alwaysdrawing
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Here is a thread about the current situation in Seattle. So it begins. This was foreseeable a week ago.
Please take more action now to help prevent this from happening all over the US and the world.
https://twitter.com/scott_mintzer/status/1239290389963714562?s=20
REMOVED AS THE POSTER REMOVED. POSSIBLY FAKE/MISINFORMATION -
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191
Question for you guys as I havent seem to be making any friends swimming against the tide! Above is the NEJM article on first case of corona virus. This is what I don't understand.
First US case was January 20st, with 4 days of symptoms and as I have read this is a very fast transmitting virus. Some have said this is very fast, some fast, symptoms take a while to show up, agree.
Please reconcile this for me. It has been exactly 2 months since this gentleman returned to the US from wuhan China. Is it out of the way to assume that there was community spread with this gentleman? 4 days of cough, fever, flew on a plane? Lets just work on that premise.
Now I have become lost with all of the projections, graphs, charts, etc. Pick whatever model you want. My question is this: Its been 2 months since that virus was officially detected in a known area. I'm not aware of this so please help. Is there overload in the area where this gentleman was? Are there people dying? What does it look like? Are they running out of ICU beds? How is california? They were not far behind and have a HUGE population!
I know there can be a delay in symptoms but isnt 2 months long enough for this virus to really get going, especially with lockdown, social distancing just happening now?
Trevor Bedford has put together an excellent thread to estimate the current number of cases (not confirmed testing, but a model of where actual cases might be).
Some relevant quotes:
Outbreaks that we're seeing across the US now are likely the result of sparks that landed in mid-Jan to mid-Feb that through exponential growth have become localized "fires".I believe that a 5-6 day doubling is an accurate model for growth, so that sparks that landed in mid-Jan may have grown to ~2000 infections at this point and sparks that arrived in mid-Feb may have grown to ~50 infections at this point.The seeming sudden appearance of outbreaks across the US are not due to a sudden influx of cases. Instead, transmission chains have been percolating for 4-8 weeks now and we're just now starting to see exponential growth pick up steam.Thus, a rough guess would be a ~20 sparks that caught between Jan 15 and Feb 15 and have resulted in growing outbreaks, each of which on average will be around ~1000 infections, some bigger than others. This would be an extremely rough ~20k infections in the USA.I could easily be off 2-fold in either direction, but my best guess is that we're currently in the 10,000 to 40,000 range nationally. (Ed. NOTE: This is from 3/13/2020, so not current through today)The full thread is worthwhile, and his posts are generally helpful.
I believe the cases you were seeing in the ED during January and February were normal cold and flu, not COVID19.
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These statistics are always for a 24 hour period when reported, so yes, the "day" is in fact over. I argued numbers aren't growing exponentially, they clearly aren't, don't know else what to say. Nevertheless, a lot of death unfortunately. It should get better in a few days.
The willful ignorance, and people ignoring the data is wild. Italy has taken drastic steps to contain the virus, and even so, much of the spread is "baked in" from before the draconian measures were taken.
The US must take similar actions ASAP, as Italy's course is increasingly "baked in" to our next few weeks, and without mitigation, it will be even worse.
The pictures of hundreds of people at spring break in Florida, over-crowded airports, and filling bars for St. Paddy's celebrations in NYC, Boston, Chicago, and cities around the country are evidence that many people just don't get it.
There are signs of promise though, as schools around the country start to shut down, more companies restrict travel and implement work-from-home, and individuals start to socially distance.
Here is a map of school closures around the US:
https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/map-coronavirus-and-school-closures.html
That map indicates progress is being made, although more needs to be done.
We will start seeing the effects of strain on hospitals in the hardest hit areas (likely Seattle, NYC, and Boston) in the coming week or two weeks, as many more cases progress to serious levels.
The stats show 80% mild cases, 15% hospitalizations, and 5% ICU. For those patients who need hospitalization and supplemental oxygen, it's vital to keep hospitals below capacity. For those who need ICU level care, it's even more vital, as we've seen in Italy how triaging ventilators can cause the mortality rate to rise precipitously.
