Coronavirus

[Dalal.Holdings]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-28/goldman-warns-dollar-s-role-as-world-reserve-currency-is-at-risk?sref=i5h4hvUV

 

Remember folks, there surely will be no negative long term consequences from this pandy/disaster Presidency! Stonks only go up! Covid is NBD, vaccine means V shaped recovery! Trust in Mr. Market as some brilliant folks on here advise!

 

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. put a spotlight on the suddenly growing concern over inflation in the U.S. by issuing a bold warning Tuesday that the dollar is in danger of losing its status as the world’s reserve currency.

 

With Congress closing in on another round of fiscal stimulus to shore up the pandemic-ravaged economy, and the Federal Reserve having already swelled its balance sheet by about $2.8 trillion this year, Goldman strategists cautioned that U.S. policy is triggering currency “debasement fears” that could end the dollar’s reign as the dominant force in global foreign-exchange markets.

 

...it captures a nervous vibe that has infiltrated the market this month: Investors worried that this money-printing will trigger inflation in years ahead have been bailing out of the dollar and piling furiously into gold.

 

But hey, they're right--stonks will probably go up, just don't ask about real returns!

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-02/trump-says-dollar-too-strong-swipes-at-fed-for-raising-rates

 

President Donald Trump said Saturday that the U.S. dollar is too strong

 

A good chance he wins BIGLY with correcting the problem of a "too strong" dollar...so much winning!

[muscleman]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-28/goldman-warns-dollar-s-role-as-world-reserve-currency-is-at-risk?sref=i5h4hvUV

 

Remember folks, there surely will be no negative long term consequences from this pandy/disaster Presidency! Stonks only go up! Covid is NBD, vaccine means V shaped recovery! Trust in Mr. Market as some brilliant folks on here advise!

 

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. put a spotlight on the suddenly growing concern over inflation in the U.S. by issuing a bold warning Tuesday that the dollar is in danger of losing its status as the world’s reserve currency.

 

With Congress closing in on another round of fiscal stimulus to shore up the pandemic-ravaged economy, and the Federal Reserve having already swelled its balance sheet by about $2.8 trillion this year, Goldman strategists cautioned that U.S. policy is triggering currency “debasement fears” that could end the dollar’s reign as the dominant force in global foreign-exchange markets.

 

...it captures a nervous vibe that has infiltrated the market this month: Investors worried that this money-printing will trigger inflation in years ahead have been bailing out of the dollar and piling furiously into gold.

 

But hey, they're right--stonks will probably go up, just don't ask about real returns!

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-02/trump-says-dollar-too-strong-swipes-at-fed-for-raising-rates

 

President Donald Trump said Saturday that the U.S. dollar is too strong

 

A good chance he wins BIGLY with correcting the problem of a "too strong" dollar...so much winning!

 

This post has gone beyond anything related to COVID. I would prefer that we only talk about COVID in this thread.

[muscleman]

You are leaping forward. It is better to go one step at a time. I have high conviction that by the end of August, the covid situation will improve dramatically. How about you?

 

You asked me about the market...so I answered. Funny you say I jump ahead when if the market were perfectly forward looking, it too would “jump ahead”. Fact is, market is at pre-covid levels so it is already pricing in a vaccine/cure with no long term economic effects in my view.

 

I refrain from forming high convictions about situations with wide uncertainty/fat tails. Some folks believe they can form high conviction opinions about massive events like covid with multi order effects (and call out people like me as “not committing” even though the things I’ve committed to—like exp growth in March, delayed mortality from Southern spike in June—have panned out). If you think you can forecast this thing along with 2nd/3rd order effects with “high conviction” and derive an edge, then be my guest.

 

Now it sure does look like U.S. daily cases may have peaked (with certain restrictions in place) though deaths in some places continue to rise—FL just reported a record number of daily deaths (consistent with being a lagging indicator as I’ve stated with regards to deaths).

