Coronavirus

[Simba]

Hope you guys made some money by being bullish and buying stocks as the 3rd wave COVID breaks out.

Dr. Dalal was wrong all the way. Back in August he said he was bearish but if Trump wins re-election then the stock market could actually go higher. (Which might imply if Biden wins, he thinks the market will go down?)

 

I am currently 50% invested not 100% yet because I am expecting another market pull back before a really strong market melt up. Then we might see a replay of the March 2000 dot com bubble burst. But we have to examine it as we get there.

 

What makes you think we get a 2000 style crash?

 

Unless the Fed loses control of rates, or the Democrats break up FAAG, why would that happen?

 

[muscleman]

Hope you guys made some money by being bullish and buying stocks as the 3rd wave COVID breaks out.

Dr. Dalal was wrong all the way. Back in August he said he was bearish but if Trump wins re-election then the stock market could actually go higher. (Which might imply if Biden wins, he thinks the market will go down?)

 

I am currently 50% invested not 100% yet because I am expecting another market pull back before a really strong market melt up. Then we might see a replay of the March 2000 dot com bubble burst. But we have to examine it as we get there.

 

What makes you think we get a 2000 style crash?

 

Unless the Fed loses control of rates, or the Democrats break up FAAG, why would that happen?

 

I said "might" and I also said we'll revisit this theory when we get there. ;)

[samwise]

Slovakia is trying to avoid lockdown by testing everyone in the country. If you pass, no need to quarantine. So you end up just locking down the people who carry the virus, in theory. However, with error rates in rapid antigen tests, it remains to be seen how successful they are. Might require multiple rounds of tests.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/slovakia-tested-two-thirds-of-its-population-for-covid-19-in-two-days-1.5171104

[DooDiligence]

Hope you guys made some money by being bullish and buying stocks as the 3rd wave COVID breaks out.

Dr. Dalal was wrong all the way. Back in August he said he was bearish but if Trump wins re-election then the stock market could actually go higher. (Which might imply if Biden wins, he thinks the market will go down?)

 

I am currently 50% invested not 100% yet because I am expecting another market pull back before a really strong market melt up. Then we might see a replay of the March 2000 dot com bubble burst. But we have to examine it as we get there.

 

What makes you think we get a 2000 style crash?

 

Unless the Fed loses control of rates, or the Democrats break up FAAG, why would that happen?

 

I said "might" and I also said we'll revisit this theory when we get there. ;)

 

Mmmmm waffles

[Spekulatius]

This is interesting too, but based on my observations true.

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/gov-baker-top-education-officials-to-provide-coronavirus-update/2225052/

 

This is especially true for smaller kids. Also , some parents are forced to mix kids with other households because there were no childcare options. That leads to higher transmission rates than if kids go to school in controlled conditions.

 

The data is clear, he said, with a new Brown University study showing extremely low levels of infection among students and teachers across the country. And he said there have been some indications that students are more likely to get the coronavirus while learning at home because they will be playing unsupervised with other children.

[muscleman]

Hope you guys made some money by being bullish and buying stocks as the 3rd wave COVID breaks out.

Dr. Dalal was wrong all the way. Back in August he said he was bearish but if Trump wins re-election then the stock market could actually go higher. (Which might imply if Biden wins, he thinks the market will go down?)

 

I am currently 50% invested not 100% yet because I am expecting another market pull back before a really strong market melt up. Then we might see a replay of the March 2000 dot com bubble burst. But we have to examine it as we get there.

 

What makes you think we get a 2000 style crash?

 

Unless the Fed loses control of rates, or the Democrats break up FAAG, why would that happen?

 

I said "might" and I also said we'll revisit this theory when we get there. ;)

 

Mmmmm waffles

 

No one can tell what happens in 4 months. Just like the weather, if you look outside the window, you can tell what's gonna happen in an hour but can you tell what's gonna happen in 2 weeks? Come on! And why does that even matter?

