Dalal.Holdings

This is a tragedy in the making and all along intelligent people are saying "just the flu" and "nothing we can do". Due to weeks delay in severe symptoms/mortality from onset/catching this thing, we are being lulled into a false sense of security. We may be in the calm before the storm... :-\ Intervention helps and it's up to U.S. citizens to push for it: S Korea Deaths % of cases: ~0.7% Italy Deaths % of cases: ~7% Seven. Percent. And that's after S Korea had initial surge due to cult members spreading this. Management of this outbreak matters.

Almost like shorting Tesla and dismissing this virus was really bad for your financial health. (*Smugness intensifies*). From now on, my posts will be only for geeky financial type eyes only (even though I myself don't work in finance). If you do not belong in that category, please ignore. I will do my best to refrain from being confrontational and insulting with those I disagree with going forward as well. I thought I only needed to wait a month for markets to realize what we are in for. Turns out due to our brilliant leadership, it was only 4 days. Here is the only analysis you need for this (again, for geek eyes only): https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/10115/production/_107031856_blackswan3.jpg In all seriousness, though I have been repeatedly posting graphs on growth of cases outside China (still discouragingly exponential as the U.S. enters the fold), you do not need any sophisticated models to project this in the United States. With the U.S., we have the benefit of a several week delay from other countries and you can just see how this has evolved in those countries with similar management as the United States. And remember it takes weeks from onset to severe pulmonary symptoms and mortality on avg... Unfortunately, the United States seems more and more headed on the path of Italy (or worse) due to incompetent initial and continued management (beyond anything I could have predicted) when this could have been slowed. FYI Italy currently has near 7% deaths as percentage of confirmed cases (and their testing per capita is much higher than U.S.)...

Has everybody in this discussion actually concocted a model for this? Seriously, 15 minutes with a spreadsheet can be quite instructive. You soon learn that the potential of flattening the curve is driven largely by your assumptions of 1) How many people seek medical help and are instructed by physicians to self isolate, vs how many have mild symptoms and just continue with day-to-day life; and 2) What is the effective R0 for those who self-isolate vs the R0 of those who have mild cases and just continue on with business as usual. If you are in the camp that there is a large group that is not destined to self-isolate, there's not much that can be done to flatten the curve. Seriously, if people haven't already done so, go ahead and model it. And by the way, if somebody disagrees with your modelling assumptions, don't accuse him of not understanding math or being stupid. SJ Spreadsheets and models are for geeks who wear thick framed glasses! And apparently so is the precautionary principle! Do you have some sort of obligatory quota which demands that you issue at least one insult or an otherwise denigrating comment per post? SJ Yes, especially when others are put at risk.

Has everybody in this discussion actually concocted a model for this? Seriously, 15 minutes with a spreadsheet can be quite instructive. You soon learn that the potential of flattening the curve is driven largely by your assumptions of 1) How many people seek medical help and are instructed by physicians to self isolate, vs how many have mild symptoms and just continue with day-to-day life; and 2) What is the effective R0 for those who self-isolate vs the R0 of those who have mild cases and just continue on with business as usual. If you are in the camp that there is a large group that is not destined to self-isolate, there's not much that can be done to flatten the curve. Seriously, if people haven't already done so, go ahead and model it. And by the way, if somebody disagrees with your modelling assumptions, don't accuse him of not understanding math or being stupid. SJ Spreadsheets and models are for geeks who wear thick framed glasses! And apparently so is the precautionary principle!

Everything you are saying is based on this assumption, which has no proof! Obviously the lack of testing in the US means this could be true. But extremely unlikely based on what we are seeing in other countries. In Ontario, we have tested just under 3000 people and 36 were positive. That is just over 1% positive from people deemed high risk of the virus. This is not a virus that has been silently going around for months. You are just wrong on this. And repeating it 50 times does not add value. The danger of loudmouth cabbage brains is they convince people in charge and that leads to danger for all of us. This is not an extinction event, but it sure makes you realize exactly how we would approach a real extinction threat—in the same way. This thread is toxic.

