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Is it time to short Mednax stock? Is there a way to short companies like Northstar? Between Covid eliminating their elective cases (alongside fixed overhead) and out of network legislation being quietly pushed in the background, I wouldn’t touch a job with either with a ten foot pole whether a doc or a CRNA.
 
gasdoc77 said:
Is it time to short Mednax stock? Is there a way to short companies like Northstar? Between Covid eliminating their elective cases (alongside fixed overhead) and out of network legislation being quietly pushed in the background, I wouldn’t touch a job with either with a ten foot pole whether a doc or a CRNA.
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the time to short Mednax was a month ago as it is down like 75% since then. Anesthesia is a pretty small portion of their business. Might actually be a good investment at current price since they have little long term debt.
 
anbuitachi said:
www.thedailybeast.com

Tucker Carlson: Burr Must Explain or Resign Over Stock Dump

“There is no greater moral crime than betraying your country in a time of crisis,” Carlson concluded on Thursday night.
www.thedailybeast.com www.thedailybeast.com


Our countries leaders selling stocks before announcing it to the public.
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vector2 said:
Resign? The guy should be in jail

Same goes for Kelly Loeffler
www.foxnews.com

Sen. Kelly Loeffler reportedly 'dumped millions' in stock before coronavirus tanked markets

Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Georgia, has become the second lawmaker to have reportedly sold stock weeks before the coronavirus outbreak triggered a stock market downfall.
www.foxnews.com www.foxnews.com
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Cases like these make me jaded and pessimistic about the government. I doubt anything will happen to them.
 
Reading this thread a few days ago with BLADEMDA's excellent financial posts reminded me why I sometimes still peruse this forum going back to 2007 or so as a matriculant.

The increasing politicization of posts which resembles social media over the last few pages reminds me to stay away.
 
e30ftw said:
Reading this thread a few days ago with BLADEMDA's excellent financial posts reminded me why I sometimes still peruse this forum going back to 2007 or so as a matriculant.

The increasing politicization of posts which resembles social media over the last few pages reminds me to stay away.
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You’re sorely mistaken as to the source of the politicization, and are conflating politicization being shown to you with that being the source. Maybe save your outrage for the press conference in which POTUS was asked what he’d say to scared Americans and he replied “you’re a bad reporter,” and in which he called an agency in which 70,000 Americans work the “Deep State Department.”

In regard to economics, I guess you didn’t notice that the reversal today coincided with that disaster of a presser. The economics of this situation are inextricably linked with politics and the leadership who are responsible, and so far confidence in that leadership has been lacking.
 
vector2 said:
You’re sorely mistaken as to the source of the politicization, and are conflating politicization being shown to you with that being the source. Maybe save your outrage for the press conference in which POTUS was asked what he’d say to scared Americans and he replied “you’re a bad reporter,” and in which he called an agency in which 70,000 Americans work the “Deep State Department.”

In regard to economics, I guess you didn’t notice that the reversal today coincided with that disaster of a presser. The economics of this situation are inextricably linked with politics and the leadership who are responsible, and so far confidence in that leadership has been lacking.
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You are seriously mistaken if you think the Dow down a thousand has even the slightest thing to do with that exchange.
 
FFP said:
It's a long way to Tipperary the bottom,
It's a long way to go.
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In real value terms nowhere near the bottom of this plays out. All of the post recession geniuses think you can fake out the numbers by throwing money at it. That being the case, a Dow falling 90% will never happen again. You may not be able to buy a loaf of bread for under 500 dollars, but the Dow would be relatively propped up in the worst scenario.

That all being said, I'm very perplexed why China says their issue is done and over, but we are heading up for massive death. Is this an overblown problem? Is China lying? Just doesn't add up. It's more than they stayed home and we went to Spring Break.
 
We'llBeDoneIn15Minutes said:
You are seriously mistaken if you think the Dow down a thousand has even the slightest thing to do with that exchange.
Click to expand...

Don't kid yourself. Cuomo may have issued a stay at home order, oil reversed intraday, dollar strengthened, and all those reasons may have contributed as well, but it's delusional to think the word of the President doesnt affect markets, and indeed stocks have turned on a dime numerous times due to his tweets over the past 3 some years.

Right now in the short to intermediate term the markets are trading as much on fear as they are on data. Trump is a bumbling buffoon who has not done enough from an economic, epidemiologic, or frankly "emotional reassurance to the nation" standpoint, and all those things are being priced in as well.
 