 

So yes, it certainly seems we may have seen the worst of it in the U.S. wrt rising cases...but if the market is truly “forward looking”, it already has accounted for that, no? The rise in U.S. cases has been declining for a couple of weeks now. I mean we are just going in circles if we are going to pontificate about “the market” anyway which is why it’s always fun to talk about “the market” but useless. On a general risk-reward basis though I don’t see what’s attractive in the broader market even in your high conviction scenario.

 

To put it another way, if covid were gone today, what would we have to look forward to tomorrow to drive markets higher from their already all time high levels? I’m not sure what that would be (on a real return basis)...

 

But since you are asking about what would happen today if the virus is gone.... I have a completely different thesis than anyone else here. I think the continued daily cases will drive the market up, and by the time the virus is gone, the market will crash. Again I have high conviction on this. :) But I don't want to elaborate on that because it is a pretty complex theory and this is a COVID thread and it took so much back and forth to even try to agree on some hard facts about COVID. I don't expect you or anyone to believe in my market theory but I think it'll be fun to keep it in mind and see if it works out that way.  ;)

 

I actually agree with you—the market slowly edges up as positive covid news comes out, but then when we get vaccine approval/reopen economy, crash as the “forward looking” market faces the harsh reality beyond covid: long term economic damage from covid, a potential Biden presidency with Dems at the helm ready to raise taxes and pay for all the costs of Corona mismanagement from Trump. Like a stock that rises in anticipation to an expectedly positive earnings report, but crashes when earnings are released even when it’s a beat.

 

And even if the punchbowl can’t be taken away completely, there is no way fiscal and monetary stimulus can continue at current levels anything beyond short term...

 

But then again, pontificating on markets while fun, is highly useless IMO and not reliable. I‘d rather spend time on individual names and have lots of liquidity in times of uncertainty. But if you have high conviction, would love to hear the reasoning behind that, though I remain skeptical of anyone who can forecast short term price movements in general.

 

I am surprised that you actually agreed with me on the market view given it is far harder to figure this out than hard basic facts about COVID, which is pure science.

But I strongly disagree with you about Trump's mismanagement on COVID, but it seems to me that facts related to COVID these days are being politicized as well and I don't want to spend any time arguing about it. Maybe the bar is set too low when I compare it with how China handled COVID.

[Dalal.Holdings]

I am surprised that you actually agreed with me on the market view given it is far harder to figure this out than hard basic facts about COVID, which is pure science.

But I strongly disagree with you about Trump's mismanagement on COVID, but it seems to me that facts related to COVID these days are being politicized as well and I don't want to spend any time arguing about it. Maybe the bar is set too low when I compare it with how China handled COVID.

 

The market view is low conviction. The view on the long term economic effects is much higher conviction. And the 2nd/3rd order economic effects caused by U.S. covid mismanagement (like dollar devaluation, rise in metals that is occurring) should be fair game for the thread. After all, you brought up the topic on discussing what happens to "the market" due to covid. So discussing currency devaluation (accelerated by covid mismanagement) by a President who stated "dollar is too strong" and the increasing odds of a new President (due to covid) coming in and raising corporate taxes to pay for the mess and more...all relevant.

 

You can say Covid is pure science, but it has been botched by so many esp in the U.S. despite it being "science"--for example: just today we have our political Leader you miraculously absolve from all blame once again touting Hydroxychloroquine--"pure science" says otherwise, but "pure science" does not matter...

 

 

[Investor20]

So it seems that The Crew is back to hawking HCQ and trying to discredit Fauci.

 

They have a new favourite doctor now who's a total whackadoodle. Loves HCQ and there's something in there about having dream sex with demons making you sick. I shit you not. If this person is a real doctor, as in has a medical license, I have some concerns.

 

If a doctor treated 350 of 350 patients successfully that is a good data point.

 

A normal person when they go to a doctor, they would be interested in how many cases the doctor treated and how many were successful.

