Viking

Great idea. I would love for Trump to be “sheltered in place”. The sooner the better :-)

The government should get Buffett to offer his suggestions of how to structure a bailout. Taxpayers would benefit and therefore would be more likely to support the many bails outs that will be given. The companies, of course, would much rather negotiate with Trump / politicians.

Eric, you state: “ The downturn itself is essentially being ordered by the government. This thing would blow through quickly if there were no "social distancing".” I always like to look at the real world to understand what really happens when the rubber hits the road. Theories are nice but its always good to toggle to the real world. I am only aware of a couple of jurisdictions that tried no social distancing: Wuhan China, Iran, italy etc. Every one of these areas after deciding they did not need social distancing quickly reversed course. And they all experienced a humanitarian disaster. Are you aware of any country that has the virus in numbers that is currently not aggressively employing social distancing as a core part of its strategy? I am not and i would love to follow how the virus trends for them.

Posted Sunday night: Calculated Risk blog just called recession for US. That was fast. https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2020/03/sunday-night-futures-limit-down.html First, from Goldman Sachs today: “[W]e now expect real GDP growth of 0% in Q1 (from +0.7%), -5% in Q2 (from 0%), +3% in Q3 (from +1%), and +4% in Q4 (from +2¼%), with further strong gains in early 2021. This takes our 2020 GDP forecast down to +0.4% (from 1.2%).” Goldman Sachs currently thinks the recovery will be in Q3 and be fairly rapid. I think the timing is unknown, and the recovery will probably be tepid at first - and then pickup. With the sudden economic stop, and with many states shutting down by closing down schools, bars and restaurants - combined with the sluggish government response, both on testing and fiscal stimulus - my view is the US economy in now in a recession (started in March 2020), and GDP will decline sharply in Q2 (as Goldman Sachs is forecasting). The length of the recession will depend on the course of the pandemic, and that is unknown at this time. Unfortunately the usual leading indicators aren't useful with this type of event.

50%? Not if we're all staying home like right now. We may not even reach 1% if we're all isolated at home, and thereby flattening the curve. The price of such success is that, at that point, who's going to have the confidence to go outside again without having a vaccine in hand? And if we've got to wait 12-18 months for a vaccine? Therefore, a bounce-back in the 2nd half of the year appears unlikely to occur. Northern Italy locked down some cities where they had their first outbreak. The lock down did not seem to help those areas (their hospitals got overwhelmed). I am shocked that some countries in Europe have not taken more stringent measures before now as they seem to be 10-14 days in front of North America. It will be interesting to see how the UK does. I continue to think Washington State will be key to watch; do numbers keep increasing or does rate of increase start to slow due to measures taken. Lots we do not understand. Big tradeoffs.

The virus hasn’t actually hit the US yet. Right now its a mental exercise for businesses and people. The medical and economic pain actually hasn’t happened yet. When the shit storm hits my guess is we will see lower stock prices. Right now the meteor is about a week away... each day we can expect the news flow to worsten. I am not optimistic. Everyone should watch the entire Trump news conferences from yesterday and today. Nothing like going straight to the source to learn what the situation really is. It is clear that the administration started taking the virus seriously about the middle of last week. They basically told the States today that they are on their own to solve this thing. Any support from the Federal government will be slow in coming because of the red tape involved and because they are only now getting their act together. But they will have some really great things in a week or two. (Now where have we heard that before?) Trump also had what may well be quote of the decade: something like “no one in my administration was thinking about Coronavirus a month ago” as his reason why planning is only now getting off the ground. OMG He was also asked to rate on a scale from 1 to 10 his administrations response to the virus to date. He said ‘10’ with absolutely no hesitation. (Now maybe Trump was thinking 1 was great and 10 was terrible?). You can’t make this stuff up.

We are not seeing China getting back to normal yet. It looks like L shaped recovery, with hope it will become U in time. September is not very far away and it could be back, mutated and meaner than ever. So much we still do not understand.

Explain to me what economic activity is worthwhile undertaking with 0% risk free interest rates can’t be done with 1%. Europe and Japan went this route and have nothing to show for it, other than the destruction of their financial system. US is probably next. My read is Trump has completely politicized the Fed the past 24 months. His constant intimidation and jawboning has had an enormous effect. The Fed did exactly what the President wanted when he wanted it. Period. The problem is what the president wanted might not be what the Fed should do. The question I am asking is what will Trump do next to get the stock market up? I guarantee you that something is coming. Someone suggested closing the stock market; yes, something crazy like that. Trump is highly motivated. And he is wickedly creative. And he has nothing to lose. And there is no accountability to anything he does.

As expected... Federal Reserve slashes rates to zero, restarts QE - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/federal-reserve-cuts-rates-to-zero-restarts-quantitative-easing-qe-210001968.html The Federal Reserve made an emergency announcement Sunday afternoon by announcing that it would be cutting interest rates to zero for the first time since the financial crisis. The central bank said it will use its “full range of tools” to battle the economic impacts of the novel coronavirus and announced quantitative easing in the form of at least $700 billion of asset purchases. It also encouraged banks to provide credit to the economy by eliminating reserve requirements and allowing the financial firms to tap into capital and liquidity buffers. In a global effort, the Fed also announced standing U.S. dollar liquidity swap line arrangements in coordination with the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, and the Swiss National Bank.