We'llBeDoneIn15Minutes said:
In real value terms nowhere near the bottom of this plays out. All of the post recession geniuses think you can fake out the numbers by throwing money at it. That being the case, a Dow falling 90% will never happen again. You may not be able to buy a loaf of bread for under 500 dollars, but the Dow would be relatively propped up in the worst scenario.
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There is nothing about "propped up" that would prevent the Dow from falling 90%. What prevents it is the sheer amount of money people and companies have that can throw out stock prices at that point. Aside from the Zombie Apocalypse or Chinese troops raising a flag over the White House, there is literally nothing that can cause the value of American companies to decrease by that much. It's just not rational. While the stock market can be irrational over the short term, it always eventually becomes rational.


On a related note, can we stop ever referring to the Dow even again? It's pointless. Use the S&P 500 or Russell 2000 or something else more relevant. The price weighted index known as the Dow has drastically departed from the rest of the market recently making it not even relevant to what is actually happening.
 
We'llBeDoneIn15Minutes said:
In real value terms nowhere near the bottom of this plays out. All of the post recession geniuses think you can fake out the numbers by throwing money at it. That being the case, a Dow falling 90% will never happen again. You may not be able to buy a loaf of bread for under 500 dollars, but the Dow would be relatively propped up in the worst scenario.

That all being said, I'm very perplexed why China says their issue is done and over, but we are heading up for massive death. Is this an overblown problem? Is China lying? Just doesn't add up. It's more than they stayed home and we went to Spring Break.
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Of course it adds up. Their quarantine looked like a war-zone, like crushing an uprising. Only the tanks were missing. Our quarantine is more like "pretty please, if you don't mind, would you be so kind to keep your a$$ at home?".

They literally entered apartments, checked fevers on a daily basis, and physically removed sick people to dedicated quarantine hospitals. They brought in thousands of dedicated workers to do nothing else but secure the city and check on the hoi-polloi. And all in a week or so.

We won't get to their level of containment even after 3 months. What's killing both people and our economy is this lack of decision from political leaders.
 
nimbus said:
Chinese could be lying about their numbers but they also cracked down a lot harder.


www.thedailybeast.com

Chinese Pandemic Veteran Tells Italy: You Are Being Too ‘Lax’ on COVID-19 Lockdown

After Milan visit, Red Cross official said Italians in the hardest-hit areas are not doing enough and that the lockdown needs to be far more restrictive.
www.thedailybeast.com www.thedailybeast.com
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I think there’s very little doubt that China is lying. Why would they suddenly be telling the truth after lying and covering this entire mess up from the beginning? As an added bonus, we have had press kicked out of country.

And speaking of action, NPR reported this morning that some primary care docs in Italy believe they saw cases of COVID as early as Nov/Dec last year. If that’s true, this entire exercise seems may be a lack in futility. We’re well beyond any sort of containment and maybe even limiting where this thing is going to show up.
 
FFP said:
Of course it adds up. Their quarantine looked like a war-zone, like crushing an uprising. Only the tanks were missing. Our quarantine is more like "pretty please, if you don't mind, would you be so kind to keep your a$$ at home?".

They literally entered apartments, checked fevers on a daily basis, and physically removed sick people to dedicated quarantine hospitals. They brought in thousands of dedicated workers to do nothing else but secure the city and check on the hoi-polloi.
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They're also going fo get hit with it again later. They know it is inevitable. They are just waiting until it is widespread enough to be viewed as unstoppable in the rest of the world before ending their quarantine so they can blame the end result on the West. In a way, they will be correct, but their efforts now are more about saving face than lives. No nation can escape this now, because it will find it's way back in
 
Mad Jack said:
They're also going fo get hit with it again later. They know it is inevitable. They are just waiting until it is widespread enough to be viewed as unstoppable in the rest of the world before ending their quarantine so they can blame the end result on the West. In a way, they will be correct, but their efforts now are more about saving face than lives. No nation can escape this now, because it will find it's way back in
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They won't get hit as badly as the first time.

They did everything by the book. They contained, they tested; they keep telling that to Western countries, through their Red Cross consultants, and still the Italians are amateurs next to the Chinese. I am sure that, the second time, they will do it even better. And by the time of the third season, they'll have a solution.

Some of them may be eating bats, but overall they are not a stupid people.
 
