Cal84 said:

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>So on the money note i think what you just wrote would have been correct in terms of the ancient history of last week but not today. The market isn't down to where it was 13 months ago. The market is down to where it was in November of 2016.

Nah, it's basically where it was a bit more than a year ago. SPX 12/21/18 = 2416.62. Closing SPX today = 2398.10. Within 1%. Which is white noise.

>This part is really interesting. What industries will be bailed out and how?

Everything and everyone will be bailed out. There is no tolerance in the US right now for concepts like self sufficiency or personal responsibility. College debt? Forgiven. Moratorium on home mortgage payments. Unlimited borrowing lines for airlines, cruise ship companies, Boeing, auto manufacturers, tourism industry, franchise restaurants, etc. All with government guarantees to lenders. Needless to say not all of that will be repaid, so gov't will be on the hook for unquantifiable sums of money.

Neither Dems or Repubs in an election year will be able to say "No" to opening the federal checkbook. And with the destruction of half the global capital base, there will be no appetite to own gov't bonds at sub-inflation interest rates. So all the debt will be immunized by Fed bond purchases. Quantitative Easing (QE), will morph into full blown Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). And it will be with the tacit approval of both Dems and Repubs.

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Ah. Well when I wrote what I wrote the S&P was under 2300 which is a lot more than a white noise differential from 2018 (it rallied at the end of the day more than 100 points to "only" close down 131 points). Plus the Dow is at levels not seen since 2016 which is what most people think of as "the market" (realizing that's not the index you referenced in your post).

Anyway, if we're putting in a floor here I'd be thrilled, but no indication yet that's the case. Technicals are all broken.

calumnus said:

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TheFiatLux said:

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dajo9 said:

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Meanwhile, people still can't get tests and some ventilator companies haven't even received orders for additional supply . The response in the U.S. has been horrific. That is - the Federal Government response of Donald Trump has been horrific. Who cares what China did? Corruption and authoritarian incompetence is to be expected of them. Who care what WHO did?

Can't believe the attempts at obfuscating I'm seeing.

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You seriously don't care what the World Health Organization did?

I can't believe how people are politicizing this instead of banding together. It's really sad.

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You understand that the definition of a "pandemic" is that it is now global? ("Pan" is "all") was already an epidemic and reached the US months ago. In January WHO declared it an epidemic and said the world should prepare for a pandemic. Once the number of countries it reached hit 114 they declared it a pandemic as it was on all continents and in every major country.

The US was one of the first countries to contract it, we did not need to let it grow here while waiting until it was in 114 countries to start taking it seriously.

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it struck me that it was very "cool" for Americans to write this virus off as recent as two weeks ago

GBear4Life said:

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calumnus said:

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TheFiatLux said:

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dajo9 said:

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Meanwhile, people still can't get tests and some ventilator companies haven't even received orders for additional supply . The response in the U.S. has been horrific. That is - the Federal Government response of Donald Trump has been horrific. Who cares what China did? Corruption and authoritarian incompetence is to be expected of them. Who care what WHO did?

Can't believe the attempts at obfuscating I'm seeing.

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You seriously don't care what the World Health Organization did?

I can't believe how people are politicizing this instead of banding together. It's really sad.

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You understand that the definition of a "pandemic" is that it is now global? ("Pan" is "all") was already an epidemic and reached the US months ago. In January WHO declared it an epidemic and said the world should prepare for a pandemic. Once the number of countries it reached hit 114 they declared it a pandemic as it was on all continents and in every major country.

The US was one of the first countries to contract it, we did not need to let it grow here while waiting until it was in 114 countries to start taking it seriously.

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it struck me that it was very "cool" for Americans to write this virus off as recent as two weeks ago

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Lead by Fox News and the guy who gets his cues from them. The thing is, most Americans will make it through just fine. It is older people, people with existing health problems that are at risk. Viral pneumonia cannot he treated with antibiotics. Many with asthma, heart conditions or compromised immunity (getting chemo for example) will not make it. We all need to take these drastic measures, mostly not for our own personal safety, but for the sake of others. That seems to be a difficult proposition in this day and age where many follow Ayn Rand and the "virtues" of selfishness and egoism.

