So we're under a Shelter in Place order from the Governor, which doesn't mean too much different than what we've doing all week: we're working from home, schools and "non-essential" businesses are closed. Non-essential is being thrown around loosely though as Binny's (a liquor store) is still open, Home Depot is open, restaurants are cooking and delivering/providing pick up, grocery stores are open, Starbucks has drive thru open only, Dunkin Donuts is open, so not much has changed for us personally.
Actually, yesterday, I developed a little bit of a cough, but it seems to just be seasonal allergy related as I definitely have post nasal drip, which doesn't seem to be a symptom of Covid-19. And I'm not feeling bad except for my throat sometimes being a little sore from the drainage. Keeping an eye on things!!
An unfortunate side effect of staying home more than normal is snacking more than I should. Throw in some drainage, which usually causes me to eat or drink, and I could be packing on the weight, if I bothered to weigh myself at least. I'd love to say the gym closure is the reason, but I haven't been going regularly enough to justify that excuse. The hospital did cancel my "elective" surgery on my torn rotator cuff which was supposed to have been done in December. Ugh. Now I'll be lucky to have rehabbed at all by the end of golf season. Ugh!
A very irritating scandal in congress is four politicians who knew about Covid-19 and how bad it was in China, selling stocks ahead of public awareness. Richard Burr is the worst of the group as he downplayed the pandemic and while selling stocks. Kelly Loefller didn't talk up the pandemic like Burr, but she made 16 significant stock trades, 14 were sales and one was purchasing Citrix, the teleconferencing and high tech company. Diane Feinstein from California had a mess of sales as well, but her assets are in a blind trust, which means she doesn't have control over what is owned or not owned or when something is bought or sold (obviously). Jim Inhofe sold $400k and doesn't seem to have any similar excuse, though he wasn't in on the Covid briefings like Burr was. Who knows what he knew or not, but there should be an investigation into the lot of them!
Saturday, March 21, 2020
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Quarantine: day 3
When the stock market rose significantly on Friday going into an uncertain weekend, I hoped some stability would come to the markets this week. That has not happened AT ALL. Monday the Dow was down 3,000, followed by moving up yesterday 1,000 and now it's down 900 today so far. So, the instability continues as there is no clarity to the treatments and outcomes and duration of Covid-19 victims, or Sars Cov-2.
It's been a really interesting few days as each day, some new restriction was announced. First it was kids were going to be out for three weeks. Then all sporting events were cancelled including March Madness. They didn't happen all at once though, they sort of trickled out. First they were delayed, then delayed further then ongoing leagues were cancelled. It's nuts. The NFL capitalized on it by keeping their free agency timelines and such so the only sports news to talk about is the NFL. Then bars and restaurants were closed and only available for pick-up or delivery. The recommended group size went from no more than a thousand to no more than 250 to no more than 10. You'd like to see the restrictions just be definitive instead of ever creeping.
I still go to Starbucks in the morning for my coffee, but I can't sit there and relax like I was able to do even on Friday of last week. In the afternoon, I still go to Dunkin for my afternoon coffee and go to the grocery if we need anything. Berkots had plenty of toilet paper yesterday, but they have restricted you to one six pack purchase per trip which is very, very reasonable.
At the beginning of March, there were 6 new cases a day in the U.S. Now there are 1,600 new cases a day, in part because tests are starting to become available finally. They aren't readily available yet, but some exist at least. If you're displaying symptoms, then you can get tested. Otherwise they are reserved for those working with the elderly or government services (police, fire, hospital, etc).
So what are we going to do over the next few weeks? I'm hoping to write here for posterity, finish our tax return, make a decision on the whole home generator and organize the garage. We need to get stuff up off the ground and onto the walls. We'll see how much progress I make!!
Oh, and here's Trump's timeline of disbelief. February 28th he called it a Democratic hoax. March 6 he STILL denied it being a threat and that if you wanted to get a test, you can, which is still not true today. That's what happens when you surround yourself with yes men. Since you can't find the info on Fox, here it is on CNN.
It's been a really interesting few days as each day, some new restriction was announced. First it was kids were going to be out for three weeks. Then all sporting events were cancelled including March Madness. They didn't happen all at once though, they sort of trickled out. First they were delayed, then delayed further then ongoing leagues were cancelled. It's nuts. The NFL capitalized on it by keeping their free agency timelines and such so the only sports news to talk about is the NFL. Then bars and restaurants were closed and only available for pick-up or delivery. The recommended group size went from no more than a thousand to no more than 250 to no more than 10. You'd like to see the restrictions just be definitive instead of ever creeping.
