Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

[johnhemming]

Without reliable statistics from China it is not possible to say much about their strategy save that the disease is now spreading in other countries as well. However, reducing the number of infections is clearly a good thing to do even if over time people will still be infected as the health services are already overwhelmed and more infections would not be able to be handled. There is, of course, an argument that the health services may not be doing that well anyway and there is as yet no real treatment of the disease merely treatment of the symptoms.

[johnhemming]

Some towns in Italy are now in shutdown following an asymptomatic carrier infecting people to the extent that an Italian man has died it looks like he picked the infection up playing cards in a bar. Whether he died primarily from Covid-19 or something else is unclear from the reports.

https://www.corriere.it/cronache/20_feb ... 01b7.shtml

[sackofspuds]

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Telegraph has been writing his usual bearish articles about COVID-19 ever since it started. Here's his latest, premium article:
'Dominoes falling' in global shipping as coronavirus continues to grip China's economy
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... ip-chinas/

Oxford Economics says a global pandemic would push both the US and the eurozone into outright recession. Europe has no monetary ammunition to fight a downturn.

However, Liam Halligan has now joined in. This is also a premium article:
If coronavirus isn’t brought to heel, economic bedlam awaits
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... am-awaits/

Putting the medical effects to one side, the disruption in supply chains is going to have a big impact if this keeps up.

Not sure if this article is premium, perhaps not:
Coronavirus impact ‘will be bigger than trade war’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... trade-war/

Euler Hermes, which insures payments to exporters, estimates that the weekly loss will be equivalent to a rise in the world import tariff on goods by 1 percentage point - more than the effect of the trade spat last year, which was 0.7 percentage points.

I still maintain you can't trust the figures coming out of China. They will by now be desperate to paint a picture of catastrophe averted to avoid further economic damage. They've already failed to stop the virus spreading.

I keep coming back to this but the Diamond Princess cruise ship had the most cases outside of China. It goes to show how quickly the virus can spread if quarantine isn't done properly. Easy to see what might happen in schools, prisons, care homes and workplaces.

[supremetwo]

I keep coming back to this but the Diamond Princess cruise ship had the most cases outside of China. It goes to show how quickly the virus can spread if quarantine isn't done properly. Easy to see what might happen in schools, prisons, care homes and workplaces.

Unlike cruise ships, most workplaces do not have a centralised air-conditioning plant and generally radiators rather than hot-air-blown heating systems.

[look]

i think this is a winther desease. So i think that people shoud put a higher inner temperature in public places. The governments should ask recommend it.

if it was not a winther desease, it would not esclete in winther. I think the virus is like the flu viirus: hotter the air, quickly it dies.

[odysseus2000]

Interesting briefing by cdc 21-Feb-2019:

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020 ... id-19.html

cdc note:

This new virus represents a tremendous public health threat. We don’t yet have a vaccine for this novel virus, nor do we have a medicine to treat it specifically. We are taking and will continue to take aggressive action to reduce the impact of this virus, that it will have on the communities in the U.S. we are working with state, local, and territorial health departments to ready our public health work force to respond to local cases and the possibility this outbreak could become a pandemic.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

Covid-19 in Italy?

https://twitter.com/AP/status/1231179588836974592?s=20

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

Don't know if this is true, but if so would suggest major US outbreak:

https://twitter.com/L0gg0l/status/12313 ... 74465?s=20

Hat tip to smartertrader Twitter for link

Regards,

[wydffa]

link to San Diego regular flu report, seems to be within normal range so far

https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/hhsa/pro ... aWatch.pdf

[Bhoddhisatva]

Well this morning's drop pf 3.31% in FTAS and 3.43% in FTSE100 as I type seems to be what the original poster was suggesting - a sell off due to fears about coronavirus ... 4 dead in Italy (now the worst area outside Asia), S Korea finding many more and its market falling most for over a year etc etc yet China apparently easing restructions (see https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... s-outside/).

Obviously one hopes all infected recover and I suspect that like MERS (2008?) and SARS (2003?) this will largely blow over in the next few months ... so if one has cash, this could be a good time to buy in ...

[jackdaww]

i thought from the beginning this was very serious indeed , due to my understanding that there is a 2 week limbo period when you can be infected but have no symptoms .

i fear the market could fall more and i am selling stocks now that i should have sold any way for other reasons.

[johnhemming]

The incubation period may at times be as long as 4 weeks.