 

[clutch]

Hope you guys made some money by being bullish and buying stocks as the 3rd wave COVID breaks out.

Dr. Dalal was wrong all the way. Back in August he said he was bearish but if Trump wins re-election then the stock market could actually go higher. (Which might imply if Biden wins, he thinks the market will go down?)

 

I am currently 50% invested not 100% yet because I am expecting another market pull back before a really strong market melt up. Then we might see a replay of the March 2000 dot com bubble burst. But we have to examine it as we get there.

 

What makes you think we get a 2000 style crash?

 

Unless the Fed loses control of rates, or the Democrats break up FAAG, why would that happen?

 

I said "might" and I also said we'll revisit this theory when we get there. ;)

 

Mmmmm waffles

 

No one can tell what happens in 4 months. Just like the weather, if you look outside the window, you can tell what's gonna happen in an hour but can you tell what's gonna happen in 2 weeks? Come on! And why does that even matter?

 

Then why are you betting on it?

[RichardGibbons]

No one can tell what happens in 4 months. Just like the weather, if you look outside the window, you can tell what's gonna happen in an hour but can you tell what's gonna happen in 2 weeks? Come on! And why does that even matter?

 

Yep. Anyone who understands how options work recognizes that if one could reliably predict the market even two weeks out, one could become unbelievably rich in a couple years. So, pretty well everyone sensible who's thought about it has low confidence even in their own short-term predictions, let alone others'.

[muscleman]

Hope you guys made some money by being bullish and buying stocks as the 3rd wave COVID breaks out.

Dr. Dalal was wrong all the way. Back in August he said he was bearish but if Trump wins re-election then the stock market could actually go higher. (Which might imply if Biden wins, he thinks the market will go down?)

 

I am currently 50% invested not 100% yet because I am expecting another market pull back before a really strong market melt up. Then we might see a replay of the March 2000 dot com bubble burst. But we have to examine it as we get there.

 

What makes you think we get a 2000 style crash?

 

Unless the Fed loses control of rates, or the Democrats break up FAAG, why would that happen?

 

I said "might" and I also said we'll revisit this theory when we get there. ;)

 

Mmmmm waffles

 

No one can tell what happens in 4 months. Just like the weather, if you look outside the window, you can tell what's gonna happen in an hour but can you tell what's gonna happen in 2 weeks? Come on! And why does that even matter?

 

Then why are you betting on it?

 

I said clearly that I am expecting a pull back and then a really strong up move. After that, we "might" be forming a 2000 dot com top.

I am currently betting on the market rally. Once it rallies, I'll revisit the dot com top theory and see if it is still the most likely case.

Hope that clarifies.

 

[DooDiligence]

Hope you guys made some money by being bullish and buying stocks as the 3rd wave COVID breaks out.

Dr. Dalal was wrong all the way. Back in August he said he was bearish but if Trump wins re-election then the stock market could actually go higher. (Which might imply if Biden wins, he thinks the market will go down?)

 

I am currently 50% invested not 100% yet because I am expecting another market pull back before a really strong market melt up. Then we might see a replay of the March 2000 dot com bubble burst. But we have to examine it as we get there.

 

What makes you think we get a 2000 style crash?

 

Unless the Fed loses control of rates, or the Democrats break up FAAG, why would that happen?

 

I said "might" and I also said we'll revisit this theory when we get there. ;)

 

Mmmmm waffles

 

No one can tell what happens in 4 months. Just like the weather, if you look outside the window, you can tell what's gonna happen in an hour but can you tell what's gonna happen in 2 weeks? Come on! And why does that even matter?

 

Then why are you betting on it?

 

I said clearly that I am expecting a pull back and then a really strong up move. After that, we "might" be forming a 2000 dot com top.

I am currently betting on the market rally. Once it rallies, I'll revisit the dot com top theory and see if it is still the most likely case.

