Gregmal

When, last week? ;D ;D ;D old habits

Unfortunately when there is a lot of blood in the streets almost everyone is dead. I frame it that way - politics determines the price here, so it makes sense if things don’t make sense. I had a costly mistake in this sector(now almost a decade ago) that stays with me to this day. You can get 99/100 things right with these and still just get blasted. Way to many moving parts and things out of the control of management/company. The toll collectors sounded like a solid idea as well, but often the capital structures just made them too much of a pain. I fuckin hate energy. Drill, baby, drill, should be explained to the shareholder as kill, baby, kill. Cuz thats what happens with your capital. That, and the cyclical nature of many, almost guarantee repurchases or dividends are done peak cycle...not appealing.

Got an email from an old friend today... found funny. Reminded me of the old days. What’s the good thing about a recession? You can drink Natty Light in public without being judged.

If this isn't blood in the streets then I dont know what is. I dont really pay much attention to most of these names on a regular basis, but my god what carnage!

BRK, CTO, MSG, PCYO

Black Monday boys! Hopefully no one ends up on top of Don Cheadle’s stretch Ferrari.

I am hardly an energy expert and have avoided the sector like the plague, but I would agree lower oil prices are a net positive for consumers. Its also probably relief for airlines, who right now could use every break they can get. At least the ones who dont hedge/modestly hedge.

La Croix until seeing the futures, then some bourbon. Tomorrow should be interesting, that’s for sure.

https://www.facebook.com/adina.garbuz/posts/10218749730509115

While some get flu shots, the reality is that most people do very little to actually mitigate risk of getting the flu every year. Taleb is popular right now for the same reasons Nouriel Rhoubini and Marc Faber are. Especially in the case of Taleb, its like boner inducing literature for financial geeks with a penchant to worry, with all the buzz words. Exponential growth, tail risk, second/third order effect, supply chain disruption, liquidity events.... a little bit of a flair for the dramatic.

Spek are you sure you're not Ray Dalio? Thats more or less what he said... of course, most people just saw the "once in 100 year" headline and proceeded to shit their pants before logging into RobinHood and hitting the bid.

Sorry- maybe I’ll ask again. - What specific mechanism is in place to stop the continued exponential spread in the United States? - If exponential spread is not stopped, do you acknowledge that the healthcare system has extremely high operational leverage and there is a non-0% risk of downside scenarios that are multiplicative? - Given the very common response from large swaths of the population that this is media-hyped & “just a cold/just the flu”, coupled with the fact that the reported infected numbers are being artificially understated, is it possible that relying on the average person to wash their hands is a risky method of risk mitigation? Sorry, maybe you arent understanding, but this thing is going to run its course. That should have been a given awhile ago, and if nothing else the market taking a shit and everybody now hating stocks is a direct result of that. I have spoken to literally dozens of people in the healthcare field including a good half dozen doctors, not including the folks here, and over and over the consensus from all of these people is that the best and most effective measure or piece of advice, is to stay calm and take plenty of precaution/preventative measures. Wash your hands, avoid sick people...Thats about it. Its all you can really do. I agree a large quarantine would be most effective and that the lockdown is likely a last resort, but the playbook should already be out there with what other countries are doing and not doing. So sure, if we want to keep going on, living as though there's already 100,000 people in the US in hospitals waiting for a respirator, go ahead. Thats fine but those concerns are also a derivative of fear and panic and you're silly if you dont think a lot of that is priced in when you have certain associated names down 50% plus already. Airlines are fucked. Hospitality biz is going to struggle. Theres also stuff, that won't. Many distressed retailers have already reported a huge surge in business. So to directly answer your questions, 1. awareness 2. If exponential anything occurs, anything can occur. Always 3. I am not sure what your basis for the common response is, but both yours and mine are subjective and based on largely anecdotal evidence. Most people I see are behaving normally, just being a bit more noticeable hygienic. Several stores Ive visited lately have Clorox wipes next to the carts and bathroom attendants with disinfectant. Stuff like that.

Here's another theoretical semi-math based subject to consider. A large portion of the population, regularly take zero precautions to guard against the flu. Like not only refuse to get a flu shot annually, but also wantonly scurry along obliviously during flu season, without a care in the world. Using these loosely generalized assumptions, you then have to look at annual flu cases/deaths, in that context. And sub contexts. From there, we can also maybe integrate some assumptions about what occurred in Wuhan, with again, large gathering and nil for preventative measures. Now, in relation to here in America, introduce widespread media attention, presumably weeks of advanced warning, and hyper sensitivity by the way of precautionary measures... is it possible the best course of action is just to remain calm and take rather simple and relatively effortless steps to be more aware?

