Dalal.Holdings

Based on his way of operation so far (everything good is because of him, everything bad is someone else's fault who he then hardly even knew), here's what I think his plan is: He says he wants to reopen. When he can't because governors and cities and companies stay shut, he blames them for the bad economy, says it's not his fault, says they just do it to hurt him, so it shouldn't be held against him in election. Runs election as underdog who's being attacked by all, and all his great plans for the country would happen if not for all the obstruction. If the measures taken work and we beat this thing, he says "see, I was right, it wasn't a big deal, we went through this for nothing, if you had listened to me, everything would've been fine." (like those saying Y2K was no big deal without realizing it was exactly because of all the mitigation efforts... it's anti-vaxxer logic -- "who needs vaccines, there are so few infectious diseases these days?"). If we're lucky (heavy seasonality? great therapeutics?) and can actually reopen quickly after a peak, he also takes credit for having known it (even though it was a pure gamble with the lives of others). If things get really bad, he says he always knew it and it's all the fault of governors/mayors/deep state/democrats/etc who are incompetent/evil, as he's already been doing ("I always knew it was going to be a pandemic" "Cuomo could've bought more ventilators years ago" (everybody could've bought more of everything, that's not even wrong)). He sets things up so that the has something to say whatever happens, even if he's actually not trying to figure out what's best to do to beat this thing as quickly and painlessly as possible, because that may be inconvenient to his election and businesses and he doesn't have the intellectual tools to understand complex problems -- his skills as a salesman/BS artist don't help with pandemics. +1,000,000 "The art of the dodge", a.k.a. the buck always stops somewheres else

Yes, your opinion is that, let's say, 6 million were infected as of March 9th. If the infection rate doubles every 3 days, there should be 200 million infected. And by Friday, every single person in the US will be infected. The problem is that no evidence supports this opinion. If millions were infected months ago, then why are NYC ICUs filling up now? Is it the last few million cases that are leading to sudden surge of severe cases? Why were ICUs not stacked in January? In February? FYI many of these patients are requiring 1 week+ on ventilators. What would we have seen in January and February for the "millions infected for months" scenario to be valid? What NYC hospitals are revealing to me now vs back then tells me in very clear terms that this thesis is invalid. Or, as Charlie would say: invert, always invert.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/nyregion/nyc-coronavirus-hospitals.html FYI. Destroys the thesis that this has infected millions months ago in the U.S.

Meh. I guess we'll agree to disagree. To me, shorting a company and trashing it != being long and praising a company. But that's just me.

So when Tepper does an interview and talks about being "balls to the walls", or "Druck" talks about what he's buying or about going short, or Buffett writes an op-ed about buying stocks or Malone talks about "how good a business X or Y is", is that manipulation trickery mode? Ackman just did what every guest on these shows do. His interview happened to be particularly dramatic because it was a particularly dramatic time, right as a pandemic is exploding but right before it seemed most governments were really taking it seriously and shutting things down. If I had been given a microphone at that time, I'd probably have said pretty similar things, to be honest. That's what the data was showing, and I was worried about my parents and in laws and uncles and aunts and friends with health troubles and friends working in healthcare... I know there's strong social conventions about never going out on a limb and never appearing to overreact and all that, but those conventions hinder good decision-making in times like these, because we're all looking around and waiting for others to tell us it's time to do something, instead of thinking for ourselves, and lose precious time, so voices that actually tell you how bad it is and how bad it'll be if we don't act are very valuable. Uh, no the comparison to Buffett telling people "buy equities" in the fall of 2008 is not equivalent to this guy. Comparing a guy who has a long track record of shorting a business and then going onto a network to talk about how the business is a scam/fraud and he is doing it to "protect people" (reminds me of TSLAQ folks). And investing in a "sewer" (Munger's words) like VRX tells you even more. The problem with the "if I had a microphone in my face" is that some people willingly go out of their way to seek out that microphone at opportune times. I guess it's great marketing for Pershing when it comes to raising capital. I have not seen Buffett/Munger engage in the same kind of tactics. I'd bet a lot of money that a lot of people have tried to "put a microphone" in front of Buffett/Munger's faces during this crisis, but what you are not seeing is that they are declining to be interviewed. They are old & vulnerable and I am sure they are sitting on losses in airlines, but they see no need to go out and stir panic and cry on TV. Everything he said needed to be said. I agreed with it all. And he has some credibility here, given he saw the effect before everyone else and positioned his portfolio accordingly - and was pretty transparent about it. If Buffett did all that, we’d be praising his genius and societal contribution. Ps ackman has done some scummy stuff in the past If that makes someone a genius, then I guess you'll be handing out a lot of genius awards to those on this forum/social media who "saw the effect before everyone else and positioned their portfolio accordingly" on here well before Bill went on TV on March 18th--in fact, even before he disclosed his position in CDS on March 3rd! There are those who even saw this way back in January (Nassim Taleb for one), but they didn't need to talk about their equity or swap positions and they have been much more constructive on acts the government should take. Not saying Bill is doing anything illegal, but Buffett does not engage in such tactics and the contrast is stark and apparent to me at least. It's the same with those funds that engage in shareholder activism (which Buffett eschews).