Hope that clarifies.

 

Yes. Now could you please pass the syrup?

[Gregmal]

Everyone answers to their own P&L. With respect to this...muscleman is clearly winning here...Who cares how many cases of the sniffles we had today...

[Gregmal]

https://nypost.com/2020/11/06/what-florida-can-teach-new-york-about-handling-covid/

 

FL vs NY. Sure, bring politics in to it. Because thats the difference.

[KCLarkin]

https://nypost.com/2020/11/06/what-florida-can-teach-new-york-about-handling-covid/

 

FL vs NY. Sure, bring politics in to it. Because thats the difference.

 

This is exactly the rigorous scientific journalism I would expect from an intern at the Post.

[Dalal.Holdings]

Hope you guys made some money by being bullish and buying stocks as the 3rd wave COVID breaks out.

Dr. Dalal was wrong all the way. Back in August he said he was bearish but if Trump wins re-election then the stock market could actually go higher. (Which might imply if Biden wins, he thinks the market will go down?)

 

I am currently 50% invested not 100% yet because I am expecting another market pull back before a really strong market melt up. Then we might see a replay of the March 2000 dot com bubble burst. But we have to examine it as we get there.

 

You're a clown. My portfolio is doing great. Trump will be out. I have zero interest in this or the garbage politics discussions on this website anymore.

 

Carry on.

[Cardboard]

What is this recent phenomenon: I have the scientists behind me so I am undoubtedly right?

 

Scientists have been wrong on masks. They dismissed them at first and I was shaking my head. My logic was simple: Are they not required by personnel at every surgery? If you can't "spit" on people doesn't that remove a huge fraction of transmission risk?

 

So obviously they were wrong. Thankfully they reversed their stance but, how many got infected or died because of their error? That wasn't Trump's fault by the way.

 

So I trust them but, verify and scientific discovery has been more like trial and error throughout history.

 

Regarding the virus, we learned a lot since its appearance and a fact is that it is a lot less deadlier on young and healthy people than originally feared. To ignore this is going against science.

 

To the pro-lockdown folks, we missed it. The opportunity was in March and a lockdown similar to what they have done in China: identity all affected, isolate, disinfect, cure. I cannot say that I fully trust their numbers but, my eyes on the ground indicate no people that I know sick or having been sick and them being fully work operational.

 

These partial lockdowns being implemented are sure to fail because they do not catch all infected and transmission remains a factor.

 

It simply tries to spread the virus overtime at a terrible and lengthy cost to society while its efficacy can be seriously questioned looking at Sweden statistics vs its neighbors and yes between New York State and Florida.

 

Cardboard

[KCLarkin]

 

These partial lockdowns being implemented are sure to fail because they do not catch all infected and transmission remains a factor.

 

This is mathematically incorrect. You don’t need to catch all infections. In most places, you would only need to reduce transmission by about 20% to get the epidemic under control.

 

yes between New York State and Florida.

 

No. It is not valid to compare death rates between a state that was hit early in the pandemic before any controls or medical treatment To one that was hit in summer. All those deaths in NY were already baked in before the lockdown.

 

The Florida vs NY comparison is especially flawed because of the climate and cultural differences. You might be able to compare Florida to Georgia or Louisiana. But even then, Florida is pretty unique.

 

And even if they were comparable, n=2 is not exactly rigorous. It is especially wrong when you are deliberately biasing your sample.

 

[Cigarbutt]

...

Regarding the virus, we learned a lot since its appearance and a fact is that it is a lot less deadlier on young and healthy people than originally feared. To ignore this is going against science.

...

To the pro-lockdown folks, we missed it. The opportunity was in March and a lockdown similar to what they have done in China: identity all affected, isolate, disinfect, cure. I cannot say that I fully trust their numbers but, my eyes on the ground indicate no people that I know sick or having been sick and them being fully work operational.

