The Angry Bear

“First Case of 2019 Novel Coronavirus in the United States” Holshue et al 2020 I quote Treatment with intravenous remdesivir (a novel nucleotide analogue prodrug in development10,11) was initiated on the evening of day 7, and no adverse events were observed in association with the infusion. Vancomycin was discontinued on the evening of day 7, and cefepime was discontinued on the following day, after serial negative procalcitonin levels and negative nasal...

Trump Administration Continues to Attack the Environmental Projections First Put Into Place by the Nixon Administration If you, the reader, are uncertain whether to support Trump or whoever the Democratic candidate turns out to be, I urge you to consider the devastating reduction in protections for clean air, clean water, and clean land (thus also clean air/water and food) under the Trump administration’s ‘hate anything Obama’ approach that has put...

The day before yesterday, the Fed made a somewhat unusual announcement of $500,000,000,000 of REPO offers a day for three days in a row. The idea was to let banks unload risky assets before they panicked nipping a financial crisis in the bud. This move was controversial. Unfortunately many critics act as if the Fed was giving away $ 1,500,000,000,000 rather than buying assets with it. I hazard a guess that the Fed will profit from the operation (their...

I am in a city with a curfew (enforced ?) where only pharmacies, supermarkets and those stores where someone from China sells all sorts of household stuff are open. Rome hasn’t reached the dread levels of Wuhan and Milan, but the Italian government is trying to get ahead of the curve. It is strange and alarming that there is little traffic (it is also impressive that Romans don’t obey the traffic code even when there is little traffic). People are really...

On the topic of Coronavirus and the travel ban, Trump’s travel ban sidesteps his own European resorts. The President’s newly implemented European travel restrictions to the US conveniently side step a ban on nations where three Trump-owned golf resorts are located. No politics there, just plain greed. Trump has been under fire for visiting his properties in both countries as president and using taxpayer money to fund his trips to and from while at his...

This is what exponential growth looks like I’ve placed an added emphasis on high frequency indicators, as they will be the first to show the impact of coronavirus on the economy. This morning chain store sales for last week were reported. They were: – Redbook +6.0% YoY – Retail Economist unchanged w/w, +0.9% YoY Needless to say, there was no impact at all on the Redbook number. While the Retail Economist number was definitely weak, there have been other,...

The present pandemic demonstrates that the global economy is closely tied to consumer spending. Suppose the pandemic is merely a foretaste of the effects of climate change and ecological destruction. Can we fashion a world base on Zero Growth, a Steady State Economy? Zero growth might well entail the following: 1. A fixed and renewal body of resources. 2. A demographic balance, i.e., a fixed population size. Can such an economy enable all of humanity...

This is coming from MEDPAGE TODAY, “Track the U.S. COVID-19 Outbreak in Real Time,” Comments Section (3 comments), March 11, 2020 with regard to  COVID-19 “The mechanism of seasonal effect for seasonal respiratory virus spread is believed to be humidity, not temperature. In New York state which has 220 cases, fomites lose moisture where indoor humidity is low, allowing the lighter particles to stay longer in the aerosol. In Florida and Arizona, with 38...

As of the market close on 11 March 2020 the S&P 500 PE had fallen to 18.2. This makes the market cheap in my valuation model as it has fallen below my fair value band. Moreover, with interest rates still falling to new record lows the fair value band is also rising.  In the chart the fair value band is based on February data while the last PE observation is based on the 11 March 2020 close. But with yields approaching the zero lower band it becomes...