So when Tepper does an interview and talks about being "balls to the walls", or "Druck" talks about what he's buying or about going short, or Buffett writes an op-ed about buying stocks or Malone talks about "how good a business X or Y is", is that manipulation trickery mode? Ackman just did what every guest on these shows do. His interview happened to be particularly dramatic because it was a particularly dramatic time, right as a pandemic is exploding but right before it seemed most governments were really taking it seriously and shutting things down. If I had been given a microphone at that time, I'd probably have said pretty similar things, to be honest. That's what the data was showing, and I was worried about my parents and in laws and uncles and aunts and friends with health troubles and friends working in healthcare... I know there's strong social conventions about never going out on a limb and never appearing to overreact and all that, but those conventions hinder good decision-making in times like these, because we're all looking around and waiting for others to tell us it's time to do something, instead of thinking for ourselves, and lose precious time, so voices that actually tell you how bad it is and how bad it'll be if we don't act are very valuable. Uh, no the comparison to Buffett telling people "buy equities" in the fall of 2008 is not equivalent to this guy. Comparing a guy who has a long track record of shorting a business and then going onto a network to talk about how the business is a scam/fraud and he is doing it to "protect people" (reminds me of TSLAQ folks). And investing in a "sewer" (Munger's words) like VRX tells you even more. The problem with the "if I had a microphone in my face" is that some people willingly go out of their way to seek out that microphone at opportune times. I guess it's great marketing for Pershing when it comes to raising capital. I have not seen Buffett/Munger engage in the same kind of tactics. I'd bet a lot of money that a lot of people have tried to "put a microphone" in front of Buffett/Munger's faces during this crisis, but what you are not seeing is that they are declining to be interviewed. They are old & vulnerable and I am sure they are sitting on losses in airlines, but they see no need to go out and stir panic and cry on TV.

So...it looks like this guy held CDS and went on CNBC last week and had a meltdown about the crisis. Then unloaded the CDS Monday and went long stocks and back on CNBC (edit: Bloomberg on Tuesday) touting that everything is going to be ok. How is this remotely allowed/ethical? He brought talking his book to a new level. Lol...makes you respect people like WEB and Munger that much more because they don't engage in such despicable antics and still outperform these scumbags. He was totally transparent about his position at all times. You are allowed to have an opinion - and I have agreed with his opinion all along. Doesn't matter if his opinion was right or wrong. He has a long track record of taking positions and then going on media outlets pounding out his thesis. One big example is Herbalife short position. So, taking a short and then going on CNBC and trashing it repeatedly. May not be illegal, but certainly not noble behavior. There are many investors out there who do not resort to such tactics that outperform this guy significantly.

So...it looks like this guy held CDS and went on CNBC last week and had a meltdown about the crisis. Then unloaded the CDS Monday and went long stocks and back on CNBC (edit: Bloomberg on Tuesday) touting that everything is going to be ok. How is this remotely allowed/ethical? He brought talking his book to a new level. Lol...makes you respect people like WEB and Munger that much more because they don't engage in such despicable antics and still outperform these scumbags.

FYI. Hydroxycholoroquine did not (statistically significant) outperform the no treatment group in the aforementioned French study either, only in combination with Azithromycin (which the Chinese study didn't investigate). I've already adjusted my priors down on whether these drugs will work (from already pretty low values). This might help break it down for u: https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/03/24/coronavirus-drugs-study-gupta-pkg-ac360-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/coronavirus/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/hydroxychloroquine-no-better-than-regular-covid-19-care-in-study FYI.

As far as I can tell, hotels are not included in the measure. Airlines, yes. I do not see anything for Hotels. Even if they were, Trump is POTUS and better to err on the side of protecting against corruption. He refused to put assets away in a blind trust even.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/white-house-senators-strike-deal-on-massive-stimulus-package Sounds like to me that it was well worth it for the "opposition party" to have pushed back and revised this.

