Dalal.Holdings

5% of their known cases are dead. And their cases are clearly growing exponentially (see link), but confirmation bias is a helluva drug. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Washington_(state)

So the U.S. has now surpassed every single country worldwide in cases (85k, compounded 30% from yesterday's 65k). Despite being among the last places to get this outbreak (yes it is and the thesis that it has infected millions here for months is broken). A tragedy of mismanagement. At this point, a waste of time to argue with those who are using models (to predict something that is already here and has played out around the world), proposing that it has been widespread for a long time, etc. So I will certainly not waste my own time on them. Healthcare system in NYC hitting capacity. The focus has been on NY and WA which are early seeding locations, but LA, Michigan, FL, IL, MA have built up critical numbers/seeding and the hope is that distancing can stop this...also the response in the United States, due to federal gov't/executive branch dropping the ball is patchwork response--some local leaders (Cuomo) are taking it seriously while others are not. It may play out accordingly...

Viral load likely matters and probably explains why Dr. Li Wenliang (who was in his 30s and likely exposed to a lot of virus in early days of outbreak) passed away. So...your social distancing isn’t just to protect grandma, but probably you as well.

Nice to see you back and thank you. Good thing I didn't have to hold the puts anywhere close to a year for payoff. And don't forget my selling out large chunks and going to cash a month ago because of "precautionary principle" and "11 year bull market and >30% S&P return in 2019, no need in being greedy at this point". More "Twitter worthy" drivel you have no need to pay attention to (but with little in carrying costs for me).

FYI, still nowhere near (as in less than 10%) to cancer deaths. or cardio vascular deaths for that matter. Yup - thank goodness neither of those are communicable. Yep -- also comparing conditions that kill people slowly "of old age" (after accumulating a lifetime of risk factors like obesity, cholesterol, smoking) with an infection that you can catch from spending minutes with someone who has it is sure to lead you to false conclusions. This gives me an idea. Instead of just comparing COVID deaths to cardiovascular deaths and cancer deaths, why not just compare to total deaths from all causes? Ah, much more reassuring! We could have done the same during WW2 and realized the war was no big deal--many more people were dying from cancer & heart disease than gunshots.

FYI, still nowhere near (as in less than 10%) to cancer deaths. or cardio vascular deaths for that matter. Thanks for the update. FYI if it weren't for cancer or cardiovascular deaths, human beings would be immortal (other than dying from accidents/murder/etc).

Nearing 80k confirmed cases in the U.S. Within 48 hours, U.S. is on track to become the country with the most cases worldwide (more than China with 3x the population if you trust their numbers). Let that sink in.

I've never seen that happen with auto accidents, heart disease, or cancer either. FYI, COVID daily deaths now exceed that from daily auto accident deaths in the United States...

Almost like this thing follows an order (regions hit later peak later). More holes in the "this has been widespread since January" thesis. Spain becoming the new Italy. My fear is that the U.S. will be a late peaking country (due to it being a late onset country) and right now the focus is on NY/WA, but it has already seeded throughout the nation... :-\

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.