People are dumb and so is the market. Have a read through the 2020 trading thread which this one was split out from, we've been discussing this for a month. Five days ago they were buying up stock at all time highs because of the low incidence of infection outside of China made them think this was all a blowup, when it actually high probability that the numbers we're seeing now in Italy and Iran were going to happen. The market was pricing in a complete zero probability that what has happened now would happen. Even with people in that 2020 trading thread laying out the copious evidence in detail, people still thought it was nothing.

So don't spend a lot of time thinking about what the market has priced in or not. The market will flow wherever its emotions and desire to position for the upcoming Kung Flu apocalypse take them.

You have an edge when the market is comically mispriced (particularly options). That was up until 5 days ago. Is it comically mispriced now? It is for a pandemic with economy-wide shutdowns, but it's probably not for the next week of the news cycle.

I spoke to a medical doctor about this today, pretty consistent with your take, he said approximately 3-5% might have a severe immune response. He was not confident about long-term effects and I am not going to attempt to pass on most of what he said 2nd hand, but basically in critical cases a cytokine/immune response could permanently damage organs, but if you survive then probably okay.

QFT. Hospitals routinely operate at 95%+ of capacity. Even if you assumed 100% vacancy in existing hospitals, it would still be insufficient for a severe outbreak. Compare [total beds] to [total population X percentage infected X 0.15].

Iran looks contained now, according to their health ministry:

Glad I had already bought the position and didn't listen to you lol.

MRNA +17% at open. I don't think it's going to the moon or anything, trials and testing still need to happen which will take a lot of time, but definitely going to ride this hype out as long as I can.

Sporting events in Europe being cancelled now, all in or involving Italy. Six nations and Seria A matches.

Seems like a weak buy to be honest (regardless of your nice results), particularly in a market where you can swing a cat and hit money. GL though, we're in the Robinhood age where it sometimes pays to think like a fish as long as you're in place before the arrival of the school.

The Iran conference is unbelievable, I thought it was a Saturday Night Live sketch at first.

Their figures might be accurate if they are only testing people in the national parliament.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00551-1

Precisely.

I got on Stocktwits this morning just for fun, and their page is packed with droolers who think this is going to >$40 today, who think Trump will talk about Moderna in his conference this evening, and will close at $60 by the end of the week.

Not exactly. I'm throwing you a bone because this forum is "nice" now, but I think long term you lose money with this kind of chasing. It works great for a bit and then you lose your ass and don't know when to quit. Always a rationale to chase some crap that's ripping on thin air.

This isn't my primary approach to picking plays and as such it's a minuscule trade. I bought literally 1 contract.

Also, **** rips on thin air all the time. As long as you're sizing small and prepared to get out in a timely manner, I don't see the issue.

You ever read something so dumb that you decide to just cancel them out of your life completely?

A shame too, because I sorta enjoyed the doubleline youtube podcasts. But this is complete idiocy.

That is a microdose of what is to come later in the year. Prepare to be bombarded with nonsense on both sides.

This is the core of the situation. The details are anybody guess.

I like Gundlach too but jfc, yeah that's why airlines and cruises are dropping the most...

can someone plz "cliff notes" Aaron Brown's article on the pandemic on Bloomberg? it's behind a pay wall. looks positive on the market. cites 2017 WHO study that i think i found. (i think larry summers is a co-author the study) ...... but as i can only see first two paragraphs and headline, i am guessing to some degree.

Aaron is a poker guy and the king (one of the kings) of hedge fund risk managment....... he used to post here. might still.

https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/96/2/17-199588/en/

i think that's the study but not sure. didn't have time to go through it all

what is gundlach saying? yes, i'm too lazy to check earlier posts or google right now

ok, so i googled.

gundlach blames sanders for the sell-off........ i think he's wrong.... it could be "virus AND sanders" and it is likely multiplicative or non-linear. but sanders wasn't really "new" at all. he was expected to win nevada easily

having said that, i don't understand stock movements and sentiment. it was obvious for the longest time that progressivism was popular and very bad for UNH. but UNH kept going up and then one week it started crashing and went way down. but it was hard to know what was actually "new" during that period. EW gaining in popularity maybe. but i think it was before that....

basically, market seems to ignore, ignore, ignore... then panic/crash.... to a large degree this is how many financial economists see the market. i.e. sentiment is huge driver and not necessarily rational (other than in a self-perpetuating way)

I see Trump is a fan of my theory that no more uncontrolled outbreaks is unlikely but not completely out of the realm of possibilities.

Welcome to an uncontrollable pandemic. This can't be contained without total border closures and lockdowns China-style.



Had a window of about 5 weeks in China where they could have contained it if they weren't an evil dicatatorship, and about 2-3 weeks in the rest of the world had the WHO head not been bought/pressured/bamboozled by the Chinese.

There's still a tiny chance that this isn't as lethal as China shows but it's small at this point; I've been through the math and evidence in the 2020 trading thread weeks ago and more data since then has only made the opinion stronger.

The hospitalization rates of 15% mean services will be overwhelmed and the death rate will go up a lot without treatment. Total border closure and lockdowns will be the only way to prevent a Wuhan nightmare in multiple cities.

There's a chance that spring (mid April) will slow infection rates, it's the only hope I see at this point and it's not high odds.

So now there are more new cases in South Korea than in China ?

Come on there is at least 40% chance this **** is lower than 2,3%.

Yesterday I read 0,7-3% from a respectable Spanish epidemiologist.

0.7% to 3% is reasonable (up to 6% if hospitals get overwhelmed)

The "as lethal as China shows" means that. We had a bunch of ******s I was arguing with claiming that this was equal to flu (0.05% to 0.1%) or maybe slightly worse.

Some context: South Korea are responding more rapidly and proactively than China (SK is testing 200,000 people) and are more transparent with the data, so we might see a sharper rise in cases initially, but a lower chance of a bulk adjustment later due to deliberate/negligent under-reporting.

Like this guy...

Ah ok, i missed that discussion. I thought you meant there was only a tiny chance this was under 2%.

looks like most countries are going to have to tackle outbreaks...a lot of work and disruption. one positive is china already has things down to .5% growth per day. that means 80k infections would be 500k 1 year from now. if they improve that rate to .25% per day then its 200k infections. so its not like we are looking at 10 million infections in a year. its in the hundreds of thousands with reasonable containment.