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By the way, I would guess cancer surgeries will continue for some time unless things get really bad at the local hospital.
Elective surgeries, which I would expect to start cancelling soon, would be stuff like hernias, tubal ligations, and cosmetic surgeries. While cancer surgeries are semi-elective in that they are non-urgent, and they might be able to safely be delayed, I think many would still happen unless the hospital is truly overrun. I think it would be up to the surgeon and patient to figure out the risks and benefits, as well as hospital policy.
This is from the American College of Surgeons two days ago:
https://www.facs.org/about-acs/covid-19/information-for-surgeons
Each hospital, health system, and surgeon should thoughtfully review all scheduled elective procedures with a plan to minimize, postpone, or cancel electively scheduled operations, endoscopies, or other invasive procedures until we have passed the predicted inflection point in the exposure graph and can be confident that our health care infrastructure can support a potentially rapid and overwhelming uptick in critical patient care needs.Immediately minimize use of essential items needed to care for patients, including but not limited to, ICU beds, personal protective equipment, terminal cleaning supplies, and ventilators. There are many asymptomatic patients who are, nevertheless, shedding virus and are unwittingly exposing other inpatients, outpatients, and health care providers to the risk of contracting COVID-19.
Source: my wife is an OB/Gyn that performs surgeries every week.
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NYC is going to have a bad time. This link plots the incidence of ED visits per day for Influenza Like Illness (ILI).
https://weinbergerlab.shinyapps.io/NYC_syndromic/
Most likely normal seasonal cold and flu season was responsible for the large jump in cases in Nov-March, however the current large spike is most likely related to coronavirus.
We shall see--if orthopa starts seeing deaths from URI/LRI patients, then that would fit with coronavirus, and his previous experience would fit with normal seasonal cold and flu season (with no deaths).
If you look online, you can see pictures of full bars and restaurants in NY, so it's clear social distancing isn't being done on a widespread scale. From OpenTable data, you can see major cities have had reductions in restaurant reservations of around 40% from 1-2 months ago, and over 60% in Boston/NYC/Seattle. That's just the beginning--many many small businesses will fail when the death counts start growing in the US and people pull back more.
We are likely 1 week away from large clusters in NYC and Seattle starting to hit hospitalization, which will be followed by other cities as clusters grow.
The Washington Post has a helpful simulator on how various levels of social distancing help with flattening the curve:
Here is a Medium post where a data scientist models when NYC hospitals will likely be overwhelmed. Approx 8-10 days from now:
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NYC is going to have a bad time. This link plots the incidence of ED visits per day for Influenza Like Illness (ILI).
https://weinbergerlab.shinyapps.io/NYC_syndromic/
Most likely normal seasonal cold and flu season was responsible for the large jump in cases in Nov-March, however the current large spike is most likely related to coronavirus.
We shall see--if orthopa starts seeing deaths from URI/LRI patients, then that would fit with coronavirus, and his previous experience would fit with normal seasonal cold and flu season (with no deaths).
If you look online, you can see pictures of full bars and restaurants in NY, so it's clear social distancing isn't being done on a widespread scale. From OpenTable data, you can see major cities have had reductions in restaurant reservations of around 40% from 1-2 months ago, and over 60% in Boston/NYC/Seattle. That's just the beginning--many many small businesses will fail when the death counts start growing in the US and people pull back more.
We are likely 1 week away from large clusters in NYC and Seattle starting to hit hospitalization, which will be followed by other cities as clusters grow.
The Washington Post has a helpful simulator on how various levels of social distancing help with flattening the curve:
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"Visible from space" used to be a pretty spectacular thing when it meant "visible with the naked eye from space".
Now it means we've used a high powered satellite camera to spot x2 100 yard long trenches which were dug in a cemetery in a densely packed city that reported the 1st cases in a country with poor infrastructure which didn't have much chance to defend against the spread of the virus.
Keep stoking the fear though.