[Investor20]

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/vadodara-administration-drive-hcq-helping-in-containing-covid-19-cases-say-docs-as-analysis-begins-6486049/

 

"Until Wednesday, the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) has administered the drug to 3.42 lakh persons, including health workers and other frontline staff. Each of these persons has or will have completed the entire course of the drug — 400mg twice a day for the first dose and 400 mg per week for a minimum of three weeks"

 

"We have the numbers and not one person has complained of complications. The only side effect reported is mild gastritis, which is common with administering heavy medicines and can be effectively handled.”

 

"Of this, the administration has analysed a sample of over 1 lakh residents, who were mostly close contacts of positive persons and the effect of HCQ in containing the transmission of the virus. According to the analysis, of the

 

48,873 close contacts of positive patients who took one dose of HCQ, 102 turned Covid-19 positive and 12 succumbed to the infection whereas

 

48 of the 17,776 close contacts of positive patients who took two doses of HCQ turned positive and only one died.

 

The study also states that of the 33,563 close contacts of patients who took three HCQ doses, 43 tested positive and one died."

 

1 Lakh = 100,000.  That is they gave 340,000 people prophylactically.

Noted no complications other than minor.

 

First dose : (102/48873)*100 = 0.2% of contacts got infected

Third dose: (43/33563)*100 =  0.13% of contacts got infected.

 

The number of contacts who are infected after HCQ dosing is really low.

[Liberty]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/us/politics/russia-disinformation-coronavirus.html

[Liberty]

So it seems that The Crew is back to hawking HCQ and trying to discredit Fauci.

 

They have a new favourite doctor now who's a total whackadoodle. Loves HCQ and there's something in there about having dream sex with demons making you sick. I shit you not. If this person is a real doctor, as in has a medical license, I have some concerns.

 

If a doctor treated 350 of 350 patients successfully that is a good data point.

 

A normal person when they go to a doctor, they would be interested in how many cases the doctor treated and how many were successful.

 

How do you know how successful he would have been without it without a control group?

[Cigarbutt]

So it seems that The Crew is back to hawking HCQ and trying to discredit Fauci.

They have a new favourite doctor now who's a total whackadoodle. Loves HCQ and there's something in there about having dream sex with demons making you sick. I shit you not. If this person is a real doctor, as in has a medical license, I have some concerns.

If a doctor treated 350 of 350 patients successfully that is a good data point.

A normal person when they go to a doctor, they would be interested in how many cases the doctor treated and how many were successful.

How do you know how successful he would have been without it without a control group?

When gathering data, there is some kind of consensus (built over a very long time and evolving) on how to discount information:

 

From low to high value (assuming a relatively sound underlying thought process)

1-Personal anecdotes

2-Various observational studies

3-Various retrospective cohort studies with attempts to match groups

4-Various uncontrolled prospective cohort studies

5-randomized controlled prospective trials ("RCTs")

6-meta-analyses (which can efficiently combine the above 5)

 

The growth in weight of evidence is quite exponential going from 1- to 6- and RCTs constitute the gold standard but have very significant disadvantages and limitations. For example, it would have been very difficult to "prove" a link between human lung cancer and cigarette smoking, simply relying on RCTs. When, as individual investors, we try to identify a specific investment opportunity, we will not devise an experiment, we will try to bridge the gap from 1- to 6- and maybe that's why it's hard to outperform. But such an individual endeavor does not work well in science where often progress looks painfully slow in a prospective sense. i've always thought that a researcher should see him or herself as a football lineman: working at the line of scrimmage and working for the team.

 

A long time ago, an observer who decided to move up the weight of evidence ladder found a cure for scurvy but it took decades for the publication and application because people mostly relied on anecdotes and individual opinions. It's OK to question the role of RCTs (see below) but reverting to anecdotal evidence may bring science progress to a crawl.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3619876

 

It's been said that Babylonians use to "expose" the sick to the general population in order to obtain "public" comments based on individual perceptions and beliefs and, in an uncanny way, it feels the same when reading some of the news these days.

[rb]

So it seems that The Crew is back to hawking HCQ and trying to discredit Fauci.