FFP said:
They won't get hit as badly as the first time. They did everything by the book. They contained, they tested; they keep telling that to Western countries, and even the Italians are amateurs. I am sure that, the second time, the Chinese will do it even better. And by the time of the third season, they'll have a solution.

They may be eating bats, but they are not a stupid people.
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They aren't stupid, but the economic cost will likely outweigh the lives taken directly by the virus at some point and they will give in to futility. I'm not confident we will have a vaccine within two years.
 
Mad Jack said:
They aren't stupid, but the economic cost will likely outweigh the lives taken directly by the virus at some point and they will give in to futility. I'm not confident we will have a vaccine within two years.
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If we won't have a vaccine, we'll have herd immunity by then, to slow things down even without isolation. Already there are millions who have had the disease without knowing it. It's been propagating since December-January. All it takes to get to the US is an airplane. (What we thought was severe viral pneumonia has probably been Covid.)

The problem is the R0, which could overwhelm the healthcare system as it is now.
 
FFP said:
If we won't have a vaccine, we'll have herd immunity by then, to slow things down even without isolation.
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Herd immunity requires that a large number of people actually get it. That is what I am saying is inevitable. And it only holds up on a population level- even if this tears through the rest of the world and China holds fast, they're going to have trouble justifying shutting down everything once a year to save a few lives and will likely let it just harvest the 2-3% it was going to.

All of this social distancing doesn't stop the spread, it just flattens the curve. China has made it very flat, but it's eventually going go take its toll, be it very slowly or very quickly, so long as the world remains interconnected
 
Mad Jack said:
Herd immunity requires that a large number of people actually get it. That is what I am saying is inevitable. And it only holds up on a population level- even if this tears through the rest of the world and China holds fast, they're going to have trouble justifying shutting down everything once a year to save a few lives and will likely let it just harvest the 2-3% it was going to.

All of this social distancing doesn't stop the spread, it just flattens the curve. China has made it very flat, but it's eventually going go take its toll, be it very slowly or very quickly, so long as the world remains interconnected
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Flattening the curve saves millions of lives. And we are not just flattening the curve; we are also raising the capacity of our healthcare system. Once we get the new cases under that threshold, we can start living our lives again, while naive patients keep getting the disease in a more controlled fashion. It will be stop and go for a while, not highway speeds. Like emptying a dam lake.

We also become smarter about the disease with every month that passes.

Yes, this will be The Great Pandemic of 2020-2021. We'll tell our grandchildren about it, the same way our (great-)grandparents used to mention The Great Recession, or WW2. And, by the end of it, Millennials and Zoomers won't be whiny anymore, hopefully (or we'll have had some socialist revolution, gods forbid).
 
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FFP said:
Flattening the curve saves millions of lives. And we are not just flattening the curve; we are also raising the capacity of our healthcare system. Once we get the new cases under that threshold, we can start living our lives again, while naive patients keep getting the disease in a more controlled fashion. It will be stop and go for a while, not highway speeds. Like letting water out of of a dam lake.

We also become smarter about the disease with every month that passes.

Yes, this will be the great pandemic of 2020-2021. We'll tell our grandchildren about it, the same way our (great-)grandparents used to mention the Great Recession, or WW2. And, at the end of it, Millennials and Zoomers won't be whiny anymore; they will have seen real ugly life . 😛
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Have you seen any actual data supporting the idea that we’re flattening it enough or that we’ve raised our threshold in any meaningful way? As far as I can tell, that’s not really been demonstrated, but maybe I missed it
 
d9sccr said:
Have you seen any actual data supporting the idea that we’re flattening it enough or that we’ve raised our threshold in any meaningful way? As far as I can tell, that’s not really been demonstrated, but maybe I missed it
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I think you're right. WE haven't yet;. The Chinese and the Koreans seem to have. Their advantage is that they have isolated the epicenters, as if this were Ebola, while we'll have the whole country infected, because we have no idea where/who the infected are. Our leaders were busy selling their stocks and securing their wealth, instead of preparing the country.

The good news is that we'll see a lot of innovations in mechanical ventilation and PPE in the next few years. I wouldn't be surprised if we'll wear N95s outside the house for a good while.
 
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FFP said:
I think you're right. WE haven't yet;. The Chinese and the Koreans seem to have. Their advantage is that they have isolated the epicenters, as if this were Ebola, while we'll have the whole country infected, because we have no idea where/who the infected are. Our leaders were busy selling their stocks and securing their wealth, instead of preparing the country.