And be thought a fool by everyone with a strong opinion? Better to remain silent. ;) @orthopa I think what folks are saying when saying testing is important is that identifying as many spreaders as possible is key to containment. You can't catch them all. Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. Some folks spread to 1 person. Some spread disease to dozens. You want to eliminate as many spreaders as possible so that the disease population can't reach escape velocity. Basically to the point above about the number sick at any given time being semi-controllable. Whats your plan for asymptomatic people/kids who don't seem to be affected and dont go to the doctor? I already answered. You can't catch everyone. Any additional you do catch early can moderate the number sick at any given time. You might not be able to control total number to get sick, but spreading that number out over a longer period leads to far better outcomes in aggregate. That's why people are testing. Further, WHO says adult to child transmission is more common than reverse, as opposed to seasonal flu. To the "it's been here for 1+ month" comment, viruses compound when no one has immunity. I don't understand "why bother trying, just make fun of the try-hards" attitude just because we can't be perfect in prevention. Best not waste time arguing with brains turned to cabbage. They keep on pounding it in as Munger says. He’s not the only one with healthcare experience. Anyone who mocks those who look at graphs, reads Taleb, etc is in for a reckoning. Edit: it is clear there are countries doing a good job vs not and clear which way the U.S. is headed. What we have to fight is inertia and those saying “just another flu” or “nothing can be done”. Those things are categorically false just by observing how certain countries are approaching this right now. If you want to try and predict where the U.S. will be several weeks from now, the unfortunate guide seems to be Italy (except 5x the size) more and more due to pathetic response. :-\

*Groans* This might be hard to grasp, but it’s called thinking probabilistically. So—I would not board a flight with 10% risk of crashing even if 90% of time I will be fine. Apply similar notion to risks of 1) further, significant contraction in economic activity leading to likely recession, 2) yes further S&P declines, 3) unfortunately more deaths which will lead to fear leading to #1 and #2. I hope I am wrong and people do not get hurt, especially from a medical perspective. Not everyone lost their home or job in 2008, but fear has a powerful and real tangible effect on the economy. The stock market is a leading indicator so it is the first to show signs (though often a false alarm), but if other areas follow suit, you get an economic contraction. So those are some tangible things that I am throwing out there for you to plant a flag here on March 8, 2020. It does not mean the probability is >50% like the flight example I used above. If those things happen, some of them will take quarters to become apparent. After 11 year bull mkt and 30% S&P gain last year, I am willing to sit this flight out. So that is the action I am taking in response to my assessment above. There you have it—the assessment and the action. Something to chew on. Now I am out for real. See you in April.

Dalal owns RCL puts with a $9 per month carry lol. Of course he bought them weeks ago and is up big time! The "Washington deaths are exploding" narrative is also deliberately misleading nonsense. An entire nursing home got infected and through mismanagement and probably some bad luck, many of those folks will die. That is hardly, at all a sample size or point of data any reasonable person would use. You seem to be incredibly dedicated to this on your twitter as well. A wise man once said "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". That message seems lost on some here, sadly. Not to worry, we will know soon enough who is correct--like I said, Chinese studies showed median 2 weeks from symptoms to mortality. I hope I am wrong, but I am preparing for the best and utilizing social media to encourage people (esp those > 50 years old) to take precautions. You are long on sayings and short on substance and where it shows most is with data points like the Washington death count. It is a deliberate misrepresentation and nothing in total that has any distinction from folks who over this weekend died from the flu but didn't get any media attention. That is ultimately the difference here. Viking and others seem to have a leaning with where they suspect things may go, but make an effort to at least present things honestly and with opinion. You present things one sidedly and with intentional omissions. Most importantly, you have failed to substantiate many of these claims as to why the US is different with regard to how severely this will play out. Which makes little sense until you then look at the likely culprit should the US be an outlier, and then it all kind of makes sense. Ok bro. See you in a few weeks. We'll have the verdict in by then. Out.

Go look at Taleb's twitter account right now. Lol. Dalal, you dont know what you are talking about, this is clear. this is a perfect time for you to tell us how you prepared to deal with a risk off/blackish swan situation. you might say, before this correction, one barbell is short term treasuries (although long term would have yielded more gain) and the other barbell is any number of optional longs...which optional longs you would have increased slightly as the market went down. and then there is his catastrophe hedge fund, which is for the bigger ticket crowd. I am long short term cash and catalyst driven optional longs, with increasing spy as the market trends lower. you are long what? stupidity? but you dont have anything to offer other than cnn. anyone who thinks that covid19 just entered US in last few weeks is to be ignored. I have already posted here. You seem to have some weird fetish with cnn. I never mentioned them. Strange. I sold chunks of stocks and have a good amt of cash. That WEB quote about cash being a call option with no expiry on any asset stuck with me. And yes, I also do have some cruise line puts but I do not like shorting companies in general because people will get hurt, but I view a secular hit to that industry and it is capital intensive and they are debt heavy. You people are tiring and it's late, so I will bid adieu. I just want to say one thing: if I am wrong, then the worst thing that happens is that I look silly. But if I am right--my hope is that I have caused some people to become more concerned than they would have been and to take precautions (not panic) in the chance that I am correct. Perhaps ensure that people they care about who are elderly are taking extra measures for safety. Now let me ask you: if you are correct, what is the benefit of your incessant arguing on how silly this all is on this website? I mean you could quietly and handsomely profit off of this nothing burger that is being blown out of proportion... There is an asymmetry here.