 

They have a new favourite doctor now who's a total whackadoodle. Loves HCQ and there's something in there about having dream sex with demons making you sick. I shit you not. If this person is a real doctor, as in has a medical license, I have some concerns.

 

If a doctor treated 350 of 350 patients successfully that is a good data point.

 

A normal person when they go to a doctor, they would be interested in how many cases the doctor treated and how many were successful.

 

How do you know how successful he would have been without it without a control group?

That, and given the doctor I'd need a lot more than her word before this even becomes and anecdote, much less a data point.

[muscleman]

I am surprised that you actually agreed with me on the market view given it is far harder to figure this out than hard basic facts about COVID, which is pure science.

But I strongly disagree with you about Trump's mismanagement on COVID, but it seems to me that facts related to COVID these days are being politicized as well and I don't want to spend any time arguing about it. Maybe the bar is set too low when I compare it with how China handled COVID.

 

The market view is low conviction. The view on the long term economic effects is much higher conviction. And the 2nd/3rd order economic effects caused by U.S. covid mismanagement (like dollar devaluation, rise in metals that is occurring) should be fair game for the thread. After all, you brought up the topic on discussing what happens to "the market" due to covid. So discussing currency devaluation (accelerated by covid mismanagement) by a President who stated "dollar is too strong" and the increasing odds of a new President (due to covid) coming in and raising corporate taxes to pay for the mess and more...all relevant.

 

You can say Covid is pure science, but it has been botched by so many esp in the U.S. despite it being "science"--for example: just today we have our political Leader you miraculously absolve from all blame once again touting Hydroxychloroquine--"pure science" says otherwise, but "pure science" does not matter...

 

Well, when I initially brought up the market's "forward looking", I merely meant to use that as the metaphor for forward looking mentality on COVID situation.

I have high conviction that by the end of August, most states in the US will have achieved herd immunity and the daily new cases will be sharply lower than what we have now. Then school will reopen in September. Whether Hydroxychloroquine works or not, this prediction will not be affected.

 

[Dalal.Holdings]

I am surprised that you actually agreed with me on the market view given it is far harder to figure this out than hard basic facts about COVID, which is pure science.

But I strongly disagree with you about Trump's mismanagement on COVID, but it seems to me that facts related to COVID these days are being politicized as well and I don't want to spend any time arguing about it. Maybe the bar is set too low when I compare it with how China handled COVID.

 

The market view is low conviction. The view on the long term economic effects is much higher conviction. And the 2nd/3rd order economic effects caused by U.S. covid mismanagement (like dollar devaluation, rise in metals that is occurring) should be fair game for the thread. After all, you brought up the topic on discussing what happens to "the market" due to covid. So discussing currency devaluation (accelerated by covid mismanagement) by a President who stated "dollar is too strong" and the increasing odds of a new President (due to covid) coming in and raising corporate taxes to pay for the mess and more...all relevant.

 

You can say Covid is pure science, but it has been botched by so many esp in the U.S. despite it being "science"--for example: just today we have our political Leader you miraculously absolve from all blame once again touting Hydroxychloroquine--"pure science" says otherwise, but "pure science" does not matter...

 

Well, when I initially brought up the market's "forward looking", I merely meant to use that as the metaphor for forward looking mentality on COVID situation.

I have high conviction that by the end of August, most states in the US will have achieved herd immunity and the daily new cases will be sharply lower than what we have now. Then school will reopen in September. Whether Hydroxychloroquine works or not, this prediction will not be affected.

 

Definitely a bold prediction to have high conviction on. While I agree U.S. cases likely go down from here, herd immunity does not seem high probability in so short a time. You seem to be conjecturing about higher antibody/T cell immunity than estimated and I am not sure if there is enough data out there to tell us the prevalence of this type immunity out there approaching herd immunity levels...

 

Furthermore, hospitalizations and mortality will lag a decline in cases and come off slowly. We’ll know in a month I guess.

[Ross812]

So it seems that The Crew is back to hawking HCQ and trying to discredit Fauci.