So...it looks like this guy held CDS and went on CNBC last week and had a meltdown about the crisis. Then unloaded the CDS Monday and went long stocks and back on CNBC (edit: Bloomberg on Tuesday) touting that everything is going to be ok. How is this remotely allowed/ethical?

You realize Malaria is also an infection right? Obviously a clinical trial would take a long time. But time is not what we have on our side in a pandemic, and we have to rely on the best data we have. Take a look at this report by French providers: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924857920300996 Lol at "Azithromycin is an antibiotic". So dismissive. I highly suggest you read the evidence on synergistic effects of Azithromycin+Plaquanil in malaria: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170143/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4944689/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC127390/ I'm not relying on Trump or Twitter either The mechanism of action of Chloroquine and related compound on heme in RBCs and therefore malaria is known. COVID has nothing to do with RBCs. Azithromycin is a very commonly used antibiotic with some antimalarial properties. Malaria is not a virus. The evidence that Azithro could work against viruses is not really out there. Coronaviruses are not new either. There is very little real evidence out there that these drugs would work against COVID. Obviously if there is a patient who is very ill and nothing else is working, it may be worth a shot, but the French study showing a combination of Azithro + Hydroxychloro is very very flawed and you can read what's out there from physicians & scientists on how poorly constructed that study was. I am not here to discuss pharmacology anyway. I think probabilistically and I my estimates for Azithro working is not zero, but close. Hydroxychloro is higher, but it's not significant and nowhere close to 50%. Remdesivir sounds more promising (and unlike any other drug that's being discussed something that targets single stranded RNA viruses), but we'll have to wait. This thread has taken up much of my time the past month or so I've been sounding the alarms on this whole COVID thing. Glad to see some people out in the real world finally taking this seriously. Hope many patients can be spared from the worst of this, and glad to have a real leader in Gov Cuomo. I'm out.

yeah, apparently you do know better than everybody else, including people working in the field. anyway, here's an fair Forbes article on both drugs: forbes.com/sites/marybethpfeiffer/2020/03/22/one-patient-dodges-a-covid-bullet-is-she-a-harbinger-or-outlier/#583db5b85b84 I work in the field. I am a practicing MD in NYC. Good luck. well, a lot of your collegues disagree with you then. anyway this is pointless as nobody knows at this stage, we'll see pretty soon i guess. Yeah, it's not like I have an uncle who went to MIT, so wut do I know. :-X

Hydroxychloroquine also fights lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. Are you saying lupus and rheumatoid arthritis are caused by viruses? Because if you're not, than the comment you made is stupid. actually there is a theory that RA is "triggered" by an infection in people who are susceptible genetically. so yes. and of course lyme's is caused by a bacteria, with attendant inflammation results. while most of research money goes to cancer research, given that so many important diseases are inflammation based (arteriosclerosis, arthritis etc), one might hope that covid19 (causing pneumonia, inflammation of lungs) might have a salutary effect to focus more attention on inflammation I meant to say "are you suggesting lupus/RA are caused by parasites"? Regardless, the point I was making is that the drug has other benefits unrelated to parasitic infections, thus it being a malaria drug is not a reason to ignore it. Yawn. Discussing drug candidates on forums, Twitter, or even by this President is not going to help anything. A lot of pharma investors have gone broke betting on trials using similar rationale. There's been a lot of misinformation about COVID and drugs that CANNOT be verified unless a randomized clinical trial is completed. Anti-HIV agents. IV Vitamin C. Ibuprofen making COVID worse. A lot of noise out there that cannot be trusted. Hydroxychloroqine/Chloroquine is primarily anti parasite and immunosuppressant (why it works for RA which is an autoimmune disease). Taking an immunosuppressant when you have an infection could make things worse (compromising your defenses) or it could make them better (may reduce inflammatory damage to lungs in this case). It may also have antiviral effects but it is never used clinically for that and you have the immunosuppressive action which can make a viral infection much worse. But I'm not relying on Trump or random Tweets to draw conclusions. Good luck waiting for that trial result. Azithromycin for this is just plain stupid. See image.

I am sorry to disappoint you... ABC/Ipsos: "In the new poll, 55% of Americans approve of the president's management of the crisis, compared to 43% who disapprove." Yep, that's why I said it remains to be seen. Right now, for people outside of WA/NY, this whole virus thing seems overblown. It is likely that that may not be the case for long...