Dalal owns RCL puts with a $9 per month carry lol. Of course he bought them weeks ago and is up big time! The "Washington deaths are exploding" narrative is also deliberately misleading nonsense. An entire nursing home got infected and through mismanagement and probably some bad luck, many of those folks will die. That is hardly, at all a sample size or point of data any reasonable person would use. You seem to be incredibly dedicated to this on your twitter as well. A wise man once said "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". That message seems lost on some here, sadly. Not to worry, we will know soon enough who is correct--like I said, Chinese studies showed median 2 weeks from symptoms to mortality. I hope I am wrong, but I am preparing for the worst and utilizing social media to encourage people (esp those > 50 years old) to take precautions.

And here is the concept being missed here folks: If there is exponential growth (20% a day), there have been more cases added recently than in the distant past. That means of the current # of confirmed cases, MOST are recent infections. If there is a 2-3 week delay to mortality, it means that we will not know true mortality until we see how those recent onset cases evolve over a few weeks. Hence mortality will appear low because it is still early in the disease course for those individuals who just caught it!

Go look at Taleb's twitter account right now. Lol.

If you are as confident as you are that you are correct, the financial markets are providing you plentiful opportunities to profit handsomely. Why are you wasting your time arguing on this website? In my opinion, when faced with a highly uncertain, tail risk type situation like this, precaution is the best measure one should take. This is largely based on my readings of Taleb. My thoughts about the virus spread, etc are based on my education. I hope I am wrong so that people do not get hurt (I mean medically more-so than financially). Now obviously there is a lot of disagreement on this and confidence that it will blow over, but I invoke the precautionary principle here.

See above. There is a median two week delay from symptom onset to mortality. And there is about another week from when you catch the virus to when you experience symptoms. Hence about 3 weeks total. The infections are relatively new in the United States. You are starting to see mortality pop up in WA and you will likely see it pop up elsewhere. If you think it has been here for months, you are kidding yourself.

You have no idea what you are talking about. You need to follow a prospective cohort to see how deaths evolve, it cannot be looked at retrospectively. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31994742 Translation: the deaths are yet to come.

This is actually something I think is very real. People who dont know it, are living and dealing with this. Start spreading panic though, and people with fucking allergies are bombarding hospitals and hotlines because they have a sneeze. With respect to John's posted report, I am fully aware of that, thanks, but thats information everyone has and its been out there awhile which makes it worthless. My only approach to this thing outside of taking the precautions to keep myself and my family safe, is to find the most efficient ways to make money through the markets. All the Buffett disciples here and I cant help at marvel at the incredible amount of emotion and fear fueling everything. The master would be proud. Be scared and panic when everyone is scared and panicking I believe is his storied quote! Maybe we should start reciting all those old "sayings" value investors seem to regurgitate during normal times...Nah, fuck it, everything going to zero! Only thing about Buffett we do know, is the geezer was just buying airline stocks... The other element here is the "I guarantee we ll have more cases" crowd. No shit, lol! I can do that too! I bet you tomorrow we will have more cases. And the day after a higher amount. And then when it happens I ll declare, OMG I was right! But if the broader markets wants to play this game where we take 2-3% of the S&P every time we have a few hundred(or even thousand) more cases...I'll take the other side, all day. Eventually we'll either go to 0 on the index and then people will pick their heads up and realize we still have people and companies left and then...whooops, or at some point this nonsense is priced in and the market will stop declining at such a spectacular rate. I've said numerous times how Ive probably never seen a more fertile ground for stock specific long/short strategies than right now. Its incredible. But at some point you have to look at totally unaffected names down 25% and at least question it. Or even, maybe down the line, look at cruise ship operations and realize, damn, these are some pretty fucking moaty businesses and the most likely scenario longer term is, just like with airlines after 9/11 the narrative gets so far skewed when in reality, because of it, you'll likely find few places in the world safer than a cruise ship the same way the safest place to be in 2002 was in an airport or on a plane...thats contrarian thinking though. But its worth considering longer term. I have no position in any cruise ship and dont intend to take one any time soon, but its food for thought. Wuhan did all they could to spread the damn thing and then afterwards locked it all down and voila, like maybe less than 1% of the entire population had this and a few thousand died. And this also factors in Wuhan being very significantly different than US in terms of their social layouts. Oh, and now theyre basically done with it and getting back to life. Despite their inferior healthcare system and many parts of the country being third world like. But instead people conveniently want to play both sides. Numbers are low because "we cant trust them", but then "oh look how China handled it so much better". I dont care about either. Only thing I care about is when and how soon their activity gets back to normal. It appears thats happening. If more data comes in, and dots can further be connected, I think it will solidify this conviction. Some people want to vent politics, fine. Good use of your time screaming "theyre not testing" and then when they do test, scream "see look at all the cases!". A rational thinker knows theres way more cases being reported and S&P companies didn't just lose a few trillions in IV because we started testing a confirmed it. There is a good likelihood this has been around much longer than we realize, its worked its way through populations, and its not nearly as severe as its portrayed. The data, has so far indicated that the consumer has not been effected. China is ramping back up. Its a virus. Warm weather helps. Its 60 degrees in early March in NJ right now.... Get a grip people. Or keep being emotional and panic. Stocks are going to be worthless any day....Go ahead. Read his post again. There is no politics. Let me highlight it for you: In his medical opinion, these patients have severe symptoms of something more than a cold, resembles a flu, but they are Flu negative. This is not an allergy or hypochondriasis.

