Gregmal

Too funny. Everyone has an opinion.

Theres nothing. Just fear mongering and stock promoter speak. Cases are up 78% and compounding at a greater rate than Warren Buffett in his prime! Truth? 3 to 6 to 13....Big whoop. We should be expecting much more than 10 cases in NY. Does each extra dozen warrant -2% on the S&P?

Pretty much. I think sensationalism has taken hold of a lot of really smart individuals and its feeds off itself to create momentum. The market is clearly in "voting machine" mode; one look at whats trending and popular tells one all they need to know there. Stocks with single digit PEs and robust cash flows getting hammered, corona themed pump jobs going bananas reminiscent of the crypto or marijuana bubbles. Everywhere you turn its another dramatic reveal of "OMG more cases" when the truth shouldn't shock anyone. Given the carnage, that should be expected. Then you ask yourself, ok, so more cases...but what not revealed are the severity or context on any of them, except fo course, the scary ones where people are gravely ill or dying. I actually found out yesterday an investor of mine, in Europe has it. He's in good spirits, texting away on his phone, chilling in his house; albeit uncomfortably. Thats most of the cases....But you're not hearing that anywhere. Its a constant barrage of panic inducing snippets and disgruntled or frustrated(rightfully so) healthcare workers screaming "THIS IS THE END", many of these with obvious political biases. I tend to give less credence to the numbers and more to the narrative when the numbers are what everyone else is focused on, and when no one else is paying attention to the numbers, instead fixated on a narrative, I try to give the numbers my attention. More reports out today from retailers again confirming, at least to date, no noticeable difference in demand. Positive reports on China activity. Again, its not to say this cant evolve into something much bigger, but the "OMG MOAR CASES" and "LOOK AT THIS PARABOLIC CHART" stuff is just noise. Obviously its a pretty big concern, we just lost a significant portion of market capitalization lol. But the way folks are acting you'd think by 1,000 US cases the market should be cut in half. EDIT: and to further make a point, now, because of all the noise, look at how many idiots are inundating hospitals or hotlines with inquiries because of common allergies or a small cold! If our goal is to overwhelm the hospitals and drain our resources, the propaganda machines are certainly doing all they can.

A data-point from Norway (might be interesting for some, presented without opinion): Out of the (as of yesterday) 86 confirmed infected, no one is severely ill, or even hospitalized. And as you say, (many?) more are probably infected, as just those with symptoms are tested. But then again, most of the infected are people coming home from ski-trips, not elderly people with reduced immune-system. Its hard to zero in anywhere which is why it all must, IMO, be taken both with a grain of sincerity, as well as skepticism. Every country you can more or less make the case that the numbers cant be trusted. At the same time, its also quite possible the numbers are skewed as many have already alluded to with respect to the fact that the majority of confirmed cases are just those that are bad or paranoid enough to come forward.

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... So your investments/wagers, again, using today as the judgment point, are puts on cruise ship operators. RCL for instance you're paying $9 for an April at the money put. I suppose we shall see. Even if bearish, as I detailed earlier, there's probably better ways to play it. $PRTY, $CBL, $CHK are donuts corona or not. Much faster if this picks up. But at least we're getting somewhere and discussing ways to make money. Good luck. As with Tesla, I have no problem giving credit when I'm wrong. Thats the beauty of the market.

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...

Dont stop Dalal from his world class reporting! We are still awaiting the cell phone pic of the parabolic chart showing 6k Korean cases... This thread was quite useful and informative up until a few days ago but has basically evolved into veiled politics inspired whining. Which is cool of course, but not really useful for anything investment related. Im curious(seriously) to see the evolution in Canada, particularly BC as well. Doesn't seem to be all that crazy yet. Same goes for Japan and a few other places. Of course, for just about any place, you can find a scary news piece or Twitter feed(most often linked to people supporting similar political causes).