These partial lockdowns being implemented are sure to fail because they do not catch all infected and transmission remains a factor.

It simply tries to spread the virus overtime at a terrible and lengthy cost to society while its efficacy can be seriously questioned looking at Sweden statistics vs its neighbors and yes between New York State and Florida.

Cardboard

"Behaviors" have been different (whatever the origin of the changes) between 2020 and before but it appears that the virulence (level of sickness, hospitalizations and deaths) is much less for Covid-19 versus the previous flu editions, at least for the group aged 40 and below. Things get tricky above 50 and the difference is still unclear for those aged 40 to 50. In my area, the metropolitan children's hospital has been exposed to the population 18 and below in the context of a massive community spread (similar to NY, Lombardy etc). The pediatricians there have done an excellent job at collecting and sharing data (they were also pro-actively involved to shape policy and to get young students back to school, in person) and are clearly demonstrating that Covid is much less of a health threat than the typical flu, overall, for the pediatric population. The fact that the virulence of this virus increases exponentially with age has made policy design and application a challenge as it imposes some kind of shared inter-temporal transfer of value.

The NY and Florida comparison is instructive but i'd wait a few weeks or even months before calling the final 'winner'. FL has entered a trend, the severity of which will be reported in the future. The next 6 weeks (if adjusted history is any guide) will likely show worse relative performance (virus numbers). In a way, between the two, the NY 'strategy' looks more similar to China than FL, with the caveat that NY was late by a few weeks, a fatal mistake given the exponential nature of the disease and the density and other demographic factors that NY had.

-----

Some of the previous posts (virus vs market, process vs outcome) made me think about something (borrowed from Russo et al, modified)

                                      Process versus Outcome

Outcome -----)            Good                              Bad

Process to

make decision         

              Good    Deserved success (A)          Bad Break (B)

                Bad          Dumb Luck ©              Poetic Justice (D)

 

It's an interesting tool (in addition to long term evaluation of relative or expected performance overall) and can be used for all decisions (investments, professional, personal and even conclusions about various aspects of the virus). i've found C to be dangerous for excessive confidence and B to be an exercise of humility. i learned the most with D. For the virus (this thread), some of my conclusions ended up in B, C and D. An interesting aspect for D is that, with more detailed data, my confidence increased in correlation to being wrong. i have to learn from that.

-----

@investor 20

If you read this, look at the two attachments. It's updated data from the CDC for the last two weeks that shows that they keep delaying the rising peak in hospitalizations versus what other sources (Johns Hopkins, Covid-tracking etc) have been showing for some time. The CDC data has clear limitations but is helpful for the age group comparisons.

[Cardboard]

KCLarkin, if you believe at all in your answer and are intellectually honest then you will redo the same exercise between Norway and Sweden which you have ignored from my post.

 

Cardboard

[KCLarkin]

while its efficacy can be seriously questioned looking at Sweden statistics vs its neighbors

 

???

 

Swedens neighbours are Finland and Norway. I haven't seen any statistics (health or economic) where Sweden is significantly better than Finland or Norway. At best, you can say that Sweden has more fatalities and any economic benefit was small or non-existent. But you could make the case that Finland has both lower fatalities and better economic performance.

 

Edit to add: Most people who cite Sweden as an example, are using it as a mythical approach without actually understanding anything about Sweden or its actual approach. I'm reluctant to comment on things I don't fully understand. So here is a comment from a Swedish newspaper:

 

Minister for Health and Social Affairs Lena Hallengren responded on Monday by saying that, while the term 'lockdown' can be used to describe several different scenarios, Sweden is already "on the way to shutting down large parts of our society" by the implementation of the new local restrictions.

[KCLarkin]

KCLarkin, if you believe at all in your answer and are intellectually honest then you will redo the same exercise between Norway and Sweden which you have ignored from my post.

 

The comparison between Sweden, Finland, and Norway is more valid (even though n=3). Culture and climate are similar AFAIK. And the sample is chosen based on geography.