The good news is that we'll see a lot of innovations in mechanical ventilation and PPE in the next few years. I wouldn't be surprised if we'll wear N95s outside the house for a good while.
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I posted above about it, but allegedly this was in Italy in November/December. If that’s true it’s highly likely it was here too. We absolutely botched the initial stages from the get go. I see Ford is ready to begin making ventilators, but have they? Who’s making n95s or other ppe? Our hospital added MAYBE another 20 ICU beds and is one of the largest in the state.

I’m beginning to get worried that we sacrificed the entire economy for a small amount of time that’s going to be inconsequential in regards to flattening the curve enough to meet a meaningful threshold. Make no mistake, a terrible recession is going to harm people as well
 
Mman said:
There is nothing about "propped up" that would prevent the Dow from falling 90%. What prevents it is the sheer amount of money people and companies have that can throw out stock prices at that point. Aside from the Zombie Apocalypse or Chinese troops raising a flag over the White House, there is literally nothing that can cause the value of American companies to decrease by that much. It's just not rational. While the stock market can be irrational over the short term, it always eventually becomes rational.


On a related note, can we stop ever referring to the Dow even again? It's pointless. Use the S&P 500 or Russell 2000 or something else more relevant. The price weighted index known as the Dow has drastically departed from the rest of the market recently making it not even relevant to what is actually happening.
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By propped up I'm referring to the unlimited printing press of the FED and the Federal government to dilute the worth of everything. The number will stay propped up as much as it can be, but the real value worth will be significantly worse. Massive inflation basically.

For all the hype of this strong economy I feel it's held together by spit and bumble gum. If it's that strong why have interest rates been so rock bottom? If it's so strong why are we running trillion dollar deficits? I would call that propped up.

A lot of great input on this thread (except for the political shots). Very thought provoking.

ps- I see your point about the Dow. To me it's all just a metaphor for "The Market" or even just "stocks."
 
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We'llBeDoneIn15Minutes said:
By propped up I'm referring to the unlimited printing press of the FED and the Federal government to dilute the worth of everything. The number will stay propped up as much as it can be, but the real value worth will be significantly worse. Massive inflation basically.

For all the hype of this strong economy I feel it's held together by spit and bumble gum. If it's that strong why have interest rates been so rock bottom? If it's so strong why are we running trillion dollar deficits? I would call that propped up.
Click to expand...

Why does most of the world have negative interest rates?

The answer is it's complicated.
 
FFP said:
Flattening the curve saves millions of lives. And we are not just flattening the curve; we are also raising the capacity of our healthcare system. Once we get the new cases under that threshold, we can start living our lives again, while naive patients keep getting the disease in a more controlled fashion. It will be stop and go for a while, not highway speeds. Like emptying a dam lake.

We also become smarter about the disease with every month that passes.

Yes, this will be The Great Pandemic of 2020-2021. We'll tell our grandchildren about it, the same way our (great-)grandparents used to mention The Great Recession, or WW2. And, by the end of it, Millennials and Zoomers won't be whiny anymore, hopefully (or we'll have had some socialist revolution, gods forbid).
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Flattening the curve changes the deaths from 5.8 million to perhaps 2.2 million, and helps the younger live. But you can't avoid the 2.2 million (or the likely 8-10 million in China's case), you can only delay it.
 
d9sccr said:
Have you seen any actual data supporting the idea that we’re flattening it enough or that we’ve raised our threshold in any meaningful way? As far as I can tell, that’s not really been demonstrated, but maybe I missed it
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We are because ICU capacity hasn't been exceeded. An ideal strategy is closing down everything once ICUs approach capacity then easing up two weeks later and repeating indefinitely, as proposed by the UK's pandemic response team
 
Lawpy said:
You support a lockdown lasting for over a year?
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I think NYC and the surrounding region from Virginia to Maine should seriously consider a 1-2 month lockdown immediately with periodic easements as indicated by data from aggressive and broad testing. The I-95 corridor is one gigantic contiguous mass of people and there is a massive storm brewing in NYC at the moment.

We also need to ramp up production of masks, ventilators, and other hospital equipment. Put some people back to work supporting the healthcare industry. Broad and aggressive testing is essential in making that happen.
 