Thanks. We are doing great and not losing any sleep. Just staying informed exercising reasonable caution. +1 Yeah, I'd +1 that too. I don't want to diminish what's going on. This thing is definitely a nasty bug. But the reaction to it is definitely weird. I lived in Toronto during SARS (I actually worked on the subway during the crisis) and I lived in London during H1N1 (England was one of the harder hit places). But I don't remember anything like what is going on right now. There was a general level of concern (I started to cough in my elbow) but life pretty much went on as usual. I don't remember being any shortage of masks in the heath care sector. People definitely didn't stockpile masks. The markets certainly didn't care because we were all fucked at that point anyway. I just don't get why things are so much different this time. Social media This

@Castanza LOL yea. If absolutely nothing else, I found it an interesting mental exercise to consider the ramifications of the only thing we can definitely say about Berkshire/Buffett the past week or two. They were buying Delta...now extrapolate

Im a complicated fellow, what can I say?

Fair enough. I believe you that there may be little to be done for those who are so far gone. What I found distasteful was the lack of apparently concern for those and others who could be saved. However, as someone mentioned above, there needs to be some emotional distance that the doctor keeps, and I can certainly believe that. So maybe I just have the wrong projection on the level of empathy that medical professionals *should* have vs. what's reality. Either way, this has been educational in terms of how inadequately we are prepared for this (and other diseases), so we're all along for the ride. Thanks for the engagement. Again, I meant no disrespect before. Can you imagine trying to do emergency surgery on an infant? Or telling a young person they have cancer? Its fucked up but you need to kind of be mentally deranged or semi sociopathtic to live with it and still do your job well without it bogging you down. Its kind of like working on Wall Street. Except you're actually doing something useful.

I'm sorry, you work in healthcare? As in caring of people who are ill, with the goal of them getting better? There are goals and there are realities. The reality is if your old and/or immuno compromised your more likely to die if you get the corona virus. Without a cure what exactly would you like a healthcare worker to do in that situation? I know that the internet does not convey tone well, so please believe me when I say that I mean this in the most sincere, non-offense way - I think you should find another line of work outside of the healthcare industry. If your default response whenever someone is ill with an unknown illness or an illness in which there is no cure is to suggest that there's nothing to do, then perhaps trying to help those in need of help is your calling. You clearly have never met a doctor if thats what you think... its almost a prerequisite for anyone more than a nurse to basically remove emotion from things and strictly stick to protocol. Often times protocol is not warm and fuzzy.

Yea its definitely a bit challenging figuring out the eventual dollar flow to specific companies. The best Ive been able to do with certainly is probably come back to a company like Illumina. But thats not to say these companies won't benefit. The honest answer is its hard to tell. Its encouraging to see some of the backers of these companies, ranging from multi billion dollar pharmas like Vertex and Bayer, to Google Ventures and the Gates Foundation. Ive found, scientists are very smart dudes and I dont discredit what they say(same with all the medical experts speaking about corona) but they are much more academics than they are financially savvy individuals. They get wound up in theory and exercise but often remain as clueless to the investment ramifications of things as Joe the Plumber. That said, all of the people in the field Ive ever encountered, talk about this as if they're Columbus encountering the Americas. Endless potential. So its something to be excited about and the securities will act as a mechanism for those that follow to make some money. "Trading" may make some uncomfortable, but its a good hedge to the risks we've already discussed on the subject.

There's that, and there's also the other side of the media fear mongering; people actually have information available necessary to take precautions against this. Much harder to get information out to the masses(especially on a global basis) back in 1918. People will bitch about the "information" being released, mainly because its a convenient cover to express political frustrations, but the bottom line is that the public is aware of this and has been for weeks now, which if nothing else, allows folks to be on alert.

Ray Dalio https://westfaironline.com/121925/ray-dalio-covid-19-will-create-emotional-but-not-economic-impacts/ While Im not a huge Dalio fanboy, what he says, seems on the money. Obviously fertile grounds for long/short strategies. Be careful about what you're buying. Dont be irrational. Seem like how we should always invest....