 

They have a new favourite doctor now who's a total whackadoodle. Loves HCQ and there's something in there about having dream sex with demons making you sick. I shit you not. If this person is a real doctor, as in has a medical license, I have some concerns.

 

If a doctor treated 350 of 350 patients successfully that is a good data point.

 

A normal person when they go to a doctor, they would be interested in how many cases the doctor treated and how many were successful.

 

How do you know how successful he would have been without it without a control group?

That, and given the doctor I'd need a lot more than her word before this even becomes and anecdote, much less a data point.

 

The fatality rate for covid is 0.65%.

 

(1-0.65)^350 is 10.2%. In other words there is a 10.2% chance of all 350 paitients recovering with no loss of life.

 

Unlikely? There are a lot of covid patients and a lot of doctors treating them. Say there are 350 doctors each treating 350 patients. The likely hood of 1 doctor not losing any patients is

 

1-(1-0.102)^350 is essentially 100%.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Liberty]

So it seems that The Crew is back to hawking HCQ and trying to discredit Fauci.

 

They have a new favourite doctor now who's a total whackadoodle. Loves HCQ and there's something in there about having dream sex with demons making you sick. I shit you not. If this person is a real doctor, as in has a medical license, I have some concerns.

 

If a doctor treated 350 of 350 patients successfully that is a good data point.

 

A normal person when they go to a doctor, they would be interested in how many cases the doctor treated and how many were successful.

 

How do you know how successful he would have been without it without a control group?

That, and given the doctor I'd need a lot more than her word before this even becomes and anecdote, much less a data point.

 

The fatality rate for covid is 0.65%.

 

(1-0.65)^350 is 10.2%. In other words there is a 10.2% chance of all 350 paitients recovering with no loss of life.

 

Unlikely? There are a lot of covid patients and a lot of doctors treating them. Say there are 350 doctors each treating 350 patients. The likely hood of 1 doctor not losing any patients is

 

1-(1-0.102)^350 is essentially 100%.

 

It depends a lot on the demographics of the patients too.. Were they mostly from a nearby long-term care facility for seniors or from a young high-income neighbourhood with mostly healthy young adults?

 

You need to know a lot of things to know what you're looking at, which is why studies try to explicitly control for variables and why anecdotes can be misleading.

[StubbleJumper]

So it seems that The Crew is back to hawking HCQ and trying to discredit Fauci.

 

They have a new favourite doctor now who's a total whackadoodle. Loves HCQ and there's something in there about having dream sex with demons making you sick. I shit you not. If this person is a real doctor, as in has a medical license, I have some concerns.

 

If a doctor treated 350 of 350 patients successfully that is a good data point.

 

A normal person when they go to a doctor, they would be interested in how many cases the doctor treated and how many were successful.

 

How do you know how successful he would have been without it without a control group?

That, and given the doctor I'd need a lot more than her word before this even becomes and anecdote, much less a data point.

 

The fatality rate for covid is 0.65%.

 

(1-0.65)^350 is 10.2%. In other words there is a 10.2% chance of all 350 paitients recovering with no loss of life.

 

Unlikely? There are a lot of covid patients and a lot of doctors treating them. Say there are 350 doctors each treating 350 patients. The likely hood of 1 doctor not losing any patients is

 

1-(1-0.102)^350 is essentially 100%.

 

 

It's good that you are mathematically quantifying things, but I'm not sure the parameters that you have chosen are quite correct.  I am guessing that your 0.65% death rate was an estimate of the IFR.  However, since doctors only treat officially diagnosed cases (ie, they do not treat very many people who have no symptoms or minimal symptoms and were never diagnosed), you probably should have done the same math with a Case Fatality Rate (ie, the number of dead divided by the number of officially diagnosed cases).  For India, it appears that there are 35k deaths and about 1.6m official cases, which would be a CFR of about 2%.  If you redo your arithmetic as (1-.02)^350 you get a slightly different outcome.

 

 

SJ

[Guest]

For the guys who are super concerned with the virus, are you in cash? Were you in cash a month or two ago?