Mad Jack said:
We are because ICU capacity hasn't been exceeded. An ideal strategy is closing down everything once ICUs approach capacity then easing up two weeks later and repeating indefinitely, as proposed by the UK's pandemic response team
Click to expand...

I’m not sure that anyone can know whether that is the correct measure of how effective we’ve been in tampering this thing down enough honestly. We don’t really have any idea where we are in the life cycle of this thing. We have no clue whether our “social distancing” has decreased rates of infection because we haven’t been able to test.

Our ICU docs expect to be over burdened mid next week, but I’m not sure they’re factoring in logarithmic growth honesty. Over the past two days we’ve been admitting 40-60 patients for COVID alone.

We’re a week into this thing and it takes 7-10+ days to become symptomatic. For at least our city, it looks like the flattening hasn’t been enough
 
I'm hearing that a prolonged lock-down will lead to massive unemployment and a depression. The economy can't sustain a long term lock-down and my guess is anything over 4-6 weeks and the unemployment line will be in the tens of millions. In addition, how long until people can get elective healthcare? Are we going to stop the entire healthcare system for months?

Once the politicians realize the economic costs of a prolonged lock-down they will reverse course and allow businesses to open up again.
 
When all is said and done, the unemployment rate will be 10.6%, and there will be 17.9 million Americans on the unemployment line, or about 12 million more than in February, according to a projection from Steven Blitz, chief U.S. economist at TS Lombard. The current jobless rate is 3.5%, the lowest in more than 50 years.


www.cnbc.com

The upcoming job losses will be unlike anything the US has ever seen

During the financial crisis, the worst month was the 800,000 in March 2009. Many economists are expecting the total for April to be in the millions.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com
 
BLADEMDA said:
I'm hearing that a prolonged lock-down will lead to massive unemployment and a depression. The economy can't sustain a long term lock-down and my guess is anything over 4-6 weeks and the unemployment line will be in the tens of millions. In addition, how long until people can get elective healthcare? Are we going to stop the entire healthcare system for months?

Once the politicians realize the economic costs of a prolonged lock-down they will reverse course and allow businesses to open up again.
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A penny wise and a pound foolish.

What do you think the longer term economic costs are if we let the NYC healthcare system get overwhelmed?
 
GravelRider said:
A penny wise and a pound foolish.

What do you think the longer term economic costs are if we let the NYC healthcare system get overwhelmed?
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I didn't say there were any easy solutions here. But, I wanted to point out that this "lock-down" may cause some severe pain of its own, homelessness, suicide and a national depression. This is coming from the WSJ, NY Times, etc. not some right wing nut job group.
 
"You're looking at one of the biggest negative job numbers you've ever seen," Hassett told CNN Monday. He said that even if there isn't a big increase in firings, the economy needs a certain level of hiring to balance out the normal number of people who are leaving jobs.
"The issue is we think next week....there will be no hires," he said.

More than half of US jobs at risk
Nearly 80 million jobs in the US economy are at high or moderate risk today, according to analysis in the last week from Moody's Analytics. That's more than half of the 153 million jobs in the economy overall.

That doesn't mean that all those jobs will be lost. But it's probable that as many as 10 million of those workers could see some impact to their paychecks -- either layoffs, furloughs, fewer hours or wage cuts, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.
Of those 80 million jobs, Moody's Analytics projects that 27 million are at high risk due to the virus, primarily in transportation and travel, leisure and hospitality, temporary help services and oil drilling and extraction. Maybe 20% of those workers, comprising about 5 million jobs, will be affected, Zandi said.
The other 52 million jobs are judged to face "moderate risk." They are in areas such as retail, manufacturing, construction and education. Some 5 million of those workers are could be unemployed or underemployed.
 
Mad Jack said:
We are because ICU capacity hasn't been exceeded. An ideal strategy is closing down everything once ICUs approach capacity then easing up two weeks later and repeating indefinitely, as proposed by the UK's pandemic response team
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Very interesting you say that. I've been asking from the beginning (a whole week of panic now) if flattening the curve too early just drags it out even longer without significant gain.
 
GravelRider said:
A penny wise and a pound foolish.

What do you think the longer term economic costs are if we let the NYC healthcare system get overwhelmed?
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Please don't take this the wrong way but from a strictly economic point of view NOT shutting the economy down for very long is the most cost effective approach in terms of monetary policy. In terms of humanitarian policy more people do die as a result.
 
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