gets? Just roll over and die?) Lol. Please point to me where I was wrong Dick? Dalal's sensible posts? Jesus Christ, which ones? the chicken little the sky is falling ones? the never ending cock sucking of Taleb? The tiresome Buffett and Munger quotes? The personal attack ones? The one where he told Gregmal "Fuck you" when he was wrong? The never ending Trump bullshit and political innuendo. The ones where he insulted myself and others unabated? Cherzeca was right, you belong in the Dalal pile too. You want to align yourself with that childish bullshit? Be my guest. We could have a 10 page thread of just his/her insults throughout the message board. Quite a character on the end of that keyboard. Self assumingly witty, smart, and bumptious but in all honestly if the real life personality matched what has been typed out on this message board a DSM-5 evaluation would be in order. You mean i told that guy to fuck off after he mocked NYers dying in “the cesspool”. You continue to make things up. It’s ok, in your corner you have: - Gregmal - cubsfan - chezerca A.k.a. The best of the best

I made it policy to no longer respond to you (Schwab711 does a good job anyway), but you attempt to call me out here and grossly mischaracterize my statements--"fearing a collapse in the healthcare system" does not equal "predicting complete collapse of healthcare system": No, collapse did not happen thanks to - NYC lockdown, - every single hospital in NYC turning itself inside out, - Cuomo, - cancelling all elective cases, - A military ship, - Javit's center, - A tent in central park, - And more unprecedented, never before done actions taken Saying I should be criticized for fearing healthcare collapse in early March (before any of these things were put in place) is laughable. And btw, the deaths were exponential until the curve flattened thanks to all of these unprecedented, never-before-done measures. Finally, You are and have been consistently wrong and refuse to eat your bowl of crow. So, your bowl is going cold--can I just have it instead? Groceries are hard to come by these days. Thanks. That still means you were wrong though and every model you quoted and took to heart was also, and yes you quoted models. Tough to take I know. Your predictions never matched reality, and never were going to. You were unhinged and scared. People do weird things and are irrational when they are scared, and it was obvious you were. Your forgiven. Lol. Putting a seatbelt on does not mean one is predicting a car crash. But to each his own.

I made it policy to no longer respond to you (Schwab711 does a good job anyway), but you attempt to call me out here and grossly mischaracterize my statements--"fearing a collapse in the healthcare system" does not equal "predicting complete collapse of healthcare system": No, collapse did not happen thanks to - NYC lockdown, - every single hospital in NYC turning itself inside out, - Cuomo, - cancelling all elective cases, - A military ship, - Javit's center, - A tent in central park, - And more unprecedented, never before done actions taken Saying I should be criticized for fearing healthcare collapse in early March (before any of these things were put in place) is laughable. And btw, the deaths were exponential until the curve flattened thanks to all of these unprecedented, never-before-done measures. Finally, You are and have been consistently wrong and refuse to eat your bowl of crow. So, your bowl is going cold--can I just have it instead? Groceries are hard to come by these days. Thanks.

The bolded part of your quote is key. Furthermore... IL-6 blockers & hydroxychloroquine--if they work is likely due to immune suppression (which is how these work in Rheumatoid arthritis). However I would argue then that these are not drugs to use in every covid patient, but rather exclusively in covid patients with ARDS. Right now you have a bunch of PCPs instructing people to take hydroxychloroquine while recovering at home--who knows if immune suppression is actually a good thing in the early stages of covid? It may actually make things worse. With ARDS--which is an inflammatory condition where your immune system goes into overdrive (neutrophil mediated) and damages lung tissue--immunosuppressants may help reduce severity, but to use it in COVID infections without ARDS may not help and may actually instead make the course of infection worse by ramping down immune protection.... A lot of uncertainty, but then you can just look at your bolded statement and that's enough to draw conclusions about these treatments. (Inverting the problem)

And don’t forget the downside of these drugs: Prolonged QT interval is not a benign thing

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-15/germany-likely-to-extend-national-lockdown-measures-until-may-3-k913n3v2 The benefits of acting early and aggressively (like aggressive testing, lockdowns) are enormous. There is a clear outlier among countries with the largest number of confirmed cases—see attachment.

C. The answer is c.