[onthemove]

i thought from the beginning this was very serious indeed , due to my understanding that there is a 2 week limbo period when you can be infected but have no symptoms .

i fear the market could fall more and i am selling stocks now that i should have sold any way for other reasons.

I think a key piece of evidence here is those 4 cases just detected in the UK

When those people boarded the plane and buses, they weren't believed to be showing any symptoms.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51606368

"The Department of Health said a "full infectious disease risk assessment" was done before Saturday's repatriation flight from Japan, adding that no-one who boarded the flight had displayed any symptoms of the virus."

If those people were missed out of such a small sample size, when the sample had been thoroughly screened knowing them to be high risk, it doesn't bode well for containing any edge cases in the more general population. The monitoring at airports, etc, is clearly going to miss an awful lot of cases!

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if the monitoring includes random testing outside of suspected contact cases?

I just wonder if it's actually more widespread than they realise and just not actually causing any more problems than a slightly worse than normal common cold.

[johnhemming]

Generally missed cases are picked up through finding the cause of people with serious pneumonia (particularly those that die). That is the basis of the findings in Japan, Taiwan, Italy and Iran.

They then look at their contacts.

[johnhemming]

Be greedy when others are fearful.

W. Buffet.

There may indeed be stocks mispriced as a result of the sell off. The big question for this is to what extent the Covid-19 issue changes the economic profile of the world. Apple, for example, may decide that being reliant on a single manufacturer is too risky.

What appears to be happening at the moment is a general sell off where commodities are suffering a bit more than others. It, however, is not necessarily the case that businesses such as Lloyds will be impacted that much.

We don't really know.

[odysseus2000]

Be greedy when others are fearful.

W. Buffet.

There may indeed be stocks mispriced as a result of the sell off. The big question for this is to what extent the Covid-19 issue changes the economic profile of the world. Apple, for example, may decide that being reliant on a single manufacturer is too risky.

What appears to be happening at the moment is a general sell off where commodities are suffering a bit more than others. It, however, is not necessarily the case that businesses such as Lloyds will be impacted that much.

We don't really know.

Apple now has manufacturing facilities in India and some of recent iPhones have made in India on the box.

In commodities, oil is currently down, but gold is continuing to rally.

In equities it is travel related stocks, such as Easyjet, that are getting creamed, other equities have lower losses.

It is unclear to me as to whether the Covid-19 virus could be a killer like the Spanish flu of 1918 or whether medical tech can quickly create effective counter measures. Best I can find out so far is that there is no effective counter measure, but if anyone can correct me then please do.

The effect of the Spanish flu had left the markets in a few years and then we had the roaring 20's based on massive increases in labour saving consumer goods like cars, refrigerators etc.

Based on history equities will recover, but the money will be made by the folk who were short going into today and who then ride the shorts down and then have enough skill to cover and flip back long after some period that may be measured in days, weeks, months or years. Not becoming infected by corvid-19 and/or living if one does catch it are also a key factor in making profits.

Regards,

[Dod101]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if the monitoring includes random testing outside of suspected contact cases?

I just wonder if it's actually more widespread than they realise and just not actually causing any more problems than a slightly worse than normal common cold.

I returned from the Far East, (specifically Sri Lanka, Perth WA and Malaysia) on Thursday 13 February which is not yet two weeks ago. There is a lot of random testing going on but it is pretty casual (holding a gunlike object to one's forehead and taking a temperature reading from that) Sometimes at airports, but in Malaysia, on entry to tourist attractions like the PETRONAS towers for instance. I was not asked about anything on re entry to the UK and so far I have no symptoms. A lot of people are wearing masks in some places like Singapore Airport, although there is a lot of speculation about how effective they are. Some are clearly using respirators under them but most are not. I was more than usually careful with hygiene like hand washing before eating and that sort of thing but otherwise there is really not a lot one can do.

Dod

[johnhemming]

after some period that may be measured in days, weeks, months or years. Not becoming infected by corvid-19 and/or living if one does catch it are also a key factor in making profits.

I would tend towards preferring survival to making more profit.

[blobby]

Best I can find out so far is that there is no effective counter measure, but if anyone can correct me then please do.

Chloroquine seems to be a possibility. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32074550

[ReformedCharacter]

Best I can find out so far is that there is no effective counter measure, but if anyone can correct me then please do.

Chloroquine seems to be a possibility. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32074550

Ye Gods! That's the worst thing I've ever tasted. Did help with the malaria tho'.

RC