The WH was warned last year that the country isn't ready for a pandemic. Hopefully after this, people realize the importance of having the right leadership in place. The average person is not wired to understand these multiplicative, systemic risks for the simple fact that evolutionarily we never faced them. Humans were never interconnected enough before for such things to cause devastation. We understand basic threats well (another person coming after you with a rock). It's the same issue with warnings about climate change--few take them as serious threats (we never impacted the climate or our environment on such a scale before). We are certainly lacking in leaders who employ preventative thinking and can do more than brute force tactics (travel bans, tariffs, tax cuts, tweets, etc). The travel ban worked, but because everything else was botched, the end result was that it only DELAYED covid outbreak in USA. In the end, the lack of other measures means the travel ban was pointless--we would have been hit sooner vs later. What would have been smart was using the time bought by the travel ban to prep testing, isolate cases and regions as soon as they crop up, ramp up mask/PPE production, etc etc. Playing well in the first quarter of a football game and then committing unforced errors and losing in the other 3 quarters doesn't count for anything. And of course, some Senators understood the threat in late January intelligence briefing and acted accordingly with their investments. They just didn't speak up because the guy in the White House would get upset. Leadership capable of more nuanced tactics and precautionary thinking would be great, but whether the average voter understands the benefit of that remains to be seen in November.

So much for the "there's nothing that can be done" argument. Oh wait, those people will now use the "but they are Asian! So they are better prepared/used to dealing with this/more compliant with containment/etc, so there is no hope for us non-Asians!". And destroys the "let it spread and achieve herd immunity" nuts too. Sounds like an ounce of prevention was worth pounds and pounds of cure.

If he is right that 50 people have it for every 1 we know about, then 22 people have died out of 180,000 infected in NYC. You have to take into account time it takes for the virus to run its course, though. Daily exponential growth means the vast majority of infections are early stage and haven’t had time to create complications. Do we also upwardly adjust the 180,000 number to add back the number of people who were once infected but no longer are? Really we need to look at this data at a cohort level, which as far as I know does not exist publicly. Without it we need to look at places like China where it's mostly run its course - otherwise we'll be comparing apples and oranges. The Chinese data tells us that 3.4% of the cases they identified died. But it doesn't tell us the % of infected that were identified. The Diamond Princess is the best population that I've heard of yet. 1% of infected died -- relatively old people go on cruises. So if we were to take the number of people who died in NYC yesterday, and if we can estimate when they contracted it, then perhaps we could estimate the number of infected people in NYC at that time. If we then estimate the rate of spread, we can take a stab at how many are infected in NYC today. I haven't looked into Diamond Princess in depth so I just tried to find some info. While I agree that it may be the best possible data set so far, it also seems potentially incomplete: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/coronavirus-infections-keep-mounting-after-cruise-ship-fiasco-japan Given the number of people who were infected but did not test so at the time of disembarkment, I'm just not sure how reliable the data is (again, may be the best we have). Either way, still a high level of imprecision it seems. What's notably missing in this "analysis" is that the Diamond Princess passengers had the benefit of ample hospital, ICU, and ventilator capacity to treat themselves in Japan and elsewhere. There are patients in many places who will not get the same level of care due to healthcare overload. Furthermore, there may be more deaths to come. Of note, a passenger on the Diamond Princess just died TODAY: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200321/p2g/00m/0na/050000c That's now 8 deaths.

This ain't "just like the Flu season", folks.

NY and WA are early in this course and predictors of what every other place will look like. The rest of the country is our France/Spain/Germany to the Italy (NY and WA). So what is going on in other places is irrelevant. Exponential growth blah blah I am in New York. I assume NYC is what you mean. The closest Urgent care in our network to NYC is Poughkeepsie. Ill call them and let them know what you said! You don't need to call anyone, you can just look at what this ER doc in Queens has to say: A trickle to a deluge. Wonder if that ever happens with cancer or heart disease...

NY and WA are early in this course and predictors of what every other place will look like. The rest of the country is our France/Spain/Germany to the Italy (NY and WA). So what is going on in other places is irrelevant. Exponential growth blah blah

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/nyregion/ny-coronavirus-hospitals.html

The only plausible refutation is a data sampling or reporting issue. Which, is still possible. But this possibility grows less likely every day. Yes and you have to somehow have to believe that months ago people were dying/being admitted to ICUs without having a known diagnosis, just ARDS without known cause and Flu negative... Seems like a bit of a stretch, no?