No kidding. CDC/gov't does not have enough testing capacity due to botching test kit production (despite U.S. being among the last places to start getting these cases). As a result, they have ridiculous criteria to approve testing for COVID (at my hospital ED: DOH tells us there must be travel history to the worst afflicted countries in order to approve testing even though there is verified community spread in our area), patients are hence untested, undiagnosed and in some cases sent back out in the good ole US of A, advanced economy and greatest healthcare system in the world. Remember, it takes a few weeks for patients with onset of infection to exhibit severe symptoms (pneumonia causing shortness of breath, hypoxia) requiring mechanical ventilation/etc so we will find out soon enough how botched this whole thing has been and it will be too late at that point to stop the spread. NY State recently got approved to do their own testing, but ramping up is proving a challenge: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-07/new-york-coronavirus-test-delays-meant-days-without-diagnosis?srnd=premium Question is: how did the federal gov't not prepare for this despite watching China/Korea/etc from afar? Some people on here are saying U.S. does not have authority to take on strict measures that China took on, but how about Taiwan? Even S Korea seems to be handling this better. Those are two democracies that seem to be taking this much, much more seriously. Edit: it is unlikely virus has been here for months because deaths start happening about 3 weeks after infection. When you see a spike in mortality an mechanical ventilation, it has been ~3-5 weeks since infection. Only WA state has seen this so far, but given cases in other places it is only matter of time as symptoms increase in severity with time. Remember that Chinese whistleblower doctor who died? He died on Feb 7, but guess when he was hospitalized for the disease: January 12th. That is almost 4 weeks from hospitalization to mortality. He developed fever/cough on Jan 10th. He developed shortness of breath/hypoxia much later on Feb 6th. Mortality does not happen quickly with this thing and that's what's scary because it means we are being lulled into a false sense of security when in fact things will get worse.

Dalal.Holdings, At least for my personal part, you're excused. In fact, I really want to read here on CoBF, what's on your mind. At least to me, something went wrong between you and me, earlier in this topic. I think I gave one [or perhaps a few] of my posts a political reaction & angle, on which you reacted [without reaction from me, but sure as heck from other CoBF members.] In short, for my personal part, please keep your posts coming, also from exactly now. I really want to read what you're thinking. Glad to hear it and thank you. For answers to my riddle, the doubling time for this is 3-4 days which means that 7 days is not the doubling time but the quadrupling time.

https://i.insider.com/5e62a449fee23d58c83a9e62?width=1300&format=jpeg&auto=webp Allow me to break my vow of silence with another "useless" chart. I know these charts are "useless" and "noise", so please excuse me. A riddle for you supposedly intelligent individuals on here who claim to understand compounding: each dot on this chart represents a day, the last one 3/7 which is not over yet: What is the doubling rate of cases ex China on this "useless" chart? According to this hospital slide, they are estimating 7-10 days doubling time. Does the doubling time look a lot smaller than 7 days to you on this chart? What do you think will happen when the reality is worse than the worst case hospitals are prepping for? And remember, a lot of cases are missed (not on this chart) because places like the U.S. don't have enough test kits...