This is the problem. We can all speculate, but we simply cannot know whether the causes of poor investment performance are ongoing or whether the company can improve. Lumpiness I can deal with. In fact I like it - the market pays a premium for predictability that (all else equal) I’d rather not pay. All I care about is whether Fairfax can adapt. “The best predictor of future performance is past performance.” 10 years is a good amount of time. Much better than using the first 10 years, which an investor probably should throw out (given the company has changed immeasurably since then).

Stevie, my comment was more along the lines that this crisis will follow a very different trajectory than 2008 (with no idea of magnitude). People often get anchored in the past to make sense of the current situation. I am trying to learn what is really going on in China and Europe; that seems to be informing what will perhaps happen here much better than what happened in 2008. There is so much we still do not know; an open mind and being inquisitive is key. The real question for investors is how low will the stock market ultimately go amd how long will ‘it’ last. Of course no one knows. If this is bear market, which it could be, i think stocks fall on average about 35% and the recession lasts about 10 months. If this is a real doozie stocks could fall 50% from their highs. The policy response from leaders is critical. As of today the US stock market is down 20% from its highs and trading about where it was trading 12 months ago. And the virus has not even hit the US yet. We will know much more but it will take 2 or 3 weeks more to fully understand what is going on. And then the impact will last 4-6 more weeks after that. What a shit storm. We know things are going to get worse we just don’t know how much worse. Not a great set up for stocks. Now perhaps this is all priced in to stocks down 20%; i don’t think so. The wild card, as has been stated already is human ingenuity. My guess is we see lots and something big at some point in the next 12 months, just impossible to predict what and timing.

I agree with you: - Socialism is bad - US stock are much better than Canadian stocks (who wants to own an oil stock right now?) - Trump did not cause the virus

Is this really comparable to 08? Seems more like a supply chain shock than anything. And I’m genuinely asking. When the virus hit China it was largely a supply chain shock in China with a 1-3 month lag (factories closing in China take time to impact North America). And there was also a simultaneous demand shock. This is now rolling though the world. Europe is not making or buying anything. It is coming to North America in a week or so. The ‘event’ by itself is severe, but perhaps manageable. The key moving forward will be the second order effects. And we still do not have much visibility on when and how fast things get better. And what better even looks like. What happens to all the small businesses that go bankrupt? What happens to the hospitality industry? Airlines, cruise ship, hotels, restaurants, event planning etc? We are a service economy. We also have an unprecedented simultaneous demand and supply shock in the oil industry. There is going to be carnage here as long as the Saudi’s keep producing. Oil/energy was a very big part of economic growth in the US. What happens to all the companies that have way too much debt and their cash flow turns negative and they can’t refinance their debt? Lots of smart people have been saying for years the shadow banking system might blow up... and this was before the current crisis came along. I am very confident we will not see a repeat of 2008. I am becoming more confident a recession is coming and if some of the second order effects kick in it could be worse.

Castanza, i think you are going to have two goups coming out of this crisis: the have and the have nots. The ‘have’ countries that manage the crisis well will rebound quicker. The ‘have not’ countries will stagnate. Perhaps like after the great financial crisis. It did not hit all countries the same (it barely impacted Canada).

The risk for the US is if more clusters are allowed to happen. Washington State will be the real time example of what do likely want to avoid at all costs. Testing is the only way to find the clusters (after which you can take aggressive measures to slow the spread). South Korea looks like it is playing a game of whack a mole (find the cluster) and it look to be working for now. The US looks like it is taking the UK approach of letting it infect the herd (with minimal testing)... we do not have any models where this has been successful. It might be. Or not. Much to learn in the next week.

It would be funny (in a sad way) if Trump got rid of Powell and put someone there who would give him negative rates...and that might just be enough to spiral the world into something possibly worse than 2008. Where this really gets wicked are the secondary effects and the tail risks. What if the US policy responses are the wrong ones? The more Trump messes up the worse he makes the situation - a classic negative feedback loop. The real question: what is currently stopping Trump from doing really destructive things? Democratic House is not enough. Will the Republican Senate stand up to Trump? Not so far... The stock market will figure this out at some point and discount it...

Viking, You bet it's real. Denmark was next [in the meaning, it has already happened]. Denmark is almost shut down totally right now. It's nearly impossible for me to describe what's being going on here over the last one or two weeks [well, that is : without totally spamming this topic]. The best place to look to get a feeling of how things have evolved over the last couple of weeks here is to actually look at the WHO sit reports - the latest, and then also grab the one a week before that. [Denmark has been climbing the list in the section for European countries for about every day in the last week with a "good clip" [ : - / ]]. - - - o 0 o - - - The Danish government has been ramping up extremely agressive on countermeasures within the last few days - so agressive, that it has been almost breathtaking. John, yes, i saw what was happening in Denmark the past week and thought of you :-). The speed of everything is surprising me. Hope all is well :-)