 

But I don't think there is evidence that Sweden's strategy is better than Finland or Norway. On balance, the evidence seems to favour Finland's approach.

 

And even if the strategy worked in Sweden, there is no evidence that it would work in other places. For example, places that don't have so many single-person households. And there is ample evidence in Spain, NY, UK, Israel, etc. that the Swedish strategy would not work in many places.

[samwise]

I am trying to figure out the levels at which the rising case count starts to threaten the economy again.

 

So the USA had about 1200 deaths per day in early November (just eyeballing the charts). Assuming a month lag, this came from about 60k cases in early October. That’s about 2%. Cases are now doubled, so we should expect 2400 deaths per day in a month. Is that a valid expectation?

 

Since this caseload is very widespread and skewed to younger people, it is not overwhelming any health systems yet. What number of cases would threaten the health system? At what caseload do elective procedures get cancelled, and where do further policies to control the spread become necessary ?

[Gregmal]

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/notre-dame-fans-storming-the-field-after-clemson-upset-set-off-covid-19-alarm-bells-across-college-football-051612499.html

 

Obviously these people want to be nationally mandated to stay in their basements...with 10 N95s on.

[mattee2264]

  samwise I am trying to figure out the same thing.

 

  I think there will be a much higher tolerance this time. Hospitals are better equipped and much better at treating it. We've adapted to a new normal of more remote working, more online shopping, more takeaway food, and so on.

 

  Also the data in Europe suggests that cases have already peaked and are starting to decline and they've only just started ramping up lockdown measures.

 

  And I think if there is a market reaction it will be more discriminating. Cyclicals will sell off. Tech will go a lot higher. There might be a modest sell off but nothing resembling the panic of earlier this year.

[Spekulatius]

I am not sure if Europe has peaked. France had 85k yesterday (per worldodometer) and that number has been rising. The Czech Republik, Belgium and France has reached their hospital capacity for ICU, so there is severe stress on the health care system a d other countries aren’t far behind (Netherlands , Switzerland etc).

 

I watch hospital utilization and admissions more than anything and three US has seen a remarkable increase in admissions from below 40k to more than 55k and it is going steadily upwards. We have seen already the hospital system in Midwestern states starting to get into capacity issues (the the posts about South Dakota) but this will get much more severe once we cross 60k admission, which were the former peaks from Covid wave #1 in March and #2 in July. This time, wave number 3 is broad based and cases are rising everywhere, not just the epicenter in the Midwest. So, I think it is likely that we will exceed former perks in hospital utilization forcing local shutdowns if the health care system which is going to create widespread knock on effects to everything else.

 

 

While it is true that tolerance is higher this time due to knowing much more about the disease and better clinical outcome it is also true that the increased complacency makes it harder to reverse trends in rising infection rates.

 

Also, while we have invested a lot in equipment, we still have the same restraints in personal that we had in March, since it really isn’t possible to get more doctors and nurses in hospitals quickly. because of all the safety precautions (gowning up, segregating COVID-19 patients in COVID-19 floors) treating COVID-19 patients require more manpower than regular patients which is the reason why hospitals will be shutting down with an influx of COVID-19 patients before capacity is reached.

 

All those quickly erected field hospitals are more or less useless, because there aren’t enough people around to operate them. Quite frankly, I think the administration should be activating army medical resources again, as they may be needed in due time, but it’s hard to predict where.

 

In any case I watch hospital admission more than anything else, as I think this is the key  indicator driving the decisions. MA (where I live) is on the cusp of its second wave and we have already a soft curfew from 10pm to 5AM and it is likely that those measures may be ratchet up more.

[Cardboard]

It is awesome Gregmal! GO Fighting Irish!

 

Before we only had to take our country back. Now we have to take our life back.

 

But, hey they were wearing masks so it should be no problem. No?

 

Cardboard