OdontoBear66 said:

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Your big problem is that I strongly "suspect" (that means I don't know your opinion, but...) you would take greater offense at calling this world wide pandemic the China virus, or the Wuhan virus versus the Trump virus. Personally I prefer COVID19 or coronavirus, but if I had to choose from the above it would be the area it came from.

To me that is a measure of your vitriol vs. Trump. Everything is clouded by it. Hate Trump, hate Trump, but for heavens sake don't step on China's tender feet.

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If you want to call it the Unit2Sucks virus, knock yourself out. The problem I have with Trump calling it the ChinaVirus or whatever is that he is doing so in a craven attempt to abdicate responsibility for his role in allowing it to spread domestically. He's already been quite clear that he takes no responsibility but we as citizens don't have to let our leaders off the hook that easily.

As for my vitriol for Trump, it pales in comparison to his vitriol for responsibility. Pretending like seeing Trump for who he is somehow "clouds" my views is a bit hilarious to be honest. His failures as president are going to punish people across the political spectrum. According to a poll just released, only 30% of Fox News viewers think CoronaVirus is going to cause a recession. So please tell me who's view on Trump is less accurate.

By the way, I do think China should be held accountable for their role in this virus. I've never said otherwise. I don't know what the right answer is but something needs to be done to prevent this from happening in the future and to help compensate us for the substantial losses we are going to suffer, regardless of the fact that Trump is going to have played a major role in preventing the US from responding effectively to the pandemic. We will need to leave it to the next president (most likely Biden) and his team to figure out what to do there. Trump is a dead man walking until he is ridden out of office on rails and his name will forever be associated with his failures this past few months.

calumnus said:

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TheFiatLux said:

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dajo9 said:

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Meanwhile, people still can't get tests and some ventilator companies haven't even received orders for additional supply . The response in the U.S. has been horrific. That is - the Federal Government response of Donald Trump has been horrific. Who cares what China did? Corruption and authoritarian incompetence is to be expected of them. Who care what WHO did?

Can't believe the attempts at obfuscating I'm seeing.

---

You seriously don't care what the World Health Organization did?

I can't believe how people are politicizing this instead of banding together. It's really sad.

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You understand that the definition of a "pandemic" is that it is now global? ("Pan" is "all") it was already an epidemic and reached the US months ago. In January WHO declared it an epidemic and said the world should prepare for a pandemic. They were putting out daily reports and showing projections. Once the number of countries it reached actually hit 114 they declared it was in fact now a pandemic as it was on all continents and in every major country.

The US was one of the first countries to contract it, we did not need to let it grow here while waiting until it was in 114 countries to start taking it seriously.

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What does 114 counrties have to do with anything? Why in the world did the WHO take that long? That's not a threshold. Here is what the WHO says

Quote:

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Simultaneous worldwide transmission of influenza is sufficient to define an influenza pandemic and is consistent with the classical definition of "an epidemic occurring worldwide". There is then ample opportunity to further describe the potential range of influenza pandemics in terms of transmissibility and disease severity. The emerging evidence for A(H1N1) is that transmissibility, as estimated by the effective reproduction number (R, or average number of people infected by a single infectious person) ranged from 1.2 to 1.3 for the general population but was around 1.5 in children (Kathryn Glass, Australian National University, personal communication). Some early estimates of R for pandemic influenza H1N1 2009 may have been overestimated.3

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Worldwide doesn't mean every single place in the world, obviously.

We were one of the first countries to take aggressive steps (we've bungled many things since), while the WHO and EU dithered. The EU dithered using the WHO's guidance as cover, that's why it matters. And because of the WHO's guidance, the US was called racist for our initial response.

As of early February, in response to the US and Italy implementing travel bans, the WHO explicitly said bans were unncessary (from Reuters):

Quote:

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GENEVA (Reuters) - World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday there was no need for measures that "unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade" in trying to halt the spread of a coronavirus that has killed 361 people in China.

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Going so far as to PRAISE the Chinese response. This is insane:

Quote:

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China is facing increasing international isolation due to restrictions on flights to and from the country, and bans on travellers from China.
There have been 17,238 confirmed infections in China including 361 deaths, as well as 151 confirmed cases in 23 countries and 1 death which was reported from the Philippines on Sunday, Tendros added.
"Because of this strategy and (if) it weren't for China, the number of cases outside China would have been very much higher," he said.