Holy shit. King Donald is going nuclear. If you do not do what he wants, you are going to be replaced with a yes man. Strong message to send to public service in a timeof crisis. Financial markets are going to have a shit fit if he demotes/fires Powell right now. But we know Trumps play book. He KNOWS what needs to be done. And if a public official does not do what Trump wants they are gone. There will be no ‘independence’ moving forward. The virus has not even hit the US yet (in numbers). If he starts doing these sorts of things when times are good (trust me times are good right now) just imagine what he is going to do when times actually start to get bad? Yes, i know this is all priced in to stocks... (sarcasm). The more desperate Trump gets the more financial markets are going to sell off. Trump says he has the right to dismiss or demote Fed Chairman Powell - https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-says-he-has-the-right-to-dismiss-or-demote-fed-chairman-powell-2020-03-14

Ok, this is getting real in Europe. First Italy, now Spain Is in complete lockdown. Next country? How long before this is the measure we see in the US? Washington State likely within the week? Sounds like Trump is going to hit Washington State with a travel ban. Close the state borders with national guard troops? This sounds like National Enquirer material... Breaking: Spain announces nationwide lockdown as coronavirus cases surge The decision, announced by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in a televised address Saturday, means residents will only be permitted to leave their homes for essential reasons, including for medical appointments or to buy food. All events including religious services will be halted, and schools and universities closed, he said. The measures will remain in place for a 15 day period but could be extended. The announcement comes as Spain emerges as a new hot spot of the global coronavirus pandemic.

In the current environment, where every company is getting killed, why would you not want to keep it simple and buy the number 1 or 2 player in each industry? To some extent you can almost start throwing valuation models out the window (too many moving parts to be useful). I am starting to look at market cap as a criteria. And the more predictable their business model the better (fewer nasty surprises moving forward).

So with all the travel bans being implemented does this essentially mean the world is going to lock down? Does this mean global travellers are essentially stuck in their current country for the duration of the travel ban? Countries that do not get on board with a ban are??? We seem to be getting closer to a tipping out as this virus impacts Europe and the US. The speed of the lock down is unprecedented. And the crazy thing is thing is we are still in the early innings. It’s like a freight train, building up speed. Exclusive: U.S. to add Britain, Ireland to European travel ban - airline, U.S. officials - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-u-add-britain-ireland-161415994.html

Lots we still do not know... What do we do with workers who are over 60 (in the high risk group)? The companies that feed America brace for labor shortages and worry about restocking stores as coronavirus pandemic intensifies - https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/13/food-supply-shortage-coronavirus/ The companies that feed America and provide basic staples are bracing for labor shortages as the novel coronavirus pandemic intensifies, which could leave them without enough workers to manufacture, deliver and unpack groceries in stores in the coming months. As the virus spreads, supermarkets and distribution facilities face a difficult choice: how to keep shelves stocked with essentials while keeping their workers safe. Already, some chains are rationing products as shelves empty out of pasta, rice and frozen vegetables and anxious customers wait in long lines for toilet paper and bottled water — in scenes similar to those seen before a hurricane, yet this time unfolding on a national scale.

Ok. So now, in North America, we start the next phase: lock down. Coming soon to a state/province near you. Washington State is in the lead. Washington State is closing all K-12 schools from March 17 until at least April 24. So 5 weeks to start. (By ‘lock down’ i mean measures that Washington State is taking right now... there are lots more than just school closure). My question: how long will states, once it gets serious, remain in lock down? 6-8 weeks? The benefit of slowing the spread is heath care can cope. This also lengthens time needed to contain the outbreak. Same for international travel: banned for 8 weeks? And then what measures are necessary to ensure the virus does not re-cluster? How long are they needed? Like one person per table at a restaurant. Or at work, 6’ between people. I am trying to understand the eventual economic impact on each country the virus will have. Here are two summaries of how the virus has been handled to date: - South Korea: https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3075164/south-koreas-coronavirus-response-opposite-china-and - Germany: https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/inside-germany-s-piecemeal-response-to-corona-a-f376b3f9-625f-4a6a-8e7d-04bd48be20b2 PS: has anyone aware of web sites that cover the economy in China? I would like to understand how quickly they are ramping back up.

Doc, i was the same. And then the more i read it looks like the whole event was pretty much staged by Trump. Bottom line, US is pretty much in the same situation it was 10 minutes before the presser started. And what impeccable timing right before markets closed. Trump got what he wanted: The stock market averages up 10% and lots of ’busy’ press. Yes, what was discussed looks promising. The big news for me is how the Federal Government seems getting out of the way and essentially letting states handle their own response. Sports/businesses are also taking the lead. Trump had no choice, the train was leaving the station and he needed to get on. Better late than never. I am shocked with how fast the ex-Federal Government response has been. The NBA annoucement was a game changer. Washington State is also moving fast; great because their case count is looking it might be ready to shift into the next gear.

Sold about 1/2 of my positions today just before the close (that i bought just yesterday). What an amazing bounce the last 20 minutes of trading today. The President certainly timed the presser today perfectly. It was very encouraging to hear what the plans are. Let’s see what the reality is next week.