When mass graves for people being killed from this virus doesn't impact you, that's pretty wild. Burying a mass of bodies in 100 yard trenches is not like the seasonal flu...
I am afraid, and not of financial markets falling. I am afraid too many people are not taking this seriously.
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I understand. My point is that if partial lockdowns are a good idea, why aren't they being more broadly imposed? To take the Philadelphia region as an example, why not impose the same restrictions across the entire metropolitan region, or the tri-state region (I realize this would require multiple state governments)? Montgomery County is full of commuters and has the busiest commuting train line in the area (it runs essentially along the old Main Line). If you need to lockdown Montgomery County, then why don't you need to lockdown Philadelphia and every place that is closely connected to it?
I see the internal logic in "This is all overblown and lockdowns are an overreaction" and the internal logic in "We need widespread partial lockdowns to nip this in the bud before it gets out of hand." I don't see the internal logic in partially locking down only Montgomery County, but, again, I'm not a medical professional; I've only watched ER on TV.
I think being a medical professional is a red herring. Physicians are not trained in population level health policy, they are trained to treat patients. We need to listen to epidemiologists, who are saying to close down. Hopefully we do so broadly soon. There have been big changes this week in sentiment, and hopefully that leads to communities being more proactive.
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Is now the time to do this nationwide? Should Trump issue that recommendation to all governors? Or is that an overreaction?
Yes, it's time. Wait until you see what happens in Seattle in the next two weeks.
We can't have that happen all over the country.
I'm far from a medical expert, but it seems to me that the virus is probably all over the place by now. Based on that assumption, locking down small areas for two weeks seems like a half-hearted solution, because new cases will just come in to the small area after the two weeks are up, even if transmission is substantially slowed within the small area during the local partial lockdown.
Totally agree. Must be done all over now, so we can assess how bad the problem is, and to prepare our health system for things to get worse.
I only mention Seattle because that is almost certainly the worst hit place currently, and where within two weeks, we may see their health care system become overwhelmed.
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I'm fearful that life ahead will become very difficult, and even though most people make it through, many will not, and the scars will remain for a long time.
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Is now the time to do this nationwide? Should Trump issue that recommendation to all governors? Or is that an overreaction?
Yes, it's time. Wait until you see what happens in Seattle in the next two weeks.
We can't have that happen all over the country.
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I raised a few of my bids but dropped the number of shares. I have about 15 orders in. This is feeling too much like w*rk. Got one or two fills in Canada before the ridiculous circuit breakers hit.
In general, this likely gets way better (or worse depending on your perspective, before things settle down. Without a government infusion of cash I can easily see every airline in the world, every hotel chain, cruise companies, and all the ancillary travel related businesses in bankruptcy, in short order. Virtually every person I know who has travel plans has been cancelling them. A friend of mine was at his rheumatologist this morning and was advised to cancel a trip to Vancouver next week. The Doctor was cancelling a trip to Boston for a conference that would have had 16000 attendees. My sons school runs an annual trip to Europe and they have cancelled (a week ago). I could pull another dozen examples from my own social circle.
These kinds of hits to the economy don’t come without huge pain, and there is no easy reversal. It is totally irrelevant whether there is a real threat or not anymore. It’s all perception shaping reality.
You think Iran is digging burial pits that can be seen from space because of perception of risk?
WASHINGTON POST
Coronavirus burial pits so vast they’re visible from space
Iranian authorities began digging a pair of trenches for victims just days after the government disclosed the initial outbreak. Together, their lengths are that of a football field.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/iran-coronavirus-outbreak-graves/
The government will not be bailing out common shareholders.....how can you people not see this?
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Companies will fail and disruptions will happen, agree.
What key metrics can we track to disprove the thesis that things will be back up in 4-6 months, even with 50% business from this year permanently lost? Case count and mortality graphs over time in China or across all countries with >1000 cases? Any financial metrics we can track?
This is a metric to track: How many new coronavirus burial pits can be seen from space
WASHINGTON POST
Coronavirus burial pits so vast they’re visible from space
Iranian authorities began digging a pair of trenches for victims just days after the government disclosed the initial outbreak. Together, their lengths are that of a football field.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/iran-coronavirus-outbreak-graves/
ARE YOU GUYS AWAKE?????