Referring to the virus' spread abroad, he said it was "minimal and slow", while warning that it could worsen.

Tedros, who held talks in Beijing a week ago with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders, coughed and interrupted his speech to take a drink of water, quipping: "Don't worry, it's not corona".

China's delegate took the floor at the WHO Executive Board and denounced measures by "some countries" that have denied entry to people holding passports issued in Hubei province - at the center of the outbreak - and to deny visas and cancel flights.

"All these measures are seriously against recommendation by the WHO," said Li Song, who is China's ambassador for disarmament at the United Nations in Geneva.

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I truly don't understand why one would argue this. What's more odd is people who insist we follow international protocols, even when presented with how bad those protocols have been and how clearly politically influenced they are. Literally, one has to ask themself how much more awful this would be had we taken the WHO's guidance and continued to let in travelers from China until just 7 days ago. If one is actually arguing that would have been a good idea, then I don't know what to say.

Meanwhile in the world of commerce I visited a bakery today. They weren't allowing customers in the store. I had to buy a cookie by gesticulating at it through the store window. The worker (who was essentially wearing a hazmat suit) threw it at me and I threw my money at them. Whole interaction probably took 10x longer than normal. We are going to be looking at a GDP contraction the likes of which haven't been seen in this country in 90 years. On the bright side the cookie was delicious.

Been watching "The Men Who Made America." All of them: Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc. would be mortgaging their last dollar to buy-buy-buy right now.

As long as their are bats in China biting animals that are being sold in markets throughout that country, both can alive & dead, we should expect that this is just one of a series of new, deadly viruses that we're going to have to deal with. Plain & simple. Reparations? Get real.

i thought this was a stock / equities thread.

Sebastabear said:

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Meanwhile in the world of commerce I visited a bakery today. They weren't allowing customers in the store. I had to buy a cookie by gesticulating at it through the store window. The worker (who was essentially wearing a hazmat suit) threw it at me and I threw my money at them. Whole interaction probably took 10x longer than normal. We are going to be looking at a GDP contraction the likes of which haven't been seen in this country in 90 years. On the bright side the cookie was delicious.

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No thanks. Ill eat at home.ill buy cookies from the Grocery store or make them.

oskidunker said:

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Sebastabear said:

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Meanwhile in the world of commerce I visited a bakery today. They weren't allowing customers in the store. I had to buy a cookie by gesticulating at it through the store window. The worker (who was essentially wearing a hazmat suit) threw it at me and I threw my money at them. Whole interaction probably took 10x longer than normal. We are going to be looking at a GDP contraction the likes of which haven't been seen in this country in 90 years. On the bright side the cookie was delicious.

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No thanks. Ill eat at home.ill buy cookies from the Grocery store or make them.

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If I'm going out, death by cookie isn't a terrible way to go.

dajo9 said:

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If we call it the Chinese Virus because that's where it came from then I think we have to treat all things that way including the Russian President

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So Putin is the Russian Virus?

oski003 said:

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i thought this was a stock / equities thread.

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It was. Emphasis on the "was"

Unit2Sucks said:

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Trump punishes competence in his team and is dumb enough to think he's smart enough to make any decision. Trump will probably fire Anthony Fauci soon and put Kushner or Dr Oz in charge of the CV response, so please spare us the bothsides-ism.

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Has anyone heard from Fauci lately? I wonder whether it was the fact that Fauci was getting "rave reviews" or the fact that he was telling the truth that caused Trump to silence him?

oskidunker said:

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Sebastabear said:

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oskidunker said:

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Put in a buy for Carnival at 8. I doubt it gets there but 12 today. 56 a month ago. Trump will give them money do I expect a recovery.

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Well that didn't take long. Next day and Carnival is now at $8. You still a buyer?

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Bought 100 shares at 8.8. Now 9.5. Doing it for the $250 on board credit you get on every cruise onPrincess, Cunard or Carnival. If I los it, I don't care. Doubt they will go under

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Cruises never sounded interesting to me, but I am surprised you would take another one after the situation we are in.

dimitrig said:

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oskidunker said:

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Sebastabear said:

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oskidunker said:

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Put in a buy for Carnival at 8. I doubt it gets there but 12 today. 56 a month ago. Trump will give them money do I expect a recovery.