I still go to Starbucks in the morning for my coffee, but I can't sit there and relax like I was able to do even on Friday of last week. In the afternoon, I still go to Dunkin for my afternoon coffee and go to the grocery if we need anything. Berkots had plenty of toilet paper yesterday, but they have restricted you to one six pack purchase per trip which is very, very reasonable.
At the beginning of March, there were 6 new cases a day in the U.S. Now there are 1,600 new cases a day, in part because tests are starting to become available finally. They aren't readily available yet, but some exist at least. If you're displaying symptoms, then you can get tested. Otherwise they are reserved for those working with the elderly or government services (police, fire, hospital, etc).
So what are we going to do over the next few weeks? I'm hoping to write here for posterity, finish our tax return, make a decision on the whole home generator and organize the garage. We need to get stuff up off the ground and onto the walls. We'll see how much progress I make!!
Oh, and here's Trump's timeline of disbelief. February 28th he called it a Democratic hoax. March 6 he STILL denied it being a threat and that if you wanted to get a test, you can, which is still not true today. That's what happens when you surround yourself with yes men. Since you can't find the info on Fox, here it is on CNN.
Saturday, March 14, 2020
Covid-19
Historical
It's an unusual time in our history, though not just the United States' history, but the entire world's history. And it's not JUST because of Covid-19 or the corona virus. It's the combination of that and the wide spread availability of social media. SARs in 2002 and the swine flu in 2009 really didn't have the same social media exposure. SARs was basically a TV and newspaper disease while the swine flu had more exposure, but not like today.
I KNEW about the swine flu, but really didn't know how many people it impacted (11-21% of the world population) and killed (150k-500k people). Apparently a follow up study said it was no worse than the regular flu though and the only oddity with this variation was that it didn't disproportionately impact the elderly and young.
Social Media and the Fools
So now we get to experience a pandemic in the age of social media. The disease started in Wuhan China, though some Chinese are claiming that American soldiers brought it TO them when they did some sort of military olympics in the fall of last year in Wuhan. I'm doubtful as the crackpot espousing this theory has led several anti-American theories in the past. But that's just the type of thing than any nut job with a keyboard and/or a Twitter account can throw out there, even though Twitter is banned in China.
For me, I'm tired of seeing fools on Facebook talking about how it was a Democrat conspiracy to take down Trump and they had these ignorant thoughts because of people (and I use that term loosely) like Limbaugh and Hannity and their soapbox, Fox News. In general, Fox will dupe their legions by disavowing science, providing opinion as fact and then sometimes just outright making shit up. Then you let those viewers loose on Facebook and look out. Even up to Tuesday or Wednesday of this past week, while the ENTIRE COUNTRY OF ITALY was on quarantine, they were STILL claiming it wasn't that bad and it's a media concoction and "even Dr. Drew" said the media should be held accountable. Well, Dr. Drew is a psychiatrist not a fucking doctor of infectious disease, so his opinion is about as valid as Cardi B's (my first Cardi-B reference in writing by the way). And if you want to believe these dopes, then you'd have to believe that all major sports organizations around the world, the government of Italy, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and China all want to negatively impact the POTUS at the expense of their own citizens, fans and wallets. Just ridiculous.
And the final bad part is that if we quarantine effectively (or implement social distance, etc), then we will flatten the infectious outbreak curve and not overwhelm the healthcare system which is what this all about. The virus is going to spread, there's no doubt, but we want to prevent an enormous spike that causes our hospitals to run out of beds, respirators, doctors, nurses, etc. And if the curve is indeed flattened, these dumb asses who are constantly espousing that this is an over reaction and we never needed to do it in the first place will, in their tiny, tiny minds, truly believe they were right. Since you can't prove a negative, we'll only have logic to refute them with and we know how that will go. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
The Market
The broader stock market started declining in late February as reports of Covid-19 became more common and cases started appearing outside of China. Over two plus weeks, the Dow dropped from the mid 29k's to the mid 21k's. That's massive. Basically the Dow went back to where it was mid-2017. Since Wednesday the 4th, the Dow dropped: 900, 300, then cratered 2,000 on Monday, up 1,200, down 1,500, and down 1,300 on Thursday which left Friday to be a very important day. Was it going to be a third day down or a move up that would signal (possibly) a bottom going into the weekend. Friday moves in a time like this are really important because so much information can come out over the weekend and if investors don't want to take the risk of holding securities over the weekend, Friday will be a sell-off. If the securities are too much of a value, they will accept the risk/reward tradeoff. Well, the market soared 1,900 on Friday which is very good news in my opinion. Sure, we'll have up and down days for the next month or so for sure, but getting things under control can bring investors back into the market.