[Liberty]

For the guys who are super concerned with the virus, are you in cash? Were you in cash a month or two ago?

 

False choice.

[muscleman]

For the guys who are super concerned with the virus, are you in cash? Were you in cash a month or two ago?

 

They must be. Otherwise they wouldn't be so frustrated right now. But I would prefer to confine this discussion to COVID only.

 

 

[Guest]

For the guys who are super concerned with the virus, are you in cash? Were you in cash a month or two ago?

 

They must be. Otherwise they wouldn't be so frustrated right now. But I would prefer to confine this discussion to COVID only.

 

Fair enough. Just trying to get a feel for their emotions. I figured if they moved from cash to investments, perhaps that's a contrary indicator.

[Liberty]

Ok, this is a must watch. Playing with masks and blowtorches.. some nice backyard science:

 

[Liberty]

Fair enough. Just trying to get a feel for their emotions. I figured if they moved from cash to investments, perhaps that's a contrary indicator.

 

I'm fully invested and having one of my best years ever on the investment side, even picked up a few things in March and was lucky to do well on those.

 

But I see that a global pandemic that has kill over 650k people in a few months despite almost the whole world shutting down (what would it have been otherwise?), and is currently out of control in the US and Brazil and India, a long time away from a vaccine, is a big problem even if my stocks are doing well.

[Dalal.Holdings]

For the guys who are super concerned with the virus, are you in cash? Were you in cash a month or two ago?

 

They must be. Otherwise they wouldn't be so frustrated right now. But I would prefer to confine this discussion to COVID only.

 

When holding cash is considered flawed on a value site (after 11 year bull run, >30% S&P return in prior yr, near ATH): run. Good luck being fully invested on “high conviction” beliefs about imminent herd immunity. I thought you said there would be a market crash when it happened too???

 

Like I said, I maintain ample liquidity in times of wide uncertainty. I will not be overly concerned/frustrated if I underperform a rising market in 2020-2021. Certain investments like PTON, AKAM offset whatever I miss out on with my cash pile anyway. I’m more interested in outperforming a slumping market/economy than a surging one after the past 11 year bull market (downside protection, precautionary principle).

 

If I’m frustrated about anything, it’s the long term (economic and other) damage covid mismanagement has inflicted on my country.

[Cigarbutt]

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/15-high-rises-2-slums-on-list-of-31-containment-zones/articleshow/77188071.cms

Kolkata: 15 high-rises, two slums on list of 31 containment  ..

The above website wont let me cut and paste. Few points:

High-rises seen 108% increase while slums seen 60% jump in Mumbai.

In Delhi most cases are from apartments (Not slums!)

Why would slums with crowding (that is lacking distancing), lacking continuous water supply (Washing hands), poor people probably lacking good masks would be doing better than high rise apartments? 

Is it Ventilation?

It could be stronger immune systems due to living in squalor.

You mean they have more cross immunity to other coronaviruses?

Not necessarily cross immunity to viruses. Just a stronger immune system and a better response. If you're living in squalor you'll generally have a much better immune system and better immune response than some fat guy that drives everywhere and washes regularly. It's also a big part of the reason why there are less people with allergies in developing countries.

Allergies are over reaction of immune system. Your evidence says poorer people have less immunity.

Covid-19 is much more prevalent in lower income groups in US, which is shown in NYC.  But that is usually explained because of crowding in smaller housing.

But that is not the case in India.  Slums with high crowding have lower Covid-19.

Yes allergies are an over reaction of the immune system. But you're looking this in an over-simplified way. Like in any fight/battle the level of strength is not all that matters. Tactics matter a great deal as well. So the guy who grew up a (relatively) rich life in America who's mom was always there with Purell go clean the germs may have a strong immune system because he is healthy and not malnourished etc... But the Indian who grew up in squalor playing in dirt and shit with not a bar of soap in sight has an immune system that is better equipped to deal with threats because it has been exposed to so many pathogens. That's why the rich guy's immune system goes like Holy Shit! A nut, Red Alert, DEFCON 1! and the poor guy's immune system goes like, oh a nut, that looks yummy.