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Well that didn't take long. Next day and Carnival is now at $8. You still a buyer?

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Bought 100 shares at 8.8. Now 9.5. Doing it for the $250 on board credit you get on every cruise onPrincess, Cunard or Carnival. If I los it, I don't care. Doubt they will go under

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Cruises never sounded interesting to me, but I am surprised you would take another one after the situation we are in.

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Cruises never sounded interesting to me either ... until I took one for the first time. I really thought that spending a day at sea would be the same thing as spending the day in a hotel. No thanks. But what I found out surprised me: The sea days are the best days of the trip! I found out that the cruise line does "hotel" way, way better than a hotel. There are actually loungers available on deck. There are actually places to go where it's quiet. Want to get away from kids? They have that too. Want to play Scattergories at 1PM? They have an app for that! Want to get off the ship to see a new place or would you rather read a book on deck? Your choice. Want to eat at a restaurant that would cost you $75 per person in your home town? Well, it's included.

Anyway, I found cruising to be surprisingly good. I hope they find a way to get back on their feet.

Bear19 said:

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As long as their are bats in China biting animals that are being sold in markets throughout that country, both can alive & dead, we should expect that this is just one of a series of new, deadly viruses that we're going to have to deal with. Plain & simple. Reparations? Get real.

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Though note that the Swine Flu originated in the US.

There are companies that are seeking to produce "meat" from cultured animal cells in the laboratory and that, or just a more vegan diet, would reduce the number of respiratory viruses that originate in livestock.

OdontoBear66 said:

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dajo9 said:

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If we call it the Chinese Virus because that's where it came from then I think we have to treat all things that way including the Russian President

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So Putin is the Russian Virus?

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Putin is the bat

Americans sure are optimistic. when i was on the trading floor of a well known BB firm, there was a saying "never try to catch a falling knife". this bear market might run until the last bull submits. that would definitely mark a time to buy!

Chapman_is_Gone said:

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dajo9 said:

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I have begun the process of unwinding this trade.

On Friday I sold my long term U.S. Treasury bonds (VUSTX) for a total return (according to YCharts) of ~+41%
I have not bought back into the market yet but according to YCharts the Total Return on SPY is ~+14%
That currently puts me about 27% ahead of the buy and hold investor. I currently plan to buy back into SPY when there are two consecutive up-days.

Despite the recent drops, I clearly got the equity markets wrong. My one regret is that I focused in this thread on equities rather than bonds. I wish I called this thread "OT - Buying Long Term U.S. Treasuries" because what I got very correct were interest rates and the impact on U.S. Treasuries.

Interest rates were mostly flat during the runup in equities and began to go down a lot starting in November 2018 (bond prices up). Wall Street has no clue what drives interest rates in the long run. Understanding interest rates means understanding wealth inequality and that is anathema to Wall Street. Interest rates have been going down, in general, since 1982 when Reagan cut taxes for the wealthy. We have subsequently had big cuts for the rich from GWB and Trump. All of this (and other things) has caused wealth inequality to go up. Wealth inequality creates a big pool of private wealth looking for assets to buy. This demand drives up all asset classes and, I would argue, adds to volatility in the equity markets. But it also drives up prices for bonds, which drives down interest rates. Interest rates will continue on the downward trend that started in 1982 until we leave the trickle-down economy we have.

I hope everyone is healthy and safe.

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Dajo in 2017: "I don't see the economy allowing for much of a further increase in stocks (currently at record levels and valuations only surpassed by the dot-com bubble)."

Fast forward 33 months from that date to February 2020: the S&P 500 has risen nearly 1,000 points from 2,433 to 3,393, GDP growth has remained strong, commercial real estate prices have reached record highs, and the economy has reached a point of record-low unemployment.

Dajo, my man, 90% of your original and subsequent predictions were flat out wrong. A diapered monkey could have gotten 50% of them right. Most people, when they post something foolish, hope that the post will slip off the front page. Yet, when one of your predictions looks temporarily better thanks to a once-in-a-century pandemic, you rush back to bump the post.

Folks, that, in a nutshell, is what makes Dajo Dajo.