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LOL at the guy using a Damodoran DCF model for the S&P. Good luck buddy.
Don't you guys see? Companies are going to revenue comp -20, -50, -80%--how many businesses can survive that? Airlines, theme parks, cruise ships, restaurants by the 1000s are dead companies walking.
Hundreds of thousands of people, and 1000s of businesses are going to close. Unemployment is going to skyrocket.
The gov't doesn't have enough money to bailout the people, to say nothing of the current crazy plans to bailout hotels and cruise lines. Your stocks--many of them anyway--are going to ZERO. The Democrats control the house--they aren't bailing out big business.
BUY FOOD FOR A LONG TERM QUARANTINE. PRACTICE SOCIAL DISTANCING. Stay safe folks. We have a long way to go from here, so strap in.
I welcome the criticism. What I've learned over time is my inability to have any edge in market timing, and have decided to drip in to average over time. It may be flawed but it beats what I would achieve otherwise. If you have better ideas would love to hear - my main goal is to find out where I'm wrong so feel free to let loose.
You went wrong when you estimated the cash flows of tomorrow will look like yesterday, or projections based on last year. There has been a gigantic hit to the economy....a gigantic hit to humanity.
DCFs are for normal times, not during the beginning of a global pandemic which will cause companies to fail, employees to be laid off, and massive disruptions to the economy.
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VOO, FXI and INDA
Dollar cost averaging over the next few weeks
FXI could lose 90+%.
I have hundreds of puts on FXI
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I don't disagree with you that people are overreacting about the overall health position.
Italy is triaging patients such that older and sick people cannot access ventilators because their hospitals are overwhelmed.
Do you have to see it in NYC and Seattle to believe it? The bad news is that we will likely see those hospitals become overwhelmed within weeks...
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Selling some calls on Vol, and buying more medium to long term puts on banks, health insurers, hotel operators, restaurants, airlines, junk bonds, market indexes.
Market still doesn't understand the risk of a pandemic. Surprised the market isn't down more as this becomes more of a sure thing.
From 3 days ago.
Selling some VIX calls, adding puts on some life insurers and banks.
Market still doesn't understand the risk of a pandemic.
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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.
Yes--this is the right attitude. This is the calm before the storm.
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You may well be right. I agree with you that most people's mental models of what is likely going to happen are just beginning to change from minor disturbance to full Italy-like shutdown.
I hope you post your long ideas when they arrive.
I hope so too...
We all have a rough road ahead, and I don't mean with respect to investing. That said, there are still companies going to 0 that have puts available, and people are still saying this is just the flu.
Going long seems very far away to me.
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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.)...
It's amazing so many people cannot see this, and are not preparing for what's coming.
The next few weeks will all be brutal---this is not the time to buy the dip!
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But I'm curious what you think about something like Williams (WMB). It's hard to discern any decline in U.S. domestic natural gas usage, even during the GFC. So, what would you pay to own it now?
Invert it--what do you think the upside is?
I think there will be many, many opportunities for sure thing multiple bag winners on the long side before long....stuff like WMB holds no interest to me, where even in a good case of the world where things return to normal, it doubles? At best, I'd say wait until the horizon isn't looking much darker in the immediate future.
Risk assets still have not sold off much compared to where I think things will go.
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FRP has largely moved on from the warehouse business, which it sold at a great price. I believe the DC and other residential projects they're funding will be quite valuable over the next few years and, most importantly, they've got a great balance sheet and apparently quite patient and competent capital allocators in charge. The timing of my purchases and sales has historically been rather poor -- I have no talent for trading, so I can't vouch for the timing of buying (or selling) right now.
KJP, you've been helpful to me in the past....don't you think there will be better opportunities than this over the next few months???
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Anyone else need a 15 minute breather? Might have to take a couple of these today.
We are so screwed!
in General Discussion
Posted
There will be no inflation.
Massive deflation.