Did you even read what he wrote? Where does it say anything about spending money? Taxpayer money? The only thing presumed is that if you mandate a shutdown, you have to then offer small business assistance(handouts) and find a way to guarantee peoples paychecks. The only way this can happen is from the government via the taxpayer. I am not against it, but its naive to think there is any other way.

Stories like this are good reason to question whether quarantines would actually be enforceable here. I agree the best current course of action would probably be a well designed quarantine for specific high risk counties/states. https://nypost.com/2020/03/07/what-life-is-like-inside-milan-amid-italys-coronavirus-epidemic/

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. Which is fine and all, but again we come back to "see what" in a few weeks? RCL files for bankruptcy? A further 20% market drop? 10,000 US deaths? Or just more pom pom waving because you correctly predicted more cases would emerge?

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.

3000 deaths in China, and its on the decline. But yea, exponential growth for the win! Or do you have some data that suggests Americans are more prone to death than Chinese folks?

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.

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. Ok, and were did all these people go? They died and no one reported it? They are still in critical condition but not reported? Or they recovered? If that is the case where orthopa works, Id say it has to be the case elsewhere. Or is it only where orthopa is? Or is orthopa a liar? Which is it? At some point all this stuff converges and its not enough to just say "MOAR CASES!". It is highly likely this has been here a while and life was normal as was the economy. It is highly likely that pretty much all numbers we have are wrong. It is very likely, if only 1% of Wuhan got it, and a few thousand died, that we should be in better shape than that. Do you have any clue about US geography? You think this spreads better in NYC or the suburbs? VS Wuhan city center during the Chinese New Year!

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.

Exactly. We are sorely lacking reliable info and we are about to get tons of it. Wall Street tends to shit first and ask questions later. At -12% for the broader index, it’ll be interesting to see what’s priced in.

Oh please, can anyone really imagine the level of whining and outrage if the current administration tried anything even remotely similar to China? We already have enough "authoritarian dictator" hyperbole simply because there's a Republican in office. I agree though, China's eventual handling of this was by far the best route. Its just not feasible here, regardless of who is in office because we have a different system. Thats why I actually think its a good idea for governors, like Cuomo, to immediately declare state of emergencies. If nothing else, it allows them freedoms to act as appropriate.

I don't think the number of cases matters, any more so than the flu. What matters is how soon the relevant data becomes clear, because right now it isn't and all we are going off of was the apocalyptic origins and folklore from Wuhan, where zombies were crawling into hospitals, tripping over carcasses, reports of hundreds of thousands of zombie bodies being incinerated. Getting more clarity on a real fatality rate will help. People are blatantly missing the obvious fact that the absolute worst case fatality rate, is the deaths/confirmed cases number when in reality its death/confirmed+many unconfirmed cases. Getting an idea about recovery periods, will help. Continuing to see economic trends will help. I was again doing some errands and dropped by a few popular shopping centers today, and granted it was a gorgeous pre spring day, but the places were a zoo. No indication at all of people changing their behaviors. Personally, I think this is just another thing that will become part of everyday life. We'll be living with it as it isn't going away anytime soon, but it also isn't the end of the world either. In fact, the only time I really even notice anything about this, is during market hours. Otherwise its entirely life as usual. The market reactions really just occur when the dorks cant whip out their TI-83s or Excel sheets and forecast some type of model which happens to be the case here. Obviously travel will get hurt, as well as big city hospitality, but for the most part, I dont expect some seismic shift in how people live their lives.

This is certainly valid, but I think the broader financial system being knee capped and liquidity constrained is significantly different from the current environment and its potential fallout. Mainly because the two areas most directly effected, IMO, retail and energy, have already been decimated and gone through rugged bear markets. So it isn't as though we are swinging peak to trough like financials did in 07. Additionally, largely because we have a president quite concerned with the stock market, we will likely see stimulus pumped out, probably even at a faster rate than necessary. There will be casualties, but this isn't a system wide issue. Economically its pretty contained. Maybe you see a bit of stress in the CRE markets, but again, we've already got a bunch of this baked in over the years. How far do they go? 10% cap rates with a .7% 10 year? Granted, I acknowledge how short sighted and petty Wall Street can be. But you've got so much cheap money still sloshing around in the system and an accommodative Fed that its hard to see everyone just all of a sudden decide they won't touch assets at any price. Which again, completely ignores the fact that China is steadily ramping back up and the current retail environment according to several recent surveys, is still quite robust.