To put this another way the rich guy's immune system is like a white guy that attends private school, goes to the gym 3 times a week to pump lift weights for 2 hours, drinks protein shakes. The poor guy's immune system is like a dirt-under-fingernails street fighter from the bad side of Jakarta. Christopher over there looks pretty impressive. But which one of the two do you want backing you in a dark alley fight?

@rb

I respect your opinion about squalor-induced immunity (...) because of your overall strong analytical skills but i will keep this 'evidence' at the anecdotal level (of questionable validity).

 

@Investor20

There is a recent report from Mumbai that points to evidence going against your strong belief that ventilation should be a primary consideration:

https://www.firstpost.com/health/covid-19-antibodies-found-in-57-of-mumbai-slum-residents-in-limited-serosurvey-by-niti-aayog-bmc-tifr-8651091.html

When the facts change...

 

So why such a low mortality in slums?

There are many competing theories but age may be a determining factor. This is still relatively ill defined as there are many risk factors but some work shows that age (exponential rise in relative risk with age) is the primary determining factor in most cases. See page 8, figure 3.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2521-4_reference.pdf

What about the age profile in slums?

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Age-Classification-of-Slum-Population_tbl1_262123665

 

The 1967 James Bond movie You Only Live Twice is a great movie (anecdotal opinion) but, in this case, it's the 1993 spoof version You Only Live Once that wins the evidence prize.

[Ross812]

For the guys who are super concerned with the virus, are you in cash? Were you in cash a month or two ago?

 

They must be. Otherwise they wouldn't be so frustrated right now. But I would prefer to confine this discussion to COVID only.

 

Fair enough. Just trying to get a feel for their emotions. I figured if they moved from cash to investments, perhaps that's a contrary indicator.

 

I am really worried about the US sitting at 11% unemployment right now and I think the stock market is being propped up by savings from those who are employed and the system is stable because the government is essentially paying those prevented from working to stay home.

 

Ex. As an employed person, instead of spending 10k on a hotels, eating out, and shopping this summer I left the money in the bank or moved it into an investment account. That 10k that would have went to the waiter, hotel staff etc. has been added to the government balance sheet.

 

I think another round of shut downs will happen in the fall/winter once the northern states go inside for winter and I don't really see good behavior from the populace as a whole that is going to allow life to return to normal. If the payments to the 11% unemployed stop, we are going to see defaults on rents, mortgages, and other debt and fallout is going to pivot from the government to those holding the capital.

 

I have been extremely conservative in how I have been investing for several years as I manage money for several retirees. My drawdown in March was 6%. I am sitting in a combination of CDs, Treasury Futures, PIMIX, PAIDX, IAU, and TIPS. I bought bull call spreads on FAANG stocks in March and called away in June. Since June I have been playing around with selling weeklys on KMI and WFC. I am waiting for a the VIX to drop in order to but longer dated call options on SPX.     

[muscleman]

For the guys who are super concerned with the virus, are you in cash? Were you in cash a month or two ago?

 

They must be. Otherwise they wouldn't be so frustrated right now. But I would prefer to confine this discussion to COVID only.

 

When holding cash is considered flawed on a value site (after 11 year bull run, >30% S&P return in prior yr, near ATH): run. Good luck being fully invested on “high conviction” beliefs about imminent herd immunity. I thought you said there would be a market crash when it happened too???

 

Like I said, I maintain ample liquidity in times of wide uncertainty. I will not be overly concerned/frustrated if I underperform a rising market in 2020-2021. Certain investments like PTON, AKAM offset whatever I miss out on with my cash pile anyway. I’m more interested in outperforming a slumping market/economy than a surging one after the past 11 year bull market (downside protection, precautionary principle).

 

If I’m frustrated about anything, it’s the long term (economic and other) damage covid mismanagement has inflicted on my country.

 

Whatever your investment decision, that's your money. Please don't let your investment decisions infect the objective judgement of how the COVID situations progress from now on. It is pure data and science.