For the stock pickers out there, where can you find value? Not oil companies with the Russia/Opec dispute that's flooding the market and cut oil from $60 to $30. Not airlines or cruise lines either. Or Disney, despite their launch of a channel. One compelling play could be Home Depot ($205) and Lowe's ($96.5). As folks are quarantined, I see many a honey-do list finally getting attacked. Netflix ($336) could get a boost as well. Some super markets may get a bump, but I don't have enough info on any one of them in particular to list it here. Stay well my friends and wash your hands!
It's an unusual time in our history, though not just the United States' history, but the entire world's history. And it's not JUST because of Covid-19 or the corona virus. It's the combination of that and the wide spread availability of social media. SARs in 2002 and the swine flu in 2009 really didn't have the same social media exposure. SARs was basically a TV and newspaper disease while the swine flu had more exposure, but not like today.
I KNEW about the swine flu, but really didn't know how many people it impacted (11-21% of the world population) and killed (150k-500k people). Apparently a follow up study said it was no worse than the regular flu though and the only oddity with this variation was that it didn't disproportionately impact the elderly and young.
Social Media and the Fools
So now we get to experience a pandemic in the age of social media. The disease started in Wuhan China, though some Chinese are claiming that American soldiers brought it TO them when they did some sort of military olympics in the fall of last year in Wuhan. I'm doubtful as the crackpot espousing this theory has led several anti-American theories in the past. But that's just the type of thing than any nut job with a keyboard and/or a Twitter account can throw out there, even though Twitter is banned in China.
For me, I'm tired of seeing fools on Facebook talking about how it was a Democrat conspiracy to take down Trump and they had these ignorant thoughts because of people (and I use that term loosely) like Limbaugh and Hannity and their soapbox, Fox News. In general, Fox will dupe their legions by disavowing science, providing opinion as fact and then sometimes just outright making shit up. Then you let those viewers loose on Facebook and look out. Even up to Tuesday or Wednesday of this past week, while the ENTIRE COUNTRY OF ITALY was on quarantine, they were STILL claiming it wasn't that bad and it's a media concoction and "even Dr. Drew" said the media should be held accountable. Well, Dr. Drew is a psychiatrist not a fucking doctor of infectious disease, so his opinion is about as valid as Cardi B's (my first Cardi-B reference in writing by the way). And if you want to believe these dopes, then you'd have to believe that all major sports organizations around the world, the government of Italy, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and China all want to negatively impact the POTUS at the expense of their own citizens, fans and wallets. Just ridiculous.
And the final bad part is that if we quarantine effectively (or implement social distance, etc), then we will flatten the infectious outbreak curve and not overwhelm the healthcare system which is what this all about. The virus is going to spread, there's no doubt, but we want to prevent an enormous spike that causes our hospitals to run out of beds, respirators, doctors, nurses, etc. And if the curve is indeed flattened, these dumb asses who are constantly espousing that this is an over reaction and we never needed to do it in the first place will, in their tiny, tiny minds, truly believe they were right. Since you can't prove a negative, we'll only have logic to refute them with and we know how that will go. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
The Market
The broader stock market started declining in late February as reports of Covid-19 became more common and cases started appearing outside of China. Over two plus weeks, the Dow dropped from the mid 29k's to the mid 21k's. That's massive. Basically the Dow went back to where it was mid-2017. Since Wednesday the 4th, the Dow dropped: 900, 300, then cratered 2,000 on Monday, up 1,200, down 1,500, and down 1,300 on Thursday which left Friday to be a very important day. Was it going to be a third day down or a move up that would signal (possibly) a bottom going into the weekend. Friday moves in a time like this are really important because so much information can come out over the weekend and if investors don't want to take the risk of holding securities over the weekend, Friday will be a sell-off. If the securities are too much of a value, they will accept the risk/reward tradeoff. Well, the market soared 1,900 on Friday which is very good news in my opinion. Sure, we'll have up and down days for the next month or so for sure, but getting things under control can bring investors back into the market.
For the stock pickers out there, where can you find value? Not oil companies with the Russia/Opec dispute that's flooding the market and cut oil from $60 to $30. Not airlines or cruise lines either. Or Disney, despite their launch of a channel. One compelling play could be Home Depot ($205) and Lowe's ($96.5). As folks are quarantined, I see many a honey-do list finally getting attacked. Netflix ($336) could get a boost as well. Some super markets may get a bump, but I don't have enough info on any one of them in particular to list it here. Stay well my friends and wash your hands!
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