There are a number of people in this thread who are emotionally invested in this issue. Personally, in the past, when I have become emotionally invested in certain discussions, I have found it valuable to withdraw from discussions on the internet for 7 or 10 days as a cooling off exercise. A little distance does a lot of good. SJ Nah, it's my education & training as engineer + physician that has me concerned. But not a bad idea about stepping away for a while like I did in the TSLA thread. After all, if I am right, I can come back and LMAO again. So yes, peace out and see you in 30 days. So, yea... what exactly will you "LMAO" again in regards too? Total US cases eclipsing China? Total deaths eclipsing China? Another 10-15% market drop? Biden leading in the polls? Thats the thing, you're really just pandering to the apocalypse crowd without really saying anything useful. Then whining covertly about how much you dislike Trump and think he s incompetent. OK, cool. Everyone can go find charts. Everyone can find news clips saying its a big deal, and its no big deal. Especially so on Twitter. Everyone can imagine the contagion effect. You arent really saying anything useful or of relevance really to anything. You went to cash? Why? If it s such a no brainer this will blow up, there are 100% surefire shorts out there. Or pair trades. Or is asking you to commit to something verifiable too much to ask? Other than of course, corona cases in the US will rise... Lol. Yes my posts are just charts and I do not say anything useful. Growth in cases is all the same. Exponential, multiplicative growth is not a useful concept to understand. This admin/CDC has handled this marvelously and there is no point anyway to taking precautionary steps. We will surely have a vaccine thru all clinical trials and safe and effective and mass produced (just like our testing kits) very soon. The U.S. has a fabulous healthcare system with great bang for your buck that needs no reformation. See? A whole lot of nothing unlike your posts with valuable insights. My puts in RCL and NCLH from a week ago are doing ok, and I plan on holding for 30d so you can track that to see if I am full of it. Not that you have any reason to believe me because I did not disclose it at the time. Oh well. See you in 30d. Edit: I don’t like shorting companies because they have real employees, but the puts are a bet on what happens w this outbreak. Unlike TSLAQ, I will not engage in trashing those companies. It has nothing to do with their individual businesses (other than what I saw on their balance sheet/cash flows stmnt), but their industry as a whole. Would feel bad to see the co’s fail, but it’s a real possibility. Hope I am wrong about the virus and all of this, but it is looking less and less likely...

There are a number of people in this thread who are emotionally invested in this issue. Personally, in the past, when I have become emotionally invested in certain discussions, I have found it valuable to withdraw from discussions on the internet for 7 or 10 days as a cooling off exercise. A little distance does a lot of good. SJ Nah, it's my education & training as engineer + physician that has me concerned. But not a bad idea about stepping away for a while like I did in the TSLA thread. After all, if I am right, I can come back and LMAO again. So yes, peace out and see you in 30 days.

This one is from my computer, not my cell. Sorry to disappoint.

Why fret? We’ve made America great again! U.S. cases up to 230, more than 100% in 3 days. Almost like there is a lack of testing leading to falsely low counts...still under testing and more delays in test kit rollouts...

The thing about once in a hundred year epidemics is they occur on avg once in a hundred years... During such epidemics, it's easy to default to "this is like H1N1/SARS why is everyone freaking out". Look back on H1N1/SARS and you will understand why this one is different. It must have been very hard in late 2007 and early 2008 to not dismiss rumors of housing market problems as overblown, and maybe buy Bear or Lehman because they've sold off so heavily and look cheap. Black swans are easy to dismiss in the early innings. Problem is, this virus is spreading globally much more rapidly and reality will soon catch up to those who think it's no big deal. Est mortality is 3.4% so will not be possible to ignore.

I'd think that Iran is doing fairly well in the UV department. But that hasn't helped. I don't necessarily disagree with a lo of what you wrote. But I think it's a little more complicated. Yeah. Viruses like influenza and probably corona are seasonal because they don't transmit well via respiratory droplets in heat and humidity and seem to travel well in cold, dry air. Ridiculous to compare something with much higher mortality to the Flu. Ridiculous to throw your hands up and say nothing can be done, but easy if you do not understand epidemiology/compounding I guess. I found the comment about old folks shocking, but that's just me. But there are people in the medical profession who speak in such manner, so not too surprising.