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The Dow is well below where it was when Dajo shifted from stocks to bonds. His bonds are up 40% Thus he is likely significantly better off than those who left their money in stocks for the ride. Hard to argue with success.
Yeah, he could have made even more if he continued in stocks longer before he got out, but as Warren Buffet says "Only a fool waits for top dollar." Warren has been saying the market has been due for a correction for awhile now too.

wallyball2003 said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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Trump punishes competence in his team and is dumb enough to think he's smart enough to make any decision. Trump will probably fire Anthony Fauci soon and put Kushner or Dr Oz in charge of the CV response, so please spare us the bothsides-ism.

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Has anyone heard from Fauci lately? I wonder whether it was the fact that Fauci was getting "rave reviews" or the fact that he was telling the truth that caused Trump to silence him?

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You crack me up. Do you have a television? Fauci is very active in the regular briefings. Sorry to burst your partisan bubble...though I don't imagine countervailing facts bother you much. SOP for those of you who reside at the extremes.

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LOL, Fauci was gone for a bit and they asked him on CNN and he said he had urgent business at NIH. So he hasn't been silenced yet, I will grant you that.

As for extremes - I'm arguably center right based on the economic policies of this country and historical republican party. The proposals the republicans are making now would have been labeled socialist by Republicans just last week. Don't conflate opinions on Trump with ideology.

calumnus said:

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hanky1 said:

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This has the potential to be worse than 2008

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Agreed, 2008 was mostly about financial markets with a hit on housing and potential loss of the auto industry. Those were dealt with effectively with monetary policy and loans/bailouts of specific industries.

This is a real economic shock. The hit on GDP in the second quarter could easily be 10%. When the bad economic data is released the market will tank even further. We could actually have deflation like 1929. Oil and gold are dropping. The problem is, we are already at 0% interest rates and already running a $1 trillion projected deficit. Would the Fed go to negative rates? Is there political will for $1 trillion more in "stimulus" and deficits well over $2 trillion per year?

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I thought this had the potential to be worse than 2008 a few days ago...now I'm 100% convinced it'll be worse. It's really bad out there. Millions will lose their jobs. Millions will lose their businesses.

This sucks. I wish all my fellow Golden Bears a good luck during these crazy times. Who would've thought that we'd live through 2 major economic disasters.

hanky1 said:

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This sucks. I wish all my fellow Golden Bears a good luck during these crazy times. Who would've thought that we'd live through 2 major economic disasters.

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2? Ummmm.by my count....

1) Stock market/economic crash of late 60's that took 15 years to recover from due to inflation, stagflation and then 10% unemployment recession of early 80's.
2) Crash of '87
3) Dotcom bust of '00
4) Housing/Bear Stearns/Lehman aka Great Financial Crisis of 2008
5) This one. To Be Named Later.

And that's just the big ones that hit the US. I left out the big international ones, i.e. Sovereign debt crisis of 90s, Asian Financial Crisis & Euro Financial Crisis.

This shizzt happens. A lot. And despite my posts above that we have further to fall (which we did some today), at some point there will be a recovery. There always is. Just not right now.

Unit2Sucks said:

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wallyball2003 said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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Trump punishes competence in his team and is dumb enough to think he's smart enough to make any decision. Trump will probably fire Anthony Fauci soon and put Kushner or Dr Oz in charge of the CV response, so please spare us the bothsides-ism.

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Has anyone heard from Fauci lately? I wonder whether it was the fact that Fauci was getting "rave reviews" or the fact that he was telling the truth that caused Trump to silence him?

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You crack me up. Do you have a television? Fauci is very active in the regular briefings. Sorry to burst your partisan bubble...though I don't imagine countervailing facts bother you much. SOP for those of you who reside at the extremes.

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LOL, Fauci was gone for a bit and they asked him on CNN and he said he had urgent business at NIH. So he hasn't been silenced yet, I will grant you that.

As for extremes - I'm arguably center right based on the economic policies of this country and historical republican party. The proposals the republicans are making now would have been labeled socialist by Republicans just last week. Don't conflate opinions on Trump with ideology.

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Asked him on CNN? He's been on every channel. Hope you're proud stirring the partisan pot. You should be ashamed.

what big companies are majorly exposed to real estate in dense metropolitan areas, and in offices? CBRE comes to mind but any others in particular?