The potential of CRISPR is breathtaking. And most people, dont have the slightest clue. The investment angle is a little tougher, but playing the CRSP, EDIT, NTLA, BEAM trading sardine strategy will definitely be profitable. I'm still really hoping to see a Caribou IPO. To me, these are positions everybody should have a low single digit collective basket of. Upside "could" be enormous.

If you a scared motherfucka go to church -Ice Cube

awful technique. a true newyawker will grab a proper slice, fold it slightly in hand and eat it like a true gentleman, not like bloomie, all furtive with a torn shred and leaving the remaining bit of the slice all mangled and infected. one bite, everybody knows the rules... Yea, come on. You fold it in half and bite it. You dont use a fork and a knife and you dont perform faux felatio on your fingers afterwords either. These billionaires are so out of touch!

I think thats misguided though because you can avoid going against the current and go with it. Why rent(booking a night or two) a Marriot when you can buy a home at 3% down with a 3% mortgage on a GRBK lot? Or LGI? A lot of the one offs will be bridged by assistance programs and easing, or so I imagine. But the rate cuts(predictable) and subsequent supply/demand distortions will dictate the winners. As always, there are high risk areas, moderate risk and low risk. But with this they seem more pronounced. You can take the weak and put a bullet in their head while also going long the strong. I would almost guarantee a short WLL(or CHK)/PRTY/CBL long GRBK/PCYO/GRIF trade crushes it from here. Theres probably a bunch of other great pairs but those are the ones I follow. This narrative in the market has made it virtually impossible for certain themes not to play out. With these type of setups on the table why even fuck around with hotels, restaurants and airlines?

And folks say Trump is unfit to handle dealing with the virus! So unsanitary! How many hands do you think he shakes? https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1234998841822216192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1234998841822216192&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnypost.com%2F2020%2F03%2F03%2Ftrump-rips-dirty-bloomberg-for-manhandling-pizza-licking-fingers-in-viral-video-gross-out%2F

Stock market 101. You pay an ultra high price for certainty. Today its 1.1% for 10 years. LOL. I'd rather take my money and trade N95 face masks on eBay for a few bucks than resort to putting my money away for those rates.

Pretty sound stuff there.

BOSTON, March 3 (Reuters) - Billionaire hedge fund investor William Ackman on Tuesday said he has moved to protect the firm's $6.6 billion portfolio, which includes restaurant chain and hotel stocks, as the spread of the coronavirus has sparked prolonged panic selling in markets. Ackman said he expects the outbreak, which has been detected in roughly 80 countries, to weigh on growth in the United States and abroad and affect both stock and credit markets. Over the last 10 days, "we have taken steps to protect the portfolio from downward market volatility," wrote Ackman, who oversees Pershing Square Capital Management. He declined to say exactly what steps he took. Ackman spoke out on the same day that the Federal Reserve announced an emergency interest rate cut. Ackman's statement, an unusual move for someone who seldom discusses portfolio movements publicly, underscores investors' fears that the coronavirus will have serious implications for economic growth. "We believe that efforts to contain the coronavirus are likely to have a substantial negative impact on the U.S. and global economies, and on equity and credit markets," the statement said. Ackman said hedging was preferable to selling off his portfolio of companies whose businesses are otherwise strong and include Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG), Hilton Worldwide (HLT) , home improvement chain Lowe's (LOW), Burger King operator Restaurant Brands International and Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/A), among others. The hedge fund sold out of its position in Starbucks (SBUX) earlier in the year. In the first two months of the year, the firm's Pershing Square Holdings portfolio fell 7.1%, after having gained 58.1% last year, which made it one of the industry's best-performing hedge funds. The market drop has taken a bite out of the size of Ackman's funds, according to a report which put assets under management at $6.6 billion at the end of February compared with $7.5 billion at the end of December. 12% one month decline in AUM there for Billy Boy

Todays drop was actually because of the 22 tornadovirus deaths in Tennessee. Immediately moving the mortality rate into the upper echelons of virus folklore and making the coronavirus look like child's play.