I sold out of my inverse ETFs first thing in the morning — because I felt the dip was faux and a trap for bears — once again — to be lured into a snare that would end up decapitating them.
Here were my results from this morning.
BLUE +4.8%
(APT -5%)
(TZA -9.7%)
(SOXS -14.2%)
FAZ – wash
(DRIP -2.4%)
SPOT +0.9%
Net net, not a catastrophe, but certainly not good. What can I say? I took a shot and missed. The game changed, so I am attempting to change with it. In the after-hours last night I bought some mortgage plays, which are hovering around my basis now and I also allocated some money to the long side today — which can still blow up in my face. I am trying to resist the temptation to go long more than I am. The problem with going long in size now, aside from the obvious, is the specter of Friday and how superstitious Wall Street is about holding shit over the weekend.
There is a chance of course I could get “DOUBLE BOGGED” on both the long and short side, so I am keeping my exposure limited for the time being.
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Doc you are behind the curve, buying when you should be selling and….. I sold all my longs, kept a few shorts, we may have made a short term top…..
Keep your mouth shut when you’re talking to fly. He doesn’t take advice from the likes of you.
Sorry, couldn’t help myself.
Should have bought TSLA&SHOP.
The old “DOUBLE BOGGED.” The worst of the worst.
TRIPLE BOGGED is 50% worse
Worse than being “double bogged” is when your watch breaks and you don’t know if it’s noon or midnight.
Most highs were in pre open. Market makers are gorging before the long winter.
So on COVID-19, the good news is that Gilead now has a “cure” for which the death rate is *at least 1.6%*. Awesome /s.
BTW, here’s something to think about:
1) We don’t know the projected population Death rate for the population, which is a factor of the percentage of people that get infected as well as the percentage of infected that die.
2) No one know how many people have been infected in most countries, includign China
3) The assumption is that Deaths have a mosre consistant count (although we KNOW their was undercountign early in the US, and probbaly some overcountign in soem ares as well).
4) We don’t know the percentage of infected that die… or do we?
We have two good case studies right now: The Diamond Princess (DP) and South Korea.
Even PhDs seem to forget that not everyone has recovered from the DP (ask Wolfdaddy about this). In fact, about 1 person has died every week, now totaling 14 out of the ~700 confirmed case (everyone was tested, so this include asymptomatic cases). That’s a 2% death rate, magnitudes higher that the flu, but we can assume that the passengers were much older than the general population.
However, SK is s different case. Given their digital contact tracing and massive overtesting (by that I dodn’t mean they test too much, I mean they test asymptomatic cases), it seems safe to assume that they catch all thier cases, even the asymptomatic ones. In the last week, they tested 43,412 peopel which resulted in 185 positves. That is a 1 out ever 234 people. ***That** is how you do surveilance to hold a virus in check.
Even given the samll amount of cases and the young age of the infected, they still have quite a few deaths: 230 and counting vs 10,635 detected. That is a death rate of 2.2%, for a top-notch health care system that is way under capacity. Keep in mind that they still have 2800 people that haven’t recovered, so the rate will only go up. I think it we can assume that the overall death rate will be
There is also one more decent study, but a bit newer: Germany. Obviously, almsot no one dies as soon as they are tested, but this fact was lost as many were cooing over Germany’s ultralow death rates (0.5-0.8%). However, Germany took the Japan approach and now they are gettign 3000 new cases/day and have a death/detection rate of 2.9%. Welcome to reality, Germany. BTW, Japan is on full lockdown now.
I think w can safely say that the death rate fro COVID-19 is magnitudes higher than the flu, in the 1-3% rate for a typical population.
The death rate (deaths/confirmed cases) in the US is currently 4.5%, but obviously we have a lot of undeteced cases. Given outr death rate vs th expected death rate, this means that 1-3 Million peoepl have been infected in the US. So while a large number (300k-2.4M) peopel in the US have liekly been infected without a confimed test, that is within the error for the total US population estimate (370M). In other words, 99% of population in the US has NOT been infected yet, which means openign early will almost assuredly result in a large spike in cases.
Donald Trump has probably been told this already, which is why he flip-flops daily about who has the power to open states: he wants to pressure the govornors to open sattes, but not apply so much pressure that Trump takes the balme for the wave 2 spike in deaths that woudl result
TL;DR
Predictions!
99% of US population has not been infected yet
Loosening restriction in May = wave 2 deaths
fail.
Thanks for the laugh, Dr. 2k
Do I sense a counter-prediction coming from you?
Nope… no, I don’t
Comparing the death rate of the population in Gileads study to the general population death rate is probably not accurate. The people in this study were severe cases, so the probability of one of them dying was substantially higher than the general population. Attaining a 1.6% death rate in a pool of people who should have been dropping dead at 30% or higher is a good outcome. But for moral reasons there was no control offered (giving chronically ill people plecebos when the treatment might help and there is no visible harm from the real medicine is cruel), so we’ll need repeat performances to know for sure.
That’s a good point. Do you have a link to the clinical study?
Were they on death’s door? How many of them were? Is there a case to be made for using Gilead’s med before severe symptoms develop? Does a street person have the same odds of getting the treatment early as does someone who knows their doc on a first name basis?
I don’t know nothing …but there’s a lot of incentive and opportunity to bake the data.
So one big question: waht does “severe” mean?
Found the answer: hospitalized, with blood oyxgen below normal (SpO2 ? 94%). However, patients “Requiring mechanical ventilation at screening” were explicitly excluded.
The anecdotal results: “The best news is that most of our patients have already been discharged” leaves the big question: what does “most” mean?
Obviosuly the ones that were discharged are the best-case scenarios… If “most” means 75%, and the other 25% are on mechanical venitaltion…
good info ..lots of question yet to be answered
That should be “SpO2 less than or equal to 94%”
6,month ago you were a tech stock expert. Got fucked. Last month you pivoted to bond expert. Got fucked. And now you are the resident fucking Chinese virus expert!
FRO up 4%, now I’m in the Green
XOP up 5%, still deep red for me
However, one of these must be lying.
You are a good man Fly. I enjoy your blog and your wit. Was (and still am) balls short SPY inverse ETFs. I got spoked last night and contemplated selling AH. I decided against that after reading your post. In a better position today because of your perspective. I’ve been trading for 20+ years, and you sir are the man! Most likely going to buy and read your books at some point. Thanks again for your market insights.
Fly wrote books?